Chapter 2111
Hirado Island has a long and narrow terrain. The distance between the north and south ends is more than 60 miles, but the narrowest point from east to west is less than one mile. The coastline of the entire island is winding and winding, with many bays that can be used to build small ports. However, the ability of the rulers of the Hirado clan in this regard is obviously not comparable to that of infrastructure madmen like Kaihan. To this day, Hirado Port still uses the small ports built many years ago, and some on the island are similar to Hakuawan and Furue. This natural bay, which is really suitable for building a large port, has not been fully developed and utilized.
But for the allied fleet attacking the Hirado Domain, in addition to the key area of Hirado Port located at the northern end of Hirado Island, these bays on the coastline that are capable of berthing large ships must also not be spared. The generals believed that since the Hirado clan already had a batch of launched warships, they were probably deployed in a bay on the island, and they must be cleared to prevent future troubles.
In order to sweep the entire coastline of Hirado Island, the coordinated actions of the coalition fleet are very necessary. The generals need to interpret and respond to the changes in the battlefield together. Therefore, after the fleet completed the rendezvous on the Goto Islands, Qian Tiandun, Shi Diwen and Xu Yuzhuo, who led the Ming army to the battle, have gathered on the same ship and established a wartime headquarters to facilitate real-time communication and coordinate the command of their respective troops for combat.
Also arriving on this majesty-class battleship were military observers from North Korea and Portugal. North Korea sent the young and strong general Shen Xueyi, who had previously participated in the reconnaissance operations of the fleet led by Yuan Zhi in Hirado and Kyushu in the same capacity.
Although North Korea did not directly send troops to participate in the war this time, its high-level officials are very concerned about the progress of the war. If Haihan can teach the Japanese some profound lessons this time, then King Li Zhu and his ministers should be happy See what happens. Because Shen Xueyi was the son of Shen Jingzhen, the military judge, he naturally received more trust than ordinary generals. What he saw and heard while observing the battle could be directly fed back to the high-level officials of the court in the future, allowing decision-makers to have a better understanding of Haihan's military plan. Action has a clearer understanding.
The representative of Portugal is Simang, who is already very familiar with the Haihan military. He is an old acquaintance with the generals who commanded the operation. However, the target of this operation is not convenient for Portugal, so he did not The army was sent to fight with Haihan as in the past, and Simang was only allowed to follow the coalition fleet as an observer.
Rather than saying that Simang came to watch the war, it was better to say that he came to protect the interests of the Portuguese businessmen in Japan. There are still some Portuguese who have settled there for a long time in Hirado and Nagasaki, and these people are the main executors of trade between Portugal and Japan. The war launched by Haihan may inevitably affect the lives and lives of these Portuguese expatriates. work, and Simang can protect these expatriates from being directly involved in the war when necessary, and can even ask the coalition forces to provide some necessary protection for their own expatriates.
But what will happen after the war? Simang currently does not have a more precise judgment. He only hopes that the trade between his country and Japan will not be completely ended because of this war. It took decades for the pair to operate In the current situation, Portugal will suffer a relatively serious loss.
Although the Tokugawa shogunate disliked the Portuguese who liked to preach and the Portuguese trade environment in Japan was already quite bad, they were still unwilling to give up Japan as a trading partner. If possible, Simang would like to see if there is an opportunity to stumble the Dutch and attack this competitor's trading organization in Japan.
Of course, as professional soldiers, Shen Xueyi and Ximang were most concerned about the methods the coalition fleet would use against Hirado. From the moment they learned that Kaihan was going to attack the Hirado Domain, they began to calculate how they would launch an attack on Hirado Island if they led their own troops to carry out such an action, and collapse the opponent's resistance in the shortest time, and hunt down and hunt down this group. The goal of the action.
However, when they saw the coalition fleet after rendezvous in the waters of the Five Islands, they realized that the deduction they had done before was actually unnecessary and made the matter too complicated. With the investment of Haihan and the Fujian Ming Army this time, As for the size of the troops, it is enough to land directly at Hirado and push all the way across. There is no need to consider too detailed combat plans.
After that, the information they learned from observing the combat meeting basically confirmed this view. The main consideration of the coalition command was to cut off the channels for the Hirado clan to escape and seek help, and to maximize the main goal of this operation. The Zhiyu Party was trapped on the island, and then carried out encirclement, suppression and annihilation. The tactics they formulated were all centered on this purpose.
Starting from the southern end of Hirado Island, warships in twos and threes have been breaking away from the fleet and sailing to some nearby small bays, separately checking whether there are any enemy warships hiding in these places.
At this time, almost a whole day has passed since the coalition launched an offensive on Fukue Island in the early morning. Dusk is slowly falling. It is not impossible to forcefully rush to Hirado Port to start the battle, but after it turns into a night battle, the advantage the coalition fleet has But it will be a big discount.
This is not because the coalition forces did not consider it carefully when formulating the combat plan. In fact, there were some delays during the execution due to objective reasons such as weather, which caused the coalition forces to arrive at Hirado Island about three hours later than expected. The coalition forces either chose to launch a landing battle overnight, or they waited until dawn the next day before launching an attack.
After some discussion, several generals finally decided not to advance rashly to avoid unnecessary casualties in the night battle. Based on the strength comparison between the two sides, it is undoubtedly much more certain to wait until daytime to launch the attack. Although waiting an extra night may give the other party more time to prepare for war or even escape from Hirado Port, Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen both believe that the Eighteenth Party Party will not escape without a fight and should still fight in peacetime. There is a head-on confrontation.
Five years have passed since the Battle of Miyakojima. The Eighteen Shiba Yu Party has been hiding in the Hirado Domain and operating quietly in the past few years. They should have been waiting for an opportunity for revenge. These people had already escaped once in Miyakojima, and now Haihan has come to visit them again. If they choose to continue to escape, the results of their hard work in Hirado over the past few years will be destroyed again. I'm afraid this tone is unacceptable. So easy to swallow.
The most important thing is that the generals believe that since the Eighteen Shiba Party needs the trust and support of the Hirado Domain, it must show its strength at such a critical moment. If they escape directly, it will make the ruler of the Hirado Domain How to treat them?
Of course, they did not know at this time that the Hirado Domain had undergone tremendous changes recently. The Tagawa clan had replaced the Matsuura clan as the ruler of the Hirado clan, and the armed forces built by Shiba Shiba were now replacing the original clan. The army became the official armed force of the Hirado Domain. Under such circumstances, the Eighteen Zhiyu Party actually has no retreat, and in order to maintain the dominance of the Tagawa clan, they can only risk a fight.
The coalition fleet, which was divided into east and west routes and marched north from both sides of Hirado Island, each found a bay in the middle of the island as a place to spend the night before sunset. The reconnaissance fleet continued to move north under the cover of night to confirm that the enemy would not seize this opportunity to launch a sneak attack.
At this time, in Hirado Port, Tagawa Suke was also discussing with his retainers how to deal with the enemies coming to the door. After Fukue Island was attacked, the local area used flying pigeons to send warning messages back to Hirado, and Tagawasuke received the news at noon. Tagawasuke was not particularly surprised by Kaihan's attack. The various intelligences he had received from the Ming Dynasty before had already indicated that Kaihan was likely to launch a military operation against the Hirado Domain. Now it has only been confirmed. The authenticity of the relevant news.
The Hirado Domain is not a weakling who pokes its neck at the first sign, and the relevant preparations for the war have already started a few days ago. Although everyone does not have high expectations for defeating Haihan, Tagawasuke believes that although it is difficult to defeat the opponent, it may not be impossible to defeat the opponent with the advantage of home court. As long as he is fully prepared, there is no reason to let the opponent defeat him. The Haihan army coming from the sea gained the upper hand.
Of course, he had such thoughts mainly because he had never had direct combat experience with the Haihan Army. His leaders who were born in Shibazhi were not so optimistic. They thought that in their heyday, Shibazhi was beaten to the point where they could no longer take care of themselves by the Haihan Army, which had just appeared on the scene. What's more, a few years later, the Haihan Army had fully proved it with countless battle examples. Their strength is still gradually growing, and their area of activity extends from the South China Sea to the north to the Liaodong Peninsula.
If they had not fled to Hirado, Japan, but somewhere along the northern coast of the Ming Dynasty, they would have died several times at the hands of the Haihan Army. Five years have passed. It is hard to say whether the strength gap between the two sides has continued to widen, but it is absolutely impossible that it has narrowed to the point where they have a chance to defeat the Haihan Army.
But worry is worry, and you definitely can't escape. It took them five years to take over the rule of the Hirado clan, paving the way for the Zheng family's descendants to take over the area in the future. And this was based on the marriage relationship between Zheng Zhilong and the Tagawa family in Hirado, so that Tagawa Jie was willing to make Zheng Zhilong's descendants his heirs in exchange for the support of the Eighteen Shiba Party. If you want to change places and repeat this set of operations in the future, then you simply don’t have such prerequisites.
It is certainly not difficult to escape from Hirado before the Haihan people come, but for them, escaping may mean that there will be no chance for revenge in the rest of their lives. Although the possibility of defeating Haihan was not high, they still had to give it a try and test whether the five years of hard work had achieved the expected results.
Of course, with the experience of fighting in the early years, they would not choose to fight Haihan head-on. The gap in weapons and equipment between the two sides cannot be made up by their brothers fighting to the death. They can only find ways to use their own strengths to attack the other side. short.
Although the Hirado clan has built many warships, the construction technology of these warships is basically the same as that of Shibashiba, except that artillery is installed on the ship. This configuration is indeed more than enough to deal with ordinary ships. It can even compete with the armed sailing ships of Western countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands with its numerical advantage. However, they have to fight the Haihan fleet with fierce firepower, speed, and high defense in a decisive battle at sea. They think the result will be The situation will not be better than the situation five years ago. It is safer to preserve our strength as much as possible. In this way, if the war progresses to an irreversible situation, the remaining maritime power will still have the opportunity to help some people escape Hirado.
Familiarity with the environment of Hirado Island and the surrounding areas was probably one of the few advantages of the Hirado clan, and they decided to take advantage of this condition as much as possible. Since the possibility of defeating Haihan's fleet at sea is slim, the only choice is to place the main battlefield on land - but this happens to coincide with Haihan's idea.
Tagawasuke and his men believed that relying on the mountainous terrain of Hirado Island, the Hirado clan could completely deal with the enemy. Once the defenders are able to drag the situation into a tug-of-war, the Haihan Army, which is fighting across the sea far away from the base camp, will gradually become passive due to supply problems. At that time, if we try to send our own armed fleet to harass Haihan's supply line, maybe the battle situation will develop in a direction that is beneficial to the defenders.
Of course, this strategy is easy to say, but planning the details of the operation, allocating combat tasks, and even commanding on the battlefield during the battle are still a great test of the combat capabilities of the new Hirado Domain army. These old people in Shibazhi know very well that the combat effectiveness of the Haihan Army on land is no worse than that at sea, and they must be dealt with carefully.
Tagawasuke received the news today that the Kaihan fleet had raided Fukue Island, and instead felt a sense of peace of mind that the dust had settled. All the previous uneasiness, speculation, and nervousness turned into excitement before the war with the arrival of this news. Whether the war preparation measures taken in the past few days are effective will soon be tested on the battlefield.
"If the Kaihan Army moves quickly enough, they will arrive at Hirado Port tomorrow. I think they have no intention of negotiating with us, so they will start a war when they meet with the Kaihan Army tomorrow. Everyone, can we fight? Confidence to win? ”
The question raised by Tagawa Suke was really embarrassing. For these retainers who were born in Shibazhi, it was not so easy to say it and win the battle.
But there was actually a dumbfounded person present, and he immediately responded loudly: "Yes!"
The person who responded was none other than Tagawa Kojiro, who had recently been favored by Tagawa Suke. The feudal army he was responsible for reorganizing was not actually the main force in this combat mission, but this did not seem to hinder him from expressing his determination to Tagawa Suke in front of everyone. However, when he took the lead, others of course could no longer remain silent and quickly expressed their attitude, lest Tagawasuke think that he was a person who was afraid of fighting.
Tagawa's face softened slightly, and then he nodded and said: "This fight with the Haihan people is related to the life and death of the Hirado clan. You must fight to the death!"
(End of chapter)