Chapter 253 The situation of occupying the city

Only now did Zhan Gui understand why the Haihan people held such a grand celebration ceremony for the launch of a new ship. It was really not just for fun. This weird-looking sailboat not only sailed very fast on the sea, had flexible steering, and was also equipped with

It has a powerful firepower output! Zhan Gui boasts that he has traveled all over the country for many years and has seen many Ming navy warships, but he has never seen a gunboat with such powerful firepower. The Haihan people are going to defy the heavens!

Of course, with Zhan Gui's professional vision, it is not difficult to see that it is not difficult to transform this thorny gunboat into a merchant ship, and it will have a greater cost advantage than a warship in terms of cost and construction speed. And the sea

The Han people attach so much importance to maritime transportation, of course they will not fail to think of this reason. Perhaps by this time next year, there will be such a fleet running between various commercial ports in the South China Sea.

Luo Shengdong was as calm as water at this time. After witnessing the firepower display of the "Exploration", he had confirmed the strength gap between the Ming Navy and the Haihan people. This gap is so big that it is no longer

Simply relying on numerical superiority can make up for it - at least relying on these dilapidated warships in Yazhou with a minimum service life of more than fifteen years is definitely hopeless. From now on, the sea south of Qiongzhou will probably no longer be the Ming Dynasty.

The navy has the final say.

As a professional soldier, Luo Shengdong was of course very aware of the threat that Haihan gunboats would pose to the Ming Dynasty. The only way to eliminate this threat was to immediately inform his superiors and mobilize naval forces from Guangdong to encircle Victory Port.

Take advantage of the fledgling Haihan people to completely extinguish this momentum. But Luo Shengdong also knew that this idea was unrealistic. Not to mention how long it took the Guangdong Navy to prepare for the expedition and arrived at Victory Port.

Whether we can defeat the fierce Haihan armed forces in the future, I am afraid that it is no longer possible just to submit a call for troops.

Now almost the entire Yazhou officialdom has been linked by Haihan's interest chain. Whether it is low-level officials like Luo Shengdong and Wei Ping, or local officials at the level of generals and magistrates, there are many local officials at the Zhizhou level.

Taking advantage of the Haihan people, several senior officials who are about to retire even directly approached the Haihan people with the idea of ​​pensions. For these people, without the Haihan people, the personal income they lose every year will be thousands of taels.

Plan - Luo Shengdong estimated his personal income for next year to be as high as 5,000 taels.

Such a huge benefit cannot be thrown away easily. There are at least hundreds of people living off the Haihan people in Yazhou City, and a considerable part of them are people "within the system". Even Jinyiwei and Dong

There are people in the factory who are bribed by the Haihan people. Luo Shengdong can completely imagine that if anyone really plans to go through formal channels to report for troops, I am afraid that the news has not even left Yazhou, but it has already happened in Shengli Port.

Got it. The possibility of relying on force to solve this problem is not high, unless the Haihan people take the initiative to provoke or even rebel and attack the city - this is even less likely than the Yazhou Navy to single-handedly defeat the Haihan people.

After being in contact for a long time, Luo Shengdong also knew very well that the Haihan people would not easily adopt a hostile attitude towards the Ming Dynasty. These people attached great importance to practical interests. For this reason, they even did not hesitate to "compromise" and followed the instructions of the local government to move Victory Port to the Ming Dynasty.

Under the rule of Yazhou - of course, not even a single copper plate of the benefits they handed over to Yazhou went into the treasury.

Luo Shengdong thinks that the gentlemen in Yazhou enjoy receiving red envelopes, but it is obvious that they do not know what kind of people live in Shengli Port, a hundred miles away from Yazhou. The Haihan people are not waiting to be slaughtered.

Lambs, under their seemingly docile appearance, are actually a group of hungry wolves with green eyes that are constantly devouring all resources. When Luo Shengdong first met the Haihan people a few months ago, they had just arrived in Victory Port

A group of three to five hundred merchants who landed were living in tents. They looked no different from the pirates who plundered the shore, but now the population they controlled was ten times that of the original, and they had established a huge situation in Victory Port.

Even the rebellious people of the nearby Limiao Mountains are working for them. This is not something that maritime merchants can do. But the gentlemen of Yazhou are not aware of such a threat and will not be interested in it. As long as the Haihan people

They regularly provide benefits, not to mention a victory port, they even want to let the Haihan people take over several nearby towns.

Under such an environment, Luo Shengdong also put aside those restless thoughts early on and went about his smuggling business peacefully. What's more, Haihan people have also offered to help his father-in-law to take over the position next year.

The position of governor of the state. If he comes up with any tricks at this time, his father-in-law may not let him go without the help of the Haihan people.

However, Li Nai did not think about things as complicated as Luo Shengdong. He was listening attentively to Tao Donglai's explanation. For this new ship, he only understood what he had visited the shipyard a few days ago after seeing the actual operation.

He only scratched the surface, and there were still too many things he didn’t understand. Tao Donglai’s explanation could just answer some of the questions in his mind at this time.

Tao Donglai talked eloquently: "...We will build a large number of these sailing ships in the next two or three years, mainly for maritime transportation tasks. As for the artillery equipped on the ship, you don't have to worry, we don't plan to build it.

There are too many gunboats, because we do not plan to start a war, and after installing so many artillery guns on the ship, we can no longer load cargo. We are not interested in spending manpower and material resources to send a large number of armed gunboats to patrol the sea. This kind of drudgery

This thing should be the work that Mr. Luo Ba and his navy should complete... By the way, I think we will need to change our habits soon and call ourselves 'President Luo Qian'."

Luo Shengdong came out of his reverie at once, clasping his fists and saying he didn't dare. After everyone else heard about it, they also congratulated Luo Shengdong.

It has only been half a year since Luo Shengdong was promoted from the humble Chief Hundred Officer to the rank of Seventh Grade Military Attache. Logically speaking, it is unlikely that he will get a second promotion opportunity in such a short period of time. However, since the Executive Committee

If you intend to cultivate your own spokesperson in Ming Dynasty official circles, you can naturally find reasonable ways to push him.

The opportunity to find this opportunity came from the Indochina Peninsula across the sea. A considerable part of the first batch of immigrants organized by North Vietnam were prisoners of war from South Vietnam and severe prisoners from North Vietnam. After simple screening, these people

They were put into the extremely labor-intensive Tiandu Iron Mine and used as miners. Since the Executive Committee accepted this group of people, they had no intention of letting these people become naturalized citizens in the future, so they were relatively thorough in their use -

—Within just one month after arriving in Hong Kong, one-tenth of the more than 500 people died from fatigue and various work accidents.

After these people died, the bodies were not wasted and were immediately sent to the medical department for autopsy. The medical department is currently conducting training for naturalized medical staff, and the corpses of these prisoners can be used in the course. And the executioners

The committee also thought of Luo Shengdong - the reason why Luo Shengdong was promoted in the first place was because he brought a group of pirate heads back to Yazhou to report his merits.

So Luo Shengdong once again received the assistance of the Executive Committee, and with the record of "killing more than 50 pirates, sinking two pirate ships, and capturing several swords and guns", his immediate boss, General He Wenhui, personally wrote a report and sent it to

He went to Qiongzhou Fucheng to report his merits and asked to promote Luo Shengdong, who was "unparalleled in loyalty and bravery and had repeatedly won in battles" as appropriate. Of course, things like swords, guns, flags, etc. were also prepared for him by Victory Port.

The achievement of annihilating incoming pirate gangs twice within one year is unique in the entire Guangdong Province. Compared with the situation where the Fujian officers and soldiers have been beaten by the "Eighteen Zhi" and cannot leave the port at all, Ya

Qiongzhou's record of "suppressing bandits" is dazzling. Moreover, the heads sent to Qiongzhou Prefecture for merit examination all have obvious characteristics of the South China Sea natives, and are not an act of killing good people and taking merit. He Wenhui believes that Luo Shengdong has great hope in

He received his second job promotion within the year, from General Ba to General Qian. Although Yazhou Shuizhai currently does not have the position of General Qian, this is not a problem - the position of military attache here has been set up from the beginning.

Instead of taking the usual route, the establishment of 500 people only had a staff general, so it seems that it is not unreasonable to add a thousand generals under the staff general.

If it were not for the fact that promotions require a step-by-step rule, the seventh-grade general can only be promoted to the sixth-grade thousand general at most. General He even had the intention to directly recommend Luo Shengdong for a defensive or even guerrilla position - anyway, the Haihan people

A message came from the side that as long as Luo Shengdong was promoted to one level, he would immediately give two thousand taels in cash, and if he was promoted to two levels, he would be given five thousand taels. If He Wenhui had the ability to let Luo Shengdong directly take over his position as a general, then the Haihan people

Willing to pay five figures for this.

This money does not include the cost of improving joints. For He Wenhui, it is pure income. But He Wenhui can only lament that his influence is limited and he cannot meet the expectations of the Haihan people - the appointment of a general is not at Luo Shengdong's level.

The military attache in Nanjing could not get involved in the matter. Even the Nanjing Ministry of War could not decide on this matter. He had to report to the Beijing Ministry of War. However, he could not get too much money. He Wenhui believed that he would at least give Luo Shengdong another promotion before retiring.

Level should be no problem.

Luo Shengdong also holds the same view on this. His promotion is only a matter of time, and it doesn't even have much to do with whether He Wenhui is in charge. The reason why Luo Shengdong is so sure is because he has people from Haihan behind him.

Support. Tao Donglai even told him privately that if the credit this time is not enough for him to upgrade, then next time he will send a hundred heads to Qiongzhou Fucheng to report his merit. If not, he will send two hundred or three hundred heads.

, and this keeps accumulating until he is promoted - anyway, there is a constant war in Vietnam, and it is not difficult to ask the Zheng family for some enemy heads. Luo Shengdong is not very clear where the Haihan people got so many Nanhai natives.

The first level, but there is no doubt about the credibility of what Tao Donglai said. Even if he accumulates military exploits, he should be promoted to President Qian soon.

But the excitement that this kind of promotion brought to Luo Shengdong was not even as good as the time when he escaped from death and returned to Yazhou. At that time, Luo Shengdong thought that his promotion to the boss would mean he had reached the pinnacle of his life, but later he discovered that he had reached the pinnacle of his life.

The height it can reach is directly linked to the strength of the support of the Haihan people behind it. Not to mention the current President Qian, even the future generals and even the commander-in-chief, Luo Shengdong now feels that there is no hope of taking up the post. But even if it is

No matter how high his position is, he still can't break away from Haihan's control. If he has second thoughts one day, Haihan people will surely launch a "pirate attack" without any scruples and let himself, a naval officer, die in battle.

At some point, Luo Shengdong was even thinking that the Haihan people specially invited him to go out to sea to watch this performance today, probably to shock and warn him.

After watching the "Discovery" test gun, the "Lightning" they were on sailed back, leaving another catamaran "Speed" to continue to follow the "Discovery" as an escort. There will be more

There are many tests on the ultimate performance of the ship. The Executive Committee does not want everything about the "Discovery" to be exposed to the outside world prematurely. A moderate show of force is enough.

After returning to the port, Tao Donglai and others met Zhan Gui alone and listened to his transaction process in Champa.

As expected by the Executive Committee, the five thousand kilograms of salt that Zhan Gui brought this time was successfully sold to the locals. Due to the Civil War, the important salt-producing areas of Indochina Peninsula completely stopped production, although there were some in Champa

There are small salt farms, but the output is completely insufficient to supply the people. The shortage of salt is even more serious than that in North Vietnam. According to what Zhan Gui learned from local businessmen, in the next year, the number of people in the Champa area will increase.

The shortage of salt is at least hundreds of thousands of kilograms.

In addition, Zhan Gui also got some information about another matter that the Executive Committee is concerned about. The Cam Ranh Bay area is indeed under the name of the Champa State, and due to the geographical environment of the natural harbor, there are many local

There are few fishermen living in the city. However, due to the decline of the Champa royal family in recent years, it has lost its actual jurisdiction in many places. It is said that the same is true in Cam Ranh Bay. There is no official management organization of Champa, just like the victory before the crossing group landed.

Same as Hong Kong.

For this reason, Zhan Gui has not come into contact with the official agency that manages Cam Ranh Bay, but he believes that there is no need to contact the government to set up a local business store - the Champa government doesn't even care about its own people, so how can it control outsiders?

personnel.

In addition, there is another thing reported by Zhan Gui that attracted the attention of the Executive Committee. A considerable number of Portuguese and French missionaries have appeared in the Champa area, and a certain number of missionaries have been imported into the area.

Matchlock gun. And it is said that some missionaries had gone to the area north of Champa, under the jurisdiction of the Nguyen clan in South Vietnam, a few months ago. I believe they should have made contact with the Nguyen clan's regime by this time.

The infiltration activities of Western forces in Indochina were specifically mentioned when the Black Earth Port colonization operation was originally planned, and also attracted sufficient attention from the Executive Committee. The coastal area in the southern part of Indochina is located between the Port of Victory and the Strait of Malacca.

From a development perspective, the Crossing Group must first control this maritime chokepoint in order to ensure the security of its future march into Malacca and even the Indian Ocean. The presence of Western forces in the area is undoubtedly a threat to the Crossing Group.

This is a hidden threat - these white-skinned colonists will never coexist peacefully with other races on the earth. The encounters between black Africans and American Indians have fully proved this.

The Executive Committee does not expect them to adopt a different approach after coming to Asia. After all, dogs cannot change their behavior. After a few hundred years, the methods of Western countries will not change much from the colonial period.

It's just decorated with "democracy" and "freedom". The Executive Committee will not have the slightest mercy for these competitors who will pose a threat to the political power in the future - extinguish the West on the Indochina Peninsula as soon as possible

Power is the best security guarantee for the traveling group.

Of course, in order to take such action, we must first establish a certain degree of power in the local area or reach a certain degree of cooperation with local officials. And such cooperation may not be possible simply by smuggling salt.

In order to repay the information provided by Zhan Gui, the Executive Committee specially approved 5 tons of salt and a small amount of glassware for Zhan Gui. He can sell it wherever he wants, as long as he does not sell it locally on Qiongzhou Island. This time Zhan Gui came from Champa

The returned ebony, ivory, rhinoceros horn and other valuable commodities were placed directly in the Port of Victory with no intention of being transported back to the mainland.

Although the Haihan people did not reveal their intention to acquire these things, Zhan Gui believed that even if he did not sell them to the Haihan people, he could still make a lot of money by selling these things to mainland businessmen in Victory Port. The reason is simple. The Haihan people are very interested in foreigners.

Merchants only charge one thousandth of the transaction amount as a handling fee for mutual transactions in Victory Port. The zero-tariff setting will soon attract more mainland merchants to come here with goods for transactions, because now the entire East Asia

, this is the only place in South Asia that implements a zero-tariff policy for foreign goods - whether it is Yuegang, Guangzhou, Macau, Jelanja, Manila or Batavia, as long as the cargo ships entering the port are loaded with goods, they will

Customs duties were charged.

The zero-tariff policy currently implemented by Victory Port is irresistible to merchants. Because there is no tariff cost, the transaction price of goods sold and purchased here will be lower than that of other commercial ports. The more valuable the goods, the higher the price.

The more cost-effective it is. Zhan Gui has even started planning to move his original base near Guangzhou to Shengli Port in Yazhou, and will carry out activities around this center in the future. He can save a considerable amount of money every year in various taxes alone.

.

There are indeed many maritime merchants with the same idea. After the last batch of merchants who visited Victory Port returned to Guangzhou carrying various goods and novel experiences, Victory Port, an originally unknown small port in the South China Sea, immediately attracted the attention of maritime merchants.

of attention.

It's the end of the month soon. Let's take a look and see if you still have any unvoted monthly votes. Don't waste them, you know.
Chapter completed!