1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 513 Action Begins

On October 1630, 10, August 3th of the third year of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, off the sea west of Danzhou.

An outrageously large fleet slowly appeared on the sea, heading east to Danzhou Bay.This fleet is actually composed of four smaller fleets. Each fleet is composed of about ten sea-going ships, and each sea-going ship carries armed personnel ranging from 80 to 200 people.Coupled with the logistics ships transporting materials and supplies, as well as the armed ships patrolling and escorting the periphery, the size of the entire fleet is as many as [-] ships, and this is only the troop transport fleet from Annan Catba Island. It does not include the naval fleet that annihilated the Daming Navy in the Beibu Gulf.

In order to achieve the wave of lightning attacks designed by the Military Commission, nearly [-] armed personnel from Annan were also transported to Danzhou at one time for landing operations.This puts extremely high demands on the ship deployment and overall planning capabilities of the shipping department. For this reason, almost all the personnel of the shipping department came out. Yue Zhiyun and Sun Changmi both joined the fleet as the front-line commanders. Even many craftsmen from the Shengli Port Shipyard were sent to Changhua and Danzhou in advance to prepare for emergency repairs on ships that may be in trouble.

In order to allow this huge fleet to arrive in Danzhou without anyone noticing, the militia army imposed a sea ban on the northern coast of Annan five days in advance, and the reasons for issuing the ban are very good: the militia intends to punish The rampant pirates in the Beibu Gulf are fighting. In order to avoid harming the fish in the pond and accidentally injuring innocent people, all ships going to Qiongzhou Island and Daming are prohibited from leaving the port within 20 days.The execution of this order is not too difficult. After all, several major ports in northern Annan are under the control of the militia. The laws issued by the militia are basically golden rules, and no one dares to challenge the authority of the militia in this area.

As for the shielding of the waters near Danzhou, it is relatively troublesome. On the one hand, the spies of the Ministry of Security began to spread rumors on the surface of Danzhou, saying that the main activity area of ​​Annan pirates is outside Danzhou Bay, scaring the timid. The owner of the ship did not dare to sail out to sea at this time.And the various maritime merchants who are closely related to Haihan have also received a secret notice from Haihan, asking them not to send ships in and out of Danzhou Bay in the near future.

On the other hand, several lucky boats disguised as pirate ships in the early stage have also sailed south from the Leizhou Peninsula, cruising off the coast of Danzhou Bay. The early warning point will send the news to the "pirate ship" in the open sea as soon as possible, so that it can solve these potential hidden dangers.Starting from October [-], six warships and two supply ships transferred from Wanshan Port and Hong Kong sailed into the Qiongzhou Strait, and began to monitor and block the sea off Qiongzhou Fucheng.

At the same time as the "Liaoyuan Project" was launched, the office in Guangzhou was not idle.Piracy activities have been rampant in the Qiongzhou Strait recently, and relevant news has already spread to Guangzhou, but the impact here is far less direct than Qiongzhou, so the government and the public are extremely limited in their attention to this.One of the current tasks of the Guangzhou Office is to guide the public opinion in Guangzhou in a direction that is beneficial to Haihan before doing anything.

However, rumors about this group of pirates have become more and more popular in the market recently. There are rumors that this group of pirates is the remnants of Annan's previous dynasty. Nearby that point, but ten times that.The purpose of these pirates harassing Qiongzhou Island was not simply to loot houses and money, but they had already set their sights on Qiongzhou Island and planned to grab it as the foundation of another country.

When this kind of statement first appeared, it was naturally scoffed by the people - looting places is nothing more than nothing, but to attack cities and lands, or even establish a country, no one believed that a group of pirates could have such a great ability.The "Eighteen Zhi" in Fujian is so powerful, with tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of warships, Zheng Zhilong can only stay on Dayuan Island as a pirate?Of course, those who hold this opinion do not know that if Haihan hadn’t been providing military assistance to the Fujian Navy in recent years, according to the original historical track, Zheng Zhilong would have wiped out the Fujian Navy long ago, and then transformed into an official army of the Ming Dynasty. , Since then, it has held control of the southeast coast for several years.

However, soon someone got the first-hand news from the Guangzhou Office, and it quickly spread in Guangzhou City: This group of pirates is not a rabble, and there are a large number of former Annan Army personnel among them, and they also learned from the red-haired man and Fran The robot bought a large number of matchlock guns and artillery, and its level of armament was no less than that of the regular Ming Dynasty army.The Haihan militia and Annan officials have been besieging and suppressing this group of people for a long time, but they still haven't made any significant progress. The fighting has actually emboldened this group of people. The rumors of attacking Qiongzhou Island are not false news. But it is true.

Folk rumors may not be a pity, but if they come from the mouths of Haihan people, it will be different.After all, the Haihan people fought against bandits and pirates on the coast of Guangdong in the past two years, and those were all solid records. The combat power of the Haihan militia was higher than that of the Ming Dynasty's official army, and this was already a common consensus among the people.But if the Haihan people are all holding pirates who can't help it, then I'm afraid it really shouldn't be underestimated.

The boss of Haihan’s representative in Guangzhou, Malikoma, did not just ignore this. He contacted more than 20 big figures in the Guangzhou business district, and jointly signed a letter to the Governor’s Palace, asking Guangzhou to send troops to the Qiongzhou Strait to exterminate this group of very dangerous pirates.Maliko even generously stated that Haihan could send a militia at his own expense to cooperate with the official action.

Of course, the result of the request for instructions did not exceed the expectations of the executive committee. Wang Zunde, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, who was also facing a shortage of funds, did not regard the pirates in the Qiongzhou Strait as a serious problem. They are particularly concerned, and it is very likely that they just want to use this to further expand the scale of the militia armed forces under their name, but this is not the development trend Mr. Wang wants to see.

As for the folk rumors that these pirates were going to capture Qiongzhou Island, Wang Zunde didn't believe it even more. Could it be that all the more than ten thousand officers and soldiers in the eleven guards on Qiongzhou Island were all dead, and they were taken over by a group of pirates so easily.Taking a step back, the Haihan people are all operating on Qiongzhou Island. If pirates land on the island, then the Haihan people should not fight them desperately?Even if the government does not send troops at that time, I am afraid that the Haihan Executive Committee will not be able to sit still, and will naturally send out militia groups to suppress the bandits.At that time, regardless of the casualties on both sides, it will be a good thing for the government.

Sure enough, as the pirates harassed and harassed Qiongzhou more and more frequently, the Haihan people finally couldn't sit still.A few days ago, Maliko held a big banquet at the Canton Office, inviting gentry and wealthy businessmen near Guangzhou, claiming that he would plead for the country and send his own armed forces to wipe out the current bandit of unscrupulous pirates.All the personnel, arming and consumption will be borne by Haihan himself, and the only thing he hopes for the cooperation of the Guangdong business community is not to send ships to Qiongzhou Island in the near future, so as not to be caught in the battlefield and be accidentally injured.After the Haihan militia wiped out the pirates, the route between the two places will be gradually resumed.

Maliko's words in front of the public often have the meaning of "the government has become a coward, but Haihan will never bow to this".And Haihan's "high integrity" has also received strong support from the business community in Guangzhou. Although Maliko said that Haihan will bear the cost of the battle, many businesses with vital interests on Qiongzhou Island still actively donate. In three days, 8 taels of silver were raised, and Li Jifeng, the head of the Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce, handed it over to the Guangzhou Office as military expenses for the Haihan militia dispatch.

This news made the generals of the Daming Garrison in Guangzhou feel a little bit heartbroken. If they had known this, they should have taken the initiative to ask for orders and get the tens of thousands of taels of silver in their hands first.However, at this time, Wang Zunde, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, had already expressed his position that he would not send troops to suppress the bandits for the time being, so the officers and soldiers could only watch helplessly as the Haihan people played such a trick of voluntary fundraising.

The merchants who donated money to Haihan did not cooperate with acting. Most of them did not know the truth, but simply thought that the Haihan people were really planning to fight pirates this time.Only the Li family and a very few people who are close to Haihan know a little bit of the inside story. Haihan's action this time is very conspiratorial, and it is far from ending this band of pirates.

Haihan did what he said, and immediately bought a large number of various supplies and medicines in the Guangzhou market, and as an example, stopped all regular ships to the Sanya area.Wanshan Port and Hong Kong have also begun to enter a state of military control, and everything seems to indicate that a big war is coming.

Just after the Haihan Office in Guangzhou started to act, a secret letter from Qiongzhou Island was also sent to the Jinyiwei Yamen in Guangzhou.This secret letter came from Jinyiwei's Tianzi No. [-] spy stationed in Sanya. Through this secret channel, a large number of Haihan news has been continuously sent to the yamen in the mainland in the past half a year.Although there is not much valuable news in it, the senior officials of Jinyiwei believe that this pawn laid out will come in handy sooner or later—for example, the pirate incident this time.

The information sent by Tianzi No. [-] agent this time can be regarded as the most valuable information he sent back after he settled in Sanya, because the content of the secret letter this time is related to the current piracy incident.

According to the information directly obtained by the spies from a high-level person in Haihan, the plan of this group of pirates to attack Qiongzhou Island has already begun, and the time to launch the offensive is close at hand.And the scale of its battle is probably far bigger than the government imagined. It is not a fight for a city and a pool of land, but a real plan to take the entire Hainan Island and use it as a pirate den.In order to protect their own interests, the Haihan people have all mobilized and are ready to fight a big battle with the pirates.But in order to avoid suspicion, the Haihan people could not send troops in advance to assist the local government in defending the city, and could only wait until the pirates attacked before starting to act.

At the same time, the secret agent also pointed out in the report that the government of several states in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island did not realize the seriousness of the situation at all, and still thought that this was just a small-scale pirate attack. .According to the speculation of the Haihan people, there is a [-]% possibility that the pirates will use a sneak attack to seize the city, but the local government and the defenders obviously lack corresponding vigilance and preparations for this. Lost quickly.

And this secret report confirming that "pirates are about to attack Qiongzhou Island" was of course from Li Qingyang, a Jinyiwei spy who had already defected to Haihan.For the Ming officials, the news from his special channel is far more credible than folk rumors.Moreover, the Ministry of Security has been planning for this for several months. There are almost no loopholes in the whole plan. The wording in the secret report has been carefully considered to ensure that Jin Yiwei will be 100% hooked after getting it.

After the Jinyiwei Yamen in Guangzhou received this secret report, it really attracted enough attention. Qianhu in Guangzhou sent people eight hundred miles to quickly report to the Nanjing Town Fusi, and at the same time notified the Governor's Office of the relevant information.It wasn't until this time that Wang Zunde realized that his previous judgment might have been wrong, and the situation on Qiongzhou Island was far more serious than he expected.However, the Governor's Mansion just made a statement two days ago that it would not send troops, and if it were to change course immediately, it would undoubtedly be a slap in the face.

Just when Mr. Wang was still in a dilemma, Haihan had already started the first step plan - capturing Danzhou.Danzhou is an important town in the northwest of Qiongzhou Island, and it is also the closest voyage to Qiongzhou Island from the Annan coast. In addition, there is a natural harbor here for a large number of ships to enter and dock, which can provide a landing point for a large number of combatants who come from the sea when the offensive is launched. Therefore, when the military formulated the combat plan, it did not hesitate to use this place as the first point of attack.

The vanguard troops led by Mu Xiabo and Feng Annan had sneaked into the west and south of Danzhou in batches on October [-]st.On October [-], when Annan's fleet arrived off the coast of Danzhou, the troops led by the two began to cut off Danzhou's main lines of communication to the east and southwest.

At around ten o'clock in the morning on October [-], the residents of the fishing village near Baimajing gathered by the seaside, watching this huge fleet that had never been seen before sailing into Danzhou Bay in a daze.They had been put under house arrest by a group of unidentified armed men the night before, but unlike the imaginary pirates, these armed men did not kill them, nor did they rob their property, wives and children. It is just that they are not allowed to come and go at will in the near future, and those who leave the village without authorization will be punished as spies.

As long as they could live in peace and stability, no one would foolishly fight against these armed men equipped with knives and guns, so the villagers stayed in the village obediently and became spectators.

(End of this chapter)