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Wednesday, November 29, 1628.

The main force of the Chinese American expeditionary fleet returned from Batavia yesterday evening and arrived on the island of Natuna, accompanied by hundreds of Chinese craftsmen who did not want to stay in Batavia.

These Chinese craftsmen, skilled in civil engineering, were to build a naval base and town on the island of Natuna, while the Chinese Navy was very bold in handing out 50 guilders of silver each before departure, to the delight of the Chinese who had been terrified that they were going to be sold elsewhere. There is nothing Batavia can do about this kind of "digging corners".

The former Natuna Island, now the "Pearl Island" has been changed for more than a month. Led by two companies of Chinese combat engineers, more than 4,000 refugee artisans, former pirates and pirate families nearly doubled the size of the former small bay fishing village and merged with the former refugee camp, with a large number of rudimentary wooden houses erected.

In the western inland of Pearl Harbor, on the slope of the hill where Liu Xiang once swore to resist, a simple military fortress was built with a large amount of earth and rock, and two 90mm fortress guns brought by the Blue Whale transport ship were placed.

In addition to the thousands of Chinese and US Army officers and men stationed on the island, the officers and men of the expeditionary fleet also began to take turns to go ashore to rest and recuperate.

About half of the logistics supply vessels, including the two clippers returning from Malacca and Manila, were still slowly unloading, several light dock steam cranes were assembled and fixed to the dockside, and some of the previously most difficult supplies to unload began to come ashore, and the Chinese islanders who worked as porters were stunned by the endless strength of the "long-arm iron carts" that spit mist.

At the beginning, hundreds of ships of various sizes crowded in the bay were not dismantled into building materials and timber. The sails were confiscated and became wooden toys that could only be seen but not used, and in addition, there were a few small fishing boats that could only operate along the coast. Only a small number of large ships were allocated to Liu Xiang's "South China Sea Volunteers", including the two captured Dutch armed merchant ships with obvious appearances.

In this way, it is obvious that the people on the island have lost the right to leave Pearl Island freely, but in the eyes of many people, this state is actually no different from the past. The Yan family came, followed the Yan family, and Liu Xiang was ruthless. followed Liu Xiangming, now that the army of China and the United States is here, and it seems to be more "kind" and "ferocious" than the previous two, it is not a problem to be attached to this "China and the United States". "Resignation" is probably the habitual survival logic of people at this time.

The area of farmland that was developed on the island in the early years was too small. It was impossible to feed the thousands of mouths that are present, so by a shallow stream near the military fortress on the hillside, a large area of shrubs and grasses almost half a man high was boiled, and the people, who had been diligent in farming all their lives, resumed their status as good citizens, and carried out the cultivation with great skill with the beautiful iron farming implements that were supposed to be commodities. Taking advantage of the sunny climate, abundant rainfall and water resources, rice cultivation can easily reach two crops a year.

But after today. The number of people who will eventually be allowed to stay on the island will be reduced by a third. Each ship will be equipped with enough fresh water and food for 400 adults to consume for a month, and then leave Pearl Island with 1,200 Daming refugees who have recovered their health. They will stop at the port of Malacca for resupply. Then take some of the goods purchased by the Huamei United Commercial Center in Malacca, and finally return to Nanshan Port to relieve the supply pressure on Pearl Island.

Former pirates and their families were not among the first immigrants. It will be very difficult to select 1,200 "qualified" men, women and children from thousands of Ming refugees to board the ship. It's not just many people who are in a bad state of physical health. Bearing the "terrifying" high-speed sailing experience of the monsoon route without taking off and cutting the merchant ship is more of a resistant.

After a nightmarish life of detention and being bought and sold like goods, almost none of the refugees were willing to listen to the ship after they had eaten and drunk, and most of them were crying out to "go home".

God knows what kind of tough means the Yan family used to send boatloads of Ming refugees to North America, and this kind of resistance to death and life almost made Major You Nanzhe, who temporarily served as the military control officer of Pearl Harbor, collapse. Fortunately, Brigadier General Zhang Chunrui, commander-in-chief of the expeditionary fleet, came up with an idea and directly pulled out hundreds of Chinese officers and soldiers in the army and navy, looking for various means to persuade fellow villagers to make friends. The familiar local sound, which is a wish and a statement, can be regarded as a move to some people.

In the end, nearly half of the people cried and cried and resolutely refused to cooperate, as a last resort, You Nanzhe's face changed, and he used the army to raise bayonets and set up machine guns, so that all the men and women who were screened out were like ashes on the boat, simple, rude and direct, and the efficiency became instantaneous.

If you add to this the management of the daily life and work of the refugees, and the construction of the port and other miscellaneous troubles come in, a commander with a calm personality like You Nanzhe is a little angry. The Huamei ** team, who is not good at civil affairs, began to perform the civil management work that they should not have bothered with with all kinds of anxious feelings.

……

Zhang Chunrui sat in a temporary headquarters with a simple mixed wooden structure that had just been completed, a number of maps and pen and paper were placed on the wooden table in front of him, and the radio communication group in the corner was sending and receiving signals across the Indian Ocean with a tense face.

"General, Ministry of Defense message." Half an hour later, after finally translating the last paragraph of the message, the communications officer came over wiping his sweat, "Due to the lack of domestic transportation capacity, it is impossible to send a second batch of transport fleets, and it is impossible to dispatch administrative personnel in advance, Pearl Island is temporarily under the military control of the General Headquarters of the Expeditionary Fleet, and I hope that we will do our best to let the merchant ships return to China......"

"Just read me the last content, I just care when they can arrange it!" Zhang Chunrui raised a hand and interrupted the communications officer's tirade.

"It will be after April next year at the earliest, General!" The communications officer hurriedly stood up.

After April next year...... Zhang Chunrui frowned and began to walk around the room. When they landed on the island to fight, almost no one would have imagined that there was such an "accidental" crowd on the island of Natuna. This meant that Natuna was no longer a mere military advance base for the expeditionary fleet from the beginning.

I didn't think these were too troublesome before I set off, in the early days it was the size of a small naval base, but now there are a large number of ordinary people on Pearl Island. Facts have once again proved that interlacing is like separating mountains, and letting a group of soldiers who only know how to shoot and fire guns go to manage the place for a long time is simply not knowing how to start.

The expeditionary fleet not only had to cooperate with Yan Xiaosong in carrying out a series of complex military and diplomatic operations in the Far East, but also had to undertake a large number of civil administration affairs on Pearl Island and take care of thousands of sick and weak refugees. These non-professional tasks will greatly affect the overall combat efficiency of the fleet.

"Second lieutenant, go and ask Dean Zhao from the temporary hospital to come to the headquarters." Zhang Chunrui thought about it, he still planned to temporarily pull Zhuang Ding, at least he couldn't sit on the island all the time to be a temporary owner, right?

Zhao Fang, the former ship doctor. This doctor, who still followed Su Zining across most of the Atlantic after the crossing, is now responsible for leading a medical team of more than 30 people to settle on Pearl Island and become the acting director of the temporary hospital on the island. And the Chinese wife he married after the crossing also became a helper in his career early, and now she also works as a nurse in the Capital National Hospital.

Zhang Chunrui intends to persuade the other party to take the position of "acting mayor of Pearl City". Succeed the military in civil administration. When he heard Zhang Chunrui's request, Zhao Fang, who was over forty years old, had a bitter face, because the largest department he had managed was only the emergency center of the Capital National Hospital in Manchester City.

Until Zhang Chunrui took out a domestic telegram and told the other party to hold out until April or May next year at most. Zhao Fangcai nodded reluctantly. However, Zhao Fang also put forward some manpower requirements, hoping that Yang Xiaohua's employees of the trading company who came with the fleet would also share some local management work. Zhang Chunrui was full of promises.

……

After a night's rest, Huang Huer couldn't wait to carry some canned food and a coconut he had saved into the "city". The so-called urban area is nothing more than a large fishing village made up of simple wooden houses or small buildings on stilts. At this time, many army officers and soldiers were maintaining order, and a string of Daming refugees who had been selected to be sent to North America were walking towards the dock with sighs. And people who felt "very lucky" stood on the side of the street with the sad expression of a dead rabbit and a fox.

Turning around a few low shacks, Huang Hu'er came to a small wooden building on stilts. I saw a young woman in her 20s mending a fishing net next to the wooden building, and a wooden basin was placed next to the young woman, and a baby girl less than a year old was sleeping in the wooden basin.

"Sister-in-law Chen!" Huang Hu'er put on a smile, took off his navy hat, and ran towards the former pirate family with whom he had a good relationship recently.

"Ah, it's Huzi, you look sweating profusely, are you thirsty?" The young woman hurriedly put down the work she was doing, turned around and took out a black pottery bowl filled with water from the house, "Come, it's a hot day, quench your thirst first." ”

"Sister-in-law, this is a can for your home!" Huang Hu'er smiled and put the package in her arms on the side of the wooden basin, then took the water bowl with both hands, and looked at the baby girl's eyes very gently, "Brother Chen went to sea to fish?" ”

"Well, when I went fishing, I told the one who suffered a thousand knives a long time ago that it was better to live a peaceful life, so as not to be as frightened as before." The former pirate family lifted the wooden basin and took Huang Hu'er up the wooden building.

Almost nothing was intact in the same dilapidated wooden hut as ever, with a cloak of cloak and a stinking string of pickled fish hanging from the wall, a broken mat bed, and a cracked and rusty axe with a wooden handle. Huang Hu'er seemed to think of her hometown, her old mother and two younger sisters, who had been widowed for many years.

"Huzi, the big guys all say...... Don't blame me for being too talkative, the big guy said, you want to sell us all to the West......" Carefully hide the cans, Sister-in-law Chen reluctantly stood in front of Huang Hu'er with a smile, "The Ming Dynasty in the north is not having a good time, my poor baby was ...... Now that the family is living in this South Sea, they want to live a peaceful and stable life. This child is pitiful, she has no mother when she is young, you entrust it to me, I will naturally take good care of her as an adult, but if it ......"

As she spoke, Sister-in-law Chen shed tears, and the baby girl in the wooden basin also cried with Wow Wow.

Huang Hu'er was so frightened that she hurriedly pulled Sister-in-law Chen to sit down on a small wooden bench, and knelt in front of the other party: "Sister-in-law Chen, don't listen to their nonsense!" To tell you the truth, you can really be picked on the ship, but it is a blessing from a lifetime of cultivation! There are houses and land, and I eat rice, white flour and meat every day, which is thousands of times better than Daming! ”

"Really?!" Sister-in-law Chen wiped her tears, picked up the crying baby girl in the wooden basin, and gently coaxed her, still looking incredulous.

"I won't tell you, I used to be a member of the Daming Fujian Kinmen Institute!" Huang Hu'er hurriedly pulled open the collar of his shirt and took out a sandalwood card, "This is given to me by my mother, I have two younger sisters in Kinmen's hometown." I'm still thinking about how to get them over! ”

Thinking that the other party was holding a child all over the fishing village to find someone who was willing to take him in, and he was very kind and gave a lot of gorgeous canned food that the neighbors were envious of, it was unlikely that he was a tricky liar, and Sister-in-law Chen settled down a little.

"That'...... I have a ...... with you, Brother Chen. Got a chance to go? Sister-in-law Chen put the child to sleep again, and then looked at Huang Hu'er embarrassedly, "Among these military masters, I know Huzi and you ......."

"I can't do this...... Now that the country occupies this place, it will not leave everyone alone, so the days will definitely be better than Daming! Huang Hu'er touched his head, and he didn't dare to pack the ticket.

"That's ......" After the other party's explanation just now, Sister-in-law Chen seemed to feel a little disappointed, so she could only hold the baby girl and stop talking.

On the way back to the camp, Huang Hu'er couldn't help but secretly took out a scroll tightly wrapped in oilcloth from his trouser pocket, looking at this secret letter from Sun Erxi that he was looking for an opportunity to send to Macao or Kinmen, Huang Hu'er was afraid and confused.

……

The steam engine of the Blue Whale transport ship broke down on the way back, and the sail steam auxiliary lifting device of the light cruiser Republic also had a problem, and it took some time to repair, and the officers and men also needed to rest, so before Yan Xiaosong returned, the expeditionary fleet could just have a more comprehensive rest and rectification on Pearl Island.

The hundreds of tons of grain purchased from Malacca and Manila have filled a large gap in food supplies, but Zhang Chunrui still does not dare to take this procurement lightly and intends to continue this procurement behavior for some time. Not only used Liu Xiang to get supplies from the mainland, but also used the Malacca Huamei United Commercial Center to get in touch with Chinese businessmen running in Southeast Asia, and normalized the daily material procurement on Pearl Island. No matter what, we must persist until next year, when the country sends special administrative personnel in place.

No matter how You Nanzhe and other army officers and men complained, the matter of rushing ducks to the shelves to establish a temporary administrative organization for Pearl Island must be carried out, and Zhao Fang was temporarily appointed acting mayor of Pearl City, and a group of trade representatives who had been thinking about "doing a big job" in Southeast Asia all day long were also forced to share the pressure of the military's civil administration. In this way, a nondescript "Pearl Island Overseas Territory" opened at least half a year ahead of schedule.

(To be continued)