Author: Zero Romance

Chapter 3257

It sounds like a good idea to attack Liyang, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack, instead of attacking Yingtian Mansion in the north, but Shi Diwen does not agree with this idea.

If the nail in Liyang is not removed first, even if the Haihan Army advances the front to Yingtian Mansion, its logistics supplies will inevitably remain under threat from the Liyang defenders.

What's more, Nanjing City in Yingtian Prefecture is a large city that has been built for thousands of years by successive dynasties. The city defenses are extremely strong and there is relatively sufficient time to mobilize reinforcements. It is not the same as these small county towns that can be blasted away by artillery fire alone.

The intelligence possessed by Shi Diwen showed that Nanjing City has been strengthening its city defense projects in recent years. Obviously, the other party also knew that the battle with Haihan would break out sooner or later, and had done a lot of preparation work in advance.

Even with the combat power of the Haihan Army, Shi Diwen believed that it was unlikely to capture Nanjing in a short time, and that the stalemate might last for a long time. It was unrealistic to capture Nanjing first and then turn around to persuade the Liyang defenders to surrender.

Only by capturing Liyang first and eliminating worries can we concentrate all resources to attack Nanjing.

Shi Chengwu's understanding of the battle situation was obviously closer to Shi Diwen's idea. As for whether the plan of using boats to build a pontoon on the moat to launch an siege was feasible, this was a minor issue in Shi Diwen's opinion.

As the commander-in-chief of an army, it is most important to set goals and control the overall situation. Specific tactics and implementation are issues that frontline commanders need to consider. This is also the consciousness that Shi Diwen has instilled in Shi Chengwu since he was a child.

Shi Diwen is already over fifty years old, and the time he can still lead troops to fight will be less and less. The armed force under his command, which has spent countless efforts and financial resources to build, will be delivered sooner or later. It is impossible for people to be selfish. He is sitting in the East China Sea.

District for so many years, of course he hopes to hand this powerful army into the hands of his descendants.

Shi Chengwu was able to inherit his strategic thinking, so Shi Diwen dared to slowly hand over military power to him. This matter was far more valuable to Shi Diwen than a small county town.

Small and fast warships such as the Net Shuttle Ship, Eagle Ship, Red Dragon Boat, Cangshan Ship, and Wheel Boat are all built with this tactical idea. During the war, hundreds of ships were dispatched at once, and started in a melee mode on the river.

Siege, use numbers to share the enemy's firepower.

During the fleet's march upstream, several reconnaissance speedboats were sent forward along the river bank to ensure that no Ming navy navy would hide in river branches, river beaches, fishing ports and other places to conduct sneak attacks.

Yan Chujie nodded and said: "I understand. Pass my order, send a signal, and all ships will reduce their speed. The fleet will enter Level 2 combat readiness."

In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River east of Zhenjiang, the width of the river is often three to four miles. If we confront the Haihan fleet head-on in this environment, it will be like a moth flying into a flame.

While the land route was smoothly advancing northward, the Haihan Fleet led by Yan Chujie was also advancing steadily on the Yangtze River.

However, Yan Chujie still didn't dare to be careless. He knew that although the Ming navy was only capable of three axes, it would still hit someone if it was used unexpectedly, so he had to take precautions.

The Ming army spent a lot of effort to develop such a special combat method, which can be said to be tailor-made for its opponent, the Haihan Army.

The environment of inland river warfare is different from that of the sea. The formulation of tactics is closely related to the river flow direction and hydrological conditions. The party located upstream will have a certain advantage to some extent. This is one of the few conditions that the Ming Navy navy can take advantage of.

Compared with the Haihan warships, which are becoming larger and larger, the warships of the Daming Navy still maintain the traditional style. Most of the warships have a small displacement, so as to obtain seaworthiness on various inland waterways.

Capacity and flexibility.

However, this tactic itself will also be limited by the objective environment. For example, it is not suitable in open waters with gentle currents, and the effect will be greatly reduced. Therefore, the choice of the battle location is also very important.

However, the small size of the ship means that the weapons and equipment it can carry are limited. When facing the large Haihan battleship equipped with a large number of artillery, the disadvantage is very obvious.

The tactics adopted by warships such as mother ships, serial ships, and fire dragon ships are to take advantage of the upstream to set fire to part of the detachable hull or place explosives to impact enemy ships downstream.

Compared with the Haihan fleet, which has strong ships and cannons, the Ming Dynasty's surface armed forces focus more on quantity, which also echoes its current situation.

However, compared with the northern region and the surrounding South China Sea, where wars are frequent, the East China Sea region has not had many military operations in recent years, and there are not many opportunities for Shi Chengwu to gain military exploits. Therefore, in this attack on the Ming Dynasty, Shi Diwen also specially sent Shi Chengwu to

Take him with you and let him participate in decision-making as a combat consultant, taking this opportunity to accumulate more valuable experience in commanding large-scale battles.

This is also the first war that the Zhoushan has officially participated in since it entered service. Although it is a bit overkill to put this kind of naval battleship into inland warfare, it also shows how seriously Shi Diwen attaches importance to this war.

This fleet, which sailed upstream from Zhoushan along the Yangtze River, concentrated almost 80% of the main battle force of the East China Sea Fleet. The fleet not only included the East China Sea Fleet's most powerful Glorious-class lead ship Zhoushan, but also some troops from Japan's Sasebo base.

Several warships rushed back from across the ocean to participate in the operation.

In order to make up for this shortcoming, the only way Ming Dynasty can adopt is to expand the scale of its naval fleet as much as possible and use quantity to make up for quality. If necessary, adopting ant colony tactics may also be able to fight.

Since Haihan almost completely controlled the coastline, the Ming Navy was forced to give up the fight for sea power and instead concentrated its resources on developing the inland fleet to defend against Haihan, its only water-based opponent.

"Sir, after passing the mouth of Jiajiang River, we will enter the Zhenjiang River Section."

Therefore, after entering the Yangtze River, the Haihan Fleet encountered little resistance, and the ships of the Ming Navy only followed a few miles upstream, marching upstream simultaneously with the Haihan Fleet.

The Jiajiang River is less than a hundred miles long. It is not a complete river, but a narrow waterway between Taipingzhou and the south bank of the Yangtze River, hence the name Jiajiang.

Originally, Jiajiang and Taipingzhou belonged to Zhenjiang. However, when the two countries signed an armistice agreement last time, the demarcation of this area was involved. At Haihan's insistence, this section of the Yangtze River including Jiajiang was included.

It was assigned to Yangzhou Prefecture controlled by Haihan.

At that time, this stroke was drawn on the map, and nearly half of Changzhou Prefecture on the south bank of the Yangtze River was allocated to Suzhou in the east, which was under the rule of Haihan.

After traveling hundreds of miles upstream from the estuary of the Yangtze River, we arrived at the Ming Dynasty's first line of defense on the Yangtze River. According to the intelligence obtained by the Military Intelligence Bureau, the Ming Navy had at least two military ports in Zhenjiang, and all kinds of warships passed by.

There are hundreds of ships and thousands of naval personnel. Presumably they will not sit back and watch the Haihan fleet pass through here safely.
Chapter completed!