Dragon Sea Empire

Captain Barreto's ship is called "Happiness", probably because the name of the ship is more auspicious, so after three days and three nights of being engulfed by the hurricane, only a large amount of canvas was lost and some of the cabin was damaged and water entered. hinder.When 300 people from the First Battalion of the Chinese Military Academy Cadet Army boarded the ship in Fuzhou, they took two boats. There were more than 200 people on the Xingfu, including Zhao Yi, Yin Bin, and another 100 people including Li Jigong. The ship has disappeared.

The lucky "Happiness" was originally stuffed with goods that Captain Barreto brought in from Juhua Island, such as local products such as Liaodong ginseng, mink fur, and antler, as well as a large amount of ironware.During the violent typhoon for three days and three nights, the bilge of the ship was partially flooded with water, and some local products had been soaked in seawater, and it seemed that they had become waste products.Finally, there was enough food on the Bliss, but there was a lack of cloth and other materials on board, and if the Bliss wanted to continue going south, it couldn't run with only one sail.Now it was necessary to find a place on the coast where the ship could be anchored, so that the hull could be repaired and a fresh supply of canvas could be obtained.

The problem is, this may be the southern coast of North Korea, and the anti-Chinese army rebellion in North Korea should still be spreading in the south. At least when they left Fuzhou, they had not heard that Major General Yan Siqi had captured Seoul.Captain Barreto discussed with the student soldiers on board, and they all felt that they could not go ashore rashly.

"Captain Barreto, are you unsure of where this place is?" The burly Zhao Yi stood at the bow of the boat and looked at the coastline with a binoculars: "I can't see any village houses, but there are a few small roads. Fishing boats on the beach."

Captain Barreto also held up his binoculars, and looked hard at the coastline from the side of the ship: "There are trees and jungles everywhere, and there are also fields. Why can't we see people?" He raised his head and said to Zhao Yi in fluent Hokkien: "Yizi , can you see people?"

"No one can see, what is this place?"

"I have never been to Korea, but when I return to Taiwan from Nagasaki, Japan, if the wind is strong, I will go to Tsushima Island to shelter from the wind. From my experience, this should be the southern coast of Korea opposite Tsushima Island. .I just passed by this area before, and never went ashore.” Barreto turned around and called the captain, needleman, sail boatswain and others, and spread out a nautical chart on the bow, observing the coastline, and at the same time Discussed for a long time.In the end, they still didn't come up with any results.

The needleman in charge of navigation is an old Portuguese sailor who studied in Prince Henry's nautical school.He fiddled with the compass for a long time, then looked at the sky in a daze for a long time, and sighed: "It's daytime now, I can't see the positions of a few stars clearly, and I can't judge where we are."

The crowd had no choice but to sigh, and reluctantly approached this section of the coastline with a gust of east wind.Unfamiliar with the sea conditions here, the captain dared not bring the ship close to the coast, and kept his position about two miles away from the coastline.

It was already afternoon, but everyone still didn't find any harbor where they could park temporarily, not even the locals saw one.There are only a few uninhabited dilapidated wooden houses on the entire coastline, and all of them have been burned by fire, leaving only black beams and frames, and the whole coast looks very desolate and withered.

"What's going on? Didn't you say that there are many fields in the south of North Korea and a large population? How come half a day has passed, and I haven't even seen a ghost?" Zhao Yi said very puzzled.

"Could it be that our troops have already arrived here?" Yin Bin said, "When I boarded the ship in Fuzhou, I heard that the foreign mercenary army had already landed in Busan. Maybe this place is very close to Busan?"

"Foreign Legion?" Barreto sniffled and sighed, "If they really are fighting nearby, it is quite possible that this place will become no man's land."

The student army and crew showed expressions of disgust, envy or curiosity.The foreign legion is notoriously fierce and fierce in combat. Their usual military discipline is so-so. Once they participate in the battle, the brutality of burning and killing in the combat area is unmatched by any part of the Chinese army, because the spoils captured by the foreign legion can be all For internal processing, there is no need to take half of it to the headquarters.Therefore, Yin Feng was never willing to use this army on the battlefield of the civil war, although many Europeans and Eurasians in this army had already settled down in Taiwan.

Then the sailors who looked out from the lookouts on the mainmast, the only one that still had canvas, rang the alarm.When the crew heard the news, they immediately took their positions. The lookout waved a small red flag on the top of the mast vigorously, which meant that there was an unidentified ship ahead!

There is a 36-pound naval gun on the bow of the Happiness, and the bosun is already directing the crew to fill the propellant packs and shells.Zhao Yi and Yin Bin looked at each other, and immediately ordered the members of the student army to get weapons and prepare for battle.

Barreto stood at the bow of the ship, looking into the distance.However, he was not the lookout who claimed to be able to see small fishing boats ten miles away during the day. Even if he looked hard through the binoculars, he couldn't find anything in front of him.

Half an hour after the watchman issued the alarm, Barreto, Zhao Yi, Yin Bin and others crowded in the bow saw a gray-white sail shadow appearing on the northwest sea.

Everyone hurriedly loaded the flintlock guns with ammunition, and put several small Francois machine guns on the bow.

"Can we turn the rudder and take shelter out to sea?" Barreto asked the bosun.

The boatswain shook his head and said: "Our ship has been damaged and flooded, and we only have one sail to use, so we can't risk leaving the coastline, otherwise we only need to encounter a small wind, and we will be unlucky!"

"Then, go to a few small islands along the coast to hide..."

"It's too dangerous. We're not familiar with the sea routes here. If we run aground or run aground, we'll just sit and wait!"

At this time, there was a faint burst of gunfire in front of him.

The lookout got down from the mainmast and came to the bow of the ship panting: "Master, Master, all you young masters, our naval ships are fighting with the North Korean ships ahead!"

"What?" Everyone was shocked, and crowded to the bow of the ship to observe through the binoculars. As a result, they only vaguely saw a group of single-masted sailing ships, and they couldn't see the rest clearly.

Yin Bin looked back at the lookout curiously, and asked, "Brother, those ships are at least ten miles away from my ship, have you really seen them clearly?"

"Yes, I saw the navy flag!" The lookout answered proudly and confidently.

Yin Bin chatted with a group of student soldiers, knowing that the rumor that the sailor's eyes are like binoculars is indeed true.

……

Almost five years ago, when the Beiyang Fleet (then called the Northern Fleet) of the Chinese Navy was on an expedition to the Tumen River, it was attacked by the North Korean Turtle Ship Fleet in Busan.Afterwards, the Chinese Army wiped out the last essence of the North Korean Turtle Ship Fleet, and burned most of Busan to the ground.Later, Zeng Qi and Yan Siqi forced North Korea to sign a contract with the Chinese Army to clearly stipulate that Pusan ​​Port is the Chinese Army's naval logistics base.

Due to the tense war in Liaodong, the Chinese army has never had time to operate Busan Port. There is only a small-scale Beiyang Fleet detachment stationed here, just five old-fashioned Fuchuan gunboats stationed here, plus 200 sailors and marines guarding the dock fortress. .The five Fuchuan gunboats were eliminated from the earliest escort navy fleet.

However, due to the gradual development and immigration of Tumen River Estuary, Heilongjiang Estuary, Sakhalin Island and other places, Busan Port has become a supply base for many Chinese company ships traveling to and from the Tsushima Strait.

The North Korean coup against the Chinese army affected the port of Busan. When the local North Korean defenders rose up to respond to the call for the coup, a fleet of pioneering groups happened to pass by in the port.As a result, the remaining troops of the Beiyang Fleet and the militia of the pioneering regiment joined forces to suppress the Korean soldiers who had risen.Many North Koreans in Busan rely on Chinese companies and the Chinese army to live, so basically no North Koreans in the city responded to the coup.In this way, the whole city of Busan Port was controlled by the Beiyang Fleet of the Chinese Army.

However, farmers in the surrounding areas of Busan, led by local country gentlemen, responded to the instigation of North Korean officials in Jeolla Province and Gyeongsang Province, organized a large number of "volunteers" and launched an attack targeting Busan.More than 1000 soldiers from more than [-] soldiers from Jeolla-do and Gyeongsang-do North Korea besieged Pusan.The Pusan ​​Port defenders of the Chinese Army, together with the pioneer militia, have never exceeded [-] people.With such a disparity in the proportion of troops, the North Koreans attacked Pusan ​​for half a year, but they failed to capture an inch of ground.The advantage of Busan's terrain, as well as the gap in warfare technology and tactics between the two sides, cannot be filled by simply using numerical superiority.

Of course, the sea traffic in Busan has always been smooth, and the Chinese army has control over the sea, so the Chinese defenders in Busan have always been able to get ammunition and food supplies from Ryukyu and Liaodong.No matter how hard the North Koreans on the land side tried, they couldn't completely encircle Pusan ​​without command of the sea.

Half a month ago, the Foreign Legion of the Chinese Company, which was originally fighting in the direction of Pyongyang, came to Busan and immediately changed the situation of the battle: the Foreign Legion opened the way with sharp firepower and launched a counterattack against the besieging North Koreans.The morale of the North Koreans, who had achieved nothing after the siege for half a year, was already low, and the counterattack of the Foreign Legion was a complete victory.However, the Foreign Legion couldn't stop the car as soon as the battle started, and chased and killed the North Korean army all the way to Gyeongju, 200 miles away.At this time, the North Korean volunteers who hadn't been hiding very far, after receiving the support of the Jeolla-do government army, returned to surround Busan again, and cut off the communication channel between the Foreign Legion and Busan.

At the same time, the Jeolla-do Naval Command managed to gather a group of naval warships and attacked Busan Port by sea.

The place where Baretto Jr., Yin Bin, Zhao Yi and others drifted to was the southern part of Gade Island, more than ten miles south of Busan Port.After drifting north-east with the current and wind direction for half a day, the Happiness has reached the sea off Busan Port.The scene of the sea battle they saw was the attack of the Jeolla-do navy and the Chinese army.The Happiness broke into this warring sea area by accident.

At this time, a North Korean ship had already discovered the Happiness, and from the flag number and ship type, it was determined that the Happiness must be a Chinese Army ship.Immediately, five or six North Korean sloops left the team and surrounded the Happiness.