Although coconuts are also abundant in the southern coastal areas of Myanmar, making coconut bombs is not difficult at all. However, considering the huge cleanup work after occupying the city, Zheng Chenggong gave up the idea.
I heard from my father, Zheng Zhilong, that when they besieged the Relanja Castle, they fired a large number of coconut bombs into the castle, leaving almost no foothold in the open space inside.
If the war zone had not been frequently hit by storms, the Dutch would not have been able to hold on for so long.
What Zheng Zhilong regretted was that he didn't remember the need to clean up the castle until the Dutch prisoners were taken away.
As a result, no one along the way was willing to take the initiative, and everyone passed the blame because they kept feeling nauseated after entering.
Finally, we found a group of hard-working people and gave them a lot of money to clean the inside and outside of the castle.
Now if coconut bombs were fired on a large scale into Handharwady City, the guy responsible for cleaning up afterward would definitely hate himself.
In view of this, Zheng Chenggong did not intend to ask for trouble.
Besides, it is the local rainy season right now, and it rains almost every day, so the effectiveness of coconut bombs may be greatly reduced.
After carefully observing the city with telescopes many times, the veteran gunners in the Zheng Army believed that the city's defense capabilities were not as good as those of Manila or the castle of Geranze.
Conventional bombardment is enough to destroy the city wall within fifty days. Whether or not coconut bombs are used is another matter.
Zheng Chenggong did not have much experience in this kind of offensive operation, because he had previously followed Emperor Haojing in field battles with Donglu.
Donglu will not stupidly defend the city waiting for the Ming Dynasty to attack. Firstly, the Ming Dynasty has very powerful firepower, and secondly, there are many people.
Once they are surrounded like a steel pipe, the defenders may really be wiped out in the city...
It seems that Mang Bai is not afraid of death and wants to continue to resist in the capital. This is because he has never experienced the pain of the Ming Dynasty King's bombardment!
Zheng Chenggong couldn't help but find it funny after seeing a map of Myanmar before. He called himself the "Taungoo Dynasty" and actually built the capital upstream not far from the river's mouth.
If the enemy invades by sea, or even goes upstream like now, wouldn't your capital city be easily surrounded by the enemy?
Since the enemy fleet can reach the city directly, it is impossible for the other side to successfully relieve the siege without sufficient troops and firepower.
Nandu City had more or less problems in this regard. It was captured by the Spanish fleet going upstream.
Beidu is relatively good. It is only connected by canals. The enemy can only land from Tianjin, and then there are other ways.
Hanthawady City has a problem similar to Nandu City, and it is very deadly.
The slightly better side is that the width of the Bago River is much narrower than that of the Yangtze River, otherwise all the Ming fleets would come in.
At that time, tens of thousands of naval guns will fire a salvo, and the city will be captured in less than three days, without even the possibility of holding on.
Seven days later, on a dark and windy night, Mang Bai led the defenders to break through to the north.
Prior to this, some sections of the city wall had collapsed. Although the scale was small, this was an obvious signal.
According to the generals' estimates, the entire shelled city wall would collapse within five days at most.
If we don't break through before then, we will have a street fight with the Ming army, and the result may be disastrous.
With the Ming army being heavily bombarded day after day, Mangbai's confidence in holding on to the capital was plummeting.
Unless there is a storm when the city wall collapses, causing a large amount of water to enter the Ming army's firearms and become ineffective.
Otherwise, even if they take advantage of the geographical advantage, it will be difficult for the defenders to defeat the menacing Ming army.
Mang Bai now gradually realized that this group of Ming troops was not as easy to deal with as those Ming troops back then.
He had fought two battles and lost less than 30,000 people. The main force was still there and he could continue to deal with the Ming army.
The problem is that there is currently no way to reverse the decline and defeat the Ming army.
The opponent's firepower was so fierce that even the war elephant he relied on the most was unable to exert its due fighting power.
Regardless of whether they use cavalry or infantry, they will not have much advantage in front of the Ming army.
Now there were many Ming warships in the river, shelling the capital continuously.
After Mang Bai reluctantly endured it for three days, he couldn't bear it anymore and ordered the servants in the rear mansion to help the concubines pack their belongings and be ready to retreat at any time.
Even if the people cannot be taken away, all gold, silver and jewelry must be taken away. All food that cannot be taken away must be burned. We must not easily fund the enemy.
As for the people in the city, after they ran out of food, they left it to the Ming Emperor and let him solve this difficult problem by himself.
"Report~! Your Majesty, Mang Bai has led his troops to break through to the north!"
"Oh? Master Wang, can you stop it?"
"The opponent's cavalry is very large in number, and they also carry a large number of soil sacks to fill the horse pits, so..."
"No problem! Let's explore again!"
"yes!"
In the current situation, Master Wang, who lacked war horses, simply could not catch up with Mang Bai, who wanted to break out of the encirclement. Chongzhen could understand this.
After experiencing a bunch of painful lessons in the past few years, Chongzhen gradually understood that leading troops in war is not just about how you want to do it, but must be based on reality.
Even if Mang Bai was not captured, he at least captured his capital. This was the biggest gain in more than two months. This news could be sent back to the mainland and published in newspapers.
Thinking back to when Na Duizi attacked Liaodong, he carried out several Northern Expeditions in order to capture Shenyang.
Now it only took him less than three months to occupy the so-called capital of the barbarians.
After comparison, wouldn't it be a matter of judgment?
Chongzhen could not help but feel a little proud. After he was in a good mood, he invited the generals to discuss how to advance the army.
"Your Majesty, I believe that the first step is to divide the troops and advance, the second step is to increase troops here, and the third step is to win over the local chieftains."
During the banquet, Zheng Chenggong spoke directly and said the three tricks he had come up with.
"My dear, can you elaborate on this?"
Chongzhen knew that this man was the proud disciple of Ni Zi, and he was very capable, so he naturally took a high look at him.
"Your Majesty, the terrain of Myanmar has mountains in the east, west and north, forming a "several" structure. Only the south and central part are plains. There are three rivers on the plains. From west to east they are the Irrawaddy River, the Bago River, and the Tin River. Among them, the length of the Bago River is less than half that of the two other rivers. Judging from the experience of naval battles in the past two months, I believe that the Burmese navy has nothing to fear. The king's navy only needs hundreds of wooden warships to control Burma. Coastal areas. The minister and General Zhang Mingzhen can each lead their troops and go upstream from the Irrawaddy River and the Xidang River respectively. General Song Ji can attack north along the Bago River. The Wang Division will launch three arrows at once. Advance northward. Furthermore, although the puppet king Mangbai was defeated and fled, he still had tens of thousands of soldiers and horses under his command. If he was allowed to recover, he would definitely come back and become a serious problem for the king's division. If the king's division of less than 70,000 wanted to pursue northward, It will inevitably weaken the control of the coastal areas, giving Mang Bai and other remnants an opportunity to take advantage of. I think it is best to add tens of thousands of troops from the mainland to consolidate the areas that have been recovered. Finally, after attacking Mang Bai's troops At the same time, you can also win over the chieftains who are opposed to Mangbai. As long as you are willing to cooperate with the king's division to besiege Mangbai's troops, you can get preferential treatment by bartering Ming products. The armor and weapons captured after the victory of the king's division can also be distributed to many chieftains for free. .”
Zheng Chenggong felt that Master Wang would only pursue Mang Bai all the way, and he would probably not get the desired result the more he pursued.
Mang Bai was very likely to circle around the map, waiting for an opportunity to divert the tiger away from the mountain, and then attack Master Wang's weakness.
Only by constantly putting pressure on Mang Bai and allowing him to take care of himself, Mang Bai had no energy left to counterattack Master Wang.
As for the military strength, less than 70,000 people are simply not enough to regain the entire Burma.
According to Zheng Chenggong's estimate, the number would need to increase to at least 100,000 to barely be able to complete the offensive mission.
If Nanting is in trouble, he can still provide 10,000 people, and then ask Emperor Haojing to symbolically allocate 20,000 to 30,000 people to help.
The cost of asking the Northern Army to help can also be easily solved, just use the captured miners to pay for it.
"...Well! What Aiqing said is indeed true knowledge and insight!"
After hearing this, Chongzhen immediately stopped thinking about drinking and eating, and looked at the map of Myanmar carefully.
After thinking about Zheng Sen's words for a moment, he finally agreed.
Zheng Sen's suggestion is very good. A three-way attack may be more effective than a one-way attack.
If Song Ji's troops are unable to join forces with Mu Tianbo's troops fighting in northern Myanmar within a short period of time.
Then only by capturing Mang Bai as soon as possible can this war end, otherwise it will inevitably fall into a protracted war of attrition.
Nanting can afford to have 100,000 soldiers and horses fighting overseas all year round, but naturally the sooner the war ends, the more money will be saved.
The problem is how to catch up with Mang Bai's remnants as soon as possible without war horses?
If our troops can't catch up to Mang Bai, how can we capture him and end the war?
"General Zheng, the king's army is currently very short of war horses, and transporting them by sea from the mainland is very expensive. I wonder if the general has thought of a solution?"
Song Ji posed a moderate problem for Zheng Chenggong, which is also the actual situation.
As long as you have a war horse, everything is much easier, otherwise you can only rely on two legs...
"General Song, I think this is not difficult to solve. It just needs to spend some money to do it!"
Regarding the solution, a certain new emperor had already made it clear to Zheng Chenggong in his letter.
"Oh? Why didn't you mention it earlier if you had a good idea?"
Chongzhen suddenly interrupted, complaining about Zheng Sen between the lines.
"Your Majesty, I wanted to solve this problem by capturing the enemy's war horses. However, the artillery fire was blind, and the enemy seemed to deliberately not keep the war horses and the king's troops. In addition, purchasing the war horses cost a lot, so I am worried..."
After so many years, Zheng Chenggong has become well aware of the virtues of Emperor Chongzhen. As long as money is spent, it will only work if it is carefully discussed, otherwise the money will have to be paid for by himself.
If Zheng's army lacks war horses when fighting in Spain, Zheng Chenggong can pay for it out of his own pocket without saying a word, without the court spending a tael of silver.
But in Myanmar, it is obvious that the procurement of war horses will be given priority, and even all of them will be equipped with Song Ji's troops, so it is natural for the court to pay for them.
"It doesn't matter! Even if there are only fifty horses, I can still buy thousands of good horses for the king's army in Myanmar!"
Chongzhen just wanted to know where Zheng Sen wanted to buy horses. As long as it was cheaper than the local horse, he could purchase it.
"Your Majesty, I thought that the eastern part of India is only a few hundred miles away from Myanmar, and it is extremely convenient to buy horses from there. And to buy horses from Persia, just go around southern India and you will reach Persia. Persian horses can sprint faster than Indian horses. , with a larger load capacity, but the price is much higher. Although Indian horses are small in size, they are heat-resistant and suitable for fighting in Burma. In comparison, I think it is more cost-effective to buy horses from India nearby."
Zheng Chenggong calculated that the war horses could be transported from India to Myanmar in a month at most.
If horses are transported from the mainland, it will take more than three months.
More importantly, the cost will be very high, and you will spend money on eating, drinking and eating during the trip.
If he died of illness, it would be considered a dry compensation and it would be impossible to recover any capital.
"My dear, do you know the price of horses in India?"
"Your Majesty, as far as I know, an Indian horse costs no more than seventy taels of silver. If you buy more, the price will naturally drop."
"Well! In that case, let Aiqing be responsible for purchasing war horses!"
Chongzhen calculated that even if he purchased 10,000 horses, the total price would only be 700,000 taels. If he bought more, he might spend more than 100,000 taels less.
This price is still affordable, because the cost of a hundred thousand troops in Myanmar for a month will not be much less than this.
The Zheng family has been in business for generations and has a wide network of contacts, especially maritime merchants from various countries, so buying horses is a no-brainer.
Chongzhen also received sixty-six good horses as a gift from a certain filial son. Although they were mixed-blood war horses, they were tall and had glossy coats, so they were indeed very good horses.
After tasting the sweetness, Chongzhen originally planned to purchase 3,000 mixed-blood horses for the Yongwei Battalion.
When I asked about the price, it was as high as 500 taels per horse!
The best war horse on the grassland was less than two hundred taels, which was unacceptable to Chongzhen.
Therefore, a certain filial son settled an account with a certain father in his reply.
The original purchase of Dumas shipped from the Middle East cost a lot of money. Although it was compensated with local products, the discount for each horse was as high as 800 taels.
Later, it cost money to breed war horses in Jeju Island, build stables, hire grooms and veterinarians, and feed these precious horses with good feed.
If the foal unfortunately dies in infancy, this will naturally be included in the cost.
After learning about these situations, Chongzhen could only use the steel ingots produced in Ma'anshan to offset related expenses...
Unexpectedly, the current lack of war horses could be solved by buying horses from India. The price was not expensive, so Chongzhen felt very relieved.
Zheng Chenggong saw that the emperor's complexion had improved a lot, so he thought to himself: As long as you don't buy the cows from the other party for cooking, you can use other livestock as you like!
Should we immediately take advantage of the victory and pursue Mang Bai?
Of course I won’t chase you!
When the Indian war horses are transported here, they will be able to kill all directions, but the cavalry will have to be transported from the mainland.
In order to let Nanting know the war and changes here quickly, Chongzhen also wrote the general outline on a piece of paper and stuffed it into a paper tube tied to the messenger's paw.
A huge falcon took to the sky, flew directly from Myanmar to Xiamen, and then flew from Xiamen to Nandu.
Just in case, Chongzhen also asked Zhang Mingzhen to send multiple ships to return at the same time, in order to send the information to the place.
At this time, Chongzhen remembered the benefits of telegraph, if there was a line from Myanmar to Nandu.
Send a report here and receive the message on the other side, which really saves time and effort.
Maybe after regaining this place, we can really build a line to Yunnan!
