Chapter 417 Visiting Changhua
As a naval general who could only command civilian ships for a long time, Wu Sen was really scared. However, the Haihan Navy had large warships, powerful artillery, mature military systems and tactics, and good With excellent logistical support and high morale brought by invincibility, it is an almost impeccable army. Faced with the strength displayed by the Haihan Navy, Wu Sen really couldn't refuse the other party's solicitation against his will. This had nothing to do with the political philosophy he had always held. It would probably be difficult for any soldier with a naval background. Resist the temptation to join such a powerful navy. The enemy warships that Wu Sen once hated with gnashing of teeth are now within reach, and it is expected that he will be able to go to sea and fight side by side with his former opponents on such warships in the future. Such changes made Wu Sen couldn't help but sigh. Nothing is permanent.
After the day's assessment test, Wu Sen did not immediately receive a transfer order from the Navy. Just as Luo Shengdong expected, Wang Tom only gave Wu Sen an admission notice from the Shengli Port Military Academy and asked him to enroll on the same day with the notice. As for his job assignment, it depends on his performance during training. Even if Wu Sen's personal professional skills are good, he still has to complete at least two to three months of theoretical training before he can hope to enter the navy. During this period, he will also have enough time to slowly get to know the society under the Haihan Executive Committee. When he actually joins the Haihan Navy, his mentality may be very different from now.
He is not the only South Vietnamese prisoner of war with similar experiences to Wu Sen. In fact, the Haihan Militia captured a total of more than 300 soldiers and sailors of the Navy in previous battles in South Vietnam. Some of those captured last year were already Most of them have joined the navy or the cargo fleet under the Ministry of Shipping. It's just that an officer of Wu Sen's level is really unique. In addition, with the strong recommendation of the Ruan brothers from the leading party, the military will give such a High attention.
Of course, Wu Sen's performance did not disappoint the military, and there was finally a "wise" change in political attitude. Otherwise, the Ruan brothers would definitely take the blame for Wu Sen's affairs. Don't say anything at that time. Wu Sen will be sent back to the hard labor camp and detained, and the Ruan brothers may also be implicated.
On May 11, 1629, the nineteenth day of April in the second year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, two white sailing ships, one large and one small, appeared on the sea near Changhua County on the west coast of Qiongzhou Island. The two boats have flat hulls, both hulls and sails are white, and they travel through the waves at very fast speeds.
The two father and son who were drying their fishing nets on the beach also noticed the two approaching strange boats. However, the fisherman and his son were not frightened by the sight in front of them. The father patted his son on the head and said: "Go back. Ask your mother to quickly light a fire, boil water, and prepare food, and say that the Haihan people are coming.”
These two strange-looking sailboats are naturally the two catamaran sailboats "Speed" and "Lightning" from Port of Victory. This is not their first time here. The Haihan people have been here as early as the seventh year of Apocalypse. Here, in the past year, these two sailing ships have taken turns visiting here almost once a month, and the fishermen in Changhua Fishing Village have long been accustomed to these visitors from Qiongnan Victory Port. In their opinion, these Haihan people are very friendly. Not only do they bring cheap refined salt and rice every time, but they also hire villagers here with generous remuneration to help them do whatever they can, such as providing accommodation and food for these visitors.
Next to this fishing village is an inland river fishing port that has been spotted by the Ministry of Maritime Transport early on. Although this small fishing port is small, only one-third of the area of Sanya Inland River Port, it is already the best natural port near the estuary of the Changhua River. . In the future, the executive committee's development plan for the inland will involve the transportation of a large amount of materials, and this place will become a cargo distribution center on the seaside. Of course, the entire adjacent fishing village boundary will definitely be requisitioned by the executive committee. As for the villagers in the fishing village, if they are willing to be included under the governance of the executive committee, they will definitely get a stable job and will not have to worry about their livelihood in the future. But if there are some discordant voices, armed vigilante groups and public security police will be dispatched to teach them how to behave.
The two ships began to lower their sails and slow down at the mouth of the Changhua River, and slowly sailed into the harbor of Changhua Fishing Port. There were originally only four or five fishermen on the coast here, which can hardly be called a fishing village. However, since the Haihan people set foot here, they have visited here regularly and brought some cheap goods. Over time, there have been more than a dozen fishermen here. Ten households. There were originally no pier facilities on the shore. The fishermen's boats were directly washed up on the river bank and then towed to the shore for parking. Last year, with the funding and sponsorship of the Haihan people, local fishermen built several trestles for large ships to dock in the harbor, and also built a gravel breakwater at the entrance of the harbor to prevent backflow caused by rising and falling seawater.
Liu Shanxia stood on the bow of the "Speed" and saw the fishermen on the shore waving to him, so he also waved to show friendship. Qiao Zhiya next to him smiled and said: "He is not saying hello to you, he is asking you to throw the cable to him!"
Liu Shanxia put down his hands angrily, picked up the cable coiled at the bow of the boat, and threw it out with all his strength. The fisherman who waved his hand caught it and fixed it to the cable pile on the shore.
"Old Chen, we meet again!" This is not the first time Qiao Zhiya has come here. He has already freshened up with the aborigines here. Before getting off the boat, he loudly greeted the fishermen on the shore.
"Master Qiao, long time no see, how are you?" The fisherman, known as Lao Chen, quickly bowed to Qiao Zhiya.
"Very good!" Qiao Zhiya stepped on the side of the ship and jumped onto the trestle: "By the way, where is your son, Lao Chen?"
"Tell him to go back and ask his mother to prepare hot water and meals for you all!" Lao Chen responded respectfully: "I don't know how many people Master Qiao has brought here this time. It's better for me to prepare a place to stay for the night as soon as possible."
"There are more people coming this time, I'm afraid you can't live in this village." Qiao Zhiya waved his hand and said: "It doesn't matter, we will set up a tent ourselves. By the way, there are still a few baskets of fresh fish on the boat. You can ask someone to carry it. Come down and have lunch!”
The fleet that visited Changhua this time was led by Qiao Zhiya and Liu Shanxia. The main purpose was to survey the traffic conditions from the seaside to the inland Shilu mining area, and to begin site selection and planning for future land freight routes. To develop the Shilu Iron Mine, it is necessary to build a land passage with a length of more than 25 kilometers. This length is almost twice the length of the Tiandu-Shengli Port-Sanya Port transportation line that has been put into operation. The amount of engineering is quite large. Although the Ministry of Construction has sent many batches of personnel here to conduct terrain surveys in the early stage, Liu Shanxia is now the second-in-command of the Ministry of Construction and the project leader of almost all large-scale infrastructure projects. The final plan of this project is still He has to come here and conduct on-site inspections before he can make a conclusion.
As a military personnel and an engineer, Qiao Zhiya was the perfect person to serve as the military representative for this operation. In addition to him, old Morgan, who always enjoys going out in the field, also came with him. Because the possibility of armed conflict on this mission was not high, his main responsibility was still to be a doctor, and he was also responsible for driving another ship with a slightly smaller hull. The sailing ship "Lightning".
Another member of the team worth mentioning is Superintendent II Fu Li, who was temporarily seconded from the Ministry of Justice. The reason why Fu Li appears in this team is that he may be needed to communicate with the local indigenous residents during this trip.
The Shilu Iron Mine is located in an inland mountainous area, and the mountainous areas on Hainan Island have always been the territory of the Li people. There are several Li mountain people living in the mountainous area near Shilu. Fu Li obviously has a unique advantage in communicating with the Li people. And he himself readily accepted this task. Being able to have the opportunity to deal with Li compatriots elsewhere on the island would definitely be more interesting than checking the immigrants in Victory Port every day.
After both ships docked at the shore, more than thirty people got off the ship, most of whom were militiamen from the Haihan Militia and a few technicians from the Ministry of Construction. Although it is expected that there will be no armed conflict under the circumstances, the Executive Committee has always been generous with the deployment of troops in this kind of field work, so it still asked the Military Commission to deploy a platoon of the Army as an escort for this operation.
The fleet set off from Victory Port the day before and rested overnight at the Yinggehai Salt Field. At present, more than 700 immigrants have moved into Yinggehai, a commune has been initially established, and immigrants have begun to organize the construction of production sites for salt farms. However, it will probably be the fastest to achieve mass production like the salt farms in the east. We have to wait until the second half of the year. This was the first time Fu Li came to Changhua on a field trip, and he was full of curiosity about everything around him. Not long after getting off the boat, he couldn't help but ask Qiao Zhiya: "Brother Qiao, it's still early, why don't we Go directly to the inland and stay here?”
"Because our people haven't arrived yet, we have to wait here for a while, maybe a few hours, maybe a day or two." Qiao Zhiya and Fu Li didn't notice anything, so they told him the reason.
"Waiting for someone? Didn't we nod our heads when we set off this time? Why is there anyone who hasn't boarded the boat and come with us?" Fu Li asked in confusion.
"It's not that they didn't get on our ship, it's that the person we're waiting for didn't come out of Victory Port." Qiao Zhiya explained patiently: "Do you know what our mission here is?"
"Prospecting, I heard from Mr. Ning and Mr. Tao that there is a very large iron ore in the inland here. We are here to mine this iron ore." Fu Li is also well-informed among the naturalized people. People, the big bosses would not hide these things from him. He already knew the true purpose of this operation before setting off.
"That's right, but when it comes to prospecting, you and I don't know how, and neither do Brother Liu or Old Morgan from the Ministry of Construction, so we can only wait for the experts to come." Qiao Zhiya patted Fuli on the shoulder and said, "Let's go. Let’s go see what’s delicious for lunch first.”
The so-called prospecting expert was naturally Tian Yeyou, the only professional among the first group of people who went to North Vietnam's Black Earth Port. Tian Yeyou worked in the North China Geological Survey before crossing over. He was one of the few mining-related experts in the entire crossing group. He basically organized and completed the prospecting work for Tiandu Iron Mine and Damao Manganese Phosphate Mine. After going to Black Tu Port to explore the local coal mines the year before last, Tian Yeyou simply stayed in Black Tu Port and never came back.
According to Zhou Hengxing, who was later transferred back to Shengli Port to take up a post, Tian Yeyou liked the quiet life and beautiful coastal scenery there very much, and had already planned to settle there for a long time. After the Heitu Port Management Committee established trade links with Lianzhou and Qinzhou in Guangxi, the clean coal from Heitu Port became the main local export product. As a mining supervisor, Tian Yeyou's net worth increased accordingly, and he even got married last year. The daughter of a wealthy businessman from Qinzhou solved the problem of personal destiny that had troubled him for a long time before time travel. Of course, there are many people like Tian Yeyou who have found partners in this time and space after time travel, but like him, there are not many people who are married to Ming Media and have families. Tian Yeyou himself can be regarded as setting a precedent for members of the time travel group in terms of marriage and love. After him, members began to marry members of the opposite sex from this time and space one after another.
After the development of Black Earth Port, the Executive Committee has not carried out any further development of mineral deposits. It was not until this year that after the external environment was gradually stabilized and a certain population size was achieved, the Executive Committee once again decided to develop the Shilu Iron Mine. The plan was put forward. Although the burial point of the Shilu Iron Mine is not a secret, and there are detailed records in large databases, how to determine the exact location of the veins and how to formulate a mining plan under actual conditions is not something that a layman can read. A job that can be done on paper. At this time, more professional personnel must be involved to ensure the smooth implementation of the development plan. So the Executive Committee sent a telegram to Heitu Port, asking Tian Yeyou to set off to the fishing village at the mouth of the Changhua River to meet up with the special team that set off from Victory Port to the local area.
Of course, there are no advanced fast ships such as catamaran sailing ships in Black Earth Port, not even the "Exploration Class" civilian passenger and cargo sailing ships produced by the Victory Port Shipyard in the past two years - the few high-end cargo ships have all been used by the Ministry of Shipping. It was arranged on the route from Sanya to Guangzhou, because the goods carried by that route require a shorter turnover period to obtain more profits, and almost all the goods carried by the ships between Heitu Port and Sanya do not need to be guaranteed. For black coal, it is not a big problem whether the transportation time is a few days early or a few days late. Anyway, the current output and transportation capacity of Black Tu Port have exceeded the production needs of Tiandu Industrial Zone, and there is even spare capacity to transport the produced coal to Liandu. It is sold in Qinzhou, Danzhou and other places, and due to its low price and high quality, Heitugang clean coal is very competitive in the market. Last year, all the local lignite coal kilns in Danzhou were forced to go bankrupt and cease operations, resulting in a large number of Under the persuasion of Yahang, Danzhou Qingzhuang took a boat south to Sanya to work for the Haihan people, which indirectly promoted the introduction of immigrants to Sanya.
The ship Tian Yeyou was on actually set off on the same day as the two ships of the special task force. However, he was not very lucky. Soon after leaving the port, the situation began to change. Since the ship carried an important person like Tian Yeyou, for safety reasons, the ship The ship returned to the port and waited for another day. When Qiao Zhiya and his party arrived in Changhua, the ship Tian Yeyou was on had not reached Fushuizhou Island halfway, and it would take at least a day or so to reach Changhua.
After the special team had a meal in the fishing village, Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to propose a visit to the nearby Changhua County. Liu Shanxia was a little worried about this: "Changhua belongs to Danzhou. If something happens to us in Changhua, it will be a bit troublesome."
"There won't be any trouble. I've been to the county seat many times and it's okay. The people here are very simple. As long as you give some small things to the people, they will treat you as a good person." Qiao Zhiya comforted with a smile.
"Oh, that's right...no, I'm a good person to begin with!" Liu Shanxia defended himself with wide eyes.
So half of the accompanying militiamen were left in the fishing village to guard the ships and supplies, while the rest, led by Qiao Zhiya, left the fishing village and headed southeast on foot. According to Qiao Zhiya, the county seat is only about five miles away from the fishing village, and it can be reached quickly on foot.
According to historical records, Changhua City was first built in the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, but the city wall built at that time was still an earth wall structure, and only a small section of the city wall was built with locally burned bricks. In the ninth year of Yongle, that is, 1411 AD, Changhua was often harassed by Japanese pirates and pirates. Therefore, Xu Mao, the commander of the guard army stationed in Changhua, organized the people to rebuild the city wall in order to resist the invasion, and the surrounding city was surrounded by stone. Brick wall. The city wall built at that time was five miles in circumference and six meters high. The tower part was five meters thick. There were 550 stone stacks, eight pavilions, four towers, and four gates. The southeast and northwest were Qizhan Gate, Qizhan Gate, and Gate. Ninghemen, Zhenhaimen, Ningwumen.
In the 10th year of the Ming Dynasty, that is, 1445 AD, Zhou Zhen, the magistrate of Changhua County, organized people to dig a deep trench with a span of five feet outside the city. After the completion of this project, Changhua City finally formed a complete and solid structure. The reliability of its city defense facilities is comparable to that of Yacheng. Of course, Changhua is just a county seat, while Yacheng is the seat of the state government. The size of the garrison is still quite different, especially Yacheng and Yazhou Water Village, a special unit. Regardless of the actual combat effectiveness, just the equipment of this unit alone, Changhua It's incomparable.
Based on its previous infiltration into Changhua County, the military has already had a clear picture of the local garrison situation. There are currently only more than 400 guardsmen stationed in Changhua City. This force relies on city defense and is enough to deal with pirates who come ashore to plunder. However, it is not enough to fight against the Haihan militia. The city defense of Changhua City may seem strong in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the eyes of the military, it is not even comparable to the Imperial City in Hue City. It will not be too difficult to deal with the garrison here. .
(End of chapter)