After defeating the Sulu coastal defenses, Lan Fang's army continued its advance.
Half an hour later, Zhao Xuening landed on the main island of the Jolo Islands. Looking at the Lanfang flag and the navy flag flying on the island, he nodded with satisfaction.
"This battle was quite good. At least it proved that we are already serious professional navy, and we are no longer those dabblers who became monks halfway. Yunlong, you are growing up very fast."
Li Chuang, who was following Zhao Xuening, smiled with chrysanthemums on his face.
"After following you for so many years, of course I have to grow up a little. Otherwise, how can I have the nerve to continue to be the chief of the navy?"
“There is growth, but we cannot slack off.”
Zhao Xuening said slowly: "The navy is different from the army. The navy is too professional. The army can still rely on courage to make a last stand. If the navy's weapons and tactics are backward, it will not even have a chance to make a last stand, and the opponent will not even know how to make a last stand." Give you the chance to sink them, so we must not use the army's method to conduct naval battles."
"I understand this."
Li Chuang said seriously: "You asked us to pay attention to learning naval warfare from the British. We have been paying attention to the naval warfare information in Europe. As soon as there is news, we will hold a meeting to discuss and learn. We dare not slack off for a day."
"That's right. Remember, this world is unreasonable and full of malice. If you fall behind, you will be beaten!"
Zhao Xuening pointed in the direction of the capital of Sulu: "Just like them, if one day we stop moving forward, our end will not be better than theirs. Our enemies will tear us apart and eat us piece by piece. There won’t even be any blood left.”
"clear."
Li Chuang looked in the direction of Zhao Xuening's finger with solemn eyes.
The capital of the Kingdom of Sulu, located on the main island of the Jolo Islands, was quickly exposed to the artillery fire of the Lanfang Army. The Lanfang Army quickly advanced outside the capital. The artillerymen quickly built artillery positions and bombarded the capital indiscriminately. .
The remaining Sulu troops set up artillery in the city to counterattack, but the limited range of their artillery could not threaten Lanfang's artillery position. Once the battle started, it was destined to be an asymmetrical battle.
The Lanfang artillery fired nearly a thousand solid artillery shells in two hours, blasting a gap in the capital wall, and then fired explosive bombs to clear the military obstacles. After another hour, the Lanfang Army successfully broke into the city and fought with the remaining survivors. Sulu soldiers launched the final street battle.
When it comes to close combat, it has always been one of the important subjects in Lanfang Army training.
The musket is equipped with a bayonet, and is about 1.56 meters long. It is a relatively short spear. It is definitely far less than a serious infantry spear, but it is still longer than cold weapons such as swords. of.
On the battlefield of cold weapons, one inch is longer and one inch is stronger. If the gun cannot fire, it can be used as a short spear, which is more intimidating than ordinary cold weapons.
At this moment, facing the Sulu soldiers holding long knives and short swords as their main weapons, the advantages of Lanfang Army soldiers were fully revealed.
It didn't matter if they didn't have time to reload their bullets. They formed a military formation and moved forward with their bayonets straight. Facing the scattered Sulu soldiers rushing over and screaming, the Lanfang Army seemed particularly calm.
Stab, tuck, thorn, tuck.
You attack the upper road, I attack the lower road, and we cooperate with each other. A set of standard bayonet tactical movements are performed smoothly, telling the Sulu soldiers on the opposite side that we are not only good at shooting, but also good at hand-to-hand combat.
Lan Fang's army advanced step by step. Sulu soldiers continued to die in battle and retreated. Finally, they were completely wiped out by Lan Fang's army at the gate of the palace. The palace was breached. Lan Fang's soldiers poured into the palace like a tide and captured alive including the King of Sulu. All the senior officials of the Sulu Kingdom were captured in one fell swoop.
The Kingdom of Sulu has essentially been officially subjugated. Its main military strength and population strongholds have been captured by the Lanfang Army. The remaining settlements and small military forces on many other islands are no longer able to resist the attack of the Lanfang Army.
At this moment, it was only half a month before Lanfang's army set off for the expedition.
Zhao Xuening entered the capital of the Sulu Kingdom on November 5th.
Here, Zhao Xuening discovered tens of thousands of plundered slaves from various ethnic groups. Some have become slaves. They are insensitive, afraid of light and afraid of crowds. Some are still being imprisoned and trained. Most of the slaves have scars. Tired and in extremely poor physical condition.
These people were all kidnapped by Sulu pirates and would be sold to different places in the future. Part of the gold and silver treasures exchanged became the military expenses of the Sulu Kingdom, while most of them became capital for the luxury enjoyment of high-level officials.
After conquering the palace, Zhao Xuening obtained mountains of gold, silver and various treasures, all of which belonged to the top brass of the Sulu Kingdom.
In addition to the customary wealth of the people, most of the property came from decades of plundering and slave trading by Sulu pirates.
Because they had no intention of recruiting them, Lanfang's army tortured them severely and forced them to spit out all the money they had stored. The amount was large enough to form another Lanfang army of the same size.
It is conceivable that although the Sulu Kingdom is facing the danger of national subjugation at this moment, their top leaders still have huge wealth. If this wealth is used in a reasonable place, perhaps their resistance can be more lasting and resolute.
Unfortunately, this is no longer possible.
The hatred between Lanfang and Sulu was too great, and there was no possibility of reconciliation. So after the torture was over, Zhao Xuening ordered the execution of all the senior officials of the Sulu Kingdom, leaving no one behind.
Then he ordered that all officials and military officers at all levels in the Sulu Kingdom be rounded up and executed together, leaving only ordinary soldiers and ordinary civilians, thus completely destroying the Sulu Kingdom from another level.
The wealth accumulated by its senior officials and pirates over the past decades has all become the spoils of Lanfang Republic, and has been incorporated into the Lanfang treasury by Zhao Xuening to be used for future national development.
Precious metals such as gold and silver are sent to special gold and silver vaults to be used as reserves for future currency issuance.
Zhao Xuening plans to dispatch some officials from the base camp here, select islands that can develop agriculture in the entire Sulu Archipelago, organize all the people of the Sulu Kingdom into farms according to Lanfang's method, implement the most direct management, and slowly Assimilated into the same cultural area.
It took about a month before Zhao Xuening returned to Seoul, where he was busy dealing with some post-war matters, including rewards for the army, control and necessary investment in the Sulu Islands, selection of managers, etc.
Because the country was a start-up, there were often not enough administrative human resources to use, so Zhao Xuening selected veterans who had retired from the battlefield due to various reasons but were still healthy and threw them into an administrative crash course.
In the crash course, Zhao Xuening asked them to learn all kinds of necessary knowledge, and after three months, they were thrown out as farm heads to handle grassroots administrative issues.
Although it is a bit risky on a technical level, loyalty is guaranteed.
These veterans all worked hard with Zhao Xuening. Most of them are Chinese. They have enough loyalty and respect for Zhao Xuening, allowing them to control the grassroots without worrying about big troubles at the grassroots level and maintain basic stability.
As for other aspects, we have to leave everything to time.
Zhao Xuening planned to take some time off after the Philippines strategy was over, merge and reorganize several administrative crash courses into Lanfang National School of Political Science and Law, and seriously start training his own professional civil servants to make national governance more professional and meticulous. change.
It's not okay to always do personnel work in the grass-top style.
Although the Sulu Kingdom is an ancient kingdom of some years, its governance level is not very good, its ruling population is not large, and its development of the ruled areas is quite limited. This is also a common problem in Southeast Asian countries.
Most of their population lives on some flat lands that were not easily developed, while the more mountainous areas and rainforests are almost uninhabited. Although it is considered part of the Sulu Kingdom, it is difficult for the kingdom to escape from these uninhabited islands. What resources are available.
Similarly, after conquering the kingdom, Zhao Xuening actually only needed to control some larger population centers, and basically controlled the entire Sulu Kingdom.
On this basis, promoting the reorganization of the population into farm-like grassroots administrative divisions will swallow up the Sulu Kingdom in one gulp.
As for the subsequent digestion process, you must leave it to time.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry, etc. joined forces to form a joint working group, and under the leadership of Zhao Xuening, they began the work of digesting the Sulu Kingdom.
At the same time, the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines also began to take action.
