Chapter 564: Reception by Local Figures

After formally issuing the receipt documents, Assistant Regional Commander Sha, who had crossed the sea, had now completed the procedures with the local officials of Qiongzhou. Next, Assistant Regional Commander Sha warmly invited his hosts to board the warship together and inspect the "Baisha New Stockade," which was still under construction.

Boarding a warship covered in white sails for the first time, the native officials were full of novelty. While the fleet was preparing to set sail, Assistant Regional Commander Sha enthusiastically led his guests on a tour around the ship, and even found time to take everyone out to sea to fire cannons and fish, and so on...

In the seventeenth century, Shenying Port was a beach formed by a series of natural bays. The Ming people lacked the machinery to undertake large-scale modifications like later generations, so the structures at Shenying Port were more of a primitive harbor that emerged by relying on the terrain.

What Assistant Regional Commander Sha and Shao Qiang saw as they sailed in were rows of wooden docks along the shore and warehouses and civilian houses on the bank. There were both official and private docks, fishing ships constantly moving in and out, and the shore was bustling with crowds—lively and full of energy.

Furthermore, beacon towers and Dun Tai were scattered all along this route; the defense system was very robust. It was obvious that the Qiongzhou area faced a considerably serious bandit threat.

The five ships that had come from afar sailed southward along the coast for about three or four li, and soon, amidst a covering of pure white fine sand, a harbor surrounded by wooden stakes and watchtowers appeared on the shore: Baisha Naval Base.

Although Hainan's latitude was still a bit high compared to places further south like Thailand and Malaya, its climate was already firmly in the tropical zone relative to the mainland.

Since it was tropical, the pristine white sand unique to tropical coasts appeared before their eyes: this was also the origin of the name Baisha Naval Base.

Standing at the bow, Sha Zhengming stared at the water fort before him, which had a strong movie-set style. After a few glances, his thoughts wandered off-topic, and he asked Shao Qiang in a low voice: "It suddenly occurred to me, isn't this sand in Hainan also a kind of resource?"

"Depends on what you want to do with it."

Shao Qiang smiled: "If you're digging it up to decorate your private beach up north, then it's pretty good. After all, the white sea sand of this era is all natural and pollution-free, perfect for a capitalist like you."

"If it's for smelting CPUs... glass, I mean..." Seeing the tall and sturdy Sha Zhengming's expression darken, Shao Qiang let out a dry laugh and got to the point: "That's also doable, but it would need to be scaled up."

As he spoke, Shao Qiang automatically switched to District Chief mode: "Hmm, transport efficiency is too low in this era, so the best approach is to build a factory on-site, that way we can utilize the local sea sand resources."

"But personally, I wouldn't recommend it. Why not leave a pristine landscape like Hainan as it is, to build scenic spots and hotels for real estate speculation later? Why destroy the environment? As for the sand... elsewhere, the quartz purity is just a bit lower, and running a glass factory would just add one more sorting step. That's what we do in the Kiln District."

"Oh, I see!" Sha Zhengming nodded, finally getting a handle on this.

Just as the two were murmuring privately, the officials also returned to the bow, because everyone had heard the signal cannon fire from within the water fort: "General Sha, that is General Tang from the water fort coming out to welcome you."

"Hahaha!" Sha Zhengming let out a string of hearty, boisterous laughs upon hearing this: "Give the order, fire the salute cannons."

Accompanied by the sound of salute cannons from the bow, the gates of Baisha Naval Base swung wide open, and several Ming-style hard-sail ships sailed out from within.

According to the protocol for a first meeting, Assistant Regional Commander Tang Yunwen of Baisha Naval Base, who had come out of the fort to welcome them, wore a third-rank military officer's uniform. Though he appeared to be standing steadily at the bow, his feelings were actually quite complicated.

First, unlike the overjoyed civil official system of Qiongzhou, Assistant Regional Commander Tang harbored considerable resistance to the arrival of this powerful dragon crossing the sea. This was understandable: no matter what, when another Assistant Regional Commander leading a strong army squeezed into one's own territory, the host was unlikely to be happy about it—after all, he was a military man.

Unfortunately, no one cared what Assistant Regional Commander Tang thought.

Although Tang Yunwen was the highest-ranking military officer of the Great Ming in all of Qiongzhou, including the surrounding seas, and ostensibly commanded two to three thousand "fierce soldiers," it was useless. To put it bluntly, within the Great Ming's vast military-political system, he was really just a border defense Delegation Leader.

Faced with a redeployment order issued by the military region Headquarters, Delegation Leader Tang, the commanding officer of this remote defense zone, was powerless to resist. Not to mention that Delegation Leader Sha's redeployment to Qiongzhou was a matter personally pushed by the rising star of the military region, Regional Commander Cao, and was a military order signed by the great Commander He and Governor-General Xiong of Liangguang.

In fact, from start to finish, no one had ever consulted Delegation Leader Tang for his opinion on the redeployment... By the time he was informed of the matter, the civil official bloc in Qiongshan was already urgently scheming how to squeeze silver out of the guests.

The pitiful Delegation Leader Tang was the last high-ranking official in Qiongshan to learn of this matter.

Therefore, Tang Yunwen's feelings today were very complicated.

However, from another angle, that is, from Tang Yunwen's true heart, this traditional military man actually harbored a vague, indescribable expectation for the arrival of Sha Zhengming's fleet.

In the late Ming, just as finances were collapsing, external pressure was simultaneously growing ever stronger. A field border defense regiment like Baisha Naval Base had to endure hardship under an internal environment of fiscal austerity on one hand, while facing greatly increased numbers of pirate groups and colonial ruffians on the other. One could well imagine how painfully hard Tang Yunwen had struggled through the previous years.

Yet, in just these past two years, the situation had suddenly changed.

As the Crossing Faction advanced step by step from a corner of Tainan toward the mainland, wave after wave of sea pirates surged southward.

When the Transmigrators swept through the strait, the pirates fled south; when the Transmigrators swept through the Min Sea, the pirates fled south; when the Transmigrators swept through Yuehai, the last wave of hot-blooded pirate men in southern China who refused to be dogs also all escaped to the Beibu Gulf to eat Annam rice.

During this two-to-three-year process, Assistant Regional Commander Tang, who held the choke point of the Qiongzhou Strait on this southward escape route, gained an understanding of the Transmigrators that far exceeded the latter's imagination through interrogating wave after wave of escapees.

Not to mention that afterwards, the great name of Regional Commander Cao frequently appeared in military dispatches.

This was the fundamental reason for Tang Yunwen's complicated feelings today. He knew the newcomers were not friendly; he knew they were a warlord regime, but he also knew they were richer than a nation, and that those "Western-style Great Ships" carried rapid-fire cannons capable of piercing metal and splitting stone, and "officers and soldiers" fed full on silver.

Still, as the saying goes, Tang Yunwen was a soldier after all, and he still hoped to see peace and order in his jurisdiction.

In a short while, the two sides' ships drew close, and Tang Yunwen climbed up the rope ladder onto the Western-style great ship.

Considering that the other party was a trusted aide of a provincial capital bigwig, while his own side lacked both substance and face, and not knowing the temper of this powerful dragon crossing the river, the worldly-wise Tang Yunwen still decided to adopt a humble posture: "Tang Yunwen pays respects to the General!"

"Sir Tang, what is the meaning of this gesture?"

After several years of crossing-over time, the Crossing Faction had long since developed a set routine for dealing with various classes and professions among the natives. For a military strongman with real power like Tang Yunwen, as long as he hadn't clearly shown hostility, the Transmigrators would certainly focus on winning him over and infiltration.

So Sha Zhengming hurriedly stepped forward, reached out his arms to grasp Delegation Leader Tang's hands, and said with a tone of feigned reproach: "You and I, brother, are colleagues, and from now on we'll be stirring the same pot. How can you treat me like an outsider?"

Tang Yunwen looked up upon hearing this and found the other's eyes clear and bright, his expression utterly without hypocrisy, so his heart relaxed considerably... Indeed, a maritime magnate capable of pacifying Zheng Zhilong and Li Kuiqi should possess a heroic disposition.

"He's not a difficult man to deal with."

Having made up his mind, Assistant Regional Commander Tang's sallow complexion relaxed considerably: "In that case, please, General Sha, enter the stockade for a brief rest."

"Good, good. I was just about to have a look inside your stockade, old brother."

The next moment, the whole group of civil and military officials moved ashore and diligently completed this set of elaborate bureaucratic procedures.

Unlike those civil officials whose minds were in the clouds, after entering Baisha Naval Base, Sha Zhengming still scrutinized the place carefully. However, what made one sigh was that the Baisha Naval Base under Tang Yunwen's command was no different from those Ming Army barracks he had seen in the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong.

Although preparations had been made beforehand, and the officers and soldiers in sight seemed quite spirited, the dilapidated barracks, the old ships, and the thick atmosphere of decay in the air could not be concealed.

After a cursory tour around the stockade, everyone had completed another procedure. After this, it was finally time for the last inspection item: Baisha New Stockade.

Baisha New Stockade was not far from the old stockade, located in another harbor just about one li away.

When the soldiers carried the officials over to the new stockade using a lifting pole, they arrived right in the midst of a bustling construction scene.

The originally desolate bay, full of jagged rocks and wild grass as tall as a man, had changed its appearance. Not only had several rows of simple houses been built on the shore, but a traditional wooden jetty had also been erected. At this moment, the coast was crowded with Ming people at work. Large teams of natives, stripped to the waist and holding wooden tools, streamed back and forth carrying earth and stones, renovating the bay.

"This place was originally uninhabited. After Qiongzhou Prefecture received the directive from the Provincial Administration Commission the other day, we dared not delay for a moment and immediately dispatched people from the surrounding counties. Only through their hard work day and night has it taken this shape."

Assistant Prefect Jia of Qiongzhou Prefecture now wore an expression of taking credit: "General Sha, are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied, satisfied! Sha offers his thanks to all you gentlemen here. I will certainly report this matter to our Regional Commander; a token of our appreciation will not be omitted!"

If judged by the Transmigrators' infrastructure standards, this construction site still under construction certainly fell short of requirements. Fortunately, it was just the beginning, and Sha Zhengming's demands were not high—the fleet just needed to be able to anchor and personnel to embark and disembark at the dock. So he hurriedly encouraged the native officials with a string of words.

There was a key point in this matter. Qiongzhou was isolated out at sea, and the current jurisdiction of the Crossing Faction could not yet extend that far. In other words, if the Transmigrators wanted to station troops in Qiongzhou and build a new naval port, they had to go through the local civil official system, and could not, as in the Guangzhou New District, recruit their own people and build it themselves... at least not at the very beginning.

This was why the scene just now had occurred: when the Qiongzhou civil official bloc received the official document, they also received a tangible twenty thousand taels of Cao silver dollars in cash, sent directly from the Guangdong Provincial Administration Commission.

These twenty thousand taels of silver were the most fundamental motivation for Assistant Prefect Jia and his group of civil officials to swiftly mobilize the common people to come and build the harbor. Relying on a single official document alone would have been a joke. Let alone Xiong Wencan, even if the Emperor issued an imperial edict, without silver, the utterly impoverished Qiongzhou Prefecture could not possibly have made such a big move to dig a harbor for anyone.

In fact, these twenty thousand exquisite Cao silver dollars, wrapped in red paper, were the first full-weight genuine silver that Qiongzhou Prefecture had ever received from a superior government office since the founding of the Ming dynasty. This time, everyone in Qiongzhou Prefecture, from the Prefect down to the petty clerks, was genuinely shocked!

One must know that in previous years, apart from pressing for tax payments and grain levies, the various government offices in Guangzhou had never allocated a single cent to Qiongzhou Prefecture. Even if there were any, it was just mutual offsetting of accounts. Want to get cash from those offices in Guangzhou? Heh, keep dreaming.

Of Course, the Household Staff all had Knowledge of whose purse those twenty thousand taels of silver came from. Assistant Prefect Jia and his people were also very clear on who should receive the credit.