Chapter 243: The Military Strongman

Although both the Dutch and the Transmigrators were old hands at the slave trade, loading the pirates that night still progressed slowly.

Having only one dock was the critical bottleneck: the cumbersome Dutch ships had to be towed into position one by one, a process that consumed a great deal of time.

But the Transmigrators had to hurry, because there was simply too much follow-up work; if they didn't move fast, the delays would lead to many unnecessary deaths. It must be understood that these captured pirates were, in the eyes of certain people, fine workers, soldiers, and fishermen — we paid good silver for them!

And so, through the efforts of all officers and men, by noon of the second day a total of 3,500 pirates had been stuffed into ten Dutch ships. The Middelburg, the largest by tonnage, alone had 700 men crammed aboard.

There were reasons the Dutch Fleet dared to load its "cargo" at such high density. First, since they had originally come only to participate in a battle with guaranteed logistics, their ships carried only some ammunition and food, leaving many empty holds.

Second, the navigation ships dispatched by the Transmigrators allowed the Dutch to cross the strait at maximum speed — the navigation ships could use light beams at night to guide the fleet along the shortest straight line. It must be understood that the straight-line distance between Jinmen and Dayuan is only 200 kilometers; even at a common speed of 4 knots, the fleet needed only 27 hours to reach port.

The pirates stuffed into the holds would receive no food, only fresh water. It was a short-haul transport anyway; they just had to endure for twenty-some hours to reach shore. Since these men had the strength to swing knives and rob, going hungry for two days was surely no great matter.

After loading the last ship of "cargo," the Dutch cheerfully departed. The Transmigrators, for their part, were just as eager to see the Red Hairs leave immediately, because the focus of work had now shifted to population transfer. Every moment of delay meant some unnecessary attrition among the captives.

On this trip, the Red Hairs had made a fortune. According to the contract, their mission had actually ended the previous night... rounding up routed soldiers was not part of their job. So for this return voyage transporting pirates, the Transmigrators had to pay the Dutch a shipping fee.

The shipping fee was, of course, not paid in gleaming silver. The Dutch had no need for silver; all they needed was a single receipt from the Dayuan Freight Depot — for bleaching powder.

The foul water and maggot-infested bread that pervaded the entire Age of Discovery, almost as much as the galleons with their clean white sails, became iconic symbols of that era.

And when the Dutch saw that this miraculous white powder could actually purify foul water, bleaching powder instantly became a costly luxury, one that only a captain had the authority to decide when to use.

After sending the Dutch on their way, Liu Zhe and the others looked out at the various ships crowding the bay and the vast sea of captured pirates, and had no choice but to begin organizing a second wave of cross-sea shipping.

After the nearly 20,000-strong pirate force was routed the day before, a day and night of roundup had now produced a captive army of over 7,000 on Jinmen Island. And if these people could not be shipped out in time, Jinmen, utterly lacking in infrastructure, would quickly turn into a garbage dump and plague ground, and large numbers of captives would fall ill.

Fortunately, with the collapse of the Pirate Gang, the troop strength on the two blockade lines, previously heavily guarded, could be gradually reduced. So Liu Zhe began recalling the thirty sand ships of the Mawu Water Camp in succession, delegating all capture work within Zhangzhou Bay entirely to the Official Army.

As for the blockade work itself, it was handed over to the two destroyers and the speedboats — the two blockade lines, though seemingly vast, were actually only 10 kilometers across at their widest point, and could be completely sealed with just two or three boats. The moment any group of pirate ships attempted to break through, they would find destroyers racing toward them at high speed from afar.

The Official Army units now swarming through Zhangzhou Bay had also gained confidence: they knew that pairs of high-speed frigates were backing them up, and that if they encountered an opponent they couldn't handle, they could fire a signal firework rocket for help. So now, every man in the Official Army fought with valor and vied to be first.

After the Dutch left, ten sand ships from the Mawei Barracks soon arrived on station.

The next to board were the wounded who had received preliminary treatment, along with women, children, and the elderly. A portion of the pirates had their families in tow; this was especially true of pirates from the coastal Xu Min people, who were pirates when they sailed out and fishermen when they came home — having their families with them was simply the norm, since the authorities forbade them from setting foot on land.

Though these special groups were few in number, the space they occupied was not small: these people could not be packed like sardines in the holds, so they were given the privilege of bunks. Moreover, the high-value women and children also received adequate food and purified water.

Speaking of water, Jinmen actually has none... by the later generations' standard of tap water, that is. Jinmen itself is merely a sea island similar to Dayuan; since ancient times, the fishermen here have survived on rainwater and wells. The local groundwater quality is the same as Dayuan's: brackish.

Jinmen's drinking water problem was not thoroughly solved until the later year of 2018: the mainland used nodular cast iron pipes to bring tap water to Jinmen County... an exemplary instance of KMT-CPC cooperation, one must say.

The Transmigrators did not drink Jinmen's brackish groundwater. After Liu Zhe established his temporary base camp here, he quickly dispatched flat-bottomed water-collecting ships, responsible for fetching water from the mainland 10 kilometers away.

At the same time the water-collecting ships were sent out, an emergency water purification device was also put into operation. This was a common later-generation shipboard reverse-osmosis membrane seawater purification unit. Since it only needed to purify the brackish water pumped from the wells, the unit worked very efficiently, achieving an output of 4 tons per hour.

These water-collecting methods barely sustained the first wave of exponentially increasing water demand from the port personnel. And after those ten Mawei sand ships had finished loading the women and children, the crews were reassigned. Everyone picked thirty pirate ships in decent condition from among those captured, then swept up the remaining 5,000 pirates, formed a large convoy, and immediately set sail across the sea.

Standing on the dock and watching the ship silhouettes gradually vanish, Liu Zhe finally let out a long breath: the largest joint military operation in the history of the Crossing Faction could be considered concluded at this point.

With over 8,000 pirates shipped away, the shore suddenly emptied. There would be no more large waves of captives coming: although no fewer than ten thousand pirates still remained in Zhangzhou Bay at that moment, at most six or seven thousand would ultimately be sent to Jinmen. These people would trickle in over the coming days, so Liu Zhe and his team could organize convoys to ship them as they arrived, with little pressure.

Turning around and heading back from the dock with a large entourage, when Liu Zhe reached the entrance of the Central Army Tent, he first glanced casually at a Ming man standing by the door, smiling obsequiously at him, and then said flatly, "Come in."

The Transmigrators' Central Army Tent was not made of oxhide, but of color-coated steel.

After entering the simple prefab room, Liu Zhe first removed the great peaked cap from his head, then loosened his collar button, and only then leaned back in his chair and said to the person before him: "Since Zheng Zhifeng and the others didn't come, I take it you're here to haggle."

The man who had entered was tall and stout, in his fifties, dressed in a long robe of fine indigo cloth, with the look of a wealthy man — he appeared to be a rich merchant. Yet this man was no merchant: he was a clan elder of the Zheng family, named Zheng Dou, here today specifically to serve as an emissary.

After being left to cool his heels for half a day outside the Kun people's iron-frame "great tent," Zheng Dou had at last gained an audience with the strangely dressed and capped Kun general.

Hearing Liu Zhe's question, the well-prepared Zheng Dou chuckled and was about to speak... but Liu Zhe gave him no such chance.

Looking thoroughly irritated, Liu Zhe first raised a single finger to stop the other man, and only then said: "Listen well. Tomorrow at noon, the entire Zheng Great Gang must come here to surrender. From Zheng Zhifeng on down, the military register and grain ledgers are to be prepared, and the leaders are to bind themselves and come to see me. Furthermore, all Zheng family sailors will be taken to Dayuan afterward for reorganization and training. Still trying to play the local bully routine in front of me — you fools are truly tired of living."

At this point, Liu Zhe paid no attention whatsoever to Zheng Dou, whose face had drastically changed color and who was opening his mouth to speak, but simply waved a hand lightly: "Throw him out." The next moment, Zheng Dou was roughly shoved out the door by the guards behind him.

The "military strongman" routine was useless in front of the Transmigrators.

Looking across history, the "military strongman" mode of existence is the most malignant tumor on the body of a ruler. To take a nearby example, in the Ming Dynasty, the Wu Sangui military clan entrenched at Shanhai Pass was the most quintessential military strongman of all.

And after that? Including the various big and small Shopkeepers that Zheng Zhilong historically brought to heel, then the Grand Commandants of the late Qing and Republic of China, and even the Bai Li and his ilk under that certain someone — all of them, without exception, were military strongmen.

The defining trait of a military strongman is this: they appear to acknowledge a boss, kowtowing and bowing, agreeing to everything; yet the boss is merely a figurehead, and no one may lay a finger on the military strongmen's private retainers and territory.

Under these circumstances, military strongmen can, with perfect justification, latch onto the boss and suck his blood. When the boss is strong, it's tolerable, but the moment the boss weakens, the military strongmen will take his life in a matter of minutes.

On this point, Comrade Chongzhen had ample experience and lessons, and Comrade Yongli, strangled with a bowstring by Wu Sangui, also had something to say... and then Comrade Kangxi made an important supplementary point here: the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, which lasted eight years, demonstrated with absolute clarity where the core interests of a military strongman lie — whoever touches my retainers and territory, I rebel against, even if I was kneeling at your feet calling you daddy just yesterday.

This was precisely why Liu Zhe gave Zheng Dou not the slightest chance to open his mouth. No matter what was said, no matter how the talks went, it was nothing more than trading kowtows for the right to retain private armed force. What was there for the Crossing Faction to discuss with such a practitioner of traditional routines?

In the eyes of the Transmigrators, any armed force that had not undergone reorganization was a potential rebel, a malignant tumor of industrial society.

Therefore, the situation the Zheng family now faced was both simple and perilous: either muster the entire army tomorrow and fight a great battle against the Crossing Fleet, which now had its hands free, and then have their clan exterminated; or surrender the entire army, have everyone dispersed and resettled in Dayuan, while the leaders could still live out their days as wealthy gentry... everything depended on their own choice.