Chapter 3257
It seemed like a good idea to encircle Liyang, which was easy to defend but difficult to attack, and attack Yingtian Mansion in the north first, but Shi Diwen did not agree with this idea.
If the nail in Liyang is not removed first, even if the Haihan Army advances the front to Yingtian Mansion, its logistics supplies will inevitably still be under the threat of the Liyang defenders.
What's more, Nanjing City in Yingtian Mansion is a large city that has been built for thousands of years by successive dynasties. The city defenses are extremely strong and there is relatively sufficient time to mobilize reinforcements. It is not the same as these small county towns that can be blasted away by artillery fire alone.
The intelligence possessed by Shi Diwen showed that Nanjing City has been strengthening its city defense projects in recent years. Obviously, the other party also knew that the battle with Haihan would break out sooner or later, and had done a lot of preparations in advance.
Even with the strength of the Haihan Army, Shi Diwen believed that it was unlikely to capture Nanjing in a short period of time, and that the stalemate might last for a long time. It was unrealistic to capture Nanjing first and then turn around to persuade the Liyang defenders to surrender.
Only by capturing Liyang first and eliminating worries can we concentrate all resources to attack Nanjing.
Shi Chengwu's understanding of the battle situation was obviously closer to Shi Diwen's idea. As for whether the plan of using boats to build a pontoon on the moat to launch an siege was feasible, this was a minor issue in Shi Diwen's opinion.
As the commander-in-chief of an army, it is most important to set goals and control the overall situation. Specific tactics and implementation are issues that frontline commanders need to consider. This is also the consciousness that Shi Diwen has instilled in Shi Chengwu since he was a child.
Shi Diwen is already over fifty years old, and the time he can still lead troops to fight will be less and less. The armed force under his command, which has spent countless efforts and financial resources to build, will be delivered sooner or later. It is impossible for people to be selfish. He has been in charge of the Donghai Region for so many years, and of course he hopes to hand over this powerful army to his descendants.
Only when Shi Chengwu could inherit his strategic thinking could Shi Diwen dare to slowly hand over military power to him. This matter is far more valuable to Shi Diwen than a small county town.
However, compared with the northern region and the surrounding South China Sea, where wars are frequent, the East China Sea region has not seen many military operations in recent years, and there are not many opportunities for Shi Chengwu to gain military exploits. Therefore, during this attack on the Ming Dynasty, Shi Diwen specially brought Shi Chengwu with him, letting him participate in decision-making as a combat staff officer, and taking this opportunity to accumulate some valuable experience in commanding large-scale battles.
While the land route was smoothly advancing northward, the Haihan Fleet led by Yan Chujie was also advancing steadily on the Yangtze River.
This fleet, which sailed upstream from Zhoushan along the Yangtze River, concentrated almost 80% of the main battle force of the East China Sea Fleet. The fleet not only includes the East China Sea Fleet's most powerful Glory-class lead ship Zhoushan, but also several warships that came back across the ocean from the Sasebo base in Japan to participate in the operation.
This is also the first war that the Zhoushan has officially participated in since it entered service. Although putting this kind of naval battleship into inland warfare is a bit overkill, it also shows how seriously Shi Diwen attaches importance to this war.
Compared with the Haihan fleet, which has strong ships and cannons, the Ming Dynasty's surface armed forces focus more on quantity, which also echoes its current situation.
Since Haihan almost completely controlled the coastline, the Ming Navy was forced to give up the fight for sea power and instead concentrated its resources on developing the river fleet to defend against Haihan, its only water-based opponent.
Compared with the Haihan battleships, which are becoming larger and larger, the warships of the Daming Navy still maintain the traditional style. Most of the warships have a small displacement, in order to obtain seaworthiness on various inland waterways. Capacity and flexibility.
However, the small size of the ship means that the weapons and equipment it can carry are limited. When facing the large Haihan battleship equipped with a large number of artillery, the disadvantage is very obvious.
In order to make up for this shortcoming, the only way Ming Dynasty could adopt was to expand the size of its naval fleet as much as possible and use quantity to make up for quality. If necessary, adopting ant colony tactics may be enough to fight. Small and fast warships such as the Net Shuttle Ship, Eagle Ship, Red Dragon Boat, Cangshan Ship, and Wheel Boat are all built with this tactical thinking in mind. During the war, hundreds of ships were dispatched at once and launched a siege in a melee mode on the river, using numbers to share the enemy's firepower.
The environment of inland river warfare is different from that of the sea. The formulation of tactics is closely related to the flow direction and hydrological conditions of the river. The party located upstream will have a certain advantage. This is one of the few conditions that the Ming navy can take advantage of.
The tactics used by warships such as mother-child ships, serial ships, and fire dragon ships are to take advantage of the upstream to set fire to part of the detachable hull or place explosives to impact enemy ships downstream.
The Ming army spent a lot of effort to develop such a special combat method, which can be said to be tailor-made for the opponent Haihan Army.
However, this tactic itself will also be limited by the objective environment. For example, it is not suitable in open waters with gentle currents, and the effect will be greatly reduced. Therefore, the choice of the battle location is also very important.
In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River east of Zhenjiang, the width of the river is often three to four miles. If we confront the Haihan Fleet in this environment, it will be like a moth flying into a flame.
Therefore, after entering the Yangtze River, the Haihan Fleet encountered little resistance. The ships of the Ming Navy only followed a few miles upstream, marching upstream simultaneously with the Haihan Fleet.
However, Yan Chujie still did not dare to be careless. He knew that although the Ming navy was only capable of three axes, it would still hit someone if it was used unexpectedly, so he had to take precautions.
During the fleet's march upstream, several reconnaissance speedboats were sent forward along the river bank to ensure that no Ming navy navy would hide in river branches, river beaches, fishing ports and other places to conduct sneak attacks.
"Sir, after passing the mouth of Jiajiang River, you will enter the Zhenjiang River Section."
Yan Chujie nodded and said: "I understand. Send my order, send the signal, reduce the speed of the entire fleet, and enter the second level of combat readiness."
The Jiajiang River is less than a hundred miles long. It is not a complete river, but a narrow waterway between Taipingzhou and the south bank of the Yangtze River, hence the name Jiajiang.
Originally, Jiajiang and Taipingzhou belonged to Zhenjiang. However, when the two countries signed an armistice agreement last time, the demarcation of this area was involved. At Haihan's insistence, this section of the Yangtze River including Jiajiang was included. It was assigned to Yangzhou Prefecture controlled by Haihan.
At that time, this stroke was drawn on the map, and nearly half of Changzhou Prefecture on the south bank of the Yangtze River was allocated to Suzhou in the east, which was under the rule of Haihan.
After traveling hundreds of miles upstream from the Yangtze River's estuary, we arrived at the Ming Dynasty's first line of defense on the Yangtze River. According to the intelligence seized by the Military Intelligence Bureau, the Ming Navy had at least two military ports in Zhenjiang, with more than a hundred warships of various types and thousands of naval personnel. Presumably they would not sit back and watch the Haihan Fleet pass through here safely.
(End of chapter)