For Haihan and these traversers, whether it is the extremely harsh natural environment or the uncivilized and unwilling indigenous tribes, these external resistance are not their main opponents. There is only one biggest enemy of the rulers of the Haihan, and that is time, no matter how many black technologies beyond the times in the hands of the time-travelers, they still can't fight against the rapid passage of time.

If the time-travelers wanted to establish an industrial civilization and a relatively stable political system in the East during their lifetimes, they had to seize every minute to promote the rapid development of the historical process, whether it was the drilling for oil or the subsequent birth of the internal combustion engine, the time-travelers were trying to realize these historical moments two centuries earlier, and compress the originally long development process during this period to be completed in the shortest possible time.

Even though the task of oil exploitation in Miaoli faces many objective difficulties, since the Executive Committee has made up its mind to promote the implementation of this project at any cost, it means that the project leader Bai Kesi can mobilize all the resources needed during this period to remove all obstacles in the way of progress.

On 15 April, the day after the convoy arrived at Magong Port, Bai Kesi inspected the Penghu Shipyard in the military port. At present, this shipyard does not have the ability to build large warships, and its main function is only to provide daily maintenance for military ships stationed in Penghu, and by the way, to build some fishing boats and cargo ships with less high-tech content, on the one hand, to earn a little income to subsidize daily expenses, on the other hand, it can also prevent the shipwrights from abandoning their shipbuilding skills. Since the second half of last year, the shipbuilding task here has changed, mainly inland river flat-bottomed barges, and the order is twenty or thirty ships. Although the shipwrights did not know the use of building so many barges, it was clear that these boats would certainly not be used in Penghu.

The Ship Management Office under the Shipping Department of the Ministry of Communications also sends senior technicians from Sanya to conduct short-term technical training for craftsmen from time to time. At the end of last year, Sanya shipped four marine steam engines to Penghu, accompanied by special technicians to the Penghu shipyard to teach craftsmen how to install and debug. During the same period, cargo ships to and from Magong Port successively brought in a lot of refined coal produced in Annam, and thousands of tons have been hoarded near the port so far.

Bai Kesi inspected the four traction barges that had been installed with steam engines, and the level of craftsmanship had basically reached seventy or eighty percent of that of Sanya Shipyard, and there should be no problem in daily use. However, considering that the location of use is not in Penghu, it is probably necessary to set up a technical service station responsible for maintenance near the mouth of Houlong River in Miaoli. Fortunately, this time, the team of Baixsi also specially transferred several skilled technicians from Sanya Shipyard and the Ministry of Industry, but there is no need to worry about the insufficient personnel reserve here at Penghu Shipyard.

In the afternoon of the same day, Bai Kesi and Morgan reviewed the Penghu garrison that was about to go to the Miaoli area with the oil exploration team. Although the current size of the troops stationed in Penghu was no longer large as the border of the Haihan-controlled area moved north to Zhejiang, Yu Yao still put together a reinforced company for Bai Kesi to dispatch. As a result, the army that was about to leave Miaoli already had three companies, plus the navy that would be stationed on the coast of Miaoli at that time, and the militia in the staff of the exploration team, the armed forces under Bai Kesi were enough to start a skirmish.

In addition, Yu Yao selected about 500 laborers from the migrant camp on Baisha Island in advance, and will also set off with the exploration team. Most of these laborers were war refugees from the Jiaodong Peninsula and the Central Plains in the north, and they were basically farmers. Of course, there are occasionally some people among the refugees who are well-born and have a cultural foundation, and they have long been selected for other uses.

These refugees can work as long as they are fed and sheltered, and they can be said to be very cheap labor. After they assisted the exploration team in Miaoli to complete the initial infrastructure project, the civil affairs department will carry out local resettlement to allow the refugees to settle down in the local area. If things go well, in two or three years, there will be about three or four thousand permanent residents in Miaoli, and some of these new immigrants will become the first oil workers in Haihan.

Counting the troops and migrant workers who joined in Penghu, the team that was about to go to Miaoli already exceeded 1,500 people. Such a large team has to carve out a foothold in the local area, and there are a lot of materials needed. Almost all of the daily necessities needed by the team were prepared in Fujian, and in principle, they should be able to sustain the consumption of more than 1,000 people for a month, and more than 30 tons of rice alone were prepared. According to Yu Yao's statistics, the first batch of daily necessities was about 300 tons, which was similar to the amount of military supplies. The largest cargo is the work materials of the oil exploration team, and there are really a lot of heavy iron lumps, and two-thirds of the cargo ships in the fleet departing from Sanya are loaded with various tools and equipment required for production.

Yu Yao estimated that the size of the fleet to Miaoli would be twice as large as the fleet from Sanya, so it was also a time-consuming and laborious task to deploy ships and personnel at Magong Port. Since Bai Kesi's team arrived in Penghu nearly ten days earlier than expected, the completion of all preparations has not yet reached 100%, and it is expected that it will take at least three or four days to set off.

The large army will not be able to leave for the time being, but at least a small detachment can be sent over in advance, and the deployment of the forward base can be planned to prepare for the follow-up. Morgan's suggestion was also adopted by Becks, and on the morning of the 16th, the advance team led by Morgan set off from Penghu north in two warships, a cargo ship and a supply ship. By the way, this fleet also towed a steam river flat-bottomed boat and two barges, intending to find a suitable time to go up the Houlong River to determine the condition of the channel first.

From Penghu Magong Port to the mouth of Houlongxi in Miaoli, the voyage was about 100 nautical miles, and due to the towing of several flat-bottomed boats, and the sea conditions were not very good, the fleet led by Morgan could only move slowly at a low speed, and it took two days to reach the destination.

The mouth of the Houlong River is about a kilometer wide, and ships with a draft of four or five meters can enter smoothly, but they can only move in the waters of the estuary, and it is said that after about one kilometer of the upstream, the water depth quickly decreases to about two meters, and only inland river flats can pass. In addition, some places upstream have extremely shallow river beaches, and it may be necessary to blast to open up the river channel to allow the cargo barge to pass through.

When Yu Yao led a team to reconnoiter the previous time, he could only measure the approximate water depth, but he was not completely sure whether the barge could be navigated. In addition, it is recently in the rainy season, and the flow of Houlong Creek has also changed, so it is necessary to conduct field surveys. This is also one of the reasons why Morgan insisted on sending a small team to explore the way first, otherwise the fleet would find that it would not work when the fleet went upstream, and it would be a big mistake.

Yu Yao provided Morgan with a map of the Houlong River basin and the place he had chosen to settle down the last time he led the team, and Morgan did not spend much effort to find this anchorage on the south bank of the estuary according to the map.

The last time Yu Yao visited, he had a simple trestle built here to make it easier for ships to dock, but to Morgan's heart, the trestle had suffered significant damage, with at least two-thirds of the deck gone, and the piles standing in the water were crooked.

Morgan did not rush to let the big ship dock, but put down the small boat and sent two squads of soldiers to land first, one is to ensure the safety of the shore environment, and the other is to confirm that the water depth at the docking place can allow the big ship to land.

The first thing Morgan did after landing was to check the damage to the trestle. The subsequent arrival of the fleet is bound to have some port facilities to allow the materials to be quickly unloaded onto the land, although the construction of temporary trestle bridge is not a big project, but it can be saved, and it will cost a lot of manpower and materials to build an additional trestle. Of course, it is also important that Morgan personally confirm the cause of the damage to the trestle.

If it was only caused by natural causes, such as hurricanes or water currents, etc., it would be acceptable, but the results of the inspection made Morgan's mood not relax, and the wooden stakes of the trestle had obvious marks of metal tools cutting down, which was definitely a man-made effect. It seems that after Yu Yao's party left, some people used violent means to destroy the trestle. According to Yu Yao's reconnaissance, the only permanent inhabitants of this neighborhood are indigenous tribes who are deeply hostile to outsiders, and it is unlikely that other visitors will be idle enough to destroy this wooden simple trestle.

Morgan understands this behavior as a warning to outsiders not to come back to this place, because you have been listed as persona non grata. But this childish behavior naturally could not stop Haihan's determination to develop the place, and after Morgan determined the cause of the damage, he ordered the accompanying sappers and carpenters to repair the trestle as soon as possible.

Morgan's advance team had only two platoons of less than 100 army troops, more than 30 logistics personnel, and more than 10 technicians. With no available trestle, Morgan's team had to spend more time unloading. In addition, it has been raining lightly in the sky, making the bank of the river muddy, and the efficiency makes Morgan dissatisfied but helpless.

About an hour after Morgan's landing, the Command's tent was finally erected on the riverbank. But by this time it was getting dark, and it seemed that there was no way to complete the camp before it was dark, and most of the soldiers had to return to the ship and spend the night.

Considering the possibility of Aboriginal activity in the vicinity, Morgan was cautious about setting up several outposts on the perimeter and setting up a ring of defences around the perimeter of the camp with multiple sections of barbed wire. If anyone tries to camp at night, they are most likely blocked by barbed wire inlaid with sharp steel sheets.

Despite the fact that the conditions were limited in the wilderness, the soldiers were able to eat hot food prepared by the cooking squad when it was dark. For ordinary soldiers, the wartime food is much better than usual, at least every meal can have a meat dish as a base, plus there is an additional combat allowance, and the period of duty is not particularly difficult. The most important thing is that the Haihan army has always been invincible, and the soldiers will not have too much ideological pressure even during the combat mission, so the atmosphere in the army will not be dull because of the armed conflicts that may be encountered in the future.

Morgan is one of the few bachelors who has not yet established a new family, and the few single partners who came here from North America have their own families and children, but Morgan has never met the right person he thinks is suitable. Although his Chinese ability has been enough to communicate with the people around him normally in the past few years, his personal aesthetic still prefers blonde and blue-eyed Western girls, and he always feels less interested in the customs of Eastern women. During his time in Sanya, someone also tried to act as a matchmaker for him, but in the end, Morgan still did not choose to start a family.

It is precisely because of this that Morgan devotes much more time and energy to his work than others, he is not only a physician at Haihan First Hospital, but also a lecturer at Sanya Medical College, and another identity, that is, a sniper instructor for the military. Over the past few years, more than 100 snipers have been trained by his hands, and most of them are serving in various units. Due to the special skills of snipers, they are the treasures of commanders no matter where they are, and as long as they are used properly, it is also possible to use snipers to take the head of the general among thousands of troops.

Although the mission in Miaoli may not be of serious use to the sniper, this time Morgan set off from Sanya with more than a dozen trainees he is now bringing with him as an ultra-long-range combat training course. And the Ministry of Defense did not object to this, after all, the training of snipers is a special type of troops, and there is only one expert like Morgan, and his ideas are basically official opinions, and no one doubts the training effect that can be achieved by such training.

Among the outposts that Morgan sent out to lurk outside the camp were his students. As a qualified sniper, acting independently, squatting and waiting, and monitoring targets are all basic skills, and in the past, he has always trained in the base in Sanya, and he has rarely had the opportunity to come into contact with the natural environment of Miaoli, and Morgan also wants to make full use of all training opportunities during the mission as much as possible.

Although Morgan is a high-ranking official, in this environment, the dinner is actually not rich, just two chicken legs and a glass of red wine than ordinary soldiers. This red wine made in Sanya is produced in small quantities, and almost all of it is digested internally as a special offering, and is not sold in the market. Although alcohol was forbidden in the army during wartime, those rules were for ordinary soldiers, and high-ranking officials like Morgan were not restricted by them.