1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 742 Introducing Immigrants
Since the time required for news dissemination in this era is almost equal to the speed of transportation, when the Matalan purchase grain fleet left Champa and returned, they did not even know that the battle in Batavia had come to an end.They also had no idea that after their capture of Batavia, the Dutch, who were driven into a desperate situation, would succeed in making a comeback, and eventually evacuated the area as a defeated army.At this time, they escorted the batch of grain back to Batavia, and the only result was that the Dutch took advantage of the situation.

It is a trivial matter that these ships and the food they carried were swallowed up by the Dutch. It is nothing more than Dacheng Rice Company losing some money to go in. It's a little bit bad.Therefore, from a business perspective, the Port of Ambuna cannot easily let these ships leave on their own.Although Li Dagui's idea has no technical content, it is indeed an effective way to solve this problem. After a little consideration, Roger agreed to this solution.

At midnight that day, the armed personnel of the two companies quietly took control of the four Mata blue sailboats docked in the port of Ambuna and detained all the crew members on board.Although some people realized that something was wrong and tried to resist, the Haihan militia would not give these people a chance to resist.Seven Mataram crew members were killed or injured in the process, but the four ships were eventually captured relatively smoothly.

The noise in the middle of the night also attracted the attention of other ships on the pier, but after hearing that Haihan was arresting the slaves who fled to the ship, everyone was not interested in continuing to care about the follow-up development.The merchant ships that come and go here basically know that the Haihan people have built many plantations on the island and raised many slave workers. Naturally, there will be some guys who are not safe enough and want to escape here, and the Haihan people want to arrest escaped slaves , is also a matter of course.No one would come forward to find the Haihan people unhappy because of other people's slaves. When encountering such a thing, just pretend that nothing happened.

The next day, just after dawn, the four Mata Blue sailing boats quietly sailed out of the port out of the public eye.However, the direction of their travel is not to continue south, but to turn back and go north.Considering that these ships and the identities of the crew members on board are relatively sensitive, Roger decided to hand over this little trouble to Annan's colleagues.These ships will go to Cam Ranh Port, where they will be dismantled or refitted, and the crew on board will also be transferred to other places for labor service—for example, sent to the Black Earth Port Coal Mine in the Beibu Gulf as miners.

As for the three members of the Security Department who were acting as Dacheng Mihang's buddies, they were obviously not included, but they would not go south and return to Batavia either.Considering that there may be other people in Batavia who know about this matter, Roger thinks that it is better for the three of them not to go back, so as not to be taken advantage of.

After receiving the news, the Ministry of Security also agreed with Roger's opinion and let the three return to Sanya on a military supply ship. As for the Batavia intelligence station, they will send another person south to reinforce and enrich the staffing.

After more than ten days, Cheng Dapeng also returned from Champa together with the Dutch fleet, and this time without Cheng Dapeng's troublesome persuasion, the Dutch captains naturally took the port of Ambuna as the first place on the way back. supply stops.Although there were enough supplies on board for the fleet to sail at least as far as Belitung Island, the Dutch would naturally be willing to spend an extra night here for the added benefit of calling at Ambuna Port.

The double commendation orders from the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Security had been sent to Ambuna Port a few days ago, and Roger, as a representative, read out the contents of the commendation orders to Cheng Dapeng face to face.All the staff of the Dacheng Mixing Information Station won the second-class collective merit once, and Cheng Dapeng once won the second-class individual merit. Of course, due to his special status, these merits cannot be announced publicly, and even the medals can only be awarded Show it to Cheng Dapeng, this thing can only be received when he is transferred back to Hainan Island.

However, the rewards from the Ministry of Security are relatively more practical. Cheng Dapeng's position was promoted from the team leader of Batavia to the deputy director of the Nanyang Affairs Division of the Ministry of Security. The position is held concurrently by Hao Wanqing himself.Before him, there were only a few naturalized cadres who were so highly valued in the Ministry of Security, Gong Shiqi from Guangzhou, Zhang Qianzhi from Danzhou, Lin Nan from Sanya, and Gong Shaoqi from Fujian. Li Dagui on Buna Island, his current administrative position is not comparable to that of Cheng Dapeng who became famous in World War I.

However, the current position of deputy director is not very practical for Cheng Dapeng. He still has to do his previous job and play the role of the boss of Mihang.In addition to the increase in autonomy, the power he can mobilize and the scope of responsibility will not change significantly for the time being.But Cheng Dapeng was more nervous about the Mata Blue Fleet. After hearing that the matter had been satisfactorily resolved and both the crew and the ship had been sent to the north for processing, Cheng Dapeng breathed a sigh of relief.

The Batavian War started in early July and did not come to an end until Cheng Dapeng returned from Champa in early September.Haihan did not directly participate in this war, but because of the efforts of Cheng Dapeng and others, Haihan obtained a large amount of battlefield information in the first place, and it is difficult to simply use money to value it up.Through these information, the executive committee also sorted out several things that were not well understood before.

First, the strength of the Dutch is not as strong as imagined, but other forces in Nanyang are not as weak as the traversers think.The Dutch may have plans to solve their opponents once and for all by relying on a desperate blow, but it is undeniable that they did not take the initiative on the battlefield during the war, and they were in a passive defensive position most of the time. very hard.And the Matalan people are definitely not the Nanyang monkeys described by the traversers as having low combat effectiveness. Their mobilization ability, troop mobilization, and deployment ability during this battle are even higher than that of Annan, a continental country.The size of the defenders deployed by the Dutch in Batavia was comparable to the army strength of the Haihan Militia, but the combat process was so passive. This is indeed an aspect that needs the attention of the Haihan military.

Second, logistical supplies are still a major problem that Haihan must solve in the future.The three losses of Mata Lan were not lost on the frontal battlefield. The first two were due to insufficient supplies, and the last confrontation brought enough supplies, but was copied by the Dutch fleet.This story tells Haihan that if there is no closer and more reliable supply base to Batavia, even if the city of Batavia is captured, it will be difficult to gain a firm foothold there.

The third point undoubtedly highlights the importance of intelligence work. If the Dutch could find out before the battle that the Mata blue army will use a large number of giant trebuchets on the battlefield, then Van Diemen probably did not Will adopt such a conservative defense method.You must know that it took several days for the Mata Blues to transport these trebuchet parts to the port, unload them, install and debug them before the war, and the Dutch wasted this opportunity to harass the Mata Blues. Great opportunity to fight.If the Matalan had not successfully deployed so many trebuchets on the battlefield, the course of the war might have been completely different.

Fortunately, the combat methods and styles of these two armies have now collected detailed information for Hai Han's reference.Although I don't know if they will play other tricks in the future, the Haihan military will definitely make targeted arrangements for their existing combat methods.

Of course, this level of combat readiness does not mean that Haihan will attack the Nanyang region in the near future. After all, the resources required to fight in Nanyang are too large, and Haihan's development direction this year is not focused on the south.

As the time enters September, the affairs in the direction of Fujian are gradually increasing, especially the introduction of immigrants from the mainland this year. The Executive Committee has designated Fujian as one of the main channels.The wars in the Central Plains of Ming Dynasty and Jiaodong area created a large number of war refugees, and the goal of the Executive Committee was to receive as many refugees from Daming as possible and introduce them to settle in areas under their own rule.For refugees whose survival has become a problem, as long as they have a bite to eat, it seems that giving up their former nationality is not a big problem.Haihan stepped forward to act as the savior at this time, not only can attract a large number of people, but also can gain more favor from the Ming officials.

Of course, this plan is not so easy to implement. Haihan's own sea transportation power is not enough to extend its tentacles to the far north, so it must be transshipped to bring refugees from the north to the south.Moreover, Haihan does not have any foundation in Fujian. It has not even built a large-scale immigrant transfer base like Lijiazhuang in Panyu, and it does not have the ability to receive a large number of immigrants.It wasn't until after the capture of Penghu in May that the Haihan Ministry of Civil Affairs put into practice the long-planned Fujian immigration transfer base.Although Penghu still belongs to Ming Dynasty in name, it is actually completely controlled and dominated by Haihan. It is undoubtedly much more convenient to handle the import and export of immigrants from Ming Dynasty here than along the coast of Fujian.

After three months of infrastructure construction, the migrant transfer base in Penghu has finally started to operate.For safety and management considerations, the immigration base was not built on the main island of Penghu, but on Baisha Island in the north.The distance between Baisha Island and Penghu Island is less than 2000 meters, which can not only isolate the environment on the island, but also facilitate the transportation of personnel and materials.And this island with an area of ​​25 square kilometers is relatively flat, enough to easily accommodate tens of thousands of people to live temporarily on the island.

At present, five immigration camps have been planned and built on Baisha Island, which can accommodate 2000 immigrants.Although it is only about one-third of the designed population for the time being, this is already the largest immigrant base in the area under the Haihan rule except for the Sanya base camp.

The reason for building such a large immigrant base in Penghu is because the Executive Committee believes that in the next few years, the main source of Haihan immigrants will gradually shift to the northern area of ​​Daming where wars frequently occur.At that time, the number of immigrants transported from the north every month may be a very large number, and the immigrant base in the Fujian Strait will assume the important function of a transfer station in this population transportation system.The Penghu immigrant base exists to ease the pressure on demand for maritime transportation, enhance the adaptability of immigrants to the southern climate and environment, allow them to have a transition period before entering the Haihan social system, and prevent epidemics from being introduced into the Haihan ruled area. reason.

In order to be able to solve the problem of food supply for immigrants as much as possible, the Ministry of Agriculture has planned a collective farm with a total area of ​​more than 20 square kilometers on Penghu Island, and its main planting content is food, vegetables and fruits.Mr. Yuan Ruoxiu optimistically estimates that if the agricultural land in the Penghu Islands can be effectively developed in two or three years, the food produced will not only be able to supply the needs of local immigrants and garrisons, but also feed back Hainan Island or be sold to Ming Dynasty. .

Of course, these plantations and collective farms developed in the Penghu Islands are just an appetizer for the agricultural development in the southeastern coastal areas for the Ministry of Agriculture.The area that the Ministry of Agriculture really values ​​is not Penghu, but the coastal plain area in the west of Taiwan Island.With the help of the well-developed local water system, it is very convenient to develop a farm planned by the Ministry of Agriculture.However, there is currently not enough manpower and resources to implement the Ministry of Agriculture's concept, so we can only use the land on the Penghu side to practice.

On September 500th, three lucky boats docked at Baisha Island, bringing over 20 refugees from the north of Ming Dynasty.The owner of these three ships is Liu Zhenguo, a Fujian maritime merchant, who has been operating the northern route for more than [-] years and is familiar with coastal areas such as Jianghuai, Shandong, and North China.After Haihan offered attractive terms, he gave up his previous freight business and switched to a human trafficker.

After the ship docked, Liu Zhenguo disembarked first and went to the pier to handover with Haihan's port staff.The port staff will count and verify the refugees loaded on these ships according to the list provided by Liu Zhenguo.

The list here has not been handed over yet, and two teams of men and horses in black clothes and black trousers, rattan helmets on their heads, and rattan shields and short sticks appeared on the pier, trotting all the way at a uniform pace.This murderous team did not frighten Liu Zhenguo. He knew that they were government servants used to maintain local law and order in areas under the Haihan people. They were called "policemen", and in some places they were called security teams or anti-riot teams.Liu Zhenguo didn't know the difference between these kinds of titles, but he knew that these men in black leather and the servants of the Ming government had two completely different styles of behavior.

(End of this chapter)