Even if the Seventh Army of the Army cannot take Malacca for a while, the battle situation will not be dangerous. At most, it will delay the capture of Malacca for a period of time, not to mention that the Army is preparing to send more than 100 troops to fight in Southeast Asia and India.
What about the 19th Infantry Division and the 7th Artillery Brigade?
There are still two divisions preparing to join the war. These two divisions are also directly part of the Seventh Army. They are the 35th Infantry Division and the 36th Infantry Division. These two infantry divisions are from the reserve.
Troops reorganized from the division.
Because they were reorganized troops, their combat effectiveness was limited. Normally, they each had seven or eight thousand troops. Although the Tang Empire decided to let the Seventh Army participate in the war very early, these two divisions also replenished their troops two months in advance.
And related training. However, although the troops and equipment are now available, if you want to restore the combat effectiveness of the retired soldiers who have returned to service, it cannot be just one or two months of training. At least adaptive training is required.
And then, they have to wait for the capacity to become available!
For this Battle of Malacca and the subsequent Indian Ocean Campaign, the military not only sent warships, but also recruited a large number of merchant ships. However, merchant ships cannot be recruited without restraint.
Although the attack on Portugal is a big deal, it definitely does not maintain domestic production. Stable transportation is more important.
Therefore, even if the military wanted to recruit all civilian ships, the cabinet would not agree, and Li Xuan would not agree, so the military could only recruit some civilian ships.
These conscripted ships, together with various military transport ships, need to transport a total of nearly 30,000 ground combat troops. They also need to transport various supplies needed for these 30,000 people and an equally large number of sailors.
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In fact, in the joint landing fleet heading south this time, the tonnage of ships transporting supplies was greater than the tonnage of ships transporting personnel.
The military simply could not spare more ships to transport the remaining two divisions. In fact, there was no need. The Portuguese and indigenous troops in Malacca only totaled 8,000 people.
The remaining two second-line infantry divisions of the Seventh Army are only used as reserves in the early stage. If the battle in Malacca does not go well, then the ships of the Joint Landing Fleet will be used to organize the second batch of transportation. If the battle in Malacca goes well,
, and if the losses of the 19th Infantry Division and other units are not significant, then their time to take the ship south will be further delayed.
According to the military's speculation, after the capture of Malacca, the remaining troops of the southward troops were sufficient for subsequent battles, and there was no need to transport a second batch of reinforcements.
After all, organizing such a large cross-sea landing operation requires not only transporting combat personnel, but also transporting a large amount of combat materials needed to maintain combat troops. It is full of difficulties and costly.
If it is not necessary, the military will not invest too many troops in Southeast Asia or India. It is too troublesome to maintain supply lines.
However, such a large-scale cross-sea landing operation is probably the only one in the near future, because Malacca is quite special. The Portuguese attach great importance to it and organized a total of 8,000 troops for defense, and Malacca itself is a
Bastion fortress.
However, except for Malacca, the other Portuguese strongholds in Nanyang are basically small strongholds, with no more than a hundred people and no more than three to five hundred people. The number of Portuguese strongholds in India is not too large.
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If the Portuguese built every colonial stronghold as strong as Malacca, they would not have so many troops or such a strong national power.
The nearly 30,000 ground combat troops currently fighting south are already sufficient.
No matter how much, it will be a waste of troops, and the military will also be unable to bear it.
However, as a precaution, the Army still reorganized and mobilized the 35th Infantry Division and the 36th Infantry Division of the Seventh Army and conducted relevant adaptive training. In addition to daily operations, they also practiced cross-sea landing operations.
Wait, all this is just in case.
Whether this reserve force can be used in the future is another matter.
On the huge joint landing fleet, Lieutenant General Ding Chenzhen, commander of the Army's Seventh Army, was standing on the bow deck of the Dinghai, the flagship of the Army's First Maritime Transport Division.
But his gaze was directed to the front of the huge fleet!
At the forefront of the joint landing fleet, there was a huge battleship, which was billowing smoke and all sails were raised.
That was the Navy's Liaoxi battleship, a behemoth with a standard tonnage of 1,580 tons. Its tonnage was even larger than the Jiangnan steam battleship. It was also the largest built by the Tang Navy in the age of sail.
A huge pure sailing battleship.
It is a pity that the ship was already out of date when it was still undergoing final outfitting on the slipway, because it was already the 19th year of Xuanping. The high-pressure steam engine of the Tang Empire was officially developed, and the high-pressure ship-borne steam engine was also in progress.
Tested and shipped soon.
The outfitting of the ship was already in its final stages at that time, and it was not long before it was officially launched into service and became the new flagship of the Second Fleet.
After entering the service, apart from daily training, she did not even conduct an ocean voyage. Most of the time she stayed in the port because the internal structure of the ship used a lot of steel structures. There were some minor problems with these steel structures, so that even the ship was unable to sail.
The sea trials in the early stages of service have not been completed yet, so we hurriedly returned to the dock of the shipyard!
So after only three months of service, even the sea trials were not completed, and the combat effectiveness had not yet been formed, the ship returned to the dock of Qingdao Naval Shipyard to repair part of the steel structure inside the hull.
At the same time, we also took this opportunity to carry out steam engine modifications. After all, the Navy had already decided to steam-modify the existing sail battleships at that time, but the fate of the ship was really bumpy.
After several months of hard work, the ship's steam engine suffered a major accident during its first steam power trial.
A high-pressure steam leak occurred in the steam engine. After the high-pressure steam leaked out, more than ten officers and soldiers who were in the engine room at the time were instantly killed.
Problems occurred twice in succession, which also led to the implication of a lot of people within the navy, Qingdao Naval Shipyard and Naval Steam Plant. After all, this was the largest sailing battleship built in the history of the Tang Empire, and the cost was very high.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
For this reason, a commodore in charge of the ship's supervision was ordered to retire from active service and became the direct person responsible for these two accidents, or the scapegoat!
Finally, the Liaoxi returned to the slipway for repairs. During the repair process, it was discovered that the previously installed steam engine was not installed properly during the installation process. As a result, after the steam engine was started and propelled the ship to sail for a period of time, it began to vibrate violently.
Vibration directly leads to steam pipe deformation, rupture and a series of other serious accidents.
In the end, it was determined that many parts of the steam engine were seriously deformed and damaged, and it would be better to install a new one than to repair it.
Therefore, the Liaoxi could only continue to lie on the slipway and went through several months of modifications. In order to avoid another problem this time, the navy's technical staff were very conservative and did not use the technology that had just appeared at the time.
The three-cylinder steam engine is considered too stable, so continue to use the two-cylinder steam engine.
After final modification and sea trials, it was not until the beginning of this year that it regained its combat effectiveness!
At this time, it has been six years since the ship officially started construction, and three years have passed since the ship was completed and launched!
For the past six years, the ship has spent most of its time on the slipway!
The Liaoxi, which had a rough fate, was re-entered into service and was once again incorporated into the Second Fleet. However, this time it was no longer the flagship of the Second Fleet, because the title of flagship of the Second Fleet had been taken away by the Jiangnan.
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When the Tang Empire planned to launch a battle against Malacca, the ship, as one of the first-class battleships of the navy, was naturally incorporated into the combat sequence. However, it was not incorporated into the Indian Ocean Fleet, but was incorporated into the United
The landing fleet became the flagship of the joint landing fleet and performed escort missions.
In addition to the Liaoxi, there is another sail battleship that has been incorporated into the joint landing fleet to perform escort missions. It is also a powerful Shanxi. Its tonnage and firepower are second only to the Liaoxi in the Tang Dynasty Navy.
The reason why the Navy has incorporated these two main battleships with the largest tonnage and the most powerful firepower into the Joint Landing Fleet for escort is because the Joint Landing Fleet carries nearly 30,000 ground combat troops and countless supplies.
Its importance is beyond doubt.
Of course, this is also because although these two battleships are large in tonnage and have strong firepower, their power is average. During the modification, they adopted a relatively conservative steam engine modification plan, so that the steam power on these two battleships was not enough.
, at most it can only be used as auxiliary power, and it is difficult to rely solely on steam engines for combat.
The other nine battleships in the Indian Ocean Fleet are all relatively powerful and fast battleships. Most of them are equipped with three-cylinder steam engines and have the ability to sail and fight independently by relying on steam engine power.
Therefore, after some trade-offs, the Navy incorporated these two silly ships into the joint landing fleet and let them escort them.
In addition to these two battleships, the Joint Landing Fleet also had three cruisers and nine frigates for escort, and the total number of ships they escorted totaled more than sixty.
This is also a huge fleet not inferior in size to the Indian Ocean Fleet!
Of course, the maritime combat capabilities of the two are incomparable!
Although the Portuguese in Malacca did not know that a huge landing fleet was coming from behind, they saw the Indian Ocean Fleet of the Tang Navy!
We even know that the two countries have entered a state of war!
What’s even more interesting is that even though the Portuguese in Malacca knew that the two countries had entered a state of war, the Portuguese diplomats who were expelled and returned to Malacca from Shanghai were still floating on the sea at this time!