Chapter 1025 Advance Team (6)
After adding hundreds of laborers at once, the construction project of the coastal camp finally started in full swing. The construction workers drew two defense lines running east-west and north-south along the area where the temporary dock is currently located, preparing to isolate an area near the water as Haihan's main camp on the coast of Miaoli. This area is located exactly at the mouth of Houlong River. The planning plan makes maximum use of the terrain advantages, using the water as a natural barrier in the west and north directions, and only needs to set up defense lines on the east and south sides to deal with threats from land. Can.
At present, most of the west coast of Taiwan Island is already under the control of Haihan. Although the Dutch still retain a colony in Da Yuan Port, the local governor Hans knows very well what can and cannot be done. According to the understanding agreement signed by the two parties in November 1632, Dutch ships entering and leaving Damuan Port could never go from the Fujian Strait to the waters north of Damuan Port. Even Dutch merchant ships heading to Okinawa and Japan could only sail from Taiwan Island. The Bashi Channel in the south is bypassed.
The pirates and Spaniards who originally operated in the Fujian Strait have all been eliminated or driven out of the waters near Taiwan last year. Therefore, the Miaoli area, located in the middle of Taiwan's west coast, no longer needs to consider man-made threats from the sea. The camp near the sea can deploy the main defense force on the land - after all, the only ones who can threaten Haihan in this area are the indigenous tribes in the inland mountains.
Taking into account the armed level of the indigenous tribes, Haihan certainly does not need to use big tricks such as building forts here. He only needs to dig trenches around the perimeter and pull up barbed wire, and then put some obstacles such as deer villages to block horses. While increasing the depth of defense, narrow the defense surface as much as possible, and then build parapets and hidden fortifications near the remaining main passages, so that the defenders can gather forces and steadily implement fire output during wartime, and the pressure on defense will be reduced. Much smaller.
Before Morgan returned from the mountainous area, Tian Yeyou had already divided the migrant workers at the station into two groups for construction. One group was responsible for building military facilities, mainly peripheral defenses. The other part is responsible for civilian facilities, such as docks, warehouses, barracks, and various facilities needed for life in the camp. In addition, it is necessary to use local forest resources to start preparing more building materials for the initial construction of several inland strongholds. Especially in areas where oil fields are located, nearly a thousand personnel will be stationed there during the exploration period. The long-term camp required to accommodate so many people is no small project. Some building materials do not need to wait for large troops to move in before they are deployed. Prepared locally.
Although Tian Yeyou is not from the construction industry, the places he goes to are often in the wilderness, from Tiandu Iron Mine and Heitugang Coal Mine in the early days of time travel, to later Shilu Iron Mine, Jilong Gold Mine, and now In Miaoli, every place is being built bit by bit from scratch. He has watched it as a bystander for several years, and he has seen it for a while. Compared to Morgan, he is at least half a professional. He is already familiar with how to build a camp and is fully capable of taking on-site command.
Morgan didn't have many opportunities to lead troops alone outside. Occasionally, he would lead his scouts in the mountains near Sanya for field training. There was no need to build such large camps and defenses. Naturally, in this field The experience is not as rich as Tian Yeyou. However, it was a rare opportunity to meet someone knowledgeable, so Morgan asked Tian Yeyou a lot of questions in this regard at the dinner table. The two drank and chatted until late at night.
The next day, while Morgan was still sleeping, he was awakened by a burst of noise outside the tent. Morgan thought that the fleet from Penghu had arrived. As he was about to get up, the guards had already entered the tent and reported to him: "Chief, there are a few natives outside the camp. It seems they want to convey some message to us."
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After hearing this, Morgan quickly put on his clothes, walked to the door, turned back and ordered the guard: "Take my gun."
The gun Morgan was referring to was not his treasured M200. That gun was usually dismantled into several large pieces and placed in a moisture-proof box, and was rarely assembled for use. What Morgan is currently using is a new product produced in small batches by Haihan Ordnance Industry, a breech-loading repeating rifle that imitates the Spencer M1865 rifle.
This rifle uses a brass cartridge case. When fired, the expanded cartridge case will lock the rear of the cartridge chamber, thus solving the problem of air leakage in the breech-loading gun. The metal cartridge case also solves the problem of moisture-proofing the ammunition. When loading ammunition, you need to take out the ammunition supply tube from the rear of the butt, and then push seven rounds of copper-cased fixed-loading ammunition through the hole in the butt. When the trigger guard is pulled down, the rotating locking bolt retreats to open the gun chamber and pulls out the empty cartridge case. At the same time, the spring in the butt will push the next round out of the feed tube. When the guard is pulled up, the bolt pushes the bullet in. The cartridge chamber simultaneously blocks this space.
Although this kind of rifle needs to pull down the hammer before each shot, and after shooting, it needs to pull the trigger guard up and down to complete the action of unloading and loading the shell, but its shooting speed is far faster than the current flintlocks that use fixed-loading ammunition. The gun fires at a rate of three to four rounds per minute, and it takes only more than ten seconds at the fastest to shoot out the seven bullets loaded in the butt. If a preloaded cartridge is used to replace bullets, the sustained rate of fire can even reach twenty-one rounds per minute. It is no exaggeration to call it a continuous ball gun. The firepower output of this gun alone is equivalent to six or seven flintlock rifles, and according to Haihan Ordnance's internal testing, it is possible to fire two hundred bullets at a time without cleaning the barrel. Compared with firing paper-based custom weapons, The flintlock gun with ammo is much stronger.
Of course, the shortcomings of this "advanced weapon" are also obvious, that is, the cost of production and use is too high. At present, the cost of one such repeating rifle is approximately equivalent to seven flintlock muskets, which means that to install it into an army, it will cost seven times the military expenditure in the initial stage. In addition, because the structure of the gun body is more complex and the production cycle is much longer than that of a flintlock gun, it is almost impossible to implement it in a short period of time, and it is obviously difficult to give full play to the new capabilities of the piecemeal installation. The power of weapons.
Another shortcoming is ammunition. The production technology of copper-cased custom-loaded ammunition is still relatively difficult for the current Haihan military industry. The almost purely manual production process leads to very low production capacity. A skilled worker can make it in one day. There were only enough bullets to fire a gun for one minute. Moreover, with the performance of this gun, the consumption of ammunition is so large that it is impossible to ignore the gap between its cost and the ammunition used by the flintlock guns currently installed on a large scale in the army.
Under the existing productivity, the improvement of weapon performance will inevitably mean a corresponding increase in production costs and usage costs. From the perspective of people other than the military, this performance improvement should be considered to be an obvious surplus and waste. , because the current level of armament is enough to defeat the opponents Haihan can currently encounter, and it is obviously unnecessary to spend a lot of military expenditures on frequent upgrades of weapons.
Therefore, although the research and development of new weapons is always going on, the replacement of military standard weapons is quite slow. Several similar new rifles are also being developed at the same time. However, Morgan knows the goods well and went to Haihan Ordnance Industry before setting off from Sanya. The subordinate weapons research center looked around and selected this repeating rifle as the sidearm for the trip to Taiwan. The director of Haihan Ordnance Industry is Bai Kesi, so he naturally gives the green light to this. After all, the safety of the Miaoli project depends on Morgan's performance, and it is Haihan Ordnance Industry's responsibility to provide him with the best equipment.
Morgan came out of the tent and saw Tian Yeyuya walking out of the tent where he lived with a confused look on his face. Last night, Tian Yeyou went to the back to chat happily and drank more. The alcohol must have not completely dissipated at this time. Morgan saw that his standing posture was a little crooked and not stable enough.
"What's going on outside?" Tian Yeyou asked proactively.
"I heard that some natives are calling for battle outside." Morgan joked: "I'm going to fight them now. My friend, do you want to fight with me?" "The natives are coming to attack? Then I have to fight with you. Take a look!" Tian Yeyou seemed to wake up a lot immediately after hearing the whole news, with an eager expression on his face. It was obvious that he was not worried about the trouble that the natives who came to his door might cause to him. Instead, he was full of energy to watch the fun.
Morgan was right. Tian Yeyou had been in Taipei for a year, and during that time he had interacted with the local indigenous tribes. Naturally, there would not be much tension at all. At that moment, Morgan and Tian Yeyou came to the gate of the camp and saw several natives standing in an open space outside. Although they were holding bamboo spears in their hands, they didn't look like they were looking for trouble. .
Although Morgan was not afraid of these natives, his status did not allow him to put himself in danger, so he immediately asked the translator in the camp to communicate with these natives. This translator who understands the native language is actually also a member of the Pingpu tribe on the island of Taiwan. However, he comes from a tribe near Kaohsiung Port in Tainan that has taken refuge with the Haihan. He is hundreds of miles away from here, so he can only understand as many words as the local natives say. I can only let it happen.
The translator left the camp and whispered to the natives for a long time, and then came back to convey the other party's meaning to them. These natives come from Maoli She in the southern mountainous area. They have only one request, that is, the Haihan people leave here immediately, because this river mouth is the territory of Maoli She and no outsiders are allowed to invade. As for the purpose of the Haihan people coming here, the natives didn't care at all. They didn't even want to talk about it.
"Tell them that since we are here, we will not withdraw. If they think that they can make Haihan bow down with just one sentence, then it is too simple." Morgan's attitude is very tough, and he also has the faint intention of irritating the other party. . If the indigenous tribes take the initiative to attack Haihan, it will provide the conditions for the military to take necessary military measures, which Morgan wants.
The translator took Morgan's answer and went out to communicate with the natives again. Morgan saw that the natives were gradually getting excited. One of them raised the bamboo spear in his hand and shouted in the direction of the camp. Before Morgan could react, Tian Yeyou beside him said: "This guy is going to shake things up, send someone out quickly!"
As soon as Tian Yeyou finished speaking, he saw that the natives had already grabbed the translator and knocked him to the ground. Morgan took action as soon as the other party said to do it. He quickly ordered his men to attack. He took the gun from the guard and aimed at the natives outside the camp.
Morgan is about thirty meters away from where the natives are. If you use a flintlock gun at this distance, the chance of hitting by chance will be more than 50%. However, the hit rate of this new gun in Morgan's hand is quite high within fifty meters. , and after his own adjustment, although there was only an aiming scale on the gun and no scope, for him, it was enough for him to aim at this distance with the naked eye.
Morgan saw the leading native put his foot on the translator's chest, raised his bamboo spear as if to stab him, and shot him without hesitation. This shot accurately hit the native's upper body, and the huge impact caused him to immediately fall backwards and sit down. Morgan did not dare to be careless, reloaded, and then continued to aim.
Sure enough, another native became violent and, regardless of his companion who fell on the ground, he also raised his bamboo spear and stabbed the translator who fell on the ground. Morgan immediately fired another shot and knocked him to the ground. The remaining natives were suddenly startled and confused. They did not dare to attack the translator again, but tried to carry away the two injured companions who fell to the ground.
However, at this time, a group of Haihan soldiers had already rushed out of the camp, stopped all these people, disarmed them, bound them, and escorted them back to the camp. Seeing that the situation was calmed down quickly, Morgan breathed a sigh of relief, handed the gun to his guard, and went with Tian Yeyou to check on the conditions of several prisoners.
Although the translator was subdued by the natives and fell to the ground, fortunately he was not injured, except for a few bruises on his body. But looking at his face and trembling body, he was indeed quite frightened. If Morgan hadn't taken decisive action, he might have been stabbed through with a bamboo spear by a fellow native from Maolishe.
Although this translator is not from Haihan, he is a member of the Haihan camp after all. Morgan does not want to see him being tortured and killed by other natives in front of his eyes. Such a scene will definitely have a bad impact on his own morale. Influence. Moreover, this native has such a violent temperament that he will directly hurt people if he says a few wrong words, regardless of the time and occasion. It seems that it is indeed not easy to communicate through negotiation.
Morgan didn't have much good intentions at first, but when he saw the other party taking the initiative, he naturally started killing without hesitation. Although he still has the identity of a doctor, his long-term single life has made his temperament tend to be indifferent, and he has had the experience of killing enemies on the battlefield before, but he is more willing to use extreme means to solve problems than ordinary people.
A total of five natives who came to the camp to call for demonstrations were shot by Morgan and wounded two of them. One of them was hit in the chest, bleeding profusely, and he was dead. The other person was hit in the shoulder and suffered slightly minor injuries, but Morgan had no intention of treating him. He only asked the soldiers to escort the three uninjured people aside, and then called the shocked translator over to prepare for interrogation.
(End of chapter)