Chapter 742: Introduction of immigrants
Since the time it took for news to spread in this era was almost equal to the speed of transportation, when the Matalan grain-buying fleet left Champa and returned, they had no idea that the war in Batavia had ended. They also had no idea that after capturing Batavia, the Dutch, who were forced into a desperate situation, would successfully come back and eventually evacuate the place as a defeated army. At this time, they were escorting this batch of grain back to Batavia. The only result was that the Dutch took advantage of the situation and took over.
It is a trivial matter that these ships and the grain they carried were swallowed up by the Dutch. It was nothing more than Dacheng Rice Bank losing some money. But if the fact that Dacheng Rice Bank assisted the Malata Blue Army in purchasing grain was exposed, it would be a big deal to Dacheng Peng. That's a little bit bad. Therefore, from a business perspective, Ambina Port cannot easily let these ships leave on their own. Although Li Dagui's idea had little technical content, it was indeed an effective way to solve this problem. After Roger thought about it for a while, he agreed to the plan.
At midnight that day, two companies of armed men quietly took control of four Matalan sailing ships docked at the Port of Ampena and detained all the crew members on board. Although some people realized that something was wrong and tried to resist, the Haihan Militia would not give these people a chance to resist. Seven Matalan crew members were killed or injured in the process, but the four ships were eventually captured relatively smoothly.
The noise in the middle of the night also attracted the attention of other ships on the dock. However, after hearing that Haihan was capturing the slaves who escaped on the ship, everyone was no longer interested in paying attention to the subsequent developments. The merchant ships coming and going here basically know that the Haihan people have built many plantations on the island and have kept many slave workers. Naturally, there will be some who are not peaceful enough and want to escape from here, and the Haihan people want to capture the escaped slaves. , is also a matter of course. No one would come out to find the Haihan people unhappy because of other people's slaves. If this happens, just pretend that nothing happened.
As soon as it got dark the next day, four matalan sailing boats quietly sailed out of the port away from public view. However, their direction of travel was not to continue south, but to turn back and head north. Considering that the identities of these ships and the crew members on them were relatively sensitive, Roger decided to leave this little trouble to Annan's colleagues to handle. These ships will go to Cam Ranh Port and be dismantled or refitted there, and the crew members on the ships will also be transferred to work further north - for example, sent to the Black Earth Port Coal Mine in the Tonkin Gulf to work as miners.
As for the three people from the Security Department who used their identities as associates of Dacheng Rice Bank, they were obviously not included in this list, but they would not go back south to Batavia. Considering that there might be other people in Batavia who knew about this matter, Roger thought it would be best for these three people not to go back again, lest anyone get the handle.
After receiving the news, the Ministry of Security also agreed with Roger's opinion and asked the three people to return to Sanya on a military supply ship. As for the Batavia Intelligence Station, additional personnel will be sent south to reinforce the staffing.
More than ten days later, Cheng Dapeng also returned from Champa with the Dutch fleet. This time, Cheng Dapeng did not need to bother to persuade. The Dutch captains naturally made Ambuna Port the first place on their way back. A supply stop. Although the supplies on board were enough for the fleet to sail at least as far as Belitung Island, there were additional benefits to be gained from docking in the port of Ambuna, and the Dutch were naturally willing to spend an extra night here.
The double commendation orders from the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Security had been sent to Ambuna Port a few days ago. As a representative, Roger read out the contents of the commendation orders to Cheng Dapeng in person. All the staff of the Dacheng Rice Information Station were awarded the second-class collective merit once, and Cheng Dapeng was awarded the second-class individual merit once. Of course, due to his special status, these meritorious deeds cannot be announced publicly, and even medals can only be awarded. Show it to Cheng Dapeng. He can only get this thing when he is transferred back to Hainan Island.
However, the rewards from the Ministry of Security are relatively more practical. Cheng Dapeng was promoted from the head of the Batavia team to the deputy director of the Nanyang Affairs Office of the Ministry of Security. It can be said to be a promotion like a carp leaping over the dragon's gate, because the director's The position is held concurrently by Hao Wanqing himself. Before him, there were only a few naturalized civilian cadres who were so highly used in the Ministry of Security: Gong Shiqi from Guangzhou, Zhang Qianzhi from Danzhou, Lin Nan from Sanya, and Gong Shaoqi from Fujian. Even An Not to mention Li Dagui on the island, his current administrative position is not as good as that of Cheng Dapeng, who became famous in World War I.
However, the current position of deputy director is not very practical for Cheng Dapeng. He still has to engage in his previous job and play the role of the boss of Mihang. In addition to the increased autonomy in action, the power he can mobilize and the scope of his responsibilities will not change significantly for the time being. But what Cheng Dapeng was more nervous about was the matter about the Malan fleet. After hearing that the matter had been successfully resolved and that both the people and the ship had been sent to the north for processing, Cheng Dapeng breathed a sigh of relief.
The Batavia War started in chaos in early July and finally came to an end until Cheng Dapeng returned from Champa in early September. Haihan did not directly participate in this war, but because of the efforts of Cheng Dapeng and others, Haihan still obtained a large amount of battlefield information at the first time, which is no longer easily valued with money. . Through this information, the Executive Committee also clarified several things that were not fully understood before.
First, the strength of the Dutch is not as strong as imagined, but other forces in Southeast Asia are not as weak as the travelers think. The Dutch may have planned to rely on a devastating blow to solve their opponents once and for all, but it is undeniable that they failed to occupy an active position on the battlefield during the war. They were in a passive defensive position most of the time, and for a time they held out. It was very difficult. And the Matalan people are by no means the South Sea monkeys with low combat effectiveness described by travelers. The mobilization ability, troop mobilization and deployment ability they demonstrated during this battle is even higher than that of Annan, a continental country. The size of the garrison deployed by the Dutch in Batavia was comparable to the army strength of the Haihan Militia, but the battle process was so passive. This is indeed an aspect that requires the attention of the Haihan military.
Second, logistical supplies are still a major problem that Haihan must solve when he goes south in the future. Ma Dalan's three defeats were not lost on the frontal battlefield. The first two were due to insufficient supplies. In the last confrontation, they brought enough supplies, but they were stolen by the Dutch fleet. This story tells Haihan that without a supply base that is closer to Batavia and more reliable, even if the city of Batavia is captured, it will be difficult to gain a foothold there.
The third point undoubtedly highlights the importance of intelligence work. If the Dutch could find out before the war that the Malta Blue Army would use a large number of giant trebuchets on the battlefield, then Van Diemen probably would not have known about it in the early stages of the war. Will adopt such a conservative defense method. You must know that before the war began, it took the Matalan people several days to transport these trebuchet parts to the port, unload them, install and debug them, and the Dutch wasted this time that could have been used to harass the Matalan Army. A great opportunity to fight. If the Matarans had not successfully deployed so many trebuchets on the battlefield, the course of the war might have been completely different. Fortunately, detailed information on the combat methods and styles of these two armies has been collected for Haihan's reference. Although I don't know if they will play other tricks in the future, the Haihan military will definitely make targeted arrangements for its existing combat methods.
Of course, this level of combat readiness does not mean that Haihan will take action in the Nanyang region in the near future. After all, the resources required to fight in Nanyang are too large, and Haihan's development direction this year is not focused on the south.
As September enters, matters related to Fujian are gradually increasing, especially the introduction of immigrants from mainland China this year. The Executive Committee has designated Fujian as one of the main channels. The wars in the Central Plains and Jiaodong areas of the Ming Dynasty created a large number of war refugees, and the goal of the Executive Committee was to accept as many refugees as possible from the Ming Dynasty and introduce them to settle in the areas under their own rule. For refugees whose survival has become a problem, giving up their former nationality does not seem to be a big problem as long as they have a bite to eat. Haihan stepped forward to act as the savior at this time, not only able to introduce a large number of people, but also to gain more favor from the Ming Dynasty officials.
Of course, this plan is not that easy to implement. Haihan's own shipping power is not enough to extend its tentacles to the far north, so it must be transshipped to get the refugees from the north to the south. Moreover, Haihan has no foundation in Fujian. It has not even built a large-scale immigration transfer base like Lijiazhuang in Panyu, and it does not have the ability to receive a large number of immigrants. It was not until after the capture of Penghu in May that the Haihan Ministry of Civil Affairs put into effect the long-planned plan for a Fujian immigration transfer base. Although Penghu still belongs to the Ming Dynasty in name, it is actually completely controlled and dominated by Haihan. It is undoubtedly much more convenient to handle the import and export of Ming immigrants here than along the coast of Fujian.
After three months of infrastructure construction, the immigration transfer base in Penghu finally began to operate. For safety and management reasons, the immigration base was not built on the main island of Penghu, but on Baisha Island in the north. The distance between Baisha Island and Penghu Island is less than two thousand meters, which can not only isolate the environment on the island, but also conveniently transport people and materials. The island, which covers an area of 25 square kilometers, has a relatively flat terrain and can easily accommodate tens of thousands of people to live temporarily on the island.
Currently, five immigration camps have been planned and constructed on Baisha Island, with a capacity of 12,000 immigrants. Although it is currently only about one-third of the designed population, it is currently the largest immigration base in the area under Haihan's rule besides the Sanya base camp.
The reason why such a large immigration base is built in Penghu is because the Executive Committee believes that in the next few years, the main source of Haihan immigrants will gradually shift to the war-prone northern Ming Dynasty. By then, the number of immigrants transported from the north every month may be a very large number, and the immigration base in the Fujian Strait will assume an important transfer station function in this population transportation system. Alleviating the pressure on demand for maritime transport capacity, enhancing the adaptability of immigrants to the southern climate environment, allowing them to have a transition period before entering the Haihan social system, and preventing the spread of epidemic diseases into the Haihan ruled area are all functions of the Penghu immigration base. reasons.
In order to solve the food supply problem of immigrants as much as possible, the Ministry of Agriculture has currently planned a collective farm with a total area of more than 20 square kilometers on Penghu Island. The main planting content is grain, vegetables and fruits. Mr. Yuan Ruoxiu optimistically estimates that if the agricultural land in the Penghu Islands can be effectively developed in two or three years, the food produced will not only supply the needs of local immigrants and garrisons, but also feed back to Hainan Island, or be sold to the Ming Dynasty. .
Of course, for the Ministry of Agriculture, these plantation parks and collective farms developed in the Penghu Islands are just an appetizer for agricultural development in the southeastern coastal areas. The area that the Ministry of Agriculture really values is not Penghu, but the coastal plain area in the west of Taiwan Island. With the help of the local developed water system, the farms planned by the Ministry of Agriculture can be easily developed. However, there are currently not enough manpower and resources to implement the Ministry of Agriculture’s ideas, so we can only practice with the land in Penghu first.
On September 11, three lucky ships docked at Baisha Island, bringing more than 500 refugees from the north of the Ming Dynasty. The owner of these three ships is Fujian maritime merchant Liu Zhenguo, who has specialized in the northern route for more than 20 years and is familiar with coastal areas such as Jianghuai, Shandong, and North China. After Haihan offered attractive terms, he gave up his previous freight business and became a human trafficker.
After the ship docked, Liu Zhenguo disembarked first and went to the dock to hand over to the port staff of Haihan. The port staff will count and verify the refugees loaded on these ships based on the lists provided by Liu Zhenguo.
Before the handover of the list was completed, two teams of men and horses wearing black clothes and black trousers, wearing rattan helmets and holding rattan shields and short sticks appeared on the dock, trotting in a uniform pace. This murderous team did not frighten Liu Zhenguo. He knew that these were government officials used to maintain local security in areas under the rule of the Haihan people. They were called "police". They were also called security teams or riot teams in some places. Liu Zhenguo didn't know the difference between these titles, but he knew that these men in black leather and the officials of the Ming Dynasty had completely different styles of behavior.
(End of chapter)