"If we transport refugees at this rate, it won't be long before we have a Resident Evil here." Lu Wenyuan stood on the watchtower of the farmstead, looking worriedly at the refugee camps scattered along the hillside.

The convoy has come twice and carried away 4,000 people, but the influx of people from the camps continues unabated. Especially after Kong Youde's troops came to the city of Dengzhou, the people near Dengzhou scattered and fled in order to avoid the noise of the soldiers, and many of them hid on Qimu Island.

Lu Wenyuan will no longer be able to grasp the number of refugees to the single digit - people come in almost every hour. Coupled with the daily death toll, he can only estimate the approximate number of people in the camp by the number of nightly rations distributed to refugees: the total number has already exceeded 4,800.

Jim Island is a very small island, and although food is not a problem and it can barely cope with it, the consumption of drinking water cannot keep up. The supply of just 1.5 litres of basic drinking water to each refugee is the consumption of more than 10,000 litres of water per day. And the island's water source simply can't supply so much water -- it all depends on the rainwater that Lu Wenyuan had collected in the previous stage.

At this rate, even if the daily population is maintained below 6,000, it will not take half a month for the island's reserve water to be depleted. If there is no heavy snow to replenish the surface water, a water collection team will have to be sent to fetch water more than ten miles away.

What's worse is the excrement. Despite the low level of food supply and the availability of biogas digesters to deal with it, the amount of excrement per day is also considerable. Lu Wenyuan has had to stop using several public relations toilets.

"Planning Institute, you misers, you don't let go of anything...... he said through gritted teeth: if it weren't for the insistence of the Planning Institute, he would have repaired the sewage culvert of the toilet directly into the sea and discharged it all into the sea, which is convenient and clean, so why should he consider these problems now.

The next ship did not yet know when it would arrive - the fleet had to be unloaded, the gains and losses in the transport had to be assessed, and the transport plan had to be revised, which was also in the jihua, but no one expected the refugees to be collected so quickly. He's now. It is in a state of "backlog".

From the watchtower, you can see the lights on the pier and the sparse mast lights. In addition to a few fishing boats he had collected himself, a squadron of spies had been sent to him from Kaohsiung to defend the waters around the island. The guns of the four spy boats were covered with gun jackets and fishing nets, and the flags were hidden.

However, the cold wind and the snowflakes that drifted from time to time reminded him. Winter is coming.

The island's pools and surface runoff outside the island have begun to freeze, and soon the sea will freeze under the harsh northwest winds, as Lu Wenyuan has confirmed from local fishermen.

Once Longkou Bay froze, the spy boats had to retreat from here. However, there are now nearly 1,000 army soldiers on the island, equipped with artillery and typewriters, even if Kong Youde's whole army comes to attack. The only thing that worries him is the impact of the ice on the docking of ships.

After coming down from the observation deck and returning to the warm conference room with a fire, Xie Yao, the commissioner sent by the Ministry of Health to preside over the health and epidemic prevention work in the Qimu Island refugee camp, was waiting for him.

Xie Yao is a half-old man. In his fifties. He was originally a scholar with no reputation, a bankrupt small landlord, and a little medical knowledge. In the training course of the Ministry of Health, he was trained in modern Chinese and Western medicine, and because he was from Shaanxi, he was considered to be "frost-resistant", so he was sent to Shandong to preside over the health work of the refugee camp, and his command was dozens of health workers sent from Lingao.

Dressed in the uniform worn by the half-worn naturalized people, he sat by the fire and made a fire. I saw Lu Wenyuan coming in. Want to stand up.

Lu Wenyuan waved his hand impatiently: "Don't get up, let's talk about it." What's going on today? ”

"The barracks were sprinkled with disinfectant, and the killing rate of fleas and bed bugs was 90 percent." Xie Yao spoke slowly and logically. "As of 17 o'clock this afternoon, 31 people have died and the bodies have been transported. One hundred and nine new patients have been added, plus those who have not yet recovered, and after deducting those who have recovered and died, the number of existing patients is 375......"

Lu Wenyuan smiled bitterly: "Doctor Xie, what do you think will happen tomorrow?" ”

"The weather is as cold as a day, women, children, old and young may be difficult to resist, a small cold and wind chill, suddenly turned into pneumonia. There wasn't enough medicine - if only I could give them more bedding and cotton clothes. Xie Yao said. If it weren't for the chief's secret "sulfonamide tablets" and some other "Australian medicines", more people would have died just by boiling decoction pieces and decoctions.

It was out of curiosity about "Australian medicine" that Xie Yao signed up for the training course of the Ministry of Health at an advanced age at that time.

"However, the cold weather is also good, and the small island is crowded with so many people, if it were not for the cold. I'm afraid there will be an epidemic sooner rather than later. ”

There was a huge shortage of winter clothing for refugees - it was difficult for the Senate to prepare winter clothes for hundreds of thousands of people. Hence the idea of letting the refugees make a fire and roast it slowly: it is easier to supply fuel than cotton.

"Repair more houses for the refugees, and get more earth fire dragons. Each barracks has at least two lanes. Lu Wenyuan instructed.

After sending Xie Yao away, Lu Wenyuan paced back and forth in the conference room a few times, and instructed the orderly soldiers to bring Wang Ruixiang to discuss: Chen Sigen went out with the special investigation team, and he wanted to continue to monitor the combat operations of Kong Youde and the official army. Since Kong Youde's trajectory changed, Chen Sigen has become very uneasy about the course of history, and the monitoring of both sides has become more and more close, and the special investigation team, reconnaissance cavalry, and plainclothes spies have been monitoring the officers and soldiers and Kong Youde's department almost 24 hours a day. This kind of task, Chen Sigen went out for several days.

On the large map behind him, the latest status of all parties is densely marked with small colored flags. Since the arrival of Kong Youde's troops under the city of Dengzhou on November 22, there have been small-scale armed clashes between the two sides, but the fighting situation has not been fierce. Overall, there is still a temporary stalemate.

Of course, this stalemate will soon be broken, and in order to carry out the determination of the Senate: that is, to allow Kong Youde to disrupt Shandong and capture a large amount of supplies, and to ensure that Sun Yuanhua can "preside over the counterinsurgency", both the Foreign Intelligence Bureau and Lu Wenyuan are carrying out active strategic activities. There was a steady stream of messengers and intelligence agents going to Dengzhou, Laizhou, and Shandong.

Although Lu Wenyuan did not go to Sun Yuanhua's place in person, he wrote several letters to Sun Yuanhua as a parishioner, making some speculations about Kong Youde's movements, and also making a subtle reminder about the problem of the old Dongjiang department in Dengzhou. In particular, he pointed out that Kong Youde's mutiny was "a matter of accumulation of salaries, which can be extinguished without a spoonful of water" -- the old Dongjiang troops in Dengzhou are unreliable.

Lu Wenyuan didn't expect Sun Yuanhua to obey him, just to make an impression on him first, and prepare for the next step to approach and manipulate Sun Yuanhua.

At this juncture, Lu Wenyuan didn't want any plague or something like that to happen in his base camp. Moreover, there are too many people gathered, and they are too conspicuous.

Wang Ruixiang was working out a "grand cause" in his bedroom, or more precisely, a plan to go to Liaodong - as the main advocate of Liaodong Jihua, he had always tried to get in touch with the Manchus, so he was very enthusiastic about engine action. Once a foothold was established on the Shandong Peninsula and a base was established on Jeju Island, a sea line of communication with the Manchus was established.

In Wang Ruixiang's view: Although the Manchu Qing Dynasty was barbaric and backward, it had resources, and it was possible to use industrial and agricultural scissors to shear its wool. It's really not good, and it's good to rescue the captured Han population and go to Lingao to enrich the labor force.

Hearing Lu Wenyuan's concern, he cracked his mouth and smiled: "Day, what's there to worry about?" Isn't it time to go to Jeju Island? ”

From Kim Island to Jeju, there is only one-third of the distance from Kaohsiung Island to Kaohsiung, and there is no need for large ships, and ordinary ships can also be transported, and ships can go back and forth in less than four or five days, which is much faster than directly shipping to Kaohsiung.

"But until now, there has been no Jeju Island landing operation." Lu Wenyuan frowned. It stands to reason that the Jeju landing should have started a month ago.

It was now the end of 1631, and there was still no telegraph call sign from the direction of Jeju Island. Where the hell did the Second Fleet go?

"It's a bit weird!" Wang Ruixiang scratched his head, "I think we have to send a telegram to ask!" ”

When the radio waves of the telegram jointly signed by Wang Ruixiang and Lu Wenyuan pierced the sky, the Second Fleet set sail from Kaohsiung had already arrived in the waters of Jeju Island.

The Second Fleet launched the landing operation almost a month later than expected. The consequences of the rapid expansion of the Navy began to be revealed one by one. Zhenyang, the flagship of the Second Fleet, suffered a major steam engine failure on the way from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung, and a boiler failed, forcing him to return to Hong Kong for repairs. After the other ships arrived in Kaohsiung, they began to overhaul and investigate, and it was found that there were also problems with the degree of damp and frost: mainly in the power system: boilers, steam engines, crankshafts...... Individual vessels also have water leakage problems. The only one in normal condition is the Fubo.

After some emergency repairs by the repair ship anchored in Kaohsiung, the Second Fleet finally reluctantly completed the rearmament work. Before New Year's Day in 1632, he launched a strategic attack on Jeju Island.

The four warships of Zhenyang, Tide, Frost, and Fubo sailed in a wheel-like formation on the sea, all of them with sails hanging and sailing at a speed of 6 knots per hour, with a faint black smoke coming out of the chimneys -- the boilers were not using all their strength -- to take care of the H800s and the spy boats in the formation. They hung full sails and followed closely.

This is almost the entire combat fleet and two-thirds of the transport ships of the Second Fleet, which are laden with soldiers, supplies and building materials.

The sun rises and shines on the deck. In the distance, a large verdant island has emerged on the surface of the sea - it is Jeju Island. (To be continued......)