Chapter 1076 Jiaozhou Bay
These guard posts are hundreds of kilometers away from Dengzhou City, the center of the Denglai Rebellion, so they were relatively less affected by this civil strife, and they still maintain their basic organizational structure. Among them, Jiaozhou Bay in the jurisdiction of Lingshan Guard is the largest ice-free port in the entire Jiaodong Peninsula. The Ming army also retained a small-scale naval establishment here. Although Haihan did not regard it as a big threat, they did not want the Ming army to detect relevant information before the northward fleet arrived at its destination. Therefore, during the voyage along the southern coastline of the Jiaodong Peninsula, the main fleet would Keep a distance of about thirty nautical miles from the coast to avoid being discovered by the garrisoned Ming army.
However, in order to more accurately grasp the situation in Jiaozhou Bay, Wang Tom sent a reconnaissance sailboat disguised as an ordinary merchant ship to conduct reconnaissance in the bay. The commander was Gong, the field mission director of the Ministry of Security who had just made great achievements in the Hangzhou operation. Seventeen. In order to better conceal its identity, this reconnaissance ship also specially shipped some commodities produced in Zhejiang to cope with possible interrogations from the local defenders.
Jiaozhou Bay covers an area of nearly 500 square kilometers. Eleven rivers, including Nanjiao River and Dagu River, enter the sea from Jiaozhou Bay. The bay has a wide harbor and deep water, and it does not freeze all year round. In 1372, Xu Da, the Duke of the Ming and Wei Dynasties, sent Zhu Xing, the commander of Qianshi, to Jiaozhou Bay, where he built Lingshan Guard and deployed troops to prevent Japanese pirates from invading.
Lingshan Guard has three thousand-household offices under its jurisdiction, which are administratively under the jurisdiction of Laizhou Prefecture and militarily under the Jimo Camp under the Shandong Capital Command. Lingshan Acropolis is located on the south bank of the Jiaozhou Bay. In the second year of Yongle (1404) and the first year of Hongzhi (1488), two large-scale expansions were presided over by the commander Guo Chong and the deputy patrol envoy Zhao He respectively. Today's Lingshan Acropolis is made of green bricks. The city wall is two feet five feet high and one foot two feet thick. There are four gates in the east, west, north and south, namely Chaoyang, Yuewu, Zhenhai and Chengen. There are built on the gates to enhance defense. gatehouse. There is a moat built outside the city, which is two to five feet deep and two feet wide.
"Lingshan Acropolis Construction Announcement" records: "The four gates are open, the streets are crosses, all square and square, shaped like a chessboard, there are stones like chess pieces at the entrance of the alley, and there is a boundary river in the middle. It enters from the North Water Gate, exits from the South Water Gate, and converges at the south of the city. , and gradually returned to the sea. "In the middle of the city, there are facilities such as a health department, a military training department, a warehouse, and a martial arts field, with a garrison of more than a thousand people.
After three constructions, Lingshan Acropolis has become an important military and political location along the Jiaozhou Bay. The garrison organization manages the army and civilians. The commander of the guard is a third-grade official, and is considered a high-ranking official in the local area. The administrative area of Lingshanwei was also much larger than that of prefecture-level cities in later generations.
However, Lingshan Guard also received an order from Shandong Dusi during the Denglai Rebellion and mobilized most of its troops to Dengzhou to participate in the war. There were many casualties during the period, so it is currently in the post-war recovery period, and the size of the garrison will definitely not be able to keep up with the war. Before. Fortunately, the activities of the rebels at that time were mainly concentrated on the north coast of the Jiaodong Peninsula, but they did not directly affect Lingshan Acropolis, so Lingshan Acropolis and its surrounding facilities were preserved intact.
But it is inevitable that people who fled from the north during the war gathered in large numbers near Lingshan Acropolis, and these refugees who lost their land and production tools basically had to rely on limited government relief to survive. Food is not the biggest problem. In winter, not having a warm place to live is a problem that even the government cannot solve. In order to survive the severe cold in winter, the homeless refugees can only continue to go south, where the temperature is relatively warmer. A little bit of Jiangsu territory. Some of the refugees met the merchants who recruited immigrants for Haihan in Huai'an Prefecture. Under the temptation of the "warm south" and "food, food and housing" conditions, they boarded the immigration ship in order to survive. This included Including Sun Zhen, who was born in Dengzhou and currently serves in the special operations camp.
For a mission like this that requires close-in investigation, Gong Shiqi naturally did not forget to arrange as many Shandong people as possible on the ship who are familiar with the local conditions. When Sun Zhen fled from his hometown two years ago, he also stayed near Lingshan Guard. It’s been a while, so I’m fairly familiar with the situation here.
"At least half of the people who fled to Jiaozhou together died here. Many people were unwilling to flee south. As a result, when winter came and there was two snowfalls, the number of people freezing to death reached three figures. "To be honest, if it wasn't for the freezing cold, I wouldn't want to go further south. After all, the farther you go, the smaller the chance of coming back!" Sun Zhen still felt frightened when talking about the embarrassing situation back then.
"If you hadn't gone south, you might have died here in vain. What an injustice! Don't you regret joining Haihan now?" Gong Shiqi asked with a smile.
Sun Zhen quickly responded: "Of course I don't regret it! If I had stayed in Shandong, even if I could survive, I would have gone back to Dengzhou to continue farming. How could I live a wonderful life now! Having said that, if there had been an army in Shandong back then, With a strong army like the Haihan Army guarding the place, the Kong thieves will not be able to run rampant for a while and cause harm to the place!"
Gong Shiqi nodded in agreement. He was not a political cadre, and he could not make any great sense in this regard. He only knew that he was loyal to Haihan and tried his best to complete the tasks assigned by his superiors.
Sun Zhen raised his hand and pointed forward and said: "Ahead is the location of Lingshan Acropolis. In the past, a navy fleet was deployed here, and it was stationed in Tangdao Bay in front, but I don't know if it is still here now. This Tangdao Bay The area is small, so if our ship enters, it will be a little conspicuous. Since this trip is aimed at Jiaozhou Bay, I suggest not to get too close, so as not to cause trouble and go around from the sea to enter Jiaozhou Bay. "
Gong Shiqi did not raise any objection to Sun Zhen's suggestion. The order he received stated that the focus of this close-in investigation was the geographical conditions in Jiaozhou Bay rather than the Ming army's deployment information in this area. Moreover, in order not to break away from the main force, there are certain requirements on the operation time, and we cannot delay here for too long. Going straight to the topic is probably the most efficient solution.
The reconnaissance ship slowly passed Lingshan Guard on the ocean less than two nautical miles away from the coast. During this period, it did not encounter the at-sea interrogation they were worried about. Gong Qiqi looked through the telescope for a long time, but he did not see a ship. A warship of the Ming Navy.
After the sailboat sailed into Jiaozhou Bay smoothly, a small number of fishing boats were seen sporadically near the shore. Sun Zhen was moved by the scene and said: "When I fled to Jiaozhou Bay, even if the government didn't have any relief food to send out, it was a place close to the sea, so I wouldn't starve to death. I remember that for two months, the government granary was empty, so everyone We could only survive on seafood and wild vegetables. At that time, I would go to the beach every day to pick up various shellfish and sea vegetables after the tide went out. Sometimes the local fishermen would have a good harvest and would share some fish and shrimp with us. ”
Gong Shiqi asked: "Then after you escaped here, why didn't you build your own houses to resist the cold winter?" Sun Zhen smiled bitterly: "How can it be so easy? When most people escape, they only have time to bring some clothes and It's just money, it's going slowly. When the rebels arrive, they not only steal the money, they also take away their lives! They are unfamiliar with this place, except for some people who have escaped from the whole village and can organize it. To build a house, a single-family person like me brought a hoe with me when I escaped. There is no way to build a house. It would be good to build a shelter to protect the rain.”
Gong Shiqi was from the south and had never been to the north of the Yangtze River before. He did not know the severity of the Little Ice Age in the late Ming Dynasty. Although places like Jiaozhou Bay are known as ice-free ports, in the winter of recent years, large areas of ice have also appeared on the sea surface in Jiaozhou Bay. This is just because there are many rivers here entering the sea, and the relatively abundant water flow makes it difficult for the sea surface to Just completely frozen. It is common for this place to have temperatures as low as ten or twenty degrees below zero in winter, which is simply an insurmountable difficulty for refugees without heating facilities.
The investigation of Jiaozhou Bay is not just a quick glance, but has a special focus. Before Gong Shiqi set off, his immediate boss Hao Wanqing and Navy Commander Wang Tom specifically compared the map and told him the areas in Jiaozhou Bay that needed to be focused on investigation. This place is located on the east coast of Jiaozhou Bay near the mouth of the bay. It is a semi-enclosed harbor that is not too large. Of course, this "not big" is relative to the area of the entire Jiaozhou Bay. When they entered the harbor, they found that it was more than enough to berth the entire northbound fleet.
According to the instructions of the superior, the reconnaissance ship docked at the coast here and conducted a rough survey and record of the topography. Although they didn't know how their superiors knew that there was such an undeveloped natural harbor thousands of miles away from Zhoushan, the purpose of surveying this place and drawing a military map was obvious - the Ministry of National Defense had probably If you fall in love with this place, you may want to find an opportunity to occupy it later.
Gong Qiqi and Sun Zhen didn't know that this place was one of the main ports where the North Sea Fleet would station warships in later generations. Although Haihan's current main target is Zhifu Island on the north coast of the Jiaodong Peninsula, this does not prevent him from targeting Zhifu Island. The Ministry of National Defense, which was salivating in Jiaozhou Bay, first came to explore the way. If the port on Zhifu Island cannot maintain navigation capabilities in all seasons, then this place can be regarded as a port more suitable for large fleets to be stationed all year round. In the future, Haihan's North Sea Fleet can definitely use this as one of its main base ports.
The only problem with this place is that it is only about ten miles away from the Fushanqian Qianhu Station under the Aoshan Guards. If you want to settle here, it will definitely attract the attention of the Ming Dynasty military, and they will inevitably have to use force to clear the way.
The Fushan Fortress is three miles in circumference, and its city defenses are almost of the same level as those of the Lingshan Acropolis. The current size of the garrison is unknown, but in theory, the maximum number of garrison troops is about a thousand, which is not enough to pose a big threat to the Haihan Army, which is organized at the company level or above. threaten. If Haihan is determined to occupy this place, the local garrison alone will definitely not be able to stop Haihan's actions. At most, it will only add chaos and delay time.
Although this natural harbor has no government agencies, there are still some fishermen living nearby. Sun Zhen spent nearly an hour to find a fisherman who claimed to be a merchant who went north to Dengzhou to do business. He paid for a bottle of wine and asked him some questions about the frequency of local Ming army activities.
The people of this era did not have much awareness of confidentiality. In fact, many of the guards at Qianhu Station in front of Fushan were from the surrounding areas. When Sun Zhen found this fisherman family, it happened that his family had children serving in Fushan Station. The family took advantage of him and did not doubt him. They only regarded Sun Zhen as a businessman who was worried about the local security situation. They told him everything they knew and asked him if he wanted to go to Fushansuo City to see it. If it weren't for the limited time, Sun Zhen would really like to go to Fushan Station to see it in person. He is from Shandong himself, so it is not difficult to blend into the local area on his own.
After these seemingly trivial pieces of information are recorded and compiled by the Ministry of Security and the Military Staff Department, they will become reference materials for future military operations. Locals like Sun Zhen are obviously capable in collecting and investigating intelligence. With an unparalleled advantage, he can also save the Security Department a lot of trouble.
The reconnaissance vessel stayed here for about two hours, then set sail and continued along the coastline of Jiaozhou Bay to conduct a rough survey and mapping of the coastal topography in the bay. In the afternoon of that day, the team of talents who successfully completed the reconnaissance mission left Jiaozhou Bay and rushed forward at full speed. At present, the main force has reached about thirty nautical miles in front of them, and they have to hurry up and catch up slowly.
In fact, there is another natural harbor near Aoshan Acropolis, a hundred miles east of Jiaozhou Bay. However, the local port conditions are far inferior to those of Jiaozhou Bay. In addition, Aoshan Acropolis is located in the bay, so Haihan did not include it. The local area is listed as one of the candidates for a military port.
The reconnaissance ship did not catch up with the main force until the afternoon of the next day. Then Sun Zhen and Gong Shiqi used a small boat to go to the flagship and reported the findings of the local reconnaissance to the headquarters. Another day later, the fleet arrived at Chengshanjiao, the easternmost tip of the Jiaodong Peninsula, under the jurisdiction of Chengshanwei. Several travelers who happened to be on the flagship came to the deck and took a photo as a souvenir with the coast of Chengshanjiao as the background.
This is not their personal bad taste. This digital photo will be read out by a laptop in the future, and then the artist will make an enlarged version of the portrait, and then the ship will be sent back to Sanya stop by stop and published on Hainan Island. The Haihan Daily, the most influential official media, promoted it to the public as the latest achievements of the Haihan Army. Of course, this kind of propaganda article will definitely be accompanied by a corresponding map to indicate the location reached by the Haihan Army after moving north.
Every major expansion of Haihan overseas will be accompanied by a corresponding publicity campaign to increase the self-confidence and pride of naturalized people. Over the past few years, the glorious image of Haihan's invincible army has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the people will also be proud of Haihan's continuous expansion of overseas territories.
(End of chapter)