Guangdong Lianzhou Hai'an and Qiongzhou across the sea, since the Taiping army occupied the whole of Guangdong, they built a military port here, becoming the second military port of the Guangdong Navy after the Pearl River Huangpu Port. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Wu Yuan, the commander of the naval division of the expeditionary force, set up a deputy general of the water battalion here, and Liao Ruixiang, the governor of Guangdong, also sent envoys to receive the Qiongzhou Prefecture, and the thirteen counties of Danzhou, Yazhou, and Wanzhou, totaling more than 67,000 people in Dingkou. The original more than 4,000 anti-Qing righteous divisions on the island were all reorganized into the Qiongzhou Security Corps, which was responsible for recruiting ethnic minorities on the island who did not obey the king, encircling and suppressing pirate dens, and being responsible for local security. Because they did not want to be under the jurisdiction of the Han people, the Li people on the island continued to rise up, and several Li armed forces were active in the area of Wuzhi Mountain.

The Guangdong side immediately dispatched two brigades of the Xinjian Town of a Taiping Army stationed in Leizhou to cross the sea on the warships of the Guangdong Naval Division, and after four months of encirclement and suppression, they finally succeeded in suppressing the Li armed forces. More than 20,000 Rican people were relocated from mountainous areas to areas with convenient transportation, and villages and townships were established to teach them how to farm.

At the beginning of the year, because of the trade between Guangdong and Annan, especially the increase in grain transportation, Song Xianggong, who stayed behind as a scholar and concurrently served as the governor of Liangguang, specially ordered the governor of Guangdong, Yamen, Qiongzhou, and Guangdong sailors to build a military port in Lingao, as a transit station for the waterway between Annam and Guangdong, and since then two routes have been formed, one is Hongji in Annam to Xuwen in Guangdong, and the other is Guangning to Lingao in Annam and then to Qianshanzhai Zhujiang. In addition, Song Xianggong encouraged Cantonese merchants to trade with overseas, because for the time being, large-scale trade with Luzon and other places was not possible, and the attention of Cantonese merchants was focused on the area of Annam.

The opening of the two shipping lanes ensured that the large amount of food and resources obtained by the expeditionary force from Annam could be quickly transported to Guangdong, but at the same time, the prosperity of these two shipping lanes also attracted the attention of pirates active in the South China Sea, so that the Guangdong naval division had to turn its focus to the task of encirclement and suppression of pirates. After a series of encirclement and suppression, the rampant piracy activities were effectively curbed, but could not be completely cured, mainly because the pirate dens were difficult to find in the vast sea, and secondly, the pirates changed their tactics and no longer attacked the grain ships of the Taiping army, but specifically attacked the trade ships without the escort of the warships, and immediately absconded after succeeding. Often, by the time the ship's dealers reported that they had been hijacked, the pirates were long gone.

The main force of the Guangdong Naval Division has been incorporated into the Expeditionary Force, and the ships left behind can only carry out coastal combat missions, so Wu Yuan, the commander of the Naval Division of the Expeditionary Force, set up a Marine Corps of the Naval Division, all of whom are equipped with firearms such as firearms and earth-shaking thunder, and the detachment is used as the formation to escort merchant ships. Of course, the cost was borne by the shippers, who passed on this part of the cost to the trading Annamite, and a slight reduction in the purchase price was enough to cover the additional cost of protecting the ship.

In addition to encouraging merchants to engage in maritime trade, the Guangdong side also planned to organize maritime merchants, and some warships that had been eliminated from the naval divisions, and even warships in active service, were sold to these maritime merchants at a discount, and weapons were sold from artillery, firearms, swords, bows, and crossbows. In addition, two crew training centers have been set up in Guangzhou, Qianshanzhai and other places, which are specially responsible for training seafarers for maritime businessmen. The training standards of the two crew training centers are completely standard for the training of naval combatants, with the only difference being that these people will be civilians, not soldiers.

Some people are worried that such arming of the maritime merchants will inevitably lead to the formation of a military group in the future, which will not be conducive to the jurisdiction of the imperial court. It is only worried that under the reason of Song Xianggong's arbitrariness and "armed protection of ships", it will not affect the implementation of the policy at all. Even Song Xianggong had suggested to the southern capital that soldiers who had served for three years should be selected from the Guangdong Navy Division and the Expeditionary Force Navy Division to be directly converted into crew members, so that the fleet of maritime merchants could deal with pirate attacks on their own without the escort of the naval division.

"If you want to avoid being robbed by pirates, you have to make yourself capable of robbing pirates. Arming merchant ships is a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, and what Guangdong has to do is to ensure that the goods of maritime merchants are sold by the government, and the profits earned are used to restore the people's livelihood. ”

"Maritime trade must not be limited to Annam, and when the conditions are ripe, it must be opened up to farther places. When the eunuchs of the Three Treasures went to the West, they went to many places, there were many good things that I did not have in the Ming Dynasty, and there were many places suitable for living, and we did not have the ability to expedition again, but we might as well let the people and let those maritime merchants open up. Some places have been seized by Westerners, and we have been much slower, but it is not too late to make amends. ”

Zhou Shixiang of the Southern Capital replied with two letters to Song Xianggong and brought him a hand-drawn map called "The Complete Map of the West".

.........

"It's landed, it's landed!"

In the port of Hai'an, dozens of warships with sails appeared in the eyes of the soldiers and civilians on the shore. The soldiers on the ship, who had been adrift for more than ten days, waved their hands excitedly in the cabin, and the land seemed to be their most longed-for gift.

After the ship docked, groups of soldiers dressed in red red uniforms descended from the deck one after another, and many soldiers couldn't help but pick up the dirt under their feet and sniff vigorously when they stepped on land.

These soldiers were all surrendered from the original Guangxi Green Battalion transferred back from the 11th and 12th towns of the expeditionary force, and some of them were the Han regiment in Annam. In the past two years in Annan, these green battalion soldiers have been reborn and become real Ming soldiers.

At the beginning, when they went to Annam, these green battalion soldiers only thought that they were being assigned, and they were afraid that they would never return to their homeland in this life. Even if they are in Annam, they can be powerful and prosperous, and they can enjoy the sumptuous feast provided by the people of Annam, but no matter how good it is, it is not their homeland after all.

The homeland is inseparable from the heart, which is the complex in the hearts of every Han people, and this complex, which has been passed down for thousands of years with the bloodline, is the complex in their hearts and bones. No one, anything, can change this complex.

Those people of Annan who set foot on their ancestral homeland for the first time opened their eyes wide and looked at everything in front of them with curiosity.

Is this the homeland, the homeland where the ancestors woke up in their dreams and wept in their dreams?

"Dashuai didn't give up on you!"

Lu Guangzu, the deputy governor of the expeditionary force, also had a sour nose, and when he knew that he was going to return to his homeland with these 8,000 soldiers, he didn't sleep all night. He drank a lot and got drunk a lot.

"Give the order to go down, tell the brothers to be more neat, and don't be laughed at by the friendly troops, we are monkeys from Annam."

Lu Guangzu got off the boat with a smile, and the moment he went ashore, he was really refreshed. On the shore, some officials were waiting for him.

"Governor Ludu, the commander of the army!"

An officer stepped forward and handed a military order to Lu Guangzu.

"Bring it!"

Lu Guangzu nodded, took the general order and took a look, and his face suddenly became very strange.

"Dashuai wants me Lu Guangzu to fight Yunnan?"