Chapter 551 Comparative Gap
However, what Yan Mingjun also didn't know was that Liu Qian did not specifically ask Haihan to dispatch warships to escort them for their safety, but at Haihan's request, he provided such a vessel to the Haihan militia to demonstrate their maritime strength. opportunity. Of course, there are no so-called pirates on the route from Guangzhou to Hainan Island. Even if the fleet does not need escort, there will be no safety risks in this regard. Haihan's military wanted to seize this escort opportunity and use force to intimidate these candidate officials at close range, so that they would be more honest and cooperate with Haihan's arrangements after arriving in Qiongzhou.
But Liu Qian also told a lie about one thing. The Ming Navy stationed at the Pearl River Estuary did not dare or be unwilling to take on this escort job. Haihan had already asked the timber merchant Chen Lin to send a message to the navy, asking them to be more "conscious" and find ways to avoid possible escort missions. Sure enough, when the Navy received the transfer order later, they shied away from the transfer order from their superiors on the pretext that the ships were under maintenance at the dock. Liu Qian then naturally recommended the Haihan Militia to take over the task. In view of the outstanding performance of the Haihan militia in quelling the Qiongbei bandits in the early stage, Liu Qian's recommendation did not encounter much resistance - the key is that Haihan acted voluntarily and did not need to pay money from officials. The government saved a lot of money by organizing its own armed forces to go to sea.
As a civil servant, Yan Mingjun didn't feel too deeply about this, but as a military attache, Li Jin found it a bit difficult to accept such an arrangement from his superiors. Although Yan Mingjun explained this arrangement, Li Jin still responded with some dissatisfaction: "Today I want to see how powerful the Haihan militia, which has been praised to the sky, is!"
Yan Mingjun didn't argue with him, he just smiled and said nothing. He has never seen the true identity of the Haihan Militia, but he has had one or two encounters with the members of the "Golden Shield Escort" armed escort team who were said to be trained by the Haihan people. Although they were only two swords trained by Haihan, in Yan Mingjun's opinion, those armed bodyguards were better than the local Ming Guard troops in terms of discipline and equipment.
The escorts of "Golden Shield Luck" all wear Haihan style short shirts, and the weapons they use are also authentic "Haihan guns". After adding a bayonet to the barrel of the gun, it can attack from a distance or defend at close range, at least it seems It's still very bluffing. Yan Mingjun felt that the only thing they were inferior to the Guards Army was that they were not equipped with armor, not even cotton armor, they were just clothed in cloth. If this was a situation where combat was really necessary, the chance of injury would undoubtedly be much greater than that of the Ming army.
However, the record of the "Golden Shield Escort" is obviously much better than that of the Guard Army. Since its establishment, the escort missions they have taken over have never had any major accidents such as theft of goods. On the other hand, the heroes who tried to rob them lost many of their troops and were killed by their guns. Slowly, there were no traces of bandits and bandits on the several fixed freight lines of the "Golden Shield Escort". This was a result that the Weisuo Army responsible for local security had not been able to achieve.
It is rumored that the Chinese militiamen in China are all fierce men who can fight ten of them on the battlefield. Yan Mingjun is indeed curious about what the real militia army looks like. When he saw the group of armed men escorting Malik on the pier, Yan Mingjun thought they were members of the Haihan militia. However, when he took the time to ask Liu Qian, he heard that they were just bodyguards from the Haihan Guangdong Office. It is not yet a regular army of the Haihan Militia.
At noon, the servants took out the meals that had been prepared the night before, went to the galley at the stern of the ship to heat them up, and then sent them to the deck for the two people who were still chatting. After lunch, the two of them went back to their cabins to rest. Yan Mingjun felt a little sleepy, so he went to bed undressed and took a nap. He slept there until the noise on the deck woke him up.
Yan Mingjun couldn't hear clearly even while lying on the bed, so he got up and went outside to see what was going on. When I walked to the deck, I found that Li Jin was already standing on the side of the ship, and the person who was shouting excitedly was him.
Yan Mingjun walked over and asked, "Why is Brother Li so excited?"
"Brother Yan, look at the river in front of you! The warship of the Haihan people!" Li Jin almost half of his body leaned out of the side of the ship. He retracted when he heard Yan Mingjun's greeting, pointed to the river bank in front and said: "This ship is comparable to The Navy’s ship is much more powerful!”
Yan Mingjun looked in the direction pointed by Li Jin, and sure enough he saw two Haihan sailboats with red and blue flags docked on the river bank ahead. Although he had never seen Haihan's sailboat before, he had also heard that the sailboat made by Haihan was significantly different from the traditional style. Now he could recognize it immediately when he saw it. The Fuchuan and Guangzhou ships are longer and narrower, and the sides are higher. The style of the sails is more like that of the Spanish sailing ships, and the rows of neat and square gun windows on the sides of the ships are the same as those of the Spanish armed sailing ships.
Yan Mingjun also saw the navy's fortune ship on the Pearl River in his early years. The size was actually no worse than the Haihan warship. In terms of the size of the ship, it might even be able to hold more sailors. However, the navy's ship only had one serious artillery piece. The others were all cannons, various large and small blunderbuss, and a wide variety of firearms. But there are five gun windows on the side of the Haihan warship. Although the other side of the ship cannot be seen, it must be a symmetrical design. Such a ship is equipped with ten artillery. This kind of firepower is indeed very scary. .
Li Jin suddenly turned around and said: "Brother Yan, you have more experience than me. In your opinion, does the Haihan ship really have so many cannons, or is it just a pretense to scare people?"
Yan Mingjun sighed: "At the end of the first year of Chongzhen, the Haihan people and the great pirate Liu Xiang had a fierce battle at Wanshan Port at the Pearl River Estuary. That battle directly drove Liu Xiang out of the waters of the Pearl River Estuary and retreated all the way to Fuzhou and Guangzhou provinces. Went to the handover place. According to the witnesses who witnessed this battle on Wanshan Island, the main warships of the Haihan people at that time should be the ships you and I see now. The number of Liu Xiang's ships at that time was. Haihan was beaten several times, but in the end he was defeated. One can imagine how big the gap in strength between the two sides was. ”
Yan Mingjun did not answer Li Jin's question directly, but the examples he cited were enough to illustrate the huge advantages of the Haihan warship in terms of performance and equipment - there is no need to pretend, this is a warship that has actually fought and won battles.
Li Jin's expression was obviously a little depressed. It was not that he had never heard of Haihan Navy's achievements, but he just wanted to use Yan Mingjun's words to deny his pessimistic views. However, it is obvious that Yan Mingjun's views are consistent with his. If we only look at the ship factor, the warships of the Haihan Militia are indeed superior to the Ming Navy. The only thing that is uncertain is this kind of powerful-looking armed gunboat. How many of them are the Haihan Militia equipped with? Gojo? Ten items? Or an even more astonishing number?
Soon the ship they were on sailed to a position parallel to the Haihan warship on the shore. There was only a distance of seven or eight feet between the two sides, and they could basically see the faces of the crew on the opposite deck. Yan Mingjun and Li Jin suddenly discovered that the personnel on the Haihan warship stood in a neat single row on the deck, facing their direction. None of these personnel were equipped with weapons. They all put their hands behind their backs and stared at their fleet in silence.
"It's quite imposing..." No matter how uncomfortable Li Jin felt, his eyes were still not blind. Although there was still a distance between them, he had indeed felt the chilling feeling emanating from the inside out from the people on the opposite boat. Qi, this is not the kind of momentum that ordinary sailors can possess. Only soldiers who have truly been on the battlefield and witnessed blood and fire can possess this kind of murderous aura.
After the fleet passed the two ships, Yan Mingjun recovered from the shock: "Is this place already Panyu County?" "It has already entered Panyu County." Li Jin responded: "The pilot ship After hearing the news, it is already getting late today, so there is no need to rush on the road. We will rest here in Lijiazhuang for one night and set off again tomorrow morning.”
Yan Mingjun asked: "What about the Haihan warships?"
"The Haihan people will naturally leave with our fleet tomorrow." Li Jin replied: "Otherwise they would not have docked at the shore just now, but should join our fleet. Haihan's ship had already stopped at Here, there are no plans to join our fleet. It seems that the itinerary has been decided early.”
"It is said that the Haihan people have a method of sending messages across thousands of miles. When we set off from the Pearl River Pier, they probably had already sent the message here. After calculating the approximate time of our arrival, we naturally knew that the fleet would not return overnight. On his way." Yan Mingjun explained.
"Is this happening? Is it true?" Li Jin said in astonishment: "If this were used on the battlefield, wouldn't it be a unique skill that makes the enemy difficult to parry?"
"Who says it's not?" Yan Mingjun continued: "The office they set up in Guangzhou, any disturbances in Guangzhou can be known to the Haihan base camp far away in Yazhou in an instant, and they can formulate countermeasures, and when Qiongzhou comes out To get to Guangzhou, it takes several days to travel by sea. It is no wonder that after the banditry in Qiongzhou, the Haihan people were ready to send troops before Guangzhou had time to respond. "
"Haihan people sent troops so quickly, could it be that they knew about it and were prepared?" Li Jin asked.
"Haihan people have known about it for a long time? Brother Li, you haven't read the official documents during that time, right?" Yan Mingjun shook his head and said: "A few months before the banditry in Qiongzhou, there were already various signs, and civilian ships frequently had accidents in the Qiongzhou Strait. There were also many incidents of pirates coming ashore and looting villages along the Qiongbei coast. After the Qiongzhou government reported these situations, the governor probably had no good solution, and finally let the Qiongzhou government solve the problem on its own. I believe you know the result, Qiongzhou Water. The division was almost completely wiped out, and I don’t know why. The navy was gone, so why did the pirates have any concerns about attacking Qiongzhou Prefecture? Not only the Haihan people, but also the local government and even the governor knew about it. Yes, I just didn’t come up with a countermeasure in time and was caught off guard by the pirates.”
"I see. It seems that I am indeed a little too privy to information." Li Jin shook his head helplessly.
He himself is a Ming soldier, so he naturally understands the current situation of the Ming army. The garrison establishment in most places has become useless. They can't even find the number of soldiers, so there is no need to talk about combat effectiveness. Although the navy is a regular army establishment, its situation is not much better than that of the local garrison army. Although Li Jin was not a member of the Navy, he also knew that many of the Navy's warships were antiques from the Wanli period. In recent years, especially after Emperor Chongzhen came to power, the Guangdong and Guangdong Navy had no new ships launched at all.
Relying on old antiques that were launched decades ago, even daily patrol duties will be difficult, let alone competing with the warships of the Haihan people. No wonder the Qiongzhou navy went out to fight the pirates, but instead they were wiped out by the pirates. This kind of pain of being in the middle of the game but unable to change the backward status quo can only be experienced more clearly by soldiers like Li Jin.
Not long after the fleet turned into the Pearl River, they approached the shore one by one. Li Jin and Yan Mingjun, who were standing on the side of the ship, both noticed that the pier embankment here was not made of bluestone, but a gray-white flat material that looked like stone but was not stone at all. Yan Mingjun also had some knowledge and recognized it immediately: "This is Haihan cement. It is said that the official roads and various buildings of the Haihan people are built with stone as ribs, mixed with mud and water, and then integrated into one. Yes. When I visited my colleagues in Guangzhou last year, I also saw garden paths made of Haihan cement at their homes.”
"You're rich, you're really rich." Although Li Jin didn't know the price of Haihan Cement, if a high-ranking official could only get a little to repair garden paths, it would definitely not be too cheap. And they directly use it to build docks and roads. Do you need tens of thousands of kilograms to do this?
When the ship they were on approached the shore, the sailors on the ship threw the cable to the shore. After the people on the shore caught it, they dragged the cable around the cast iron piles on the dock and made a slip knot, and then used bamboo poles with hooks to pull it. The side of the ship and slowly tow the ship to the dock.
When the boat the two of them were riding in docked, the boats in front of them had already started taking people down stairs. The springboard used on this pier is also quite novel. It is not as narrow as what is usually seen, but is more than four feet wide. It also has a hook on one end, which can be hung on the side of the ship to prevent the springboard from slipping. The surface of the springboard is engraved with anti-slip grooves, so passengers on the ship don't have to worry about slipping their feet when disembarking. It is also more convenient to transport large luggage and cargo from the ship.
The two of them saw several workers on the pier working together to put the gangplank on the side of the ship, so they straightened their clothes and prepared to get off the ship. But at this time, a man wearing a Haihan shirt walked along the gangplank to the deck. He held a book in one hand. After looking at the people on the deck, he asked Yan Mingjun and Li Jin, "Excuse me, you two. But Mr. Yan Mingjun, Mr. Li Jinli?”
"Exactly." Yan Mingjun didn't know what he meant, but he still nodded and responded. Li Jin also nodded in response.
(End of chapter)