Chapter 2115
Xu Yuzhuo held up the telescope with both hands and carefully observed the sea situation ahead through the eyepiece. Not far away is the Izuki Strait formed between Hirado Island and Ikitsuki Island to the northwest. After the naval fleet passes through this strait, which is less than two miles wide, it should be able to see the destination of this operation. The two bays, Xiangwan and Gujiangwan, have a common entrance and exit.
The fleet found a small fishing port at the southern end of Shengyue Island. Although there were no combat ships docked here, for the sake of caution, Xu Yuzhuo ordered two warships to be separated to deal with the few small boats docked in the fishing port. This kind of small fishing boat does not pose any actual threat to the fleet, but in theory it can complete the transportation of personnel and materials between Hirado Island and Ikutsuki Island, and the coalition command has already determined before the operation that Hirado Island Hu Fan's combat strategy of "no sails can go to sea", so Xu Yuzhuo will not let go of these seemingly harmless civilian ships.
After the leading troops successfully passed through the Shengyue Strait, they sent out a flag to inform Xu Yuzhuo's flagship that there were no suspicious targets in the open sea ahead. This news made Xu Yuzhuo slightly relieved, but inevitably a little disappointed.
Being able to successfully escort the Haihant Battle Group to land in the target area is certainly a great achievement, but it would be even better if the main force of the enemy's armed fleet could be found in this sea area. After all, that is what the Fujian Navy came all the way to fight here. Main goal.
At that time, the Ming army under Xu Xinsu was able to defeat the flourishing Shibazhi, mostly with the help of Haihan. Even in several decisive battles in the final stages, Haihan's army was the main force on the battlefield. In recent years, the strength of the Fujian Navy has increased significantly, and Xu Yuzhuo is not willing to continue to play the role of attacking the Haihan people on the battlefield. What's more, this time the opponent happens to be an old enemy many years ago, and he hopes to destroy it with his own hands. The remnants of the Shibazhi gave the Haihan people a clearer understanding of the combat effectiveness of the Fujian Ming Army.
Of course, there is another reason why Xu Yuzhuo is so eager to fight. That is, the Fujian side is far less able to withstand the financial and material resources consumed by the battle than Haihan. The expeditionary force needs to fight as quickly as possible to save war expenses.
Although Xu Xinsu controls the foreign trade industry of a province and earns a lot of money every year, his power is based on a strong private armed force. Just maintaining the daily operation of these troops requires a huge annual expenditure. number. In order to maintain a close relationship with Haihan as a military ally, Fujian will also actively send troops to participate in Haihan's various military operations overseas, and the costs required are even more staggering.
Some of these actions can slowly recoup the cost of the action through the long-term benefits obtained afterwards. For example, last year, when it sent troops to North Korea to participate in the war, Fujian obtained a franchise right to trade with North Korea, and can gain considerable profits from future cross-border trade. income.
There are some actions where economic gains cannot be a priority. For example, the combat operation against the Hirado Domain falls into this category. Xu Xinsu cannot just sit back and watch the Shiba Shiba grow again overseas. Send troops to Japan to solve this serious problem. As for whether they can make profits from the local area after the war, it is no longer among their considerations.
But there is no upper limit on how much money can be spent on things like war. As long as the troops leave, the money spent every day is like running water. What's more, Fujian sent thousands of troops to fight overseas this time, and the minimum daily military expenditure was tens of thousands of taels of silver. It was impossible for Xu Xinsu to imitate the Haihan people and issue their own currency. After all, the military budget in his pocket was limited. We can only try to shorten the combat cycle to save costs.
Although Xu Xinsu did not give Xu Yuzhuo a fatal order within how many days to complete the mission, he also explained the situation to him and asked him to end the combat mission as soon as possible within his capabilities. But it seems that it is a bit difficult to achieve this goal at present. The infantry's combat efficiency on Fujiang Island is very low, and the navy has not yet found traces of the opponent's main fleet. Once the war is dragged into a stalemate, the Fujian Ming army will consume It will be more uncomfortable if you go down.
"I hope these bastards can come out and die soon..." Regarding the current situation, Xu Yuzhuo couldn't come up with any effective solution. He could only secretly pray that his opponent would show up on his own initiative.
The naval fleet quietly arrived at the entrance of the bay in the afternoon. At the same time, in the Hirado Port area on the east side of the island, which was only ten miles away, the artillery battle between the two sides had entered its third round, but the frequency of the artillery fire was still the same. Much slower than in the morning.
At this time, there were as many as five warships in the East China Sea Fleet that had withdrawn from the line of fire after being damaged. Fortunately, the damage to the hulls was not too serious, and there were no serious injuries such as broken masts or water intrusion that could not be repaired at sea. , so Shi Diwen could still maintain a calm attitude and continue to watch the game.
The losses on the Hirado Domain's side seemed to be even smaller. Except for one fort that was unlucky enough to be directly hit by the Kaihan warship's fort, there were no major casualties in other places due to this artillery battle. In addition, after half a day of fighting, Haihan did not even take a step into Hirado Port. Such a record is already excellent.
But Tagawasuke also did not dare to be careless. Although the Han leaders under his command were very familiar with the behavior of the Haihan Army, almost all of them had been defeated by the Haihan Army and had never won a victory. The current Hirado Domain has such a group of people in charge of commanding operations. Before the opponent withdraws their troops, anything can happen.
Tagawa Suke now hopes that the coastal defenses in charge of Lu Yuanlong can delay the landing of the Haihan Army in Hirado Port as much as possible, but he also knows that this method alone cannot repel the Haihan Army, and after the opponent's long-term attack without results, It will probably be moved to other locations on the island to implement landings. By then, there will be no shore defenses like Hirado Port to stop the opponent.
Therefore, Tagawasuke's mentality at this time was somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, he hoped that Kaihan's army would retreat after several artillery battles and quickly give up the idea of attacking the Hirado Domain; on the other hand, he was worried that if Kaihan's army If we retreat so quickly, it is very likely that we will just change the location of the attack. Once the battle location moves to land, our side may not be able to draw a tie with the Haihan Army.
At this time, the vanguard of the Fujian Navy had slowly sailed into the northwest coast of Hirado Island. Furukou Bay, which is concave to the south, and Boxiang Bay, which is concave to the east, share the same entrance and exit. The inland southeast side of the angle formed by the bay is the most prosperous urban area of Hirado Port.
The area of these two bays is dozens of times that of Hirado Port. Therefore, in addition to the channel at the mouth of the bay, there is no need to worry too much about the large number of shore defenses built in the bay to resist landings. The only thing that worries the coalition forces is whether the Hirado Domain has deployed its armed fleet in these two bays.
According to Amakusa Shiro's last reconnaissance in Hirado, there is at least one shipyard for building warships in Hoxiang Bay, and the place called Kagawa that casts artillery is also in a ravine not far from the shipyard. It would not be surprising at all if there is an armed fleet in the bay waiting for the arrival of the Fujian Navy.
However, after the navy's reconnaissance sailboats split into the two bays and quickly circled around, they did not find the expected armed fleet. It was obvious that the enemy did not use this place as a fleet station. "Are you too brave to leave the back door wide open like this?" Xu Yuzhuo was a little surprised after receiving the report. He had studied the map repeatedly before and confirmed that the geographical location of these two bays was very important. As long as After the occupation, the city of Hirado was like a door wide open.
Xu Yuzhuo originally thought that even if the East China Sea Fleet feigned attacks in the direction of Hirado Port to attract the enemy's attention, the Hirado clan would not completely give up its alert on the western front. At least some armed warships should be deployed in this direction, or they should be deployed before entering the bay. Coast defense forts were built on both sides of key waterways.
But now it seems that either the Hirado clan had no time to deploy defensive measures on the west coast of the island and deliberately resorted to an empty city strategy; or the strategic awareness was too poor and they did not realize that the Kaihan Army might launch a surprise attack from this direction.
Of course, there is also a theoretical possibility, which is to deliberately leave this place empty and wait for the coalition forces to attack. After the coalition fleet sails into the harbor, they will then take a back road from the sea to block the entrance of the harbor, giving the coalition forces a trap.
However, the possibility of this last situation has been denied by the generals at yesterday's war preparation meeting. Several generals believed that it was impossible for the Hirado clan to deploy such targeted tactics in advance. Moreover, once its main fleet is exposed, the West Route Army can also immediately contact the East Route Army via telegram to bypass the northern end of Hirado Island for reinforcements. At that time, whoever captures who will have to be swapped.
So when the Fujian Navy found that the bay here was empty, Xu Yuzhuo judged that the Hirado Domain no longer had enough troops to deploy to the west coast, and could only focus on defending against the offensive from the direction of the Hirado Strait. In addition, the East China Sea Fleet will launch a feint attack at Hirado Port a few hours earlier today. It is possible that the Hirado Domain has transferred all available troops to the east coast to prepare for the Kaihan Army to launch a landing battle on the east coast.
"According to the original plan, occupy the target area and cover the landing of the special forces." Xu Yuzhuo didn't want to think about how the Hirado clan left such a big loophole at the moment. He just needed to implement the original combat plan. Even if the other side has any other conspiracy, the coalition forces can defeat the opponent head-on.
Surrounded by more than forty naval warships, more than ten landing troop transport ships carrying the Haihan Independent Regiment slowly sailed into Boxiang Bay and docked next to the shipyard under the stunned gaze of the locals. fishing port pier. It wasn't until the Haihan soldiers on board jumped ashore holding two-color flags that the locals finally realized the purpose of these large ships and fled inland in fear.
Takahashi Minami set foot on Hirado Island, but he didn't feel any excitement about returning to his homeland. He just looked at the dock not far away with a little regret, where there was only one ship that was about half of the construction progress. It seems that this was indeed one of the places where the Hirado clan built warships, but now there are no completed warships here, and it is obvious that they were transferred away from this place in advance.
However, this reduces the trouble for the special operations group's landing operations. Such a situation of swaggering and successfully landing behind enemy lines without firing a single shot is also rare in the history of special operations groups.
But even so, the special operations group was not careless at all. They still followed the standard landing procedures. After landing, they first dispatched a reconnaissance team to the periphery to act as a guard. The troops that landed first began to use the materials on the dock to build a beachhead position and gradually transferred the combat materials on the ship. Transferred ashore.
Although the combat effectiveness of the special operations group is strong, it is also very dependent on the supply of logistical supplies. In addition to rifles, soldiers who fight on the island also need to carry a lot of individual supplies, including rifle ammunition, secondary weapons bayonets and daggers, one-day individual soldier rations, drinking water, trauma medicine and bandages, and equipment. Backpacks, etc., these pieces of equipment and supplies add up to nearly twenty kilograms.
This does not include sleeping bags, tents, cooking utensils, medical tools, ammunition supplies, spare weapons, fresh food, etc. that are transported by logistics. In addition, squads, platoons, companies and battalions at all levels will also carry various lethal heavy weapons, ranging from grenades to field artillery. All these materials need to be unloaded on the shore first, and then continuously transported to the front troops as the battle line advances.
If the frontline troops advance too fast and the logistics cannot keep up with them in time, there may be a situation where they are fighting a smooth battle but are unable to follow up due to insufficient combat supplies. This is definitely a taboo when fighting in unfamiliar areas. . Therefore, even though he encountered no resistance from the defenders during the landing, Takahashi Nan still followed the standard combat procedures step by step and did not rush into the interior.
After successfully landing at Boxiang Fishing Port, the special operations group did not rush to the east city, but first raided Jingchuan, not far from the fishing port.
According to the information provided by Amakusa Shiro, this place is the location of the Hirado Domain's weapons workshop for steel smelting and artillery casting. It must be one of the targets to be captured in this operation. Destroying local facilities is secondary, but more importantly, taking down all relevant technical personnel to prevent the spread of these military technologies in Japan.
When entering Jingchuan, the special operations group finally encountered the first wave of resistance after landing. There were about thirty or forty armed men hiding in the house, trying to kill the Haihan soldiers who attacked here with muskets and bows and arrows. But it was obvious that these armed personnel were not well-trained professional soldiers. Perhaps they were too nervous and rashly launched their attack when the Haihan Army was still outside its range, thus exposing their whereabouts.
Then their hiding place came under concentrated fire. The shacks made of bamboo and wood could not stop the rifle bullets, and the resisters hiding inside were quickly shot one after another.
(End of chapter)