Chapter 664

The waves on the sea remain the same, but pingman's army has completely changed after months of development.

The original pingman Colonel's headquarters only opened up an open space along the coast. Although there were buildings, there were not many, but more temporary military accounts.

At this moment, the military port has begun to take shape. The berths in the port are docked in rows of warships, and the sails are also stacked on the outside near the sea. Looking at it, there will be no more than 200 ships of various types; There is a wider space on the land and more than ten miles inland. The original primitive jungle has become a complex of buildings. There is a constant sound of practice on the broad school grounds everywhere, and the figures of sergeants and sailors can be seen everywhere on all roads.

The air in this place is humid and rainfall is frequent. The Han Army did as the Romans did when they were in Rome. Many houses with bamboo arrangement as the main body were built. They are usually supported by large wood, leaving a space layer at the base of the house. There are basically no people on the first floor, and they live only above the second floor.

"Gupta gathered warships to compete with the big man?" It has been more than two months since Huan Wen came to pingman Colonel's headquarters. Of course, he became the highest commander of the Han Army in this area: "this is what we are happy to see."

There are quite a lot of intentions to leave a space layer in the house. More rainfall will often form a watery area. If you don't want water in the house, you can't build a house like in the Central Plains. Moreover, there are too many insects and snakes in this place, and the barrier also plays a protective role.

When the Han state newly occupied the land, it could not be built according to the habits of the Central Plains in a short time. Only by transforming the place, at least there were no more insects and snakes, would the Central Plains buildings be built wantonly.

Human beings are highly destructive creatures. As long as there are enough people living in groups, it will inevitably change the local appearance, not only in the transformation of the natural appearance, but also in fact all kinds of organisms considered harmful by human beings are forced to migrate or killed.

Before Huan Wen came, Li Mai succeeded Fu Weilai to command the sea attack on the Gupta Dynasty.

Li Mai was one of the senior naval officials of the small imperial court in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He returned to the Han state in the battle of Ruyin. Later, he participated in the war of the Han army against the small imperial court, made meritorious contributions in the battle of Shouchun and the battle of Jingkou, and served as a navy general.

The naval assault of the Han Dynasty against the Gupta Dynasty began with the arrival of the fleet led by Fu Wei. At the beginning, only a dozen warships cruised in the bay of Bengal in the A3 ocean, waiting for Li Mai to bring the second fleet before launching a raid in the entire A3 ocean.

The attack on the Gupta Dynasty was not small, but it could not completely block the Gupta Dynasty's foreign maritime trade. However, with the increase of warships in the Han Dynasty, the Gupta Dynasty was not far from the complete interruption of maritime trade.

In order not to make the Han Navy rampant, but also to ensure the maritime trade channel, although the Gupta Dynasty was really unwilling to engage in an inexplicable war, they did not sit still. They mobilized their own navy to fight back against the Han Navy, and the two sides also engaged in maritime exchanges many times.

The Gupta Dynasty was unwilling to go to war, which was a kind of thought of the upper class. They could not see the benefits of war. They were willing to stop the war based on communication, but they were not stupid enough to be beaten without counterattack.

The number of Gupta navies gathered along the coast of ketak has been increasing. They have also organized many escort formations to escort merchant ships, which has repeatedly expanded the scale of maritime confrontation. The largest warship between the two sides has exceeded 100.

The commander of the Han Dynasty was Fu Wei, and the commander of the Gupta Dynasty was gavara Kunal Jedin's high caste aristocracy.

The battle of 100 ships only lasted one afternoon, ending with Fu Wei's order to evacuate. In this battle, 16 ships were sunk in the Han war and 17 in the Gupta war. All the warships on both sides were damaged. It would be Fu Wei who chose to retreat because Gupta had new reinforcements behind him.

"We already know the pattern of naval warships in Gupta." Huan Wen was more or less excited: "their largest warship is bigger than ours, but on the whole, our warship has more advantages."

It's not a lie. A very huge warship appeared in the Gupta Dynasty. It should be nearly 100 meters long and 40 meters wide. The water depth is unknown. Excluding the horizontal plane of the mast, the hull height is at least 89 meters. Such a ship is like a mountain at sea.

The largest warship in the Han Dynasty is 76 meters long, 17 meters wide and 7 meters deep. Excluding the mast, the maximum height of the building on the horizontal plane is 6 meters. It is much smaller than the Gupta warship that has been found.

In the Gupta Dynasty, there were few warships with a length of more than 30 meters. They were basically warships with a length of about 20 meters and a width of about 56 meters. The smaller ones could only be counted as the category of warships.

According to the information from the Han side, the fleet of the Gupta Dynasty is being organized. The giant ship is equipped with eight ships more than 60 meters long, and the rest are warships less than 30 meters long.

The standard crossbow ships on the side of the Han Dynasty are generally 30 meters long and 8 meters wide. The largest number of such warships follow the system. Down there is a kind of battle ship with collision as the battle method. In fact, the rest can only be regarded as war boats.

The ship is twelve meters long and four meters wide. It has a special collision angle at the bow, but it is not equipped with a bed crossbow. In fact, they were the main ships of inland water forces in the past. They were often driven by the power of human oars. If the enemy ship hit a big hole, it was time to reverse and evacuate.

Nowadays, the combat power of warships at sea is not calculated by tonnage. It is based on the size of warships. It is certainly necessary to calculate the defensive power, speed and bearing capacity to distinguish whether warships are strong enough.

In terms of warships, Huan Wen has learned that there are many warships of the Gupta dynasty that can be called sea monsters, but most of them are inferior to their own in hull size.

"Naturally, they also equipped the bed crossbow on the warship." Li Mai has personally been on the front line for many times. He will be responsible for commanding the navy in this invasion. He must not know a little about the enemy: "in terms of detecting the situation, there are still many enemy ships equipped with bed crossbows."

Huan Wen came to preside over the invasion of the Gupta Dynasty. Although he has the authority of the supreme commander, he will step into the territory of the enemy country after landing, and the maritime fleet will still be under the command of Li Mai.

The army of the Han Dynasty wants to land on the coast of the Gupta Dynasty to invade, of course, after obtaining the sea power. Otherwise, the army will not be cut off when it lands but has no sea power?

Cross sea operations are really not easy, especially when they go tens of thousands of miles away from the mainland. The land they land is an enemy country. At the beginning, they are deeply trapped in the enemy's territory. Look around. Don't expect friendly people. If you want to retreat, you can only retreat to the coastline. Then the sea power must be in hand. Otherwise, we should not only be nervous, but also lose the sea power, which is tantamount to leaving the landing forces to death.

"In terms of quantity, Gupta has gathered nearly 600 warships." Li Mai led the way to the military map hanging on the wall and pointed to ketak's position: "the enemy warships mainly gather here, and more than half of the ships are only civilian to military. At present, the number of enemy ships is still increasing."

At present, the military and civilian boundaries on ships are not obvious, whether the people using ships are the army or the people, just because they have not entered the era of artillery. In addition to long-range cold weapon mutual fire, sea warfare is to engage in side to side warfare after collision (also known as gang jumping Warfare).

In fact, even in the era of artillery dominating the victory and defeat, many civilian merchant ships can also become a warship by refitting and installing artillery. That is, the hull of civilian merchant ships is not as strong as military warships at the beginning of construction, and the hull structure is not really military. After the real mutual fire, the warships refitted by civilian merchant ships can certainly not be compared with real military warships in terms of the number of guns and the firmness of the hull.

The real era of the great distinction between military and civil use is when large naval guns come into play. That is, warships are equipped with large-diameter naval guns. Naval guns equipped with protective armor usually have a solid base, and the base must be able to rotate. In such an era of giant ships and artillery, military warships and civilian ships are incompatible in the hull structure at the beginning, not to mention the protection against beating. In terms of fire point layout, armor reinforcement and speed, the construction period and cost of refitting civilian ships are not as good as stepping up the construction of real warships.

It has always been necessary until the aircraft carrier appears, and the transformation of civil cruise ships will come on stage again. However, the aircraft carrier transformed by civil cruise ships really can't be on the table. There will never be anything about these transformed aircraft carriers in the confrontation of anti Zhengda fleet. The capacity, tonnage and speed of the carrier aircraft transformed by civil cruise ships are certainly not comparable to the real aircraft carrier. It is impossible for a whole combat formation to deliberately slow down after entering the combat state. Therefore, the transformation of civil cruise ships into aircraft carriers is generally used for escort and some raids. (see the relevant deployment of Britain and the United States in World War II)

The Gupta Dynasty is a country with extremely developed maritime trade. They have a navy of about 300 ships all year round. Due to the prosperity of sea trade of Gupta Dynasty, the number of ships owned by the people will not be less. In normal proportion, the number of Gupta civilian ships must be more than 20 times the total tonnage of warships belonging to the Navy. (refer to the proportion of maritime powers in the Middle Ages)

"In other words, when the enemy launches a decisive battle, their ships will not be less than a thousand?"

"I thought it would reach more than 1500."

The Central Plains Dynasty has never been a maritime power. In fact, it is in the preliminary stage of exploration for the Navy. In the past, when calculating the warships, they counted the ships that could fight in inland rivers. Few wars in the Yangtze River have been recorded in history. The largest scale, that is, the battle of Chibi, was not mentioned by the three armies, and there were no more than 1000 ships participating in the war.

Every warship that can participate in a naval battle must be able to withstand the test of the waves, which means that the warship is not too small. Huan Wen is already imagining the picture of 1500 warships spreading out. His mind is full of overlapping shadows of ships, and the adjective he thinks of is the word "overwhelming".

The state of Han sent spies to the Gupta Dynasty to collect intelligence. The naval collection of the Gupta Dynasty is a collection of spies and naval ships on the road. There must be unknown data, but it can also be used as the greatest reference.

"As for the land force of Gupta, what we have at present is that they will not be less than 400000. They are generally divided into various infantry, cavalry, horse cavalry and elephant cavalry. In addition, the enemy is still heavily equipped with combat vehicles."

The infantry of the Gupta dynasty still has a relatively strict level. The infantry without armour accounts for an absolute majority. There are two kinds of close combat light infantry and archers, of which archers are definitely a major feature. Their armored infantry are assembled by the chadili warriors, equipped with the elite private armed forces of each chadili, that is, the so-called noble army.

It is said that the characteristics of the bow soldiers of the Gupta Dynasty depend on the local environmental factors, which bring the distinctive local characteristics to the bow and arrow. Their bow is a long bow made of metal or bamboo. The arrow is a long bamboo rod with a metal head, and the metal long bow is the most powerful. The A-San long bow is different from the composite bow in the West or central Asia. The latter is easy to warp in a humid environment. Due to the influence of climate, the A-San long bow is known as a weapon with long range and strong penetration. It can also resist the archers on horseback.

As for the archers of the Gupta Dynasty, the Han Army has fully understood that the two sides did not shoot each other when fighting at sea. The Han army was surprised at the range of the Gupta archers and studied the arrow structure of the Gupta army.

Of course, there were archers in the Han Army, including step archers and horse archers. The standard bow of a walking Archer is actually a hard bow. Most of them are about one stone tension, and the maximum range is 150 meters. Of course, horse archers use riding bows, including long bows and angle bows. The longest range of long bows is 200 meters, and the longest range of angle bows is only 70 meters.

The Han army was surprised at the Gupta archers. They found that the Gupta archers could shoot arrows at a distance of 300 meters, even after 300 meters, they still had strong penetration.

"With a standing land force of 400000, there must be more in a state of war."

Huan Wen had only two standing armies on the land. If the subordinate servants were included, the total land force would be 70000. Before he came, he didn't quite understand why Liu Yan said that the Gupta Dynasty could not be destroyed at one time. What Liu Yan wanted was to beat the Gupta Dynasty at one time, use strong force to make the Gupta Dynasty yield and obtain the desired extortion politically.

It should be said that Huan Wen had more or less the idea of destroying the Gupta Dynasty at one time, learned about the existing strength of the Gupta Dynasty, and then estimated its war potential. He rationally understood that it was really hopeless to destroy the country in the first World War. Next, he should think about how to hurt the Gupta Dynasty, and the more painful he can fight the Gupta Dynasty, the better the political negotiation after the military contest.

"The first battle is at sea." Huan Wen narrowed his eyes, seemed to think for a while, and then looked back at Li Mai: "if the big man invites ah San to hunt, will Lang have confidence?"

Li Mai must ask clearly: "with the current 300 warships, will they hunt with thousands of enemy warships?"

Huan Wen made a dumbfounded move and said, "warships? Big men will lack warships?!"

Li Mai thought it was the same. Which fleet of the Beiyang fleet and the Nanyang fleet had fewer than 1000 warships? He was worried about when the follow-up warships would arrive.