At 10 o'clock in the morning of the 10th, when Zhang Wei returned to Sabang Port, Li Zhaoshui, Li Yunhai, Yang Yili, Gong Zhouxing, Liu Jianjun and others were discussing how to capture the British merchant ships. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Li Zhaoshui means that it is not possible to carry out unlimited submarine warfare now, this method cannot be learned by other countries for the time being, anyway, there is no British fleet around, so send destroyers and torpedo boats to intercept British merchant ships, as long as they find them, they will not be able to run away at all, as long as those who dare to resist, they will sink them, and all those who do not resist will be escorted back, now our kingdom is in urgent need of cargo ships, even in the port of Sabang there are no merchant ships to use, and we are waiting to capture the merchant ships and send the soldiers to Port Blair.

Liu Jianjun was not happy, in this case, the submarine would lose its meaning, the speed was not as good as the destroyer and torpedo boat, and now the existence of the submarine could not be exposed, as long as the merchant ship saw the submarine, it must be sunk, so as to keep the secret of the submarine; If you think about capturing merchant ships, the submarine force can only rest at home, and then there will be no war merits.

Gong Zhu means that according to the order, a few merchant ships should be captured first and used first, and the sinking should be talked about later, and the first priority is to occupy Port Blair.

Seeing that Zhang Wei was back, Li Zhaoshui told everyone's opinions, and understood everyone's thoughts, and after thinking about it for a while, he said: "In this way, let's adopt a compromise method, on the northwest exit of the Malacca Strait, destroyers and torpedo boats are the main force, submarines will not participate in the operation here for the time being, and the main goal here is to capture British and Dutch merchant ships, and those who do not surrender will be sunk. The first submarine detachment will return to Beijing tomorrow after resting and replenishing supplies, and it is the task of the first submarine detachment to protect Shangjing, and the remaining three submarine detachments are still very hard after yesterday's naval battle, so they will rest for half a month, and if the joint talks with Britain have not started or have not been negotiated after half a month, then you will go to the Bay of Bengal and resolutely sink the British merchant ships you encounter, at that time Port Blair should be under our control, and it will be more convenient for you to get supplies from Port Blair. “

Zhang Wei's plan took care of the submarine formation, and advanced the time for attacking British merchant ships in the Bay of Bengal by half a month, so that Liu Jianjun could accept it, and the others had no opinion, so he first arranged for the destroyer formation and torpedo boat formation to attack, and the more merchant ships captured, the better, so as to alleviate the current dilemma of the shortage of merchant ships.

Li Wei saw that everyone's affairs were finished, and he hurriedly reported to Zhang Wei: "Your Majesty, I checked the surrounding charts, if you want to build this place into a military port with a draft of 12 meters, you must buy a dredger and carry out dredging operations, the operation distance is about 3 kilometers long, this range is all silt, there is no reef, there is no need for underwater blasting, and it is not difficult to clean up; For commercial ports and repair shops, I recommend setting up them on the east shore of the West Bay, where the draft is very similar to that of this side, and Qingjunhou is an excellent deep-water port. “

"Okay, let's build it according to your requirements."

"Your Majesty, in that case I propose to build a small power plant here, it would be uneconomical to use diesel engines for a long time."

"Soon, after we occupy Sumatra, we have a lot of coal, you choose a site in advance, plan well, and build it for you after it stabilizes."

"Yes, Your Majesty"

Zhang Wei purchased a steam dredger designed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1915 from the system, with a maximum excavation depth of 15 meters, which was enough to build a military port and dredge the waterway on the island. Li Wei planned to first clean the harbor and channel to a depth of 10 meters, so that battleships and battlecruisers could enter the harbor and anchor, and then clean up the West Bay, also to a depth of 10 meters, so that large warships could enter and exit the port during maintenance, and then gradually deepen to 12 meters; Dredging was continued to deepen the channel and port draft until the draft was 15 meters. Zhang Wei bought another batch of cement and rebar, and asked Li Wei to gather all the natives on the island and start infrastructure construction. To build a military port, the infrastructure required is very complicated, not only to build roads, to build freight yards and warehouses, but also to build military camps, dormitories, and training grounds; It is also necessary to explore on the island and choose a suitable place to build a fortress shore gun; It is also necessary to expand the waterworks, etc.; Now the ship repair yard will be built; Keep Li Wei's busy feet on the ground.

After consulting Li Yunhai, Gong Zhou sent a total of 10 destroyers and 20 torpedo boats today to try to capture more merchant ships and return so that he could escort the 3rd Regiment and 4th Battalion to Port Blair tomorrow.

The fleet that went out on duty was divided into 10 patrol areas according to the allocation of two torpedo boats for each destroyer, and all of them returned before 8 p.m. to sum up today's achievements and see if there was anything that needed to be improved, and then starting tomorrow morning, they would carry out shifts, and each time they went out to carry out the task for 24 hours, they would work in turn, so that all the destroyers and torpedo boats could be trained.

That night, all 10 destroyers returned, and this time a total of 15 British and Dutch merchant ships were captured, most of them with a displacement of 3,000 to 5,000 tons; The small one is only more than 1,000 tons, and it turned out to be a sailboat, originally Zhang Wei didn't look down on this kind of merchant ship, and now the kingdom has no way to produce ships, and is unwilling to spend a lot of money to buy from the system, so he can only make do with it first.

After the captains of these destroyers were washed, Li Yunhai, Yang Yili, and Gong Zhou organized them to summarize today's harvest.

First, the captain of the captured merchant ship marked the capture location on the map, and then confirmed their route, departure port, and destination port.

Finally, three routes that are prone to British and Dutch merchant ships were identified, the first of which was between Singapore and Europe, and they would basically stop at Colombo, which was the closest to the island of We; The other major route is between Singapore and Kolkata; The last is a route between Yangon and Singapore, which is the farthest from Koh Weh, sailing in waters close to the side of the Malay Peninsula.

Confirm the capture location and route, and then arrange the fleet on duty in a targeted manner, so that there is no need to cast a net all over the sky, which can save a lot of energy and ships.

Gong Zhou stood up and said: "Today's harvest is good, some destroyers have captured 3 merchant ships, and it is not your fault that they did not capture merchant ships, today is just to test and sum up experience." It is the captains who introduce today's experience and suggestions. “

"Our ship captured 3 British merchant ships today, they were very cooperative, as long as they saw our destroyer, they obediently stopped, they saw our flag, they knew our purpose, so they did not resist."

"Did the other destroyers resist when they encountered merchant ships?"

Everyone said that there was no resistance.

"It's good if you don't, if you dare to resist, sink him, and you don't have to save their crew."

One of the destroyer captains said: "Through communication with the owners of merchant ships, the owners of the ships said that there are a large number of pirates in the Strait of Malacca, in the direction of Sumatra; I feel like we're going to have to clear these pirates. “

Gong Xuan said: "The information you provided is very good and timely, but now the western half of Sumatra, we have not yet occupied, and after the complete occupation of Sumatra, Your Majesty will definitely develop the outer port of Medan, and it is not too late to clear these pirates at that time, and now these pirates are here, and they can also provide us with cover, so that the British can find out later that the lost merchant ships were our doing, so that we can capture more merchant ships." Can you understand what I mean? “

"Yes, Captain, I see what you mean. However, when we captured the British merchant ships, we flew the flag of our Lanfang Kingdom, and the passing merchant ships quickly spread the news, and they couldn't keep it secret for a few days. “

"I know this, if I can keep it secret for a day, I will keep it a day for a day, and when the time comes, I will definitely let you be the vanguard, don't worry."

"Yes, Captain."

"Call me Commander, I'm the commander of this fleet now."

"Yes, Commander"

In the evening, Zhang Wei left two months' baggage consumables for the troops stationed on Zawe Island, and asked them to send merchant ships to Beijing to transport supplies once a month in the future, and the temporary shortage of materials could be found in the 13th Division, or to the Medan port area for supplies, and the Medan port will become a large commercial port in the future.

At 10 o'clock in the evening, Zhang Wei took a Shengli-class Type 1 torpedo boat and prepared to cross the Strait of Malacca and go to Singapore. As long as Singapore is occupied, it can blackmail the British and obtain greater benefits.