On October 3, 1630, the twenty-seventh day of August in the third year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, the sea west of Danzhou.

An unbelievably large fleet slowly appeared on the surface of the sea and headed east towards Danzhou Bay. The flotilla was actually made up of four smaller fleets, each consisting of about ten seagoing vessels, each carrying between 80 and 200 armed men. Combined with the logistics ships transporting supplies and supplies, and the armed ships patrolling and escorting the perimeter, the size of the entire fleet is as high as more than 70 ships, and this is only the troop transport fleet from Annam Cat Po Island, not including the naval fleet that previously annihilated the Daming Navy Division in the waters of the Beibu Gulf.

In order to be able to achieve the wave of lightning attacks designed by the Central Military Commission, nearly 5,000 armed men from Annam were also transported to Danzhou at one time to carry out landing operations. This puts forward extremely high requirements for the ship deployment and overall planning ability of the shipping department, for which the personnel of the entire shipping department are almost poured out, Yue Zhiyun and Sun Changmi have joined this fleet as front-line commanders, and even many craftsmen from the Shengli Port shipyard have been sent to Changhua and Danzhou in advance, ready to carry out emergency repairs to ships that may be in danger.

In order to allow this huge fleet to arrive in Danzhou without realizing it, the militia army imposed a ban on the sea five days in advance on the northern coast of Annam, and the reason for promulgating the ban is also very strong: the militia intends to crack down on the pirates who have recently been rampant in the Beibu Gulf, and in order to avoid harming the fish in the pond and accidentally injuring innocent people, all ships going to Qiongzhou Island and Daming will be banned from leaving the port for 20 days. This order was not too difficult to enforce, after all, several major ports in the northern part of Annam were under the control of the militias, and the decrees issued by the militias were basically golden rules, and no one dared to challenge the authority of the militias in this area.

On the one hand, the spies of the Ministry of Security began to release rumors on the surface of Danzhou City, saying that the main area of Annan pirates' recent activities was outside Danzhou Bay, scaring timid ship owners into not daring to sail out at this time. And all kinds of maritime merchants who have a close relationship with Haihan have also received secret notices from Haihan, asking them not to send ships in and out of Danzhou Bay in the near future.

On the other hand, several lucky ships disguised as pirate ships in the early stage have also gone south from the Leizhou Peninsula and cruised in the waters off Danzhou Bay. Beginning on 2 October, six warships and two supply ships transferred from Wanshan Port and Hong Kong sailed into the Qiongzhou Strait and began to monitor and blockade the waters off the city of Qiongzhou.

At the same time as the "Liaoyuan Plan" was launched, the office in Guangzhou was not idle. Recently, piracy has been rampant in the Qiongzhou Strait, and the relevant news has already reached Guangzhou, but the impact here is far less direct than that of Qiongzhou, so the attention of the government and the public to this is extremely limited. One of the tasks of the Guangzhou Office is to guide public opinion in Guangzhou and make it develop in a direction favorable to Haihan before it starts.

However, the rumors about this group of pirates in the market have become more and more popular recently, and there is gossip that this group of pirates is a remnant of the former Annan Dynasty, together with some pirates along the coast of Guangxi and Guangdong in the Ming Dynasty, as well as a small number of pirates, and the number of pirates is far more than the point near Qiongzhou, but ten times as much. The purpose of this group of pirates to attack Qiongzhou Island was not simply to rob homes and rob money, but to set their sights on the land of Qiongzhou Island and prepare to seize it as the foundation for another country.

When this statement first appeared, it was naturally scoffed at by the people - it was just to plunder the place, but to attack the city and plunder the land, or even to establish a country, no one believed that a group of pirates could have such great ability. Of course, those who hold this opinion do not know that if it were not for the fact that Haihan had been providing military assistance to the Fujian Navy Division in recent years, according to the original historical trajectory, Zheng Zhilong would have destroyed the Fujian Navy Division long ago, and then turned into a Ming official army, and since then he has held the control of the southeast coast for several years.

However, someone soon got first-hand information from the Guangzhou Office, and it quickly spread in the city of Guangzhou: this group of pirates was not a rabble, including a large number of former Annan army personnel, and they also purchased a large number of arquebuses and artillery from the red-haired people and the Franco-man, and their armament was no less than that of the regular Ming official army. The Haihan militia and the Annan officials have been encircling and suppressing this group for a long time, but they still have not made obvious progress, and the fighting has only emboldened this group, and the rumors of attacking Qiongzhou Island are not false news, but they are true.

Folk rumors may not be a pity, but if they are said by the mouths of Haihan people, it will be different. After all, the Haihan people fought bandits and pirates along the coast of Guangdong in the first two years, and they were all real achievements, and the combat power of the Haihan militia was higher than that of the Ming official army, which was already a consensus among the people. But if the Haihan people have pirates who can't help it, then I'm afraid it really shouldn't be underestimated.

The Haihan representative in Guangzhou, the boss of Ma Li Kema, did not sit idly by, contacted more than 20 big figures in the Guangzhou business circle, and jointly wrote to the Governor's Palace, asking Guangzhou to send troops to the Qiongzhou Strait to exterminate this group of very dangerous pirates. Marik even generously said that Haihan could send a vigilante group at his own expense to cooperate with the official action.

Of course, the result of the letter was not unexpected by the Executive Committee, and Wang Zunde, the governor of Liangguang, who was also facing the problem of tight funds, did not regard the pirates in the Qiongzhou Strait as a serious problem, and in his opinion, the reason why the Haihan people were particularly concerned about this matter was probably just to further expand the scale of the militia under their name, and this was not the development trend that Wang wanted to see.

As for the folk rumors that this group of pirates was going to capture Qiongzhou Island, Wang Zunde did not believe it, could it be that more than 10,000 officers and soldiers in the eleven guards on Qiongzhou Island had all died, and they were so easily occupied by a group of pirates. Take 10,000 steps back and say, the Haihan people are all running on Qiongzhou Island, and if there are pirates on the island, then the Haihan people must not fight with them? Even if the government does not send troops, I am afraid that the Haihan Executive Committee will not be able to sit still, and will naturally send a militia to suppress the bandits. At that time, regardless of the casualties on both sides, it will be a good thing for the government after all.

Sure enough, as the pirates attacked more and more frequently near Qiongzhou, the Haihan people finally couldn't sit still. A few days ago, Marico held a banquet at the Guangzhou Office, inviting the gentry and wealthy businessmen near Guangzhou, claiming that he wanted to ask for his life for the country, and sent his own armed forces to exterminate the current unscrupulous pirates. All personnel, armament and attrition will be borne by Haihan himself, and the only thing he hopes for the cooperation of the Guangdong business community is not to send ships to Qiongzhou Island in the near future, so as not to be accidentally injured on the battlefield. After the Haihan militia cleared out this group of pirates, the shipping routes between the two places were gradually restored.

In Mariko's words in front of the public, there are many meanings of "the government has become a turtle with a shrunken head, but Haihan will never bow his head". Although Marico said that the combat expenses will be borne by Haihan himself, many businesses with vital interests on Qiongzhou Island still enthusiastically donated, and raised 80,000 taels of silver in only three days, which was handed over by Li Jifeng, the head of the Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce, to the Guangzhou Office as the military expenses for the Haihan militia to send troops.

This news made the generals of the Ming garrison in Guangzhou very painful, and if they knew this, they should have taken the initiative to ask for their lives, and first get these tens of thousands of taels of silver into their hands. However, at this time, Wang Zunde, the governor of Liangguang, had already expressed his stance that he would not send troops to suppress bandits for the time being, so the officials and soldiers could only watch the Haihan people play such a trick of voluntary fundraising.

The merchants who donated money for Haihan did not cooperate with the acting, and most of them did not know the truth, but simply thought that the Haihan people were really going to fight pirates when they were preparing to fight the pirates. Only a very small number of people close to Haihan such as the Li family know a little bit of the inside story, Haihan's action this time is very big, and it is far from the end of this group of pirates.

Haihan immediately purchased a large number of supplies and medicines in the city of Guangzhou, and as an example, stopped all regular sailings to the Sanya area. The port of Wanshan and Hong Kong have also begun to enter a state of martial control, and each seems to indicate that a major war is coming.

Just after the Haihan Office in Guangzhou began to operate, a secret letter from Qiongzhou Island was also sent to the Jinyi Wei Yamen in Guangzhou. This secret letter came from Jinyiwei's Tianzi No. 1 spy stationed in Sanya, and through the secret channel of guò, a large amount of Haihan news has been continuously sent to the mainland's yamen in the past six months. Although there is not much valuable information in it, the high-ranking officials of the Jinyi Guard believe that sooner or later this chess piece will come in handy - for example, this pirate storm.

The information sent by the Tianzi No. 1 spy this time can be regarded as the most valuable information he sent back after he settled in Sanya, because the content of this secret letter is related to the current boiling pirate turmoil.

According to the information obtained directly by the spy from a high-ranking figure in Haihan, the plan of this group of pirates to attack Qiongzhou Island has already begun to be implemented, and the time to launch an offensive is close at hand. And the scale of its operations is probably far greater than the government imagined, not to fight for a city and a pool, but to really plan to take the entire Hainan Island as a pirate den. In order to protect their own interests, the Haihan people have all mobilized and are ready to fight a big battle with the pirates. However, in order to avoid suspicion, the Haihan people could not send troops in advance to assist the local government to defend the city, so they could only wait for the pirates to attack before starting to act.

At the same time, the spy also pointed out in the report that the government of several state cities in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island was completely unaware of the seriousness of the situation, and still thought that it was just a small-scale pirate attack, and such an attitude was afraid that they would suffer a big loss in the next battle. According to the speculation of the Haihan people, there is a ninety percent chance that the pirates will use a sneak attack to seize the city, and the local government and defenders obviously lack the corresponding vigilance and preparation for this.

And this secret report, which confirmed that "pirates are about to attack Qiongzhou Island", is, of course, from Li Qingyang, a spy of the Jinyi Guard, who has taken refuge in Haihan. For the Ming official, the news spread by his special channel is far more credible than the folk rumors. Moreover, the Ministry of Security has been planning for this for several months, and there are almost no loopholes in the entire plan, and the wording in the secret report has also been repeatedly deliberated to ensure that Jinyiwei will be 100% hooked after getting it.

After receiving this secret report, the Jinyi Wei Yamen in Guangzhou really attracted enough attention, and the Qianhu sitting in Guangzhou sent people to report 800 miles to the Nanjing Zhenfu Division, and at the same time notified the Governor's Mansion of the relevant information. It was only at this time that Wang Zunde realized that his previous judgment might have been wrong, and the shape of Qiongzhou Island was far stricter than he expected. However, the Governor's Office just made a statement two days ago that it would not send troops, and now if it is about to change course, this will undoubtedly be a slap in the face.

Just when Lord Wang was still in a dilemma, the Haihan side had already begun the first step of the plan - to capture Danzhou. Danzhou is an important town in the northwest of Qiongzhou Island, and it is also the closest voyage from the coast of Annam to Qiongzhou Island, and there is a natural harbor here for a large number of ships to enter and dock, which can provide a landing point for a large number of fighters from the sea when the offensive is launched, so the military did not hesitate to use this place as the first attack point when formulating the combat plan.

The vanguard led by Mu Xiabai and Feng Annan had already infiltrated the areas west and south of Danzhou in batches on 1 October. On 3 October, when the Annan fleet arrived off the coast of Danzhou, the troops led by the two men started at the same time to cut off the main lines of communication in the east and southwest directions of Danzhou.

At around 10 a.m. on October 3, residents of fishing villages near Baimajing gathered on the beach, watching in amazement as the never-before-seen fleet of boats sailed into Danzhou Bay. They had been placed under house arrest by a group of unidentified armed men the night before, but unlike the imaginary pirates, these armed men did not beat and kill them, nor did they rob their property, wives and children, but only asked them not to come and go at will in the near future, and those who left the village without permission were punished as spies.

As long as they can live in peace and stability, no one will stupidly carry these armed men equipped with knives and guns, so the villagers obediently stay in the village and act as spectators.