Chapter 143: 'Penglai-1631'
“Master, a telegram from the Center,” Fenghua said, emerging from the telegraph room with a telegram in her hand.
Zhao Yingong had just seen off a group of local scholars who had come to the Wanbi Bookstore to buy books. Since Zhang Dai and his friends had visited, the bookstore’s fame had gradually spread, and many scholars had come one after another. Although there were more people looking at books than buying them, Zhao Yingong remained unperturbed. Not only did he not mind, but he also provided free tea and drinks. From time to time, he would even go to the front to chat with people. At first, he rarely engaged in deep conversations, at most chatting about his experiences in Guangzhou and the strange stories of the Australians, to avoid being caught in a literary discussion and revealing his status as a fake scholar.
Gradually, the place began to take on the air of a literary salon. Many scholars interested in new knowledge often came here to read and discuss issues together. Fortunately, Zhao Yingong’s level of attainment in “Western learning” or “Australian learning” was probably unmatched in Hangzhou. When many people had questions, he would offer some guidance and explanation—he didn’t dare to go too deep, partly because the other party might not understand, and partly because he was afraid of appearing too close to the “Australians” and arousing suspicion.
Even so, the fame of Master Zhao Yingong, the owner of the Wanbi Bookstore, as an expert in “Western learning” and “Australian learning” gradually spread. After it spread, almost no one discussed traditional subjects like metaphysics, “qi,” or poetry with him anymore, which was a great relief to Zhao Yingong.
The group he had just seen off were scholars who had made a special trip from Huzhou. Two of them were specialized in the study of astronomy and the calendar. Although their spirit of learning was commendable, and Zhao Yingong was a complete amateur in this field, with all his knowledge being just a dusting of what he had read on forums, he was greatly surprised when they discussed the matter. It turned out that the astronomy and calendar of the Ming Dynasty were not even as good as those of the Yuan Dynasty. The “Datong Calendar” promulgated in the early Ming was just a rebranded version of the Yuan Dynasty’s “Shoushi Calendar.” The Ming Dynasty’s Imperial Astronomical Bureau used the Huihui calendar passed down from the Yuan Dynasty, but the officials in charge only had a superficial knowledge of it and did not truly understand its principles. They were just following the old calendar by rote.
If the official level was like this, then the actual level of amateur enthusiasts was even less worth mentioning. Zhao Yingong briefly talked about the concepts of the Earth, latitude and longitude, and spherical trigonometry, and the two scholars were completely convinced. In fact, Zhao Yingong himself didn’t know what he was talking about; he was just rambling on about things he had read on some history forums about the calendar reform in the late Ming.
Finally, he timely stopped his grand discourse to avoid revealing his ignorance and then recommended a few popular science pamphlets on astronomy, the calendar, and mathematics to the two. He had made a good sale.
“I didn’t know I knew about astronomy and the calendar,” he thought as he took the telegram from Fenghua. Fenghua was both his maid and a cryptographer trained by the General Political Security Bureau, so she could directly handle the codebooks. Therefore, she also handled the work of deciphering telegrams. In some foreign stations, the naturalized citizen intelligence officers were only responsible for receiving messages, while the deciphering work was handled by the Yuanen themselves.
The telegram was from the “Center”:
Tianshui:
Your telegram has been received. Your application has been forwarded to the relevant departments for processing. A clear work plan will be issued within this month.
We believe your proposal to start work on the Fu She is appropriate. According to intelligence, the leaders of the Fu She, Zhang Pu and others, have a deep relationship with Xu Guangqi, which will also be of some help in our efforts to gain the support of Christian Confucian scholars at this stage.
We will request the Grand Library to compile special materials on the background and intelligence of the Fu She, which will be delivered by courier. You will judge their specific value yourself.
The personnel arrangements for the work group to Shandong have been completed. They will depart for Hangzhou in the near future, and you will be responsible for their reception. They will then proceed from Hangzhou to Shandong to carry out their work. Your task is to arrange for the work group to safely travel to Shandong for work; and to use your relationship with the Hangzhou Catholic Church to quickly establish contact with Sun Yuanhua and gain his support for our cause in Shandong. The missionary Nicolas Trigault, who is already in Hangzhou, can serve as the main liaison and accompany the work group to Shandong.
Xu Ke will not return to Lin’gao and will accompany the group to Shandong to carry out military geographical exploration work.
…
After reading the telegram, Zhao Yingong lit a match and burned the decoded message. He drank the “Mount Limu Oolong Tea” served by Fenghua, thinking about the next step of his work. Obviously, the Executive Committee planned to open a branch base in Shandong as well. Although the details had not been explained to him, the telegram from the Center made it very clear—this branch base was to have the support of Sun Yuanhua. The scale was probably not small…
Zhao Yingong had already obtained letters of introduction to Sun Yuanhua, Xu Guangqi, and other important figures in the church through his work with the Hangzhou church. Sending a genuine missionary to accompany them should be enough to establish a relationship with Sun Yuanhua.
Of course, it would be even better if the Hangzhou church could also send a core figure to help with the introductions—this person not only had to have a high enough status in the church, but his social status also couldn’t be too low. After all, Sun Yuanhua was a governor. Sending a Xiucai or the like would probably not be appropriate. According to Zhao Yingong’s thinking, the best person would be Zhang Geng, the educational instructor of Hangzhou, but he was currently on a missionary trip with Giulio Aleni in Dehua and probably couldn’t be counted on.
“Quick! Get off the boat! Don’t dawdle!” Huang Ande stood in waist-deep water, wearing a bulky red vest filled with kapok—a so-called life vest. On his head was a rattan helmet for sun protection. He wasn’t carrying an officer’s sword, but a Minié rifle with a bayonet attached, the muzzle covered with an oilskin bag.
Before he could finish his words, a series of booming cannon shots came from the sea. Cannonballs, trailing white smoke, crisscrossed over their heads and splashed into the hillside on the shore, sending up clouds of dirt. Some thatched huts were hit and caught fire.
The soldiers, wearing their bulky vests, jumped off the small landing craft and rowboats one by one. They were all wearing these bulky vests, carrying their full gear, holding their rifles high, and clumsily wading through the waist-deep water. When a wave came, a few would be knocked over and float up, struggling helplessly. The sailors in the small boats nearby, serving as lifeguards, would quickly pull them up and take off the blue armbands from their arms—they had “drowned.”
“Quick, head for the shore!” Huang Ande shouted, trying to steady himself while encouraging the soldiers and watching the colored smoke signals on the shore. These had been set up by the marine commando team twenty minutes ago to indicate the landing points for the soldiers. Each company had its own landing sector. The sector for Huang Ande’s grenadier company of the 4th Infantry Battalion was called “Yellow-1 Beach.”
Behind them, the crisp crack of rifles sounded from the small boats. A few of the pottery jars on a row of wooden racks on the beach shattered. This was the light infantry company in the boats behind them, firing.
“Don’t miss!” he muttered to himself. Having someone firing behind you, no matter how good their marksmanship, always made the back of your neck feel cold.
A few minutes later, the light infantry company commanded by Huang Ande had landed on the beach of Baitu Village and launched a charge. A new model of a large cannon was pushed onto the beach. The gunners quickly loaded and fired, and cannonballs exploded around a sandbag fortification on the hillside that served as a “fort.”
The assault engineers attached to the grenadier company quickly set up a temporary bridge over the trench and blew up the abatis. The grenadiers broke through the obstacles, set up ladders, and climbed the wall in a few minutes. They then threw a volley of grenades, creating a breach.
Ten minutes later, a signal rocket indicating the capture of the beachhead was fired from the dilapidated fort.
“The beach landing was five minutes behind schedule,” said Fu Sansi, the Director of Training, looking at his watch from the bridge of the newly built Type 901 gunboat “Flashing Lightning.”
Zhu Mingxia lowered his binoculars and said, “It seems the naval training is still not enough. Their movements in the water are too slow.”
You Laohu, the infantry battalion commander who had come to observe, said, “The life vests are too bulky. I think it’s better not to wear them. It slows down the landing time. And their movements after landing are very inconvenient. The soldiers’ actions are not fierce enough.”
“If they don’t wear life vests, unless we use landing craft to storm the beach, a large number of them will drown,” Li Di said, shaking his head. “They can just take them off after landing. To be honest, I don’t see the point of this kind of opposed beach landing exercise. There are no enemy forces in this time capable of conducting anti-landing operations.”
“Let’s try to be as comprehensive as possible,” Zhu Mingxia said. “Warfare is ever-changing. We can’t be too confident in our plans. This is about being responsible for the lives of our soldiers.”
The men then began to argue about some details of the beach landing. As an “advisor” and the commander of the special reconnaissance team, Xue Ziliang had not spoken. Today, a detachment from the Special Reconnaissance Command had participated in this exercise, serving as the advance guides and target designators for the landing force. The young men had done well, with a bit of the flavor of a Marine Force Recon team.
Baitu Village, which had been emptied by the Lin’gao masses, had been desolate—only used as a backup port for the navy’s fishing fleet. But today, it was shrouded in the sound of cannons and guns. Dozens of ships of all sizes, flying the Morning Star flag and the naval ensign, were anchored offshore. Single-masted patrol boats, large and small landing craft, and rowboats shuttled back and forth around the larger ships, transporting personnel and various supplies. The thick black smoke from the funnels of all sizes billowed into the sky.
This was the joint army-navy landing exercise codenamed “Penglai-1631.” Its purpose was to test the joint combat capabilities of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment, the naval task force, and the general logistics department, as a warm-up for the upcoming Operation Engine.