1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 824 Gold Mine
From Sheliao Island, where Salvador City is located, to the east along the coast, in the mountains about 20 miles away, there is the Jinguashi area that has been coveted by the Executive Committee for a long time.Originally, this area was the sphere of influence of the mountain natives, but after Spain entered Jilonggang, it wiped out all the native tribes within a radius of tens of miles. Except for a very small number of Spanish people, most of the other native tribes They all moved into the deep mountains and settled down, and the precious land of Jinguashi was vacated because of this, becoming a land without an owner in the true sense.

Haihan's longing for this place can actually be traced back to before time travel.The Traveling Group, which was still in the preparatory stage at that time, arranged for Tian Yeyou to visit the New Taipei City Gold Museum and some mine sites in the Jinguashi area in the name of tourism, so as to assist in confirming the location of the gold mine veins in this area and the approximate location. Buried depth.However, in the first few years after the crossing, Haihan has been busy with development, and his tentacles can't reach as far as northern Taiwan for the time being, so the preparations Tian Yeyou made several years in advance have not been able to come in handy.It was not until the Penghu garrison took the initiative to attack this time that the Executive Committee rediscovered the dusty mining project and appointed Tian Yeyou to personally go to Taipei’s Jilong Port to preside over the initial exploration and mining work.

Although it is said that there are no permanent residents in this area, Takahashi Minami carefully considered and still asked his troops to clean up the area in advance to avoid any problems when Tian Yeyou arrived.However, there is no decent land passage from Sheliao Island to the coast near Jinguashi, so the local pathfinding troops, including the miners and hard laborers who will be stationed later, basically have to go by sea by boat.

On the other hand, the search and inventory of El Salvador City also had preliminary results later in the day. Except for the boat that was released in the afternoon, Haihan killed 75 people and captured [-] people in El Salvador City this time. More than [-] people were killed, almost all of whom were killed in the previous artillery battle. After Kaesong surrendered, no one took any radical resistance actions.After all, the general situation is over, and the Spanish officials who manage the local area have paid and left. The rest of the people are basically scattered, and they will no longer be willing to work hard.

Among these prisoners, there were only more than 500 Spaniards in total, including those who escaped from Santo Domingo with Gusman.These guys are really unlucky enough. They became war refugees once in Santo Domingo, but they unexpectedly became prisoners again within two days after escaping to El Salvador, and they were captured by the same group of enemies.

As expected, the situation here is not much different from the situation in Santo Domingo before. Not much gold, silver and jewelry were found in the city. It doesn't seem right, but it is what it is.The horses and cattle that the Spaniards failed to take away at least made up for Gao Qiaonan’s failure to squeeze the ideal amount from Alcarazor’s head. All eight tall horses were confiscated by the military, while the few cattle and ordinary-quality The pack horse was signed by Takahashi Minami to the Ministry of Agriculture with a swipe of a pen for use in the next step of resettlement.

Although the official residence in the city is indeed passable, and the interior decoration is also a rare European style in the Haihan territory, Gao Qiaonan does not plan to live here for a long time, so he has no feeling about it.He only temporarily set up the Jilonggang headquarters here, but it is estimated that he will move to the coast of Jilonggang in the future. After all, Sheliao Island is too small and there is almost no room for development.Although the coast near Jilonggang is also dominated by mountains, at least some cultivated land can be reclaimed. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture will probably adapt to local conditions to develop and build plantations for mountain cash crops and woodworking workshops for processing high-grade wood.

Although the port conditions and developable area of ​​Jilong Port are far less than that of Kaohsiung Port in the south, it is also the second largest port on Taiwan Island.The scale of the shipping industry in this era is limited, so it will be developed as a regional transshipment port for future maritime trade with Ryukyu, Japan, North Korea and other countries. There will still be great operational potential to be tapped.Of course, in addition to commercial and trade purposes, the conditions in the port area here are also very suitable for deploying an armed fleet.

Although Haihan has already defeated the Dutch and Spanish entrenched in Taiwan and completely expelled the Spanish from this area, there are actually some unstable factors in the waters north and east of Taiwan Island that Haihan has to guard against .These potential dangers are not colonial powers like Spain and the Netherlands, but pirate gangs whose whereabouts and purpose are not easy to accurately judge.

Shibazhi, who used to be entrenched in the Fujian Strait, voluntarily withdrew from its hometown in Penghu after losing to Haihan last year, and chose Miyako Island, east of Taiwan and west of Ryukyu, as its new base.Although Shibazhi never approached the Fujian Strait after that, and took the initiative to maintain a safe distance from Haihan's sphere of influence, this does not mean that Shibazhi has forgotten the previous hatred, and they have not recently passed direct Or indirect ways to subdue Haihan or sign a peace agreement.

In other words, the two sides are still at war. As long as the timing is right, the flames of war may re-ignite at any time. After all, the voyage from Miyako Island to Jilong Port is only about 200 nautical miles. This distance is definitely in the battle of Shibazhi within the radius.Of course, Qian Tiandun will not ignore this former defeated general. The naval combat ships participating in the Battle of Taipei this time will still be stationed in the chicken coop in the near future, and there may even be an additional "Majestic-class" main battleship depending on the situation. , to ensure the absolute safety of Jilonggang and the nearby Jinguashi gold mining area.

The coast of Zhejiang, north of Taiwan Island, also has always had pirate activities.Although these pirate gangs are not as large as Shibazhi, they were also inextricably linked with Shibazhi in the past. It is difficult to guarantee whether they will join forces with Shibazhi out of interest.Although it is difficult for these small pirate gangs to threaten Haihan's control over the Taiwan Island area, it would be quite annoying if they came here every few days to harass them.If a fleet is deployed on the Jilong Port side, it will not only protect the safety of Jingua Port, but also give the Navy the opportunity to use relatively weak opponents to brush up its record and further exercise its ability to coordinate maritime operations.Because of the existence of the treasure of the Jinguashi gold mine, the executive committee probably won't be stuck with military expenditures on this proposal. After all, the benefits that can be brought here in the future will definitely be far greater than the security costs.

At noon on March [-], Tian Yeyou and a group of staff under his leadership took the "Sea Gull" fast troop transport ship and arrived at the pier of Sheliao Island, which had just been acquired by Haihan.The local interim military and political chief Gao Qiaonan came to the dock a long time in advance to wait. To him, Tian Yeyou was not just the head of the executive committee sent to work. The two had a lot of contact time during their stay in Heitu Port. They are very familiar with each other, and apart from the relationship between superiors and subordinates, there are also some friendships.

"Old Gao! Long time no see!" Before stepping off the diving board, Tian Yeyou waved loudly to Gao Qiaonan on the pier.Among the many traversers, he is the only one who can call Gao Qiaonan by the name "Lao Gao". Although Qian Tiandun has talked to him several times, Gao Qiaonan's surname is "Gaoqiao" instead of "Gao". , but Tian Yeyou never planned to change this habit.After a long time, Gao Qiaonan and others got used to it, and for Gao Qiaonan, this kind of intimacy was something that no one except Qian Tiandun could give him. In addition to the respect between them, Takahashi Minami also regards him as an excellent friend.

"Old Tian! I've been waiting for you for a long time!" Gao Qiaonan responded with a loud laugh.Tian Yeyou is also the only chief he can call in this intimate way, but if there are other chiefs present, he will still behave in an orthodox way so as not to mess up the relationship between the superior and the subordinate.

After the two shook hands, Gao Qiaonan said, "Old Tian, ​​haven't you seen each other for a year?"

"It's more than a year!" Tian Yeyou shook his head again and again, "The last time I saw you was the year before last, when you came back to Victory Harbor to accept the award. It's been two years since you had a drink. After leaving, I couldn’t get together properly.”

"This time you stay in Jilonggang for a longer period of time, and you can drink it every day!" Gao Qiaonan said with a smile: "When we were counting the spoils in the city yesterday, we found the Spaniard's wine cellar, and the wine in it was at least enough for us. Let’s drink it until next year. But the fruit wine made by the Spaniards is sour, I don’t know if you can get used to it.”

"It's called wine. Westerners like to drink it. Drinking some in moderation every day can activate blood circulation and is good for the body." Tian Yeyou knew what "fruit wine" Gao Qiaonan was talking about when he heard it, and immediately gave it to him. He explained: "I'm not very interested, but those members of the North American gang really like it, so I'll give them some back later."

"Then we might as well ship it all back. I still think the Sanya special wine tastes better." Takahashi Minami winked and said, "You should bring it with you this trip, right?"

"Your boss is afraid that you will be in trouble with drinking, so..." Tian Yeyou deliberately pretended to be a joke, and seeing Gao Qiaonan's face darken, he said calmly: "So he asked me to bring two boxes over for you. Save your drink!"

Gao Qiaonan's face turned cloudy and he said: "There are 24 bottles in the two boxes, but the boss understands me! I'll send people out to sea later, to catch some fresh seafood, and have a good tooth festival at night!"

Takahashi Minami himself did not live in Alcarazo's official residence, but after Tian Yeyou arrived, he arranged for Tian Yeyou to live there without any explanation, and sent several honest servants who had been identified to serve Tian Yeyou.Although he and Tian Yeyou interacted as friends, the treatment given to each other was carried out according to the standard "head level".However, he knew that Tian Yeyou had already married and attached great importance to his family, so he did not arrange another person to "sleep with him".

The two reunited after a long absence that night and had a good drink.During his stay in Danzhou, Tian Yeyou also learned about some of the latest news on Hainan Island through local cadres, and then told Gao Qiaonan one by one about this opportunity.Although there are radio stations in various stations, they are often only used to deliver particularly urgent news. For locations like the Penghu base, time-sensitive news is usually delivered in the form of newspapers 20 days to a month later.Besides, the texts in the newspapers are very rigid, and insiders like Arita Hatomo commented, Takahashi Minami can also have a deeper understanding of the intentions of the Executive Committee's new policies.

In the morning of the next day, Tian Yeyou led a team to the Jinguashi area for exploration, but Gao Qiaonan had to deal with and command many affairs, so he couldn't escape, so he had to send Tian Yeyou and his subordinates to the pier to board the ship.Although a company of troops had already been dispatched to the Jinguashi area to stand in front, Gao Qiaonan had another platoon of soldiers escorted by the ship for safety reasons.Of course, considering the limited self-defense capabilities of the "Seagull" on which Tian Yeyou and his party were traveling, Takahashi Minami specially assigned two exploration-class light warships to accompany them.

Sailing east along the coastline from Sheliao Island for about an hour, you can see a two-mile-long stone cape extending from the coastline to the sea. See the bay that was later named Shen'ao Fishing Port.Because this place is close to natural fishing grounds such as Jilongyu Island and Pengjiayu Island, the fishery resources are very rich. When Tian Yeyou traveled to Keelung to explore gold mines, he sneaked in and spent half a day fishing here.

But this time Tian Yeyou's task was even more urgent. Before the mine was excavated, he probably didn't have the mood to go fishing at sea.Before arriving at the coast, Tian Yeyou had already seen the soldiers of the Special Operations Battalion with live ammunition on the shore, which reminded him of the time when the Black Soil Port just started, and the coast was barren at that time, except for the immigrants and troops who moved to the area Just nothing.The mining value of the buried mineral deposits in this place is extremely high, and it does not require an extremely complicated smelting system like the Tiandu and Shilu mines. The progress of development and construction should be faster than the previous large-scale mines.According to Tian Yeyou's plan in advance, as long as the immigration labor is in place, mining can start within five days after the end of the exploration.

"Report to the chief, the humble position is Ruan Jun, the commander of the Second Company of the Special War Battalion." Tian Yeyou got off the boat, and the officers waiting on the shore immediately came forward to report to him.It is not difficult to tell from the surname Ruan that he is a naturalized citizen of Annan origin.Of course, this is not uncommon in the special warfare battalion. After all, when it was first formed, it was based on Annan people.Until now, more than [-]% of the personnel in the entire special warfare battalion are still of Annan origin, and most of the officers are of Annan origin, and this Ruan Jun is one of them.

(End of this chapter)