Chapter 2115

Xu Yuzhuo held up the telescope with both hands and carefully observed the sea conditions ahead through the eyepiece. Not far away was the Izuki Strait formed between Hirado Island and Izuki Island to the northwest. The naval fleet passed through this strait with a width of less than two miles.

After that, you should be able to see the destination of this operation, the common entrances and exits of the two bays, Boxiang Bay and Gujiang Bay.

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 several small boats docked in the fishing port. Such small fishing boats

It is true that it will not pose any actual threat to the fleet, but in theory, it can complete the transportation of personnel and materials between Hirado Island and Izuki Island, and the coalition command has already determined before the operation that the Hirado Domain "Katahano"

"Do not go to sea" strategy, so Xu Yuzhuo would not let go of these seemingly harmless civilian ships.

After the vanguard 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 stage, Haihan army was the main force on the battlefield. In recent years, the Fujian Navy

His strength has increased significantly, and Xu Yuzhuo is not willing to continue to play the role of instigating the Haihan people on the battlefield. What's more, this time his opponent happens to be his old enemy many years ago. He hopes to personally eliminate the remaining members of Shibazhi, so that

The Haihan people had 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, which is not humane to outsiders. 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 in 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 various military operations conducted by Haihan 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, this combat operation to attack the Hirado Domain falls into this category. Xu Xinsu cannot sit back and watch the Shiba Shiba grow again overseas. She must

Sending troops to Japan to solve this major problem. As for whether they can make profits locally after the war, it is no longer among their considerations.

But there is no upper limit on the amount of money spent on war. As long as the troops are deployed, the money spent every day is like running water. What's more, Fujian has dispatched thousands of troops to fight overseas this time.

The minimum military expenditure of Japan was tens of thousands of taels of silver, and Xu Xinsu could not imitate the Haihan people in issuing their own currency. After all, the military budget in his pocket was limited, so he could only try to shorten the combat cycle to save expenses.

Although Xu Xinsu did not give Xu Yuzhuo a fatal order within how many days to complete the mission, she also explained the situation to him and asked him to end the combat mission as soon as possible within his capabilities. However, it seems that it is a bit difficult to achieve this goal at present.

, the combat efficiency of the infantry 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, it will be more uncomfortable for the Fujian Ming Army to continue to consume.

"I hope these bastards can come out and die soon..." Regarding the current situation, Xu Yuzhuo could not come up with any effective solution. He could only secretly pray that his opponent would show up on his own initiative.

The naval fleet arrived at the entrance of the bay quietly 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 battle.

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 fort of the Kaihan battleship, 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 single step into Hirado Port. Such a record was already considered excellent.

But Tagawasuke also did not dare to be careless. Although the Han leaders under his command were very familiar with the style of the Kaihan Army, almost all of them had been defeated by the Kaihan Army and had never won a victory. The current Hirado Domain is composed of

With such a group of people responsible for commanding operations, anything can happen before the opponent retreats.

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,

The landing will probably be moved to other locations on the island, and 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

Withdrawing troops so quickly would most likely just change the location of the attack. Once the battle location moves to land, our side may not be able to draw a draw with the Haihan Army.

At this time, the vanguard of the Fujian Navy had slowly sailed into the coast of 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 coastal defenses built in the bay to resist landings. The only thing that worries the coalition forces is

The question is whether the Hirado clan 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 Hoshika Bay, and the place where cannons are cast called Kagawa is located 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 also 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 opened wide.

Xu Yuzhuo originally thought that even if the East China Sea Fleet feints to attract the enemy's attention in the direction of Hirado Port, the Hirado clan will not completely give up its alert on the western front. At least some armed warships should be deployed in this direction, or enter 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 another 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 was rejected 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. And once its main fleet was exposed, the Western Route Army would also

You can immediately contact the Eastern Route Army by telegraph to bypass the northern end of Hirado Island and come for reinforcements. By then, whoever captures who is captured may have to be transferred over.

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 would start a few hours earlier today.

A feint attack was launched at Hirado Port. It is possible that the Hirado clan had transferred all available troops to the east coast to prepare for the Haihan 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 party had other conspiracies.

, the coalition forces can also defeat the opponent head-on.

Surrounded by more than forty naval warships, more than ten landing troop transports 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. It was not 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 place was indeed one of the places where the Hirado clan built warships, but now there are no completed warships here, so it was obviously 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, and still followed the standard landing procedures. After landing, they first sent out reconnaissance teams to the periphery to act as guards. 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 land on the island also need to carry a lot of individual supplies, including rifles, ammunition, and auxiliary weapons.

Bayonets and daggers, one-day individual soldier rations, drinking water, trauma medicine and bandages, equipment backpacks, etc. These bits and pieces of equipment and supplies totaled nearly twenty kilograms.

This does not include sleeping bags, tents, cooking utensils, medical tools, ammunition supplies, spare weapons, fresh food, etc. that are transported uniformly by logistics. In addition, squads, companies, and battalions at all levels will also carry heavy weapons with various destructive powers.

, ranging from grenades to field artillery. All these materials need to be unloaded on the shore first, and then continuously transported to the forward 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.

.So even though he encountered no resistance from the defenders during the landing, Takahashi Minami 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 of this operation. Destroying local facilities is secondary, but more important.

The purpose is to capture all relevant technical personnel to prevent the spread of these ordnance technologies within 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. However,

Obviously these armed men were not well-trained professional soldiers. Perhaps they were too nervous and rashly launched their attack when the Haihan Army was still out of range, thus exposing their whereabouts.

Then their hiding place was attacked by concentrated fire. The bamboo and wood shacks were unable to withstand the fire of rifle bullets, and the resisters hiding inside were quickly shot one after another.
Chapter completed!