Chapter 2111

Hirado Island has a long and narrow terrain. The distance between the north and south ends is more than 60 miles, while the narrowest point from east to west is less than one mile. The coastline of the entire island is winding, and there are many areas that can be used to build small ports.

Bay. However, the ability of the rulers of the Hirado clan in this area is obviously not comparable to that of infrastructure madmen like Kaihan. To this day, Hirado Port still uses the small port built many years ago, and some on the island are similar to Hakuwan.

Natural bays such as Hegujiang Bay, which are truly suitable for building large ports, have not been fully developed and utilized.

But for the coalition fleet attacking the Hirado Domain, in addition to the key area of ​​Hirado Port located at the northern end of Hirado Island, these bays on the coastline that are capable of berthing large ships must also not be ignored. The generals believed that since the Hirado Domain

There are already a number of launched warships, which are likely to be deployed in a certain bay on the island. They must be cleared to prevent future troubles.

In order to sweep the entire coastline of Hirado Island, the coordinated actions of the coalition fleet are very necessary. The generals need to interpret and respond to the changes in the battlefield together. Therefore, after the fleet completed the rendezvous on the Goto Islands, Qian Tiandun,

Shi Diwen and Xu Yuzhuo, who led the Ming army to the battle, have gathered on the same ship and established a wartime headquarters to facilitate real-time communication and coordinate the command of their respective troops for combat.

Also arriving on this majesty-class battleship were military observers from North Korea and Portugal. The one sent by North Korea was General Shen Xueyi of the Young and Strong faction, who had previously joined the ship led by Yuan Zhi in the same capacity.

The team conducted reconnaissance operations in Hirado and Kyushu.

Although North Korea did not directly send troops to participate in the war this time, the high-level officials are very concerned about the progress of the war. If Haihan can teach the Japanese some profound lessons this time, then King Li Zhu and his ministers should be happy

You can see the results. And because Shen Xueyi is the son of Shen Jingzhen, the military judge, he naturally gets more trust than ordinary generals. What he sees and hears while observing the battle can be directly fed back to the high-level officials of the court in the future, so that decision-makers can make decisions about the sea.

Han had a relatively clear understanding of this military operation.

The representative of Portugal is Simang, who is already very familiar with the Haihan military. He is an old acquaintance with several generals who are in charge of the operation. However, the target of this operation is not convenient for Portugal, so he did not

Send troops to fight with Haihan as in the past, and only let Simang follow the coalition fleet as an observer.

Rather than saying that Simang came to watch the war, it is better to say that he came to protect the interests of the Portuguese businessmen in Japan. There are still some Portuguese who have settled there for a long time in Hirado and Nagasaki, and these people are responsible for the war between Portugal and Japan.

The war launched by Haihan, the main executor of trade, may inevitably affect the lives and work of these Portuguese expatriates, and Simang can protect these expatriates from being directly involved in the war when necessary, and can even ask the coalition forces to help them.

Provide some necessary protection to the country's expatriates.

But what the post-war situation will be like, Simang does not have a relatively accurate judgment at present. He only hopes that the trade between his country and Japan will not be completely ended because of this war. It took decades for the couple to develop a business.

In the current situation, Portugal will suffer a relatively serious loss.

Although the Tokugawa shogunate disliked the Portuguese who liked to preach, and the Portuguese trade environment in Japan was already quite bad, they were still unwilling to give up Japan as a trading partner. If possible, Simao would like to see if there is any opportunity for the Netherlands

As a stumbling block, attack this competitor's trading organization in Japan.

Of course, as professional soldiers, Shen Xueyi and Ximang were most concerned about the methods the coalition fleet would use against Hirado. From the moment they learned that Haihan was going to attack the Hirado clan, they began to calculate what would happen if they led their own troops to carry out such a plan.

Action, how to launch an attack on Hirado Island, collapse the opponent's resistance in the shortest possible time, and search and suppress the target of this operation.

However, when they saw the coalition fleet after rendezvous in the waters of the Five Islands, they realized that the deduction they had done before was actually unnecessary, and they thought about the matter too complicated. With the investment of Haihan and the Fujian Ming Army this time,

As for the size of the troops, it is enough to land directly at Hirado and push all the way across. There is no need to consider too detailed combat plans.

After that, the information they learned from observing the combat meeting basically confirmed this view. The main consideration of the coalition command was to cut off the channels for the Hirado clan to escape and seek help, and to maximize the main goal of this operation.

The Zhiyu Party was trapped on the island, and then carried out encirclement, suppression and annihilation. The tactics they formulated were all centered on this purpose.

Starting from the southern end of Hirado Island, warships in twos and threes separated from the fleet and sailed to some nearby small bays, separately checking whether there were any enemy warships hiding in these places.

At this time, almost a whole day has passed since the coalition launched an offensive on Fukue Island in the early morning. Dusk is slowly falling. It is not impossible to forcefully rush to Hirado Port to start a battle, but after it turns into a night battle, the advantage that the coalition fleet has

But it will be a big discount.

This is not because the coalition forces did not consider it carefully when formulating the combat plan. In fact, there were some delays during the execution due to objective reasons such as weather, which caused the coalition forces to arrive at Hirado Island about three hours later than expected. The coalition forces arrived at Hirado Island about three hours later than expected.

Either choose to launch the landing battle overnight, or wait until dawn the next day before launching the attack.

After some discussion, several generals finally decided not to advance rashly to avoid unnecessary casualties in the night battle. Based on the strength comparison between the two sides, it is undoubtedly much more certain to wait until daytime to launch the attack. Although waiting one more night may

This gave the other party more time to prepare for war and even escape from Hirado Port, but both Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen believed that the Eighteen Chi Yu Party would not escape without a fight, and there should still be a head-on confrontation in Hirado.

Five years have passed since the Battle of Miyako Island. The Eighteen Shiba Yu Party has been hiding in the Hirado Domain and operating quietly in the past few years. They must have been waiting for an opportunity for revenge. These people were in Miyako back then.

The island has already escaped once, and now Haihan is here again. If they choose to continue to escape, the results of their hard work in Hirado over the past few years will be destroyed again. I am afraid it will not be easy to swallow this tone.

The most important thing is that the generals believe that since the Eighteen Shiba Party needs the trust and support of the Hirado Domain, it must show its strength at such a critical moment. If they escape directly, it will make the ruler of the Hirado Domain

How to treat them?

Of course, they did not know at this time that the Hirado Domain had undergone tremendous changes recently. The Tagawa clan had replaced the Matsuura clan as the ruler of the Hirado clan, and the armed forces built by Shiba Shiba were now replacing the original clan.

The army became the official armed force of the Hirado Domain. Under such circumstances, the Eighteen Shiba Yu Party actually had no retreat, and could only risk a fight to maintain the Tagawa clan's dominance.

The allied fleets, which were divided into east and west and marched north from both sides of Hirado Island, each found a bay in the middle of the island as a place to spend the night before sunset. The reconnaissance fleet continued to march north under the cover of night to confirm the enemy.

The army will not seize this opportunity to launch a sneak attack.

At this time, in Hirado Port, Tagawa Suke was discussing with his retainers how to deal with the enemy who came to the door. After Fukue Island was attacked, the local people used flying pigeons to send the warning message back to Hirado and Tagawa.

I received the news at noon.

Tagawasuke was not particularly surprised by Kaihan's attack. The various intelligences he had received from the Ming Dynasty before had already indicated that Kaihan was likely to launch a military operation against the Hirado Domain. Now it has only been confirmed.

The authenticity of the relevant news.

The Hirado clan is not a weakling who can poke at the neck, and related preparations have been started a few days ago. Although everyone does not have high expectations for defeating Kaihan, Tagawa Suke believes that although it will be difficult to defeat the opponent, but

It is not necessarily impossible to defeat the opponent with the advantage of home field. As long as you are fully prepared, there is no reason to let the Haihan army coming across the sea have the upper hand.

Of course, he had such an idea mainly because he had never had a direct confrontation with the Haihan Army. Those leaders under him who were from Shibazhi were not so optimistic. They thought that Shibazhi was still under the rule of Chu in its heyday.

The Haihan Army who appeared on the scene was unable to take care of themselves, not to mention that a few years later, the Haihan Army had fully proved with countless battle examples that their strength was still growing, and their area of ​​activity also extended from the South China Sea to the north to the Liaodong Peninsula.

If they had not fled to Hirado, Japan, but somewhere along the northern coast of the Ming Dynasty, they would have died several times at the hands of the Haihan Army. Five years later, has the gap in strength between the two sides continued to widen?

It's hard to say, but it is absolutely impossible that it has been reduced to the point where they have a chance to defeat the Haihan Army.

However, if you are worried, you will definitely not be able to escape. It took them five years to take over the rule of the Hirado clan, paving the way for the descendants of the Zheng family to take over the area in the future. And this was established by Zheng Zhilong back then.

Only on the basis of the marriage relationship between Hirado and the Tagawa family can Tagawasuke be willing to establish Zheng Zhilong's descendants as his heirs in exchange for the support of the Eighteen Zhiyu Party. In the future, if you want to repeat this operation in another place, it will not be possible at all.

Such prerequisites are no longer met.

It is certainly not difficult to escape from Hirado before the Haihan people come, but for them, escaping may mean that there will be no chance for revenge in the rest of their lives. Although the possibility of repelling the Haihan people is not high,

They still have to give it a try and test whether their five years of efforts have achieved the desired results.

Of course, with the experience of fighting in the early years, they would not choose to fight Haihan head-on. The gap in weapons and equipment between the two sides cannot be made up by the desperate fighting of their brothers. They can only find ways to use their own strengths to attack the other side.

short.

Although the Hirado clan has built many warships, the construction technology of these warships basically follows the original Shibashiba, except that artillery is added to the ship. This configuration is indeed more than enough to deal with ordinary ships, and can even

Relying on their numerical advantage to compete with the armed sailing ships of Western countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands, but facing a decisive battle at sea with the Haihan fleet, which has fierce firepower, speed, and high defense, they believe that the result will not be better than the situation five years ago.

It is safer to preserve our strength as much as possible. In this way, if the war progresses to an irreversible situation, the remaining maritime power will still have the opportunity to help some people escape Hirado.

Familiarity with the environment of Hirado Island and the surrounding areas was probably one of the few advantages of the Hirado clan, and they decided to take advantage of this condition as much as possible. Since the possibility of defeating the Kaihan fleet at sea was extremely slim, they could only

They chose to place the main battlefield on land - but this coincided with Haihan's idea.

Tagawasuke and his men believed that relying on the mountainous terrain of Hirado Island, the Hirado clan could completely deal with the enemy. And once the defenders were able to drag the situation into a tug-of-war, the Kaihan army would fight across the sea far away from the base camp.

They will gradually fall into passivity due to supply problems. At that time, if we try to send our own armed fleet to harass Haihan's supply line, perhaps the battle situation will develop in a direction that is beneficial to the defenders.

Of course, this strategy is easy to say, but planning the details of the operation, allocating combat tasks, and even commanding on the battlefield during the battle are still a test of the combat capabilities of the new Hirado clan army. These old people in Hachishiba know very well,

The combat effectiveness of the Haihan Army on land is no worse than at sea, so it must be dealt with carefully.

Tagawasuke received the news today that the Kaihan fleet had raided Fukue Island, and instead felt a sense of peace of mind that the dust had settled. All the previous uneasiness, speculation, and nervousness had turned into excitement before the war with the arrival of the news.

.Whether the war preparation measures taken in the past few days are effective will soon be tested on the battlefield.

"If the Kaihan Army moves quickly enough, they will arrive at Hirado Port tomorrow. I think they have no intention of negotiating with us, so they will start a war when they meet with the Kaihan Army tomorrow. Everyone, can we fight?

Confidence to win?”

The question raised by Tagawa Suke is really embarrassing. For these retainers who were born in Shibashiba, it is not so easy to say it and win the battle.

There was actually a dumbfounded person present at the moment, and he immediately responded loudly: "Yes!"

The person who responded was none other than Tagawa Kojiro, who had recently been favored by Tagawa Suke. The feudal army he was responsible for reorganizing was not actually the main force in this combat mission, but this did not seem to prevent him from expressing his determination to Tagawa Suke in front of everyone. But he

Taking the lead, of course others could no longer remain silent and quickly spoke up to express their attitude, lest Tagawasuke think that he was someone who was afraid of fighting.

Tagawasuke's face softened slightly, and then he nodded and said: "This fight with the Haihan people is related to the life and death of the Hirado clan. You must fight to the death!"
Chapter completed!