Chapter 616 Battle of Nanri Island (3)
As long as you have the thought of "escape" on the battlefield, your courage will immediately disappear. This is the case with the Shibazhi fleet at this moment. After several of the ships began to turn around and make an escape gesture, the ships that originally wanted to continue fighting saw that the situation was not good, and naturally they would not hold on to their necks and continue to fight. However, escaping also depends on luck and skill. It is not easy to escape from Haihan's gun.
After testing the opponent's strength through two rounds of shelling, Shi Diwen discovered that Haihan's advantages in ships and firepower were so great that there was no need to use any complicated tactics in the pursuit. For an opponent who charges forward with a burst of blood and retreats faster after receiving a blow, all he has to do is roll up his sleeves and get going.
Just like a pack of wolves chasing down a flock of sheep, ferocious predators will not immediately stop to eat after killing another prey. Instead, they will drop the dying prey and continue to chase the next target. The three Haihan warships also adopted this tactic. After arriving at the ship approaching Shibazhi, they just bombarded the waterline, punching a row of holes in the hull and then flew away. Even if the sailors on the pirate ship can work hard to block the hole after this, the ship is basically half full of sea water, and it will not be that easy to quickly escape from the battlefield.
At this time, the Ming navy who was watching the battle from the periphery played a role in cleaning the battlefield. It was difficult for their speed to catch up with the pirate ships that had started to escape, but they had to besiege the pirate ships that were seriously damaged after being bombarded and even started to sink. , that can still be easily accomplished. If there are still pirates who intend to resist in this situation, then the Ming Navy will not hesitate to send a few more cannonballs on board to these die-hards.
Xu Xinsu watched this one-sided killing from the deck of "Prestige Signal". Only then did he truly understand why Shi Diwen was so relaxed and confident when he proposed to attack Nanri Island. The strength gap between the two sides was at least several levels. The Haihan Navy only dispatched three warships and overwhelmingly crushed the dozens of ships deployed by Shibazhi on Nanri Island. This made Xu Xinsu unable to bear it. Emotions of jealousy and fear arose.
In terms of combat effectiveness, the current Ming Dynasty navy is not too bad, but the number of warships is slightly less. It is still unable to protect the long coastline of Fujian, so it can only abandon some places and focus on guarding a few large ports. If he and Shiba Zhi were to fight with real swords and guns at sea, with similar military strength, Xu Xinsu would still be confident of victory. However, after seeing the Haihan Navy's fighting style today, Xu Xinsu's little confidence in her troops has been worn away a lot - even if the Fujian Navy and Shibazhi were packaged together, they probably wouldn't be able to do this. To the perverted Haihan Navy.
According to the naval establishment declared by Shi Diwen, the combat ships of Haihan's fleet consist of a "Dignity-class" flagship, three to four "Exploration-class" warships and four to six "Exploration-class" warships, approximately It is on the scale of eight to eleven warships. However, only three warships were dispatched, and they had already defeated the Shibazhi fleet stationed on Nanri Island. If a full fleet was dispatched to fight, Xu Xinsu could hardly imagine how many ships would be needed to stop these ships. evil star.
Although the fight went smoothly, Shi Diwen was not too fond of fighting. After getting behind the Shibazhi fleet and damaging three or four sailboats, he ordered to stop the operation of the steam power system - the mission fleet The quantity of boiler-specific clean coal they carry is limited, and it needs to be reserved for use when more necessary. Showing off force is almost enough. It is a waste of resources to continue to use it to kill these rabble.
Although the Haihan battleship has powerful firepower and fast speed, it is still impossible for three ships to wipe out an opponent eight times their size and flee in all directions. However, in this naval battle that lasted for one and a half hours, Haihan's side still achieved a jaw-dropping record - twelve to zero.
Nearly half of the twenty-five ships dispatched by Shibazhi were left behind. Seven of them were incapacitated due to serious damage to their hulls. The ship that was first hit by artillery fire was already at the end of the battle. Sunk beneath the surface of the sea. The pirates, who had nowhere to escape on the vast sea, had no other choice but to surrender.
The Ming army had already received instructions from Haihan before the war began, and would not massacre prisoners who chose to surrender - the Haihan people had already expressed their stance that all captured Shibazhi prisoners would be transported away alive.
For Haihan, these people under Shibazhi are rare opportunities to recruit sailors in large numbers. As long as some of them are eliminated, some of them are inherently bad and vicious gangsters, and the remaining ones are sent overseas for a period of labor reform. Time, and then scattered and distributed to various places, should still be able to play some role.
The Fujian Ming Army had no objection to this. Although these heads meant a lot of bounties and military merits, the people Xu Xinsu led also knew Haihan's importance, and it was not enough not to give him this face. Moreover, Xu Xinsu also stated before departure that this battle would not be based on heads. The officers did not quite understand this meaning at the time. They did not wake up until the battle was over. This battle was fought mainly by the Haihan people, and rewards will be based on merit. It’s also difficult to talk about one’s own side. As for stealing credit - who dares to steal credit from these Haihan people?
Although the naval battle did not last long, the work of cleaning up the battlefield afterwards continued until it got dark. This is mainly because this battlefield is too open. It is really a time-consuming and labor-intensive task to gather hundreds of prisoners on more than a dozen ships. Of course, the tired Ming Army is also tired. The Haihan Navy will not even do such dirty work. It has already withdrawn from the front line and is called responsible for peripheral security.
However, this kind of vigilance does not seem to have much practical effect. The pirates stationed on Nanri Island show no signs of counterattack, but there are still a few light boats far away on the sea, probably just for safety reasons. Be wary of these uninvited guests attacking again.
Shi Diwen has no intention of fighting a night battle with Shiba Zhi. This is an extremely difficult task even for the highly trained Haihan Navy. Since he can steadily defeat his opponent, there is no need to rush for success and take risks. Go in and catch up on this little time. If something goes wrong, even if you try to achieve some military merit, you may end up outweighing the merit if you are not careful.
After his three participating ships gathered together, Shi Diwen began to tally the performance and battle damage of each ship. Naturally, the one with the most hits was the "Signal", which had the largest number of artillery pieces. During the one-and-a-half-hour battle, a total of more than 50 rounds were hit on enemy ships. Although this number is a bit low for a total of more than 300 rounds, considering that This is a naval battle rather than a land battle, and it is the first actual combat of the "Prestige Signal". It is already quite good to achieve such results. Including the records of the other two warships, the three ships hit the target a total of nearly 80 times during this battle. This number is considered quite satisfactory, and it is not much different from the usual training level. Only three sailors were injured during the entire battle. Two of them were injured by arrows and gravel thrown by the enemy when bombarding the enemy ship at close range. Another one accidentally slipped from the gangway due to rough seas. The injury caused by the fall when getting off the cabin was not directly related to this battle. The injuries of these three people were not serious. After personally checking, Morgan determined that they only needed to be bandaged with medicine and rest for a few days to recover. Not to mention the warships, there were only a handful of stones and arrows thrown onto the deck. Such an attack could not cause any substantial damage to the Haihan warship.
Xu Xinsu had been observing the entire statistical process on the "Prestige Signal". Regarding such a battle loss ratio, he seemed to have nothing else to say other than "convinced".
The Fujian Ming Army and Shibazhi have been at war for several years, and they have engaged in naval battles involving dozens of ships no less than ten times. No matter whether they win or lose, they have never been able to control their battle losses to such a low level, almost as low as To the extent that there is none. Even if we could win, how could we not lose several ships and at least double-digit manpower?
Xu Xinsu also realized more deeply that if the armed forces of the Ming Dynasty and Shibazhi were to fight against the fully-manned Haihan Navy, there would be very little chance of causing substantial damage to the opponent. It’s no wonder that after the Haihan mission arrived in Fujian, they boasted in various ways that they not only wanted to eradicate the chronic disease Shibazhi in Fujian, but also claimed that they would also capture the red-haired people on the island of Taiwan. If Xu Xinsu's intuitive impression when hearing these words was that the other party was praising Haikou, then after witnessing this short naval battle, Xu Xinsu had changed her original view - the Haihan people were not praising Haikou, but were very serious about it. Narrating something they take for granted.
After hastily cleaning up the battlefield, the Ming army did not try to tow away the pirate ships that were devastated by shells, and sailed to the coast of Fujian together with the Haihan warship. Today the fleet will not sail back to Quanzhou Port to dock, but will sail to Dongqiao Bay, which is not far away. The Haihan Militia needs one night to prepare well, because there will be a more difficult amphibious operation waiting for these soldiers tomorrow.
But the Ming Navy's navy was not so lucky. Even if this military exercise came with Haihan to make soy sauce, it would have to be completed seriously. The task they were assigned was to take turns on duty at the entrance of the bay all night to prevent Shibazhi from launching a sneak attack at night. After unloading the prisoners on the shore, the navy's ships returned to the sea one after another to provide warning services for the Haihan Navy resting here.
Shi Diwen and Morgan have not been idle either. They will review the island capture operation to be launched tomorrow again to see if there are any omissions in the original plan. Although there is no doubt about the outcome of victory, they still hope to minimize the loss of battle and personnel losses.
In the early morning of the third day of the joint military exercise, the reorganized fleet set off from Dongqiao Bay and sailed to Nanri Island, which is twenty nautical miles away. This is also the last link of this joint military exercise. After capturing Nanri Island, this military exercise will come to an end.
Of course, by this time, probably no one would regard this trip to sea as an ordinary exercise. Even the Ming navy, which was not fighting on the front line, understood that this time the Haihan people were actually fighting a real war, and they were not the only ones. A previously announced live-fire exercise. After observing yesterday's battle at close range, many Ming army soldiers felt very lucky. First, because they could be in the same camp with such a powerful ally as Haihan, so they did not have to be enemies on the battlefield. Second, the Haihan people were willing to take the initiative. , to eliminate the big trouble of Shiba Zhi for the Fujian Ming Army. If the Ming army had to rely on itself to clear out the pirates on Nanri Island, they still don't know how much it would cost to succeed.
The only port on Nanri Island is located at the northwest end of the island. There is a natural bay with an area of about one square kilometer. At least one or two hundred ships of 400 materials can dock. However, when the Ming army evacuated here before, they destroyed most of the port facilities they built to prevent them from being used by pirates. After Shibazhi occupied Nanri Island, it did not have enough engineering power to restore the port facilities on the island to the level when the Ming army was stationed. Therefore, according to the information provided by the Ming army, this small harbor can now dock directly. There are not many ships at sea - yesterday's charge had dispatched at least 70% of the ships stationed locally.
The camp on the island is about three miles away from the port and is built against a slope. This camp was entirely made of rocks. When the Ming army retreated, they thought it would be too laborious to destroy this place. However, unexpectedly, it was later occupied by Shiba Zhi and other pirates and used it as a den of thieves. After the Shibazhi captured Nanri Island, in order to hold on to this strategic location, they carried out a long-term reinforcement project for the camp. It is precisely because of this that the limited manpower on the island was unable to implement the port construction project at the same time, so This resulted in the dilemma that Shibazhikong had thousands of ships at sea, but could only station a few dozen ships on Nanri Island.
Of course, compared to the Fujian Ming Army Navy, the troops stationed on the island by Shibazhi are not weak. Therefore, although they are on board, they are still enough to defend against the Fujian Navy's attack. Even if they cannot withstand it head-on, they can still Retreat to the sea a little further, and when the navy comes ashore to attack the island camp, they will launch a harassment war from the sea. This kind of combat method has worked many times in the past. When the Fujian Navy attacked Nanri Island, it was almost halfway through because it was difficult to balance offense and defense and could not continue, so it chose to retreat on its own.
However, Shibazhi probably never thought that one day he would encounter an opponent like the Haihan Navy in the waters of Nanri Island. It was simply ridiculously strong. After a few rounds, Nanri Island's sailing ships that could go to sea were reduced by almost half. The remaining half are also in an awkward situation. Should they defend or flee?
(End of chapter)