Chapter 2346
Even an army as powerful as the Haihan Army can hardly contend with the harsh natural environment. In the next few months, both sides confronting each other on the Liaodong Peninsula will be subject to cold weather, making it difficult to carry out large-scale military operations. The northern border will also enter a true truce period.
But this does not mean that both parties have nothing to do at this stage. At least for the Golden State authorities, there are still many tasks to be completed during this winter. If this period of time can be used efficiently, then the local situation will improve in all aspects after the spring of next year, and we will be able to deal with the enemies in the north more easily.
Resettling the thousands of Han refugees brought back by Operation Snow is naturally the top priority at the moment. Fortunately, as long as the accommodation problem is solved, other resettlement measures will be carried out in an orderly manner with the cooperation of relevant agencies. Haihan's civil affairs system has rich experience and mature plans for the resettlement of immigrants. It can quickly turn these people into members of the local social system and engage in productive labor under the arrangements of the government.
Due to the special environment of the Jinzhou area, which is adjacent to the Manchu and Qing Dynasties and surrounded by the sea on three sides, as well as the limited population size, almost every year except winter, production and war preparations are carried out, which is a time when the labor force can be organized to build public facilities and infrastructure projects. , there are only a few months of winter fallow and truce.
There are a lot of infrastructure projects planned and waiting to be started in Jinzhou. In addition to building a large number of housing for the recent surge in population, water storage irrigation, road transportation, production facilities, and routine repairs, maintenance and reinforcement of the Jinzhou Isthmus defense line , are all engineering projects that require a large amount of labor.
The Han people who were moved by the Qing Dynasty to settle in the Liaodong Peninsula were almost all young and strong, both men and women. This was not a coincidence, but the Manchu Qing used artificial means to exclude the old, weak, women and children who could not be reused, in order to ensure that the minimum number of people was used. Get the most out of your input.
Such an approach was of course extremely cruel to the people enslaved by the Manchus, but the result was that Haihan was advantaged by a strange combination of circumstances. Whether they are engaged in infrastructure projects or agricultural farming, these refugees are undoubtedly a very high-quality labor force.
What really makes Liu Shang feel inadequate is that there are fewer local civil engineering technicians in Jinzhou, which has forced the construction time of many infrastructure projects to be extended to years. Most of the craftsmen that can be obtained from refugee groups are just craftsmen. It may be okay to build a wall or a house, but it is difficult for these private craftsmen to take charge of large-scale projects.
Of course, there are some engineers in the army who specialize in civil engineering, but the several-mile-long isthmus defense line is where they work. The workload of daily maintenance alone makes it difficult for them to manage civilian infrastructure projects.
Although Liu Shanxia, the head of the Ministry of Construction, personally visited Liaodong in 1636, he left after hurriedly deploying the construction plan for the Jinzhou Isthmus defense line and the Dalian Bay port. The number of permanent engineers stationed here was more than the number of military engineers. There are still few, and to be honest, the effect it can have is very limited.
Of course, this is not actually because the Executive Committee does not pay enough attention to Jinzhou. The number of technical personnel in the Ministry of Construction is limited, and there are too many large-scale projects in the area under Haihan's rule, and there is simply no way to dispatch many professionals. Stationed in overseas colonial areas like Jinzhou for a long time. In this way, a group of people were sent to North Korea last year to coordinate and direct the infrastructure projects of the cooperation projects in the Datong River Basin.
So the situation Liu Shang is facing now is that although there is no shortage of labor, there are too many vacancies for positions such as foremen and engineers, so that many projects may have to be postponed until next winter.
Within the scope of Liu Shang's authority, it is basically impossible to solve this problem satisfactorily. He was unable to influence the personnel arrangements of the Ministry of Construction, nor could he persuade military generals to immediately transfer engineering personnel back from North Korea, which made him feel quite helpless. He could only tell his boss Chen Yixin the truth about the situation and ask Chen Yixin to come forward to coordinate with all parties.
"Are you saying that because of the lack of local engineering and technical personnel, most infrastructure projects cannot be started this winter?" After listening to Liu Shang's report, Chen Yixin couldn't help but frowned and said with some displeasure: " What were you doing before? Also, when I asked you to arrange for people to go to the salt field two days ago, why didn’t you report this information? ”
Liu Shang's bowed body was lowered a little lower: "Sir, I submitted a report on the infrastructure project to you in October, and the report mentioned these situations. As for the salt field, it's because The project is already in progress, and there are several experienced salt workers sent from Sanya, so there is no need to send another foreman.”
When Chen Yixin heard this, he vaguely remembered that he had indeed seen such a report two months ago, but he was busy with other official matters at the time and did not respond to it in time. He dragged it back and forth and forgot about it. Later, during this period, I was busy mobilizing troops and generals to carry out the feint attack mission, and even forgot about the report submitted by Liu Shang.
Since this was not the negligence of his subordinates, Chen Yixin could not place the responsibility on Liu Shang anymore. He coughed twice and said: "It seems that I was too busy some time ago and forgot about this... What do you think? What are your plans for this? ”
Liu Shangdao: "Sir, the local area has just absorbed a few thousand refugees, and the labor force is quite abundant. If we can transfer twenty or thirty technicians from other places, then we can at least build the official road from Lushun to the Jinzhou front line this winter, as well as Lushun." The unfinished expansion projects of the Ganghe Lushun Shipyard can also be completed. As for other smaller projects, they can be constructed by the foremen themselves after technicians survey the site and design the construction plan.”
"Twenty or thirty technicians?" Chen Yixin clicked his tongue softly: "Then I'm afraid we have to add Datongjiang Base and Fushan County to get so many people..."
Chen Yixin has many connections in Fushan County, Dengzhou, so there won't be any problems. He said he would transfer people, but there are no big projects there anymore, so there are only a few technicians left in the copper mine processing and production. everyday problems. As for the personnel transfer at the Datongjiang base, he would have to coordinate with Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun, and he might not be able to get the people yet.
As far as Chen Yixin knows, major projects in the Datong River Basin are also in the rush to complete their construction. The turbulent political situation in North Korea has just stabilized. After taking office, the new king urgently needs to have tangible political achievements to establish his prestige, and the most practical achievement is to improve the country's current poor fiscal revenue situation. The late king Li Zhen and the current king Li Zhen both pinned their hopes on a series of cooperation projects in the Datong River Basin. As long as these projects start to be put into operation and make profits, then Li Zhen can naturally take the credit for himself.
And this arrangement is not Li Zhi's wishful thinking. Since the Haihan executives are determined to help Li Zhi take the position, they naturally want him to secure this position as soon as possible and stabilize the situation in North Korea. Therefore, on the one hand, they are accelerating the construction of cooperation projects in the Datong River Basin, and on the other hand, they are encouraging North Korea to send troops to Hirado, Japan, to plunder the local population and resources and provide them to Haihan to pay off their debts.
This two-pronged approach, both at home and abroad, through civil service and martial arts, is enough to greatly increase the prestige of the newly enthroned Li Zhi, and his prospects for governance will be smoother.
Under such circumstances, the importance of the cooperation projects in the Datong River Basin is undoubtedly more important than the infrastructure projects in Jinzhou. Chen Yixin is not sure whether he will get a positive response if he asks Qian Tiandun for help. I can only bite the bullet and give it a try. After sending Liu Shang away, Chen Yixin sent a telegram to Datongjiang Base to explain the situation, hoping that they could provide support as appropriate. After handling this matter, Chen Yixin rushed to the military intelligence department to listen to his subordinates' report on the results of the recent interrogation of Manchu prisoners.
All the Manchus captured by the special operations group in previous operations were sent to Jinzhou first, and were handled by the Jinzhou authorities. Those prisoners of little value would be quickly shipped to Fushan Copper Mine for hard labor. Those whom the military considers to have intelligence value will remain in Jinzhou for further interrogation.
The person in charge of the interrogation work was Lieutenant Wei Lin, who was affiliated with the Military Intelligence Bureau. He had been in Liaodong for two years and had dealt with Manchu prisoners quite a lot. However, the number of Manchus escorted back to Jinzhou this time was nearly a thousand. This also made this interrogation a very arduous task.
The military intelligence personnel stationed in Jinzhou went all out and reviewed the matter day and night for several days before finally getting preliminary results. As for the value of the information obtained, it is ultimately up to Chen Yixin to judge.
"So far we have received a total of 964 Manchu prisoners, 708 of whom have been transported to Shandong after trial, and the remaining 256 are detained in Jinzhou. In addition, during the trial, Twelve people died from their injuries.”
"After verifying the identities of these people, we found two Niulu Zhangjing, who are also the highest-ranking enemy officers found among this batch of prisoners. The other armed personnel are basically just ordinary soldiers without great qualifications. The value of intelligence.”
"After reviewing it, we obtained some intelligence information about the Daheishan defense line and the Qing army camp. The Qing army currently stationed in Daheishan is still commanded by the enemy chief Azig, and its strength is about 30,000 to 30,000. Between thirty-five thousand, which is a decrease from the number we had before. If this number is true, then we can judge that the Qing army transferred at least five thousand troops from the Daheishan defense line before winter this year."
"But the level at which we captured these people is too low, so we don't know whether this transfer is simply a change of defense, or whether it is because the Qing army has insufficient supply capacity for winter supplies and can only transfer part of the army back to the north where supplies are more convenient. In addition, At the time of their capture, they had not received any orders to prepare for winter operations."
Chen Yixin added after hearing this: "Actually, there is another possibility. They transferred the troops stationed in Daheishan in order to mobilize troops elsewhere."
It was completely helpless for the Qing army to deploy heavy troops on the front line of Daheishan. If they were not worried about Haihan's expansion from Jinzhou to the north, they could deploy this part of their troops in the direction of Ming Dynasty, and could relatively easily snatch the population and resources from the border of Ming Dynasty. supplies.
Once the military confrontation in Jinzhou eases, the Qing army will naturally want to transfer the garrison on the Daheishan defense line to perform combat missions elsewhere. It will have fewer casualties and higher profits, which is far better than wasting food in a long-term confrontation with the Haihan army.
"Your Majesty, please remind me that we did not get any solid basis for troop deployment during the interrogation, so we did not include this possibility in the report." Welin said a few words to show that this was not an oversight by the military intelligence department.
Chen Yixin said: "In addition to the strength of the Daheishan defense line, there should be other valuable information, right?"
Wei Lin knew what Chen Yixin was concerned about, and immediately responded: "Sir, the Qing army does still have an organized firearms unit. It is said that there are about three musketeers on the Daheishan defense line, but the specific ones they use are Where the weapons came from and whether they were made by ourselves, we are still unable to confirm through the confessions of these prisoners.”
"Three Niulu...that's a lot!" Although Chen Yixin was mentally prepared, he was still slightly surprised when he heard this number.
When the Marine Corps sneaked behind enemy lines to annihilate the Qing musketeers last year, the Qing musketeers using new muskets were less than a handful strong. One year later, the size of the Qing Army's musketry team has expanded. This is undoubtedly a very dangerous signal.
The source of the standard muskets obtained by the Qing army was basically confirmed last year to be purchased from the Hirado Domain of Japan. Later, Kaihan attacked the Hirado Domain. Judging from the weapons transaction records obtained locally, the number of weapons sold to the Qing army was indeed more than enough to arm the musketry team that was eliminated by the Marine Corps, but it seemed to be far less than three cattle. Record size. If you include the musketry team that was eliminated, the number of musketeers deployed by the Qing army in Daihei Mountain already numbered a thousand. It is also a mystery whether the Hirado clan could have sold so many muskets to them.
Hearing such figures, it is difficult for Chen Yixin to remain optimistic about the situation. If there is no evidence to prove that these weapons were purchased from the Hirado Domain, then it is very likely that the situation that Haihan least wants to see has occurred - the Manchu Qing Dynasty obtained the corresponding weapons manufacturing technology from the Japanese Hirado Domain, and It has been able to mass-produce standard muskets and began to be installed in the army in batches.
If this is the case, then the weapons advantage of the Haihan Army will also be reduced, and it will no longer be able to easily cause a dimensionality reduction attack on the Qing Army using cold weapons as before.
Although even mastering the arms manufacturing technology of the Hirado clan was not enough for the Qing army to defeat the Haihan army, if the Qing army used such weapons in combat operations against the Ming Dynasty, it would most likely speed up the border defense of the Ming Dynasty. of collapse.
(End of chapter)