Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 515: Difficult Problems

The tide rose and fell, and the sky gradually darkened. Jia Lian's scalp went numb when he saw the soldiers being transported to the shore bit by bit by small boats, and the densely packed transport ships waiting to be unloaded.

At this rate, the entire landing operation would not be completed in less than three days, and that was assuming there was no ambush.

Fortunately, Hailongtou's troops who arrived earlier had done some preparatory work and were continuously transporting timber to the seaside and starting to lay the pier.

"It is risky to act at night, so please take safety precautions." Jia Lian saw the situation but did not order to stop. Every minute was precious now.

"Don't worry, sir. I don't need to worry about it!" Hai Longtou finally found a place to use his skills. It was all because the Spaniards were too cowardly and only dared to hide in the fortress.

"Can the places where overseas Chinese gather hold on?" Jia Lian confirmed again that people are the most important resource at all times. In Southeast Asia, thousands of miles away, no overseas Chinese is redundant.

There is one difference from the time and space Jia Lian came from. The current Great Zhou is a recognized world power and the hegemon of East Asia. The hearts of overseas Chinese are still towards the Great Zhou, and they are truly our own people.

Little-known fact: The concept of yellow skin was formed in the West in modern times. In previous Western records, Chinese people had white skin. Well, many modern concepts are defined by the West. When did China lose the right to define? Everyone has the answer in their hearts. Based on my limited historical knowledge, the conclusion drawn is that the Song Dynasty was a turning point, the beginning of the entire social thought becoming conservative from top to bottom.

It is not difficult to understand that after Zhu Di's death, the entire Ming Dynasty rapidly contracted its external strategy, and the scholar-official group continued to erode the power of the country. Some people said that the Ming Dynasty fell very smoothly, and people at that time were very dissatisfied, and later generations were very regretful. In my opinion, there is nothing more terrible than a seemingly powerful country falling steadily. It was precisely because of the so-called stable fall of the Ming Dynasty that the Qing Dynasty ruled for 296 years, opening the darkness of modern China. There are also those who boast about the developed industry and commerce in Jiangnan during the Ming Dynasty. Let me ask you, how is the Southern Ming Dynasty compared to the Southern Song Dynasty?
His thoughts were a bit far away, Jia Lian turned back to look at the Hailong and the deputy envoy of Hai: "You have seen the situation. I can only mobilize one battalion of troops for the time being. The rest need to stay to defend the beachhead and build the camp."

"With the combat effectiveness of the new army, one battalion is enough." Hai Longtou also breathed a sigh of relief. He was afraid that Jia Lian would ignore the gathering places of overseas Chinese and let them fend for themselves.

"When you set out, bring more rapid-fire cannons!" Jia Lian reinforced it. Rapid-fire cannons are useful in frontal field battles. They have fortifications and are powerful weapons when facing indigenous peoples. This has been fully verified in past battles to suppress rebellions.

"Your Excellency, please see that the Spanish have always been on guard against the gathering place of overseas Chinese. The gathering place is far from the coastline. I will bring some of my subordinates and a battalion of new troops, led by local overseas Chinese, to take a small path at night to bypass the fortress area. It won't be a problem to rush to the gathering place to provide assistance." Hai Longtou pointed to the hand-drawn sketch and explained his intention. It seems that he has done a lot of preparation work. It is not easy for a leader to be a leader.

"Since you have confidence, just do it." Jia Lian made the decision directly without any nonsense. He mobilized a battalion of troops, asked them to rest on the spot and prepare to set off after dark.

Li Yuan was very quiet and just stood aside. He was really just an eye and an ear guy. People who didn't know him would think he was Jia Lian's follower.

Jia Lian waited for the sea dragon to go down, then turned to explain to Li Yuan: "If you want to actually control Nanyang, you need a certain number of your own people. Fujian, Zhejiang, southern Hunan, southern Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi have many mountains and little land, and there are a large number of redundant young and strong people. These people have nothing to do, and they will definitely become a destabilizing factor. It's okay when the weather is good, but if there are some natural disasters or man-made disasters, social unrest is very likely to occur. I plan to immigrate to Nanyang and control some important nodes. Make sure that the maritime trade routes are in our hands."

Li Yuan listened very carefully and could not help asking, "I have heard that if the population increases but the land area remains unchanged, it will lead to disasters in every dynasty. Since the Zhou Dynasty, there has not been a three hundred year peace. Is that true?"

This question made Jia Lian pause for a moment, unable to answer immediately. After thinking for a while, he gave a cautious answer: "In the last years of the chaos of each dynasty, it is often difficult to reach the peak of the contradiction between people and land, and the country has already perished. The reason is not the grassroots, but the rulers from top to bottom, who are completely rotten. If it is impossible to open up a new huge channel for benefits, taking this dynasty as an example, if there is no reform, it should have a hundred years of national life by inertia. Your Majesty's reform is not to compete with the people for benefits, but to take back the benefits that should have belonged to the court but were encroached upon. Take Zhang Juzheng of the Ming Dynasty as an example. The reform enriched the national treasury and extended the Ming Dynasty for 50 years. This is based on the fact that after Zhang Juzheng's death, many reforms were overturned and only the One Whip Law remained."

Li Yuan's face darkened as he listened, and he seemed to have understood something. He asked again, "Is there no cure for the cycle of order and chaos?"

Jia Lian smiled slightly and asked: "Are there more gentlemen or villains in the world?"

Li Yuan was confused and didn't know how to answer for a while. Jia Lian smiled and walked away, letting him think about it slowly.

There isn't much Jia Lian needs to do now. Just find a conspicuous place to sit down so that everyone can see him when they look up.

So, Jia Lian placed a lounge chair on a high place with a coffee table next to it. He sat on the lounge chair, drank tea leisurely and enjoyed the sea breeze.

The officers and soldiers who were busy preparing for the landing naturally felt relieved when they saw Jia Lian. Look, Jia Zhitai still had such leisure time.

As night fell, a bonfire was lit and Jia Lian sat by it. Although it was hot, he had to endure it in order to stay alert and also endure the harassment of mosquitoes.

I have to say that Hailongtou did a lot of work in advance. At least near this section of the beach, there were not a lot of weeds and shrubs. They had been cleared in advance, and there were traces of burning on the ground.

The purpose of doing this is not to slash and burn, but to drive away insects and snakes, which are not easy to find. Of course, this kind of cleaning can only guarantee a short-term guarantee. If it is not repeated after a year, the next year there will be a scene of weeds and shrubs growing here again, full of vitality. This is the normal state of tropical climate.

(PS: I lived in Hainan Island when I was young, and I am not making this up. When I was a kid, I would hold a stick in my hand when I went to pick rubber fruits, for fear of being bitten by snakes. The rubber plantations were still good, as there were not too many shrubs. The most terrifying thing was the barren hills, where there was no road to go.)
There were lights on the sea, illuminating the officers and soldiers who were busy all night. Despite this, small accidents continued to occur and officers and soldiers fell into the water from time to time.

Taking advantage of the low tide, they extended the pier toward the sea as quickly as possible. The bonfire was lit all night and Jia Lian didn't even know when he fell asleep.

Li Yuan sat there in a daze for the whole night, and he didn't sleep. He really couldn't figure out a question, how to define a gentleman and a villain. It seemed that what he had learned before was wrong from the bottom of his heart.

Those people who surrounded him in the past, who were well-dressed, polite, and looked like gentlemen, did things that did not seem to be what gentlemen do.

Jia Lian's simple question had a huge impact on Li Yuan.

Sleeping on a recliner is not comfortable. When the sky was slightly white, Jia Lian was awakened by the suffocation. He opened his eyes, stretched comfortably, and glanced at Li Yuan who was still in a daze beside him. Jia Lian did not say anything and went to the temporary toilet to solve the problem. When he came back, the attendant had already prepared to wash up. After washing up slowly, Jia Lian asked: "How was it last night?"

Adjutant Fan Ping stepped forward immediately and said, "Sir, Deputy Envoy Hai sent back a message last night that the gathering place of overseas Chinese was strongly attacked by the natives. The two sides exchanged fire fiercely and were forced to abandon the periphery and retreat to the core area. During the infiltration, Deputy Envoy Hai exchanged fire with the natives and successfully defeated a part of the natives before entering the gathering area. There are no casualties in our unit for the time being."

The "my unit" here refers to the first battalion sent out by the first regiment. This is the most elite unit of the first town of the Nanyang New Army, so Jia Lian is very sincere about reinforcing the overseas Chinese gathering place.

Ignoring Li Yuan whose brain was in a state of breakdown, Jia Lian held a steamed bun in his hand, eating while looking at the map. Although he was not good at naval battles, he could still hold his own in land battles.

After a rough calculation, the first battalion of the first regiment marched forty li (more than twenty kilometers) last night, and also engaged in combat (breaking through the indigenous perimeter). The performance can be said to be remarkable (for this era).

As I was watching, I heard faint sounds of artillery fire in the distance. I looked up and saw that it was the city area.

"It's the rapid-fire cannons that are bombarding!" Zhang San came up to him without him noticing. Jia Lian turned around and looked at him: "Didn't you sleep all night last night?" "Thank you for your concern, sir. It's nothing. The command center has been settled. Please go over." Zhang San said politely. He is now a deputy general and also the deputy commander of the first regiment of the Nanyang New Army.

Jia Lian looked back at Li Yuan, who was still in a daze. He gave him a look to indicate that he had taken good care of him, and then turned and left. If you can figure out the problem, then it's over. If you can't figure it out, it will be like that for the rest of your life.

The so-called headquarters was a thatched shed, with small wooden sticks arranged in a grid, and coconut leaves woven into a horizontal piece fixed on the grid. It was previously built by Hai Longtou's men, and was only 500 meters away from the sea. Looking back at the pier that went deep into the sea, Jia Lian couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart.

He really overestimated these colonists. He actually allowed the Hailongtou people to set up camp only 20 kilometers away from the city. He was still worried that they would go to Guangzhou to get information, so he made a big fuss to block the news. Judging from the results, it was indeed a bit redundant, but Jia Lian did not intend to change and would continue to make all preparations in the future.

The reason is simple, if you are making progress, your enemies will also make progress. Napoleon appeared in Europe. In order to defeat Napoleon, the army of the anti-French coalition became stronger little by little in the baptism of war.

Just because there are no strong enemies on the border of the Great Zhou Empire now does not mean there will never be one. If there are no strong enemies, then we should create one.

At this time, Jia Lian admired Emperor Chenghui's pardon of Li Ni and the expansion of the East and West Kings' fiefs. To put it bluntly, these forces were potential enemies. If the empire wanted them to remain subordinate, it had to maintain its absolute advantage.

"Is there any detailed report on last night's battle?" Jia Lian entered working mode. The main force could not move during the battle and had to wait until all the supplies were transported up before advancing forward in an orderly manner.

Taking risks is absolutely impossible. At this stage, the only one who is in contact with the enemy is the First Battalion of the First Regiment. It is necessary to understand the enemy's strength through their reports.

"One of the accompanying staff officers came back in the middle of the night. Let him come and report." The experienced Zhang San was naturally prepared. Soon a young officer came in to report the details.

Last night's battle was not as simple as Fan Ping said. Fighting at night, the enemy is not a fool and will definitely be prepared.

Yesterday during the day, the overseas Chinese settlement abandoned the periphery and retreated to the core area with fortifications. They also took the initiative to set fire to the wooden buildings in the periphery. Thousands of natives passively put out the fire, and the overseas Chinese settlement bought a day. After nightfall, the natives set up defenses at various key points and prepared to launch an attack during the day.

When Hai Longtou led his troops around to the northwest under the guidance of a local guide, it was already the end of the morning hour of Yin, when the natives were tired and their defenses were at their most lax.

The first battalion used grenade launchers to clear the way, and then launched a bayonet charge after volleys of gunfire. After two minutes of fierce fighting, the natives in front of them collapsed, and with the help of the overseas Chinese in the gathering place, they successfully entered the gathering place.

"There is a breastwork inside the gathering area. The officers of the first battalion have made the following arrangements. The officers and soldiers of the first battalion will rest on the spot. As a mobile force, the deputy envoy of the sea will have about 800 elite soldiers to assist in the defense of the overseas Chinese area."

Hearing this, Jia Lian coughed and said, "Deputy Envoy Hai is your superior, so be respectful when you speak to him. Don't act like you are an elite soldier of the new army. Otherwise, I will find out and I will punish you with a military stick."

To put it bluntly, these new soldiers were arrogant and fierce. The grassroots soldiers were okay, but the officers were very arrogant in the army. Jia Lian needed to knock them down from time to time to prevent them from getting too cocky.

"Yes, sir!" Everyone in the command center stood at attention and answered in unison.

"Sir, isn't it too slow to wait for all the supplies to land as planned? We can let the first battalion push forward in units of battalions to relieve the pressure on the gathering area and prevent the Spanish regular troops in the fortress area from being dispatched to cooperate with the natives in the battle." Zhang San knew Jia Lian very well, and the suggestions he made were very pertinent and would not cause Jia Lian's displeasure.

"The battlefield is unpredictable and plans cannot keep up with the changes. You are the deputy commander and must adapt to circumstances. Since you think it's possible, then do it. Remember one principle: don't be reckless and don't seek victory, just seek not to lose." Jia Lian affirmed Zhang San's suggestion. The transportation was not stopped last night. Now, except for the artillery marks, all other troops should go ashore.

"Yes, sir!" Zhang San saluted, turned around and told his staff officer to notify everyone immediately.

The current situation is that the first mark has advanced ten miles and built a semicircular defense zone. If the Spaniards do not take the initiative to attack, the landing point is actually very safe.

When the plan was made, out of caution, we had to wait until all personnel had landed before launching the attack. The current situation is not the case, so of course adjustments have to be made.

Because of the surprise attack last night, the natives did not dare to act rashly, and only after daybreak did they carefully block the gap in the northwest corner. Seeing that the overseas Chinese area did not take any action, they gradually became bolder.

However, the natives were still natives, and their organization was not high, so they prepared for the attack slowly and did not take any action in the morning. In the expatriate area, Hai Longtou, who had not rested much, came down from the watchtower and asked Chen Jia, the expatriate leader waiting below, "Excuse me, Deputy Envoy Hai, what's the situation outside?"

"They are scattered and should not have finished assembling yet. It's almost noon and I feel there won't be any fighting in the morning. I have arranged for them to take turns to rest. Jia Zhitai is unloading supplies and there are too many things, so it will take some time. Don't worry, there will be no problem." Hai Longtou said this with confidence. He was not saying how powerful his men were, but that a battalion of new troops had come in, so he really had the confidence.

The combat effectiveness of the new army could be seen from last night's march. After everyone was fully armed and marched with heavy loads to the destination, his subordinates marched lightly and were exhausted and asked for a rest. The commander of the first battalion directly stated that they could launch an attack and charge into the overseas Chinese area in one breath.

So he witnessed the battle process with his own eyes. The scouts quietly took down the sentries, the grenadiers came forward and sprayed the ground with grenades, followed by volleys of gunfire, knocking down a large number of awakened natives, and then the bayonet assault, the whole process was a crushing victory. As a bystander, I thought they were too relaxed. If I put myself in their shoes, I thought they were too awesome. If it were my own people, it would definitely not be so easy.

Before Hai Longtou could talk to Chen Jiaduo, gunshots were heard in the distance. Hai Longtou saw the sound and asked the people on the watchtower, "What's with the gunshots?"

"Gunfire from the north of the fort area. Can't see clearly from here."

Hearing the gunshots, the commander of the first battalion, Cui Lu, came out of a civilian house. He was tall and had long legs. He strode forward. After asking about the situation, Cui Lu immediately squatted down, took out a temporary hand-drawn map and unfolded it. After taking a look, he came to the conclusion: "It is the first battalion that is pressing the fortress area in front, intending to contain the Spaniards in the fortress area and prevent them from helping the natives attack the expatriate area."

Although it was just a judgment, Cui Lu was very sure. As a northerner, it took Cui Lu a while to adapt to the south. In his opinion, fighting was not difficult at all. The difficult part was the women in the overseas Chinese community. They seemed to be much braver than those in China. Their eyes were not concealed at all, and they looked at people with a fiery look that made people panic. He was not afraid of these women, but of military law. When recruiting soldiers, he was tricked. He already had a wife at home, and he had a concubine. Before this expedition, Cui Lu, who was considered a handsome guy, swore to his wife and concubine again and again that he would never add anyone to his family when he returned.

When he went home on vacation in Guangzhou, he was always busy and lacked energy. But after drifting all the way here on the sea, he regained his energy. I don't know if Chen Jia did it on purpose, but arranged a pretty girl. When he was awakened by the gunshot, he almost bumped into her when he went out. Not to mention, the girl was very enthusiastic and wanted to prepare breakfast for him. It felt like she was going to pounce on him at any time, so Cui Lu ran away quickly.

"Boss Chen, the military has strict discipline. One of the rules is that you cannot have contact with women during wartime. Call everyone back so that we don't make things awkward for everyone." Cui Lu said it out loud for the sake of his own future.

Chen Jia smiled without any embarrassment: "The heavenly soldiers have come all the way here, so you can't do things like washing clothes and cooking by yourself, right?"

Cui Lu didn't give him a chance: "Boss Chen, don't hurt me!"

(End of this chapter)