Chapter 1704 Bastion Construction Site

The military stronghold under construction where the prisoners were taken and the military dock not far away are actually two construction sites under the same project. The Sing Tao Garrison has planned several construction sites in the direction of the Johor Strait since the end of the war the year before last.

Amphibious military strongholds, this is one of them.

Star Island is only separated from the Malay Peninsula in the north by the narrow Strait of Johor. The narrowest point is only more than 1,000 meters. It faces military pressure from the Kingdom of Johor on the other side of the strait all the year round. Although the Johor army has been proven in the confrontation in 1635

He is far from being a match for Haihan's army, but Haihan doesn't dare to put too much pressure on him. If the opponent crosses the border and attacks again next time, Haihan may not be able to deal with the opponent with the limited depth of Xingdao. So in

Under Roger's strong advocacy, the Sing Tao authorities built strongholds at several strategic locations in the Johor Strait to implement his tactical thinking of "rejecting enemies along the coastline".

Of course, judging from the current size of the garrison on Sing Tao, it is still very difficult to fully implement this tactical idea. The coastline of the Johor Strait is hundreds of miles long. Even if all the garrison camps are moved to the north of Sing Tao, it will not be able to control the entire

The strait implements airtight defense. The real purpose of Roger's move is not only to strengthen the defense of the border, but also to apply for more military budget from the Ministry of National Defense and to obtain the opportunity to expand the size of the garrison.

The Star Island Garrison is based on the "South China Sea Special Operations Group" built by Roger. After the Battle of Manila, the Ministry of National Defense has officially awarded this unit the establishment of the "South China Sea Independent Battalion", together with other ethnic groups that have been pending in the past.

The issue of the soldiers' nationality has also been resolved. Non-Han soldiers in this unit, such as Marcus and Dulu, will all be treated as regular troops in the future, automatically obtain Hai-Han nationality and be evaluated according to their past military merits.

Military ranks. And the corresponding weapons and equipment, material supply, military budget, personnel training and promotion and other systems are all in line with the regular army. From now on, they will no longer be a militia force with unclear positioning and ambiguous identity.

For Roger, who wanted to carve out a world in the South China Sea, this really solved his biggest worry. The soldiers under him might work hard for their livelihood at first, but over time, without an official title, there would be no

Reasonable promotion channels, people's hearts will disperse sooner or later. And Roger himself has no intention of raising a private army. After all, almost all the weapons and equipment of the Star Island garrison come from domestic supplies. If he has any other ideas, domestic

In a matter of minutes, he could cut off supplies and turn his troops into decorations. Therefore, after the troops formed combat effectiveness, he had been trying to solve the organization problem for this troops, and now he finally got what he wanted.

What the Xingdao authorities need to do next is to turn this island into the Haihan Kingdom's largest military base in the southern South China Sea. Although Luo Jie and Tan Juren still have certain differences on this goal, the base project has already started

It must be completed. In Roger's opinion, these strongholds are not only forward fortresses to defend against enemies in the north, but also bases for marching north across the Strait of Johor in the future. Therefore, even if he cannot come over to supervise the work in person sometimes, he will let his deputies

Nguyen Phu inspected various construction sites along the northern coastline, and also visited nearby hard labor camps to ensure that a stable number of hard labor was available at each construction site.

In fact, due to the limited population of Xingdao, there are labor shortages at various construction sites, so the prisoners in the hard labor camps have to endure high-intensity labor tasks. Even prison bosses like Lin Xingsui, who are under official care,

It is also inevitable to participate in labor like other prisoners, and they do not enjoy many privileges.

After arriving at the construction site, Qin Huacheng noticed that they were not the only ones here. There were at least two to three hundred young and strong men busy on the construction site. Judging from the number of armed guards around them, the identities of these people

Probably just like me, they were all prisoners from nearby hard labor camps.

As for the so-called bunker being built here, Qin Huacheng felt that its appearance was inexplicably familiar. This kind of concave polygonal fortification actually existed in Manila, and the Spanish called it a bastion. In the Dutch War of Independence in the 16th century

, the Spanish army suffered enough in the Netherlands because the Dutch built a large number of bastions.

The Spanish army commander Rexens mentioned in a letter to King Philip II in 1574 that the Spanish army's combat progress in the Netherlands was blocked by the bastions built by the Dutch and could not save money on military expenses and operations.

Thoroughly clean up the local rebel areas before the supplies were exhausted. The result was exactly the same. In 1575, the Spanish government went bankrupt, and the mercenaries launched mutinies because they could not get military pay. As a result, the Spanish army on the expedition to the Netherlands had to

He left the area in despair.

Of course, the Spaniards did not suffer this loss in vain. They quickly learned the design features of this new type of fortress and applied it to the construction of their own fortresses. It was not until Manila in the Far East that they obtained this advanced knowledge.

A little later, we only had time to use the bastion design style to build city wall fortifications on the west side of Manila City, that is, in the direction facing the coastline. The purpose of this was originally to defend against enemies coming from the sea.

However, the Spaniards did not expect that the Haihan people who attacked this place a few years later did not choose to land at this location to launch an offensive, so the bastion-style city wall they built basically played no role in the battle.

However, the Spanish's research and application of bastions is obviously not as good as that of the Haihan people who have accumulated hundreds of years of history. Therefore, the Spanish-style fortifications in Qin Huacheng's impression are still far less complex than those built by Haihan.

This kind of bastion looks like a six-pointed star.

Qin Huacheng only stopped to observe for a moment, and then a guard came over to urge him to quickly join in the work. Qin Huacheng did not dare to neglect, and quickly followed the instructions to get a shovel and a basket from the cart, and went to the construction site with the others.

.

There is no quarry near the construction site. The building materials used are mainly sand, plus soil and cement produced locally in Xingdao, and then mixed with water to form concrete, supplemented by a frame made of bamboo and wood.

As building materials to build the outer wall of the bastion. Originally, according to the construction standards, the skeleton should of course be qualified by using metal ribs. However, Xingdao's military budget is limited, and even Roger believes that according to Haihan's external expansion speed, these

The service life of the building should not exceed five years, so there is no need to waste steel that needs to be shipped across the sea to build such fortifications.

After testing by the garrison, this non-standard concrete structure is enough to withstand the common army artillery bombardment of this era at a relatively short distance. Unless the enemy can surround the fortress and bombard it continuously for ten or eight days, otherwise it will only

It is difficult to collapse a protective wall made of this material with a thickness of more than one meter with solid cannonballs.

In fact, Qin Huacheng has also seen similar construction methods. Every year, there are immigrants from the Ming Dynasty in Manila. Most of these people go to the plains on the north bank of the Pasig River to cultivate wasteland and farm, and they make yellow mud, straw and water.

Mixing was used as building materials, bamboo fences were used as the skeleton, and log beams and columns were used as supports to build the walls of the house. The Haihan people's method of building strongholds and fortresses seemed to have strengthened and improved them a lot. However, Qin Huacheng had to

Admittedly, if he had been asked to think about it, he would definitely not be able to come up with such a construction method. It is said that the Haihan people are omnipotent, and it seems that they are indeed very powerful at least in building fortresses.

Qin Huacheng was assigned the task of following Lin Xingsui to use a shovel to shovel the mixed concrete onto a human-powered trolley. He himself had little time to engage in physical labor. In addition, he had been floating at sea for more than ten days, and there were many hardships along the way.

After arriving at Xingdao, I didn’t rest long before I was assigned to do such heavy physical work. After just a few shovelings, I started to feel soreness in my waist and back, and my hand holding the shovel started to shake a bit.

When Lin Xingsui saw this, he laughed and said: "You are such a bad boy. You only moved a few times and your arms started to tremble? If you work like this, I'm afraid you won't even be able to eat dinner!"

Like the hard labor camps in other places under the rule of Haihan, the labor points system is also used here. After one work, points are accumulated. After more points, they can be exchanged for various benefits and even offset the sentence. But if you steal during labor

If you cheat, not only will you not get points, but you may also be punished further. Withholding food is one of the punishment methods.

Qin Huacheng had already heard of this rule when he entered the hard labor camp. At the moment, he could only defend himself: "I have not recovered from my serious illness, so I am exhausted. I hope Mr. Lin can forgive me!"

Lin Xingsui saw that he was sweating profusely, but it was not as if he was pretending to be tired. He shook his head and said, "Even if I don't trouble you, you still won't be able to pass the guarding test. Just take care of yourself!"

Sure enough, not long after, a guard noticed Qin Huacheng's "slow" rhythm of doing two beats and then resting. He came over with a baton and stood by the side and beat it a few times to make Qin Huacheng work harder. Qin Huacheng knew that even if he showed weakness and complained at this time, he would probably not do anything.

If you don't use it, the guards will think that you are looking for an excuse to be lazy, and now you can only grit your teeth and speed up the pace of work.

Qin Huacheng soon understood why he would be noticed if he slowed down a little. When he slowed down, the trolley carrying concrete had to stay at his place for a longer time, and when its operating frequency changed, he would be noticed.

The second and third trolleys were backlogged at the loading position that I was responsible for, so they would naturally be noticed by the guards.

After finally holding on until the whistle sounded, everyone got a short rest. Qin Huacheng let go of the shovel, sat down on the ground, and gasped for air. Seeing that the place to get water was only a few feet away from him,

But he couldn't walk there to get water to drink like others.

When Qin Huacheng felt a little better and struggled to stand up to drink water, the short rest period was over. Looking at the trolley lined up in front of him, Qin Huacheng could only lick his dry lips vigorously.

Then he bent down and picked up the shovel and started working.

During this afternoon, Qin Huacheng was warned several times by the guards because he was not neat enough in his work. Although considering that he was a newcomer, he was not punished with depriving him of dinner, but his half-day labor points were deducted.

Half. However, on Qin Huacheng's first day on the job, he didn't have a clear understanding of the importance of labor points, and he didn't feel it was a pity.

When it was time to finish the work, Qin Huacheng finally understood why he had to arrange a carriage to pull the labor tools. At this time, let alone the shovel, he didn't even want to hold it in his hand even if it was a light straw stick. After all, no one else was better than him.

Where to go? When he came, he felt that three miles was not that far, and it was only a few steps away. But when he went back, he felt that the road seemed so long. He even wondered if the guard leading the way was deliberately taking a detour to amuse the prisoners.

When he returned to the hard labor camp, it was already dinner time, but Qin Huacheng felt that he was a little overtired, and his whole body was sore. Although he was very hungry, he had no appetite at all. If Lin Xingsui hadn't reminded him that he wouldn't have anything until tomorrow morning

After eating, Qin Huacheng wanted to lie down and sleep.

The dinner in the hard labor camp consisted of diced cold potatoes cooked in a pot with brown rice, plus a spoonful of pickles, which was Qin Huacheng's ration for tonight. This cold potato is a crop originally produced in America, and its roots growing underground are edible.

The Spaniards brought this crop to the Far East, and then gradually spread in the South China Sea through maritime trade routes. It can be harvested in half a year, and the yield per mu can reach several thousand kilograms. It is rich in starch, sugar and protein.

It can be eaten both raw and cooked, and there are many processing methods. The planting area in Xingdao area has reached more than 1,000 acres.

Qin Huacheng grew up in Manila, so he had naturally eaten this food. The familiar taste hit his mouth and he was filled with emotion. He didn't expect that on his first day across the sea when he came to this island, he could actually eat this familiar food.

Food. For a moment, he even had the illusion of returning to Manila.

The smell of sweat and chatter around him immediately brought him back to reality. This place was No. 3, A3, Second Battalion, Xingdao Hard Labor Battalion, where he, Qin Huacheng, might have to spend the next three years. As for Manila, then

It's a place five thousand miles away, far away and out of reach, and I don't even know if I can return there alive in the future.

"No! I, Qin Huacheng, can't just accept my fate!"

Qin Huacheng shook his head vigorously, trying to clear those decadent thoughts from his mind. After this series of hardships, Qin Huacheng became more and more unwilling to give up the struggle and bowed to his fate. Now that he had arrived at the hard labor camp on Xingdao, he

The downhill road should have come to an end. Next, we need to think carefully about how to get out of the current predicament, and at least make our time in Star Island a little easier.
Chapter completed!