Chapter 2110
Although they were fighting in a completely unfamiliar environment, the Ming army troops who landed quickly demonstrated their professionalism and separated about two hundred people to build a beachhead near the landing site to prevent the main force from leaving the landing site and entering the interior. After landing, the enemy launched a counterattack here. At the same time, several small teams were dispatched east and south from the landing point to investigate the enemy situation in nearby areas, and early warning observation posts were established outside the landing point.
A batch of materials will be transferred ashore in the future to ensure that the landing troops need to operate in nearby areas. Therefore, a defense system must be established at this landing point to prevent troops entering the interior from being cut off from their supply lines.
After gathering, the main force was divided into three teams, front, middle and rear, and set off in batches from the landing point to the southwest target. In this way, even if an enemy situation occurs during the march, different ways of responding can be selected according to the situation.
Although it was basically certain that there was still a gap between the opponent's strength and our own, the Ming army was still very cautious in its attack. They did not rush forward just because the landing process went smoothly. They still acted step by step according to the predetermined battle plan.
The military quality reflected in not advancing rashly when winning, not retreating in defeat, and being able to deal with various situations in the battle process in a reasonable manner is also part of the military strength of an army. The elite troops under Xu Xinsu's command are almost all trained according to Haihan's military model, and their combat methods are more inclined to standardized operations. They advance on the battlefield in a steady and steady style, trying not to leave opportunities for opponents who are weaker than themselves to make a comeback. It was already considered a first-class powerful army in the Ming Dynasty, and it was no problem to use it to deal with the civilian armed forces on Fujiang Island.
Since this area is almost all farmland, the view is almost unobstructed, and it is difficult for the armed personnel on the island to organize a defense as the Ming army advances. The Ming army successfully arrived at the target area and discovered that there was a shipyard here. There are also two large warships that are not yet completed. However, there was no one in the dock. It was obvious that a collective evacuation was organized before the arrival of the Ming army.
"Burn this place down!" The order given by the leading officer was brief and clear.
At present, the whereabouts of the coalition forces have been exposed, and there is no need to worry about setting a fire here to let the opponent know its location. Setting fire to the opponent's shipyard and casting this signal can also have the effect of psychologically hitting the opponent. If the opponents couldn't stand this stimulation and gathered together to confront the Ming army head-on, that would be exactly what the Ming army wanted.
There are too many fire starters in shipbuilding places. For example, piles of shavings produced by processing wood can be seen everywhere. Soon the soldiers found a large amount of dry firewood from behind the kitchen here, and some lighting tools. kerosene, and then, following the commander's orders, began to light fires everywhere inside and outside the shipyard. Especially for the two unfinished warships in the dock, fire starters were arranged on the bows, sterns and decks to ensure that they could be burned cleanly.
Soon a raging fire broke out in the shipyard, and the smoke that rose up was a hundred feet high. It was estimated that it would be difficult for people within a ten-mile radius not to notice this conspicuous signal.
The first target in the operation was successfully captured in this way, which made everyone in the Ming army quite excited and had more confidence in the next battle.
The next second target is a port located about three miles west of the shipyard, located at the end of this winding bay. If it hadn't been for Yuan Zhi's on-the-spot reconnaissance, it would have been difficult for the Ming army to imagine that there was a small port hidden deep in the bay. According to the intelligence provided by the Haihan Army, there are several warships parked at the target location. If the landing Ming army confirms that these warships are still there, they must try to destroy them. In order to prevent these warships from escaping from the bay, the coalition warships responsible for attacking Fujiang Island have blocked the waterway in and out of the bay from the sea, in order to catch the turtle in the jar.
However, the shortest route from the shipyard to the port is through the water. The flat terrain along the coast ends at the shipyard, and further inland are large tracts of mountainous land. If you want to go around by land, you have to go around. It can only be reached in a large circle, and the distance is at least ten miles.
The commander did not rush to order the next target because he noticed that there was no ship activity in the bay at all. If the opponent's warships were still in the bay, they should have appeared near the shipyard at this time. On the sea, it is appropriate to use shipboard firepower to fight the Ming army attacking the shipyard. Therefore, he had reason to suspect that before the coalition fleet reached Fukue Island, the warships docked in the bay mentioned in the intelligence had been moved to other places.
To verify this conclusion, you don’t actually need to march more than ten miles to see the situation in the port. You only need to send someone with a telescope to a nearby mountain top to check the situation at the destination.
So a small team immediately set off from the fire scene and went to higher ground along the mountains next to the bay to find an observation point with a better view of the destination. Their action quickly achieved results. They fired a signal flare from the top of the mountain as agreed, and informed the large forces waiting for news near the shipyard of the reconnaissance results. There was no warship they were looking for in the port at the end of the bay, or even There are not even two small sampans.
This reconnaissance result also confirmed the commander's previous guess. The opponent had already transferred the local warships to other places before this, leaving only an undefended shipyard for the Ming army to attack. Although this stage of the task was successfully completed, the commander understood that the opponent's vitality had not been hurt so far, and he still needed to find and eliminate the opponent's main force on the island.
However, regarding the situation in other areas of the island, the intelligence information obtained by the Ming army was extremely limited. They only have the military map provided by Haihan and the general area where people live. As for where the opponent's armed personnel are hiding, they can only slowly find it.
However, they did not have to rely solely on foot to screen the entire island. The flat and livable areas on the island were basically concentrated in a few coastal plains. It was much faster to go to other areas to be checked by boat than on foot. But such terrain also brought considerable difficulties to their combat goals. Although the armed personnel on the island may not be their opponents at all, the more than a thousand Ming army who only landed on the island wanted to conquer an area of more than 300 square kilometers. Complete the search on Fukue Island, which is basically an impossible task.
For the current plan, we can only rely on the advantages of surface ships, first conduct an investigation on several key areas on the island, and try our best to eliminate as many enemy troops as we can find.
At this time, in the waters of Naru Island, about twenty miles away from Fukue Island, another small fleet separated from the coalition fleet was launching an attack on a bay port on the island. In fact, the information provided by the reconnaissance force only showed that there was a port in the bay, but it could not determine whether there were armed opponents stationed on the island. The coalition forces, on the other hand, had the idea of hitting them wherever they came. In short, they first sent people to the island to conduct a search of the populated areas.
If someone jumps out to resist, it goes without saying that the resisters will be cleared away. In fact, the military is very clear that taking such an action is very likely to encounter resistance. After all, the Five Islands Islands have been the home base of Japanese pirates for a long time in the past. The people who settled here, even if they are not Japanese pirates themselves, are also related to Japanese pirates. With inextricable connections, it is unlikely that they would choose to submit obediently in front of external forces. Compared with Fukue Island, the other four main islands of the Goto Islands are much smaller in area, and the livable areas on the islands combined are not as good as Fukue Island, so the number of permanent residents is also much smaller. According to the estimates of the coalition staff department, except for Fujiang Island, the population size of the other islands should be less than 1,000 people, so the solution will not be too difficult.
The only troublesome thing is that the coastline of these islands is winding and has many hidden small bays. The coalition fleet has to divide into several small teams to clear these target areas separately.
The troops attacking Naru Island basically encountered no decent resistance during the landing. After the leading troops landed, a group of armed ronin rushed out and tried to drive the outsiders off the beach. However, their bravery had no room for use in the face of the muskets, and they As a warm-up exercise, the soldiers of the special operations group disintegrated the bluff offensive of the Ronin with only one salvo. After the few guys who had escaped the hail of bullets realized what was happening, they abandoned their wounded and wounded accomplices without hesitation and fled without looking back.
This small port did not have the warships that the coalition forces expected to encounter. There were only a few small fishing boats moored on the shore. It seemed that there would not be many enemies here.
The landing Haihan army swept away the fishing village next to the port as quickly as possible. Perhaps the corpses of the ronin who had not yet cooled down at the port acted as a deterrent. Subsequent actions did not encounter any organized resistance. More than 300 local people They were soon expelled from their homes and gathered together at the port. The preliminary search did not find many standard weapons from these houses. The few Japanese knives found were also rusty and it was obvious that they had not been used for many years.
According to the confessions of the people, there were no organized armed personnel stationed in the local area, and the ronin who resisted the landing of the Haihan Army at the port were basically local young men. However, these people knew that their actions had caused great disaster, so they all fled at this time. Entering the mountains and forests.
The combat mission of the special operations group is not to clear out fishermen and farmers from house to house. Since no evidence of organized armed forces has been found on the island, there is no need to stay on Naru Island anymore. A group of people came and went in a hurry. It took less than two hours from landing to leaving the island. But during this period, the islanders who died at gunpoint because of resistance could only consider themselves unlucky.
A few hours later, the battle started on Zhongtong Island, and he finally met his true master. The coalition fleet discovered two warships trying to leave the harbor in the bay north of Zhongtong Island, and then quickly and without ceremony sank them less than one mile from the coast with artillery fire.
The sailors on the ship discovered that there was a huge disparity in strength between the two sides. They were unable to resist the bombardment from the sea. They quickly chose to jump off the ship and escape, abandoning the warship that had begun to take on water and sink.
However, the coalition fleet did not leave after killing these two warships. Instead, it immediately organized a landing and conducted a raid on the port town here. Although the battle that ensued was not too fierce, it finally got the men of the special operations group to be energetic and deal with it seriously.
There were about a hundred armed men huddled in the town, using muskets, bows and arrows and other weapons to attack the Haihan army trying to invade the town. However, their defense methods were too single, and their battle lines lacked depth. After being attacked by the Haihan Army's concentrated fire, they quickly lost coordination.
It took about ten minutes for the two sides to engage in battle. The Haihan Army tore through the opponent's weak defense line, invaded the town, cut apart the opponent's combat units, and then annihilated them separately.
At this stage of the war, the gap in military quality and combat experience between the army and civilian armed forces became even more prominent. The special operations group was very familiar with this combat method of cutting up the enemy's formation, while the resisting side had no corresponding combat plan at all. After discovering that enemies appear on one's flanks or even in the rear, one becomes panicked, fearing that he will be surrounded by his opponents and unable to concentrate on fighting.
When fighting an elite force like the Haihant Chapter, once their confidence and focus begins to waver, it will only be a matter of time before they are defeated.
While the Ming army on Fukue Island was still searching for the next target, the battles on Naru Island and Nakadori Island had ended one after another. However, in addition to the stronger combat effectiveness of the Haihan Special Forces Group, this is also related to the specific conditions on each island. If the tasks of the two sides are exchanged and the special operations group is responsible for clearing the enemies on Fujiang Island, then they The operation efficiency of the Ming army will not be much higher than that of the Ming army, and it will not take too much time for the Ming army to attack the ports of Naru Island and Nakadori Island.
The special operations group captured a total of more than 40 people in the ports and towns of Zhongtong Island. After these prisoners were gathered at the port for surprise interrogation, they were detained on several troop carriers. Haihan did not intend to stay on the island for too long. From the confessions of the prisoners, he learned that there were not many enemies on the island. Most of them had been destroyed by Haihan in the previous battle, and those who escaped had actually been killed. It is no longer enough to pose a threat to the coalition fleet.
These people who escaped will definitely find a way to notify Hirado, so the troops must be quick. The coalition fleet must try its best to launch an attack on Hirado Island before Hirado receives the alert. Moreover, there are not many resources on the Five Islands Islands, and there is basically no danger to defend, so Haihan has no interest in occupying these places. He evacuated voluntarily after clearing the targets and eliminating hidden dangers.
From the northernmost Nakadori Island of the Goto Islands to the southernmost tip of Hirado Island, the voyage in between is only more than forty miles. With the sailing speed of the Haihan Fleet, this voyage can be completed in less than half a day.
(End of chapter)