Dongning City, the capital of Dayuan Island.

On the third night of the Shangyuan Festival in the second year of Longwu, there was no pedestrian lantern night market, and there were no streamers to keep the fireworks.

Except for some lanterns and torches at the head of the city, the capital of 90,000 people huddled in the darkness like a frightened rabbit for more than a month.

Under the faint lighting, the streets and pavements can occasionally see blood stains that have dried up for a long time, or the bricks and tiles of houses scattered here and there.

A platoon of officers and soldiers of the Huamei Oriental Brigade walked in a standard queue on the street, and the sound of crisp and neat footsteps echoed in the silent street. The leading second lieutenant officer scanned the houses on both sides of the street in the moonlight with wary eyes, and the soldiers had cold and nervous expressions. A short time later, a large group of soldiers with torches came from across the street, and the two groups staggered by, nodding to each other kindly.

Anping Port in the west of the city is a different scene: all the warships of the Dayuan Navy Division have closed their sails and anchored, and they are honestly leaning on the shore, without a trace of lights on the ship, and the main force of the Huamei Asian Fleet led by the Princess Xijun has blocked Anping Port tightly, and all the naval guns are aimed at the port and the direction of the city.

A battalion of officers and men of the Wehrmacht's Eastern Brigade accompanied the large number of soldiers stationed patrols in the city of Tungning, while outside the city and in the harbor, the officers and men of the Brown Bear Brigade of the Chinese American Foreign Legion and the main force of the Asian Fleet took over.

Not counting the naval strength, with an integrated Foreign Legion Infantry Brigade and an Eastern Brigade Infantry Battalion, Huamei deployed more than 3,300 army officers and soldiers in and around Dongning City.

There is only one reason for such a big upheaval, and that is that there was a serious attempted military coup d'état on Dayuan Island not long ago.

Yan Sihai, the former consolation envoy of the senior minister, died of illness in the overseas consulate of Huamei Pearl Island half a year ago. In order to implement the burial matters, the wives and concubines of Yan Sihai, who ostensibly accompanied Yan Sihai for treatment on Pearl Island, but in essence were under house arrest, returned to the family.

According to the agreement secretly reached with Huamei, Yan Sicheng, the former senior member of the Propaganda and Consolation Division, did not follow Yan Sihai's dying will, but sent an envoy to the "loyal" King Lu half a month before Yan Sihai died, asking to inherit the position of the senior consolation envoy.

Yan Sicheng won the support of Luo Da and other elders of the Yan family with his mature and diligent image, but after all, he did some disgraceful things after Yan Sihai became seriously ill. In particular, the transfer of all Yan Sihai's family members to Huamei Pearl Island for house arrest and isolation is particularly criticized, so some generals have ideas about Yan Sicheng's behavior of openly seizing the ruling power of the big man regardless of family affection.

Just over a month ago, some of the defenders of Dongning City and the generals of the Navy Division, who sympathized with or supported Yan Sihai's second son, suddenly attacked one night, and took advantage of the fact that Yan Sicheng, Luo Da and others led the main force of the Navy Division to transport grain to eastern Zhejiang, raised troops to arrest the henchmen belonging to Yan Sicheng in the city, captured the official residence of the Xuanwei Envoy, and tried to support Yan Sihai's underage second son to ascend to the throne.

At that time, a henchman of Yan Sicheng drank in the port and escaped arrest, and fled into a merchant ship of the Oriental Union Group that had not yet returned to Hong Kong.

And then the rest became clear. The Huamei Asian Fleet made an emergency dispatch and directly blocked the port of Anping in Dongning Province. A few days later, Yan Sicheng, who had returned from the blockade in eastern Zhejiang, launched a counteroffensive.

The Huamei Asian Fleet shelled the port of Anping and the city defenses of Dongning, and a day later routed the rebels who staged a military coup, and the Far East special operations detachment infiltrated the city to capture and detain Yan Sihai's family and children.

The entire Brown Bear Brigade and an infantry battalion of the Eastern Brigade landed in the name of protecting Chinese merchants and assets, and imposed military control on Dongning City and Anping Port, after which Jin Xiaohan entered Dongning City as a diplomatic envoy of China and the United States.

The military coup d'état in Dongning City had not yet had time to spread to other parts of Dayuan Island, so it was suppressed by Yan Sicheng and the Huamei army with lightning speed. As a result of this attempted military coup, a large number of military and civilian buildings in Anping Port and Dongning City were destroyed by the naval guns of the Chinese and American Navy, killing and wounding thousands of civilians.

In the fratricidal battle to recapture the city of Dongning, the rebels suffered more than 2,000 casualties. The coup generals led by Yan Sicheng were executed without hesitation. In the subsequent brutal purge, more than 3,000 officers and soldiers from all over the country were convicted of "rebellion." Combined, the two compartments account for almost 30% of the total strength of the army and navy.

Under Jin Xiaohan's cautious advice, coupled with Yan Sicheng's self-knowledge, he was sorry for his deceased brother after all. Yan Sihai's family was exonerated of all responsibility after the Spring Festival, but was ordered to permanently emigrate overseas.

All the rebel officials or soldiers who were convicted of less than death were sent to the mines in Tamsui and Jilong counties with their families to serve hard labor in the mines, and they were afraid that they would not be able to return to freedom for the rest of their lives.

……

In fact, as early as when Yan Sihai was seriously ill and sent to Pearl Island. In the name of joint military exercises, the Chinese and US military guarded the senior staff for several months, thinking that there would be no problems after half a year of calmness, but in the end, such a thing happened.

Although it is a timely response. In half a month, the political crisis of the majority of the people was cleanly resolved, but the Chinese and American troops also broke the hearts of many of the people in this operation. Especially when the naval division covering Luo Da attacked Dongning City, the artillery fire of the Huamei Asian Fleet not only directly destroyed many large warships involved in the rebellion, broke through the defense of Dongning City, but also injured a large number of innocent people in Dongning City.

Now the people of Dongning City, who are on the streets during the day, are all glaring angrily when they see the officers and soldiers of the Huamei Oriental Brigade patrolling the streets. Some of the officers and men of the junior division of the navy, who had returned to Yan Sicheng's command, were even more afraid and resentful of the relentless shelling of the Chinese and US Navy, and one of the 1,000-ton longitudinal cruisers that the senior officers had purchased from Huamei with huge financial resources for many years was also destroyed this time.

In order to calm the people's hearts as soon as possible and to improve the image of Huamei, Jin Xiaohan temporarily reached a consensus with the Governor of Hong Kong, the overseas consulate of Pearl Island, and the Oriental Union Group, transported a large amount of civilian materials to Dongning City, and also organized a medical team from Pearl Island Hospital to Dongning City to provide free diagnosis and treatment for the local people.

Considering the political stability of Dayuan Island, Jin Xiaohan even asked the country a week ago to let Yan Xianping, who has supported Yan Sicheng for a long time, and Yan Xianfeng, the eldest son of Yan Sihai, return to Dayuan. Especially the latter, as Yan Sihai's eldest son and original heir, his performance and stance will directly affect the stability of the faction within the Dayuan.

Jin Xiaohan soon received an official reply from China: the cabinet agreed to his suggestion that after the situation stabilized, a group of members of the Huameiyan Mansion would be mobilized and organized to visit relatives in the name of mourning. By the way, Jin Xiaohan was allowed to compensate for the loss of personnel and property caused by the Chinese and US military in the civil strife in the civil unrest of the Chinese military.

Everything Jin Xiaohan does is to maintain Huamei's unshakable influence in the big people!

As one of the three major agents of the Far East supported by Huamei, the Gan clan before the military coup was the region with the longest relations, the most stable politics, and the most mature economy.

The Lanfang Free Territory is the least of the three in terms of territory and population. Liu Xiang's political literacy is also very bad. Without Huamei's help in the internal and external management, it is difficult to say that the quasi-state founded by a gang of pirate nouveau riche can stand on the Malay Peninsula, which is surrounded by the natives. Economically speaking, Lanfang, which has a national population of less than 100,000, is still in the "lactation period", in addition to recovering some loan interest every year, Huamei's contribution to Lanfang is far greater than the return.

The Republic of Luzon is the largest, most populous, and most developed of the three, but it is only theoretically the chief position.

Less than three years after the founding of the country, Luzon has been tirelessly immigrating from the mainland on a large scale through various channels, but the national population of Chinese descent in the country is currently only in the early 150,000s. According to the latest survey, there are at least one million indigenous people on the island of Luzon, and it is still unknown whether they will be able to coexist peacefully for a long time. Moreover, there is a long-hostile and powerful kingdom of Sulu in the south, and the security environment inside and outside the country is the worst compared to Luzon.

After the brutal War of Independence, Luzon had nearly a century of hard work by the Chinese and Spaniards, but many places were still in a state of ruin, and post-war reconstruction could not be completed in just a few years. Luzon has received much more aid from Huamei than Lan Fang and Dayuan, and the development prospects are naturally very optimistic, but it is estimated that it will take at least five years or more to really get on the right track.

In contrast, the big man and the above two are completely different.

Since Yan Siqi led his troops to land on the island more than 20 years ago, it has been today. Not counting the more than 100,000 aborigines who have been attached, there are more than 300,000 Han people under the rule of the Gan clan in various places, and the construction of local political power is rapid and stable. Economically, with the strong support of the Oriental Union Group. Yan Sicheng's economic construction is remarkable.

After the southern invasion of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty was already in a state of high military fragmentation, and the local people's livelihood and economy were seriously damaged.

1644 before the Manchu invasion of the south. Huamei imported a total of 10,000 quintals of raw silk and 9,000 quintals of tea from the provinces south of the Yangtze River, but in 1645 it fell sharply to only 3,000 quintals of raw silk and 2,000 quintals of tea. Among them, the raw silk and tea produced by the large staff reached 1,200 quintals and 1,000 quintals respectively.

In addition, the export of gold, copper, coal, sulfur, rice, vegetable oil, and raw sugar to Huamei also accounted for a considerable share in 1645. And Huamei exports many important commodities to the Far East. The big ones also accounted for about 20 percent.

It can be said that Dayuan has become the absolute main market of Huamei in the Far East's import and export trade after the "Jiashen Change" in the Far East!

Unstable instability in such a place vital to the economy of the Chinese and American Far East is undoubtedly the worst thing, which is why the Chinese American capitalists, represented by the Oriental Union Union, strongly demand that the state control the big people.

……

……

In the office of the business office of the Oriental Union Group in Dongning, hundreds of white candles illuminate the white room, Jin Xiaohan picked his scalp and frowned, but the several plans he wrote seemed to be infeasible.

This is probably the biggest challenge that Jin Xiaohan has encountered since the implementation of the Far East strategic deployment after Fan Li left the Far East.

After tossing like this, it naturally took a long time to lick the wounds, but the Chinese and American cabinets and the military had to readjust for the military operation in the Far East half a year later.

It seems that Dayuan's political bottom line of maintaining a pro-Chinese and American political bottom line is unchallengeable, which is why Jin Xiaohan personally came to Dayuan Island. However, for Jin Xiaohan and even the entire strategic deployment of Huamei Far East, this civil strife has also greatly disrupted the strategic rhythm of Huamei.

According to the new "Far Eastern Crown Plan" formulated by Fan Li, Huamei would devote three Manchu combat brigades (Brown Bear Brigade, Oriental Brigade, and Volunteer Brigade) to participate in the war against the Manchus by the end of 1646.

In addition to the new army of the Ming Dynasty in Guangdong, the army and navy of the Yan family, a great man with good equipment and combat power, will also play an extremely important role. In particular, it is the main force in the action to help the Luwang Group in eastern Zhejiang recapture Nanjing City and contain the Zhengjia Group.

The army and navy of the Yan family were seriously damaged in this civil strife, and it will take at least two years to recover after some internal friction, plus Yan Sicheng needs to use military means to re-stabilize internal security, and the Yan family will have to be absent from the subsequent mainland military operations.

The Yan family can't count on it. Mobilize more land forces from the North American mainland to complete the Far Eastern Crown Project?

It is estimated that without the National Security Council or the Ministry of National Defense to refuse, Jin Xiaohan himself will feel impossible. Now that Europe and the Far East have reached a critical juncture, they have to employ people everywhere, and where can they draw more strength.

There is a huge loophole in the force plan, and this loophole seems to be almost unsolvable at the moment!

Jin Xiaohan is one of the two people who are most familiar with the current situation in the Far East, and the other is his career mentor Fan Li. As the original traverser of Genhong Miaozheng, he was only twelve years old at the beginning of the crossing, so he received an education that was different from that of other second generations.

Jin Xiaohan is very young, but he is also very old-fashioned, and he followed Fan Li in the Far East at the age of twenty. From foreign affairs in the open to intelligence work in the shadows, he has experienced almost all the difficulties and crises of Huamei in the Far East when he is only in his thirties, and his life experience is definitely richer and more wonderful than most of the high-level officials of Huamei.

With Fan Li's full support, both the cabinet and the National Assembly in China trusted Jin Xiaohan very much and almost gave him great power. But now it seems that Jin Xiaohan is in a predicament, and he thinks that it is almost impossible to completely revise a set of plans that can satisfy the country.

Kick all the problems back home and let the Cabinet or the National Security Council people bother? Jin Xiaohan also thought that it was too cheap. He also lived up to the expectations of his career mentor, and he also hoped to create a decision for the country that would lead history like Fan Li, Su Zining or Yan Xiaosong.

It is said that Hong Chengchou, who surrendered to the Manchu Qing a few years ago, had arrived in Nanjing and was appointed as the "Governor's Military Affairs Envoy to the Jiangnan Economic Strategy", which means that Dolgon has basically solved the chaos in the north after entering the customs. The countdown to the new year's large-scale southern expedition has begun.

Japan's trade switch operation has also officially begun, and forces from all sides are gathering, and the strategy against Japan will also kick off.

But Jin Xiaohan really can't get out of it, and he is even scheduled to leave next month to visit the small court of King Lu in eastern Zhejiang. He could not be there as scheduled, so he could only leave instructions for Sanyu, the new assistant of the Far Eastern Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was about to arrive on Pearl Island, to do the work for him.

There was a knock on the door, and Jin Xiaohan raised his head from his contemplation. He had not closed his eyes for more than ten hours in a row, and he looked very haggard at this time, and the grace and composure that were customary to diplomats were replaced by a kind of annoyance and anxiety.

The door opened, and a middle-aged Chinese army colonel appeared in front of Jin Xiaohan.

"Mr. Jin, the defense of the city is ready to be officially handed over tomorrow, and the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Eastern Brigade will withdraw from Dongning City as a whole. In accordance with the orders of the Far Eastern Regional Command, they will board the ship and return to Hong Kong the day after tomorrow. At that time, Colonel Jean of the Brown Bear Brigade will replace me as the commander-in-chief of the garrison 'peacekeeping force'. ”

Qiao gave a military salute politely, and he didn't seem to be in good spirits after being busy for more than half a month. In order to improve the perception of the Chinese and American troops among the people in the city, Qiao Yan organized officers and soldiers to help clean up the ruins of houses destroyed by artillery fire on more than one occasion, and even personally took medical soldiers to visit some neighborhoods.

"Thank you very much to General Deng, Colonel Joe and Colonel Jean for their support of the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I am sure that it will not be long before we can all leave here. I'm sorry to have you to prepare overnight at such a late hour. I heard that your family came to Pearl Island to visit relatives this time, and it turned out that you are still on a mission on Dayuan Island. ”

Jin Xiaohan was very familiar with the army officer in front of him, and even heard some legendary growth stories of the other party very early.

"Isn't Mr. Kim also separated from his family? You've been setting an example, and no one has the right to blame. ”

Qiao Yan smiled unabated, more than 20 years of Chinese military service has made him look not much different from a native of China.

"By the way, Colonel, do you have any thoughts on the future military operations on the mainland?"

Just as Qiao Yan was about to leave the room, Jin Xiaohan suddenly asked coldly.

Turning around slowly, Qiao Yan showed a little curious look.

As a fully professional officer of the Chinese Army, Qiao Yan has done the most since the day he enlisted, and 100% obedience to orders has been the most important thing he has done. It can be said that Qiao Yan, like many ordinary middle and high-ranking officers, does not have many conventions for making independent decisions when it comes to such higher-level strategic topics.

"What do you mean?" Qiao Yan took off his military hat and sat opposite Jin Xiaohan.

"I think the original plan for the secrecy of military operations, as the commander of the Eastern Brigade, you, also know. Now we are facing a lot of problems, and I am afraid that the multi-point strike plan will change. Of course, this is up to the National Security Council and the Ministry of Defense to make the final decision, but I think that as the ultimate executors of military and diplomatic operations in the Far East, our opinion is also crucial. ”

Jin Xiaohan took a sip of strong tea and threw out the topic like a small talk.

"It seems to me that the large army will not be able to return to normal organization and operational strength in a short time. So tactically, we will have a shortage of troops, and the Ministry of Defense and the Army Command will have to resend new troops, but even if the volunteer brigades are in place, we will need at least one full-strength combat brigade, and two is better. ”

Qiao Yan thought about it for a while, but still expressed his opinion from a purely military point of view.

"What if not?" Jin Xiaohan crumpled the letterhead full of words in his hand directly, saying that he had thought about this plan a long time ago and it was basically not feasible.

"Then give up the secondary direction, I think whether it is General Chen Liwen, General Scott or General Deng Jian, without considering special needs, this is military common sense. We cannot force our chances when we are underarmed, especially when we have to operate in multiple areas of operations. ”

After Qiao Yan finished speaking lightly, he looked at Jin Xiaohan's face intently.

Jin Xiaohan was stunned for a moment, then slowly unfolded the tightly kneaded paper ball in his hand, and fell into deep thought.

Could this be the most reasonable choice that an ordinary normal person who does not understand the strategic intentions of crossing the Far East can make? Or is it that the inertia of thinking of these people is too terrible?

"Thank you, Colonel, I see!"

seemed to have figured out a lot of things in an instant, Jin Xiaohan suddenly showed a relieved smile, and even behind the smile, there was a trace of excitement.

Qiao Xian saluted and withdrew again, but Jin Xiaohan was not sleepy at all, and he was lying on the desk like a chicken blood and writing hard, he planned to completely revise the entire Far East plan, and the new ideas would be something that Huamei's senior management had never thought of. (To be continued......)