1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 671 Frustration
The Haihan soldiers who boarded the ship searched the two Dutch sailing ships carefully and confiscated all the weapons on board, even the cook's kitchen knife, the ship's carpenter's ax and the sabers of several senior officers. Packed and sent to Haihan sailboat.Although Van Longen and others were very dissatisfied, they still chose to obey rationally, and did not try to resist this "humiliation" of the Haihan people.After all, they also knew that if they had conflicts with each other in this place, whether they could escape or not was the same thing, and the negotiations with the Haihan people would definitely come to naught.

"If they have other excessive demands, I might really not be able to bear it." Watching Haihan soldiers take away his beloved saber, Fan Longen was really itchy with anger.He brought this saber from the Netherlands. Although it is not a precious treasure, it is still a family heirloom, and carrying it with him is also a kind of sustenance of his hometown.He didn't lose this saber when the scene was so embarrassing on Natuna Island last time, but now he has to make compromises for the sake of the overall situation and give this saber to the Haihan people.Although the Haihan claimed that they would return the weapons when they left, Van Longen didn't quite believe their promises.

"The three of you are the heads of the mission, right?" After the weapons were found, the little officer who led the team soon came to them and asked again.

After receiving an affirmative reply from Su Keyi, the junior officer put forward a new request: "Please come to our ship, three of you, and take our ship to Sanya. Just follow along with your two ships."

There is no doubt that this is to completely dismantle the command system on the Dutch sailing ship and temporarily hold the three of them as hostages.However, the Haihan people have searched their weapons just now, and now there is nothing they can do to refuse or resist.No matter how unwilling the three of them were, they could only helplessly accept the other party's arrangement.

However, Van der Wegen was not particularly opposed to this request. As the only senior officer in the team, his responsibility was to find out the military strength of the Haihan people by all means, which naturally included weapons and equipment.After the Nanri Island battle, what Van der Wegen never forgot in his heart was this uniquely shaped and powerful Haihan warship. Now he had the opportunity to board the ship to observe the real thing, how could he miss such a good opportunity.Therefore, before Van Longen expressed his position, he signaled Su Keyi to immediately agree to the request.

But things were not as simple and easy as Van der Wegen thought. When they stepped on the side of the ship to the deck of the Haihan warship, before Van der Wegen carefully observed the layout of the ship, someone brought some dry goods. Black cloth bags Put it on their heads and ask them to sit down and not move around, and they are not allowed to talk to each other, and they are not given the opportunity to spy on the military situation at all.

After receiving the warning from Victory Port, in order to prevent accidents, the navy immediately dispatched two "expedition-class" warships to the southern waters to respond.

Of course, the executive committee also received the warning immediately. Tom Wang originally planned to go to sea to deal with the matter himself, but Tao Donglai stopped him: "There are only two ships coming. It doesn't look like they are coming. Troubleshooters, counting the time, I think it is possible that they sent envoys to negotiate with us. Since the Dutch came to the door by themselves, it is better to take it when it is time to take the shelf, and let the people below deal with it first , by the way, let’s see if we can’t get things done without us.”

"Old Tao is right. Let them be discouraged first, and then they will have a psychological advantage in the subsequent contact." Ning Qi also agreed: "It's okay for the Dutch to talk to us, so they have to be correct first. Mentality, don’t contact us with the idea of ​​a conqueror.”

"But you have to say hello to the people below, don't hurt these Dutch people, and don't deliberately humiliate them. After the ship returns, detain them in the army barracks first." Tao Donglai warned.

Tom Wang nodded and said, "I'll just go over and watch, so as not to cause trouble."

"Let me go for a run." Followed by the voice came Yan Chujie, the top leader of the military.He was supposed to go to Tiandu's arsenal to inspect the work today, and to have a meeting with the technicians of Haihan Ordnance to discuss the development of new weapons. The people who came stopped him at the train station and informed him of the discovery of the Dutch fleet off the coast of Sanya.After hearing the news, Yan Chujie immediately canceled the arrangement to go to Tiandu and rushed back. When he arrived at the door, he just heard their conversation, so he answered a sentence in passing.

Tom Wang didn't intend to compete with him for the job, so he nodded and said, "That's fine, Brother Yan, it's safer for you to go there in person. I, a member of the navy, used to point fingers, and it's hard to guarantee that your brothers won't idea."

Although the situation that Wang Tom mentioned is not obvious now, in fact, there are faint signs of land-sea conflict in the army.Since the division of the Haihan Militia into land and sea, the military expenditure has to be divided into two halves for distribution, and the distribution of personnel has to take into account the needs of the two families. Naturally, it is not as harmonious as before.In the past two years, the navy has expanded its fleet with great fanfare, which has taken up a lot of military budget. Therefore, the army must have been affected more or less. At least the number of live ammunition training has been reduced by more than [-]% compared with before. This kind of change will definitely make some The military personnel were dissatisfied.

Of course, these people did not dare to express this attitude clearly in front of Wang Tom. Anyway, Wang Tom is also the core mission of the army, the commander of the navy, and ordinary naturalized civilian officers can't afford to provoke him as a big Buddha.But when Tom Wang went to issue orders to the army, it would definitely not be useful for Yan Chujie to come forward.

"Old Yan, don't be in a hurry to have direct contact with the Dutch." Tao Donglai repeated to Yan Chujie what he had said to Tom Wang earlier.

Yan Chujie replied: "Don't worry, I still understand this bit of diplomatic strategy. I'll go over and make arrangements first, and call later."

At this time, Van Longen and the others were sitting on the deck with their backs leaning against the side of the ship. Because they were covered with black cloth bags over their heads, they had no idea where the ship was heading.Although their hands and feet were not tied, the Haihan people had warned them before, so they didn't dare to move around.

Van Longen felt 12 uneasy at this moment, he didn't know how these Haihan people would deal with himself and his companions.If these Haihan soldiers didn't want the three of them to meet with their high-level officials at all, the consequences would be unpredictable.As a result, he felt a little regretful about his decision just now, he shouldn't have accepted the other party's request so obediently, at least he had to bargain, for example, to remove the cloth bag of this hood.

Van der Wegen was also very annoyed. He originally boarded the ship with the idea of ​​spying on the military situation, but he never thought that he would be treated like this as soon as he boarded the ship.Now I can't do anything except touch the plank under my buttocks with my hands.However, he noticed that the command process of Haihan's ship going up was orderly. It is short and powerful. After one party gives an order, the party receiving the order will repeat the content.The neat chants of the crew when they push the cable winch are actually not much different from those on the Dutch sailing ship.

Su Keyi's thoughts were more complicated than those of the two Dutchmen. He was originally a very clever person, otherwise he would not have been favored by Cohen and entrusted with important tasks.After boarding the boat, the Haihan people used black cloth bags to cover their heads, but Su Keyi felt relieved, because he knew that if the other party wanted to kill the three of them, there was no need to make it so complicated, but he just didn't want them to see a certain just some things.And what the other party didn't want me to see was obviously not the course or the like, because there were hundreds of crew members on the two sailboats of my side, and covering the heads of the three of them actually didn't have a very good secrecy effect.Doing so can only show one thing, that is, the other party does not want them to see the specific situation on this ship.

After figuring out why the other party did this, Su Keyi had nothing to be afraid of.Although he couldn't see the outside world, Su Keyi had an obvious advantage over the two people next to him, that is, he could understand the language spoken by these people on the ship without hindrance.Although most of them did not speak Cantonese or Guangxi vernacular, but were similar to northern accents, Su Keyi could still guess and understand.Judging from the orders issued by the commander on the ship to the crew, they are still heading north, apparently continuing to head towards Qiongzhou Island, which shows that the other party is indeed leading them into the jurisdiction of Haihan Sanya area.

After sailing for a period of time, Su Keyi heard a shout on the ship, and then an officer ordered to play a semaphore.Although he couldn't hear the semaphore order that the Haihan officer gave to the messenger, Su Keyi speculated that he must have met their partner at sea—perhaps they had come out of the port to meet them.

As expected by Su Keyi, the two "expedition-class" warships driven out of Victory Harbor had just sailed out of the bay, and they had already seen the returning fleet.After the two sides exchanged flags, two "expedition-class" warships also came up to join the fleet. According to the latest order received, they sailed together to the Luhuitou Peninsula west of Victory Port.

The port of the Army Base is located on the west side of the Luhuitou Peninsula, where the International Yacht Club of Later Generations is located—the two catamaran sailing ships that came from Europe before crossing were last maintained and rested at this place.However, the size of the military port is not as large as the yacht dock in the previous life, and it can only accommodate about ten large warships to dock at the same time.Only when there is a large-scale mobilization of troops will a large number of ships enter here to load soldiers, and usually the navy ships are stationed at the naval base in Victory Port, and they rarely dock here for a long time.

Before the fleet arrived, Yan Chujie had already arrived at the Luhuitou Peninsula camp, and two companies of armed forces had assembled here in advance to wait for his dispatch.After Yan Chujie gave the order, he went to sit in the camp headquarters and drink a cold drink.

Su Keyi knew that the ship he was on had already entered the port with the noise in his ears, and the sailors were throwing cables to the shore, and there were some swear words from time to time, which seemed to be no different from the port in Batavia .It's just that the port here doesn't seem to have a strong fishy smell, and it's obviously not a fishing-based pier.

After the boat stopped, someone came to help the three of them get up, lay down on the stretcher, and then the stretcher was lifted, and they just got off the boat to the shore.After walking for a while, they heard the sound of the door opening, and soon there was a voice informing them that they could take off their hoods by themselves.Su Keyi took off his own headgear first, and then took off the other two's.At this time, the three of them realized that they had arrived somewhere in the room, and there was nothing in this one-foot-square room except for a square table and a few stools.Apart from the entrance door, there is only a small window of one foot square on one wall, and there is an iron fence embedded in it.The door is also very narrow, only two feet wide, covered with iron sheets, and has a small sliding window at the top and bottom, but after Su Keyi went up and tried it, he found that it couldn't be opened from the inside.In addition to the small window, there are many bright tiles above the head, so it doesn't look dark.

"It seems that we have become prisoners of the Haihan people." Su Keyi came to a conclusion after simply observing the surrounding situation.The position of his small window was too high, and he was at least three feet away, so he couldn't see the situation outside at all.

However, the two Dutchmen were obviously practical, and immediately lifted the table under the small window, and then stood on the table to look out.But the scene outside the window made them feel deeply disappointed again—there was a high wall at most three feet away, completely blocking the view.

"What should we do now?" Van der Wegen was in such a situation for the first time, and he couldn't help but feel a little at a loss.

"Just wait. Maybe the Haihan people are also having a headache as to what to do with us." After realizing his situation, Van Longen calmed down.Since the Haihan people imprisoned them here, they shouldn't just ignore it, there will always be an explanation.But such treatment really made him feel deeply frustrated.

In fact, it was one of Yan Chujie's orders to detain them and deal with them coldly. These three people were locked in the confinement room that the barracks usually used for soldiers to reflect, and their two sailboats were being searched very carefully by Haihan soldiers. ——Even all the people on board will not be spared.Several doctors who had been ordered to arrive were conducting preliminary health checks on the crew members to make sure that they did not carry those infectious diseases with obvious symptoms.After that, these crew members will also be detained without feet, and they will not be resettled in the next step until they have spent at least a week of observation.

(End of this chapter)