Chapter 841 Continue heading north

Haihan did not have too many concerns about the coalition forces' operations in Zhejiang waters that lasted for many days, but Xu Yuzhuo and the Ming army led by him were more sensitive. If their identities were exposed and the local officials took advantage of them, there might be some consequences in the future.

Trouble has come to your door. The coalition forces have been delayed here for more than three days, and their whereabouts must have been inevitably exposed. However, the people and pirates who have been in contact with the coalition forces are temporarily under control, and the government and people on the mainland are probably

We still haven't figured out the origin of this sudden armed force, but if we continue to stay, I'm afraid this identity won't be concealed for long.

Originally, the coalition forces planned to leave Wenzhou Bay and head north the next day, but the two ships of Ming troops rushing to Yandang Town in Yueqing did not return to the assembly point in Wenzhou Bay until the afternoon of the next day, a full two or three hours later than expected.

.According to the account of the officer leading the team, this mission did not go as smoothly as expected.

After the two ships arrived at Yandang Town last night, they went ashore in the dark and headed for the Yueqing Ship Gang's home base. This group of pirates almost went out for the one hundred thousand taels of silver, and only a few old, weak, sick and disabled people were left behind.

, the wolf-like Ming army cleared these people without much effort. But what they didn't expect was that all the silver stored in the Yueqing Ship Gang's secret location was actually cast into silver winter melons, each weighing hundreds of kilograms.

Coupled with the round and smooth appearance, it is extremely inconvenient to transport.

This method of storing silver was passed down from the north. In order to prevent their silver from being stolen, rich people cast it into melon shapes and buried them in the cellar. In this way, two or three beetles would definitely not be able to steal the heavy silver melons.

It was taken away. Such a method of storing money is rare in Fujian. The officer sent to retrieve the treasure was dumbfounded. In the middle of the night, he could not find any equipment such as ropes or sticks. He even looked for a flatbed truck.

If you can't, you can only carry it to the ship with your hands and shoulders and rely on manpower.

But the little intelligence of the three leaders of the Yueqing Ship Gang was probably used in hiding the silver. This bank is two miles away from the shore, and it is located on a hillside, which greatly increases the number of people hiding money.

The difficulty of moving the silver is reduced. The only good thing is that the place where the silver is buried is not in Yandang Town. Otherwise, these people will be so troubled in the middle of the night, which will definitely attract the attention of the outside world. Even so, these dozens of people are too tired to carry out the task.

It was so frustrating that I dug and moved it at the same time. It was not until dawn that I moved all the silver winter melons in the secret bank onto the boat.

This night's hard work was not in vain. A total of thirty-two silver winter melons were brought back, and the total value was nearly two hundred thousand taels of silver. This also shows that these people had a pretty good life as pirates in Yueqing. According to both parties

The original agreement was that Xu Yuzhuo would give all the money to Haihan as a fund and reward for this temporary operation.

This operation was not part of the coalition's original plan, and military expenditures were naturally unplanned. Although there was a huge disparity in strength between the two sides, the coalition invested almost everything in the final battle in order to be able to win the battle quickly and ensure that no fish slipped through the net.

All the combat personnel and ships were at full firepower when bombarding the pirate fleet, and the consumption was not small. In addition to the several days that the entire coalition fleet was delayed here, the cost of Haihan's two thousand people,

As well as the combat rewards after the war, it is not a small amount after all.

However, Qian Tiandun thought it would not be good to just accept everything as ordered. After all, the Ming army also sent troops in this process. In the end, even the menial work of digging out the bank was done by the Ming army.

If Tang doesn't leave any money for others, then when the two sides cooperate on the battlefield again, the Ming army may not continue to do their best to provide support. After the two sides were polite to each other, Haihan took 70%,

The Ming army gained 30%, and the commanders of both armies issued commendation orders to their subordinate troops. The morale of the coalition forces was once again boosted.

After nightfall that night, the coalition fleet left Wenzhou Bay one after another and continued northward. A few logistics ships carried pirate prisoners captured in the past few days, as well as some fishermen on the islands where the coalition fleet docked during the operation, and headed south.

Return to Fujian. The reason why the fishermen on the island were also taken away was mainly because they were worried that the news would leak out too early. Especially since the identity of the Fujian navy was relatively sensitive, they had to cover it up for as long as possible.

Going north from Wenzhou, we enter the territory of Taizhou. Taizhou borders the East China Sea to the east, Wenzhou to the south, Shaoxing Prefecture and Ningbo Prefecture to the north, and Jinhua Prefecture and Chuzhou Prefecture to the west. The terrain of Taizhou is mainly mountainous, with Yandang Mountain to the south.

As a barrier, there are peaks such as Dalei Mountain and Tiantai Mountain in the territory. Misielang, the main peak of Tiantai Mountain, the highest peak in eastern Zhejiang, is located in Taizhou. Yueqing Bay, where the Yueqing Ship Gang is hiding, belongs to Wenzhou in the west toward the mainland, and Chumen in the eastern half

The peninsula and Yuhuan Island are under the rule of Taizhou.

Taizhou has a long history and had an official administrative seat as early as the pre-Qin period. However, it was not until the fifth year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty that Taizhou was named after the Tiantai Mountain in the territory, and it has been used ever since.

Taizhou's coastline is more than a thousand miles long, with 12 island groups and nearly 700 large and small islands offshore. The maritime situation is also very complex. Although there is no pirate gang on the scale of the Yueqing Ship Gang, there are two or three ships like the one the Song brothers were on before.

There are quite a few small pirate gangs.

The coalition fleet's combat ships, logistics ships, and the merchant fleet used as bait are nearly a hundred ships in size. If such a large mixed fleet moves together, it is difficult not to attract the attention of the officials in the offshore areas. Therefore, in Shi Diwen

Under the suggestion of the United States, the combined fleet was still divided into several parts. The merchant fleet traveled along the coastal route. A few nautical miles east of it were small and medium-sized warships. The largest tonnage of the "Enterprise" and the matching frigates were

The logistics supply ship maintains a route about thirty to forty nautical miles offshore to reduce the chance of being discovered as much as possible, because the ship's appearance is indeed too obvious, and it will be difficult to hide its identity once it is revealed.

During the coalition operation in Wenzhou, the "Enterprise" only appeared in the final battle. At other times, it was as concealed as possible in order to prevent future opponents from predicting the existence of this killer weapon. After arriving at the end,

Before arriving at the destination of Zhoushan Islands, the "Enterprise" will follow this principle and try to minimize its appearance in public.

The fleet encountered pirates again when passing by Dachen Island. These two islands are very similar to the battlefield in Wenzhou the day before. They are also two islands facing each other, one in the north and one in the south. Together they are called Dachen Island, also known as Dongzhen.

Mountain or Dongzhengshan.

From Wenzhou and Taizhou to North Korea, Japanese merchant ships would pass through the waters near Dachen Island and use the Taolitou Reef on the island as a navigational sign. In the middle of the last century, Dachen Island was also one of the battlefields of the Ming Navy's maritime anti-Japanese war.

In the thirty-fourth year of the Jiajing period, the Ming Navy was chasing Japanese pirates here. There were also warning smoke piers and strongholds built by the Ming troops who stayed behind at that time. However, by this time, the coastal defenses were relaxed, and the Ming Navy had long been unable to compete.

As was the situation a hundred years ago, troops are no longer stationed on these offshore islands. What were once anti-Japanese outposts have now become pirates' paradise.

There is only about two nautical miles between Upper Dachen Island and Lower Dachen Island. There is actually a group of pirates stationed on each of the two islands. They usually make a living by fishing, but when they encounter a lone merchant ship at sea, they will immediately turn into pirates.

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The merchant ships used by the combined fleet as bait were all in groups of two. The two ships at the forefront happened to encounter the pirates of Dachen Island who were operating at sea. The first ones to discover the target were the people from Dachen Island. After confirming the target

After there were two ships, the pirates who felt they were not strong enough sent a signal and asked the pirates on Dachen Island to come to help.

The crew members on the bait boat had received special training before setting off. When they saw several fishing boats heading straight towards them in the distance, they immediately adjusted their direction to test the other party's intentions. After seeing the other party, they immediately changed direction and tried to cut into their own route.

, the two bait boats immediately turned decisively to the east and fled towards the East China Sea.

If the two ships turned directly to the west and fled toward the Jiaojiang estuary in Taizhou Bay, the pirates might not be able to pursue them, because there is a naval camp at the Jiaojiang estuary. Although there are not many troops, the pirates do not want to provoke the authorities. However,

Since these two ships plan to run to the East China Sea, they have to chase them - there are no docking or sheltered islands within hundreds of nautical miles east of this place. The nearest Amami Oshima Island in Ryukyu Kingdom to the east is only a foot away from Dachen Island.

They were four hundred nautical miles away, and the pirates did not believe that the two merchant ships could escape that far. The two groups of pirates and four ships communicated with each other using simple signals and immediately decided to continue chasing.

Of course, the next development of the matter did not go as the pirates expected. After they chased for more than ten nautical miles, they suddenly discovered that there was another huge fleet on the sea in the direction of the escape of the two ships. Although they could not figure out this

However, it was too late to turn around and escape at this time. The pirates suddenly discovered that unidentified sailing ships appeared from the north and south to attack them.

While turning around and preparing to escape, the pirates hurriedly picked up their weapons and prepared to fight. Their weapons were not much better than those of the pirates in Wenzhou. They were still mainly cold weapons such as harpoons, spears, and waist knives.

There are also cannons and cannons, but with only four or five guns and one or two cannons, their combat effectiveness is simply negligible in front of the coalition fleet.

After the coalition warship approached, they did not try to persuade them to surrender. They directly fired a round of grapeshot from the artillery across the deck, making the pirate ship cry and howl. The pirates never expected that they would hit such an iron plate at their door. They were almost fighting.

At the same time, he has lost the ability to fight back.

After clearing the decks of the four pirate ships with crossfire, the warship slowly moved closer. In order to prevent any survivors from jumping to join the gang, the sailors on the ship stood in a row on the side of the ship and aimed their muskets at the pirate ships.

deck.

However, the pirates were severely damaged and could no longer resist. The people on the deck were either dead or injured and lay down in pieces. Those who were lucky enough to escape the disaster all huddled in the cabin and shivered, not daring to show their heads at all.

The sailors spent half an hour cleaning up these ships, transferring all the survivors who had narrowly escaped to the coalition ships, and then dug through all four severely damaged pirate ships, allowing them to carry the pirates' bodies.

They sank into the sea together with a few seriously injured people. This is not because the coalition forces acted cruelly. Firstly, they wanted to try their best to keep their whereabouts secret. Secondly, these seriously injured people would take up the limited resources of the coalition fleet, so simply disposing of them was the most cost-effective way.

As for the surviving prisoners, after interrogation is completed, they will be handed over to the next batch of logistics ships returning to Fujian. Their future destination will probably be in northern Taiwan, whether it is the mouth of the Tamsui River or the gold mine near Jilong Port.

There are still a large number of labor gaps that need to be filled. These prisoners of war labor force is most suitable for use in gold mines that require fully closed management. Although the number of this group of prisoners of war is not large, Qian Tiandun

It is believed that as the coalition fleet continues to move north, it will encounter more and more pirate forces. When the Zhoushan Islands are captured, at least thousands of prisoner-of-war laborers can be transported to Taiwan Island.

The two groups of pirates on Dachen Island disappeared almost silently into the sea. It was only after a long time that they were noticed by the fishermen in the nearby area. The Songmen Guard garrison responsible for the military defense of this area was sufficient.

It took ten days to learn about the changes that had occurred on Dachen Island. By that time, the coalition fleet had arrived at the Zhoushan Islands and launched operations there. Officials who knew the situation in various parts of Zhejiang began to see the pirate gangs that had appeared in various states in recent times.

The mysterious disappearance is linked to this huge fleet that fell from the sky.

This little episode on Dachen Island only delayed the coalition fleet for less than half a day. After handling the final matters, the fleet continued to move north along the established route in three directions: left, middle and right. Originally, Qian Tiandun wanted to divide the number of points.

A merchant ship entered Taizhou from Jiaojiang and went to Taizhou City to see the local public security situation and business environment. However, Xu Yuzhuo was worried that there would be extraneous matters and urged him to continue on his way north. Qian Tiandun knew that he was afraid that there would be Ming navy personnel in the coalition fleet too soon.

After being exposed, I didn't persist anymore and followed his wishes to continue heading north.

About ten nautical miles north from Dachen Island, you will reach the Dongji Islands, one of the landmarks dividing Ningbo Prefecture and Taizhou Prefecture. The south of the Dongji Islands, composed of 57 islands, belongs to Taizhou waters, and the north is under the jurisdiction of Ningbo Prefecture.

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The first important place to enter the sea area of ​​​​Ningbo Prefecture is Changguo Guard, one of the four famous sea defense guards in the Ming Dynasty. Changguo Guard is located 80 miles southwest of Xiangshan County and 350 miles away from Ningbo Prefecture City. During the Hongwu period, Changguo Guard

The Weishuo City was built on Dongmen Mountain in the south of the county seat. It was repaired and expanded several times during the Yongle, Chenghua and Jiajing years. There were also Shipu, Qiancang, Juexi and other places to guard thousands of households, with thousands of land and water garrisons.

There are so many people - of course, this is just data on paper.
Chapter completed!