1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2080
This time, the two sailfish-class light sailboats participated in the reconnaissance operation as the main ships. There should be no competitors of the same level in this sea area. When the weather conditions are ideal, they can easily exceed fifteen knots. This is almost the same time. Three times the speed of seagoing ships in modern East Asia.

Of course, in addition to the optimized design and advanced technology of the hull structure, sailing system and other links, this high speed also comes from the reduction of various devices and facilities on the ship as much as possible, in order to maximize the speed. Reduce the weight of the ship.The price paid for this is not small. First, the comfort of the crew is basically zero, and second, the small loading capacity makes this sailboat only have a sea life of about seven days when it is full-this is what the fleet must bring. The main reason for boarding the two integrated supply ships.

In fact, even most of the supplies they obtained in Seogwipo were not carried on the sailfish sailboat, because the need for weight reduction meant that there was no conventional kitchen utensils and fuel on board, and most of the crew members spent most of the voyage. During the time, you need to drink cold water and eat dry food to survive.However, in the past two years, Haihan's logistics support level has made great progress. When performing such special missions, he can apply for a small amount of self-heating military rations from the military supplies department as a supply during the mission.

When Shen Xueyi followed Yuan Zhi from the explorer-class warship to the sailfish sailboat, he finally understood why the other party said that the ride experience of this sailboat was "not very good".In order to reduce weight, there is not even a chair or stool on this boat. They either stand all the time, or they can only lie down on the deck.Half of the small cabin under the deck is used to hold various supplies and fresh water, and the remaining small space can only be used by the crew to take turns to rest, let alone have a separate cabin to live in.

It's fine if the boat is slow, but Shen Xueyi has never felt the bumpy feeling of this high-speed sailing boat after running at sea.Although he didn't go out to sea much, he had never experienced seasickness at sea before, but after leaving Seogwipo and changing to this sailfish sailing boat, he soon felt dizzy.

However, it is too late to change the ship at this time. The two supply ships and the two exploration-class warships have already sailed in another direction. If there is no accident, it will take about three to four days before they will be reconnaissance with these two ships. The sailboats rendezvous at the predetermined location.

Yuan Zhi had no time to take Shen Xueyi's feelings into consideration at this time. It was impossible to temporarily modify the action plan because the North Korean military officer accompanying him was seasick. He had to hurry up to complete the preliminary reconnaissance of the Wudao Islands area.

The first goal is Fukue Island, the largest of the Five Islands. The relatively livable flat areas on this island are concentrated on the north and southeast sides of the island, accounting for about one-fifth of the total area of ​​the island.However, regarding the current situation on the island, Yuan Zhi hardly has any specific information in his hands. Some of the limited information he has is from a few years ago, and its reliability is questionable, and its reference value is not great.

Fortunately, there is a detailed map of this area in Haihan's database, and a detailed travel route has been drawn up based on it before the operation. The scout sailboat entering this area will not be blinded, and the high speed also ensures No other ships in this area can intercept them at sea.

But difficulties still exist, and the reconnaissance ship can only spy on these islands at sea at present. Although there are telescopes as an auxiliary tool, it will still be greatly limited by the weather conditions at sea.If the visibility is not good, it is useless for the scout ship to fly fast enough to fly over the sea.

Of course, sending scouts to the island for close observation is also a solution, but this method needs to bear great risks, and it is not Yuan Zhi's first choice at present.

The two reconnaissance ships were commanded by Yuan Zhi and Amakusa Shiro respectively, keeping a distance of about five nautical miles one after the other, sailing south from the northern tip of Fukue Island along its west coast.Fortunately, the weather conditions in the past few days are not bad. The visibility at sea is at least ten nautical miles, and the situation near the coastline can be observed by using a high-magnification telescope on board.

However, the effect of the actual implementation is not very satisfactory. Although it can be confirmed that there are settlers of a certain scale on the island through the observed characteristics of houses, cultivated land, and cooking smoke, it is impossible to confirm whether the island is settled by such long-distance observation. Under the rule of force of the Japanese pirate organization, not to mention other detailed information.

The reconnaissance ship observed more situations in two flat areas on the southeast coast of Fukue Island. Not only were there settlements here, but also two small fishing ports were found in the bay between the two areas, and there were some small sampans Board for fishing at sea.However, there has been no trace of the cargo ship or merchant ship that the Haihan military expects to find so far.

In just half a day, the two reconnaissance ships had circled Fukue Island more than half a circle, but the information they obtained was extremely limited.However, this was basically within Yuan Zhi's expectations. They did not stay on Fujiang Island, and continued to observe the situation of the other four big islands northward.

According to the military's estimates, if there are still a large number of Japanese pirates entrenched in the Goto Islands area, then it may be possible to find special ships like armed sailboats near the five main islands.However, they spent two days circling the Five Islands, but they did not find other ships other than fishing boats operating in the nearby waters.

Three days later, the two reconnaissance ships reunited with the other four ships of the fleet near an uninhabited island in the northwest waters of the Goto Islands.While completing the rest and supplies, Yuan Zhi and Amakusa Shiro will also meet to discuss the next action arrangement.

"It seems that the situation is different from what we expected. This place is simply too stable, and it doesn't smell like a Japanese pirate's lair at all." Yuan Zhi had to admit that he had made some mistakes in his judgment before he set off.

Amakusa Shiro was relatively calm, and he didn't use Yuan Zhi's judgment to say right or wrong: "When we return, we can arrange to go to the island for reconnaissance and confirm the situation here. If the Japanese pirates here are really gone without a trace, then I think it is more likely that someone will be included.”

The existence of an armed organization that can incorporate Japanese pirates is of course very likely to be a more powerful pirate group, and Shibazhi in its heyday clearly met such conditions.Even after Shibazhi was defeated by Haihan, the Shibazhi remaining party who fled to various places still has a certain strength. If they get official support from the Hirado clan, it is not easy to incorporate the Japanese pirates in the Goto Islands. impossible things.

Yuan Zhi nodded and said, "If that's the case, the Eighteen Zhiyu Party has expanded its armed forces, and the Hirado Clan has expanded its sphere of influence, and these people can also complete some non-public tasks when necessary."

"For example, the Ming organization instigated civilian armed forces to fight against our country, or even entered our country to attack certain important targets." Amakusa Shiro immediately listed two possibilities.

Some time ago, a series of strongholds pretending to be commercial organizations were seized in the southeast coast of Daming, and many desperadoes were lurking. Where did these brave and ruthless people come from? It was also Haihan who conducted an investigation afterwards. One of the key points.

The Japanese pirates who occupied the Wudao Islands at the beginning were not all Japanese, and there were also many Koreans and Han Chinese from Ming Dynasty. The intelligence department also suspected that a considerable part of the manpower deployed by the mastermind behind the scenes on the southeast coast of Ming Dynasty had once been The experience of fighting desperately, that's why they encountered almost desperate resistance when they were arrested.

As for the private armed forces of the salt merchants that broke out in Yangzhou before, although the guns involved in the case came from Spain, the personnel behind the training of these private armed forces may have a direct relationship with the Eighteen Zhiyu Party currently under investigation.

The original plan of action was to go to Hirado Island and Nagasaki as soon as possible after the initial reconnaissance of the Goto Islands. These two places are the real focus of this trip.Although there is no substantial gain in the Wudao Islands, it will basically not affect the follow-up action arrangements.After Yuan Zhi and Amakusa Shiro made some calculations, they decided to follow the original plan and try to verify the situation of the Goto Islands when they return.

Shen Xueyi also attended the meeting as a military observer, but his current physical condition is extremely poor, he can only observe but does not have enough energy to participate in the discussion.The past few days have been really difficult for him, as long as the scout ship speeds up or the sea conditions are bad, he will easily get into a state of seasickness.The food I ate was often vomited out because of seasickness before I finished digesting it. After a few days, I was too weak to stand up.

Taking advantage of this opportunity to stop for a meeting, Yuan Zhi persuaded him to leave the scouting ship for the time being, and Shen Xueyi did not insist on following the ship. Next, he will transfer to an exploration-class warship with relatively better conditions—he was authorized to Enjoy a separate cabin originally provided for the captain.After several days of torment at sea, he was finally able to lie down in bed and sleep soundly.

After stopping for a short rest to replenish supplies, the fleet continued east to Hirado Island.Hirado Island is a long and narrow island with an area only about one-tenth of Jeju Island and half of Fukue Island. It is really not a big place.

The Hirado Domain ruled by the Matsuura family is not limited to Hirado Island. Iki Island to the northeast of Hirado Island and the North Matsuura Peninsula in Kyushu are under its actual control.From about a hundred years ago, the Matsuura family opened Hirado Castle as a free port and encouraged businessmen to carry out smuggling trade between Japan and Ming Dynasty, making Hirado an important port for Japan's foreign trade.

Wang Zhi, the most famous pirate merchant in this area at that time, once proclaimed himself the "King of Hui" in Hirado, and organized Japanese pirates to attack the coast of Daming many times, threatening the Ming court to open the sea ban.However, this old man only had a good time for more than ten years. He was trapped by Zhejiang Governor Hu Zongxian in 1557, and was executed after two years of imprisonment.

The Portuguese also came to Hirado when Wang Zhi was at its best, bringing the Nanban trade and Chechidan culture to Japan.However, the development of the Portuguese in Hirado was not smooth. After some unpleasant conflicts, the Portuguese chose to leave Hirado and move to Nagasaki for development.The European counterparts of the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the Dutch, came to this region about half a century later, and lagged far behind in the initial stage.

The first ones to be eliminated were the Spaniards eager to preach in Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate announced in 1624 that Spanish merchant ships were prohibited from entering Japanese ports. For a period of time after that, Spanish merchants could only use some unconventional channels to maintain a close relationship with Japan. trade links.By 1633, Haihan conquered the Spanish stronghold in the Taipei area and drove the local Spanish colonists out of Taiwan Island, basically completely cutting off the last bit of trade between the Philippine colonial authorities and Japan.

The relationship between Portugal and the shogunate is currently tense, but there is still a trading house in Nagasaki, so regarding the local situation, the Haihan intelligence department also managed to obtain some information from the Portuguese.If it weren't for the fact that the purpose of this reconnaissance operation is still classified, the Haihan military could actually invite the Portuguese to participate and dispatch Portuguese merchant ships to provide excellent cover for the reconnaissance operation.

Regarding the situation of Hirado, when Yu Yao visited Dayuan Hong Kong in Taiwan, he had already learned about it from the chief officer Hans.It's just that Hans himself didn't know the actual situation of Hirado. The information he knew came from the description of the Dutch businessman, and there were inevitably many distortions.

Hirado Port is located in the northeast of Hirado Island, facing Kyushu across the sea, and the narrowest part of the strait is only one mile away.This special terrain is also a big trouble for the Haihan fleet. If these warships appear in the strait like this, it will be difficult not to attract the attention of the local people.But if you look at it from another angle, this may also have the effect of shocking the mountain and shocking the tiger, but whether this effect is good or bad, it is still difficult to have a clear prediction at the moment.

However, considering the purpose of the reconnaissance operation, the military did not adopt such radical means in the action plan in the end, and chose a relatively clumsy but less conspicuous method to conduct reconnaissance and monitoring of Hirado Port.

Similar to the previous method during the reconnaissance of the Goto Islands, the supply ship and the warship responsible for the military cover will anchor at an uninhabited island at the southern end of Hirado Island, and two sailfish reconnaissance ships will sail into the area between Hirado Island and Kyushu. activities in the strait between them.And these two ships will not go directly to Hirado Port. They will operate in the relatively open waters south of Hirado Port during the day, and then go north to the vicinity of Hirado Port at night, in order to conceal their whereabouts to the maximum extent.

If the ships in Hirado Port come in and out frequently, then trying to hide their whereabouts in this way is actually just deceiving themselves, so this action plan still has a certain gambling nature. If the whereabouts are exposed too early, they probably can only end it hastily. Reconnaissance in Hirado began.The only safe thing is that even if their identities are exposed, there should be no problem for the two scout ships to protect themselves.

(End of this chapter)