Chapter 2947
For the Bangui Battalion, now that they have captured the local officials of the Spanish colonial authorities, the remaining matters will be much simpler to deal with.
In order to save the lives of his family, Vargas signed the surrender document overnight, announcing on behalf of the Spanish colonial authorities that Masbate Island will be taken over by the Haihan Army from now on. The people on the island should abandon all resistance actions and accept and cooperate with the Haihan Army. Arrangements can be made to save lives and property.
After Vargas signed and sealed the document, it was immediately sent to nearby temporary settlements where people on the island were gathered, and was read out by a Spanish translator to dispel the lingering illusions of some people.
Of course, the document signed by Vargas only unilaterally reflects Haihan's wishes, and is unlikely to be recognized by Spain afterwards. However, this kind of detail does not affect the overall situation, because Haihan's goal is far more than that, and Masbate Island is just a springboard in the Luzon Region's southern expedition plan.
Even if Haihan and Spain were to engage in armistice negotiations in the future, the dividing line dividing the spheres of influence between the two sides would never be located near Masbate Island.
The team led by Zheng Agui captured the Spanish magistrate from the secret cellar, which was naturally a great achievement. The battalion commander's praise was not just verbal, but even arranged for them to suspend the search mission and return to the station to rest early. They will all be temporarily on leave until Bangui Camp receives new assignments.
Of course, this vacation shouldn't be too long. According to the pre-war deployment, the Bangui Battalion's operation time limit on Masbate Island is only forty-eight hours. Perhaps in another day, it will receive an order from the headquarters to rush to the next operation location.
Zheng Agui and others started participating in the battle at noon and continued until midnight. They took a short break during dinner. They were indeed exhausted both physically and mentally. It was time to lie down and rest.
The Bangui Camp has almost been in combat mode since landing. Of course, it cannot spare manpower to build a camp, so it has only requisitioned many houses in the town as temporary residences for each company.
The company where Zheng Agui and others are based is the church in the town. It is also one of the few decent-looking buildings in the local area. The spire and stained glass windows outside the church are very typical Spanish style, which is different from the dilapidated and simple houses next to it. In comparison, it looks even more gorgeous.
However, perhaps due to the local economic level, more than half of the church's construction cost was spent on the decoration of the exterior facade, and the interior inevitably looked a bit sloppy.
There are no beautiful painted murals or complex chandeliers in the church. There are seven or eight rows of benches on the floor, which are put together two by two and used as simple camp beds. There is a small altar at the very end of the church, and a wooden cross about a person's height hung on the wall behind the altar. This is almost all the furnishings.
Zheng Agui and others put down their belongings and instead of lying down to rest immediately, they returned and left the church. What attracted them was not the fresh air outside, but the broth simmering on the marching stove set up at the door of the church.
At present, the situation in Masbate Town has been basically calmed down, and the logistics department has also arranged for personnel to prepare hot meals in various temporary camps so that the soldiers who have been rotated can fill their stomachs before resting.
"What a fragrant broth!" Zheng Agui grabbed the big spoon in the pot and stirred it a few times, and praised: "There is so much meat! I said, Lao Li, I don't usually see so many dry ingredients in the stew soup. You guys are cooking. Ban is spending a lot of money today!”
The cook Lao Li responded nonchalantly: "The ingredients are all requisitioned on the spot. They are free things anyway, so if you don't use them, they will go free! In this pot of broth, two whole pig legs were chopped into it, which is enough for you guys to eat." Stop it!”
Zheng Agui said: "It seems that your cooking team is not idle! We arrest people, you catch pigs! By the way, you requisition ingredients on the spot, don't the bosses care about this?" Lao Li took the big spoon from Zheng Agui's hand, He knocked on the edge of the pot and said: "No matter what, why don't you care! But this is an order from the battalion subordinates. Let the cooking team use local materials to make hot food for the troops as soon as possible. We are just following orders. Boys, don't be stunned, go it yourself Get the bowl!”
Lao Li was an old man in the army, so naturally no one questioned what he said. Everyone quickly took the bowls and chopsticks from the side and queued up to receive the food.
According to the military regulations of the Haihan Army, corresponding procedures must be followed when requisitioning private property from local areas during wartime to prevent someone from committing private plunder in the name of requisition.
However, this town of Masbate has nothing to do with wealth. The livestock and poultry raised by local residents are naturally not valuable in the eyes of the Haihan Army. The battalion headquarters immediately confiscated them.
As for whether the victim will report this kind of incident to the government after the local area is officially included in the Haihan rule, this is not something that the Bangui camp needs to worry about. When the time comes, there will naturally be an agency like the Hispanic Administration to handle it.
After drinking a large bowl of hot broth, everyone filled their stomachs and took the time to go into the church to sleep.
Since setting off from Manila, we have been floating on the sea for the past few nights. It is indeed difficult for an army unit like the Bangui Battalion that rarely goes to sea to sleep well. Although the benches in the church were hard and cold, they could not stop the sleepiness that swept over me, and soon the sound of snoring broke out.
Everyone slept until noon the next day, but found that there was still no one in the church. Zheng Agui went to ask Lao Li, who was taking a nap after a busy night, and found out that several groups of people had come here to rest while they were sleeping. After dawn, they went to a gathering point nearby to gather local residents in batches to help register personnel information. Since their class was granted a holiday by the battalion commander, they were allowed to sleep until they were full.
When everyone was having lunch, they saw that local residents had been released one after another, so they thought the registration process should go smoothly.
How to implement rule after occupying a place, Haihan Army already has considerable operational experience in similar matters. The first step is to register local residents, land and other information to ensure that officials have a grasp of the basic local situation.
Haihan will prepare new household registrations for the residents of Masbate Town and restrict their behavior in accordance with the "Regulations on the Management of Naturalized Citizens" so that they can gradually adapt to Haihan's social system.
People who are willing to cooperate with these measures can usually slowly integrate into the new environment after a few years. Many naturalized Spanish people in Luzon Island have even learned Chinese and Chinese characters, and the education received by their next generation tends to be more like that of the sea. Chinese.
For example, there are also young Hispanic soldiers among the troops on this expedition. Their allegiance is no longer to the distant and unfamiliar Kingdom of Spain, but to the extremely wise Haihan Executive Committee.
Of course, not all Spanish immigrants could adapt to the new rulers, and would even rebel again in the process, but the endings were often not pretty. In the past decade or so, thousands of people who cannot adapt to environmental changes have been sent to mines, quarries and logging sites across Luzon, spending the rest of their lives in endless heavy manual labor. .
(End of chapter)