September 5, 1630, military dock on the east bank of Port Victory.

The vast majority of people, including the hundreds of sailors on board, thought that this was a routine cruise, and only a very small number of senior officers knew that their trip was not just a circle at sea, but to carry out their first combat mission since the two warships were listed.

The two main warships were accompanied by two "Expedition-class" warships, four "Exploration-class" warships, as well as two comprehensive supply ships and a logistics ship for medical aid and ship maintenance. However, this was not all the surface forces to be mobilized in the whole battle plan, and after arriving in the waters near Changhua the next day, the fleet stopped and waited for the fleet of the Annam Navy, which had departed from Tushan Port and was rushing from Fushuizhou Island at the same time.

The naval forces stationed in Annam were far inferior to those of the base camp, with only two "Expedition class" and two "Exploration class" ships, one troop transport ship and one integrated supply ship dispatched. In addition to sailors, this fleet also carried more than 400 people from the militia army and the borrowed Annan escort, which was jointly commanded by Feng Anan and Mu Xiabai.

After the two fleets met in the waters near Changhua, they sailed north along the west coast of Qiongzhou Island, and after passing Danzhou, the fleet did not turn east into the Qiongzhou Strait, but continued northward, meeting the "pirate gang" stationed there at the Liusha Port on the Leizhou Peninsula on September 9. Only by this time, the special operations force, which had a total of 21 ships and a total strength of more than 1,500 troops, could be considered fully equipped.

Since the combat mission this time was dominated by the navy, the position of the supreme commander was taken by Wang Tom, the commander of the navy, and Mu Xiabai and Feng Anan served as deputies. Qian Tiandun, the number one commander on the Annan side, did not participate in this operation, because his side still had to sit on Ji Po Island and coordinate the thousands of combat personnel who were to be mobilized on a large scale in the future--when the Daming Water Division in the capital city of Qiongzhou was cleaned up, it would almost be time for the army to put on a show.

However, the action of the Qiongzhou Fucheng side was far slower than expected by the Haihan military, and after the Fucheng transfer order arrived at the Shuizhai side, it was actually shirked by the sailor in every possible way because of the lack of military funds. In fact, the reason for this is also simple, the sailor's ship is now running a smuggling business, and at least 100 taels of silver a day are in the account, with this real benefit, who is willing to play with his head to suppress bandits, not to mention that the Fucheng side really can't get the opening fee they ask.

After the Haihan Navy completed the assembly on the Leizhou Peninsula, the government and the sailors here have not yet come up with a result. In the end, the Haihan Office, which really couldn't stand it, joined forces with 27 merchants of all sizes to raise military funds for the sailors, raising a total of 10,000 taels of silver, and finally ended this tug-of-war with no end in sight.

On September 20, after several days of preparation, the naval camp at the mouth of the Nandu River finally sent a fleet of 27 boats to Weizhou Island, where the legendary pirates had settled, to carry out encirclement and suppression operations. Although it seems that the size of this fleet is not small, there is only one Daifuku ship, five Haicang ships, and the rest are auxiliary ships with weak combat capabilities. As for small warships such as net shuttle boats, eagle boats, fire dragon boats, and red dragon boats, because of the relatively long voyage, it is difficult for these near-shore warships to play a role, so they basically stay in the water village.

Half an hour after the last warship sailed out of the water village, the militia navy in Liusha Harbor received a telegram from the intelligence agency stationed in Fucheng. Because of the mastery of this cross-era means of communication, the Daming Water Division had already lost half of it before it entered the battlefield.

In the evening of the same day, the fleet of the Daming Navy Division had sailed out of the Qiongzhou Strait and turned northwest towards Weizhou Island. However, in order to ensure the complete annihilation of the opponent, the militia navy ambushed on the west bank of the Leizhou Peninsula did not rush to dispatch, but only sent a clipper to follow the fleet of the sailors from afar.

In the early morning of September 21, thirty nautical miles southeast of Weizhou Island, the Daming Sailor found himself confronted the strongest opponent in his life. Seeing the two huge ships with black flags appearing on the sea in front of him, the naval counselor on the Fu ship was immediately shocked: "Pirates have such a huge ship!"

However, there was a huge fleet behind the two giant ships, among which the smallest "Exploration-class" warship was almost the same size as the flagship of the Great Ming Naval Division.

When the opponent's fleet circled around the sea and slowly exposed the gun's muzzle on the side of the ship, the Ming army general on the Fu ship finally understood the truth: "This is not a pirate, this is the Haihan militia! There are no pirates at all, everything is done by the Haihan people!"

After all, it is a professional who eats this bowl of rice, and the various appearance characteristics of the Haihan warship naturally cannot hide from the eyes of the Ming officers, but this awakening came too late after all, although this negligent sailor fleet did not choose to turn around and escape, but because its equipment is too backward, even if it tries its best, it cannot inflict an effective blow on the opponent. Although the ships were equipped with Franc cannons, Lumi guns, and various primitive gunpowder weapons, they were smashed by the Haihan artillery before they reached their effective range.

Less than five minutes after the battle began, the gunpowder on a Haicang ship exploded after being hit by a shell fired by the militia navy, directly ripping off a third of the right half of the ship's side, and the sea water quickly poured into the cabin through the gap, and before the sailors on board could plug the leak, the ship capsized on the sea at a rapid speed.

The gunwales on the two main gunboats on the side of the militia navy were both 12-pounder and 24-pounder guns, and the effective firing range was about 500 meters. The sailors on the ship could operate with confidence and boldness, maintain the frequency of shelling every two minutes, and attack the fleet of the Daming Navy Division unhurriedly.

The firearms attacks used by the Ming Dynasty were of little practical use in the face of powerful opponents, and the method of besieging large ships with small ships was not useful at all in this battle - the reports received by the sailors described the pirate ships as blessing ships under 400 materials, and there were only a few ships, and there was no need to use siege tactics at all. However, it was obvious that this was a deception set up by the Haihan people, and the smallest of these warships that appeared in front of the sailors was far more than four hundred.

Half an hour after the battle began, a 24-pounder shell fired by the "Majesty" broke the mainmast of the sailor's flagship with extreme accuracy, causing it to lose its basic ability to move, which almost confirmed the defeat of the sailor.

Although there were still a few lucky ships on the Marine's side that did not incapacitate in the engagement, they could no longer leave the battlefield if they were planning to turn around and escape. After using the steam propulsion system, the two ships spewed black smoke and copied from the fleeing Ming warship at an astonishing speed of more than 10 knots, and blocked their escape route under the stunned eyes of the Ming sailors.

Just when the soldiers of the Ming army on the naval warship hesitated whether to fight a decisive battle to the end and die for their country, someone on the Haihan warship took out a huge iron horn and began to shout to them: "Anyone who disarms and surrenders will be spared death!"

For those who have lost their fighting spirit and are not so willing to give up the chance to live, this is undoubtedly an amnesty. As a result, the few remaining movable ships quickly gave up their intention to continue to escape, and chose to lower their sails and stop the ship.

The whole battle lasted less than an hour before it ended, but it took half a day to receive the prisoners, count the results, and clean up the battlefield. The battle damage on Haihan's side was negligible, only seven people were slightly injured, and all of them came from accidental bumps and falls during the battle, not from the weapons of the Daming Water Division.

As for the Daming Sailors, it was more miserable, nine of the twenty-seven ships capsized and sank, and almost every one of the remaining ships was injured, and half of them lost their ability to sail, so it can be said that this sailor has been completely abandoned. One hundred and twenty-seven people were killed in the battle, sixty-four were missing, and the rest were all captured. Judging by the distance from the coastline, it is certain that none of the missing will escape this naval battle.

"Perfect battle!" Even though Tom Wang was a more reserved person, he still couldn't help but make a very high evaluation of this battle.

Although it was almost certain that the outcome of victory would belong to the Haihan Navy before the war, for those involved, victory alone did not count as a successful completion of the combat mission. Haihan's superiority in ships, weapons, command system, and advance preparation made it impossible for this battle to be unexpected, and this naval battle with a huge disparity in strength would have the same result even if it was handed over to a layman to command.

For Wang Tom, there were three basic requirements for this naval battle: first, to completely defeat and destroy the combat effectiveness of the Daming Naval Division, second, not to let anyone escape from the battlefield alive to ensure that the truth of the pirate plan would not spread, and third, to maintain a low casualty rate for his side.

Judging by the results of the battle, all three requirements were fulfilled quite well, and the two new warships played almost perfectly in the course of the battle. Their powerful artillery output and good maneuverability are fully reflected, especially the "Majesty", which miraculously sank and damaged more than ten enemy ships in this battle, while itself was unscathed, such a battle loss ratio made Wang Tom want to show off to the Executive Committee immediately, so that those who were skeptical of the role of the new warship could take a good look at how worthwhile the investment was.

Happiness is fun, but the end of the battle does not mean that this mission is over. According to the prior plan, Wang Tom commanded the fleet to go to different destinations in three ways.

Several ships carrying hundreds of prisoners of war went to the port of Heitu in the Beibu Gulf, where they had to stay there at least until the general situation on Qiongzhou Island was calmed down before they could be repatriated. Of course, they will not have the opportunity to eat, and there will never be too much labor in the pits of the Black Earth Harbor. However, some of them will definitely be able to be pardoned after a while, because these people are sailors after all, and for the militia navy, which is strictly short of soldiers, as long as they are willing to change their court, they will be happy to be included in it.

The combat fleet, led by the two main warships, will return to the waters near Changhua to stand by for the next operation. The rest of the ships will stay to clean up the battlefield, and they will spend about two days in this sea area to continue to salvage the floating corpses, clean up the flags of the Daming Naval Division on the sea, and by the way, scuttle all the capsized naval division's warships to erase the traces of the battle as much as possible.

In addition to temporarily closing the news of the destruction of the Daming Water Division, this is also to make the Qiongzhou officials continue to wonder what kind of strength the enemy they are facing. It will take at least half a month for the Qiongzhou officials to realize that the sailor troops they sent to suppress the bandits have completely disappeared, and this half a month is enough for Haihan to do a lot of work on the northern coast of Qiongzhou Island.

On October 1, the plan led by the Executive Committee to seize the overall control of Qiongzhou Island was officially implemented. This plan, named "Liaoyuan," can be said to be the largest operation organized by the Haihan military in the past, and the scale of the troops involved and the combat area involved far exceeded that of the previous two years when troops were sent to participate in the civil war in Annam.

On the pier of Cat Ba Island in the Gulf of Tonkin Gulf, thousands of assembled coalition soldiers are boarding their ships. The fighters, who have taken off their military uniforms and changed into civilian clothes, will go to Qiongzhou Island, with the goal of capturing the main cities, including the capital city of Qiongzhou. After they complete the combat mission, the militia army will appear on the stage, play the role of justice, and take over the northern part of Qiongzhou Island.

In order to hide the eyes and ears of the people, all the combat ships will not participate in the process of crossing the sea, so the Haihan Maritime Department and the military have assembled a large number of sea ships to go to Cat Ba Island to undertake this transportation task. Due to the need to transport thousands of fighters to Qiongzhou Island in a short period of time to land, the Ministry of Shipping even suspended flights from Sanya to Guangdong and transferred all cargo ships to the Beibu Gulf to load people.

All units under Haihan's rule were given corresponding instructions to cooperate unconditionally with the latest personnel transfers. In addition to the traversers, in fact, the vast majority of naturalized civilian cadres of non-combat units did not know what the content of the latest operation was, and most of the orders they received were to report to a certain unit or place before a certain date, and there were no specific arrangements for the future.

Those who can receive these orders can be regarded as the lucky ones among the naturalized people, who do not know their future destinations are almost all the prefectures and counties in the north, and after the militia troops complete the occupation of these areas, they need these naturalized cadres to take over the local government affairs, quickly organize the local management organs, and realize the social system of Haisi.