1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2092
The special method Yan Chujie used against the Hirado clan was highly confidential, and the fewer links the better, of course. For the sake of full confidentiality, Yan Chujie did not even communicate with the generals stationed in the far north before that, so Wang Tom and Qian Tian Dun was completely ignorant of the change in wind direction at Sanya.

Although they were surprised at the speed with which the executive committee made a decision this time, as senior generals who participated in the investigation work in recent months, they were not too surprised that the executive committee finally chose military strikes.From the beginning of the sneak attack of the Qing army's musketeers in Liaodong, they believed that this matter was not good. In addition to eliminating the Qing army's musketeers, they also had to attack the source of weapons to prevent the Qing army from obtaining arms from the outside world.

The telegram sent back by the reconnaissance fleet a few days ago stated that two shipyards capable of building warships and a secret arsenal for casting artillery were discovered near Hirado Port. Continue to operate, otherwise there will definitely be more firearms flowing into the hands of the Qing army in the future, causing even greater troubles for the Haihan army.

However, Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun both believe that it will take some time for the executive committee to make a decision to use force. After all, the crime of "possessing powerful lethal weapons" may not make the executive committee make up its mind. Safety, such as the large supply of weapons to Haihan's mortal enemy in Liaodong, will make the executive committee nervous.From this point of view, their thinking coincides with that of Yan Chujie who is far away in Sanya.

"The telegram said that the Executive Committee hoped to schedule the military strike against the Hirado Domain in the first half of the year, which means that we can start to formulate an action plan now." Wang Tom decided not to waste brain cells to speculate why the Executive Committee I will be so active this time and focus on more important preparations for war.

At this time, it was already late March in 1638. If combat operations were to be limited to the first half of the year, the time left for the northern garrison to prepare for the war was actually not too much.Although this opponent is not very powerful to the Haihan Army, considering the need to cross the sea to enter unfamiliar areas to fight, and the attack on Hirado Domain will inevitably include amphibious landing operations, the difficulty of the entire operation is not low.

Qian Tiandun nodded calmly and said, "The task of going deep into enemy-occupied areas to eliminate the Musketeers was taken up by your navy. This time, you finally have the opportunity to show your face to our army."

Tom Wang laughed and said, "Yes, yes, if you want to attack Hirado Port this time, you probably have to change your troops to play the leading role!"

Wang Tom's words are not a compliment to Qian Tiandun. To complete the military attack on the Hirado Domain, the Haihan Army must conduct a landing operation. Although the Marine Corps also has such capabilities, considering the complex geographical environment Wang Tom didn't dare to trust the military strength of the Hepinghu clan. It would be wise to let Qian Tiandun's special operations group join this mission.

Of course, there is another reason that everyone knows very well, that is, the current head of the Special Forces, Takahashi Minami, is of Japanese origin, and the military operations in the Hirado Domain should have some special meaning for him. It is also a special test.

The person involved, Takahashi Minami, was still on vacation at this time, and didn't know that an important combat mission would soon be entrusted to him.In fact, in the past six months, the Special Operations Group has not had any major operational arrangements, so most of the time he is no different from a vacation.

There is only one big city in the nearby area, Pyongyang. Although it is less than a hundred miles away from the Taedongjiang base, with the traffic conditions of this era, it will take at least one day to get from the base to Pyongyang, and Gao Qiaonan has long been used to life in the army. Even if he was on vacation, he didn't have much interest in leaving the base too far, and he didn't plan to travel thousands of miles back to Haihan, so Gao Qiaonan arranged his vacation to travel around the base.

If you count from the beginning of construction, the Datongjiang base has a history of almost a year. A considerable number of Korean people who worked here as laborers during the war chose to stay near the base after the war, and spontaneously formed some villages and towns.With the thousands of foreign troops stationed at the Datongjiang base, the daily food and clothing needs are enough to feed the people who live near the base.

Later, as Haihan and North Korea agreed on a series of cooperation projects in the Taedong River Basin, dozens of miles along the coast were full of large-scale projects, so a large number of people were resettled to this area as labor force, and large-scale land gradually appeared on the once barren banks. Large and small settlements, the population density is probably the highest ever in this area.

Every time Takahashinan walks out of the base, he will find that the surrounding area has changed a lot, from sparse shantytowns to gradually formed settlements, and then to villages and towns that gradually appeared later. He feels that this is a bit like returning to the Haihan feels that every time he returns to China, he will find that the environment has changed significantly.So during the rare vacation, he chose to travel along the Datong River to find the feeling similar to returning to Haihan.

Perhaps due to the persistence of an army officer, Takahashi Minami did not choose the more convenient boat trip, but insisted on riding a horse for this vacation, and only brought a few people along with him in plain clothes.

From the base of the Datong River to the west is the direction of the estuary, and a large area of ​​salt fields has been built on the river bank here.Compared with the iron ore mining and supporting industries with a large amount of engineering work on the opposite side of the Datong River, the cycle from construction to production of the saltworks is relatively much shorter. It took only a few months after the war to gradually start production.

Datongjiang Saltworks has introduced Haihan’s salt-making technology. Although the investment in the early stage is relatively large, the huge increase in production capacity can make the production profit here far exceed that of traditional saltworks. Moreover, because the royal family and senior officials secretly invested in this saltworks, it is very important The demand for labor force has been relatively fully guaranteed, so it has been operating almost at full capacity since it was put into production.

The salt produced here is basically shipped to other places, which indirectly drives the development of supporting industries such as shipping.When the Datong River base was first built last year, the boats that could be seen on this section of the river were basically small fishing sampans, but now there are many cargo ships coming and going, and most of them are merchant ships that come to the Datong River Salt Field to sell salt.

Gao Qiaonan and his party rode their horses along the newly built official road, and the people who saw them would stop immediately and bow their heads to show respect.For ordinary North Korean people, the Haihan military uniform worn by Gao Qiaonan and others is a status symbol. If they want to live in the Datong River Basin, they must show enough humility to these foreign garrisons.

Gao Qiaonan has become accustomed to the behavior of the North Korean people. In fact, since he was stationed at the Datongjiang base last year, the propaganda department has been in operation, consciously instilling the values ​​​​of Haihan to the North Korean people, so that they are used to the behavior of the Haihan army. attitude of obedience.

The production scene of the Datong River Salt Field is indeed very familiar to Gaoqiaonan. The production environment here is similar to that of the salt fields in various places under the Haihan administration, and the production process is completely copied from the Haihan model. The most significant difference is the production here. The ones are Koreans in national costumes.

Gao Qiaonan sat on his horse and watched the people working in the salt fields, and suddenly wanted to go back to the South China Sea to see how far the salt fields in his country had developed.He heard that the Yinggehai Salt Field is currently the largest salt field in the South China Sea, but it is difficult to have an exact idea of ​​how big it is. Perhaps it is the most appropriate way to see the current situation there with his own eyes.

Takahashi Minami was born in Japan, and he is quite adaptable to the environment in this region, but he seems to prefer the southern climate.A considerable proportion of the Special Operations Regiment is from the south, and they are not ideally adapted to the northern climate, even if they have been stationed for a relatively long time.He knew that his boss had also applied to the Ministry of National Defense, hoping to transfer the troops to the south, but he would have to stay here for a full year at the earliest before he could make the trip.Calculating the time, it has been almost a year since it went north in April last year. Perhaps when summer comes, the special operations group will hopefully change their station in the south.

But before returning to the south, I don't know if there is a chance to go to Japan for a while.Although Takahashi Minami already regards himself as a 100% Haihan, this is the closest his residence has been to Japan in ten years.He didn't want to go back to Japan to live, but he still hoped to visit his hometown, even if it was on a boat.

Takahashi Minami was a little envious of his colleague Amakusa Shiro. Although this guy had a lower position than himself, he got two opportunities to go to the Japanese Sea to perform missions.This time, they were transferred by the Military Intelligence Bureau to carry out the task of investigating Hirado and Nagasaki, and there might be arrangements to go ashore. This still has some special meaning for Japanese descendants like them who have left Japan for more than ten years.

But Takahashi Minami is just thinking about it, he will not apply for a special itinerary to visit Japan for this purpose, for a senior military officer like him, it is a taboo thing to have strange feelings for foreign countries, even if He knew that his boss Qian Tiandun would give him full trust, but he didn't want to test how solid this trust was.

Of course, as a general who led troops to fight, Takahashi Minami also envisioned a situation where Hai Han would fight Japan one day, but he didn't feel any embarrassment about it. For him, of course it had to be for himself. The country he is loyal to fights desperately. As for Japan, no one can make him feel worried now.

However, these questions will probably only appear in Takahashi Nan's mind when he is on vacation. After all, there is nothing to do at this time, and it is easy to let people's minds go blank when walking in the white salt fields. I will ponder some things that I usually don't have the opportunity to think deeply.

In the end, several local gentry who came to greet him one after another made Gao Qiaonan recover from his contemplation.Among these people are the managers of the saltworks, the village chiefs of immigrant villages, and businessmen who control some local industries. After hearing the news that Haihan officers were patrolling the saltworks on horseback, they hurried over to show their faces, not wanting to miss this opportunity. A good opportunity to meet noble people.You must know that they are not even qualified to step into the Datongjiang base, let alone get acquainted with Haihan officers.

Originally, Gao Qiaonan was not interested in socializing with these local gentry, but he took his entourage out for a walk, after all, he wanted to find a place to eat and sleep, and these people were happy to arrange these trivial matters for them, which could save a lot of trouble.Of course, if Takahashi Minami wanted to know about the local situation, the information these people could provide would far outweigh the efficiency of his own collection.

However, the living conditions in the vicinity of the salt field are also limited. At this stage, they are far from being able to compare with big cities like Pyongyang and Seoul.But it is also a special way of vacation for Takahashi Minami to be able to travel like this among the folks in a foreign country.

It was not until three days later that Gao Qiaonan returned to the base again. When he went to report to Qian Tiandun, he heard some unbelievable news from his boss.

"The executive committee has decided that the next step is to use force against the Hirado domain, and our special operations group should undertake the task of landing operations, so you should prepare as soon as possible, and you can call the staff to formulate a combat plan."

Takahashi Nanshin said: I was still thinking about whether I could find a chance to travel to Japan two days ago, but I didn't expect the errand to come so soon.Although it is a combat mission, it is finally a chance for this wish to come true.

Seeing that he was silent, Qian Tiandun asked again: "Do you have any thoughts about leading troops to Japan to perform combat missions? If you have any thoughts, tell them earlier, and don't whine!"

Takahashi Minami quickly responded: "The humble job has no other ideas, and I promise to complete the task satisfactorily!"

Qian Tiandun nodded and said: "That's good. The current situation is that the Executive Committee believes that Hirado not only participated in a series of previous hostile actions against our country, but also mastered the manufacturing technology of powerful lethal weapons. The armed fleet that is being secretly formed. And the most important point, it is said that the Eighteen Zhiyu Party hiding in the local area is deeply involved in these matters. This is a very big hidden danger for our country and must be resolved as soon as possible.”

After Gao Qiaonan heard this, he felt that this last point seemed to be the reason for the executive committee to decide to use force. After all, the grievances with Shibazhi run through the short history of Haihan Kingdom. If it is not liquidated , I am afraid that the senior officials of the Executive Committee will also find it difficult to feel at ease.As for the information about the armed fleet, Takahashi Minami is not worried. There is no opponent in East Asia that can beat the Haihan Navy, and it is impossible for a small Hirado clan to support a large-scale armed fleet. I believe that by then the navy only needs to dispatch a fleet to solve the problem.

The real highlight should still be on the Army's side. Thinking of this, Takahashi Minami couldn't help but become hot.

(End of this chapter)