Chapter 40: Fishermen and Pirates of the Gulf of Tonkin

Soon, Bei Kai also saw what was happening on the sea: a large dragger fishing boat was fleeing on the sea. Several boats were in hot pursuit behind it, firing flaming rockets from time to time, and letting out savage yells and the sound of gongs and drums. The sail of the fleeing dragger had already been partially burned, and one of its masts had fallen. Someone was desperately rowing with an oar.

“They’re robbing a fishing boat,” Zhang Da-bala said. “It’s nothing! They’re just some local half-fishermen, half-bandits! They don’t even have cannons. They can’t do anything to us.”

Yan Maoda had also come up to the poop deck to watch the excitement—he was holding a telescope. At this moment, the fleeing boat, perhaps having seen them, actually turned its bow and charged towards them. A flag was also suddenly raised on its mast.

Before Zhang Da-bala could speak, Yan Maoda suddenly shouted:

“Bei Kai! Look and see if the fishing boat is flying the Lingao flag!”

Bei Kai quickly took the telescope. Sure enough, the flag raised on the dragger’s mast was a triangular fishing flag—this was the sailing flag issued by the navy to fishing boats registered in Lingao. In the past, the effectiveness of this flag was only in the vicinity of Lingao, but now it had been extended to the entire Qiongzhou Strait. Fishing boats without a fishing sailing flag were the targets of expulsion and capture by the coast guard.

“That’s right!” Bei Kai became nervous. “They must have seen the Lingao flag flying on our mast…”

Currently, Lingao had not yet designed a merchant flag, so the merchant ships of the Great Wave Shipping Company also flew the Lingao naval flag.

“Just in time!” Zhang Da-bala, being a former pirate, was naturally attracted to scenes of fighting and killing. Now that he had such a good ship—as the saying goes, with a sharp weapon in hand, the thought of killing arises. He was quite eager to try.

However, he still remembered that his mission was to escort the leaders to Hon Gai, so he glanced at Yan Maoda.

“Leader, what do you think—”

“Save them, of course we have to save them!” Yan Maoda said with great righteousness. “This boat has paid taxes to us, so it should be protected.”

“Alright!” Zhang Da-bala rubbed his fists. He didn’t understand the reasoning, but he knew they could start fighting. He immediately shouted, “All hands, prepare for battle!”

The marines, with loaded guns, took up commanding positions on the ship’s rails and the poop deck, watching the fishing boat that was fleeing towards them at high speed. Although they had decided to rescue the other party, they did not rule out the possibility of a trick. Pirates in the South China Sea often used the tactic of feigning distress to lure larger and faster ships into letting down their guard, and then launching a surprise attack when the two ships were close.

The fishing boat did not come directly alongside but fled towards the stern of the Zhennan. Zhang Da-bala howled, “Left rudder 15 degrees!” The hull of the Zhennan began to slowly turn, presenting its broadside to the pursuing boats.

The few small boats in pursuit saw a “Cheng Yaojin” (an unexpected intervener) appear out of nowhere—a large ship had actually placed itself between them and their prey. Their speed immediately slowed down. It seemed the pirates had not expected the large ship to suddenly intervene. After a few minutes of hesitation, the small boats immediately dispersed, seemingly preparing to attack the large ship from multiple directions.

“Fire!” At Zhang Da-bala’s command, the “typewriter” immediately made a huge noise, and the poop deck was instantly filled with smoke. A fierce tongue of fire spewed out from the square directional frame, and the sharp roar of the typewriter drowned out all other sounds. Wood chips mixed with flesh and blood flew everywhere on the pirate boats.

“Load the drum!” the machine gunner shouted. A hot drum was pulled out and fell into a basket filled with sand. Two sailors quickly lifted a second drum and inserted it into the gun mount, helping the gunner to push it into place and lock it—this behemoth was not light.

The muzzle of the typewriter, mounted on a universal joint, turned and poured bullets into a second pirate boat. In its first combat, the gunner couldn’t control the firing rhythm well, and each time he emptied all the bullets into one boat before stopping. It wasn’t until all eight drums were empty that everything returned to silence, with white smoke curling up from the heated barrel.

The four small pirate boats that had been chasing the fishing boat were now motionless on the sea. Zhang Da-bala carefully watched the now quiet pirate boats. The sailors around him were also watching—it was their first time using a typewriter in combat, and no one knew what the situation was on the other side. Should they continue to attack?

Zhang Da-bala looked at Yan Maoda. Yan Maoda looked at the opposing boats with his telescope and ordered, “Organize a boarding party! The enemy is finished.”

Seeing the large ship approaching, some people on the small boats began to jump into the sea.

“Don’t let a single one escape!” Yan Maoda ordered.

The marines immediately began a precision shooting competition, firing at the people swimming in the sea, killing them one by one, until there were no more heads on the surface of the sea.

The Zhennan carefully approached one of the pirate boats. These boats were all very small, the largest being only about fifty or sixty tons. From their high vantage point, they could see that the deck of the pirate boat was already a bloody mess, covered with incomplete torsos, limbs, and scattered pieces of flesh and corpses. The boarding party jumped onto the enemy boat and searched around, only finding a few stunned captives below deck. On two smaller sampans, there were no living people at all. In the end, they gathered 5 captives, all of whom were trembling and瘫软 (limp/paralyzed) on the deck. Looking at their appearance, they were all wearing the black trousers and jackets common to fishermen in this area, in rags, with dark faces. It was impossible to tell anything from their appearance.

Zhang Da-bala ordered the sailors to throw the corpses from the pirate boats into the sea and to wash the blood-soaked decks with water. One sampan was severely damaged in the strafing and was simply scuttled. Apart from the boats, there were no noteworthy spoils of war, only a dozen or so baskets of fish and shrimp. The weapons were mainly low-quality cold weapons; they didn’t even have the matchlock guns that were quite common in Southeast Asia. This confirmed Zhang Da-bala’s statement that this was a group of part-time pirates who were half-fishermen, half-bandits. It was possible that they were just robbing on the sea on a whim.

“What about these captives?”

“Keep them. Wash them well and take them below deck.” Yan Maoda thought that these people could serve as the first batch of miners.

As they were talking, the dragger fishing boat came alongside.

“Where are you from? What happened?” Zhang Da-bala leaned out and asked loudly.

“Leader—” the people on the dragger began, which clearly indicated that they had been to Lingao.

“I’m not a leader, you can just call me Old Zhang!”

“I am a fisherman from Haikang! I came to this area to fish! I didn’t expect to encounter these pirates,” the person on the boat said loudly. “Manager Zhang, your great kindness…”

“Cut the crap!” Zhang Da-bala was not interested in this. “If you weren’t flying the Lingao flag, I wouldn’t have bothered to save you!”

“Yes, yes…”

Zhang Da-bala waved his hand, “Show me your token!” The owners of boats who applied for a fishing permit in Lingao, in addition to receiving a sailing flag, also received a special hardwood token, branded with a special number and anti-counterfeiting pattern, for inspection purposes.

The token was sent up to the ship. Yan Maoda glanced at it. It was correct. This kind of token was specially processed in the woodworking factory, and the branded anti-counterfeiting mark and the font of the numbers could not be easily imitated by native craftsmen. He immediately instructed Zhang Da-bala to copy down the number. After returning to Lingao, a report would be written and submitted to the coast guard for their records.

“Let them go. Why don’t they fish in groups when they come here?” Yan Maoda said. “The security in this area is very poor!”

“Master, they were alone this time,” Zhang Da-bala said with a smile. “If they had been more numerous, it’s hard to say who would have robbed whom.”

“That’s true.” Yan Maoda nodded. Everything in the South China Sea was chaotic and disorderly. “But since they have paid taxes to us and fly our flag, we should stand up for them. We can’t just collect money and not care about their lives.”

“The leader is right.” Zhang Da-bala nodded in agreement. In his view, as long as one had power, one could collect money. As for whether one had to protect others’ safety after collecting the money, he had never thought about it—he had no concept of “serving the taxpayers.” Zhang Da-bala couldn’t quite understand the leaders’ way of thinking, he only knew one thing: the leaders were smarter than him. He felt that knowing this was enough.

From this incident, Yan Maoda had a new idea. Since the fishermen of Hainan Island and western Guangdong, in addition to fishing in the Qiongzhou Strait, also often came to the Gulf of Tonkin to fish—this source of revenue should not be abandoned. In the 21st century, the Gulf of Tonkin was also an excellent fishing ground. Fishing was now the main source of protein for the transmigrator group. In addition to the fishing fleet directly controlled by the navy, the “five-one” fishing tax collected from fishermen was also an important source of fish.

Currently, the scope of the “five-one” fishing tax was limited to the Qiongzhou Strait. If the system of collecting the “five-one” fishing tax was extended to the entire Gulf of Tonkin, the income from fishing would be ten times, even a hundred times greater. They could also organize fishing production cooperatives and organize Lingao’s fishing boats to come to the Gulf of Tonkin to fish in groups. Not only would it be easy to achieve economies of scale, but the navy could also organize escorts—and even if they didn’t organize escorts, it wouldn’t matter. They could teach them some of the tactics of fishermen from the old world, and they would surely beat the “monkeys” (Vietnamese) until they were bleeding from all seven orifices. There were no large pirate groups in the Gulf of Tonkin; it was basically a blank slate. It would be relatively easy for the navy to extend its hand here. If necessary, the organized fishermen could also be an auxiliary force. For the transmigrator regime, which was in urgent need of rice, timber, and coal from Vietnam, control of the sea in the Gulf of Tonkin was a must.

Yan Maoda was lost in thought—he would have to submit this proposal to the Executive Committee when he got back.

“Leader—” Zhang Da-bala saw that he was lost in thought and prompted him.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“What about those boats?” After the pirates were eliminated, they were left with two usable sampans and one fishing boat.

“Take them with us. We will also need boats when we get to Hon Gai.” It was a good start to have people and boats delivered to their door before they even landed.

Zhang Da-bala immediately instructed a few sailors to go down and pilot the fishing boat. The sampans were towed directly behind the large ship.