Horses can be said to be quite pretentious animals, especially those war horses. In order to keep the war horses in good physical condition, they need to be taken very good care of, eat well, and sleep well.
In contemporary maritime transportation, because the tonnage of ships is generally small, it is very bumpy when sailing. Even the top thousand-ton ships of the contemporary era are actually no better than those of several hundred tons.
Such sea transportation conditions are difficult even for creatures with very strong endurance like humans, let alone delicate war horses.
Due to the difficulty of sea transportation, the Tang Army failed to successfully bring many war horses to Malacca, but the Portuguese on the opposite side were basically no better. Don't expect them to have any large-scale cavalry units.
Without cavalry, we can only rely on infantry for reconnaissance and rapid attacks!
The distance of two kilometers is nothing to the cavalry, but it is very far to the infantry. Not to mention, there are no roads at all in this poor place, and the road conditions are very complicated, regardless of whether it is a large-scale troop or a small one.
The attacks by the troops are very troublesome!
The Portuguese went out of the city to attack. Although this kind of thing did not happen, and it is estimated that it will not happen in the future. They were all hiding in the city. However, such complicated road conditions also caused trouble for the advancement of the Tang Army.
If nothing else goes wrong, if the siege troops want to reach the city of Malacca, they must first open roads and build bridges to transport a large number of artillery, especially the extremely heavy siege artillery, to the city of Malacca.
Even the previous landing troops had considered this kind of trouble, so the army initially planned to ask Datang Railway Corporation for help, bringing enough rails and sleepers to lay ten kilometers in length, as well as technical personnel, and then bringing a locomotive and carriages.
.In order to lay a simple military transport railway from the landing site to the city of Malacca.
Used to transport large amounts of artillery and supplies to the city of Malacca.
However, this idea is still too fanciful. The locomotive and carriage are so heavy that it is not easy to transport at all. Moreover, it is also very troublesome to build railways in remote overseas areas like Malacca and use train transportation.
And the most critical thing is that the Import and Export Committee strictly prohibits the export of all kinds of mechanical equipment, especially steam engines. Even the overseas territories or colonies of the Tang Empire cannot get approval, let alone Malacca.
Therefore, if you want to build a railway in Malacca, even if it is a military railway, this is very troublesome.
In addition, the military also considered that although transportation after landing would be troublesome, it was only an early stage trouble. It was not impossible to rely on manpower for transportation. In the end, it gave up this idea.
Therefore, if the subsequent landing troops want to transport artillery and many supplies to Malacca City, they have to rely on the most primitive method: using manpower to transport them!
Of course, before that, a temporary large-scale dock must be built first.
Without dock assistance, unloading a large number of heavy artillery and other shells and other materials would be very troublesome. Even some siege heavy artillery must rely on docks, otherwise there would be no way to unload them from the ship.
After Ding Chenzhen led a group of generals to inspect the positions of the 57th Infantry Regiment, they then went to the positions of the 5th Marine Regiment, although this Marine Regiment belonged to the naval system.
But in this landing operation, the Marine Regiment was temporarily under the command of Ding Chenzhen. Of course, it was only limited to the early landing operations. After the landing of the troops was completed, the Marine Regiment would return to the jurisdiction of the Navy, and the attack on Malacca
The mission does not belong to this Marine Corps.
Conquering the city of Malacca is the task of the Seventh Army of the Army, the Seventh Artillery Brigade and the Nineteenth Infantry Division, and has nothing to do with the Fifth Marine Regiment of the Navy and the temporary Second Regiment of the Guards.
So Ding Chen really went to inspect the position of the 5th Marine Regiment. It was just a routine matter. The conflict between the army and the navy was too big. He was unwilling to cause any conflicts with the navy in Malacca over some trivial matters. After all, the army was in Nanyang.
Operations require the navy to transport and maintain supply lines.
People have to bow their heads under the eaves!
After returning from the frontline inspection, Ding Chenzhen continued to command the troops on the landing site for landing!
This is already the second day of the landing. So far, the three infantry regiments under the Seventh Army and one cavalry regiment of the 19th Division have all landed. Currently, the 19th Artillery Regiment and the 10th Division are in progress.
The landing of the Nine Baggage Regiment.
In this process, after passing through two small temporary docks that were successfully erected today, the troops began to transport part of the five-pound field artillery ashore. In addition, they also began to transport some of the artillery shells, food and other combat supplies.
But more artillery, especially heavy artillery weighing more than nine kilograms, will have to wait until tomorrow to be moved off the ship. There is no way, the current temporary dock's load-bearing capacity is too poor, and the transportation of small artillery such as five kilogram field guns is shaky. If
Transporting nine kilograms of field artillery would probably directly overwhelm these small temporary docks.
The Seventh Ark Bridge Regiment is currently working hard. They are undertaking their last and most important task, which is to build a truly large-scale temporary dock to accommodate those nine-pound field artillery, as well as fourteen-pound or even ten-pound cannons.
Eight-pound or twenty-four-pound heavy artillery used for disembarking ships.
In addition, a large amount of supplies need to be disembarked from the ship. There are dozens of ships loaded with various supplies floating on the sea. The supplies on these ships do not have large docks, but there is no way to transport them.
The landing went smoothly, and there was no unexpected large-scale enemy attack. At the same time, Ding Chenzhen learned yesterday that the navy had won a great victory at the port, and it could be said that the Portuguese fleet was annihilated in one fell swoop.
The only pity is that the wharf of the Malacca Port is close to the city of Malacca and is within the firepower of the shore defense artillery at the head of the city of Malacca. The navy has made it clear that they can attack the forts outside the port, but the shore at the head of the city is covered by fire.
They can't attack the anti-fort.
Because the fort on top of the city is too high, the city of Malacca was originally built on the edge of a cliff on the shore, and coupled with the height of the city wall, the total height is at least a hundred meters.
Today's naval guns generally have a relatively small shooting elevation angle, and usually fire directly. You can let the naval guns in the fleet shoot hundreds of meters high, but don't expect accuracy.
This is not the most critical thing. The most critical thing is that to attack the forts on Malacca City, you must go deep into the port. The interior of the port is very small and cannot accommodate too many warships at the same time.
If you force yourself to fight, the effect will not be good, and you may be used as a target by the Portuguese coastal defense artillery!
Naturally, the Navy would not do such a thankless job!
So the Navy sent news yesterday that the Navy's mission has been completed, and now it's up to the Army.
In the follow-up, the navy will not only leave a squadron in Malacca to support the army's operations, but will also send a squadron to various islands in the Southeast Asia to cooperate with the local marine troops and Banten garrison and other troops to conquer the Portuguese one by one.
Strongholds on some islands in the South Ocean.
The main fleet will cross the Strait of Malacca and enter the Indian Ocean.
The navy is planning to bring the war to the coast of the Indian Ocean, and is taking advantage of the fact that the Portuguese in India are not fully prepared to strike first. With the cooperation of the Western Trading Company fleet, they will conquer the Portuguese in Burma and India.
Colonial strongholds in other places, and looking for opportunities to destroy the Portuguese main fleet in the Indian Ocean.
To put it bluntly, the Navy is already preparing to leave Malacca, and the rest will be left to your Army.
Ding Chen really knew about the navy's strategy and agreed with it.
Because this matter has actually been determined for a long time. The war between the Tang Empire and the Portuguese was divided into two battlefields in the early stage, one was the Nanyang battlefield and the other was the Indian Ocean battlefield.
As for the Nanyang battlefield, the core is the Battle of Malacca. As long as the navy destroys the Portuguese fleet deployed in Malacca and can ensure the safety of the army's transportation and subsequent supply lines, then the navy will basically have nothing to do.
As for the ground attack on Malacca, that is a matter for the Army and has nothing to do with the Navy!
In the subsequent Indian Ocean battlefield, the Army will not intervene for a while, at least not until Malacca is captured. It is not that it does not want to, but that it is powerless.
Therefore, the Indian battlefield will be dominated by the navy and the corporate fleet of the Western Trading Company!
Even to a certain extent, the navy is only a auxiliary, and the main force is the corporate fleet of the Western Trading Company!
Don't be surprised, our company's fleet is indeed the main force on the battlefields of India and Africa. Although their maritime power is far inferior to that of the navy and they have no battleships, their company's fleet also has two 800-ton cruisers, and eight more.
frigates and dozens of armed merchant ships.
Don't think of armed merchant ships as warships. In these days' large-scale maritime operations, armed merchant ships have always been an indispensable main force. In Datang's joint landing fleet, except for a few escort warships, all others are armed merchant ships.
In addition to battleships, the company's fleet also has a ground combat force of tens of thousands of people!
This does not mean marines deployed on ships, but ground combat troops that are separately organized and stationed in various colonial strongholds on weekdays to fight with local indigenous princes and even the Portuguese when necessary.
The ground combat troops of the company fleet are also quite special. They are not field troops like the army. In fact, the ground combat troops of the company fleet are except for a 3,000-man mobile force directly under the direct control of the commander-in-chief of the company fleet.
Except for this, the others are scattered and deployed in various colonies.