1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 512 The Destruction of the Naval Master
On September 1630, 9, the military dock on the east bank of Victory Port.

The two warships "Majesty" and "Prestige" which took seven days to complete maintenance and supplies before this were slowly leaving the harbor. Most people, including the hundreds of sailors on board, thought this was an example. Only a very small number of senior military officers knew that their trip this time was not just a lap at sea, but the first combat mission of these two warships since they were enlisted.

Along with these two main warships, there are two "Expedition-class" warships, four "Exploration-class" warships, two comprehensive supply ships and a logistics ship undertaking medical rescue and ship maintenance tasks.However, this is not all the surface forces to be used in the entire combat plan. After arriving in the waters near Changhua the next day, the fleet stopped and waited for the Annan Navy, which departed from Tushan Port at the same time and was coming from Fushuizhou Island. fleet.

The size of the naval forces stationed in Annan is far smaller than that of the base camp. There are only two "Expedition-class", two "Explorer-class", one troop carrier and one comprehensive supply ship.In addition to the sailors, this fleet also carried more than [-] militiamen and borrowed Annan guards, and was jointly commanded by Feng Annan and Mu Xiabo.

After the two fleets met in the waters near Changhua, they sailed northward along the west coast of Qiongzhou Island. After passing Danzhou, the fleet did not turn eastward and enter the Qiongzhou Strait, but continued northward. Shifty Sands Harbor on the peninsula meets the "pirate gang" stationed here.Until this time, the special operations force with a total of 9 ships and a total strength of more than 9 people was considered full.

Since the navy is the main character in this combat mission, Wang Tom, the top commander of the navy, took the position of supreme commander without hesitation, and Mu Xiabo and Feng Annan served as deputy.Qian Tiandun, the leader of Annan's side, did not participate in this operation, because he had to sit on Catba Island and coordinate the thousands of combatants who would be mobilized on a large scale in the future—waiting for the Daming Navy in Qiongzhou Prefecture. Cleaned up, it's almost time for the Army to put on the show.

However, Qiongzhou Fucheng's actions were much slower than Haihan's military had expected. After Fucheng's troop transfer order arrived at Shuizhai, it was actually rejected by the navy in every possible way because of insufficient military expenses.In fact, the reason is quite simple. The Navy’s ships are now engaged in smuggling business, and at least a hundred taels of silver are paid in a day. It is true that they can't afford the departure fee they asked for.

After the Haihan Navy completed its assembly on the Leizhou Peninsula, the government and the navy here have not yet reached a conclusion.In the end, the Haihan Office, which really couldn't see it anymore, joined forces with 27 large and small merchants to organize a military fundraiser for the Navy, raising a total of 1 taels of silver, and finally ended this tug-of-war with no end in sight.

On September 9, after several days of preparations, the naval camp located at the mouth of the Nandu River finally dispatched a fleet of 20 ships to Weizhou Island, where the legendary pirates lived, to carry out encirclement and suppression operations.Although it seems that the size of this fleet is not small, there is only one Dafu ship, five Haicang ships, and the rest are auxiliary ships with weak combat capabilities.As for small warships such as net shuttle boats, eagle boats, fire dragon boats, and red dragon boats, because of their relatively long voyages, it is difficult for these near-shore warships to play a role, so they basically stay in the water village.

Half an hour after the last warship sailed out of the water village, the militia navy in Liusha Port received a telegram from the intelligence agency stationed in Fucheng.Thanks to the mastery of this cross-age communication method, the Daming Navy has already lost half of the battle before entering the battlefield.

In the evening of that day, the fleet of the Daming Navy sailed out of the Qiongzhou Strait and turned northwest to Weizhou Island.However, in order to ensure the complete annihilation of the opponent, the militia navy ambushed on the west coast of the Leizhou Peninsula did not rush to dispatch, but sent a fast boat to follow the navy's fleet from a distance.

In the early morning of September 9, 21 nautical miles southeast of Weizhou Island, the Daming Navy discovered that it had encountered the strongest opponent it had ever encountered in its life.Seeing the two huge ships with black flags appearing in the sea ahead, the sailor general on the Fuchuan was shocked: "The pirates have such huge ships!"

However, there is a huge fleet behind the two giant ships, among which the smallest "Explorer Class" warship is almost the same size as the flagship of the Daming Navy.

When the opponent's fleet made a half-circle on the sea and slowly exposed the gun ports on the ship's side, the Ming army general on the Fuchuan finally understood the truth: "This is not a pirate, this is the Haihan militia! There are no pirates at all. , Everything is done by the Haihan people!"

After all, they are professionals who eat this bowl of rice. Naturally, the various appearance and characteristics of the Haihan warship cannot be hidden from the eyes of the officers of the Ming Dynasty. He didn't choose to turn around and run away, but because his equipment was too outdated, even if he tried his best, he couldn't deal an effective blow to his opponent.Although the naval warships were equipped with Frang machine guns, Lumi guns, and various primitive gunpowder weapons, before these weapons reached their effective range, they had already been smashed head-on by Haihan artillery.

Less than 5 minutes after the war started, the gunpowder on a Haicang ship exploded after being hit by a shell fired by the militia navy, directly knocking off a third of the starboard side of the ship, and sea water quickly poured into the cabin through the gap. The sailors plugged the leak, and the ship capsized on the sea at a rapid speed.

The broadside guns on the two main gunships of the Militia Navy are both 12-pound and 24-pound guns, with an effective range of about 500 meters. At this combat distance, the weapons of the Daming Navy cannot pose a threat to the Militia Navy.The sailors on board can safely and boldly operate, maintain a 2-minute round of shelling frequency, and attack the fleet of the Daming Navy in a leisurely manner.

And the firearm attacks that Da Ming used to use are almost useless in the face of powerful opponents, and the method of besieging a large ship with small boats is also useless in this battle-in the report received by the navy, about the pirate ship The descriptions are all lucky boats with less than [-] materials, and there are only a few ships, so there is no need to use siege tactics.However, it was obvious that this was another scam set by the Haihan people. The smallest of these warships that appeared in front of the navy was far more than [-] pieces.

Half an hour after the battle began, a 24-pound shell fired by the "Majesty" accurately interrupted the mainmast of the navy's flagship, making it lose its basic mobility. This almost confirmed the failure of the navy. end.

Although there are still a few lucky ships on the Navy's side that did not damage their mobility during the battle, but at this time they are planning to turn around and escape, and they can no longer leave the battlefield.At this time, the two hybrid battleships finally showed their housekeeping skills. After using the steam propulsion system, the two ships spouted black smoke, and at an astonishing speed of more than 10 knots, passed by the fleeing warship of Ming Dynasty. Copying over, under the stunned eyes of the Ming army sailors, they blocked their escape route.

They couldn't fight, and they couldn't escape. Just when the soldiers of the Ming army on the navy warship were hesitating whether to fight to the end and die for their country, someone on the Haihan warship took out a huge iron horn and started shouting at them. : "Anyone who disarms and surrenders will not die!"

For those who have lost their fighting spirit and are not so willing to give up the chance to live, this is undoubtedly a pardon.As a result, the few remaining movable boats quickly gave up their plans to continue escaping, and chose to lower their sails and stop the boats.

The entire battle process only lasted less than an hour, but it took a full half a day to receive the prisoners, count the results of the battle, and clean the battlefield.The battle damage on Haihan's side was minimal, only seven people were slightly injured, and all of them came from accidental bumps and falls during the battle, and were not injured by the weapons of the Daming Navy.

As for the Daming Navy, it was even worse. Nine of the 27 ships capsized and sank, and almost all of the remaining ships were injured, and half of them lost the ability to sail. It can be said that this navy has It is completely useless.The Daming navy killed 120 and seven people, 64 people were missing, and the rest were all captured.Judging by the distance from here to the coastline, it is certain that none of the missing persons escaped from this naval battle.

"Perfect battle!" Even though Wang Tom is a relatively introverted person, he still couldn't help but give a very high evaluation of this battle.

Although it was almost certain that the result of the victory would belong to the Haihan Navy before the war, for the parties involved, victory alone cannot be regarded as a successful completion of the combat mission.Haihan's superiority in ships, weapons, command system, and advance preparation made it impossible for any unexpected situation to arise in this battle. Even if this naval battle with disparity in strength was handed over to a layman to command, the result would be the same .

For Wang Tom, there are three basic requirements for this sea battle. First, completely defeat and destroy the combat effectiveness of the Daming Navy; second, not let anyone escape from the battlefield alive, so as to ensure that the truth of the pirate plan will not spread; Third, keep your own casualty rate low.

Judging from the results of the battle, these three requirements were fulfilled quite well, and the performance of the two new warships during the battle was almost perfect.Their powerful artillery output and good maneuverability have been fully reflected, especially the "Majestic" warship, which miraculously sank and injured more than ten enemy ships in this battle, while itself Unscathed, such a battle loss ratio makes Tom Wang want to get it to the executive committee to show off immediately, so that those who are skeptical of the role of the new warship can take a good look at how worthwhile the investment is .

Happy to be happy, but the end of the battle does not mean that this mission is also over.According to the plan in advance, Wang Tom commanded the fleet to divide into three groups and head to different destinations.

Several ships carrying hundreds of prisoners of war went to the black soil port in the Beibu Gulf. These prisoners of war had to stay there at least until Qiongzhou Island was calmed down before they could hope to be repatriated.Of course, they will not have the opportunity to eat idle food. There will never be too much labor in the mines of Heitu Port.However, some of them will definitely be pardoned after a period of time, because these people are sailors after all. For the militia navy, which is seriously short of soldiers, as long as they are willing to change their families, they will be happy to be included in the flag.

The combat fleet headed by two main warships will return to the waters near Changhua to stand by for the next operation.The remaining ships will stay to clean up the battlefield. They will spend about two days in this sea area to continue salvaging the floating corpses, clearing the flags of the Great Ming Navy on the sea, and scuttling all the capsized naval warships. It is possible to wipe away the traces of combat.

In doing so, in addition to temporarily blocking the news of the destruction of the Daming Navy, it is also to keep the Qiongzhou officials from knowing the strength of the enemy they are facing.It will take at least half a month before Qiongzhou officials will realize that the navy unit they sent to suppress the bandits has completely disappeared, and this half month is enough for Haihan to do a lot of work on the northern coast of Qiongzhou Island.

On October 10, the plan to seize the overall control of Qiongzhou Island led by the Executive Committee was officially implemented.This plan named "Liaoyuan" can be said to be the largest operation organized by the Haihan military before the crossing. The scale of the participating troops and the combat area involved far exceeded the time when troops were sent to participate in the Annan Civil War two years ago.

On the pier of Cat Ba Island in the Gulf of Tonkin, thousands of coalition soldiers who have completed the assembly are boarding the ship one by one.These fighters who took off their military uniforms and put on civilian clothes will go to Qiongzhou Island, with the goal of capturing major cities including Qiongzhou Fucheng.After they complete their combat missions, the militia army will appear on the stage, playing the role of justice, and successfully taking over the northern area of ​​Qiongzhou Island.

In order to deceive people, all combat ships will not participate in the process of crossing the sea. For this reason, the Haihan Shipping Department and the military have assembled a large number of sea ships to Catba Island to undertake this transportation task.Due to the need to transport thousands of fighters to Qiongzhou Island for landing in a short period of time, the Ministry of Shipping even suspended flights from Sanya to Guangdong, and transferred all cargo ships to the Beibu Gulf to load people.

All units under Haihan's administration have received corresponding instructions, requiring unconditional cooperation in the latest personnel transfer.In addition to the traversers, most of the naturalized cadres of non-combat units do not know the content of the latest operation. Most of the orders they received were to report to a certain unit or a certain place before a certain day. There are no subsequent specific arrangements.

Those who can receive these transfer orders can be regarded as the lucky ones among the naturalized people. They don't know that their future destinations are almost all states and counties in the north. After the vigilante troops complete the occupation of these areas, these naturalized people are needed Cadres went to take over local government affairs, quickly organized local management agencies, and realized the social system of Hai Hanization.

(End of this chapter)