1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1080
"This is Laoye Mountain, the main peak on Zhifu Island." Hao Wanqing was originally from Shandong, and he was the only landlord in the command team going north this time, so he could only take on the task of acting as a temporary tour guide.Fortunately, he had traveled here before, so he was not particularly unfamiliar with the situation of Zhifu Island.

"The last time I came to this place was three years before I crossed... well, it has been ten years since now! There is an idiom that says things are right and people are wrong, but the current situation happens to be the other way around!" Hao Wanqing revisited the old place, and finally I really felt the difference in time and space, and I couldn't help but sigh with emotion.There are not many buildings on Zhifu Island today, and it is far less prosperous than the scene he saw before traveling, and the people who originally lived near Zhifu Island have already escaped completely during the war two years ago. .At present, the houses, temples and other buildings found by the Haihan army on the island are all abandoned and empty houses. It is not known where the owners of these houses fled and whether they will return here.

The northern foot of Laoye Mountain is a cliff that connects with the north shore of Zhifu Island, and the terrain is extremely steep.The highest point of Laoye Mountain is nearly 300 meters above sea level. When the weather is fine, you can see the sea within about [-] nautical miles. However, this commanding height actually has a limited effect on the Haihan garrison. One is because there are no powerful nearby. There are armed forces on the sea, and the north shore of Zhifu Island is a rugged coast, making it difficult for ships to dock. Even if a small boat approaches the coast, it cannot overcome the tens of meters of cliffs and send a large number of people to the island to fight.

Another very frustrating reason is that this commanding height is located on the northwest side of Zhifu Island, which is more than ten miles away from the center of Zhifu Bay. The observation effect is actually far inferior to those observation points on the east side of the island that are relatively low but relatively close. .Therefore, apart from climbing up to see the scenery, this place does not have much practical effect at ordinary times.

It was Qian Tiandun who climbed up the mountain with Hao Wanqing, but they came to climb the mountain as soon as they arrived at Zhifu Island. Materials and personnel have landed, and they are very busy.When they came to Laoye Mountain, Hao Wanqing was to verify geographic information, while Qian Tiandun brought a radio to test to see if there was any difference in signal strength between the highest point on the island and the other alternative locations. Identify a place as soon as possible to set up the radio antenna.

Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "Don't be emotional here, what should you do quickly, and you have to go down the mountain before noon after you're done, otherwise all the things arranged later will have to be backlogged!"

This time, there are only six traversers in the operation headquarters, and each of them has a lot of tasks on their shoulders, and they don't have time to travel around.Fortunately, the preparations in advance were sufficient. During the period from entering the Shandong border to landing, there was no resistance from the local area. Compared with the original operation in the Fujian Strait and Zhoushan, Zhejiang, the original owner was expelled. , this time going north can be regarded as smooth sailing.

As for Gao Qiaonan's capture of a group of Ming soldiers in Yantai Mountain, this is not a problem at all in the eyes of Qian Tiandun and others.Although Haihan didn't want to offend the Shandong government, but comparing the two sides, it is more important to settle on Zhifu Island smoothly.If the Ming army stationed locally is not so willing to cooperate, Haihan may have to use force. The Northward Fleet, navy and land armies add up to more than 3000 people, and they have been transferred here from thousands of miles, not just for pretending.This force will not be at a disadvantage against any garrison in the coastal area of ​​the Jiaodong Peninsula. As long as it has a firm foothold on Zhifu Island and builds a defense line, even if ten times the Ming army comes to attack, it will not be a problem.

Due to the lack of wharf facilities on the coast of Zhifu Bay, large ships with deep drafts still cannot fully dock.The Shipping Department is very proficient in the application of this kind of temporary trestle. The springboard and the lifeboats on the big ship have locks that can be easily connected. It is very convenient to build a floating trestle with a width of two meters and a length of more than ten meters. Even if you unload heavy equipment such as artillery, there is no pressure.It's just that it was too late when the big troops arrived at Zhifu Bay yesterday, so we had to arrange some small boats to dock to unload cargo and unload people, and we didn't have time to organize the construction of floating trestles.

However, after the first springboard was set up today, the first to unload the ship was not weapons or other combat supplies, but the horse transport ship that did not have time to dock last night because of the darkness.These well-bred war horses stayed at sea for one more night, and Harukon felt distressed, so immediately after dawn, he made arrangements for the war horses to land first.Fortunately, this group of war horses rested in Zhoushan Islands for several days, and the situation at this time is slightly better than when they first arrived in Zhoushan.

Judging from Harugong's experience, these war horses only need to rest for two or three days and add more concentrates to restore their physical strength to a relatively good state. At that time, let alone go to battle, at least go out to perform some scouting missions. question.Of course, in addition to getting the horses ashore as soon as possible, the immediate priority is to organize manpower to build a stable.

Regarding this matter, Harukon did not plan to borrow someone from Qian Tiandun or Wang Tom, he was going to hand it over to his own hands.It's not that Harukon knows that the army is busy unloading living and combat materials and building barracks and other infrastructure, but that the size, space, lighting, ventilation, cleaning, etc. of the stables have special requirements, so laymen can come here. Don't worry about him.The soldiers in the cavalry battalion are all his own soldiers brought out by him. Not only can they raise and train horses, but they have always done the rough work of building stables by themselves, and they are all versatile.

According to Harukon's request, the troops who landed earlier yesterday have temporarily built several open-air stables on the shore with trees as thick as a bowl, for the cavalry battalion to stock horses temporarily.Today, after the cavalry gathered the war horses and pack horses in the stables according to their formation, they each received tools such as axes, planers, chisels, saws, etc., and acted as carpenters temporarily, and began to build semi-permanent stables in the places selected by Harukon.

Almost all the northbound troops selected by the Ministry of National Defense received short-term engineering construction training before departure, so that the Ministry of Construction no longer needed to recruit a large number of craftsmen to go northward with the troops, and only needed a small number of technicians to act as foremen. Just complete the infrastructure project.And there are quite a lot of infrastructure facilities needed for thousands of people to be stationed here, so even the navy and special warfare battalion must allocate some manpower to temporarily join the labor force and participate in the construction of the camp and the dock.

The Ministry of National Defense has jointly planned the initial construction of Zhifu Island with the Ministry of Construction in advance. The dock area is mainly concentrated in the northern part of Zhifu Bay and the southeast coast of Zhifu Island, and a large-scale military camp is located next to the dock area.The design of the garrison did not follow the scale of the troops going north this time, but directly planned a camp that could accommodate 2 people.Of course, this camp is not just for military use. A part of it is built against the mountain and will be used to absorb and resettle immigrants in the future.

Haihan spent so much effort to set up a stronghold in the Jiaodong Peninsula, and part of the function was to absorb refugees from Dengzhou Prefecture, an area where social order had not yet been fully restored after the war.Haihan operates it himself, after all, it can save a lot of money compared to entrusting this task to middlemen before, and with Haihan's own ability, the speed of absorbing immigrants should be faster than those half-baked Yahang maritime merchants much faster.

In fact, when Tom Wang set off from Sanya, he brought a large number of notices and leaflets that had been plated and printed. The content was roughly to inform the public that if they needed food relief or other daily necessities, they could go to Zhifu Island, Dengzhou Prefecture, and head south. The good man who came to pick it up.After the Haihan army has established a firm foothold here, the cavalry battalion will take these materials to nearby villages and towns to distribute and post them. Whether it is a person who wants to be cheap or really wants to make a living, Haihan will have a corresponding strategy to deal with it.In short, try to spread the news first, which should be able to attract many poor people who lost their means of production after the war and can no longer support their families through labor.And once there is word of mouth and scale effect, long-term absorption of immigrants from North China will be just around the corner.

However, it is obviously impossible to complete such a large barracks in a short period of time, so in the initial stage, the barracks were mainly built to solve the problem of accommodation for the troops going north as soon as possible.The temperature in this season is not bad, and it doesn’t matter if you live in a tent, but if there is no residence with heating facilities in three or four months, then the winter on Zhifu Island will definitely be the biggest nightmare in the lives of soldiers from the south.The recruited immigrants can still be transported to the south by ship, but the troops stationed here can no longer be withdrawn at will, and the needs of the troops must be met first.

Therefore, whether the barracks built on Zhifu Island are for civilian or military use, the amount of work will be greatly increased due to the need for insulation and heating. This is also a task that has never been attempted before by the soldiers of the northbound troops.After all, regardless of whether it is in Guangdong, Fujian or Zhejiang, when Haihan built such a large base in the past, either it could recruit a large number of migrant workers from the local area at the same time it was stationed, or even bring the migrant workers there, or there were many ready-made local sites. Buildings can be used, such as the two strongholds in Taipei taken from the Spaniards, and various pirate-run strongholds and ports on the Zhoushan Islands.But this time it was not so easy to come to Shandong. For the first ten days and a half months, the troops from the north could only take the lead as construction workers and migrant workers.

Chen Yixin hadn't been a part-time job for a long time, and the last time he directed construction on a construction site probably dates back to when he guarded Wanshan Island at the mouth of the Pearl River with Lidou in his early years.At that time, the two young men were in charge of the island. They led a group of leading soldiers to build barracks, warehouses, docks, coastal fortifications and other facilities according to the drawings issued by the Ministry of Construction. They also learned a lot of basic knowledge in engineering construction. .However, after Chen Yixin was transferred from Wanshan Island to Hong Kong Island, and then transferred to Fujian to work next to Qian Tiandun, he basically never managed specific projects in this field.

Chen Yixin also never imagined that a few years later, in the north thousands of miles away from Wanshan Island, he would return to his old job and be in charge of commanding troops to level the foundation and build barracks.However, he has no complaints about this arrangement. On the contrary, he feels as if he has returned to the days on Wanshan Island a few years ago, remembering the time when he sweated profusely with his comrades and subordinates, but it is a pity that he has left with his good friend now. Having embarked on a different development path, the time to meet may only become less and less in the future.However, Chen Yixin had only been busy on the construction site for more than an hour, and then a soldier sent a notice from the headquarters, asking him to go to the meeting first.

The headquarters has now moved from the flagship to the shore, requisitioning an abandoned residential courtyard.When Chen Yixin arrived, he saw that except for Qian Tiandun and Hao Wanqing who were going to climb Laoye Mountain, the others had already arrived.

"I'll make a long story short." Tom Wang saw that Chen Yixin had arrived, gestured for him to sit down, and then got down to business: "Gao Qiaonan just sent someone to deliver the news, and this morning, Qishan Suocheng sent someone to the Yantaishan outpost to issue an order He was afraid that the matter would be exposed, so he arrested the two people who delivered the order."

"Let's get to the point, did you notice something in Qishan Suocheng?" Harugong knew that such a trivial matter as arresting two Ming soldiers was not worth summoning everyone for a meeting at this time, there must be something more serious Things will make Wang Tom make such an arrangement.

Wang Tom nodded and said: "You guessed right, but it's not just Qishan who found something wrong, Weihaiwei and Ninghaiwei are also looking for us at sea now."

"Is it because we were spotted by a patrol ship of the Ming army when we passed Liugong Island?" Chen Yixin asked immediately.

"Yes, according to the information obtained from Gao Qiaonan's interrogation, the Ming army's assisted investigation report was first sent out by Weihaiwei yesterday morning." Tom Wang said in a deep voice: "Then they have now contacted the coastal area west of Weihaiwei. The guard, it is said that the news has been sent to Dengzhou City today."

"So Qishan Station also got the news, and then ordered the Yantai Mountain Outpost to strengthen the monitoring of Zhifu Bay?" Although Haru Gong didn't personally experience it, he can roughly deduce what happened based on the information.

"Approximately." Wang Tom nodded to confirm Harugong's speculation, and then said: "Gaoqiao South is still firmly controlling Yantai Mountain, but the messenger who sent the order disappeared for no reason. The city of Qishan is probably the last There will be a response in the afternoon. So he is now sending a request to the headquarters. If Qishan has any further actions in the future, how will he respond in Yantai Mountain? If Qishan sends an organized unit to Yantai Mountain, Can we take strong measures to directly push him back?"

(End of this chapter)