Great time travel

Chapter 1, In Zhoushan
In the era of sailing ships and smoothbore guns, it was a very risky thing for military commanders to launch a large-scale landing battle across the sea.

Because, if there is a lack of reconnaissance and intelligence, if you rashly land on a distant and unfamiliar enemy coast, then the end is very likely to hit an iron wall or sink into a quagmire.However, it would be very dangerous if the ship was allowed to wander in the coastal waters for a long time, slowly surveying the coastal conditions-often, as long as there is no warning of a storm, tens of thousands of elite troops armed to the teeth can be sent to the bottom of the sea to feed them. fish.

In the long-distance voyage, the almost inevitable occurrence of getting lost on the rocks and falling behind is also enough to make the commander feel like a splitting headache.

Therefore, under such circumstances, the safest specific tactic that the commander can choose is to find a place near the theater with a small population and weak defense before attacking the main target city or fortress head-on, basically without paying any price. Small islands that can be easily seized, and occupied as a springboard for landing operations, relay stations, and fleet anchorages.Then, while scouting the opponent's deployment and mobilization of troops, launch a small-scale tentative attack, and finally find a weak point and kill it with one blow, or even if you find it is really impossible to attack, you can retreat calmly.

Therefore, when the Allied Forces planned the Jiangnan strategy, they naturally selected Zhoushan Island as the springboard for the landing battle and the gathering place for troops.

The Zhoushan Islands are located in the east of Hangzhou Bay, in the vast ocean southeast of the Yangtze Estuary, and are the remnants of the Tiantai Mountains extending northeast into the sea.The islands are generally characterized by jagged rocks and rugged terrain, and there are many deep water sheltered harbors.But also because of the same reason, most of the small islands have limited water sources, and it is difficult to guarantee fresh water supply for a large population... Therefore, although there are many islands in the Zhoushan Archipelago, the options that can be used as temporary gathering places are very limited.

——From the beginning, the springboard target of the Huameng Jiangnan Raiders was very clear, and that was the largest main island of Zhoushan.

For Captain Zhen Huan, who commanded the Li Nationality Mountain Infantry Battalion, the landing battle on Zhoushan Island was not a challenge at all—for the sake of safety, the fleet did not go straight to Dinghai County in the south-central part of the island, but at the eastern end of the island. I went ashore at a beach in Zhujiajian District.

In the eyes of Captain Zhen Huan from the mountains of Hainan Island, the seaside scenery here is much worse than the tropical beaches in his hometown. At first glance, there are ugly gravel and mudflats, and the low hills behind are dark pine forests.However, there is some snow on the clearing by the forest—it was the first time for him and his fellow Li people in Hainan Island to see real white snow, so everyone was very excited to see it, and wanted to step on it a few times .

There used to be a water camp of the Ming army in the local area, which was the legacy of Qi Jiguang's suppression of the Japanese pirates in the past. However, after the Japanese pirates have been subdued for a long time, the coastal defense has gradually become weak, and now it has degenerated to the point where only a beacon tower remains.What is even more surprising is that no beacon was lit until the huge fleet approached the shore... So, Captain Li Huamei ordered a few people with good water skills to be selected, and each of them was rewarded with a bowl of warm water. alcohol, and then jumped into the icy sea water, swam ashore to investigate, the result was very dumbfounding - there was no one in the beacon tower, and it was estimated that they had already gone home for the New Year.

Thus, without encountering any resistance, the Chinese League troops began to land.Under the command of Captain Zhen Huan, a battalion of Li soldiers, carrying heavy bags, climbed off the rope net hanging on the side of the boat one by one, and jumped onto the undulating sampan.Then, facing the slightly salty sea breeze, they shook the oars vigorously together, and slowly approached the deserted beach with a small sampan... There is a decayed wooden trestle bridge over there, and I don't know when it was built.Everyone first fastened the sampan with cables, and then jumped onto the trestle bridge one by one agilely.

It's a pity that this trestle bridge is too old and in disrepair. The unprepared Li soldiers didn't walk a few steps when they heard a "plop" sound. Someone stepped on the decaying trestle bridge and fell into the sea... Fortunately, such a Things happen in every landing exercise, and everyone has long seen it.Soon someone used a long bamboo pole to pick up the unlucky egg that fell into the sea, and the cooking team had already lit a bonfire on the shore to cook ginger soup.

After they all went ashore, the mountain infantry of the Li nationality roasted a bonfire for a while, rubbed a few snowballs out of curiosity, and had the first snowball fight in their lives. The whole team set off to conduct fire reconnaissance around the landing site.

Zhoushan was called Changguo in ancient times. Although the county seat was established in the Tang Dynasty and the population was quite prosperous in the Song Dynasty, the population of Zhoushan began to decline sharply in the Ming Dynasty due to the ban on the sea and the Japanese invasion.During the Hongwu period, the imperial court even destroyed the city of Zhoushan and moved it inward, forcing the people of the entire island to move inland, turning Zhoushan into a barren uninhabited island.Afterwards, although the policy was slightly slowed down, some people returned to live on the island one after another.However, Japanese pirates from all walks of life also set up strongholds in the Zhoushan Islands and plundered wantonly, making the island always unable to develop.It was not until the Longqing and Wanli years that the situation in Zhoushan was basically stabilized, but it had already been hurt—until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the entire island had only about 3 people, so it looked particularly desolate.The mountain infantry of the Li nationality led by Zhen Huan almost searched the half of the island east of Dinghai County, and only found two military strongholds and two villages.

Next, just like the previous landing operation, which was completely fighting against the air, the attack on the Ming army's stockade was still completely worthless.

In the eyes of Captain Zhen Huan, the tenacity of these so-called court officers and soldiers is far worse than that of the natives in Taiwan. After two rounds of bombardment with two light field artillery, one of the villages All the Ming Dynasty military households in the village came out and surrendered. Although the four shells fired by the landing troops did not even hit the stockade... and the Ming Dynasty defenders in the other stockade even rushed to the street. Well, the attacking troops had just appeared near the stockade, and before they had time to organize their formation, the people in the stockade had already frightened themselves, and then they uttered a cry, leaving behind the only rags in the stockade, They scrambled out of the village gate and fled. Even the freshly cooked hot rice on the stove was cheaper. The soldiers of the Li nationality who had trekked across the mountains for a day stunned Captain Zhen Huan who was still gearing up for a while.

As for the two small fishing villages discovered on the island, they dare not resist at all in the face of the "giant pirates at sea" whom they have never seen in their entire lives.Before the advance team ordered to conduct reconnaissance reached the entrance of the village, the local villagers had pushed out several elders and came to "****" with baskets of stinky salted fish and sour radishes.While the people in the village are busy closing their doors, the men are racking their brains to hide what little food and property they have in burrows or haystacks, while the women are smearing stove ashes on their faces, or taking small paths to hide in the mountains... …Obviously, he has experience with such disasters as pirates crossing the border.

So, under the atmosphere of "military-civilian harmony", Captain Zhen Huan held his nose and accepted the stinky salted fish and sour radishes, and then gave the villagers a small bag of candy as a gift in return, and raised a star ring with a red background at the entrance of the village flag, announcing the initial occupation of the island.

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When Major General Sun Yang finally stepped down from his flagship and set foot on the land of Zhoushan Island, a temporary wharf had already taken shape under the hasty work of the engineering troops, and the landing troops had already completed the encirclement of Dinghai County. , to launch an attack.

In the previous raids, the Allies captured more than 100 prisoners of the Ming army, but...these didn't even have the most basic uniforms and weapons. They were all yellow and thin and looked like beggars. Could they be soldiers? , is indeed a rather tangled issue.

Moreover, this number is completely inaccurate-"...Why are there so few people? Zhoushan is also a guard after all, according to the regulations, there should be five or six thousand military households! The rest of the people have fled into the Dinghai County?" Sun Yang asked a little dissatisfied.

"...There are not many people in the city. It is said that since the Japanese plague subsided, the higher-ups have gradually stopped distributing food and salaries to the coastal guards, so they can no longer support so many people. Moreover, there has been little rain in the past few years, and the island's The harvest of the cultivated land is not good, so many military households fled.” His adjutant explained this way.

"...Even if you can't farm the land, don't you still rely on the sea to eat the sea? Isn't it said that the Zhoushan Islands are the largest fishing ground in China?"

"...The remaining military households mainly rely on fishing for their livelihood, but the life of fishermen these days is also difficult! The wooden fishing boats are small and broken, and they are easy to sink in the coastal waters. The natural fiber fishing nets are not durable. If you are not careful, it will break. Even if the fish is caught with great difficulty, and there is no refrigeration technology in ancient times, it is almost impossible to sell it to the big cities to earn a high price... In addition, they have to compete with other fishermen on the island. There are also a group of so-called 'military officers' who are sitting on their hands and enjoying their profits, exploiting and oppressing, and their lives are really miserable, and those who can survive are not bad."

"...It sounds really pitiful!" Major General Sun Yang sighed and shook his head, "...they probably won't be able to survive in this place, and we don't need these people, so let them go to North America Right. You can have as much land as you want on the banks of the Great Lakes. If you want to continue fishing, you can catch river fish and sea fish as you please...First shave their heads and purify them, and then if there is no problem with isolation and quarantine, you can organize immigration!"

After dealing with the issue of the captives, Major General Sun Yang, surrounded by a group of officers and guards, inspected the occupied area.

——Although he has led the fleet to the East for more than a year, he either stayed in Batavia and other Western colonial ports, or stayed in Lingao, Sanya, Penghu and Kaohsiung, which were traversed by the future on the land developed by the operator.Therefore, this was the first time he had actually set foot on the land under the rule of the Ming Empire, and the first time he had seen "the original style of the Ming Dynasty" with his own eyes, so he was somewhat curious.

Then, this traveler with a slightly literary youthful temperament fully felt a kind of indescribable, extreme poverty, dilapidation and numbness.

——These two small fishing villages on Zhoushan Island are all built directly on a gentle coastal hillside in a mess, surrounded by small valleys and terraces. According to the distance from the streams and springs, they were respectively reclaimed into rice fields and springs. Vegetable field.On the beach below, seaweed, kelp and dried fish are drying.Although these fishermen have worked so hard to develop multiple industries, farming and fishing, they are too poor to build a wooden house. At most, they can only live in thatched mud houses with mud walls and thatched roofs, which leak both wind and rain. .In order to prevent the roof from being blown away by the strong wind, many stones had to be pressed on the thatch.Moreover, the house is also damp and muddy. If you sleep in this kind of place for a long time, you will easily suffer from skin moss and rheumatism.

From the perspective of modern people, these two fishing villages are crowded like concentration camps, but they are even more unsanitary - the dirty roads are purely stepped on by people, full of all kinds of rubbish, used as drinking water sources The stream flows directly through the village, and adults and children often defecate in the water as if nothing had happened.The houses of the villagers are also filthy, and the family often only has two or three decent clothes, which can only be worn by men who go out to farm and fish, while women and children can only hide in the house with bare buttocks, terrified through the crack of the door Looking at the foreign visitors outside.

Even the young men who walked on the ridges and beaches, planting seedlings, harvesting rice, and gathering fishing nets, looked sloppy—everyone's hair was covered with annoying lice and fleas, and their clothes were ragged and patched. It was patched again, almost like an old rag with holes in it.

In the village, no matter men, women, old or young, basically all of them have thin faces and gray complexions, showing symptoms of severe malnutrition, and there are many pustules and sores all over the place.Although due to years of physical labor, their hands and feet have thick joints and strong muscles, but this kind of robustness is actually an illusion-years of heavy labor have indeed forced them to have well-developed muscles.But in the case of insufficient nutrition and poor living environment, such excessive extraction of physical strength is actually overdrawing one's own life.

As a result, the veins on their arms are bulging, and their skin is dull in color, lacks luster, and looks very dry.It doesn't feel like it when you're young, but once you hit 30, you start to "pay off" the past years - these people often start to become hunched and sickly in their 40s and 50s , was plagued by chronic diseases such as rheumatism and arthritis.If someone lived to be over 60 years old before dying, it was generally considered to be the end of life.If you successfully live to be over [-] years old, you are fully qualified to be called an old birthday star!
Even the few so-called "landlords" in the village live in tile-roofed houses at best, with slightly rosy faces and patches and holes dotted on their clothes.And the female relatives in their family are also plain-faced and cannot afford any of the cheapest cosmetics.

In a word, when Major General Sun Yang and his team were dressed in shining and gorgeous military uniforms, and the "short-haired officials" with clean faces walked through the dilapidated village with their heads held high, they received countless awe and envious eyes for a while, It is considered by the villagers to be like a god coming down to earth.

However, according to the soldiers from the northwestern part of the army, compared with northern Shaanxi and Henan, where there are thousands of miles of barren land and people eating human flesh everywhere, these poor fishing villages on Zhoushan Island in front of us are already considered the lives of ordinary people. It's a "good place" that is more "well-off"!

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After inspecting dilapidated villages and impoverished residents, and casually throwing a few pieces of candy to those dirty and scruffy children with snot noses, the dispirited Major General Sun Yang had no intention of staying in this place any longer. Leaving the filthy village that smelled like a quagmire or a latrine at the fastest speed, he returned to his flagship, then ordered the fire to be raised and anchored, and sailed to the besieged Dinghai County, preparing to personally supervise the battle.

——Like the attack on the military stronghold on the island, the attack on Dinghai County was nothing special.About [-] mountain infantry of the Li nationality, Japanese security forces and black mercenaries arrived at the predetermined positions outside the city without incident after a long trek through mountains and rivers.Several commanders met for a short meeting, and while arranging for the soldiers to eat and rest, they looked for a high ground close to the city wall with solid soil, and prepared to launch shelling according to the regulations.

On the other side, the three steam warships supporting the battle at sea also arrived in the waters of Xiaowukuishan Island, which is facing Dinghai Harbor.Looking at the so-called "county town" through the binoculars, Major General Sun Yang, who was leaning on the side of the boat, let out a long sigh—this place is said to be a county town, but he thinks it is more like a village or a town or something. The city wall of the city is actually less than three meters high, and the bricks covering the outside have almost fallen off. Its defensive ability is simply an insult to the traditional Chinese fortification technology.He had thought about many ways to attack the city, but it seemed impossible to use it this time.

A moment later, the artillery on the sea and on the land fired together, and the Dinghai City Wall, which had been in disrepair for a long time, immediately fell down.In order to achieve the greatest degree of intimidation, Sun Yang ordered the black troops to serve as siege vanguards, and also ordered them to paint their faces with more colorful paints in accordance with traditional customs, making them look like hell ghosts as much as possible... After that It became very simple. Facing so many black "warriors" who looked like yakshas, ​​the few folks in the city who had weak calves immediately dispersed in fright and hid in their homes shivering.When Captain Zhen Huan led the follow-up troops into the city, every house in Dinghai County was closed. The sound stopped abruptly, as if someone had suddenly stuck his throat.

In less than half an hour, the siege battle was successfully declared over. As usual, the magistrate of Dinghai seized the last minute and hanged himself in the yamen.However, the staff he hired, Qing Ke, and a bunch of petty officials below Dian Shi were all spineless captives, tied up tightly by five flowers, and then escorted to the pier outside the city for interrogation——Sun Yang The major general is already desperate for the living conditions of the Ming Dynasty. Even if the county seat is conquered, he has no plans to move to the county government, but continues to set up the headquarters on the flagship.

At the same time, the squadron that went north to Daishan Island, Qushan Island, and Shengsi Islands to search for traces of Ming navy or pirates sent a telegram to the flagship.It is said that except for a few fishermen who were frightened out of their wits, no armed forces at sea were found on Daishan Island and Qushan Island.As for the Shengsi Islands, they are even more uninhabited. Except for the ruins of buildings that have long been abandoned, there is not even a hair of pirates to be found. They are simply a string of uninhabited islands.

Then, after unloading the Li Nationality Mountain Infantry Battalion, Captain Li Huamei went to the south for a cruise. Instead, he brought a few small broken ships and a group of so-called "pirates" who looked like beggars. It is said that they saw you The "Short-haired master" went north, and came here on purpose... But after some cross-examination, Major General Sun Yang discovered to his disappointment that this gang would only paddle boats around their own island, relying on blackmailing fishermen or fishing by themselves. The cowards who make a living are not even qualified to be guides, and quite a few of them have never even been to the nearest Ningbo mansion...

Generally speaking, the Zhoushan Archipelago at the end of the Ming Dynasty was really desolate enough. With so many dotted islands put together, the total population probably did not reach [-].Many well-known fishing port towns in later generations are simply uninhabited islands these days.Even Liuheng Island in the south of Zhoushan, which was the famous Japanese pirates' lair and private trading port "Shuangyu" during the Jiajing period, is now only a place of ruins, and there are not many houses left in the whole island.

Such a situation has both advantages and disadvantages for the Allied forces-the disadvantage is that, just like the US military in the Pacific War era, it cannot raise any supplies on the spot from the front-line islands; the advantage is that it is also the same as the US military in the Pacific War era , there is no need to worry about the resistance of the local islanders.

In the entire Zhoushan Islands, apart from Zhoushan where Dinghai County is located, Mount Putuo is the most populous place at present... Moreover, Mount Putuo is very close to Zhujiajian Anchorage, which was chosen by Sun Yang as the fleet assembly place. .So the next thing after Dinghai County was conquered was obviously to send troops to crusade against these monks on Putuo Mountain to eliminate all potential unstable factors in the surrounding area.

But which army should be used to attack Mount Putuo?

Taking stock of these random and miscellaneous troops under his command, Major General Sun Yang felt hesitant again.

When I took the mountain infantry of the Li nationality before, I considered their great reputation in the battlefields of Taiwan and Hainan Island, but I forgot that although these tropical mountain people are used to trekking mountains and rivers, they are very bad at fighting in winter-only in the south like Zhoushan Island. The winter in the area has caused serious non-combat attrition in this army. There are countless people with colds and fevers, and frostbite on their hands and feet... at least they cannot be dispatched for a short time.

Those Japanese mercenaries who had just withdrawn from the Kinki battlefield in Japan were not too afraid of the cold.But many of them are devout Christians, and they are used to burning temples and killing monks in Japan. If they are allowed to attack Mount Putuo, the "Haitian Buddhist Kingdom", the consequences can be imagined... Although Sun Major General Yang doesn't believe in Buddhism, but it still feels a bit weird if he personally led a group of Japanese devils to slaughter Mount Putuo.

However, Major General Sun Yang also knew that there were basically few good things in the big temples of the Ming Dynasty, and it would not be wrong to say that if they were to be slaughtered... Before, Oda Nobunaga burned Mount Hiei, and later, the warlords of the Republic of China burned Shaolin Temple. Do you want to have an imitation show, and set up a fire to Mount Putuo for fun?
Standing on the beach of Zhujiajian, looking at the "Sea and Sky Buddhist Kingdom" Mount Putuo looming on the horizon in the distance, Major General Sun Yang, who was thinking about how to become famous, held his chin in thought - if this mountain is really burned If you get up, you will definitely be as beautiful as the sunset!

Fortunately, just when Major General Sun Yang pondered over and over for a long time, and finally couldn't bear to turn the terrifying idea in his mind into reality, he suddenly saw a small light yellow door slowly emerging on the beach, and then A familiar figure walked out of the door...

"...Uh...Comrade Wang Qiu, why are you here? Did something happen?"

"...Ah Choo!...Yes, the plan has changed. The higher-ups have decided to postpone the Liaodong Raider again, and at the same time expand the scale of the Jiangnan Raider!"

Feeling the howling cold wind sweeping across the beach, Wang Qiu, who came to Zhoushan from the heating office through the [random door], sneezed uncomfortably, wrapped his military coat tightly, and then patted Major General Sun Yang over his shoulder and said, "...I'm bringing you reinforcements!"