open sea

Chapter 1279 Hundred Households
Li Changlai's miscalculation was not because he miscalculated the days of reinforcements, but because he miscalculated the scale of reinforcements from both sides.

Will the Eastern Military Government send reinforcements?This is likely to be the case, but how many reinforcements will they send?

I'm afraid it's enough.

But their enemies are many.

Now Puli County is the enemy of the whole world, and no amount of reinforcements can come as quickly as England can recruit troops nearby.

Coincidentally, Charles, Earl of Plymouth outside the city thought so too.

What happened in Plymouth has always attracted the attention of the upper class in England. Whether it is the plague or the rebellion, people are relatively more interested in the latter.

Not worried, but more interested. People are laughing at the overreach of Ming merchants. They only penetrated into England for two or three years, and they can't wait to take advantage of the plague to instigate civil rebellion. Even in the eyes of sea dog adventurers, such things Not wise enough.

England is very familiar with military intervention between countries. Although the Hundred Years War between Britain and France has long since ended, the contradictions between Britain and France have not been properly resolved. During the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, England, which had been in chaos for a long time, chose to unite with the European power Spain to fight against France. — This is just a nice way of saying it.

In fact, England during the period of Henry VII can almost be regarded as a vassal state of Spain. It was the prestige of Spain that allowed Henry VIII to accumulate strength and send troops to France several times across the sea, but such efforts were all in vain. However, during the war, they learned musket tactics from the Spaniards and artillery tactics from the French. It was these that made England value craftsmen and develop commerce.

At the turn of Jiajing and Longqing, Philip's ambition for the throne of England made the European islands with stiff wings try to get rid of the burden, and ideological differences emerged. England developed Protestantism, and used it to maintain political stability internally and try to Intervenes in the French Wars of Religion.

Whether being interfered with or interfering with others, they have a wealth of experience.

In terms of war technology, although England has absorbed some infantry technology such as spears, arquebuses, and artillery, there is still a huge gap between England and the European powers. The gap is not in equipment but in the traditional feudal military system. The country's standing armed forces have long been realized, whether it is the Spanish Philip's Phalanx or the French Valois royal decree knights.

Compared with Spain's centralized phalanx, the landed nobles had very little room to live in Spain, while France was relatively backward.

France's military system was also limited by the enlistment of a large number of land nobles, so the Valois royal family took a different approach, using mercenaries as the main body of the war, so as to better use infantry phalanx tactics.

Of course, the poorness of England is also relatively speaking. They only have a small number of local mercenaries, mainly with noble conscripts as the main combat force, spears, muskets, artillery, hook sickles, battle axes, and longbows. combined.

Later people often said that the modern army appeared after the Renaissance. The symbolic feature of the modern army is the national army. In fact, the national army has nothing to do with the modern army. The army belongs to the country and is only related to the country’s ability to centralize power.

The counterpart of centralization is not democracy, but decentralization.

China after the Qin Dynasty and Rome, which was short-lived, were both national armies. In the former, the country owned the army most of the time, and in the latter, the army owned the country most of the time, but they were all national armies.

Only with decentralization and too much local power will the country be unable to have an army, such as Europe under the feudal system.

England was under this system.

At this moment, including Devon, where Plymouth is located, the earls of the three neighboring counties have received news to gather the nobles of the territory, the viscounts, barons and knights put on the most beautiful armor, bring the most beautiful prostitutes and the best Drink, ride the strongest horses, gather the village hooligans, drunks, loggers, hunters, make the coolest mob, and head to Plymouth.

Standing under the city of Plymouth, even if the siege camp is as chaotic as a market, no one will feel worried. They are sure that the rebels in the city will not dare to go out to fight... If they really had the courage, they would have gone out of the city to fight when the army was assembled. They did not send troops at that time, and they will not send troops at this time.

The people were elated. The nobles who came from other territories managed to travel far away. Once they threw the army into the besieged camp, they happily greeted a few familiar colleagues. Those who liked hunting took their followers to go hunting, The women went to the nearby villages to wander around looking for attractive women, and the psychopaths who liked to cause destruction wandered around with torches, looking for whatever was pleasing to the eye.

They knew what to expect from running around during the siege, but no one worried about it.

Regardless of whether it was in the Netherlands or France, battles were fought in this way. There were very few real battles, and it might not happen once in ten years. Most of the casualties in battles occurred in encounters. Water team, food collection team, robbery team... What does it mean for these teams, ranging from a few people to as many as a dozen, to encounter two knights and three or four armed retinues in the wilderness?
It means the group is destroyed and the knight gentlemen may not even scratch the skin.

As for the siege?
Forget it, no one plans to attack the city, there are still a lot of rebel soldiers in the city, and they all heard that Ming's army is very good at fighting, and wiped out the Spanish Legion on land, no one went to find that Uncomfortable, the weather is good, their rations are very sufficient, just surround them, and the rebels who surround the city will surrender.

Even if those Ming merchants did not surrender, the townspeople would not be able to stand Kaesong's surrender due to hunger.

It doesn't matter if they don't surrender, the Queen of London has ordered that Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Lord Chamberlain, return to his domain to gather vassals and troops, and march from land to Plymouth; and Sir Hawkins With Drake, they borrowed ships to hire soldiers in London with the Queen's permission, and they were also preparing to return to blockade the port by sea.

Sir Robert Dudley is a formidable man. His army has been to Ireland and France. The queen is hesitant to send him to Holland or Spain. People know that the last one to counter the rebellion will be sent long before the queen orders. It would be him—going directly to Spain to face the Ming army might make the Jazz uncomfortable, but with this experience, the rest of the story will be much easier to talk about.

Anyway, there was no Ming army in the city, only a group of Ming merchants and their guards.

However, neither the Ming merchants nor the English nobles expected that Puli County did not wait for the attack of the English outside the city, but waited for reinforcements.

Twelve lucky boats sailing from the sea from the west approached the port. The first person to get off was Tang Er. He was a thief at first. He was an arms dealer specially assigned by Chen Mu to sell matchlock guns in England. He looked at the four expectant faces. Lieutenant Zhongxian laughed loudly: "Look who I brought you, Muye is too far away, why don't you just send reinforcements from the Kingdom of Alan?"

Behind him, cavalrymen in all red Beiyang military uniforms with high helmets on their heads were pulling their horses off the ship. The young man with the appearance of a general turned over and got off his horse. His breastplate and smile were shining brightly. He first looked left and right, scanning the scene. Frowning in a chaotic and dilapidated town, he muttered: Is this Bacon's home?
Immediately afterwards, he raised his hands and clasped his fists to several self-proclaimed school captains, and said: "Ying Ming, the commander of the Baihu of the Eastern Army of the Ming Dynasty, and the Tailong Guard of the Kingdom of Alan, ordered two hundred Beiyang cavalry and three hundred banner troops to come here. Help defend the city, where are the enemy troops, take me to crush them."

(End of this chapter)