Early the next morning, the fleet arrived at the rendezvous point where four merchant ships were located.
One of the merchant ships has already made contact with the formation, and the other three merchant ships are also on the way.
It takes about two days to sail from here to the entrance of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and it is these two days of sailing that are the most piracy-prone areas in the entire Gulf of Aden.
Many merchant ships have arrived here. They would rather wait here and contact the escort warships of various countries near the sea area through radio channels than dare to trespass alone.
In this sea area, if a merchant ship is not accompanied by an escorting warship, it is basically gambling on luck.
Many companies operating commercial ships have to spend heavily to hire private security companies for the safety of their cargo. Before entering the sensitive waters of the Gulf of Aden, security personnel will board the ship by helicopter, or wait in designated waters for security personnel to come by boat to board the ship for escort.
But security companies are not omnipotent. They have a limited number of people, and they are also at risk when a large number of pirates attack merchant ships.
Warship escort is completely different. It is not only safe, but also free.
However, warship escort also has shortcomings.
The disadvantage is that the number of warships is disproportionate to the number of merchant ships. It can be said that there is more monks and less meat.
Generally speaking, before entering sensitive waters, merchant ships will contact the escorting warships of various countries through published international channels to see which warships have time or can escort in nearby waters.
For example, the international channel of the PLA Navy is channel 16, which is also public. As long as you arrive in this sea area, you can call the PLA Navy through this channel.
Because there are few warships and merchant ships are all under contract, the shipping schedule must be taken into consideration. If you wait too long and miss the shipping schedule, you will have to pay high compensation to the cargo owner.
Therefore, some merchant ships really can't wait for warships, so they can only organize their crews to take basic protection and try their luck.
The anti-piracy methods of merchant ships are very crude.
For example, hanging razor nets and non-lethal electric grids on the side of the ship, or using fire water cannons and boat catching nets to prevent pirates from boarding the ship.
It's just that these are non-lethal weapons. Don't look at the Somali pirates here who use extremely poorly maintained AKs or even local African hand-rubbed AKs. The most awesome heavy weapon is only an RPG rocket launcher, but in In front of the crew, these are great weapons.
In addition, they are familiar with the sea conditions in this area and drive fast boats. Once a merchant ship is targeted, it will be difficult to escape bad luck.
This time the four merchant ships were lucky.
At first, one of the merchant ships called channel 16. The old escort formation told them that the new escort formation would be arriving soon and asked them to wait in the nearby waters. The PLA escort warship would arrive on time tomorrow morning to escort them through the waters.
This merchant ship happens to be a Chinese merchant ship. As soon as he heard that his country's escort fleet was arriving here tomorrow morning, he immediately notified several other nearby Chinese merchant ships preparing to transit and told them that a new batch of escort fleet from the motherland would be here tomorrow morning.
Everyone was happy when they heard it.
It only took a few hours to wait, and there was no chance of missing the ship schedule, so they all moved closer to the planned location and waited for Li Zheng and his group to escort them.
When the formation arrived, there were only two merchant ships in the designated sea area.
After contacting us, we learned that the other two ships would arrive in about 40 minutes.
However, the commander of the formation was not in a hurry and asked everyone to wait here first, just in time to hold a convoy opening ceremony.
Speaking of the ceremony, this is also Li Zheng’s third time since setting sail.
Once out of the port, once out of the country, and again after arriving at the destination for escort.
After a simple formation, the escort mobilization meeting officially began.
As three signal flares took off, everyone raised their fisted right hands and solemnly swore——
"Resolutely obey the command, overcome all difficulties, not afraid of bloodshed and sacrifice, and successfully complete the escort mission!"
The blue sky is the witness, and the sea is watching.
A new batch of Chinese naval escort formations announced that they will officially launch a new round of escort missions in this sea area.
After the ceremony was held, all the merchant ships arrived.
The members of the special operations team were fully armed and entered the combat duty position. There were three guard posts on the front, middle and rear decks, with one special operations member on each post, divided into four shifts.
The carrier-based helicopter team on the No. 1 ship took off and moved 50 nautical miles forward to conduct reconnaissance and early warning of the route the formation was about to pass.
Accompanied by the roar of the propellers, the Haizhi 9C quickly climbed to an altitude of 500 meters, tapped its nose, and flew towards the airspace in front of the fleet.
Woo——
With a long whistle blowing, the mixed formation composed of the formation and four merchant ships officially set off.
Fatty Wei was originally assigned to the second shift, but he slipped to Li Zheng's sentry post and stood there looking around.
Li Zheng asked him why he didn't go to rest, and Fatty Wei hesitated and said that he thought the weather was getting better today and wanted to go out and enjoy the sea breeze.
In fact, Li Zheng knew what he was thinking.
Fatty Wei actually wanted to encounter pirates in his heart.
Encountering pirates means that special operations teams may be dispatched, which is much better than just sitting in the cabin and waiting.
However, he was embarrassed to say this.
You can't say, ah, I hope these merchant ships encounter pirates...
If the captain heard this, he would have to give him a good scolding.
In fact, it is basically difficult for Fatty Wei to realize this wish.
Pirates are not fools, they also have brains.
They saw several merchant ships escorted by warships. It was absolutely impossible for them to rob the ship because they were desperate.
Generally speaking, when merchant ships encounter pirates and need to be rescued and rescued, it is because there are too few warships to protect them. Some merchant ships register in the channel and say that they will pass through the sea area at such and such time.
At this time, the formation will record his coordinates and course. Even if there are no ships that can be dispatched to escort, or warships from other countries cannot be dispatched to escort, they will be asked to keep in contact and ask for help at any time if there is a situation.
Once this kind of merchant ship passing alone is really unlucky and encounters pirates, the fleet of ship-borne helicopters here will be the first to go to the rescue.
After all, helicopters can reach the sea area where the incident occurred faster than warships, and can deter and drive away pirates through warning shots and other means in the air.
Of course.
Li Zheng was absolutely right.
The first escort was calm and smooth. After 44 hours of sailing, the mixed formation arrived at the entrance of the slow strait safely.
pirate?
Didn’t see it…
But I saw escort warships from other countries.
By the way, there are a lot of seagulls...
When parting ways with the merchant ships, the formation received messages of thanks from several merchant ships.
"I am proud to see you. I wish you a successful escort and a safe journey!"
"I would like to express my highest respect to the soldiers! Thank you!"
"I hope you will win glory for the country, and I wish you a speedy victory!"
…
The plain blessings and messages of thanks are filled with the best wishes of the Chinese sailors for the motherland and the motherland navy, and are also filled with an unconcealable sense of pride and pride.
At noon on the day when he completed the escort mission for the first time, Li Zheng's appetite was twice as good as usual. Although he didn't seem to have done anything, he seemed to have done something big. I made two meals...
Asking for a monthly ticket!
(End of chapter)
