1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2362
Objectively speaking, it is actually normal for Ma Fan to react like this when facing an armed fleet with unknown purpose. If he greets Wang Tom's fleet enthusiastically, there will be problems instead.However, Shen Xueyi was obviously very worried that his attitude towards Ma Fan would anger Wang Tom, causing the Haihan people to use force, so he quickly comforted Wang Tom, hoping that he would not mind such a tough attitude towards Ma Fan.

"You took the initiative to intercede for Ma Fan. It seems that your Shen family actually does a lot of business here, right?" Tom Wang asked with a half-smile.

Shen Xueyi said sternly: "General, the trade between my country and Japan depends entirely on the operation of the Tsushima Domain. If something happens in this place, the trade between the two countries will inevitably be interrupted, and it will cause a lot of losses to our country. Please also, General Forgive our country's difficulties."

Shen Xueyi didn't mention self-interest at all, and Tom Wang couldn't make fun of him anymore. He nodded slowly and said, "I didn't intend to do anything to Tsushima Fan. You don't have to worry about it. But if you have a chance in the future, you Try to arrange for me to meet the lord of the Tsushima Domain."

Shen Xueyi didn't understand the purpose of Wang Tom's meeting with the lord of Tsushima, but he could only agree first.With Wang Tom's words, at least the Haihan army will not be violent at the moment.

In fact, Wang Tom’s consideration is very simple. Since the Tsushima Fan represents most of the trade between the two countries, if a large number of Haihan products are to be imported into the Japanese market, it may be better to directly negotiate cooperation terms with the Tsushima Fan than to contact Jiang. Household shoguns are more effective.If Tsushima Fan can be dealt with, then perhaps a new market can be won for Haihan.

With such expectations, Wang Tom will naturally not be annoyed by his cautiousness towards the Ma Fan. He believes that since the Tsushima Fan can enjoy both sides between Japan and North Korea and make cross-border trade flourish, then as long as Haihan It provides a viable business plan and generous expected returns, and Tsushima Fan should not mind adding another heavyweight partner.

However, he would definitely not tell Shen Xueyi this kind of plan frankly to an outsider. If he did not need someone more reliable from the North Korean government to make a bridge, he would not even show in front of Shen Xueyi that his visit had no malice against Ma Fan.

It is obvious that there is no way to meet with the ruler of Tsushima Fan now, and Wang Tom doesn't want to waste any more time in this sea area, so he ordered to change the course and head towards the Jeju Strait to the west.

After sailing at sea for another week, the fleet finally returned to the Datongjiang base.So far, Wang Tom's winter voyage has finally come to a successful conclusion.

This trip lasted more than two months and traveled more than [-] miles. The farthest was the Soya Strait, which is [-] miles away from the Korean Peninsula. Along the way, we inspected the west coast of the Japanese archipelago and the east coast of Liaodong. The route basically circled the Sea of ​​Japan. big circle.

When Tom Wang set off, he didn't set any specific goals for this trip, so the whole inspection process can be said to be a relatively relaxed atmosphere. He walked and watched along the way, and he didn't need to perform combat tasks. It was just like a vacation.

Of course, it would be better if the direction of walking was not towards the cold north.After crossing the Tsugaru Strait, they fell into a daily bitter battle against the cold current. During the inspections on the coast of Hokkaido and Liaodong, the sailors suffered a lot.

Through this investigation, the Navy has a clearer understanding of the situation in the surrounding areas of the Sea of ​​Japan, and the map information has also been updated.In particular, several places that Wang Tom has been interested in for a long time, such as Vladivostok and Busan Port, this time I have seen it clearly from the inside out.There are also locations that were not planned, such as Luojin Bay, but became unexpected gains during the investigation.

Of course, in addition to the harvest, it is inevitable that there will still be many regrets.For example, I failed to visit the gold and silver mines on Sado Island; when I arrived at the Soya Strait, due to various considerations, I did not continue to go north to the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Bering Sea, which Wang Tom had always been thinking about; The local environment ended up disappointing.

"It's enviable! I have spent more than two months on the nearby construction site!" Qian Tiandun sighed with a wry smile after listening to Wang Tom's description of the inspection experience: "This is probably the last few years. The most boring winter ever!"

Tom Wang knew what Qian Tiandun meant, and responded with a smile: "Next time you take a vacation, I'll take care of it."

The construction sites mentioned by Qian Tiandun refer to the large-scale projects in the lower reaches of the Datong River in cooperation with the North Korean government.Salt fields, iron mines, coal mines, lumberyards, shipyards... Any one of these industries can be said to be a big deal, but the scale of the corresponding infrastructure project will naturally not be small.Progress on these projects has also been hampered by North Korea's severe lack of funds.

However, after Li Yi rushed back from Sanya last year to succeed him, he has clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with the slow progress of these projects, so North Korea has dispatched a large number of civilian workers to these construction sites in the Datong River Basin this winter, hoping to take advantage of the winter slack season as soon as possible. The infrastructure construction will be completed, and it will be put into operation one after another after the beginning of spring.

Tom Wang left the base with the Haihan fleet for more than two months, so the heavy responsibility of coordinating these projects with North Korea could only fall on Qian Tiandun's shoulders.

Of course, being a supervisor on a construction site is not an interesting job. The North Korean side is in a hurry to rush to work. Qian Tiandun needs to face and deal with a lot of affairs every day. Naturally, there will be no holidays in these two months.

Of course, Tom Wang had discussed the division of labor with Qian Tiandun before leaving, so these complaints were just a joke.

Qian Tiandun said: "I'm afraid that next time you plan to travel far in winter, then I still can't leave even if I want to."

Tom Wang shook his head and said, "I won't go to the north for the time being. The environment there is really difficult, and I have to make complete preparations before taking that step."

Wang Tom had already told Qian Tiandun about his plan to explore the route from the Bering Sea to the North American continent.Qian Tiandun has reservations about this. He believes that with Haihan's current development speed, there is no need to rush across the Pacific Ocean. Instead, it should be based on the East Asian continent, gradually develop southward and westward, and control various strategic locations. and source of resources.

Even if there are conditions to open up the Pacific route, in Qian Tiandun's view, the form is greater than the actual meaning, because with Haihan's development model, there will be no resources allocated to places thousands of miles away, completely isolated from the East Asian continent. Building a colony will hardly help Haihan, on the contrary, it is very likely to split and become independent after the local area achieves self-sufficiency.

Therefore, Qian Tiandun does not support Tom Wang's ambitions, but he will not object directly. After all, the two have been partners for many years and have a close personal relationship. He can roughly understand Tom Wang's obsession with sailing.If he is not allowed to formulate these large-scale navigation plans, then he will most likely resign from the position of naval commander and become a full-time navigator.

Now hearing that Tom Wang gave up his plan to explore the northern route, even if it was only temporarily, Qian Tiandun was greatly relieved.If Wang Tom really does this, it will definitely take more than two or three months, or he will disappear for more than a year, which will definitely have a great impact on Haihan's deployment of troops in Northeast Asia. big impact.

Qian Tiandun said: "You have been out for the past two months, and the military expenditure has been more than our previous operations to sweep the coast of Liaodong. If you want to make such a fuss again, I think the executive committee will probably not approve it."

Wang Tom shrugged and said: "At worst, it can only be turned into a private event. I will send out ships, materials and funds to organize people. The executive committee can't pick the thorns, right?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and did not continue to debate with him.He also knew that Tom Wang was just talking back and forth, and he could still distinguish the priorities.If this kind of thing has to be won or lost, right or wrong, it will only hurt the brother's peace.

Of course, with Wang Tom's ability, it shouldn't be a problem to organize a private fleet to do what he wants to do.But because of his responsibilities, he definitely can't do whatever he wants like ordinary people and play tricks like throwing down the stall and leaving.

"In the past two months, has there been any movement in the Manchu Qing Dynasty?" Of course, Tom Wang also cared about the results of the battle last winter.

"So far, there has been no reaction at all. I think it should be our sap that knocked the opponent out." Qian Tiandun said proudly: "According to the situation we have, the section from Jinzhou to the Yalu River About 400% of the population near the coast was taken away by us in the last operation. This means that most of the [-]-mile coastline will become a no-man's land. I think the rest of the population should be cleared I won’t rest assured that they will continue to live in their original places.”

The mopping up operation against the Liaodong coast a few months ago was more thorough than in the past few years. The Special Forces sent a considerable number of troops to land and encircle and suppress the villages and towns along the coast. Catch it first and then talk.The sluggish response of the Qing army made it basically impossible to take any measures against Haihan's bold move. When the Qing army camp in Daheishan got the news, Haihan had already suppressed all the active places.

This kind of large-scale plundering of people was usually used by the Qing Dynasty on Daming, but Haihan also used it with ease. Those who resisted were killed, and those who obeyed were arrested. Be clean.

Although this did not cause direct damage to the Qing army, it would greatly increase the supply pressure on the Daheishan garrison.For the Qing army, the land passage from Shenyang to the front line of Daheishan is also unsafe. It can only travel along the coast on the Liaodong Bay side of the Bohai Sea, and this is completely within the attack range of the Haihan army. within.

Whether it is to move the immigrant population to the east bank or increase the intensity of transporting materials to the west bank, there are great risks for the Manchu Qing.To solve this problem, the only way to disperse and station more troops along the long coastline is to respond in time to the elusive Haihan Army.

But this means that Chen Bing's strategy on the front line of Daheishan can no longer maintain the strategic balance between the two sides. The Manchu Qing can only mobilize more troops to deploy to the Liaodong Peninsula, stretching the defense line that was originally only a few miles wide to hundreds of miles. .But even if this is done, it may not be able to achieve the desired results. How many troops need to be deployed to form an effective defense for such a long line of defense, and how many supplies are needed for the long-term deployment of so many troops, these will become headaches for the Qing court. The problem.

Perhaps it is precisely because of so many difficult problems that the Manchu Qing did not make a clear response to the current situation. Perhaps it will not be until after the beginning of spring that the Manchu Qing will make adjustments to the deployment of Liaodong.

Wang Tom asked again: "Then how are the people we snatched back settled?"

Qian Tiandun said: "Except for a few young children, more than 1000 Manchurians were all sent to Fushan to mine. If the output of Fushan Copper Mine can increase significantly this year, it is also due to our contribution. The remaining thousands of Han people, After review, some were resettled to Jinzhou nearby, and some were transported to the south, probably to Taiwan Island for reclamation.”

Wang Tom nodded and said: "After the troops rest for a period of time, let's go to the shore of Liaodong Bay to see if there is any wool to gather. This kind of operation has been done several times a year, and Huang Taiji probably won't be in the mood to stare at it anymore. Great Ming in the south."

Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "You have a lot of thoughts, and you come here several times a year. You must know that the Qing army went south to collect the wool of the Ming Dynasty, usually only once a year."

Wang Tom said seriously: "The Qing army went to Daming, and the population they got back was at least tens of thousands. We can't match the efficiency. I think if we move more frequently, then the Manchu Qing will probably have a linkage reaction. Daming will recover the losses."

"You mentioned Daming, but there is a new situation." Qian Tiandun rummaged on the table, and finally took out a page of paper and handed it to Tom Wang: "This is the information sent by the Military Intelligence Bureau a few days ago, and it has been confirmed. When the Qing army went south to attack the Daming border last year, there was a well-organized firearms unit that went into battle, and the weapons they used were not those brought by the Dengzhou rebels before."

"Is it a weapon made by the Hirado clan?" Tom Wang had already guessed the general idea when he heard it, and made a guess while reading the content on the paper.

Qian Tiandun nodded and said: "It is very likely. I have already notified Daming to ask them to send the seized Qing army weapon samples to Jinzhou for inspection. It is estimated that there will be a conclusion soon."

Wang Tom said: "This time when I passed by Hirado Island, I went to the island to have a look. There is basically no sign of recovery there. I think that even if the Hirado Clan still has the ability to manufacture arms, there should be no way to stabilize it in the short term. The production capacity is supplied to the Qing army. Therefore, it is very likely that the Manchu Qing has obtained the production technology of these weapons and achieved mass production."

"That depends on the definition of mass production." Qian Tiandun replied: "The weapon manufacturing technology they can get from the Hirado clan is actually very primitive, and it can only be done completely by hand, and the production efficiency will not be very high. , and the production capacity is not enough to be installed in the army on a large scale."

(End of this chapter)