Chapter 827 Looking North

When it comes to cooperating with the Haihan people to do business, especially investing in an undeveloped area, businessmen in Fujian, especially the Xu family, have already tasted the sweetness. So much so that Haihan began to attract investment in Kaohsiung Port.

At that time, the Fujian Chamber of Commerce was a little resentful because it entered the market later than its Guangdong counterparts. However, the developable area near Kaohsiung is really not small, and it may not be completed within three to five years. Therefore, the Fujian side is trying to understand the situation.

After that, there was no push for Haihan to open up new areas.

But Haihan is obviously not satisfied with this development zone in Tainan. Hearing Qian Tiandun's tone, Xu Jiaqi obviously intends to copy Kaohsiung's development model in other areas on the island of Taiwan, but this time he can't let the Cantonese guy take the lead.

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"General Qian, last time we let the Cantonese take the lead in Kaohsiung, we can't favor them this time!" Xu Jiaqi reminded: "We can follow the money provided by Guangdong."

Qian Tiandun waved his hand and said: "It's useless just telling me about this matter. You have to go to the Ministry of Commerce. I just want to tell you how to communicate. You can talk to the Ministry of Commerce on your own. Our military does not

Will participate."

"Yes, yes, I understand, I understand!" Seeing that Qian Tiandun intended to put aside the relationship, Xu Jiaqi stopped entangled on this issue. He has been dealing with the Haihan people for a long time, and he also knows that the Haihan military has strict regulations on military involvement.

Business is relatively taboo. Even in the arms trade, people from the Haihan Ministry of Commerce have always played the leading role. The military only sent technical personnel to guide the Ming army in its use and would not directly participate in the transaction process. The same is true for the project to develop plantations.

, the military only provides security guarantees, but specific project operations are implemented by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture.

After sending Xu Jiaqi away who was beaming with joy, Qian Tiandun summoned the person in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Penghu and conveyed to him the Executive Committee’s decision to build two new immigration reception stations at Tamsui River Estuary and Jilong Port in Taipei.

.In the future, part of the immigrants introduced from the northern region will be allocated to the Taipei area for resettlement. Especially in the Jilonggang area where a large number of infrastructure projects will be carried out in the future, thousands of laborers will be needed, and the vast majority of them will

Some solutions must be considered nearby, and intercepting immigrants imported from the north is undoubtedly a good solution.

Of course, this also requires the Ministry of Civil Affairs to find ways to improve the efficiency of introducing immigrants from northern Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, the number of immigrants introduced every month may not be enough for the development of Taiwan, and then there will be no way to transport people to Hainan Island.

.For Hainan Island, which is in a period of rapid development, the demand for labor is actually much greater than that of Taiwan Island, which has just started. However, Taiwan Island is located at an important node of the northward shipping route, and it coincidentally is an "infinite island".

"The main land", the Executive Committee originally intended to occupy it and build it into the second important town of Haihan, so it spared no effort to invest troops and various resources in the local area.

But for Qian Tiandun, expelling the Western colonists on Taiwan Island was just the completion of a set combat mission by the special operations battalion, and the implementation of this mission was much less difficult than expected. After two battles,

The number of casualties in the special operations battalion only barely exceeded double digits. To be able to maintain this level of battle losses in siege warfare is absolutely extremely low. Whether it is personnel losses or actual military expenditures, they are actually higher than those of Qian Tiandun.

Psychological expectations before the war were much lower.

It may take a long time for the Military Commission to complete the assessment of the merits of this battle. It is hard to say whether it can be completed in time for the annual public award ceremony during the anniversary next month. However, Qian Tiandun does not care much about these official achievements.

Ceremony, anyway, when it is time to be promoted to an official position, he will definitely have a part in it. He has now begun to plan the next course of action after completing the military occupation of Taiwan Island.

Before the military targeted Taiwan, the Executive Committee set the direction of northward expansion along the coast of Zhejiang in order to speed up the introduction of immigrants from the north. However, due to various objective reasons, the military ultimately took the decision to modify the original plan.

development plan. Later facts proved that the military's proposition was indeed correct. Haihan took control of Taiwan Island without spending much effort, and the opposition was worried that the attacking troops might attack Taiwan because of the attack.

The situation where the city was weak and fell into a long-term war did not happen. The only two siege battles were uneventful, and they were basically unilateral attacks on the opponent.

Of course, Takahashi Minami, who is responsible for commanding the military operations in Taipei, contributed a lot to achieving such a record. If Qian Tiandun had been in charge of it personally, it might not have gone more smoothly than him. This bold appointment was indeed received very well.

The effect has also accumulated experience for the military to boldly appoint naturalized civilian officers in the future.

After completing the operations in Taipei, Qian Tiandun believed that it was time to readjust the direction of the operations and return to the previous plan. According to Haihan's consistent development strategy, the control and penetration of Ming Dynasty was mainly through controlling its territory and sea power.

Therefore, when choosing a foothold in the direction of Zhejiang, the military still mainly considers large offshore islands.

From Hainan Island to Hong Kong Island at the Pearl River Estuary, to Penghu in the Fujian Strait and the newly occupied Taiwan Island, the voyage between each stronghold of Haihan's leapfrog development has been carefully calculated to ensure Haihan's maritime transportation capacity and

The armed forces can maintain normal operations between these strongholds. As for the next stop, the Haihan military has already made plans - the Zhoushan Islands located outside Hangzhou Bay.

In terms of voyage, the voyage from Penghu to Zhoushan Islands is slightly longer than the previous strongholds. However, this small problem has been solved after Haihan occupied Taipei. The straight-line voyage from Taipei to Zhoushan is only a little over 300 nautical miles, which is the same as Hong Kong.

The voyage between Penghu and Penghu is almost the same. The distance between Penghu and Taipei is only more than a hundred nautical miles, so you can safely extend Haihan's chain sea control line to the north without worrying about the long voyage being too long to provide timely supplies or

Support has been provided.

As for the specific foothold, the military is interested in Zhoushan Island, the fourth largest island on the territory of China in later generations. This island with an area of ​​more than 500 square kilometers is the main island of the Zhoushan Islands. As early as the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, the county seat of Wengshan County was established.

During the Xining period of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi petitioned the court to restore the county government here. Song Shenzong approved the application and changed the name of the place to "Changguo". "It means that it controls Japan in the east and Denglai in the north.

It connects Ou and Fujian to the south and Wuhui to the west. It is a huge barrier in the sea, which is enough to strengthen the country."

In the fifteenth year of Yuan Dynasty, Changguo County was promoted to a state due to the increase in population. According to records, the population of Zhoushan Islands at this time had exceeded 120,000. In addition to the place name Changguo, the name "Zhoushan" also began to appear in historical materials.

Title. It is recorded in the "Illustrated Records of Changguo Prefecture" of the Yuan Dynasty: "Zhoushan, in the south of the prefecture, has mountains with wings like the Mekong on the sea, where boats gather, hence the name."

But such a prosperous scene did not last too long. With the relaxation of coastal defenses in the late Yuan and early Republic of China, Japanese pirates began to enter the area. By the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates became more and more rampant and had used Changguo as a way to enter the mainland.

The maritime springboard for regional plundering, but the Ming court actually adopted a passive approach of emigrating people and banning the sea. First, it changed the prefecture to a county, and then simply abolished the administrative seat of Changguo County, completely leaving this area under the control of the Japanese pirates. This

This situation has never been completely improved since the early Ming Dynasty.

Although Ningbo Prefecture, Shaoxing Prefecture, Jiaxing Prefecture, Hangzhou Prefecture and other state governments have carried out several campaigns against Japanese pirates at sea, there are many islands in the Zhoushan Archipelago, with as many as 58 islands covering an area of ​​more than one square kilometer, many of which

There are natural harbors that can be used. Pirates and Japanese pirates have three cunning holes. It is difficult to completely eradicate them with the ability of the Ming Navy. More than two hundred years have passed since the early years of Hongwu, but the piracy problem in this area has still not been eradicated.

The only thing that the government is thankful for is that the pirates operating in this area have not yet appeared as large armed groups like the Shibazhi. Although they often rob passing merchant ships at sea, they do not threaten the big cities near the coast.

If Haihan wants to settle down and establish a new stronghold in the Zhoushan Islands, he must face the pirate gangs that have been operating in this area all year round. It is definitely impossible and unacceptable to coexist with pirates. What Haihan must do is to combine these

The pirates can be driven out of this sea area or completely annihilated. Of course, if the military is allowed to choose, the latter solution is probably more to their liking. After all, the number of captured enemy troops annihilated is also an important basis for post-war meritorious rewards.

, and just driving away the pirates will obviously be a big disadvantage when calculating military merits after the war.

However, the situation in the Zhoushan Islands waters is much more complicated than when they were fighting in Penghu. In addition, the local pirates operate in small gangs. Unlike Shibazhi, they can be severely damaged by just biting their main force.

Although there is a huge difference in strength between the two sides, it is indeed not an easy task for the Haihan Army to completely eliminate the pirates in the Zhoushan Islands. Just cleaning up the many islands in this sea area will definitely take a long time.

If you want to send a small fleet to assist the army in landing like they did against the Spaniards in Taipei, this tactic may not be very effective in the Zhoushan Islands. The local pirate camps are definitely not as strong as the Spanish castles.

But the problem is that they will not stick to their strongholds like the Spaniards. The vast sea area will make it several times more difficult for Haihan to attack them. The most practical way is probably to send a strong fleet to pull a net.

Carry out repeated clearing operations in this sea area, leaving no room for them to move around.

Haihan's fleet will naturally not have any problems with its combat capabilities. After all, even the Dutch and Spanish have suffered losses one after another, and the pirate ship's armament level is even more difficult to compete head-on with Haihan's warship. But the problem is to

If a large number of warships are sent to fight locally, the preparations required before the war will be much more troublesome than fighting Taiwan.

If this combat plan is still made by the staff team of the Penghu base, there will be too many projects that cannot be coordinated. Therefore, Qian Tiandun can only report his intention to the Military Commission first, and the staff department under the Military Commission will formulate relevant combat plans and unify them.

Arrange the mobilization of troops participating in the war and the supply of logistical supplies. This process may take one or two months, or it may take three to five months or even longer, depending to a certain extent on changes in the external environment. Especially

Now that Taiwan has just been obtained, the Dutch and Spanish have been offended at the same time. They will have to guard against retaliation from these two families for a period of time, and the military power that can be invested in the north will become extremely limited.

Of course, Qian Tiandun would not sit back and wait. Since he would have to go north sooner or later, before the staff came up with a specific action plan, he hoped to learn more about the offshore waters north of the Fujian Strait through various investigation methods.

regional conditions, and use this to revise the combat plan formulated by the military.

Regarding the intelligence collection work in the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty, the Haihan Security Department has actually been conducting it. However, the Haihan Security Department lacks spies with military backgrounds. Therefore, most of the intelligence that can be collected from the Ming Dynasty-controlled areas is based on political and commercial information.

Mainly, there are rarely missions to survey terrain, sea conditions and other information. Even if they receive such a mission, unprofessional intelligence personnel can only understand the general situation, which will not play much role in the decisions that need to be made now.

The role of reference and promotion.

Qian Tiandun's idea was to follow the example of the first landing in the Zhuoshui River area of ​​Taiwan Island and send a small group of armed forces as a reconnaissance team to conduct reconnaissance and intelligence collection in non-controlled areas. The advantage of this is that the intelligence collection

It will be more targeted. After all, people in the military know better what critical information they need.

However, the risk of this reconnaissance plan is much higher than that of the original operation in the Zhuoshui River Basin. After all, Zhuoshui River is very close to Penghu. If there is trouble, Penghu can send reinforcements to the area on the same day. But the Zhoushan Islands are far away from Taipei.

It is more than 300 nautical miles away. If the reconnaissance force is in danger locally, there will be no time to provide support.

Qian Tiandun actually wanted to lead the team to do this in person, but he also knew that the Military Commission would definitely not agree with him risking his life. After all, it was no longer like the time when no one was available at the beginning of the time travel. This kind of task was simply not possible.

If Qian Tiandun needs to personally take action, the reconnaissance platoon directly under the special operations battalion and the elite personnel of the Navy can execute it. The scene where the North American gang and him performed the reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines in Annan will probably be difficult to happen again in the future. After all,

This group of people now all hold important positions in various places, and even the possibility of setting foot on the same battlefield at the same time is extremely slim.

In late March, Qian Tiandun did not wait for the Military Commission's reply on this matter, but first waited for the No. 4 "Enterprise", a "Dignity-class" warship assigned to serve in Penghu.
Chapter completed!