Chapter 357 New guests at Sanya Port
Fighting means making money. The Annan Civil War has been going on for several years. Most of the income of the northern and southern courts was invested in the battlefield. Even if one side temporarily achieved victory on the battlefield, it would be difficult to use the victory to achieve results in one fell swoop. Opponents, both sides have been struggling to support the battle. Like the Haihan Militia, they engage in raiding warfare behind enemy lines, directly attacking cities in the hinterland of the rear, maintaining military expenses by supporting wars, and even gaining economic benefits by waging wars. Neither the North nor the South can do this. Yes, after all, they currently do not have the maritime mobility capabilities like the Haihan Navy. In particular, the South Vietnam region suffered heavy losses twice in a year. The first time, most of the surface troops deployed near the war zone were wiped out by the Hai Han Militia. The latter time, the Hai Han Militia took away a large number of civilian ships from their own rear areas. Now, Even the channels for exporting goods have become a problem. It is simply a disaster that never comes singly.
In contrast, the situation in North Vietnam is slightly better. If the North Vietnamese court can endure it for another year and a half, this helpless situation may change. The Black Tu Port Shipyard is currently producing a steady stream of offshore sailboats with a displacement of about 100 tons. In about a year, North Vietnam may be able to have a small-scale maritime force. By then, the problem of land and water support operations that has troubled them for a long time can also be effectively solved. The North Vietnamese Army will even have the opportunity to transport troops from the sea and directly launch attacks on the Hue area that lacks the protection of surface forces.
Of course, there is another faster solution, which is to rent a large boat directly from Haihan people. Although the North Vietnamese military borrowed a number of ships for free from Yong'an Port this time, most of them were small boats. Short-distance transportation tasks such as crossing the river were no problem, but long-distance troop projection was more difficult. As for a sailboat with a displacement of more than 100 tons, Haihan will definitely not provide it for free, but when it comes to money, the North Vietnamese military, which is stretched for military expenditures, really has no confidence. Even though it has a clear advantage on the battlefield, if the war continues at the current pace, the military expenditure will still be a huge astronomical figure. The North Vietnamese court is not even sure whether it can do it before it completely goes bankrupt. Unify South Vietnam.
North Vietnam's shortage of military expenditures due to years of war is not unsolvable. Hai Han has long proposed a comprehensive cooperation package, but the conditions are unacceptable to the North Vietnamese court. The method proposed by Haihan was actually very simple, which was to let North Vietnam exchange population and land for military assistance.
When North Vietnam first dealt with Hai Han, they boarded a pirate ship because of unknown circumstances. After the Hai Han people took away the land in Heitu Port, Tushan Peninsula and Yong'an Port one after another, some smart people in the North Vietnamese court finally woke up. , realized that the Haihan people were actually occupying the territory in the name of the concession. The people who built various infrastructures for the Haihan people in these concessions were the war refugees that the North Vietnamese court once considered a burden. North Vietnam paid for its land and population, but what it got in exchange was all kinds of consumables produced by Hai Han. However, every step Hai Han took was done openly. Some bilateral agreements were even signed by the North Vietnamese court at the request of Hai Han. No place to complain.
However, when the knowledgeable people in the North Vietnamese court realized Hai Han's intentions, they were no longer willing to pay a high price in exchange for the Hai Han people's help. At least they could no longer arbitrarily transfer land to the Hai Han people in the form of concessions. Especially in key areas along the coast. The military attacks suffered by South Vietnam have fully proved the importance of deploying defenses in coastal areas, and the Haihan people specifically selected coastal areas to establish concessions in North Vietnam, which occasionally gave those in power a chill on their backs. The population exported to Haihan gradually changed from the original war refugees to mainly prisoners and prisoners of war, and gradually reduced the total amount of population exported, hoping to use this to slightly limit the expansion speed of the Haihan Concession.
Of course, these methods are still a little immature in the eyes of the Haihan Executive Committee. After all, they have accumulated more than four hundred years of historical experience. Whether it is political means or economic means, if they want to rectify a country like Annan with internal and external troubles, the Executive Committee has all the tools. There are too many precedents to learn from. Whether North Vietnam is willing to cooperate is not the primary issue in the opinion of the Executive Committee. Due to military needs, the North Vietnamese regime will never fall out with itself at this stage, and the biggest difficulty in the expansion of the Crossing Group lies in the early stage. In the past two or three years, as long as it survives this period of development and gets on the right track, it is not impossible to support a more cooperative regime to come to power to manage Annan.
At present, the North Vietnamese court is more eager to resolve the domestic North-South split. Therefore, no matter how difficult it is, it still has to squeeze out resources to exchange military assistance from Hai Han so that the civil war can continue. Just as the confrontation between North and South Vietnam moved south to the Hengshan line, two ships filled with Annan immigrants arrived at the Sanya New Port, which had not yet been fully completed.
The sailors on the ship rounded their arms and threw the cable to the trestle. The staff then pulled the cable to the shore and tied it firmly to the mushroom-shaped cement pier. On the river bank, a platoon of black police officers were on standby to take over the immigrants on the two boats. Also standing with the police were people from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the medical team, who were required to conduct simple quarantine on the people on the ship and register and verify the demographic information of the immigrants.
After several months of construction at the Sanya New Port, the current channel in and out of the port has been renovated, and the docks on the south bank of the inland river have been basically completed. There are more than ten trestles of different lengths and widths, which can accommodate ordinary fishing boats to large 500-ton boats. The warship is docked, and the cargo yard behind the dock is adjacent to the Xingang Railway Station. There are four trains running between here and Tiandu every day, making the transportation of goods in and out of the port very convenient. After the construction of this section of the pier was completed, the executive committee couldn't wait to put it into use.
Due to the increasing number of merchant ships coming from the mainland, although Victory Port's harbor is large, the steel fleet docked at the Crossing Group occupies about one-fifth of the area. The military barracks pier to the east of the harbor is dedicated to warships. This naturally Needless to say, to the west is the dock area belonging to the Victory Port Shipyard, so the dock area left for general merchant ships and civilian ships to dock is already relatively limited. One of the purposes of the Executive Committee in developing Sanya New Port is to share part of the cargo handling pressure of Victory Port. Therefore, after the railway from Victory Port to Sanya New Port is opened to traffic, there will be basically no land transportation difficulties in loading and unloading cargo from Sanya New Port. Interconnection between Xingang and Tietiandu Industrial Zone can be achieved through railways.
The current general division of labor between the two ports is that Victory Port is responsible for docking ships coming from the mainland, while Sanya New Port mainly receives coal ships and immigration ships that come regularly from the Annan direction.
Once immigration matters are involved, there will be more problems to be dealt with at the terminal. Therefore, the Executive Committee established the Sanya Port Management Committee for this purpose, with the same administrative level as the Victory Port Management Committee. In July, it Heitu Port transferred back the local top leader Zhou Hengxing to serve as the director of the management committee, and the position he left was taken over by Xie Chun, the local maritime affairs officer.
Today Zhou Hengxing came to the dock in person to preside over the reception of the two immigrant ships. With his current status, he did not have to come forward to handle this kind of specific work. However, the immigrants on the two ships today were mainly South Vietnamese prisoners of war. Zhou Hengxing also came forward to prevent emergencies during the handover.
So far, the Executive Committee's use of Annan immigrants is still continuing the previous policy - North Vietnamese immigrants are basically forcibly converted to naturalized citizenship after the isolation period, and then assigned to various immigration settlements to settle down; while South Vietnamese prisoners of war are Because of language and racial issues, most of them were sent directly to hard labor camps to be used as free labor. These people had to serve at least three years of hard labor before they could get a chance to regain their freedom depending on the degree of their transformation. Of course, given the intensity of labor currently arranged in the hard labor camps, it is hard to say how many of these people will be able to serve three years of hard labor.
After the ship docked, the medical team first boarded the ship to check to ensure that there was no epidemic or other disease on board. Since these two ships were almost all prisoners of war, the level of medical examination was far less detailed than that of ordinary immigration ships. After exchanging a few words with the medical staff on the ship, the medical team at the dock randomly inspected a few people. , signed and released.
A crew member opened the vent on the deck and shouted into the dark cabin: "We are here, come out, one by one, no stopping! No crowding!"
These prisoners of war were loaded onto a ship at Yong'an Port five days ago. After being locked in a steamer-like cabin and drifting at sea for nearly two hundred nautical miles, all of them looked not very good. Since they hadn't seen the sun for many days, most people were so shaken that they couldn't even open their eyes when they got on the deck.
These prisoners of war were organized into groups of ten and were strung together by iron chains and shackles. Each ten people were like a centipede, dragging the iron chain forward slowly. Most people look numb, and only a few people look around, trying to figure out where they are by observing their surroundings. However, the people who were looking around quickly stopped thinking, because the policemen in black had already drawn their batons from their waists and started beating those who were staring everywhere. The police have long accumulated enough experience in dealing with these hard labor, and sticks can often teach newcomers to abide by the rules here more efficiently than preaching. After a few beatings, they will naturally know what they can and cannot do.
"These people are the property of the Executive Committee. Just take it easy. If you beat them to death or maim them, your money will be deducted!" Zhou Hengxing looked at the slightly chaotic situation on the dock and couldn't help but say hello.
"Did you hear what Director Zhou said? Be careful with your actions!" A thin, dark-skinned middle-aged man in police uniform quickly said, "Tell them to line up quickly and listen to Director Zhou's instructions!" This middle-aged man is called Yu Zhen, and he is friends with the inspector Wei Ping. He used to work as a detective in the Yamen of Yacheng, but was later moved by Wei Ping. At the end of last year, he resigned from office and secretly came to Shengli Port to serve. He was able to be successfully absorbed into the police system, which was partly due to Wei Ping.
Aftershock changed his job from a detective to a police officer, which was basically a professional counterpart. He had work experience as a yamen errand, and with Wei Ping's targeted guidance, he got started quickly. After a few months, he was able to get started. He was promoted by Ren Liang, the head of the Public Security Department of the Ministry of Justice, and sent to Sanya Xingang to take charge of security work.
Yuzhen is a person who came from the yamen, so he is naturally very sensitive to the officialdom. After he entered Haihan's civil service system, he did some homework and studied which positions in this system had quick promotions and potential. From Yu Zhen's point of view, the position of director of the Port Management Committee is definitely a good position with a bright official career.
The first director of the Victory Port Administrative Committee was Schneider, one of the nine elders of the Haihan Executive Committee. Everyone in the local naturalized people knew that Shopkeeper Shi was the God of Wealth in charge of Haihan's finances, so there was no need to say more. The second term was Ren Liang, and now he has joined the executive committee as a senior official, which is already very illustrative. Although Sanya Port is a new port that has just taken shape, Aftershock can see that the resources invested by the Executive Committee here are no joke. The future development potential may be higher than that of Victory Port, and Director Zhou It is said that in the colonial port of Annan, he was the director of the management committee. Although he did not seem to have been promoted after being transferred from overseas, his work experience of holding the top position in two ports is no joke, and he will probably continue to be promoted in the future. With this understanding, Yuzhen was somewhat flattering in front of Zhou Hengxing, and his words and deeds were mostly based on Zhou Hengxing's preferences.
Although the aftershocks urged the men to assemble the hard laborers into a team, the two boats carried hundreds of people after all, and it still took a while to get these unknown guys to stand in line on the dock. Later, Yu Zhen couldn't hold back anymore and rushed into the team of hard laborers, cursing and kicking them, in order to speed up the formation of the team of hard laborers.
"Director Zhou, the team has been assembled. Please give me a lecture!" Yu Zhen reported while handing over the tin horn in a very awkward manner.
Zhou Hengxing took over and said lightly: "Thank you for your hard work."
"No hard work, no hard work, just serve the Executive Committee!" Yu Zhen also attended several special political and ideological training courses before he was promoted. Although he didn't quite understand what the lecturer said, he said things like "Serve the Executive Committee" "Service" is a slogan that is easy to express loyalty, but I keep it in my heart and talk about it all the time.
Zhou Hengxing stayed in Annam for more than half a year, and he has a certain talent for languages. Now he can basically master the dialects of North and South Vietnam, so he doesn't even need an interpreter to lecture these prisoners of war. He took a few steps forward, stepped onto the makeshift container platform, raised a tin speaker and began to speak: "This is Sanya Port, and you will spend the next few years of your life here!"
"In this place, you'd better forget where you come from and what you've done before. You only need to remember one thing in your mind, and that is to obey orders! For those who want to disobey orders, I can guarantee that you will never It is possible to leave here alive, but if you obey orders and work honestly, you can get food and shelter to survive! After working for three years, you will have a chance to regain your freedom! You have sold your lives for the small court of Hue Province for three years. Will they let you go? All of you should have died on the battlefield, but now you have a chance to live. I hope you can cherish it. Because this opportunity is only available to each of you once!”
Zhou Hengxing saw the silence in the audience and was very satisfied with the effect of his speech. After leaving the stage, he handed the trumpet to Yu Zhen: "You can also say a few words!"
Yuzhen was flattered and said: "How dare a villain dare to be rude in front of Director Zhou!"
"Just say it, you will have a share in the future management of these people." Zhou Hengxing nodded to Yushui and said, "I'm rushing to the Victory Fort for a meeting. You handle the things here well and arrange these as soon as possible." People go to work.”
"Yes, yes, the villain must do his best, Director Zhou, walk slowly."
Yuzhen bowed and sent Zhou Hengxing away, and walked up to the stage built with cargo boxes. Looking at the darkness of heads under the stage, he cleared his throat with two dry coughs, raised the microphone and said, "You Annan boys, don't move when you get here. What other thoughts are there? I have a bad temper, so I will tell you the rules first! From now on, if one person violates the rules, the whole team will be punished! If you want to survive here, you will be hanged! I work hard to do a good job!”
After giving a simple and rude speech, Yuzhen ordered the slave laborers to be escorted to their station. The hard labor camp at Sanya Port is not far from the dock, just at the foot of Luhuitou Mountain in the south. The accommodation conditions in the hard labor camp are naturally not comparable to those of ordinary workers. They are basically just simple awnings made of bamboo and wood. Wind leaks from all directions. The shelter function on rainy days is also very worrying. Compared with the boat-shaped house, it is even more crude. It can only provide some protection from the wind and sun. The living area of each pergola is less than ten square meters, but it has to accommodate a team of ten people. Basically, it is packed to the brim and there is no room left.
The only thing that can make the hard laborers feel a little relieved is that after entering here, the shackles connecting them have finally been removed. They no longer have to be as embarrassed as they were a few days ago, when one person defecated while others were forced to watch. . Each shack has a toilet, but other than that there are basically no other living facilities. When eating, you only receive the tableware when the meal is served, and after eating, a dedicated person will take it away. As for the working tools, you can only access them during working hours, and there are dedicated personnel to check and control them. If someone tried to find weapons in the camp to rebel, the only alternative would be to use commodes and demolish the houses.
Soon the hard laborers got their first meal after landing, white rice porridge in coconut shell bowls. Even though there was only an unknown black and salty pickle with the meal, the slaves still devoured it since it was the first real meal they had eaten since being captured, and there was really no reason to dislike it.
(End of chapter)