Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 778 The Emperor of Ming Dynasty
It was five o'clock in the morning on September 20, 1647, the darkest time before dawn.
However, at this time, the dark sea and night sky outside the Yanam Port in the northeast corner of Andhra Pradesh were illuminated by countless bright searchlight poles as if it were daytime.
"Send a telegram to Lord Louis immediately and tell him that numerous ships were spotted outside Yanan Harbor. They must be the Chinese landing here."
At this time, a Polish division was stationed in Yanan Port. Relying on a five-kilometer-long defense line and six artillery batteries consisting of 18 150-mm guns, they guarded the flat beach of Yanan Port, which was about six or seven kilometers long and most suitable for landing.
Behind them were four German divisions. In addition to the reinforced concrete defense line, they also relied on two small peaks with a maximum altitude of about 700 to 800 meters. Behind them was the third defense line led by Grand Condé, which consisted of six French divisions, one Danish division, and three British divisions: this defense line relied on the rugged mountains at the junction of the Andhra Pradesh coastal plains and the Eastern Ghats.
In short, this is a dense line of defense carefully designed by Condé.
"Bang, bang, bang~" Countless flares rose into the air from the warships of the Ming Navy, and the entire Yanan Port was in full view before everyone's eyes.
"General, our battleships are still five kilometers from the coastline. The enemy's artillery is within our firing range."
"Then stop advancing and start shelling."
"yes!"
Following Inukai Toji's order, the five battleships of the Ming Dynasty participating in the escort mission began to slowly adjust their hulls, and when all the hulls were pulled horizontally, the 30 305mm guns began to roar one after another.
Large-caliber naval guns bombarding the shore is also a new issue for the Ming Navy, which has only had battleships for less than five years. However, Zhu Youdong made a timely comment on this matter: based on the map of Yanan Port sent by the Confucianists under Yang and Zuo, the areas that need to be bombarded are divided into thirty small grids. Then the thirty cannons of the five battleships adjust the shooting parameters according to the landing points of the previous shells. When the shells fall into the grid they are responsible for, they will be fixed and then continue to bombard.
As the rumbling sound of cannons echoed on the sea, behind the battleship, the army commander of this operation, Toyotomi Takehide, was holding his last pre-war meeting on a large transport ship with a full load displacement of more than 20,000 tons.
"Your Majesty, after statistics, all 1,200 transport ships that left the port this time have arrived around Yanan Port. None of them got lost or fell behind. The five Japanese divisions, five Fuku divisions, three Gui divisions, three Zhou divisions, and three Tang divisions on board suffered no losses during the voyage, except for a few soldiers who vomited or felt dizzy. All kinds of supplies carried by the ships were not soaked in water, and the packages were not scattered, etc."
"Very good. The Navy's transport troops have worked hard. We, the Army, and I are deeply grateful."
Toyotomi Tohide, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant general of the Ming army, with only a five-seven-tongue embroidered on the upper left part of the uniform to indicate his identity, sat steadily on the main seat. Under his command were the four princes of the Ming vassal states and a group of generals: There was no other way, the four princes of Fu, Gui, Zhou, and Tang were all old at this time, and their health would not allow them to lead the army in person. And if the four princes could really perform well in this battle, it was possible that they would be promoted after returning.
"Everyone, there is nothing to criticize about the performance of our navy brothers. Now it's up to us. Andhra Pradesh used to be an overseas territory of our five countries. It's a pity that Spain took it away. I won't say more. Anyway, this time we will land and either win or die!"
"Your Highness is right. If we don't win, we will die."
"Then let's make the final arrangements before landing. According to the plan before departure, we will start landing after the naval bombardment is finished in three hours. The first batch of landing troops are the First Division of our country, the Third Division of Fuguo, and the Third Division of Guiguo. Are the three division commanders ready?"
"Your Highness, we are ready."
"Then please ask the three division commanders to go to their respective units and conduct pre-war mobilization."
"Yes, sir!"
After the three division commanders left, Toyotomi Tohide smiled and looked far away, and said to a middle-aged man at the bottom of the conference room who looked obviously different from the others: "Mr. Cromwell, it is said that the man Philip sent to Andhra is a guy named Louis de Bourbon. Are you familiar with him? Do you know his combat style and characteristics?"
"Your Highness." Cromwell, who had lived in Beijing for several years and had a plumper figure, stood up with difficulty, holding his big belly. "This Louis is French, and is from the royal family of the former Kingdom of France ... Generally speaking, this young man has talent, and his military talent is enough to command hundreds of thousands of coalition forces on the opposite side. But after all, he is only 26 years old. Therefore, impulsiveness and love of adventure are his shortcomings that he cannot overcome for the time being. In the next battle, if our landing goes smoothly, then I suggest that when attacking the opponent's subsequent defense line, we can consider taking the initiative to reveal the flaws and lure this young man to run out of the defense line to fight with us."
"I see. Haha, come to think of it, I can't wait to face off against the best young general in Europe."
It was eight o'clock in the morning. After three hours of fierce bombardment, in the bright morning light, even Toyotomi Takehide and others who were sitting on the transport ship behind the battleship could see through telescopes on the higher bridge that the beach opposite, at least on the surface, was a mess.
He nodded to the adjutant behind him, and the adjutant raised his hand and fired a red flare. As the flare was fired, countless soldiers from various vassal states who had already gotten off the large transport ship and onto the small rowboats shouted in unison and began to row the oars in their hands.
That’s right, it’s just an ordinary small wooden boat, rowed by manpower, and at most two thick steel plates are installed on the bow for protection: at the current stage when internal combustion engines have not been put into practical use on a large scale, this is the only way.
Amid the shouts of the He, Korean and Thai warriors, these thousands of small rowing boats quickly passed the battleships at the front of the fleet, and then approached the coastline firmly and quickly.
When we were about seven or eight hundred meters away from the coastline, there was finally a sound on the coastline which had been silent.
With a burst of air-breaking sound, a shell fired from a 150mm cannon drew a parabola and landed directly in the area where many small rowboats were densely distributed. While blowing away and overturning seven or eight small rowboats in the vicinity, it also caused about thirty casualties.
And with the arrival of this shell, more shells were fired from the coast.
Of course, before these artillery fired the second round, the battleships, which had better vision, had already fired their 305 heavy artillery at the targets based on the positions exposed when these artillery were fired.
Although the Polish heavy guns had thick concrete bunkers above them, the tubes were still more than half as thin as the battleship's main guns. So after being suppressed like this, they quickly lost their temper.
"Damn it, where is our navy! On our army side, 150mm guns are already super heavy artillery, but on the navy side, 150mm is just the beginning. Without the cooperation of the navy, how can we defend this beach?"
The middle-aged man named Titovsky led 15,000 Poles to guard this place. From 5 a.m. on this day, he kept asking his telegraph team to call for help from the naval base in Colombo. However, Garcia, who was under strict orders from Philip, was helpless in the face of a number of warships on the slipway that needed varying degrees of repair.
Then the Pole took the case to Philip, who was now sailing to Bombay, and then to Delhi. The leader explained the difficulties of the navy very gracefully, and then encouraged him to bravely meet the yellow monkeys who were about to land for the honor of Christians and the pride of white people.
However, facing the 305mm guns of the Ming Navy, no matter how good the Poles felt about themselves on a daily basis, they did not dare to say anything big like "the headquarters will definitely hold the first line of defense."
In short, under the suppression of the Ming Navy battleships, at nine o'clock in the morning, as the bottom of the first landing craft touched the gravel on the beach, countless landing craft arrived at the beach one after another. The soldiers in green military uniforms, whether they were energetic and eager to make achievements, or vomited and exhausted in the turbulence of the waves, all jumped out of the small boats one after another, holding the submachine guns in their hands, and began to sprint towards the enemy's defense line on the beach.
Among these soldiers, Naohiro Ii ran first.
He was the grandson of Ii Naomasa, a senior official of Tokugawa Ieyasu. If the Tokugawa family still controlled Japan, he would have had a considerable territory. Unfortunately, after the fall of the Tokugawa family, the Ii family not only lost the 350,000 koku of fiefdom, but also had an extremely embarrassing position in Japan.
When the Ming Dynasty went on an expedition to India, his father Ii Naotaka volunteered to join. With his military exploits, he was given a fiefdom in Andhra Pradesh with an output of no less than 10,000 stones, and the Ii family saw hope for revival again.
Unfortunately, less than three years later, with the invasion of Spain, the Ii family lost all their fiefdoms again. His father, Ii Naotaka, also died in that war.
India, return to India, make military achievements, and regain the fiefdom. This was the obsession of all the men of the Ii family. This time, almost all the men of the Ii family, except for those who were underage, signed up to participate in the expedition to India: after all, they were samurai with a family background, and their combat skills were much higher than those of farmers. So this time, Ii Naohiro was appointed as the captain of the 1st Division of the Japanese Army Group, leading a squadron.
"Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh~" Dense machine gun bullets flew past him quickly, splashing blood on the two soldiers behind him. But Ii Naohiro didn't slow down his pace at all, nor did he think of finding a cover to hide. He raised his submachine gun and randomly fired at the direction where the bullets were flying from. Then he turned around and yelled to the soldiers in his squadron: "Those who are afraid of death will surely die, and those who are brave enough to move forward will have a chance of survival. Gentlemen, charge forward!"
“Wow~!”
Puff, just as his soldiers shouted together, several more rounds of bullets flew over, knocking down two more Japanese soldiers. Not only that, a 75mm artillery shell landed in the charging crowd, knocking down more than a dozen soldiers in this squadron of only more than 180 people.
The momentum of the charge slowed down, and many soldiers began to look around for cover. Seeing this, Ii Naohiro's eyes turned red: "Damn it! His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty gave us the opportunity to return to India, but you didn't cherish it! Get up and keep charging forward. It doesn't matter if you die, His Majesty the Kanpaku will give land to your descendants. If you are afraid of death and refuse to move forward, you will have nothing if I kill you!"
He slowed down his pace and began to urge his soldiers to pass him and continue to charge forward. As if to further boost morale, in addition to constantly saying "撃する", at the end, when all his soldiers rushed forward, he also charged with his gun in hand, and simply shouted loudly: "Aboard! His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, board!"
The Japanese soldiers, desperate for land, led by their respective officers, launched a desperate charge towards the Polish defense line!
