Chapter 115, in Zhoushan
In the era of sailing ships and smoothbore cannons, it was very risky for military commanders to launch a large-scale landing battle across the sea.
Because, if you rashly land on a distant and unfamiliar enemy coast without reconnaissance and intelligence, you will most likely end up hitting an iron wall or getting stuck in a quagmire. But if the fleet is allowed to wander offshore for a long time and slowly survey the coastal conditions, it is also very dangerous - often just a storm without warning can send tens of thousands of elite troops armed to the teeth into the seabed to feed. fish.
In long-distance voyages, the almost inevitable occurrence of getting lost on the rocks and being separated is enough to give the commander a splitting headache.
Therefore, in this case, the safest specific tactic that the commander can choose is to find a place near the war zone with a small population and weak defense before attacking the main target city or fortress head-on, at basically no cost. The small island that can be easily captured can be occupied and used as a springboard, relay station and fleet anchorage for landing operations. Then, while scouting the opponent's troop deployment and mobilization status, they launch small-scale exploratory attacks. Finally, they find the weak points and kill them with one blow, or even if they find that there is really no way to attack, they can retreat calmly.
Therefore, when the Allies were planning their Jiangnan strategy, they naturally selected Zhoushan Island as the springboard and troop gathering place for this landing battle.
The Zhoushan Islands are located east of Hangzhou Bay and in the vast sea southeast of the Yangtze River Estuary. They are the remnants of the Tiantai Mountains extending northeastward into the sea. The islands generally have jagged rocks and rugged terrain, and there are many deep-water sheltered harbors. But for the same reason, most small islands have limited water resources, making it difficult to guarantee fresh water supply for a large population... Therefore, although there are many islands in the Zhoushan Islands, the options that can serve as temporary gathering places are very limited.
——From the beginning, the springboard target set by the Chinese League's Jiangnan attack force was very clear, and that was the main island of Zhoushan, the largest area.
For Captain Zhen Huan, who commanded the Li mountain infantry battalion, the landing battle on Zhoushan Island was not a challenge at all. For the sake of safety, the fleet did not attack Dinghai County in the south-central part of the island, but at the eastern end of the island, later known as Putuo. Ashore at a beach in Zhujiajian District.
In the eyes of Captain Zhen Huan, who comes from the mountains of Hainan Island, the seaside scenery here is much worse than the tropical beaches in his hometown. At first glance, there are ugly gravels and mudflats, and on the low mountains behind are dark pine forests. However, there was some snow in the open space by the forest. For him and his followers, the Li people from Hainan Island, this was the first time they saw real white snow, so everyone was very excited to see it and wanted to step on it. .
There used to be a water camp of the Ming army in the area, which was a legacy of Qi Jiguang's pacification of the Japanese pirates in the past. However, as the Japanese pirates have been suppressed for a long time, the coastal defense has been gradually weakened, and now it has deteriorated to the point where only a beacon tower remains. What is even more strange is that until the huge fleet approached the shore, no beacon fire was lit... So Captain Li Huamei ordered to select a few people with good water skills, and each of them was given a bowl of cold water. After drinking hard liquor, he jumped into the cold sea water and swam ashore to investigate. The result was very dumbfounding - there was no one in the beacon tower, and he had probably gone home to celebrate the New Year.
As a result, the Chinese League troops began to land without any resistance. A battalion of Li soldiers carried heavy luggage, and under the command of Captain Zhen Huan, one by one climbed off the rope net hanging on the side of the ship and jumped onto the undulating sampan. Then facing the slightly salty sea breeze, we shook the oars together and paddled the small sampan slowly towards the deserted beach... There was a decaying wooden trestle there, and I don't know when it was built. Everyone first tied the sampan securely with cables, and then jumped onto the trestle one by one with great agility.
Unfortunately, this trestle was too old and in disrepair. The unprepared Li soldiers had not walked a few steps when they heard a "pop" sound. Someone stepped through the rotten trestle and fell into the sea... Fortunately, such a This thing happens in every landing exercise, and everyone is accustomed to it. Soon someone was using long bamboo poles to pick up the unlucky eggs that fell into the sea, while the people in the cooking class had already lit a bonfire on the shore to cook ginger soup.
After everyone came ashore, the Li mountain infantry made a bonfire for a while, then rolled a few snowballs out of curiosity, and had their first snowball fight in their lives. Finally, everyone drank a bowl of hot brown sugar ginger soup. The whole team set off to conduct fire reconnaissance around the landing site.
Zhoushan was known as Changguo in ancient times. Although a county seat was established in the Tang Dynasty and the population was quite prosperous in the Song Dynasty, in the Ming Dynasty, due to the sea ban and Japanese invasion, the population of Zhoushan began to decline sharply. During the Hongwu period, the imperial court even destroyed the city of Zhoushan and moved the entire island inland, turning Zhoushan into a desolate and uninhabited island. Although the policy slowed down slightly after that, people gradually returned to live on the island. However, Japanese pirates from all walks of life also set up strongholds in the Zhoushan Islands and plundered them, making the island unable to develop. It was not until the Longqing and Wanli years that the situation in Zhoushan basically stabilized, but its vitality had already been damaged - until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the entire island had only a population of about 30,000, making it particularly desolate. The Li mountain infantry led by Zhen Huan searched almost half of the island east of Dinghai County, and only found two military strongholds and two villages.
Next, just like the previous landing operation, which was completely fighting the air, the combat operation to attack the Ming army's stronghold was still completely worth mentioning.
In the eyes of Captain Zhen Huan, the tenacity of these so-called imperial officers and soldiers was far worse than that of the indigenous people in Taiwan. After his Li soldiers set up two light field artillery and bombarded one of the villages for two rounds, All the Ming Dynasty military households in the village came out and surrendered. Although the four artillery shells fired by the landing troops, not even one of them penetrated the village... And the Ming Dynasty defenders in the other village even had to attack the street more. ,Enter The attacking troops had just appeared near the village, and before they had time to organize their formation, the people in the village were already scared to their feet. Then they shouted, leaving behind the few tattered belongings in the village, and rushing to be the first. They ran away from the village gate in fear. Even the hot rice just cooked on the stove was too cheap for the Li soldiers who had been trekking across the mountains for a day. Captain Zhen Huan, who was still gearing up, was stunned for a moment. .
As for the two small fishing villages that were discovered on the island, they did not dare to resist when faced with a "sea giant" that they had never seen in their lives. Before the advance team that was ordered to conduct reconnaissance reached the entrance of the village, local villagers had already pushed out several elders and came to "****" with baskets of smelly salted fish, sour radish and the like. The people in the village are busy closing their doors. The men are racking their brains to hide the little food and belongings they have in holes or haystacks, while the women are smearing stove ashes on their faces or taking paths to hide in the mountains... ...Obviously he is very experienced in the disaster of pirates crossing the border.
So, in this atmosphere of "military-civilian harmony", Captain Zhen Huan pinched his nose and accepted the smelly salted fish and sour radish, then gave the villagers a small bag of candies as a return gift, and raised a red star ring at the entrance of the village. flag, announcing the preliminary occupation of the island.
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When Major General Sun Yang finally stepped off the flagship and set foot on the land of Zhoushan Island, a temporary dock had already taken shape due to the hard work of the engineering troops, and the landing troops had also completed the encirclement of Dinghai County. After a short rest, , to launch an attack.
In the previous mopping up operations, the Allied forces captured more than a hundred Ming army prisoners. However... these did not even have the most basic uniforms and weapons. They were all sallow and skinny guys who looked like beggars. Can they be considered as such? Soldiers are really a confusing issue.
Moreover, this number is completely inconsistent - "...Why are there so few people? Zhoushan is also a guard station after all. According to regulations, there should be five to six thousand military households! Could it be that the rest of the people have escaped? Dinghai County?" Sun Yang asked with some dissatisfaction.
"...There are not many people in the city. It is said that since the Japanese invasion subsided, the superiors have gradually stopped allocating food and salary to the coastal guard station, so they can no longer support so many people. Moreover, there has been little rain in recent years, and the island's The harvest from the farmland was not good, so many military households fled," his adjutant explained.
"...Even if you can't farm, don't you still rely on the sea to eat? Isn't it said that the Zhoushan Islands are China's largest fishing ground?"
"...the remaining military households mainly rely on fishing for a living, but fishermen are having a hard time these days! The wooden fishing boats are small and broken, and they can easily sink in the offshore. Natural fiber fishing nets are not very durable. Even if you manage to catch a fish, it will break if you are not careful. In ancient times, there was no refrigeration technology. It is almost impossible to earn a high price by selling to big cities... In addition, they have to compete with other fishermen on the island, and there is a group of so-called 'officers' who enjoy the profits above them. Their life is really miserable. It’s good to be able to survive.”
"...It sounds really pitiful!" Major General Sun Yang sighed and shook his head, "...They probably won't survive here, and we don't have any need for these people, so we should let them go to North America. Right. There is as much land as you want on the Great Lakes. If you want to continue fishing, you can catch river fish and sea fish as long as they want... First, they will be shaved and purified, and then if there is no problem with the quarantine, they can organize immigration!"
After dealing with the problem of prisoners, Major General Sun Yang, surrounded by a group of officers and guards, inspected the occupied area.
——Although he has led the fleet to the East for more than a year, he has either stayed in Western colonial ports such as Batavia, or in Lingao, Sanya, Penghu and Kaohsiung, which were traveled by the future. on land operated and developed by operators. Therefore, this is the first time he has truly set foot on the land under the rule of the Ming Empire, and the first time he has seen the "authentic Ming Dynasty style" with his own eyes, so he is somewhat curious.
Then, this time-traveler with a slightly artistic youthful temperament fully felt an indescribable, extreme poverty, dilapidation and numbness.
——The two small fishing villages on Zhoushan Island were all built haphazardly on the gentle coastal hillsides, surrounded by small valleys and mesas. They were reclaimed into rice fields and rice fields according to their distance from streams and springs. Vegetable patch. On the beach below, seaweed, kelp and dried fish are drying in the sun. Although these fishermen work so hard to develop a variety of industries, farming and fishing, they are so poor that they cannot even build wooden houses. At most, they can only live in thatched mud houses with mud walls and thatched roofs, which leak both wind and rain. . In order to prevent the roof from being blown away by strong winds, many stones had to be placed on top of the thatch. Moreover, the house is also covered with damp mud. If you sleep in this kind of place for a long time, you will easily suffer from skin moss and rheumatism.
From a modern perspective, these two fishing villages are as crowded as concentration camps, but they are even more unsanitary - the dirty roads are purely trampled by people and filled with all kinds of garbage, which are used as drinking water sources. The creek flows directly through the village, and adults and children often urinate and defecate in the water as if nothing has happened. The villagers' houses are also filthy, and a family often only has two or three decent clothes. Only men who go out to farm and fish can wear them, while women and children can only hide naked in the house and look through the cracks in the door in fear. He looked out at the foreign visitors.
Even the young and strong men walking on the ridges and beaches, busy planting rice, harvesting rice and collecting fishing nets, looked very slovenly - everyone's hair was covered with annoying lice and fleas, and their clothes were ragged and patched. It was patched again, like an old rag full of holes.
In the village, almost all men, women and children, old and young, have thin and gray faces, showing symptoms of severe malnutrition, and are covered with many pustules and scars. Although their hands and feet have thick joints and strong muscles due to years of physical labor, this strength is actually an illusion - years of heavy labor has indeed forced them to develop well-developed muscles. However, in the case of insufficient nutrition and poor living environment, excessive extraction of physical strength like this is actually overdrawing one's own life.
As a result, veins bulge on their arms, and their skin is dull, lacks luster, and appears very dry. It doesn’t matter when you are young, but once you reach thirty years old, you have to start "paying off debts" for the past years - these people often start to become hunched over when they are thirty or forty years old. , frail and sickly, troubled by chronic diseases such as rheumatism and arthritis. If someone lived to be over fifty years old before dying, he was generally considered to have died. If you successfully live to be over sixty years old, you are fully qualified to be called a longevity star!
Even the few so-called "landowners" in the village only live in tile-roofed houses, their faces are slightly rosier, and their clothes are also dotted with patches and holes. The female relatives in their family are also bare-faced and cannot afford the cheapest cosmetics.
In short, when Major General Sun Yang and his group of "short-haired officials" wearing sparkling and gorgeous military uniforms and clean and tidy faces walked through the dilapidated villages with their heads held high, they received countless looks of awe and envy for a while. The villagers thought it was like a god descending to earth.
However, according to the soldiers who were from the northwest in the army, compared with northern Shaanxi and Henan where the land was thousands of miles away and people were chewing bark and eating human flesh everywhere, the poor fishing villages on Zhoushan Island in front of them were actually living a normal life for ordinary people. It’s a “good place” that’s relatively “comfortable”!
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After inspecting the dilapidated villages and impoverished residents, and throwing a few candies to the dirty children with runny noses, Major General Sun Yang was in a bad mood and had no intention of staying here any longer. He left the village as quickly as possible, which smelled like a quagmire or a latrine and was filthy everywhere, and returned to his flagship. Then he ordered the fire to be raised and the anchor to be sailed to the encircled Dinghai County, preparing to personally supervise the battle.
——Like the attack on the military stronghold on the island, the battle in Dinghai County was also unremarkable. About two thousand Li mountain infantry, Japanese security forces and black mercenaries arrived at their predetermined positions outside the city without incident after traveling through mountains and rivers. Several commanders met for a short meeting, and while arranging the soldiers to eat and rest, they looked for high ground with solid soil close to the city wall, and prepared to launch artillery bombardment in accordance with the order.
On the other side, the three steam warships assisting the battle at sea also arrived in the waters of Xiaowu Kuishan Island facing Dinghai Port. Looking at this so-called "county town" through the telescope, Major General Sun Yang, who was holding the side of the boat, suddenly let out a long sigh - this place was said to be a county town, but he thought it was more like a village or a town. The city wall is actually less than three meters high, and the bricks covering it have almost fallen off. Its defensive capabilities are simply an insult to traditional Chinese city-building technology. He had originally thought about many tactics to attack the city, but it seemed that it was impossible to use them this time.
A moment later, artillery fire from both sea and land was fired, and the Dinghai City Wall, which had been in disrepair for a long time, fell down. In order to achieve the greatest degree of intimidation, Sun Yang ordered the black troops to serve as the vanguard of the siege, and also ordered them to apply more colorful oil paint on their faces according to traditional customs, making them look like ghosts from hell as much as possible... What happened next It became very simple. Faced with so many black "warriors" who were like yakshas, the few Minzhuangs in the city who were already weak in the calf were immediately frightened and fled away, hiding in their own homes and shivering. When Captain Zhen Huan led the follow-up troops into the city, every house in Dinghai County was closed. The tapping of military boots seemed extremely lonely on the empty streets. At first, there were a few barking dogs, but unfortunately a few more barks were heard. The sound suddenly stopped, as if someone had suddenly blocked his throat.
In less than half an hour, the siege ended successfully. As usual, the Dinghai County magistrate seized the last moment and hanged himself in the Yamen. However, the staff Qingke he hired, as well as a group of minor officials from the time of Zidian Shi, were all spineless prisoners. They were tied up tightly and then escorted to the dock outside the city for interrogation - Sun Yang The major general was already despairing of the living conditions in the Ming Dynasty. Even if he captured the county seat, he had no plans to move to the county government office. Instead, he continued to set up his headquarters on the flagship.
At the same time, the squadron that went north to Daishan Island, Qushan Island, Shengsi Islands and other places to search for traces of Ming Dynasty navy or pirates sent a telegram to the flagship. It is said that except for a small number of frightened fishermen, no armed maritime forces were found on Daishan Island and Qushan Island. As for the Shengsi Islands, they are even more deserted. Apart from the ruins of long-abandoned buildings, not even a pirate hair can be found. They are simply a string of uninhabited islands.
Then, after unloading the Li mountain infantry battalion, Captain Li Huamei went for a cruise in the south. He brought a few small broken boats and a group of so-called "pirates" who looked like beggars. It is said that he saw you The "Big Shorthair Master" went north and came here specifically to seek refuge... But in After some interrogation, Major General Sun Yang was disappointed to find that these cowards who only rowed sampans around their own island and made a living by blackmailing fishermen or fishing themselves were not even qualified to be guides. A considerable number of them were not even qualified recently. I have never been to Ningbo...
In general, the Zhoushan Islands in the late Ming Dynasty were really desolate. With so many scattered islands put together, the total population was probably less than 100,000. Many famous fishing port towns in later generations are simply uninhabited islands these days. Even Liuheng Island in the south of Zhoushan, which was the famous Japanese pirate lair and private trading port "Shuangyu" during the Jiajing period, is now only a ruined place. After searching the entire island, there were not many homes found.
This situation has both good and bad consequences for the Allies - the bad thing is that, just like the U.S. military during the Pacific War, it is unable to collect any supplies locally from the frontline islands; the good thing is that it is the same as the U.S. military during the Pacific War. , there is no need to worry about resistance from local islanders.
In the entire Zhoushan Islands, except for Zhoushan, where Dinghai County is located, the most populous place is Mount Putuo... Moreover, Mount Putuo is very close to Zhujiajian Anchorage, which was chosen by Sun Yang as the fleet gathering place. . Therefore, the next thing to do after Dinghai County is captured is obviously to send troops to attack these monks on Mount Putuo and eliminate all potential unstable factors in the surrounding area.
But which army should be used to attack Mount Putuo?
Taking stock of the scattered and miscellaneous troops under his command, Major General Sun Yang felt hesitant again.
When I brought the Li mountain infantry with me before, I took into account their reputation in the battlefields of Taiwan and Hainan Island, but I forgot that although these tropical mountain people are accustomed to trekking across mountains and rivers, they are very bad at fighting in winter - just in the south like Zhoushan Island. The winter in the area caused serious non-combat attrition of this unit. Countless people suffered from colds and fevers, and frostbite on their hands and feet... At least they cannot be deployed in a short period of time.
Those Japanese mercenaries who had just returned from the Kinki battlefield in Japan were not too afraid of the cold. But many of them are devout Christians, and they are accustomed to burning temples and killing monks in Japan. If they are allowed to attack Mount Putuo, the "Haitian Buddhist Kingdom", the consequences can be imagined... Although Sun Major General Yang does not believe in Buddhism, but it would still feel a bit strange if he personally led a group of Japanese devils to massacre Mount Putuo.
However, Major General Sun Yang also knew that there were few good things in the big temples of the Ming Dynasty. If they were to be slaughtered, it would not be unfair... In the past, Oda Nobunaga burned Mount Hiei, and later in the Republic of China warlords burned Shaolin Temple. He himself How about setting up a simulation show and setting Mount Putuo on fire for fun?
Standing on the beach in Zhujiajian, looking at Mount Putuo, the "Buddhist Kingdom of the Sea and Sky" looming in the distance on the horizon, Major General Sun Yang, who was thinking about how to become famous, held his chin in deep thought - if he really burned this mountain If you get up, I think it will be as beautiful as the sunset!
Fortunately, just when Major General Sun Yang thought about it for a long time and finally couldn't help but turn the terrifying idea in his mind into reality, he suddenly saw a small light yellow door slowly emerging on the beach, and then A familiar figure walked out of the door...
"...Uh...Comrade Wang Qiu, why are you here? What happened?"
"...Ah sneeze!...Yes, the plan has changed. The higher-ups have decided to postpone the Liaodong strategy again while expanding the scale of the Jiangnan strategy!" Feeling the howling cold wind sweeping across the beach, he instantly came from the heating office through the [Random Door] When Wang Qiu arrived in the wilds of Zhoushan, he sneezed uncomfortably and wrapped his military coat tightly. Then he patted Major General Sun Yang on the shoulder and said, "...I'm bringing reinforcements for you!"
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