1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 873
This wave of massacres completely broke the fighting will of the pirate coalition forces. Although the strength of the pirates is still superior to the opponent at this time, the rout is inevitable. Even if there are more than 20 supervisors behind them, they cannot stop these The man gave up the attack and turned to flee for his life.

Gu Ping saw that his subordinates began to run away one after another, and he knew in his heart that the situation was over. He originally thought that as long as he had the opportunity to fight the Haihan people face to face, he could offset his own disadvantage in weapons, but after actually fighting the Haihan militia , He realized that his thoughts were too naive.Not only are the weapons and equipment of the Haihan militia better, but their ability to fight in close quarters is far beyond that of civilian armed forces like them. The opponents are not fighting with blood alone, but are ruthlessly executing military orders—this kind of The performance of a professional army is an important quality that the pirate coalition army cannot possess.

But even if you want to escape, not everyone has the chance to escape.Seeing that he was powerless, Gu Ping was about to retreat with the current when he felt a pain in his right leg, as if he had been stabbed hard by a sharp object, and he fell to the ground as soon as his leg gave way.Gu Ping stretched out his hand to touch it, and touched the blood wetly, it was indeed injured.Fortunately, there were still a few confidantes beside him, and when they saw him fall, they immediately rushed to help him up, and helped him to retreat, but in this way, the speed of action would be greatly reduced, and he would be chased soon The Haihan soldiers caught up.

These confidants of Gu Ping are dead soldiers who have followed him for many years, and they did not abandon him to escape on their own at the critical moment. One of them supported Gu Ping and continued to escape, while the others turned back and fought with the pursuers, hoping to delay the escape. Stop the pursuers for a while, so that Gu Ping can escape smoothly.However, even a moment's delay is just an extravagant hope. Before these people came back and fought with the pursuers, they were brought down by the volley of guns.

Gu Ping looked back and saw that the pursuers were only 30 to [-] meters away from him, and there was at least a mile or two away from the berth on the coast. Haihan people are invincible, please make plans early!"

Gu Ping, who led the team, failed to escape from the battlefield, and the rest of the pirate coalition army suddenly became headless chickens. They rushed all the way to the seaside, and fled towards Zhoushan Island on the boat they got on board.There were over a thousand troops when they came, but only about half of them fled back. The loss can be described as extremely heavy.Moreover, this group of people is basically the elite selected by each family. Not to mention the injury, more importantly, it is a blow to the confidence of the pirate coalition forces.The various plans Wang Jialin had mentioned before to deal with the Haihan people seemed to have become a joke in the face of absolute force.

The most depressing person was of course Wang Jialin. Most of the men he sent were lost, his godson failed to escape, and Zhujiajian Island eventually fell into the hands of the Haihan people.According to those who escaped, the combat strength of the Haihan militia was far beyond what they could compete with. There were musketeers far away and bayonet formations nearby.The opponent might have suffered some casualties, but it was certainly much smaller than his own losses, and the capture of the opponent's personnel that Wang Jialin had hoped for before the battle had not been realized at all.

"It's too deceitful!" Wang Jialin had already had a banquet prepared, and he would immediately invite the leaders of the various families to the banquet when the good news came back, but there was nothing to celebrate when it was done like this.

Although Wang Jialin was very unwilling to face it, the current situation had forced him to consider the outcome of a complete defeat.If the Zhoushan Ship Gang couldn't stop the Haihan people's offensive on their own territory, they would probably have to retreat to Daishan Island, Qushan Island or even Shengsi Island in the north.But withdrawing to these places may not stop the Haihan people from pursuing them, because judging from the current situation, they probably have no intention of leaving a way for the local forces to survive.

Faced with the frontal confrontation, he could not do his best, and there seemed to be nowhere to escape if he wanted to escape. This situation was the most difficult for Wang Jialin in decades.Wang Jialin is not a person who is greedy for life and afraid of death, but he is really unwilling to completely give up these properties that he has acquired after years of hard work.The official figures who had helped him a lot in the past seemed to be dumbfounded at this moment, as if the past love between the two parties had never existed at all.

With Wang Jialin's status, it is indeed difficult for him to understand some potential changes in the officialdom in Zhejiang, especially in Ningbo.In addition to the open line of attacking the armed forces in Zhoushan, the operation launched by Haihan actually had other secret arrangements.After all, capturing Zhoushan and establishing a bridgehead to advance northward is only one of the goals of the operation. Opening up the market in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and northern regions of Daming for Haihan is also the goal that this operation needs to achieve.It is certainly difficult to force an opponent of Daming's stature to submit only by using force, and using force to promote talks is a more effective way.

Of course, it is not convenient for the Haihan people to be active in the officialdom in Zhejiang, so they specially asked Xu Xinsu to find a middleman here.When the Haihan fleet set off from the Penghu base last month, Xu Xinsu's lobbyists had already distributed money for Haihan in Zhejiang.Especially in the officialdom here in Ningbo, all officials with some real power have more or less benefited, even institutions like Jinyiwei have not missed it.

These public relations activities cost so much that the executive committee quarreled for a whole week before approving the implementation, which was even more intense than when the military submitted its military budget for approval.Of course, this is not difficult to understand, because the voice of the military is also included in the opposition this time. The Military Commission thinks that instead of using the money to bribe Ming officials, it is better to allocate the military to expand the scale of operations and send an extra fleet to go there. It will make the attack on the Zhoushan Islands much easier.

Of course, this prejudice from the military did not shake the determination of the executive committee, and finally approved a large sum of money.The intermediary did not make any excessive demands when sending out the money, but only asked the other party not to stand in line with what happened in the East China Sea in the next period of time.Although not everyone is willing to make such a promise, the vast majority of centrist officials are happy to accept this kind of quid pro quo—you don’t have to do anything, just pretend to be deaf and dumb.

Since they had the money and didn't need to mind their own business, many people silently collected the money.The direct consequence of this measure is that when some stakeholders in the officialdom want to take action because of the drastic changes in the situation in the East China Sea, they find that there seems to be an invisible obstacle around them, and the orders conveyed cannot be effectively implemented. implement.

For example, the commander of the Zhejiang Metropolitan Command and Envoy Division ordered Chang Guowei to "eliminate the pirates" a few days before Haihan attacked Zhujiajian Island, but the order passed on was like a stone sinking into the sea, and there was no response at all.Yan Guowei, commander of Chang Guowei, neither sent troops nor responded, and the yamen on the Hangzhou side had no news at all.In desperation, he could only send this order to Ningbo Guanhaiwei, and let Guanhaiwei send troops to investigate the situation in the East China Sea.

However, what the Master did not know was that among the naval forces stationed in Ningbo, there was a hidden pile arranged by Xu Xinsu who had been lurking for several years, and he had already set the line to the commander of the guard.When the order was in the hands of the navy, it disappeared without a sound.

As for the big backers behind the Zhoushan Ship Gang, they couldn't do it anymore.Even if they knew that the Zhoushan Ship Gang was in a bad situation, they couldn't personally go into battle to rescue Wang Jialin. They could only give orders to their subordinates. There will be no reinforcements.

On May [-], the Haihan Fleet assembled at Zhujiajian Island and Dengbu Island, and set off to attack Shenjiamen Fishing Port at the southeastern tip of Zhoushan Island.It was said to be an attack, but there was no decent resistance from the Zhoushan Ship Gang during the process. The huge fleet composed of hundreds of warships and dozens of troop carriers barely consumed a single shot, and it was realized in Shenjiamen Fishing Port. login.

For this situation, Shi Diwen, who was in charge of commanding the landing operations, was not very surprised, because although the entire Zhoushan Island is the sphere of influence of the Zhoushan Ship Gang, its base camp is in Dinghai Bay in the middle of the island, and there is nothing on the Shenjiamen side. Fortifications.In view of the huge difference in combat effectiveness between the two sides, the Zhoushan Ship Gang is unlikely to send its subordinates to this place to confront the Haihan militia.

The same as the previous combat process, after the fleet captured this place, it immediately handed over the local defense to the Fujian Ming Army led by Xu Yuzhuo, and moved westward by land and water.From Shenjiamen to Dinghai Bay, the headquarters of the Zhoushan Ship Gang, it is only forty or fifty miles away, and it takes more than half a day for a normal march, and it can be a little faster by boat.However, Shi Diwen thought that he might fight his opponent during this voyage, so he specially ordered the army to land at Shenjiamen, so that he could also sweep the areas along the way during the march.

However, at this time, the disadvantages of Haihan's too few troops participating in the war inevitably emerged. On this largest island in Zhejiang with an area of ​​more than 400 square kilometers, the army of only a thousand people is really too small.So much so that Haihan couldn't fully deploy defenses to the occupied areas, and could only focus on defending ports and wharves like Shenjiamen with limited troops.Although the commanders are very dissatisfied with the stretched military force arrangement, the current situation is that they must make good use of the limited force to seize as much territory as possible in the Zhoushan Islands and eliminate other local armed forces—especially those with high strength. Haihan would have had a little easier time taking over the area after the war.

Considering that the long-distance march would affect the physical strength and tactical performance of the soldiers participating in the battle, the Haihan militia did not rush to launch an attack on the Zhoushan Ship Gang's headquarters that day, and the army set up camp at Shajian Mountain, which is less than ten miles away from Dinghai Bay.On the contrary, the navy commanded by Shi Diwen deliberately continued to sail westward into Dinghai Bay, swaggering around the sea slowly, but deliberately kept a certain distance from the coast to avoid fighting with the Zhoushan ship gang.

Hearing the news that the enemy had arrived at the door, a large number of people flocked to the coast and witnessed this foreign fleet that had captured half of the Zhoushan Islands.The huge hull of the Haihan warship surprised those who saw them for the first time, and finally understood why the coalition fleet that had gathered elites from various companies was dismantled by the other party without even resisting for a long time.This fleet looks so powerful, no wonder the Haihan people dared to operate in the Zhoushan Islands without any scruples.

Although the Haihan fleet did not use force during this cruise, those who witnessed the true appearance of this fleet on the shore felt that they had lost hope of defeating their opponents.Although the Zhoushan Ship Gang still has at least a hundred ships that can participate in the battle, compared to the huge warships of the opponent, most of their own ships look like small sampans.Even if such a ship can get close to the opponent's warship, it is difficult to adopt the tactic of jumping gangs, and it probably needs to be changed to climbing.

Although the Haihan Fleet did not fire a single shot, there were quite a few people who fled from the vicinity of Dinghai Bay that night. Some people sailed out to sea to seek refuge in the distance, and some people who had nowhere to go had to flee north into the mountains.The main terrain on Zhoushan Island is mountains and hills, which basically cover more than 500% of the island, and the highest point, Huang Yang Jian, even reaches an altitude of [-] meters.Hundreds of square kilometers of continuous mountains provide an excellent environment for absconding. As long as you bring enough supplies, you can find a secluded ravine on the island to hide for three to five months.

The next day, the Haihan army continued to advance by land and water, and began to attack the base camp of the Zhoushan Ship Gang.Said to be the base camp, the defensive fortress of the Zhoushan Ship Gang in this area is only the guard station built by the Ming army in the past. It is slightly larger than the Shipusuo City in Shipu Port, but it is only slightly better in total length of the city wall. In the eyes of the Han militia, it was not a problem.

On the contrary, cleaning up the many houses outside the fort made the attacking side find it very troublesome.These houses built around the fortress completely blocked the artillery's shooting vision, so some of the obstructing buildings had to be demolished before the shelling could be organized.However, the Haihan militia has relatively rich experience in siege, and immediately recruited hundreds of laborers from nearby areas, asking them to demolish the buildings according to the designated route, and this small episode allowed the people in the fortress to More than half a day of respite.

In the process of demolishing the buildings, although there were also small groups of sporadic pirates scattered outside the city who resisted, they were unable to stop the actions of the Haihan militia.Gao Qiaonan issued an order that anyone who resists with weapons can shoot without warning.After killing several waves of resisters one after another, this sporadic resistance finally stopped.

It wasn't until dark that day that the temporarily recruited migrant workers finally cleared an open area outside the fortress.In this day's operation, more than [-] pirates were killed and injured, while the Haihan militia killed three people and injured more than ten people. The battle damage was much lower than that of the opponent.

(End of this chapter)