Chapter 1645 Important Information
Yan Chujie knew that the person coming was from Chaosheng Merchant Store, and what he had sent to Cavite in the wind and rain at this time was naturally very important information. He immediately opened the envelope and took out the letter inside. After browsing it, he handed it to his adjutant and gave a few instructions in a low voice.
Ran Tiancheng stood there without even daring to raise his head, let alone listen to Yan Chujie's orders. He only hoped that the benefits Ran Tianlu had prepared for the Haihan people were rich enough to impress him at once, so that he would not have to waste time to renegotiate the terms with the other party.
After Yan Chujie finished arranging things, he asked Ran Tiancheng: "Boss Ran has been working hard all the way, haven't you had a meal on the way?"
Ran Tiancheng responded quickly: "I rushed over to see you, sir, but I didn't have time to eat, but it doesn't matter... Are you satisfied with the things you sent?"
Yan Chujie nodded and said: "You've done a good job. I'll reward you based on your merits when the war situation in Manila stabilizes. In this way, I'll have someone take you to eat some hot food first, and someone will ask you later, you know. I’ll just answer it slowly when the time comes.”
Ran Tiancheng vaguely felt something was wrong, but he didn't react for a while. An officer had already taken him out of Yan Chujie's office and went to a nearby canteen. He asked the kitchen to cook him a bowl of beef noodles, and then brought him a bowl of beef noodles. I gave him two sesame seed cakes - this was a treatment only senior officers could enjoy on the battlefield.
Ran Tiancheng took the noodles into his mouth and then remembered that he was here to give money, but why did General Haihan reward him for his merits? Is there any merit in spending money to buy peace? Could it be that the envelope he handed to the other party did not contain the check that Ran Tianlu mentioned?
The more Ran Tiancheng thought about it, the more he realized this was true, and the chopsticks in his hand stopped. He did not know the true identity of his brother, but he only knew that he had a wide range of contacts and had trade contacts with businessmen from many countries. But Ran Tiancheng is not very clear about his relationship with the Haihan people. But the Haihan people are now approaching the city. If they can receive the information sent from the city, it will naturally save a lot of trouble. If what Ran Tianlu sent is related to this, it can well explain Yan Chujie's attitude.
Under Yan Chujie's instruction, the secret letter sent from Manila City had been sent to the headquarters for several other generals to review. Ran Tianlu's letter about the Spaniards stepping up their efforts to build chain bombs naturally attracted the generals' great attention.
Although the "Black Shark" is equipped with a steam-powered propulsion system, the main power source it relies on is still the sails on the ship. Steam propulsion is only used as a temporary supplementary power during combat, not as a protagonist. Otherwise, the "Black Shark" will probably have to follow two supply ships at all times during the mission, one carrying coal and the other carrying fresh water, so as to ensure its endurance at sea.
Since it still relies on the sail system, masts and sails are defensive weaknesses that cannot be completely solved, and chain bombs happen to be one of the most effective weapons used to deal with masts and sails in naval battles. For Haihan, it is a must. defensive attack methods.
Of course, the "Black Shark" has considered various attack methods that need to be defended from the beginning of its design. Chain bombs are naturally one of them, and there are certain corresponding strategies for this. There is no particularly effective way to defend the ship's sails. The soft canvas cannot cover the flying cannonballs anyway. The most effective defense is to increase the combat distance and stay outside the range of the enemy's chain bombs.
The mast needs to be defended against more than chain bullets. If ordinary solid artillery shells hit the wooden mast, it will also cause devastating consequences. Therefore, the outer layer of the lower half of the mast of the "Black Shark" is also covered with a layer of iron armor, and various reinforcement measures have been taken to ensure that the mast will not break even if it is directly hit by a shell. In the previous confrontation with the Manila Fleet, the "Black Shark" had very carefully controlled the distance of the engagement, in order to avoid being hit by chain bombs launched by Spanish warships in weak parts of the ship.
"The Spaniards still have some brains! They figured out how to fight so quickly." After reading the relevant information, Tom Wang didn't look nervous. This is because the Haihan Army has already captured Cavite and has firmly established a port as an advance base. If it wants to fight the Spaniards at sea again, there will be no more "Black Shark" single-handedly entering the enemy's position. In this situation, there is naturally no risk of being surrounded and suppressed by the opponent's warships at sea.
Although the "Black Shark" is designed as an ironclad ship that attaches great importance to defense, its main tactic is not to rush into the enemy formation to attract firepower, but to use its advantages of mobility and speed to wander around the periphery, seize a favorable position, and then use the ship to The two highly accurate naval guns bombarded enemy ships.
In this confrontation with the Manila fleet, the "Black Shark"'s tactics were entirely to delay the attack on Cavite, otherwise it would not have taken such a risky approach to fight the Spanish warships. Now that the battleships of the Haihan Fleet have basically been freed up, the next time they confront the enemy, the three majestic-class battleships in the fleet will be the main force on the frontal battlefield, and the battle faced by the "Black Shark" The risk will be reduced a lot, and this trick played by the Spaniards in a sneaky way may not even be of use at all.
Wang Tom knew this very well, so he was not too afraid of the tactics the Spaniards came up with. However, the intelligence agency was able to manage to send this news from Manila at such a critical time. The risks taken during the period were unimaginable, which shows the extent of their efforts. Therefore, although this news can only be of limited help to the Navy, Tom Wang He also spoke highly of intelligence work.
Qian Tiandun was interested in another thing: "The person who sent the news from Manila was said to have taken the overland route and stopped for one night. In fact, he arrived in two days. Considering the current situation, Even if the weather conditions are bad, we can complete this journey in two days. Then when the weather improves, maybe we can advance to the vicinity of Manila in one day.”
"This is not easy." Roger, who was lying on the map, straightened up and said, "Look, the land route from Cavite Peninsula to Manila requires crossing three rivers. The messenger has one man and one horse, as long as he can It would be easier to find a small boat by the river, but we have too much heavy equipment and supplies, and crossing the river will delay a lot of time. It may not be possible to complete it in two days, let alone one day.”
"Then we can adopt the method used in the previous war in Annan, marching by land and water, transporting supplies to the north by ship, and all personnel traveling by land." Wang Tom immediately proposed another plan: "Look, there is a village about eight kilometers away from Manila. Pasay Town, according to the standards on the map, has a fishing port. We can transport supplies and equipment here to meet the troops traveling by land, and then complete the final journey towards Manila. " "But the Spaniards may also think of this and deploy defense lines locally." Roger added.
"That doesn't matter. If they station troops locally, then they can start fighting. Don't you have confidence in our strength?" Wang Tom asked with a smile.
Roger also smiled: "Let's start the fight? That's as I wish."
Roger did not come here with his ace troops for a vacation. He did not gain any military exploits in the battle in Cavite. This has made him hold back his energy and plan to fight for battle in the subsequent battles. opportunity.
The composition of Roger's South China Sea Special Operations Group is different from other units of the Hai-Han Army. Many people are not Hai-Han themselves, or even not Han at all. When Roger formed this army on Ambo Island, the source of soldiers was relatively complicated. In addition to the Han people, many were selected from slaves sold to Ambo Island from various countries. They accumulated a certain amount of experience in the army. After his military exploits, he was given the opportunity to join Haihan nationality.
Roger gave them new life and taught these soldiers to fight to prove their worth. This unit would not have too much psychological burden if it went to war with any country. To Haihan, it was more like an international mercenary force. This force defeated the coalition forces of Britain and Johor in the South China Sea, and guarded the strategically important east exit of the Strait of Malacca for Haihan, so it was able to rank among Haihan's ace troops. And now they need to prove their strength here, in front of many colleagues, through fighting.
After Ran Tiancheng completed the mission of delivering the message, he did not return to Manila City. This was not because he wanted to stay on his own initiative, but because the Haihan military needed to get more information from him about the current situation in Manila City. Ran Tiancheng knew that he would not be able to get off the boat, so he simply let go and told the Haihan military everything he knew about the situation.
After two more days, the rain slowly stopped and the weather finally began to clear up. However, the reconnaissance results of the cavalry battalion from the town of Noveleta to the town of Parañaque in the north were not ideal. Because of heavy rain for many days, the rivers on the way were swollen. The ferry mentioned by Ran Tiancheng was early. It had been washed away by the river and the ferry could not be found. If we must march by land, we must either wait for the river water level to subside before trying to cross the river, or we can only go around to the upper reaches of the river and find a place to cross the river where the river is narrower and the water is not so strong.
But no matter which method is used, it will take a lot of time. This is not a situation that the command headquarters wants to see. So after another round of preparation meetings, the headquarters decided to make the town of Pasay, across the sea from the Cavite Peninsula, the next target of attack. After capturing the town of Pasay, we will use the local area as the starting point to launch the final march from land to Manila City.
The straight-line distance from Cavite to Pasay Town is about eight kilometers, which translates into a voyage of about five nautical miles. At the speed of the Haihan Fleet, it can reach its destination in less than an hour. However, before launching a formal offensive, the Navy still very carefully sent a reconnaissance ship to conduct a close observation of the fishing port near Pasay Town and determined that there were no obvious defenses on the local coast. As for whether there are troops stationed in the area, Haihan is not too worried about this. After all, people in the Army want to make a difference on the battlefield as soon as possible. If there is a Spanish garrison in the area, it will just improve the Army's record.
The command headquarters was worried that the long nights and long dreams would give the Spaniards more time to prepare for the battle, so they launched a new wave of offensive in the early morning of the next day after completing the reconnaissance. Almost all the combat ships of the fleet came out to escort more than 20 troop transport ships heading east towards Pasay Town.
Before daybreak, the Haihan Army carried out a landing operation at the fishing port. The process was unimaginably smooth. They encountered no resistance at all, and there was no garrison presence as expected by the headquarters. After searching the villages near the port, it was found that all the people here had already fled, leaving only empty houses and some broken fishing boats upside down on the beach.
"That's it? No enemies?" After Roger set foot on land, he received a rather disappointing report. No trace of the Spanish was found within one kilometer of the landing site. Obviously, the Spanish did not regard this fishing port as a fishing port. It was a place that he had to stick to, so he gave up this place easily. This was completely different from Roger's imagination that the Spaniards would fortify themselves layer by layer and finally retreat to the city of Manila. It was like clenching a fist but hitting cotton without any force.
However, for the sake of caution and to prevent the Spaniards from trying to lure the enemy deeper, Roger assigned two of his generals, Marcus and Dulu, to lead the teams east and north respectively to explore the enemy's situation.
Both of them enlisted as foreign slaves in Ambuna Island in 1633. One was a black man, and the other was from Aceh, Sumatra. However, after accumulating military exploits in the past few years, not only did the two of them get rid of their slave status and join the Haihan nationality, but now they each lead a company with the rank of lieutenant.
Soon, feedback came back from the situation in Pasay Town. Ten rooms in the town were empty. It seemed that the Spaniards not only retreated and defended, but also planned to clear the country and cut off the possibility of the Haihan Army obtaining supplies and labor locally.
"If this was fighting inland, their approach would be more effective. Unfortunately, this is in a coastal area. We need to complete the delivery of materials and personnel, as long as we have ships." After listening to the situation report, Wang Tom said There is still no high evaluation of the Spaniard's coping skills. He believes that the only thing that needs to be careful is that the Spaniards intend to preserve their strength by avoiding war in this way. Their purpose in doing this may be to hope that they can have a head-on confrontation with Haihan's army under the city, and rely on Manila City's solid city defense and military superiority to disrupt Haihan's attack.
(End of chapter)