1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 374 The reflex arc is slightly longer

Although a breakthrough was made in the final stage, the Haihan people made a small concession, but Ruan Jinggui didn't even have a little bit of happiness in his heart.The superficial concessions of the Haihan people, in disguise, drew a timeline of life and death for South Vietnam—after 30 days, the warships of the Haihan people would appear on the coast of South Vietnam at any time, and the imperial court would probably not be able to use "pirates to make trouble" any more. A far-fetched excuse to fool the people.Moreover, the Haihan people ignored South Vietnam's request to put pressure on North Vietnam and Champa to let them cease the war from beginning to end.

Just one Haihan is enough to make the South Vietnam court feel bad, and there are two undead enemies, North Vietnam and Champa, one in the south and one in the north, who are eager to try and send troops to attack South Vietnam in turn.The high-ranking officials in the court originally hoped that through negotiations, the Haihan people would intervene in the atrocities of the two neighbors, but they never thought that the Haihan people had no intention of allowing this account to have a chance of grace.

During the negotiation period, the executive committee did not impose strict restrictions on his actions. Instead, special personnel took him to visit various places every day, with the purpose of letting him "feel the advanced nature of Haihan's social system."

Ruan Jinggui is just a businessman from a small country. He can compare the advantages of Haihan's social system in a short time. However, in his opinion, the local civil administration system is far stricter than Annan's, and the people's living standards are much higher than Annan's. .Although there are many strange rules here that Ruan Jinggui can't understand, and there are even clear regulations on trivial matters such as whether to keep left or right when walking on the street, he has to admit that the social order here is very good. In Hong Kong, there are no idlers or gangs of beggars begging along the street. Everything seems to be in order.

Although Ruan Jinggui had never been a civil affairs official himself, he was born in a family of officials at any rate. Under his influence, he also knew that such a good social order not only required the maintenance of the legal system, but more importantly, the people's lives were sufficient.If most people don't have enough food and clothing, how can they have the mind to abide by those weird rules?

Under the deliberate arrangement of the Executive Committee, Ruan Jinggui also had close contact with several families of immigrants who moved from An Nanguo.These households have settled in Shengli Port for more than half a year, and they have basically been washed into orthodox Haihan naturalized people. They did not show much surprise at the arrival of the envoy from the motherland, but just introduced them to Ruan Jinggui calmly. Some details of life that interested him.

The five members of Wu Shang’s family were all dragged to Shengli Port by Haihan’s coal ship in Qinghua when they were fleeing the war. In Annan, they were already landless and propertyless, and they could only sell themselves as serfs if they continued to stay. Or being captured as a farmer and soldier is two ways to go, and after coming to Shengli Port, it undoubtedly ushered in a new life for them.

"The chiefs of Haihan will build houses for us, distribute food and clothes, and we will get paid for our work here, and we will be protected by the militia so that we don't have to worry about wars. It's very good here." Talk about your life situation casually.When he was in Annan, he was a bamboo craftsman. After he came to Shengli Port, he continued to resume his old business and made a living by making baskets for the Ministry of Construction.

"But you are Annan people!" Ruan Jinggui couldn't help complaining: "Now the Haihan people want to destroy our country, but you are still working for them!"

Wu Shang looked up at Ruan Jinggui, and said indifferently: "The country? I only know that when our family was about to starve to death outside Qinghua City, the country didn't intend to save us."

"That's the rebels in Thang Long Mansion who don't care about people's livelihood. My Hue Mansion is the orthodox Dali Dynasty, and the country will be restored soon..."

Ruan Jinggui planned to give this foolish people a good ideological and political lesson, and help him reshape the correct historical values, but Wu Shang unceremoniously interrupted him: "When the orthodox court is killing us innocent people, I didn’t show any mercy. My younger brother and younger sister’s family are all honest farmers. As soon as the army from the south came, they robbed his family of food and money, and finally killed his whole family... This kind of court Even if the country is restored, what good will it do for us common people?"

"...You... This is really treason!" Ruan Jinggui was at a loss for words for a while, but he didn't know how to refute, so he could only put a big hat on it.

Earlier last year, South Vietnam launched a counterattack to the north, and there were indeed some cases of looting of the people.As the saying goes, bandits are like a comb, soldiers are like a grate, and officials are like a shave. Ordinary people in the war zone naturally become the targets of looting.However, the South Vietnamese army obviously did not leave any room for the people in the enemy-occupied area. They burned, killed and looted wantonly, causing a large number of people to abandon their homes and properties and flee to the north. one of the root causes.

"The villain is now a naturalized citizen of Haihan, and has obtained the native place of Haihan, and is no longer a citizen of Annan Kingdom. The villain can't afford such a rebellious statement." Wu Shang kept on working, The rhetoric in his mouth was actually the same, which made Ruan Jinggui feel really stuck.

Ruan Jinggui visited several families of naturalized people who were born in Annan, and their reactions were not much different from those of Wu Shang's family.In the eyes of these naturalized people, Sanya, where basic necessities of life can be well guaranteed, is far better than Annan, where there have been wars for many years, and they have not suffered unfairly because of their identities as outsiders after they came here. treatment——Of course, in fact, more than [-]% of the population in the entire Sanya area are outsiders, and there are not many real aborigines.People feel that the treatment they receive here, the surrounding living environment, and future development prospects are far from comparable to those in Annan in the past. Therefore, when Ruan Jinggui asked them whether they would like to return to Annan, they all made it clear that declined.

Ruan Jinggui was very disappointed by this situation. He still had a glimmer of hope that he could instigate a group of Annan immigrants to return to China to join the war. Hope to change the attitude of Haihan people.However, the facts once again dealt him a heavy blow mercilessly. These naturalized people from Annan were not only unwilling to return to the country to join the war, but instead vented all their grievances about leaving their hometowns on the ruling court.If the attitude of ordinary people is like this, let alone those in the army.

Ruan Jinggui finally had the opportunity to visit the big iron dragon that made his heart shudder at close range. Only then did he realize that this thing is not a living thing, but some kind of mechanical device made of fine iron. As for why it can move along The railway track laid on the ground is moving fast, but Ruan Jinggui doesn't understand the principle.Seeing that there are many ordinary people riding in the car, it is obvious that this thing is not driven by some mysterious magic.

Then Ruan Jinggui was taken aback by the goods unloaded from the train. A carriage was full of artillery, rifles, ammunition, various armors, knives and guns.Most of these weapons will be sold to Xu Xinsu in Fujian and the North Vietnamese military, and a small amount will be supplied to the militia groups of the major shareholders of "Qiong Lianfa".Seeing such a scene, Ruan Jinggui was almost convinced that the firearms troops that appeared in Champa Kingdom recently must also be armed by Haihan people.

Of course, this was not an unintentional mistake of the relevant department, but it was intentionally shown to Ruan Jinggui.It is no longer a secret that Haihan's business of selling arms to outsiders is no longer a secret. After the Lijiazhuang battle, everyone in Guangdong and Guangxi knows that Haihan, who can make glass, is also a good man-made weapon.However, for South Vietnam, which has been isolated from the Haihan system, perhaps they still lack an intuitive understanding of Haihan's weapon manufacturing capabilities, so the relevant department arranged such an opportunity for Ruan Jinggui to learn about Haihan's from the side. Military strength.

All the firearms in South Vietnam basically come from the Portuguese, and they have no manufacturing capabilities themselves, but the strength of the Haihan people in manufacturing weapons far exceeds that of the Portuguese.Seeing the black cannons unloaded from the train to the flatbed truck, and then transferred to the dock for loading, Ruan Jinggui was really jealous.The South Vietnamese imperial court tried every means to buy artillery pieces from the Portuguese every year. The total number of pieces and pieces added up was only about [-] pieces, while the North Vietnamese merchant ship with the "Zheng" flag at the port loaded [-] guns in one go. With two cannons on board and dozens of boxes of guns, comparing people to people is simply pissing people off.

With the support of the arsenal of Haihan behind North Vietnam, there is no need to worry about their supply of weapons and equipment being cut off. They are even buying more weapons and preparing to continue attacking South Vietnam.Now South Vietnam has lost Portugal, a big supplier, and is about to fall into the stage of running out of ammunition and food.The gap in the level of armed forces between the two sides is constantly widening. This reality made the already pessimistic Ruan Jinggui even more depressed.

At the end of October, Ruan Jinggui left Victory Port full of disappointment, and returned to Hue, South Vietnam on a sailboat specially dispatched for him by the Ministry of Shipping.Apart from gaining a little consideration period for the South Vietnamese court, this visit was basically lackluster.And Ruan Jinggui was also devastated by the cruel reality he saw with his own eyes. He only hoped that after returning to Hue, he could use his personal experience to calm down the senior officials in the court to look at the current situation.

But at this time, the executive committee has no energy to care about how the South Vietnamese court will react to such a negotiation result, because there are some new trends in Guangdong that they have to pay attention to.

On the same day that Ruan Jinggui left Shengli Port, the Executive Committee received a telegram notification from the Guangzhou Office, saying that "Eighteen Zhi" had sent envoys to contact them and asked Haihan to stop exporting arms to Fujian.

To be honest, "Eighteen Zhi" didn't start to react until this time, which surprised the Executive Committee.Fujian Xu Xinsu's troops have gradually begun to use Haihan weapons on the battlefield since the second half of last year, and relying on these sharp weapons to slowly restore the decline, causing a lot of casualties to the armed personnel of "Eighteen Zhi" .Originally, Xu Xinsu had died in the Zhongzuo Institute this year in history, but now he is alive and well, and because he defeated the pirates many times this year, he was rewarded by the court for this.

It is impossible for the "Eighteen Zhi" who was hit hard not to think about the reasons for the change in the battle situation, and the firepower of the defenders has obviously been greatly strengthened. This is why the "Eighteen Zhi" organized several large-scale offensives but failed The main reason for returning from success.Based on the intelligence network of the "Eighteen Zhi" in the Fuguang coastal area, it is not very difficult to find the source of these sudden big killers in the opponent's camp. The executive committee once thought that the most optimistic estimate could be concealed In the first half of this year, especially in May, the militias made continuous attacks. After rescuing Lijiazhuang, they took over the Dangan Island pirates' den at the mouth of the Pearl River. They have almost completely exposed their strength to the surface. As long as the senior officials of "Eighteen Zhi" are not deaf or blind, they should have already discovered that there is an inevitable connection between the sudden rise of the Fujian Navy and Haihan.

However, the "Eighteen Zhi" did not send a large number of pirate ships to harass the Pearl River Estuary and even attack Wanshan Port as the Executive Committee feared. Instead, they kept a strange silence until a few months later, they suddenly jumped He came out and offered Haihan a condition.

Regarding the sale of arms to the Xu Xinsu Department of the Fujian Navy, the Guangzhou Office neither admitted nor denied it.After discussing with He Xi, the local first and second in command, Mariko decided to send the news back to Shengli Port first, so that the base camp could make preparations.They used the usual Tai Chi techniques in the local area to fool the "Eighteen Zhi" people first, and slowly obtained information.

Regarding the fact that the "Eighteen Zhi" with a long reflection arc finally responded, the executive committee still attaches great importance to it. Two hours after receiving the news, the executive committee held an emergency meeting to discuss what should be done. How to deal with this.

"Are they going to come here before the soldiers?" Ning Qi, who had just heard about this, was a little puzzled by the attitude of "Eighteen Zhi": "Can I understand their attitude as fear of us?"

"Perhaps there is a reason for what you said." Tao Donglai nodded and said, "Our several battles in the first half of the year, especially the two battles in Guangdong, have made us famous. It is no secret that the Haihan Militia Interested people can easily find out about our combat situation. Although the "Eighteen Zhi" is very powerful in the Fujian waters, after all, their base is in Taiwan, which is too far away from the Pearl River Estuary or Sanya. With Xu Xinsu dragging them over there, it is obviously not a wise move to make an expedition at this time. If I were in Zheng Zhilong's position, I would probably use the method of negotiation first to test the opponent's attitude."

"I would like to add one more point." Schneider went on to say following Tao Donglai's point of view: "So far, we have not had any direct armed conflict with 'Eighteen Zhi', nor have we shown any direct hostility. The only thing that is not good for them is the military aid to the Xu Xinsu Group. At present, 17% of our foreign trade orders are from Fujian. "Arrangement for merchants in the mainland. Do you remember the group of pirates that the militia wiped out on Dangan Island in May? They have been reselling our products to the 'Eighteen Zhi'. There must be more than one doing this kind of thing." One family, and 'Eighteen Zhi' probably doesn't want to be cut off from the supply of some in-demand commodities because of their bad relationship with us."

"That is to say, on the one hand, they resent us for selling weapons to Xu Xinsu, which spoiled their good deeds, but on the other hand, they are not willing to offend us directly, to prevent us from directly intervening in the war in Fujian, and cutting off the supply to them source of goods." Ning Qi suddenly realized: "That's why they struggled for such a long time, and finally couldn't help but explode."

"It took so long to jump out and express our opinion. There may be other reasons that we don't know now. It is one thing to try to figure out the opponent's intentions. On the other hand, we must also be prepared for emergencies. After all, this is We have identified a major opponent before we crossed, and we must concentrate on dealing with it." Tao Donglai brought the topic back to the main thread, looked at the executive committee members present and said: "If the opponent's attitude is tough, then we It should be ready to fight in advance!"

In the preparatory plan before the crossing, the "Eighteen Zhi" has already been listed as one of the main hostile forces listed by the executive committee.Although so far, "Eighteen Zhi" has not had any hostile behavior towards Time Travel Group, but it is impossible for the Executive Committee to regard it as a future partner.For opponents like Portugal, the Executive Committee can turn enemies into friends and choose cooperation for long-term interests, but for the "Eighteen Zhis" entrenched in the Taiwan Strait, the Executive Committee has never intended to ease the relationship between the two parties.

On the one hand, this is because the "Eighteen Zhi" occupies the Taiwan Strait, the golden waterway in East Asia, and has a fundamental conflict of interest with the future development plan of the Crossing Group.In the future, the forces of Haihan will definitely expand northward along the coastal areas of Fuguang, and the importance of such vital parts as the Taiwan Strait has far surpassed the waters of the Pearl River Estuary. It is impossible for the Executive Committee to let outsiders hold it in their hands. It is also impossible for the "Eighteen Zhi" to voluntarily give up the territory. It is only a matter of time before the two sides clash over the control of this sea area.

On the other hand, it is Zheng Zhilong's integrity that has been criticized by later generations.This guy first followed the pirate merchant Li Dan, and later worked for the Dutch, attacking Spanish merchant ships at sea, and then took refuge in Taiwan's pirate leader Yan Siqi. Changing his family is faster than turning a book. When Yan Siqi and Li Dan passed away in 1625, Zheng Zhilong inherited part of their family business and raised the banner of "Eighteen Zhi".

After the incident, Zheng Zhilong gathered a crowd to attack Fujian, and almost wiped out the entire Fujian navy. After the battle, he transformed himself, accepted the imperial court's offer, and went ashore smoothly.However, the first thing this guy did after he landed was to lead the original department to kill the former sworn brothers, and annexed the power of other pirate leaders of the "Eighteen Zhi" by the way.

　Everyone, check if there are any monthly tickets that you forgot to cast, and don't waste them.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)