It was already afternoon when Lin Ruoyu and his daughter arrived at the west gate of Hunchun City.
The carriage carrying passengers stopped at the city gate, and the driver shouted for everyone to get off. The passenger carriage from Ningguta to Hunchun runs every two days in both directions.
Yongba pointed to a wooden house on the left side of the city gate and said, "Mr. Lin, you and Miss Lin must go there first to apply for temporary identity cards."
Lin Ruoyu nodded slightly. He had already listened to Yongba on the way here. There are many rules in Beihai Town. There are no temporary identity cards. Let alone renting a house, you are not even allowed to stay in an inn. Moreover, you cannot use silver or make money. You must go to Beihai Trading Company to exchange for Beihai dollars.
In addition, there are many rules that are confusing. Among them, the most incomprehensible thing is that no one can urinate or dump garbage at will on the streets and roads, and spitting is not allowed. If caught, they will be fined two taels of silver. Lin Ruoyu and his daughter smacked their tongues and said to themselves. Could it be that the land in Beihai Town is paved with gold?
Lin Ruoyu was no stranger to ID tags; the Li Dynasty had been implementing the ID tag system intermittently and had repeatedly abolished it. Since Li Zuo succeeded to the throne, the number plate system has been restored. The government requires men over the age of fifteen to wear number plates containing specific personal identity information. Those who have no permanent property are not allowed to move; those who undertake military service cannot hide; and no man without a license plate is allowed to measure the land, which immediately puts the common people under control.
But when he saw the clothes and hairstyle of the Northern Navy soldiers, he couldn't help but show a trace of contempt on his face. Hufu, Kunfa, what a decent appearance!
"Name?"
"Lin Ruoyu."
"Where did it come from?"
Lin Ruoyu remembered Yongba's instructions and did not dare to say it was Huining, so he said: "Xun Zhencheng."
"age?"
"A person is born on the Gengyin day of the month of the Bingzi year of the Xinchou year."
The soldier in charge of registration was stunned for a moment, but then he quickly made a few calculations, and then scribbled "Born in Xuanyuan 4437."
Lin Ruoyu felt very strange and asked, "What kind of calendar is this?"
"Yellow Emperor Chronicles."
ah? ! Lin Ruoyu was shocked, feeling that King Zhao of Beihai Town was so ambitious.
However, what surprised Lin Ruoyu even more was that the soldier from the Northern Navy who wrote the registration on the opposite side had written neatly from the beginning to the present, without even a single typo. It's just that the way the other person holds the pen is really strange, and the pen is also very strange. It doesn't need to be dipped in ink. He, who prides himself on being well-informed, is secretly surprised.
What puzzled Lin Ruoyu the most was that since this soldier could read, what could he not do? Even if you don't get the honors, you can just go to a shop and work as an accountant doing calculations. Why do you have to be a killer?
This was the next sentence of the soldier in charge of registration, which immediately stopped Lin Ruoyu's random thoughts: "Profession."
"Uh... private school teacher."
Unexpectedly, the soldier's eyes suddenly lit up after hearing this, and he said to Lin Ruoyu with a smile: "Teacher?"
"Exactly."
"Ah! Good job, Mr. Teacher! Our prince often said that teachers are gardeners, this and this... The spring silkworms will not dry up until they die, and the wax torch will not dry until it turns to ashes and tears will dry up. Amazing!"
A soldier next to him said: "Mr. Lin, the official school in the city is recruiting teachers now. The salary is generous. Are you interested?"
"Eh~~~" Not to mention Lin Ruoyu, even March behind him not only widened his eyes, but also looked sideways at the soldier. I really didn't expect that an ordinary soldier could actually speak out in detail. This made the father and daughter's previous ill feeling towards Beihai Town disappear a lot.
However, the next second...
When Lin Ruoyu followed the instructions of the soldiers on duty, he stood in front of a blue cloth with a height mark and took the first photo of his fifty-year life. After being flashed, Old Lin was immediately frightened. Jump.
When it was Lin Sanyue's turn to register, the little girl lowered her head shyly and did not dare to raise it, especially when taking pictures.
"Girl, please take off the clothes on your head."
"Girl, please raise your head. You always lower your head and I can't take a picture of anything."
March hesitated for a moment, then saw her father nodding slightly, then blushed and took off the clothes covering his head. Her black hair and beautiful face made several soldiers of the Northern Navy secretly smack their lips.
Even though Lin Ruoyu had his heart in his mouth, none of these soldiers from the Northern Navy made any teasing words or did anything inappropriate. What he didn't know was that the North Korean navy had extremely strict discipline in this area; during the war, the initial penalty for molesting women and damaging the image of soldiers was three years in prison, and in serious cases, they would be shot.
However, it is precisely because of this that the Beihai Navy, which has done no harm to the local people, won the support of the people in the outer northeast. You must know that this is an era where "bandits are like combs, soldiers are like goads, and officials are like shaves." Many people In my entire life I have never seen, let alone heard of, an army that does not commit any crime.
Half an hour later, the Lin family father and daughter finally each received a temporary ID card with a transparent plastic shell. The one-inch photo on the top was eye-catching, and below were a few lines of personal information and codes; the exquisite workmanship and ingenuity made Lin Ruoyu Shocked.
With their identity certificates in hand, the Lin family's father and daughter then, with Yongba's help, went through the accommodation procedures at an inn outside Hunchun City and rented two rooms. The landlady in charge of the reception knew that the Lin family and his daughter were not ordinary people as soon as they looked at their clothes. Her eyes would look at Yue Yue from time to time.
"Who are they?" the landlady asked Yongba pretending to be casual.
"It's two shifts."
"What is Yangban?"
Yongba didn't know how to explain it in Chinese. He held it in for a long time before saying: "That's right, that's right... similar to banner people, rich people."
"Oh~~~" Banner Boss's wife smiled at Lin Ruoyu and Sanyue as a greeting.
After entering the guest room and washing up, Lin Ruoyu finally felt at ease. He recalled the words of the Northern Navy soldier before and planned to go to the official school in the city early tomorrow morning to inquire. If he could stay as an instructor, he would stay in Hunchun City temporarily. Stay for a while. At the very least, the earl general of the Qing Dynasty would definitely not dare to run wild on the territory of Beihai Town.
...
In late June, as several Guangdong ships that Deng Fei had ordered from Siam arrived in Hoi An one after another, He Xiwen, who was appointed as a lieutenant colonel of the navy, took the two thousand men who had surrendered with him and rode the southwest monsoon in the summer northward. Go straight to Ryukyu.
In order to strengthen their armament, Deng Fei distributed fifty revolvers to He Xiwen's troops, transferred two 75mm guns from Beihai No. 2, and sent a company of Marine battalion soldiers to accompany them.
The order He Xiwen received from Deng Fei was that all the Shimadzu family's influence in Ryukyu must be eradicated; he understood this clearly and knew that the other side of the other party's words meant that they must be eradicated.
At present, Deng Fei, Wang Yuanfang and Hong Tao have been completely entangled in Batavia's affairs and have no time to separate themselves. The entire land defense of Bacheng is maintained by 400 special operations battalions and 1,000 Chinese recruits transferred from Hoi An, and the situation is also perilous.
After the Battle of Batavia, the Dutch reluctantly signed a surrender agreement under the fierce combat power of the Marine Battalion and the coercion of the Thor and the North Sea sailing ship No. 1 outside the port.
According to Article 5 of the agreement between the two parties, all Dutch and German residents in Bacheng must leave by boat within three days and go wherever they like, but they are not allowed to return to Bacheng within ten years.
Although Governor Altyn and other members of the Council protested, they finally agreed after another strangulation of Dutch soldiers by the Marine Battalion.
Because of the limited space on the ship, the Dutch who left could only take a few belongings with them; as for those Dutch who were unwilling to leave Bacheng, Wang Yuanfang was not polite this time. He ordered the soldiers to forcibly drive them out of their homes and The five flowers were tied up and escorted to the port to board the ship. If it weren't for the fact that fifty years had passed since the Hongxi Massacre, and the average life span of the Dutch in Bacheng did not exceed sixty years old, Wang Yuanfang really wouldn't mind a mass shooting of the Dutch.
In the month after the Dutch left, except for the dozens of poor Chinese workers led by Jiang Asheng who had defected to the Northern Navy in the early days, most of the Chinese businessmen in the Tang Dynasty surveillance outside the city were extremely indifferent to the arrival of the Northern Navy.
They believed that these shorthairs had destroyed local commerce, and what worried them most was that the departure of the Dutch would affect the local sugar trade. Some Chinese businessmen even planned to follow the footsteps of the Dutch and go to Banten, the Dutch stronghold in Central Java. To this end, they did not hesitate to sell the sugar cane plantations that they had operated for many years.
In response to this situation, Deng Fei remained calm and secretly assigned Jiang Asheng to contact the Chinese businessmen, thereby swallowing up two plantations at a low price.
The reason for this is that he received instructions from Zhao Xin to acquire a large amount of land in Bacheng and prepare to plant rubber starting in March next year. Sugar is nothing, rubber is an indispensable strategic resource for industrialized countries!
Compared to Deng Fei's cunning and ruthless ways and Wang Yuanfang's ruthlessness, Dr. Hong Taohong's reputation in Bacheng has gradually improved. The fifteen-member medical team he led has already caused a stir in the surveillance cameras of the Tang Dynasty.
Nothing else. Right now, both the Chinese and the locals outside the city know that among the short-haired men of the Northern Navy, there is a "Saihua Tuo" wearing a white coat and a turban. As long as he is suffering from miasma, a Dutch guilder You can replace it with a pack of small white tablets, which are more effective than any other cinchona cream.
Don't think that local people are immune to malaria. In these days, the average life expectancy of people in Southeast Asia, whether they are Westerners, Chinese, or local indigenous people, is no more than fifty years old. Plasmodium infection is the biggest killer.
In fact, until the French extracted quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree in the 1820s, the cure rate of cinchona was not very high. And due to the low output and high price, ordinary people cannot afford it. Even if Fu Heng, Fukang'an's father, contracted malaria during his expedition to Burma and became seriously ill, it was useless even if Qianlong sent people all the way to deliver cinchona cream.
As a fun aside, many people have drank tonic water, a carbonated drink with a slightly bitter taste. The bitterness is due to the addition of a small amount of quinine. But you'd better not expect to treat malaria by drinking quinine-containing drinks. To achieve a therapeutic dose of quinine, you need to drink at least about 10 liters of tonic water.
In the cool night breeze, Hong Tao, who was dining in the garden of the Governor's Mansion, took a sip of the ice-cold gin and tonic cocktail and nodded with satisfaction.
The wine was transported from the Thor, as were the ice cubes. Being able to drink a glass of iced drink in the tropics at the end of the 18th century was definitely the ultimate enjoyment of life, and even Qianlong could not compare with it.
But the only thing that made Hong Tao feel unhappy was that the Chinese woman serving him was really unattractive. She had dark skin and was far worse in appearance and figure than the beautiful girl Ruan Fuying gave to Deng Fei. If he had known that he was in Annan ...However, he immediately thought of Director Liu Da's eyebrows standing straight up, and he shuddered immediately.
Deng Fei, who was eating barbecued seafood in his mouth, said, "What's wrong? Are you catching a cold? Doctor Hong, you have to pay attention to your health. Right now, the stability of the people's hearts depends on you."
Hong Tao didn't want to discuss the problem of "few people have their own diseases" with the other party, so he decided to concentrate on dealing with the salt-grilled prawns in front of him. Ten minutes later, Wang Yuanfang, who had been busy all day, joined in and chatted while eating. After a while, the topic of the three people turned to the upcoming campaign in Outer Mongolia.
"Hey~~~Da Liu is really happy this time. There are more than 10,000 troops, 50 armored vehicles, and more than 2,000 cavalry, crossing the desert with swords and horses."
After listening to Wang Yuanfang's words, Deng Fei said: "Otherwise, fifty armored vehicles are enough for him and Fan Tong to have a drink!"
Wang Yuanfang was stunned for a moment, then nodded with a smile.
Hong Tao said in confusion: "What kind of riddle are you two playing? Fifty armored vehicles are not many? Why are you so stingy about the rich man Zhao? He only gave fifty armored vehicles. It's not enough!"
Deng Fei said: "Doctor Hong, have you ever driven a car? The engine of any machine has a service life. On tanks and armored vehicles, it is called motorcycle hours."
"Motorcycle hours? What do you mean?"
Deng Fei said: "I remember Zhao Xin mentioned to me that the batch of BMP2 armored vehicles he got are almost all in stock. Although the design life is 25 to 30 years, they have actually been stored in the warehouse for at least 20 years."
"Then what?" Hong Tao still didn't understand.
"We even thought that Zhao Xin had already undergone maintenance when he bought it, and there was no problem at all. But BMP2 uses a UTD-20 six-cylinder diesel engine, and its motorcycle hours are only 1,000 hours. Calculated at 45 kilometers per hour, the full mileage is 45,000 Kilometers. But if it lacks maintenance, it won’t be able to run that far. Outer Mongolia is so big, it’s definitely impossible to finish it as quickly as before.”
"What happens next?"
"I have been looking at the map for the past two days. The straight-line distance from Kulun to Ulyasutai is 750 kilometers. The straight-line distance from Kyaktu to Kulun is 270 kilometers. This is 1020 kilometers. The actual route must be It’s longer than that…”
Hong Tao became more and more confused as he listened. Wang Yuanfang saw this and interrupted: "Xiao Hong, what Deng Fei means is that the life and maintenance level of the engine determine the use of the fifty armored vehicles. This time Zhao Xin will not follow. If Liu's side hadn't made adequate preparations for maintenance and logistics, based on the road conditions in Outer Mongolia these days, I'm sure that at least one-third of his fifty armored vehicles would be lying down when they arrived in Kulun."
"Ah! Is it so serious?" Hong Tao couldn't help but open his mouth with a look of astonishment.
...
At the Northern Navy's forward headquarters in Kyaktu, Fan Tong sent telegrams three times a day to inquire about the progress of the peasant crew dispatched by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on their way north. At present, the thirty-man mechanical repair team headed by Mosuke has passed Yaksa, and it is estimated that it will arrive in another seven or eight days.
In fact, Zhao Xin's choice of attack date was not good. Seeing that the autumn harvest in the Sanjiang Plain was approaching, the civil affairs side had done its best to spare thirty people for support.
Fan Tong has been busy for so many days, and he has deeply realized the importance of logistics to the armored force. The recent frequent training alone has caused the tracks of a number of armored vehicles to break. The daily fuel consumption also makes him terrified. Fortunately, these are easy to solve, but if the engine breaks down, the armored soldiers of the North Navy who can only drive but not repair will be blind.
But if the number of armored vehicles is reduced, Fan Tong is really unwilling to do so. The speed of this thing is there, it is much faster than riding a horse! If he really had to ride a horse for eight hours a day, Fan Tong felt that he would be knocked to pieces. After getting off the horse, he could do nothing but sleep.
Since Fan Tong arrived in Kyaktu, he has always had a dream, that is, to kill Shi Yanran. The so-called Yanran Mountain was the name of the Han Dynasty. It is now called Hangai Mountain and is located in the southwest of Kulun.
It was already past eight o'clock in the evening, and Fan Tong was about to send someone to tell Polya that he might have to go back later when he saw Yu Jinshui, the staff officer in charge of intelligence, hurried in.
"Report to the chief, there is something strange happening in the Trading City!"
"what happened?"
"According to the news just returned from the inside, Wu Yi and Dai Peng received an emergency order from the Kulun Minister of Affairs Songyun and Yunduan Dorji an hour ago to buy and sell all personnel in the city, whether it is the garrison or Shanxi All merchants must evacuate within three days, and any violation will be punished as a crime of aiding the enemy!"
Fan Tong was surprised and asked: "What else?"
"Dai Peng asked Tian Tonghe to tell us that all Kalun's archers around Kyaktu will also withdraw southward, and he will have to send people to notify them one by one early tomorrow morning. In addition, according to what he learned from the messenger, Kalun's Qing army It’s very possible that we have to withdraw too!”
"Evacuate to where?"
"He doesn't know this either."
Fan Tong's heart pounded. Although he was the second-in-command of the Northern Navy's Eastern Front Force, he was only thirty years old and had never experienced a war. He couldn't hold himself back and blurted out: "It's bad! The news of our attack must have been leaked." , the Mongols are trying to escape! Send a report to the commander-in-chief immediately!"
Half an hour later, Liu Sheng saw the message. He carefully considered the map for a long time before ordering someone to send a report to Zhao Xin. Liu Sheng relayed the news from Kyaktu in the telegram and suggested that the date of the troops' attack should be advanced to prevent Kulun's 7,000 Mongolian cavalry from escaping westward.
Late at night, Zhao Xin's call back arrived. In the message, he agreed to Liu Sheng's request and suggested changing the launch date of the attack to before July 5, but the specific time was left to Liu Sheng's discretion.
After Liu Sheng read the telegram, he immediately sent an order to the staff on duty, ordering the six regiments stationed south of Ulan-Ude to urgently assemble and enter a state of combat readiness. They would set out in regiment units for Kyaktu, a hundred kilometers away, tomorrow morning.
Then, he sent a telegram to Fan Tong, ordering the 2,000 cavalry regiments stationed north of Kyaktu to seize the Lemoguete Yitai military platform 220 kilometers south of the city before dawn the day after tomorrow, and be ready to cut off Kulun at any time. The defenders' westward escape route must not allow the seven thousand Mongolian cavalry to escape into Hangai Mountain!
(End of Volume 6)
