1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2128
Under the strong initiative of Tagawasuke, the former feudal lord invested a considerable part of the Hirado clan's fiscal revenue in the military field in the past few years.Especially in the manufacture of weapons and equipment and the training of military personnel, the financial resources invested by the Hirado clan have even reached the top level in Japan.If it weren't for the concern that the results of military construction would make the shogunate find excuses to suppress itself, the Hirado clan might have built fortifications such as city walls outside the Hirado city.

Of course, such a huge investment is not just for self-defense. The former feudal lord also had the ambition to become the overlord, but he didn't know that his subordinates had greater ambitions than himself. So he jumped out and took over the ruling power of the Hirado clan.

If Tian Chuansuke was given more time to develop and grow, perhaps what he was relying on at this time was not the line of defense that was hastily built in the past two days, but a stronger city wall.But Haihan didn't give him more time to stop the defense, and such a simple line of defense could hardly stop an opponent whose firepower was far superior to that of the Hirado Army.

It only took about 10 minutes for the special operations group to complete the artillery deployment, and then began to bombard several targets on the opposite line of defense.

At first, Tagawasuke was a little doubtful that the opponent's deployment of the artillery was too far away, but after the opponent opened fire, he immediately discovered that the opponent made such a deployment with a well-thought-out plan.Those seemingly inconspicuous artillery had an effective range much longer than that of their own side, and they were able to fire at the fortifications of the feudal army from such a distance.

Although the caliber of the Haihan army's field artillery is not large, its lethality within the effective range is unambiguous at all. After a few shots, it hit an artillery emplacement on the southern defense line of the city, and immediately knocked out the unopened gun emplacement. The cannon was broken into two pieces.Seeing this, Tagawasuke could only order the other cannons to retreat first, so as not to be called by the opponent from a long distance.

This kind of battle made Tian Chuansuke feel extremely aggrieved. He obviously had guns and cannons in his formation, but it was difficult to play its due role when fighting against the enemy.These troops, which spent a lot of money to arm the Hirado clan, did not seem to be as powerful as they expected when facing the Shanghai Han army.

All the weapons in the inventory have been moved to the battlefield, and the rewards that can be given have been distributed to the soldiers in advance before the battle. Tagawasuke has basically used all the means that can be used before the battle, but the problem is that even if the vassal army is willing to die In combat, it seems that there is no chance of a fair fight with the enemy.

The only thing that Tagawasuke felt grateful for was that the defensive position in the south of the city that he had chosen before the war was still some distance away from the coastline, so he didn't have to worry about being bombarded from the sea at this time.But he still couldn't help being a little worried, because he heard that the artillery sound from the north was becoming more and more sparse, and it was far less intense than the battle in the previous two days.

Will the Haihan Army weaken its attack on Hirado Port from the sea today?Tian Chuansuke thinks that this is obviously impossible, and that the sound of the artillery becomes sparse, which means that the resistance of one's own side is also being weakened.He couldn't help worrying that if Hirado Port was breached by the enemy ahead of the southern defense line, the troops he led would be attacked from the north and the south.

What Tagawasuke can think of, others can naturally think of. These vassal troops do not have a suitable opportunity to fight at the moment, and they have to worry about the defense line of the port area behind. It is difficult to concentrate on the battlefield in front of them.

After confirming that the enemy had withdrawn several artillery pieces on the defense line, Sun Zhen ordered the infantry to start advancing northward under the cover of the artillery pieces.At this time, the shooting target of the artillery also changed, and the attack point was concentrated on the east side of the defense line, so as to suppress the firepower counterattack of this section of the enemy's defense line as much as possible, so that the infantry could reduce casualties during the advancing process.

In order to ensure the speed of advancement, the protective measures on the soldiers strive to be light. Basically, they wear two pieces of iron armor on the front and back to block the vital parts of their torso.This thing can block the projectiles fired by traditional muskets at a certain distance. Although the protective area is limited, it is light in weight and will not hinder the tactical actions of soldiers, so it has become one of the standard equipment of special operations groups. one.

In fact, the armor of officers is not much better than that of soldiers, mainly because they have an extra helmet that can protect their heads.But such protective measures will not be used in every battle. For example, it has been confirmed before the battle that the opponent does not have long-range weapons such as muskets and artillery, so there is no need to increase the burden on yourself.

Qian Tiandun still didn't dare to be too careless when dealing with the half-armed army of the Hirado Army, so he specially deployed to Takahashi South before the battle, and asked the soldiers to wear armor to fight.

However, the effect of the firepower suppression tactics was better than expected. The artillery and the firepower output of the Haihan infantry in the process of advancing layer by layer made it difficult for the Hirado Army on the defense line to launch an effective counterattack.The old-fashioned muskets they use can only be used in formation to play the most effective role. However, as long as they start to gather formations behind the parapet of the defense line, they will be spotted by the Haihan army who climbed to a high place and looked through binoculars in the distance. The artillery fire concentrated on it, and it was scattered and fled.

However, the straggler advance tactics adopted by the Haihan Army further increased the difficulty of hitting the defenders. Although casualties were still inevitable during the advance process, the number was not many.

After quickly advancing to close range, the special combat group's individual firepower advantage was further brought into play.The continuous firing of muskets turned every soldier into a point of fire that could not be ignored. The Hirado musketeers who tried to shoot at each other soon realized that their shooting frequency could not compete head-on with the opponent, and instead they would expose themselves by firing The position immediately became the target of several rifles of the opponent.

The most important thing is that the Haihan Army has more troops in this battle than the Hirado Army equipped with muskets on the southern defense line.In this way, whether it is a long-range strike or a short-range firefight, the Haihan Army has successfully gained the upper hand.

Although the defenders had set up a line of defense in advance, after all, there were too many areas that lacked the cover of fortifications, and the span of this line of defense was too large, so Tagawa had to disperse the vassal troops to various parts of the line of defense, making it difficult to form a sufficient joint force and defense depth.The Haihan Army focused on attacking one of the relatively weak areas. As long as a breakthrough was opened, it would be difficult for the enemy troops on this line of defense to organize and block the gap.

When they were still more than ten feet away from the defense line, several Haihan soldiers had already pulled out the grenade, pulled out the fuze and threw it behind the defense line bunker.This kind of weapon was something that the Hirado Army had never heard of. Caught off guard, explosions sounded one after another. Dozens of Hirado Army hiding behind the bunker fell to the ground, losing the ability to continue fighting.

After opening this gap, the soldiers immediately swarmed in, and then relied on this gap to start a reverse defense to prevent the enemy from launching a counterattack to regain this gap.

At this time, the choice left to Tian Chuansuke can only be to organize a counterattack immediately, otherwise the entire defense line will soon collapse.But being torn apart the line of defense easily by the enemy army like tearing paper, greatly reduced the fighting will of the vassal army. Although they all received the money from Tagawasuke before the battle, the situation at this time was a matter of their own life and death. Seeing that the enemy army is so strong, many people already have the idea of ​​escaping, and they don't want to go forward to fight to the death.

To become a powerful army, it is far from enough to rely solely on weapons and equipment. The final decisive factor on the battlefield is the quality of the combatants.Since its establishment, the special operations group has spent almost every year in the state of fighting in the south and north. In terms of rich actual combat experience, it can be ranked first in the Haihan army without any objection.It is precisely because they have experienced all kinds of battle scenes that they can calmly execute combat orders and know how they should complete their tasks.

A similar combat mission aimed at tearing through the enemy's defense line was also carried out in Liaodong a few years ago.However, the opponent that time was much stronger than the Hirado Army. The Haihan Army fought hard for a long time before they broke through the Jinzhou Isthmus defense line controlled by the Qing Army at that time.

The temporary defense line in the south of Hirado City is far inferior to the Jinzhou Isthmus defense line in those days in terms of its strength and the strength of the defenders.The most important thing is that the combat experience of the Hirado Army is extremely limited, especially the experience of fighting a powerful enemy like the Haihan Army is too little, and the Eighteen Zhiyu Party can only share with them their own defeat experience. There is still a lack of effective countermeasures to deal with the strong attack of the Haihan Army.

After two consecutive counterattacks were repelled by the Haihan army, seeing that more and more enemy troops had reached the gap, the feudal army on the defense line finally collapsed inevitably.

Tagawasuke was already in a state of desperation at this time. He sent two teams with a total of more than [-] people to try to regain control of the gap in the defense line, but even the commanders of the two teams were killed in the line of fire, and the rest were losing. After the command, they quickly collapsed, and this triggered a chain reaction on the defense line, making many people mistakenly think that they had been completely defeated, and immediately fled back with the defeated troops.

Although Tian Chuansuke's supervising team killed several people, the span of this line of defense was too large to prevent more people from abandoning the line of defense and fleeing to the city.Seeing that the general situation was over, Tian Chuanjie could only order to retreat to the urban area to reorganize, so that at least most of the remaining vassal troops could be controlled and unified in command.

The Hirado Clan mobilized more than 2000 people and spent a few days building the southern defense line, which only delayed the opponent for less than an hour in this battle.

Fortunately, several artillery deployed on the defense line were withdrawn in time and were not captured by the Haihan Army.The Hirado Army can also use these cannons to set up barricades in the urban area, and then carry out the final resistance.It's just that they don't know that their opponents are not only good at fighting in mountains and forests, but also good at street fighting in cities.The few field cannons that just now made the defenders' artillery dare not show up are also suitable for street fighting, and their combat efficiency is much higher than that of the clumsy large-caliber muzzle-loading cannons.

At this time, the artillery battle at Hirado Port has also come to an end, and the defenders have less than ten artillery pieces that can barely hold on to the battle, but the positions of these artillery pieces can still form crossfire in the harbor, so the East China Sea Fleet is still there. They did not rush into the port to land, and were still shelling targets on the shore without any hassle.However, in order to save ammunition, Lu Yuanlong had already ordered to reduce the intensity of the counterattack, and planned to wait until the fighting in the south was over.

However, the battle on the defense line in the south of the city ended much faster than he expected. He had hoped that the defense line would last at least through tonight, so that there might be time to readjust the defense of Hirado City.If you plan well, there may be a chance to severely injure the enemy in the city.

But the actual situation was that the defense line in the south of the city was broken before noon, and hundreds of routs fled back to the city, and soon spread the news of the defeat to everyone, and Lu Yuanlong also learned of this depressing result.

For a moment, Lu Yuanlong couldn't help thinking of running away. He knew very well that the current situation had no chance of turning around, and if he continued to fight, he would only die. But the problem was that he escaped from Miyako Island a few years ago. When I came out, there was still the escape route of Hirado in Japan. Now, even if I want to escape again, where can I escape?

Not to mention that Hirado has been blocked by the enemy from sea to land, even if he can escape, Lu Yuanlong feels that he has nothing to love.Is it necessary to find another Hirado and spend a few more years supporting the next Tagawasuke?The hope is so slim, the possibility of success may not be greater than defeating the Haihan army in front of us.

Although Tagawa Shichizaemon has already been sent away, Lu Yuanlong is not aware of the situation outside now, nor does he know whether Tagawasuke has arranged conditions for his adopted son to make a comeback. It is difficult to place high hopes on this arrangement.

They came to Hirado from Miyako Island back then because they knew that the young master settled here, and there was an environment for Shibazhi to rise again. Now, revitalizing Shibazhi can only be an unrealistic dream.

Before Lu Yuanlong could make a final judgment on the situation, Tian Chuansuke had already sent someone to inform him to try his best to hold the port, and if it was impossible to shrink the line of defense to Hirado City.

After Lu Yuanlong dismissed the messengers sent by Tian Chuansuke, he saw a puff of smoke rising from near the former site of Hirado Castle.He knew that this signal should be sent to Hirado Suijun who is still somewhere in the sea, but even if Tagawasuke can summon the Suijun at this time, there is basically no chance of a comeback, and it is very likely that Hirado will be ruined The last armed force of Fan, is it really necessary to do so?

Wei Zhi, who was a few miles northeast of the Hirado Strait, saw this signal. He sighed, knowing that the Hirado Clan was still defeated after all.However, this signal is not for Wei Zhi to lead the naval fleet back to Hirado Port, but for him to send a ship to a certain place on Hirado Island tonight, so that some people on the island can have a chance to escape.

(End of this chapter)