1890 King of Southeast Asia

On March 20, the Chinese Empire completed the deployment of the army. The 6th Navy Brigade and the 101st Division of the 6th Army, escorted by the battle formation of the Xuchang battleship, set out from Cyprus and headed for the Chukulova Plain in the Cilicia region of the Ottoman Empire.

A few hours later, they arrived at Karataş, the southernmost port city of the Chukulova Plain in Adana Province in the Cilicia region of the Ottoman Empire.

Adana is the sixth most populous province in the Ottoman Empire. It is a large plain surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea on one side. After crossing the mountains, you can directly enter the heartland of the Ottoman Empire. It has an important strategic location.

In particular, it is very close to Cyprus. In order to consolidate Cyprus and strengthen its influence in the Mediterranean, a small fleet was stationed in Adana, and Karataş was an important berth for this fleet.

However, as the war progressed, in order to deal with the threat of the Russians in the Black Sea, the Ottomans had to deploy advanced fast warships to the Black Sea, leaving only old and unusable ironclad ships in the Mediterranean.

At this time, the flagship of the Ottoman fleet stationed in the Gulf was a 4,600-ton turret ironclad ship that had been in service since the 1870s. It was older than Dingzhen and was already 45 years old.

When the Xuchang was preparing, because the ship was too old, her observers and rangefinder operators could not recognize it as a warship. After all, the ship still had sails and looked more like an old sailing ship.

When the Xuchang's gunfire fell around the scheduled landing point, the ship rushed towards the Xuchang with several ships that were suspected to be old torpedo boats at a speed of no more than 8 knots, which attracted the attention of the outer escort destroyers.

As the destroyers moved forward to drive away, the guns on the Ottoman ironclad fired.

This Asali French turret ironclad ship was ordered by the Ottomans from France (or possibly Britain), and its weapon configuration was not inferior to that of the 1880s or even the early 1890s.

Equipped with 6 1870-type 238mm 19-caliber naval guns, 5 1870-type 140mm 21-caliber naval guns, and 4 1859-type 120mm single-mounted guns, the firepower was sufficient at the time.

However, after the two naval revolutions in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it seemed very backward. Now even the 100mm-class guns of destroyers have a range that exceeds these old guns.

Therefore, this brave warship and the transport ships that followed it faced the embarrassing situation of not being able to hit or escape after firing the first shot.

What is shocking is that even in this passive situation, the ship has not raised the white flag, but tried hard to get close to the transport fleet of the Huaxia Empire-this is because it can't catch up with the warships and can only get close to the transport ships that are assembling.

After the destroyer that went to expel him hit her several times, her crew still stubbornly manipulated the sails, thick black smoke came out of the chimney, and approached the transport ship regardless of anything.

In order to ensure the safety of the transport ship and to prevent accidents from happening to the destroyer, the accompanying cruiser went forward and sprayed it with a rain of bullets with a 152mm naval gun.

"Cruel war." Zheng Shangqing saw that Huang Zhengfang's expression was a little strange, and then said.

"Yes, this is a cruel war." Huang Zhengfang was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

Zheng Shangqing was reminding him that he was in a war now, and the war was cruel. Even if they played a less glorious role, since it had begun, they had to fight on.

All they could do was to win as soon as possible to end the war.

"Once upon a time, these scenes also happened on our coast, so I felt a little emotional." Huang Zhengfang smiled.

At this time, the Ottoman warships had been hit by 152mm naval guns many times. The wrought iron or steel armor on them was only 152mm. The defense target at the beginning of the design was old-style shells, which could not stop the new shells after two technological changes.

Just as her own weapons were 238mm 19-caliber guns or 140mm 21-caliber guns, her current opponents were equipped with 152mm 50-caliber long-barreled guns. With the change of propellant, the range was actually increased by more than 1 times, and the armor-piercing ability was even more earth-shaking.

If it was a fleet battle and a melee, there might be a chance to fight with luck, but in a single-ship battle, there would be no accidents at all due to the huge generation gap.

More than ten minutes later, the Ottoman ironclad ship, which had been hit by more than 20 shells, had lost power, the hull tilted sharply, and there were more fires on the hull.

Thanks to the corruption of the Ottoman Empire, this place had not been attacked by the enemy for many years, and the warships were short of ammunition, otherwise they would have exploded.

"It's over." Huang Zhengfang murmured.

Boom!

The huge sound of the 356mm naval gun firing blanks seemed to confirm Huang Zhengfang's whispers. The Xuchang chose to use the sound of the main gun to bid farewell to the enemy who never gave up attacking the Huaxia Empire despite the disparity in strength.

"They shouldn't attack in such a reckless way. Saving seeds is sometimes a necessary choice." Zheng Shangqing sighed casually.

"If they do that, they are not them. They are warriors. At least they have made a sound to us, telling us that not all Ottomans are greedy for life and afraid of death."

"If they choose to give up resistance and save seeds, we won't see this."

Huang Zhengfang said solemnly.

Zheng Shangqing glanced at him: "Sometimes it takes more courage to survive than to die."

"Report, the 6th Marine Squadron has landed, occupied the landing site, and is attacking the dock. Commander Ma said that the 6th Marine Squadron encountered no resistance, so we are ready to land." A staff officer ran over and said.

"Got it, tell the brothers to get ready, and after landing, control the entire city and set up camp according to the predetermined plan." Zheng Shangqing glanced at Huang Zhengfang and said after finding that he did not express anything.

"Yes!"

The 101st Division was the first division to accept the new organization. It was equipped with a battalion of light tanks and a number of armored vehicles. The entire division was fully motorized.

The problem with more equipment is that landing becomes troublesome. Heavy equipment such as tanks, armored vehicles and artillery must be slowly transported using cranes.

Karatash is just an ordinary port of a backward empire, not a prosperous commercial port. There are only two small cranes, which can only hoist a 152mm howitzer at most. It is difficult to pull a 152mm field gun, not to mention other tanks, armored vehicles and trucks.

Fortunately, this situation has been considered in advance, and each large transport ship is equipped with at least two cranes.

When the dock is clear, each crane can complete the lifting operation of 3 vehicles per hour. Don't think it's slow, this speed is already very fast, but the limited berths also limit the lifting speed.

In this way, it took 3 days, working day and night, and more than 2,000 vehicles and weapons and equipment of various types were continuously transported to the shore.

This number greatly exceeds the number of 1,500 vehicles in a US division, but that is because the US military has a large number of heavy trucks, while the trucks of the Huaxia Empire are mainly equipped for logistics and artillery units. The number of heavy trucks is not large, and the combat troops are generally equipped with light trucks.

The combat troops are generally equipped with two-wheeled and three-wheeled motorcycles, Warrior series models, armored vehicles and light trucks with a load of less than 1.5 tons.

Heavy trucks are more difficult to manufacture and take longer to work. It is a pity to put them on the front line as consumables. It is better to use two light trucks instead, which can also disperse the risks.

This is like the Tiger meets the T34/76 or T34/85. The Tiger I model takes 25,000 man-hours, while the T34 takes an average of 78,000. The man-hours of one early Tiger model can make 3 to 4 T34s, and the Tiger is also very easy to damage.

The quality of a weapon is not measured by how much advanced technology it uses or how much it leads others, but more importantly by its reliability and cost-effectiveness.

Putting aside other things, in fact, nuclear bombs are the most cost-effective weapons.

On March 26, after resting, the 101st Division set off for Adana, the capital of Adana Province. 40% of the population of the entire plain area lives here, and it is also the core of the entire Adana Plain.

As mentioned earlier, the Cilicia region is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and they are all large mountains. It is like a land of abundance. Controlling its core can control most of its resources. Except for a few fixed roads, it is impossible to advance from other directions.

The 101st Division has been vigilant against the counterattack of the Ottomans, and has been highly vigilant even during the offensive.

After all, this kind of terrain area is an important population settlement area and grain production area, so it makes no sense that there is no large army stationed there.

As a result, there was no resistance along the way until the outskirts of Adana, where they encountered the Ottoman army, which was composed of some regular troops and militias and lacked basic weapons.

…………

While the Chinese were heading towards Adana, Ludendorff was also preparing his own plan.

Originally, according to his plan, the German army should have launched a new round of offensive as early as last month, but the Russian attack interrupted him.

In order to prepare for Germany's spring offensive, the German army on the Eastern Front was withdrawn, and only a small number of veterans and a large number of new recruits were responsible for defense, and there was only one army group with a total number of less than 100,000.

After the Russians launched the attack, Ludendorff's spring offensive was essentially bankrupt. In order to avoid being stolen by the Russians (Berlin was in the eastern region, and there was no Poland at this time, so it was not on the border), Ludendorff urgently mobilized 4 army groups to the Eastern Front by train.

This was Ludendorff's Plan No. 2. If the Russians launched an attack, Germany would defeat the Russians first and then turn to deal with the British.

Familiar? The Schlieffen Plan.

Then Ludendorff encountered another problem. Romania joined the war and fought fiercely. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was not prepared. In addition, the Romanians cooperated internally and externally, and retreated step by step in a short time.

As a last resort, Ludendorff sent two more armies into the Austro-Hungarian Empire to help them deal with Romania, and the spring offensive completely failed.

Making the best of a mistake, Ludendorff began to turn his search for targets completely to Russia, preparing to give the Russians a big one, and once again mobilized three army groups to the Eastern Front.

Now, Germany has only 2 million defenders on the Western Front, which is weak.

And Ludendorff only has two army groups with about 400,000 people left, which is very insufficient.

If Britain and France can launch a powerful offensive to support the Russians at this time, Germany will have to abandon its plan again and return to the war of attrition.

But the British are still gathering troops, and instinctively, they don't want Russia to be in the spotlight, so they are preparing, etc.

The British really don't have any ill intentions, it's just the subconscious instinct of the stirrer...

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