Chapter 1075 All the way north
Harugong stood high on the pier and looked at his subordinates who were boarding the ship. He realized that he was still a little behind. The conditions of the troop carrier boarded by the special operations battalion were obviously higher than those of the cavalry battalion. He didn't need to know that Qian Tian Dun probably made a behind-the-scenes deal with Sun Changmi in advance, so he specially transferred these new, rarely used ships from Fujian to undertake the task of transporting special operations battalion personnel.
If there is enough time, Harugong will probably take the initiative to complain about this "unfair" treatment, and also help his subordinates to fight for equal conditions. But now that the army is about to set off, they have to argue over this kind of thing again. It just doesn’t make sense. Although Harugong was very protective of his shortcomings, he still had a view of the overall situation. Even if he was still a little dissatisfied, he would not bring it up at this point in time.
Of course, even if the cavalry can only board ordinary mixed passenger and cargo sailing ships, the horses of the cavalry battalion are still treated as riding on special horse transport ships. Regarding this arrangement, no other troops will compete with the cavalry battalion, because even The mounts of several senior military officials will also be taken care of by the cavalry battalion along the way.
"Shi Diwen, I'll leave this stall in Zhejiang to you!" Before parting, Qian Tiandun held Shi Diwen's hand and said solemnly. The two of them have been partners since they were stationed in Penghu, and later they led the coalition forces north to attack the Zhoushan Islands. They have developed a lot of tacit understanding in the past year and a half, but now according to the deployment of the Ministry of National Defense, Shi Diwen will stay behind Zhoushan, while Qian Tiandun led the special operations battalion to act as the vanguard of the troops heading north. After this period, it was probably difficult for the two of them to have the opportunity to fight side by side again.
"You make it sound like we will never see each other again... When you have established a foothold in Shandong and the spring and summer coasts thaw tomorrow, I can come to your place for a visit. It only takes a few days by boat." Shi Diwen was very happy. Optimistic and not showing too much sadness about separation. As for the work in Zhejiang, it will probably be dominated by trade and immigration in the next two or three years. The possibility of large-scale conflicts with the Ming Dynasty or other armed forces is not high. The military's deployment here is more to calm the people. , and at the same time, it is just to facilitate the future deployment of troops in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea.
Although a large-scale combat fleet will go north this time, considering the icing period in the local coastal waters in winter, it will be difficult for these warships to anchor locally. Most of the ships will return to Jiangsu and Zhejiang this winter to be stationed. There are only two theoretical ice-free ports on the northern coastline of the Jiaodong Peninsula, Dengzhou Shuicheng and Weihaiwei. However, these two places were abandoned by the Ministry of Defense because they were too close to the Ming army's garrison. The Ministry of Defense chose the coast of Zhifu Island, namely In later generations, the Yantai Port area had a high probability of being frozen by sea ice in winter. Therefore, even if the troops heading north gain a firm foothold in the second half of the year, Shi Diwen will probably have to wait until next year to find an opportunity to visit his comrades there.
"I have been preparing for this for a whole year, and now I can finally set off!" Wang Tom, who had already boarded the ship and stood at the bow of the flagship ship, looking at the sea in the distance, felt little reluctance. The Ministry of National Defense has been planning and preparing for a long time in order to make this move steadily. To be precise, since the Haihan Army went north to attack Zhoushan in 1633, the Ministry of National Defense has been planning a subsequent plan to go north.
In order to reliably maintain the 3,000-kilometer supply line from Sanya to Shandong via the Fujian Strait and Zhoushan Islands, Haihan also did several other things after successfully gaining control of the Zhoushan Islands.
First of all, in September last year, Wang Tom led a joint fleet with the Fujian navy to go eastward to the Pacific Ocean and went to Miyako Island to eliminate the remnants of Shibazhi and eliminate the only force near the Fujian Strait that could actually threaten the Haihan Sea. Supply line armed forces.
Later, Minister of National Defense Yan Chujie also personally led the fleet in September to unite with Annan, Champa and other countries to conduct cruises and military exercises that spanned nearly three months in the South China Sea, forcing the Pakistanis on Java Island to attack the city with troops at the gates. The Dutch in Davia compromised in the negotiations to form a transnational trade alliance, and established military strongholds on Bangka Island and Belitung Island south of Ampurna Island, as well as Star Island at the eastern end of the Strait of Malacca, and expanded the sea. Han's maritime control zone advanced further south.
This move seems to have no direct connection with Zhoushan, thousands of miles away, but all the measures taken by the Ministry of National Defense in the South China Sea are to maintain peace and tranquility in the area south of Sanya, so that the military can safely relocate its original garrison on Hainan Island. Part of the navy and army were mobilized north to participate in the northward march into Shandong.
It sounds like this plan is not complicated, but in actual operation, the negotiations to form a South China Sea trade alliance on Ambon Island were completed at the end of December last year, and we can only rush it in the first few months of the first half of this year. , completed the preparation and mobilization of materials and personnel.
In the original plan, the Ministry of National Defense believed that it would be extremely difficult to resolve the hostile forces in Zhejiang's official circles, and that the operation might take a longer time, so it actually made a plan to postpone the trip north for a year. However, the beheading operation carried out by the Ministry of Security in Hangzhou Prefecture was extremely lucky. It only took more than ten days to achieve the planned operation goal, and it was carried out extremely cleanly, without leaving too many sequelae for the Zhejiang government to grasp. .
It has now reached the end of July, and the time left for the Haihan Army to take root in the local area is probably until the beginning of November before the Bohai Bay freezes, which is only about three months. Therefore, the Ministry of National Defense did not want to waste any more time. It sent a telegram to Zhoushan to prepare for departure and immediately left for the north.
On July 26, the fully loaded northbound fleet held a simple departure ceremony at the Dinghai Port Military Pier. Several senior military generals presided over the incense offering at the pier, and then the ceremony was completed by hundreds of sailing ships. The fleet began to slowly leave the port in batches.
The vanguard is composed of six exploration-class ships, two expedition-class warships, two troop carriers, two supply ships and a reconnaissance speedboat. After they set off first, they will open a distance of about ten to fifteen nautical miles from the main fleet. , and maintain contact with the main fleet through radio and fireworks signals, and are commanded by the special operations battalion commander Takahashi Minami.
The sailing route of the fleet going north was also a plan made by the Navy and the Shipping Department after careful consideration of various situations. Instead of taking the shortest route of crossing the Yellow Sea in a straight line from south to north, they chose to go north along the Jiangsu coastline. This is mainly for the sake of navigation safety, so that when encountering poor sea conditions, the large number of civilian ships in the fleet can quickly dock and avoid danger.
If it is in the south, perhaps the military will choose the shortest route to save travel time, but the northern seas are relatively unfamiliar to the Navy and the Shipping Department. Although choosing the near-shore route will increase the northward voyage by nearly half, it is not safe. But it will be greatly improved. This is undoubtedly a better choice for the military, which has always pursued stability.
After the more than ten sailing ships of the vanguard sailed out of Dinghai Port, they turned north, passed through the channel between Jintang Island and Zhoushan Island, and sailed towards Songjiang Prefecture on the north shore of Hangzhou Bay. At present, Haihan's direct control area is along the Qushan Island line north of Zhoushan. After the fleet sails out of here, it will enter the waters controlled by Ming Dynasty. The Haihan fleet has to pass through Songjiang Prefecture, Suzhou Prefecture, Yangzhou Prefecture and Huai'an Prefecture along the coast of Jiangsu. However, according to the intelligence of the Ministry of Security, among these prefectures, only a small number of naval forces are stationed near the mouth of the Yangtze River. There is nothing that can threaten the existence of the Haihan fleet. The navigators equipped by the vanguard have many sailing experiences between Zhoushan and Huai'an Prefecture. They are also familiar with the sea conditions of offshore routes. They hardly need to use positioning equipment such as sextant on the ship. They can rely on experience alone. Able to determine the correct course.
About two hours after the leading fleet set off, the main fleet also began to leave the port terminal one after another. Since it included two Majesty-class flagships, it was far more eye-catching than the leading fleet. Most merchant ships and fishing boats that often operate in this sea area know that when large ships like Haihan enter and leave the port, they often make relatively large movements. Therefore, almost all civilian ships on the nearby sea stopped and watched the fleet slowly move. After exiting Dinghai Port, head north.
That evening, the main fleet successfully arrived at the mouth of the Yangtze River. During this period, the sandbars at the mouth of the Yangtze River had not yet taken shape. Hengsha Island and Changxing Island marked on the map have not yet appeared, and Chongming Island is currently only a few scattered sandbars, and has not yet been connected into one to appear in later generations. contour.
The fleet did not choose to stay here, but continued to march north overnight. This is because Suzhou Prefecture Zhenhaiwei has several thousand households in this area, and even the unformed Chongming Island also has a Chongming Sand Station.
After entering the offshore area of Suzhou Prefecture, it is not difficult to find that the coastline here is quite different from the map data held by the navy. This is because the hundreds of miles of sedimentation and land reclamation in later generations have not yet appeared in this era. In order to exert real power, the coastline in this area is basically in a primitive state. Compared with the situation depicted on the map, the actual coast is indented from several miles to dozens of miles inland. For this purpose, the fleet specially dispatched two reconnaissance boats to observe and record the coastline so that existing military maps can be revised in the future.
At dawn the next day, the fleet had already sailed into the boundary of Yangzhou Prefecture. Some fishing boats going out to sea saw the appearance of this huge fleet and fled to the coastline. Although the people in these coastal areas had more or less heard of Nanbianhai The reputation of the Han people, but not many people really recognize the red and blue flag of Haihan. Some people even thought that this was another group of Japanese pirates gathering to attack, and hurriedly fled to the coast, planning to take their families to a nearby county to take refuge as soon as possible. disaster.
The Haihan Fleet ignored the feelings of these people and continued to march north at full speed. At noon on the third day, it arrived at Yancheng at the junction of Huai'an Prefecture and Yangzhou Prefecture. Yancheng faces the Yellow Sea to the east, with flat terrain, crisscrossing rivers and canals, and abundant products. Because this place has long sunshine hours and a large area of coastal plains and tidal flats, it has been the location of the official salt farm since ancient times.
Since 119 BC, Yandu County has been established here. Du means "the river that carries salt". During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it was renamed Yancheng County, which means "the city is surrounded by salt fields." There is also a record in "Historical Records" that "there are Haiyans in the East China Sea". By the Tang Dynasty, the Yancheng area was known as "the richest in the southeast, with half of the border income coming from here", with more than one million stones of salt produced every year. Even the place names here are mostly named after the organizational units such as "Tuan", "Zao", "General" and "Cang" related to the production organization of the salt-producing area.
The amount of salt produced here is so large that the small salt farm Haihan built in the Zhoushan Islands did not have much advantage in terms of production costs. In the past two years, there was chaos in Shandong, and a large number of refugees fled south into Jiangsu. Many people also joined salt households to make a living. These cheap labor forces further lowered the production cost of Jiangsu Haiyan. If we want to take advantage of the low price to bring Haihan Salt into this area, we have to wait until the Sanmenwan Salt Field near Shipu Institute is completed and put into operation.
Less than a hundred nautical miles north of Yancheng is Haizhou, the main place where Haihan recruited Shandong refugees through other maritime merchants, and it is also the location of Lianyungang in later generations. However, given that the fleet going north this time was too large, in order to avoid causing local panic, the fleet did not sail directly into the port of Haizhou. It only sent two ships to purchase a batch of fresh fruits and vegetables locally.
"If we want to find a way to occupy this place in Haizhou in the future, even if it is obviously difficult to do so, we must ask the Ministry of Commerce to intervene here." Sun Changmi suddenly said something while looking at the sea map.
But Tom Wang knew that he was definitely not targeting without purpose, so he asked: "Is there a mine in this place?"
Sun Changmi nodded and explained: "I have read the mineral information on coastal areas compiled by Tian Yeyou before. There is phosphate rock in Haizhou with large reserves. It is located in Jinping Mountain and is close enough to the coastline, making it suitable for large-scale mining. .”
Phosphorus has many uses in the fields of military, industry and agriculture. Currently, there is a phosphate mine in the Haihan control area that has been mined for several years, located in the Damao area inland Sanya. However, in the area north of Hainan Island, a stable supply of phosphate rock has not yet been found.
Phosphate rock had no suitable use for the Ming Dynasty in this era, so no one went to large-scale mining of this ore with an extremely low ignition point. But for Haihan, this is a treasure that remains to be developed. However, how to allow capital to enter the region to operate mines will be a headache for the Ministry of Commerce.
By the time it arrived at Haizhou, the fleet had been sailing around the clock for four days, and it would be able to enter Shandong on the fifth day. Compared with the previously formulated sailing plan, the actual traveling speed shortened the voyage by at least half a day.
The southern coastline of the Jiaodong Peninsula that we are about to enter next has more military posts deployed by the Ming Dynasty on this coastline. According to Zhu Yuanzhang's original concept of "setting up guards across prefectures and connecting counties", there is Andong from south to north. The garrison strongholds such as Wei, Lingshan Guard, Aoshan Guard, Dasong Guard, Jinghai Guard, and Chengshan Guard are relatively tightly guarded.
(End of chapter)