novelSusiti Chapter 29 Siege or Siege
Chapter 29 Siege or Siege
When the Beiyang Fleet and the Nanyang Fleet approached Manila, the lookouts on top of Fort Santiago were startled.
"My God... how many ships are there? More than yesterday!"
The lookout, unable to contain his alarm, peered through his binoculars, roughly estimating the number of ships before running off in a panic and rushing into the governor's office conference room to report:
"It's terrible! Your Excellency, Commander, an even larger Han fleet is approaching, almost twice the size of yesterday's!"
After breakfast, Governor Alcedo, Army Regiment Commander Garcia, and Bishop González immediately gathered together to await reports from the various security personnel about the day's events, hoping for good news.
Shortly after sitting down, they were met with extremely terrible news.
Commander Garcia stood up:
"What did you say! That's twice as much as yesterday! Doesn't that mean you can bring 30,000 to 60,000 people?"
The governor and the bishop were both stunned, turning blankly to look at the soldier who had given the report:
"You must be seeing things..."
"There were already over a hundred ships yesterday, if we double that number today, wouldn't that be over three hundred?"
The lookout himself was also very surprised:
"I also thought I was seeing things, but I checked it several times and it really is like that."
"They are approaching quickly and will be on shore within two hours, at which point you will all be able to see them directly."
Commander Garcia said directly:
"I can't wait, I'll go up and check right now..."
The governor and the bishop were taken aback for a moment, then followed Garcia to the castle's watchtower.
Guided by the lookout, the three men used binoculars to observe the sea and quickly located a large fleet.
After reading it, the three of them remained silent for a long time.
It was normal for a central dynasty empire to have hundreds of ships in its homeland to transport tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops.
When the Yuan Dynasty attempted to conquer Japan, it sent 100,000 troops at once.
When Zheng He made his voyages to the Western Ocean, each voyage involved more than 200 ships carrying over 27,000 people to and from the Indian Ocean.
The scale of warfare is not comparable between fighting in the regions surrounding the central dynasty and fighting in overseas colonies.
The news of the arrival of these two fleets today has a greater psychological and strategic deterrent effect than the soldiers and supplies they have directly delivered.
The wind blew for a long time on the watchtower, and Army Regiment Commander Garcia was the first to realize these things:
"The Han homeland is so close that they can continuously send enough troops and even laborers to Manila to continue the siege."
"Those smugglers said that there were 20 million militiamen in the Han Dynasty, which is more than the total population of Spain."
"They can mobilize millions of troops at any time, and have the ability to deploy tens of thousands of troops..."
Bishop González made a prayer gesture with a sorrowful expression:
"My God, our country is on the other side of the world, and it should be in turmoil or even war right now. It is impossible for them to support Manila."
Governor Alcedo said in a cursing tone:
"Those lunatics are planning to make a woman queen. His Highness Carlos and the nobles will definitely not accept it, and the homeland is already in chaos."
On September 29, 1833, King Ferdinand VII of Spain died without leaving any male heirs, but he had two daughters.
Spanish liberals supported female succession, and supported the three-year-old eldest daughter of the old king to inherit the throne as Isabella II, with Isabella's mother acting as regent.
Conservatives opposed female succession and supported the old king's brother, Don Carlos, to become the new king, known as Carlos V.
The two sides engaged in a war of succession, known in history as the First Calvary War.
Although the people of Manila were unsure whether fighting had broken out on their home turf, they all knew that the situation within Spain was in complete chaos, leaving them with neither the energy nor the ability to protect their overseas colonies.
While several important figures in Manila were arguing and discussing the matter, the lookout picked up his binoculars again to continue observing the situation on the ocean.
Shortly afterward, the lookout spotted something new and, knowing that the leaders were nearby, reported it directly:
"Commander, some of the Han Kingdom transport ships that arrived yesterday appear to be starting to leave port!"
The lookout himself thought this was perfectly normal, but it caused new panic among the governor, the commander, and the bishop.
The reason for leaving the port is not very important.
It was probably carrying little cargo and mainly responsible for transporting soldiers. Once all the soldiers had disembarked and the ship's supplies had been unloaded, it was ready to return.
But this simple fact immediately brings to mind a possibility.
Army Regiment Commander Garcia snatched the binoculars, observed the departing troop transport ships, and muttered to himself:
"These ships can return to the Han Kingdom and continue to transport a new batch of soldiers and supplies."
"A round trip will only take a maximum of one month."
The bishop looked at Governor Alcedo:
"With the support of the entire coastal provinces of the Han Kingdom, their army can continue the siege indefinitely, while our food supplies are limited."
"Unless there is turmoil within the Han Kingdom, and our king resolves the internal strife, learns of the attack, and immediately dispatches troops to rescue us."
"Otherwise, all our persistence here would be meaningless..."
Castles can be built in very strategic locations, making them impossible for attacking armies to bypass.
Castles can be built to be extremely sturdy, making them difficult for most enemies to conquer quickly.
However, the castle itself is only a tactical node, and its maximum effectiveness depends on the supply system and mobile forces.
Castles can block enemy forces, buy time for mobile units, and ultimately repel the enemy outside the castle.
If it is a single and isolated castle, without supplies and mobile forces to support it.
The key is that the enemy has ample supplies, so no castle can hold out for long.
The simplest siege can slowly render a castle incapable of fighting.
The army commander and bishop in Manila now realize that their castle is isolated and helpless, and the enemy's supplies and personnel are virtually unlimited.
In this situation, anyone who is calm enough already knows what their fate will be.
However, before the enemy launches a direct attack, most people will naturally want to delay.
Because surrendering would certainly mean losing freedom, possibly being mistreated, or even killed.
Therefore, Governor Alcedo still instinctively chose to flee:
"Let's see, let's see some more before we talk about it."
"If they are prepared to besiege us, we will have plenty of time to make a decision."
"We have plenty of food in our city... enough to last at least six months, or even a whole year, so there's no rush."
…………
The Han Luzon army under Chen Huacheng's command could easily besiege the Spanish capital.
But that would take far too much time.
Before capturing Intima, the city of Manila would be under threat from the city's artillery, preventing the Luzon army from carrying out construction activities at will.
Chen Huacheng wanted to capture the Spanish capital as soon as possible, so he could not use siege tactics or conventional offensive methods.
The conventional method itself is actually very ingenious. It is a highly technical approach to achieve the objective by relying on skill and patience when the attacking side has neither weapons that can overwhelm the opponent nor enough cannon fodder to consume.
However, when the attacking side has a significant enough advantage, they can break the mold.
The current Spanish capital has at most three thousand regular soldiers and no more than twenty thousand civilians.
Chen Huacheng had 60,000 main troops, and also mobilized 20,000 local Chinese to assist him. He controlled more than 80,000 indigenous cannon fodder, and also had a group of rifled soldiers who had switched to using base-expanding bullets.
While it's still not enough to launch a full-scale assault on a fortress of this caliber without taking damage, it should be able to resolve the issue quickly with minimal cost.
From the start of the amphibious operation, Chen Huacheng was already planning and preparing for the siege.
They organized the local Chinese and indigenous people and used the army to directly control them.
This would prevent internal sabotage or intelligence gathering for the Spanish, and would also provide access to a pool of battlefield laborers and cannon fodder.
First, let the local people clean up the residential area and the surrounding environment to avoid causing diseases from biological waste.
Construct large-scale temporary docks to quickly transport personnel and supplies ashore.
Six watchtowers, each twenty meters high, were built out of wood one kilometer away from the north, east, and south of the Spanish capital to observe the movements of enemy troops on the Spanish capital.
One kilometer is basically the effective range limit of the old-fashioned cannons on the city wall.
If the artillery continues to increase the firing angle, although it can reach beyond this distance, it will have almost no accuracy.
However, this is still not particularly safe, as the random flying shells can still injure people, and a large number of troops cannot be concentrated at this distance.
Chen Huacheng arranged for the local people and soldiers to dig soil and build fortifications around the watchtower, and set up large-caliber artillery.
These preparations lasted for more than five days.
On the morning of the sixth day, Chen Huacheng assembled a force outside the bunker.
The army drove the natives to continue digging, filling prepared sacks, and then carrying the sacks forward in a charge.
The goal was to reach a point 300 meters outside the city wall and build a sufficiently thick fortification using sacks.
Three hundred meters is the effective range limit of heavy shotguns and early-stage exploding rounds.
Most troops have the opportunity to force their way to this position, but once they enter the range of shotguns and explosive rounds, the death rate will skyrocket uncontrollably.
In addition, the moat in front of the city makes it impossible for a regular army to force its way through.
Shortly after the operation began, the Spanish soldiers on the city walls discovered the situation, immediately reported it to their superiors, and opened fire to suppress it.
When the cannons on the city wall fired, the lookouts on the watchtowers would blow their suonas to warn the soldiers and locals behind them to take cover from the shells.
Its practical use is probably not obvious; it mainly serves as a consolation to the charging natives.
The siege officially began.
Before the wooden fuse matures, the exploding shells are very fragile and cannot be thrown too far. Shells that can hit more than 300 meters away are basically solid shot.
If a large-caliber solid shot hits a person directly, it can turn that person's body into mangled flesh.
But if you miss, then there's basically no damage.
Large-caliber artillery is already very rare, and the probability of hitting a human-sized target is not very high.
Although many people would certainly be killed, it was far less than the casualties of a reckless siege, and the Han army of Luzon did not care about the local casualties.
The Han Dynasty had an abundant, even surplus, manpower in its homeland, so much so that it had to expand its territory as quickly as possible to accommodate the population, and naturally, it did not care about the consumption of these native people.
Under the threat of the Han soldiers' muskets and bayonets, the local inhabitants had no choice but to carry sacks and charge forward. If they obeyed, they might survive; if they disobeyed, they would be killed on the spot.
On the battlefield, unfortunate natives were constantly being killed by large-caliber shells, but the bunker 300 meters away from the castle was also getting bigger and bigger.