In the ruins of Qingluan Port, local workers were working with Qin prisoners of war and Tang garrison to clean up the wreckage on the dock.
There is still a mast exposed on the sea in the distance. It is a Qin cruiser that sank in the port. Before it sank, even the artillery was removed and deployed on the shore to serve as a fort.
Unfortunately, the fort belonging to it has been blown up by the Tang army, and this is now a port under the control of the Tang Empire.
On the other side of the port, there are at least thirty Qin submarines of various styles parked densely. Some of these submarines are slightly larger, some are slightly smaller, but they all look rusty.
There is no way, they have not been maintained by someone for more than ten days, and they have been left to dry in the wind and sun, and they can no longer be used.
Qingluan Port originally had a dedicated submarine dock. They were built on the outside of the hidden port in a newly developed area.
There is a military zone over there, with large barracks, field airports, and various other facilities. It's a pity that when the troops of the Tang Empire came over, the resisting Qin army destroyed everything there.
It has to be said that the Qin army that defended Qingluan Port showed rare combat effectiveness. They fought until the last moment. Only when generals such as Sun Guang ran away did the Qin army soldiers who stood firm surrender.
Before surrendering, Qin's engineers deployed explosives and blew up all the submarine docks hidden under the cliffs.
It takes more time to clean up the ruins there, so these returning submarines can only dock at ordinary docks and let the sea water corrode and rot.
Within a few days of being docked here, the submarines were rendered useless. The Tang army would not be interested in these outdated junk. Qin's submarine soldiers are now in prisoner-of-war camps, let alone driving these war machines.
What's more, some of their main parts have actually been dismantled: Tang Jun didn't have much energy to manage these junk, so he just destroyed the key parts and piled them in the corner of the dock to be scrapped.
The diesel engines of many submarines were directly destroyed, and some had their hatch covers removed: as long as they dared to dive, seawater would pour into the hull...
All the torpedo fuses have been removed, and some periscopes and the like have been simply destroyed with grenades... In short, these submarines are no longer usable.
"So many new submarines, after less than a year of use... will be dismantled as scrap metal. What a pity." A Qin prisoner saw those submarines, shook his head and sighed.
He will not forget the scene of celebrations in the Navy when these brand-new submarines were built more than a year ago. The military band played non-stop, the officials clapped and cheered, and the submarine that had just been built was pushed into the water, making huge waves.
A new submarine is launched in almost two or three days. This gadget with a displacement of several thousand tons is indeed easier to produce than a complex aircraft carrier battleship.
But they did not play their due role in the war. At least half of the more than 100 submarines built by the Qin State before the war were sunk by the Tang Army.
"Waste..." Another Qin soldier shook his head and sighed. He also felt that it was a serious waste to scrap so many submarines for nothing.
In his opinion, it was unbelievable that Qin lost this war: How could Tang, who was so extravagant and wasteful, win this war? This is completely unreasonable, isn't it?
What they didn't know was that several bosses had already come to the dock over there, accompanied by an officer from the Tang Army, to inspect these submarines.
These bosses purchased these submarines and planned to dismantle them and re-smelt them into steel. After all, the steel used in these submarines was still very good.
On the city's roads, civilians, workers and the army are all filling in the big holes created by the shells. They are trying to fill the roads with the surrounding waste materials to restore traffic as much as possible.
Children are also picking up broken stones around the buildings so that after a day's work, they can receive canned food or something for dinner.
Due to the lack of heavy machinery, the city's repair progress is very slow. No matter how powerful the Tang Empire was, it had its limits. After swallowing up the territories of Chu, Shu, and Dahua, the reconstruction work indeed began to slow down.
The area close to the Tang Empire looks pretty good, and the construction progress there is also the best. In areas far away from the Tang Empire and close to the front lines, the construction of the Tang Empire seemed to be somewhat inadequate.
There is a shortage of manpower, tools, and heavy machinery everywhere. In order to support the troops in combat, precious transportation capacity can only be provided to the army first.
The further away from the mainland of the Tang Empire, the worse the road transportation will be, the greater the pressure on the logistics troops, and the less strength the military can spare to support the local area. This is an objective law and cannot be changed.
Qingluan Port is located in such a place that is too far away from the mainland of the Tang Empire. Qin's resistance destroyed the railways here, blew up the airport, and destroyed the docks, which further made reconstruction difficult.
Compared with those cities that surrendered easily, Qingluan Port was obviously one of the most severely damaged cities. What's more, what makes the locals hate it to the bone is that most of the damage was caused by the Qin defenders' own explosions.
As great as it was for them to explode back then, it is just as difficult to repair it now. Countless prisoners of the Qin army were escorted to engage in post-war cleanup work, and their treatment was not as good as that of the locals.
"Hurry up and work! What are you mumbling about? This place is so damaged, didn't you bomb it yourself? What's the use of complaining? Do you understand that you have to use labor to pay off the debt? Pay back the debt you owe!" Looking at these Qin people The Tang Army soldier who took the Chinese prisoners scolded, interrupting the two prisoners' sighs.
The two of them did not dare to continue looking at the scrapped submarine on the other side of the dock. They lowered their heads and began to move the gravel on the ground with their hands.
The gunfire has stopped, and the cry of seagulls echoes over the pier. A Tang Empire transport ship loaded with supplies was parked far away on the sea. It had to wait for a while before it could dock at the only pier that was repaired and now available.
At this moment, ships were leaning on both sides of the repaired pier, and a group of dockworkers were constantly transporting materials from the ship. These goods from Dongwan Port filled the area where the goods were temporarily stored.
In the center of the city that was almost blown to the ground, a huge red royal flag was raised, accompanied by the cheers of the Tang army. The local people also shouted and applauded. In the eyes of these people, the war was finally over.
(End of chapter)
