Chapter 892: The Battle to Determine the World (V)

From the day of its birth, human society has destined to be a matter of keeping one's words with a big fist. This is like this in individuals and countries. Of course, this may be a lot of things, such as if you have more money.

What the Frenchman is like is such a cruel reality. Can you run back and forth a day from Marseille to Paris? No, it can't be done by messengers. But that's what they say, they are planning to shell Marseille.

What to do? There is no way! Run away quickly, run away, run away if you can run away. Those who can't run away can find the ground to hide. Ye Hai's purpose is exactly this, try to avoid causing casualties from civilians. Say hello first, what is your business. But what went wrong with Ye Hai was expecting was that the nobles had no bottom line in doing things. The first ones who ran away were aristocrats of all sizes. When ordinary people learned the news, it was already dark. Of course, not all nobles were so shameless. The brave nobles cared more about their reputation. While notifying the people as much as possible, they also picked up their weapons, walked onto the fort, and prepared for battle. At this time, they would not mention them later.

As an important port in the Mediterranean, there are naturally fortresses around the port of Marseille. One of the very important fortresses is the Fort Ive, which is not far from the exit of the port of Marseille. It is actually a limestone island with an island of 2￥ ≧00 meters long and 168 meters wide. The French built it into a fortress.

"Let them surrender." Ye Hai sent people to the Fort Ives, but naturally he returned bored. The French officers and soldiers in the fort almost killed the messenger. Faced with such a fortress and brave officers and soldiers, Ye Hai raised his hat, paid slight tribute and said, "Fire!"

The 20 main guns fired in sequence, and the small island was instantly shrouded in the smoke of gunpowder. The officers and soldiers inside the fortress also used cannons to fight back, but the range was too close and they could only leave one water column after another on the sea. Although this was an extremely strong fortress, it still seemed a little fragile in front of the 150 main gun. After just ten minutes, the shelling stopped. After looking in the telescope for a while, a staggering figure appeared behind the smoke, holding a musket in his hand and shooting at the warship in despair.

Ye Hai waved his hand again with his facial expression, and the main gun roared again. The crumbling running base collapsed with a loud bang.

The sound of shelling alarmed the nobles in the city and accelerated the escape speed of the timids. Fortunately, Ives Castle no longer resisted. Faced with the Marines who boarded the island with a boat, more than 100 remaining people chose to charge. As a result, they were torn to pieces by the machine guns set up on the boat. After the last soldier fell, the battle ended.

When the next morning came, Marseille fell into panic, and a large number of people fled the city with their families. The reason was naturally because the nobles ran away. Facing the chaos of Marseille, the morale of the soldiers guarding the city was low. In fact, even if they were high in morale, they were useless. Just yesterday, they could only watch the destruction of Yves Castle.

No ship in the port dared to go out to sea to fight. The only thing that could be expected was the surrounding forts. The cohesion of the city of Marseille was not strong, and the reason was naturally because of the Protestant uprising that occurred. After being suppressed by Louis XIV, two forts were built here, St. John and St. Nicholas forts, which protected the French fleet and hundreds of merchant ships.

It was not that the French fleet was not brave, but because the battle outside the Strait of Gibraltar was so shocking. Four European maritime powers gathered 200 warships to fight. The result was that it was shocking and almost wiped out. France, which was not a maritime power, had all the ships under its command. How could it be willing to pull them out and fight to the death?

When the sun rose, thunder sounded on the sea. The fierce artillery fire instantly submerged the St. John and St. Nicholas' fortresses in the smoke. The old cannons on the fort launched a desperate counterattack, but there was no result. The range gap was there, and the water column after column was only raised on the sea, which looked spectacular.

The fierce shelling took place for an entire hour. When the counterattack on the turret became weaker and weaker, the cruiser ironclad ships that had been cruising on the sea suddenly moved. The so-called shelling of the city was indeed a cover. The cruiser rushed into the port of Marseille, and with the counterattack of the sparse turrets, the French fleet and merchant ships in the port started to attack before they could react. No one expected that in the face of two solid turrets, the opponent would dare to rush into the port.

The remaining cannons on the turrets were desperately firing at the cruiser fleet, but they caused the cannons of the main warship to be violently suppressed. At this time, the main fleet directly approached the port. At a distance of three thousand meters, the fierce 105 guns were like raindrops.

The cruiser was like a tiger entering a flock of sheep in the port. He stared at the French fleet and attacked fiercely. The French counterattack was strong, but the shells on the armored side of the ship did not cause any damage. Even if they hit the superstructure, there would not be too much casualties.

In just one hour, more than 30 French warships and nearly 200 large and small ships in the port were wiped out in the face of the artillery fire of the cruiser fleet. Apart from some particularly small targets, there was basically no ship that could still sail in the port. At this time, the cruiser's muzzle aimed at the docks and docks, and another fierce shooting was made.

The shelling triggered a violent fire, and the entire dock and surrounding houses were shrouded in the fire. Among them, there was the contribution of the Marseille Arsenal, which received key attention. Without the explosion of this arsenal, the fire would not have been so cruel.

The navy of the Ming Empire continued until afternoon, and then left slowly. At the entire time, there was a raging fire in the port of Marseille, and there was no retaliation on the two solid forts. There was no good ship in the port, and debris filled the entire port. This was a revenge from the Ming Empire!

The Ming fleet left, leaving behind a messy port of Marseille. Louis XIV, far away in Paris, learned the news, and it was said that many things were smashed. However, he did not dare to execute even a Ming merchant, because he knew that if he did this, if he failed on the battlefield in Europe, the revenge he received would be extremely terrifying. The Ming Empire could do it.

The news of Corvado's fall reached Madrid, and Carlos II was feeling uncomfortable. He repeatedly sent messengers to ask reinforcements from various countries to come to Madrid as soon as possible.

Yin Jie spent about a week in Corvado, and at the same time cleaned up the Spanish towns around him. Any town that dared to resist was brutal blows from the European Expeditionary Force. After several bloody incidents, Yin Jie finally ordered to continue to go north. In fact, it was not that Yin Jie did not know that the soldiers were very fast, but did it deliberately. He just hoped that Spain and the European Union could gather together and then hold a decisive battle to solve the problems on the Spanish battlefield. The reason is very simple. The Ming Empire also hoped that the quick battle would be possible. Since this is the case, haste would not be achieved. If we enter Madrid as quickly as possible, there would be almost no loss of strength for all countries. In the short term, the troops that arrived one after another would consume a lot of supplies from the Expeditionary Force. This is not in line with the spirit of quick battles, so it would be better to come slowly and wait for the opponent to complete the assembly and then fight.

Just as the coalition forces arrived in Madrid one after another and completed the assembly, another battlefield also started. The three Marine divisions of the Marine Corps landed in Valencia under the cover of nearly 100 warships. This time they directly hit Carlos II's waist. The European Union did not expect that there was such a move and faced a dilemma. There should be a focus, right? Should we fight Valencia's landing troops first, or go south to seek a decisive battle?

The Marines landed in Valencia. The process went smoothly. The reason was that these bastards set a fire when they were resisting in the city. The entire city was shrouded in fire. The Marines served in various colonies for a long time, and they were all skilled in killing and setting fires. It can be said that wherever there was resistance in the overseas territory of the Ming Empire, there were sounds and shadows of the Marines.

For the Navy, every Marine is precious and unwilling to consume it at all. Since you want to fight street battles in the city, you're sorry, and the fire started to burn. Anyway, the Marines brought enough kerosene. Because of this fire, the entire landing operation lasted for six days before it was completed, and the entire Valencia became a ruin. Among the ruins, the survivors stared at the enemy showing off their power.

In Madrid, the European Union's meeting was very fierce. With the repeated insistence of the famous French general Conde, the coalition decided to attack Valencia first, otherwise this place would be too deadly. Once the main force goes south, he can stab someone on his ribs at any time. How can he bear it? The Marine Corps never expected that their assisted attack would become the main battlefield.

After landing, the Marines did not mean to go north quickly, but instead defended on the spot, sent small troops to move around to clean up surrounding towns. The main force rested on the spot, built fortifications, arrested civilians, built warehouses, and built roads, and waited for subsequent supplies to land. The biggest problem in foreign combat was intelligence, which the Marines did not know at all. At this time, they had become the main target. Considering the fleet cruising on the sea, even if they were still using honest paper-shell bullet rifles, the Navy did not feel that there was anything to worry about. It was enough to build fortifications with peace of mind and guard against the enemy's guerrillas. The purpose of their actions was to involve the attention of the European Union so that they could not fight the main force of the European Expeditionary Force with all their might.

Oh, another thing is to grab a ticket by the way. As a port city with a long history, there are still many things to grab. Spain has long colonized South America and has a large amount of gold and silver reserves. This is why the Marines are going to fight. You can't just watch the army make a fortune on the ground, right?

As a landlord, Carlos II was undoubtedly very tragic. Spain's former glory was no longer there. For this war, it exhausted the national treasury, but it was in exchange for a war on the local level. Originally, he hoped that the efforts of the European Combined Fleet could block the Ming Navy outside the Strait of Gibraltar. No one expected that the sail fleet that gathered the essence of the European navy would disappear in this naval battle. Now Carlos can only passively accept this result. Spain has never been a powerful country on land, and can only cooperate with the armies of other countries.

Carlos II, who had gathered a hundred thousand troops, had to hand over command under the pressure of various countries. It was Condor who carried out command on Louis XIV. This famous French general formulated a combat plan, and the main force of the coalition attacked Valencia, and the south direction adopted the method of resisting step by step and delaying the enemy's combat. The information he obtained showed that the number of landing troops in Valencia was not very large, which was more than 30,000 people. After all, the number of people in a division of the Ming Dynasty was about 12,000.

He didn't know that the Marine Corps was not a normal infantry division at all. The organization of these three Marine Corps of the Ming Navy was exchanged for countless quarrels. The navy was more valuable than the eyes. How could it be easy to copy the Army's organization? Then the Army would be laughed to death by the Army.

A Marine Division has two infantry brigades and four regiments. This is because they dare not do too much. The Navy wants to build six regiments. In addition to the four infantry regiments, there is also an artillery regiment. It is under the jurisdiction of two battalions, but they are all four regiments. They are equipped with 105 caliber cannons and 75 mountain cannons. Most importantly, each battalion of the Marine Corps has a machine gun company equipped with machine guns and mortars removed from warships.

It can be said that each unit of the Marine Corps is over-organized. One infantry division has only 12,000 troops, and the military division has a force of more than 18,000 troops. The combined force of the three divisions is 50,000, which is not the legendary less than 40,000.

Confucius gathered a large number of coalition forces from various countries, plus baggage troops, and a large marching of 150,000 people, and pulled more than ten miles on the road. The Spanish people were farewell to the road. They really hoped to defeat the Ming army in this battle and defend their homeland. The propaganda within Spain was naturally negative, such as killing people, massacres, pagans, and yellow perils. Anyway, the Europeans of this era said this was the case. They forgot the Crusades and the numerous bloody cases created in the colonies.

The marching speed of Kong Dai's command was not too fast, but the quality of professional soldiers was there, and marching ten kilometers a day was not a problem. Because considering fighting in the territory, the marching speed of the coalition forces accelerated, increasing to 15 kilometers a day. Then, according to the news ahead, the speed was accelerated to 20 kilometers the next day.

When he learned that Valencia's enemy troops had been building fortifications for defense, Kong Dai felt that his judgment was correct, and this was a partial division. He became more and more convinced that his tactics were beyond the enemy's expectations. He didn't expect that he would attack the partial division first? (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!