I want to be emperor

Rumbling explosions continued to sound intensively, and dozens of Portuguese went to see their God.

The rest of the Portuguese ran into various anti-gun fortifications crying and shouting for their mothers, trembling in fear.

After a few minutes of shelling, the African fleet stopped shelling, but those Portuguese did not dare to come out for a long time. After hiding in the artillery fortifications one by one for more than half an hour, only a small number of people came out...

It got blown up again...

The warships of the African Fleet have actually been cruising at a distance of about 500 meters, and there are watchmen watching all the time. When they see the enemy dispatching, they will basically launch a burst of rapid-fire bombardment. When the enemy comes out, they will concentrate the firepower of multiple ships For bombardment, if there are few who come out, single-ship fixed-point bombardment will be used.

After this repeated several times, the Portuguese died and injured a lot, and then they stopped coming out at all, and became completely shrinking turtles.

Not only do they hide in the forts and castles, but they also hide in various artillery fortifications in the fortress.

Fortunately, the Portuguese had a lot of dealings with the Chu army, and they had suffered too many shells from the Chu army, so they all gained experience, and paid special attention to the construction of artillery fortifications.

Similar to the Ming army back then, the Ming army was also beaten to death by the artillery of the Chu army, and then forcibly studied the city defense fortifications deeply, and built the world's first artillery fortification system at that time.

It forced the Chu army to use dangerous and immature large-caliber mortars on a large scale, and the caliber of the mortars became larger and larger.

The same is true for the Portuguese now, with a complete range of artillery fortifications.

The Portuguese couldn't get out of it. Naturally, the African fleet would not continue to waste shells, but just floated on the sea, ready to shell at any time to provide fire support for the landing troops.

With the support of the naval firepower, the landing troops landed very easily. Except for a few unlucky guys who fell into the water and drowned during the landing, and there were sporadic casualties during the first wave of landing, there were basically no casualties in the follow-up!
Because they were not resisted by the Portuguese at all.

The first day of the landing operation passed like this. When night fell, basically 200 infantry and artillery members of the third regiment landed, followed by more than 200 naval engineers.

However, the landing operation was not over. The navy engineers continued to build with the assistance of the indigenous soldiers, preparing to build a temporary trestle to facilitate the unloading of more ammunition, food and other materials.

As for the large-caliber siege artillery, there is no such thing. This time, there is no need for any large-caliber siege artillery.

Because the Portuguese fortress is right by the sea... the large-caliber naval guns in the fleet can fully cover it.

With the fleet providing direct fire support, there is no need for the army to land with those large-caliber smoothbore guns.

The large-caliber smoothbore gun is heavy, and it seems to have a large caliber, but the actual power of the spherical grenade fired is not very good. The explosive power of the [-]mm smoothbore mortar fired is not as powerful as the navy's [-]mm grenade. Cylindrical high-explosive grenade fired from a mm muzzle-loading rifled gun.

When there was no front-loading rifled gun before, I felt that the shells fired by the 250mm short-barreled howitzer were very powerful, and the [-]mm or even [-]mm short-barreled howitzer was a big killer.

But looking at it now, that's it...

If the army hadn't been waiting for the rear-loaded rifled guns to come out, and there were actually very few opportunities to use large-caliber artillery to attack fortified positions, it is estimated that it would not be able to resist equipping the front-loaded rifled guns.

Now, let's use the smoothbore gun first... It's not impossible to use it anyway.

By the next day, the landing was basically completed, all the expected troops had landed, and a large amount of logistics materials had also been transported up.

After everything was ready, the third regiment of the Indian Army began to advance towards the fort area, preparing to advance all the way to the periphery of San Sebastian Castle.

The Portuguese defense system on the island was built around the castle of San Sebastian.

In 1607, before facing the attack of the Dutch, San Sebastian Castle had already completed the bastion transformation, and in recent years, it has carried out anti-cannon transformation.

It can be said to be a veritable fortress fortress, not only able to resist solid shells fired directly, but also to resist grenades fired curvedly.

Its city walls are low and thick, and there are a large number of anti-blasting ditches and anti-blasting holes inside.

If it is only used to defend against ordinary smoothbore guns, even the Chu army's smoothbore guns that fire grenades, then there is no big problem.

However, the large-caliber front-loading rifled guns used to defend against the naval equipment of the Great Chu Empire were not enough.

In particular, the 170mm front-loading rifled guns equipped on battleships, even if they were placed during World War I in later generations, would still belong to the sequence of heavy artillery.

If the shells happen to fall nearby, even if they are not directly bombarded, the violent shock waves brought by the shells will shock you to death.

This is why the Portuguese didn't dare to take the lead yesterday, but they still suffered heavy casualties.

In fact, if the African fleet disregarded the life loss of the gun barrel and let go of the bombardment, these Portuguese could be directly crushed by just relying on the bombardment of the naval guns.

But the African fleet wouldn't do that... The front-loading rifled guns only have that little barrel life, and all of them are consumed here, so there will be no more wars in the future.

Besides, how expensive is the front-loading rifled gun, not only the artillery, but also the shells and propellant.

Solving the problem with shelling alone is too expensive to be worthwhile.

Relatively speaking, the cost is much lower if you use a servant army like the Indian Legion to enter with the support of your own artillery.

Servant soldiers, not worth much,

Even including their equipment is not expensive, after all, they are some old second-hand weapons, if these 21-year-style flash cap percussion guns are not used by the servants, they will often be retired directly to the militia.

To put it bluntly, the third regiment of the Indian Legion with more than 3000 people, except for the dozens of Chu officers, the remaining indigenous soldiers and weapons and equipment are not as good as the dozens of front-mounted weapons on a battleship. Rifled gunship guns are worth a fortune.

The large-scale use of the Indian Army on the African battlefield was originally to save the cost of expansion in the African region.

Therefore, in actual combat, it is impossible to put the cart before the horse and use expensive fleet consumption to replace the Indian Army to fight.

Ever since, on the second day of landing, the third regiment of the Indian Legion began to advance. The advance was relatively smooth at the beginning, but when it approached the fort area, it began to encounter resistance from the Portuguese.

Despite the support of naval guns, the Indian Army still suffered a lot of casualties.

In the attempted attack on the second day of landing, the Indian Army killed and injured hundreds of people, but it did not disappoint the superiors, and was even quite satisfied with the result.

Not only is the cost of the Indian Legion low, but its combat effectiveness is actually the same. It cannot be compared with the regular army of Chu State. It was able to pay hundreds of casualties, understand the enemy's firepower, deployment, etc., and also seized several important positions. The tactical node lays the foundation for the next stage of advancement.

This is already a very good result.

On the third day of landing, the third regiment of the Indian Legion, under the cover of its own field artillery fire and the fleet's covering artillery support, officially launched a full-scale attack on the Portuguese fort area.

At noon that day, they broke through the outer wall of the fort, and then entered the fort area.

The morale of the Portuguese defenders had already collapsed after being bombarded, and they suffered heavy casualties. Now they are unable to stop the full-scale onslaught.

After the city wall was breached, although the Portuguese tried to organize a counter-offensive, they all failed and were finally defeated in an all-round way.

During this process, on the one hand, the soldiers of the Indian Legion were indignant because of the deaths and injuries of their former comrades-in-arms, but more of them were the traditions they had developed in previous battles.

After entering the fortress and smashing the enemy's organized resistance, these Indian native soldiers of untouchable origin became crazy and brutal, and began to search for the remnants of the Portuguese. Even in the process, many native soldiers would refuse the Portuguese to surrender. .

For the native soldiers, it was so troublesome to accept the captives, and it would not add a penny to their pockets, so it was easy and convenient to kill them directly.

After the officers of the Chu people realized that the situation was wrong and began to gather and restrain the native soldiers, there were more than 1000 Portuguese soldiers and civilians remaining in the fortress, and most of them were dead.

Regarding this matter, the upper echelons of the Chu people were very helpless: they originally wanted to capture more prisoners, and it would be better to arrest some high-level Portuguese people.

Ordinary captives can be used to build various fortifications and ordinary buildings on Mozambique Island, and can also be used to negotiate with the Portuguese, allowing them to exchange colonies for captives, and directly accept large East African colonies in an easier way.

The results were all messed up by these brutal Indian native soldiers.

But the matter has come to this point, there is nothing to do, just deal with a few typical soldiers, and the typical indigenous soldiers will be locked up for a few days. These typical soldiers are under the noses of the officers of the Chu people, directly killing those who surrendered. of the Portuguese.

Not at all gentlemanly on the battlefield.

However, it was only a few days of confinement. After all, there was no order to capture more prisoners beforehand, and the Chu army did not have a military law that said: After the enemy expresses his intention to surrender, the soldiers must accept the surrender... This is the freedom of soldiers on the front lines.

Therefore, strictly speaking, the indigenous Indian soldiers did not violate the order, but the fighting methods were somewhat brutal.

Furthermore, the most important thing is that if the captives are not caught, they will not be caught, and it will not have a big impact.

After completely occupying Mozambique Island, the Chu army took advantage of the situation and began to move around East Africa. The African fleet left Mozambique Island, and then bombarded the Portuguese coastal colonial strongholds one by one along the coastline.

As for the third regiment of the Indian Legion... it is temporarily resting on the island of Mozambique, and by the way renovates the local fortifications, builds barracks and the like.

After the renovation is completed, the Indian Legion will perform other combat missions depending on the situation, and attack Portuguese colonies in other East African regions.

However, the scale of subsequent battles is not expected to be too large, because the Portuguese base camp in East Africa is on Mozambique Island, which is not only the administrative center of the Portuguese colonies in East Africa, but also a commercial center, and even a military center.

After the Chu army directly conquered Mozambique Island and wiped out the Portuguese on the island, it basically wiped out more than half of the Portuguese troops in East Africa.

The remaining colonial strongholds of the Portuguese people are all small strongholds with no more than a few hundred people, no more than a hundred or even dozens of people. To attack these small strongholds, there is no need to go to war, and any battalion-level troops are enough.

The Chu army moved very quickly in East Africa. Three months after capturing Mozambique Island, they basically cleared and took over all the Portuguese coastal colonial strongholds in East Africa. Only some small Portuguese strongholds deep inland have not yet been visited. beat.

But the small strongholds in the inland areas are not in a hurry to fight, and the Chu army is not interested in fighting for the time being. Anyway, the coastal areas have been captured by the Chu army. The Portuguese in the inland areas, let them fend for themselves.

As for the Chu army's own going deep into the interior of Africa, the Chu army has no such interest.

Not to mention East Africa, even in Northeast Africa, where the natural conditions are better and there are not many messy diseases, the Chu army basically does not go deep into the inland areas.

The inland areas of Africa are still very dangerous for civilized people in this era, and the Chu people did not go to the primitive deep forest to take risks.

It is good to do business on the coast, buy and sell matchlock guns and so on to those indigenous tribes.

As the situation in East Africa stabilized and the Great Chu Empire established a firm foothold here, the expansion of Chu State in Africa did not stop, but continued to go south.

The officials and generals sent by the Great Chu Empire to Africa always kept their mission in mind. They did not come here to seize any colonies. The Great Chu Empire did not develop large-scale immigration here in a short period of time, or even within ten or twenty years. plan.

The Great Chu Empire came to Africa to expand, with a simple and pure purpose, to control the coastal areas and establish a complete African coastal route.

At the same time, by the way, do business locally.

Then control South Africa, an important strategic location heading to the Atlantic Ocean and to Europe.

Then, by the way, go to South Africa to look for gold.

His Majesty said many years ago that according to secret information, there are a large amount of gold reserves in South Africa, although it is not yet known where exactly, nor whether the news is true or not.

But after occupying South Africa, it is not a big problem to find gold by the way.

An important strategic node of the African expansion policy is South Africa, to be precise, Cape Town in the north of the Cape of Good Hope now controlled by the Dutch in South Africa.

The Dutch officially established an immigrant settlement in the northern part of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in the 18th year of Chengshun, that is, in 1652 in the Western calendar. The history of development is not fast. Until now, it is actually an ordinary immigrant settlement. Not finished... According to the plan of the Dutch, it is estimated that it will take about four years to complete.

Although this place is only an ordinary immigrant settlement for the time being, and mainly provides supply services for passing ships, in the eyes of the Great Chu Empire Navy, this place is a strategic location.

Because all the ships going to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and detouring Africa must pass through here.

If the navy and merchant ships of the Great Chu Empire want to enter the Atlantic Ocean from the Indian Ocean, they must pass through the Cape of Good Hope.

For such a strategic location, the Great Chu Empire naturally couldn't let it go, and even let him control it in the hands of European colonists.

After everything was settled in the north, on December 31, 26 of Chengshun, which coincided with the midsummer season in the southern hemisphere, the African fleet set sail again on a large scale.

This time, in addition to more than a dozen naval warships that escorted and covered the landing operations, there were also dozens of various transport ships.

In addition to carrying more than 2000 ground combat troops, there are also hundreds of engineering troops, and there are a large number of construction materials such as reinforced concrete transported from distant lands.

The expedition fleet of the Great Chu Empire went to Cape Town of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa this time, not only to seize the place from the Dutch, but also to build this place into a super-large military fortress port to garrison a large number of troops and fleets. Guard and completely block the Cape of Good Hope, the strategic waterway connecting the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Great Chu Empire wanted to completely turn the Indian Ocean into its own internal ocean. For this reason, it planned to directly block the shipping route of the Cape of Good Hope, preventing European colonial ships from entering the Indian Ocean.