Chapter 920 Vung Tau Port
The weaker a country is, the less resistant it is to foreign culture and values. Haihan's cultural export work in the Ming Dynasty lasted for several years before some results were achieved, but countries like Champa were able to achieve some results in a very short period of time. He became extremely admiring of Hai-Han culture.
This is also a helpless move for Champa. It is surrounded by countries such as Annam, Chenla, and Siam that are stronger than itself. In recent centuries, the territory has been continuously encroached by the surrounding powerful powers. It is not easy to find a country willing to support it. If you are a strong person, you must try your best to hold this thigh tightly. Moreover, Haihan's cooperation conditions did not require Champa to pay unilaterally. The large quantities of grain and other local products purchased from Champa every year have also become one of the main economic sources of Champa.
In addition, there are a large number of Champa nationals who cross the border and come to the Vung Tau port controlled by Hai Han to earn income by working for Hai Han. At present, among the thousands of residents in Vung Tau Port, at least one-third are workers from Champa State, and they assume most of the local manual labor positions. Some of them apply to join overseas after working for a long time. The situation of Chinese nationality exists.
Similar to Annan, Champa will also select outstanding domestic talents every year to go to HN Sanya to receive advanced training provided by Haihan. These trainees include not only the military, but also personnel in culture, education, civil affairs, commerce, finance, manufacturing, medical and other fields. The training they received covered all aspects of society, and even members of the Champa royal family also participated. This kind of training. These trainings greatly accelerated the cultural input of Haihan to Champa, making the Champa Kingdom, especially the Saigon area close to Vung Tau Port, a very high level of Haihanization, even surpassing Annan, which had cooperated with Haihan earlier.
The person in charge of Vung Tau Port is Qiu Xin, who is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Like most other travelers, Qiu Xin also holds different part-time jobs in multiple departments. In addition to his position as Director of the Champa Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he also holds different positions in the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the Ministry of Agriculture. This appointment also allows him to have more autonomy while in charge of the Vung Tau Port. For decision-making power, there is no need to report everything across the sea to various departments. After all, coordinating many things among multiple departments is very time-consuming and laborious. It is better to let Qiu Xin make the decision alone.
The reason why the Executive Committee has so much trust in Qiu Xin is mainly because he served as the mayor of a township in Lingns District before crossing over, and he has rich practical experience in managing local areas. However, the executive committee did not use this person in the early days of time travel. The reason was that Qiu Xin left the officialdom in a disgraceful way. He was dismissed from office for dereliction of duty and taking bribes. When he quietly ran to Guangzhou to sign up for the time travel operation, he still had The suspended sentence has not yet begun.
Qiu Xin's participation in the time travel was partly due to the desperation factor. If he stayed in the original time and space, there would be no other outcome besides losing his reputation. Moreover, he was divorced in his early years and his parents had passed away for many years, so he had no worries when he participated in the time travel. Although Qiu Xin's dark history made the executive committee wary of using him, after surviving in obscurity in Sanya for the first few years, Qiu Xin's ability was still recognized by the higher-ups.
After Haihan took over Vung Tau Port, the Executive Committee appointed him to serve as a local official here, and gave him considerable autonomy. Although the position here is only the most basic director of the management committee, Qiu Xin, who has spent some time in the officialdom, knows that this is an opportunity that he must seize. Compared to most people in the crossing group, he knows better how to make good use of his status as an official. Although Vung Tau Port is just an inconspicuous small place on the map, he believes that it will be the runway for his future takeoffs. .
It has to be said that Qiu Xin's ability to govern the local area as an official is much better than that of the travelers who are half-way monks. Most of Haihan's current contacts with Champa are maintained by the official institutions of Vung Tau Port. Exporting economic, cultural, military and other affairs almost all have to go through Qiu Xin. Judging from the current development situation, Qiu Xin's achievements can be considered quite good.
The usual sea transportation in Vung Tau Port is mainly grain trade, so the port is not set up with too much military function in mind. This time, there are many joint fleets from the two countries heading south, including two majestic-class ships. This makes docking and resupply a lot of trouble. However, Qiu Xin had made sufficient preparations beforehand. There was no obvious confusion when guiding the fleet into the port area one after another, and the supplies required by various fleets were also relatively well prepared.
"Well done!" Yan Chujie was also quite satisfied with the local preparation work. He immediately praised Qiu Xin without hesitation: "You can be considered a good leader if you can prepare it within half a month." ”
"Mr. Yan, thank you for the award." Qiu Xin was very humble and did not appear complacent because of what he had done: "It is your responsibility. If you don't do it well, you have to take responsibility."
This military exercise going south involves the mobilization of a large number of troops and needs to be kept secret from the outside world. Therefore, it was not until half a month before the start of the operation that the military and the executive committee notified the various ports it passed through to prepare. In addition to necessary supplies, the port of Vung Tau also has an additional task of communicating with the Champa State, because the fleet going south not only includes Haihan's ships, but also an entire fleet from Annan. join in. There has always been a grudge between Champa and Annan. If they were not notified in advance, unnecessary misunderstandings would likely be caused. Of course, Annan may not be afraid of misunderstandings, but may hope that this will happen, so that he can find an excuse to have another fight with Champa.
"Have they been notified by Zhancheng?" Yan Chujie asked with concern.
Qiu Xin nodded and responded: "Notice, I went to Saigon last week and talked with people from the Champa military. They agreed not to send military ships to cruise in Saigon Bay while the combined fleet enters the port."
"Are people from Champa so easy to talk to?" Yan Chujie asked in disbelief.
"The Champa people are not stupid, of course there is a quid pro quo." Qiu Xin explained: "They asked to send a military observation team to station in Vung Tau Port. Of course, this is a non-public action. In addition, they hope to patrol the South China Sea in the future. , to be able to bring the Champa Navy with us. I have already agreed to the first thing. I think it is also a good thing to let them see our fleet up close and realize their weight. As for the second thing, I definitely can't. I can only wait until you arrive to make the decision.”
Yan Chujie muttered: "Your idea is right. Let the Champa people come over and take a look and realize the gap in strength, lest they have any wrong ideas. And after they see the size of Annan's fleet, they might also They will learn from the experience and place more shipbuilding orders with us. As for the second thing, we will only stay in Vung Tau Port for four to five days. It is hard to say whether Champa will be ready to sail... Their people have arrived. ”
"We arrived three days ago. The team was led by a general from Champa named Fan Ji. Does Mr. Yan want to meet him?" Qiu Xin asked proactively: "He lives not far from the port area. , I can arrange it as soon as possible.”
Yan Chujie looked at Qiu Xin and asked half-jokingly: "Zhancheng wants us to take him with him to play and ask you to help arrange it. I should give you a fee, right?"
Qiu Xin's face changed slightly and he said: "Mr. Yan, please stop making fun of me. If I make another mistake at my age, my career will be really ruined." Qiu Xin is considered a bit older in the time travel group. He joined that year He was already forty-two years old when he was a child, and now he is almost fifty. If he is kept in the cold for a few more years because of his mistakes, he will basically have nothing to achieve in his life.
"I'm kidding you, Lao Qiu, we have all seen your performance in the past few years. If we can't trust you, why would we leave the entire Vung Tau Port to you to take care of?" Yan Chujie originally only gave a little beating. Seeing that his attitude was quite upright, he immediately dismissed the matter with a joke: "Let's make arrangements and bring the Champa people to meet me in the evening. Be careful, don't let the Annan people Found it.”
Qiu Xin responded: "You can rest assured, I will make arrangements."
The reason why Yan Chujie is not disgusted with sending people from Champa is because he also knows that this kind of thing can't be avoided by refusing. There are thousands of Champa people living in Vung Tau Port, and there must be a lot of spies among them. Even if they refuse to send people to occupy the city, the situation of the combined fleet cannot avoid being detected by the city. Therefore, it is a good way to deal with it by being more generous and letting the Champa military personnel directly stationed in Vung Tau Port. Although Qiu Xin was suspected of overstepping his authority, there was nothing wrong with the way he chose to handle it. If it were Yan Chujie who handled the matter himself, he would probably make the same choice.
After nightfall that night, Qiu Xin took Fan Ji, the general who occupied the city, to the guest house where Yan Chujie was staying. After the two sides took their seats, Yan Chujie asked straight to the point: "I heard that your country plans to join our South China Sea patrol military exercise?"
"There is indeed such a plan." Fan Ji's Chinese is quite standard, and even has a hint of Haihan Mandarin. He must have put a lot of effort into it.
"Is it okay if there are Annan ships in the fleet?" Yan Chujie continued to ask.
"Annan is Annan, and Champa is Champa. We only recognize Haihan and don't care about the others." Fan Ji's tone was very stiff, and it was obvious that he didn't have a good impression of Annan. However, since Champa is willing to endure the inconvenience of operating with Annan, it shows that he attaches great importance to this opportunity to participate in coordinated operations.
When the Haihan military planned this operation, they did not include the Champa Navy, because the strength of the Champa Navy was far less than that of Annan. The main warships were only four expedition-class sailing ships purchased from Haihan, and they were still The old models built before 1630 were eliminated by the Haihan Navy and sold to Champa at a discount. The performance of these ships is on par with the export models ordered by Annan, but the quantity is much lower than that of Annan. The sailors and commanders on the ships lack experience in ocean navigation, and have never participated in the Haihan held before. There is an obvious lack of experience in maritime military exercises.
However, the Annan fleet's participation in this exercise ended at Vung Tau Port. After that, the large force would not go south with the Haihan fleet. Only one ship carried a military observation group headed by Zheng Zha to participate in the subsequent operations. . If people from these two families met, there would be a high probability that something would happen, so Yan Chujie had to explain the situation beforehand to prevent the people from occupying the city from causing trouble.
Yan Chujie continued to ask: "How many ships does your country plan to send to participate in the exercise?"
"Six ships, four warships ordered from you, and two supply ships." Fan Ji was obviously prepared and gave an immediate reply.
Yan Chujie said: "Our destination is Amborna Island in the South China Sea. The round-trip voyage may take half a month, but you only have a few days to prepare. If you are not ready by then, we can only follow the instructions Originally planned to leave Vung Tau Port.”
Fan Ji responded: "There is no need to worry about General Yan. When we set out for Vung Tau Port, Saigon has already started to make corresponding preparations. If there are no accidents, the assembly should have been completed at Saigon Port by now. As long as General Yan says a word, Our fleet will arrive at Vung Tau Port to meet you within three days.”
The Champa people's level of attentiveness obviously exceeded Yan Chujie's expectations. It seemed that they had been waiting for such an opportunity to train together for more than a day or two. Of course, this may also be because Champa saw that Annan and Haihan were getting too close, and was a little worried about his own safety. He hoped to improve the relationship between the two parties by participating in joint military exercises, so that Haihan would not go to Annan's side.
Yan Chujie nodded and said: "There is one more thing I must emphasize first. During your country's navy participating in joint military exercises, the fleet will implement wartime laws and all actions must obey our commands. Any violations of disciplines and violations will be punished by military law." ! ”
"Of course." Fan Ji did not show any objection to this: "Our king also wants to learn through such exercises whether the tactics the navy learned from you have been transformed into real strength."< br>
As a relatively purely agricultural country, it is not easy for Champa to operate a naval fleet, and the investment of manpower, material and financial resources is not a small amount for it. After so many resources have been invested, whether the navy truly has combat capabilities is certainly a matter of great concern to its rulers. It is also a good way to test the results of military construction in the past few years through such a military exercise. Although Fanji himself has not received military training from Haihan, the commanders on several warships preparing to participate in the exercise this time are all new generation officers trained by Haihan.
(End of chapter)