Danmaxi Fortress is about to be finished...but not yet!
It is said that Danmaxi Fortress is about to be completed because after losing the loyalty of India's Asan, Viscount Beresford's white-skinned British soldiers really have no way to maintain the defense zone. In the early morning of March 11, after a day and night of not intense "fierce fighting", 92,000 of the 100,000 British and Indian regiments on Damasi Island were killed by artillery shells, bombs, or bullets. To die is to bravely raise your hands and surrender to the soldiers of tomorrow and the Japanese soldiers.
According to statistics from the Ming and Japanese troops, they captured a total of about 75,000 Indian Sanges on this day, which is really a lot! There was too much time to transport them, and there was not enough food to supply them, so we had to give each person a handful of White Rabbit toffee (all kinds of toffee and chocolate are high in calories and easy to store, so they are very suitable as emergency military rations) and a compressed Biscuits, let him sit in the embankment of the Johor Strait, eating candy and biscuits to satisfy his hunger, while waiting for the transfer after dawn... I have to say that the Ming Dynasty these days is really "Celestial".
The reason why Tammasik Fortress is not finished yet is because Viscount Beresford finally succeeded in gathering about 5,000 British soldiers and 7,000 Asan soldiers into the core area of Tammasik Fortress built on Bukit Timah Mountain - giving up. Established the Johor Strait defense line and all coastal forts.
However, the reason why the Danmaxi Fortress is not completed yet is not because of the more than 10,000 defeated soldiers and the seemingly solid core area of the fortress. The construction of the core area of the fortress began a hundred years ago and took 20 to 30 years to complete. According to the seven By the standards of eighty years ago, that was pretty impressive. But now the Ming army has an "Island"-class shallow-water heavy gunship equipped with a 320mm naval gun. After the coastal defense fortress on the south coast of Damasi Island is lost, this kind of gunboat can drive to the shore of Damasi Island and blast the core of the fortress with a 320mm cannon. How could a solid fortress built seventy or eighty years ago withstand the bombardment of a 320mm cannon?
Therefore, the real reason why the Danmaxi Fortress was not completed is that the Nanyang Army Headquarters and the Nanyang Fleet Headquarters received orders from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Navy at the same time - to suspend the attack and to encircle but not attack!
As for the purpose of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Navy issuing this order, Zhuge Weidao on the Shu Zhongwang could guess with his heels that the Ming Dynasty in Beijing must have wanted to give the British Empire a chance to admit defeat with dignity... At the same time They also used the opportunity of negotiation to set a trap for Britain in order to create favorable conditions for the next military action.
In fact, the gentlemen in Beijing also have three strategies: upper, middle and lower strategies for how long and where the ongoing war should be fought.
The best policy is of course to fight quickly and withdraw as soon as possible... As long as the British Empire can "gloriously retreat" from Malacca, Oceania and western Oregon, and persuade the Dutch to leave the Dutch East Indies and the Spanish to leave Southern Luzon Islands, together with the glorious retreat of the Portuguese from Timor. Then the Ming Dynasty allowed Emperor William to continue to rule the Indian Empire.
In fact, the Ming Dynasty does not want India, which has a large population and little money (gold and silver) and extremely complicated internal problems. The Ming Dynasty liked territories with a small population and a lot of money, such as Oceania with the Xinjin Mountains (which have not yet been discovered), Oregon on the west coast of America, and of course southern Africa. Daming, the oil-producing area of the Persian Gulf, is of course also very fond of it!
Therefore, if Emperor William admits defeat now, it would be okay for the Indian Emperor to let him go.
The middle strategy, of course, is to capture the very annoying India after capturing Oceania, Oregon and other places... This printing does not seem to be difficult, but the question is what to do after defeating it?
Liberate...it's too much trouble! Abolition of caste, equalization of land, and education are all thankless tasks!
If you don’t liberate it, it would be too un-Chinese. If the Ming Dynasty conquered India and did not engage in the "abolition of caste and land equalization" approach, it would be like the United States in another timeline not exporting M masters after conquering some place. The Ming Dynasty always felt that it was wrong to do so... ..
In addition, India does not have a big market at the moment. It just has a large population, not much gold and silver reserves, and no oil. At present, the whole world is still engaged in convertible currency, that is, the gold and silver standard. Without gold, silver, or high-value commodities like oil, there would be no market. You can’t just give it away, right?
As for
The next best option, of course, is to fight all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, sail strong ships and cannons into the Thames River, bombard London and capture Victoria alive!
This will take a long time, and it may not be completed in ten or twenty years!
And what will happen after Britain is defeated?
Should we establish a distinct British Empire or create a British Overseas Province? Or arrange for a Ming prince to forcibly marry Victoria and establish a small Ming Dynasty in England? It doesn’t seem appropriate, right?
So this is the last resort!
To pursue the best strategy, Ming Dynasty should give Emperor William a chance to "surrender and lose half", and at the same time adopt some strategies to mislead Emperor William and the British Empire authorities.
Zhuge Weidao's guess was indeed confirmed on March 12 - that morning, he received a secret telegram from the Naval Staff, and this secret telegram was sent in the name of Chief of Naval Staff Zhuge Weiyi.
Zhuge Weiyi ordered Zhuge Weidao and Zheng Guoxian to preside over the surrender of Danmaxi Fortress, and at the same time tried to talk to Emperor William of India about "glorious retreat" and "territory cession and compensation".
And Colonel Humphrey, who had become "Ming's own man", was of course the best candidate to go between the two armies.
"Colonel Humphrey, I didn't expect you to be alive...that's great!"
In the commander's office in the core fortress of Danmasi Fortress, Viscount Beresford, who was already anxious, gave Humphrey a very warm greeting as soon as he saw him.
Humphrey smiled bitterly and said, "Viscount, to be honest, the current situation for you and me is not good at all!"
Viscount Beresford smiled bitterly: "Yes, you are right...it is indeed very bad. If we lose, the fortress that the empire has worked hard for a hundred years will soon be lost in our hands." !」
"That's not the worst of it," Humphrey said.
"Yes, yes, there are worse things!" Viscount Beresford almost shed tears when he thought that he would be captured and even die gloriously for his country. If he did not die for his country, he might be court-martialed in the future.
He sighed again and asked, "Colonel, what do they mean? Are they trying to persuade me to surrender?"
"Surrender?" Humphrey shook his head and took out a letter written by Zhuge Weidao and handed it over with both hands. "Viscount, you don't have to surrender in humiliation. You can also retreat gloriously."
"Glorious retreat?" Viscount Beresford reached out to take the letter and looked at Humphrey in surprise. "What does this mean? Those Chinese want me to hand over the fortress and then defeat the generals with the remaining soldiers in disgrace." Flee back to India?"
Humphrey shook his head and said: "The glorious retreat means, of course, the glorious withdrawal of the British Empire from India and Malaya..."
"What? You want to withdraw from India?" Viscount Beresford immediately shook his head, "No, this is impossible! Humphrey, you know, India is the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, and the British Empire will always be It’s impossible to give up on India!”
