The six members of the North American Gang have been friends for many years before the crossing, and they trust each other very much, so they will meet together to cross half the world to Hainan Island to participate in the uncertain future of the crossing operation. But judging from the actual situation now, not everyone is one step closer to their dreams after the crossing.

Tom Wang was undoubtedly the lucky one of the six, and it only took him one year to become the supreme commander of the militia navy, and he was getting closer and closer to his goal of becoming a great navigator before he crossed over. Qiao Zhiya, who longed to take risks in the new world, had to spend a lot of time in the real room and production workshop, dealing with all kinds of chemical products and bottles and cans all day long, and the military had fewer and fewer field tasks, which was certainly not an ideal life for him.

But in the Haihan collective, everyone must obey the collective arrangement, and even the executive committee members at the top of the power pyramid cannot do what they want. The North American gang, who were accustomed to self-centeredness in the past, have gradually been sharpened in this environment. As far as Wang Tom knows, Qiao Zhiya will definitely not be able to find a way to transfer jobs so much in the past, with his personality, he is most likely to be transferred, and if he can't be transferred, he will simply resign and leave. And now Qiao Zhiya, it seems that the thinking mode is more and more similar to that of the domestic travelers, and he has begun to follow the rules of the system, Wang Tom doesn't know whether this assimilation is a good thing or a bad thing, but if he can make his friends live happily, he is still very happy to come forward to help.

The first day of 1629 was ushered in, and the New Year was celebrated in no way. This is because the Haihan calendar, which adopted the international customary chronology of later generations, has not yet been fully implemented locally, and the vast majority of people are still accustomed to the traditional Chinese yellow calendar. The second is that all aspects of work are too busy during this time, and even a one-day shutdown will affect the progress of multiple projects. In particular, there was a large-scale foreign military operation at the beginning of the year, and there was no time to stop and rest in the relevant preparations.

"It's as stupid as a pig! It's been a few days of training, and I can't even tell the difference between the left and right feet!"

Gu Wei complained loudly when he returned to his office, and took off his military hat and threw it on the table in a huff. Although it was winter at this time, the warm Sanya area was still sunny, and the temperature remained around 25 degrees during the day.

"Didn't you think of a way to tie a strap on your feet to help the recruits distinguish between the left and right?" After Gu Wei's feelings were stable, Ha Lu Gong, who was sitting next to him, opened his mouth and explained: "Wasn't it quite effective to use this method to train recruits in the past?"

"Old Ha, you don't know how stupid this batch of recruits is...... No, I still have to talk to Mr. Yan, the threshold for recruiting people still has to be set high, especially these new Vietnamese monkey immigrants, who speak with a very heavy accent, they can't understand what I say, I can't understand what they say, it's not as good as the Li and Miao people recruited from the mountains!"

"Don't talk about monkeys, no matter where you come from, the militia is a naturalized citizen if you enlist in the army, if you are heard by President Yan and Tao, then you have an incorrect attitude!" Ha Lugong kindly reminded.

"If I had a choice, I really wouldn't want to bring these recruits, it would be too sad. Gu Wei shook his head again and again.

"If the kind of person whose IQ is too low and can't be corrected, you can simply leave it to me, I still have some positions there that don't need to train tactical moves, so it's okay to be stupid. Ha Lu Gong smiled and said for Gu Wei: "You don't need to be smart about mowing the grass and feeding the horses, just stuff the people you eliminated over there for me, and it just so happens that I am also short of labor here." ”

"I'm afraid that these monkey soldiers can't even learn how to mow grass!" Gu Wei muttered a few words, then stood up and picked up his military hat: "No, I still have to go to the training ground to keep an eye on these monkey cubs, and warn them by the way, if they can't practice again, they will all be sent to Jinjiling to be horsemen!"

Since most of the militia troops needed to be dispatched for the cross-sea operations after the beginning of the year, the Central Military Commission temporarily recruited a battalion of recruits, and nearly 70 percent of these recruits came from immigrants imported from North Vietnam after April this year, which can be regarded as the militia with the largest concentration of naturalized Annam ethnic militia so far. Although the vast majority of the population in North Vietnam spoke the language of the two regions, the differences in accents were also so striking that Gu Wei would not have been able to direct the training of these recruits without the simultaneous interpreters of the Annam militia, who had been enlisted in the early days. The training time given to him by the Military Commission is very limited, and the militia will send troops at the end of January at the latest, when the grassroots militia, militia recruits, and police forces will take on the local defense tasks.

After the campaign in early 1628, the military expansion never stopped, although the military budget was still very tight by the Executive Committee. On average, a group of militiamen who have completed their training will be recruited for service every three months, and a new group of recruits will be recruited from abroad. By the end of 1628, the garrison in the Shengli Harbor area alone had more than 1,500 troops in two full-fledged battalions, more than 800 combat ships in 22 ships of the South China Sea Fleet, and more than 1,000 grassroots militia in the reserves.

After the expansion of the establishment, the barracks area originally located on the east side of the port of victory was overcrowded, and even the shooting range was moved to the ravine between the barracks area and the salt field of the port of victory. In consideration of the needs of future development, the Central Military Commission designated the current barracks area as the exclusive base of the navy, and the army's garrison base was relocated from the current barracks area to the Luhuitou Peninsula. A large number of barracks have been built in the plain area between the two mountains in the north and south of the Luhuitou Peninsula, and the new camp is next to the quarantine observation area for migrants, which can virtually play a certain deterrent role.

Of course, in addition to the militia units in the headquarters, there is also an indispensable force in the military operation against South Vietnam, which is the special operations force from the port of Heitu. This unit stationed abroad, which was personally formed, trained, and commanded by Qian Tiandun, has scored quite impressive results in all previous operations, and has already faintly acquired the posture of an ace unit. In addition to developing and producing short-barreled shotguns for jungle warfare and street warfare, the Executive Committee and the Military Commission also distributed a batch of high-cost Type 28 sniper rifles to this unit, and selected 10 snipers trained in the base camp to serve in the Heitugang Military Region. If there is any shortcoming in this force, it may be that the intensity of long-range firepower output is not large enough.

Unlike the militia in the base camp, the artillery of this unit is mainly light and portable 3-pounder guns, with a small number of 6-pounder guns as fire support, and the 12-pounder guns used by the base camp army are not found in this unit at all. This is not because the Central Military Commission deliberately did not issue them with heavy weapons, but because the combat concept of this unit is to rely on its good mobility ability, and carrying a large number of larger-caliber artillery will obviously affect its mobility. In addition, the attack on the frontal battlefield has never been the main task undertaken by this army, and when it is really necessary to build a long-term defense line or conduct a large-scale battle, it is natural that the regular army from the base camp will cooperate with it.

At present, the establishment of the special operations unit in Heitu Port has been expanded from the initial special operations company to the special operations battalion, with three combat companies, one engineer company, and one special service company, totaling more than 800 people. In addition, Heitu Port also has a reserve militia and surface team, plus a special operations battalion of nearly 2,000 people, stationed in Heitu Port, Tushan Port and Yongan Port.

In the military operation against South Vietnam after the beginning of the year, the Military Commission will definitely dispatch more troops than the previous year. The combat unit alone will certainly exceed 2,000 people, and it is estimated that there will be more than 1,000 marine, baggage, and logistics personnel to cooperate with the operation.

Sending so many troops to fight in South Vietnam would inevitably lead to the emptiness of one's own defenses. Therefore, the Central Military Commission will pay close attention to recruiting and training new recruits, and at the same time, it has also made targeted arrangements for the battle plan to compress the troops' departure time as short as possible.

The only way to achieve such an effect was to increase the efficiency of the operation and eliminate the living forces of South Vietnam in the shortest possible time. As for cleaning up the mess, it can be left to the North Vietnamese Army to do it slowly. Several key ports in the South Vietnamese region have already been taken into possession in advance, and the strategic goal has been achieved more than half ahead of schedule, and now the Executive Committee will no longer point to extending the war time to extract military expenses from the North Vietnamese court -- at that time, almost all the ports on the east coast of the Indochina Peninsula will be under the control of the Hai Han, which is equivalent to controlling the import and export trade of the entire Annam, and the income that can be obtained is not only the little money that can be obtained from the North Vietnamese court now.

However, while the army was still preparing for this expedition, the militia navy had already set off quietly in the early hours of one morning. The fleet of 20 warships will rush to the South Vietnamese waters to make a forward station in advance, and its main combat mission is to block the sea lines of communication in South Vietnam in advance and cut off the sea passage for its import and export materials.

The leader of this fleet was naturally the supreme commander of the navy, Wang Tom, who commanded the battle of the Haihan militia to attack Hoi An Harbor nearly half a year ago. And this time the navy's battle plan was also formulated by Wang Tom, if the combat mission can be completed more satisfactorily this time, then the title of future naval commander will basically be worn on his head.

"It's still the air on the sea that is the freest!" Qiao Zhiya, who had finally completed the transfer the day before the fleet set out, regained his military identity, and praised sincerely, holding the side of the ship with both hands.

"Didn't you say that when you went to sea, you would be claming to go ashore after a few more days of floating on the sea!" Wang Tom ruthlessly debunked Qiao Zhiya.

Qiao Zhiya didn't care either, and laughed loudly: "I promise that I will never complain again from now on, it's great to be able to return to the sea." ”

Qiao Zhiya's previous establishment in the army was actually an engineer, and when Heitu Port was developing and repairing coal tracks, Qiao Zhiya also worked as a construction technical consultant on site for a period of time. However, this time the work transfer was because Wang Tom came forward to ask for someone on behalf of the navy, and the executive committee also gave Wang Tom face and met his request, so after Qiao Zhiya returned to the military, he was assigned to the navy and served as Wang Tom's deputy. Of course, Qiao Zhiya himself also has a certain degree of sailing ability, and his sailing experience even exceeds that of most captains in the current navy, and he is fully qualified for this deputy position.

On January 7, 1629, the militia naval fleet quietly arrived on the island of Champa just 10 nautical miles off Hoi An. When Wang Tom led his army to attack Hoi An Harbor the year before, he also chose this place as a temporary stronghold. And this time I chose this small island to settle down again, in fact, it was a bit of a last resort, because in the coastal area near Hue Province, there are no islands for the fleet to dock, and choosing Cham Island is also a helpless move.

However, to Wang Tom's slight surprise, the more than 10 or 20 families of South Vietnamese fishermen who lived on the island the previous year still did not move out, and even took some of the temporary shelters built by the militia on the island last time for themselves. Wang Tom couldn't help but laugh and cry, so he could only order these fishermen to be arrested first, so these people became prisoners of the militia again after nearly half a year.

After resting for a day on Cham Island, Wang Tom and Qiao Zhiya each took a team of warships out to sea to carry out the blockade mission. Prior to this, the port of Victory had issued an embargo on all maritime merchants entering and leaving the port of Victory, prohibiting ships from docking at South Vietnamese docks and sending supplies to South Vietnam in any way for two months. However, this verbal ban was of limited use, and Tom Wang's fleet was able to block two merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty on the first day of patrol.

Both merchant ships were from Danzhou and were going to the port of Quy Nhon in the south to trade. However, after encountering the Haihan warship, this plan naturally could not be realized, so he could only obediently go home.

Qiao Zhiya's luck seemed to be better, he actually encountered a merchant ship belonging to the Nguyen clan that was bound for Guangzhou to trade off the coast of Hue, which was one of the few large ships in South Vietnam that could make ocean voyages. At first, the merchant ship thought that it had encountered pirates and was ready to flee, but it had no speed advantage in front of the Haihan warship, and it only escaped less than 10 nautical miles before it was caught up by Qiao Zhiya's fleet.

After a series of threatening shots from the naval warship, the South Vietnamese merchant ship wisely chose to stop and surrender. After the militia took over the ship, tens of thousands of taels of silver were found on the ship, and after a brief interrogation, Qiao Zhiya learned that the purpose of the ship going to Guangzhou was to go to the local area to buy weapons produced by Haihan, and according to the captain's confession, they were not the first ship to set off to buy weapons in Guangzhou, and there were several ships before them that were pioneers.

This discovery made Qiao Zhiya laugh, it seems that the Nanyue Imperial Court is really anxious, and what straw is going to be grasped first. However, since we have met the main master, there is no need to travel thousands of miles to Guangzhou - this ship, including all the personnel on board, has become a prisoner of the Haihan militia, and every property on board has naturally been seized, and it has become the first profit of this expedition.

All of the ship's thirty or so sailors were taken to Cham Island and imprisoned, and for the next few months of the fighting, they were afraid that they would have to remain on the island as prisoners.

Since the port of Hoi An had been completely destroyed in last year's fighting, even the shadows of merchant ships could rarely be seen near Hoi An, and the Hae Han fleet barely had to hide its tracks, and could swagger in and out of the nearby waters.

On 10 January, the fleet again intercepted two South Vietnamese merchant ships returning from Canton off the coast of Hue, and the discovery on board shocked Tom and Qiao Zhiya again—the South Vietnamese had actually purchased a batch of Type 27 arquebuses from Haihan, and even two six-pounder cannons that had been exported the year before. According to the factory number on the cannon, these two cannons should have been sold to Fujian, and it is not known what kind of way it flowed into the hands of these South Vietnamese merchants. But that was the end of their good fortune, and the arms never reached Hue Province and were distributed to the South Vietnamese army. On 13 January, four patrol ships led by Tom Wang encountered two armed Dutch merchant ships in the waters off Da Nang, but both sides exercised great caution and restraint and did not open fire. After an hour of confrontation, Qiao Zhiya came with ten ships to reinforce it, and the Dutch merchant ships chose to retreat after seeing this, and the Haihan side did not rush to pursue. After all, the main opponent at this stage is still South Vietnam, and Tom Wang does not want to provoke the Dutch opponent in advance. By the end of January, Hue Province probably finally realized that something was wrong, and sent a lot of small boats out to sea to investigate the situation, and only then did they discover the traces of the Haihan fleet. However, it is useless to find out, almost all of the surface combat units of South Vietnam have been lost in several battles last year, and even if they barely put together a fleet now, they can only deliver food to Haihan and increase their experience points in vain.