1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 705 Eighteen Zhi’s Escape Plan
Since the Fujian government is willing to take the initiative to solve Haihan's logistics and transportation problems, Haihan really has no other worries.What remains to be discussed is how the two parties can coordinate in their actions and implement orders and prohibitions.

This kind of cross-camp command system is undoubtedly a problem in large-scale battles, and this battlefield is a boundless sea. The means of communication between various troops often only rely on semaphore and fireworks, and the communication efficiency on the battlefield is also low. will be affected by it.During the two battles in the Nanri Island waters last year, the Haihan Navy and the Fujian Navy operated separately most of the time. A very important reason was that the differences in the command systems of the two sides could not be integrated within a short period of time.

However, in the more than half a year after the Battle of Nanri Island, the Fujian Navy had many opportunities to train with the militia navy stationed on Kinmen Island.In addition, many generals in the Fujian Ming Army had received short-term military training from Haihan, and the progress of the joint training was not slow.Today, the several Haihan-built warships that went to Jinmen Island to train together with Haihan Navy several months in advance have basically been able to keep up with the rhythm of Shanghai Han.

But this is only one of the troops that the Fujian government participated in the battle this time. There will be more than [-] ships that will be dispatched to participate in the battle this time, and only two or three out of ten have conducted joint training with the Haihan Navy in advance.Of course, the Fujian Navy does not have so many warships available, and more than half of them are civilian ships temporarily recruited from Zhangquan and Quanzhou, which serve as tools for transporting soldiers and supplies during wartime.However, these temporarily recruited ships have not undergone special training before, and all the Fujian Navy can do is to send some sailors to these ships to serve as pilots and command.

If a large-scale melee broke out at sea, these ships may not be able to play their due role as instructed by the arm, but it is easy to drag their own people back due to poor communication.Therefore, before going to war, the two sides must first agree on some methods of wartime communication, identification and handling of emergencies.

On April 4, the participating troops of the Fujian Ming Army basically completed their assembly, and both the land and water armies had already made preparations for the battle in the center and left.The various combat materials mobilized by the Fujian government for this purpose are also being continuously delivered to the two military bases of Zhongzuo and Kinmen Island.

The recent large-scale transfer of personnel and materials in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou has not been concealed, and such a big move cannot be hidden from Penghu across the strait.In fact, on the day when the Haihan army entered Fujian, news had already spread back to Penghu.

The arrival of the large force of the Haihan militia is definitely bad news for Shibazhi. Although Zheng Zhilong and others had already expected the situation to deteriorate to such a degree before that, they still couldn't help but feel that it was not a bad news. There was a little luck, thinking that Hai Han's movements might not be so fast.When that day really came, Shibazhi still fell into an uncontrollable panic.

On the night when the news spread, three ships disappeared from Magong Harbor for no reason.Although these people did not leave a single word before they left, those who stayed behind said that the reason for leaving was to escape the upcoming attack of the Haihan people.The leaders of Shibazhi did not control such rumors in time. However, after one night, there were few boats in Magong Port, and this time the guy who sneaked away not only took the boats away, but also attacked Zheng Zhibao. Minghao took three thousand catties of grain from the granary on the island.

When Zheng Zhilong learned about it, he was naturally furious. While sending a boat to hunt down the escaped subordinates, he called Zheng Zhibao to the study and gave him a severe reprimand.After training his brother, Zheng Zhilong did not forget to mend the situation, and ordered all ports in Penghu to be controlled. Without Zheng Zhilong's warrant, no one can set sail on a sea-going ship with more than [-] materials.

Zheng Zhilong's current situation is indeed very difficult. Although he has agreed with various big bosses to retreat overseas, the retreat plan has not been fully finalized.There is no doubt that if the other side knows that Shibazhi chooses to withdraw, it is very likely that they will come to the tail and launch an attack while Shibazhi is retreating.And Shibazhi has tens of thousands of subordinates in Penghu, plus a total of 3 family members, it is not possible to evacuate them all overnight.Those who stay behind are likely to be blocked in Penghu by the army on the other side.

In order to be able to make a retreat plan as soon as possible, Zheng Zhilong had to stand up first and draw 1000 people from his direct subordinates to take charge of the rear, while the leaders of the other families drew lots to draw four to make up another 1000 people. A total of 2000 people remained on the main island of Penghu as the last group of evacuated people.At the same time, Zheng Zhilong also specially sent several fast boats to the waters near Zhangquan to monitor the movement of the coalition forces.

Naturally, the coalition forces on the opposite side of the strait were not idle, and stepped up their cruises in the strait. In just a few days in mid-April, the two sides fought against each other at sea several times.However, Shibazhi’s side obviously suffers more, because almost all the ships sent by the coalition forces to cruise are equipped with artillery made in Haihan, and Shibazhi’s scout ships are basically not equipped with any heavy weapons on board for the sake of lightness. When they get close to a certain distance, the artillery of the coalition forces will make Shibazhi's ships feel like they can only be beaten and cannot fight back.

By the end of April, Shibazhi's ship had no longer dared to approach the waters near Kinmen Island for reconnaissance during the day, and had to choose to sail from a relatively far place to observe closely after nightfall.The effect of such reconnaissance is naturally not much better, and it can only roughly judge the size of the fleet of the coalition forces.The report obtained by Zheng Zhilong is only a relatively vague number of [-] to [-] ships.

Although Shibazhi has far more than three or five hundred ships at hand, Zheng Zhilong also understands that his own ship is not at the same level of strength as the opponent's. Nanri Island's lessons have fully demonstrated the strength gap between the two sides. Zheng Zhilong also doesn't intend to use his own sea boats and Erlang to win the opponent's record in vain.

At the end of April, the two fleets that went to Ryukyu and Zhejiang to investigate the environment also returned to Penghu.The news from Zhejiang made Shibazhi's chief executive feel cold. Taizhou Prefecture and Ningbo Prefecture, which have many coastal islands, have strengthened their defenses against the coastal waters, and even asked the residents on the island to temporarily move back to the mainland. Let's avoid the limelight.The reaction from Zhejiang is so strong, it is said that it came from the information provided by the Fujian government, indicating that Shibazhi will attack Songmenwei, Changguowei, Guanhaiwei and other places in the two provinces between April and May.

At that time, Zheng Zhilong dropped the multicolored glass inkstone in the limited commemorative edition of the first year of Chongzhen made by Haihan worth hundreds of taels of silver in his study, and scolded Haihan for being cruel and cruel.As the person involved, he certainly knows that Shibazhi has no plan to attack the coast of Zhejiang in the near future. Although he sent a fleet to Zhejiang for investigation, the purpose is only to capture one or two uninhabited islands off the coast of Zhejiang. For future trade transit.However, the false news created by the Haihan people made the Zhejiang government nervous and stepped up defense deployment in the coastal areas, making it difficult for Shibazhi to gain a foothold in the coastal areas of Zhejiang—at least in the past two months. up.

Of course, Shibazhi can also choose to attack by force, but the problem is that he can't afford to lose. Once the battle is unfavorable, there is no place to retreat.Zheng Zhilong didn't dare to take this risk, so he could only turn his attention to Ryukyu, which was basically Shibazhi's last hope.

The Ryukyu Islands are located between Taiwan Island and Japan. There are more than [-] large and small islands. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, they were divided into three independent regimes: Zhongshan, Shannan, and Shanbei. Among them, Zhongshan was the most powerful.

In the fifth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1372 AD, the Ming Dynasty sent an envoy Yang Zai to the three countries of Ryukyu and canonized the kings of the three countries respectively.And the three small countries also made it clear that they would pay tribute to Ming Dynasty and become the vassal state of Ming Dynasty. In 1429, Zhongshan Guoxing defeated the other two countries, established Shuri Castle as its capital, and unified the entire Ryukyu.

However, due to the weak strength of the Ryukyu Kingdom itself, it was still invaded by external forces many times after that. At the beginning of the 17th century, Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate asked Satsuma to lead an army to invade Korea. The lord of Satsuma, Shimadzu, extorted military expenses from Ryukyu. After being rejected, Shimadzu sent general Kawayama Hisaka to invade Ryukyu and captured the king of Ryukyu. Ning, and forced it to agree to the condition of sending 8000 shi of grain to the Satsuma clan every year. Since then, Ryukyu has also begun to pay tribute to the Satsuma clan and the Edo shogunate in Japan, and has become a state of "one country, two dependencies".

For Shibazhi, the defensive power possessed by the Ryukyu Kingdom is not as good as that of the Fujian Navy who was passively beaten a few years ago, and it is not impossible to directly attack Ryukyu Island.It's just that the distance between Ryukyu Island and Penghu is too far, and the voyage is six or seven times that of Penghu to Zhangquan. It is still slightly more difficult to launch an attack directly on the local area.And there is another scruple that Shibazhi can't ignore, that is, Ryukyu is also a vassal state of the Japanese shogunate. The battered Ming Dynasty may not be in the mood to take into account the situation of overseas vassal states, but the Japanese Satsuma clan will not sit idly by the gains and losses of this place Reasonable, after all, the food and property that are paid to the Satsuma clan every year here are a lot of wealth for the Shimadzu family.

If Shibazhi attacked the Ryukyu Kingdom head-on, the Satsuma clan would be very likely to intervene in the war.Although Zheng Zhilong is not that afraid of the Satsuma clan, but in the situation of fleeing, it is better to avoid fighting as much as possible. After all, Shibazhi has very limited resources for war consumption.

In addition, considering that after moving to the past, they will try to maintain trade relations with the Japanese shogunate in the future, and it is not a wise choice to have friction with Satsuma.Therefore, Zheng Zhilong's investigation target is not the main island where the Ryukyu Dynasty is located, but Miyako Island, about 140 nautical miles southwest of Ryukyu Island.

Miyako Island is located in the southwest of the Ryukyu Islands, about 300 nautical miles away from Fujian. The island is flat, and the land area of ​​the surrounding Irabu Island, Shimoji Island, Laijian Island, Chijian Island, and Ogami Island has exceeded 200 square meters. km, and more than half of the land on the main island can be developed as arable land.Its land area and land conditions far exceed the Penghu Islands with a total land area of ​​less than 100 square kilometers.In addition, there are many natural harbors on the west side of the island for development, which is definitely a good place for Shibazhi to live by the sea.

Of course, the most important point is that the influence of the Ryukyu Kingdom on the rule of this place is extremely limited, and there are almost no decent armed forces stationed on the island. Probably, the Ryukyu King never thought that anyone would risk offending Ming and Japan. risk, to seize such a place with no special properties.If Shibazhi intends to occupy this place, he only needs to sail directly to the local area, and then show his own force, and he can take over the local ruling power smoothly without fighting.

From Penghu to Miyako Island, you need to bypass the northern part of Taiwan Island, and the voyage is nearly 5 nautical miles.Based on the average speed of the sea-going ships under Shibazhi, it takes about five or six days to reach the local area.But for Shibazhi, if they want to target Miyako Island, there is not much time left for them to act.This is not only because of aggressive opponents across the strait, but also because Miyako Island is the rainy season from mid-May to mid-June every year, and the sea conditions will be relatively bad, which is not suitable for large-scale migration fleets. natural environment.

After careful calculation, Zheng Zhilong set the departure date on the beginning of summer in the lunar calendar, that is, May 1632, [-], and tried to complete this large-scale escape before the rainy season came.

Zheng Zhilong was not in a hurry to announce the news publicly, because he also knew that there were a lot of people under his command, and there would definitely be spies from the Fujian government on the island, and there might not even be those greedy for wealth, who would defect and report the news after hearing the news.Therefore, after he made up his plan, he only informed Zheng Zhibao, Zheng Zhiwan, Zheng Zhifeng, Hong Xu, Gan Hui, Shi Daxuan and other family members and cronies among the big bosses.Like Li Kuiqi, He Bin, Guo Huaiyi and other superficial leaders, Zheng Zhilong didn't even reveal his words.

However, there is no impenetrable wall in the world. Although Zheng Zhilong tried to keep the secret until two or three days before the departure, the relevant news spread within a few days because the internal secrecy system of Shibazhi was not strict.After learning that Zheng Zhilong had made up his mind to abandon Penghu without resistance, the pirates, who were worried about their future, were even more difficult to unite.

On April 4, pirate leaders He Bin and Guo Huaiyi led their troops to defect and took away more than 28 ships and nearly a thousand people at once.They did not choose to go to Fujian to surrender, but went to Dayuangang and chose to join the Dutch.In their view, the city of Zeelandia built by the Dutch in Dayuan Port had begun to take shape, and it was far more reliable than going to a strange desert island thousands of miles away.

(End of this chapter)