Chapter 1264 References
Jiang Han led Liu Shang through the hall and came to a huge wooden table. There are about a dozen books that are more than two inches thick and are placed separately on the table. Each book is two feet long and one foot wide. The pages are much larger than the books you can see every day. There were also some paper, ink, pen and inkstone supplies placed next to them. Two or three other people were also looking through these big books and excerpting something on the white paper from time to time.
"This is a catalog of books and manuscripts that can be borrowed. You first take a look at what you are interested in and write it down on paper. I will then take it to the counter to handle the borrowing procedures." Jiang Han softly explained to Liu Shang how to use these big books: " You can borrow up to three materials at a time, and you can borrow them again after returning them. ”
Liu Shang also lowered his voice and asked: "Can the borrowed manuscripts be taken out of the library?"
Jiang Han shook his head and said: "We can't wait for civilians. Only students at the government-run Sanya University and public servants in various yamen can register with their IDs and borrow manuscripts for a few days."
"I see!" Liu Shang thought to himself that this library has a lot of rules, but if it weren't for that, I'm afraid the materials collected here would disappear one after another without any reason in a few days.
Liu Shang looked at the covers of those big books, which had literature, geography, science, law, etc. written on them. Just as he was waiting to decide which aspect to read first, Jiang Han had already raised his finger and pointed to a catalog on the table and said: "Hai." The history of the Han Dynasty, the information you need to refer to should probably be found here.”
Liu Shang followed what he said and took the catalog over, only to find that there were many small pagination labels on the side of the book for quick reference. Liu Shang quickly found the "War" column, and then opened it from where the label was pasted. He saw that there were several pages full of entries.
The history of the Hai-Han War is archived by year, starting from the first armed conflict with the Ming Navy when they landed at Yulin Bay in 1627, and then all the wars in the past years are recorded one by one. Among them, since participating in the Annan Civil War in 1628, the fighting has become more intensive year by year, and there are many opponents. In addition to the Ming army, Haihan has successively fought with Guangdong bandits, Fujian pirates, South Vietnamese rebels, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Zhejiang armed forces Maritime merchants, Shandong bandits, Liaodong Houjin Army and many other forces have records of fighting against each other. Even the recent records of battles with Johor and the British on Star Island in the South China Sea have been added to the last column.
Liu Shang had a rough understanding of the Hai-Han War before coming to Sanya, but the information he had could not match the detail of this record. He had never even heard of many of the wars that took place in the South China Sea. But thinking about Haihan's ability and past record, these wars should not be fictitious. To fight against multiple forces at such an intensive frequency, and many battlefields are located thousands of miles away from Hainan Island, the manpower, material and financial resources required to be invested are simply unimaginable. This shows the terrifying extent of Haihan's national and military strength. .
Liu Shang remembered that Jiang Han had said before that just reading and adapting a few battles would be enough to last a year and a half. Now it seems that if the history of the Hai-Han War is changed into storytelling, I am afraid that the book cannot keep up with the Shanghai-Han Army. The speed of war. However, the Haihan Army is very powerful. It is said that it has never been defeated in foreign wars and has gained a lot. Otherwise, with such an intensive war, even if there were gold and silver mountains, it would have been defeated long ago.
Liu Shang turned to Jiang Han and said: "Boss Jiang, there are so many wars. I have just arrived in Haihan, and I don't know which ones are suitable for adapting storytellers. Do you have any suggestions?"
Jiang Han said: "I can't say for sure. In fact, people have tried to adapt most wars in the past. For example, in the battles like the massacre of Shiba Zhi in Fujian a few years ago, the government even specially rehearsed plays and performed them in various towns. However, I think the stories you have adapted have a unique flavor. Even if the old wine is put in a new bottle, it should still perform well. In recent days, I have specifically asked the regular customers in the store, and they all said that the book you mentioned sounds interesting, as long as it is new. I’m sure you’ll come and listen to the story. I’ll check out the information on which section you’re interested in!”
Liu Shang's mind was not on storytelling. He only engaged in this business to have a safe identity cover. He had no intention of slowly delving into the history of Haihan's foreign wars. However, he had a rare opportunity to visit the municipal library today. , he also wanted to use this to find out how this organization operates. Liu Shang immediately pointed to the catalog and said: "Before coming down to Haihan, I heard that Marshal Qian led his army to defeat the pirates Shiba Zhi and the Red-haired Allied Forces on Nanri Island in Fujian. The battle was very exciting. Why don't you borrow this book?" Let’s take a look at the relevant information about the war?”
Jiang Han responded: "Although this battle was fought four years ago, when the news came back to the country, it greatly cheered up the people. There was a lot of controversy in the country about sending troops to Fujian. It is said that the heads of the executive committee also had different opinions. But after this battle, there was no objection. Later, he marched to Taiwan and went north to Zhejiang and Shandong. It can be said that Mr. Liu chose this battle, and he was indeed a wise man!"
At that moment, Jiang Han led Liu Shang to the borrowing desk deep inside the library and reported to the staff the war records that needed to be viewed. Not long after, the staff retrieved three pieces of relevant information. One was the Times special issue "Haihan Times·Nanri Island Battle Records" which recorded the entire war process at that time. This special issue set a circulation record for the Times that year. At that time, the newspaper added It took three printings to meet the market demand; one was "The Bloody Battle on Nanri Island" written by Yan Mingjun, a visiting professor at Sanya University and the former magistrate of Danzhou in the Ming Dynasty. This article has been included in the required textbook of Haihan Senior School; and another The title of the article is "The Beginning and End of the 1631 Fujian Naval War" written by Ning Qi, the current Minister of Culture and Education. At that time, Ning Qi was the official who led the envoy to Fujian and personally experienced the war that broke out in the Fujian Strait from May to July of that year. This article he wrote was the manuscript he used when delivering a report to the Executive Committee after returning to Sanya. It was also later published in the official media.
These three manuscripts have their own characteristics. The first one is a time-sensitive article. This special issue was released the day after the fleet from Fujian returned to Sanya, allowing the propaganda of this war to be launched at the best time. Also received very ideal results. The second article written by Yan Mingjun, a former Ming Dynasty official, is in the genre of poetry. The description of the war is relatively abstract and the literary nature is more prominent. Therefore, it was selected into the textbook as a subject for educating future generations. The third article written by Ning Qi, one of the witnesses, is more realistic and detailed. However, because this manuscript was originally an internal reference material, a large number of the copied collections involve military matters. Specific figures from the intelligence have been redacted.
In fact, this is not all the collection materials related to this war. In fact, there are at least more than 20 related documents collected in the library. What they borrowed are only the three most famous and most circulated public materials. .
The information Liu Shang really wanted to see was the information related to the political system. At first, he just wanted to borrow some information to show off and deal with Jiang Han, so that he could try to get him to come forward to borrow some other information later. However, after getting these pieces of information, Liu Shang was quickly attracted by the contents. Most of the information recorded in it was something he had never heard of before. For example, the mission sent by Haihan to Fujian was assassinated in Zhangzhou City. This led to the mastermind Zheng Zhilong and his gang, and the Haihan fleet took action directly. With the Ming army, he captured Nanri Island, Shibazhi's stronghold near the coast of Fujian. Later, Shibazhi asked the Dutch, their patron, for help, and formed a coalition to try to recapture Nanri Island, but was defeated again by the Haihan Army. The Netherlands was an opponent that the Fujian Ming Army mobilized tens of thousands of people to gain the upper hand, but it did not seem to have any advantage in the battle with Haihan. Instead, it was always in a passive state of being beaten.
The official records of the Ming Dynasty are few and far between. The information Liu Shang knew before was that the Fujian Ming army led the war to suppress bandits. Haihan was only briefly mentioned as a maritime merchant who provided logistical support. But this is obviously very different from Haihan's record. In these three documents, without exception, it is stated that the Haihan Army was the main force in the battle, while the Fujian Ming Army played the role of an auxiliary army that accepted the command of Haihan and was responsible for logistics and transportation. This is exactly in line with the official documents issued by Fujian officials after the war. The roles were reversed.
Liu Shang slowly looked at the descriptions of these three documents, and he basically had a good idea of which ones were true and which ones were false. Haihan's battle records are undoubtedly much more detailed than those officially released by Fujian. There are very detailed records of the ins and outs of the incident, the size of the troops deployed by the two warring parties, the time of encountering the enemy, the battle process, and the statistics of the results. Moreover, later on, the Haihan people first occupied Penghu, then attacked Taiwan, and later moved all the way north to advance the controlled area to the northern part of the Ming Dynasty. It is impossible that this was all the territory that the Fujian Ming army fought for them.
Obviously, the Fujian government had serious fabrications in the information they reported to the court and released to the public. They took the achievements of the Haihan Army as their own, and Xu Xinsu, the commander-in-chief of Fujian, was able to buy them with money in just a few years. Come and climb the overall position all the way up. However, Haihan seems to have no objection to Ming officials taking away the credit. Otherwise, as long as all the information at hand is made public, the Fujian government who pretended to take credit for the reward will have a large number of people to blame. Maybe they are now famous in Fujian. Mr. Xu, who is unique, will also suffer a big loss because of this.
Of course, Liu Shang had also heard that Haihan had given great support to the Xu clan in Fujian. There were even rumors that Xu Xinsu was a high-level puppet that Haihan intended to cultivate in Ming Dynasty officialdom. No matter how credible this statement is, Haihan was able to stably establish routes through Fujian waters and establish strongholds further north in Zhejiang and Shandong. This is obviously inseparable from the cooperation of Fujian officials. However, these inside stories were not mentioned much in the documents related to the Battle of Nanri Island, and there were only a few records of Haihan sending a mission to visit the area.
As far as Liu Shang knew, Haihan had not yet established an independent country at that time, so the local officials in Fujian received them according to the etiquette standards of foreign envoys, which was obviously against the rules. But this was nothing compared to the subsequent joint dispatch of troops by both sides.
If this war incident was to be adapted into a storyteller, Liu Shang felt it was appropriate from the bottom of his heart. He even quickly sketched out some plots in his mind that could be focused on, such as the assassination of Zhangzhou City, the attack on Nanri Island, and the sea battle. Fight against the coalition forces and so on. Qian Tiandun and Morgan, who led the army in battle at that time, were both famous generals in the Haihan Army. Just focusing on these two people, plus Ning Qi, a civil servant sitting in the rear, would be enough to compile a wonderful drama.
"How is it? What do Mr. Liu think of the Battle of Nanri Island?" Jiang Han took the initiative to ask when he saw that he had not spoken for a long time.
"Very good, very good!" Liu Shang came back from his thoughts and responded quickly: "However, this battle scene is grand and the background is complicated. If I want to come up with a complete book, I will need at least one or two Months of time to slowly prepare and perfect the story, I wonder if Boss Jiang can afford to wait?”
Of course, Jiang Han hopes that Liu Shang will come up with a new story as soon as possible. The best thing is to pick up the story of the Battle of Star Island, so as to avoid losing the flow of customers to other places to the greatest extent. After all, he is not the only teahouse in Sanya Port District that has storytellers stationed there. Although Liu Shang's ability to interpret stories is much better than other storytellers, if there are no new products and only those old stories, then He is not much better than his peers.
Jiang Han said: "One or two months is a bit too long. It's best to prepare quickly so that I can start publicizing it earlier. After you finish talking about the Battle of Star Island, the momentum of this new book will be built. By then Naturally, more people will come to support us.”
Liu Shangxin said, "You have a good plan, but I don't have this ambition, sir. I probably won't be able to stay that long." Of course, he would not let any words slip out of his mouth. He just nodded and said: "In this case, I must do my best. However, a lot of information needs to be consulted during the preparation period, and Boss Jiang will have to cooperate."
Jiang Han asked: "Isn't it enough to just look at these information?"
Liu Shangying said: "This may be enough for ordinary storytellers, but it is not enough for me. What is the route from Sanya to Fujian and how many days will it take? You must refer to the nautical charts and do not make random claims. The Haihan Army and its opponents In naval battles, the size of the warship, the number of crew members, and the number of artillery pieces must be clearly stated. The names of officials from the Fujian government and the Ming army who were in contact with Haihan must also be verified one by one, otherwise they will be randomly made up. , then there is no credibility. If it is exposed, wouldn’t it be a loss of reputation?”
Jiang Han was not a fool, so he frowned and said, "I'm afraid some of this information involves military secrets, and the relevant information is not something ordinary people like me can look up."
Liu Shang advised: "It doesn't matter, we just need to do our best. In short, the more information we know, the easier it will be to compile the book. If we have evidence to test, what we say will be more convincing to the audience. Convinced.”
(End of chapter)