Chapter 1020 Advance Team (1)
For travelers like Haihan, whether it is the extremely harsh natural environment or the uncivilized indigenous tribes who are unwilling to obey, these external resistances are not their main opponents. There is only one biggest enemy for the rulers of Haihan, and that is time. No matter how many black technologies that transcend the times that the time travelers have in their hands, they still cannot fight against the rapid passage of time.
If the time travelers want to establish an industrial civilization and a relatively stable political system in the East within their lifetime, they must seize every minute and every second to promote the rapid development of the historical process, whether it is drilling for oil or the subsequent birth of the internal combustion engine, Travelers are trying to realize these historical moments two centuries in advance, and compress the originally long development process during this period into the shortest possible time.
Even though the task of extracting oil in Miaoli faces many objective difficulties, since the executive committee has made up its mind to promote the implementation of this project at any cost, it means that the project leader Bai Kesi can mobilize all available resources during this period. resources to clear all obstacles on the way forward.
On April 15, the day after the fleet arrived at Magong Port, Bai Kesi inspected the Penghu Shipyard located in the military port. This shipyard currently does not have the ability to build large warships. Its main function is to provide daily maintenance for military ships stationed in Penghu. It also builds some less technical fishing boats and cargo ships to earn some income. To subsidize daily expenses, on the other hand, it also prevents shipwrights from abandoning their shipbuilding skills. Since the second half of last year, the shipbuilding tasks here have changed. They are mainly inland river flat-bottomed barges, and orders for 20 or 30 ships have been received. Although the shipwrights did not know the purpose of building so many barges, it was obvious that these ships would not be used in Penghu.
The Ship Management Office under the Shipping Department of the Ministry of Transport also regularly sends senior technicians from Sanya to provide short-term technical training to the craftsmen. At the end of last year, Sanya shipped four marine steam engines to Penghu, and specialized technicians accompanied them to Penghu Shipyard to teach the craftsmen how to install and debug them. During the same period, cargo ships to and from Magong Port successively brought in a lot of clean coal produced in Annan, and so far thousands of tons of coal have been stockpiled near the port.
Baikes checked the four traction barges that had been equipped with steam engines. The craftsmanship level had basically reached 70 to 80% of that of the Sanya Shipyard. There should be no big problem in daily use. However, considering that the location of use is not in Penghu, it is probably necessary to set up a technical service station responsible for maintenance near the mouth of Houlong River in Miaoli. Fortunately, Baikes' team this time also specially transferred several skilled technicians from Sanya Shipyard and the Ministry of Industry, so there is no need to worry about insufficient personnel reserves at Penghu Shipyard.
In the afternoon of the same day, Baikes and Morgan reviewed the Penghu garrison that was about to go to the Miaoli area with the oil exploration team to perform tasks. Although the border of the Haihan controlled area moved north to Zhejiang, the size of the troops currently stationed in Penghu was no longer large, but Yu Yao still put together a strengthened company for Baikes to dispatch. As a result, the army that is about to go to Miaoli already has three companies. Coupled with the navy that will be stationed on the coast of Miaoli and the militia among the staff of the exploration team, the armed force under Bai Kesi is enough to launch a small-scale There was a war.
In addition, Yu Yao also selected about 500 workers in advance from the immigration camp on Baisha Island, and they will also set off with the exploration team. Most of these workers are war refugees from the Jiaodong Peninsula and the Central Plains in the north, and they are basically farmers. Of course, there are occasionally some refugees with good backgrounds and cultural foundations who have been selected early and put to other uses.
These refugees can work as long as they have food and shelter. They can be said to be very cheap labor. After they assist the exploration team in Miaoli to complete the initial infrastructure project, the civil affairs department will conduct on-site resettlement to allow these refugees to take root in the local area. If it goes well, Miaoli will have a permanent population of about three to four thousand in two or three years, and some of these new immigrants will become the first batch of oil workers in Haihan Kingdom.
Counting the local troops and migrant workers from Penghu, the team about to go to Miaoli already exceeds 1,500 people. For such a large team to go to the local area and carve out a place to stay, they need a lot of various materials. Almost all the living supplies needed by the team are prepared in Fujian. In principle, they must be able to sustain the consumption of more than 1,000 people for at least a month. More than 30 tons of rice alone are prepared. According to Yu Yao's statistics, the first batch of daily supplies shipped was probably at least 300 tons, which was similar to the amount of military supplies. The largest amount of cargo is the working supplies of the oil exploration team, and there are a lot of heavy iron lumps. Two-thirds of the cargo ships in the fleet departing from Sanya are loaded with various tools and equipment required for production.
Yu Yao estimated that the size of the fleet heading to Miaoli would be double that of the fleet coming from Sanya. Therefore, allocating ships and personnel at Magong Port was also a quite time-consuming and laborious task. Since Bai Kesi's team arrived in Penghu nearly ten days earlier than expected, the completion of all preparations has not yet reached 100%, and it is expected that it will take at least three or four days before departure.
The large force cannot leave for the time being, but at least a small team can be sent there in advance to plan the deployment of the forward base and prepare for follow-up. Morgan's suggestion was also adopted by Bai Kesi. On the morning of the 16th, the advance team led by Morgan set off northward from Penghu in two warships, carrying a cargo ship and a supply ship. This fleet also towed a steam inland river flat-bottomed boat and two barges by the way, intending to find a suitable opportunity to go upstream along the Houlong River to determine the conditions of the channel first.
The voyage from Magong Port in Penghu to the mouth of Houlong River in Miaoli is about 100 nautical miles. Due to the tow of several flat-bottomed boats and the poor sea conditions, the fleet led by Morgan could only sail slowly at a low speed. Marching, it took two full days to reach the destination.
The estuary of Houlong River is about a kilometer wide, and ships with a draft of four to five meters can enter smoothly, but they can only move in the waters of the estuary. It is said that after traveling about one kilometer upstream, the water depth decreases rapidly It has been lowered to about two meters, and only inland river flat-bottomed boats can pass. Moreover, the river beaches in some places upstream are extremely shallow, and blasting may be required to open up river channels to allow cargo barges to pass smoothly.
When Yu Yao led a team to investigate last time, he could only measure the approximate water depth, but he was not completely sure whether the barge could be navigable. Moreover, it is the rainy season recently, and the flow of Houlong River has also changed, so on-site survey is necessary. This is one of the reasons why Morgan insisted on sending a small team to explore the way first. Otherwise, when the fleet reaches the upper reaches and discovers that there is no way, it will miss a big deal.
Yu Yao provided Morgan with a map of the Houlong River Basin and the landing place he had chosen last time when he led his team. Morgan followed the map and found the anchorage on the south bank of the estuary without much effort. When Yu Yao came here last time, he had people build a simple trestle here to facilitate the docking of ships. But what made Morgan's heart sink was that the trestle had suffered obvious damage, and at least two-thirds of the bridge deck was damaged. It disappeared, and the pile standing in the water was twisted and twisted.
Morgan was not in a hurry to let the big ship dock. Instead, he put down the small boat and sent two squads of soldiers to land. First, to ensure the safety of the shore environment, and second, to confirm that the water depth at the docking place would allow the big ship to dock.
The first thing Morgan did after landing was to check the damage to the trestle. The subsequent arriving fleet will inevitably need some port facilities to allow materials to be quickly unloaded onto the land. Although building a temporary trestle is not a big project, it can save money. Building one more trestle will cost a lot more manpower and materials. Of course, the more important point is that Morgan needs to personally confirm the cause of the damage to the trestle.
If it were only caused by natural causes, such as hurricanes or water impacts, it would be acceptable. However, the results of the inspection made Morgan unable to relax. There were obvious traces of metal tools cutting on the wooden piles of the trestle. This was definitely It is a man-made effect. It seems that after Yu Yao's team left here, some people used violent means to destroy the trestle. According to Yu Yao's investigation, the only permanent residents in this area are indigenous tribes who are deeply hostile to outsiders. It is unlikely that other visitors will be too busy to destroy this wooden building. Simple trestle.
Morgan interpreted this behavior as a warning, meaning to tell outsiders not to come back here because you have been classified as persona non grata. But such childish behavior naturally could not stop Haihan's determination to develop this place. After Morgan determined the cause of the damage, he ordered the accompanying engineers and carpenters to repair the trestle as soon as possible.
Morgan's advance team only has two platoons of less than 100 army troops, more than 30 various logistics personnel, and more than ten technicians. The materials shipped with the fleet are basically living supplies and building materials needed to build camps. . With no trestle available, Morgan's team had to spend more time unloading the cargo. In addition, it had been raining lightly, making the river bank muddy. The efficiency made Morgan feel dissatisfied but helpless.
About an hour after Morgan landed, the headquarters tent was finally set up on the river bank. But it was getting dark at this time, and it seemed that there was no way to complete the camp in time. Most of the soldiers had to return to the ship and make do with it for the night.
Considering that there might be indigenous activities nearby, Morgan cautiously set up several hidden sentries on the outside and used multiple sections of barbed wire to set up a circular defense line around the camp. If someone wants to camp at night, they will most likely be blocked by a barbed wire fence inlaid with sharp steel pieces.
Although they were in the wilderness and the conditions were relatively limited, the soldiers still ate hot food prepared by the cooking team at dark time. For ordinary soldiers, food during wartime is much better than usual. At least every meal can have a meat dish as a base. Coupled with additional combat allowances, the mission is not particularly difficult. The most important thing is that the Haihan Army has always been invincible, and soldiers will not be under too much mental pressure even during combat missions, so the atmosphere in the army will not be dull because of the armed conflicts that may be encountered in the future.
Morgan is one of the few singles among the Haihan travelers who has not yet established a new family. Several of his single friends who came here from North America all have their own families and children, but Morgan has never met the person he thinks he is. The right person. Although over the past few years, his Chinese language skills have become enough to communicate normally with people around him, but his personal aesthetic still prefers blond and blue-eyed Western girls, and he has always been less interested in the style of Eastern women. While he was in Sanya, there were people who helped match him, but in the end Morgan did not choose to start a family.
It is precisely because of this that Morgan devotes much more time and energy to his work than others. While he is a physician at Haihan First Hospital, he is also a lecturer at Sanya Medical College. He also has another identity, that of a military officer. Fang's sniper instructor. In the past few years, more than a hundred snipers have been trained by him, and most of them are serving in various armies. Due to the special skills of snipers, they are the treasure of commanders no matter where they are. As long as they are used properly, it is possible to use snipers to take the heads of generals among thousands of troops.
Although it may be difficult for snipers to be put to serious use during the mission in Miaoli, Morgan still brought more than a dozen students he was leading when he set off from Sanya this time as an ultra-long-range practical training course for them. The Ministry of National Defense did not express any objection to this. After all, only Morgan is an expert in the training of special arms such as snipers. His ideas are basically official opinions, and no one questions the training that such training can achieve. Effect.
Among the secret sentries Morgan sent out to lurk outside the camp were his students. As a qualified sniper, independent action, waiting at a station, and monitoring targets are all basic skills. In the past, he had been trained at the base in Sanya, and it was rare to have the opportunity to come into contact with a natural environment like Miaoli. Morgan also wanted to complete the mission as much as possible. Make full use of all training opportunities during this period.
Although Morgan is a high-ranking official, in this environment, the dinner is not actually sumptuous. It only has two more chicken legs and a glass of red wine than ordinary soldiers. The production of this kind of red wine brewed in Sanya is very small, and almost all of it is digested internally as a special offering and will not be sold on the market. Although drinking was prohibited in the army during wartime, those rules were set for ordinary soldiers, and senior officials like Morgan were not restricted by them.
(End of chapter)