1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1036 Encounter

The last time Sun Zhen came to Taiwan Island, he did not experience the baptism of the rainy season. The Special Operations Battalion left Taipei after the battle in March. After a short rest in Penghu, he went north to Zhejiang the next month.And this time since they landed on the coast of Miaoli early this morning, the rain in the sky has never stopped. Although they are covered with cloaks and raincoats, they can almost perfectly resist the current level of light rain, but after marching for several miles in the forest, their feet However, the shoes and socks on his back were inevitably soaked, and when he walked, his feet seemed to be stepping on mud, which was really uncomfortable.

In order not to expose their whereabouts, the team didn't even light the torches, and relied on two windproof oil lamps in each class to provide lighting along the way, and touched the predetermined area with one foot deep and one shallow foot.The construction process of the campsite is also very simple. Pull apart the square tarpaulin in the forest, fix the four corners to the surrounding tree trunks with ropes, and then fix the marching hammock in the same way below, and you can roughly sleep for a few hours.It's just that Maolishe is not far away, and the soldiers of the special warfare battalion can't light a fire in this temporary camp to keep out the cold, dry their shoes, socks and clothes.

The candidates for the night watch had already been arranged before departure, so there was no need for a random selection.Sun Zhen was on the last shift before dawn in the early morning, so he could sleep peacefully for a few hours.Before going to bed, he took off his shoes and socks, wrung them dry vigorously, and hung them on the rope at one end of the hammock to dry before falling down to sleep.Although it may not be able to dry it for half a night, but at least it can make you feel a little better, at least it can play such a role psychologically.

The natives on Taiwan Island will not leave the tribe to go out after nightfall. This is one of the common senses Sun Zhen learned when he fought in Taipei last year, so he dared to take off his shoes and socks so heartily and sleep peacefully.As long as there is no fire to attract attention, this camp will be safe until dawn at least, and before that, their team must have finished their rest and left here.

When Sun Zhen was awakened by the changing sentry, he almost fell out of the hammock.It's not that he doesn't adapt to this kind of condition. He didn't sleep less in the hammock when he was training in the field, but he just had a nightmare. Standing at the head of Dengzhou city in military uniform, he scolded himself as a traitor who betrayed the country and sought glory.Although Sun Zhen tried his best to defend himself, his relatives didn't listen at all. Instead, Qi Qi shot at him with a bow and arrow.

Seeing that ten thousand arrows were about to pierce through his heart, Sun Zhen was awakened, and he felt a little scared while being thankful.Thinking about the nearly two years since I escaped to the rule of Haihan, I have completely lost contact with my relatives in my hometown, and I don’t know whether they escaped the military disaster, and what the current situation is like.If there is a chance to go north with the army and return to his hometown within the year, he must find a way to find out the whereabouts of his family members. It is best to move them all out of Daming and settle in the area under the Haihan rule.

As for being denounced as a "rebel" by his relatives in his dream, Sun Zhen didn't take it too seriously. At the beginning, he was ruined by the Ming army and left his hometown. If it wasn't for Haihan's money and food, he would have been hungry. He died in the life of fleeing, and now he is living on military rations with his salary, and it is reasonable to work for Haihan.

Sun Zhen quickly packed up, took the rifle and the windproof oil lamp, and arrived at the sentry post outside the camp, then extinguished the oil lamp, and stood quietly in the darkness.This so-called sentry post is actually just above a bag of soil, and you can barely see the movement in a small area around you. The sentry, who is wearing a dark cloak and raincoat and stands motionless with his back against a big tree, is basically invisible in the dark. .

Sun Zhen didn't have timekeeping equipment on him, so he could only estimate the passage of time.Under normal circumstances, he can observe the starry sky and the position of the moon to judge the approximate time, but now it is still raining in the sky, and he can't see any reference at all.But he is the last shift tonight, and there is no problem of shift change, just wait patiently for dawn.

Sun Zhen knew that the chiefs had a very small timer called a "watch". Almost every chief carried one on his wrist. He could tell what time it was at a glance, and it was equally accurate day and night.Moreover, very few senior military officers seem to be able to receive such rewards. For example, he once saw battalion commander Gao Qiaonan with a watch on his hand. It is said that it was a reward from General Qian Tiandun. If military merit is promoted to the position of battalion commander, they may also have the opportunity to receive similar rewards.

Of course, what he didn't know was that there were quite a few cheap automatic mechanical watches sealed up in the warehouse of the Sanya base camp. They were all models customized in large quantities by domestic manufacturers before crossing, and they were specially used to reward meritorious officials.If only ten or eight of them are issued a year, it will be enough to distribute until the beginning of the next century.However, with Haihan's current industrial development speed, it should be able to create a portable timer before then.

In the early hours of the morning, the rain stopped slowly. Sun Zhen stretched out his hand to feel it, then took off the cap of his cloak and took a deep breath of the fresh air in the forest after the rain.Seeing that the sky was getting brighter, Sun Zhen slowly moved his stiff legs, feet and waist. When he returned to the camp, he saw that the sentries on duty had not yet returned, so he first woke up the sleeping comrades.

Because I can't live and cook in this place, I can't eat hot food for breakfast, so I can only fill my stomach with dry food and water.However, this operation is only scheduled to last for one day, and it will be over if you overcome it casually, and it will not have much impact on the state of the soldiers.After everyone ate the dry food in silence, the platoon leader asked the squad leaders to assemble the team and set off for the target area separately.

Due to the limited information that the captured captives can tell, Haihan currently does not know the exact location of Maolishe, and can only draw an area on the map. This is why the headquarters will arrange such a team to The main reason for the field investigation here.According to the plan formulated in advance, the entire team was divided into four teams, each of which was a team, and the distance between each team was kept at about 200 meters, and they searched and marched in parallel to the south.

Based on the confessions of the captives, the headquarters deduced that the population of Maolishe was between [-] and [-] people. The reason there was such a large margin of error was mainly because the captives’ confessions were vague and it was difficult to provide accurate figures.The difference in population will definitely be reflected in the scale of tribe occupation, the scope of activities of members, etc. Soldiers may find traces of indigenous activities at any time.

Sure enough, the team only moved forward for about a mile, and found the fields that the natives had reclaimed in the wild. However, the so-called reclamation was actually just removing the trees and weeds on the surface, and did not cultivate the land like the Han people did. deep plowing.Some rice is sparsely growing in the field, probably the seeds were taken from the Han immigrants who came to the nearby area before, but the natives’ farming guards are not lawful. It is estimated that this mu of land can harvest [-] to [-] catties of rice. There is still a gap compared to the Li Miao natives who were regarded as slash-and-burn by the Haihan people.

Although Sun Zhen looked down on the agricultural cultivation level of the natives, seeing these fields scattered among the forests, he also knew that the location of the native tribes was not far away.Immediately, he issued instructions to his soldiers to sneak silently.

After walking for a while, Sun Zhen saw a puddle with a radius of two feet in front of him. There was no water veins around the puddle. It seemed that it was accumulated rainwater, but it was strange that there were many Fish swim to and fro.Sun Zhen was taken aback for a moment, and then he figured out the reason—these fish were probably caught by the natives from Houlongxi, and they were temporarily kept in this puddle, and they would be used when they needed to eat, so that they would not have to run every day I went fishing in Houlongxi a few miles away.

Sun Zhen also knows that there are fleets of local troops shuttling back and forth on Houlongxi to transport supplies almost every day. This undoubtedly has an impact on the fishing activities of the natives along the banks of Houlongxi. One of the reasons to come back and keep in this puddle.At this time, Sun Zhen no longer needed to search for the location of the tribe, because not far ahead, several smokes were slowly rising from the forest.

As described in the information, the tribe of Maolishe is located at the junction of the mountains and the plains. There are no solid fortifications such as walls around the tribe, only a circle of bamboo fences mixed with bushes.Sun Zhen also saw similar measures in the indigenous tribes in the Taipei area who were dependent on the Spanish. It was not that the natives did not want to build better and stronger fortifications, but they had very limited iron tools and could not even mass-produce quarrying tools. Therefore, this relatively primitive measure can only be adopted, and the limited iron can be used to make weapons and daily necessities.

Natural iron ore on Taiwan Island is rare, and there are even fewer places where the indigenous tribes have the ability to mine. Therefore, pig iron can be regarded as a hard currency for the indigenous tribes on the island, and it is even more practical than gold.In a tribe like Maolishe, which is not too powerful, most of the native warriors don't even have an iron machete, and they can do well if they can put an iron spear point on their spears.Most of the pig iron and ironware they own are exchanged for the tribes north of Miaoli with products from the mountains, but more than half of these pig irons come from the Spaniards who used to rule Danshui and chicken coops in exchange for pig iron The various furs and delicacies of the mountains eventually flowed into the hands of the Spaniards.

However, after the Spaniards were driven away by the Haihan army last year, this kind of trading was also interrupted. The source of pig iron in the entire Taipei area was curbed, and Maolishe had not obtained pig iron and ironware from the outside world for more than half a year.This information also came from the native captives. Although the information is not very accurate, at least it can give the Haihan army a general grasp of the armed level of the local indigenous tribes.Sun Zhen's team arrived in Miaoli yesterday, but the early intelligence collection work still helped them make certain predictions about the enemy's strength during operations.

Sun Zhen asked the team to stop behind the bushes by the waterhole, and then sent one of his men to ask the platoon leader in another team for instructions on the next action.The team he was in was the westernmost one among the four teams, and was marching almost close to the mountainous area. After discovering the location of the tribe, he had to redefine the forward route. The synchronicity of several other squads.

Soon Sun Zhen got a reply, asking him to cut in the southwest direction along the periphery of the tribe, walk along the periphery of the tribe to its south, investigate the distribution of the buildings of the tribe, then turn east, march towards Houlongxi, and finally in the Meet at the scheduled location on the banks of the Houlongxi River.However, if you encounter an enemy in the process and cannot defeat it, you can retreat to the northwest mountainous area by yourself, and return to the coastal camp by walking through the mountainous area.

The reason why Sun Zhen’s team set the mountain as the planned retreat route instead of returning the same way they came here is because the special warfare battalion has always regarded the mountain as their back garden, even though Maoli Mountain is unfamiliar to them In this area, these people still think that their combat capabilities in this environment are far superior to those of the natives. It is much easier to escape the opponent's pursuit by retreating to the mountains than to the plains, and they may be able to use the terrain to fight back on the way.

After receiving the order, Sun Zhen immediately adjusted his marching direction and led his team into the forest.From this moment on, the team he led moved separately from the other three teams. If all goes well, they should be able to rendezvous near Houlongxi in the afternoon, and then take the boat that came to pick them up and go down the river to return to the camp.

Of course, this is only an ideal plan of action, and Sun Zhen will not relax his vigilance because his opponent is weak. After they landed in the coastal camp, they saw the coffins of the soldiers who died in Miaoli being delivered to the boat and prepared to be transported back to Penghu. The number is not large, but it also shows that the local natives are not weak chickens without threats.In any case, this is also the opponent's home field. If you don't deal with it carefully, even a special warfare battalion that is good at mountain and jungle warfare can hardly guarantee that it will not capsize in the gutter.

How to deal with the natives in the wild? Several plans were discussed at the pre-departure meeting, but no one can say whether this situation will happen. After all, how big is the range of activities of the natives in Maolishe? , it is still difficult to make an accurate judgment.It can be said that their current detection distance is not particularly safe.

Sun Zhen can now see nearly half of the tribe's buildings without even using a telescope.The buildings here are somewhat similar to the boat-shaped houses on Hainan Island. Although Sun Zhen has never been to Lidong Miao Village, he visited the military museum located at the naval base during his stay in Sanya and saw related pictures.Immediately, he ordered a soldier in the squad who was good at painting to use charcoal to draw the scene he saw into a sketch as soon as possible.A reconnaissance team like this will carry a waterproof oil-paper tube with charcoal and parchment when dispatched, which is used to draw maps and markers during reconnaissance.

While the team was lurking in the woods to investigate the tribe a hundred meters away, Sun Zhen found human voices coming from only a dozen meters away, and soon two native men appeared in his field of vision.

(End of this chapter)