I want to be emperor

Chapter 955: Arriving at Constantinople
On May 42, Chengshun [-], in the Dardanelles Strait of the Ottoman Empire, more than ten Chu Empire navy ships gathered in this narrow strait.

Sitting in the center of this Mediterranean fleet is the Datong-class cruiser Changzhou, followed by the frigates Lai'an and Yixing.

However, the leaders were not these three large-tonnage warships, but two Type 34 shallow-water gunboats, Dijia No. [-] and Dijia No. [-].

These two shallow-water gunboats, with a standard displacement of 380 tons and a full load of only more than 400 tons, seemed small in size and far less large than the three ocean-going battleships, but they were at the forefront.

Because the Type 34 shallow-water gunboat is one of the few fully-protected warships in the Chu Empire, its protective power is very good and it can withstand the enemy's smooth-bore gun shore firepower to withstand close-in bombardment.

Previously, in the Battle of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga River, the Da Chu Empire Navy used Type 34 shallow-water gunboats to attack the enemy's river defense forts, and the effect was very good.

It was the same today. The two shallow-water gunboats withstood the sporadic Ottoman shore defense firepower counterattacks, and directly approached to a distance of only about 700 meters, using their [-]mm naval guns to bombard Canakkale's shore defense firepower.

During this process, from time to time, solid shells fired by the Ottomans and even home-made grenade shells fell on or near the two shallow water gunboats, but they did not cause any actual damage to the two shallow water gunboats.

However, the [-]-millimeter shells fired by the shallow-water gunboats of the Great Chu Empire destroyed the Ottomans' simple defenses in patches, and killed and injured a large number of their personnel.

As the two shallow-water gunboats suppressed the enemy's firepower, the three large-tonnage ocean-going warships behind them also began to enter the center of the river, and after gaining a range of fire, they bombarded the enemy.

For a time, a large number of artillery shells fell on Canakkale's defenses, and its coastal defense batteries suffered a devastating blow. The Ottoman coastal defense battery members suffered a large number of casualties, and the rest also fled for their lives.

At this time, the Dachu Empire Army's field artillery position on the north bank of the strait also began to bombard Canakkale across the strait.

The strait here is only 2000 meters wide. The Army's 75mm field guns and even 75mm mountain guns can easily cross the strait and bombard the Ottomans on the opposite side.

The large-scale and intensive bombardment lasted for more than six hours. The artillery shells fired by the Chu army, guided by the hot air balloon, destroyed almost every military target discovered.

In addition to the Ottomans' forward fortification positions, the entire bombardment range also included warehouses, administrative buildings, barracks, etc. that seemed to be far away from the battlefield and thousands of meters away.

By the afternoon, the commanders of the Chu Army learned through feedback from more than a dozen hot-air balloons that closely observed the enemy's movements that all the enemy positions at the front had been destroyed, and no living enemies could be seen in these places. More than 1000 people began to land in the south.

However, in order to avoid capsizing in the ditch during the landing, the Marine Corps carefully chose to land about five kilometers south of Canakkale instead of going directly to other cities to land.

If the Ottomans on the opposite side hide a few artillery pieces, even just light mortars, and fire a few shells when the Chu army lands, it may cause a certain number of Marine casualties.

In order to avoid casualties, the navy will naturally not mess around. It is not in a hurry anyway. It can just land a little further away and then slowly fight towards the north.

By evening, there were more than 1000 Marines, including various heavy equipment they carried, including their own four [-]mm mortars and two infantry guns.

There is also a temporarily transferred artillery company, equipped with six 75mm mountain guns, and a cavalry company of more than 200 cavalry, which has been landed.

Since it was already evening time, the Chu army did not intend to risk any night attack. Instead, they consolidated the landing site on the spot and stopped advancing.

However, the fact that the landing force did not launch an attack at night does not mean that the Chu army will be idle tonight. On this night, the naval engineering force will urgently expand the original small local port and build a port that can temporarily berth large ships. come out.

At the same time, two battalions of the Servant Army Fuso No. 13 Division will also land at night.

In order to capture Canakkale, not counting battleships, the Chu army mobilized a total of more than 3000 ground troops. The main force was an infantry battalion, an artillery company, a cavalry company of the Marine Corps, and Fuso No. 13 Two infantry battalions of the division.

And all these troops landed ashore after afternoon and night landing operations.

Early the next morning, the Marine Corps, which had simply rested for the night, began to attack northward... There was nothing to say about this attack. The Marine Corps used Type 25 repeating rifles, equipped with mortars and infantry guns. , the firepower of the battalion itself is very powerful.

It was also supported by a 75mm artillery battalion.

The powerful firepower is enough to destroy any Ottoman army that dares to resist directly.

In just three or four hours, the Marine Corps advanced the battle line directly to the city of Canakkale. However, there were actually not many Ottoman defenders in the city. If they were exhausted, there would only be a few hundred defeated troops left.

But even so, the Marine Corps still did not go into the city to carry out the clearing operation in person. Instead, they sent two thousand troops from the Fuso No. 13 Division into the city to take charge of the final clearing operation.

There are many uncertainties when entering the city to fight street battles. Scattered battles can easily lead to casualties. The regular troops of the Chu army generally will not go to fight such street battles in person unless necessary. Instead, they will let the servant army take charge of the street battles. Task.

In the previous series of European battles, the servant army was basically responsible for the urban clearing operations after the frontal offensive and defensive battles.

It is worth noting that the street fighting described by the Chu army is actually different from the street fighting described by later generations.

On the one hand, urban buildings in contemporary indigenous countries are not very good. Most urban buildings are made of wood, and there are actually very few stone buildings, let alone reinforced concrete buildings. There is no good terrain foundation for street fighting.

This means that the buildings in these indigenous cities cannot withstand the artillery fire of the Chu people. If the indigenous defenders want to engage in street fighting, they will not even be able to find many solid buildings to hide in.

On the other hand, and the most important factor that occupies the main factor, is that street fighting actually requires relatively high requirements for communications, organizational skills, military morale, and even logistics supply capabilities. It is not something you can fight just because you want to.

When fighting against the Wu Zha army, hundreds or thousands of people gather together. It is not a big problem to launch a frontal attack. But if you dare to let them engage in street fighting, you must be prepared to disperse as soon as the troops disperse. Preparation to disappear without a trace.

Even if the soldiers do not run away, contemporary communication and organizational capabilities are not good enough. There is simply no way to conduct effective command and allow scattered troops to cooperate with each other. The final result is street fighting at best, and dispersed at worst. They fight on their own.

Therefore, the so-called street fighting in the mouth of the contemporary Chu army is not the same concept as the street fighting in later generations... To be precise, it is not a true battle, but more of a clearing up the enemy's scattered troops.

Of course, this kind of clearing operation will also encounter resistance, most of which are sporadic resistance, and a very small number are organized resistance. Because the terrain is too complex, some casualties will occur on our own side, but the overall number is controllable and the number of casualties is not large.

But since there are servants who can be used as cannon fodder, the Chu army will naturally not foolishly use regular troops to fight. It is always a good thing to avoid casualties of regular troops.

However, if there is no servant army available, the Chu army will not be afraid of street fighting. It is better to use the regular army to fight, and the fight is much more fierce than the servant army.

In the previous two battles on the Volga River, namely the Battle of Astrakhan and the Battle of Tsaritsyn, the Chu army did not have servants to fight with them, so they used regular troops to fight a series of battles, including street battles, and even those who participated in the battle were The most elite first-class combat preparation division in the Chu army.

The reason why there is no servant army in the battle in Eastern Europe is mainly due to factors such as geography and transportation. Although the Chu army also has two colonial countries in Central Asia, namely the Hara Khanate and the Khiva Khanate.

However, the colonial policy of the Chu people in this direction is different from the colonial policy in other overseas areas. Because it is close to the mainland of Lianghe Province in Central Asia, the colonial policy in this area is not simply economic plunder, but also Most of them continue to embezzle land, continue to immigrate, and expand their control areas.

Today, many years later, the actual land area of ​​these two colonial countries has shrunk significantly, leaving only a small amount of land close to the Mughal Empire, and some lands of the Persian Dynasty still remain.

If this situation continues to develop, these two colonial countries will be finished sooner or later and completely become part of the Chu Empire.

Just like the Russians in the original time and space continued to move south to Central Asia and finally controlled these places.The expansion strategy of the Chu people in this area is actually similar to that of the Russians, and it is even more radical.

For this reason, the Chu people did not recruit soldiers to form servant armies in the two colonial countries mentioned above... There was a relatively high risk of rebellion.

And it is impossible for the Chu army to mobilize servant troops all the way from other places, and then transport them thousands of kilometers to the front line in Eastern Europe with great pains.

Because maintaining the servant army requires a large amount of train transportation capacity, the western railways are still single-track railways. After the outbreak of the frontline war, the transportation capacity is very tight.

In the current situation of tight transportation capacity, the Chu Army prefers to use all railway transportation capacity to support the regular army with more powerful combat capabilities, especially elite units such as Class A combat readiness divisions.

Get greater combat capability with limited train capacity.

This also led to the fact that the Chu army did not have servants to coordinate operations when fighting in Eastern Europe, and all combat tasks could only be undertaken by the regular army.

There are naturally casualties, but the combat effectiveness is very strong and the advancement speed is faster.

It can be said that there are gains and losses.

However, when fighting in Europe, the Chu army had a large number of servants at its disposal.

There are three divisions of the Indian Army mobilized by cross-sea transportation, and one division of the Fuso Army. In addition, the Chu Army has also recruited tens of thousands of servants in Europe and is training. It has formed the European No. 20 Third Division, the 24th Division, There are five divisions in total, the 25th Division, the 26th Division, and the 27th Division, most of which are still training. The two divisions that have formed an army are currently sent to North Africa and West Africa for duty.

When necessary, the Chu army can actually mobilize three more European divisions from the European region to participate in the battle in the Ottoman region.

It's just that it's not that time yet... After all, although the war has begun, the Chu Empire has not officially declared war on the Ottoman Empire, nor does it plan to launch a large-scale war to directly destroy the Ottoman Empire.

For the Chu army, the current war with the Ottoman Empire can only be regarded as a military conflict at best. As long as the Ottomans surrender, release the right of passage through the Black Sea Strait, cancel all the coastal forts, and then cede the Black Sea The land in the north could be taken over by the Chu Empire as soon as it was good.

This is why only about [-] troops were sent to attack the Black Sea Strait, instead of tens of thousands of troops being mobilized in one go.

Therefore, the Chu people did not want to directly destroy the Ottoman Empire now.

However, even with a force of only ten thousand people, the Ottomans were defeated steadily and could not stop the Chu people's attack in the direction of the strait.

On May 42, Chengshun 13, two infantry battalions of the Fuso No. [-] Division of the Great Chu Empire's Servant Army entered Canakkale City from two directions. After a day of fierce fighting, they completely wiped out the remaining enemies in the city. .

Hundreds of Ottoman defenders wanted to break out of the encirclement and flee, but they were directly annihilated by the surrounding marines not long after leaving the city.

This also means that the nearly 5000 defenders heavily stationed here by the Ottomans were completely destroyed. Except for a few troops who escaped sporadically, the others were either killed in battle or became prisoners of war.

In addition, the Ottoman navy stationed in Canakkale also tried to counterattack at the beginning of the battle, but was sunk by Chu naval artillery fire and more than a dozen ships before escaping back to the Sea of ​​Marmara.

The Ottoman naval fleet composed of sails and wooden ships failed to play the role that the navy should have from the beginning to the end of this war.

Of course, we can't blame them... In fact, when the navy of any contemporary indigenous country faces the navy of the Dachu Empire, it will be unilaterally defeated.

This has nothing to do with courage or tactics, it is simply a huge difference between battleships.

To put it a bit exaggerated, the Datong-class cruiser of the Da Chu Empire Navy simply stayed on the spot and let the indigenous sail warships come to attack. It is impossible for the indigenous sail warships to do anything to such a huge three-thousand-ton steel battleship. actual threat.

The contemporary cruisers and frigates of the Dachu Empire are said to be unprotected warships... but they are made of steel anyway, and the hulls are made of steel plates. There is no problem at all in resisting long-distance indigenous smoothbore cannon fire... Well, In fact, the front-mounted smoothbore guns on the indigenous warships were unable to carry out shelling at long distances.

And close range?

The artillery on the warships of the Da Chu Empire is not a decoration. How can you let your slow wooden warship with sails get closer to a distance of 300 meters? If you appear at a distance of 2000 meters, the Chu army warships will use naval guns to fire. When shelling, you don't need to use any armor-piercing projectiles, just use high-explosive grenades.

High-explosive grenades are very effective against this kind of sail warship. As long as they hit it, they can easily destroy the sails on the sail warship. Without the sails, these sail warships have lost their power. There is no power for warships and dead fish. What a difference.

This also led to the difference between the navy of the Great Chu Empire and the navies of other countries in the original time and space, that is, the navy of the Great Chu Empire rarely used armor-piercing bombs. Even if they did, the attack target would not be the indigenous warships, but the indigenous coastal defenses. fort……

And even so, they are rarely used. Generally, semi-armor-piercing projectiles are only used when the enemy's shore defenses are fortress-style forts. But the actual situation is that most of the forts are still open-air forts...including some of the Chu army's own. Coast defense forts are also open-air forts.

In this case, it would be better to use high-explosive bombs directly.

Differences in enemies will directly lead to many differences in military equipment and even tactics.

The contemporary war between the Chu people and the indigenous people is actually similar to the U.S. military's war against small African countries in the 21st century. The battles were all sweeping... So much so that when the top generals of the Chu army fought with the indigenous people, they generally pursued a low casualty rate.

After all, we can definitely win. On the basis that we can definitely win in battle, and win big, how can we demonstrate the commanding ability of a Chu army general?

Use fewer resources and fewer casualties to achieve greater victory!
As a general in the Chu army, it is not a skill to lead an army to kill [-] native troops. It is a skill to be able to kill [-] natives with zero casualties. If you can kill [-] natives with zero casualties, you will not use many artillery shells. , he completed the tactical mission in a short time and killed [-] indigenous troops, so he was an outstanding general in the contemporary Chu army system.

The senior generals of the Chu army currently fighting in the Ottoman region pursue these same things when commanding operations.

The effect is quite good. As the main force, about 100 regular troops have suffered only more than ten casualties so far. The servant army has suffered more casualties, but only more than [-] people.

However, their victory was to capture Gokce Island and several other surrounding islands, the Gallipoli Peninsula, and Canakkale on the east coast of the strait and the surrounding areas.

They defeated the Ottoman garrison totaling at least 3 people, killed at least 1 of them, captured more than [-] people, and wounded countless enemies.

After taking Çanakkale, the ground troops of the Chu army continued to advance along the Dardanelles Strait under the cover of the navy, sweeping across the Ottoman towns on both sides of the strait and destroying all fortresses, forts and other military targets along the coast.

Three days later, the ground forces of the Dachu Empire took full control of towns, fortresses and other targets on both sides of the Dardanelles Strait.

At this time, the Mediterranean Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy can safely enter the Sea of ​​Marmara.

The Mediterranean Fleet entered the Sea of ​​Marmara, naturally not for tourism, let alone to pass through the Bosporus Strait, the northern section of the Black Sea Strait.

Instead, they were going to Constantinople, so that the Ottomans could see what imperial hegemony was like, and then sign the humiliating treaty that the Chu people had prepared for them.

If the other party doesn't understand, the Mediterranean Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy wouldn't mind blowing the historic city of Constantinople into rubble!

(End of this chapter)