Chapter 2127
Although the Tokugawa shogunate has tried every means to weaken Hirado's trade status in recent years, trying to support Nagasaki, which is under the direct control of the shogunate, to gradually replace it, in the Kyushu region, Hirado Port, the traditional trade gateway, is still golden in the eyes of many people. Cornucopia, after all, more than half of Japan's cross-border trade is still completed in Hirado Port, and the richness of it can be imagined.
There are not a hundred but eighty people who want to replace the Matsuura clan. However, the Hirado clan is not a lamb to be slaughtered. Not only does it have a powerful navy, but it has also absorbed many powerful foreign figures in recent years. It has become a vague The most powerful prince in the Kyushu region. Although there were many people who coveted Hirado, most of them were wary of the military power possessed by the Hirado clan and did not dare to openly show hostility.
However, in this extraordinary period, the Hirado clan first experienced a coup and then fell into war. Will there be people with ulterior motives who take advantage of the situation after getting the news? Wei Zhi believes that this must be guarded against. If Tagawa Suke did not leave a reliable armed force for Tagawa Nanzaemon, once the Hirado clan was defeated, it was very likely that external forces would take advantage of this opportunity to seize the rule of Hirado. In particular, the Tokugawa shogunate, which has been coveting Hirado, will probably not miss such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to easily intervene.
Based on this judgment, Wei Zhi did not try again to bring the fleet to the vicinity of Hirado Island to participate in the battle. Instead, he decided to give priority to preserving his strength in order to escort Tagawa Nanzaemon back to take over Hirado after the war.
There is no right or wrong decision made by Wei Zhi. He does not know the current battle situation on Hirado Island, and a rash attack may indeed result in losing everything. However, in this way, the East China Sea Fleet, which is responsible for launching offensives from the sea, saves a lot of trouble and can concentrate its firepower on the port and coastal defenses whose firepower has been greatly reduced.
Lu Yuanlong, who is responsible for commanding the port defense line, is also having a hard time. In addition to the several artillery pieces ordered by Tagawa to be transferred to the southern defense line, many artillery pieces deployed at the port have been damaged in the fierce exchanges in the past two days. status.
Not all of them were destroyed by the artillery fire of the East China Sea Fleet. Although the cannons cast by the Hirado Domain themselves can be used normally, due to technical and material limitations, these cannons still have a certain gap in performance and service life compared with imported products. .
If these artillery were only equipped to the feudal army as a treasure to suppress the army, and occasionally pulled out to show their strength during armed conflicts with external forces, or to perform some low-intensity combat missions, these Hirado-made artillery would certainly be enough. competent. But if it is used for high-intensity combat and fires nearly a hundred rounds of artillery shells every day, its quality is quickly exposed.
Some artillery fired only a few dozen rounds before cracks began to appear in the barrels. On the afternoon of the first day of the battle, the barrels of the artillery exploded. Lu Yuanlong had to replace the cracked artillery pieces with spare parts one by one to prevent the limited number of gunners under his command from suffering further unnecessary losses.
In addition, the consumption rate of ammunition stocks has far exceeded Lu Yuanlong's prediction before the war. Even if Haihan does not launch a general offensive and fights an artillery battle with such intensity for one or two days, the artillery deployed at the port will not have a useful life even if it is still there. The ammunition will continue to fight the Haihan fleet. Moreover, because Kagawa's weapons workshop was destroyed by Kaihan, the Hirado clan army could no longer obtain ammunition supplies from the weapons workshop for the time being. This meant that the clan army would soon have to rely on cold weapons and the navy, all equipped with muskets. The Han army fought hard.
If the war situation reaches that point, Lu Yuanlong actually knows what the result will be for the Hirado clan army. He has already experienced a similar situation a few years ago when he was still in Hachishiba, and he still remembers it to this day. mind.
But at this time, both the retreat route from the land to the south and the evacuation from the sea have been cut off by the Haihan Army. Lu Yuanlong also knows that there is no other choice now. Since surrender is impossible, the only option is to fight to the end.
Tagawasuke personally went to the south of the city to supervise the battle. Lu Yuanlong will be fully responsible for the defense of Hirado Port. But to be honest, he has no good means of fighting now. He can only try to save the ammunition on hand and delay Haihan's maritime offensive as much as possible. This allowed Tagawasuke to concentrate on dealing with the enemy's offensive on land.
According to the battle plan, the East China Sea Fleet arrived at the scheduled battlefield first. This is already the third day that Shi Diwen led his troops to attack Hirado Port. He has almost mastered the positions and firing ranges of various forts in the port, so he does not intend to make any reservations today, and is ready to let the two majestic ships -class battleships join the battle.
Among the three levels of warships of the East China Sea Fleet: exploration, exploration, and majesty, due to hull structure and cost issues, only the majesty class deploys two new breech guns with a longer range on each side of the sides and can also take into account land attacks. Naval gun.
The cost and ammunition value of this thing are much higher than the old muzzle-loading naval guns, but because the manufacturing process is more complicated, the actual production capacity is very limited, and it is unlikely to be supplied to the military in large quantities in the short term. Shi Diwen also thought of many ways before ordering eight cannons from Haihan Ordnance. To this end, Baikes also specially sent a group of technicians from Sanya to escort these guns to Zhoushan, where they were installed on two Majesty-class warships of the East China Sea Fleet, and the sailors operating these guns were inspected for two months. training.
Shi Diwen spent a lot of effort to obtain these cannons. He regarded them as a secret weapon of the East China Sea Fleet. This Eastern Expedition to Hirado was the first time these cannons were used in battle. However, the battles in the past few days did not actually give these new cannons a chance to fully demonstrate their strength. Including yesterday when two warships were chasing the Hirado Navy, these cannons were not activated because Shi Di Wen believed that his opponent was too weak and there was no need to waste precious ammunition on the Anzhai ship of the Hirado Navy.
Through watching the battle in the past two days, Shi Diwen was able to basically confirm that the secret weapons on the Majestic-class battleships were not much different from the coastal defense guns in the port in terms of range, so he was ready to put them into use in today's battle.
Lu Yuanlong, who was commanding the battle at the port, saw that the two huge warships came to the front row today instead of just watching the battle from a distance like the previous two days, and he had a vague premonition of something bad.
However, although there were densely packed naval guns deployed on the sides of these two large ships, they did not fire all of them like other Haihan warships. Instead, they fired sporadically, as if they were conducting some kind of test.
Lu Yuanlong would not simply think that the opponent's move was just to test the firepower or confirm the effective range. He learned artillery tactics from the Portuguese, so he naturally understood that his opponent had already figured out the deployment of the forts in the port area through the previous two days of fighting. , and there is no need to repeat it slowly at this time. He quickly understood the purpose of the Haihan Army's move. Although the firing frequency of the two large ships was low, their accuracy was much better than the artillery battle of the previous two days. They had not fired ten guns in total. One shell accurately hit a coastal defense battery, blowing away the artillery and several gunners. It was obvious that the shooting accuracy of this large ship was higher than that of the warships that had been put into battle in the previous two days, and the battlefield information collected by the opponent before was not really put to use until now.
Since the fire reconnaissance in the previous two days was sufficient, the bombardment targets of the two Majestic-class warships were also very clear. Starting from the forts outside Hirado Port, they were named one by one with artillery shells. Moreover, the two ships maintain a very good fighting distance and will not put themselves within the cross-fire range of the port's coastal anti-aircraft guns. There may be only one or two guns on the coast with the maximum range that can reach them. Although the coastal defense artillery has its own advantages, it is difficult to exert its power as in the previous two days under the careful response of the opponent.
Relying on precise calculations and control, the two ships steadily harvested the coastal defense forts at a rate of one shot per minute. Although the advance was slow, the progress was visible to the naked eye. Lu Yuanlong saw that the fort on the shore was accurately hit by the opponent, but he could not come up with a way to counterattack, and he secretly felt desperate at the moment.
Lu Yuanlong recalled that the Shibazhi were in a similar situation when they challenged the Haihan Army and the Xu Family Army in Penghu. Although the brothers were determined to fight to the death, they were unable to fight back in the face of the opponent's firepower, and eventually fell into despair step by step. in a situation.
"Assemble the peasants and soldiers. If the enemy wants to land at Hirado Port, we must fight to the death to stop them!" Lu Yuanlong knew that it was only a matter of time before the coastal defense forts were eliminated by the opponent, and almost all the elites of the feudal army were transferred to the southern defense line. He now only has more than a hundred artillerymen stationed in the port area and more than a thousand peasant soldiers left to him by Tagawa Suke. If the opponent wants to force a landing at the port, he will have no choice but to pull all his men out and fight. Although this is only a resistance measure that is better than nothing.
Lu Yuanlong did not have the slightest confidence in these people. Most of them had already turned pale when they heard the rumble of artillery fire on land and sea. It was impossible to expect them to go there with the bamboo spears and hatchets in their hands. Fight the enemy tooth and nail. Once the enemy lands at Hirado Port, these peasants and soldiers are likely to disperse in a rush, and even sending a supervising team to escort them may not be effective.
However, the opponent's actions were really unpredictable. After destroying five or six forts, the two warships slowly and leisurely left the battlefield. Lu Yuanlong could only guess that maybe the opponent needed to replenish ammunition, so he took the initiative to retreat. However, he did not dare to be careless at all, and quickly ordered people to count the losses of the shore defenses, and replenish manpower for the forts where casualties occurred but the artillery could still be used.
At this time, only about one-third of the artillery in the port's coastal defense battery was still able to barely operate. Lu Yuanlong knew that at this time, the enemy fleet could only swarm up and launch a strong attack, and it would be difficult for his own side to prevent them from landing.
At this time, the leading troops of the special operations group had just arrived near the southern defense line of the city. Sun Zhen confirmed the status of the enemy's defense line ahead through his telescope and shook his head disapprovingly.
The opponent's defense deployment was obviously extremely hasty, and they could only rely on private houses on the periphery of the city to establish a defense line. There are fortifications piled up with soil and various debris between some houses. In the gaps where there is no time to build fortifications, the other side just blocks the way with bamboo and wood horses.
Although the positions established by the Haihan Army on the Onomura line also used a large number of bamboo, wood and horses as part of the defenses, the deployment method was obviously different from that of the Hirado Domain Army. The Haihan Army built breastworks and dug trenches behind the bamboo and wood fortifications, and deployed the infantry in them. They had bunkers and could shoot at enemies blocked by the bamboo and wood fortifications. This combat system in which tactics and fortifications complement each other, This was exactly the trait that the Hirado clan army lacked.
However, Sun Zhen did not become careless because of this. He clearly understood that his task was not only to defeat his opponent, but also to achieve the combat goal at the lowest possible cost. The opponent's strength is limited, so there cannot be heavy casualties, otherwise it will be too disappointing for the special team's ace game title.
Sun Zhen used a telescope to carefully examine this line of defense, and found several artillery emplacements that were not too well hidden. It seemed that his opponent was at ease and wanted to have a chance to challenge him here.
Since the opponent deployed artillery on the defense line, Sun Zhen was not in a hurry to launch an offensive, but patiently waited for the field artillery behind him to be in place. In an artillery battle on land, he had never seen anyone compete with the Kaihan Army. Since the Hirado Domain Army was determined to challenge the difficulty, it would be better to give the artillery unit a chance to perform.
What Sun Zhen sees as military exploits, in Tagawasuke's mind, is one of the few available means at hand. If this line of defense still cannot stop the opponent, then the undefendable Hirado City area behind the line of defense will completely fall into the hands of the enemy. Tagawasuke wanted to give himself a little more confidence, but when he saw the enemy troops appearing in the distance, they stopped again. Instead of feeling relaxed, he felt that this was probably because the enemy troops were preparing other means of attack, and the pressure became even greater. .
Sure enough, it didn't take long before several artillery pieces dragged by military horses arrived at the front line. After Sun Zhen introduced the battlefield conditions to the artillery company commander, he began to deploy the artillery to combat positions.
Tagawa Suke relaxed a little when he saw that the several cannons that appeared on Haihan's position didn't look big, and the barrels didn't seem to be as thick as his own cannons on the position. But he didn't know that although the Haihan Army's field artillery had a small caliber, its range and accuracy were far superior to the Western-style muzzle-loading artillery in his own formation. It would not be his opponent who would suffer in a real attack.
Of course, Tagawasuke was not idle either. Since his opponent was deploying artillery under his nose, he would of course order the gunners to immediately observe the target and take action as early as possible if he could. But the gunner's response made him a little disappointed. The opponent's artillery was located beyond its effective range, and firing now had no benefit other than exposing its firepower.
(End of chapter)