I want to be emperor

Chapter 625 Take Full Control of Malacca

In the autumn of Chengshun's 15th year, the domestic industry and even the military cheered for the technological breakthrough of the Daye mixing method and the substantial increase in wrought iron production, and began to upgrade the industry.

On the Malay Peninsula in the remote Southeast Asia region, army and navy officers and soldiers are still fighting for the empire's strategy in Southeast Asia.

After the Kingdom of Johor fell, the military of the Great Chu Empire did not stop its operations. The navy continued to block the Strait of Malacca relying on the Lion City Island and Kedah Port, and refused any ships to enter the Strait of Malacca.

Which naturally also includes the Portuguese ships.

In September, two Portuguese merchant ships from Ceylon tried to enter the Strait of Malacca, but were discovered by patrol ships except the army, and then warships were dispatched to intercept them.

However, after the two Portuguese armed merchant ships found that something was wrong, they turned around and entered the depths of the Indian Ocean again. Otherwise, they were very likely to be sunk or seized by the Great Chu Empire Navy.

The Chu army did not hope that at this time, the Portuguese ships would still go to the city of Malacca to bring any supplies to the local Portuguese.

At this time, the Chu army had already encircled the city of Malacca on the ground and at sea, and waited for the heavy artillery and the corresponding rush to launch the siege after arriving.

It's just that there was a rain in the middle, which made the already bad road even more difficult, and the heavy siege artillery of the Chu army was a big guy weighing several tons at every turn.

Therefore, the general attack on the city of Malacca was repeatedly postponed, and the heavy artillery units to attack the city were not ready until October.

However, the late arrival of the heavy artillery unit also allowed the Fifth Division to gather more troops to Malacca City to reinforce the Baizhen Brigade.

In mid-October, after a long preparation time, the Chu army finally completed their preparations.

At this time, the Chu army had already concentrated eight [-]mm ultra-short-barreled howitzers, or mortars, outside the city of Malacca.

In addition, there are twelve 170mm howitzers.

In addition to heavy howitzers, there are six 150mm cannons and nine 130mm cannons that were moved down from the battleship for siege.

A total of 35 artillery pieces of the above four types were specially prepared by the Chu army for the city of Malacca, and they were all real siege weapons.

Especially the eight [-]mm mortars, which are really big killers. The huge caliber brings larger shells and larger charges. Once they explode, their power is just right.

As for the twelve 170mm howitzers, although the caliber is smaller, but because the barrel is slightly longer, the range is longer and the accuracy is higher, which can accurately strike long-distance enemy targets.

When these twenty large-caliber howitzers fired, the huge explosion power was enough to destroy any unprotected target, and the killing area was extremely large.

In addition, fifteen cannons were moved from the battleship. This thing is a serious naval gun. Each of them is a long-barreled cannon with a diameter of more than 20 times. The power of the fixed fortifications and the city wall is absolutely strong enough.

In other words, in order to move these fifteen extremely heavy guys off the battleship, the Chu army not only temporarily built a temporary dock, but also specially prepared a ship for refitting, added large-scale hoisting equipment, and directly put several The naval gun with a ton of heavy artillery was hoisted ashore.

After hoisting and landing, a batch of large gun mounts and a large number of mules and horses were specially prepared temporarily.

Otherwise, just having a gun barrel will not do.

In short, it is very troublesome, the navy is troublesome, and the cooperating army is also troublesome, but no matter how troublesome it is, it has to be endured for the powerful power of these large-caliber cannons.

In addition to the above-mentioned 35 heavy siege artillery, there are also a large number of army conventional field artillery, including eight 150mm light howitzers and twelve 115mm light howitzers.

Then there are twelve 115mm light field guns and several 90mm light field guns.

However, these 115mm and 90mm light field guns are not very useful in this kind of tough battle. The power of ordinary field guns is not very good in tough battles, let alone these light field guns. The terrain of complex roads is made lighter and thinner, and the barrel is shorter.

When firing solid shells, it is naturally enough to deal with living forces in field battles, but it is very reluctant to deal with solid walls and fixed fortifications.

These light field guns were not originally born for attacking tough areas, but for supporting firepower of division-level troops in complex terrain such as mountains and jungles, and complex road environments.

There are also a batch of 65mm light field guns, not to mention this kind of shit, even if it is a tough battle during the domestic unification war, this kind of artillery will not be used.

Adding up the many artillery mentioned above, there are a total of more than eighty artillery pieces, and half of them are medium and large caliber artillery pieces.

Just to deal with a mere city of Malacca!
From this point of view, the Chu army can be regarded as giving the Portuguese enough face. You must know that when fighting in the Nanyang region, the Chu army had never used so many artillery in a certain battle, let alone it was still like this. More siege artillery.

However, the Chu army did not simply attach importance to the Portuguese. The reason why they procrastinated and insisted on gathering so many artillery was purely to reduce their own casualties.

Whether Brigadier General Bai Zhen or other army generals, they don't want to see heavy casualties in order to attack a city of Malacca.

The army came to fight in Nanyang to reap benefits, not to send people. If the casualties are too large, the loss outweighs the gain.

Naturally, the Army would not do such a loss-making business.

In addition, the Portuguese have no way to get reinforcements anyway, so they can only stick to the city of Malacca. Sooner or later, this will be the meat in the army's bowl.

As for the sea blockade and so on, naturally those sea turtles in the navy are worried about it, and the army doesn't care.

After everything was ready, on October 15, [-], Major General Lu Xiuwen, the commander of the [-]th Division who came to the front line, sent an ultimatum to the Portuguese in the city.

Ask them to withdraw from the city of Malacca immediately, fully evacuate from the territory of the Great Chu Empire, and hand over the city of Malacca intact to the Great Chu Empire, otherwise my heroic Great Chu Empire Army will launch a full-scale attack, and the day the city is broken dog does not stay!
Although the Portuguese were also very scared, they finally rejected the Chu army's ultimatum.

They still have some confidence in the city of Malacca, and they also have some confidence in themselves.

Even if the city of Malacca will eventually fall in the future, it should be several months or even a year later. They are not willing to let them surrender and leave without fighting now.

After all, the city of Malacca is already the last stronghold of the Portuguese in the Nanyang region.

The former Macau has been taken back by the Great Chu Empire, and some strongholds on the Nanyang Islands have also been occupied by the Dutch. Now they only have the city of Malacca in Nanyang.

If they can't keep this place, they can declare that they will completely withdraw from the trade in the South Seas in the future, let alone get involved in the lucrative spice trade.

Therefore, the Portuguese are not willing to withdraw from the Nanyang region easily!

This means that there must be a war between the Great Chu Empire and Portugal!

Although the final demands of the two parties were completely different, Portugal tried to preserve the maritime trade in the Nanyang region and continued to get involved in the spice trade.

As for the Great Chu Empire, it is purely to fully control the entire Malay Peninsula, and the control of the Malay Peninsula is to control the Strait of Malacca, so that this crucial strait is under the full control of the empire, and then ensure the protection of the Great Chu Empire. Ships can enter and leave the Indian Ocean smoothly and freely, instead of depending on the faces of a large number of Nanyang natives or Western barbarians such as the Kingdom of Johor, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Aceh people as before.

One sentence can be used to describe the motivation of the Great Chu Empire to launch the war on the Malay Peninsula: how can others sleep soundly in the couch!
The Great Chu Empire wants to control the Straits of Malacca itself!
And it doesn't mean that after taking control of the Strait of Malacca, ships from other countries will be refused to pass through. On the contrary, the Great Chu Empire still welcomes merchant ships from various countries to trade with the Great Chu Empire through the Strait of Malacca.

The Great Chu Empire just wants to control the safety of the route in its own hands, and then sell more industrial products, not to monopolize the interests of a certain route.

In this regard, the Great Chu Empire is different from Western colonial countries.

Well, there is an exception on the Fusang route. The main reason is that the Great Chu Empire directly regarded Fusang as a dumping ground for its own industrial products, and Fusang itself was unwilling to deal with Western colonial countries, and refused to let the Dutch pass by.

That's why the Great Chu Empire finally monopolized the trade with Fusang.

This is also a very interesting point. The Great Chu Empire directly blocked the Fusang trade and did not allow ships from Western colonial countries to go to Fusang. However, its own trade ports such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Songjiang are open to ships from almost all countries. open.

Whether it is the Dutch or the Portuguese, even if the merchant ships of the Kingdom of Aceh go to Guangzhou now, they can still trade normally... You must know that the current Great Chu Empire and the Kingdom of Aceh are still in a state of war. There is no fighting, but it is considered to be about to enter a state of war.

And the Dutch are more or less the same.

This situation may seem strange, but it is not surprising in the age of great exploration.

Wars belong to wars, and business belongs to business!
As long as they are willing to purchase goods from the Great Chu Empire, instead of embarrassing them, the Great Chu Empire will send naval warships to escort them to ensure that they will not be at risk of being attacked by pirates.

Of course, this is just the attitude of the Great Chu Empire itself, and what the Dutch and Portuguese think and whether they are willing to come is another matter.

After all, the merchant ships of the Dutch or Portuguese in this sea area are all ships of the Dutch East India Company or the Portuguese East India Company. It is probably difficult for them to accept doing business while fighting the Great Chu Empire...

At least, the current Portuguese hate the Great Chu Empire. Macau was taken back by the Great Chu Empire before, and now they are coming to grab Malacca again. However, the Portuguese East India Company is powerless and can only sit and watch the situation continue. Corruption, this kind of aggrieved feeling is very uncomfortable.

But what is even more uncomfortable is that on October 15, [-], when the Portuguese clearly rejected the ultimatum to withdraw from the city of Malacca, Major General Lu Xiuwen, the commander of the Fifth Infantry Division, finally issued an order for a general attack.

On that day, dozens of artillery pieces of the Chu army bombarded the city of Malacca one after another!

Before the shelling began, the Portuguese were quite optimistic, thinking that no matter what, they could hold on to the city of Malacca for three to five months, or even more than a year.

However, when the shelling really started, the Portuguese were all dumbfounded!

The Chu army's bombardment was different from what they expected!
Originally, they thought that the Chu army's bombardment should be to fire solid shells, and then bombard the city wall foolishly.

The city of Malacca was built according to the standard of a fortress. Although solid shells can do damage to this kind of fortress, it is very limited. Long-term bombardment is needed to destroy these fortifications.

However, the Chu army's shelling was different from what they expected from the very beginning.

In the first day of the Chu army's shelling, more than 80.00% of the shells fired were all kinds of grenades, and only a few cannons fired solid shells to concentrate on bombarding a section of the city wall.

A huge number of grenades continued to fall into various parts of the city like raindrops, causing violent explosions one after another.

In the sound of the explosion, countless Portuguese in the city and the indigenous personnel recruited by the Portuguese suffered heavy casualties.

Especially the soldiers at the top of the city, these Portuguese people have never seen the scene of the Chu army using large-scale howitzers, and they don't realize that it is very dangerous for these stupid people to stay in places such as the city walls without perfect artillery fortifications. things.

On the first day of the shelling, the Portuguese held on to the city at first, but soon had to avoid the shelling due to heavy casualties.

During this day, at least 500 Portuguese and indigenous people were killed or injured in the city, and more than 300 people died directly.

This number of casualties is nothing for a large-scale field battle, but for a fortified battle, especially when it happens to the defenders, it is enough to make people amazing.

When the Kingdom of Aceh first crossed the sea to besiege the city of Malacca eight or ninety years ago, there were more than 90 people in the Kingdom of Aceh, carrying more than 5000 ordinary artillery pieces, while the Portuguese guarding the city had only 200 soldiers and [-] native mercenaries.

As a result, the Kingdom of Aceh could not be defeated, and even the eldest son of the king died in the battle.

It can be seen that the western colonial army is actually very good at defending the city these days. They often have perfect fortifications, which can resist primitive artillery and muskets.

But all of this is useless in front of the Great Chu Empire Army.

The Western colonial army can have weapons and tactical advantages in front of the natives, but in front of the Chu army, they have become outright laggards.

In terms of artillery alone, they couldn't catch up with the Chu army.

Not to mention the superior performance of the grenade, the huge gap in the number of artillery alone is enough to make them desperate.

Therefore, the first day of the defense of the city of Malacca was a tragedy!
In the next few days, the grape people in the city learned to be smart and began to hide one by one, and no longer randomly appeared in areas without any protective measures.

They even used the night to secretly build anti-grenade fortifications in places such as the city.

But these are all in vain!
The reason why the Chu army's siege was so powerful was not that they could directly blow up the entire city into ruins by relying on artillery. The power of artillery these days is not so powerful...

The strength of the Chu army lies in the fact that the powerful shelling can suppress the enemy's defenders and dare not take the lead, thereby gaining space and time for the infantry to attack.

In addition, the Chu army often adopts true and false methods. For example, after the shelling stops, the infantry starts to attack, attracting the defenders to go to the top of the city to prepare for defensive operations. The enemy army of the city has sound force.

Or it is to conduct intensive shelling against the enemy's fort, destroy the enemy's fort, kill their artillery, suppress or even destroy the enemy's artillery counterattack force.

Relying on the powerful artillery force, the Chu army can have more choices in attacking the city, and can greatly control casualties.

Secondly, large-scale intensive shelling is also a strong blow to the morale of the enemy's army. Few troops can remain calm in such a violent grenade explosion.

Among them, the Portuguese are naturally not included!
In fact, on the first day of the Chu army’s bombardment, the Portuguese were frightened by the huge casualties at the beginning, otherwise they would not have withdrawn from the city early, and even dared not go up the open-air fort...

In the continuous bombardment on the second and third days, the Portuguese still suffered a lot of casualties... They actually did evade, but without mature and perfect anti-howitzer fortifications, their evasion effect was not great!

The fortifications of the Portuguese are similar to those of other countries except the Great Chu Empire these days. They are mainly used to prevent solid shells. As for grenades?

Except for the Great Chu Empire, there are few people who play grenades on such a large scale. Even if it is the previous fuse bombs, except for the fact that the Chu army is crazy and dares to take huge risks and use a large amount of ammunition funds on a large scale, other countries still use them. rare.

Therefore, the fortifications of these years basically lack fortifications against grenades.

They are all focused on defending against solid shells, such as the famous bastion defense system, which is used to defend against solid shells.

The Portuguese, who lacked perfect artillery fortifications, suffered heavy losses in the face of the Chu army's three-day bombardment, so that before the Chu army's infantry launched a real attack, their casualties exceeded a thousand.

And on October [-], after three days of bombardment preparations, the Fifth Division finally organized a real infantry attack.

The No. 18 Infantry Regiment was the main force, and the grenadiers drawn from the battalions in the No. 18 Infantry Regiment even took the lead in killing them as commandos.

There is no surprise in this battle!
As the grenadiers who wore light full-body plate armor and held steel knives or other weapons in one hand, but almost everyone had one or two primitive grenades on their waists rushed up, the city of Malacca was declared to have fallen!

In fact, the infantry on both sides did not engage in large-scale close combat at all.

After seeing the Chu army launching a general attack with thousands of people and seeing the Chu army's grenadiers rushing forward bravely, the Portuguese suffered a lot of casualties from the shelling for three days and were under great psychological pressure. At one point tried to resist.

But as soon as they went to the top of the city to resist, the artillery units of the Chu Army, which had been prepared for a long time, fired rapidly at the top of the city, especially a large number of 115mm light howitzers and 150mm light howitzers.

Although the power of these light howitzers is mediocre, they are very convenient to install, adjust and aim, and they are very light and can be deployed close to them.

You must know that the 115mm light howitzer in the Chu army, like the 65mm field gun, is a regiment-level support weapon.

Its weight is even lighter than the 65mm field gun... and this artillery can be disassembled for shipment, it is a veritable infantry support artillery.

This is also the reason why the 115mm light howitzer can fully replace the early various small and medium-caliber mortars and short-barreled shotguns, and has become one of the two major support firepowers for the regiment-level troops of the Great Chu Empire.

After the Chu army made a sudden rapid fire, the Portuguese and a large number of hired native soldiers who had just entered the city for defensive operations immediately cried for their father and mother.

After the grenadiers rushed up, the resistance of these people was minimal. Facing the fierce attack of the Chu army, they either turned around and fled, or hid, or simply surrendered on the spot.

There is no large-scale, organized resistance at all, at most there are some sporadic resistance.

On the contrary, there was a large-scale and organized surrender... In the afternoon of the same day, as the Chu army advanced to various places in the city and captured various important places, it seemed that the situation was completely irreversible, and it was impossible to escape.

The remaining more than 100 Portuguese soldiers in the city finally officially announced their surrender under the leadership of the officers!

With their surrender, the city of Malacca officially returned to the great Chu Empire on October 15, [-]!
And with the capture of Malacca, it also means that the Great Chu Empire has fully and thoroughly controlled the Malay Peninsula (Phuket Mountains, south of the Isthmus of Kra).

In addition to the Malay Peninsula, the Great Chu Empire also controlled the Liao Nei Islands at the eastern end of the Strait of Malacca, and even part of the eastern part of Sumatra Island.

The Liane Islands and the eastern part of Sumatra were previously the territory of the Kingdom of Johor or its vassal states,

After the Kingdom of Johor was destroyed by the Great Chu Empire, the Great Chu Empire took over all the territories originally belonging to the Kingdom of Johor and its vassal states, such as Jambi.

According to the argument of the Great Chu Empire in recent years: the territory of the vassal state is my territory, and the vassal state of the vassal state is also my vassal state. This scope also includes a series of previous dynasties... Theoretically, it can be traced back infinitely.

Therefore, after the demise of the Johor Kingdom, the Johor Kingdom not only itself, but the territory of its vassal state naturally became the territory of the Great Chu Empire.

If the previous dynasty is traced back, the scope can probably be expanded to the entire Nanyang region. The specific scope depends on the specific needs of the Great Chu Empire in the future.

In short, regardless of whether to fight or not, first find out the reason, and when you want to fight in the future, you don't have to bother to find excuses, just simply say to regain the territory.

After fully controlling the Malay Peninsula, the Liau Nei Islands, and part of the eastern part of Sumatra, it also means that the Great Chu Empire has completely controlled the eastern part of the Strait of Malacca.

Under such circumstances, even if there is the Kingdom of Aceh on Sumatra Island and a bunch of other messy small indigenous countries, the Great Chu Empire can still fully guarantee the navigation safety of its own ships in the Strait of Malacca.

This is crucial to the future overall strategy of the Great Chu Empire in Nanyang and even the future strategy of the Indian Peninsula.

For this reason, before the war is over, the Great Chu Empire has already started construction in Lion City (Singapore), preparing to build a large military base here.

Here, in the future, it will become the largest military base of the Great Chu Empire in the entire Nanyang region. It is not only used to ensure the safety of the Malacca Strait, but also shoulders the important task of quickly dispatching troops to suppress the entire Nanyang region! !
(End of this chapter)