Chapter 2136

The Hirado War has entered its seventh day. The Kaihan Army has basically completed the clearing operation of the northern blockade area of ​​Hirado Island. Most of the feudal troops trapped in this area have either died in battle or been captured. Even though

There are still a very small number of fish that have slipped through the net, and it is no longer possible to organize a decent resistance. They can only hide in some inaccessible mountains and forests and wait for the situation to improve.

Since there were too many captured people and there were no local facilities suitable for detaining these people, they had to first circle a piece of land at the pier in the Linhai Port area and use it as an open-air prison. The Haihan Army had to dedicate two companies of prisoners.

troops to guard these prisoners of war. Although this task is relatively easy, it is certainly not as lucrative as the troops performing inventory tasks in urban areas.

Although the urban area is still under wartime control and it is difficult for ordinary people to leave their homes and move around, news about how to protect themselves in times of war quickly spread among businessmen. Those who can open a shop in Hirado

Businessmen are generally not too poor in economic strength. Since it is easy to accommodate the Haihan Army who came to search, these businessmen will not be stingy with such necessary expenses.

But the few people who really get special care are not because of how much money they gave Haihanjun who came to visit, but because they quietly provided certain valuable information to Haihan. For example, they reported that someone was hiding in a neighbor's house.

A feudal official with a high status, or someone like Yu Chengli directly provided information related to the feudal lord Tagawasuke.

However, so far, no one has been allowed to leave Hirado on their own, so even this group of people who have received preferential treatment are still uneasy, worried that the temporarily calm situation will suddenly deteriorate again. Some foreign businessmen have secretly made plans

The idea is that as long as the Haihan people are willing to let him go, they will immediately leave Hirado, a place of right and wrong.

Xu Yuzhuo wisely did not try to compete with Haihan for the piece of fat in front of him. He took the initiative to apply to lead his troops back to Fujiang Island to clear out the hostile armed forces in the Wudao Islands area. Shi Diwen also understood that the Fujian Navy was empty-handed for this expedition.

It would be difficult to do business after returning home, so I did a favor and agreed to Xu Yuzhuo's request.

It's a bit ironic to say that the war on Hirado Island has come to an end, but the Xu Family Army's clearing operation on Fukue Island has not yet ended. The more than a thousand infantry sent to fight on the island did not encounter fierce resistance.

, but due to limited troop strength, it was difficult for them to completely clear Fukue Island, which was larger than Hirado.

After so many days, Xu Jiajun chased his opponents on Fujiang Island like a rabbit, but the gains were extremely limited. The total number of people killed and captured in the battle is barely enough to reach three digits. According to the officer leading the team,

It is estimated that there should be at least two to three hundred militants fighting guerrillas on the island.

The war on Fukue Island was the earliest, but the work was delayed even though the opponent was not strong. This really embarrassed Xu Jiajun. Xu Yuzhuo certainly did not want to sit back and watch this situation continue, so the war on Hirado Island entered the completion stage.

, the Fujian Navy no longer had any combat missions to perform locally, so he led his troops back to Fujiang Island, striving to clean up the area before the coalition forces retreated.

The Fujian Navy had not been able to get a chance to fight on Hirado Island before, and now all its anger was expressed on Fujiang Island. Xu Yuzhuo ordered half of the navy to land and participate in the battle, in order to change the serious shortage of combat troops on the island. At the same time, deal with

The people on the island have also upgraded their methods, recruiting young people and supplies from various villages to participate in subsequent searches of the island area.

Of course, this kind of recruitment has certain risks. After all, these locals are unlikely to be obedient, and some of them are even members of the resistance elements. However, Xu Yuzhuo organized these people into small teams and implemented a harsh system of continuous sitting.

The author or those who try to escape will be directly punished as spies, and everyone in the same team will also be punished accordingly.

Now that the completion of the mission is his top priority, Xu Yuzhuo no longer intends to show any mercy to these islanders. Besides, Haihan did not impose any restrictions on him this time, so Xu Yuzhuo took the right step and dealt a ruthless blow.

On the day Xu Yuzhuo arrived at Fujiang Island alone, Xu Jiajun executed more than 200 people on the island. Most of them were islanders and prisoners who were unwilling to cooperate, and some unlucky ones were simply pulled out and used as props to scare others.

Fujian does not have the same obsession with population and labor force as Haihan, and Xu Yuzhuo does not intend to transport all prisoners of war back to the south after the war. If Haihan has no special requirements for this, then of course he will choose to

These hidden dangers are dealt with on the spot to avoid wasting a lot of manpower and food when transporting them back.

Such ruthless methods had an immediate effect. Some prisoners of war who were originally unwilling to cooperate changed their minds on the spot after seeing the execution scene with their own eyes, and were willing to lead Xu Jiajun to the secret stronghold in the mountains and forests.

Xu Yuzhuo had a lot of experience in overseas battles, and he was not someone who was easily deceived. He knew that before this, there were some prisoners who led the way in exchange for a chance to survive, but the places these people went to were all empty, and some experience

Officers who are not experienced enough will think that this may be because the enemy has evacuated the location, but will not realize that this is a means for the opponent to delay time. Xu Yuzhuo will not leave room for these dishonest guys to play. He announced that if

If no trace of the resistance elements is found at the destination, the leader will still die.

Xu Yuzhuo's harsh methods were soon proven to be effective. After half a day's march, Xu's army found one of the resisters' strongholds in a valley on the island and successfully surrounded more than 200 armed men hiding there.

Xu Yuzhuo did not waste any more time trying to persuade him to surrender, but directly ordered the attack. Xu's army had an absolute advantage in strength and weapons and equipment, so the encirclement and suppression did not take too long. After the battle, Xu Yuzhuo immediately attacked the captured personnel.

The interrogation was held, and there were only two questions he wanted to know. One was the whereabouts of the commander of these people, and the other was whether there were other resisters active on the island.

For those who cannot answer or are unwilling to answer these questions, Xu Yuzhuo will treat them as no longer necessary to be detained. After asking the questions, he will give a look to his men to drag them away and execute them.

The deterrent effect brought by this extreme interrogation method is also quite powerful. Xu Yuzhuo only interrogated five people and got the answer he wanted. The leader who commanded these resisters had died in the previous battle, and the surviving people on the island

Almost all the resisters are here.

These people were not originally the core troops of the Hirado clan, but some people who were marginalized after Tagawasuke came to power. Most of them were loyal to the previous feudal lord and could not gain Tagawasuke's trust, so they were sent to Fukue Island.

Naturally, Tagawasuke didn't place much hope on these people. It would be a good thing if the battle could be delayed for a few more days. Even if they all died on the island, Tagawasuke wouldn't feel too painful about it.

However, Tagawasuke probably never expected that the troops he abandoned would actually hold back more than a thousand enemy infantrymen on Fujiang Island for seven or eight days. If Xu Yuzhuo hadn't personally come to deal with the stalemate, they might still have been able to do so.

It was really possible to survive until the coalition forces retreated on their own. If he had known of such an effect, Tagawasuke would probably have equipped these people with better weapons and more sufficient supplies.

When Xu Yuzhuo was commanding the clearing operation on Fujiang Island, Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen finally received the latest instructions from Sanya. Both of them were a little surprised by the resolute attitude expressed by the Executive Committee in the message. They had expected

There is a high probability that the Executive Committee will choose a handling method based on the premise of withdrawing the troops as soon as possible, but this time the instructions were somewhat beyond their expectations.

"Who do you think made this decision? Mr. Tao or Mr. Yan?" Shi Diwen asked.

"Lao Yan will not stop here. If he were to make the decision, he would probably have to dig out the Tagawa father and son. But if we continue to prolong this war, we will definitely encounter opposition from many people... In my opinion

In my opinion, this may be a compromise plan put forward by Mr. Tao in order to coordinate various opinions." Although he was thousands of miles away, Qian Tiandun's speculation was almost exactly the same as the actual situation. If Tao Dong came at this time

Those who can hear his conclusion will definitely applaud him sincerely.

"But this plan doesn't seem to be much easier than fighting..." Shi Diwen touched the stubble on his chin and said solemnly: "We probably have to calculate carefully how many ships are needed to empty this place.

"

"Evacuate? You are really greedy!" Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "This message only said that we should obtain various resources from the local area, including the population, as appropriate, and destroy the foundation of Hirado as much as possible to eliminate

The opportunity for the Eighteen Shiba Party to make a comeback...your understanding is to empty out all of Hirado Island?"

Shi Diwen said sternly: "My understanding should be what the Executive Committee wants to express. I think that since we are unable to achieve the previously set combat goals, we should settle for the second best and eliminate future troubles as much as possible. To be honest with you.

He said, I have thought about this plan of the Executive Committee several times in the past two days."

Qian Tiandun said: "Then you must already have a plan in mind?"

"That must be there!" Shi Diwen did not hide his thoughts: "First we have to calculate how many people and materials will be transported from the local area, and then calculate the maritime transport capacity that we can mobilize to Hirado as soon as possible."

If the previous days of operations were a test of the generals' command skills, then this plan, which was close to confiscating their homes, required them to demonstrate their logistics management capabilities.

In this field, Shi Diwen's talent and experience are obviously superior to Qian Tiandun. Starting from Haihan's occupation of Zhoushan in 1633, Shi Diwen not only had the identity of a naval general, but also had the identity of an overseas colonial governor.

. He has been working in Zhoushan for five or six years. He has rich operational experience in commerce, shipping, civil affairs and other aspects of affairs. His comprehensive ability is indeed better than that of Qian Tiandun, who leads troops to fight overseas all year round, but does not have many places.

A general with experience in governing.

But the task of evacuating a trading port with a permanent population of several thousand is also a brand new challenge for Shi Diwen.

"According to the information we found from the Tagawa family, the total population of the Hirado clan is about 13,000 to 4,000, of which about half live on Hirado Island, and 70% of the island's population is concentrated in Hirado Island.

It is roughly estimated that there are four to five thousand people in the urban area near Toko Port. If we deduct the population reduction due to the war, there are still at least three thousand people in the area we occupy. If we want to transport all these people, we

Probably more than twenty cargo ships are needed." Shi Diwen said while taking a pen to list the data on the paper so that Qian Tiandun could understand his narrative.

Qian Tiandun added: "The islands in the Five Islands Archipelago, combined, should have a population of a thousand."

"You're right, so we need to add a few more ships." Shi Diwen immediately modified his statistics: "This is just the population. As for materials... I think it's enough to only transport things of higher value.

, such as the valuable commodities shipped here from various countries.”

"That's not a small amount." Qian Tiandun knew that the warehouses near the port area were currently being inventoried. The preliminary estimate of the value of these goods was at least hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. Of course, all these things must be transported away.

That also requires preparing enough transportation capacity.

"Yes, it's not a small amount!" Shi Diwen nodded, and suddenly a smile appeared on his face: "We are going to make a fortune this time!"

The coalition fleet alone obviously does not have enough transportation capacity to complete this special task, and cargo ships must be dispatched from other places. After summarizing, the two decided to mobilize a group of subordinate ships from Zhifu Port in Shandong and Dinghai Port in Zhoushan

The cargo ships of the Ministry of Shipping perform this task. However, this kind of mobilization still needs to coordinate the shipping schedule. It may be difficult to arrive at the same time, so we can only come to Hirado in batches.

In addition, there are several Northern Fleet troop transports and comprehensive supply ships at the Daedong River base in North Korea. It just so happened that the Liaodong direction was temporarily quiet during this period, and these ships could be transferred to Hirado to undertake part of the transportation tasks.

In addition, the resettlement direction of these people must also be considered in advance. There are thousands of people, and they consume thousands of kilograms of food every day. Haihan certainly cannot feed these people in vain, so arrangements must be made in advance.

They knew where they were going and immediately went to work when they arrived.

But it is not difficult to solve this problem. There are too many places with labor demand. If these thousands of people are viewed in the context of Haihan, it is far from enough to fill the population needs of various places. Considering Hirado

location, the next destination for these people and prisoners should be mainly the area north of the Yangtze River Estuary.

The colonial areas under Shi Diwen's rule naturally had to be allocated a share. The saltworks in Shipu and Xiangshan had plans to expand, and now a large number of laborers were needed to fill the vacancies.
Chapter completed!