On April 30, 1910, three days after the defeat of the Japanese Combined Fleet, in Shanwei, Guangdong, in this inconspicuous town, an army of thousands of people quietly appeared. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Before dawn, thousands of troops quietly boarded the dozen or so cargo ships, some carrying about five or six hundred men, and some carrying nearly a thousand.

On average, each ship carried seven or eight hundred soldiers, and a dozen ships had a capacity of nearly 10,000 people. At dawn, some of the local people who got up early and came to the wharf, waiting for the local people who were doing odd jobs just entered the wharf, they saw that the dozen or so cargo ships that entered the port last night were leaving, and couldn't help but secretly shake their heads and sigh helplessly, it turned out that people just stayed overnight, otherwise, they could earn almost two or three cents a day today, and it was six to nine yuan a month. No one loses.

The cargo ships began to form a team after leaving the post, and then sailed slowly in the direction of due east, the speed was not fast, only about ten knots, and the current cargo ships are basically at this speed, and it is not much different from the Japanese cargo ships, basically wooden structures, but on the surface it is not very strong.

About two hours later, the cargo ship had already sailed out of the continental shelf, where a fleet of two high-speed frigates, two destroyers, and a cruiser was quietly waiting for them, and after the two met, the cruiser lowered a dinghy, and then ran to a cargo ship, and picked up several people on board, and then the fleet began to continue eastward.

"Brigade Commander Lu, Chief of Staff Jiang, time is pressing, let's not say more polite words, let's talk about what support your army needs from our navy next." Lu Botao, the captain of the Jiyuan cruiser, saluted the two of them and cut straight to the point.

After coming to Fujian, the Jiyuan ship basically did not stay much, but only slightly replenished the supplies in Fuzhou, and simply replaced some damaged secondary guns, which took a day, and then formed a new fleet to go to sea to carry out the mission.

Lu Botao was appointed commander of the detachment, responsible for the unified command of five warships to protect the troop carriers, as well as landing support and other tasks, this time their position changed, from the protagonist of the previous naval battle to the supporting role of the landing battle.

Brigade Commander Lu's full name is Lu Quan, joined the army in 1902, participated in the Liberation War to liberate Shanxi, liberate Hubei, and liberate Sichuan Campaign, and later participated in the Korean War, participated in the Sino-Russian War, transferred back to China from Russia in August last year, and conducted an eight-month training on the Liaodong Peninsula.

In 1904, Jiang Baili, who returned from Japan to join the army, entered the Army Academy for half a year of study, and their original study system was two years, but Jiang Baili, Cai Yi and Zhang Xiaozhun were the best in the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School, and their military theories had already surpassed their classmates, so after the half-year assessment, the three were approved to graduate early and enter the army to serve.

Among them, Cai Yi was assigned to the First Group Army, and is currently the right-hand man of the Imperial Army General Cao Kun, subordinate to the First Group Army, with the rank of brigadier general. Jiang Baili was assigned to the Fourth Army, because there was no large-scale war in the south of the empire in charge of the Fourth Army, so his promotion was a little slow, and it was not until the empire decided to form the Marine Corps that Jiang Baili was promoted to colonel, and was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Fourth Army, and concurrently served as the chief of staff of the Second Marine Corps.

And Zhang Xiaozhun was assigned to the Third Group Army, which is the saddest guy, because the other two can often contact the war, and the other can occasionally come into contact, but Zhang Xiaozhun can only nest in the country for training and training troops, but there is a loss, there is gain, although Zhang Xiaozhun has not experienced any war training, but his rank promotion is the fastest one.

The fundamental reason is that the recruit units trained by him were quickly able to display their combat effectiveness after they were transferred to the front line, and although it was less than half of the main force on the front line, it was good enough for the recruits, and 80 percent of the troops trained by Zhang Xiaozhun became the main force within six months after joining the war.

It is precisely for this reason that Zhang Xiaozhun was the first person to be promoted to general, and is currently serving as the director of training of the Third Army, and when the Third Army went to the front, he also went to the front line with him, and accumulated a certain amount of combat experience, and it is rumored that the emperor has the intention of appointing Zhang Xiaozhun as the director of the Imperial Army Command College.

And these three people also became role models for the current class of students, and were regarded as idols by the students who later entered the military academy.

"Okay, then let's put it simply, our plan is to land between Tainan and Kaohsiung, according to the early intelligence investigation, this generation of defense is not large, the current main strength of the Japanese army has been attracted by us to Chiayi to Hsinchu generation, but for here the Japanese army has not given up, they captured a large number of local Taiwanese to participate in the construction of defense, and forcibly conscripted a lot of Taiwanese to join the army, according to the current intelligence, this generation is about a wing of Japanese troops stationed, as well as about three thousand Taiwanese troops.

The defensive force is mainly based on the Japanese army, in the rear of the landing field, there are two batteries, but they are located in the plain, and the Japanese situation in recent years is not good, so there are only two to four shore guns of about 200 calibers or more, these shore guns hope that the navy can solve them as soon as possible, and the other is to provide suppressive fire as much as possible to help the troops land. Because we need to be stationed there for at least forty-eight hours after landing, if we lose too many casualties during landing, it will be difficult to complete the mission. Lu Quan said.

In his vision, this battle will open up two landing grounds, one is the landing ground between Tainan and Kaohsiung, which must be successful, and this will also be the landing ground of the 204th Marine Division, and the 1st Brigade is just a vanguard force.

Then, the task of the 204th Division is to hold here, expand the scope of the landing field, and provide a safe landing site for the follow-up army units, and when the army has landed at least two divisions of troops here, then their combat mission will basically be completed. Of course, this is only a theoretical completion, and in fact, before the Japanese army in Taiwan is completely wiped out, there is no such thing as the completion of the task of the troops landing on Taiwan.

After the successful landing of the two army divisions, the 204th Division will change from the status of the main attack to the auxiliary, and the task of the main attack will be handed over to the two newly landed army divisions; although the Marine Corps also belongs to the army, their training in the last eight months has focused on landing, and the land combat is just a simple practice.

In addition to this, another landing site has not yet been determined, and the 205th and 206th Divisions of the Second Army will land at two different places at the same time. Then the 207th Division will land in Taichung, the reason why the landing ground is uncertain, that is because it is really uncertain, the specific location needs to be decided according to the defensive strength in the target area, in short, as long as one of the three divisions determines that the defensive strength is insufficient, then this direction will be changed to the main direction of attack, once the landing is successful, the other two marine divisions will all land from here, and then open up a landing ground to cover the landing of the army.

This is the landing plan designed by Jiang Baili, which seems to be a bit contradictory, but in fact these are two completely different, but completely identical plans, in fact, there is no contradiction at all.

"No problem, as long as the opponent's artillery dares to show their heads, we will quickly kill them." Lu Botao nodded, although it is difficult to deal with the shore artillery, but because the Japanese are temporarily driven out of the position, the defense capability is definitely not as strong as imagined, although the battleship is not here, but the cruiser is equipped with five 203 mm main guns, and the shore artillery to deal with the Japanese is still handy?

After about three hours, the two of them communicated with the troop carrier through the warship's radio system, and called the commanders of each unit to assign tasks one by one, and when the tasks were completed, the time was almost two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and then everyone returned to their respective ships, and then began the mandatory rest.

Next, after landing, they may not be able to rest for two days, or even three days, although it is not very comfortable to rest at sea, but it is still safe now, and they can calm down and rest, and it is much better to rest than after landing.

The formation was quietly moving towards Taiwan, because the Japanese Combined Fleet had been defeated, and the three divisions that originally supported Taiwan were also lost outside the port of the Ryukyus, and now the warships had returned to the Japanese mainland, and the surviving Japanese Army was forced to stay in the Ryukyus, and had no combat effectiveness, so the Japanese army in Taiwan was not only strengthened, but lost its coastal defense. Their long-awaited navy did not appear, and until now, the Governor of Taiwan, Sakuma Zamathei, did not know the news that the Combined Fleet had been defeated and that his army had sunk into the sea. (To be continued.) )