Chapter 1036 Encounter
The last time Sun Zhen came to Taiwan, he had not experienced the baptism of the rainy season. The special operations battalion left Taipei after the battle in March. After a short rest in Penghu, it went north to Zhejiang the next month. This time, the rain has not stopped since they landed on the Miaoli coast early this morning. Although they were covered by cloaks and raincoats, which could almost perfectly withstand the current level of light rain, after marching for several miles in the forest, their feet The shoes and socks I wore were inevitably soaked, and when I walked around, my feet felt like stepping on mud, which was really unpleasant.
In order not to reveal their whereabouts, the team did not even light torches. They relied on two windproof oil lamps per class to provide lighting along the way, and touched the predetermined area one step at a time. The process of setting up the campsite is also very simple. Pull out a square waterproof canvas in the forest, fix the four corners with ropes to the surrounding tree trunks, and then fix the marching hammock underneath in the same way, and you can roughly sleep for a few hours. It's just that Maolishe is not far away, and the soldiers of the special operations battalion can no longer light a fire to ward off the cold and dry their shoes, socks and clothing in this temporary camp.
The candidates for the night watch have been arranged before departure, so there is no need to randomly select them. Sun Zhen was on duty at the last shift before dawn in the early morning, so he could still sleep peacefully for a few hours. He took off his shoes and socks before going to bed, wrung them out hard, hung them on the rope at one end of the hammock to dry, and then fell down to sleep. Although drying it for half the night may not necessarily be effective, it can at least make you feel a little better, at least it can have such a psychological effect.
The natives on the island of Taiwan will not leave their tribe to go out after nightfall. This is one of the common sense Sun Zhen learned when he fought in Taipei last year, so he dared to take off his shoes and socks to sleep peacefully. As long as no fire is lit to attract attention, this camp will be safe at least until dawn, and before that, their team must have finished their rest and left here.
When Sun Zhen was awakened by the changing of the sentry, he almost fell off the hammock. It's not that he is not adapted to these conditions. He used to sleep in hammocks during outdoor training, but he just had a nightmare. He dreamed that he returned to Denglai with the army, only to find that all his relatives at home were wearing bright clothes. Wearing military uniforms, he stood at the top of Dengzhou City and denounced himself as a traitor who betrayed his country and sought glory. Although Sun Zhen tried hard to defend himself, his relatives did not listen at all. Instead, they all took up their bows and arrows and shot at him.
Seeing that thousands of arrows were about to pierce his heart, Sun Zhen was woken up. He was thankful but also a little scared. Thinking about it, it has been nearly two years since I fled to Haihan, and I have completely lost contact with my relatives in my hometown. I don't know if they escaped the military disaster and what their current situation is. If there is really a chance to return to his hometown with the army in the north this year, he should think of ways to find out the whereabouts of his family. It would be best to move them all out of the Ming Dynasty and settle in the areas under Haihan's rule.
As for being denounced as a "rebel to the party" by his relatives in the dream, Sun Zhen didn't take it too seriously. His family was destroyed by the Ming army and he left his hometown. If Haihan hadn't provided money and food to help him, he would have been hungry. He died on the run, and now he is paying his salary and eating military rations, and it is reasonable to work hard for Haihan.
Sun Zhen quickly packed up, took a rifle and a windproof oil lamp, and arrived at the guard post outside the camp. Then he extinguished the oil lamp and stood quietly in the darkness. This so-called sentry post is actually just on top of a dirt bag. You can barely see the movement in a small area around it. The sentry wearing a dark cloak and raincoat standing motionless with his back against a big tree is basically invisible in the darkness. .
Sun Zhen did not have timing equipment on him, so he could only estimate the passage of time. Under normal circumstances, he could observe the position of the stars and the moon to determine the approximate time, but it was still raining in the sky and there was no reference at all. However, he is on the last shift tonight, and there is no problem of handover. All he has to do is wait patiently for dawn.
Sun Zhen knew that the chiefs had a very small timepiece called a "watch". Almost every chief wore one on his wrist. He could tell what time it was by just looking at it, and it was equally accurate day and night. And very few senior officers seem to be able to get such rewards. For example, he once saw a watch on the hand of Battalion Commander Gao Qiaonan. It was said that it was a reward given to him by General Qian Tiandun. If he can rely on it in the future, If you are promoted to the position of battalion commander with military merit, you may have the opportunity to receive similar rewards.
Of course, what he didn't know was that a large number of cheap automatic mechanical watches were stored in the warehouse of the Sanya base camp. They were all models customized in large quantities by domestic manufacturers before the time travel, and they were specially used to reward heroes. If only ten or eight are issued a year, that would be enough to last until the beginning of the next century. However, based on Haihan's current industrial development speed, he should be able to create a portable timer by himself before then.
In the early morning, the rain slowly stopped. Sun Zhen stretched out his hand to feel it, then took off the hood of his cloak and took a deep breath of the fresh air after the rain. Seeing that the sky was getting brighter, Sun Zhen slowly moved his legs, feet and waist that were a little stiff. When he returned to the camp, he saw that the sentries on duty at other places had not returned yet, so he woke up his sleeping comrades first.
Since we can't live and cook here, we naturally can't eat hot food for breakfast, so we can only fill our stomachs with dry food and water. However, this operation is only scheduled to last for one day, and it will be over if you just overcome it, and it will not have a big impact on the soldiers' condition. After everyone finished eating the rations in silence, the platoon leader asked the squad leaders to gather their teams and set off separately to the target area.
Due to the limited information that the prisoners captured before could confess, Haihan currently does not know the specific location of Maolishe. He can only draw an area on the map. This is why the command department wants to arrange such a team. The main reason for conducting on-site investigation here. According to the plan made in advance, the entire team was divided into four squads, each of which was one team. The distance between each team was kept at about two hundred meters, and they searched and marched southward in parallel.
Based on the prisoners' confessions, the command headquarters inferred that the population of Maolishe was between 500 and 1,000 people. The reason for such a large margin of error was mainly because the prisoners' confessions were vague and it was difficult to provide accurate figures. The difference in population will definitely be reflected in the size of the tribe's land, the scope of activities of its members, etc. Soldiers may find traces of native activities at any time.
Sure enough, the team only moved forward for about a mile, and they gradually discovered the fields cultivated by the natives in the wild. However, the so-called reclamation was actually just the removal of trees and weeds on the surface, and did not carry out the same farming as the Han people did. Deep cultivation. There are some rice sparsely growing in the fields. They are probably seeds taken from the Han immigrants who came to the nearby area in the past. However, the local people's farming guards are not lawful. It is estimated that this acre of land can yield fifty or sixty kilograms of rice. It is good. , there is still a gap compared with the Li and Miao natives who were regarded as slash-and-burn farming by the Haihan people in the past. Although Sun Zhen looked down on the agricultural cultivation level of the natives, he saw these fields scattered in the forest and knew that the location of the indigenous tribes was not far away. At that moment, he gave instructions to his soldiers to stay silent and sneak.
After walking forward for a while, Sun Zhen saw a puddle with a radius of two feet in front of him. There was no water connection around the pit. It looked like it was all accumulated rainwater, but surprisingly, there were quite a few in the puddle. Fish swim around. Sun Zhen was stunned at first, and then figured out the reason - these fish were probably caught by the natives from Houlong River, and were temporarily kept in this puddle. They would come back to get them when they wanted to eat, so that they didn't have to run every day. Went fishing in Houlong River a few miles away.
Sun Zhen also knew that the local garrison fleet shuttled back and forth on Houlong River almost every day to transport supplies. This undoubtedly had an impact on the fishing activities of the natives along the Houlong River. Perhaps this was also the transport of the fish they would catch. One of the reasons why I came back to raise it in this puddle. At this time, Sun Zhen no longer needed to explore the direction of the tribe, because not far ahead, a few smokes were rising from the forest.
As described in the intelligence, the Maolish tribe is located at the junction of mountains and plains. There are no solid defenses such as walls around the tribe, only a circle of bamboo fence mixed with bushes. Sun Zhen had also seen similar measures among the indigenous tribes in Taipei that were dependent on the Spanish. It was not that the natives did not want to build better and stronger fortifications, but the iron tools they had on hand were very limited, and they could not even mass-produce quarrying tools. Therefore, only this relatively primitive measure can be adopted, and the limited iron can be used to make weapons and daily necessities.
Natural iron ore is very scarce on the island of Taiwan, and there are even fewer places where indigenous tribes have the ability to mine it. Therefore, pig iron can be regarded as hard currency for the indigenous tribes on the island, even more practical than gold. For tribes like Maolishe, which is not very powerful, most of the native warriors don't even have an iron machete. They can do well if they can install an iron tip on their spear. Most of the pig iron and ironware they owned were obtained from the tribes north of Miaoli in exchange for the products in the mountains. However, most of the pig iron came from the Spaniards who used to rule Tamsui and Jilong. They were exchanged for pig iron. All kinds of furs and mountain treasures eventually fell into the hands of the Spanish.
However, after the Spaniards were driven away by the Haihan army last year, this kind of trade was also interrupted. The source of pig iron in the entire Taipei area was curbed. Maolishe also did not obtain pig iron and ironware from the outside world for more than half a year. This information also comes from native captives. Although the information is not very accurate, it can at least give the Haihan Army a rough grasp of the armed level of the local indigenous tribes. Sun Zhen's team only arrived in Miaoli yesterday, but the early intelligence collection work still helped them make certain predictions about the enemy's strength during the operation.
Sun Zhen asked the team to stop behind the bushes by the water hole, and then sent one of his men to ask the platoon leader in another team for instructions on the next action. His team is the westernmost one among the four teams. It is traveling almost close to the mountainous area. After discovering the location of the tribe, it must re-draw its route. Otherwise, it will have to go around the periphery of the tribe, and it is easy to lose contact with the tribe. The synchronicity of several other teams.
Soon Sun Zhen received a reply, asking him to cut in to the southwest along the outside of the tribe, circle around the outside of the tribe to its south, investigate the distribution of the tribe's buildings, then turn east, march towards Houlong River, and finally march in the direction of Houlong River. Meet at the predetermined location on the bank of Houlong River. However, if you encounter an enemy during this process and cannot defeat it, you can retreat to the northwest mountains on your own and return to the coastal camp by traveling through the mountains.
The reason why the mountainous area is designated as the planned retreat route for Sun Zhen's team, rather than returning the same way they came, is because the special operations battalion has always regarded the mountainous area as their own back garden, even if Maoli Mountain is unfamiliar to them. In this area, this group of people will still think that their combat capabilities in this environment are far stronger than that of the natives. It is easier to escape the opponent's pursuit by retreating to the mountains than to the plains. They may also be able to use the terrain to counterattack along the way.
After receiving the order, Sun Zhen immediately adjusted his marching direction and led his team into the mountains and forests. From this moment on, the team he led separated from the other three teams. If everything went well, they should be able to meet up near Houlong River in the afternoon, and then take the boat that came to pick them up and return to the camp downstream.
Of course, this is only an ideal action plan. Sun Zhen will not relax his vigilance because his opponent is weak. After they landed at the coastal camp, they saw the coffins of the soldiers killed in Miaoli being loaded onto the ship and prepared to be transported back to Penghu. Although The number is small, but it also shows that the local natives are not weak chickens without any threat. After all, this is also the opponent's home field. If it is not dealt with carefully, even a special operations battalion that is good at mountain and jungle warfare can hardly guarantee that it will not capsize in the gutter.
How to deal with natives in the wild? Several plans were discussed at the preparatory meeting before departure, but no one could say whether this situation would happen. After all, how big is the range of activities of the Maolishe natives? , it is still difficult to make an accurate judgment now. And their current detection distance can be said to be no longer particularly safe.
Sun Zhen can now see nearly half of the tribe's buildings without even using a telescope. The architecture here is somewhat similar to the boat-shaped houses on Hainan Island. Although Sun Zhen has never been to the Lidong Miao Village, he visited the military museum located at the naval base there during his stay in Sanya and saw related pictures. Immediately, he ordered a soldier in the squad who was good at painting to use charcoal to draw a sketch of the scene he saw as quickly as possible. When a reconnaissance team like this is dispatched, they will carry a waterproofed oil paper tube containing charcoal and parchment, which is used to draw maps and markers during the reconnaissance.
Just as this team was lurking in the forest to investigate the tribe a hundred meters away, Sun Zhen noticed the sound of voices coming from only a dozen meters away, and soon two native men appeared in his field of vision.
(End of chapter)