,!
Heavy fog is both a hindrance to movement and the best cover, especially for those who are familiar with the environment.
The fleet of the Maritime Trade Alliance has been hiding around Sacheon since the landing in Sacheon, and has never appeared outside Busan Port, but staying in Sacheon does not mean that it is parked in the port and does nothing.
They clearly investigated the hydrological and sea conditions in the sea area between Geoje Island and Noryangjin. Not only did they map and mark the location of the islands and the direction of the ocean currents, they also searched for local Korean fishermen and tried their best to ask about possible extreme weather at different times and periods.
In short, the Sea Trade Alliance fleet has made corresponding preparations for all factors that may affect operations in this sea area.
Speaking of which, this is also a fine tradition formed by the Maritime Trade Alliance, especially Jinghua, over the years. After all, a large part of Gao Pragmatic's understanding of the "Century Navy" is about "how to form a fine tradition."
However, there are also certain factors of coincidence that the encirclement can be formed in the heavy fog.
When the heavy fog began to appear, it was actually not bright yet. Due to the short distance between them, the four ships of the Ming Army turned on their windproof signal lights for the purpose of contacting the command. They happened to be discovered by the main fleet moving slowly eastward.
Since the large windproof signal lamp is still one of the unique features of the Maritime Trade Alliance (a glass cover with a retort-like structure, the lower base can be removed to replenish lamp oil and replace the wick, and the outside is fixed and protected with cloth-wrapped wire mesh), so the "Dongchang" "Captain and interim fleet commander Gao Shengyi knew as soon as he heard that the decoy formation must have returned.
Gao Shengyi immediately ordered to get in touch and learned that the Japanese navy was not far behind the decoy formation. He did not hesitate to order changes in formations and deployed a targeted encirclement net.
This is not a siege, there is no siege, the siege network is a comprehensive siege from all directions.
Of course, the force division is not evenly distributed. The flagship "Dongchang" second-level battleship and the two third-level battleships "Changning" and "Changding" are all assigned to face the enemy head-on.
Five first-class cruisers were assigned to the left wing of the fleet, or the northern position, and six second-class cruisers were assigned to the right wing, or the southern position.
At this time, in addition to the four decoy formations that had been operating continuously for a day and night and the twelve ships that had been transferred to support operations outside Busan Port, there were still thirty armed transport ships left. Gao Shengyi assigned fifteen of them to go around the eastern part of the encirclement circle, that is, behind the Japanese navy, and assigned five ships to each of the west, south, and north routes.
Judging from this configuration, the east route blocking the Japanese army's return route has the largest number, but there are no main warships; the front of the west route is the strongest because there are three battleships that can be called the giants of the sea in today's world; the north and south two There are cruisers on the road, and there are many of them, and they are equally powerful.
Obviously, the three routes in the southwest and north are the main attack, while the east route is mainly responsible for blocking the entrance to prevent the Japanese navy from escaping back to Busan after defeat. Since the North and South Roads each have several cruisers with strong combat capabilities and fast speeds, they can also be used as pursuit fleets when holes appear in the East Road blockade.
There is no doubt that this is a sure-kill formation. It has no intention of leaving even a glimmer of hope for the Japanese navy. It is completely aimed at annihilating them. In fact, this is also a reflection of Gao Shengyi's emotions in this battle - he is really holding back.
At the beginning of the expedition, when he saw that his master had mobilized such a large-scale main force of the Beiyang Fleet, he was already prepared for a shocking decisive battle with the Japanese navy, and he was thinking about a "Battle of Baijiangkou" , followed the example of the Tang Dynasty, and defeated Japan in one battle.
Who would have expected that after North Korea, the master only transferred twelve armed transport ships in his fleet to the imperial navy to help blockade the Busan Port, while the real main force of the battle stayed in Sichuan "with nothing to do" and could only do some hydrographic reconnaissance. Nosy business”.
This made Gao Shengyi, who was holding his breath to fight a big battle, almost depressed. Every day, he was wondering when the battle situation would change, so that the Beiyang Fleet, which had been holding back its energy, would vent its anger, lest the two fleets of the North and the South would be separated from each other. They were underestimated by those guys from Nanyang during the annual routine joint exercises.
Having said that, it is necessary to mention a little about the development and performance of the Nanyang Fleet in recent years.
During the Battle of Luzon, Gao pragmatically dispatched the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance with the Beiyang Fleet as the core in order to train the Beiyang Fleet, which rarely had the opportunity for large-scale actual combat (mainly because of the need to lead the nobles to explore new markets). The fleet, together with the Marine Corps and other land-based armed servants, fought the Battle of Luzon.
The Nanyang Fleet, except for sending a group of sailors who were familiar with the conditions of the Luzon Sea to act as guides, almost did not participate in the war at all, which led to some voices of dissatisfaction within the Nanyang Fleet.
Jinghua’s system is self-contained, but its top-level system is ultimately still the Ming Dynasty’s domestic servant system. This resulted in that in principle, except for the Gao pragmatic couple and the Gao family clan members, everyone else had the status of slaves and maidservants.
What is a slave or a maid? The biggest characteristic of slaves is that they all belong to their masters physically. For example, when the owner divides the family, they should be distributed together with other properties, and the owner can sell and transfer them at will.
In other words, the master is the "only" to the slave, and the slave is "one" to the master. The master is the owner of ownership, and the slave is only the owner's property.
Property does not require self-awareness, and all will depends on the owner, so the Nanyang Fleet does not dare to have any dissatisfaction with Gao Pragmatic's decision.
However, people are human after all, not to mention that Jinghua's reward and punishment system is very clear and strict. As part of the armed servants, in addition to "promotion and salary increase" such as length of service and daily meritorious service, the best way to gain status and accumulate wealth is to achieve military exploits.
There was almost no actual fighting in the acquisition of the Aralia Peninsula (Malay Peninsula) before (in fact, they fought a few small countries, but they were basically at the level of armed marches). It was Huang Zhiting who finally used military threats and economic oppression to gain political control from Portugal. received in human hands.
This caused the Nanyang Fleet, which had been holding its breath and preparing for a big fight with the Spanish and Portuguese Empire, to be dumbfounded on the spot. In the end, it only received a month's salary increase as a reward. The entire fleet was disappointed.
When it came time to conquer Luzon, it was clear that Luzon should be within the scope of responsibility of the Nanyang Fleet from a geographical point of view. However, because the Ming Dynasty was accustomed to treating Luzon as part of the "Eastern Ocean", the task was assigned to the Beiyang side, even more so. This aggravated the depression of the Nanyang Fleet.
Not long after this, not only did Gao Pingshi learn that the Nanyang Fleet was in a mood, but Huang Zhiting, who was stationed in southern Xinjiang on his behalf, received an intelligence alert from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and had to tailor some additional tasks for the Nanyang Fleet.
At that time, the Indochina Peninsula and the Aralia Peninsula were already in the hands of Beijing, and the unconquered areas in the Southeast Asia were mostly the so-called "East Indies" or "Spice Islands" in later generations. Naturally, these additional tasks were nothing more than targeting them.
Naturally, Gao Pragmatic would not call these places the "East Indies". He called them "Nanyang Islands" according to Chinese custom. Therefore, the final mission statement obtained by the Nanyang Fleet was the "Nanyang Islands Plan."
In fact, the plan was very rough at the time. It was filled with various highly uncertain words such as "if there is an opportunity," "if conditions permit," and "if the time is right." It did not issue any instructions to the Nanyang Fleet. Clear task objectives and deadlines for completion.
In short, this is a "statement of intent." As for your Nanyang Fleet, it doesn't matter how much you can accomplish. You can accomplish whatever you can accomplish. If you can't accomplish it, it doesn't matter.
Obviously Gao Pangshi and Huang Zhiting's original intention was just to give the Nanyang Fleet a "head start", but in fact they didn't hold much hope. High pragmatism means digesting the Indochina Peninsula first, such as building Dingnancheng, the core of governance, and then building Longya City (Malacca City), a Nanyang trade center, and Huzhou City (Singapore), a Nanyang naval center.
As for the Nanyang Islands... you might as well wait to avoid indigestion.
However, as these years passed, the third phase of the construction of Dingnan City was completely completed. Jinghua built the largest, most advanced and extremely solid super city in the history of Nanyang slightly south of Bangkok as the core of its rule in southern Xinjiang. .
How big will the city be after the third phase of the project is completed? Compare it to the capital of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, for political expression and military practical purposes, Dingnan City did not adopt the square and symmetrical layout of the central axis like the Ming Dynasty capital, but instead turned it into a super-large bastion-style city.
Its periphery is a polygon with up to twenty-eight protruding triangular parts. It is more like a gear shape than a star shape.
Each "gear" is a firepower point, and up to one target force, that is, 1,756 people can be stationed. Twenty-eight gears means a front-line defense force of 49,168 people, nearly 50,000 troops.
Of course, it is not necessary to arrange a full complement. Each "gear" can arrange a battalion of about 500 people to better complete the defensive task. In this way, the total number of front-line troops can be reduced to more than 16,000, but the strength will not be greatly reduced, allowing the defenders to fully make flexible adjustments according to the actual situation.
The nominal palace of Siam and the de facto core of Beijing's rule is located on a peninsula almost in the middle of the city. The peninsula is not small, but the connection to the land is quite long and narrow, making it extremely easy to defend and difficult to attack.
The peninsula itself is adjacent to the Chao Phraya River, and there is a large lake on the peninsula, so there is no shortage of water sources. Even if there is an accident, it will definitely be able to hold on for a long time. In addition, as long as the naval superiority always exists, at the worst, we can leave by water and ship.
The third phase of the Dingnancheng project cost Jinghua a huge amount of money, but the final results were remarkable and even shocking. Not to mention the nobles from all over southern Xinjiang who saw the amazing work, not only the nobles who had received the relocation quotas all moved to the city in accordance with Jinghua's requirements, even many small and medium-sized nobles who did not get the quotas also begged their grandfathers to tell their grandmothers to try their best to hope. Live in Dingnan City.
Is this strange? Not surprising at all. Dingnan City is like the city of Rome during the Roman Empire. Nobles big and small from all over the country and even the conquered areas regarded it as a paradise on earth and wanted to be Romans.
They are frantically scrapping land in their own local area, but their highest ideal is to make money and live in Rome, which is exactly the same as the attraction of many Shepherd dogs in later generations. Oh, to say the opposite, it should be said that the United States imitated Rome.
After the completion of the third phase of the project, Dingnan City will be the Rome of southern Xinjiang, which naturally attracts the nobles of southern Xinjiang to flock to it.
In this way, two goals were achieved: first, the elites of southern Xinjiang were brought into the high-pragmatic hub; second, the financial pressure on Beijing was suddenly reduced - even because Ding Nancheng began to collect taxes, it suddenly changed from a financial black hole to Gold and silver.
How dare you call it the golden mountain and silver sea? Because in the second year after Dingnancheng started collecting taxes, the customs trade volume reached 5.8 million yuan, almost surpassing Suzhou Prefecture, the first prefecture of the Ming Dynasty. The total commercial (including industry and handicrafts) and agricultural taxes in Nancheng are as high as 1.27 million taels, ranking first in southern Xinjiang, even surpassing Aralia City (Malacca). What is this if not gold and silver?
Of course, the reason why Dingnan City has such ferocious statistics is because it has a powerful siphon effect, not only sucking the blood of all Siam, but also sucking the blood of surrounding kingdoms, but... this is not exactly what Gao Pragmatic wants. ?
Until the proportion of "Han" exceeds more than 70% of all southern Xinjiang through immigration and the naturalized household registration system, such a strong central and weak local model is a policy that Gao Pragmatic will always adhere to. Although he will also build some "sub-center" cities in each kingdom relative to the entire southern Xinjiang, there will no longer be any place that can be designed and built according to the scale of Dingnan City.
At least, certainly not until the "Han Qi Cheng" is achieved.
Now that a huge loss has turned into a surplus, Gao Pragmatic can not only use it freely in the Ming Dynasty, North Korea and Japan in the north, but of course he also has the ability to support the Nanyang Fleet. This greatly accelerated the Nanyang Fleet's ability to "make trouble".
In the second year after the construction of Dingnanchang was completed, the Nanyang Fleet brazenly dispatched troops on the grounds that the Kingdom of Aceh supported pirate forces to rob Ming merchant ships, and easily annihilated the main force of the Kingdom of Aceh's navy - if that was considered the navy.
Then, the Nanyang Fleet ignored the fact that the Kingdom of Aceh had sent envoys to Dingnan City to ask for Huang Zhiting, and took advantage of the fact that Dingnan City had not yet issued any instructions, dispatched two Marines and directly arrived at the capital of the Kingdom of Aceh.
Because the troops were dispatched too quickly this time, it was a magic weapon descending from the sky, and the top brass of the Aceh Kingdom were wiped out in one fell swoop. Just when the top brass of the Kingdom of Aceh fantasized that the ruling structures of the kingdoms in southern Xinjiang would basically be retained, and that their own side would be treated in the same way by Jinghua, bad news came.
It turned out that Huang Zhiting had known about the plan of the Nanyang Fleet, so he delayed summoning the envoys of the Kingdom of Aceh in Dingnan City. It was not until the capital was occupied that he finally ordered the Nanyang Fleet to "restore the Ming Dynasty Old Port Xuanwei Division" on Sumatra Island.
Naturally, Huang Zhiting did not do this on her own initiative, but Gao Pragmatic had already given instructions, so she soon presided over the reconstruction of the Xuanwei Department in the old port and appointed a man named Shi Xiwen as the "Quan Xuanwei Envoy" , that is, the acting ambassador. At the same time, Huang Zhiting reported to the Ming Dynasty, requesting confirmation of the appointment.
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Thanks to book friends "Good Mood on a Cloudy Day", "That Blue Light", "Cao Mianzi", "Yeshuai", and "gjc0616" for their monthly support, thank you!
ps: I don’t plan to write about the Nanyang Islands in detail. After thinking about it, I decided to briefly describe it when writing about Beiyang.
