Chapter 568: Strait Security Rectification

By the end of June 1631, half a month after the Southbound Fleet reached Qiongzhou, the Qiongzhou Strait was placed under "total territorial blockade" for the first time in history.

The so-called total territorial blockade was simple: patrols day and night. The scene in movies where a boss gets ruthless and declares "not even a fly can get through" — that's basically what this was.

For Transmigrators with advanced technology, blockading the Qiongzhou Strait was easy. That's because Qiongzhou Prefecture was a mere 20 kilometers by sea from the nearest point across the strait, Xuwen County.

In other words, they only needed to deploy one or two patrol ships equipped with night vision devices at night to cut off the strait entirely.

Although night sailing wasn't common in this era and native vessels wouldn't normally travel at night without reason, this was a statement — blockading the strait signified that the Crossing Faction was projecting its will, military force, political influence, and trade-route protection capability into this region.

In other words: I'm here now.

In the early morning, three Taijiang-class 150-ton light patrol ships — long, slender vessels derived from early schooners — formed three parallel lines five kilometers apart across the strait. Their white triangular sails turned nimbly to catch the wind, and the ships shot across the sea like arrows.

From that day at the end of June onward, any ship appearing in the strait — whether fishing boats hugging the coast or lumbering, cumbersome merchant ships, whether seemingly harmless pirate vessels or arrogant European armed merchantmen — would all be intercepted and inspected by the patrol ships without exception.

This process was bound to be anything but peaceful.

In the medieval era, communications were backward and information spread extremely slowly. While Baisha Xingang bustled with construction and bristled with killing intent and vicious dogs, most ships around Qiongzhou naturally had no idea what was happening, let alone those colonial ships that had sailed ten thousand li to East Asia.

So the natives encountering this dragnet patrol for the first time were hit hard: those who refused to obey orders immediately received the treatment of cannon fire.

What was that saying again? Fire first, fire again, then ask who they are.

It must be understood that this round of dragnet patrol was not some countryside visit to bring warmth to poor households. To some extent, the Crossing Faction was deliberately using cannon fire to proclaim sovereignty, so they opened fire at the slightest sign of defiance... in order to accelerate the spread of their fearsome reputation.

In this process, honest fishermen out to catch fish actually didn't suffer much loss. After all, those in broken boats with fish in their holds were mostly people just trying to make a living. Seeing strange ships charging at them, and then seeing the cold gleam of cannon muzzles and the government's recognition flags above, they simply stopped resisting.

It was the genuine pirates who suffered the heaviest losses in this sudden onslaught.

Pirates, who were already on high-strung nerves whenever they put to sea, would see warships charging from the distance and the government flags flying above them. Most would try to resist, or at the very least make a show of escaping.

Because they knew perfectly well that if the government really stopped and inspected their ship, the completely empty fish hold would instantly expose their true nature.

And then the pirate ship would be washed by cannon fire... across its deck.

The dead were thrown into the sea to feed the fish; those lucky enough to survive were locked in the lower hold. When these people crawled out of the hold again, what greeted them were relatives wearing peaked caps and the warm hospitality of the Labor Reform Camp.

European-style ships got beaten just the same.

Some ships that frequently operated in East Asia, upon seeing the familiar Cao recognition flag, would lower their sails and parley with the newcomers. Others, not knowing the score, would adopt a defensive posture.

This was a normal reaction. After all, colonizers who had traveled ten thousand li had encountered all manner of monsters and demons along the way — who knew what faction these fast ships belonged to?

The next moment, upon seeing cannon muzzles likewise pushed out through the gunports, the patrol ship — far smaller in tonnage than the armed merchantman — would round the other vessel and leave. But just as the colonizers on the armed merchantman breathed a sigh of relief, conspicuous white sails and faint black smoke would appear on the horizon behind them.

The Youguang-class destroyer, with a displacement of 400 tons, was a wind sail gunboat designed specifically for naval warfare. This class of gunboat mounted ten mechanically forged 8-12 pounder Napoleon cannons, its combat power utterly overwhelming the primarily cargo-hauling European merchant ships.

What followed was a proper naval battle.

However, the fighting usually ended quickly. The side possessing advanced sighting devices and long-range rapid-fire cannons would soon show the opponent what was what. Most captains would immediately order the white flag raised after a third of their crewmen were dead — the merchant ship's cannon fire was completely incapable of harming the opponent, and that was simply too despairing.

After raising the white flag, the merchant ship would be escorted to White Sand Port for processing. One could refer to the series of programs that follow after city management officers haul away a peddler's tricycle.

The lesson of blood and fire was undoubtedly the most profound. In just half a month, the surrounding seas centered on Qiongzhou looked as if a typhoon had swept through. Now, anyone who made their living on the sea, no matter what faction they belonged to, knew that a powerful dragon had come to Qiongzhou and laid down the rules.

Since the one with the thick legs laid down the rules, those with thin arms had to obey — the unlucky ones who didn't obey had gone down to feed the fish, and the fortunate ones had entered the Labor Reform Camp.

And so, the surrounding fishermen obediently went to Shenying Port to register, report, and prepare to join some damn thing called a "Fishery Cooperative."

The pirates in the vicinity naturally began to vanish without a trace as well. Some temporarily withdrew to watch which way the wind blew, while others escaped to ply their trade elsewhere.

But escape as a passive response was ultimately no solution, because the main problem not only couldn't be resolved, it grew worse by the day: after blockading the Qiongzhou Strait, the white-sailed ships began expanding their patrol range, encompassing the entirety of Hainan Island.

In fact, ever since the Ming Dynasty, and even as far back as the Song Dynasty, the whole territory of Hainan had always been within the patrol range of official boats. It was just that in the late Ming, the court's finances collapsed, and the previously scheduled regular patrols had become a mere formality.

Now the successor had arrived.

Even places like Sanya, which in the Ming era was a godforsaken backwater where birds didn't shit, began to see fast ship patrols. Coordinated with official dispatches from the Prefectural Yamen, this caused the officials, gentry, and commoners of these remote areas to momentarily question their reality: the sun had risen from the west — now, if bandit activity was reported, within two days at most, fast ships were guaranteed to arrive. Not only on the sea, but soldiers wielding strange firearms would come ashore and hunt down criminals across the whole area.

What made it even more remarkable was that when these fast ships resupplied, they freely and lavishly produced silver cakes, causing the natives to swarm like ducks overnight, everyone vying to be an informant — no longer the awkward scene of before, where everyone fled en masse at the sight of strange ships.

With this whole grand blockade model implemented, the sea route from South Asia into the Great Ming was thoroughly sealed off: not to mention the Qiongzhou Strait, even the direct shipping lane from Sanya to Shunhua in Vietnam was blockaded — not a single plank was allowed on the sea... unless one went to the relevant departments to get a stamp and a permit.

Now the pirates were completely deflated. They couldn't even pass themselves off as fishermen... they would be dragged off to partner with others to buy a big ship and fish, embarking on the point-of-no-return road to prosperity through labor.

Some people accepted their fate. The hardest-headed among the remainder had no choice but to follow their predecessors and head south to the Beibu Gulf. What the poor wretches didn't know was that before long, they would meet that fearsome Cao recognition flag once again.

Just half a month after the strait dragnet began, upon receiving a telegram from the Sha-Shao duo expressing optimism about the situation, the Cabinet dispatched another large batch of personnel and supplies to Qiongzhou.

As the most important southward plan for 1631 and even the next few years, the Crossing Faction was certain to invest massive resources to ensure the plan's smooth progress. So as soon as things were settled in Qiongzhou, the Guangzhou side immediately sent follow-up support without pause.

The follow-up support was enormous in scale. First among them were twelve Taijiang-class frigates, followed by two newly commissioned Youguang-class destroyers.

After the warships came a transport fleet of twelve 800-ton vessels.

This time, the transport fleet came to Qiongzhou loaded with large quantities of engineering materials, including expensive construction supplies like cement and steel bars. Additionally, large amounts of grain, daily necessities, and even miscellaneous goods like iron wire traps were also carried.

Finally, people.

Accompanying the massive supplies were large numbers of engineering and mechanical personnel. These talents were currently assets far more precious than supplies; many of them had been painstakingly cultivated bit by bit by the Transmigrators squeezing in time to serve as Night School teachers. They could be said to be critically important, and their value exceeding their weight in silver was a certainty.

Finally, there was the Crossing Faction's most precious asset: the Transmigrators themselves.

The most valuable entities in this plane, without question, were the Transmigrators. Calculating their worth in equivalent weight of gold seemed somewhat insulting to the term "Transmigrator": the accumulated knowledge passed down since humanity's Industrial Revolution far exceeded the value of that gold.

Coming with the ships were not only supplies and technical personnel, but also as many as five Transmigrator individuals. These later arrivals would, together with Shao Qiang and Sha Zhengming, form the Southward Military-Political Group, dispersing to establish positions and campaign against the various nations of the South Seas.

The first-stage mission of establishing a presence in Qiongzhou was thus considered complete. As for the follow-up work, now that reinforcements had arrived, Shao Qiang smoothly handed it over to others.

Next, Qiongzhou would have to walk on two legs. On one side, they needed to develop the local economy; on the other, they had to handle infrastructure construction well and perform the core duty of a southward forward base.

What was the core duty? Given the current situation, it was to advance to a certain location in Vietnam... Annam, occupy it, and construct a bridgehead.

Was there a specific destination? This had already been determined when the Southbound Fleet was formed: Hongji Port in Annam.

Hongji Port is located in northeastern Vietnam, bordering the northwest side of the Beibu Gulf, and was an important coal export port in northern Vietnam in later generations.

The Hongji Coalfield near the port was first developed by the French and produces high-quality thermal coal.

The thermal coal reserves around Hongji Port amount to over 2 billion tons, with thin topsoil favorable for open-pit mining. It is the largest coal mine in Vietnam and the Indochina Peninsula, and one of the largest coalfields in Southeast Asia.

And Hongji Port... in this era, there was no Hongji Port yet, only the pristine Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay lies in the middle of the Beibu Gulf, only 350 kilometers in a straight line from Haikou.

In other words, even at the Crossing Faction's current mixed fleet standard speed of 5 knots per hour, the voyage from Baisha Xingang to Ha Long Bay would not exceed 30 hours.

If the fleet consisted entirely of warships, the speed would be off the charts — with favorable winds, departing at dawn and arriving by dusk was entirely possible.

And so Shao Qiang and the others set off.