Chapter 556 The blows keep coming
However, even if the Guangdong Navy has such large warships, it cannot be deployed at any time whenever it wants. A warship of this tonnage, with hundreds of sailors on board, would cost hundreds of taels of silver for a day's deployment. If it was for drills or operations, the consumption of firearms and ammunition on board and additional combat pay would have to be added. This is undoubtedly an expense that cannot be ignored for the Navy, which has not purchased any new ships in the past ten or twenty years. Therefore, the few large ships of the Guangdong Navy are basically docked at Shuizhai Pier for long periods of time as decorations. The upper limit is ten or eight days a year.
The Haihan people obviously have no economic scruples. Their base camp is far away from the southern end of Qiongzhou Island, but they send this large warship to Wanshan Port at the Pearl River Estuary. This is almost equivalent to the Guangdong Navy's deployment at the Pearl River Estuary. The voyage between the garrison and Quanzhou, Fujian Province was over. With the scale of Wanshan Port, this large warship is obviously not intended to be stationed here for a long time, but will temporarily dock at this small port to perform certain tasks. For such long-distance maritime troop mobilization, the Daming Navy It will definitely not be implemented in peacetime. This trip to the sea will just keep throwing money into the sea!
Regarding the behavior of the Haihan people, the two Ming Dynasty candidate officials could only give comments like "rich and willful". Although Wanshan Port is a territory owned by the Ming Dynasty, it seems that the right to speak in this place is not in the hands of the Ming Dynasty.
Compared with Lijiazhuang Wharf, the procedures required for landing at Wanshan Port are more stringent. After all, this place is a paramilitary base, and civilian and commercial uses are only ancillary functions. However, the officials had already experienced it once in Lijiazhuang, so they didn't feel particularly disgusted at this time. After they boarded the pier, they were also received by local leaders Chen Yixin and Li Dou.
Because of the commercial functions of Wanshan Port, Li Dou still lives here most of the time. After Chen Yixin was successfully promoted with the establishment of the Guangdong Military Region, he traveled back and forth between Wanshan Port and Zhennang Port at the southern end of Hong Kong Island. . This time, he hurried back from Zhennangang in advance only after receiving the notice from the Guangzhou Liaison Office.
The military still attaches great importance to this group of candidate officials. On the one hand, it must give them a certain degree of deterrence in various ways at the beginning of the contact between the two parties. On the other hand, it must ensure the safety of these people on the way and make them safe. They felt that they had gained Haihan's attention, so as to lay a good foundation for subsequent bribery, wooing, taming and other methods.
However, Chen Yixin personally has no interest in having too much contact with these alternate officials, and their destination is not in Chen Yixin's jurisdiction. Chen Yixin has no need to care about the future fate of these people. The reception banquet in the evening was just a formality. After a toast, Chen Yixin left in the name of official business, leaving Li Dou to accompany him.
"This young officer Haihan is so impressive!" After the banquet, when he returned to the residence arranged by Haihan, Li Jin couldn't help complaining: "Brother Yan, have you noticed the look in his eyes? He's simply arrogant. At that time, we, the imperial officials, were not taken seriously at all!”
Yan Mingjun said: "They do have the capital to be tough. Brother Li, look at the forts inside and outside the port, the warships, and the soldiers of the Haihan Militia that we saw when we landed ashore. I can honestly say, They are indeed much more presentable than the Ming Dynasty’s officers and soldiers. They need money and people, and with these people to rely on, they can naturally speak forcefully.”
Li Jin also knew that what Yan Mingjun said was indeed true, and sighed: "This is still like this in a place four or five hundred miles away from Qiongzhou. I wonder how rampant the Haihan people will be on Qiongzhou Island!"
The closer the two of them got to Qiongzhou Island, the more uneasy they became. The expectations for the new position and new environment before departure were also erased bit by bit by the ruthless reality on the way. They knew that the Haihan they were coming into contact with now was probably just a glimpse of the enemy. However, just the scratches that Haihan exposed intentionally or unintentionally had already made them feel the numerous disadvantages and shortcomings of their own side. And an organization with such powerful power as Haihan is really willing to return control of Qiongzhou Island to Ming Dynasty? Yan Mingjun and Li Jin no longer have much optimism about this.
There was no talking all night, and the next morning, after everyone had breakfast, they came to the dock again to board the ship. At this time, Chen Yixin appeared on the dock and announced new escort measures to the officials: "After departing from Wanshan Port, the two "exploration-class" armed merchant ships dispatched by us will join the escort team and escort you all directly to Qiongzhou Fucheng. . I wish you all a safe journey! ”
Li Jin murmured in a low voice: "Is this still a merchant ship? According to Ming Dynasty law, a merchant ship cannot exceed four hundred materials. This ship can probably have eight hundred materials!"
Of course, he also knew very well that even if the existence of Haihan's armed ship violated the laws of the Ming Dynasty, no one would dare to bring bad luck to Haihan. This kind of warship is an unsolvable existence in the waters near Guangdong. With so many Ming officials present, no one really stood up to question it.
The two "exploration-class" warships that joined Lijiazhuang were the first to turn around and leave the port, and then the fleet carrying the alternate officers sailed out of the port one after another. Finally, the two largest "exploration-class" warships slowly arrived in Wanshan Port. Slowly turn around and sail out, falling at the very back of the entire fleet.
According to the route set by the Haihan Shipping Department, the fleet will not sail directly from Wanshan Port to Hainan Island, but will travel southwest along the Guangdong coastline. After arriving in the waters of Leizhou Peninsula, it will turn south and pass through the Qiongzhou Strait. Depart for Haikou Port. This voyage is about one-third longer than the direct route, and it rests ashore every night before setting off at dawn. As a result, the entire voyage time from Wanshan Port to Hainan Island has been at least doubled from about four days.
However, the stopping points along the way after leaving Wanshan Port do not have the perfect conditions as Lijiazhuang and Wanshan Island. Most of the ports we visited in the next few days were fishing port towns with no decent catering and accommodation services at all, and these officials did not stay on shore at night. At this time, with comparison, everyone realized how considerate the food and accommodation services provided by Haihan were.
However, although this part of the service is no longer available, the militia group escorting the fleet has not relaxed its due vigilance at all. A platoon of soldiers will be stationed on the shore every night to be responsible for guarding the area around the docking point. Of course, in addition to protecting the safety of the fleet, the military is also wary of unidentified people sneaking into the fleet from these places and sneaking to Qiongzhou Fucheng.
After seven or eight days at sea, the fleet finally sailed into the Qiongzhou Strait. The weather has been fine these days, and the officials knew they were about to reach their destination, so they finally felt a little more relaxed and took their families to the deck for some fresh air.
Not long after the fleet sailed past Luodousha Island at the southeastern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula, the officials, who thought the rest of the trip would be boring, once again witnessed an unforgettable sight in their lives - two huge sailing ships spitting gray smoke from the sterns. Racing across the sea at extremely fast speeds. After the two ships made an arc on the sea, they approached the fleet from the left and right. The red and blue flags on the top of the mast showed that they were also members of the Haihan Militia. The two warships that joined the fleet at Wanshan Port were probably half the size of these two new large ships. The larger number of gun windows on the sides of these two large ships also remind the audience watching them not to ignore the true identities of these two ships.
However, the two large ships had no intention of joining the fleet. Instead, they passed at full speed from the sea on both sides of the fleet, and then headed southwest. Compared with the amazing speed of these two ships, Yan Mingjun and Li Jin felt that the ship they were on was almost as slow as a turtle.
"This...is this also a Haihan warship?" Li Jin looked at Yan Mingjun in horror and asked.
Yan Mingjun didn't know how to answer. There was no one from Haihan on the ship, and for a while there was no one who could provide the correct answer. But judging from the appearance of the two ships and the flags hung on them, they are exactly the same as the escorting Haihan armed ships. I just don’t know what the large amount of smoke coming out of the stern of the ship means. Look. It didn't look like there was a fire on the boat, and it was obviously difficult to produce so much smoke by ordinary boiling water for cooking.
But this was not the focus of their attention. The terrifying size and ultra-high speed of this big ship were the real reasons for their shock. There have long been rumors among the people that there is a 10,000-pound iron ship made by the Haihan people in Victory Port, and the reputation of the Haihan people for being good at shipbuilding and navigation has long been widely spread. However, rumors are just rumors, and there is still a gap between the feelings after seeing the reality with your own eyes. . Such a huge warship can only be traced back to the time when the Sanbao eunuchs went to Nanyang. However, in the Ming Dynasty, such huge warships have long disappeared. Unexpectedly, the Haihan people who have always been entrenched on Qiongzhou Island , but built such a huge warship quietly.
As the two looked at each other, they both saw deep disappointment on each other's faces. In their hearts, although the Ming Dynasty has suffered some stumblings in recent years, with constant internal and external troubles, it is still an invincible existence. Even if the wild boar skins outside the northern pass attack the Ming Dynasty every year, the Ming people still think that they are just a bunch of vain people. Just armed barbarians. And around the Ming Dynasty, there has not been any civilizational force that surpasses the Ming Dynasty. Even if the trend in the past few years is not very satisfactory, the Celestial Kingdom still exists.
However, after coming into contact with the sudden rise of Haihan, some of their inherent concepts were constantly being broken and refreshed. This group of overseas visitors entrenched in the southern tip of Qiongzhou Island not only made the sea trade business prosperous, allowing the local government and almost all the big businessmen along the Guangdong coast to work for a period of time, but they also formed their own so-called militia army. The combat capability is even better than that of the official army. The Haihan warships seen in the past few days have also proved that their strength at sea is equally terrifying. At least the large warships seen today cannot be built by the current Ming Dynasty.
However, the encounter with two "Dignity-class" flagships in the Qiongzhou Strait was not an intentional arrangement by the military, but a real coincidence. It happened that Wang Tom had been leading a team to practice a two-ship attack formation in the nearby waters for the past two days, and he encountered this fleet coming south from the Leizhou Peninsula. Of course, Tom Wang would not waste his limited resources to escort this fleet to Haikou Port, so he just walked around and demonstrated before leaving. The investment of personnel and time is a small matter, but the life of the boiler is a big deal for the "Dignity-class" warship. Every training to use steam power propulsion has a strict time schedule, and it is not suitable to implement such formal arrangements. external temporary tasks.
But even such a startling glimpse was enough to shock the Ming officials on board. Even people who don't know anything about surface warfare know that this maritime combat ship has great advantages, not to mention this large warship equipped with a large number of artillery and traveling at such a fast speed? It’s no wonder that the Haihan Militia were able to do things that the Ming Navy was unable to do, and even took the initiative to ask the Guangdong government for the cruise and escort mission in the Qiongzhou Strait. They indeed had this confidence, and no matter how hard they couldn’t stand it, they had to accept it.
With very complicated emotions, the fleet finally arrived at Haikou Port more than three hours later. There was no grand scene like the noisy gongs and drums, the huge crowds of people that they had expected before setting off. The people came out to welcome the new official appointed by the imperial court. There were only a few carriages and a few groups of militiamen who surrounded the pier tightly. The scene of the soldiers and a few Haihan people was exactly the same as when the fleet docked at Lijiazhuang and Wanshan Island.
But this time the Haihan people's inspection methods were obviously more rigorous than at the previous two stops. Each ship had a dozen Haihan militiamen on board to check the identities of all the people on board. Although the attitude was not rude, the officials could feel that these people did not seem to take their identities seriously.
Finally, someone couldn't bear this attitude and broke out. On another boat docked next to Yan Mingjun's boat, a chubby official shouted: "I am an official of the imperial court. You can't be so rude to me." ! Tell those in charge to get over here!”
This clamor obviously attracted the attention of the Haihan people on the dock. Yan Mingjun saw someone raising his hand to signal, and immediately someone who looked like an officer ran and boarded the ship.
"What's your problem?" The officer obviously had no intention of giving any face to the aggrieved official, so he asked coldly after getting on the boat.
"I am the new magistrate of Lingao County. What qualifications do you have to check my luggage?" the fat official shouted angrily.
"This is Haikou Port, not Lingao County." The officer said solemnly: "Also, you are an official of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not a soldier of the Ming Dynasty!"
(End of chapter)