Chapter 283: The Arrival of Tang Yunwen

Huang Ande briefly laid out the mission: the chief’s determination, the enemy’s situation, and the specific implementation plan. According to the map, there was a fairly large settlement of vagrants in this area, with about forty or fifty shacks within a five-square-kilometer radius. It was estimated that no fewer than one hundred people lived in this area.

Ten men trying to capture one hundred people in such a large and complex terrain was an almost impossible task. But they had two advantages. First, Huang Ande knew the specific location of each shack and the best route to reach it. Second, the distance between each shack was at least two or three hundred meters, and they were separated by many hills, miscellaneous woods, and tall grass. As long as they acted quickly and quietly, they could capture them one by one.

The squad then discussed the action route, deciding to set up a temporary detention point in a more central and hidden location in the action area. After capturing several people, they would be escorted back together to avoid wasting time and energy running back and forth. They also repeatedly checked the communication methods and action signals until they were sure that everyone knew them by heart.

“Alright, let’s go!”

The capture operation lasted for two days, and Huang Ande successfully completed the mission. More than one hundred vagrants were captured, and a batch of production materials and grain was seized.

Wang Ruixiang ordered all the people and goods to be sent to Bairen City for disposal. The captured vagrants, with terrified and bewildered eyes, were tied together in a column of ten and taken away. As for the small plots of land they had reclaimed, they were abandoned because they were too scattered and the roads were inconvenient.

The land confiscated from the Fu Yousan family was, on Wu De’s instructions, first leased to Fu Bu’er for cultivation to avoid it being abandoned. The harvest would be divided according to a four-to-six ratio between the public and the private.

Outside Bopu Port, in the Qiongzhou Strait.

“Is this Bopu?” The voice revealed surprise.

The speaker was about forty years old, with a dark, chapped face, obviously the result of years of exposure to the sea wind. His eyes were very sharp. He stood on the deck of a two-masted fishing boat common in the Qiongzhou Strait, gazing at the distant Bopu Port.

“Yes, my lord,” the person next to him replied in a low, respectful voice.

“You’ve forgotten again!” the middle-aged man, who was called “my lord,” reprimanded with dissatisfaction.

“Yes, yes, master.”

“Do you call a fisherman ‘master’?” The middle-aged man was very dissatisfied with his subordinate’s inability to get it right. “Call me ‘boss’.” He then took out a bamboo tube from under a basket of fish and shrimp, opened it, and a black object slid out. This was one of the rarest things in China at the time—a Dutch-made monocular telescope. It was bought from the Portuguese in Macau. Only a few generals on the coast of Guangdong and Fujian had the advantage of proximity and possessed this rare item. It should be known that this thing had just been invented in Europe less than 20 years ago.

The middle-aged man brought the telescope to his eye, closed one eye as the red-haired man had taught him, and slowly adjusted the lens tube. The field of vision gradually became clear, and he immediately trembled: he saw the fort on the embankment of Lin’gao Cape.

This fort was certainly not built by the Ming army. The middle-aged man was very clear about this. He looked at it carefully. The style of this fort was different from ordinary forts, and it was somewhat similar to the “Western-style forts” advocated by Master Sun Yuanhua. It seemed that the rumors were true!

This man holding the telescope was a person mentioned every day by the military and intelligence departments of the Transmigration Group: Tang Yunwen, the Commander of the Qiongya Land and Sea Forces of Guangdong, concurrently in charge of the Baisha Naval Base, a military commissioner.

From this long title, it was clear that this person was the highest-ranking military officer of the Ming Dynasty on Hainan Island, and all the Ming land and sea forces on the island were under his command. The first battle between the Transmigration Group and the Ming government would most likely be fought against his subordinates.

Tang Yunwen was not late in learning about the arrival of the Transmigration Group. On D-Day, the beacon tower reported to him: the beacon tower of Lin’gao was alarmed, and pirates had invaded. This was not something new: pirate invasions were common in this area, and the garrison was unable to take countermeasures for each one. The strategy adopted was nothing more than “tightly guard the camps and cities, and wait for the thieves to leave on their own.” Therefore, it did not arouse his great attention. More than ten days later, he received a letter of appeal from the Lin’gao County yamen, claiming that a “huge overseas force” had landed in Lin’gao and was currently building a camp there, with the intention of “staying for a long time,” and asked him to quickly send troops to expel them.

According to his duties, he should naturally send someone to investigate the situation on the ground and then decide whether to send troops. But the situation Tang Yunwen faced made it impossible for him to easily send troops.

Tang Yunwen’s title was grand, and in theory, all the land and sea forces on Hainan Island, including both recruited soldiers and the garrison troops, were under his command. In reality, the main force that he could readily deploy for combat was only a little over two thousand men, mainly the navy, stationed at the Baisha Naval Base in the Haikou Thousand-Household Garrison. In fact, “Commander of the Baisha Naval Base” was his real authority. This was the only force he could use for war.

As for the garrison troops scattered throughout the island, they were useless for anything other than barely “pacifying the Li people.”

With a naval force of less than three thousand men, he still had to dispatch a considerable portion to patrol the seas at places like Huichang, Changning, and Yangjiao on the island. And they had to face unprecedented coastal defense pressure. The seas of Guangdong in the late Ming were filled with all kinds of pirates, big and small, including professional pirates, those who were both merchants and pirates, and coastal fishermen who moonlighted. Westerners also appeared from time to time to join in the fun. The Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Dutch traded and robbed at the same time, looking for an opportunity to find a foothold here.

As the saying goes, too many fleas don’t itch, and too many debts don’t worry. Tang Yunwen was completely numb to this situation of smoke and fire everywhere on the coast. No matter how much Wu Mingjin pleaded in his letters, and how serious he made the situation sound—Tang Yunwen remained unmoved.

His gesture was to dispatch two patrol boats to Bopu to check—this was originally the coastal defense system. The sea patrol of the western route of Qiongzhou was supposed to go to the waters of Lin’gao every four days, but in recent years, money and grain had been extremely difficult, and the military pay had never been fully paid—it was barely enough to maintain the force without a war. But the navy’s expenses were huge. Ships needed repairs and replacements; even in peacetime, sea-damaged ships needed to be supplemented. The cost of one ship was much more than the lives of dozens or hundreds of soldiers. Not only had Tang Yunwen not received any new ships for many years, but even the public funds for ship repairs were often embezzled. To ensure that there would be ships available in case of war, he had to reduce the number of sea trips as much as possible, which resulted in the patrol system being completely a formality.

Tang Yunwen could only hope that the appearance of his patrol boats would scare away the pirates—if the other side was powerful and did not take his two boats seriously, he could do nothing. Just as he had been helpless against Zhu Cailao and Zhong Lingxiu in recent years, and recently helpless against Liu Xiang.

After the patrol boats returned, the commander who led the team looked as if he had been greatly frightened. His face was pale and he spoke incoherently, saying that a “big iron ship as high as a city wall” had come to Bopu Bay. Not to mention the official warships, even the largest “carrack” of the red-haired people on the sea looked like a small sampan compared to it.

Tang Yunwen did not believe it. After repeated questioning, his subordinate swore to God and gave a very definite answer. Then he sent his trusted general to investigate. The trusted general returned with a pale face and said the news was true. This surprised him greatly—if the other side had such a large ship, wouldn’t they be invincible on the seas of Guangdong? This group of overseas visitors was obviously not the red-haired people or the Franks he was already quite familiar with. They would not be here just to rob—what wealth was there in Lin’gao that was worth them coming to rob with such a huge ship?

Tang Yunwen was in a dilemma. According to his duties, no matter what this group of people intended to do in the Great Ming, it was highly inappropriate for them to anchor privately and even set up a camp on shore. He should immediately send troops to Lin’gao to drive away this group of overseas visitors. But to send troops, not to mention anything else, who would pay for the expenses of the campaign? It was hopeless to expect the Guangdong provincial treasury. Since the end of the Tianqi reign, when Wei Zhongxian transferred the more than three hundred thousand taels of silver stored in the Guangdong provincial treasury to the capital for major construction projects, the provincial treasury had been empty. As for Qiongzhou Prefecture, it certainly could not afford this money and grain. And there was no need to even think about Lin’gao.

Without money, there could be no war. Even if he had money to go to war, he had no confidence in winning. How to deal with such a tall iron ship? Based on his past experience in dealing with large Western ships, the opponent’s ships were tall and their cannons had a long range. The Ming army could not gain an advantage in either long-range artillery battles or boarding actions. They mostly used fire ships as their main combat method, which often had good results. Now the opponent was an iron ship that was impervious to water and fire. What should he do?

In desperation, he had to ask his advisors for a countermeasure. The advisors chattered, some suggesting sending brave warriors to board the ship at night with grappling hooks, others proposing to make dozens of extra-large “river-stirring dragons” (primitive naval mines) and send small boats to deploy them in the bay…

While they were talking animatedly, one of the advisors said, “Gentlemen, you are all offering strategies to defeat the enemy, but may I ask: where is the grain? And where is the pay?”

The office immediately fell silent. The advisors looked at each other. This was the key issue.

“In the current situation, war is the worst policy,” said the speaker, whose surname was Jiang and given name was Youling. He was a juren and an old hand in officialdom.

Jiang Ruoling’s proposal was: it was absolutely impossible to send troops. Money and grain were one aspect—the opponent had a huge ship, and their strength must be extraordinary. Rushing into battle would most likely result in defeat.

A defeat was difficult to explain. As long as there was no war, there would be no problem of defeat.

As for pirates landing and robbing, this happened almost every day on the coasts of Guangdong and Fujian and was not a major event at all. As long as the county town of Lin’gao did not fall, regardless of whether there was a large iron ship or not, it was just an ordinary pirate landing and robbing.

Anyway, this method of muddling through, deceiving the superiors but not the subordinates, had been used for more than a day or two. Everyone talked about it and still felt that this was the most appropriate countermeasure. So Tang Yunwen simply played deaf and dumb, turning a blind eye.