Chapter 901: Inspection to the North (3)
After sending Li Zian away, Chen Yixin didn't take it to heart. These Ming merchants are notoriously bold. Many so-called merchants are privately known as pirates. The weapons on merchant ships are not necessarily used for self-protection. They may also be used to facilitate their transformation into pirates at any time at sea. Robbers. In particular, these maritime merchants who were able to conduct trade between Japan and the Ming Dynasty all year round were often not fuel-efficient lamps, otherwise they would have been robbed by Japanese pirates and ronin operating in the offshore waters of Japan. Although Chen Yixin was polite to Li Zian, it was because he had some knowledge, and he did not really treat Li Zian as a weak person in his heart.
Intervening in Japan's import and export trade is not Chen Yixin's mission on this trip. His mission in coming to Nagasaki is mainly to understand Japan's current trade status with various countries, so as to provide reference for the Executive Committee to formulate strategies for Japan in the future. Starting from the next day, Chen Yixin asked the invited guide to take him to various parts of Nagasaki to learn about the trading prices and conditions of commodities. By the way, he also visited some Ming Dynasty people who had been living in the local area all year round to learn about the current political situation in Japan. .
Although the Japanese history of this period is recorded in the large database in Sanya, for specific people and events, first-hand information is obviously more detailed and more reliable. People in this era paid very little attention to economic intelligence. Chen Yixin encountered almost no obstacles in the process of collecting information. On the contrary, many people hoped to obtain Haihan's supply of goods from Chen Yixin, so they were interested in him. Knowing everything, Chen Yixin can get all the information he wants with almost no effort.
In order to cover the real purpose, the fleet led by Chen Yixin also shipped a lot of cargo when it sailed from Dinghai Port in Zhoushan. During its stay in Nagasaki Port, the cargo shipped came in handy. There are not many maritime merchants like Li Zian who can go to Zhoushan to purchase goods, so Haihan products are also extremely popular in the Japanese market. Chen Yixin used the goods in hand as an exchange and obtained a lot of valuable information, among which It even includes hydrographic data of Nagasaki Port and information on military deployment.
The official in charge of port affairs at the Port of Nagasaki did not maintain his moral integrity in front of the Haihan glassware and boxes of silver delivered to his home. Of course, perhaps he did not know what moral integrity was at all. After accepting the bribe, he quickly handed over the information he had. He poured the beans into a bamboo tube and told the Haihan people everything.
Compared with Sanya, which is in a period of rapid development, the volume of goods trade in Nagasaki may be slightly better. After all, the import and export trade here concentrates the resources of the entire country. However, in terms of market prosperity and urban development, the emerging seaport city of Sanya far exceeds Nagasaki. The terminal facilities and urban construction conditions here are far inferior to those of Ming Dynasty seaport cities like Ningbo. In Chen Yixin’s view, the level of port construction here can only be described as “crude”. At most, it is similar to Zhoushan Dinghai Port before Haihan settled in. .
However, the construction level of the port is still second. After all, the ports controlled by Haihan were not that good in the early stages of construction. The real gap lies in the level of port operation. The Japanese counterparts have almost a wild-stocking management style compared to Haihan's. Fine planning will inevitably look very backward in comparison. In terms of port management and operation, Haihan has accumulated experience that is hundreds of years ahead of this era. This advantage is completely impossible for its peers to catch up.
In time, the operating scale of Sanya Port, Kaohsiung Port and even Dinghai Port, which has just been included in Haihan's territory, will definitely exceed that of Nagasaki Port. If Haihan really wants to open up a port colony on the west coast of Japan in the future, then Nagasaki's status will It will also become precarious as a result.
The expedition fleet stayed in Nagasaki Port for three and a half days before leaving the port and continuing north along the coastline. After a voyage of about thirty nautical miles, we arrived at the entrance of Sasebo Bay. The width of this clamp-shaped entrance formed by the northern and southern peninsulas is less than one kilometer, and there are commanding heights on both sides. It can be regarded as the military's favorite port terrain. As long as a strong firepower point is set up high, the channel in and out of the port can be easily controlled. .
Driving into Sasebo Bay, to the south is Omura Bay, a huge closed harbor. This bay is about 26 kilometers long from north to south and 11 kilometers long from east to west. It covers an area of more than 300 square kilometers and is connected to Sasebo Bay and the sea outside through a waterway with a width of only 200 meters. . The southern end of Omura Bay is twenty miles inland north of Nagasaki Port.
The main natural harbor areas of Sasebo Bay are concentrated in the northern part of the harbor, which is also the key project of the expedition team. Almost all of the military bases and military ports built by the Americans in Sasebo Bay are concentrated in the northern bay, and there are also large-scale shipyards built in the bay. The Americans' planning and construction plan for Sasebo Port will also become a reference for Haihan to develop this area in the future.
However, Sasebo Bay in the 17th century was still a sparsely populated place. Currently, only a few fishermen have settled here. Even Japanese pirates are unwilling to choose this place as their foothold. The reason is very simple. The access channel here is too narrow. If Japanese pirates are encircled and suppressed, they will be killed. It was difficult to escape from the sea by boat. This provides more convenient conditions for the development plans that Haihan may implement in the future, and there is no need to spend a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to organize and suppress bandits like in the Zhoushan Islands.
Fleet Commander Takemori very cautiously first sent a small boat to investigate the water conditions near the harbor, and then ordered the fleet to anchor near the coast near the later Sasebo Circuit. After the army soldiers landed to conduct a simple search of the nearby coast, Chen Yixin also led the team to land. In later generations, at least two-digit warships were stationed in this area all year round. Chen Yixin also intended to investigate the hydrological conditions here for the military to see how to develop it to best meet the needs of the military.
This kind of field investigation is relatively difficult. However, the army troops who came with the fleet this time are all affiliated with the special operations battalion. The mountain jungle is the combat environment they are good at. Such field activities have no effect on them. If you don't adapt, you will feel at home like a fish in water.
The troops first established camps on the coast and deployed peripheral defense measures in accordance with standard operating procedures. Takemori left a ship and a platoon of sailors as support, and then left with the remaining ships to patrol other areas of Sasebo Harbor and modify the topographic map based on satellite maps in hand according to the actual situation. This task is very time-consuming, but it has to be done because it may also affect the future development and construction process of the local area.
Wu Sen was very impressed by the fact that the chiefs could actually hold such a detailed map of this place, because it was obvious that the chiefs had never been to this place before. Only God knows how to draw such a high-precision map. . However, the naturalized people of Haihan have always regarded their leaders as omnipotent gods. It is said that "the sky knows half and the earth knows everything." This is really not a joke. The foresight shown by the leaders in various events, as well as various miraculous inventions and creations, fully demonstrated their almost demigod abilities. Wu Sen himself has now become a fanatical Haihan supporter. The longer he stays in this system, the more he can feel the various magical abilities of the leaders. There is a radio station on the ship Wu Sen is on, and it is equipped with a specially trained transmitter so that he can keep in touch with Chen Yixin on land at any time. For this ability to communicate thousands of miles away, Wu Sen really has nothing else to say except admiration. As a soldier, he naturally knows how useful this thing is in the military.
In fact, the Haihan Militia also has radio operation training courses for naturalized officers who have reached a certain level of military service. Wu Sen is one of the officers qualified to learn to send and receive radios, but he thinks it is too difficult to master this skill, and he does not want to touch it easily. I didn't like the "artifact" of the radio station, so I gave up after taking two classes, and handed over the operation of my radio station to the full-time communications soldiers.
That night, the land and water teams camped and rested in Sasebo Bay and Omura Bay respectively, and the night was uneventful. However, early the next morning, Wu Sen received a message from Chen Yixin's department on the radio, saying that a suspicious armed ship was found near Sasebo Bay, and Wu Sen was asked to rush back immediately for support. Wu Sen did not dare to neglect and quickly ordered to turn around and return north.
The strange thing was discovered by the light reconnaissance ship "Sailfish" deployed at the estuary of Sasebo Bay. The biggest advantage of this small boat, which imitates the shape of a later sloop, is that it can sail fast enough. Under ideal conditions, its speed is no less than The two catamaran sailboats brought by the Yu Chuanhua Group from another time and space. The Sailfish discovered that several armed ships were rapidly approaching Sasebo Bay, and quickly turned the ship back to the station to warn the garrison on the shore.
Chen Yixin responded calmly. The soldiers he brought with him were all veterans who had experienced hundreds of battles. Although they only had one platoon, relying on their equipment and the standard defenses outside the camp, It's not a big problem to deal with an enemy ten times your own. Chen Yixin asked the Sailfish and the other supply ship left here to leave immediately. With their navigation performance advantages, there is no problem in self-protection at sea.
However, the opponent's ability was worse than Chen Yixin expected. An hour had passed since he summoned all the people to fight, but there was no sign of the enemy at all. The reason is actually very simple, because the place where the Haihan Militia is stationed has been consciously selected so that it is not conspicuous when viewed from the sea and is difficult to find unless you are near the coast. Although the unidentified armed fleet sailed into Sasebo Bay, it could not catch up with the fast sailfish, so it could only slowly search for Haihan's fleet along the coast. However, Haihan's other two combat ships were coming from the south. On the way back to Dancun Bay, it was difficult to find the complete Haihan fleet here.
The battle finally started at about nine o'clock in the morning. The armed fleet finally discovered the Haihan camp hidden on the coastline. However, the distance between it and the seaside was obviously beyond the reach of their weapons, so they had no choice but to land on the shore. This was also This gave the Haihan militia enough observation opportunities and reaction time.
Chen Yixin used a telescope to confirm the identity of the visitors. Most of them were dressed as Japanese ronin, and they looked like a group of Japanese pirates. Amakusa Shiro next to him immediately confirmed this judgment: "Chief, these ships are all Japanese pirates' Yawat ships, and they should be coming for our money!"
A few days ago, the expedition fleet made a grand move in Nagasaki Port. Everyone in the market knew that this group of people was extremely wealthy, so it was not an accident that they were targeted by Japanese pirates. When the expedition fleet left the port, it was probably followed by others. It wasn't until it entered the "dead end" of Sasebo Bay that the other party gathered people to fight in. Judging from this posture, they also planned to take the expedition fleet's money. Bought and sold.
Of course, if they knew the performance of the Haihan people in the Zhoushan Islands in the past few months, they might not be so impulsive in delivering food to their doorsteps. This is really no different from actively applying for suicide. Using the garrison as a position to deal with this kind of stragglers who mainly use cold weapons, the Haihan Militia has already had a very complete tactical system. It is basically impossible to destroy Haihan's defense line by relying on primitive charge tactics.
The Japanese pirates also had a small number of matchlocks and flintlock guns, but their quality was not on the same level as the standard rifles equipped by the Haihan militia, and there were complete bunkers on the Haihan side. The risk of combatants getting shot is minimized. The two sides exchanged fire at a distance of 100 meters, and the result was basically a one-sided situation.
However, what really blocked the charge of the Japanese pirates was the bellows-type barbed wire fence that the Haihan Militia was accustomed to deploying outside the camp. This thing was a magical tool for dealing with charging infantry who lacked large equipment. As long as they slowed down a little in front of the barbed wire, they would be far away. Rows of bullets would be fired from behind just twenty meters of parapet, knocking these living targets to the ground. If the people behind react quickly and ruthlessly, and decisively use the injured or dead bodies in front as cushions to cross the barbed wire fence, then there is still hope of rushing to the front of the Haihan Formation, but most of them have a hard time making that decision in the first place. Such a reaction.
Even if a few people can break through this line of defense, there is still a Luzhai in front of them across their path. These deer villages are simple fortifications made when setting up camp. They cannot really block the attack. At most, they can only slow down the advance for a moment. But at a distance where you can hit someone with a shot with your eyes closed, such a moment's delay is enough to kill someone.
After the Japanese pirates dropped more than thirty corpses on the barbed wire defense line, they finally found a breakthrough. However, before they could rush to the second line of defense, the rumble of cannons was heard from the sea. The two armed sailboats led by Wu Sen appeared just behind the Japanese pirates.
(End of chapter)