Chapter 368: Hurried Transfer

As for Portugal and Haihan turning enemies into friends and cooperating in bilateral trade and even deeper politics, it is not a matter for Enrique, the special envoy, to make a decision directly, so the Executive Committee did not expect him to sign a cooperation agreement on behalf of Portugal after consideration. (Baidu search update fastest and most stable dìng). All Enrique can do now is to try his best to get a little more favorable conditions for his interest group, and then report the situation back to Australia, so that the council there can make a final decision. Of course, Enrique's attitude on this matter will have a great impact on the final result, which is the main reason why the Executive Committee has invested so many resources in the preliminary work.

"Dear gentlemen, after careful consideration last night, I must admit that the prospects for cooperation you have described are very tempting, and I have found no reason to refuse you. Enrique said with a rare sternness: "But it is not yet possible to sign any form of written agreement, and I hope you will recognize this situation." ”

"We've already thought of this, for such a big matter, Mr. Enrique probably needs to draft a very detailed report and send it back to Ho Jing O, right?" Tao Donglai had already received the report, and the light in Enrique's room was not extinguished last night, so he must be in a hurry to write the report materials.

"If you wish, we can send a boat to deliver this letter to Ho Kiang O and 'deliver' it to your council. Yan Chujie immediately added: "It takes three days for our ship to reach Ho Jing O." ”

"This ......" Enrique wanted to refuse Yan Chujie's offer of help, but he could deliver the letter to Hao Jingao in three days, and this efficiency made it difficult for him to give up. If you find a boat to send the letter back now, it will take six or seven days no matter how fast it is, and it seems that there is no delay for a few days, but this kind of matter should not be delayed sooner rather than later, and it will change later, who knows if the Haihan people will suddenly regret it in a few days?

"You can rest assured, I really can't give you a trip. Yan Chujie saw Enrique's hesitant 'look' on his face, so he continued to persuade.

Enrique was really moved at this time, he originally wanted to write a letter to send back, and he stayed in Victory Harbor to continue negotiations with the Haihan people, but the description of the letter was certainly not as detailed as his own explanation, if he could personally go back to Haojingao to report in person, then the chances of persuading the council would definitely be much greater than sending a letter back.

"Without further ado, arrange a boat for Mr. Enrique. Tao Dong came to see Enrique's face 'pale' and hesitated, and immediately helped him make a decision.

"It just so happens that the Lightnings have just finished hull maintenance and can make a trip. I'm going to call Tom Wang. Yan Chujie didn't give Enrique any more time to think about it, and immediately informed Wang Tom to go.

"Okay. Enrique gritted his teeth and decided to take a gamble on the matter: "I'll let the servant go back to the guest house to get my luggage." ”

Half an hour later, Enrique had boarded the "Lightning" docked at the pier of Port Victory, and Tom Wang himself would personally drive him back to the Australian "Gate". Of course, with Tom Wang's current status, he will also be a representative of Haihan on a visit to Australia, and will hold talks with the Portuguese Council of Australia on military cooperation.

There are different reasons why both sides want to do their best to facilitate this. Enrique believes that if the cooperation method claimed by the Haihan people can be realized as soon as possible, the Portuguese side will not only gain economic benefits, but also the two sides can move from confrontation to cooperation, which means that Portugal has one less strong opponent in the Far East and one more powerful partner. The Haihan people were willing to help Portugal against the Dutch and the British, and such an opportunity was not always available. Although the strength of the Haihan people is still relatively limited, Enrique believes that their future development prospects can really only be described as "limitless", and now that there is an opportunity to choose cooperation, Enrique will never allow this opportunity to slip past him lightly, and then let the two sides enter into a hostile relationship.

And the fact that the Executive Committee is so eager is not that the members of the Executive Committee are too shallow to hide the matter - if you want to talk about the black-bellied Cheng Dù, I am afraid that it will be difficult for contemporaries to find a second ruling group that can be compared with the Haihan Executive Committee. In addition to the superficial statements, another reason why the Executive Committee is anxious to deal with this matter is that the number of prospective immigrants in Guangdong has skyrocketed recently, and the number of people who poured into the Panyu migrant camps in the first half of September has exceeded the total number of immigrants in the previous two months. In order to transfer so many migrants to Sanya in a short period of time, it is almost necessary to dispatch the full capacity of Shengli Port. After receiving a large number of immigrants in a short period of time, the pressure on the supply of materials has also increased dramatically, and they have sent several telegrams back to ask for support.

However, if the relationship with the Portuguese is not properly handled, the risk of the transit process will be greatly increased, because no one can guarantee that the Portuguese, who suffered a heavy defeat in South Vietnam, will not attack the soft persimmon of the Haihan migrant ship. Although Wanshan Port is not far from the Macao Gate, there are only two or three warships on combat readiness duty in Wanshan Port, and it is not a big problem to patrol the waters of the Pearl River Estuary in normal times, and it is a bit inadequate to carry out long-distance escort between the Pearl River Estuary and Shengli Port.

Trying to resolve the hostile relationship between the two sides was undoubtedly a less costly solution than sending warships to escort the convoy, not to mention that the Executive Committee had already intended to cooperate with Portugal long before sending troops to attack Hoi An. As soon as the Executive Committee cooperated with the Portuguese, it would be able to send a large number of ships to Panyu to transport the immigrants as soon as possible, which was an important task for the Executive Committee, which could not afford to wait for the expansion of the population base in the area under its control.

The "Lightning" set off with Enrique on the front foot, and the executive committee on the back foot issued an emergency notice to suspend all cargo flights to North Vietnam and the Indochina Peninsula, and gathered all the sea ships in the port area to prepare for the "wave" of migrants to Panyu to transfer the "tide". The Ministry of Construction also began to transfer the construction team from the existing construction site to the newly designated resettlement area, and began emergency construction and expansion. The arrival of thousands of people in Hong Kong means that hundreds of temporary shelters and corresponding basic living facilities have to be built, and it will be difficult to complete such a large amount of work in a short period of time without the coordination and cooperation of various departments.

As for food and clothing, the inventory of the Ministry of Civil Affairs is quite sufficient, enough to supply nearly 10,000 people, and there should be no shortage of materials in the short term. In the past, there were only about 1,000 people arriving in Hong Kong in batches, and it was easier to arrange for them, but if thousands of people arrived in Hong Kong at one time, the requirements for health and epidemic prevention work would be different. The Ministry of Commerce has begun to contact merchants to collect a large number of commonly used 'medicine' materials from cities such as Guangzhou and northern Qiongzhou Island to prepare for the upcoming 'wave' of immigration.

September 17, Panyu, Lijiazhuang migrant camp.

After more than three months of construction, the resettlement camp near the Shawan Waterway outside Lijiazhuang has expanded from the original 30 acres of land to nearly 200 acres, and the number of migrants received has also expanded from the initial 4 to 500 to the current thousands -- of course, the current scale of reception has greatly exceeded the actual operation capacity of the camp.

"Sister Ma, the 'medicine' materials shipped from Guangzhou have arrived, I have already counted them, can you sign for them?" Sha Xi ran over pantingly and handed a piece of paper to Ma 'Yu'.

Ma 'Yu' took a look at it and signed it with a pen, and said again: "Xiaosha, you let people move all the 'medicine' materials to the infirmary, and transfer twenty more people to me, there are not enough people to grind the 'medicine'." ”

"Okay, okay, I'll do it. Shaxi grabbed the paperwork and hurried out.

Due to the recent influx of people into the Lijiazhuang migrant camp, the local migrant cadres were no longer enough, so the Guangzhou Office had to send reinforcements to let Ma 'Yu', who is in charge of medical and health care, and Sha Xi, who is in charge of immigration affairs, come here to coordinate. In addition to them, Xiao Liang, who was more familiar with the local situation, was also transferred, and he was accompanied by two platoons of militia from Wanshan Port to maintain law and order in the immigration camp.

This wave of migration did not happen for no reason, and since May this year, much of the Pearl River Delta has once again been hit by drought. However, it was not until after the summer harvest that the danger of drought began to gradually appear, and in many places people went bankrupt because they borrowed money to buy grain, and the "tide" of displaced people that had already begun to subside began to grow again.

The high-ranking officials in Guangzhou did not have a particularly good way to deal with this, and the farmland in the province failed to harvest every year due to natural disasters, and there was not much surplus grain in the granary of the government that could be used for disaster relief. And the effect of this is extremely limited, and even if some wealthy businessmen are willing to do this good deed, there are many specific difficulties.

First of all, it is difficult to buy large quantities of food for the victims of the disaster, and the rising price of grain also makes this kind of relief very uneconomical, but if you buy rice and grain from other places, it will take a long time to transport it to the towns near Guangzhou. Second, as soon as there is news of the opening of a warehouse to release grain in a certain place, the victims of the disaster within a radius of dozens of miles in the vicinity will quickly flock to it, and it is okay for the squires of small families to provide relief to 180 people, but if thousands of people rush to the 'door' to ask for food, how can they withstand this kind of posture? Once the scene gets out of control, it can easily turn into a violent incident such as looting.

In addition, there are many people in order to ask for a bite to eat, choose the old road of falling grass for the coward, for a while the bandits who were originally suppressed by the battle of Lijiazhuang seem to have begun to have signs of stupid 'desire' again, and have even begun to organize the looting of some remote mountain villages and towns, these news gathered to the governor's ya'men', so that Governor Wang, who had just taken office for a few months, scratched his head.

At such a time, of course, there will be staff members who will give advice to Wang Zunde -- the victims of the disaster are emerging one after another, and the government is unable to provide relief, so it can only rely on the power of the people to try their best to relieve the victims. At present, the most powerful business in the Liangguang region and willing to do good deeds is "Qiong Lianfa", as long as they are allowed to take this head, they will definitely be able to temporarily alleviate the food shortage in the province, which is becoming more and more strict.

As for whether there are any drawbacks in this, and where will "Qiong Lianfa" arrange these immigrants to go, the staff doesn't have much to say, and Lord Wang doesn't have the time to think about it slowly. If the two Guangxi are a 'chaos', it is a major event to report to the imperial court, and no matter what, we must try to stabilize the situation first. As for the negative effects of this, no one can take care of it at this juncture.

So the Governor's Office sent a document to "Qiong Lianfa", and the shareholders and bosses here naturally did not dare to make a decision 'privately', and sent the original to the Guangzhou Office overnight. Marik immediately felt that this was a good opportunity, on the one hand, to bring in a large number of immigrants, and on the other hand, to create a better reputation for Haihan among the people, even if there was no special propaganda in the future, the people seeking a livelihood would naturally know where the way out was.

Of course, this matter must not be handled by the Guangzhou Office in charge, but must be 'handed over' to "Qiong Lianfa" and more than a dozen related commercial banks to operate. In order to dump this drudgery on the "Qiong Lianfa," the government has also happily given a lot of convenience -- all the rice, grain, and daily necessities transported to the Panyu resettlement camp are exempt from all tolls and taxes, all the people who go to the Panyu resettlement camp are exempt from checking the road guides, and all the resettlement relief points organized by the "Qiong Lianfa" in various prefectures and counties are all assisted by government officials in maintaining order, and corresponding notices are issued to confirm their reliability.

As a result, a large number of migrants began to concentrate from various prefectures and counties in the province to Panyu County, and the speed was far faster than Marik and others initially expected, so that they had to ask the base camp for help, asking to send ships to deliver supplies and pick up the migrants who were about to burst.

At present, there are nearly 5,000 people from all walks of life who are sponsoring the resettlement areas, and the amount of food eaten every day alone is calculated in 1,000 catties, and the amount of 'medicine' and other daily necessities consumed is also huge. And so many people live together, it is easy for a large-scale epidemic to break out, once this evil ** happens, then in the future, Haihan still wants to organize large-scale immigration, I am afraid it will not be so easy to get the approval of the people.

On 18 September, Tom Wang drove the "Lightning" to Enrique to Australia and began to participate in further talks between the two sides. After urgent consultations between the two sides, the Macau 'Gate' Portuguese Council agreed to Haihan's application to ensure the safe passage of all Haihan migrant boats in the waters of the Pearl River Estuary until further cooperation agreements were reached. After the news was sent back to the base camp by telegram, the executive committee members were all relieved.

Three days later, the first batch of migrant ships following the "Lightning" arrived in Panyu, unloaded a large amount of supplies, and loaded more than 700 migrants from here to return to Shengli Port. However, this is far from keeping up with the speed at which people from all over the country are entering the camps, and the number of people in the camps has exceeded 7,000 before the boats leave the mouth of the Pearl River, and it seems to be on the rise in the short term.

On 22 September, the largest expatriate fleet after the crossing sailed into the Pearl River estuary and arrived at the pier of the Shawan Waterway. More than 70 large and small sea vessels could not even enter the Shawan waterway, and more than half of the ships could dock along the Pearl River.

These ships not only concentrated most of the cargo ships and migrant ships under the name of the Ministry of Shipping, but also called almost all the warships of the navy, in addition to the ships that were temporarily requisitioned and rented by "Qiong Lianfa" and some other merchants, and even a few warships in good condition in the Yacheng Water Village were also arrested. If it weren't for the Guangzhou Office and the "Qiong Lianfa" to report to the Guangzhou government and garrison in advance, the Ming army stationed at the mouth of the Pearl River would probably mistakenly think that a large number of pirates were preparing to go ashore to attack the interior.

The people who were originally living in the migrant camp were anxious to see the arrival of such a large fleet, and they were finally relieved. Although they knew that they would be transported to Qiongzhou Island to settle down after they came here, they were inevitably a little uneasy when they waited for many days and did not see the fleet appear. After all, the stories of the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island are just legends, and no matter how the naturalized cadres describe the sky's 'flowers' and 'chaos', it is only an illusion for these people who have not yet been to Shengli Port.

Due to the large number of people who needed to be transferred this time, and the scale of the dock at Shawan Wharf was so limited, that the organization of migrant boarding had to be divided into two days. On the first day, the ships loaded with migrants set off for an overnight stay at Wanshan Port at the mouth of the Pearl River. The next day, after the migrant ship finished loading the population, it did not stop, and sailed directly out of the Pearl River estuary, meeting with the fleet that had departed the previous day and returning to Sanya together. According to the statistics of the Lijiazhuang resettlement camp, more than 5,100 people boarded the ship in two days, which can be called the largest sea transportation after the crossing. Almost all the ships were full, and the cabins were stuffed with immigrants, reminiscent not only of the ships that transported slaves in Western countries. The consequences of this hasty mass transport of people could not be avoided, and a large number of people with weak constitutions soon became unwell after leaving the sea. On the second day of sailing, as many as 17 people died on board due to physical reasons. Naturally, the bodies of these people could not be contained, and they could only be thrown into the sea immediately. The unlucky ones died on the way, and by the time the fleet arrived at Victory Harbor seven days later, a total of 273 people had died on the way, which was arguably the largest number of deaths on the way to sea transportation after the crossing. Of course, the medical staff cannot be blamed for this situation, and despite the best efforts of the relevant departments, it is still impossible to guarantee that each ship will be equipped with enough medical personnel - in fact, the entire fleet is only equipped with more than 30 doctors and more than 70 nurses, and on average, there is less than one doctor on a ship.