Feng Qirong led the Ryukyu Squadron to the western waters of Fuso. He had many goals, and it was not just as simple as fighting against pirates.
Combating piracy, maintaining the safety of routes, and thus safeguarding the interests of maritime trade are their main goals. However, at the same time, they have the ambition to occupy the Osumi Islands and want to turn the Osumi Islands into part of the Ryukyu Prefecture in order to obtain a nearby
Fuso's commercial port on Kyushu Island, and even a future military base for Fuso.
Secondly, they also have an undisclosed goal, which is to seize some trophies in the process of combating piracy, thereby subsidizing the navy's military expenditures.
With the decline in military expenditures during the Xuanping eight years, not only the army was struggling, but the navy was also struggling.
The Army is pretty good. There was only one Liaodong Campaign in the eighth year of Xuanping. But now the Liaodong Campaign is almost finished. Although there will be plans to march into other parts of the Northeast and even attack the Koryo Peninsula in the future, these are actually
These are all small-scale military operations. For the army that fights every day, these can only be regarded as daily operations, and the scale is not even as large as the scale of suppressing bandits in the local area.
So on the Army side, it has been overcome, and the next step is to develop in a step-by-step manner.
But the navy is different. The navy's military expenditures are already low. In the eighth year of Xuanping, the navy's total military expenditures were only more than four million taels. Although this number sounds like a lot, it seems to be on par with the entire year's fiscal revenue in the pre-Ming Dynasty.
, but the navy also costs a lot.
The navy also has a lot of personnel, and generally the salaries are relatively high, so the salary expenses are relatively large, and the maintenance of the ships also costs money. More importantly, the scale of the army has basically taken shape. In addition to the expansion of cavalry in the future, basically
Unlike the plan for large-scale military expansion, the navy has a lot of expansion plans.
The size of the main fleet needs to be expanded, new naval bases need to be built in some areas, existing naval bases need to be expanded, even the auxiliary ships need large-scale expansion, and the Marine Corps is not enough.
In short, the current navy is in a period of great expansion, and expenditures are being increased everywhere. But at this time, military expenditures are stuck.
The top brass of the Navy are now worried about insufficient military spending every day, and it is said that it has even affected the construction plan of the main fleet.
According to Xuan Ping's seven-year naval expansion plan, the navy is to build three more battleships. One of them started construction last year, and two are scheduled to start this year. However, only one started construction in the first half of this year, and the second one was built.
It was temporarily delayed, why, no money!
Even the construction plans of absolute battleships such as battleships have been delayed, so naturally other ship types have also been delayed. Only two of the eight 800-ton cruisers originally planned have been started.
Construction of one ship will start in the middle of this year, but now the Navy is preparing to move the timetable to the end of the year.
The number of 400-ton frigates has also been reduced. Four were started last year, and six were supposed to be built this year. However, the Navy also decided to only start five this year, which is also a decrease of one.
On the contrary, the construction plan of the 180-ton improved offshore patrol ship has not been reduced, but has been increased!
There is no way around this. There are fewer capital ships, and the Navy hopes to fill them with patrol ships and undertake some of the patrol and escort missions of the capital ships. At the same time, there is a more important reason: this kind of guard patrol ship is cheap.
, although there will be more than ten or twenty ships as soon as construction starts, the unit price is only more than 20,000 taels of silver, and the more quantities are built, the cheaper the price will be.
Because this kind of small-tonnage ship has small tonnage, low construction difficulty, and fast construction period, it can basically be built by a slightly larger shipyard. Therefore, the construction task of this kind of offshore patrol ship is actually not limited to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises Holdings and the royal family.
In addition to the Dingsheng Shipyard controlled by the Assets Section, there are many private shipyards that have accepted a large number of orders. Strictly speaking, most of the shipyards that are building warships are private shipyards. These are not those coastal shipyards.
There are already factories, and even some inland river shipyards can build them.
Many factors have prompted the Navy to start building more such offshore patrol ships!
After five ships were started last year, it was originally planned to start construction of 20 ships this year. However, in the first quarter of this year, the Navy has already started construction of 12 ships at once. The total number of starts this year is expected to exceed 20 ships and reach 25 ships.
There will be five more ships than originally planned.
From the Navy's current shipbuilding plan, it can also be seen that the Navy's military expenditure pressure is considerable, and a large amount of money has to be spent every year to purchase new warships.
Under this background, Feng Qirong, as a naval general, naturally knew deeply what he wanted to do after coming to Fusang. He had to do serious tasks, but he also had to do some shameful things.
Therefore, he strictly prohibited the fleet from firing on the Fuso people's ships and docks in the port, as well as warehouses and other facilities on the port. They were all trophies that belonged to the Tang Navy. If anyone dared to fire, he would be in trouble!
After blocking the port, Feng Qirong gave Zhang Linong an order so that he could lead the marines to land. The fleet would continue to provide naval gunfire support to ensure their safety at the beginning of the landing.
Theoretically speaking, as long as Zhang Linong and others do not stray too far from the coastline and exceed the range of naval guns, then they can get support from naval guns. Of course, once they go deep into the land, they have no choice but to rely on the artillery carried by Zhang Linong and others.
.
Landing operations are a common occurrence for Marine Corps officers like Zhang Linong. There is no need for any deliberate arrangements. Each unit just starts to transfer from the transport ship to a small boat, and then rows to the beach.
Because this time they also brought some pirate ships captured from Yakushima, so the scale of the landing was larger. Not only were there 300 people who landed for the first time, but they also brought three doors and five kilograms with them.
gun.
In order to bring these three field guns ashore, they specially chose an offshore ship with a relatively shallow draft, and planned to directly beach them and unload the guns on the spot.
The ship that was going to be used for beaching was not theirs, but was captured from pirates. The ship was not big, so it would not be a pity to just run aground on the beach.
The landing operation went smoothly. The Fuso people on Tanegashima were obviously not as stupid as the pirates and dared to charge at the naval guns in an attempt to stage a beachhead blockade.
They were smarter and chose to defend about three hundred meters away from the shore. They also moved some of their shotguns up, but even if they did this, they were unlikely to land.
The troops pose too great a threat.
Because there are not many Fuso people on Tanegashima, only six to seven hundred people!
After all, Tanegashima is just a small island. There are not many residents on the island. The Kojima clan is only a small daimyo and cannot support too many samurai. In fact, among the six to seven hundred people, there are only a hundred or so real samurai.
The rest are farmers they recruited.
And this shows the benefits of Zidao's contact with the outside world and the development of guns. Give the farmers a matchlock gun and simple training, and then they can use it to fight.
It is much better than those daimyo on Kyushu Island who rely on samurai to fight their wars!
It is a pity that even so, their strength is still too small. It is very difficult for these six to seven hundred people to pose a threat to Zhang Linong's landing force!
Zhang Linong stepped onto the ship again, and then rushed directly to the beach. After landing on the beach, he began to organize troops to defend on the spot step by step, preparing to receive the arrival of the second wave of landing troops, and at the same time pulling down the three field guns.
Although there were only three five-pound field guns, they were very important to Zhang Linong's troops in the early stages of landing, because it was impossible for the naval guns to provide him with all the fire support.
For example, if he wanted to take the initiative to attack the Fuso people who were more than 300 meters away, he could only use these three field guns, because this distance was already beyond the range of naval guns.
The effective range of field artillery on land can reach 500 meters, but when firing on the sea, the hit rate will drop a lot. To get the same hit rate, you need to get closer to 400 meters or even more than 300 meters.
And those warships cannot get too close. These are sea-going ships with very deep drafts, especially since they are not familiar with this offshore area. If they get too close to the shore, they can easily run aground or run aground on the rocks.
So to be on the safe side, although they sent out a small boat to conduct water depth surveying and other preparations, they still only docked about a hundred meters away from the shore.
Otherwise, how can we say that the location chosen by the Fuso people is very good? They are more than 300 meters away from the shore. In this way, the distance between them and the fleet is only more than 400 meters.
At this distance, they can safely fight defensively. Even if the Tang Navy's naval guns fire, the hit rate will be very low.
So after seeing the Fusang people stopping more than 300 meters away and no longer moving forward, Zhang Linong sighed: He is indeed the most knowledgeable and knowledgeable native in Fusang!
Since they did not take the initiative to attack, Zhang Linong was not polite. After landing, he stayed put and responded to the subsequent landing troops.
As a result, the scene became a little weird. There was a huge fleet floating on the sea, but it didn't fire its guns.
The Fuso people on the shore clearly gathered together, but they did not fight back!
This confrontation lasted for more than two hours. During this process, the soldiers on both sides were not idle. The Fusang people were busy preparing fortifications, and Zhang Linong also directed his men to dig breastworks on the spot.
But the defenses on both sides are destined to be useless, because if the Fusang people don't fight, Zhang Linong won't fight either!
More than two hours later, Zhang Linong finally gathered more than 600 of his soldiers, and then they began to take action. However, they did not attack the 600 to 700 Fusang people on the land, but went south along the coastline, because
There is the pier!
Anyone who has watched the Yakushima attack and defense can see that Zhang Linong's action was exactly the same as the last time, attacking the dock first.
And this time, will these Fuso people resist?
If they want to resist, how can they resist under the threat of naval guns?