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

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 are many people who covet Hirado, most of them are wary of the military power possessed by the Hirado clan and dare not 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 had not given Tagawa Nanzaemon

If a reliable armed force is left behind, once the Hirado clan is defeated, it is very likely that external forces will take advantage of this opportunity to seize the rule of Hirado. In particular, the Tokugawa shogunate, which has always coveted Hirado, will probably not let go.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where you can 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, but decided to give priority to preserving 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 person responsible for launching the offensive from the sea will be

The East China Sea Fleet 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 of the 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 used to show off their strength during armed conflicts with external forces, or to perform some low-intensity combat missions, these Hirado-made artillery would certainly be enough.

It is competent. But if it is used in high-intensity combat and fires nearly a hundred rounds of artillery shells every day, its quality will be quickly exposed.

Some artillery fired only a few dozen rounds, and cracks began to appear in the barrel. On the afternoon of the first day of the battle, the barrel of the artillery exploded. Lu Yuanlong had to replace the cracked artillery with spare parts one by one to avoid the shortage of his men.

The limited gunners suffered 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 have no service life even if it is still there.

Ammunition is no longer available to fight against the Kaihan fleet. Moreover, since Kagawa's weapons workshop was destroyed by Kaihan, the Hirado domain army can no longer obtain ammunition supplies from the weapons workshop for the time being, which means that the domain army will soon have to

Relying on cold weapons, they fought hard against the Haihan army, all of which were equipped with muskets.

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 from the land and the sea had been cut off by the Haihan Army. Lu Yuanlong also knew that he had no other choice now. Since surrender was impossible, he had to fight to the end.

Tagawasuke personally went to the south of the city to supervise the battle, and Lu Yuanlong would be solely responsible for the defense of Hirado Port. But to be honest, he didn't have any good means of fighting now. He could 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 was the first to arrive at the scheduled battlefield. This was already the third day that Shi Diwen led his troops to attack Hirado Port. He had almost mastered the positions and shooting ranges of the forts in the port, so today he also

I no longer intend to hold back, and prepare to let two majesty-class battleships join the battle.

Among the three classes of warships of the East China Sea Fleet: expedition, exploration, and majesty, due to hull structure and cost issues, only the majesty class has two new breech guns deployed on both sides with a longer range that can attack land.

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 is also a former

After thinking a lot of ways, I ordered eight cannons from Haihan Ordnance Industry. For this reason, Baikes also sent a group of technicians from Sanya to escort these cannons to Zhoushan, where they were placed on the two Majesty-class battleships of the East China Sea Fleet.

The installation was carried out and the sailors who operated these guns were trained for two months.

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 actually failed to 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 Diwen

He believed that his opponent was too weak and there was no need to waste precious ammunition on the Hirado Navy's Anzai ship.

Through observing 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 and hurriedly 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 opponent's

The battlefield information collected before this did not really come into use until this moment.

Since the fire reconnaissance in the previous two days was sufficient, the bombardment targets of the two Majestic-class battleships were also very clear. Starting from the forts outside the Hirado Port, they were named one by one with cannonballs. Moreover, the engagement distance between the two ships was very clear.

Well, you won’t put yourself within the crossfire range of the port’s coastal defense artillery. There may only be one or two guns on the coast that can reach them at the maximum range. Although the coast defense artillery has its own advantages, it can’t be controlled by the opponent’s caution.

In response, it was difficult to exert the power of the previous two days.

Relying on precise calculations and control, the two ships steadily harvested the shore defense forts at a rate of one shot per minute. Although the advancement was slow, the progress was visible to the naked eye, and Lu Yuanlong saw that the forts on the shore were accurately attacked by the opponent.

He was attacked, but he couldn't come up with any way to fight back, and he felt secretly desperate at the moment.

Lu Yuanlong recalled a similar situation when the Shibazhi fought against 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 peasants and 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 cannons fighting 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 desperately. Once the enemy lands at Hirado Port, these peasants and soldiers are likely to disperse in a rush. 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 this might be because 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 to 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 quite disapprovingly.

The opponent's defense deployment was obviously extremely hasty, and they could only rely on the private houses on the periphery of the city to establish a defense line. There were fortifications piled up with mud and various debris between some of the houses. In the gaps where there was no time to build fortifications, the opponent just

Use a bamboo horse to block the way.

Although the position established by the Kaihan Army on the Onomura line also used a large number of bamboo and wood horses as part of the defense fortifications, the deployment method was obviously different from that of the Hirado Domain army. The Kaihan Army built behind the bamboo and wood fortifications.

The parapets were dug into trenches, and the infantry were deployed in them. They had both bunkers and the ability to shoot at enemies blocked by bamboo and wood fortifications. This combat system, in which tactics and fortifications complement each other, was exactly what the Hirado clan army lacked.

Characteristics.

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 was limited, so he could not suffer heavy casualties.

Otherwise, it would be a shame for the special team's ace game name.

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 the opponent was at ease and wanted to challenge his side here.

Since the opponent had deployed artillery on the defense line, Sun Zhen did not rush to launch an offensive, but patiently waited for the field artillery behind him to arrive. In an artillery battle on land, he had never seen anyone compete with the Haihan army.

Since the Hirado clan army is determined to challenge the difficulty, they should give the artillery unit a chance to perform.

What Sun Zhen sees as military exploits, in Tagawa's view, is one of the few available means at hand. If this line of defense still cannot stop the opponent, then the undefended Hirado City area behind the line of defense will fall completely into the hands of the enemy.

Tagawasuke wanted to give himself a little more confidence, but he saw the enemy troops just showing up in the distance and then 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 pieces to combat positions.

Tagawa Suke relaxed a little when he saw that the several cannons that appeared on the Haihan camp didn't look big, and the gun barrels didn't seem to be as thick as his own artillery on the position. But he didn't know about the field artillery of the Haihan army.

Although the caliber is small, its range and accuracy are far superior to the Western-style muzzle-loading cannons in your own formation. It won't be your opponent who suffers in a real attack.

Of course, Tagawasuke was not idle either. Since the opponent deployed artillery under his nose, of course he had to order the gunner to immediately observe the target and strike first if he could. But the gunner's response made him a little disappointed.

The position of the artillery has exceeded the effective range, and firing now has no benefit except exposing the firepower.
Chapter completed!