Enrique did not stay in Wanshan Port for too long, and after a brief meeting with Chen Yixin, he hurriedly set off to return to the Australian 'Gate'-Shuhaha-Hoi An City of Annam The news of the collapse of Hoi An City of Annam shocked the Australian 'Gate' Council, they never expected that the Haihan people would take the initiative to attack South Vietnam again after half a year, and directly destroy the most important seaport city in South Vietnam. Although there were still some doubts about the authenticity of the news that Enrique had brought back, only three days later, a messenger from Hue Province verified what Enrique had said.

The South Vietnamese courier informed the Australian 'Gate' Council in far more detail than Enrique knew, and the seriousness of the matter was beyond the Council's previous judgment. The entire city of Hoi An was reduced to ruins due to war and riots, and ninety percent of the surviving residents fled the city, while the rough Haihan people took most of the city's wealth as victors. Thousands of people died in Hoi An City, which was caused by the war, riots, and the spread of the epidemic, and the city was basically no longer possible to rebuild, and the local president of the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, Eduardo Thien, completely abandoned the city and temporarily moved the Portuguese in South Vietnam to Hue Province. As for the maritime trade, due to the destruction of the port, it will not be possible to recover in the short term, but fortunately, the last batch of Portuguese cargo ships had just departed from Hoi An, and it would be at least two or three months before they returned, so it was not particularly urgent.

Faced with this situation, the Council had to reconsider Enrique's proposal to establish a trading post in Victory Port and establish trade relations with the Haihans.

Although the Portuguese suffered heavy economic losses in South Vietnam, the property taken from Hoi An by the Haihan was nothing compared to the interests of the colonies throughout East Asia. Nowadays, more and more Ming merchants are more inclined to ship their exports to Shengli Port on Qiongzhou Island for sale, and the Portuguese must also consider transferring some of their bulk goods from Guangzhou to Shengli Port, which is a supposedly tariff-free free port, and many goods are cheaper to purchase than Guangzhou, even if freight is included.

Enrique's description of Port Victory also appealed to the council, a well-equipped, well-run, well-managed, and well-defended port that could procure most of the goods produced in southern China and was a trading paradise for businessmen without the dreaded tariffs. Enrique believed that Hoi An, which the South Vietnamese court was proud of, was a rural place compared to the professional Cheng dù of the port of Victory, and he even had the opportunity to go to the port of victory to experience for themselves the kind of Haihan life that was different from the West, but still comfortable and noble.

Enrique went to Victory Port with some haughty feelings, in his opinion, although the Haihan people have some ability in trade, but after all, they are barbarians living on islands, and they certainly cannot be compared with the civilized world of the West, but the reality is that they slapped him in the mouth mercilessly. Although the life of the Haihan people is not luxurious, it is certainly beyond the reach of these Portuguese people.

After returning to the smelly port of Ao'men', Enrique soon began to miss the clean living environment of Victory Port, although the houses of the Haihan people are a little simple, there will never be fleas on the soft big "**", the bathrooms and toilets are clean, and the streets will not be like the mountains of garbage that can be seen everywhere here, emitting a foul smell and no one cleaning it. As for the food, it is even more difficult to compare with the Haihan people, and the three meals here are tasteless and difficult to swallow, and only a few people are eligible to enjoy dishes with expensive spices. The contents of each of the three meals a day were different, and their use of seasonings and spices was simply extravagant, and the aroma of the meal was difficult to replicate here, and Enrique almost swallowed his tongue when he attended the reception on the first night of his arrival in Port Victory.

Even the Haihan militia stationed in Wanshan Port can enjoy convenient hot showers and hot food three times a day, which is a far cry from the Portuguese understanding of being a soldier. Enrique was not worried that the Haihans' plan to recruit mercenaries would be difficult to achieve, because their treatment of soldiers was simply difficult to provide elsewhere. Even if he served as a soldier for the great King Felipe III on the mainland, it was not as good as the living conditions of the Haihan militia on an unnamed island. As long as the mercenaries understand the treatment that the Haihan people can give, they will definitely rush to serve the Haihan people.

After several days of study, the Council agreed in principle to Enrique's proposals, namely, the establishment of trade relations with Haihan, the establishment of a trading station in the port of Victory, and the provision of artillery instructors for Haihan. But there was one thing that the Council did not want to change lightly, and that was the protection of the interests of the Portuguese in South Vietnam.

In order to support the Nguyen clan in South Vietnam, Portugal has invested a lot of money in various resources and assistance in the local area, and there are still nearly 1,000 Portuguese resident in the local area, if the Haihan people will withdraw in a word, then what is the face of the Portuguese Empire -- although Portugal was annexed by Spain in 1580, the Portuguese in Asia did not intend to change their nationality lightly, and still insisted on claiming to be Portuguese nationals.

Of course, if you start a war with the Haihan people with considerable combat power for the sake of South Vietnam, it is also an extremely uncalm choice, and the Council will not make such a low-level mistake. The Haihan had already proven their mettle in the last few battles, and the Council did not want to be faced with such an adversary on the battlefield over the South Vietnamese issue. In the final analysis, the Australian Council still hopes to reach a face-saving solution to the South Vietnamese issue with Haihan, at least not to let the Portuguese withdraw from Indochina as a loser.

When Enrique heard this decision, he could only secretly complain, which meant that he had to have long and difficult negotiations with the Haihan people. The Haihan had already made clear to him many times before this that their attitude on the South Vietnamese issue was that they wanted the Portuguese to first completely abandon their interests in Indochina, completely withdraw from the Annam Civil War, and guarantee that they would not participate in it in the future, so that they could continue to negotiate. If the Portuguese were unwilling to accede to such conditions, then the Haihan would probably not give the Portuguese captives a chance to be free the next time they went to war.

However, the next step of negotiations also means that Enrique can temporarily leave the place of Australia and go to the scenic Victory Port to enjoy a comfortable life. In this sense, the Council's stubbornness also has a positive side – at least for Enrique personally.

However, while the Portuguese Council of Australia was still entangled in the South Vietnamese issue, the situation on the South Vietnamese side took a new turn.

On the day that Tom Wang led the Haihan militia to break through Hoi An City, the Yongan Port base in the north also received a telegram from them. Since this operation also included the North Vietnamese Army's response on the defense line of the Hengshan River, this news was not concealed from the North Vietnamese side, and soon the front-line leader Zheng Bai also knew about it.

The North Vietnamese Army's Tran soldiers were on the front line of the Zhengjiang River, originally to attract the attention of the South Vietnamese, so that the militia army could free up their hands in the south to clean up Hoi An City. But Zheng Bai, who led the army, did not completely take this strategy as a performance, in his opinion, the virtual is real, the real is virtual, if there is a suitable opportunity, then you can also directly lead the army to attack the natural danger, take advantage of the southern expedition.

However, due to the limited means of communication in this era, the news of the fall of Hoi An spread from the place of the incident 600 miles away to the South Vietnamese military camp on the front line of the Zhengjiang River, and a full eight days had passed. The news caused quite a stir in the South Vietnamese military camps, because all South Vietnamese knew very well what the fall of Hoi An meant to the South Vietnamese regime - it was not just an economic loss.

Due to the mountainous terrain of the Indochina Peninsula, almost all of South Vietnam's towns are concentrated in the coastal areas, and even the capital Hue is only 20 miles from the coastline. Since the Haihan army had the ability to capture such an "important town" as Hoi An City in one day, it can be said that the entire city of South Vietnam was almost unabashedly 'exposed' under the guns of the Haihan people. The 'Dong' Sea that was attacked in the first half of the year, as well as Hoi An, which was attacked this time, were all conquered by the Haihan army that came across the sea, and there was not a single surface force capable of fighting with the entire thousand-mile coastline of South Vietnam.

Hoi An fell so quickly that Hue province fell into a certain panic when they got the news, and they didn't know whether the Hai Han people would choose to leave after they succeeded, or whether they would lurk somewhere in the open sea and attack Hue province while they were unprepared - judging from the firepower that the Hai Han people had, the walls of Hue Province might not be able to stop them. So a paper order was sent to the front line of Zhengjiang, and part of the army was to be transferred south to aid Hue Province.

However, this military movement was too loud to hide from the North Vietnamese spies, and after the news reached Zheng Bai's side, he decisively decided to take this opportunity to launch an attack on the Zhengjiang defense line and give the South Vietnamese a little hardship.

The first batch of North Vietnamese officers sent to Victory Harbor for training had all returned, and they immediately became the backbone of the New Army, and Trung Dinh continued to serve as commander of the New Army. According to the combat methods they had learned in Haihan, Zheng Ting organized a group of officers to hold a pre-war staff meeting to discuss the battle plan. And Zheng Bai, as the highest military governor in the local area, naturally also attended this meeting, and he was very interested in seeing how these young students went to Shengli Port for a few months and learned some skills of the Haihan people.

The biggest difference from the previous pre-war preparations was that the headquarters of the New Army had a more detailed map and a model of the sand table made according to the map, which included the Hengshan area of the Zhengjiang River, and then loaded back for assembly. The material is mainly clay and moss, and its size ratio comes entirely from the satellite map in the Haihan Dashu library, with a high degree of simulation, and even according to the information provided by the North Vietnamese side, the checkpoints, barracks, warehouses, etc. of each of the South Vietnamese defenders were made, reflecting the details that Zheng Bai had never dreamed of before.

Of course, this sand table was not provided free of charge, so the North Vietnamese court needed to provide an additional 1,000 innocent and healthy immigrants to the Haihan side, which was very valuable. However, after seeing this sand table with his own eyes, Zheng Bai thought that this 'spending' was worth a thousand dollars, and with such a detailed sand table, at least thousands of soldiers could be saved from innocently paying for their 'lives' when formulating the battle plan.

The reason why the battle for the river can become a moat is that the traditional river crossing operation lacks the protection of the river crossing troops with long-range weapons, and the river crossing troops on the ship are also difficult to form an effective blow to the defense troops on the shore, so it is easy for the defending side to be attacked by the defense side, so the two sides have been stationed on the north and south banks of the river for a long time to form a stalemate. Last year, the South Vietnamese army secretly crossed the river from the upper reaches of the Zhengjiang River and successfully attacked it, almost causing a major rout in North Vietnam.

However, it was not in vain that the trainees went to Victory Port to study for a few months, and the courses they studied during their stay in Victory Port were all very 'sexual', and almost all of them were training programs designed for them by the Military Commission in accordance with the training program designed for them by South Vietnam for the imaginary enemy. As for the subject of crossing the river, it is naturally also among the teachings -- of course, all they can learn is basically to deal with the "primitive" units of the South Vietnamese Army, which are armed to the teeth, and if they want to use the same tricks against the Hai Han militia armed to the teeth in the future, it will really be self-defeating.

"Judging from the combat methods taught by the instructors, the most suitable thing for fighting for the river is to forcibly cross the river under the cover of artillery fire. Zheng Ting pointed to the sand table model and said: "In the past two days, I have inspected along the river bank, and there are many forks in this section of the estuary, and the river is not too wide, the widest part is only more than 100 zhang, and the narrow place is only about 40 zhang, and the flow speed is not urgent, so it is fully equipped with the conditions for crossing the river." ”

"But don't forget, we don't have a lot of ships available at the moment. Zheng Bai reminded in a deep voice: "If you can't carry a large number of soldiers across the river in a short time, the soldiers who land first are very likely to be eaten by the opponent because of their inferiority." As for the artillery cover you mentioned, it can only be used before landing, and after you land, the enemy forces will rush up, and the two sides will 'melee' fight together, how can you still use artillery fire?"

"We can have artillery and infantry 'mixed' to cross the river, and after landing, we can directly spread out a formation and shell the enemy. Zheng Ting paused and said: "Father, I don't know, the Haihan people have recently developed a kind of cannonball, which is packed with thousands of iron seeds, which can injure a large area with a single shot, and the lethality at a distance of forty or fifty zhang is far better than that of a bow and arrow, and the special 'gate' is used to deal with the dense formation of the enemy army in close combat. In Panyu, Guangdong, the child had personally seen the Haihan militia use this kind of artillery shell against the local rogue bandits, and they could knock down dozens of people with one shot, and if the opponent was in a dense formation, they didn't even need to look at it, and they could fire in the general direction. ”

Zheng Bai replied: "The kind of artillery shells you mentioned don't seem to have been purchased in our army. ”

"The Haihan garrison in Yong'an Harbor must have this thing, and we can contact them and ask them to sell some to us. Zheng Ting knew the style of the Haihan people, so he came up with an idea right away.

Zheng Bai nodded and said: "This is feasible, but I don't know how much this cannonball is worth, it should be the same price as the previous projectile 'medicine', right?"

Zheng Ting coughed dryly, lowered his voice and said: "This new type of cannonball, the Haihan people's offer is twenty taels and one rounds......"

"What?" Zheng Bai was so shocked that he almost bounced up from his chair: "Isn't this ten times more expensive than before?

Zheng Ting asked Tom Wang if this new type of artillery shell would be sold to the outside world as early as when he was watching the battle in Lijiazhuang, and Tom Wang only quoted him a price, but did not explain whether it would be sold or not, but asked him to go back to Shengli Port to inquire about the people of the "Haihan Military Industry". After Zheng Ting inquired in many ways, he finally got a letter from Bai Kesi: it can be sold, but the price is not negotiable, and 100 initiates selling it not retail.

Of course, Zheng Ting would not pay out of his own pocket to buy high-priced cannonballs from the Haihan people, so after finding out clearly, he temporarily disappeared. However, after returning to China, Zheng Ting made a battle plan for the first time, and Zheng Ting thought that this kind of artillery shell could play a role in the battle, so he proposed it to his father.

Zheng Bai said angrily: "Although the old man has never seen this kind of cannonball you said, this cannon can 'shoot' stones and iron nails, and it is not a new method, the Haihan people are nothing more than replacing it with iron seeds and trying to wrap it, how can it be sold at such a high price!"

Zheng Ting shook his head and said: "The child thought the same at first, but after watching the actual '' performance, I realized the big difference between the two. Thinking about the method of loading stones, the 'shooting' range is only ten zhang at most, and it has fallen to the ground a little farther, and the killing range is extremely limited, but the cannonball produced by the Haihan people can hit five times the distance, and the iron seed can still penetrate the body and injure the second person, this power is seen by the child himself, and there is no falsehood. Moreover, the method of filling stones and iron nails is estimated by the gunner himself, the amount of loading, and the distance of 'shooting' is not fixed, but the Haihan shells are made according to the standard, and each shell is a general weight, which can be more common with the existing artillery. Although this thing is expensive, it is justifiably expensive. ”

Zheng Bai was silent for a long time before he spoke: "In the past, there were no such Haihan firearms in our army, and they were able to go into battle to kill the enemy and cut off the rebellion. If the Haihan threatens our dynasty with this in the future, what should it be?" "If we had fought with firearms earlier, our army would not have been defeated by the South Vietnamese traitors last year, my father, have you forgotten the tragedy of last year?" Zheng Ting said angrily: "How can the child not know that the Haihan people only sell weapons, and it is suspicious not to pass on the art of manufacturing, but now that the north and the south are divided, the outside must first be settled inside, and when the South Vietnamese rebellion is destroyed, the imperial court will have the confidence to bargain with the Haihan people!" Zheng Bai was silent for a long time before he spoke: " You have a point, so according to your wishes, go and ask the Haihan people for help!"