1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3972

After viewing nearly a hundred realistic paintings and photographs in one go, visitors have unknowingly arrived at the exit of the exhibition.

A large number of visitors also gathered here, but they were not queuing to leave through the exit. Instead, they were drawn to the last exhibit placed at the exit.

This is a geomantic map about one zhang high and more than two zhang wide, covering mainly the Indochina Peninsula and the Indian Ocean to its west, extending to the Suez Canal region that connects three continents and the Mediterranean Sea.

Besides marking the names and boundaries of the various countries in the region, the most striking feature of the map is the presence of several special operations division control areas marked with red and blue flags. These areas are located at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca, the southern end of Ceylon, the southern shore of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, and the western shore of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.

For ordinary people in China, ports like Phuket, Hambantota, Fubo, and Zhenhai are perhaps just overseas place names they occasionally see in newspapers, without any real knowledge of their location.

This huge geomantic map, however, allows ordinary people to see at a glance exactly where the territory that the special forces division has fought hard to acquire overseas in recent years is located.

To give viewers a more intuitive understanding of how far these ports are from the mainland of Haihan, the map also shows the shipping routes between the ports with dotted lines and indicates the distance of the voyage with numbers.

From Sing Tao to Phuket, it's 2,000 li. From Phuket to Hambantota, it's 4,000 li. From Hambantota to Fubo Port, it's 7,000 li. From Hambantota to Zhenhai Port, it's 8,600 li. Between Fubo Port and Zhenhai Port, it's 6,000 li.

This is just the route drawn as a straight line on the map. The actual voyage would certainly not be so ideal, and the distance would definitely be longer than the marked data.

Xingdao, formerly considered the southernmost capital of the Haihan territory, is about 4,000 li (approximately 2,000 kilometers) away from Sanya, a fact that is almost common knowledge. In comparison, one can appreciate just how far the area where the special forces division is stationed is from the Haihan mainland.

Chen Pingliao has a personal understanding of this. When he was a young student, he traveled between Jinzhou and Sanya many times. The distance between these two places is roughly the same as the distance between Sanya and Phuket, which is a little over 6,000 li.

This is already the closest major port to the mainland of Haihan within the Special Operations Division's jurisdiction. Other ports are even further away, requiring ordinary seagoing vessels to risk crossing unfamiliar waters to reach them.

This is why, during the special operations division's expansion on the western front, very few domestic maritime merchants actively cooperated with them to establish long-distance shipping routes. As a result, only the trading fleet of Fu Ruifeng later became the main shipping force in this region, unknowingly forming a near-monopoly.

Many people's first reaction after seeing this geomantic map is how difficult it would be for a single special operations division to defend so many scattered port outposts.

Special operations divisions have achieved remarkable results in overseas battles, so it is imperative to expand their size and increase their troop strength, and it is only natural to increase the military budget.

Someone in the crowd questioned, "With only a few ports, is it really worth it to keep Haihan's elite troops stationed abroad year-round? If we had transferred Commander Qian back to China, we probably would have already taken over the Ming Dynasty completely, right?"

A scholar beside him shook his head and retorted, “Brother, you are mistaken. The Ming Dynasty is practically powerless to resist; it’s just meat in a pot, waiting to be picked up with chopsticks when it wants to eat. The special forces division’s occupation of these territories overseas is a magnificent feat of territorial expansion, which will surely be recorded in history and praised by future generations!” Another person echoed, “When our Haihan Kingdom was founded, we only occupied the port of Sanya. Later, we moved northward along the coastline, and within thirty years, we had achieved this situation. Now that the Executive Committee is advocating the Western Development Strategy, you gentlemen might as well imagine what these places will be like in thirty years.”

At the beginning of its founding, Haihan's development strategy was to occupy some islands and ports along the coastline of the Ming Dynasty, thereby connecting trade routes to the wealthy regions of the Ming Dynasty and absorbing wealth and people from the Ming Dynasty.

If the strategy of special forces divisions occupying these areas is a replication of Haihan's rise to power, then its development prospects are indeed very promising.

As someone who knew the inside story, Chen Pingliao's view of this geomantic map naturally differed from that of ordinary people. He knew that Qian Tiandun's ultimate goal was to occupy the Suez region, dig a canal, and then connect the ports along the way to form a maritime route linking the East and West.

The ports currently occupied by the special operations divisions are all ultimately for the purpose of serving this shipping route.

Of course, Fubo Port, located in the Persian Gulf, has another important task: to guard the most important maritime energy route for the next few centuries. However, that is not the most pressing need at present.

After leaving the exhibition hall, Li Yuande took the initiative to ask Chen Pingliao about his impressions of the exhibition.

Chen Pingliao frankly stated, "I believe that the most urgently needed resource over there is neither capital nor population, nor even an emergency expansion of the military, but rather maritime transport capacity. A large number of ocean-going vessels are necessary to truly connect the ports along the route and form a valuable trade route."

Li Yuande nodded slightly and said, "Your view is the same as Commander Qian's. We have already built a shipyard in Phuket Port, but it is still just a drop in the bucket when it comes to actual needs."

Faced with the huge gap in transportation capacity, Qian Tiandun had no solution that could solve the problem immediately. There were only three options: first, to build factories and manufacture the goods himself to solve the problem at its root, but this would be slow to take effect and would take at least several years to see significant results.

Secondly, buying ships and hiring people to form a fleet is much faster than building a shipyard, but in the long run, it will definitely cost more than building ships from scratch, and it can only alleviate short-term needs.

Thirdly, the introduction of merchant fleets from outside the region is a prime example of this approach. Previously, the long distances hindered investment attraction efforts, but since the inspection tour last year that brought together a group of merchants, the number of ships willing to join the Indian Ocean shipping route has indeed increased significantly. Furthermore, the new policies for the Western Development Strategy announced by the Executive Committee this year may play an even greater role in promoting this strategy.

Li Yuande continued, "The number of ships calling at these ports and the cargo throughput are indeed too small. If one of these ports could reach half the operating scale of Sanya Port, it would be enough to create a regional trade center."

"Currently, maintaining the operation of these ports mainly relies on the domestic trade market. My goal is to increase the capacity of this ocean shipping route as much as possible, so that more people realize that it is profitable to participate."

Chen Pingliao said, "That means that Furuifeng and you will have to give up some benefits, such as the exclusive rights to certain commodities, or even the navigation charts for these routes... Are you really willing to give them up?"

Li Yuande nodded, then shook his head, and slowly said, "Being willing to give it up is not so easy to do."