Chapter 1619 Premonition Clues
What these businessmen were discussing had something to do with Haihan's recent military deployment, so Fei Cexian, who happened to hear it, took notice. One of his missions when he came to Haihan was to pay attention to Haihan's military trends, especially large-scale military mobilizations. The Minister of War specially told him to pay close attention to this information and not miss it, because it may very well be the beginning of war. Harbinger.
Then I heard one of the businessmen with a Jiangsu and Zhejiang accent ask: "Boss Zhang, during your trip to Sanya, did you encounter any naval interrogations on your way to Sanya?"
When Boss Zhang spoke, it was with a Fujian accent: "We encountered it! When it docked at Hong Kong Island, no one was allowed to get off the ship. They had to wait for inspection on the ship. It was delayed for two days before they were allowed to leave the port. I heard that The naval forces stationed in Zhejiang and Fujian went south to Hainan Island for rest, so all the ports controlled by Haihan were under martial law. All merchant ships must be inspected and registered before they can get permission to come to Sanya."
Another businessman with a Guangzhou accent responded: "It's the same here in Guangzhou. A few days ago, a notice was posted on the Pearl River Pier, asking ships that are coming to Hainan Island in the near future to register at the Haihan Embassy in Haizhu Town first. The navy has recently mobilized defense zones to prevent Ming merchant ships from accidentally entering the forbidden waters. However, I don't believe it. The navy has been mobilizing every year. How come it has never been such a large formation before? I'm afraid it was the Haihan people. The plot.”
The businessman with a Jiangsu and Zhejiang accent said: "Boss Wang, do you mean to go to war? How is that possible? Just look at the prices on the market. You can see that there are no signs of shortages of supplies and rising prices, which means that the Ministry of National Defense has not made large purchases in the market. Enter combat supplies.”
The combat materials purchased publicly by Haihan are basically logistical medical supplies, and raw materials are often imported from Daming. Bulk purchases of these materials can easily attract the attention of interested parties in the market.
A businessman surnamed Wang in Guangzhou muttered: "It was true in the past, but it's hard to say now. Don't forget that Dengzhou Prefecture in Shandong Province also has a port in Haihan State. Some things are purchased directly from the north, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in Buy it in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. I know that Boss Jiang is in the cotton cloth business, but you may not be able to take all the orders from Haihan? I heard that a lot of cotton cloth and cotton yarn have just arrived at Haikou Port.”
Boss Jiang responded: "There is no way that we can win all the orders, not even Furifeng! But you are right. If we purchase materials such as cotton cloth from Shandong, it will not affect the market in Zhejiang. But If this is true, I’m afraid the matter will be even bigger!”
The three businessmen exchanged glances with each other, and each of them understood it well. It is okay to understand this kind of thing in your heart, but it is easy to violate taboos when talking about it casually. Although they are not from Haihan, they also know that Haihan supervises military intelligence very strictly. If someone listens to it, it will be difficult for the three of them to leave Sanya safely.
But there happened to be a sharp-eared Fei Cexian next to him who listened to this conversation word for word. He closed his eyes and pretended to be dozing off, but in his heart he was pondering what was contained in the conversation between the three businessmen. mean.
He could understand the meaning of the previous conversations, but in the end the businessman surnamed Jiang said that if Haihan purchased military supplies from Shandong, the matter would be even bigger, but he needed to carefully consider the meaning.
First, through the dialogue between these three people, he learned that the Haihan navy stationed in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong had recently been mobilized towards Hainan Island, and it seemed that the situation of troop defense changes was different from previous years. The Guangzhou businessman surnamed Wang believed that this might be a precursor to some kind of military action that Haihan would take, and tried to use the relationship between Haihan's military actions and changes in the market conditions of military supplies to prove his judgment. However, a businessman named Jiang from Zhejiang said that the local military supplies market has not changed much, and Haihan has not purchased goods such as cotton cloth.
But if the businessman surnamed Wang mentioned that the cotton cloth and cotton yarn arriving at Haikou Port did not come from Zhejiang, then the most likely possibility is that it is only from Shandong. But if Haihan really chooses to purchase these materials in Shandong, other than cost considerations, is there any other reason? Although Shandong is closer to cotton production areas, its procurement costs are definitely lower than those in the south, but the increase in freight has actually offset the difference in procurement costs. There is no obvious price advantage in purchasing from Shandong, but it will be due to the longer sea voyage. And increase transportation risks. Moreover, Shandong is closer to the capital. If Haihan purchases certain military commodities locally, wouldn't it be easier for the court to notice? With the shrewdness of the Haihan people, they would not make such a low-level mistake, unless they didn't care about being discovered by the court in this kind of purchasing activity.
The two countries have just signed an agreement to formally establish diplomatic relations and are still in the honeymoon period. It stands to reason that Haihan will not take military action against the Ming Dynasty so confidently at this juncture. And Haihan's naval fleet is mobilized south, which should not be the case. This is the harbinger that Haihan will invade the Guangdong and Guangxi regions. After all, Haihan has great influence in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions and has many related interests. It would actually be of no benefit to Haihan to mess up the Guangdong and Guangxi areas. The most critical reason is that if Haihan wants to target Guangdong and Guangxi, then they really don't need to do any extra cover-up work, they can just go straight to the Qi soldiers. Therefore, although Fei Cexian had doubts, he did not think that Haihan's actions were preparing to attack Ming Dynasty.
Then there is only one theoretical possibility left, that is, Haihan's troop mobilization and military supplies procurement are really preparing for the next military operation. Then this target is most likely not the Ming Dynasty, but far away in the South China Sea. somewhere. Because only in this way can we reasonably explain why Haihan assembled the fleet deployed overseas and went south, and also specially purchased some military supplies from distant Shandong. This was obviously preparing for military operations that required cross-sea operations.
To the north of Hainan Island is Daming and to the west is Annan. These two directions are definitely not Haihan's goals. Fei Cexian breathed a sigh of relief after making his judgment, but immediately began to wonder who Haihan wanted to deal with. It's just that he doesn't know much about the geography of the South China Sea. Although he knows the names of some countries, he doesn't know the specific locations of these countries or their national conditions. When the book comes to use, it is easy to regret it. Fei Cexian can't help but regret that he did not delve into the information such as the Map of the Sea Kingdom when he was in the Pingren Department. Now that he is about to use this knowledge, he can only scratch his head.
However, Fei Cexian remembered that Zhang Qianzhi once introduced to him that there is a municipal library in Sanya that is open to the public. There are various astronomical and geographical materials available for review. Presumably, the answer to the situation in the South China Sea can also be found there. Let me ask Zhang Qianzhi later how foreigners can access the information. The three businessmen knew that the topic they discussed was too sensitive, and they did not mention military news again. Fei Cexian was disappointed, but he remembered an intelligence source he had ignored, which was the newspaper published by Haihan.
According to the information mastered by the Ming Dynasty's intelligence agencies, Haihan used newspapers to control and guide the direction of public opinion before every major military operation in the past few years, while at the same time encouraging the public to support these war methods. If you just read the contents of the newspaper, you may not immediately think of the military actions Haihan will take, but if you combine the two and study them, there is a lot worth pondering.
Fei Cexian thought of this and realized that he might have missed something when reading the newspaper before. As long as he carefully read the previous newspapers, he might be able to find some clues.
Thinking of this, Fei Cexian no longer bothered to pretend to be asleep and queued up, and did not wait to go to the bank to complete the procedures. He immediately took the carriage back to the guesthouse, took out all the newspapers he bought after arriving in Sanya, and started reading again.
Of course, Fei Cexian will not read all the contents in the newspaper from scratch. Now he only needs to know which country has been criticized by Haihan recently, or there are some problems in Haihan's trade locally. These should These are all important clues that can be followed. Especially as the official media "Haihan Times", the news published above is the most direct reflection of the official intention. Fortunately, after arriving in Haihan, he managed to collect the "Haihan Times" published in the past three months. The news published on it should have a certain degree of consistency.
Now that we have a direction, it is not too difficult to implement it. Fei Cexian spent several hours and finally found the information hidden in the text. Heihan has only recently denounced one person through newspapers. He mentioned it five times in the Times and almost the same number of times in other newspapers. The object of official condemnation by Haihan is Spain, a Western country whose colony is located in Manila Bay, Luzon Islands.
Fei Cexian probably knew the old grudge between Haihan and Spain. The two countries had fought against each other on Taiwan Island in the early years, which ended with Haihan's victory in expelling the Spanish from Taiwan Island. Last year, the Spanish fleet made a sneak attack on Sanya, but in the end it still failed to succeed. Instead, it was beaten to a pulp by the Haihan fleet off the coast of Sanya. Although Haihan did not completely ban civilian maritime trade with Manila after this, this grudge must have been recorded, and he just waited to see when he would be free to retaliate.
The Times brought up old issues several times, expressing dissatisfaction with Spain's presence in Luzon. At the same time, it also reminded the public not to forget that the two countries have been at war several times in the past few years. This conflict has not completely ended. . If you want to maintain the peaceful situation in the South China Sea, you must first solve the hidden danger of Manila City. Although this argument seems a bit extreme to Fei Cexian, isn't this exactly the attitude Haihan should have? Now that we have the intention to use force, we just need a reasonable excuse, and the propaganda in these newspapers is paving the way for this.
It’s hard to say how many people can understand the hidden intentions behind Haihan’s arguments in the newspaper, but Fei Cexian believes that he is not the only one who understands. For example, most of the three Ming businessmen who discussed Haihan’s military deployment in front of the bank He has also noticed Haihan's military intentions in the South China Sea. It's just that they are afraid of Haihan's authority and dare not talk about such a sensitive topic in public. Of course, if it were Fei Cexian himself, he would not discuss whether Haihan would send troops to attack another country on this occasion.
Although the conflict between Haihan and Spain seems to Fei Cexian to be just a dog-eating-dog fight, analyzing this intelligence and making judgments is a matter of great practical significance. If the final results of these intelligences become reality, it proves that Fei Cexian has mastered Haihan's behavior style to a certain extent. If similar situations occur in the future, he can rely on the information from these public channels. The changes in the political, military, economic and trade situation in Haihan were predicted.
Linking Haihan's material procurement in the north of the Ming Dynasty and the mobilization of garrison troops on the southern coast with Haihan's future military operations in the South China Sea, Fei Cexian believed that his inference was quite bold. Haihan's small actions in the north were probably to conceal his true intentions and paralyze the Spaniards, making them think that Haihan's measures were just in the stage of talking.
In the latest issue of the Times, Defense Minister Yan Chujie's signed article "The Road to Peace in the South China Sea" clarified Haihan's attitude. Yan Chujie stated in the article that Haihan’s purpose of establishing the South China Sea Business Alliance three years ago was to gradually achieve mutual understanding among regional countries and create and achieve a peaceful and stable trade environment through this form. However, some countries are unwilling to enter the peace framework established by Haihan and always want to destroy the hard-won peace in the South China Sea through war. This is an approach that Haihan will never tolerate. In order to safeguard regional peace and Haihan's interests, the Haihan Army will never sit idly by and will take action when necessary to resolve security risks in these areas.
Although Yan Chujie's article did not explicitly name Spain, it was already full of gunpowder. Looking at the entire South China Sea region, there are only a handful of countries that have the courage to go to war with Haihan, and Spain is the most prominent one. Fei Cexian believed that this article was already a symbol that the preparations for the Haihan war were about to enter the final stage, because in the Ming Dynasty, senior officials of the imperial court would also publish battle proclamations before the war began, which was very similar to the article published in the Times at this time.
From the perspective of the Ming Dynasty, Fei Cexian certainly hopes that the two countries will start fighting as soon as possible. The more fierce the fight, the better. The more troops Haihan invests in the south, the smaller the threat to the Ming Dynasty. If both sides lose in the fight, then the Ming Dynasty will lose. At least you can live in peace for a few years. Just looking at Haihan's battle preparation posture, it is hard to say whether the Spaniards can withstand a fierce attack by Haihan's army. Manila City is also a seaport city like Sanya, but the intensity of military defense may not be comparable to Sanya.
(End of chapter)