Chapter 804 Siege

Gesman was not very able to understand Haihan's approach. Spain's main competitors in the Far East were European countries such as the Netherlands. There was no direct conflict of interest with Haihan, and there was no record of bad relations between the two parties. Why were these armed businessmen

They would take action without any warning. Having said that, this Tamsui River is a remote place with no valuable resources. The Spaniards themselves almost wanted to give up and give up this colonial stronghold with only input and no output.

Why did the Haihan people actually send troops here to cause trouble? Do they think there is gold hidden in the land here?

However, his subordinate Captain Lopez, probably out of his bounden duty as a soldier, knew something about Haihan, a potential competitor, and explained to him: "Sir, the Haihan people have been expanding from south to north in recent years.

Very quickly, they were not satisfied after occupying Penghu. I heard that in the second half of last year, they had already started sending ships to the southern coast of Formosa. For them, perhaps other forces besides the Ming Empire

They will all be treated as opponents and enemies."

"Isn't the south the territory of the Dutch? Can they really tolerate it and watch outsiders step in?" Gesman asked suspiciously. If it were a Spaniard who did this, the Dutch would probably have jumped. They have learned so much in recent years.

Secretly, they did a lot of tricks on the Spanish stronghold in Taipei, but due to limited strength, they were unable to completely drive the Spanish out of this area. If not for Gusman, he would also know that there has always been a disagreement between the Dutch and the Haihan people.

, he really doubted whether the Dutch paid to hire the Haihan army to come here to cause trouble.

"I don't know about this... probably the Dutch can't do anything about them." Lopez's intelligence sources are also extremely limited. Although Biggsman knows more, he doesn't have much knowledge about the current changes in the situation in Tainan.

Clearly. He could only judge from the old intelligence that the Dutch "invaded" Haihan probably because of their defeat at the hands of the Haihan militia, and because of the incident in Batavia last year, which prevented Damuan Port from receiving rear support.

The behavior cannot effectively resist. Of course, compared to the Dutch people's powerlessness, their current situation does not seem to be much better.

"Okay, let's forget about the damn Dutch for now. Are these Haihans...really planning to attack our castle?" Gesman was still a little dubious about this, because there is nothing worth using in Santo Domingo.

War is fought over.

"I personally think...the reason why they attacked here may just be to gain complete control of the west coast of Formosa." Although Lopez's guess was not entirely correct, it was not far off.

"Well, no matter what, we can't surrender to these invaders. Dear Captain Lopez, I think you must have a way to drive them out, right?" Since war seems inevitable, we have to plan for now.

Sman can only rely on the performance of the military. He is just a simple administrative official who basically knows nothing about matters such as combat, and has no intention of actively intervening in military operations. In the past few years, Lopez has made several

It repelled the armed harassment of the Dutch and natives for the first time, and its performance was very stable. It is also the only person that Gesman can rely on now.

"Yes, sir, we will win as always. These barbarians will not stay on our land for too long." Lopez responded confidently. Although he did not know the true purpose of his opponent, he believed that with the help of Saint

The fortifications of Domingo City and the well-trained soldiers under his command are enough to stop these uninvited guests with malicious intentions. Of course, if he can see the 48-pound siege guns that are still being assembled on the upper river bank, maybe he can

I won't look down on my opponent like this anymore.

"Very good...I will allocate you two hundred silver coins, which you can use to reward your soldiers. Tell them that for every enemy they kill, they will get a silver coin as a reward. After driving away the enemy, I will give you another

There is a reward!" Gesman was not stingy at the critical moment and took the initiative to use money to reward the defenders.

"Your Majesty is so generous. I guarantee that the soldiers will do their best to kill the enemy!" Lopez reciprocated and gave Gesman reassurance.

After Lopez calmly comforted Gesman, he immediately returned to the city wall defense line. Although he appeared calm, the actual situation outside the city was far more serious than what he told Gesman.

Within the range that could be seen, the enemy's strength was at least five hundred, which far exceeded the defenders, and blocked all roads in and out of Santo Domingo from a distance.

If the threat only came from land, Lopez might not be particularly nervous, but he noticed that some sailboats with the Haihan flag appeared on the river, which clearly meant to block the channel to the sea. Originally, he planned to send

People took a boat out to the sea and returned to Jilong Port to call the police for help, but they had no choice but to give up when they saw the opponent's posture. There were only two small sailing boats on the pier in Santo Domingo City that could go out to sea, and the other boats were all flat-bottomed river boats.

, usually fishing on the Tamsui River is fine, but going to sea is too risky.

Lopez was also unsure of how the Haihan militia would fight and did not dare to order an attack rashly. All he could do now was to defend the castle and observe the opponent's actions before making any moves. Although such a passive situation is not

Lopez is happy to accept it, but he really has no better choice at the moment.

"Pass my order to organize a reserve team immediately and ask the quartermaster to distribute weapons to the farmers and prepare for battle!" Lopez gradually became nervous as he watched more and more Haihan soldiers appear outside the city.

.It seems that the other party is not just here to hold an armed parade, but is really planning to attack the city of Santo Domingo.

While the Spaniards in the city were mobilizing the whole city in a chaotic manner, the special operations battalion of the militia army outside the city was also slowly completing the outer blockade. One point that Takahashi Minami was originally very worried about was that the Spaniards were

After discovering the militia army, they immediately sent people out of the city to break out of the encirclement, and the Haihan side, which had not yet had time to complete the encirclement, would inevitably let out a few fish that slipped through the net. Although even if someone could escape the encirclement, they might not actually be able to go to Jilong Port to report the news.

, but Takahashi Minami still doesn’t want some uncontrollable accidents to occur on the battlefield.

However, the Spanish's slow reaction gave the special operations battalion enough time to deploy on the periphery and block all the main passages in and out of the castle. This conservative defense method is completely backward and primitive in Takahashi Minami's view.

Tactics. The various tactics he learned during the years of following Qian Tiandun were almost all mobile warfare based on the mobility of the troops. How to intersperse, cut, and mobilize the enemy to follow his own rhythm on the battlefield,

This kind of tactical thinking is an advanced tactic that has been proven to be truly effective in many years of actual combat.

Although the Spaniards once played a strong role on the European battlefield, it is obvious that not every Spanish officer has extraordinary military qualities. If you choose to retreat and defend, you may be able to deal with the indigenous armed forces with primitive equipment.

effect, but if you want to use such an old-fashioned method to fight against the Haihan militia, it would be a bit overestimating your capabilities. That is to say, the basic equipment of the special operations battalion is somewhat inconsistent with the siege warfare, and the limited environment makes some

The deployment of arms is not smooth enough. If other battalion-level combat units in the army encountered such a scene, the commander would probably burst out laughing, and just push the artillery to the front line and blast away.

As the various detachments gradually arrived at the predetermined positions, the encirclement of the Haihan Army outside Santo Domingo City was basically completed. The only thing that made Gao Qiaonan dissatisfied was that the artillery transported from the upstream river bank was blocked on the way due to poor roads.

When trouble comes, the engineers are still trying to pave roads so that heavy artillery vehicles and heavy flatbed trucks transporting ammunition can pass smoothly. But even the most optimistic estimates will take at least two to three hours to complete these just a few hours.

This means that even if other combat units of the special operations battalion have been deployed, it will be difficult to immediately launch a general attack on the Spanish stronghold. Without heavy artillery to open the way, Takahashi Minami does not intend to let his subordinates use his own body to follow

The enemy hiding behind the crenellations of the high wall fought hard.

"Inform all the detachments and let the brothers eat in batches. We will see the situation in the afternoon." Takahashi Nan saw that it was already past noon, so he ordered to suspend the attack and stop to rest and replenish energy. However, he did not intend to let the city

The defenders just relaxed, and they had to think of some way to relax their nerves.

"Let the navy brothers go out and do some activities." Takahashi Minami then ordered: "There happens to be a bunch of targets on the pier over there, so let them practice cannon."

Since this battle plan gave up the battle plan of having warships directly approach the river bank to bombard Spanish strongholds, the main task of the navy in this battle is to block the waterway and act as a means of transportation. In addition, it may also have to undertake some logistics tasks.

For example, building logistics facilities, detaining prisoners, etc. However, such an arrangement is obviously difficult to satisfy the Navy. After all, it is difficult to gain any military merits by undertaking these tasks. In the end, it can only become a green leaf supporting the Army's performance.

Takahashi Minami has served in the army for many years, so he naturally understands the tricks of this kind of back-and-forth. Since he now needs to coordinate the army and the navy as a battle commander, he can no longer favor the army. He must take into account the mood of the navy and make appropriate decisions.

The land can be used to earn some credits. For example, the ships docked at the dock outside the Spanish stronghold are good targets for earning credits. The sailors and crew members on the ships have already abandoned the ship and fled into the city, and the navy has absolutely nothing to do with these ships.

Difficulty, as long as they don't get too close to the river bank, the city's artillery can't defeat them at all.

After the messenger sent a signal to the warships on the river through semaphores, several warships soon rushed towards the target like hungry wolves. In order to save ammunition and hit accurately, these ships even unscrupulously anchored in the center of the river, waiting for

After the hull movement slowed down, it began to fire at the target.

The rumble of cannons immediately reached the castle hundreds of meters away. Gesman, who was drinking soup, shook his hand and the spoon fell into the bowl. He immediately grabbed the copper bell on hand and shook it vigorously. When the servant came in, he asked loudly

Said: "What happened outside? Who is firing?"

"Sir, I'm going to inquire about the news." The servant quickly responded and quickly exited.

After a while, the servant returned to Gesman's dining table and reported to him the latest battle situation: "Sir, the enemy outside fired at our ship from the river."

"What about our counterattack?" Gesman asked, waving his fist.

"Sir...the crew has returned to the city, and there are no one of us on board." The servant responded with some embarrassment.

"Ah...Then we won't have any casualties. That's good..." Gesman could only reconcile himself, but he was still a little unwilling to be attacked unilaterally by the enemy: "Go and tell

Captain Lopez, tell him not to just watch the enemy take action, but at least respond, otherwise the enemy will treat us all as dead. Well, don’t we also have a lot of artillery? Let Captain Lopez fight back against them!"

"That's nonsense!" Lopez heard Gesman's layman's combat advice and couldn't laugh or cry.

As a serving officer who has commanded many defensive battles in the past few years, Lopez is very aware of his own defense capabilities and weapon performance. The deployment area of ​​the Haihan army outside the city is just outside the maximum range of the city defense artillery.

And this is true in every direction. The sailboats on the river also strictly maintain a distance from the river bank, as if there is an invisible boundary that limits them to the range of Spanish artillery. Lopez feels that this scene is really strange.

It seemed that the Haihan people had complete control over the defensive fire range of Santo Domingo City in all directions, but he could not imagine how such a military secret that even ordinary soldiers did not know could be leaked, so he could only regard it as a hoax.

A coincidence. Of course, even if he broke his head, he would never have imagined that this information was actually provided to his opponent by a blacksmith responsible for maintaining weapons at two strongholds in Taipei.

Although his opponent may have mastered some of his own military secrets, Lopez still cannot take the risk of exposing them. When the Haihan warships began to bombard the ships on the shore, Lopez had already calculated the distance, and he was sure that these ships

The Han warship is perfectly outside the range of the city defense firepower. If it fires artillery to launch a deterrent counterattack, it does not seem to have any other purpose besides exposing the range of the artillery. It can only be used by the boss directly.

Only a layman like Siman would ask him to use artillery to counterattack for the sake of his own face.

But Lopez is a soldier, and he is also the commander who can decide the fate of the defenders at this time. He will not just follow the orders of his layman boss. After sending away Gesman's servant with good words, Lopez did not

He ordered the city to fire back artillery, but continued to observe the enemy's movements.
Chapter completed!