"Let's take a look at the map first, which will probably help you understand today's mission. Gu Kai took out the notebook from his backpack, opened it and brought up a satellite image.

On this map, you can clearly see the entire bay from Lutoujiao in the west to Yinggebi in the east, Gu Kai first pointed to the location of Shengli Harbor: "We are here." ”

Then he moved his finger down and pointed to another place: "The place we are going to today is here." ”

"It's so close. Why are you so mysterious?" Tom Wang looked at the place he was pointing to, and estimated the approximate distance, the straight-line distance from Victory Harbor should be less than five thousand meters, and although it was necessary to detour from the sea, the distance would not exceed four nautical miles.

"It's close, the problem is that at the moment we don't have enough forces to go there and fortify. Gu Kai shrugged and said, "But the executive committee has a strong desire to develop there, so we must be the vanguard and go to the field to see if that place is worth taking risks." ”

The location pointed out by Gu Kai is located on the east side of the bay, a small piece of coastal plain surrounded by Mengguoling, Baishiling and Liupan Ridge from three sides, and it can be estimated from satellite images that the area of that place is only more than one square kilometer at most, less than 2,000 acres of land. Judging from the satellite image, this area seems to have been well developed in later generations, with the construction of a large cargo terminal, and even a road tunnel to the north through Mengguoling, and the other end of the farmland on the east bank of the Tiandu River that is now being developed in labor camps, so that this dead land, surrounded by mountains on three sides, can have a direct land route to the inland of the Tiandu River Valley. Of course, this kind of large-scale project of tunneling through the mountains is impossible to implement in this era, and what is the development value of this dead land, the North American gang does not see any clues from the map.

Limited manpower, at present, the farthest land post under the Military Police Department is only arranged to Yulinjiao, which is close to this seaside area across the sea, but if anything really happens there, all the sentinels in Yulinjiao can do is look at each other across the sea. If the Executive Committee wants to develop that place, it will probably only be able to exist as an "enclave" outside the scope of control for a period of time to come.

Gu Kai seemed to see the confusion on everyone's faces, closed the notebook and said, "It's useless to talk too much, you should understand if you go to the field and take a look." ”

After the decision was made, the people in North America went their separate ways. Tom Wang opened the bilge of the "Speedy", took out the guns from the arsenal and distributed them to everyone, and then Qiao Zhiya, Roger, and Shi Diwen went to the "Lightning". Everyone went about their duties, untied the cables and hoisted the sails, and in a few minutes the two sailboats left the dock one after the other and headed straight south. (Baidu search update is the fastest and most stable)

When driving through Yulin Point, Wang Tom specially pointed out to Gu Kai the location of the outpost. At present, the combat readiness duty is three people per shift, with an eight-hour shift system, and shifts are changed every two days, so as to ensure that the situation in the vicinity of the bay can be monitored 24 hours a day.

After listening to the introduction, Gu Kai asked: "Is it too early to carry out 24-hour monitoring now?" We have been here for more than half a month, and we have not seen any other boats appear nearby except for local fishermen. ”

Tom shook his head and said, "Be prepared, we think that there will definitely be a small group of pirates nearby before this summer, and sooner or later there will be a battle." It's a pity that we lack heavy weapons now, otherwise it would be really foolproof to put a fort on both sides of this harbor mouth. ”

Gu Kai patted Tom Wang on the shoulder and said, "You kid is not honest! I heard that when you bought guns in Eastern Europe, you also bought a few big guys by the way." ”

"What a big guy!" Tom Wang explained with a smile: "It's just two PP89 60mm mortars exported from China, which are not big guys at all, but the old guys are real." ”

"A 60mm cannon is also a cannon! Don't treat the village chief as a cadre!" Gu Kai criticized Wang Tom sternly, but immediately exposed his military blind nature: "With two cannons in hand, it shouldn't be a big problem to guard a port and fight a boat, right?"

"Kevin, mortars are mainly used to hit fixed targets, artillery shells are high-parabolic curved shots, and it is very difficult to hit moving targets. Tom Wang gave Gu Kai a look at science, sighed and said, "Even if they can fight, these two cannons don't dare to be used casually." Because our ship could not hold more supplies at that time, in order to free up the weight for these two guns, we even dismantled the bathtub on the ship, and in the end we only bought twenty shells. After firing these 20 rounds, these two guns can only be sent to the military museum as exhibits in the future. ”

"With so many shells, it's not enough to even train artillerymen, right?" No matter how blind Gu Kai was, he had already thought of the disadvantages caused by too little artillery reserves.

Wang Tom nodded and said, "So these two cannons are actually mostly used as decorations at the moment." I think it will be at least a while after the Tiandu iron mine has been put into operation before the Military Police Department can hope to start forming its own artillery unit. And for some time after that, our artillery units probably had to use the old front-loading smoothbore guns to train their hands. ”

As the boat sailed into the cove where it was located, you could see the dense mangrove forests stretching along the coastline to the left and right, and it was almost impossible to imagine that there was a plain hidden behind the dense mangroves just from the perspective of the boat.

King Tom ordered the half-sail to be lowered and the boat to move slowly along the shoreline in order to find a suitable place to dock. However, Gu Kai, who was holding the binoculars, seemed to have found the target, pointed to the bank in front of him and said, "Do you see the estuary there?"

Tom Wang looked in the direction he pointed, and sure enough, a five- or six-meter-wide estuary was faintly visible in the mangrove forest, but it was easy to ignore it because of the topography.

"We got off the boat there and went up the waterway. Gu Kai said very firmly.

With the wide hulls of the "Speedy" and "Lightning", there was no way to enter this narrow waterway, and the two ships could only be moored side by side outside the estuary. The Speedy was equipped with an inflatable rubber assault boat, and it took the sailors ten minutes to set up the assault boat, then carry their luggage and guns on their backs, and descend from the stern ramp to the assault boat, while Johnson stayed alone on board as a guard.

The four-metre-long rubber assault boat, which had only been used once during the landing at Victory Harbor, had a capacity of eight people and was equipped with a two-stroke, 18-horsepower outboard engine, making it ideal for exploring such narrow waterways. Tom Wang checked the military radio he was carrying and as soon as it was normal, he signaled to set off immediately. With the roar of the motor sounded, the assault boat carried a group of six people, including Gu Kai, and slowly sailed upstream of the waterway.

After traveling up the waterway for two or three minutes, several people on the assault boat who had been watching both sides of the river could see that something was wrong, and there were obvious traces of man-made water diversion projects here, and there were many artificially dug ditches on both sides of the waterway, but it seemed that they had been abandoned for many years.

Tom noticed another detail: "The water doesn't seem to be flowing at all...... Is this the influx of seawater?"

Gu Kai nodded when he heard this: "There is indeed seawater in this waterway, and the places we see now were salt pans in the past. ”

"A long time ago? When was that?" Tom Wang, who was not familiar with Chinese history, was immediately confused.

"Hmm...... It's probably the Southern Song Dynasty......" Gu Kai, who was also hearsay, was a little vague and casually confused, and quickly changed the topic: "In short, someone here has built a salt farm before, and the executive committee believes that there is a certain development foundation here, and it can save a lot of trouble by re-developing it." ”

"You mean, using this area to introduce seawater and use the salt drying method to make salt on a large scale?" asked Tom Wang, who knew little about this kind of professional problem, tentatively.

"I think Qiao Zhiya should know a little bit, after all, he is from a chemical background. Of course, Gu Kai couldn't explain this kind of problem that was 108,000 miles away from his profession, so he could only throw it to others.

So Tom Wang repeated the question in English to Qiao Zhiya, Qiao Zhiya thought for a while before answering: "There is no doubt that in addition to eating, salt is also a very important raw material in the chemical industry, and we must use salt to make chlorine, sodium metal, soda ash, heavy alkali, caustic soda, and hydrochloric acid in the future." The basis of the chemical industry is triacidic and dialkaline, and salt is the basis of this foundation......"

"Can you say something I can understand?" Gu Kai interrupted with some impatience. As a lawyer who deals with the law all day long, how can you understand what those hellish acids and alkalis are?

"Okay, then I'll be practical. Qiao Zhiya reluctantly changed his way to popularize science to his companions: "For example, such as glass, dyes, explosives, metallurgy, chemical fertilizers, papermaking, printing...... Almost all the walks of life that we can think of that are related to the chemical industry are inseparable from salt. ”

"Machining is also inseparable from salt. Roger adds: "Salt is all used in casting, heat treatment and electroplating. ”

"Let me sum it up, that is, if we were to replicate the industrial system of later generations in the seventeenth century, salt production would be a hurdle that could not be bypassed, right?"

"That's right. In this era, people only use salt for food, and our advantage is that we can process salt into all sorts of things, and these things are enough for us to conquer the whole earth!" Qiao Zhiya said as he revealed his warlike heart.

Wang Tom automatically filtered Qiao Zhiya's wild words, and asked Gu Kai, "So the executive committee has made up its mind to develop salt fields in this place?"

Gu Kai nodded: "In the timetable of the Executive Committee, the metallurgy and chemical industry of the industrial port must be launched simultaneously, and it will not be possible to be lame." At present, the Tiandu iron ore mine has begun to be pre-mined, and the chemical project has to be rolled out as much as possible."

"Well, since it's so important, let's take a good look at this place. Tom Wang looked at a relatively flat shore in front of him, turned off the motor and slowly leaned over the assault boat.

The men descended to the shore, tied the assault boat to the trunk of a tree on the shore, and then carried their equipment and headed inland.