Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 712 Spanish Fishing Nets
On August 29, 1641, Gustav began to lead the main force of the European coalition forces to retreat.
The Ming Navy was indeed very weak at this time, but this did not mean that the navy was completely powerless. In fact, the current 2,000-ton torpedo destroyer of the Ming Navy was the fastest of all the warships in the Central and European navies.
Therefore, although it could not defeat the European Navy, the Ming Navy always maintained contact and surveillance with the European Navy.
Although the Ming Navy could not observe closely due to the range of over 10,000 meters of the two battleships, so many transport ships flocked to Bangkok, combined with the "Jia Xu" battle plan issued by the court some time ago. The navy immediately understood the opponent's plan. And such news was quickly passed to Cao Wenzhao in the north and Peng Ziqin, the governor of Central and Southern Singapore in the south.
The situation for Cao Wenzhao is very simple: send the entire army forward and attack fiercely!
Six hundred thousand versus one hundred and fifty thousand, the numbers are four to one, but it is still not easy if the fight really breaks out.
The Chao Phraya River has a drainage area of 170,000 square kilometers, of which the estuary, which is the Greater Bangkok area in later generations, is nearly 2,000 square kilometers. This area is low-lying, with an average altitude of less than 2 meters. If the rainy season here has not yet ended, if you don’t take the official road built by successive Siamese kings such as Rāja Buddha and later Zhou and Tang, a modern army with a large number of heavy equipment will not be able to advance in the muddy mudflats.
Therefore, although this area is large, there are only a few roads that can actually accommodate a large army. Although Durenne is at a disadvantage in terms of military strength, as long as they concentrate their forces to guard a few passages, they can basically rest assured.
In short, on the one hand, it was indeed difficult to advance due to seasonal reasons. On the other hand, they knew that the enemy was about to retreat completely and did not want to waste the lives of soldiers here. Therefore, Cao Wenzhao, Liu Zhaosun and others did attack here fiercely, but the battle was far from fierce.
What's more, Cao and Liu did not have the full 600,000 troops at that time.
After Li Dingguo proposed the strategy of using a substitute, Zhu Ciyi thought it was a bluff. Zhu Youdong upgraded it: "Feint to the east and attack to the west" - on the surface, it looks like I am going to flood you with water on land, but in fact, I want to scare you to the sea and kill you with lightning. This is also the origin of the name of this battle plan "Jia Xu". Wasn't Jia Wenhe's most brilliant military achievement when he served as a military advisor to Zhang Xiu and beat Cao Mengde to death with a feint to the east and attack to the west?
However, after the plan was brought to the Privy Council, several veteran generals raised a new question: Who stipulated that the European coalition forces would obediently board the ship, then spend more than half a month in the cabin and take the ship back to India?
In order to save transportation time, don’t they know to go ashore at the narrowest part of the Malay Peninsula, then walk to the other side of the peninsula and then board the ship?
Therefore, this plan of making a feint to the east and attacking in the west was upgraded: fifteen standing divisions were separated from the forty Great Ming divisions gathered north of Bangkok to form a new Huang Degong Group, which marched quickly to the Malay Peninsula in advance to "welcome" the possible landing enemy.
Of course, since the navy of the Ming Dynasty was at a disadvantage at that time, the army of the Ming Dynasty had to walk on foot. But the good thing was that the people they had to cross were the Mon people, the archenemies of the Burmese people. When the Ming Dynasty conquered Southeast Asia, it gave great preferential treatment to the Mon people for the sake of balance. Therefore, although they had to walk on foot, with the enthusiastic support of the local people, the logistics and intelligence concealment were still done well.
Of course, since they are determined to completely expel the enemy's land and sea forces from East Asia and make them dare not attack in the short term, then, in addition to the army arriving in advance to prepare for the "reception", the navy must also make preparations in advance.
"General Peng, General Inukai sent a message saying that the transport fleet of the Western bandits arrived at the Port of Bangkok two days ago."
"Okay! According to the records of our lookouts in Singapore, the number of pirate transport ships passing through our waters has reached 265 in the past ten days. After the enemy's two battleships and five heavy cruisers passed through Singapore and entered the South China Sea, there was no record of them coming out from here. Hehe, maybe we have to keep them all this time!"
Then he turned around and said to a middle-aged officer in a white navy uniform beside him: "General Zhou, it's up to you from now on."
"No problem, Commander. Although I was transferred from the Army to the Marine Corps, and then took over as the commander of the Singapore Navy Squadron from the Marine Corps, I will still do things like laying mines."
"Alas, the country has lost too many naval pillars at the moment, and the new seedlings have not grown up. I can only trouble General Zhou to do more for me. However, I firmly believe that the so-called capable people can do everything. General Zhou was appreciated by Xiong Shumi when he was in Kuandian Guard, and General Zhang Hong specially asked you to come from the army to serve as the commander of the 3rd Marine Division. Now General Inukai has also asked you to command all the warships in Singapore. What else do I have to worry about?"
"You are too kind, General. I, Zhou Yuji, dare not say too much. I can only promise you that I will do my best !"
The Ming navy was really badly hurt, especially when the few remaining warships were all concentrated in the South China Sea by Inukai Tsuji, Singapore really couldn't find a prestigious general to lead the troops to fight. So Inukai Tsuji had no choice but to directly appoint Major General Zhou Yuji, the commander of the 3rd Marine Division stationed here, to become the commander of the Singapore Squadron.
There is no need to say how powerful Zhou Yuji was in the historical plane. Anyway, after receiving the order from Inukai Touji, he took up the post immediately without any hesitation. After receiving the news from the north that the Europeans had begun to retreat, he immediately came to see Peng Ziqin, and after receiving the order from the Governor, he quickly led the entire Singapore Squadron to sea.
Although it is called a squadron, in fact, this fleet has quite a few ships that can be operated: a total of 40 minelayers, 30 of which were crudely made by workers at the Singapore Ship Repair Yard under the guidance of technicians in the factory in the past year - it is not unfair to say that they are crudely made. Because Singapore is just a small island, there is an extreme shortage of various raw materials on this island. Many of the steel plates of these 30 minelayers cannot be called steel plates, but the technicians plundered pig iron everywhere, and then simply refined it and laid it on the ships. As a result, many ships have been severely rusted after only two or three days in the water. But what does it matter? As long as they can be operated and mine-laying, it's fine.
In addition to these 40 minelayers, there are also ten 2,000-ton torpedo destroyers sent by Inukai to support. Yes, the number of warships in the Inukai fleet of the Ming Dynasty has begun to rise rapidly. At least the 2,000-ton torpedo destroyers have begun to rise rapidly. The production capacity of the Ming Dynasty shipyard is actually not small. The reason why there are not many ships in the early stage is that the technical difficulties of electrification have not been overcome at that time. Knowing that Spain has made breakthroughs in electrification, the Ming Dynasty is unwilling to build large-scale old-fashioned ironclad ships that are outdated as soon as they are born.
As for the specific tactics, it was also very simple: not far from Singapore Harbor, there were a lot of small islands. The waterways here were complicated, with the narrowest being only 37 kilometers. The mission of Zhou Yuji's fleet was to lay mines on the waterways between these small islands.
Of course, laying mines is not a mindless process: a safe passage must be left in advance for the enemy fleet to enter, and then torpedo ships can be used to drive them from behind, forcing the entire enemy fleet to speed up - and then you can just sit back and watch the enemy ships hit mines one after another.
Several staff officers with good math skills under Zhou Yuji have been almost sick of calculating these days: the layout of the minefield, predicting the enemy fleet's entry angle, the depth of the mines, and even the hiding place of the torpedo fleet in advance, as well as the angle of attack, etc. In this era with only abacus, several navigation and mapping staff officers felt that their fingers were not their own these days. Fortunately, the Strait of Malacca is in a windless area near the equator, with no wind or waves all year round, and the speed of the ocean currents below the sea surface is also extremely slow. Otherwise, they would have to calculate the impact of ocean currents on mine laying...
On September 20, the Inukai Fleet in the north sent a message: the enemy had indeed landed near Chumphon, the narrowest part of the Malay Peninsula. A large number of empty transport ships, escorted by the enemy's main naval fleet, were heading towards Singapore. So Zhou Yuji took the lead, and the people of the Singapore Torpedo Fleet wrote a suicide note, cut off their hair buns, and the entire fleet went out to sea.
…
"Damn it, that Chinese warship behind us keeps hanging behind us. It's so annoying!"
"Hmm... I think we should have changed one, right? After all, how can a 2,000-ton high-speed warship sustain itself for so long at sea?"
"Garcia, regardless of whether the other side has changed a warship or not, in short, our whereabouts have always been under the surveillance of the Chinese in the past month. This feeling of being unable to catch up or drive away is really terrible."
"Sir, these are minor matters. What I am worried about is that in order to escort such a large transport fleet, we have emptied all the warships from Banda Aceh to Singapore. Will these shameless Chinese take advantage of our window period to lay mines in the Strait of Malacca?"
"Humph, there's no need to guess, it will definitely happen."
"So what should we do? Should go through the Sunda Strait?"
"No, Garcia, you have to know that the army has been left in Chumphon Province. The narrowest part of that place, the Kra Isthmus, is only 56 kilometers in total. It is impossible to deploy troops in such a narrow and long place. Moreover, the west side of the peninsula is full of muddy tidal flats, and there are only one or two fixed rendezvous points. If the Chinese army arrives in advance... In short, we must hurry up and strive to go around the west side of the Malay Peninsula within half a month to pick up the army on board. Going through the Sunda Strait? That will take at least 40 days, and the army can't wait that long!"
"But what about the minefield?"
"Haha, Garcia, I already have a solution to this problem."
What was Alfonso's solution? It was simple. When the huge Spanish fleet approached Singapore, they would not take the Singapore waterway because the Ming Dynasty controlled the Singapore Fortress. Under the watchful eyes of the dark fortress cannons of the Singapore Fortress, the fleet passed through Singapore Harbor and continued southward to the sea on the south side of Batam Island south of Singapore, preparing to enter the Strait of Malacca from here.
Zhou Yuji's fleet also laid mines in this place. But there are two advantages to entering Malacca from here: first, the fortress guns of Singapore cannot reach here. Second, it is closer to the equator, the water flow is gentler, and there is really no wind on the sea.
On the morning of September 25, 25 Spanish warships and a full 200 transport fleets of 5,000 to 15,000 tons arrived in the waters south of Batam Island. Alfonso stopped the entire fleet. Then, he deployed all 18 light cruisers and destroyers to serve as peripheral alerts. At the same time, he asked the large ships to untie the lifeboats on their hulls.
Yes, Alfonso’s plan was to use a fishing net that sank into the water, with weights added to the two corners to ensure the sinking depth, to salvage the mines!
The Chinese and Western navies had fought each other for many years, and the Spanish had studied the mines of the Ming Dynasty navy thoroughly: Generally speaking, the depth of the mines of the Ming Dynasty navy was between 3.5 and 4.5 meters. And how much water does a lifeboat have? It will not hit a mine anyway.
At the same time, in order to prevent the mines from exploding under the slightest pressure of water, the engineers of the Ming Dynasty Navy set a higher threshold in the pressure design. In this way, soft objects such as fishing nets would not crush the mines.
"What do you think, Garcia? With nearly a thousand lifeboats working together to salvage mines, wouldn't we be able to salvage thousands of mines every day? In this way, we can clear a safe waterway in three days at most. Isn't this much more time-saving and labor-saving than going through the Sunda Strait?"
