Chapter 1661 Attacking Manila (11)

The Spaniards had been colonizing the Philippines for more than half a century, and they were naturally much more familiar with the various local products than Haihan, who had just arrived. However, the geographical information compiled by the colonists was of little significance to Haihan.

Compared with those gold and silver treasures packed in boxes, Haihan can save a lot of time and money in developing Luzon Island in the future.

While his men were counting the property, Yan Chujie called Ran Tianlu to him and asked him: "What kind of priest is this who stores the church property in the store..."

"Chief, it's Father Blanco." Ran Tianlu listened to Yan Chujie's prolonged tone and quickly responded with interest. Although he didn't know what Yan Chujie's intention was when he mentioned Father Blanco, he still restrained himself and listened carefully, fearing that he would miss something.

Character.

"Well, this priest, after we break the city, you try to find him and see if you can get more things out of his mouth." Yan Chujie pointed to the book recording the local natural features and said: "Find out

The source of this information, let’s see if he can provide more things like this.”

Ran Tianlu happily accepted this order. He had known Father Blanc for a long time and had some personal friendship. Although official matters were more important, he would never be emotionally partial to Father Blanc, but if he had the opportunity, he would

He is still happy to help the other party to get a safe situation in this war. Now that the chief has entrusted this job to him, Ran Tianlu can take this command arrow and kill Bran.

Father Coe was saved - provided he survived until he found him.

But Ran Tianlu is not very optimistic about this. He knows that Father Blanco will never hide in the church and wait for the war to end. Instead, he will take a group of people from the church to the battlefield to help treat the wounded. In a war-torn environment, there is no way

As long as a person can ensure his personal safety, no one knows whether a stray bullet will happen to hit the city when it is destroyed.

The clean-up work did not come to an end until late at night. Although Ran Tianlu had predicted in advance that this batch of property was valuable, the final counting results still greatly excited the generals who led the troops this time. Roughly estimated, the value of this batch of gold and silver treasures

The estimated value is at least four million Haihan coins. Some handicrafts made of gems and pearls cannot yet be accurately estimated. Since the launch of this operation, this can be regarded as the largest harvest of the expeditionary force.

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"With this, we can deal with the executive committee." Yan Chujie patted the box containing the money proudly: "Ran Tianlu, you have made a great contribution this time!"

"Every low-level position is done in accordance with the instructions of the chief. I don't dare to take credit for this kind of credit alone!" Ran Tianlu was very knowledgeable and did not forget to ask for credit for the security department to which he belonged.

Yan Chujie ordered all the boxes to be re-sealed with seals prepared by the military, and then transported to the fishing port of Pasay Town. From there, they were shipped and transported to the temporary base at the Port of Cavite for safekeeping. Such a large sum of money would not be enough no matter where it was placed.

Feeling safe, Yan Chujie decided to wait for the war situation to stabilize and then dispatch a naval ship to send him back to Sanya first.

In addition to this important event that night, the army was naturally not idle either. Before dark, they had set up two platforms about ten meters high about a mile away from the city wall, and arranged for snipers to attack the towers on the city wall in the middle of the night.

Precision strikes were carried out in several illuminated places. Since the shooting point was condescending, the illumination made the defenders at the top of the city a living target. After several rounds of shooting, the defenders who realized that they were exposed quickly extinguished the city.

Provide lighting to avoid losing your life in vain.

After forcibly solving the surveillance on the city, the engineers of the special operations battalion took action. The engineers, all dressed in black, carried explosives and tools on their backs and quietly moved towards the city gate. They had to reach the city gate before dawn.

Explosives were laid under the city wall, but what really provided them with cover was not the snipers lying on the high platform a mile away, but the night cover that allowed them to hide their bodies.

There is no moat or other structure outside the south gate of Manila, which saves the engineers a lot of trouble when approaching the city gate.

It's just that although this kind of hidden condition allows the engineers to get close to the city gate, it will also bring great obstacles to their construction operations. Without lighting, it is difficult to carry out complex construction operations. But the engineering troops have long developed a set of

A night action plan specifically targeted at this type of environment. In order to avoid attracting the attention of the defenders on the tower, the engineers carried a special portable tent with an arched structure made of thick, opaque black oilcloth. When using it, they only needed to fold it.

Once the parts are pulled up and erected, a simple arched tent can be formed, and the engineers can install a light object with low light at the center point to assist the construction. Looking down from the top of the city, you can only see

It was so dark that it was difficult to tell the existence of the tent when visibility was low.

Two experienced officers opened the measuring tape, first measured the location, and marked the approximate construction point under the city wall. Then they spread out several arched tents against the city wall. There was an engineering team under each tent, and they started separately.

construction.

The excavation tools used by the engineers are also specially made, and the silent hand drill is the most important tool. They need to drill dozens of arm-thick holes under the base of the city wall, and then bury explosives and detonators inside. This job

It requires both carefulness and patience. If you make a slightly loud noise and are heard by the defenders on top of the city, all your previous efforts may be wasted.

Since the city wall near the south gate was covered with bricks and stones, and the engineers did not dare to let go of the construction work, the drilling progress of several hand drills was much slower than expected. After an hour, only two holes were drilled.

Each hole met the standard. By four o'clock in the morning, the project had barely completed half of the construction volume. However, if only this few blasting holes were charged, it was very likely that the planned blasting target would not be achieved.

It would get brighter later, and if we continue with the construction work, our tracks might be exposed if we retreat later. In desperation, the engineers had no choice but to withdraw their troops and return to camp. Fortunately, the positions of these tunnels are perpendicular to the city wall, from the top of the city.

Its existence cannot be seen at all, so there is no need to worry about being discovered by the defenders during the day.

Of course, after daylight comes, the Haihan Army will not let the defenders in the city idle. Several large-caliber mortars have been transported to the front line. This thing can fire shells weighing dozens of kilograms and even stones.

You can also directly project explosive packets, but there is no accuracy at all, and the hits are basically random.

It is certainly unrealistic to expect such a few mortars to blast through Manila's city defenses, but this thing is very useful in destroying the morale of the defenders and the people in the city. Two rounds fired from time to time are enough to make the people within the range

The people in the city have always been very nervous because there is no guarantee that a shell will fall from the sky and take their lives at the next moment.

Roger, who was responsible for attacking the east area of ​​the city, could no longer sit still. Since the headquarters deployed most of the artillery in the main attack direction in the south of the city, Roger only had a few small-caliber guns used to suppress the scene.

The battle in the city was ineffective, so after his troops took control of the east of the city, there was no follow-up action. But Roger didn't want to just watch, so he simply led a company and continued to march north, advancing to Ba, a few miles away.

It stops at the Stone River Basin.

Roger did not lead his troops to turn to the north of the city, because the siege plan formulated by the headquarters deliberately left an "escape passage" in the north of the city. If he blocked this gap, the people in the city would really have no choice but to

He fought desperately, but this was obviously not in Haihan's interests.

The Haihan Army turned a blind eye to the Manila people who escaped from land and sea. As long as they did not take the initiative to throw moths into the flames, they would let them escape. Even if these people escaped, they would not be able to move back.

Reinforcement troops were needed to solve the predicament in Manila City, and Haihan's army did not want to focus on these small fish and shrimps. For Haihan, occupying Manila City was both the goal and purpose of this operation. Only by capturing the city as soon as possible could the city be conquered.

It is the first priority of the Haihan Army.

As a result, even though there is a ban on movement in the city issued by Governor Aragones, prohibiting non-military personnel from entering and exiting all city gates, some people will still use various channels to escape from Manila. The north gate is not allowed to leave.

, some people left the city through the west gate leading to the port, and then circled to the north. This kind of scattered and desperate people's mood can no longer be restored by relying on the orders of the Governor's Palace.

On January 26, the main attack direction of the Haihan Army was still concentrated near the south gate. Many crenellations on the city wall had been flattened by artillery shells, and a large number of houses in the city close to the city wall were smashed to pieces by the flying artillery shells.

Kong. According to the statistics of the Haihan Army, Haihan fired more than 300 rounds of various artillery shells from the artillery positions deployed outside the city during this day, but no real infantry siege operations were launched.

Francis is not a fool. Of course he can understand that although the Haihan Army's movements in the south are quite large, they are still a feint attack in a certain sense. Otherwise, there is no reason to continue to besiege and not attack when the long-range firepower has completely suppressed the defenders.

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Francis believed that the Haihan Army should be waiting for a suitable opportunity, but he had no idea what this opportunity meant. The only thing that gave him some comfort was that the Port of Manila in the west of the city and the Pasig River Basin in the north of the city were still there.

Under our own control, the Haihan Army showed no intention of forcibly breaking into these two areas. If the southern defense line of the city is really broken, then the Spaniards in the city will at least have one step to retreat, and they will not be truly trapped and die in the city.

As for the Governor's prohibition order, Francis could also imagine that this order could not be fully implemented. After all, the relationship between the Spanish immigrants in this city was so complicated that a ban could completely block it. The most fundamental reason was the people's hearts.

Can't block it!

Francis had no good way to deal with the siege of the Haihan army outside the city. He could only try to organize his manpower and continue to reinforce the wall under attack in the south of the city. If Haihan did not send infantry to attack the city, it would take a day to defend it.

The longer the delay, the weaker the Haihan Army's advantage. Francis can only hope that the Haihan Army's ammunition reserves will be consumed quickly, so that perhaps when he wakes up one morning, the Haihan Army will take the initiative to withdraw troops.

good news.

But this is of course just wishful thinking on the part of the Spaniards. The Haihan Army has made very thorough preparations for this operation. Even taking into account the ammunition consumption required for the month-long siege, the combat preparation materials shipped to Manila are enough to support Haihan.

The army will spend time here until mid-February. If the subsequent supplies can keep up, the duration of the continuous operation can be further extended.

The battle on the 26th continued for a whole day with Haihan's unilateral bombardment. After nightfall, the engineering troops continued the same pattern and sneaked under the city to continue construction. As long as anyone dared to show their head above the city, they would immediately attract snipers, many more.

After a person died, no one dared to stand up straight and walk on the city wall, let alone lean outside the city wall to see what was going on below.

With the construction experience last night, four more teams of engineers were dispatched this time to speed up the construction. After more than six hours of work one night, the scheduled blasting project was finally completed and hundreds of kilograms of high explosives were buried.

In the tunnel under the root of the city wall, then extend the fuse connected to the detonator all the way south until a safe distance away.

All the personnel of the special operations battalion began quietly gathering at four o'clock in the morning to be on standby. Now that the explosives near the city gate have been planted, Takahashi Minami did not intend to drag out the war here for another day.

The sky had just begun to turn pale, and most of the people and defenders in the city were sleeping when they heard a huge explosion coming from the south of the city. This was the loudest sound many people had ever heard in their lives.

Almost at the same time, there was an obvious tremor on the ground. Many people even thought there was an earthquake when they woke up from their sleep.

However, this movement came from the blasting operation of the South City Gate by the Haihan Army. Huge smoke and dust rose tens of meters high. The shock wave generated by the explosion disintegrated the city wall into countless fragments, which were thrown towards the city. Some weighed dozens of meters.

Hundreds of kilograms of stones tilted down from the sky, like hundreds of trebuchets attacking the city simultaneously.

How many of the Spanish defenders near the city wall were dead or injured was completely unknown at the moment. The few survivors walked out of the smoke and dust in disgrace, looking blankly at the ruins of the city wall that had turned into a pile of rubble. They had no idea what happened.

What's the situation?

After a while, the miserable howls of the injured began to be heard from everywhere nearby. However, these people were considered lucky. Those who could scream would not die for at least a while, while those unlucky ones who were actually buried alive by the ruins could not even come out.

No chance to make a sound.

The command post that Francis originally set up was actually only a few dozen meters away from the South City Gate. However, because many shells flew into the city during yesterday's shelling, he retreated a little further for safety. As a result, this just happened to allow him to escape.

Jie, most of the roof of the original command post has been destroyed by falling masonry. If he had stayed here yesterday, he might have been buried alive.
Chapter completed!