The conversation ended up being pointless, with the gap between the two sides’ perspectives too great. Gao Zhenxin was too lazy to continue talking nonsense with them and ordered several senior commanders of the Spanish treasure fleet to be detained. At the same time, he returned to the command room with Gao Yimin, Gao Musan and others to discuss the next combat arrangements.
First of all, several warships participating in the war need to be temporarily repaired. This task has actually been arranged for a long time, but the spare repair materials stored on the four warships are not necessarily sufficient. Now that the damage control reports of each ship have been issued, Gao Zhenxin needs to arrange for the allocation of support from other ships.
Temporary repair is definitely not as good as going to the shipyard, but fortunately in this era, shelling from both sides can basically damage the part above the waterline. Such damage can be temporarily reinforced with some wooden boards, and then a simple waterproof seal can be made. used.
Jinghua's four battleships, especially the two cruisers "Dengzhou" and "Jinzhou", seemed to be seriously injured, especially the parts above the deck, which looked as if they had been washed away by a hail of bullets, with shocking holes everywhere. and pieces of wood "chipped" by chain bullets.
But in fact, this kind of damage has little impact on the battleship itself. The damage control personnel of each ship initially estimate that the repairs can be roughly completed before the sailors go to bed tonight.
The biggest difficulty in the current battleship repair work is the captured former Spanish fleet flagship "San Antonio". The foremast of this large Spanish galleon was broken at the waist, and it is impossible to replace it now - not to mention that it is impossible to carry dozens of meters of mast material with the ship, even if there is material, it cannot be replaced. This thing is erected from the keel upwards. There are various reinforcements below the deck, and there are a lot of support cables connected to it above the deck. Even if it is repaired in the shipyard, it will be a big project that requires various disassembly and assembly. What's more, we are still at sea.
As a result, the subsequent speed of the "San Antonio" will be significantly slowed down, which may affect the overall speed of the fleet. As a last resort, Gao Zhenxin had to arrange another armed transport ship as a tugboat to help it increase its speed.
Although the tonnage of the armed transport ship itself is one-third smaller than it, and it may not be easy to use as a tugboat, it is impossible for several main battleships to be used as tugboats. The Spanish other large Galen ships could have been used as tugboats, but unfortunately their injuries were not light. The last section of the voyage to Manila was dominated by headwinds, and their soft sailing ships were worse than hard sailing ships, so now it is not possible to use them. I couldn't care less about that. It was better to be faster, so I had to use an armed transport ship to top it.
Damage control work roughly consists of these. In addition, there is also the issue of casualty treatment. The three people discussed it and felt that it was not the best choice for each ship to take care of the wounded on its own. It would be better to temporarily change the purpose of an armed transport ship to specifically accommodate the wounded.
The armed transport ship has a capacity of 180 people, but because it is a transport ship, its carrying capacity is still very strong. As long as it is not involved in combat, it can obviously meet the needs specifically for housing the wounded. What's more, this will make it easier to concentrate medical and nursing efforts, and the effect should be even better.
To this end, the three of them asked several doctors on board the ship to inquire, and the doctors all agreed with this arrangement. Gao Zhenxin no longer hesitated and immediately ordered this to be done. Afterwards, Takagi San thought about it and suggested: "Commander, I feel that if this arrangement is effective, it seems that I can report it to the master to see if our two-ocean fleet can have one or two ships dedicated to treating the wounded in the future."
Gao Zhenxin smiled and said: "This is really the same thing between heroes. I was thinking about this just now, and you brought it up."
Gao Yimin next to him also said: "I think this idea is feasible. Just like the land division now has a dedicated engineer battalion, the medical team in the engineer battalion is somewhat like the hospital ship you mentioned."
The three of them laughed, and even if the matter was settled like this, they would only wait until the battle was over to report it to the master for a final decision.
Immediately afterwards, they began to formally discuss the siege of Manila. This battle must be divided into two parts: sea and land, and to a certain extent, the connection between the two parts is not too big, because according to previous intelligence, the fleet is at sea - even if it is docked at the port, because The range was insufficient to effectively bombard the city of Manila.
So the first thing they discussed was the login issue. The key point of the landing issue is whether to let the land division go ashore on the north bank of the Pasig River first, or whether to let the fleet first deal with the Spanish fleet docked in Manila Port, and then let the land division go ashore.
The reason why this sequence is worth talking about is mainly to consider the impact of the opponent's fleet. According to previous intelligence, the Spaniards should have 6-7 warships in Manila, all of which are Galen ships, but it is still uncertain whether their tonnage is all 1,200 tons such as large treasure ships. .
Normally speaking, the maximum should be 1,200 tons, because the Armada flagship "San Martin" that went to England this year also seems to be 1,200 tons. From this, it can be judged that the mainstream Galen currently built in Spain is probably 1,200 tons.
At the same time, the Portuguese's flagship "San Juan" of this formation in the Armada seems to be at the same level. This means that the shipbuilding levels of the two colonial empires of the "Iberian Union" [Note: Philip II is also now the King of Portugal], Castile and Portugal, are basically at the same level - of course as land-connected countries It is not surprising that the level of "Jun Heguo" is similar.
Based on the leniency of the enemy, if the Spanish still have seven 1,200-ton Galen ships in Manila, Gao Zhenxin would still prefer to finish the naval battle first and defeat the Spanish fleet or force the Spanish fleet to huddle in the harbor before making arrangements. The land division landed ashore.
If not, if Beiyang is attacked by the Spanish fleet while arranging a landing on the north bank of the Pasig River, it may cause large and unnecessary casualties - after all, there is no port on the north bank of the Pasig River, even if the wooden sailing warship docks is not like in later generations. The requirements for steel ships are so high, but they can't just go aground, right?
Whether it is arranging to build a temporary dock or putting down small boats for transportation and landing, during this period the fleet will gather densely and cannot move at will. If the Spanish fleet comes suddenly, just leaving the offshore and adjusting the lineup will cause great trouble to the fleet.
The fleet thinks so, but the land division has obviously different ideas. The tactics of the Beijing-China Liangyang Fleet and the Spanish Fleet are different. The former has always insisted on artillery warfare tactics and will not consider engaging in boarding battles unless it is absolutely necessary. Therefore, it is meaningless for the land division to stay on the ship. If the fleet suffers any losses in the battle, the land division will suffer the same consequences.
Gao Yimin believed that the Chinese army should disembark as soon as possible. His reason was that since there was no news that the Spanish treasure fleet had been wiped out in the battle, the Spanish in Manila should not be ready for war yet, and they might even be embracing Waiting for the arrival of the big treasure fleet.
Under such circumstances, it is unlikely that the Spaniards would be informed of the land division's first landing on the north bank of the Pasig River. Even if there were Spaniards or their lackeys on the north bank of the Pasig River to inform the Governor's Palace in Manila, it would be too late - With this time, the expedition fleet should have gone south to find the Spanish fleet for a decisive battle.
Moreover, Gao Yimin believes that the landing of the Army Division will have a greater deterrent effect on the city of Manila, because since there are only two to three thousand Spaniards including soldiers in Manila City, the huge force of the Army Division is enough to make them nervous.
How strong is the Lu division this time? The total number of infantry and artillery armed servants is more than 13,000, close to 14,000.
Among them, there were 5,600 armed servants from various noble families, roughly 300 from each family of the three great princes, 200 from each family of the marquis, and 100 from each family of the uncles.
Jinghua temporarily mobilized some marines from the Nanyang Fleet, and together with the marines of the Beiyang Fleet, they were temporarily organized into two alliances, with about 8,000 people.
Gao Yimin served as the commander-in-chief of the Lu Division and led the temporary first town commander of the Southern Expedition. The 5,600 people under his command were collectively designated as the third temporary association of the Southern Expedition, under the control of Gao Yimin.
It can be said that such a force is even a fraction stronger than Spain's total force in Manila, and the expeditionary force is not native to Southeast Asia. It is a "modern army" with a higher degree of firearms than even the Spanish Army.
Under such circumstances, as long as the Spaniards are not convulsed, they must know how bad their situation is. Although Manila's city defense system itself is considered strong and has a bastion-like construction style, bastions are not omnipotent. If Jinghua relies on its powerful artillery and bombs indiscriminately regardless of the cost, no matter how strong the castle is, it will eventually be destroyed. One day it will be destroyed.
What's more, this fear will definitely be even greater when the Spaniards know that the large treasure fleet was defeated and captured, and that the waters off Manila were blocked by more than a hundred large ships.
Although the fortress is strong, the people in the fortress always need to eat and drink. Although the Spanish regard Manila as a "colonial stronghold" and have always had the habit of carrying out war reserves, the Philippines is not Russia. The tropical weather here means that the stored food materials will go moldy very early. Once the food spoils or is eaten up, , how to live next?
Do people eat people? There are only more than 20,000 people in Manila. Even if they really engage in cannibalism, they will only survive for a month or two. As long as Manila was unable to obtain reinforcements and supplies, defeat was still inevitable.
Can reinforcements come? Can it defeat such a huge fleet in the open sea? Obviously unlikely. Even if the Armada defeated England, the main force of the Spanish navy would not be able to launch a large-scale expedition to the Far East. There is not only a problem of attrition, but also a problem of national strength - especially financial resources.
The Kingdom of Castile has long owed a huge amount of debt. Although declaring bankruptcy can solve some of the problems, the so-called "debt" does not actually mean that the debt will be cleared. It just means that it will no longer directly pay out such debt. A large amount of money will be returned, and the debt will become a mortgage part of the various tax revenues of the Kingdom of Castile, which will be repaid to the creditors in proportion to the period.
In other words, the money still has to be paid back, but it is forcibly paid in installments. Historically, Spain later borrowed more and more, and even if it continued to increase its mining of gold and silver in the Americas, it could not make up for it. This was because there was also an interest issue - the more it borrowed, the more difficult it would be to repay it in the future.
Even if bankruptcy occurs at any time, it will only turn sudden death on the spot into a long-term illness. The longer it is delayed, the more it will lead to death.
Under such financial pressure, it was impossible for the Spanish to devote their main energy to the Far East and fight against such a huge maritime force.
In the original history, when the Netherlands was at its peak as a "Sea Coachman", it could only pay tribute to Zheng Zhilong obediently in Nanyang and buy Zheng Zhilong's flag in order to move smoothly in the Nanyang region. Could it be that the Dutch maritime power was not strong enough at that time?
Obviously not. Although Zheng Zhilong claimed to have 200,000 armored ships and 3,000 sea-going ships at that time, there is no need to mention the water content of these 200,000 miles. Just look at their performance when facing the Tatars.
And those 3,000 sea-going ships are not standard armed transport ships like the current Jinghua. Most of them are ships with smaller tonnage, which are incomparable to the large sailing ships of the Netherlands. The reason why the Battle of Luowan was expected to be won was that, firstly, the real ants killed the elephant, and secondly, the Dutch were really not used to the large-scale fireship tactics commonly used in Eastern water wars, and they were not very prepared.
In fact, although the Netherlands at that time had a small land area, it was quite powerful. At its peak, there were about 60 shipyards concentrated on both sides of the Zaan River in the Netherlands. These shipyards generally use mechanized equipment such as wind sawmills, power conveyors, pulleys, winches, and heavy cranes, which improves the factory's labor productivity and can produce almost one ship in a day.
It implements standardized management in shipbuilding design, hull parts and other aspects. The Dutch government has set up a department in Amsterdam to develop navigation equipment, manufacture navigation instruments and draw navigation maps. The socialized shipbuilding model reduces production and use costs.
This model includes three aspects: First, the sales strategy. The shipyard not only accepts consumer customization but also sells externally, which activates the funds of the entire shipbuilding market; second, it reduces costs. During that period, ships produced in the Netherlands were more expensive than those produced in the United Kingdom. The price of the boats is 40%-50% cheaper, and the competitiveness is self-evident; third, there are various types, such as "big-bellied boats" for transportation, faster "airships" and "big sailing boats" for fishing and other ship types are popular in Europe.
At that time, the ships built in the Netherlands were reasonably designed, sturdy in structure, and advanced in technology, and the ship operators had 20% fewer operators than ships in other countries. This was crucial for the Netherlands, which had a population of only 1.5 million at the time.
what's the result? The result was that during the golden period of Dutch development, there were 20,000 ships in the world, 3/4 of which belonged to the Netherlands, more than all other countries combined. The situation was just like the US Navy after the Gulf War and before the Red Navy launched its forces. It could be said that it was a single force that conquered the world.
However, even with such strength, the Dutch East India Company [one of the two major monopoly colonial companies in the Netherlands] could only give in after fighting Zheng Zhilong in the Liaoluo Bay naval battle. The East India Company even lamented in its company records: "The Company's power in the Far East was swept away."
Why don't you dare to retaliate after being beaten so badly? Of course, it was too powerful. At that time, the Netherlands was a colonial empire with a strong commercial atmosphere (of course, the political system at that time was not an empire, or even a monarchy in the usual sense). It had to consider whether it was cost-effective to expedition to the Far East.
Obviously this is a deal that will never be a good deal, so for the Dutch, since they lost the war, paying "tolls" is more reliable than going on an expedition. This is the characteristic of this era. Distance severely limits the play of power.
Although Spain's maritime strength is strong at the moment, and it even has Portugal as a powerful maritime ally, it will never have enough financial resources to support an invincible fleet for the Far East.
Gao Pragmatic has never been worried about the military retaliation of the "Two Teeth", but is worried about the impact on trade and silver inflow. It is precisely for this reason.
Not to mention traveling thousands of miles to the South China Sea, just looking at the Anglo-Spanish War can reveal a very interesting phenomenon: if Spain goes on an expedition to Britain, Spain will definitely lose; if the UK goes on an expedition to Spain, then Britain will lose.
Distance is so awesome in this era. Unless the attacking side achieves crushing in technological civilization, it will definitely lose.
Therefore, Gao Yimin insisted that the land division should land earlier and work with the fleet to threaten Manila by land and sea. As long as such a strategic situation is created and Manila learns that the expeditionary force still has 2,000 Spanish prisoners, it will seriously consider whether to talk to the expeditionary force about peacefully dedicating the city.
