1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 804 Siege
Gesman doesn't quite understand Haihan's approach. Spain's main competitors in the Far East are European countries such as the Netherlands. There is no direct conflict of interest with Haihan, and there is no record of hostility between the two parties. Why do these armed businessmen Will do it without warning.Having said that, in this place where the Tamsui River is poor and there are no valuable resources, the Spaniards themselves want to stop and give up this colonial stronghold with only investment but no output. Why did the Haihan people even send troops here to cause trouble? ?Did they think there was gold hidden in the land here?
On the contrary, Captain Lopez, probably because of his vocation as a soldier, knew a little bit about Haihan, a potential competitor, and explained to him: "My lord, the Haihan people have expanded from south to north in recent years. Very quickly, after they occupied Penghu, they were not satisfied with it. I heard that they had already started to send ships to the southern coast of Formosa in the second half of last year. For them, maybe other than the Ming Empire, other forces They will be treated as opponents and enemies."

"Isn't the south part of the Dutch territory? Can they really swallow their breath and watch outsiders step in?" Gesman asked suspiciously.If it was a Spaniard who did this, it is estimated that the Dutch would have jumped a long time ago.Over the past few years, they have been overtly and secretly mobilizing a lot of hands and feet on the Spanish stronghold in Taipei, but due to their limited strength, they cannot completely drive the Spaniards out of this area.If it wasn't for Gesman who also knew that the Dutch and the Haihan people had always been at odds, he really wondered if the Dutch had paid for the Haihan army to come here to make trouble.

"I don't know about this... Probably the Dutch have nothing to do with them." Lopez's sources of information are also extremely limited. Although he knows more than Gessman, he is not familiar with the current situation in Tainan. clear.He can only judge from the old intelligence that the Dutch probably suffered a defeat at the hands of the Haihan militia. In addition, Batavia's accident last year prevented Dayuangang from receiving rear support, so the "invasion" of Haihan cannot be done. to resist effectively.Of course, compared to the powerlessness of the Dutch, their current situation does not seem to be much better.

"Okay, forget about the damned Dutch, these Haihan people...are they really planning to attack our castle?" Gesman is still a little dubious about this, because there is nothing worth using in the city of Santo Domingo. What wars fight for.

"I personally think...the reason why they attacked here may be to take complete control of the west coast of Formosa." Although Lopez's guess is not complete, it is not far away.

"Well, we can't surrender to these invaders anyway, dear Captain Lopez, I think you must have a way to drive them out, right?" Sman can only rely on the performance of the soldiers.He is just a simple administrative official, basically ignorant of such matters as combat, and has no willingness to take the initiative to intervene in military operations.In the past few years, Lopez has repelled the armed raids of the Dutch and the natives several times, and his performance is very stable. He is the only object that Gusman can rely on now.

"Yes, my lord, we will win as always, and these barbarians will not stay on our land for too long." Lopez replied confidently.Although he still doesn't know the real purpose of the opponent, he believes that the fortifications of Santo Domingo and the well-trained soldiers under his command are enough to block these uninvited guests with malicious intentions.Of course, if he could see the 48-pound siege guns still being assembled on the upstream river bank, he might not be so contemptuous of his opponent.

"Very good... I will give you two hundred silver coins, which you can use to reward your soldiers. Tell them that every time they kill an enemy, they will be rewarded with one silver coin. After driving away the enemy, I will give you another There is a reward!" Gesman was not stingy at the critical moment, and offered money to reward the defenders.

"My lord is so generous, I guarantee that the soldiers will do their best to kill the enemy!" Lopez also reciprocated and gave Gesman a reassurance.

After Lopez calmly appeased Gesman, he immediately returned to the defense line of the city wall.Although he acted calmly, the actual situation outside the city was far more serious than what he had told Gesman. Within the scope of what he could see with the naked eye, the enemy's strength was at least 500, which was already far away. Overtake the defenders and block all roads in and out of Santo Domingo in the distance.

If it was only a threat from land, Lopez might not be particularly nervous, but he noticed some sailboats with the Haihan flag appearing on the river, which clearly meant to block the passage to sea.Originally, he planned to send someone to return to Jilong Port by boat to call the police for help, but seeing his opponent's posture, he had no choice but to give up.There are only two small sailing boats on the pier in Santo Domingo that can go to sea, and the other boats are all flat-bottomed riverboats. It is okay to fish on freshwater rivers, but it is too risky to go to sea.

Lopez was not sure how the Haihan militia fought, so he didn't dare to order an attack. All he could do now was to defend the castle and observe the opponent's actions.Although such a passive situation is not what Lopez is willing to accept, he does not have a better choice at the moment.

"Pass my order, organize a reserve team immediately, let the quartermaster distribute weapons to the farmers, and get ready for battle!" Lopez watched more and more Haihan soldiers appearing outside the city, and his mood gradually became tense. .It seemed that the other party did not simply come for an armed parade, but really planned to attack the city of Santo Domingo.

While the Spaniards in the city were mobilizing the whole city in a panic, the militia special warfare battalion outside the city was also slowly completing the outer blockade.Gao Qiaonan was very worried about the fact that the Spaniards immediately sent people out of the city to break through the siege after discovering the militia, and the Haihan side who had not had time to complete the siege would inevitably release a few fish that slipped through the net.Although even if someone can escape from the encirclement, it may not be possible to report to Jilonggang, but Gao Qiaonan still does not want some uncontrollable accidents to occur on the battlefield.

But the slow response of the Spaniards gave the special warfare battalion enough time to deploy on the periphery, blocking all the main passages in and out of the castle.In Gao Qiaonan's view, this conservative defense method is completely outdated and primitive.The various tactics he learned during the years following Qian Tiandun were almost all mobile warfare based on the mobility of the troops.How to intersperse and cut on the battlefield and mobilize the enemy to follow their own rhythm, this kind of tactical thinking is the advanced tactics that have been proven to be really effective in many years of actual combat.

Although the Spaniards once played the role of strong men on the European battlefield, it is obvious that not every Spanish officer has extraordinary military qualities.Choosing the defense method of retreating and defending to the death may have a good effect against the primitive indigenous armed forces, but if you want to use such an old-fashioned method to fight against the Haihan militia, you will be a bit overwhelmed.That is to say, the basic equipment of the special warfare battalion does not match the professionalism of siege warfare. Coupled with the limited environment, the deployment of some arms is not smooth enough. If other battalion-level combat units in the army encounter such a scene, the commander probably will not They were all bursting with laughter, and it was enough to just push the artillery to the front line and have a good time.

As the various detachments gradually arrived at the predetermined positions, the encirclement of the Haihan army around the city of Santo Domingo was basically completed.The only thing that made Takahashi Minami dissatisfied was that the artillery transported from the upstream river bank encountered trouble due to poor roads, and the engineers were still trying to pave the road to allow heavy artillery vehicles and heavy flatbed vehicles to transport ammunition to pass smoothly. .But even with the most optimistic estimates, it will take at least two to three hours to complete the transportation task that is only a few miles away.This means that even if other combat units of the special warfare battalion have been deployed, it is difficult to immediately launch a general attack on the Spanish stronghold.Without heavy artillery to open the way, Gao Qiaonan did not intend to let his subordinates use their bodies to fight recklessly with the enemies hiding behind the high wall crenels.

"Notify the various teams and ask the brothers to eat in batches, and we will see the situation in the afternoon." Gao Qiaonan saw that it was past noon, and ordered to suspend the attack, and stopped to rest and replenish energy.However, he didn't intend to let the defenders in the city relax. He had to find a way to make them relax a little bit.

"Let the brothers in the navy go to the field for activities." Gao Qiaonan then ordered: "There are just a bunch of targets on the pier over there, let them practice artillery."

Since this battle plan gave up the battle plan of letting warships directly approach the river bank to bombard Spanish strongholds, the main task of the navy in this battle is to block the waterway and serve as a means of transportation. In addition, it may have to undertake part of the logistical tasks. Such as building logistics facilities, taking prisoners and so on.But such an arrangement is obviously difficult to satisfy the navy. After all, it is difficult to get any military achievements for undertaking these tasks, and in the end it can only become a green leaf supporting the army's record.

Takahashi Nan has served in the military for many years, so he naturally understands this kind of trickery. Since he needs to coordinate the army and the navy as a campaign commander, he can no longer favor the army. Let some credit go out.For example, the ships docked on the pier outside the Spanish stronghold are good targets for credit.The sailors on the ship had already abandoned the ship and fled into the city. The navy had no difficulty in attacking these ships. As long as they were not too close to the river bank, the artillery in the city could not do anything to them.

After the messenger sent a signal to the warships on the river through semaphore, several warships rushed towards the target like hungry wolves.In order to save ammunition and make accurate hits, these ships even recklessly anchored in the center of the river, and only started firing at the target after the movement of the ships slowed down.

The sound of rumbling guns immediately spread to the castle hundreds of meters away. Gusman, who was drinking soup, shook his hand, and the spoon fell into the bowl.He immediately grabbed the brass bell in his hand and shook it desperately. After the servant came in, he asked loudly, "What happened outside? Who is firing the cannon?"

"My lord, I'm going to inquire about the news now." The servant hurriedly responded and left quickly.

After a while, the servant returned to Gusman's dining table and reported the latest battle situation to him: "My lord, the enemy outside fired at our ship from the river."

"What about our counterattack?" Gesman asked, shaking his fist.

"My lord... the crew has already returned to the city, and there are no people on board." The servant responded with some embarrassment.

"Ah...then we won't have any casualties, which is pretty good..." Gesman could only smooth things over for himself, but he was still a little unwilling to be attacked by the enemy unilaterally: "Go and tell Captain Lopez, tell him not to watch the enemy attack, at least he must respond, otherwise the enemy will treat us all as dead. Well, don’t we also have a lot of artillery? Let Captain Lopez fight back!"

"It's just nonsense!" Lopez couldn't laugh or cry after hearing Gusman's layman's combat suggestion.

As an in-service officer who has commanded many defensive battles in the past few years, Lopez is very aware of his own defense capabilities and weapon performance. The deployment area of ​​Haihan's army outside the city is just outside the maximum range of the city's fire artillery. And that's true in every direction.The sailboats on the river also kept a strict distance from the river bank, as if an invisible limit kept them out of the range of the Spanish artillery.Lopez felt that such a scene was really strange. It seemed that the Haihan people had completely mastered the range of defensive firepower in all directions of Santo Domingo, but he couldn't think of how such a military secret that even ordinary soldiers could not understand could be leaked. After hearing the wind, it can only be regarded as a coincidence.Of course, even if he broke his head, he would never have imagined that this information was provided to the opponent by a certain blacksmith who was in charge of maintaining weapons in two strongholds in Taipei.

Although the opponent may already have some of his own military secrets, Lopez still cannot take the risk of actively exposing it.When the Haihan warships started bombarding the ships on the shore, Lopez had already calculated the distance. He was sure that these Haihan warships were perfectly out of the range of the city's defenses. Counterattack, apart from exposing the range of the artillery, seems to have no other purpose.Only a layman like Gesman, his immediate boss, would ask him to use artillery to fight back for his own sake.

But Lopez is a soldier and the commander who can decide the fate of the defenders at this time. He will not follow through with a word from his layman boss.After sending away Gusman's servants with good words, Lopez did not order the city to fire back, but continued to observe the enemy's movements.

(End of this chapter)