Chapter 911 – "Penglai-1631"
"Sir, a telegram from the Center." Fenghua emerged from the radio room, a telegram form in hand.
Zhao Yingong had just seen off a group of local scholars who'd come to Wanbi Bookshop to buy books. Ever since Zhang Dai and his friends had visited, the bookshop's reputation had gradually spread, and scholars arrived in a steady stream. More came to browse than to buy, but Zhao Yingong took it all in stride. Not only did he not mind, but he provided complimentary tea and refreshments. From time to time, he'd emerge to chat with his visitors. At first, he kept the conversations shallow—mostly anecdotes about Guangzhou and curious tales of the Australians—to avoid getting drawn into literary discussions that might expose him as a sham xiucai.
Gradually, the place began to take on the character of a literary salon. Many scholars interested in new learning frequently gathered here to read and discuss. Fortunately, when it came to "Western learning" or "Australian learning," there was probably no one in all of Hangzhou more accomplished than Zhao Yingong. When visitors had questions, he'd offer a few explanations—though he didn't dare delve too deep, partly because the audience might not follow, and partly because he feared appearing too closely connected to the "Australians" and inviting suspicion.
Even so, word gradually spread that Master Zhao, the proprietor of Wanbi Bookshop, was an expert in "Western learning" and "Australian learning." Once that happened, almost no one attempted to discuss traditional scholarship with him anymore—the classics, metaphysics, poetry, and the like. Zhao Yingong breathed a great sigh of relief.
The group he'd just seen off were scholars who'd come all the way from Huzhou, two of whom specialized in astronomy and calendar studies. Though their dedication to learning was admirable—and though Zhao Yingong himself was only half-informed on these matters, his entire knowledge being bits and pieces gleaned from forum posts in the old timeline—a discussion with them left him astonished. It turned out that Ming astronomical calendar studies didn't even measure up to the Yuan dynasty's. The Datong Calendar promulgated at the start of the Ming was simply the Yuan dynasty's Shoushi Calendar under a new name. The officials of the Ming's Directorate of Astronomy were using a Muslim calendar system inherited from the Yuan, but the staff grasped only superficialities; they didn't truly understand the underlying principles. They were simply perpetuating the old calendar by rote tradition.
If the official level was this deficient, amateur enthusiasts were even more hopeless. Zhao Yingong spoke briefly about the concepts of the globe, latitude and longitude, and spherical trigonometry, and the two scholars hailed him as a master. In truth, Zhao Yingong himself didn't fully understand what he was saying—he'd merely strung together things he'd seen in historical forum posts about the calendar reforms of the late Ming.
Finally, he cut short his own lecture before he exposed his ignorance, then recommended several popular-science pamphlets on astronomy, calendars, and mathematics. He closed a quite respectable sale.
"Who knew I was an expert in astronomy and calendars," he thought wryly as he took the telegram from Fenghua. She served as both his maidservant and a cipher clerk trained by the Political Security General Administration; she had direct access to codebooks, so telegram decoding was also her responsibility. At some outposts, naturalized citizen intelligence officers only received messages; the decoding was performed by transmigrators personally.
The telegram came from "the Center":
Tianshui:
Your telegram received. Your application has been forwarded to the relevant departments. A definite work plan will be issued within this month.
We consider your proposal to open up work with the Restoration Society appropriate. According to our intelligence, the Society's leaders, Zhang Pu and others, maintain a deep relationship with Xu Guangqi. This may also prove helpful in our current phase of winning the support of the convert-scholars.
Background materials and intelligence on the Restoration Society will be compiled by the Grand Library as a special topic and sent via courier. You may judge their specific value yourself.
Personnel arrangements for the working group heading to Shandong have been completed. They will depart for Hangzhou shortly; you are responsible for receiving them. After that, they will proceed from Hangzhou to Shandong to begin operations. Your task is: arrange for the working group's safe passage to Shandong; use your relationship with the Hangzhou Catholic Church to establish contact with Sun Yuanhua as soon as possible and win his support for our Shandong operations. The missionary Nicolas Trigault, already in Hangzhou, may serve as the primary liaison to accompany the working group to Shandong.
Xu Ke will not return to Lingao; he will proceed with the group to Shandong to conduct military-geographic surveys...
After reading the telegram, Zhao Yingong struck a match and burned the decoded transcript. Sipping the "Limu Mountain Oolong" Fenghua had brought him, he pondered the next steps. Clearly, the Executive Committee intended to open a sub-base in Shandong as well. Though the details weren't disclosed to him, the Center's telegram made clear this sub-base would require Sun Yuanhua's support. It probably wouldn't be small in scale...
In the previous phase, through his work with the church, Zhao Yingong had already obtained introductory letters and correspondence from the Hangzhou Church to important church figures like Sun Yuanhua and Xu Guangqi. Sending a genuine missionary to accompany the group should be sufficient to establish relations with Sun Yuanhua.
Of course, it would be even better if the Hangzhou Church could also send a core figure to help make introductions—someone not only high-ranking within the church but also with respectable social standing. After all, Sun Yuanhua was a provincial governor. A mere xiucai probably wouldn't be appropriate. Ideally, Zhao Yingong wanted Zhang Geng, the Hangzhou doctrine instructor, but he was currently traveling with Giulio Aleni to preach in Dehua. Counting on him was probably unrealistic.
"Move! Off the boat! No dawdling!" Huang Ande stood waist-deep in the water. He wore a lumpy vest stuffed with kapok, dyed red—a so-called life jacket. On his head sat a sun-shading woven-rattan helmet. Instead of an officer's saber, he carried a Minié rifle with bayonet fixed, the muzzle covered with an oiled paper bag.
Before his words faded, a series of booming cannon shots thundered across the sea. Shells trailing white smoke streaked over their heads and threw up sprays of dirt on the hillside ashore. Some grass huts were hit and caught fire.
Soldiers in bulky vests leaped one after another from the launches and rowboats. They all wore the same unwieldy vests, carried full gear, and held their rifles high as they waded awkwardly through the waist-deep water. When a wave came crashing in, several men would be knocked down, floating helplessly and flailing about. At those moments, sailors in rescue boats alongside would hurry to fish them out and remove the blue ribbons from their arms—they'd "drowned."
"Move! Get to shore!" Huang Ande steadied himself against the current while encouraging the soldiers. He kept his eye on the colored smoke signals on shore—set up by the Marine assault team twenty minutes earlier to mark landing zones. Each company had its designated beach sector; the Grenadier Company of the 4th Infantry Battalion's sector was designated "Yellow-1 Beach."
From the boats behind came the crisp crack of rifle fire. On the beach, several clay pots on a row of wooden frames shattered—the Light Infantry Company in the trailing boats was providing covering fire.
"Don't shoot wide!" he muttered under his breath. Having people fire guns behind your back—no matter how good their marksmanship—always made your neck prickle.
A few minutes later, the Light Infantry Company under Huang Ande's command had reached the sand at Baitu Village and begun their assault. A new-model artillery piece was pushed onto the beach; the gunners worked with practiced speed—loading, firing. Shell after shell exploded around a sandbag emplacement serving as a "gun position" on the hillside.
The combat engineers attached to the Grenadier Company quickly laid crossing planks over the trenches and blew apart the abatis. The grenadiers broke through the obstacles, raised their ladders, and scaled the walls within minutes. Then came a volley of grenades, blasting open a breach.
Ten minutes later, a signal rocket indicating the beachhead had been secured rose from the battered fort.
"Beach assault ran five minutes behind schedule." Fu Sansi, the training supervisor, stood on the bridge of the newly completed Type-901 gunboat Chidian and checked his watch.
Zhu Mingxia lowered his binoculars. "Looks like the amphibious training isn't sufficient yet. Their movement in the water was too slow."
You Laohu, an infantry battalion commander observing the exercise, said, "The life vests are too bulky. I'd say don't wear them at all. They delayed getting ashore and hindered movement afterward. The soldiers' actions weren't aggressive enough."
"Without life vests, unless you're using landing craft for direct beach assault, you'd have a lot of drownings," Li Di shook his head. "At worst, they can strip them off the moment they're ashore." He continued, "Honestly, I don't see much point in these opposed-landing drills. In this timeline, there simply aren't any enemy forces capable of conducting anti-landing operations."
"Better to cover all bases," said Zhu Mingxia. "War changes in countless ways. We can't make our calculations too precise. This is taking responsibility for our soldiers' lives."
The group debated various details of the beach assault. As "advisor" and commander of the Special Reconnaissance unit, Xue Ziliang hadn't spoken. Today, a squad from Special Reconnaissance Command had participated in the exercise, serving as advance guides and target designators for the landing force. The boys had performed well—there was a hint of the Marine Corps Force Recon about them.
Baitu Village, emptied by the Lingao-zhong, had remained desolate ever since—used only as a backup harbor for the Naval Fisheries Squad. But today, it was enveloped in gunfire and explosions. Offshore, dozens of ships flying the Morning Star flag and the Navy ensign lay at anchor. Single-masted patrol craft, large, medium, and small motor launches, and rowboats shuttled back and forth around the larger vessels, ferrying personnel and supplies. Thick black smoke poured from stacks of all sizes into the sky.
This was the joint army-navy landing exercise codenamed "Penglai-1631." Its purpose was to test the combined-operations capability of the Northbound Detachment, the Navy Expeditionary Squadron, and the Joint Logistics Command—a warm-up for the imminent Operation Engine.