1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 517
Although the coalition forces quickly extinguished the fire after the fire, after the incident, it was found that two-thirds of the various cultural and historical materials and files in the county government had been burned.Most of the remaining parts were completely soaked by the water poured in when putting out the fire, and the proportion that can still be used is really not much.

After inspecting the scene of the fire, Zheng Ting could only admit that he was unlucky, and asked people to restrain the bones of the soldiers who died in battle. As for how to report to Qian Tiandun, this blame can only be pushed to the captured magistrate of Chengmai County and others. .Zheng Ting also specifically told the soldiers guarding the captives not to abuse them too much, lest no one will be blamed if the culprit is killed.

Zheng Ting's troops spent the night in Chengmai County, leaving 300 people to guard the city, and the rest of the troops left the city and continued to advance toward Qiongzhou Fucheng in the northeast.At this time, the large army that sailed out to sea from Lingao County had already landed on the northwest coast of Qiongzhou Fucheng a day earlier.

To organize the coalition forces to carry out two consecutive large-scale landings within ten days is a great test for both the physical strength of the participating troops and the coordination ability between various troops and transportation departments.

Qian Tiandun was riding on a dark brown war horse, quietly watching the troops gathering on the coast.Several heavy siege cannons were stuck on the beach, and the transport troops were laying a passage with wooden boards and straw mats, and then tried to pull these cannons out with animal power.At this time, news of the fall of Danzhou should have reached Fucheng, and if the siege troops wanted to take down this target, they might resort to a strong attack, and the huge caliber siege artillery was prepared for this purpose.

So far, the implementation of the Liaoyuan plan has been relatively smooth. In the process of advancing from Danzhou to the west, there was no decent resistance. The three battles in one state, two counties, and three battles were all won within half a day. With a very low casualty rate, more than 500 people were captured, and the actual control of the three large and small cities was completed.

As for the farms and villages scattered around the city, the coalition forces are not in a hurry to clean them up. Their task is to take down the main strategic nodes in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island. As for the overall cleanup of these sites, the Haihan militia will take over in the future. conduct.

The land ownership situation in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island is far more complicated than that in the southern part. The population density and the degree of cultivated land development here are far higher than those in the previously sparsely populated southern part. Much more intense opposition and resistance in the south.Therefore, during the rapid advance period, the coalition forces ignored the settlements outside the main city, but left these troubles to the departments in charge of taking over in the future.

"Go to the communication platoon and ask, what's the latest news from the Navy?" Qian Tiandun ordered.At present, a naval fleet disguised as pirates is cruising in the Qiongzhou Strait, blocking the coastline near the capital city of Qiongzhou.

Soon the navy's reply was sent to Qian Tiandun. In the past two days, the navy had intercepted twelve ships departing from Qiongzhou Fucheng to the mainland, nine of which were merchant ships or civilian ships, and the other three were It is a small warship that was left in the water village and did not fight in the navy that was wiped out some time ago.The purpose of these ships going to the mainland is naturally to seek help in an emergency.

Outsiders may not know the weight of Qiongzhou's garrison, but the senior officials in Qiongzhou's capital city still know it.After the news of the fall of Danzhou City reached Fucheng, it immediately exploded.Although there had been news that pirates would attack Qiongzhou Island a month or two before this, the officials did not take the folk rumors as an early warning, nor did they make any corresponding preparations. The delay in hearing from the fleet has made officials increasingly uneasy.

Thousands of pirates attacked Danzhou city, and took the city in just half a day. There were dozens of officials in Danzhou, but none of them escaped.After the pirates captured Danzhou, they were not in a hurry to loot the city, but continued to advance eastward, with no intention of stopping there.A lot of information can actually be deciphered from this few words of news.

First of all, the fleet sent by Fucheng to suppress the bandits is likely to be in danger—since the pirates have enough transport capacity to send thousands of people to land in Danzhou Bay, the size of their fleet must be much larger than that of the navy. fleet, and they sent troops to Danzhou many days after the navy set off, so the navy should not miss them at sea. In other words, it is very likely that this group of pirates defeated Ming Dynasty first Navy, and then implemented the landing plan in Danzhou.

Secondly, it took only half a day for the pirates to take down the city of Danzhou after they landed. In addition to showing that its combat power is terrible, it also shows that this is not an unprepared surprise attack. Thousands of people can come across the sea. Attacking a strong city, as long as you think about it with your brain, you will understand that this is definitely an action that has been planned for a long time, not a whim of these pirates.

Third, the pirates did not stop to loot in Danzhou, but continued to advance eastward, which just confirmed the rumor that the pirates wanted to capture Qiongzhou Island.And advancing from Danzhou to the east, the biggest goal is undoubtedly Fucheng.To occupy Qiongzhou Island, this must be the place to attack, but between Danzhou and Fucheng, there is no decent defensive stronghold at all, and there is not even a chance to slow down their advance speed.If the opponent is really determined to attack Fucheng, the distance between the two places is two hundred miles, and it will only take a few days to advance to the vicinity of Fucheng.

Therefore, while Fucheng was preparing for the war, it also sent a messenger to Guangzhou to ask for help.However, it is obviously difficult to avoid Haihan's eyes and ears with this method of asking for help. The fleet on the other side has already been notified by telegram just after crossing the river. It is almost impossible for a ship going to sea alone to escape the prepared interception. matter.

However, the combat plan formulated by the staff department is not just to intercept blindly, but to create enough tension for Hai Han's follow-up methods through interception.After reading the navy's report, Qian Tiandun ordered again: "The person who notified the navy can relax."

Songkouzi did not allow the dignitaries from Fucheng to flee to the mainland by boat, but to allow the messengers sent by Fucheng to have the opportunity to send the news of Qiongzhou Island being attacked by pirates to Guangzhou, and then use this as a basis for Haihan's next military strategy. Intervene in creating a public opinion base.

When the Military Commission formulated the battle plan, it did not intend to attack Fucheng as soon as it came up. After all, this is the Qiongzhou government, and it is also the current political, cultural and economic center in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island. It's really not worth the money to rebuild.If possible, the Military Commission hopes to take over the city in a peaceful manner.

This is not an impossible task. The staff department has already made a comprehensive plan for this. As for whether it can be realized in the end, it depends to a large extent on the coordination and cooperation capabilities of various departments.If it really doesn't work, then you can only count on the nearly twenty siege cannons transported here with a lot of effort to teach you how to be a man.

On October 10, the coalition forces advanced to ten miles west of Qiongzhou Fucheng, where they joined Zheng Ting's troops who had rushed from Chengmai County.The garrison in Qiongzhou Fucheng did not sit still, and a 11-strong army led by a general came outside the city to prepare for the battle.

However, according to the combat plan of the General Staff Department, the coalition forces led by Qian Tiandun did not have the task of quickly mopping up the garrisons in Fucheng. Fei quickly occupied Fucheng after defeating the garrison here.

Facing the Ming army who came to invite the battle, Qian Tiandun's order was short and ruthless: "Just bombard them with artillery fire."

So the two artillery companies in the coalition army quickly deployed in front of the formation, set up artillery, loaded ammunition, and then fired five rounds of rapid fire at the Ming army camp that was still watching the excitement a mile away.

At this distance, the accuracy and lethality of small-caliber artillery were greatly limited, but they still caused certain casualties to the Ming army.The Ming army did not immediately choose to retreat because of this, but also launched the artillery in its own formation, trying to compete with the opponent.But their attempt was hit immediately. The commanders on the Haihan artillery position used binoculars to see that the other party also sacrificed artillery, and immediately directed the artillery to focus their fire, using the density of firepower to make up for the lack of accuracy and lethality.

After only three rounds of shooting, a cannon that had just been pushed onto the front line of the Ming army was hit by concentrated shells, and the flying cannon directly killed the two gunners next to it.Although the Ming army still bit the bullet and set up artillery and conducted several rounds of confrontation with Haihan, it was clear that the range of the Ming army's artillery was too short to cause substantial damage to Haihan's camp.After more than an hour of sporadic artillery battles, the Ming army, which had cost more than 30 lives, chose to retreat angrily.

Qian Tiandun did not let the troops under his command continue to chase and kill. Now he only needs to arrange the marching and garrison locations of the various ministries, and then gradually complete the encirclement of the Fucheng.By this time, [-]% of the combat missions undertaken by the coalition forces had actually been completed.Qian Tiandun already planned to sit down and watch the play, and wait and see the development of the situation.

But Zheng Ting, who came here as a general of the coalition army, didn't understand Haihan's arrangement very well, so he soon approached Qian Tiandun to ask: "General Qian, the enemy is retreating at this time, why don't our army pursue the victory? If we send out cavalry at this time and pursue them with tails, we might be able to capture the city gate in one fell swoop and enter Qiongzhou Fucheng!"

Qian Tiandun shook his head and said: "General Zheng, you think things are too simple. This prefecture is easy to fight, but it is not enough to fight it. How can the Ming court recognize our Haihan's actual control over Qiongzhou Island? It is the ultimate goal of this war. Our previous fast break, current slow break, and all tactical arrangements are actually aimed at achieving this goal."

Zheng Ting was puzzled and said: "You don't want to quarrel with Daming, I understand this reason. But how can you win this Qiongzhou capital city with a slow attack?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and said: "Don't worry, take your time, and we will see the outcome in a few days."

After several consecutive active attacks were repulsed by the coalition forces, the morale of the Ming army was also affected to a certain extent.Although they were the ones who took the initiative to attack, they had no way of causing effective damage to their opponents. Whether it was muskets or artillery, they were far behind their opponents in terms of range.The general who commanded the battle even had two larger-caliber cannons withdrawn from the city wall, hoping to use the range of these two cannons to teach the opponent a lesson.However, I didn't expect that the opponent's array not only had the small-caliber guns that can shoot fist-sized shells, but also had heavy guns that could shoot for several miles. No matter in terms of range or accuracy, the Ming army managed to transport them to the large guns on the line of fire. The General Cannon is still not as good as the opponent.

The two sides continued to fight again the next day. After a night's rest, Qian Tiandun sent a platoon of Annan's troops to fight.The reason why Annan Army was arranged to fight this first battle was not that Qian Tiandun was worried about the damage of his own troops, but that the weapons equipped by the militia army were all short-range and powerful muskets, which were not as good as the Sanya-made guns equipped by Annan Army. The old-fashioned matchlock guns and flintlock guns, playing the tactic of queuing up and shooting, made it more suitable for Annan's troops to go up.

The Annan army trained by Haihan quickly gained a clear advantage in the battle with the sharp firearms in their hands.Although Daming is also equipped with a lot of muskets, their proportion only accounts for about [-]% of the total force, while the proportion of musketeers in the Annan Army is as high as [-]%. The firepower density alone is not the same level.Coupled with the performance advantages of the individual weapons of the Annan Army, the battle loss ratio of the two sides was as high as one to eight.The Ming army's military strength was limited, and naturally it couldn't support such a rapid consumption, and they retreated after only a short battle.

Probably also aware of their own disadvantages in weapons and tactics, that afternoon, the Ming army continued to retreat, and then this retreat did not stop, retreating all the way into the city.

At this time, the coalition army's strength in the west of Fucheng was only about [-], but after gaining the advantage on the battlefield, Qian Tiandun still commanded the troops, encircling Qiongzhou Fucheng recklessly.

Of course, with the existing forces, it is actually impossible to encircle the city on all sides in the true sense. Basically, it is to set up camps outside the three city gates in the south, east and west, arrange positions, and block the passages in and out of the city.Fortunately, there are only three city gates in Qiongzhou Fucheng, otherwise the coalition forces would be a bit stretched to besiege the city.

At this time, far more than the thousands of coalition troops participated in the war. As the offensive advanced from west to east, the coalition forces also recruited a large number of civilians along the way to be responsible for the transportation of logistics and supplies.As for the food, there is no big problem. The logistics department has already prepared enough food and grass to supply 5000 people for two months for this battle.As long as the labor force is sufficient, it is enough to ensure the supply line of food supplies from the coastline to the combat location.

(End of this chapter)