Chapter 1767 North Korea’s Situation
Sending military advisers to other countries is not a new operation for Hai Han. As early as the Annan Civil War, Hai Han sent military advisers to North Vietnam, which he supported, and assisted North Vietnam in establishing a training camp on the Do Son Peninsula. It trained new troops in the use of muskets and artillery. Later, it reached a cooperative relationship with Xu Xinsu of Fujian Province. As part of the arms trade agreement between the two parties, Haihan also dispatched military advisers to the local area to conduct similar operations.
To this day, military advisers remain an integral part of Haihan's diplomatic staff deployed to allies. The arms produced by Haihan can become best-sellers in the South China Sea region, and these military advisers stationed overseas also play an important role. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations last year, North Korea has purchased a small amount of new weapons provided by Haihan, and was invited to send military observers to Liaodong to observe the battle between Haihan and Hou Jin. It is intuitive to feel Haihan's strength in the military field.
Originally, Haihan was supposed to send military advisers to North Korea in accordance with the arms sales agreement. However, because the wars in the Liaodong and South China Sea battlefields were too closely connected at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Haihan's military personnel arrangement was very tight, and it has been delayed. No way, if Li Xi hadn't made the request this time, I'm afraid it would have been delayed for another year and a half.
Of course, stationing military advisers and stationing troops are two completely different concepts. Even if North Korea is willing to subsidize military expenses out of its own pocket and ask Haihan to send troops to station, Haihan indeed cannot spare enough troops to serve as a protective umbrella in North Korea. Therefore, even though Yan Chujie was very moved by Li Xi's proposal, he still had to act calm, wear down the other party's patience bit by bit, and try to obtain better conditions for Haihan to station troops in North Korea in the future.
"North Koreans are so active?" Tao Donglai couldn't help but feel a little surprised when he heard the news later. In the executive committee's planning, although North Korea was one of the targets that had to be won over, he did not expect that the progress would be so fast because of the other party's initiative.
"I suspect that the military pressure North Korea is currently facing may not only come from Hou Jin." Yan Chujie had already thought about it a little and put forward an idea of his own: "Maybe Japan is starting to take advantage of North Korea again."
"Little Japan should be in the stage of seclusion at this time. Logically speaking, it should not come out to cause trouble." Among the people present, Ning Qi was the most knowledgeable about history. He immediately gave everyone a brief explanation of Japan's situation at this historical stage.
In the Battle of Korea forty years ago, Japan, which mobilized its troops to fight across the sea, was also seriously injured. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi passed away in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu recalled the troops that conquered Korea. In the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo Shogunate three years later and actually took control of Japan. Diplomacy between North Korea and Japan was actually restored with North Korea sending messengers to Japan in 1607, and two years later they signed the "Gyeongchang Treaty" which mainly focused on trade, stipulating that Japan could establish a military base in Busan. Japanese Pavilion, and can send twenty merchant ships to North Korea for trade every year.
Ning Qi added here: "Of course, the actual number must be more than twenty. After all, this kind of profitable business will make many people jealous. I think whether it is Japan or North Korea, there must be someone secretly operating smuggling Trade.”
Tao Donglai said: "Aren't Hirado and Nagasaki the base camps of smugglers? They must not miss the fat meat of North Korea."
Ning Qi nodded and said: "You are right, and the people involved may be far more than just maritime merchants from Northeast Asia."
Zheng Zhilong, the leader of the Shibazhi who was opposed to Haihan at the beginning, had his adopted father Li Dan who was a pirate merchant living in Hirado, Japan. Zheng Zhilong later married the daughter of the Hirado clan's Matsuura clan retainer Yuhuang Tagawa. However, Shibazhi was later wiped out by the combined forces of Haihan and Ming armies in Fujian, and the armed merchants in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, were also brought to death. They were included under the rule of Haihan, and Japan was almost cut off from the Ming Dynasty. maritime trade between. Only a very small number of Zhusin ships chartered by the Edo shogunate will continue to run the trade routes of the Ming Dynasty.
However, before Haihan monopolized several major foreign trade ports in the Ming Dynasty, there were actually merchant ships from Western countries running the route between the Ming Dynasty and Japan. The Portuguese arrived in Japan as early as the 16th century and imported new weapons such as matchlock guns to the locals through trade. In 1609, while resuming trade with Korea, Japan opened trade with the Netherlands. In 1613, British merchants were allowed to open commercial offices in Hirado and sent envoys to visit various countries in Europe. In 1618, the shogunate announced that Hirado and Nagasaki would be opened as trading ports.
Among the Western countries that entered Japan, the vast majority were recognized by the shogunate and obtained trade opportunities, but Spain was undoubtedly one of the unlucky ones. In 1596, the Spanish merchant ship San Felipe entered Urato Port in Tosa Domain, Japan for repairs due to damage to its hull. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was dissatisfied because of the crew's careless words. Although Toyotomi Hideyoshi died two years later, Spain's trade status in Japan did not improve. By 1624, the shogunate simply banned Spanish ships from entering Japan.
The so-called seclusion order comes from the five prohibitions issued by the Tokugawa shogunate from 1633 to 1639 in order to maintain its dominance. The main content is to prohibit the spread of Catholicism in Japan, prohibit Japanese from going abroad and Japanese overseas from returning to the country, and limit international trade to Nagasaki, and only allow the Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands as trading partners. Of course, in fact, local feudal lords would not fully abide by the shogunate's lock-down order, and would still conduct private trade with specific countries. For example, the Tsushima clan and Korea, the Satsuma clan's Shimazu clan and the Ryukyu Kingdom all did so after the lock-down order was issued. Trade relations continued thereafter.
"Although it has become much more difficult for Western merchant ships to go to Japan after we occupied several important ports in Taiwan, I believe there will still be some Western merchant ships taking the Pacific direction to bypass Taiwan and go to Japan." Ning Qi began to summarize his conclusion: " Historically, the Japanese shogunate has not launched a large-scale war against Korea at this stage, and a war will also cause great damage to the interests of some local lords and foreign businessmen. It will definitely face huge pressure from domestic and foreign countries, so I don’t think The reason why the North Koreans are so eager to send troops to our country is because they are threatened by Japan.”
Unlike Yan Chujie's unilateral speculation, Ning Qi's views on the current North Korea-Japan relations are well-founded and sound reasonable. After two failed nationwide conquests against North Korea in the last century, it is difficult to say whether the Tokugawa shogunate still has enough courage and motivation to launch a new round of war against North Korea, and indeed such a situation did not occur in the original history. situation.
"What do you think of the attitude of the Koreans?" Tao Donglai asked with interest after listening to Ning Qi's popular science.
"The pressure on North Korea... should mainly come from the north!" Ning Qi analyzed: "If we hadn't entered Liaodong and disrupted the situation, then last year Huang Taiji would have led an army of 100,000 to conquer North Korea, allowing the North Koreans to change their masters. Although Hou Jin was eventually dragged down by us in Jinzhou, if we just wanted to put pressure on North Korea, we actually didn't need to send a hundred thousand troops... With North Korea's military strength, I think seven or eight thousand cavalry would be enough to march all the way from the Yalu River We have reached Seoul." Although Ning Qi's words were a bit contemptuous of North Korea's military strength, no one from the Haihan senior officials present questioned this. Last year, Wang Tom led the fleet all the way to Seoul. During this period, he encountered almost no decent resistance, which shows the weakness of North Korea's defense power. If Hou Jin's maritime armed forces had not been wiped out by Haihan in the past two years, they would have already crossed the sea and headed south, directly to the capital of North Korea to show off their power.
Are North Koreans themselves aware of this weakness? The answer should be yes. Ever since the North Korean envoy Luo Dexian went to Liaodong to see the local fighting situation with his own eyes, his attitude towards Haihan has been very warm. From establishing transportation and commerce to sending civilians to Liaodong to assist in the war, basically no obstacles were encountered, and the cooperative attitude was impeccable. It is precisely because of this that Haihan sold a batch of arms to North Korea immediately after the establishment of diplomatic relations to fulfill his promise of military assistance.
However, judging from the performance of the North Korean envoy this time, just selling arms to him is far from helping the North Koreans build the confidence to fight against Hou Jin. This country seems to be more accustomed to relying on the asylum provided by the strong - provided that this The strong one must be the Han government. Although Haihan is located in a corner of the South China Sea, he is actually a Han Chinese regime, so he has gained a lot of trust in North Korea. He did not even ask Ming for instructions on such a sensitive matter as garrisoning troops, but directly made suggestions to Haihan. .
"The Ministry of National Defense should implement the situation in Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula as soon as possible!" After hearing Ning Qi's views, Tao Donglai turned to Yan Chujie and made a request.
Yan Chujie nodded and responded: "I will arrange to send a telegram later. However, the troops stationed in Liaodong rarely go out for activities now. It may take some time to find out the situation in North Korea."
After the onset of winter last year, most of the elite navy and army troops originally deployed in Liaodong were transferred back to the south to participate in the Battle of Manila. Objectively speaking, the combat strength of the Haihan Army in Liaodong has declined. Later, the Jin Dynasty increased the number of troops stationed in the area north of the Jinzhou Defense Line in the winter, exerting greater defensive pressure on Haihan. The troops currently stationed in Jinzhou had to shrink their scope of activities and concentrate their forces near the Jinzhou Isthmus. , to prevent Hou Jin from launching another counterattack.
After such active contraction, the military intelligence that Haihan can control will naturally be greatly reduced. For the situation on the Korean Peninsula, he basically relies on Koreans taking the initiative to inform him, or from the uncle and nephew of the Shen family in Pidao. However, most of the soldiers and civilians of Pidao had already moved into the Dongjiang Town resettlement area set aside in Jinzhou before winter, and had almost given up on Pidao as a stronghold, so the information they could provide was extremely limited.
In addition to sending out emergency messages every three days, North Korea seems to rarely provide truly valuable military intelligence. However, this kind of vague statement and lack of detailed movements of the Hou Jin army seems to Haihan just because North Korea is too nervous. At the slightest sign of trouble, he thinks that Hou Jin is going to invade on a large scale. In fact, it may just be that Hou Jin sent 1,800 people to attack It's just daily harassment in the border areas of North Korea.
Haihan would initially send a ship to the Yalu River estuary to confirm the situation, but North Korea repeatedly had military emergencies. In fact, the Jin army did not invade North Korea on a large scale. The more times it happened, the more it became a wolf. The story came, and the Haihan Army did not take it seriously when it received the warning from North Korea.
According to the reports received by Yan Chujie, North Korea has asked the Liaodong garrison for help more than ten times this winter, but so far there has been no real sign that Hou Jin intends to take action against North Korea. Therefore, in order to confirm the military pressure on North Korea, the Liaodong garrison must once again go to the border between North Korea and Houjin to find out what is going on, and find out whether the North Koreans are unfounded or whether Houjin is really quietly gathering troops at the North Korean border to prepare. Take action.
Regarding this possible situation, it is difficult for Haihan senior officials to judge based on the original historical trend, because Haihan's actions in the Liaodong region have completely changed history, and what will happen next in the region has nothing to do with them. The historical records known in the past are all completely different, so we can only take them one step at a time.
"If Hou Jin really wants to suppress the enemy first, then should we send more troops to Liaodong again?" Ning Qi asked a hypothetical question.
Yan Chujie thought for a while and said: "Our military strength probably cannot take care of both the battlefields of Liaodong and North Korea. We can only ensure that Jinzhou is not lost first. But having said that, if Hou Jin really raises troops to attack North Korea, it will not be bad for us. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
What Yan Chujie meant was understood by all the senior officials of Haihan present. Among the population structure of Haihan, the proportion of war refugees cannot be ignored. From Annan to Daming, war refugees have always been one of the main sources of immigrants recruited by Haihan. If North Korea is invaded by Hou Jin, tens of thousands of war refugees will inevitably be produced. Haihan will then be able to accept these homeless refugees as a good person, and the cost will be much higher than before. Recruitment of immigrants is much lower in peaceful areas.
Moreover, the more the national power of a country like North Korea is weakened, the less difficult it will be for Haihan to exert control over it in the future. Even if North Korea is destroyed, Haihan can still support a puppet regime to continue its rule over the Korean peninsula.
"I understand, it's time to watch the fun." Ning Qi nodded, understanding the military's attitude. Although the Koreans may fall into the suffering of the war, weighing the pros and cons, of course, they must choose the most beneficial way to deal with Haihan. In the face of national interests, Ning Qi would no longer have any benevolence as a woman.
(End of chapter)