1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 337 The last blow

The Executive Committee’s short-term plan for the mainland has also been changed following the occurrence of the Lijiazhuang incident. For a period of time to come, the Guangzhou Office will be the leader, fully responsible for the arrangement and management of the crossing group’s military affairs in the mainland, especially in Guangdong. business affairs.The Lijiazhuang immigration transfer point will specialize in attracting and transporting immigrants from the mainland, while the Dawanshan Island stronghold located in the waters off the Pearl River Estuary will have military functions as well as a commercial transfer point.After adding the two strongholds of Lijiazhuang and Dawanshan Island, the influence of the Crossing Group on the mainland will be greatly enhanced, and it will even be able to handle some small-scale regional armed conflicts independently, without having to rely on the rescue of the base camp for everything— — After all, Yuanshui is not always able to catch up with the fire.

As for the expenses required for the establishment of this immigration transfer point, the Executive Committee did not dispute this issue. The large-scale introduction of immigrants from the mainland is a development route that has been established before the crossing. It is a necessary means for the development and growth of the group, which is the consensus of all executive committee members.Moreover, compared with the military-based stronghold on Dawanshan Island, the economic benefits of introducing immigrants are obviously more intuitive. Immigrants who arrive at Shengli Port will immediately arrange work as soon as they pass the isolation and observation period, and begin to create wealth for the crossing group. , but the stronghold on Dawanshan Island has very limited ability to generate money. Even according to Schneider's optimistic estimate, after the local facilities are put into use, it would be a miracle that the daily income can offset the military expenses of the garrison.The executive committee has even approved the cost of developing Dawanshan Island, so naturally no one will interfere with the Lijiazhuang project.

Li Jifeng is considered to be the most flexible mind among Ming people, but his vision and knowledge are limited to this era after all, and he is not aware of the long-term strategic layout of the Travel Group in the Guangdong region—or he has not considered it at all until now. , this group of maritime merchants from Qiongzhou Island have such a big ambition to "take over the world".Whether it is economic, cultural or military measures, in Li Jifeng's view, what the Traveling Group does is actually a manifestation of the word "benefit" first, and it is nothing more than to gain more wealth. It is completely understandable, after all, from a business point of view, everyone is like-minded, and they are all in pursuit of more wealth.

Li Jifeng has a relatively simple view of the cooperative relationship between the two parties. On the premise of not harming his own interests, the stronger the time travel group is, the more opportunities the Li family can make a fortune by relying on this cooperative relationship between the two parties.As for whether the growth of the Traveling Group will affect other people's interests, Li Jifeng has no control over this matter and has no ability to manage it, but at least from the current point of view, it seems that no one can block the progress of the Traveling Group.Li Jifeng even had a little expectation in his heart, wanting to see how big a situation this group of rich and powerful Haihan people could manage on Qiongzhou Island in the end.

After knowing the true purpose of the Haihan people, Li Jifeng's previously uneasy mood finally calmed down.After the dinner was over, a table of officers stood up and said goodbye. Tom Wang called Chen Yixin and Xiao Liang to inspect several observation posts outside Zhuangzi.

After the Haihan militia entered the village, they took over the local defense and announced strict curfew measures in Lijiazhuang during the battle. Therefore, although the sky just darkened, the village was completely deserted, and the whole village was completely dark. Occasionally, a few dogs barking and chicken barking can be heard.However, all three of them were carrying strong tactical flashlights, so they didn't have to worry about bumping into a wall or falling into a ditch in the dark.

"Tom, you said just now that you want to build a stronghold in Lijiazhuang and garrison troops. Is this what the executive committee meant?" Xiao Liang asked softly.

"Of course, I haven't had the guts to pass on the imperial decree." Tom Wang joked.

"Then this time, some of the two companies you brought here will stay here?" Xiao Liang asked.

Wang Tom replied: "Not yet, at least until the barracks and facilities here in Lijiazhuang are built. After the matter here is dealt with, the troops will withdraw to Dawanshan Island to rest for two days, and then look at the Military Commission. One step at a time."

"No other actions?" Xiao Liang was still reluctant.

"What do you want to say?" Tom Wang asked back.

"We now have three companies of troops, and the Li Family Militia can still support us. I think we should consider taking advantage of this time to concentrate our forces and wipe out the pirates in the Wanshan Islands, or stay there to attack Dawanshan Island. It’s always a hidden danger!” Xiao Liang immediately began to sell his plan: “After we get rid of this group of pirates, there will be no other existence in the waters of the Pearl River Estuary that would threaten the safety of Dawanshan Island. The closest to Dawanshan Island’ The Eighteen Zhi' forces are already seventy or eighty nautical miles away."

Chen Yixin was taken aback: "Brother Xiao, we haven't finished our battle yet, and you're already thinking about the next battle?"

"It's very easy to end the battle here. We are just waiting for the last blow from these bandits. If we are lucky, the battle will be over within tomorrow." Xiao Liang is full of confidence in the current battle situation, and he can't wait He put his eyes on the sea to the south: "The pirates on the east side of Dawanshan Island will be wiped out sooner or later. Instead of waiting for the next time to send troops over, it's better to take this opportunity to take their lair! "

"Whether it is the Executive Committee or the Military Commission, they will not allow military actions to be decided without authorization." Tom Wang poured cold water on Xiao Liang mercilessly: "You are also a soldier, so you should understand what I mean."

"Of course I understand." Xiao Liang nodded nonchalantly and said, "I didn't intend to act without authorization. We can immediately report this plan back to the base camp and let them hurry up and approve it as soon as possible."

Tom Wang said with a wry smile: "Xiao Liang, you have been working in Guangzhou for more than half a year, and you may not be very clear about the current situation of the Military Commission. This is not that simple. To implement a battle plan, you must first conduct an internal demonstration and calculate the required troops. , materials and various consumption, and then submit the battle plan to the executive committee for discussion. This process will take at least seven or eight days.”

"Then how did you dispatch troops so quickly this time?" Xiao Liang asked unconvinced, "It only took a day or two between getting the news from Shengli Port and issuing the order?"

Wang Tom explained: "This time is a special situation! The executive committee can't let the Li family lose, and the opponent is obviously weak, so they quickly decided to send troops. Besides, the real purpose of the executive committee, just now you I also heard it on the table. Repelling these bandits and rogues is secondary. Taking this opportunity to occupy a place by the Pearl River to establish an immigration transfer point is the most important thing. Pirates at the Pearl River Estuary are dangerous, but compared Lijiazhuang's matter must be given a lower priority."

Xiao Liang was silent for a long time before speaking again: "I still insist on reporting this battle plan."

"Okay, after patrolling the sentry post, we'll send a telegram." Tom Wang didn't object to Xiao Liang's proposal.Although this battle plan has little chance of being approved by the executive committee in a short period of time, in fact, Wang Tom also wants to try his best.After all, it is rare to have hundreds of troops at hand, so it is a pity to just come to Lijiazhuang for a stroll.This time, they also specially brought a group of advanced students from the military academy. If they just dealt with the rogues outside Zhuangzi, there would be no real gains at all.

Although the opponent's strength was vulnerable, the officers still strictly followed the combat regulations and set up many sentry posts on the peripheral defense line of Zhuangzi. They also left a platoon of armed personnel on standby in the west and north directions to prevent the opponent from attacking at night. .But this is obviously overestimating the combat capabilities of the bandits. After seeing the defense methods of Lijiazhuang during the day, no bandit leader is willing to let his own people go to the village in the dark to die.

For the bandits who participated in the attack on Lijiazhuang this time, this was the most difficult night for them recently.Although there were casualties when attacking villages in the past, it was not uncommon for them to be repelled by the village's regiments, but there had never been such a one-sided situation.The two attacks launched today seemed to have reached the opponent's defense line, but after thinking about it carefully, so many people were killed and injured, but they did not pose a substantial threat to the opponent at all.According to what the person who escaped said, the opponent adopted a passive defense method. Even if they had enough combat power, they had no intention of attacking at all.

This situation has caused some differences among the bandit leaders on the prospects of this battle. Some people think that this is because the Lijiazhuang militia has limited melee combat capabilities and can only rely on muskets for defensive warfare. As long as the next time we invest more troops, we will surely break through The opponent's musket positions.Another opinion is that the Lijiazhuang militia is deliberately preserving its strength and attracting the attackers to continue to invest in troops. In other words, the entire Lijiazhuang is a hole dug by someone. .

But no matter which view they hold, the bandit leaders are unwilling to give up the goal of Lijiazhuang.Although hundreds of people were cut off on the first day, and Zeng A Niu, an unyielding guy, ran away early, but the bandit leaders felt that since they still had thousands of people on hand, they could still fight again.And now, in addition to the legendary Lijiazhuang Bank, the bandit leaders have a new target, which is the muskets used by the guards in Lijiazhuang.If you can take down Lijiazhuang and grab these muskets for your own use, what villages in Guangdong and Guangxi cannot be taken down?
The biggest loss during the day was Liao Dabi, who initiated this operation. In addition to the loss of nearly 200 people in the two offensives, the [-]% profit that was set at the beginning was also attracted by various bandit leaders because of the unfavorable battle. Complained, and finally had to change from [-]-[-] to [-]-[-].The unacquired money suffered such a huge loss, which made Liao's nose so painful that he couldn't fall asleep almost all night. The only thing that could comfort him was that the culprit, Li Maozai, was said to have rushed to the hospital in the afternoon. When he was in the formation, he was directly beaten to death by Lijiazhuang's Musketeers in front of the formation.

Early the next morning, the bandit leaders who decided to put all their eggs in one basket ordered food to feed their men, and planned to attack Lijiazhuang with all their strength.If you still can't fight this time, then everyone really has no choice but to give up.

"What a beautiful day!" Xiao Liang stretched his waist, but the air he breathed into his nose had a smell of blood, which made him frowned.Although the battlefield had been cleaned yesterday, the land near the parapet had long been soaked in the blood of the bandits, and even the soil had turned a dazzling dark brown.

The peasants of Lijiazhuang began to dig a hole on the east side of the village since yesterday afternoon, and transported the bandits who died outside the village to fill the hole with a cart.At first Xiao Liang suggested that they should be cremated, but soon found that this method was a bit impractical - the corpses accumulated too fast and too many, and there was simply not so much firewood to burn in the village.So in the end, we could only adopt the most primitive method, digging a pit to bury the corpse.

Wang Tom was busy arranging the advanced students of the general school to various positions so that they could participate in the upcoming battle.The only thing Wang Tom felt a little regretful was that he failed to bring Harukon's cavalry company to Guangzhou this time. Once the opponent's offensive collapsed, it would not be easy for him to take advantage of the victory and pursue it.

At ten o'clock in the morning, the procrastinating bandit team finally began to line up, and the armed personnel in Lijiazhuang also entered the combat position one after another.The artillery that hadn't shown up in the battle yesterday was finally put on the gun position today, ready to play a role at the critical moment.

It is worth mentioning that this time Wang Tom went north and specially brought shotgun shells newly produced by the military industry department. This is a great weapon for dealing with large-scale infantry at close range.The production process of this shell is very simple. The shell is a tin cylindrical container whose diameter matches the barrel. If necessary, the shell can even be made of paper or wood. The 6-pound shotgun shell contains 48 cast iron projectiles tightly packed with sawdust. After being fired out of the gun bore, the fragile projectile will burst immediately, and the projectiles inside will form a huge firepower killing surface, and its power is also considerable.According to the previous military test results, the effective killing distance of this kind of shotgun is at least about 400 meters, and at a distance of 200 meters, the energy of the projectile is enough to allow it to penetrate the human body. goals.

Compared with grenades and explosive shells with higher technical content, this kind of powerful shell that does not require a delay fuze in the shell is more practical for the current army.Especially when you need to deal with opponents several times your own strength on the battlefield, this thing is much more lethal than the straight-forward big iron bullet.

When formulating the combat plan, the military did not think about completely annihilating the opponent, but aimed to strike at the enemy's vital force as much as possible so that it would lose the ability to harass Lijiazhuang again in a short period of time.Under this guideline, shotgun shells with close range and large damage became the weapon of choice for the last battle.

After waiting for almost an hour, several mobs finally assembled their team and set off to march towards Lijiazhuang.What annoyed the bandit chiefs was that many people from various factions fled in the dark last night. When they counted the number of people this morning, they found that there were a total of 300 people missing.But the bandit leaders were relieved not long after they got angry. After the war, hundreds of subordinates lost their accounts, and the money finally fell into their own pockets.

However, the dream is beautiful, but the reality is extremely cruel.After entering the area 200 meters away from the defense line, thousands of bandits finally mustered up the courage to launch a final charge, and almost at the same time, the parapet that they had not touched for a whole day suddenly collapsed.After a puff of smoke, a small group of people rushing to the front finally saw the terrifying scene behind the wall—several dark cannons were sandwiched among the densely packed musketeers, and their muzzles had already been aimed at the charging crowd.

Although the people in front had already noticed something was wrong, people behind who didn't know the truth were still swarming forward. Anyone who tried to stop would be surrounded by the flow of people, or would be quickly stepped on a human leather carpet after being pushed down by the people behind.

Amidst the shouts of thousands of people to kill, a sharp whistle came out, and before the bandits understood what the signal meant, a thunderous roar came from the front.The hundreds of people who rushed to the front let out a miserable howl almost at the same time, while the people behind only saw blood foam flying everywhere, and had no idea what happened in front of them.

Of course, there are also smart people who have seen the world and immediately thought of artillery, but before these people could react, the sound of the second round of artillery came again, and the cast iron projectiles penetrated their bodies mercilessly. It took hundreds of lives.

The 6-pound guns originally kept by Lijiazhuang, the ten 12-pound guns brought by Chen Yixin, and the addition of several 6-pound army guns after Tom Wang arrived last night, made the artillery of the two fire lines in the west and north more than ten doors.In order to avoid the blank time of shooting caused by the slow loading speed of the artillery, the officers cleverly adopted the rotary shooting of two guns in batches.And the effect of the shotgun attack at this distance is a very wide fan shape, and the firepower coverage area of ​​a single gun is enough to wipe out dozens of people.

During the continuous artillery fire, the musket team also joined in at a good time, supplementing the strike firepower in the gaps between the artillery fire.In the face of the bandits charging in a dense formation, this combat method of combining light and heavy firepower caused an extremely terrifying kill rate in a short period of time.In just 2 minutes, the ground was covered by the corpses of the bandits at a distance of 100 to [-] meters from the defense line.

Under this lethal effect, not to mention the bandits, even the regular army of the Ming Dynasty would not be able to bear it. There was no need for someone to take the lead. The bandits who finally found out that something was wrong turned around as quickly as possible and started to flee.However, it is not an easy task to escape within the range of bullets and shells.People kept throwing themselves into the dust, and they didn't understand what happened on the battlefield until they died.

(End of this chapter)