Chapter 198: Seeder

Due to its remote location and poor transportation, the process of civilizational "assimilation" for the native tribes along the Taitung Coast was extremely slow.

While Dayuan saw all sorts of people rushing in to reclaim land as early as the early 17th century, it wasn't until the late 19th century, over 250 years later, that Yilan in Taiwan's Northeast Cape was formally "taken over" by Manchu Qing Fujian immigrants.

So these natives in Taidong, isolated by mountains and the sea, were historically quite difficult to deal with. Due to a lack of exchange, these natives were more savage, more belligerent, and harder to tame.

Historically, after the Penghu War, when the Dutch were hesitating between withdrawing to Dayuan or Taipei, a Chinese "Kapitan" who rushed over from Batavia gave this counsel: "Jilong and Tamsui are not good anchorage grounds; the nearby savages are fierce and impossible to engage with."

Listen to advice, and you'll have your fill.

The Dutch ultimately found success in Dayuan. Even after the deerskin trade collapsed, the Dutch quickly turned Tainan's white sugar into their flagship product.

Meanwhile, the Spanish, who refused to heed the warning, suffered terribly in Taipei. A place with 3000 millimeters of annual rainfall is no easy place to get by. The heat and dampness, disease, and the never-compromising natives overwhelmed the Spanish, and they eventually withdrew from that territory.

Therefore, the reason the Spanish First Mate mistook these natives charging out from the upper Xiuguluan River for the Kavalan people entrenched around Yilan was simply that these people were far too similar to the Kavalan.

The same savage pig rush pattern, the same attire, even the war paint smeared on their faces with various muds looked very much alike.

However, the two Transmigrators knew perfectly well that these savages who had suddenly burst onto the scene were not the Kavalan. Pan Mingzhong and his group wouldn't have dared to come to Taidong for exploration without first reviewing some native materials. This was the Xiuguluan River, not Yilan; the Kavalan were still 100 kilometers away from here.

So these drifting warriors before them were most likely a Plains Branch of the Amis.

The Amis were the most populous native tribe in the Taidong area, with branches in both the high mountains and the plains. A group capable of mobilizing over a hundred warriors for a tactical assault at a moment's notice certainly couldn't be a small clan.

Of course, none of that mattered now.

What mattered was adjusting their position.

The black gunpowder era had one persistent headache: gunpowder smoke. When there was no wind, or the wind direction was uncooperative, the smoke from soldiers' muzzles would quickly blanket the battlefield, blocking the vision of one side, or both.

And the main battle rifle of the Crossing Faction, the Type 28 Rifle, with its rate of fire far exceeding smoothbore guns, actually amplified this problem. In windless conditions, visibility during test firing would drop sharply after just one minute: the smoke from firing 8 bullets at full speed was very dense.

... In a situation where vision was blocked, the side with inferior weapons would certainly benefit, while the Crossing Army, laden with black technology, would naturally go to great lengths to avoid such a scenario.

Therefore, in the Military's newly compiled infantry manual, the choice of battlefield wind direction had already superseded the need for favorable terrain. That is, when there was wind, the army would rather endure an enemy charging from higher ground than fail to adjust the wind to a headwind or crosswind.

This was precisely the situation the Yuan Dou now faced.

The wind was blowing from the north, from the direction of the Yuan Dou's bow. Today's wind force was weak, only a Force 3 or 4, meaning that if the soldiers opened fire from the starboard, the machine gun nest on the sterncastle would soon turn into an Immortal Palace wreathed in white smoke.

Although by visual estimate, the soldiers on the ship could handle the natives across from them, who dared to guarantee anything in a fight? A certain someone had just been chased into a piss-drenched panic a few minutes ago... So the Yuan Dou was now dutifully turning around.

And the dozen or so dugout canoes that had charged out from the stream, after rounding River Heart Island, had exhausted their charging momentum and were now moving forward solely by paddle power.

"About time, let's fire a few volleys first, yeah?" Lei Jian, lying in the machine gun nest, saw the dugout canoes had paddled within 500 meters and couldn't wait any longer, shouting into the walkie-talkie.

"No rush, wait until we've turned around." Although Pan Mingzhong's three years of military service were spent guarding a coastal defense outpost, he still had this much tactical sense: "Let them get closer; they won't get away!"

To ensure no mishaps, the two Transmigrators were now separated: one controlled the machine gun at the stern, the other held an AK at the bow.

As time passed, the Yuan Dou finally traced a slow circle on the sea's surface, pointing its stern to the north. The natives' dugout canoes had by now also closed to within 150 meters of the Yuan Dou.

Watching the dugout canoes paddling over in a fan formation, and those native warriors ceaselessly brandishing spears, their mouths full of black teeth and faces twisted with ferocity, the weapons on the Yuan Dou finally roared to life at that moment.

The first three volleys completely crushed the natives' rampant momentum. The three volleys fired by 15 crewmen, within half a minute, turned the first dugout canoe, which had already charged within a hundred meters, into a coffin: the chieftain striking a cool pose against the wind was blasted off the bow, the remaining paddlers were a mess of death and injury, the dugout canoe had turned completely broadside, and its hull was filled with fresh blood.

A mere half-minute was naturally not enough time for certain warriors in the midst of a pig rush to change course, so the remaining dugout canoes were still charging, though the various unique vocalizations full of folk custom used for communication across the sea had now become considerably muted.

Another half-minute passed. After another dugout canoe was struck and capsized directly into the sea, the communication sounds drifting across the water finally carried some syllables of panic.

No translation was needed; the noticeably slowing boat speed and the distinctly altered tones were something anyone on the sand ship could sense.

The native fleet was now in disarray; some had already stopped paddling—the enemy had not, like traditional passing Spanish ships or Chinese-style ships, fired harmless iron balls, but had used a strange weapon to instantly defeat two dugout canoes, filling the warriors with terror.

The destruction of the third dugout canoe helped the warriors make up their minds to retreat. Although the nearest dugout canoe had already charged to within less than 30 meters of the Yuan Dou, and a native at the bow had even tentatively hurled a spear toward the sand ship.

Unfortunately, this was from a rocking bow, so the javelin's aim was way off, merely embedding itself in the Yuan Dou's cabin wall. The dugout canoe that scored this "historic point of impact" did not escape smoothly like that submarine of a later era; the next moment, the dugout canoe was riddled into a sieve by the bullet rain at point-blank range.

Seeing the remaining seven or eight dugout canoes begin the flashy maneuver of a U-turn before the enemy, Pan Mingzhong, standing at the bow with his AK, his face already blackened by the gunpowder smoke drifting with the wind, couldn't help but chuckle.

The natives were not Togo Heihachiro, and the dugout canoes were not gunboats in good condition, so by the time the dugout canoes finally completed their tactical maneuver and began their escape toward home, they had paid the price of three more canoes.

"Full sail! Chase them down!" Pan Mingzhong gave the order at this moment.

The sand ship quickly gave chase.

Seeing the five dugout canoes fleeing with loud shouts, Lei Jian, itching with the urge, ignored Pan Mingzhong's curses and ultimately fired 10 rounds from the heavy machine gun—his reason being retaliation for the fright he had just suffered.

Only one of those 10 bullets hit a human body.

Yet that single bullet caused the natives on the dugout canoe to experience, on the spot, the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan: a skewer.

And after Lei Jian had his fun, he got a thorough scolding next.

... Although the soldiers and crewmen on the Yuan Dou were temporarily assigned to the Exploration Team, their personnel files were all with the Navy Department. That meant, when they returned to port in the future, these soldiers would still be under naval administration.

Therefore, when summarizing and reporting this battle example, the Navy would inevitably learn that the Exploration Team had wantonly wasted imported ammunition after the enemy was clearly fleeing...

The consequence following that would be the Navy, having obtained evidence, filing an impeachment against the Exploration Team, which would then have a portion of its import goods distribution cut. This was almost inevitable... On the path to competing for import goods, there are never any friends.

As the saying goes, a moment of pleasure leads to a dog's life afterward; that described the current situation perfectly.

So Lei Jian got scolded. While directing the Yuan Dou in a spirited chase of the fleeing enemy, Pan Mingzhong used the walkie-talkie to curse out a certain Lei a few times.

The pursuit did not end after reaching the vicinity of River Heart Island. As the Yuan Dou slowed down, Pan Mingzhong signaled for the small boat following behind the ship to come alongside, preparing to organize men to board it for the pursuit.

"Is that really necessary? There are only two left, just let them go?" Lei Jian asked, puzzled, watching the dugout canoes that were almost around River Heart Island.

"No, we must let the natives know that we have land battle and pursuit capabilities." Pan Mingzhong said, stuffing magazines into his short vest as he spoke: "Things have already gone this far; we must leave a deep impression on the natives, otherwise the future mine will never know a day of peace!"

With that, Pan Mingzhong climbed down the rope ladder into the small boat.

Easy to come, hard to go. After rounding River Heart Island, the natives' canoes no longer faced a following current, but an upstream current requiring constant zigzagging and turning. And just as they struggled upstream, their pursuers also rounded River Heart Island.

Five minutes later, the natives, battered and staggering from scattered bullets, abandoned the corpses on their boats, jumped from their stranded dugout canoes, and stumbled away, fleeing upstream on their own two legs.

And the five-man team led by Pan Mingzhong, unhurriedly, pulled their boat to the bank and stopped, then began firing at the enemies ahead with a shot here and a shot there, like a cat toying with a mouse.

When passing the dugout canoes, one team member intended to finish off two wounded natives on the shore with a mercy shot, but was stopped by Pan Mingzhong's hand: "Let them fend for themselves."

Of the over 100 natives who had set out, fewer than 10 ultimately escaped into the dense forest—the reason they survived was not because they ran fast, but because the AK in a certain someone's hands did not open fire.

And the reason Pan Mingzhong did not open fire was not mercy, but because he needed these few natives to serve as seeders, as a propaganda team, to spread the terror of the Transmigrators along with those wounded struggling on the stream bank, to reduce trouble in the future.