open sea

Chapter 723
Shao Tingda drew many stickfish in his notebook, and now he has crossed out 25 of them.

When the soldiers asked what it was, Mr. Shao always shook his head inscrutablely. At this time, he felt the same for Chen Mu who burned the notebook. He really didn't want to tell others that it was a ship.

Boats are so hard to draw!

According to Hei Yunlong's summary, the number of Spanish ships north of Peru ranged from 63 to 85, and 25 of them have now been cleared. After the Ming army lost four ships and damaged two, there were still [-] warships. It still has an overwhelming absolute advantage in the number of ships.

In the waters near Acapulco, the Ming army fleet patrolled dozens of miles of sea area scattered, and the captains of each fleet took small boats to the flagship cabin to discuss military affairs.

"No boat?"

Several Qianhu deputy Qianhu of the admiral's fleet stared wide-eyed, Shao Tingda nodded and said: "There is indeed no ship, the captain of the scout is an old officer under our command, and he was forced to six miles to the port recently, almost within the range of the shore artillery - no Ships, warships and merchant ships, nothing."

The surprise attack was over before it even started. After sailing for three thousand miles, they suddenly learned that no enemy ships had been found at the largest port in Mexico and even New Spain. The former fleet officers panicked.

Shao Tingda had personally seen a large number of western ships sailing northward via Guatemala, but these ships did not pass through the demarcation peninsula. All along, the intelligence of the Ming army believed that those warships were berthed in the port of Alpurco, and now there is nothing here.

Where are the enemy troops?

Has a ring been set at sea, or will it suddenly appear behind them?
Nobody knows.

"How about...return to the boundary peninsula?"

Seeing that the situation was different from the intelligence, Hei Yunlong thought about it and suggested: "The intelligence is not clear, and it is impossible to destroy the enemy ships at sea. If you land in a hurry and fear that the enemy will block your way back, it is better to retreat to the north."

But I didn't expect that Fu Yuan, who was obsessed with retreating before, was the first to raise objections. He said: "I said retreat directly, but if you don't retreat, now you can reach the port of the Western Army in a few steps, but you want to retreat. What is this? reason?"

"In my opinion, it's just right that the ships of the Western Army are not here. We sent scouts to investigate where the shore guns were, pulled out the rockets, and directly seized this harbor—in case the ships of the Western Army attacked the boundary peninsula, we returned home and waited. Time will suffer a lot!"

Snapped!
In the captain's cabin on the lower deck of the flagship, Shao Tingda clapped his hands to stop the generals from discussing, and said: "The matter has come to this point, it is not about our department, but about the Western Army, transfer the fleet away, what are they thinking, what are they going to do?" ?”

Shao Tingda did not believe that the Spanish fleet went north to attack the dividing peninsula.

If the western ship had gone north, they would have met them on the voyage. He believed that the Spanish fleet had sailed south, but no one knew how far south it was.

Do the Spaniards want to avoid the war, or keep the fleet as the last trump card in the war.

Are the rebels ready to fight the Ming army?Or are they going to sue for peace?

The so-called war, that is, "one person dies", is repeated thousands of times, regardless of victory or defeat.

"We want to win the war. This is the mission of our generals, but it is even more important to save the lives of our soldiers, to leave a man for a woman, and a father for a child. Any decision must not be hasty."

As soon as General Mang uttered what might be the most literary and logical words in his life, he was interrupted by the conjecture of Hei Yunlong.

"Uncle Sixteen, will they let the boat go away?"

"Let the ship go? What do you mean?"

Hei Yun's frivolous face stopped, and he said solemnly: "I have read the history of war in the martial arts hall. Since the year of Longqing in Spain and Portugal, my Ming army has gone to Nanyang. There have been more than ten naval battles. Western ships encountered us at sea. , never won."

"I'm not a naval general, and I'm not a navy general. I learned cavalry in the martial arts hall, but it's because I'm a land division general that I understand Western warfare better. They use big ships as fortresses and ship boards as city defenses at sea. In the final analysis, they still use naval warfare. Fight it like a sea-land battle."

"Now the enemy's land division has several times the strength of ours. They are not afraid of our landing, only afraid of Chen Shuai's reinforcements. It is difficult for them to defeat us in naval battles. Even if we have few soldiers, if they meet them in naval battles, no matter how optimistic they are, our troops will not be able to defeat us." The twenty or so warships should also destroy thirty of their warships, so they only have thirty warships left, how can they defeat Chen Shuai?"

"Just as we know the approximate number of ships of the Western Army, they know the number of our ships even more. Ruo Hei is the general of the Western Army... wait a minute!"

Hei Yunlong spoke vigorously, clasped his fists to Shao Tingda and his colleagues, got up and took a pen and paper from Shao Tingda's usual table in the cabin, and roughly drew the general appearance of the New Spain coastline, and then drew two lines on the map. One big circle and one small circle.

"Vallarta is in the north, Acapulco is in the south, and our wounded soldiers are stationed in the middle. If the order to retreat is issued by Mexico, Acre can be ordered within a day and night, and Vallarta can be ordered at least It takes three days by sea and four days by land."

"The western ships retreated south one to three days ago. This is one of many possibilities."

Shao Tingda thought for a while, but he didn't agree with this reason. It was too coincidental. He reminded: "Even so, the enemy ship in Acapulco may have left earlier, and Vallarta is very close to the dividing peninsula. The warship may not retreat south because it deters us."

Hei Yunlong, who was holding a charcoal pencil on his upper body and drawing a picture of the situation on the discussion table, paused, nodded in agreement, and said, "There is another possibility, which is the entire west coast of Asia. There are no more ships in the West." .”

While speaking, he added a section of curved coast further south.

"In order to prevent our army from waiting for Chen Shuai to come to New Spain and be unable to defend, the warships that were moved to New Spain a few days ago were transferred south to the Governorate of Peru, and the three legions there were quickly dispatched for reinforcements."

Hei Yunlong said, raised his body and said to everyone: "This is a good situation. As for the bad situation, the enemy has surrounded our troops, or has predicted that our troops will attack the port, and the fleet has set up an ambush in the southern bay. Blocked outside."

"The humble staff believes that right now we really need to think about what the enemy wants to do, but we should not only focus on the sea, but also on land."

At random, Hei Yunlong drew several main roads and the location of Mexico City on the map, and said: "Our army has a disadvantage in strength, and the advantage lies in the fact that we not only obtained three Western Army garrisons and defense areas from Governor A, but also a complete new Map of Spanish official roads."

As a mid-level military officer who was born in the martial arts hall, Hei Yunlong has as many talents as his relatives. He even drew the road network around Mexico City with a wave of his hand, and even had some rough topographic maps.

"The legion's garrison should have been dispatched at this time, and it's not clear what is true, but the roads were all built in the Aztec era, and there are not many changes."

"If you want to retreat, I recommend that you retreat directly to Zhuangyuan Bridge. If you don't retreat, it is recommended to avoid ports with shore artillery, land from the north side of the town, bypass the military town, and go straight to Herrera, 140 miles east of the coast. The legion is stationed, at this time their main force should be deployed on the coastline, our army can calmly rest after landing, and further collect enemy intelligence."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)