Chapter 121 Overseas Inspection (8)
During the two days that the temporary miners were fighting in the field, the few people who stayed at the coastal camp were not idle. They had to sort out a route from Fushuizhou Island to this port area based on the navigation diary and charts. In addition, a military-grade map of the port area needs to be produced. On the one hand, it is used by the Military and Police Department to study defense deployment. On the other hand, it must be provided to the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Construction to prepare a port area planning map after returning.
During the routine contact between the expedition team and the base camp that night, Wang Tom reported the conclusions of the two days of fieldwork to the executive committee and asked for instructions on the next step. In fact, the expedition team has basically completed all the scheduled inspection tasks so far: formulating a cross-sea route, exploring the coastline of the mining area, looking for a suitable port environment, conducting on-site exploration of the mining area, collecting ore samples, and drawing detailed maps. If there are no new tasks assigned by the Executive Committee, the expedition team can prepare to return.
Unexpectedly, the executive committee did not make an immediate decision this time. After a brief silence on the radio, the executive committee said it needed some time to study it. After finishing this conversation, everyone in the expedition team looked at each other in bewilderment.
"What does the Executive Committee mean by this?" Wang Tom frowned, wondering if there is anything else we have omitted? Or is there something unexpected happening at the base camp?
"We estimate that we will have to stay in Vietnam for a day or two." Xie Chun seemed to have understood something: "The executive committee may send us to the west."
About forty nautical miles west of Halong Bay is the Red River Delta, the largest grain-producing area in northern Vietnam. The current capital of the Annan regime, later Hanoi, is located about a hundred kilometers inland to the west of the Red River Delta. In view of the fact that the areas visited by the expedition team in the past few days are basically no-man's land where no one has set foot, the large number of working people needed in the mining area in the future will probably be Hanoi and its eastern seaside area as the main target.
Considering the location of Hongji Coal Mine, Qinzhou and Beihai in Guangxi in the northeast can actually be considered as immigration introduction places. However, the current transportation capacity of the Executive Committee is still seriously insufficient and it is unable to send a large number of ships to several places. To transport people from places hundreds of nautical miles away. The route to Vietnam is much smoother. Most of the ships sailing from Victory Port to Vietnam are empty. They can stop at the Red River Delta to load people before heading to the port area.
But if the Executive Committee decides to do this, someone will have to first check out the situation in the coastal areas of Vietnam to see how difficult it is to bring in immigrants. Whether it is for time or efficiency reasons, it is unlikely that the Executive Committee will send a team to do this. The expedition team currently waiting in Halong Bay is undoubtedly the best person to complete this task.
Sure enough, more than an hour later, the executive committee contacted the expedition team again and assigned them the task of searching for areas where immigrants were introduced.
"Everyone should go to bed early today. Everyone must cheer up in the next two days. I don't want any accidents to happen during the last part of this journey." Wang Tom seemed very cautious about the new tasks assigned by the executive committee. , in his opinion, settled areas may be more dangerous than the uninhabited areas that have been explored in the past few days.
Early the next morning, the expedition team packed up, boarded the ship and left the port area where they had been stationed for two days. The fleet crossed Halong Bay all the way west, bypassed the huge Cat Ba Island, and arrived at the location of the later Haiphong City that afternoon. In later generations, this place was the largest port in northern Vietnam and the third largest city in Vietnam after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with a population of more than two million.
But when the expedition team saw the scene here with their own eyes, they just felt deeply disappointed. Looking at the situation on the shore through the telescope, we can indeed see signs of habitation not far from the coast, but the scale is far from the expectations of the expedition team. There are only a few dozen sparse households in the village. At best, it is a little bigger than the original Yulin fishing village, and it cannot even compare with small towns such as Fenghuang and Tianya.
If the expedition team had consulted Ning Qi about the historical situation of Haiphong City beforehand, they would not have come with such high hopes. Until the second half of the 19th century, the population of Haiphong was still only the size of a fishing village. It was not until 1870 that, under the coercion of France, the Nguyen dynasty opened a port here, built wharves, commercial halls, military depots, etc., and embarked on the development path of a port city. The large coastal city in the impression of the expedition team would take more than two hundred years to appear on this land.
"Isn't this too confusing? Do we really have to go upstream to Hanoi?" Xie Chun looked at the dilapidated fishing villages on the coast and couldn't help complaining.
"No, we can't go to Hanoi by water." Wang Tom shook his head and rejected Xie Chun's idea: "Our two ships are not river boats, and it is difficult to navigate on the winding rivers inland. Besides, the land distance from here to Hanoi is more than 100 kilometers, and the length of the river would probably double this distance, making it almost impossible to travel by water.”
Taking the land route is obviously not a good idea. The number of people in the expedition team is limited, and at least seven or eight people must be left behind to drive these two sailboats. It is definitely a very risky thing to go hundreds of kilometers into a strange country with a team of about ten people, and also to visit the capital of this country. What's more, Ning Qi said that this country is currently in the midst of a civil war between the north and the south. It's hard to say whether a guy like Chuan Zhong who wears strange clothes will be treated as a hostile force if he goes to a densely populated area. Although the entire team can be equipped with the top weapons of this era and can be said to be safe for self-protection, they have to be subject to primitive traffic conditions. The expedition team didn't even have a single mule or horse to carry luggage. It was not impossible to carry several days of supplies through hundreds of kilometers of wilderness by manpower, but once anything happened in the inland areas, In an accident, they had to rely on two legs to escape. If they were unlucky, it was hard to say whether they could return to the beach.
"It's better to go ashore first and have some contact with the local people before we can make further judgments." Wang Tom finally made up his mind: "I just don't know if I can communicate in language."
"Don't worry, you should be able to understand. There are many people in northern Vietnam who speak the same vernacular as those in Guangdong and Guangxi." Tian Yeyou reassured Wang Tom with confidence. Although he was ultimately unable to take his girlfriend to travel to Vietnam due to work reasons before traveling through time, he had done a lot of related homework.
To the surprise of the expedition team, the fishermen here are not as afraid of outside strangers as those in Yulin Fishing Village. This may be because there are very few pirates in the coastal area of Beibu Gulf, and the fishermen are not often disturbed by outsiders. Because of the harm caused by the invaders.
Although these people who make a living by fishing are illiterate, they can recognize the refined salt brought out by the expedition team, which is much finer than the salt they boiled by boiling seawater in earthen pots. After tasting it, they found that this salt There is absolutely no bitter taste that irritates the taste buds like homemade sea salt. Since the market for salt was opened, the Executive Committee has realized that using this commodity as a stepping stone is almost unfavorable, even in salt-producing areas. In this era, the salt produced on a large scale by salt farms is both high in quality and price. Can't compete with the Executive Committee's product.
The expedition team was also very pleased to find that the language spoken by the people here was indeed the vernacular with a strong accent of Guangdong and Guangxi, as Tian Yeyou expected. There are several people in the expedition team who can speak the vernacular, and Xie Chun, who has worked in countless industries, can barely handle a few words. In this way, there is basically no communication barrier between the expedition team and the local fishermen.
According to what the inspection team learned, the living standards of the fishermen here are actually similar to those of fishermen in places like Sanya and Yazhou. They are only able to make ends meet, and they have no financial ability to seek medical care, education, etc. aspects of protection. Compared with the Yazhou government's control over nearby areas, the Annan regime seems to have less control over the local area. In this coastal area, which is only a hundred or two hundred miles away from the capital, there is no governance and no garrison. It has no influence on the local area. The people are completely managed like sheep, which is as incredible as the completely undefended Tianjin.
According to what these immigrants said, the nearest densely populated area was about thirty or forty miles further inland. From there, there were large tracts of land occupied by some royal relatives, most of which were used to grow rice. According to the information available to the expedition team, this area is the largest grain-producing area in northern Vietnam. On the vast alluvial plains between here and Hanoi, tens of thousands of peasants served as tenant farmers for the nobles, cultivating the land and harvesting food for them.
During the conversation, the expedition team also learned a very important piece of information, that is, in recent months, a large number of people have fled to nearby areas from Hue, Dong Hoi, Vinh City and other places in the south. It is said that because the situation in the south became tense, the powerful people in the confrontation between the north and the south began to recruit nearby people to serve as civilian husbands or even directly as peasant soldiers. Some people who did not want to be implicated in the war fled to the north away from the war zone with their families and their families. This situation is exactly in line with what Ning Qi said about the political situation in Annan, and the large number of war refugees are undoubtedly the best candidates for labor immigrants.
"It seems we have to go south." After learning the good news, Wang Tom immediately ordered the expedition team to continue south along the coast.
Before setting off, the expedition team hired two bold young men from the fishing village as guides with salt and silver. An hour later, the fleet sailed around the Do Son Peninsula across the sea from Cat Ba Island. This is a famous scenic spot in later generations and is also the location of the only legal casino in Vietnam. That evening, the fleet arrived at the southern end of the Red River Delta - the mouth of the Red River. The expedition team will rest here for one night. After dawn, they will visit Qinghua, more than 40 nautical miles south of here. It is one of the largest cities between Annan and the war zone. The expedition team believes that a large number of people may have gathered there. War refugees.
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(End of chapter)