Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 177 Must be eliminated as soon as possible

Fort Visayas is a sea defense battery. Its five shore guns are all fired towards the sea, leaving a large blind spot on the port side.

The landing Chu army retained a battalion of infantry, about 400 people, on the dock and imposed a blockade on the fortress. That is, they stationed themselves in the direction of the Visayas fortress facing the urban area, cutting off the connection between the two.

The Chu army relied on some buildings at the dock to carry out the blockade mission, prohibiting any people or vehicles from passing.

On the other side of the Visayas Fortress are the capes and mountain highlands of the bay, where dense tropical forests grow. It is a sparsely populated area, so there is no need to worry.

Even if the Spaniards in the fort fled into the forest, how long could they hold out?

"Marshal, please forgive my offense, we can't go any further." More than 700 meters away, the commander of the imperial guards, Zheng Fu, spoke out to stop them and placed his warhorse across the road.

This range is a blind spot for artillery fire and is difficult for muskets to reach.

The guards of the Royal Guard Corps had dismounted and lined up in front of the Marshal and a group of senior generals, forming a human shield to guard against possible volleys of gunfire from the Visayas Fortress.

Zheng Guohui reined in his horse, nodded helplessly, and said, "Okay, let's just take a look here."

After he finished speaking, he dismounted. The senior officers who followed him also dismounted, handed the reins to their personal soldiers, and then took the monocular telescope to observe.

The Visayas Fort is a five-sided rock fortress built on a high ground on one side of the pier. It covers an area of ​​about seven or eight acres and has two extremely tall spire watchtowers. It is a typical Spanish fortress style.

The terrain around the fortress was modified, with some sections covered with steep rock slopes.

People can indeed climb up along the slope, but it is impossible to set up a ladder, which brings insurmountable difficulties to the attack from all sides.

If you want to enter the Visayas Fortress, you must go up the "S"-shaped bend on the side next to the pier.

The design of this "S"-shaped curve is very interesting, the details are worth pondering, and it is ingenious.

The carriages transporting goods could only be pulled slowly upwards and had to slow down at the bends, which gave the soldiers on the fortress ample opportunities to launch fire attacks.

Moreover, this bend is only wide enough for one carriage to go up and down, and it is narrow and steep. The enemy forces cannot deploy much manpower to attack from above, making it very tricky.

Such a strong fortress cannot be taken down by relying on large numbers of troops.

"There are only about 80 white soldiers stationed in this fort. Is this news true?"

"Reporting to the commander, I have been able to verify the authenticity of this information through repeated interrogations of several foreign officers. Furthermore, the commander of this fortress, Captain Joselu, is currently surrounded by us in the Morata Fortress within the city."

"Oh, what's going on?" Zheng Guohui suddenly became interested and asked casually.

Major General Huang Shan replied respectfully, "In reply to the Marshal, our landing attack was too sudden. I understand this officer was on leave, and the counterattack he organized on the outskirts of the city was defeated by us, and he was never able to return to the coastal fortress."

"Hehehe...it's an interesting little episode." Zheng Guohui laughed after hearing it.

A long period of peaceful life has eroded the vigilance of the French colonists. Their armaments have been relaxed, and all kinds of slackness and inaction are everywhere. How can they not be defeated?

Such an important city is defended by only 6 companies with less than 450 soldiers. Who are they looking down on?

This amount of troops may be enough to deal with local bets.

But it was far from enough to deal with the heavily armed and powerful Chu army.

Zheng Guohui smiled confidently, pointed at the sturdy fortress, and asked, intentionally testing his senior officers.

"The Franks were a long-established European colonizer who emerged during the Age of Exploration, dominating vast tracts of fertile land in South, Central, and North America. They were an empire that colonized the globe.

The Luzon Islands were just an overseas settlement for them, a tiny dot on the colonial territory.

The Franks are now on the decline, but this fortress still shows many exquisite features and the heritage of the old colonists remains.

Everyone, do you have any good strategy to take down the fortress in the short term?

There are only more than 80 soldiers stationed in the fortress. With sufficient ammunition and drinking water, they can hold out for two to three years without any problem.

I will relax the conditions a bit and consider it a success if there are less than 400 casualties."

Hey... took a breath of cold air

A group of senior military officers carefully observed the five-spindle-shaped stone fortress. After hundreds of years of being attacked by sea breezes, sun and rain, its color had turned grayish dark brown.

In the sunlight, it gives people an indestructible and solid feeling.

After careful study
The expressions of the generals all turned serious. This Spanish fortress was not easy to deal with. The design was too tricky and it was a nightmare for the attacking army.

The stone hill where the fortress is located is not very high, about sixty or seventy meters higher than the pier, and is shaped like a long steamed bun. The Visayas Fortress is built on the top, basically occupying the entire top position.

can be seen
Most of the stone hills below the fortress foundation are naturally slippery and steep, making them difficult to climb.

A small number of them have obvious signs of repair and excavation, turning the easy-to-climb gentle stone hills into steep ones, and the shady areas are covered with moss over the years.

There was no way to put up the siege ladder, and the siege tower could not be reached, let alone carry soil to build a fortification. It was simply a fantasy.

You can imagine the workload of building a hill several dozen meters high.

The heavy artillery could not be used either. The 68-pound Dahlgren cannon equipped on the ironclad ship should be a powerful weapon for attacking the enemy and could break through the defense of the fortress.

The Dahlgren gun was a typical naval gun, designed for a thick barrel and high power, but it had a limited elevation angle and range.

If you want to bombard a fortress sixty or seventy meters high from the sea, you must keep a sufficient distance, at least more than 2 kilometers, which is almost the limit of the range.

On the turbulent sea, there was no way to be accurate in such long-distance bombardment, and the only option was the clumsy method of covering the enemy with firepower. The ironclad ship's limited ammunition could not withstand such waste.

For a moment, these generals were really stumped.

They discussed in whispers, suggesting night attacks, fire attacks, sieges, inducing surrender, burying explosives, etc., but all were rejected.

The fortress is made up of stone houses, which are rough, clumsy and poorly lit. The advantage is that they are not afraid of fire attacks and can withstand repeated artillery bombardments.

After much discussion, the generals tended to favor night attacks and burying explosives, which were more feasible ways to keep casualties at an acceptable level.

Major General Huangshan also leaned towards this view. Under the condition of a long-term blockade, on the one hand, it would create noise to keep the white officers and soldiers in the fort awake day and night, and on the other hand, it would provide cover for the elite night attack team to launch continuous night attacks.

Select elite soldiers with agile skills, climb up under the cover of night using flying claws and other tools, create chaos, poison the enemy, injure the enemy, and support friendly forces, and find a way to open the fortress gate.

If you can’t do it once, try twice. If you can’t do it twice, try three times. You will always be able to achieve your goal and break through this tough problem.

Sending troops to attack was the dumbest way, as it was tantamount to using the lives of officers and soldiers to consume the ammunition of the Spanish whites.

The Visayas forts stored hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, a staggering amount, so this crude method would not work.

It’s not that these methods are unusable, but their effectiveness remains to be seen.

Finally, the generals' eyes fell on the Marshal.

The First Division Commander was Qian Jiang, the Second Division Commander was Zheng Shun, the Deputy Division Commander was He Rulin, Pan Tianshou and the others looked at each other and clasped their fists together and said;
"This humble official is dull and stupid, so I beg for your guidance, Marshal."

Seeing that it was getting late, Zheng Guohui stopped hiding his secrets and pointed at the Visayas Fortress and said;
“This fortress is ingeniously designed, embodying hundreds of years of European warfare experience. It is a culmination of great achievements and is indeed very difficult to deal with.

But there are solutions. The noise you mentioned is a good tactic that can keep the enemy awake at night and make them anxious, but it is not perfect.

If we use the families of the fortress officers and soldiers as a threat to induce surrender, the effect will be much better."

When he said this, he looked at Major General Huang Shan intentionally.

Major General Huangshan blushed, lowered his head silently, and began to pretend to be innocent.

The Huangshan Detachment to which he belonged stirred up wave after wave of bloody violence in Cebu City. He had no chance to find any family members or relatives, but he could pick up a few heads.

Zheng Guohui did not blame him, but provided useful ideas for conquering the fortress, so he continued;
"The best solution now is to force these white officers and soldiers in the fort to come out on their own.

You see, this Visayan fortress is indeed well-defended, with careful consideration of every detail, almost blocking any available means for the invading enemy. It is truly brilliant.

But the fatal flaw of the Visayan fortress is that it has too little room for maneuver and is too small, which provides the possibility for our army to launch a surprise attack."

After hearing what the Marshal said, several senior generals seemed to understand, but there was always a veil between them, so they frowned and thought.

A moment later
Major General Qian Jiang clasped his fists and saluted, blushing a little, and said, "Marshal..."

"Well...you can use smoke attack." Zheng Guohui didn't wait for him to finish his words, he directly made his meaning clear.

Smoke attack?

This... The generals woke up instantly, and He Rulin, deputy commander of the Second Expeditionary Division, slapped his thigh and said;
"Great! We could build a few trebuchets and fire smoke balls into the fort, day and night. Even a tough guy wouldn't be able to handle it. Great... just great!

"The Marshal's plan is truly like an antelope hanging by a horn, impossible to trace. We are truly so stupid, how could we have come up with such a brilliant plan?"

His words made things even clearer, and all the generals suddenly understood and immediately began to flatter him.

The Marshal's strategy can not only be used in the Visayas Fortress, but it is even more effective in the Morata Fortress in the city. There are as many as seven or eight hundred people hiding in that fortress.

If you encounter similar situations in the future
Including the five fortresses in Manila, except for the Intramuros which is too large, you can try to smoke the others with smoke balls, no one can stand it.

The smoke ball is very simple to make. It contains dry firewood and black gunpowder, and is covered with multiple layers of green branches on the outside, tightly wrapped. It can also be surrounded by straw ropes.

He ordered the officers and soldiers to do it, and in less than an hour they could make hundreds of smoke balls.

They were placed in several catapults, ignited and thrown high into the sky. The target was the Visayan fortress. It didn't matter if they missed, because there were plenty of smoke balls anyway.

When such a smoke ball burns inside, it is blocked by the densely wrapped layers of green branches, naturally producing a large amount of thick smoke. If peppers, dry feces and other objects are placed inside, it can also produce poisonous smoke.

Dozens or even hundreds of them were thrown into the fortress at the same time. Just thinking about that scene, all the generals laughed heartily. Victory was within their grasp.

The plan was decided, and Major General Huangshan immediately gave orders, ordering people to quickly make smoke balls and catapults. Only a dozen catapults were needed.

In a relaxed atmosphere

Zheng Guohui led everyone to the city again, carefully inspected the post-war Santa Maria Church and the Morata Fortress in a corner, and listened to the latest battle report.

When the Marshal arrived, it was around four in the afternoon. The clearing battle in the entire city was nearing its end. Tens of thousands of local indigenous men were escorted out and were about to become hard labor prisoners.

Zheng Guohui saw that the number of people was a bit too many, so he ordered: "Woodcutter and farmer, these native men are a destabilizing factor if they are kept in the city. The military is currently under pressure, and the number of guards is limited. They may become a disaster.

How about this, you send some people to load these native men into the bottom hold of the sailboat, send them to Davos Palace, and hand them over to Governor Zheng Shouxin for disposal.

Lord Zheng has always wanted to build four trunk roads in Mindanao, but he is worried that he does not have enough manpower. You will be responsible for sending these more than 4 people there.

More than 10,000 was sent to Davao Province and more than 10,000 was sent to Zamboanga. The specific matters were arranged by them themselves, and the woodcutters and farmers did not have to worry about it.

Your mission is to completely remove these two obstacles, consolidate your local military rule, and wait for the arrival of the Chinese immigrant ship next month.

Your Third Division's garrison area from now on will be Cebu and its surrounding islands, namely the Visayas Islands in central China. Guard this place for me.

If anything goes wrong, you will be the ones to ask for help."

"I will obey the commander's orders and will not slack off in the slightest. If I delay your important work, I will behead you."

"Well... remember what you promised me." Zheng Guohui did not tolerate any injustice and gave another reminder.

These words made Major General Huangshan feel as if he was carrying a heavy responsibility like a mountain. He quickly bowed and replied, "Please rest assured, Marshal. Even if I had ten thousand guts, I would not dare to disobey your orders."

This is indeed the truth. The senior generals under Marshal Zheng Guohui were all completely obedient to him, and none of them dared to make any trouble.

A few months ago, senior military officers were rotated, and most of the soldiers and grassroots officers under these officers were unfamiliar faces, with very few trusted officers.

In the entire Chu army, only the commander-in-chief can give the final word, and no one dares to disobey him.

Without the Marshal's order, these senior officers could not even take away a battalion of soldiers.

Take Major General Huang Shan for example. He is now the legitimate garrison commander of the Visayas Islands and commander of the 3rd Division.

But he was transferred as the deputy commander of the Second Division, and the only old unit under his command was the "Xin" Regiment. The other "Yi" Regiment belonged to the First Expeditionary Division and would definitely have to return to the base in the future.

The Marshal is very experienced in employing people and has many checks and balances.

After Major General Huangshan completely pacified the situation in Cebu City, it was estimated that the "Xin" Regiment belonging to the Second Expeditionary Division would also return to the base, and he would not have any familiar veterans under his command.

This is equivalent to a lone man serving in the Third Division. Even if Major General Huangshan wants to do something weird (note, just a metaphor), which officer will follow him?
Just like a fish out of water, nothing seems to work out no matter how you look at it.

The Marshal has mastered the art of political intrigue.

(End of this chapter)