Seven Seas Beacon Fire

These high-profile actions around Leizhou Port were practically a declaration that "I'm up to something" written all over their heads. What Li Che wanted was for those lurking spies and agents to pass this information on to the Colombian military.

He was terrified that the Colombian army wouldn't take this place seriously.

On the dock, Li Che watched as the "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" ships re-entered the port. Last night, when there was no moonlight, the two battleships turned off all their lights, and the captains of the two battleships personally took the helm. Without any light assistance, they quietly slipped out of Leizhou Port in the dark.

After circling at sea, the two battleships brazenly entered Leizhou Port at dawn today. The two battleships had already removed their hull numbers beforehand. For the people who witnessed the two battleships entering Leizhou Port, what they saw was that after the two giant ships entered the port a few days ago, two more battleships entered Leizhou Port today.

This was actually Li Che referencing a story from another world where the air force's reviewing planes flew an extra circle during the founding ceremony. This somewhat bittersweet method of deception was indeed simple and effective. At least from the outside perspective, the four most powerful Dingyuan-class battleships of the Ming Dynasty's navy had already arrived at Leizhou Port.

For the Colombian military's intelligence department, no matter what means they used to search for intelligence, all the clues would point to the same conclusion—that the Ming Dynasty's Royal Navy was assembling all of its main warships in Leizhou Port, except for the fleet besieged in Surabaya Port.

For Li Che, the most unsettling thing right now is that he is not sure whether the enemy has been deceived by their strategy, or whether everything they are doing has achieved the desired effect.

They currently lack the relevant information to corroborate this.

Under such pressure, Li Che has found every day extremely difficult to endure. Although he appears calm and collected in front of everyone, in reality, just as he was waiting for news of the Battle of Wonsan, his presence at the dock was not entirely for the purpose of "paying tribute to history."

His gesture of raising his fist in celebration at the dock after saying "Good lads, you have utterly defeated the enemy!" was not merely an attempt to imitate Xie An; it was a genuine expression of his overwhelming joy upon hearing the news of the great victory.

His current repression is largely due to his need to project composure and confidence in front of everyone. If even he, the planner, lacks confidence, how can he convince the implementers that what they are doing will bring victory?

Therefore, the fact that Zhu Miaoyun and Tokugawa Akiko's little tricks during this period have not yielded any results cannot be simply attributed to Li Che's exposure to all kinds of beautiful girls on the internet in another world. After all, he has also seen many brothers in the group who are better at racing than Verstappen, and who are played by girls like Tom in real-life relationships.

He simply doesn't have the extra thoughts or energy right now.

Ultimately, everything he's doing now is because after a year of chaos throughout the country, the Ming Dynasty has no time to clean up the mess, no time to repair the troops' equipment, and the army's combat effectiveness cannot be fully restored at the moment.

Even the most skilled cook can't cook without rice. If the number of readily available capital ships in the navy could be increased two or three times, and rows of warships could appear out of thin air on the docks, then even if Zhu Miaoyun instructed Tokugawa Akiko to seduce him, or even if Zhu Zhu, Liu Yifei, and Dilraba Dilmurat were thrown in front of him, striking poses and throwing flirtatious glances at him, Li Che would absolutely not cast a single glance at those women while he was busy with these large ships and cannons.

However, this wait did not last long.

With the news that came on the morning of May 20th, Li Che finally felt a little relieved.

The news is that the main force of the Borneo Group Army of the United States of Colombia has launched a full-scale attack on Dongdu, the capital of the Kingdom of Yanping.

The Third Battle of Luoyang broke out.

This may seem like a routine, expected attack by the Colombian army on Dongdu, but Li Che knew that the Colombian army had definitely noticed his small actions at Leizhou Port.

The reason is simple—the United States of Colombia acted far too quickly.

Although, according to the intelligence they currently possess, the United States of Colombia had actually begun preparations for its third offensive against Dongdu as early as the beginning of this year, its strategy in the entire Asia-Pacific region since then has shown an almost idiotic and blind approach. Before its southward strategy had yielded any results, it opened up another battlefield in Silla, diverting a considerable portion of the resources originally intended for Luzon and Yeonpyeong to the Silla Peninsula.

While it might be argued that the United States of Colombia could redeem itself by acknowledging that its leadership saw through the inherent weakness of the Ming Dynasty's provisional government and launched a full-scale, aggressive offensive in hopes of intimidating its opponents, achieving a degree of temporary success, the United States of Colombia clearly paid a heavy price for its rash strategy in the face of the Prince of Jin and the Datong faction.

Now, only a month after the defeat at Wonsan, the United States of Colombia has launched a full-scale attack on Dongdu. This is obviously too hasty. Although it is clear to anyone with eyes to see that the United States of Colombia needs to get revenge elsewhere after its crushing defeat on the Silla Peninsula, this does not mean that under normal circumstances they need to launch this Dongdu campaign in such a hurry.

要知道哪怕是在第二次世界大战当中，莱塔尼亚佬在斯大林格勒栽了这么大的跟头，那也得在1943年2月2号斯大林格勒战役结束之后休整了好几个月，随后才在1943年7月5号发动了库尔斯克战役。

Although the United States of Colombia had stockpiled a large amount of supplies in the continent before this, war preparations are multifaceted and not limited to just some basic supplies. From any perspective, it was definitely too hasty for the United States of Colombia to launch such a large-scale campaign just one month later.

So what is the fundamental reason why the United States of Colombia continues to act this way even after suffering losses from acting too hastily on the Silla Peninsula?

If you believe that the leaders of the United States of Colombia are not a bunch of idiots who don't know how to learn from their mistakes, then there is clearly only one conclusion—they are launching a war now out of desperation.

Regardless of external factors, for the city of Dongdu, the moment the first shell fell, it meant that this city, which had previously performed like steel, was about to undergo a thorough tempering.

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"How many shells did the 1st Marine Division fire?" After receiving the ammunition consumption figures for each combat unit on the first day, Pershing's chief of staff pulled out the list sent by the 1st Marine Division, which was significantly longer than those of other units, and asked the officer responsible for copying the list in a somewhat incredulous tone.

"More than 50,000 shells were fired in 24 hours? On average, each artillery piece fired more than 500 shells per day? Although we encourage our troops to make the most of our firepower, didn't the 1st Marine Division have any consideration for our logistics?"

It's no wonder the Chief of Staff was so agitated, because the 1st Marine Division's ammunition consumption in the past 24 hours was simply too outrageous. As the absolute ace of the Marine Corps, the 1st Marine Division is one of the few units in the Marine Corps whose equipment doesn't seem like that of a fourth-class unit.

The division has an independent artillery regiment, which comprises three artillery battalions, including one battalion equipped with French M1917 155mm howitzers and two British 25-pound howitzer battalions. In addition, there are two other independent artillery regiments reinforced to them. Excluding mortars, the 1st Marine Division has more than 100 artillery pieces.

The chief of staff wasn't sure if this artillery firepower, which was almost an over-the-top configuration compared to other Marines, had surprised the enemy on the first day, but it certainly had.

Although the United States of Colombia has the world’s largest industrial output, it is no easy feat to transport artillery shells across the ocean.

Despite the fact that the United States of Colombia in this era has a much higher ammunition production rate than the United States of Colombia 100 years later in another world, its current ammunition consumption is also much higher than that of the humorous Russia-Ukraine region.

In another world in 2024, even with 24-hour shifts, North America's only 155mm artillery shell factory can currently only deliver 10,000 155mm shells per month.

Even with the most optimistic estimates, the maximum production capacity in two years, in 2026, will only be 20,000 rounds per month; that is, less than 700 rounds per day on average.

Europe's total production capacity is even less than that of North America; the combined daily production capacity of several NATO 155mm artillery shell factories in Europe is currently no more than 500 rounds; even if we add the southern part of the Korean Peninsula in Asia, the total daily production capacity of the US, Europe and Asia combined would not exceed 2000 rounds.

This is an order of magnitude less than the strong demand of at least 20,000 rounds per day, and here 20,000 shells are only enough for the artillery of the 1st Marine Division to fire for eight hours.

"Our enemy has almost completely hollowed out the underground of Dongdu City, especially the high ground in the northeast corner of Dongdu City. The enemy has dug a large number of tunnels under that high ground, like rats, constantly replenishing that position with soldiers, ammunition and all kinds of supplies."

Since the start of the war, they have been continuously fortifying their capital. Now the city has been transformed into a massive reinforced concrete fortress. In order to break through the enemy's outer defenses as quickly as possible, our division commander ordered this level of saturation bombardment, hoping to use overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy's positions.

"It seems the effect might not be very ideal."

It was Pan Xing who took over the conversation. He had appeared beside the two of them at some point and personally reached out to take the consumption list from the 1st Marine Division.

Facing the commander-in-chief, the officer subtly shrank his neck: "Yes, despite the 1st Marine Division's prolonged and intense artillery bombardment, and even though we could see through our binoculars that the enemy positions were almost completely buried by the soil kicked up by the shells..."

But every time the 1st Marine Division launched an attack, the enemy would emerge like ghosts from the trenches that were thought to have been completely destroyed, or from the tunnels dug through the mountains, and then time and time again drive the Colombian troops, who thought they would definitely take the nameless hill, back down.

Although the United States of Colombia had some expectation of resistance in the city of East Du, it was clear that even after seeing 50,000 shells fired, the Marines' two-legged beasts still hadn't taken the position, and he was genuinely surprised.

The resilience and fighting spirit of this city once again exceeded the expectations of the United States of Colombia, even though they had made some mental preparations.

"How the hell did these damn Easterners do that?"

Chapter 97 The Defense of Dongdu (2)

Li Yaguang, a second-level general of the Yanping Army, looked at the sand table. He was of course unaware of how highly Pan Xing had evaluated them, but from his furrowed brows, he could tell that the situation of the Song army was definitely not as good as Pan Xing thought.

On the first day, the Colombian army committed five divisions to the offensive, including dropping 50,000 artillery shells on a mere hill in the direction of the main attacking 1st Marine Division.

Although the 1st Marine Division did not take the hill in one fell swoop as they had hoped, were the defenders who had been hit by 50,000 shells any better off?

Especially for the Song army, as an overseas vassal state under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, their army and navy did not have to undertake any arduous combat missions. After all, if the sky fell, there would be tall people to hold it up. In the pre-dreadnought era, Yanping's navy even imported several pre-dreadnoughts from the Ming Dynasty. However, in the dreadnought era, while even South American countries bought dreadnoughts or even super-dreadnoughts, Yanping's navy never purchased a single dreadnought.

After all, in the past, the Song army did not need to engage in fleet battles at sea, nor did they need to play a major role on land. The navy only needed to focus on building a local service fleet, and the army only needed to create a lightly armed force that could cooperate with the Ming army to quickly carry out operations in Southeast Asia.

However, this very "Ming Royal Navy Borneo Squadron" and "Ming Extra-Army Amphibious Marine Corps" are now forced to shoulder the heavy responsibility of resisting in Southeast Asia.

"What is the casualty situation of the Second Division?" Li Yaguang is now most concerned about this most important stronghold in the northeastern suburbs of Dongdu. In the two previous battles to defend Dongdu, fierce battles had taken place here. It was precisely because of this that the Colombian army launched such a high-intensity artillery bombardment on this place as soon as it came up.

As for why both sides fought so fiercely for such an unnamed hill, it is naturally inseparable from the topography of Dongdu.

The terrain of Borneo is high in the north and low in the south, with mountains in the middle and plains all around. The mountain ranges extend from the interior in all directions, with Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in Southeast Asia, in the northeast, at an altitude of 4101 meters.

As a port city, Dongdu was naturally situated on a plain, while the Central Mountain Range was at least one or two hundred kilometers away from Dongdu. In other words, neither the Song army nor the Colombian army could find many high points on this battlefield.

Before the outbreak of this war, this high ground in the northeast corner of Dongdu was unknown and didn't even have a name. However, after experiencing two battles to defend Dongdu, the phrase "nameless high ground" has come to have a specific meaning for the city of Dongdu.

This hill is not very high, but countless unsung heroes have used their own bodies to build it up.

"One regiment of the Second Division has been almost wiped out."

"One regiment was almost wiped out? What about his other regiments?"

"The other groups are doing alright."

"If that's the case, why don't they rotate them?" Li Yaguang was already a little angry when he heard this: "They are also veteran units. This time we are going to make long-term plans with the enemy here. If a regiment suffers such heavy casualties, even if I take people out to replace them, how long will it take for this regiment to recover its strength?"

For the military, if you lose 10% or 20% of your troops and then replace them with so many new recruits, the impact on the overall combat effectiveness of the troops will not be particularly significant. Moreover, these new recruits, under the guidance of other veterans, can adapt to the battlefield relatively quickly and be trained into veterans in no time.

However, if the entire unit suffers too many losses, the large number of new recruits brought in will cause the unit's combat effectiveness to drop sharply. In subsequent battles, the unit will be more susceptible to losses, and the more susceptible it is to losses, the more new recruits will need to be brought in, thus repeatedly falling into a vicious cycle.

This is why troops must be rotated on the battlefield if possible, to ensure that a unit does not easily suffer heavy losses.

"They can't withdraw."

With just one sentence, all of Li Yaguang's accusations vanished. Indeed, the Second Infantry Division had participated in the previous two battles to defend Dongdu, so they couldn't possibly be unaware of how to preserve their combat effectiveness. Therefore, the only option under these circumstances was not to rotate them.

The Colombian army's 24-hour continuous firepower made it impossible for follow-up troops to keep up, and they had no chance to rotate with the front-line troops.

"Can't we even get through the tunnels?"

"It's rained too much lately, General. You know what the terrain is like here. Some tunnels have collapsed, and others have been blown up by the Colombian army's extended artillery fire. We wanted to dig the tunnels deeper, but we encountered groundwater as we dug..."

Li Yaguang fell silent.

Although today is only the first day of the Colombian army's large-scale offensive, he already feels the pressure, after all, this is the first time he has commanded such a large-scale battle.

Indeed, Li Yaguang, as the commander of the First Army Corps of the Song Army in the current Battle of Dongdu and the supreme commander of the entire campaign, did not command the previous two Battles of Dongdu. Therefore, he could not hone his command skills from Leningrad like Zhukov did in World War II, nor could he gain experience and develop his skills in one place like Xue Yue did in the Battle of Changsha.

The title of defender of the Eastern Capital is not easy to hold. The commander of the first Eastern Capital defense battle was Lu Yan, the Duke of Ding'an. At that time, the Colombian army made rapid progress after landing in northern Borneo and quickly advanced towards the Eastern Capital along the coastline at the foot of the Central Mountain Range. The people of the Eastern Capital were in a state of panic.

Under these circumstances, Old Master Lu first dispatched a large number of small reconnaissance troops into the dense jungle. The entire Borneo region, once outside of cities, is covered by dense tropical rainforest, which provided excellent cover for the reconnaissance troops. Taking advantage of the Colombian army's overconfidence and recklessness, which led to a disconnect between the front and rear troops, Old Master Lu launched a successful ambush, severely damaging the Colombian army's vanguard and successfully repelling them. This marked the first successful defense of the Eastern Capital.

However, the old man was already quite old, and the continuous hard work during the battle caused him to die of a cerebral hemorrhage in his sleep at the last moment of the battle. Although the first Battle of Dongdu was not large in scale, the old man Lu successfully calmed people's hearts.

As for the second defense of Dongdu, the commander of the Ming 23rd Army, which was stranded in Yanping, was Fang Keping. At this time, although the connection between Borneo and the mainland had been almost severed, after the initial landing of the Colombian army, the Ming army on the island and the Song army as local forces realized that they could no longer rely on Yingtianfu at that time. Therefore, the two sides established a joint command, and only by uniting could they resist the invasion of the Colombian army.

The second Battle of Dongdu was a head-on clash between the two sides. The western and northwestern parts of Dongdu were affected by the fighting. The Colombian army was unable to capture the fortress complex in the port area of ​​Dongdu and the main position in the north of the city. In addition, due to insufficient preparation for the attack, they were unable to suppress the Song army with artillery firepower that was off the coastline. Therefore, the Colombian army withdrew from the battle before the typhoon season arrived.

Unfortunately, in the final stages of the battle, Fang Keping stepped on a landmine laid outside the city while personally observing the enemy's movements outside the city, and fell in the dawn of victory.

For this reason, when Li Yaguang accepted the important task of defending Dongdu, some tabloids even claimed that with Yanping's strength, it would be extremely difficult to defend Dongdu under the attack of the Allied Forces. The two generals had sacrificed their lives to achieve victory, and if the newly appointed general wanted to defend Dongdu, he would probably have to sacrifice himself to ensure its safety.

Although such newspapers were quickly shut down, the rumors never stopped. After all, superstition has always had a strong market throughout Southeast Asia.

In any case, the first day of the game brought both good and bad news for Li Yaguang.

The good news is that his troops have indeed honed their skills in previous battles, especially in the last battle to defend Dongdu. The officers and soldiers have accumulated a wealth of combat experience, and their performance is not only comparable to those Colombian troops who have fought in the European theater, but also has the psychological advantage of fighting in their own homeland and capital. At least a number of his main forces have performed even better than the Colombian front-line troops.

In addition, Dongdu itself is one of the largest industrial cities in Borneo, and the Nanyang Artillery Factory is located here. Although Yanping does not build or buy battleships, it has its own artillery manufacturing plant that can be considered to be of world-class level. Its flagship products are a variety of heavy coastal defense guns with calibers ranging from 240 mm to 280 mm. Even the 330 mm naval guns of the Ming Dynasty were successfully manufactured by the Nanyang Artillery Factory after acquiring the technology, and a corresponding 330 mm coastal defense gun was developed.

During the Second Battle of Dongdu, the Federal Navy fleet attempted to bombard the port and city. However, before the Colombian army could reach their ideal firing positions, they were utterly thrashed by the three gun emplacements around the port area of ​​the Yanping Song army, which consisted of three twin-mounted 330mm coastal guns, six twin-mounted 280mm coastal defense guns, and more than a dozen single-mounted 240mm coastal defense guns.

Although the Federation Navy fleet has more cannons, unless they directly hit the turrets of these coastal defense guns, they are constantly hitting the Earth. Most battles between warships and coastal artillery will not have good results. Even in another world, the Qing Dynasty was able to use coastal artillery to give the Anglo-French fleet a good beating in the Second Opium War.

However, compared to the good news, he now faces even more bad news.

Chapter 98 The Defense of the Eastern Capital (3)

Good news may not necessarily make people happy, but bad news is enough to make them frown.

For Li Yaguang, his success and failure both stem from artillery. Currently, the defenders of Dongdu rely most on their artillery, but their biggest weakness is also their artillery.

Does this sound contradictory? Actually, it's not contradictory at all. What they relied on were heavy fortress guns and coastal defense guns, while what they lacked were regular army cannons and howitzers.

This is actually due to what was mentioned earlier: Yanping's army and navy were an incomplete military system. Yanping's army was essentially a "rapid reaction force" of this era, a "primitive Stryker." In Southeast Asia, it was quite difficult for troops to move through the tropical jungle after leaving the transportation lines. And after leaving the railways and paved roads, it was also extremely inconvenient to tow those heavy artillery pieces during the rainy season.

Therefore, the field artillery of the Yanping Army was a unit that pursued lightweight design. The main artillery it was equipped with was a lightweight 75mm gun that combined mountain guns and infantry guns. This gun weighed only 500 kilograms and could be disassembled into multiple parts for transport by horses. The trade-off was that its maximum range was only 4500 meters. This thing can be seen as a Plus version of the Type 92 infantry gun.

After all, within the Ming Dynasty's sphere of influence, there had never been any hypothetical enemy that required the Yanping Army to launch an offensive. Even when fighting against the Dutch colonies across the strait, would it really be necessary to bring in heavy artillery?

Needless to say, even the regular army of the Ming Dynasty was generally equipped with 75mm field guns before the outbreak of this world war, so there was nothing wrong with the Yanping army choosing to develop 75mm cannons at the expense of range.

However, this has now become the biggest weakness of the Yanping Army.

Although the Yanping Army had won both previous battles to defend Dongdu, it had never driven the Colombian army far away from Dongdu. This was because once outside the range of the heavy fortress guns and coastal defense guns around Dongdu, the Yanping Army's artillery firepower was far inferior to that of the Colombian army.

Before the outbreak of war, the Yeonpyeong Army did not even have a single field gun with a caliber greater than 75 mm, which was even more exaggerated than the Gallic Army, which highly valued the 75mm caliber.

The small number of 105mm howitzers and cannons currently in the army were brought over by the Ming army. The original number was not large, and after a year of consumption, the number of 105mm field artillery available now is only about the size of one artillery regiment.

This forced the Yanping Army to defend passively and not launch offensive attacks. In particular, the Colombian army controlled several key nodes at the foot of the Central Mountain Range east of Dongdu. To recapture these places, they would need to launch an uphill attack, which was beyond the current combat capabilities of the Yanping Army.

Some people might wonder, since you have a large-scale, modern artillery factory like the Nanyang Artillery Factory, which can build even larger, heavier, and more technically complex heavy naval guns, can't you also manufacture a batch of 100mm or 150mm artillery to supply the army?

However, in reality, it was not that easy. The Nanyang Artillery Factory did have a 100mm naval gun and a 150mm coastal gun in production. The former was supplied to destroyers and used as a secondary gun for some cruisers, while the latter was used on its own cruisers and also as part of the coastal defense guns.

The problem is that naval guns and shore guns are completely different. Naval guns are not as sensitive to weight. A gun weighing several tons or tens of tons is not particularly sensitive to weight, let alone on a warship of several thousand tons, or even on a gunboat of several hundred tons.

However, the situation is different for the army. Naval guns are inherently heavier, and there is currently no suitable artillery mount for the army. The deployment of naval artillery ashore is not simply a matter of finding any gun mount and installing it. In fact, during the last Battle of Dongdu, in the most urgent situation, a batch of 100mm naval guns were indeed requisitioned to be converted into field guns to support the front-line battle.

Ultimately, these artillery pieces were described by the troops as "mobile fixed artillery pieces" because the 100mm artillery pieces with the emergency gun mount were heavier than the army's 150mm howitzers. Furthermore, the emergency single-leg mount made the artillery's lateral firing arc very limited. The status of this emergency product among artillery pieces was basically the same as that of the Arjun among modern main battle tanks.

Moreover, compared to artillery, even the most basic infantry has many hidden dangers, the biggest of which lies in reserve personnel.

"How are those mobilization divisions doing now?"

“We lack enough officers. Now, after the front-line troops have been expanded since the start of the war, they also need officers. It is already difficult for us to draw officers from the front-line troops to organize new mobilization forces. In the newly organized mobilization forces, a considerable number of officers are civil servants, leaders of factories or schools, and contractors of construction sites. At least they do not have enough military capabilities, but they have enough personnel organization capabilities.”

“Sending troops like this to the battlefield would be a disaster.” Li Yaguang shook his head: “What about military academy students?”

“We’ve even mobilized second-year students.” The staff officer sighed. “Given the size of our army in the past, the fact that Fuyuan Military Academy could provide so many cadets is already an exceptional performance under the emergency expansion.”

“I know… but that’s still not enough. The battlefield is a very cold place that only cares about winning and losing. It doesn’t care how much you’ve sacrificed or how difficult it was. War only cares about the result.”

"Then we'll have to give the first-year students as well..."

“Forget it, the first-year students in Fuyuan are not yet 18 years old. No matter what, we can’t send underage kids to the battlefield.” Li Yaguang gritted his teeth: “By the way, didn’t the 7th and 18th Divisions in the north say that their positions are under great pressure? Let them withdraw half of their troops to rest and recuperate. You pick two mobilization divisions and send them to the 7th Division’s positions. If there is a salient, put those two mobilization divisions there.”