1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 555

Li Nai still had something to go to Guangzhou to deal with, so he didn't send them to the pier to board the ship himself, he just asked a steward to guide them, and also helped them carry the wooden boxes containing the gifts.

It was already dark when they arrived at Lijiazhuang last night, and it was only when they went out early this morning that they could see the true appearance of the place clearly.The main road in Lijiazhuang is only one foot four five wide, and the two cross-shaped main roads, one east-west and one north-south, are all paved with cement, which looks very smooth.There are street trees at the same distance on both sides of the road, and there are small flower beds, stone benches, stone tables, gazebos and other facilities every ten feet or so along the street. The environment is by no means seen in ordinary farm manors.

After Yan Mingjun saw it, he couldn't help but praised a few words, and the steward replied proudly: "The layout and construction of the two arterial roads in this village are all copied from the landscape avenue of Shengli Port in Sanya, and hundreds of laborers were dispatched. It cost more than [-] taels of silver and took nearly a year to complete."

"It turns out that the place where the Haihan people live is like this!" Yan Mingjun replied with a sudden realization.

But the steward shook his head and said: "The masters of Haihan have a lot of handwriting. This village is just imitating, but it can't copy the original appearance of Sanya. If the two adults go to Sanya in the future, they will naturally understand."

When Li Nai saw the landscape avenue built by Haihan in Shengli Port, he felt very satisfied, so he asked an artist to paint it and took it back to Lijiazhuang. After obtaining the consent of his father Li Jifeng, he remodeled it according to the style of the landscape avenue in Shengli Port The main road in the village of Lijiazhuang.Of course, the design and organization of the construction was partly done by the Haihan Construction Department.As for the cement used here, it was all shipped by "Furuifeng" from Shengli Port by deploying its own ships. Anyway, the fortifications of Lijiazhuang also need to use a lot of cement, and it is not a big problem to transport eight or ten more ships.

For other companies to engage in such a large project, more than 2 taels of silver would definitely not be able to do it.Relying on his relationship with Haihan, Li Nai directly pulls the goods from the cement kiln at a price close to the cost price, and then transports them back to Lijiazhuang by himself, so the cost can be controlled to this level.Some wealthy businessmen who came and went here felt the same after seeing the results of the reconstruction of Lijiazhuang. The project of Lijiazhuang has greatly promoted the development of Haihan cement industry.Of course, compared with Sanya's landscape avenue and Shengli Fort, it is indeed insignificant, and the amount of engineering is far behind, which is not what Lijiazhuang can afford.

Li Jin suddenly said: "This road is obviously more than one foot wide, why does no one walk in the middle, and everyone walks to the side?"

"Lord Li, this is to leave enough space for the carriages and horses that need to move fast to pass through the middle. Besides, have the two adults noticed that walking on this road is on the right side of the direction of travel. It is also to keep the traffic smooth, so that there will be no congestion on this road even when you go to work early in the morning." The manager explained enthusiastically.

Jun Ming said: "I guess you learned this from Hai Han?"

"Indeed." The steward has also followed Li Nai to the Sanya area many times, and has long been a fan of Haihan, just like his master. Whenever he has the opportunity, he spares no effort to promote Haihan's various advancements to others.

Walking out of the gate tower at the entrance of Lijiazhuang, Yan Mingjun noticed a large residential area only one mile away.This residential area is full of neat and uniform wooden houses, stretching westward row by row, and there is no end in sight from Lijiazhuang.

Yan Mingjun asked suspiciously, "Where is that place?"

The steward explained: "That is the Lijiazhuang immigrant camp, and the people who live there are all people who will take a boat to Qiongzhou Island to settle down later. These people come from all over Guangdong, and some from Huguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian They moved here. Anyone who wants to earn a living can just sign up here. After they go to Qiongzhou Island, the Haihan people will arrange things for them to do, with food, housing, and salary. It's better to be a refugee."

"This place is so big, it should be able to house three to four thousand people, right?" Li Jin and Yan Mingjun had a different perception. The first time he saw this camp, he looked at it from a military perspective, even though the camp hadn't been built yet. What defensive measures, but Li Jin can still see that the layout of the barracks here has the taste of a military camp.

The manager replied: "If you are busy, 5000 people can barely accommodate you. But generally keep it within 3000 people. Haihan will send boats to transport people away on a regular basis. Those who follow the adults' fleet to the south today will There are at least two migrant boats."

"If two to 3000 people are transported away every month, then the speed of population accumulation is really scary!" Yan Mingjun was indeed shocked when he heard the number in the official report.

It is very common for a large family to buy a large number of servants, hire servants and long-term workers, etc., but I have never heard of any family that can attract thousands of people to their own homes.He had heard about Haihan's solicitation of immigrants before when he was a co-prefect in Luoding Prefecture, but he never imagined that the scale would be so large.

Yan Mingjun thought that after the tens of thousands of people were transported to Qiongzhou Island, they would have to arrange food, accommodation and work. How big the business of the Haihan people must be to support such a large population.In addition, after these people went to Qiongzhou Island, most of them should have been helping the Haihan people to farm and work, but I am afraid that many people chose to join the Haihan militia and be the swords and guns in the hands of the Haihan people.

In addition, Yan Mingjun also thought of another problem that may be caused by the large population influx into Qiongzhou Island. The number of these immigrants who obeyed Haihan's orders may be approaching and catching up with the local residents.If the number of Haihan immigrants has exceeded the original population, who is the real power holder in the area?The population of Danzhou is about 4 according to the statistics in the Tianqi period. It is said that many people have relocated in the past few years. The main direction of migration is to go to Qiongnan Sanya to work for the Haihan people.One can imagine the local situation in Qiongnan, most of the people have already taken orders from Haihan.

Thinking of this, Yan Mingjun couldn't help feeling more and more pessimistic about the prospect of taking office. Compared with the Haihan people's means of gradually growing themselves and cannibalizing Daming, Daming doesn't seem to have any effective countermeasures.If one day the Haihan people raised their flags to rebel, how many people on Qiongzhou Island would respond to the court's call and rise up against Haihan?
With such a mentality in mind, Yan Mingjun returned to the boat a little unhappy.His family rested at the guest house at the pier last night, but they had already returned to the boat. Seeing that he was in a bad mood after returning, they thought that something unpleasant happened to Lijiazhuang last night.Yan Mingjun didn't bother to explain, and when someone came to inform the boat to sail, he just nodded to indicate that he knew.

The fleet left Lijiazhuang Wharf, turned around slowly and continued south along the Pearl River waterway.After walking on the river for more than an hour, Yan Mingjun finally let go of the depression in his heart for a while, and got out of the cabin and came to the deck.

Li Jin lay on the side of the boat and looked left and right. When he saw Yan Mingjun coming out, he hurriedly greeted him: "Brother Yan, come and see this sailing boat of Haihan, it's really a novelty!"

Yan Mingjun walked to the side of the ship according to his words, and together he observed the two Haihan warships accompanying the convoy escort.The most intuitive difference in shape between this kind of boat and Chinese sailboats is the sails, which use soft sails, but there is a layer of scaffolding outside the soft sails, which is different from Western sailboats.

Li Jin seemed to want to test Yan Mingjun, and asked, "Brother Yan, can you see anything different about this Haihan sailboat?"

Yan Ming Jun said: "Although I don't know the art of shipbuilding, the mast of this Haihan sailing ship seems to be much higher than ours, and the sails used are also larger than ours, but the materials used are lighter. It seems to be easier to adjust to wind direction than ours."

"What Brother Yan said is true. In addition, look at the draft position of the bow of their ship. The blade-like ram is not vegetarian. I guess it is mostly made of fine steel. If it is a smaller ship , was hit by this ram at full speed during melee combat, and I'm afraid it would be torn to pieces immediately." Li Jin added.

Although Li Jin's major is not navy, he still has the basic vision as a soldier.Aside from the terrifying firepower possessed by the warship, Li Jin believed that the strength of the Haihan warship was probably no less than the main warship of the Ming army based on the details that could be observed now.

"It is said that the Haihan sailboat is traveling at an extremely fast speed. If we just follow our fleet, I am afraid we will not have the chance to see them advancing at full speed." Li Jin said regretfully.

The speed of this fleet of alternate officials was extremely slow, even though it was going down the river, it only kept at about four or five knots.Therefore, although the fleet departed from the Lijiazhuang Wharf in the early morning, when the sky was getting dark, they could barely reach Wanshan Port, the second stop of the journey.

If the normal voyage arrangement is followed, of course, it is also possible to continue sailing south overnight.However, the voyage arranged by Haihan is as slow as possible, and if it is delayed by one day, Qiongzhou Island will have one more day for layout.Therefore, several stops were set up during this voyage, and we tried to arrange a rest in port at night.

Wanshan Port has become well-known in recent years. In addition to becoming an important maritime transshipment and supply port in the Pearl River Estuary, another important reason is the battle in the waters near Wanshan Port at the end of the first year of Chongzhen. The fierce naval battle made the navy of the Haihan Militia famous.From then on, no armed forces in the Pearl River Estuary dared to show off their might and regard themselves as masters—this also included the naval forces of the Ming Dynasty stationed near the Pearl River Estuary.

At the beginning of the Wanshan Port naval battle, many sea merchants witnessed the whole process in the port at that time, so the people's understanding of this battle is relatively complete.In addition, there have been merchant ships and civilian ships entering and leaving here for a long time, so there are not many secrets at all.Although the alternate officials are almost here for the first time, they have basically heard of the name of this place, and they also know that the coastal defense fort here is said to have the most powerful firepower in the Pearl River Estuary area.

But when they actually saw the fortifications built on the mountains at the north and south ends of the port when they entered the port, they had a more real feeling for these statements.Seeing the muzzles pointing at the entrance of the harbor one after another in the setting sun, each of them is close at hand, it seems that it is not difficult to imagine what kind of blow the pirate Liu Xiang's fleet encountered after rushing in here.It was rumored that the number of pirate ships sunk in this small harbor was as many as double digits, and the casualties were even more numerous.It's no wonder that Liu Xiang fled back to the coast of Fujian in one breath, and being attacked by such fixed forts and movable forts on warships, even thinking about it would feel like a nightmare.

However, their attention was quickly attracted by the ships docked in the harbor.It's not about how many ships are crammed into this small harbor. After all, Wanshan Port is limited, and there are at most [-] or [-] ships berthed, and any more may congest the channel.What really attracted their attention were the two large sailing ships docked at an independent pier on the left side of the channel.

"The Haihan people... unexpectedly... still have this large warship!" Li Jin felt that something was stuck in his throat, and he said these words intermittently.

At this time, Yan Mingjun was already a little bit from ear to ear because of surprise, he just stared blankly at the two boats on the shore.

There are two "expedition-class" warships docked at the Wanshan Port Military Wharf. Of course, they did not appear here for no reason, and they also came here for this batch of alternate officials.In the next voyage, the two ships will escort the official convoy until it reaches Qiongzhou Island.

If the size difference between the two "Explorer-class" warships in the previous escort fleet and the sailing ships in the fleet is not too big, then the two "Explorer-class" warships docked on the shore are obviously larger. There are many.The sailboat that Yan Mingjun and Li Jin were riding on was only a circle smaller than the "Explorer Class". However, although the two large warships I just saw were similar in appearance to the "Explorer Class", their volume But it was almost half bigger than their ship, and even the gun ports on the side of the ship were much more, which shows that its combat power should be higher than it.

The two looked at each other, seeing the shock in each other's eyes.Li Jin managed to squeeze out a sentence: "This is probably... the largest ship in the Haihan Navy?"

Yan Mingjun also nodded with great difficulty and said, "It should be like this!"

As far as the size of this ship is concerned, it is basically the same tonnage as the current main flagship of the Daming Navy, the Dafu ship, but the firepower configuration is definitely not at the same level.The location of Wanshan Port is several days away from Sanya, the base camp of the Haihan people. The Haihan people dared to send such a large warship to stay in such a far place, at least it shows that they should not only have these two ships of the same class. class of warships.As far as Yan Mingjun and Li Jin know about naval warships of this tonnage, the entire Guangdong Navy probably only has three or four ships.

(End of this chapter)