1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2388
From an objective point of view, the secret operation planned and directed by Geng Zhongming and organized by Hulusha is actually very powerful. It has pinpointed the loopholes that will inevitably appear in Daming and Haihan in this special period, and Hulusha and his gang The disguised identity is also almost seamless.If it hadn't been for the sudden incident in Zhaoyuan County, they would not have been noticed even if they crossed the border under the nose of the Haihan army.

Although Gong Shiqi and Sun Zhen laughed and said that even if this group of people sneaked into Fushan County, they would be screened out in the refugee camp, but in fact they all knew in their hearts that if they were really allowed to enter Fushan County, the risks would be caused In fact, it is uncontrollable.But luckily, they were lucky enough to intercept this group of people in Zhaoyuan by accident, and the Qing army's conspiracy was resolved without much effort.

But what they didn't expect was that this battle won Haihan a good reputation among the refugee community.The reason is also very clear. After the operation, the Haihan army displayed the weapons hidden by the gangsters in time, confirming that the true identities of the gangsters were not ordinary people.Moreover, the Haihan army's arrests were very restrained, and Chiyu was basically not affected. This also made the refugees believe that the approach of these armed men persuading them to go to Fushan County was credible.

It must be pointed out that the restraint shown by the Haihan army when they arrested Hu Lusha and his gang was not necessarily because they were worried about harming the innocent, but because Sun Zhen brought out only one platoon of people at that time, it was difficult Round up the enemies who fled to the refugee-inhabited area, so they basically stopped, and only those who were surrounded by cavalry at that time were captured and closed.

A few people mixed in among the refugees who were thousands of times larger than this, and it was really not easy to catch them out again.But if the Haihan army had enough troops to mobilize at that time, then Sun Zhen would not have given up the follow-up arrest so easily, maybe he would have turned the refugee settlement outside the county upside down.

After completing the interrogation of Hu Lusha and others, Sun Zhen asked the propaganda officer to disclose the true identities of these people, and offered rewards for catching other fish who slipped through the net.Although it is currently impossible to draw a wanted warrant, Sun Zhen is convinced that the high reward silver will make those people invisible. Even if they cannot be caught immediately, at least they will actively reduce their contact with other refugees, let alone continue to fight. Execute the original plan.

The Qing army spies appeared in Zhaoyuan County. This news was undoubtedly a reminder to the fleeing people. They never expected that they had escaped so far across the state and government, but they still could not escape the pursuit of the Qing army.Although these spies have been caught and killed, it seems that they can no longer cause trouble, but God knows if there are other Qing army spies lurking in the dark waiting for an opportunity.

Under the conscious guidance and propaganda of the Haihan Army, Zhaoyuan County is obviously no longer a safe area, and it seems that we have to leave here and continue eastward.Fushan County, which the Haihan army has repeatedly promoted these days, seems to be a relatively safe place. Although it seems to be under the control of the foreign army, the Haihan army, at least there is no more terrifying Qing army there.

In this chaotic world, the most important thing is to find a peaceful place to live. Many people don’t care whether they can get the treatment that the Haihan people claim after going to Fushan County. Stay in the county, maybe one day the Qing army will really fight over, and it will be too late to run away.

Although it was an unexpected incident, the timing of the incident gave Sun Zhen and his party a chance to change the situation. They just followed suit and followed the trend, which gave the local refugees the motivation to go to Fushan County.

In Fushan County, a hundred miles away, Chen Yixin and Hao Wanqing were also discussing the telegram from Zhaoyuan County.

"Sun Zhen is really a lucky general! Every time he is assigned a task, he can always come up with something different!" Chen Yixin couldn't help sighing after reading the telegram Sun Zhen sent back.

He originally asked Sun Zhen to go to Zhaoyuan County to set up an outpost to guide refugees, but he did not expect that within a few days after Sun Zhen went out, he would catch a group of Qing army spies there, and they were all Han Chinese from Shandong. These people sneaked into Fushan County quietly, and the consequences were really unimaginable.

Hao Wanqing said: "The most urgent thing is to send people to Zhaoyuan to bring those prisoners back, and have a careful trial to confirm whether the Qing army still has such a secret plan!"

Sun Zhen only has a company of troops, and he will have to deal with tens of thousands of refugees later on. Obviously, it is impossible for him to send troops to escort the prisoners, so Fushan County can only send troops to carry out this task. .

Chen Yixin said: "Then take this opportunity to transport some supplies to Sun Zhen."

Sun Zhen's telegram was limited in space, and only talked about the capture of the spies, but did not mention that he had received several thousand catties of grain aid from the local government, and that three carts of grain were confiscated during the capture of the Qing army spies.The combined harvest of these two transactions was more grain than what they had brought from Fushan County, enough to support their stay in Fushan County for another forty or fifty days.

Hao Wanqing said: "Although Sun Zhen has arrested a group of people, we still can't confirm whether there are spies in the refugee camp. I will go to the refugee camp later and make some arrangements. Even if someone really sneaked in, You can't let them cause trouble in the refugee camp. Also, the local troops may not be enough to deal with the subsequent refugee influx. I suggest that some troops be transferred from other places, so hurry up!"

Chen Yixin nodded and said, "Then our thoughts coincide with each other. I'm planning to notify North Korea and send some troops over to help."

Haihan's troops stationed in the north are mainly deployed in Jinzhou in Liaodong, Fushan County in Shandong, and Datongjiang Base in North Korea. Among them, Fushan County is the place with the least garrison troops.This time, the infantry battalion led by Sun Zhen was also transferred from North Korea to stabilize the situation first.But judging from the current trend of the situation, it is obvious that the troops brought by Sun Zhen cannot guarantee the safety of Fushan County, and it is necessary to increase the troops as soon as possible.

Although the situation in Liaodong was a little tense because Haihan refused the Manchu truce, Haihan was defending the local area. As long as he guarded the isthmus line of defense and did not take the initiative to attack, even if the Qing army launched a large-scale offensive, it was unlikely that the Qing army would be able to attack in just a few days. Conquer the dangerous terrain of Jinzhou within a few days.

The civil strife in North Korea has basically subsided, and there is no need to station a large number of troops there to maintain domestic stability. Instead, some troops can be mobilized to Fukuyama County for emergency.

Of course, it is not enough to just go in and out. Fushan County has a limited carrying capacity, and it is necessary to transport refugees out to other places at the same time as the arrival of refugees from Shandong, so as to realize the resettlement in other places.

At present, dozens of civilian ships from Jinzhou and North Korea have gathered at Zhifu Port. In addition to local ships of all sizes that can go to sea, there are about a hundred sailboats that can undertake the task of transporting refugees to the south.However, this kind of transportation capacity seems to be a lot, but for the large number of refugees who will appear in Fukuyama County, there will still be insufficient transportation capacity.

Chen Yixin said: "Shi Diwen sent a telegram. The first batch of ships set off from Dinghai Port yesterday. There are about [-] ships. More ships will be dispatched from Fujian, Penghu, Taiwan and other places in the future. , formed a fleet and rushed to Shandong. In addition, the ships from the south will also bring the food, medicine, tents and other materials we need, and we will get better after ten days and a half months."

Hao Wanqing said with a smile: "Presumably all the places have heard the news that there are a large number of refugees in Shandong, and they all acted overnight!"

"Yeah, I want to come here earlier, so I can pull more people away!" Chen Yixin echoed with a smile.

The overseas colonies of Haihan are so active in their actions, of course it is not for doing good deeds to relieve refugees.All the colonies under Haihan's rule have a common need, which is population, which is the real scarce resource for Haihan.

Compared with races from other countries and regions, the difficulty for Han people from Ming Dynasty to integrate into Haihan is undoubtedly the lowest. Therefore, the main channel for Haihan to obtain population has been to seek immigrants from Ming Dynasty through various channels.But in peacetime, not so many people are willing to leave their hometowns and settle overseas. The number of immigrants that can be collected is far from meeting the development needs of Shanghai and Han. The cost of attracting talents in specific fields or with special skills is very high. high.

The cheapest way to obtain immigrants is undoubtedly war refugees.Whether it is the large number of Annan refugees obtained from the Annan Civil War in the early days, or the Shandong and Liaodong refugees obtained from the north of the Ming Dynasty later, they are all models of this type of operation.

Most of these refugees have taken root in Haihan and contributed to the rapid rise of Haihan.However, the industry and agriculture that Haihan focuses on are all labor-intensive industries, and there is a huge gap in the required labor force, which will almost never be enough for a day.In particular, the overseas colonies that started relatively late require a large amount of labor to complete the initial infrastructure construction, farmland and other major projects, and their thirst for population far exceeds that of Haihan.

Generally speaking, these Haihan colonies located in the surrounding areas of Ming Dynasty used the methods of introducing immigrants to cross the sea.However, once encountering an ultra-low-cost population source such as war refugees, each colony will not hesitate to fight for it.

For example, when North Korea was invaded by the Qing army the year before last, many Haihan ships rushed to the line of the Datong River silently, coaxing and deceiving many North Korean refugees from the local area.And the Joseon court was not unaware of this, but at that time they asked Haihan, and they didn't dare to argue with Haihan on these trivial issues, so they could only pretend to be ignorant.

In recent years, the Haihan army has continuously carried out raids and harassment wars on the coastal areas of the Liaodong Peninsula. During this period, a large number of people were captured from the areas occupied by the Manchu Qing. Some of these people later flowed into the southern colonies through various channels.

Part of this is relocation in different places organized by civil affairs agencies to ensure that the proportion of the population in each place will not be out of balance.The other part is the population that each colony obtained directly from the northern colonies through resource exchange.Whether it is the military or the colonies in the north and south, they can get what they need from it.

This time, the situation also followed the old practice. The colonies who got the news organized their own transport capacity to go to Zhifu Port, and the food and other living materials carried by these ships were resources used to replace refugees.

After these materials arrive in Shandong, they will be placed in local refugee camps while serving as replacements, so as to ensure the smooth operation of Shandong's refugee resettlement system.Sufficient material supplies will also convince the refugees that the overseas resettlement plan promised by Haihan officials is a credible and feasible option, so that the refugees can calmly accept the arrangement to leave Shandong and settle in unknown areas.

Of course, not everyone is willing to accept such a unilateral arrangement. Many refugees just want to have a chance to survive in Fukuyama County and return to their hometown after the weather calms down.As for selling this life to Haihan and settling in the distant Haihan country, most of them would not agree with such an approach.

Therefore, the propaganda information received by the refugees after arriving in Fushan County is particularly important. Haihan must convince these panicked people that the only way out to ensure their personal safety is to take the boat provided by Haihan. Go overseas to settle in the "paradise".

The propaganda methods used during this period, in addition to the various eye-catching slogans outdoors, also included the content that the propaganda officers kept repeating all the time, such as the crisis of the current situation in Daming, the generous immigration of Haihan, etc. The treatment, as well as the testimony of the old immigrants who have made a fortune in Haihan and made a fortune on a smooth road, constantly aroused the emotions of the refugees, making them believe that Haihan, which is stronger and richer than Ming Dynasty, is the one that can really provide them with a better life prospect. where.

As for the effectiveness of these propaganda methods, it largely depends on the skills of the operators.Chen Yixin transferred Liu Shang back to Shandong from Jinzhou because he took a fancy to his experience and ability in this field.

And Liu Shang did not disappoint him. After arriving in Fushan County, he immediately devoted himself to the expansion project of the refugee camp. While working as a supervisor, he trained the local propaganda officers and taught them how to prescribe the right medicine to target the refugee population. Various issues are properly dealt with.

And these skills are not even what Liu Shang learned when he was trained in Sanya, but the experience he has accumulated after working in these northern colonies for several years. Those civil affairs officials he took classes with.Coupled with Shanghai Han's already mature immigration operation system, there will not be many refugees who will explicitly oppose the immigration plan for overseas resettlement.

The few refugees who are still unwilling to accept overseas resettlement can only earn food for themselves by working part-time. Once the three-year and five-year miner contracts are signed, they are immediately sent to the nearby copper mines to work as humanoid excavators. .There are Haihan troops stationed there, so it will not be so easy to escape in the future.

(End of this chapter)