The Horn Merchant Ship is a shipping enterprise under Nanyang Trading Co., Ltd. and a 5,000-ton ocean-going ro-ro cargo ship of Nanyang Express Co., Ltd. The main route is from Lion City to Magic City and Daocheng.
Since the Allies took control of the maritime situation, the merchant ship Horn has been transporting cargo back and forth almost at full capacity. One month is a round trip, transporting ore, rubber or other raw materials to the magic city or island city for unloading, and then transporting back industrial products from various base areas.
A wide range of base area industrial products such as Red Star-generation agricultural vehicles, fertilizers, hoes, kitchen knives, soaps, and various textiles are fully loaded back and forth, so the Merchant Ship Bugle is a cash cow for the MRT Corporation.
Captain Ye Xinlai is a third-generation member of the family. He is over 40 years old. He started sailing at the age of 18 and has been practicing for 20 years before becoming a captain. Last year, he transferred to the MRT and worked as a new officer on the Merchant Horn. captain.
According to his qualifications, if he works for another two years, he will be able to accumulate qualifications and become the deputy general manager of the MRT Corporation and get off the ship.
In September, after Ye Xinlai loaded raw materials and sent them to the island city, a telegram from his family asked him to return to the Lion City with about 150 tons of unknown items included in the cargo.
And it is required to avoid all onboard searches and inspections along the way.
In fact, they are required to start from the starting point and never rest at the shore again. Food and water supplies for the crew on board were all replenished at once.
Although Ye Xinlai didn't know what the unknown items he wanted to transport were, he could guess that these were not things that could be entered and exited openly.
But no matter what, these things must be very important to the family, so he was asked to transport them back at all costs.
Of course, Ye Xinlai would not refuse the family's request. He cleared some warehouse space and prepared enough food and vegetables for the crew's long-distance voyage. He waited until the sailing time to tell the crew that this time there would be no stopovers. Come down and add.
Most of the crew on the Bugle are experienced shipping companies, so they naturally understand the owner's requirements. After all, their salary is calculated based on the number of shipping trips. Just stop if you don't have to stop in the middle. The speed is faster and you can rest if you go back earlier.
[In view of the general environment,
So the journey south was relatively smooth.
Seeing Natuna Island right in front of him, with hundreds of kilometers to go before reaching his destination, Ye Xinlai suddenly received information from his family that there were already British warships in Malacca beginning to blockade and inspect all merchant ships heading south!
The Bugle must bypass Malacca and find another port to unload its cargo.
Ye Xinlai looked at the chart and could only order the steering to turn due south and sail towards the Karimata Strait.
In the south, he can also choose to dock at Palembang and unload directly.
In order to keep it secret, Ye Xinlai didn't dare to call back. Their code encryption was not strong enough, so it was okay to send it out to deceive ordinary people. However, facing a skinny camel like Dai Ying, that designation was impossible.
This kind of thing can only rely on Ye Xinlai's own efforts.
Looking at the vast sea ahead, Ye Xinlai could only cheer himself up secretly.
"Captain, why are we going south? Aren't we almost there?" First mate Chen Qianfu was already very familiar with the old sea route, and it seemed that the direction Ye Xinlai was commanding was not quite right.
"There is a situation ahead, and we need to avoid some dangers." Chen Qianfu is not from the family, but just a senior employee. Ye Xinlai could not completely reveal the information to them.
"Okay, you are the captain, you have the final say." Chen Qianfu shook his head and started sailing in the direction indicated by Ye Xinlai.
During the next trip, Ye Xinlai on the merchant ship received more and more warning messages. In the sea hundreds of kilometers away from the Lion City, there were now British warships or patrol boats inspecting the passage of the entire strait. merchant ship.
They will insist on boarding the merchant ship, and then open all the warehouses for inspection. Although due to the huge number of merchant ships passing through the strait, it is impossible to unpack and inspect every piece of cargo, but according to the intensity of their random inspections, it is very important. There is a high probability that Ye Xinlai and the others were not included in the shipment.
The 150 tons of "special goods" in the shipping list will be exposed.
For this merchant ship, it was a devastating blow.
And they will not only lose this merchant ship, but also the entire crew of the team may be involved.
Ye Xinlai strengthened Xiang Nan's determination.
After all, this sea area is vast, and no one can truly block the entire sea area.
Two days later, when the Bugle arrived in the waters of Karimata, Ye Xinlai had to risk sending a telegram.
"Cousin, how are you doing at your second uncle's house?"
This was information asking about the direction of Palembang. In their agreement, the first uncle's home was the Lion City, and the second uncle's home was naturally the nearby Palembang.
"My second uncle's house also sees a lot of patients, don't worry about it." Soon Ye Xinlai received a call back, and Palembang was not doing well either!
Regarding the blockade, the British fleet is still very serious and will not leave such a big gap for people to take advantage of.
Ye Xinlai's expression changed. Even the alternative port was blocked. Now he didn't know where to head.
Not all ports can dock a 5,000-ton ship, and the ship cannot unload things like cars without docking. The weight of each car cannot be easily carried away by manpower!
So running in circles is really not an option.
Ye Xinlai thought for a long time before making up his mind.
"Turn the helm, let's go to Danrong Fishing Port, unload a batch of cargo through our lifeboat and then go to Palembang!" Ye Xinlai said to Chen Qianfu.
Ye Xinlai knows this area well. After all, he is an old expert who specializes in this area of the sea. He is very familiar with the large and small ports in this area.
Chen Qianfu knew that he had a batch of goods on his ship that might not be able to see anyone.
But as an old man on the fleet, he didn't want to pierce this layer of window paper. After all, it had nothing to do with him.
On the contrary, he still wants to rely on the fleet to make a living, so he also doesn't want anything to happen to the team. It would be best if the unsightly batch of goods could be dealt with as soon as possible, so that everyone would not be at too much risk.
"Understood, the target is Danrong Fishing Port!" Chen Qianfu commanded the helmsman to start steering towards Belitung Island. This island is not big, about 80 kilometers from east to west and about the same length from north to south. It looks like a ball.
But the location is quite important, right in the middle of Sumatra and Kalimantan. So when they were taken down together, there was still a small New Home Defense Force on the island.
The Horn drove for several more hours and finally approached Belitung Island.
Ye Xinlai observed through the telescope for a long time and found nothing unusual. So the Horn drove to the sea area closest to Belitung Island and stopped.
The lifeboat began to be lowered, and then Ye Xinlai sent three people to get on the lifeboat, preparing to go to the shore to find new people to receive.
Ye Xinlai waited anxiously for the news.
Unfortunately, no new news came through for a while. Until it was almost dark again. There were only a few boats approaching on the sea.
When Ye Xinlai saw that they were all fishing boats, he felt nervous.
"My boss, my boss, the customer for the goods has been found!" Sure enough, the voice of his confidant came in the sea breeze, indicating that he had indeed found the next customer to receive the goods.
Although this is not the destination.
But according to the current situation, the chance of my big ship passing through the blockade without being discovered is almost zero, so I can only unload the cargo here and transfer it.
Several fishing boats were tied to the horn and fixed with ropes, and they began to unload boxes one by one below.
Fortunately, there was a hand-operated crane on the ship, so that manual unloading of goods was not completely impossible. After struggling for most of the night, 150 tons of goods were unloaded onto several fishing boats. Watching them disappear into the dark sea, Ye Xin Lai wiped the sweat from his head and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Let's go back to the Lion City." Ye Xinlai was no longer worried and felt courageous again.
He now has formal import and export goods
I have a list of belongings, and I am not afraid of being checked at all.
Their troubles took an extra six days. By the time they reached the sea outside the Lion City, the food prepared on the ship was almost exhausted.
At this time, the fleet with Ying Ying asked to queue up for inspection. Ye Xinlai looked at the long list of fleets in front of him, rushed to the front in a lifeboat, found the inspector with Ying Ying, and wanted to arrange it first, but he didn't know that he wouldn't eat at all. Ye Xinlai handed him "a little kindness" and slapped him back!
Seeing that the brothers on the ship were going to starve, Ye Xinlai could only take the risk of rowing a lifeboat into the port, found a familiar fishing boat, and urgently purchased a batch of living supplies to send to the ship to tide over the crisis.
...
With Ying, Far East Command.
"How is the blockade going?" Menggao Marley asked the intelligence officer.
"Your Excellency, Marshal, the situation is not optimistic. Hundreds of ships pass through the strait every day. Our inspection manpower is currently somewhat insufficient. There are very few ships that can really detect problems." The intelligence officer answered seriously while looking at the report book in his hand.
"In the past week, we have only seized a batch of Type 43 assault rifles from the mainland. Other than that, we have nothing noteworthy. Most of the ships in our fleet are intercepted in the strait, and thousands of people are intercepted every day. It’s so hard to toss and turn on the boat, and the investment is really out of proportion to the rewards.”
"They have begun to receive military assistance from the mainland. Our intelligence sources are absolutely correct. So we need to strengthen inspection operations in this area." Menggao Marley said with a frown.
"We are not just setting up an interception network near the port. We must also release part of it to conduct random interceptions further afield and conduct maritime inspections in the open sea."
Even if Meng Guo Marley had no idea how Huang Qingyuan and the others were transporting the weapons? But it must be by sea, there is no doubt about this. There is currently no way to transport hundreds of tons of weapons over long distances by land.
Intelligence officers embedded within Huang Qingyuan and his colleagues reported that "almost hundreds of tons" of weapons were being shipped to Malaysia and Sumatra every day.
Dai Ying's influence in Southeast Asia can by no means be eliminated in the short term. Even if Huang Qingyuan and others adopt the family bundling method to pull the key figures of these new homes onto the same chariot, there are always some among these people. You can't resist the temptation.
After the Allied forces won the victory in Southeast Asia, they began to prepare to enter the original place, but found that Malaysia was completely unable to enter. The upper levels may still be debating what method to use to solve the problem.
But the intelligence agencies could not wait and do nothing. They began to constantly look for targets in the Huang Qingyuan Group to make breakthroughs.
Under the inducement, they quickly found a breakthrough point, and they developed a reliable intelligence provider among the top management.
Huang Qingyuan and the others, who didn't have much counter-espionage experience at all, didn't know that the interior was now riddled with holes. A lot of intelligence reported at the top was almost seamlessly passed back to the British Military Intelligence Agency.
After several rounds of losses, Huang Qingyuan and others, under Gao Jianwu's prompting, began to pay attention to the confidentiality of aid transportation, and set up a special operations office. On the one hand, they scouted the British blockade near the port and offshore, and broadcast it through telegraphs. , allowing ships transporting hard cargo to avoid the edge.
This special operations unit was carried out by a few people designated by Qin Jiafeng, and only Huang Qingyuan was fully aware of the inside story. The rest of the people did not even hear about it. After adding forward observation posts to alert the police, the ships transporting aid supplies began to significantly reduce their losses.
Stimulated by this incident, Qin Jiafeng has begun to establish an intelligence department. The first thing they have to do is keep it secret internally.
In order to learn professional counter-espionage techniques, Huang Qingyuan has sent a message requesting support from counter-espionage experts.
The brigade commander has already agreed to their request. This matter is really important. If the internal intelligence leak is not resolved as soon as possible, and then the war situation actually begins, it will be a disastrous consequence for Huang Qingyuan and the others.
Now that the storm is coming, the atmosphere has become increasingly tense.
The reason why Mongolian Marley has not taken action yet is simply because the cabinet is still wrangling over the budget for the upcoming military operation.
The seemingly powerful Daiying, after years of brutal war, not only directly killed a large number of young and middle-aged labor force; but also reimbursed 1/4 of the country's wealth, 460,000 houses, and the national debt soared from 7.2 billion in 1939 to 45 21.4 billion in 2016, foreign debt reached 3 billion, and the total industrial output value in the past 45 years has decreased by 20% compared to 38 years!
Meng Guo Marley is planning another war that requires a military budget of several hundred million. Where will this money come from? The two factions of members of the Budget Committee argue almost every day until they are red in the face!
They wished that Marley would show up directly and take back his domineering aura.
However, after rounds of negotiations with Huang Qingyuan and the others, the Dominion's concessions could no longer satisfy Huang Qingyuan and the others.
According to their demands, this place must be completely independent and become a member of a new Blue Star country.
Not even willing to join a loose federation!
Of course, relatively speaking, they still have a little room for bargaining on this issue.
Other than that, they were almost directly blocked by Huang Qingyuan and the others.
