Chapter 2362

Objectively speaking, it is normal for Ma Fan to react like this when faced with an armed fleet with an unknown purpose. If he warmly greeted Wang Tom's fleet, it would be a problem. However, Shen Xueyi is obviously very worried about Ma Fan.

His attitude would anger Tom Wang and cause the Haihan people to use force. They quickly comforted Tom Wang and hoped that he would not mind his tough attitude towards Ma Fan.

"You took the initiative to intercede for Duima Fan. It seems that your Shen family actually does a lot of business here, right?" Wang Tom asked with a half-smile.

Shen Xueyi said sternly: "General, the trade between our country and Japan relies entirely on Tsushima to operate in the middle. If something happens here, the trade between the two countries will be interrupted, which will also cause considerable losses to our country. Please also ask General

Understand our country’s difficulties.”

Shen Xueyi didn't mention any personal gain, and Tom Wang couldn't make fun of him anymore. He nodded slowly and said: "I didn't plan to do anything to Ma Fan, so you don't have to worry. But if there is a chance in the future, you

Try to arrange something so that I can meet with the lord of Tsushima."

Shen Xueyi didn't understand what Wang Tom's purpose was in wanting to meet the Lord of Tsushima, but he could only agree first. With Wang Tom's words, at least the Haihan army would not be violent at the moment.

In fact, what Wang Tom is thinking about is very simple. Since Tsushima is the agent for most of the trade between Korea and Japan, if you want to import a large amount of Haihan products into the Japanese market, it may be better to directly discuss cooperation conditions with Tsushima than to contact Jiang.

The shogun of the household is more effective. If Tsushima can be conquered, then it may be possible to win a new market for Kaihan.

With such expectations, Wang Tom will naturally not be angry because of Ma Fan's caution. He believes that since Ma Fan can have both sides of Japan and Korea and make cross-border trade prosperous, as long as Haihan is

It provides a feasible business plan and huge expected profits, and Tsushima would not mind adding another heavyweight partner.

However, he would definitely not confess this plan to an outsider like Shen Xueyi. If it were not for the need for a more reliable person from the North Korean official to bridge the gap, he would not even state in front of Shen Xueyi that his visit had no ill intentions towards Ma Fan.

It was obviously impossible to meet with the ruler of Tsushima at the moment, and Wang Tom did not want to waste any more time in this sea area, so he ordered a change of course and headed towards the Jeju Strait to the west.

After sailing at sea for another week, the fleet finally returned to the Datong River base. So far, Tom Wang's winter voyage has finally concluded successfully.

This trip lasted more than two months and covered more than 10,000 miles. The furthest point was the Soya Strait, which is three thousand miles away from the Korean Peninsula. Along the way, we visited the west coast of the Japanese archipelago and the Liaodong coast. The route basically circled around the Sea of ​​Japan.

Big circle.

When Wang Tom set out, he did not set any specific goals for this trip, so the entire inspection process could be said to be in a relatively relaxed atmosphere. He walked and watched without having to perform combat missions. It was just like a vacation.

Of course, it would be better if the direction we walked was not towards the cold north. After crossing the Tsugaru Strait, we fell into a hard battle with the cold current every day. During the inspection of the coasts of Hokkaido and Liaodong, the sailors really suffered a lot.

suffering.

Through this inspection, the Navy has a clearer understanding of the situation in the areas surrounding the Sea of ​​Japan, and the map data has been updated. In particular, several places that Wang Tom has been interested in for a long time, such as Vladivostok and Busan Port, this time

You can see everything inside and out clearly. There are also places like Luojin Bay that were not originally planned, but became unexpected gains during the inspection process.

Of course, in addition to the harvest, there are still many regrets. For example, I was unable to land on Sado Island to inspect the gold and silver mines on the island; when I arrived at the Soya Strait, due to various considerations, I did not continue to go north to visit Tom Wang, who had always been thinking about it.

The Kamchatka Peninsula and the Bering Sea; the inspection of Vladivostok ended in disappointment with the local environment.

"It's enviable! I have spent more than two months on nearby construction sites!" After listening to Wang Tom's inspection experience, Qian Tiandun sighed with a wry smile: "This is probably the case in recent years.

This is the most boring winter ever!”

Wang Tom knew what Qian Tiandun meant and responded with a smile: "Next time it's your vacation, I'll take care of it."

The construction sites Qian Tiandun mentioned refer to the large-scale projects in the lower reaches of the Datong River that were constructed in cooperation with the North Korean government. Saltworks, iron mines, coal mines, lumberyards, shipyards... any one of these industries can be mentioned.

It is a big deal, but the scale of the corresponding infrastructure projects will naturally not be small. Due to North Korea's serious lack of funds, the progress of these projects has not been smooth.

However, after Li Zhen came back from Sanya to take over the throne last year, he has clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with the slow progress of these projects. Therefore, North Korea dispatched a large number of civilian workers to these construction sites in the Datong River Basin this winter, hoping to take advantage of the winter farming slack season as soon as possible.

The infrastructure part will be completed and put into operation one after another after the spring.

Wang Tom left the base with the Haihan fleet and stayed away for more than two months. Therefore, the important task of coordinating these projects with North Korea could only fall on Qian Tiandun's shoulders.

Being a supervisor on a construction site is certainly not an interesting job. North Korea is in a hurry to rush to work. Qian Tiandun needs to face and deal with a lot of matters every day. Naturally, he will not have any holidays in these two months.

Of course, Wang Tom had discussed the division of labor with Qian Tiandun before setting off, so these complaints were just a joke.

Qian Tiandun said: "I'm afraid that you plan to go away again next winter, so I won't be able to leave even if I want to."

Wang Tom shook his head and said: "We won't go to the north for now. The environment there is really difficult. We have to be fully prepared before taking that step."

Wang Tom plans to explore the route from the Bering Sea to the North American continent. He has already told Qian Tiandun. Qian Tiandun has reservations about this. He believes that with the current development speed of Haihan, there is no need to rush to cross the border.

The Pacific Ocean should instead be based on the East Asian continent, gradually develop southward and westward, and control various strategic locations and resource producing areas.

Even if there are conditions to open up the Pacific route, in Qian Tiandun's opinion, the form is greater than the actual meaning, because with Haihan's development model, there will not be many resources allocated to a place thousands of miles away, completely isolated from the East Asian continent, where

Building a colony will hardly help Haihan. Instead, it will most likely lead to separatism and independence after local self-sufficiency is achieved.

Therefore, Qian Tiandun does not support Wang Tom's ambition, but he will not object outright. After all, the two have been partners for many years and have a close personal relationship. He can generally understand Wang Tom's obsession with sailing. If he does not let

If he makes these large-scale navigation plans, it is very likely that he will directly resign from the position of naval commander and become a full-time navigator.

Now that he heard that Tom Wang himself had given up his plan to explore the northern route, even if it was only temporarily, Qian Tiandun breathed a sigh of relief. If Tom Wang really did this, it would definitely take more than two days.

It has been three months, and it may disappear for more than a year. This will definitely have a great impact on Haihan's troop deployment in Northeast Asia.

Qian Tiandun said: "In the two months since you have been out, the military expenditure has been more than our previous operations to sweep the Liaodong coast. If you go through such trouble again, I don't think the Executive Committee will approve it."

Tom Wang shrugged and said: "At the worst, it can only be turned into a private event. I will send out the ship, materials, and funds to organize the people myself. The executive committee can't find fault, right?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and did not continue to argue with him. He also knew that Tom Wang was just talking a few words, and he could still distinguish the priorities. If you have to argue about the right and wrong in this kind of thing, then you will only

It hurts the friendship between brothers.

Of course, with Tom Wang’s ability, it shouldn’t be a problem to organize a private fleet to do what he wants to do. But due to his responsibilities, he definitely can’t do whatever he wants like ordinary people and play tricks like abandoning the stall and leaving.

.

"In the past two months, has there been any movement over the Qing Dynasty?" Of course Wang Tom also wanted to be concerned about the results achieved last winter.

"So far, there has been no reaction at all. I think it was our sap that knocked the opponent unconscious." Qian Tiandun said proudly: "According to the information we have, the section from Jinzhou to the Yalu River

About 80% of the population near the coast was taken away by us in the last operation. This means that most of the more than 400 miles of coastline will become no man's land. I think the remaining population will be full.

Qing Dynasty will not let them continue to live in their original place."

The sweep operation against the Liaodong coast a few months ago was more thorough than in the past few years. The special operations group sent a considerable number of troops to land and conduct a net-like encirclement and suppression of the villages and towns along the coast, regardless of Manchu or Han people.

Capture them first and then talk about it. The slow response of the Qing army made it basically impossible to take any measures against Haihan's bold move. By the time the Qing army camp in Daheishan got the news, Haihan had already wiped out all the places where he could move.

Once again.

This kind of large-scale population plundering operation was usually used by the Manchu Qing Dynasty on the Ming Dynasty, but Haihan used it equally skillfully. Those who resisted were killed, and those who obeyed were captured. In short, no population was left where they passed, and the place was wiped out.

It has to be clean.

Although this did not cause direct harm to the Qing army, it would greatly increase the supply pressure on the Daheishan garrison. For the Qing army, the land passage from Shenyang to the Daheishan front line was equally unsafe.

It can travel along the coast of the Liaodong Bay side of the Bohai Sea, and this is completely within the attack range of the Haihan Army.

Whether it is to move immigrants to the east coast or to increase the transportation of supplies to the west coast, it will be a great risk for the Manchus. The only way to solve this problem is to disperse and station more troops along the long coastline.

, in order to respond promptly to the elusive Haihan Army.

But this means that Chen Bing's strategy on the front line of Daheishan can no longer maintain the strategic balance between the two sides. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties can only mobilize more troops to deploy to the Liaodong Peninsula, extending the defense line that was only a few miles wide to hundreds of miles. .But even if you do this, you may not be able to achieve the desired results. How many troops need to be deployed to form an effective defense for such a long line of defense, and how many supplies are needed to support such a large number of troops deployed for a long time. These will all become problems for the Qing court. A headache.

Perhaps it is precisely because of so many difficult-to-solve problems that the Manchu and Qing dynasties have not made a clear response to the current situation. Perhaps they will have to wait until spring before the Manchu and Qing dynasties will make adjustments to their deployment in Liaodong.

Wang Tom asked again: "How about the resettlement of the people we took back?"

Qian Tiandun said: "Except for a few young children, more than a thousand Manchus were all sent to Fushan to mine. If the output of Fushan copper mine can increase significantly this year, we will also have a share of the credit. The remaining thousands After being reviewed, some of the Han people were resettled nearby in Jinzhou, and some were transported to the south, probably to Taiwan Island to reclaim wasteland."

Wang Tom nodded and said: "After the troops have rested for a while, we will go to the shore of Liaodong Bay to see if there is any more wool to harvest. This kind of operation has been done several times a year, so Huang Taiji is probably not in the mood to stare at it anymore. The Ming Dynasty in the south."

Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "You are quite thoughtful. You come here several times a year. You must know that the Qing army went south to collect the Ming Dynasty's wool, which usually only happened once a year."

Wang Tom said sternly: "The Qing army went to the Ming Dynasty and brought back at least tens of thousands of people. We can't compare with this efficiency. I think if we move more frequently, the Qing Dynasty will probably have a linkage reaction. Daming will recover the losses."

"You mentioned the Ming Dynasty, but there is a new situation." Qian Tiandun rummaged around on the table, and finally pulled out a page of paper and handed it to Wang Tom: "This is the intelligence sent by the Military Intelligence Bureau a few days ago, and it has been confirmed. When the Qing army went south to attack the Ming Dynasty border last year, well-organized firearms troops went into battle, and the weapons used were not those brought by the previous Dengzhou rebels."

"Is it a weapon made by the Hirado clan?" Wang Tom already guessed it as soon as he heard it. He made a guess while reading the contents on the paper.

Qian Tiandun nodded and said: "It's very possible. I have already informed the Ming Dynasty and asked them to send the captured Qing army weapon samples to Jinzhou for inspection. It is estimated that there will be a conclusion soon."

Wang Tom said: "I passed by Hirado Island this time, and I went to the island to take a look. There are basically no signs of recovery there. I think that even if the Hirado clan still has the ability to manufacture arms, there should be no stability in the short term. The production capacity was supplied to the Qing army. Therefore, it is very likely that the Manchu Qing Dynasty has obtained the production technology of these weapons and achieved mass production."

"That depends on the definition of mass production." Qian Tiandun responded: "The weapon manufacturing technology they can get from the Hirado Domain is actually very primitive. It can only be completed by hand, and the production efficiency will not be very high. , the production capacity is not enough to be installed in the military on a large scale."
Chapter completed!