1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1079

The two provinces of Fujian and Guangxi in the south of Ming Dynasty were areas where piracy was very rampant before the arrival of Haihan. The guards are all in vain, neither enough troops nor a unified command and linkage system. They are basically unable to deal with threats from the sea, and they cannot reach the original defense system of the Ming court, which was "set up guards across the government and set up offices in even counties". design requirements.However, the coastal defense situation on the Dengzhou Prefecture side of the Jiaodong Peninsula is somewhat different from that in the southern coastal areas.

Although the Denglai Rebellion that occurred in the past two years has greatly damaged the strength of the guard army in this area, and the strength of the garrison troops in many places has not yet recovered to the level it should be, but the coastline of the entire Jiaodong Peninsula is densely packed. However, most of the distributed guards and city bases have been relatively completed. The Denglai Rebellion has ended for more than a year, and now the coastal patrol density in these places has actually returned to [-] to [-]% of the normal state, although there is not much combat effectiveness. It can be said, but the linkage reaction after discovering suspicious enemy situation is still very fast.

The day before before Haihan's main fleet was discovered by a Ming army patrol ship near Liugong Island off the coast of Weihaiwei, the other party did not dare to continue to follow, but immediately returned to the coast to report this amazing discovery to the commander of Weihaiwei.Although this place has not encountered an enemy attack from the sea for a long time, the commander of the guard immediately ordered the whole army to prepare for the battle. Husuo sent a police message to ask it to send a ship to the sea to assist in the investigation-it is said that the huge unidentified fleet is heading west.

However, Weihaiwei received the warning, responded, and then sent people to Jinshan Zuo, [-] miles away, to inform colleagues. The delay was too long, and Jinshan Zuo hurriedly organized When people went out to sea to investigate, Haihan's main fleet had actually sailed through this sea area, so the Ming army's sea search was also in vain.

Not being able to find this huge disappearing fleet, not only failed to reassure the Ming troops of Weihaiwei and Ninghaiwei, but was even more worried that something would happen, because this sea area continues two hundred miles to the west, which is Dengzhou, where the capital of Dengzhou is located. The city is gone, and the local city defense and the nearby water city are still being rebuilt, and it may be difficult to deal with the threat from the sea.There is still a defense area of ​​Qishan Qianhusuo between the working area and Dengzhou City. The most urgent task at the moment is to get Qishan to join the joint investigation.So after Jinshan Office reported to Ninghai Prefecture City, Ninghaiwei Commander also immediately sent people to Qishan Office to report the news.

When the envoys who reported the message arrived at the city of Qishan, it was already after the city was closed at night.The envoy shouted for a long while, before a lantern protruded from the top of the city, and then someone shouted from the top of the city, "Who is under the city?"

The envoy replied: "I am the envoy of Jinshan, sending urgent military information, and quickly open the city gate!"

After a while, a hanging basket was placed on the top of the city, and the envoys below the city were asked to put their identity certificates in, and after receiving them for verification, they opened the gate of the city and let the envoys lead their horses into the city.

Feng Fei, a thousand households in Qishan, was lying on the bed when it was just dark. It was not because he was greedy for sex in bed, but because he injured his waist two years ago during the battle with Kong Youde's rebels. It can only be relieved by lying down, so as long as he has free time during the day, he will try to lie on the bed as much as possible.

Such a physical condition will undoubtedly greatly affect the future career of a military officer leading troops. In fact, Feng Fei had submitted his resignation to the Shandong Capital after the Denglai Rebellion, hoping to return home to recuperate as soon as possible.However, after the war, the Jiaodong Peninsula was in a state of disrepair, and the local military officers lost a lot in the civil war. Now even the grassroots soldiers cannot be recruited enough, and the shortage of military officers is even greater.

For example, the Qishan Thousand-Household Office was originally staffed with 120 people, and it was divided into ten Hundred-Household Offices. However, the actual number of people on the roster is only a little over [-]%, and there are still several vacancies in each of the Hundred-Household Offices. The command system is currently in a broken state.Moreover, even the deputy position of Qianhu in Qishan Office is vacant. If Feng Fei loses his burden, the Shandong Metropolitan Division will really not be able to find a suitable person to take over Qishan Office in a short time.After all, Dengzhou Guard was the defense area with the most serious loss of officers in the civil war, and it hadn't been replenished after the war. Therefore, after Feng Fei's retirement application was submitted, he was called back by Shandong Dusi almost without any delay.

Since there is no way to apply for retirement in advance, all Feng Fei can do is to make himself as comfortable as possible within his ability. Anyway, there is no war in Dengzhou Prefecture now, and he does not need to continue to lead troops to fight.Although there are still many bandit armed forces active in the inland mountainous area, there are more or less troops stationed in Qishan City, which can play a certain deterrent effect, so the area under its jurisdiction is still relatively calm.At present, there is not enough military expenditure and food to support the garrison to recruit new recruits into the army, so Feng Fei stays at Qishan Station and continues to be a thousand householder, which is not much different from being an idler.

The last time there was such a situation in the middle of the night when receiving emergency military information from other guards, it had to be traced back to the Denglai Rebellion.Feng Fei had slept peacefully for more than a year, and it was finally broken on this day. He put on his clothes and went to the study. Soon someone brought a messenger and presented his identity certificate and Ninghaiwei Commander Zhang Chao. Handwritten letters.

Feng Fei took it apart and browsed it quickly, then shook his head and said: "You go back tomorrow and reply to Mr. Zhang. There is no abnormal situation on the Qishan Institute today. If there is really the enemy situation mentioned in Mr. Zhang's letter, the pier on the north coast It is time for Taiwan to issue a firework warning. The official will write a letter tomorrow and report this information to Dengzhou Fucheng."

In Feng Fei's view, if the unidentified fleet mentioned in this letter was not a false report from Weihaiwei, it should have bypassed the coast near Qishan from the sea and continued to Dengzhou Prefecture. The direction went.There are not even a few sea-going ships with hundreds of hulls on the Qishan Institute, and now they can't even gather the sailors needed to go to sea, and they don't have the ability to prevent and control the nearby sea areas at all. It's because you have more than enough heart but not enough strength, you can only put on a show and do your best to obey the destiny.

Of course, another reason for Feng Fei's limited attention to this is the word "unidentified" in military affairs.If it was the Hachiman ship of the Japanese pirates, or the naval warship that defected to Liaodong before, the shape of the hull is very recognizable. It is impossible for the maritime patrol personnel on Weihaiwei's side to recognize these two ships.Apart from these two origins, Feng Fei couldn't think of any maritime armed forces near the Jiaodong Peninsula that could organize a large-scale fleet, and make Weihaiwei pay so much attention to it, and pass the warning all the way to the west. .

Compared with the theory of threats, Feng Fei thinks that it is more likely that a fleet organized by a wealthy businessman from somewhere in Jiangsu and Zhejiang went to Shuntian Mansion, which misunderstood Weihaiwei as an unidentified hostile force.This kind of thing happened once last year. At that time, when a large-scale merchant fleet from Zhejiang passed the coastline of Dengzhou Prefecture to Shuntian Prefecture, it was mistaken by the coastal defenders for a pirate invasion. The flames of war made the coastal guards panic, and eight hundred miles hurriedly mobilized sailors from Lingshanwei and other places.As a result, after the incident was over, the thousand households in the guard station where the incident occurred were fined, demoted to one level, and fined ten months.

With the lessons learned from the past, when a situation like this occurs again, the reactions of various guards are actually more subtle.Even if there is a large fleet whose identity cannot be confirmed, the coastal guards are no longer as aggressive as before. They must first try to verify their identity before taking follow-up actions.Of course, this also has a lot to do with the lack of maritime patrol forces in the entire Jiaodong Peninsula after the Dengzhou navy was kidnapped and defected. Most of the guards did not have enough combat ships to drop into the waters under their jurisdiction, so it is difficult to deal with such large ships transiting the border. If the team responds in a timely manner, and waits for the news to be passed on from station to station after the news is received on land, it is often time-lapse and lack of timeliness.

Feng Fei decided to follow the standard procedures for handling this situation and go through the process safely.Although Zheng Laoqi, who is guarding the pier of Yantai Mountain by the sea, is a veteran, he is also a person who has fought in the battlefield. If there is a situation, he should know how to deal with it. Since there is no news from there today, he should safe and sound.After dawn, send someone over to say hello to Zheng Laoqi.

After Feng Fei dealt with the matter in twos and twos, he asked his soldiers to take the messenger down to rest, and he went back to his room and fell asleep at ease. Unexpectedly, he would anchor at this time on the sea of ​​Zhifu Bay, which is only a few miles away from Qishan. Looking at the huge fleet mentioned in the emergency military situation.And Yantai Mountain Pier, which originally had the opportunity to send out a warning, has been overwhelmed by uninvited guests from the sea.The seriousness of this sudden incident far exceeded his expectations at this time. If he knew what the uninvited Haihan people were planning, he might not even be able to close his eyes that night.

So on this night in early August 1634, the Haihan people who had just arrived at Zhifu Bay and the Ming army who were only a few miles away from them were lucky to spend a very peaceful night.

Of course, not everyone is so relaxed. After Zheng Laoqi and his men were shackled all night, their bodies began to ache.Zheng Laoqi drank too much at noon the day before, went out in the afternoon to blow the sea breeze and was frightened a lot, and then was imprisoned with shackles, hands and feet, and fell ill at night.The soldiers guarding the captives thought that this guy was pretending to be unwell, and ignored them. In the morning, they found that this guy had vomited a lot at night, with white foam at the corner of his mouth, and his breathing was very weak. Only then hastily reported it to Gao Qiaonan.

Although Gao Qiaonan didn't care about the life and death of individual prisoners of war, it was still useful to keep these people, so he immediately brought a military doctor over to check.The military doctor here was still preparing to give Zheng Laoqi an injection, so someone came to report to Gao Qiaonan that someone from the south had come.

There is a three-foot-wide dirt road between the pier of Yantai Mountain and the city of Qishan in the south. Usually, the pier is replenished with supplies and personnel are transferred through this road.After Takahashi Nan took this place, although he got the news from Zheng Laoqi's confession that there would be no visitors from the direction of Qishan Suocheng in the near future, he still arranged for a special person to watch the south for safety. Business came early.

Gao Qiaonan handed Zheng Laoqi to the military doctor, and went out to a high place to check the situation with a telescope. He found that there were only two visitors, both dressed as soldiers of the Ming army. They came on foot from the direction of Qishan Suocheng. Are you here to convey some order.However, Takahashi Nan really didn't expect that the order these two people came to Yantai Mountain to convey was actually related to the Haihan Fleet.

"This is really troublesome!" Gao Qiaonan couldn't help but sighed helplessly.In order to ensure that the news will not be leaked, and to allow the fleet in Zhifu Bay enough time to complete the landing and preliminary infrastructure construction, all he can do is to detain all the people from Qishan.

Although the Qishan Temple in the south cannot prevent Haihan from landing on Zhifu Island, if they raise their troops to attack, Haihan will have to divide his troops to block it. This will definitely affect Haihan's early construction plan on Zhifu Island. implement.Moreover, Haihan does not want a large-scale armed conflict with the local Ming army. The purpose of building a stronghold here is not to expand to the inland area at the moment, but to use it as a transit point at the intersection of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea for the next step. March to the Liaodong Peninsula and prepare for the realization of Haihan's complete control of the Bohai Sea.

For the follow-up plan, Haihan should try to avoid forming a hostile state with the local garrison in this area, but Gao Qiaonan just arrived here yesterday and arrested a group of soldiers from the Ming army, and it seems that this method must continue to be used , until the situation can no longer be concealed.It's just that how to wipe his butt clean in the future, Gao Qiaonan has not yet come up with a good idea at this time.

The two people who came from Qishan City were Feng Fei's personal soldiers. They climbed all the way to Yantai. It was a bit strange to see the situation here. No vocals.

One of them impatiently raised his voice and called Zheng Laoqi a few times, but there was no response at all. The two of them looked at each other, both of them were warning signs. They drew out their waist knives and slowly touched the door of the barracks. When the door was pushed open, the situation inside the house But it startled the two of them.

All the garrison troops, including Zheng Laoqi, locked their hands behind their backs, their feet were shackled, and their mouths were gagged with cloth.The two of them were so shocked that they didn't choose to enter the house to rescue their colleagues. They turned around and planned to escape from the place together, but when they turned around, they found that dozens of people in gray clothes appeared around them without a sound. The men, each holding a rough gun in their hands, surrounded the two of them.

(End of this chapter)