Chapter 1674 Gradual Takeover
For the military, the attack on Manila is tantamount to a tempting big cake. From the Ministry of National Defense to the grassroots troops, all the people and collectives who participated in this operation can more or less benefit after the war is over. Get some very affordable benefits. What the Ministry of National Defense wants is for the Executive Committee to give the military more resources and military expenditures, as well as policy preferences; what the generals want is to expand the establishment of their troops and improve equipment levels and combat effectiveness; junior officers will be given opportunities to be promoted and make a fortune. , ordinary soldiers will also receive generous combat subsidies because of the final victory of this operation.
Not only that, various units that provided assistance to the military in this war, such as the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Shipping, the Ministry of Medical and Health, the Civil Affairs Department, etc., will also receive corresponding rewards after the war. The recent capture of a well-established colony like Manila meant that there were many vacancies in official positions and positions. This was a rare opportunity for advancement in many people's careers.
The Spanish management here is relatively extensive. The Governor's Palace has overall control, but the specific management work below is not as detailed as the division of labor in the Haihan society. Many things are all summarized in the Governor's Palace and Aragones decides on one word. . To a certain extent, he, the Governor-General of the Philippines, can be regarded as a Turkish emperor. The power of governance is completely in his own hands, and his life may be more comfortable than that of some high-ranking officials in the country.
However, the disadvantages of this way of governance are also obvious. The work arrangements in various fields are naturally chaotic and extremely inefficient. So much so that Spain has ruled here for more than half a century and has only developed a hundred miles around Manila City. No second city could be built in the area around Manila Bay, and there were only a few towns with a population of 1,000. Even the Port of Cavite, a trading port area where foreign merchants and immigrants gather, has a permanent population of only three to four thousand, which is far less than the progress and achievements of Haihan in urban construction.
In Haihan's view, the Spanish's use of Manila Bay and surrounding areas was simply a waste of resources. The plains north of the Pasig River were famous grain-producing areas in later generations, and the Spanish lacked long-term planning for the development of these areas. The immigrants are left to operate on their own, and there are very few operating models similar to Haihan plantations or collective farms. If the Ministry of Agriculture formulates a development plan according to Haihan's model, it will take several decades to reclaim hundreds of square kilometers of farmland in the area.
According to Haihan's vision, the Manila area can completely follow the example of Sanya, Kaohsiung, Shipu and other places and build a bay trade zone here relying on natural harbors. As long as the agricultural development in nearby areas can keep up with the pace of urban development and supply enough agricultural products to feed the urban population, it will not be long before Manila Bay becomes a large colonial area inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people.
If Manila Bay is the center, Haihan's maritime influence will not only cover the entire Philippine Islands, but also connect Dinghai Port in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, Kaohsiung Port on Taiwan Island, and Manila Port on Luzon Island. Han's next step is to expand its maritime territory to Kalimantan Island in the south and prepare for the Banda Sea, Timor Sea, Solomon Sea and other sea areas.
Such a long-term plan is difficult for even a maritime power like Spain to imitate, because it must be based on mastering accurate nautical charts. For navigators of this era, there are too many things in the boundless sea that cannot be solved. In unknown areas, it often takes years or even generations to explore a sea area. But for Haihan navigators, mastering the sea charts is equivalent to having a big advantage in playing chess. The time required to explore unfamiliar sea areas is much shorter than that of their counterparts in this era.
Of course, to implement the plan on paper, the work that needs to be done is still extremely complicated. The development process of Manila Bay needs to be transformed in a Haihan style, and the managers who need to be invested here involve many fields. There are at least hundreds of personnel transferred from other ruling areas such as Hainan Island. And this mobilization work may not be much easier than the large-scale mobilization of the military in preparation for this operation.
Before the executive committee formally appoints a new chief executive, the military will exercise the management power of this area on its behalf. For this reason, the combat headquarters also transformed on the fifth day after the war and became the "Manila Area Provisional Management Committee."
Although most of the local civil and military officials headed by Aragones have been arrested, Haihan cannot guarantee that the local public sentiment will not change again. After all, the Spanish have ruled here for decades, and for the local people The Haihan Army is undoubtedly the aggressor, and there may be some people who intend to resist with force. Therefore, although the Interim Administration Council has publicly announced that the war has come to an end, a strict curfew is still enforced in Manila to prevent anyone from secretly colluding to cause trouble.
In addition to maintaining local security, the Interim Management Committee also has an extremely important task, which is to deal with local residents in categories. The people living in Manila and the surrounding areas are mainly divided into three categories. One is the Spanish immigrants who came here from Europe and their descendants, the other is the local indigenous people and foreign immigrants who were naturalized and accepted Spanish rule, and the third is the foreign businessmen and their families. entourage.
From the perspective of Haihan maintaining his rule, the proportion of the third category of people is small and the degree of danger is relatively small. After their identity is identified and their position is determined to be inclined to the new ruler, or at least remain neutral, their freedom can be restored , it’s not a problem to choose whether to stay or go.
The second category of people is relatively complicated, but as long as they are willing to stay and become naturalized to the new ruler, Haihan can accept them all. As for those who want to leave, according to Haihan's usual handling method, they will naturally have to pay a fee to regain their freedom, which is the so-called "payment for the road."
Regardless of whether they took forceful measures to resist Haihan, almost all of them were detained in the first category. In Haihan's view, these Spanish immigrants have the highest willingness to resist and must be controlled until all these people are expelled from the country. Moreover, those prominent and powerful local officials, wealthy businessmen and other big figures need to pay a valuable ransom fee to regain their freedom. For example, the ransom payment that Governor Aragones chose was to cooperate with the Haihan Army and reveal everything he knew about Spanish governance measures and public sentiment. This price was not small.
No matter which category they belong to, there are still quite a lot of people who voluntarily stay in Manila for various reasons. There are even some genuine Spanish immigrants who have been living here and are unwilling to leave because of this war. They would rather give up their lives. Spanish nationality also needs to stay. Of course, for these Spaniards who were born and raised here, the "motherland" on the other side of the earth really has no sense of belonging at all, it is just an identity that limits development. Changing nationality is not considered a treasonous act in their eyes, not to mention that the new ruler seems to be much stronger than the Spanish colonial government. Perhaps embracing this thigh is the beginning of a better life in the future.
But in Haihan's view, there is still a concern that "those who are not from my race must have different hearts." He is not so reassured about these Westerners, but how to settle these people and how to position their social status in the future. These are all problems that need to be slowly scratched by the civil affairs department to solve. To conduct statistics and surveys on the tens of thousands of permanent residents in the entire Manila area is undoubtedly a very arduous task. We can only count the immigrants who have been classified and confirm their processing methods at the same time. However, due to the serious shortage of manpower to participate in the preliminary survey and statistical work, the registration information is often not detailed, which also leads to the military's operation of these immigrants being simple and crude, and numerous problems arise during this period.
However, the Haihan Executive Committee is not blind to the problems facing the Manila area. Tao Donglai and others certainly know that completely entrusting the local area to the military can only be used as an emergency, not as a long-term solution. Experienced officials must be hired as soon as possible. Go there and take over the local civil affairs. What's more, most of the troops sent to the local area are the aces of the Haihan Army. After the war, they need to return to their respective stations as soon as possible. Therefore, while the Haihan Army is going out, personnel adjustments are also being made within Haihan in order to provide Civil and military officials were appointed in this new territory.
To manage newly occupied areas like Manila, officials must have certain local governance experience, be familiar with the geography and humanities of the South China Sea, and be able to quickly adapt to the local environment. After some internal screening, the executive committee selected the chief executive of Manila, Qiu Yuan, the former head of Haikou region. His performance in Haikou was obvious to all. After the executive committee communicated with him, Qiu Yuan also hoped to have a larger development platform to display his political ambitions, so the matter was basically finalized.
The seat vacated by Qiu Yuan was taken over by Malike, who was originally the person in charge of political and commercial affairs in Guangdong. Maliko was among the first batch of officials from Haihan sent to the Ming Dynasty's ruling area. He was transferred from the Cliff Office to the Guangdong Office. His work performance in the past few years was also outstanding. However, it is precisely because of this that he has always been responsible for dealing with local officials in Guangdong, without actually getting a position as a local official to show his governance capabilities. Qiu Yuan, who was transferred to the Cliff Office at the same time as him, has now taken a step forward and has taken over the new ruling area with greater room for development.
The military attache sent to partner with Qiu Yuan was also transferred back from Guangdong. Xiao Liang, who was originally responsible for security work in the General Office of the People's Republic of China in Guangdong, is now the representative of Haihan's military attache in Guangdong. The reason why he was selected as Qiu Yuan's partner was mainly because Xiao Liang presided over the selection and training of Golden Shield personnel during his stay in Guangdong, and some of the special tasks assigned to Golden Shield by the Executive Committee were also carried out by Xiao Liang. During the arrangement, he was often engaged in the task of suppressing bandits in the Ming Dynasty. These work experiences have given Xiao Liang very rich practical experience in the field of public security warfare, which is exactly suitable for handling the current security situation in Manila.
This pair of partners had actually returned to Sanya to rendezvous before the Haihan Expeditionary Force set off. However, because there were many matters that needed their control and they had to prepare and sort out their affairs before the war, they did not join the expeditionary fleet. Instead of setting off, he stayed in Sanya to study the information at hand and formulate future policy plans. It was not until the Haihan Army broke through the city of Manila and the frontline headquarters determined that there would be no major reversal in the war situation that Sanya sent a ship to send them and more than 40 officials and professionals from various departments to Manila.
Qiu Yuan, Xiao Liang and his party arrived at Manila Port a week after the war ended. Their arrival was undoubtedly a great boon to the generals still stationed here. Dealing with various local civil affairs these days has already made the military generals overwhelmed and annoyed. Now they only need to hand over the work to the new team, and then they can leave.
The South China Sea Special Warfare Group will return directly to the Sing Tao station and continue to guard the control of the Malacca Strait channel for the Haihan Kingdom. Roger could hardly stay any longer and wished he could leave immediately and return to his own territory.
However, the cavalry battalion led by Harugong is going back to the north. Only on the wide plains can the cavalry have a real use. Moreover, Harugong believes that the best way to train the cavalry is to fight with another cavalry. At present, the only opponent that can meet his needs is Hou Jin who is far away in Liaodong.
Wang Tom's naval fleet will be divided into several groups and each will return to its original station. As for the Marine Corps, Wang Tom still planned to let them return north with the cavalry battalion and then go to the front line to receive some actual combat training.
As the ace of the Haihan Army, the special operations battalion will probably be a bit more special. They will return to Sanya to enjoy a short vacation. During this period, the Executive Committee may conduct a private review of this elite group that has repeatedly made great achievements, and then reward them based on their merits. A large number of officers, including Takahashi Minami, will receive corresponding rewards. The special operations battalion's establishment was upgraded to an independent regiment, which was announced around this time.
As for the future destination, the Ministry of National Defense has not yet made a definite statement, but if Qian Tiandun's wishes are followed, he does not want the special operations battalion to continue to return to the northern front to fight Houjin. This is because most of the soldiers of the special operations battalion come from the south. Fighting in the Liaodong Peninsula will greatly reduce their combat effectiveness. Moreover, the local environment is indeed such that the tropical tactics that the special operations battalion has worked so hard to train cannot be deployed at all. He can only rely on his tactical prowess and weapon advantages to be used. This is not a scene that Qian Tiandun wants to see.
He has reported this matter to the Ministry of National Defense and the Executive Committee many times, and this time when he returned to fight in the South China Sea, the combat effectiveness and mental outlook displayed by the Special Operations Battalion fully proved his opinion. I think he will have more opinions on the Special Operations Battalion in the future. Usage arrangements should also take this factor into consideration.
(End of chapter)