1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 34 Yantian ([-])

"Let's take a look at the map first, this will probably help you understand today's mission." Gu Kai took out the notebook from his backpack, opened it and brought up a satellite image.

On this picture, you can clearly see the entire bay from Luhuitoujiao in the west to Yinggebi in the east. Gu Kai first pointed to the location of Victory Harbor: "We are here."

Then he moved his finger down and pointed to another place: "This is where we're going today."

"It's very close here. Why are you so mysterious?" Tom Wang looked at the place he was pointing at, and estimated the approximate distance. The straight-line distance from Victory Harbor should be less than 5000 meters. , but the distance will not exceed 4 nautical miles.

"It's very close. The problem is that we don't have enough strength to go there for defense." Gu Kai shrugged and said, "But the executive committee has a strong will to develop it, so we must be the vanguard and go to the field to inspect it. Is the place worth the risk?"

The location pointed out by Gu Kai is located on the east side of the bay. Mengguoling, Baishiling and Liupanling are surrounded by a small piece of seaside plain on three sides. From the satellite image, it can be estimated that the area of ​​the place is only more than one square kilometer at most. , it looks like less than two thousand acres of land.From the satellite map, it seems that this place has been well developed in later generations. A large freight terminal has been built, and there is even a road tunnel that penetrates the Mengguo Ling to the north, and the other end is currently developed in a labor camp on the east bank of the Tiandu River. The arable land is pierced out, allowing this dead land surrounded by mountains on three sides to have a direct land route to the inland of the Tiandu River Valley.Of course, this kind of large-scale project of tunnels through mountains is impossible to implement in this era, and what is the development value of this dead place, people in North America really can't see any clues from the map.

Limited to manpower, the farthest land post of the Military Police Department is currently only located in Yulin Corner. It is close to this seaside area across the sea, but if anything happens there, the Yulin Corner Sentinels can All they do is look at each other across the sea.If the Executive Committee wants to develop that place, I am afraid that it will only exist as an "enclave" outside the control area for a period of time in the future.

Gu Kai also seemed to see the confusion on the faces of everyone, and closed the notebook and said, "It's useless to talk too much, you should see it on the spot and you'll understand."

After the decision was made, the North American people split up.Tom Wang opened the bottom cabin of the "Speedy", took out the guns from the arsenal and distributed them to everyone, and then Qiao Zhiya, Roger, and Shi Diwen went to the "Lightning".Everyone performed their duties, unmooring and raising the sails. After a few minutes, the two sailboats left the pier one after the other and went straight to the south.

When driving past Yulinjiao, Tom Wang specifically pointed out the location of the outpost to Gu Kai.At present, the combat readiness is on duty with three people per shift, eight-hour shift system, and shifts are changed every two days to ensure 24-hour uninterrupted monitoring of the situation near the bay.

After listening to the introduction, Gu Kai asked, "Isn't it too early to start 24-hour monitoring? We've all been here for more than half a month, and we haven't seen any other boats appearing nearby except for the local fishermen."

Tom Wang shook his head and said: "Be prepared, we believe that there will be a small group of pirates nearby before this summer, and sooner or later there will be a battle. Unfortunately, we lack heavy weapons now, otherwise we will set up a fort on both sides of the harbor, then it will be true. Nothing is lost."

Gu Kai patted Tom Wang on the shoulder and said, "You are not honest! I heard that when you bought guns in Eastern Europe, you also bought a few big ones."

"What a big guy!" Tom Wang explained, dumbfounded: "It's just two PP89 60mm mortars exported from China. It's not a big guy at all. It's true to say the old guy."

"A 60mm cannon is also a cannon! Don't take the village chief as a cadre!" Gu Kai criticized Wang Tom in a serious manner, but immediately exposed his military blindness: "With two cannons in hand, It shouldn't be a problem to keep a port and catch a boat, right?"

"Kevin, mortars are mainly used to hit fixed targets. Artillery shells shoot high parabolic curves. It is very difficult to use them to hit moving targets." Tom Wang gave Gu Kai a sigh and sighed. Even if it could be fired, these two guns would not dare to be used casually. Because our ship could not hold any more materials at that time, in order to free up the weight to install these two guns, we even dismantled the bathtub on the ship. I only bought [-] rounds of artillery shells. After these [-] rounds are fired, these two cannons can only be sent to future military museums as exhibits."

"With so many shells, it's not enough to even practice artillery?" Gu Kai, no matter how blind he was in the army, had already thought of the drawbacks brought about by too few shells.

Tom Wang nodded and said: "So these two artillery pieces are actually mostly decorations. I think at least after the Tiandu Iron Mine has been put into production for a while, the Military and Police Department can hope to start forming its own artillery unit. For some time after that, our artillery units probably had to train with old-fashioned smoothbore guns."

During the chat, the boat has entered the small bay where the destination is located, and you can see the dense mangroves on the shore extending to the left and right along the coastline. It is almost difficult to imagine the dense mangroves just from the perspective of the boat. There is a plain behind it.

Tom Wang ordered to lower the half-sail and let the boat slowly move along the coastline in order to find a suitable place to dock.However, Gu Kai, who was holding the telescope, seemed to have found the target. He pointed to the bank ahead and said, "Have you seen the estuary there?"

Tom Wang looked in the direction he pointed, and sure enough, a five or six meter wide estuary was faintly revealed in the mangroves, but it was easily overlooked because of the topography.

"We will disembark there, and then go upstream along this waterway." Gu Kai said firmly.

With the large hulls of "Speed" and "Lightning", there is no way to sail into this narrow waterway, so the two ships can only be parked side by side outside the river mouth. The "Speed" is equipped with an inflatable rubber assault boat. It took the sailors 10 minutes to install the assault boat, then carry their luggage and guns, and go down to the assault boat from the gangway at the stern. Johnson stayed alone. As a warning on board.

The four-meter-long rubber assault boat was only used once when it landed in Victory Harbor. It can carry eight people and is equipped with a two-stroke 18-horsepower outboard engine, which is most suitable for exploring such narrow waterways.Tom Wang checked that the military radio he was carrying was normal, and signaled to leave immediately.As the roar of the motor sounded, the assault boat slowly drove the six-person team including Gu Kai towards the upper reaches of the waterway.

After going up the waterway for two or three minutes, the few people on the assault boat who had been watching both sides of the bank could see that something was wrong—there were obvious traces of man-made water diversion projects, and there were many artificially dug ditches on both sides of the waterway. It looks like it has been abandoned for many years.

And Tom Wang noticed another detail: "The water doesn't seem to be flowing at all...Is this seawater poured in?"

Gu Kai nodded when he heard the words: "This waterway is indeed seawater, and the places we see now were all salt fields in the past."

"A long time ago? When was that?" Tom Wang, who was not familiar with Chinese history, was immediately confused.

"Well...it's probably the Southern Song Dynasty..." Gu Kai, who was also a hearsay, made a fool of himself, and quickly changed the subject: "Anyway, someone has done a salt field here before, and the Executive Committee believes that there is some development here. The foundation, which can be used for redevelopment, can save a lot of work.”

"What do you mean, use this place to introduce seawater and use the salt drying method to make large-scale salt production?" Wang Tom, who knew little about such professional issues, asked tentatively.

"I think Qiao Zhiya should know a little bit. After all, he came from a chemical industry." Of course, Gu Kai couldn't explain this kind of problem that was thousands of miles away from his major, so he could only leave it to others.

So Tom Wang repeated the question to Qiao Zhiya in English, and Qiao Zhiya thought about it before answering: "There is no doubt that in addition to eating, salt is also a very important raw material for the chemical industry. Sodium metal, soda ash, heavy caustic soda, caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, all must use salt. The foundation of the chemical industry is triacid dibasic, and salt is the basis of this foundation..."

"Can you say something that I can understand?" Gu Kai interrupted impatiently.As a lawyer who deals with legal provisions all day, how can he possibly understand what the hell are those acids and alkalis.

"Okay, then I will put it into practice." Qiao Zhiya reluctantly changed the way to popularize his companions: "For example, glass, dyes, explosives, metallurgy, fertilizers, papermaking, printing... Almost everything we can think of is related to chemical industry. All walks of life are inseparable from salt."

"Machining is also inseparable from salt," Roger added. "For casting, heat treatment, and electroplating, salt must be used."

"Let me summarize, that is to say, if we want to replicate the industrial system of later generations in the seventeenth century, salt production is a hurdle that cannot be bypassed, right?" Tom Wang finally clarified under the explanation of the professional got some clues.

"That's right. People in this era only eat salt, and our advantage is that we can process salt into various things, and these things are enough for us to conquer the entire earth!" Qiao Zhiya said As he spoke, his warlike heart was revealed again.

Tom Wang automatically filtered out Qiao Zhiya's wild words and asked Gu Kai, "So the executive committee has made up its mind to develop salt fields in this place?"

Gu Kai nodded: "In the timetable of the executive committee, the metallurgy and chemical industry of the industrial port must be launched at the same time, and neither one of them will be lame. At present, Tiandu Iron Mine has begun pre-mining, and the chemical project must also be spread out as soon as possible,"

"Well, since it's so important, let's take a good look at this place." Tom Wang looked at a relatively flat bank ahead, turned off the motor, and slowly leaned the assault boat over.

Everyone filed down to the shore, tied the assault boat to the tree trunk on the shore with a cable, and then carried the equipment and headed inland.

(End of this chapter)