The first thousand four hundred and thirty chapters
Ding Chenzhen, this person's resume is not too exciting. At least during the Unification War period, although it was not too bad, his performance was not too amazing. At most, he was above the average level, but such a level was not considered among the talents at that time.
In an army full of famous generals, he doesn't attract much attention at all.
Otherwise, he would not have been promoted to Army Lieutenant General just last year. Generals who performed outstandingly during the Unification War have now either become Army bosses, many have also become Army Generals, and the last one is also a senior Army officer.
Lieutenant General.
As for Ding Chen, at the end of the Unification War, his military rank was Army Lieutenant Colonel, and he was not from the infantry, cavalry or even artillery department, he was from the baggage department.
Well, that's right. Unlike most of the senior generals in the army who are from command positions, Ding Chen is really a relatively rare general who came from the logistics department. His early service experience was as a logistics officer. Although he was in logistics
He did a good job at his job, but compared with the dazzling officers who led the troops in battle, he seemed much more low-key.
However, after the Unification War, the Army made major strategic adjustments, especially during the 10th year of Xuanping, when the Army launched a rejuvenation strategy. In fact, simply speaking, it was to let a lot of officers who performed poorly during the Unification War be replaced by those behind them.
Make way for the new generation of officers who have received systematic military education, and then transfer a large number of officers whose standards were not very good during the Unification War to the reserve divisions, or simply retire and then arrange to take up local posts.
The reason why Ding Chenzhen was not dropped into the reserve division or simply forced to retire was because the logistics organization at that time also lacked professional talents. He was later transferred to the Third Infantry Division as the commander of the baggage regiment.
However, when he served as the commander of the baggage regiment, he showed good commanding skills, and later served in the field army for a long time!
Later, he participated in the First Battle of Hetao and led the baggage troops to resist Tatar cavalry attacks many times, which further demonstrated his commanding skills.
Later, like most officers, he moved through multiple positions, and his promotion speed was naturally not fast. However, he succeeded step by step and became an army colonel. Then he passed the door that many school-level officers found difficult to cross.
Became an army brigadier general.
During this period, he no longer served in the field troops in the north, but mainly served in the coastal areas, and also served in the Fuso area, and also in the Nanyang area. Among the successive commanders of the Banten garrison,
Just be able to find his name.
He has experience in serving in Fuso and Nanyang as well as in coastal areas. He has participated in many small-scale operations in Fuso and Nanyang, and has accumulated rich experience in coastal areas and even amphibious landing operations.
Subsequently, the Army carried out reorganization and reform, and the corps-level command organization changed from the previous regional command organization to a pure field force command organization. During the reorganization process, the strategic tasks set by the Army for the reformed Seventh Army were, in addition to undertaking the following tasks:
In addition to the task of guarding the mainland of Guangdong and Guangxi, it also has to undertake the task of preparing for war in the Southeast Asia region, and attaches great importance to amphibious landing operations.
In this way, Ding Chenzhen, who had accumulated rich experience in coastal areas and amphibious landing operations, ushered in the peak moment of his life. He was transferred to the post of commander of the reformed 19th Infantry Division.
The army only has a total of about twenty main infantry divisions. The commander of each infantry division is a position that countless army generals at the major general level are fighting for, and Ding Chenzhen has become one of them.
After serving in the 19th Infantry Division, he devoted himself to the division's amphibious warfare capabilities and was ordered to send his troops to various battles in Southeast Asia many times.
In fact, the Tang Empire has always had wars in the Nanyang region. Although they are not large-scale operations and the enemies are all indigenous, they are extremely frequent. Just relying on the Luzon Garrison and the Wandan Garrison, then
It was really too much to cope with, so the 19th Infantry Division would often send troops to reinforce the above two units.
During this period, Ding Chenzhen also gradually became an expert in amphibious warfare. He also had rich experience in tropical jungle warfare. At the same time, he was also an expert in theoretical attack.
Because the Seventh Army is also responsible for combat preparation tasks in the Nanyang region, and the main enemy in the Nanyang region is, to put it bluntly, the Portuguese, and the Portuguese built a very large bastion in Malacca.
Over the years, the Army of the Tang Dynasty had been studying how to conquer the Malacca Bastion, and the person specifically responsible for this was actually the 19th Infantry Division or Ding Chenzhen.
Last year, Li Xuan began to prepare for the Nanyang War, so he promoted Ding Chenzhen last year, awarded him the rank of Army Lieutenant General, and served as Commander of the Seventh Army.
This is why before declaring war on the Portuguese, the Army determined that the Seventh Army would participate in the war and let Ding Chenzhen take command.
But this Ding Chenzhen also has a very bad temper. The chief of staff who had previously arranged to partner with him was intolerable.
In the Army of the Tang Dynasty, both the chief officer and the chief of staff were extremely important partners. If this partner was not in tune, the impact on the army would be relatively large.
So in the end, they had no choice but to recruit Qian Songquan, who was known as a good old man and was mature and stable, to serve as chief of staff.
There is no way. The first choice commander for the Nanyang Campaign is Ding Chenzhen. This is something recognized by the army's top brass and even His Majesty. If you want to replace Ding Chenzhen, there is really no way for you to replace him in the Tang Dynasty Army for a while.
Find backup candidates.
A senior general who is good at coastal areas, especially amphibious landing operations, is familiar with the Portuguese, is familiar with Malacca, and is good at offensive operations. Then he must be good at allocating logistics supplies (overseas operations, supply is particularly important), and must also have high qualifications and prestige. Then, then
It's really hard to find.
But a good-tempered chief of staff is easy to find.
Qian Songquan also knew why his superiors asked him to be the Chief of Staff of the Seventh Army. To put it nicely, he was to assist Ding Chenzhen, but to put it bluntly, he was to wipe his ass and act as a doormat.
But he had no choice. For the sake of his official career, he had to endure it. As long as he endured the Nanyang Battle, after making great achievements, it was time for him to be promoted and leave, and then Ding Chenzhen would be left to fend for himself.
As the commander of the Seventh Army and the highest ground commander of the Malacca siege, Ding Chenzhen naturally didn't care what his subordinates thought of him, so he cursed and asked his subordinates to arrange the northern defense.
He continues to sit on the ammo box!
Bare feet!
Outsiders only saw him sitting on the ammunition box with his eyes closed, but few people knew that at this moment, the Malacca Castle was in his mind, and he was thinking about how to better pry open the turtle of Malacca.
shell and destroy all the grapes inside.
Malacca City is a bastion modeled on some of the Tang Army's bastions in Nanyang, especially Banten City. Banten City is a very typical port bastion, so there is no doubt that Malacca is also a port bastion.
.
The entire castle is actually not that big, because the bastions these days, even large-scale bastions, are not that big, but there are a lot of defensive capabilities that can be deployed.
A small city like Banten City can station thousands of troops, but Malacca City is even larger. It can station tens of thousands of troops for defense, so there is no problem at all.
In addition, since it is a castle, the possibility of being besieged for a long time has naturally been taken into consideration, so various supplies, ammunition, etc. are indispensable inside.
If you rely solely on siege, it is not impossible to trap the Portuguese inside to death, but it will take too long!
And it took too long, which was not a good time for the land and sea armies of the Tang Dynasty.
You must know that the Tang army could not get any supplies in Malacca. Even food could not be eaten by the enemy. All supplies, regardless of food or artillery shells, were all transported domestically.
Otherwise, the joint landing fleet would not bring a large number of transport ships and carry a large number of supplies to sea operations.
However, these supplies are limited, and although there are still supplies transported from the country later, the sea journey is difficult, which is not easy to say. If a few ships sink on the road, then tens of thousands of people will have to suffer from the northwest wind.
In addition, the Portuguese are not without reinforcements. They have a large number of colonies in India and even Africa. From these colonies, they can mobilize fleets and armies to reinforce Portugal.
No matter from which point of view, there is no benefit in prolonging the war!
Delay will lead to change!
Therefore, Ding Chenzhen did not consider adopting a siege method. He planned to attack the city of Malacca directly in one go!
And this is actually the reason why the superiors chose Ding Chenzhen as the commander of the Seventh Army, responsible for the ground operations in Malacca. If it was not to break through Malacca in a short time, but to adopt some kind of siege, there would be no need for Ding Chenzhen to come, just anyone
An army lieutenant general can accomplish this kind of mission.
The various departments of the Seventh Army, as well as the Second Provisional Regiment of the Guards and the Fifth Marine Regiment, totaled nearly 30,000 men. Naturally, this landing could not be accomplished in a few hours, or even in a day or two.
After all, they don't just need to disembark, they also have to carry a lot of equipment.
Just these ground combat troops carry more than 100 artillery pieces weighing more than five kilograms.
Not to mention that in order to support ground troops in operations, the Navy is also preparing to disassemble more than a dozen heavy guns from some ships and form a temporary naval heavy artillery team for ashore operations.
These heavy cannons are all heavy cannons ranging from 18 to 24 kilograms. These heavy cannons were previously the main guns of cruisers and even battleships.
These heavy artillery were used as siege artillery.
Not to mention anything else, it would take several days just to move these heavy artillery pieces from the battleships and transport them to the front line.