Although a breakthrough was made in the final stage, which allowed the Haihan people to make small concessions, Ruan Jinggui did not even have the slightest joy in his heart. The superficial concessions of the Haihan people have drawn a line of time and death for South Vietnam in disguise -- thirty days later, the warships of the Haihan people will appear on the coast of South Vietnam at any time, and the imperial court may no longer be able to fool the people with such a far-fetched excuse as "piracy and chaos". Moreover, the Haihan people did not pay attention to the demands of the South Vietnamese from beginning to end to put pressure on the North Vietnamese and Champa to make them armistice.

Just one Haihan was enough to make the South Vietnamese court anxious, and one south and one north, as well as the two undying enemies of North Vietnam and Champa were eager to try, and took turns to send troops to attack South Vietnam, which made Hue Province have fallen into an embattled situation. The high-ranking officials in the court had hoped that the Haihan people would intervene in the atrocities of the two neighbors through negotiations, but they never thought that the Haihan people had no intention of giving this account a chance to be lenient.

During the negotiations, the Executive Committee did not impose strict restrictions on his movements, but took him to various places every day, with the aim of allowing him to "feel the advanced nature of the Haihan social system."

Nguyen Ching Gui was just a businessman from a small country, and he could compare the advantages of the social system of Haihan for a while, but in his opinion, the local civil administration system was far stricter than that of Annam, and the living standards of the people were much higher than those of Annam. Although there are many strange rules here that Ruan Jinggui feels incomprehensible, and even trivial things such as whether you should walk on the left or right on the street, he has to admit that the social order here is very good, and there are no idle idlers or beggars begging along the streets in Shengli Harbor.

Although Ruan Jinggui himself has never been a civil affairs official, he was born in a family of eunuchs, and he also knows that this kind of good social order not only needs the maintenance of the legal system, but more importantly, the people's lives are rich enough. If most people don't have enough food and clothing, how can they have the heart to follow those strange rules?

Under the deliberate arrangement of the Executive Committee, Nguyen Ching Gui also came into close contact with several families of immigrants who had moved from Annam. These families have been settled in Shengli Port for more than half a year, and they have basically been washed into orthodox Haihan naturalized people, and they did not express much surprise at the arrival of the envoy of their homeland, but calmly introduced some details of life that he was interested in.

The five members of the Vu Shang family were all pulled to Shengli Port by Haihan's coal ship in Thanh Hoa when they were fleeing the war, and in Annam, they were already landless and proletarian people, and there were only two ways to continue to stay as serfs or be captured as peasant soldiers, and after coming to Shengli Port, it was undoubtedly a new life for them.

"The Haihan chiefs built us houses, distributed food, and distributed clothes, and we worked here to get paid, and we had the protection of the militia to worry about the war, so it was good here. Wu Shang was weaving baskets with bamboo strips while casually talking about his living situation. He was a carpenter when he was in Annam, and after coming to Shengli Port, he continued to resume his old business, living by carrying baskets of soil for the Ministry of Construction.

"But you are from Annan!" Ruan Jinggui couldn't help but complain: "Now the Haihan people want to destroy our country, and you are still working for them!"

Wu Shang glanced up at Ruan Jinggui and said lightly: "Country? I only know that when our family was about to starve to death outside Thanh Hoa City, the country didn't plan to save us. ”

"That's the rebel thief of Thang Long Mansion who doesn't care about the people's livelihood, and my Hue Mansion is the orthodoxy of the Great Li Dynasty, and it will be restored to the ...... in a few days."

Ruan Jinggui planned to give this foolish people a good ideological and political lesson, and help him reshape the correct historical values, but Wu Shang unceremoniously interrupted him: "The orthodox court did not show any mercy when it killed us innocent people. My brother and sister were honest peasants, and as soon as the army from the south came, they robbed him of all the food and money in his family, and finally killed his family...... Even if this kind of imperial court is restored, what good can it do to our people?"

“...... You...... This is really a big rebellion!" Ruan Jinggui was speechless for a while, and he didn't know how to refute it, so he could only buckle it up with a big hat. (Baidu search update is the fastest and most stable)

Earlier last year, South Vietnam launched a counteroffensive to the north, and there were indeed some looting of people. As the saying goes, bandits are like combs, soldiers are like grates, and officials are like shavings, and ordinary people in war zones naturally become the targets of looting. Obviously, the South Vietnamese army did not leave much room for the people in the enemy-occupied areas, and wantonly burned, killed and looted, causing a large number of people to abandon their homes and property and flee to the north - this is one of the fundamental reasons for the success of the cross-group to obtain immigrants from North Vietnam.

"The villain is now a naturalized Haihan citizen, and he has obtained the origin of Haihan, and he is no longer a citizen of Annan, but the villain can't afford this big contradictory statement. Wu Shang's work in his hands was non-stop, and the rhetoric on his lips was actually one set at a time, which made Ruan Jinggui feel like he was choked.

Nguyen Ching Gui visited several families of naturalized people from Annam, and their reactions were not much different from those of the Thiam family. In the eyes of these naturalized people, Sanya, where food, clothing, shelter and safety are well guaranteed, is far better than Annan, which has been war-torn for many years, and they have not been treated unfairly because of their status as outsiders after coming here - of course, in fact, more than 70% of the population in Sanya are outsiders, and there are not too many real aborigines. The people felt that the treatment they received here, the surrounding living environment, and the prospects for future development were far from comparable to those they had received in Annam, so when Nguyen Ching Gui asked them if they would like to return to Annam, they all made it clear that they refused.

This situation made Ruan Jinggui very disappointed, and he originally had a glimmer of hope that he would be able to instigate a group of Annam immigrants to return to China to join the war -- there were also many militiamen from Annamite in the Haihan militia, and if these people could be mobilized, there might be hope to change the attitude of the Haihan people. However, the facts once again dealt a heavy blow to him, and instead of returning to China to participate in the war, these naturalized people from Annam took all their grievances against the ruling court. If the attitude of ordinary people is like this, let alone those in the army.

Ruan Jinggui finally had the opportunity to visit the big iron dragon that made his heart beat at close range, and it was only then that he realized that this thing was not a living thing, but some kind of mechanical device made of fine iron, as for why it could travel quickly along the rails laid on the ground, Ruan Jinggui did not understand the principle. Seeing that there were also a lot of ordinary people riding in the car, it was obvious that this thing was not driven by some esoteric spell.

Later, Nguyen Ching Gui was startled by the goods unloaded from the train, and the carriage was full of artillery, rifles, ammunition, and all kinds of armor, knives and guns. Most of these weapons will be sold to Hsu Hsin Su in Fujian and the North Vietnamese military, and a small amount will be supplied to the militia groups of the major shareholders of the "Qiong Lian Fa". Seeing such a scene, Ruan Jinggui was almost convinced that the firearms troops that had appeared in the recent occupation of the city must have also been armed by the Haihan people.

Of course, this is not an unintentional mistake by the relevant departments, but an intentional show to Ruan Jinggui. It is no longer a secret that Haihan is now in the business of selling arms to foreign countries, and since the battle of Lijiazhuang, the two regions have known that Haihan's man-made weapons that can make glass are also good hands. However, for South Vietnam, which has been isolated from the Haihan system, perhaps they still lack an intuitive understanding of Haihan's weapon-manufacturing capabilities, so the relevant departments arranged such an opportunity for Nguyen Jinggui to learn about Haihan's military industrial strength from the side.

All the firearms in South Vietnam basically came from the Portuguese, and they did not have the ability to manufacture them themselves, while the Haihan people far surpassed the Portuguese in the strength of making weapons. Seeing the black cannons unloaded from the train onto the flatbed truck, and then transferred to the dock for loading, Ruan Jinggui was indeed very red-eyed. The artillery pieces that the South Vietnamese court managed to buy from the Portuguese every year only added up to about 20 pieces of artillery, but the North Vietnamese merchant ship in the port with the flag of "Zheng" loaded 20 guns on board in one go, as well as dozens of boxes of muskets.

With the support of the Haihan arsenal behind them, the North Vietnamese did not have to worry about the supply of weapons and equipment being cut off, and they were even buying more weapons to prepare to continue their attack on South Vietnam. South Vietnam, on the other hand, has now lost Portugal, a major supplier, and is on the verge of running out of ammunition and food. The gap between the two sides in terms of the level of armament is constantly widening, and this reality has made the already pessimistic Nguyen Jinggui more and more depressed.

At the end of October, Nguyen Ching Quy left Victory Port disappointed and returned to Hue Province in South Vietnam on a sailing ship specially sent for him by the Ministry of Shipping. This visit was largely lackluster, except for a period of little consideration for the South Vietnamese court. Nguyen Ching Gui was also hit by the cruel reality he saw with his own eyes, and he only hoped that after returning to Hue, he could use his personal experience to calm down the high-ranking officials in the court and look at the current situation.

However, at this time, the Executive Committee did not have the energy to pay attention to the reaction of the South Vietnamese court to the outcome of such negotiations, because there were some new developments in the Cantonese direction that they had to pay attention to.

On the same day that Nguyen Ching Gui left the port of Shengli, the Executive Committee received a telegram from the Guangzhou Office informing them that the "Eighteen Chi" had sent an envoy to contact them and asked Hai Han to stop arms exports to Fujian.

To be honest, "Eighteen Zhi" did not begin to react until this time, which was one thing that surprised the Executive Committee. Since the second half of last year, the troops under the command of Xu Xinsu in Fujian have gradually begun to use Haihan weapons on the battlefield, and they have relied on these sharp weapons to slowly recover their declining momentum, causing considerable casualties to the armed personnel of the "Eighteen Zhi." Originally, Xu Xinsu had died in the Zhongzuo Institute in this year, but he is alive and well at present, and he has been rewarded by the imperial court for defeating the incoming pirates many times this year.

It was impossible for the "Eighteen Zhi" who had been hit hard not to ponder the reasons for the change in the situation of the battle, and the firepower of the defenders had obviously been greatly strengthened, which was the main reason why the "Eighteen Zhi" organized several large-scale offensives but returned without success. With the intelligence network of the "Eighteen Zhi" in the coastal area of Fuguang, it is not very difficult to find the source of these sudden large-scale killing weapons in the opponent's camp, and the executive committee once thought that the most optimistic estimate would be able to conceal the first half of this year, especially in May, when the militia group attacked continuously and then set up a nest of pirates on Dangan Island at the mouth of the Pearl River after relieving the siege of Lijiazhuang, and almost completely exposed their own strength on the table. As long as the high-level leaders of "Eighteen Zhi" are not deaf or blind, they should have discovered that the sudden rise of Fujian sailors has an inevitable connection with Haihan.

However, instead of sending a large number of pirate ships to harass the mouth of the Pearl River and even attack the port of Wanshan, as the Executive Committee feared, the "Eighteen Zhi" kept a strange silence until a few months later, when they suddenly jumped out and made conditions for Haihan.

With regard to the sale of arms to the Fujian Navy Division Xu Xinsu, the Guangzhou Office neither admitted nor denied it. After discussing with He Xi, the local first-in-command and second-in-command, Marik decided to send the news back to Victory Port first, so that the base camp could be prepared. They used the usual Tai Chi technique in the local area to fool the people of the "Eighteen Zhi" first, and slowly obtain information.

Two hours after receiving the news, the Executive Committee held an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with the matter.

"Are they going to salute first and then soldier?" Ning Qi, who had just heard about this, was a little puzzled by the attitude of "Eighteen Zhi": "Can I understand their attitude as a fear of us?"

"Maybe there's a reason for that. Tao Donglai nodded in response: "Our several battles in the first half of the year, especially the two battles in Guangdong, have made a name for themselves, and it is no secret that the Haihan militia regiment is no longer a secret, and it is easy for people with a heart to find out about the situation of our operations." Although the strength of the 'Eighteen Zhi' in the Fujian Sea is very strong, after all, their base is in Taiwan, whether it is from the mouth of the Pearl River or from Sanya, it is too far, and there is Xu Xinsu dragging them there, if at this time the labor expedition is obviously not a wise move. If I were in Zheng Zhilong's position, I would probably first take the form of negotiation to test the opponent's attitude. ”

"I'll add a little bit as well. Schneider continued to follow Tao Donglai's point of view: "So far, we have not had a direct armed conflict with the 'Eighteen Zhi', nor have we expressed direct hostility, and the only thing we have done to their detriment is military assistance to the Xu Xinsu group. At present, 17% of our foreign trade orders are from Fujian, among which in addition to Xu Xinsu, I am afraid that there is no shortage of 'Eighteen Zhi' arranged in the mainland businessmen. Do you remember the pirates that the militia exterminated on Dangan Island in May? They have been reselling our property to the 'Eighteen Chi', and there must be more than one company doing this kind of thing, and the 'Eighteen Chi' probably don't want to be cut off from the supply of some in-demand merchants because of their bad relations with us. ”

"That is to say, on the one hand, they resent us for selling weapons to Xu Xinsu, which ruined their good deeds, but on the other hand, they were not very willing to offend us directly, so as to prevent us from directly intervening in the war in Fujian, and cut off the supply of goods to them. Ning Qi suddenly concluded: "That's why they have been entangled for so long, and finally they can't help but break out." ”

"It took so long to jump out and make a statement, maybe there will be other reasons that we don't know now, figuring out the opponent's intentions is on the one hand, on the other hand, we must also be prepared for emergencies, after all, this is a major opponent that we have identified before we cross, and we must concentrate on dealing with it. Tao Donglai pulled the topic back to the main line, looked at the executive committee members present and said: "If the other party's attitude is tough, then we should be prepared for war in advance!"

In the preparatory plan before the crossing, "Eighteen Zhi" was already listed as one of the main hostile forces listed by the Executive Committee. Although the "Eighteen Zhi" has not had any hostile behavior towards the Crossing Group so far, it is impossible for the Executive Committee to regard it as a future partner. For an adversary like Portugal, the Executive Committee can turn enemies into friends and choose cooperation for the sake of long-term interests, but with regard to the "Eighteen Chi" entrenched in the Taiwan Strait, the Executive Committee has never intended to ease relations between the two sides.

On the one hand, this is because the "Eighteen Zhi" occupies the Taiwan Strait, the golden shipping route in East Asia, and has a fundamental conflict of interest with the future development plan of the Crossing Group. In the future, the Haihan forces will inevitably expand northward along the coastal areas of Fuguang, and the importance of such a vital part of the Taiwan Strait has far exceeded the waters of the Pearl River estuary, and it is impossible for the Executive Committee to let outsiders hold it in their hands, and it is impossible for the "Eighteen Zhi" to take the initiative to cede territory, and it is only a matter of time before the two sides clash over the right to control this sea area. On the other hand, it is the problem of Zheng Zhilong's discipline that has been criticized by later generations. This guy first followed the pirate merchant Li Dan, and later helped the Dutch to fight against Spanish merchant ships at sea, and then took refuge in Yan Siqi, the pirate leader in Taiwan. In 1625, Yan Siqi and Li Dan passed away successively, and Zheng Zhilong inherited part of their family business and raised the banner of "Eighteen Zhi". After Zheng Zhilong's uprising, he gathered a crowd to attack Fujian, and almost wiped out the Fujian Navy Division. However, the first thing this guy did after he came ashore was to lead the original army to kill the former sworn brothers, and by the way, he annexed the forces of the other pirate leaders of the "Eighteen Zhi".