Chapter 280: The Landing

The Fubo, with the smallest displacement, broke away from the formation and sailed at the head. Powered by a diesel engine, it was quieter, more maneuverable, and didn’t spew a constant stream of thick smoke, making it the designated dispatch vessel for the Second Fleet, tasked with reconnaissance, infiltration transport, and surprise attacks.

Following the sea charts drawn by the Haitian, the Fubo carefully navigated, dropping buoys to guide the following ships into Seongsan Bay.

On the deck of the Fubo stood Xue Ziliang, a detachment leader of the Special Reconnaissance Team. Nearly all the detachments under the Special Reconnaissance Team Command had been dispatched. Apart from the direct-action detachment led by Bei Wei himself, only Xue Ziliang’s detachment remained.

Xue Ziliang had long served as an instructor in the Special Reconnaissance Team, so his unit was effectively a training detachment. However, the operational environment on Jeju Island was relatively simple—the Senate held the Joseon army’s combat effectiveness in extreme contempt, not even deigning to grant them the title of “scum with a combat power of five.” It was a perfect opportunity for the training detachment to get some hands-on experience.

For Xue Ziliang, it didn’t matter if the opponent’s combat power was five or one. He had been cooped up on Hainan Island for too long, leading his team on endless marches, climbing mountains, crossing ridges, and swimming across the sea. He was bored out of his mind. He couldn’t pass up the chance for an official mission, so he immediately selected the twenty best-performing members from the training detachment to form the Jeju Island task force.

The Fubo lowered its sails and approached Seongsan under the slow power of its diesel engine. When he was a US soldier, Xue Ziliang had been to South Korea and, naturally, to Jeju Island.

The Seongsan before him was almost exactly as he remembered, only more desolate and quiet. The beautiful beach south of Seongsan was deserted, with only a few small fishing boats overturned to dry in the sun.

There were no hotels, no resorts, and certainly no hot girls in bikinis—although at the time, Xue Ziliang had thought those girls looked very un-Asian. But now, he missed them dearly.

Although he had managed to win over Salina—provoking all sorts of envy, jealousy, and hatred, especially from Xiao Bailang, who, whenever drunk at the farm’s coffee house, would declare his intention to “execute Xue, the scoundrel, and take back the foreign girl”—he had missed out on his share of maids. He was entitled to the maid allowance, of course, but out of consideration for Salina’s feelings, he had reluctantly given up the opportunity.

“Damn it, a single tree or the whole forest, that is the question!” he muttered to himself on the deck. The recent rumors in the South Sea Coffee House about many girls being brought over from Shandong made his mind wander.

“They said they were going to open a Zimming Pavilion branch in Lin’gao, why isn’t it open yet!”

As his mind was wandering, he suddenly heard the lookout shout: “Moving targets ahead, 15 degrees starboard, distance 380 meters!”

Xue Ziliang quickly raised his binoculars, his face suddenly beaming, and he hurriedly adjusted the focus.

In the lens of the binoculars was a group of bare-bottomed young women.

No, strictly speaking, they weren’t truly bare-bottomed, but wore loincloths similar to thongs. Although the sea wind was biting cold, these women had only cloth scarves wrapped around their heads and were draped in something like a cloak made of woven straw. They ran barefoot among the reefs, carrying wicker baskets, their movements as nimble as antelopes.

“Capture them alive!” Xue Ziliang roared unconsciously, drawing suppressed snickers from the soldiers of his detachment behind him.

“What are you laughing at? I bet you virgins have never seen a bare-bottomed woman before!” Xue Ziliang reprimanded.

“Sir! We can’t see…” a soldier who was being scolded said.

Xue Ziliang roared, “Everyone, prepare to land!”

The Fubo closed in on the beach and then lowered two fast boats. These were neither rowboats nor the cumbersome steam-powered launches, but fiberglass motorboats with outboard motors, specially equipped for the Special Reconnaissance Team.

Xue Ziliang was the first to jump into a motorboat. Before the last soldier, who had stumbled to the bottom of the boat, could even get up, the two boats shot towards the beach like arrows from a bow.

Xue Ziliang’s haste to get ashore was, of course, to capture a few women, but his motive was not mere curiosity. Capturing prisoners was the most common way for a reconnaissance team to gather intelligence. He guessed that these nearly naked women were the “Haenyeo,” the female divers who harvested seafood in this area. He had seen their performance in the same spot during his tourist days in Korea and had even tasted the fresh abalone they had caught.

Although the motorboats were fast and the young men of the detachment were well-trained, the distance was too great. By the time the special recon team landed on the beach, the Haenyeo were already five or six hundred meters away, too far to catch even at a full sprint.

“Sergeant! Take a few men and track them in the direction they fled—they must be from a nearby fishing village. Maintain contact, do not open fire without orders,” he commanded the sergeant beside him.

“Understood!” The sergeant saluted, turned, and led four soldiers in pursuit.

“The rest of you, spread out and search the area!”

In Xue Ziliang’s experience, in such a sudden situation, some people would choose to flee, while others would opt to hide. The beach here, with its small woods and many rocks, gave the impression of offering cover, so he was sure some had hidden themselves.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before his soldiers captured five or six half-naked Haenyeo. They cowered, some wrapped in their straw cloaks, others with nothing at all, and walked over barefoot.

The escorting soldiers were all young men. Although Lin’gao didn’t have strict segregation of the sexes, and the female naturalized citizens under the Senate’s rule mostly wore skirts and short-sleeved shirts in the summer, they had never seen women so nearly naked. Although the Haenyeo were of various ages, the sight of bare thighs, breasts, and buttocks swaying before them made the soldiers blush and lower their heads, not daring to look.

Xue Ziliang glanced at them and said with dissatisfaction, “What are you blushing for? All of you, keep your eyes wide open and watch the prisoners! Later, I’m going to ask you how many hairs the prisoners have! Anyone who can’t answer gets no dinner!”

Although the soldiers tried their best to look serious, they couldn’t help but stifle their laughter.

“Take them all aside and guard them.” Xue Ziliang had no time to interrogate them now, and besides, he didn’t speak Korean. A Senator who knew Korean had been assigned as a translator for this operation, and he was still on the flagship.

“Call Admiral Li Haiping on the Zhenyang immediately!”

A soldier carrying a 2-watt radio nearby immediately began to call, and soon got through to the Zhenyang. Xue Ziliang took the microphone and said loudly:

“This is Xue Ziliang on the radio. Over.”

“This is Li Haiping on the radio. Over.” The crackle of static came from the headset, but Li Haiping’s voice was very clear.

“I have landed on Seongsan beach, no resistance encountered. I will now proceed to the beacon tower. Current position 1167. I will fire a signal flare in five minutes. Three bonfires with white smoke will mark the landing beach. Over.”

“Understood. Over.”

“End of transmission.” He said, putting down the headset and ordering his soldiers to carry out their assigned tasks.

The soldiers dispersed and set up three bonfires on the beach. One soldier sprinkled a special chemical on the fires, which produced white smoke—to distinguish it from the black smoke of the local beacon towers.

According to the intelligence from the Haitian, there was a Joseon beacon tower near the landing site—the former Seongsan Beach. Wherever there was a beacon tower, there would be garrison soldiers. Useful information could be obtained from these soldiers, so his first task was to capture the beacon tower and take prisoners.

The beacon tower was very conspicuous—it could be seen from the beach without searching. Xue Ziliang didn’t go himself, but sent a small team. Half an hour later, the team returned with five Joseon soldiers and reported that an observation post had been set up at the beacon tower.

The Second Fleet sailed into Seongsan Bay, its steam engines roaring and black smoke billowing. The H800s, anchored in the Seongsan anchorage, began to lower the small launches they had brought. Four of these launches were equipped with machine guns to serve as patrol boats for the bay, while also doubling as tugboats.

The engineering company was the first to climb down the rope nets from the transport ships into the small boats. Wooden components for a pier, tied to floating barrels, were lifted from the Hexie and placed directly on the sea. Engineers in life jackets quickly attached tow ropes to the pallets, which were then towed to the shore by the launches and assembled by the engineers.

A specially modified flat-bottomed barge was unloaded from the deck of the Hexie. It was equipped with a small steam engine and boiler set to power a pile driver.

Large barrels of pure water for the boilers and coal were unloaded from the coal transport ship, the Haifeng. The engineers on the engineering barge got busy, adding water and coal. Soon, black smoke billowed from the barge’s smokestack, but it would be several hours before the steam engine could operate. Laborers from the Jeju Agro-Reclamation Corps’ direct-action company had already begun to climb down the rope nets from the H800s—each carrying a pack, wearing a rattan safety helmet, and with a machete at their waist. The future Jeju Agro-Reclamation Corps would be built around them as its core.

At noon, the first batch of special recon scouts returned. They had marked several villages on the map. One of them was less than two kilometers from the landing beach—right at the foot of Seongsan. Xue Ziliang looked at the map; it was roughly where the Seongsan Folk Village would be in his time. The scout reported it was a fishing village, and the Haenyeo who had fled earlier were from there.

“The villagers have all fled. We did not pursue,” the scout reported. “We searched the village, nothing suspicious.”

The villagers had fled in a hurry, not even extinguishing the fires in their stoves. The scout reported that the village was very poor. Apart from a small amount of fish, they found almost no grain or valuables, and no livestock.

“Very good,” Xue Ziliang said, satisfied. “Rest up. There will be new tasks tomorrow.”