Even lacking military sensitivity, Marik knew the important role that Hong Kong Island could play in the strategy of the Haihan mainland. At present, the manors outside the city of Guangzhou, the resettlement base in Lijiazhuang, Panyu, and the Wanshan Port outside the mouth of the Pearl River all have the problem of not being able to expand their territory because of the objective environment.

If Haihan wants to expand its power in the mainland region, he must eventually have a territory under his control as a springboard. If Hong Kong Island can be taken down, the GDETO will immediately be upgraded to a truly large-scale branch. It's not that no one has thought about this matter, but everyone thinks that the move to land and develop on Hong Kong Island may bring a lot of political problems, and the current Haihan does not have too much capital to bargain with the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty. It was not until recently, when the Executive Committee began to study the establishment of arms trade relations with the Ming Dynasty, that some people remembered that Hong Kong Island could be tried as one of the conditions for the transaction.

If it weren't for Yu Yao's insistence on asking Marik and He Xi to include the conditions for the opening of a port on Hong Kong Island in their contacts with the Ming officials, it is very likely that this matter would have been delayed until next year without anyone mentioning it. However, since He Xi's tentative actions have made very smooth progress, it is natural that the Guangzhou Office will not let go of such a great opportunity for meritorious service.

The day after He Xi's meeting with Liu Qian, the Executive Committee received a telegram from Guangzhou, which forced Tao Donglai to organize an impromptu discussion meeting in a short period of time.

"Originally, we only planned to talk to Daming about arms trade and military cooperation, but we didn't expect that the Guangzhou Office would pick up the grass and fight rabbits, and even the opening of Hong Kong Island would be done together. Moreover, judging by what they meant in the cable, the Hong Kong Island incident could be handled separately from the arms trade matter, and there was no need to add it to the exchange conditions for arms exports. Tao Donglai looked around at the people present: "Everyone, let's talk about it, what thoughts and suggestions do you have about this matter." ”

"As the saying goes, we have been blessed with no equals, and we have been doing good things during this time! First, Annan came to the door and begged us to hurry over and start construction, and now Guangdong has easily won the right to open the port of Hong Kong Island, and I can't imagine that our period of rapid development will come so quickly!" Sun Changmi, who came to attend the meeting on behalf of the Ministry of Shipping, took the lead in expressing his opinion. Originally, it was Yue Zhiyun's executive committee member to attend the executive committee meeting, but he is still on his way back to Sanya from Changhua, so this errand can only be replaced by Sun Changmi temporarily.

"Don't make it too easy just yet. Gu Kai shook his head and said: "Now the level that He Xi has directly contacted is only the master of the government, whether his attitude can fully represent the government, and whether there will be other changes in the future, it is still impossible to draw a conclusion." ”

"Gu Kai has a point, we can be optimistic about this matter, but we must still be cautious. Ning Qi took over and said: "The investigation of the Guangzhou Office may not be particularly sufficient, according to historical records, the place of the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter is not a no-man's land at this time. ”

"Oh? Tell us about it. Tao Donglai thought of something very keenly, but he still decided to listen to Ning Qi's statement on this matter first.

"Hong Kong Island is under the jurisdiction of Xin'an County, Guangzhou Prefecture, and most of the inhabited areas on the island are indeed concentrated on the north shore, including the garrison of the Daming Naval Division in the north, which is consistent with historical records. Ning Qi paused and continued: "However, in the Aberdeen area in the south of the island, at this time in the late Ming Dynasty, there were already many sea ships sailing to various places in the South Seas, if the historical records are correct, this place should now be a cargo transshipment point similar to the nature of Wanshan Port, the population and port size may be very limited, but it will certainly not be a no-man's land." ”

"So this matter ......" Gu Kai was only halfway through his words, and then he didn't go any further, because he noticed that Yan Chujie, who was sitting opposite, was staring at him coldly. Although Gu Kai was not afraid of the other party, he did immediately realize that some words were not suitable for saying in such a public setting, so he stopped talking immediately.

It is said that the master of the Guangzhou government is a foreigner, and he has not been to Guangzhou for too long, and he has never been to Hong Kong Island, so it is not surprising that he does not know the specific situation on Hong Kong Island. However, the military team of the Guangzhou Office has been to Hong Kong Island for on-the-spot investigations, and it stands to reason that there should not be such an unreasonable omission.

If there were indeed omissions in their previous research work, and they did not understand the actual situation on the ground, then this situation can be attributed to dereliction of duty. But if they know the local situation, but report to their superiors that the place is no man's land, and forcibly push the plan forward, then the matter is a bit complicated.

Of course, this may just be the audacity of the military team stationed in the Guangzhou Office, but no one can rule out whether this is the intention of the military top brass -- in order to expand its territory and occupy key areas as much as possible, the military does not hesitate to adopt certain means that cross the line a little, and this is also reasonable.

But this is just a guess after all, and Gu Kai knows that if he exposes this possibility in public, the military's face will not look good. Although Gu Kai has always been very good at dealing with the military, he doesn't want to offend the military too hard, after all, although everyone's political concepts are different, the goal of struggle is still the same, and there is no need to make things too ugly.

“...... What do you military think?" Gu Kai thought about it, and still gave the ball to Yan Chujie. After all, the person directly responsible for this incident is someone from the military, and Gu Kai decided to look at the attitude of the military before making a plan.

Yan Chujie said in a deep voice: "The key point of this matter, I think everyone needs to clarify it again." What is the reason why we have not been able to develop Hong Kong Island? In the early stage, it was because we lacked a springboard to reach Hong Kong Island. But then we had Wanshan Port, but we still didn't attack Hong Kong Island, and why was this because we were worried that this would lead to a diplomatic conflict with the Ming Dynasty, which would affect the stability of the mainland market. So why is it possible to cause diplomatic conflicts or political disputes? In the final analysis, we just lack a reason for the Ming government to approve of the development and management of Hong Kong Island. ”

Yan Chujie paused, and seeing that no one opened his mouth to refute him, he continued: "Then the point is, what is the biggest problem in our development of Hong Kong Island at this stage? Is it the construction technology? No, is there any people living on the island? No! The biggest problem is whether we have a development license that conforms to the rules of the game of the Ming Dynasty, and whether the local government of the Ming Dynasty can approve our behavior! As long as we can solve this problem, whether there are people in that area, how many people, do you think it still matters?" We are building roads and repairing ports in Changhua for development, and there are thousands of officials and ordinary people in Changhua County, has it caused us any obstacles?"

"But the situation in Changhua is still a little different from Hong Kong Island, after all, Changhua is vast and sparse......ly populated," Gu Kai heard this, and felt that this topic had been taken in the wrong direction by Yan Chujie, so he tried to refute a few words.

However, as soon as he opened his mouth, he was interrupted by Yan Chujie: "Changhua is vast and sparsely populated, is there a lot of people on Hong Kong Island? The current Hong Kong is not the Hong Kong of 400 years later, there are 7 million people crowded into that small place to survive, even if you count the entire Xin'an County, there are not 70,000 people. At present, the population of Hong Kong Island is not as large as that of Heitu Port, and most of them live in the north, and even if there are in the south, the population is very limited. Moreover, the local government is not able to control the local government at all, and the official pressure it will face is much smaller than that of Changhua. ”

Gu Kai was still about to argue, Tao Donglai stood up at the right time to play a round: "You don't have to argue about this issue, I think everyone's views have a certain amount of truth." In the general direction, Hong Kong Island is a target that we will definitely take, but it is only a matter of time. In terms of details, it is necessary to conduct a more detailed investigation of the situation in the Aberdeen area. I set up a team to select some people from the Shengli Port side to go directly to the local area to inspect the specific environmental conditions, and then submit a report to the Executive Committee. ”

"What about the Guangzhou Office?" Yan Chujie asked.

Tao Donglai responded: "The Guangzhou Office can continue, since you have this opportunity, why not try? You just said that it is the last word to be able to take that place reasonably and legally, and other problems can be solved slowly." In Yazhou, where tens of thousands of people live, we have eaten it bite by bite, and now we have even gnawed off half of Hainan Island, how big is Hong Kong Island, can't we gnaw this bone with our teeth?"

"It's still reasonable for Lao Tao to say!" Yan Chujie gave a thumbs up without hesitation to express his appreciation, but the rest of his eyes glanced at Gu Kai, which was quite demonstrative.

In the end, Tao Donglai's slightly biased military proposal was still voted on, and the Executive Committee will authorize the relevant units to organize a small expedition team to Hong Kong Island within two days to investigate the local natural environment and people's conditions, and then provide a comprehensive assessment report to the Executive Committee for reference.

As for how to arrange the construction plan if the project really obtained the official permission of the Ming Dynasty, there was no relevant discussion at this meeting, because the Ministry of Construction is now overloaded, and there is no way to open an overseas construction site.

After the meeting ended, Tao Donglai came to Yan Chujie's office. There were some things that were inconvenient to say at the meeting just now, but now I still have to communicate in private.

"Has the military group of the Guangzhou Office reported this matter to the Central Military Commission?" After Tao Donglai sat down, he concisely cut to the point. He also noticed the problem that Gu Kai noticed during the meeting just now. However, he himself is also a member of the Military Commission, so naturally he will not dismantle his own platform outside, so at the meeting just now, he still defended the Military Commission in the majority.

"You wait. Yan Chujie got up and took out a file from the Wen Jiàn cabinet against the wall and handed it to Tao Donglai: "This is the various reports submitted by the military team of the Guangzhou Office in the past six months, you can take a look." ”

Although Tao Donglai holds the position of second-in-command in the Military Commission, because he wears several positions at the same time, he usually does not have much time to inquire about the internal affairs of the army one by one. Similar to this kind of written reports submitted regularly by military agencies stationed abroad, they are basically handled by Yan Chujie and the General Staff of the Military Commission, and only more serious matters will be specially notified to Tao Donglai, so he has not read this document before this.

Tao Donglai turned the first page, the content of which was the work report in January this year, in which he quickly found what he cared about.

On January 17, Xiao Liang escorted supplies to Wanshan Port, and the next day he and Chen Yixin took a cargo ship from Daming Maritime Merchants to Hong Kong Island for investigation. The focus of the investigation was on the southwest corner of Hong Kong Island and the coastal area of the Aberdeen Strait. According to Huang, the Aberdeen area is a transit point for Dongguan Xiang sold to Nanyang in the mainland, and about 20 ships dock in the local area for transshipment of goods every month. ”

"Arrived at the port of Aberdeen on the same day, the local wharf is small, can only accommodate no more than five 400 ships to enter the port at the same time, but the hydrological conditions are relatively superior, and the measured water depth can dock large ships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. There are about 300 to 500 permanent residents, about half of whom are fishermen. According to the field knowledge, there is no official Ming official organization in the local area, and there are no armed personnel stationed, and the Ming sailors on the north side of the island will inspect this place about once a month, during which they will charge a certain amount of management fees for the owners of ships that have been docked here for a long time. ”

Xiao Liang and Chen Yixin conducted a two-day investigation in the area, and believed that the development process of this area was still relatively primitive and had not been directly incorporated into the government's rule, and that they could consider building a port to occupy the local area. ”

Tao Donglai then looked through next month's work report, and there was another paragraph mentioning Hong Kong Island, but this time it was not an on-the-spot investigation, but the naval unit stationed in Wanshan Port had stayed in the waters near Hong Kong Island for many days during the training at sea, and gave a certain account of the local sea conditions.

Tao Donglai continued to open the following contents, and found that Hong Kong Island was mentioned in almost every monthly work report in the past six months, and the three senior military officers stationed in Guangdong, Xiao Liang, Yu Yao, and Chen Yixin, all had the experience of setting foot on Hong Kong Island more than once, and it seemed that they had also put a lot of effort into this area.