Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 670: The War Is About to Break Out
"You mean, you didn't see any 10,000-ton ships in the enemy's fleet?"
"Reporting to the General, it is indeed true."
"... Humph, this must be a treacherous plot by the Western bandits to lure our main force closer! Which general of the Ming Dynasty wouldn't use this tactic of showing weakness to the enemy?"
"General, I think so too. But if this news reaches the shore, what if the Army and Minister Wen ask us to fight a decisive battle with the enemy ships?"
"Haha, Cao Bianpeng, you are still a little too young. What are we? The Royal Navy is directly under the Emperor. Why should an Indian Governor-General give me orders directly? Not to mention the army that has been stationed in India for only three years and has basically become corrupt."
In fact, the navy intervened in India's affairs earlier: about twenty years ago, after the Ming Dynasty conquered Burma, the navy took control of Ceylon. However, the reason why the navy did not decay as quickly as the army was that, on the one hand, Li Guozhu, Yan Siqi, Du Youning and other chief officers were much younger than Mao Wenlong, Li Yongfang and others, and they also had the idea of making achievements, so they were very strict in military discipline. On the other hand, the soldiers of the navy have been working in a high-salt, high-humidity and even high-temperature environment for a long time. Not only are their skins generally darker, but most of them are also very rough. For Hindus who initially identify castes by skin color, this is a symbol of lowliness. As a result, the girls on Ceylon, especially those above the Vaishya class, do not like them very much.
With less temptation, there is less corruption, and the chief officer himself still has his own pursuits. Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the Navy's Indian Fleet is still considerable at this time.
"Admiral, if we don't fight the white-skinned fleet, then what should we do?"
"Of course we have to do something." Yan Siqi turned to the staff behind him and said, "Record it."
"Please give your instructions, General."
"First, draft a few reports and briefings. The first one will be sent to His Majesty, saying that we have determined that the size of the Western pirate fleet must be very large, and my Indian fleet cannot confront it head-on, so I plan to lead the entire fleet out to sea and wait for an opportunity to sneak attack the enemy's transport and supply ships.
The second copy is given to Prime Minister Wen and General Mao. The content is the same as the first one, just pay attention to the wording.
The third letter was given to Lieutenant General Du Youning, commander of the South China Sea Fleet, asking him to lead the South China Sea Fleet into the Bay of Bengal and organize transport ships to deliver supplies from Yangon to Kolkata.
The fourth one is for Admiral Li Guozhu, the commander of the Home Fleet, saying that I suggest that the Home Fleet should not move for the time being because the enemy situation is unclear. Please wait for the follow-up news from the fleet. Well, write it all down, okay? "
"General, remember this."
"Next is the announcement. Inform all ports on both sides of the Bay of Bengal that the pirates are invading in large numbers. All merchant ships should be prepared to evacuate. If they must go out to sea, they should gather in Calcutta and Rangoon and be escorted by our South China Sea Fleet."
"yes."
"Order all ships in this fleet to execute Plan No. 1. All supply ships must arrive at the designated location as soon as possible according to our prior plan. Soldiers on all warships must return to their teams within 24 hours. All warships will be out to sea at 8 a.m. tomorrow!"
"yes!"
"Send an order to the Colombo garrison base. Once the warships are out to sea, the minelayers will immediately block the Ceylon Strait with mines."
"yes!"
Just as Yan Siqi was making arrangements in an orderly manner, Cao Bianjiao and Zuo Menggeng, leading a force of more than a thousand people, had arrived at the Khyber Pass.
"I have met the two majors."
"Captain Ma, you've worked hard. How was it? Did you, the Jinyiwei, go out to gather information from Persia? What did you gain?"
"Ah." The captain surnamed Ma of the Jinyiwei sighed leisurely, "Even though seven brothers were killed, I finally brought back the news. You two, at least more than 200,000 troops are gathering on the west side of the Hindu Kush Mountains. According to the information provided by our informants, the Ottoman general leading the troops this time is Boris, the Russian who defended Alexandria for half a year in the previous European-Austrian War."
"Tsk~" Cao and Zuo looked at each other and burst into laughter.
" Why are the two majors laughing?"
"Oh, Captain Ma, we were actually quite confused when we received the mission to defend the Khyber Pass. Major Zuo and I are both good at attacking but not at defending, yet our superiors chose the two of us to defend such an important place. And the other side was even more ridiculous, they actually chose a general who was good at defense to attack this place...hahaha..."
"You two are still in the mood to laugh and joke? I see you don't have many people with you. I'm afraid there are less than three thousand people?"
"My dear, you are wrong. There are only more than a thousand real combat soldiers. The remaining two thousand are there to deliver ammunition to us."
"Ah? How can that be enough?"
"A thousand people are definitely not enough. What if we add another ten thousand Sikhs?"
"The fighting power of the Sikhs is trustworthy, but more than 10,000 versus 200,000?"
"Hahaha, enough is enough. Don't you even look at who built the Khyber Line?"
The so-called Khyber Pass is actually the general name for the valley formed by two rivers in the Hindu Kush Mountains and the surrounding mountains. In other words, it is actually a canyon with mountains on both sides and a river plain in the middle.
This canyon is 53 kilometers long. The surrounding mountains are not too high. Generally, the top of a mountain is only about 100 meters higher than the river valley below. The average width of the whole canyon is about 1,000 meters, and the narrowest part is nearly 600 meters. Because the river valley is relatively warm, and the surrounding mountains block the cold current, this canyon is accessible all year round and will not be closed by heavy snow.
In short, building a defense system here is much easier than building the Great Wall in China. But is it really a dangerous place that is easy to defend but difficult to attack? Well, at least compared to passes like Jiange, it is far inferior.
At the end of 1634, Wen Tiren came here in person and asked Ming engineers to design a large-scale defense system based on the terrain here. In the following three years, most of the surplus of the Indian Governor's Office was invested here. By May 1638, although the entire project had not been completed, the part that was already usable was already impressive.
The core of the entire Khyber Pass defense line is the narrowest part of this canyon: on this section less than 600 meters wide, the Ming Dynasty built a small city made of reinforced concrete: Wen Tiren named it Zhang Xunzhai.
In front of Zhang Xunzhai, there were three lines of defense consisting of trenches, barbed wire, minefields, and various bunkers. Each line of defense was only a few hundred thousand meters in cross section. As a civil official, Lao Wen was also deeply afraid of insufficient firepower. So he stuffed twelve 150mm fortress guns into each line.
Considering that it is only a dozen kilometers from Peshawar to here, the altitude rises rapidly in such a short distance, which makes it extremely difficult to carry heavy equipment on this dozen-mile mountain road. Therefore, when Wen Tiren planned this defense system, he also built Nanjiyun Fort and Xuyuan Fort behind Zhangxun Village. These two forts are not only military fortresses made of reinforced concrete, but also large warehouses - storing a large amount of ammunition and food.
The defense in the canyon is like this. On the ridge above the canyon, Lao Wen also built heavy machine gun fire points and various large and small artillery positions in many dangerous areas. In short, this defense system, in Lao Wen's words, is a bit exaggerated. But as long as there are 10,000 people defending here, as long as the defenders are determined, the enemy will not be able to cross here even if it is 100,000 or 200,000.
Of course, the total strength of the Ming army in India was limited, so Mao Wenlong and Li Yongfang only sent one battalion here. The real main force of defense was still the Sikhs.
"My name is Cao Bianjiao, and this is Zuo Menggeng. What's your name?"
"Dear majors of the Ming Dynasty, I am Singh, the commander of the First Division of the Sikh Kingdom. Following the orders of Governor Wen and His Majesty, I am here with all 13,000 members of the First Division to obey your orders."
"Haha, then we won't be polite. Commander Singh, this is the overall bird's-eye view of the Khyber defense system. Please ask your staff to allocate troops according to the map. This work must be completed before 6 pm tomorrow. After dinner tomorrow night, we will inspect each defense point with you."
"As you wish, please rest assured that we Sikhs have our own country thanks to the grace of the Ming Dynasty. We will fight to the end to maintain our country's independence and the grace of the Ming Dynasty."
…
At the same time, in the city of Mumbai on the west side of the Indian peninsula, Mao Wenlong also gathered his generals to discuss strategies to deal with the enemy.
The forces controlled by the Ming Dynasty in India included not only its own three divisions and five Indian divisions controlled by Ming Dynasty officers, but also many other branch forces.
When the Ming Dynasty conquered India, it used the skill of Ten Thousand Dogs. After the war, it was natural to reward the vassal states that had contributed. The Ming Dynasty took away the Ganges Plain, the best area, gave the vassal states certain weapons, opened up the territory on the map, and let them take the land in the southern part of the Indian Peninsula.
Over the past three years, Japan, which had invested the most and had the strongest military power under the Ming Dynasty, gained the most land: not only did they completely take over half of Andhra Pradesh that the Ming Dynasty had allocated to them, but they also continued to move southward and defeated two or three independent Hindu small countries. In total, they gained nearly 200,000 square kilometers of land - which is almost equivalent to Honshu Island.
Of course, the natural conditions in India are much better than those in the Japanese archipelago where volcanoes and earthquakes are frequent. So although the area is still a little smaller than that of Honshu Island, its grain output is 1.5 times that of Honshu Island!
This made the Japanese manage this new territory with the mentality of managing their own country. For this reason, Toyotomi Tohide not only sent his second son to take charge here, but also asked the 71-year-old Sanada Yukimura to come here to guard. Each family under his command also sent capable personnel from the family to station here... After Wen Tiren issued a general mobilization, the Japanese in India quickly pulled out three divisions with nearly 50,000 troops - this was not the so-called Indian division of Japanese officers and Indian soldiers, but a powerful force composed entirely of Japanese.
The Japanese were like this, and Fukuoka was similar: the Korean Peninsula was generally barren, and the land of Andhra Pradesh, which was blessed by nature, was also treasured by the Koreans. Therefore, Fukuoka's personnel in India also pulled out two Korean divisions.
In addition, other vassal states, as well as Kathmandu, Gorkha, Bhutan and other vassal states in the northern Indian Governorate were ordered to lead their troops to join. From the beginning of March when Wen Tiren issued the general mobilization order to the beginning of May, in just two months, the number of soldiers under Mao Wenlong's command soared from 80,000 to 290,000, a total of 19 divisions!
Although the combat effectiveness of these 290,000 troops is definitely uneven, with more people, everyone's courage will naturally increase.
However, the military meeting in Mumbai lasted for several days, and everyone felt that it was a bit troublesome: if the navy could not defeat the enemy, any place on the long coastline of the Indian peninsula could be the enemy's landing point, so this defense really could not be done.
Finally, Mao Wenlong made the decision: 290,000 people would be divided into three groups.
The weakest troops of the vassal states formed four divisions to go to Karachi to defend the Indus Delta: In Mao Wenlong's view, the core of the Indian Peninsula is still the Ganges River Basin. If the enemy lands in the Indus River Basin, they will have to cross a large desert. Therefore, it is very unlikely that the main force of the European Union will land here. However, the Ottoman troops may land here.
The five Japanese divisions and two Fukuoka divisions, led by Yukimura Sanada, headed south to Goa. Goa had been run by Portugal for hundreds of years, leaving behind many interest networks. So although Goa is in the southern part of the Indian Peninsula and a little far from the Ganges Plain, there is indeed a possibility of a large-scale enemy landing.
The Ming Dynasty’s own eight divisions were stationed near Mumbai. To the northeast of Mumbai was the Ganges Plain, where were the two core cities of the Indian peninsula, Delhi and Agra.
…
On May 6, 1638, after Mao Wenlong determined the troop deployment, he required all troops to arrive at designated locations and deploy fully before May 20 at the latest.
On May 7, the first batch of European coalition forces landed on Socotra Island.
On May 20, the various Ming army units in India arrived at designated locations and deployed one after another.
On May 21, a transport fleet carrying the first batch of five divisions of reinforcements from the Ming Dynasty just passed through the Strait of Malacca.
On May 23, the soldiers of the Japanese 1st Division stationed in the port of Goa saw countless stacked masts on the sea in the west!
