Chapter 3528
Tokugawa Ietsuna's original plan was to make some adjustments to the original battle plan and put the main attack direction as far as possible in areas where the opponent's defenses were relatively weak.
Such an adjustment will inevitably involve a series of reconnaissance operations and troop mobilization, which is basically impossible to complete in a short period of time. The Kyushu Allied Forces have continued to carry out harassment, making it difficult for the shogunate army to smoothly complete the plan adjustment.
The most important thing is that the shogunate has received information that Haihan's support for the Kyushu Allied Forces is becoming more and more obvious. If it continues to be delayed, the situation is likely to develop rapidly in a direction that is unfavorable to the shogunate army.
Tokugawa Ietsuna didn't want to wait and didn't dare to wait any longer, so he could only continue to implement the original plan.
The shogunate army divided its troops into five groups and launched cross-sea landings on many coasts near the Kanmon Strait. The coastline of the entire battle area is dozens of miles long. The shogunate army tried to use this to give full play to its own strength advantage and make the opponent lose sight of one thing.
One of the original attack targets of the shogunate army, Tanohura, has become a camp for a multinational inspection team. In desperation, they had no choice but to change the target to another coast twenty miles south of Tanohura.
At this time, on the decks of several Haihan warships, in addition to the crowds of people actively watching the battle, there were also huge specially made topographic maps of the Kanmon Strait hanging on the sails, and Haihan officers explained the battle situation in real time.
The Haihan Army has deployed multiple observation points on the coast of Kyushu in advance, and communicates with the warships of the inspection team through radio to update the battle situation in various places in real time.
The first one to start was the battlefield closest to the inspection team, the narrowest place in the entire Kanmon Strait.
The narrowest point of the sea here is only about two hundred feet, and even Japan's self-made artillery can cover this distance.
However, the environment here is actually not suitable for landing across the sea. The coasts on both sides of the strait are hilly terrain with steep slopes. It is difficult for large groups of troops to deploy their formations after landing, and they will also be severely hit by condescending enemy firepower.
Therefore, both sides unanimously set up forts on the hills to block this channel.
Although this location itself is not suitable for large troops to land, as long as the commanding heights are controlled, a channel can be cleared for our own ships to cross the sea in the nearby area, so it is also regarded as one of the primary targets by the shogunate army.
Under the cover of land and sea artillery fire, several shogunate warships rushed towards this location from north to south. The coalition forts set up high on the hills were also unambiguous. More than twenty artillery pieces opened fire in unison, smashing the shells at the enemy ships in the strait.
High firepower and low firepower do have an absolute advantage, but the problem is that the artillery owned by the coalition forces are basically muzzle-loading guns provided by Haihan. Although these guns are not small in power, their shooting accuracy and firing frequency are not ideal. Can make up for shortcomings through firepower density.
In just one encounter, at least three shogunate warships were hit. It seemed that the defensive firepower of the Kyushu Allied Forces had indeed had an excellent impact.
When the inspection team watching the battle not far away saw this scene, many people shouted in excitement. Some knowledgeable officers and generals quickly saw the huge hidden dangers on the defender's side.
Simang said to Thomas who was standing next to him: "It is impossible for the Kyushu Allied Forces to repel the shogunate's offensive with those forts."
Thomas was puzzled: "But it seems that the firepower of the Kyushu Allied Forces is clearly superior?" Simang said: "The firing interval of these front-loading cannons is too long, and the strait is too narrow. According to my calculations, the attackers will rush to the other side. During this period, the defenders could only fire two or three rounds, which was completely insufficient to repel the fleet that had rushed into the sea area.”
"Once the attackers successfully land, the defenders will have to allocate part of their firepower to deal with the enemies on the beach, which will make the artillery fire that blocks the waterway even more insufficient. As long as the decline is revealed, the shogunate army on the opposite side will definitely concentrate their efforts on attacking this area."
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Thomas said: "The battle plan of the Kyushu Allied Forces was formulated with the help of the Haihan people. It shouldn't leave such obvious loopholes, right?"
Ximeng nodded and said: "That's right, so I think the defenders should have some plans, let's take a look first and then talk!"
Sure enough, the battle situation turned out as Simang expected. Although the warships of the shogunate army ate a lot of artillery shells, several ships were lucky enough to avoid the artillery fire and successfully docked on the Kyushu side.
After some soldiers jumped off the ship, they had no time to regroup, so they quickly climbed up the hills under the urging of the officers.
But at this time, gunfire rang out in the nearby forest. It turned out that the coalition forces had anticipated such a situation, so they deployed musketeers in the forest at the bottom of the hills specifically to intercept the shogunate troops landing here.
The Kyushu Allied Forces had built bunkers here and were located in a commanding position. They did have a considerable advantage in dealing with the unsteady enemy infantry, and they soon lost all the shogunate troops who landed in the first wave.
However, at the same time, the commander on the other side has obviously discovered that the defensive firepower of this target is not as strong as imagined, and is mobilizing more troop transport ships to move closer to this area, trying to expand the results here.
This trend immediately attracted more coalition warships. Hundreds of ships soon gathered in this sea area, and a melee started.
In such a narrow channel, artillery bombardment from the air is not the only way to engage in combat. In fact, due to cost issues, the warships of both warring parties were not equipped with too many firearms. Even if the ship was purchased from Haihan, the weapons equipped on the ship were far from being fully equipped.
To put it bluntly, both sides still don't pay enough attention to naval battles. They would rather suffer some losses at sea and distribute more powerful artillery to the army. After all, in their view, the final decisive battle must still be fought on land.
Even those warships equipped with artillery will decisively return to traditional combat methods after quickly using up the few ammunition on board, using boarding battles and even gang-hopping battles to attack the enemy.
"It seems that the Kyushu Allied Forces have not learned any real skills from us. They still rely more on primitive tactics."
Seeing the melee between the two armies in the strait, Ning Qi couldn't help but frowned and sighed.
But spectators from other countries may not necessarily think so. The number of warships invested by the two warring parties in the strait has reached more than a hundred so far, and this is only one of the battlefields where the two sides fight.
Just so many warships are enough to scare most countries away. The maritime armed forces possessed by many countries are far from what they see in front of them.
Of course, many people have noticed that both warring parties used a large number of Haihan-style warships and weapons. This shows that Haihan's role in this war was not just to uphold justice, as he claimed. Mediating conflicts is like an arms dealer providing weapons and equipment to both sides at the same time.