1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 874 Attack on Zhoushan

Haihan's operation in Zhejiang has a clear operational goal, but because there are too many uncontrollable variables in remote operations, neither the Executive Committee nor the Military Commission has set a strict time limit for this.With a clear advantage, Qian Tiandun was unwilling to allow his troops to attack overnight, as that would only bring more casualties to the Haihan militia.Therefore, after completing the clearing of the artillery shooting field of view, the front line of the militia took the initiative to retreat for a while, and set up a camp by the sea about two miles southeast of the fort.

Despite being in the field, the living conditions of senior officers are as comfortable as possible. In addition to separate living tents, there are also special cooking classes for them to cook small stoves to ensure that they can eat the freshest food every day. Food cooked to our personal taste.

Shi Diwen unhurriedly cut a piece of black pepper steak on the plate with a knife and fork, and put the fresh and tender beef into his mouth to chew slowly.The tableware and seasonings used here are all brought from the Sanya base camp, and the steaks are bought locally by the Sanlin Gang. The best parts are cut out separately as special offerings for the chief, and the rest are for the soldiers. It’s a comfort food—this combination of goulash is a favorite dish for soldiers no matter what era or country it is in.

In addition to not being able to drink alcohol due to the special environment, the food standard here is actually no worse than that of Sanya or other military bases. This kind of logistical support capability makes Xu Yuzhuo, who is enjoying the welfare by car, very envious.Although the Ming army under his command had better equipment and treatment than the Ming army in other provinces, it was impossible for him, including himself, to enjoy such good conditions during the war.Fortunately, the Haihan militia has always been very generous to friendly commanders, so this errand was a rare food trip for Xu Yuzhuo. He could also have a portion of the meal ordered by the Haihan people, and he tasted a lot after half a month. Less good stuff.

"My family's cook has studied in Penghu for a month, and all the seasonings are bought from you. Why can't I make such a good taste?" Xu Yuzhuo sighed while eating.His stomach is bigger than before he set off from Fujian, which is one of the gains from this business trip.

"Is that good?" Qian Tiandun responded with a smile: "To be honest, compared with Chef Fan in Fort Victory, there is still a gap in craftsmanship. And the cooks we brought this time are probably the grandchildren of Chef Fan Yes, the food they cook may not be as high as those restaurants in Sanya, after all, most of the master chefs over there are apprentices of Chef Fan."

The Chef Fan mentioned by Qian Tiandun is Fan Wei, the only person among the time-traveling people who has a chef certificate. It will be hung up for the disciples to admire.In the five or six years after time travel, Fan Wei has taught more than a hundred apprentices, and there are countless disciples and grandchildren.However, the gap in culinary skills is not because of Fan Wei's possession of secrets or the lack of talent among his apprentices, but because the various cooking techniques and seasonings used by Fan Wei are very novel to cooks of this era, and they cannot understand them in a short time. I can only memorize the cooking methods taught by Fan Wei by rote, and the products will inevitably be worse.

Xu Yuzhuo sighed: "It's no wonder that many people don't want to leave after going to Sanya. It's worth staying there just for the enjoyment of eating and drinking."

"Taking Zhoushan Island, the situation will no longer cause major disturbances. When the time comes, go to Sanya to rest for a while and take a look at the newly built resort there. I think you will like it very much." Qian Tiandun said with a smile.

For the Ming army following the Haihan Fleet this time, there are actually no too dangerous combat missions, mainly to escort supplies and garrison the occupied areas.The Haihan militias are on the front line during the battle, and there is no need to worry that Haihan will use them as cannon fodder.Apart from the fact that they had to pay part of the military expenses and spent a lot of money, this errand was actually relatively easy for them.

However, to capture Zhoushan Island, even with the addition of the Fujian Ming army temporarily under the unified command of Haihan, it would be difficult to completely control such a large area.It is obviously unrealistic to continue to draw the Ming army from Fujian to deploy defenses. After all, the Ming army that followed this time is essentially Xu's private army, and it is almost full strength.Even if Xu Xinsu was daring, he would not dare to easily transfer the ordinary Ming army across provinces to Zhejiang. Doing so would be no different from a rebellion.

The strength of the Haihan militia is also not much better. Although the Haihan military has been recruiting new recruits in the first half of 1633 before the war, the size of the militia army still cannot keep up with the expansion speed of the Shanghai Han territory.Only in the area of ​​Taiwan Island that was just won in the first half of the year, the Military Commission believes that it is necessary to deploy a battalion in the south and the north.Although the Zhoushan Islands are not as large as Taiwan Island, but considering that the bridgehead will be pushed thousands of miles north, if we don’t deploy more troops in this enclave, let alone the Military Commission, even the Executive Committee thinks Security cannot be ensured.

If it is temporarily impossible to deploy enough troops to ensure regional security in the Zhoushan Islands area, the best solution the military can think of is to eliminate the local armed forces as much as possible and eliminate potential hidden dangers in advance. This is also Haihan's unwillingness. One of the reasons for negotiating peace with local forces when they have the upper hand.At present, the three camps of leading party officials, civilians, and bandits have been recruited from the local area. The headquarters believes that there is no need to recruit new leading parties into its own camp—that would probably lead to instability in the current situation. Conflicts are born in one's own camp. After all, after these leading parties join their own camp, they will definitely reject other competitors with similar attributes in order to ensure their own status.

Of course, it is impossible for Haihan to wipe out the tens of thousands of people in the Zhoushan Islands, but the local residents must be identified and relocated after the war.For those with potential risks, those who should be sent to labor camps should be sent, and the rest can be scattered and sent to various colonies in Southeast Asia, and then some new immigrants from Hainan Island and Guangdong and Guangxi areas will be moved to fill this area.In addition, some of the immigrants brought back from the north in the future will also be left in Zhoushan to enrich the population.

This complicated population allocation plan will undoubtedly consume a lot of sea transport capacity, and the resettlement costs will also be huge. However, in order to ensure Haihan's stable rule in these newly occupied areas as much as possible, complex immigration methods are also necessary. measures.

At midnight that night, the Zhoushan Ship Gang, not willing to admit defeat, tried a night attack, but the effect was not satisfactory. The Haihan militia set up many bonfires about 50 meters away from the camp, making it difficult for the attackers to hide.After discovering human activity, the sniper on duty can follow the firelight to aim at the target and shoot.After trying several times and being discovered early, he could only leave more than a dozen corpses and return to the darkness angrily.

After dawn, the Haihan militia pulled out of the camp, and the infantry of the two companies marched slowly northward with the artillery and artillery vehicles in the middle.In addition to the army, Haihan's troops that went into battle today even landed and joined the battle.Of course, this part of the navy is not the sailors who are responsible for driving warships or the gunners who operate naval guns, but the marine teams that belong to the navy.

But even including the combatants from the navy and land, there are still only a few thousand combatants in Haihan's battle. It is reasonable to say that it is not enough to attack this county, but considering that the opponent's combatants also have A considerable part is deployed at sea, and the headquarters believes that such forces are sufficient to deal with the enemy's forces on land.

After a full day of demolition yesterday, the outside of the castle has become a large rubble.In order to prevent the opponent from setting up an ambush in the ruins, Gao Qiaonan had to let the elite soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon investigate the area before letting artillery and heavy equipment enter the field.

Perhaps it was the night attack last night that made the Zhoushan Ship Gang lose their confidence in going out to fight in the city. During Haihan's deployment of artillery positions, the opponent only carried out symbolic harassment. After standing in the distance and shooting a few arrows, Haihan was quickly killed The musketeers were driven back.

At the same time, the last sea force of the Zhoushan Ship Gang encountered Haihan's main fleet near Dinghai Bay. Although they had an absolute advantage in the number of ships, the number of ships participating in the battle was at least three times that of Haihan's, but the combat power of both sides was huge. is exactly the opposite.As soon as the two sides engaged in battle, the Haihan Fleet opened fire with full firepower, and the bullets rained down, making the sailboats of the Zhoushan Ship Gang scream like ghosts and wolves.

At this time, the "Enterprise" also fully demonstrated its advantages in tonnage and hull strength. It did not avoid the small boat that was coming to intercept it, and directly rammed it.Relying on the huge kinetic energy, the huge metal ram at the bow easily tore open the opponent's hull, and then crushed it into a pile of fragments.

For the Zhoushan Ship Gang, which seriously lacks long-range heavy weapons, this confrontation is definitely an unforgettable nightmare for the sailors in their lives. Facing the continuous shells fired by the Haihan warships, they have almost no effective countermeasures. It can rely on weapons with extremely limited range and accuracy such as bird guns, earth cannons, and bows to strike opponents.However, under the wind and waves on the sea surface, it is difficult for these weapons that cannot maintain the firing density to hit the Haihan warship nearly [-] meters away.Even if they hit the target a few times, the thick planks of the Haihan battleship are enough to withstand the attacks of these primitive weapons.

Especially for ships equipped with earth cannons, once they fired, they would immediately be attacked by Haihan warships, and the ships would be destroyed almost instantly.After discovering the disadvantage of attracting firepower, the ships that were originally equipped with earth cannons immediately gave up continuing to use this weapon that would bring them bad luck.

Less than a stick of incense after the two sides fought, the situation had already entered the state of Haihan slapping the opponent.After sinking more than a dozen ships, the Zhoushan Ship Gang began to adjust its direction and sail towards the periphery of the battlefield. This was obviously not to outflank Haihan's back, but to run away.

Once someone has the idea of ​​fleeing, it will spread quickly on the battlefield like an infectious disease.Seeing that someone first started to turn the bow of the ship to escape, those who were still on the battlefield inevitably had the mentality of escaping.From sporadic two or three ships turning around to large-scale routs, the time interval between them was very short. Even before the Haihan fleet had time to respond to this, the pirates' ships scattered and fled in all directions.

"This... escaped?" Shi Diwen was still a little unbelievable when he observed this situation on the flagship. He originally thought that since the Zhoushan Ship Gang still had the courage to gather people for the final decisive battle, their fighting will should be relatively tenacious. , but now the opponent's ship has only lost two or three out of ten, and he has already chosen to give up, which is a bit beyond his expectations.

What Shi Diwen didn't know was that most of the sea elites of the Zhoushan Ship Gang had lost more than half of them in the naval battle near Zhujiajian Island a few days ago, and more than half of the ships killed and sunk in that battle were Wang Jialin's private property. At the same time, it is also a group of warships with the best conditions in the gang.Many of the ships that Wang Jialin went to battle in Dinghai Bay today were borrowed from various pirates in the East China Sea together with their crew and boats, so naturally they were not as easy to use as his own.

At the same time, Haihan's actions on the shore also kicked off. It was still the standard Haihan style of siege method. First, the city wall was bombarded with heavy artillery to sweep away the fortifications and weapons on the city wall.Although the Zhoushan Ship Gang also has a few township treasures deployed on the city wall, neither the performance of the artillery nor the quality of the gunners can be compared with Haihan's artillery unit.After ten rounds of shelling by more than ten cannons, the southern wall of the fortress has become incomplete, and several artillery positions have received intensive care, and even the crenels on the wall have been leveled.As for the several cannons of the Zhoushan Ship Gang, they have been bombed out together with the gunners.

Wang Jialin, who was supervising the battle in the city, knew that the situation was over, and before Haihan sent his troops into the city, he led his people to escape through the north gate and went straight to the mountains.The Haihan militia had limited strength, and in order to prevent the opponent from setting up an ambush in the mountains, they did not pursue immediately, but entered the city first to occupy this fortress.

But the initial post-war inventory made the commanders very disappointed. The Zhoushan Ship Gang obviously transferred the important property in the city in advance, so they failed to find some valuable seizures in the city like they did in Shipusuo City.

After hearing the news, Qian Tiandun shook his head and said, "This Wang Jialin is just trying to die!"

Xu Yuzhuo, who was watching the battle with the army, asked inexplicably, "Why did General Qian say that?"

"If he doesn't take all his belongings away, we will pay almost what we should have paid, so we won't be in a hurry to arrest him." Qian Tiandun explained: "But if he does this, it is forcing us to Get him arrested as soon as possible."

(End of this chapter)