Rear Admiral Ren Zian is the second commander of the European Fleet. After he came to Cadiz, even though he kept advocating that Cadiz was not bad, it was a place that belonged to the Spanish after all, even according to the agreement between the two parties.
, the European embassy territory of the Tang Dynasty was independent and could deploy troops, but the Spanish were not allowed to enter.
But no matter what, this is still a Spanish place, and the place is too small, and there are still Spaniards around.
How can this reassure Rear Admiral Ren Zian?
Therefore, after he took office, he has actually been seeking a new naval base for his fleet, a place that can be free from any interference, at least not from the Spanish.
Because he also knows that the empire intends to maintain good relations with the Spanish. Unless the situation in Europe is completely ruined, otherwise, the empire will not irritate the Spanish too much.
So he set his target on the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, which is Morocco.
In Ren Zian's view, Morocco was just a group of barbarian natives, much more backward and barbaric than European barbarians like Spain. To deal with these native barbarians, the Tang Navy had abundant funds.
Generally speaking, shelling the port is enough to reap the fruits of victory. If the enemy is more tenacious, then send marines ashore to fight, annihilate tens of millions of people, and the natives will basically surrender and sue for peace.
At that time, it will be easy to ask them for a port or something.
Of course, if you want to take action against Morocco and seize a port to use as a naval base, you still need permission from above.
Naturally, the Seventh Fleet would not refuse.
After all, it's just occupying a port. It's a big deal, so there's no reason to disagree.
If Ren Zian had the ability to directly destroy the Kingdom of Morocco, the Seventh Fleet would not say anything and would instead give him a certain reward.
The superiors have fully delegated power, so Ren Zian began planning to seize a port city in Morocco a few months ago to use it as a naval base for the European fleet, and also to better control the Strait of Gibraltar.
After many choices, he finally settled on Ceuta.
This is a small port located in the eastern part of the Strait of Gibraltar, on the south bank of the strait.
In fact, this port city was still in the hands of the Portuguese a few years ago. The Portuguese occupied it more than a hundred years ago.
At the same time, the Portuguese were still at war with Morocco a few years ago, but as the Tatars advanced westward, the Portuguese, like the Spanish, focused their strategy on fighting the Tatars in Europe.
Even if you don't want to, it won't work, because the Tang Dynasty is watching from behind. If the Portuguese are not willing to spend energy fighting the Tatars, the Tang Dynasty will directly seize all the colonies of the Portuguese without hesitation, and even support Spain to directly annex Portugal.
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Spain has always wanted to annex Portugal.
After the strategic focus shifted to Europe to fight against the Tatars, the Portuguese naturally did not pay enough attention to the Ceuta area. Morocco launched a war three years ago and actually took the city back.
The Portuguese were very angry about this and sent troops twice to try to recapture it, but they were unsuccessful.
One of the important reasons why it did not succeed was that the Tang Empire did not support it. The Tang Empire needed Portugal to concentrate on resisting the Tatars and not bother other messy things.
The Spaniards also did not support it. They also needed the Portuguese to concentrate on resisting the Tatars and reduce their own pressure. At the same time, they themselves were also interested in Ceuta.
But now the Spaniards may not be able to do it, because the Tang Empire, or to be more precise, the Seventh Fleet of the Tang Empire Navy wants to seize this city and use it as a naval base.
If we can seize this place, establish a naval base, and build a fort at the same time, it will be enough for the European fleet under the Seventh Fleet to better block the Strait of Gibraltar.
In fact, what Rear Admiral Ren Zian wants more is Gibraltar on the north coast of the Strait. That place has a better port and better terrain. If a fort is built there, the blockade effect will be better and it will be easier to defend.
Unfortunately, the empire now has a good relationship with the Spanish and has no intention of falling out with the Spanish yet, so he can only give up this idea.
Gibraltar can't do it, but Ceuta can barely do it.
After identifying the target, he spent a lot of time collecting information about Morocco, especially the local hydrology, geography and other information about Ceuta.
According to his understanding, there were still many Portuguese living in Ceuta in the early years. However, after the Moroccans took back the city, there were basically not many Europeans left here, and most of them were new immigrants.
of Moroccan people.
As for the local army, it is estimated that there are about three thousand soldiers. As for the navy, the few sampans were directly ignored by Rear Admiral Ren Zian.
The Tang Empire's current military strength in Europe is actually not very large. It is just a European fleet. They are all naval forces and do not have an army.
The warships and marines currently stationed in Europe are under the jurisdiction of the European Fleet.
In addition to the battleships and the sailors on the battleships, there are about 2,000 marines. However, a large number of these 1,500 marines are stationed in various consulates in the form of consulate escorts.
Basically every consulate will have a Marine Corps garrison.
The Tang Dynasty has many consulates in Europe. Currently, there are eight consulates in Madrid, Lisbon, London, Paris, Rome, Constantinople, Stockelmo, and Amsterdam.
There are also several offices.
Just to protect these eight consulates, nearly a thousand troops were deployed.
Therefore, there are actually only a thousand Marines left in Cadiz.
By the way, this force actually exceeded the agreement between the Tang Empire and the Spanish. The agreement stipulated that the Tang Dynasty could only station 500 soldiers in Cadiz, and could only station ships with a total of 3,000 tons. A single ship was not allowed to
More than a thousand tons.
But in fact, it didn’t take long for this restriction to be broken.
The land force has reached a thousand men, and the battleships have reached the size of two cruisers, four frigates and more than a dozen patrol ships. The tonnage of a single ship has long exceeded a thousand tons, and the total tonnage of the entire fleet has exceeded a thousand tons.
Thousands of tons!
In this regard, the Spaniards also protested many times, but the Tang Navy ignored them, so they stopped protesting against the Spaniards.
The European fleet did not always stay in Cadiz. In fact, most of the time, many ships were patrolling outside, escorting the merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty, or performing gunboat diplomatic missions.
When the diplomats of the Tang Dynasty went there, they all liked to take warships there. In recent years, they basically visited all the coastal cities in Europe, well, except for some ports controlled by the Tatars.
After all, the Tatars have now invaded France and are now completely conquering the Atlantic Ocean. They also control many coastal port cities, such as the cities along the North Sea and the coastal cities in the Baltic Sea. They are all controlled by the Tatars.
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Of course, diplomats from the Tang Dynasty could not go to these places. The Tatars did not welcome the Tang people!
After all, the two countries are at war, and the war is still going on in Central Asia.
Because many ships of the European fleet of the Datang Navy have been active in various European sea areas for a long time. For example, if there is nothing wrong, they will go to the North Sea coast and the Baltic Sea coast to bombard Tatar port cities.
Therefore, in order to capture Ceuta, Ren Zian had already summoned the battleships in advance.
However, there were not many troops to fight ashore, and he had to leave some troops in Gasland for defense, so the only marines that could be assembled were six musketeers.
In addition, the sailors on the warships will also be mobilized for ashore operations, and it is estimated that two additional naval artillery teams will be formed.
This adds up to eight teams and thousands of troops.
From Ren Zian's point of view, this is completely enough.
The Tang Navy had quite a lot of experience in fighting with the indigenous barbarians. For an army like Morocco, which was still equipped with some matchlocks and mostly cold weapons, sending a thousand-man troop was regarded as a sign of respect for them.
, and it is a precautionary measure.
If it had been replaced by another bolder general, he would have launched an attack with just two to three hundred men.
While Ren Zian was preparing, the warships sent by South Africa for rotation also arrived. However, a cruiser and a frigate that were expected to return to South Africa were retained by Rear Admiral Ren Zian.
We plan to send them back after we finish fighting Ceuta.
The fleet was assembled and the marines were well prepared. Ren Zian set sail with the fleet to sea.
Because the Datang Empire did not set up any European affairs bureau, and the Datang embassy in Europe was just a purely diplomatic agency, without the power to interfere in operations.
At the same time, the Seventh Fleet has already approved his plan, so Ren Zian does not need to report to anyone now. As long as he is willing, he can assemble his troops to attack Morocco at any time.
When the European fleet set sail, the Spaniards in the port didn't know why.
Cadiz is not far or near from Ceuta. If it were just a warship in the European fleet, with sails and steam engines at full speed, it would take less than a day to arrive.
But this time it wasn't just battleships, Ren Zian also brought a lot of troop transports and supply ships.
Some of these ships were the Navy's own transport ships, some were Datang merchant ships temporarily requisitioned in Cadiz Port, and some were simply hired Spanish sailing ships.
The ships are different and have different speeds, so they run a little slower.
But no matter how slow it was, it only took two days to reach Ceuta.
When the Moroccans in Ceuta saw a huge Tang fleet coming out of the port, and several of the leading ships were large steel ships spraying black mist, many of them were frightened.
Why did those Tang people come to Ceuta in such a big way?