1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2136
The Battle of Hirado entered its seventh day.The Haihan army has basically completed its campaign against the blockade area in the northern part of Hirado Island. Most of the vassal troops trapped in this area were either killed or captured. It has also become difficult to organize a decent resistance, so they can only hide in some inaccessible mountains and forests and wait for the situation to improve.

Due to the large number of prisoners and the lack of suitable facilities for detaining these people, we had to enclose a piece of land at the wharf of the Linhai port area and use it as an open-air prison. Troops are sent to take care of these prisoners of war.Although this task is relatively easy, it is definitely not as lucrative as the troops performing the inventory task in the urban area.

Although the urban area is still under wartime control, and it is difficult for ordinary people to leave their homes and move around, news about how to protect themselves in times of chaos and chaos spread quickly among businessmen.Businessmen who can open shops in Hirado generally have not too bad economic strength. Since it is easy to get accommodation by giving benefits to the Haihan army who came to search the door, these businessmen will not be stingy with such necessary expenses.

But the few people who can really get special care are not because they have stuffed a lot of money into the Haihan army who came to the door, but because they quietly provided some valuable information to Haihan.For example, they reported a certain feudal vassal hiding in a neighbor's house, or directly provided information related to the feudal lord Tagawasuke like Yu Chengli.

But so far, no one has been allowed to leave Hirado on their own, so even those who have received preferential treatment are still anxious, worried that the temporarily calm situation will suddenly deteriorate again.Some foreign businessmen have secretly made up their minds, as long as the Haihan people are willing to let them go, they will immediately leave Hirado, a place of right and wrong.

Xu Yuzhuo wisely didn't try to compete with Haihan for the fat in front of him. He took the initiative to apply to lead his troops back to Fujiang Island to wipe out the hostile armed forces in the Wudao Islands area.Shi Diwen also understood that the Fujian Navy's expedition was empty-handed, and it would be difficult to deal with business after returning, so he also made a favor and agreed to Xu Yuzhuo's request.

It's a bit ironic to say that the war on Hirado Island has come to an end, but Xu's army's suppression operation on Fujiang Island has not yet ended.The more than 1000 infantry sent to fight on the island did not encounter fierce resistance, but because of the limited force, it was difficult for them to completely wipe out Fukue Island, which was larger than Hirado.

After so many days, Xu Jiajun chased his opponents on Fujiang Island like chasing rabbits, but the gains were extremely limited.The combined number of killed and captured in the current battle is barely enough for three digits.According to the estimation of the leading officer, there should be at least two or three hundred militants fighting guerrillas on the island.

Fujiang Island was the first to start the war, but it was too late to close the work when the opponent was not strong. This really made Xu Jiajun feel a little embarrassed.Of course Xu Yuzhuo didn't want to sit back and watch this situation continue, so the battle on Hirado Island came to an end, and the Fujian Navy had no combat missions to perform there, so he led his troops back to Fukue Island, trying to fight against the Allied Forces. Clear the area before retreating.

The Fujian navy had never been able to get a chance to fight on Hirado Island before, and now all the anger was directed to Fukue Island.Xu Yuzhuo ordered half of the navy to land and join the battle in order to change the serious shortage of combat troops on the island.At the same time, the means of dealing with the people on the island has also been upgraded, recruiting young adults and supplies from various villages, allowing them to participate in the follow-up search operations on the island.

Of course, this kind of recruitment also has certain risks. After all, these local people are unlikely to be obedient, and some of them are even members of the resistance elements. However, Xu Yuzhuo organized these people into small teams and implemented a strict system of consecutive sittings. The author or those who try to escape will be punished directly as spies, and all the people on the same team will be punished accordingly.

Now that completing the task is the top priority, Xu Yuzhuo doesn't intend to show any kindness to these islanders any more, and Haihan didn't impose any restrictions on him this time, so Xu Yuzhuo was ruthless in one step.

On the day Xu Yuzhuo arrived at Fujiang Island alone, the Xu family's army executed more than [-] people on the island, most of them were islanders and captives who were unwilling to cooperate, and some unlucky ones were pulled out purely as props to kill others.

Fujian does not have the same deep obsession with population and labor force as Haihan, and Xu Yuzhuo does not intend to send all the prisoners of war back to the south after the war. If Haihan has no special requirements for this, then of course he will choose to send These hidden dangers are dealt with on the spot, so as not to waste a lot of manpower and food when transporting them back.

Such ruthless tactics really had an immediate effect. Some prisoners who were originally unwilling to cooperate changed their minds on the spot after seeing the execution scene with their own eyes, and were willing to lead the way to the secret stronghold in the mountains for the Xu family army.

Xu Yuzhuo has rich overseas combat experience, and he is not someone who is easily deceived.He knew that there were some captives leading the way in exchange for a chance to survive, but the places these people led were empty, and some inexperienced officers would think that this might be because the enemy had already evacuated the place. , but will not realize that this is a means for the opponent to delay time.Xu Yuzhuo would not leave room for these dishonest guys. He announced that if no trace of the resistance elements was found at the destination, then the guides would still die.

Xu Yuzhuo's harsh methods soon proved effective. After half a day's march, Xu's army found one of the resisters' strongholds in a certain valley on the island, and successfully surrounded more than 200 armed men hiding there.

Xu Yuzhuo didn't waste any more time trying to persuade them to surrender, but directly ordered the attack.Xu's army had an absolute advantage in terms of strength and weaponry, so the encirclement and suppression battle did not take too long.After the battle, Xu Yuzhuo immediately interrogated the captured people. There were only two questions he wanted to know, one was the whereabouts of the commanders of these people, and the other was whether there were other resisters active on the island.

For those who couldn't answer these questions, or were unwilling to answer them, Xu Yuzhuo regarded them as having no need to continue to be detained, and after asking, he would wink and signal his subordinates to drag them away for execution.

The deterrence brought by this extreme interrogation method is also quite strong. Xu Yuzhuo got the answer he wanted after only interrogating five people.The leader who commanded these resisters had died in previous battles, and almost all the resisters who survived on the island are here.

These people were not originally the core troops of the Hirado Domain Army, but some people who were marginalized after Tagawasuke came to power. Most of them were loyal to the former feudal lord, and it was difficult for Tagawasuke to gain the trust of him, so they were sent to Fukue Island. .Naturally, Tagawasuke did not place too much hope on these people. It would be a good thing if the battle could be delayed for a few more days. Even if they all died on the island, Tagawasuke would not feel too much pain about it.

However, Tagawasuke probably never imagined that this army he abandoned would drag more than 1000 enemy infantry on Fukue Island for seven or eight days.If Xu Yuzhuo hadn't personally come to deal with this deadlock, they might have survived until the coalition forces retreated on their own.If he had known such an effect earlier, Tagawasuke would probably have equipped these people with better weapons and more sufficient supplies.

When Xu Yuzhuo was directing the suppression operation on Fujiang Island, Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen finally received the latest instructions from Sanya.Both of them were a little surprised by the resolute attitude expressed by the executive committee in the telegram. They expected that the executive committee would most likely choose to deal with the premise of withdrawing troops as soon as possible, but this time the instruction was a bit unexpected their expectations.

"Who do you think made this decision? Mr. Tao or Mr. Yan?" Shi Diwen asked.

"Lao Yan shouldn't stop here. If he was the one to make the decision, he would probably have to dig out Tian Chuan and his son. However, if we want to continue to prolong this war, we will definitely encounter opposition from many people... According to me In my opinion, this may be a compromise plan proposed by Mr. Tao in order to coordinate various opinions." Although thousands of miles away, Qian Tiandun's speculation is almost exactly the same as the actual situation.If Tao Donglai could hear his judgment at this time, he would definitely applaud him sincerely.

"But this plan doesn't seem to be much easier than fighting a war..." Shi Diwen touched the stubble on his chin, and said solemnly: "We probably have to calculate how many ships are needed to evacuate this place. "

"Evacuate? You are really greedy!" Qian Tiandun laughed and said, "The telegram only said that we should obtain various resources, including population, from the local area as appropriate, and destroy the foundation of Hirado as much as possible, so as to eliminate The opportunity for the remnants of the Eighteenth Zhizhi Party to make a comeback... Do you understand that Hirado Island is completely evacuated?"

Shi Diwen said sternly: "My understanding should be what the executive committee wants to express. I think that since we are unable to complete the previously set combat goals, we should settle for the next best thing and eliminate future troubles as much as possible. To tell you the truth Said, the plan of the executive committee, I have thought about it several times in the past two days."

Qian Tiandun said: "Then you must have a plan in mind?"

"It must be there!" Shi Diwen didn't hide his thoughts: "First of all, we need to calculate how many people and supplies will be transported from the local area, and then calculate the sea transport capacity we can mobilize to Hirado as soon as possible."

If the previous battles these days were a test of the commanding skills of the generals, then this plan, which was almost a house raid, required them to demonstrate their ability in logistics management.

In this field, Shi Diwen's talent and experience are obviously higher than Qian Tiandun's.Since Haihan occupied Zhoushan in 1633, in addition to his status as a naval general, Shi Diwen also had the status of an overseas colonial governor.He has worked in Zhoushan for five or six years, and has rich experience in business, shipping, and civil affairs. His comprehensive ability is indeed better than that of Qian Tiandun, who leads troops overseas all the year round, but does not have many places to govern. Experienced general.

However, the task of evacuating a trading port with a permanent population of several thousand is also a new challenge for Shi Diwen.

"According to the information we found from Tagawa Suke's family, the total population of the Hirado Clan is about 5000, of which about half live on Hirado Island, and 3000% of the island's population lives in Hirado. The urban area near Hugang is roughly estimated to have [-] people. If the population reduction due to the war is subtracted, there are still at least [-] people in the area we occupy. If we want to transport all these people away, we probably need There are more than [-] cargo ships." Shi Diwen took a pen to list the data on paper as he spoke, so that Qian Tiandun could understand his narrative.

Qian Tiandun added: "The total number of islands on the other side of the Wudao Islands should have a population of a thousand."

"You're right, so I need to add a few more ships." Shi Diwen immediately revised his statistics: "This is only the population part, as for the supplies... I think it is enough to transport only the things with higher value , such as the valuable goods shipped here from various countries.”

"That's not a small amount." Qian Tiandun knew that he was currently counting the warehouses near the port area, and the preliminary estimated value of these commodities was at least several 10 taels of silver.Of course, if you want to transport all these things away, you need to prepare enough transport capacity.

"Yes, it's not a small sum!" Shi Diwen nodded, and suddenly a smile appeared on his face: "This time we are going to make a fortune!"

The coalition fleet alone obviously does not have enough capacity to complete this special task, and cargo ships must be dispatched from other places.After summing up, the two decided to mobilize a group of cargo ships belonging to the Ministry of Shipping from Shandong Zhifu Port and Zhoushan Dinghai Port to carry out this task.However, this kind of transfer still needs to coordinate the shipping schedule, and it may be difficult to arrive at the same time, so they can only come to Hirado in batches.

In addition, there are several troop carriers and comprehensive supply ships of the Northern Fleet at the Taedongjiang base in North Korea. It happened that the direction of Liaodong was temporarily quiet during this period, and these ships could be transferred to Hirado to undertake part of the transportation task.

In addition, the resettlement direction of these populations must be considered in advance.There are thousands of people, and they have to consume thousands of catties of food every day. Haihan must not be able to feed these people in vain, so he must arrange their whereabouts in advance, and put them into work immediately when they arrive.

But it is not difficult to solve this problem. There are too many places with labor demand. If these thousands of people are viewed in the context of Haihan, it is far from enough to fill the population needs of various places.Considering the location of Hirado, the next destination for these people and captives should be mainly the area north of the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Naturally, the colonial area under Shi Diwen's rule will be divided. The saltworks in Shipu and Xiangshan have plans to expand, and now a large number of laborers are needed to fill the vacancies.

(End of this chapter)