1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 871

Zhujiajian Island is located on the southeast side of Zhoushan Island, with a distance of less than one nautical mile between them. This large island of more than [-] square kilometers is the fifth largest island in the Zhoushan Archipelago. Together with Putuo Mountain in the north, it forms the east side of Zhoushan Island. barrier.In later generations, Zhujiajian Island was a famous tourist scenic spot, but at this time the residents on the island were only fishermen and pirates, and no one came here to see the scenery for vacation.However, there are also some people who come here neither for fishing nor for tourism, but to seize control of this place.

On May [-], the Haihan Fleet approached Zhujiajian Island, and encountered the so-called "East China Sea Allied Forces" organized by the Zhoushan Ship Gang in the waters south of the island.Although this motley army was formed hastily under Wang Jialin's organization, its scale is not small.The fleet that appeared in the waters of Zhujiajian Island alone has forty or fifty sailboats, and there are also several large ships of four hundred materials.

The participating troops on Haihan's side consisted of twelve exploration-class ships and four expedition-class warships. The other reconnaissance and supply ships retreated to the periphery immediately after discovering the enemy ships, and the combat ships stepped forward to meet the battle.

Shi Diwen is currently still dealing with the transformation of the temporary military port on Liuheng Island. His subordinate, former South Vietnam Navy officer Wu Sen, is in command of this operation.After the Battle of Hue in 1629, Wu Sen surrendered to Hai Han. In the same year, he was naturalized and served in the Hai Han Navy.During these four years, Wusen received systematic training and many opportunities to enter the Shengli Port Military Academy for advanced studies, and participated in many combat missions from 1630 to the present, and has become one of the generals of the Haihan Navy.This time when he went to Zhejiang, Wu Sen served as the second in command of the Haihan Fleet. When Shi Diwen and the flagship Enterprise did not participate in the battle, he was in charge of commanding the operation and had the right to fire independently. Xu Yuzhuo, who participated in the operation on behalf of the Fujian Ming Army, was even taller.

For soldiers who entered the navy after 1630, Wu Sen's Annan origin did not pose any problems, because more and more non-Ming or even non-Han soldiers joined the Haihan militia army.In the consciousness education received by the recruits of the Haihan militia, past background is not important, and the common identity of Haihan is the object of their allegiance.The invincible achievements of this army, the extremely high welfare benefits, and the high status of Haihan's military status in this social system have attracted a large number of young immigrants to voluntarily sign up for the army.

Among the troops on the Zhejiang expedition, more than three-quarters of the navy members joined the army after 1630, and there were even a small number of recruits who joined the army only last year and had been in the army for less than a year.Most of those who joined the army before 1630 and remained in the army have been promoted to officers at all levels.At present, except for the Majestic-class flagship in each fleet, which is still directly commanded by the traverser, all other classes of warships are in charge of naturalized officers.

Wu Sen was not careless after observing the number of the opponent's ships, and immediately ordered the non-combat ships to withdraw from the combat sea area, while the remaining combat ships adjusted their formation and began to seize the upper hand.The combat method of the Haihan Fleet is to use the mobility of the ships to seize a favorable position, cut the formation of the enemy fleet, and use its own powerful artillery to attack the enemy ships.

For the maritime armed forces in the Far East who still use the traditional gang-jumping tactics as their main attack method, an opponent like Haihan is simply a nightmare. The whole process of the battle is almost in a state of being passively beaten, and it is almost 30 times close to the opponent's ship. There is no chance within meters.Even the Dutch and Spaniards, who also use artillery as their main means of attack, are not as good at this combat method as Haihan. Coupled with the difference in the performance of weapons and ships, they have all been defeated in naval battles. A member of the Haihan Fleet.

These armed ships of Zhejiang pirates are not much different from the armed level of Fujian Shibazhi. They are also more traditional civilian ships for military use. The better ones can be equipped with some firecrackers and earth cannons, and the worse ones can only be sailors carrying cold The weapon waits for the opportunity to jump to the gang.It is okay for such armed ships to rob ordinary civilian ships and merchant ships, but it is obviously not enough to be put into the battlefield as a warship and face a powerful opponent like Haihan.

The Haihan fleet marched from the east to the west. After bombarding the fleet of the "Eastern Sea Allied Forces", it immediately turned north and copied the opponent's back.And most of these pirate ships are just ordinary Fuchuan Cantonese ships, and their steering flexibility is indeed far inferior to that of Haihan warships. The most terrible thing is that their command system is not clear, which has caused some ships to continue to bite At the tail of the Haihan fleet, another part of the ships wanted to turn their bows to avoid being copied by the opponent, and it was impossible to form a unified action.

Wu Sen saw that the movement of the opponent's fleet had been mobilized by himself, so it was easy to deal with.As long as the Haihan battleship can display its normal performance, it is enough to drive the opponent around in circles on the sea.The group combat experience of the unit under his command far exceeds that of these civilian armed forces, and he doesn't even need to give detailed orders to deal with this kind of scene, the captains under him know what to do.

The Haihan fleet began to turn clockwise, but did not stop after copying the opponent's back, but continued to circle around the periphery of the opponent's fleet.Although the Haihan fleet is on the periphery, but because the performance and speed of the ships are much better than the opponent's, the "Eastern Sea Allied Forces" have nothing to do with Haihan. It was not until after following around that the pirates realized their own Passive can no longer continue.

However, the inferior performance of the ships made it impossible for the pirates to keep up with the rhythm of the Shanghai-Han Fleet. In the course of this kind of disc-like circling movement, seven or eight ships have already lost their lives due to water flooding in the cabin and broken masts after being shot. ability to continue fighting.And the only trouble the pirates can cause to the Haihan warship is to throw the arrows of the Haihan warship with ignited arrows on the ship. sails.

But the possibility of this tactic being effective is very slim. The Haihan battleship has always maintained a relatively safe engagement distance. Coupled with the wind and waves on the sea, the route and landing point of the light arrow after leaving the string are almost completely unpredictable. , on the contrary, it will be easier to attract the opponent's bombardment because of this - the primary target of the Haihan warship's shelling is not necessarily the closest to you, but the enemy ships that still have enough power to launch a counterattack. First destroy these resisters After that, slowly deal with the remaining opponents.

The naval battle started in the afternoon. After an hour and a half, six ships of the "Eastern Sea Allied Forces" capsized and capsized. About one-third of the ships had to withdraw from the battle, and more than half of the ships suffered varying degrees of damage. There are only two or three out of ten ships that are completely undamaged and can continue to fight.

On the other hand, on the Haihan Fleet, the battle damage to personnel and ships was very slight. Only three casualties appeared on an exploration-class warship. This was caused by an accidental explosion of a cannon, not by the pirates. caused by the counterattack.Although the sporadic rockets fired on the pirate ship did hit the target, they did not successfully ignite the sails on the Haihan warship. It did not pose a substantial threat to the Haihan fleet.

Seeing that they were unable to fight anymore, the pirates had no choice but to withdraw from the battlefield. However, due to their lack of a unified command and the fact that they were suppressed too much during the previous battle, the retreat completely turned into an escape, and everyone was scrambling for their lives. Transfer, no one considers the issue of the queen at all.Several severely damaged ships collided with each other due to steering failure, and the scene was very chaotic.

Wu Sen has been paying attention to the surrounding sea during the battle, but the opponent does not seem to have deployed an ambush in this sea area. Until the fleet in front of him was broken up and retreated, no one came to reinforce it.

"Give me the order to land as planned!" Wu Sen looked at the sky and gave the order decisively.Although this naval battle delayed the original landing time by two hours, Wu Mori believes that the opponent is unlikely to make targeted deployments for the landing in advance.It wasn't that he doubted the opponent's will to fight, but that the coastline of Zhujiajian Island was too long, and there were quite a few harbors suitable for landing. It was impossible to guard against all of them.The most important thing is that the opponent is not familiar with the landing tactics of the Haihan militia. Even if there are some people on the island, it is difficult to organize a decent line of defense.

The landing point chosen by the Haihan Fleet is located on a relatively flat beach on the west coast of Zhujiajian Island. Although the water depth of this place is relatively shallow, it is impossible for the Haihan warships with a deep draft to land directly, but the advantage is that the terrain is relatively flat. Open, you can see the situation of a large area on the shore clearly from the boat, and judge whether there is an ambush.

It was still Anant's battalion that was in charge of the landing operations. The soldiers approached the coast in small boats lowered from the warships. Not to mention pirates, even fishermen could not see this place.According to the information obtained before the war, there is a fishing village less than two miles away. But let alone fishing boats on the coast, I haven’t even seen a single fishing net drying on the shore. Fishermen and fishing boats who want to come here should They have all evacuated early.But this doesn't matter to Haihan. The purpose of occupying this island is not for the limited population of the island, but to block Zhoushan's sea lanes to the southeast.

The west side of Zhujiajian Island is adjacent to Zhoushan Island, and a lookout post is set up at a high point on the shore to directly monitor the movement of the southeast coast of Zhoushan Island, which is the famous Shenjiamen Fishing Port in later generations.

About the place name of Shenjiamen, it was first seen in "Xuanhe Envoy Koryo Tujing" written by Xu Jing in the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, he was sent to Koryo by order of Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty, and it was from this place that he went to sea.The book says that this place "has more than a dozen families of fishermen and woodcutters, and it is named after the big name", and there is an explanation of the door: "Mostly there are mountains facing each other in the sea, and those who have waterways for boats are called the door. ".However, in the original history, this place had to wait until the Tongzhi and Guangxu years more than 200 years later to become prosperous. At present, it is just an ordinary fishing port, not even the main wharf of Zhoushan Ship Gang.However, as the southern islands gradually fell under the control of Haihan, a large number of remnants of bandits who escaped from the south had gathered in this area. Wang Jialin did not want these people to enter the core area of ​​his home, but he had to accept them for the sake of morality. These people, so they were placed in Shenjiamen.

Perhaps the naval battle in the afternoon severely damaged the confidence of the "East China Sea Allied Forces". The landing operation of the Haihan Militia on Zhujiajian Island was not disturbed in any way, and more than [-] soldiers successfully completed the landing in just over half an hour. .This landing force will not be stationed here permanently, their task is only to clean up the island area to ensure that there are no large groups of pirates lurking here.After cleaning up Zhujiajian Island, this place and the nearby Dengbu Island will be used as the forward positions for the next attack on Zhoushan Island.

However, these local forces in the East China Sea were obviously unwilling to give up just like that. They organized a wave of counterattack the next morning and sent nearly a thousand armed men from the north coast of Zhujiajian Island to land on the island, hoping to stop the sea attack. The Chinese militia occupied the island.

But if you can't fight at sea, the same result will be the same if you switch to land.The soldiers of the Special Operations Battalion used their rifles to tell the pirates what a real army is, but this time the pirates did not even have a chance to injure their opponents, and they were hit seventy zero by the bullets fired a hundred meters away. Bad.

(End of this chapter)