Chapter 2776 Bombing Port Prince

The bureaucrats of the Continental Congress also felt that they had done a good thing, and the disputes within the army were quelled with a transfer order.

Little do they know that this approach is like raising soup to stop the boiling, sawing arrows to heal wounds, and the contradictions that were temporarily covered up will erupt again sooner or later, causing more serious consequences.

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Like most port cities, Prince Port is located on a long and narrow peninsula, surrounded by the sea on three sides and leading to the inland on one side.

On May 3, the Fizen South Corps under the command of Earl Winthrop cut off the traffic route from Port Prince to the inland, and the Fizen Navy Fleet under the command of General William Howe blocked the sea lanes of Port Prince.

On May 5, Earl Winthrop sent a letter to General Gates asking him to open the city and surrender to avoid unnecessary sacrifices.

General Gates categorically refused to surrender, and on the same day, he visited the front line in person and delivered a speech to boost morale before the war. He vowed to stick to his position and live and die with Port Prince!

Your Excellency the General's attitude is very firm, and his speeches can be called impassioned, but none of this can make up for the gap in strength between the enemy and us, nor can it really eliminate the blow to the morale of the officers and soldiers at the bottom caused by the representatives of the Continental Congress who repeatedly ran away.

General Gates actually knew that the generous declaration on the battlefield was somewhat of a show, but he was not fully sure of defending Port Prince.

Judging from the comparison of the strength of the enemy and the enemy, the 20,000 troops on the offensive side are facing the 30,000 troops on the defensive side. It seems that the defensive side has a great advantage?

However, it is not.

The 20,000 Marcos under Earl Winthrop's command are all Fiji regular troops, well-equipped and well-trained, and they are well-deserved elite troops.

Although the 20,000 troops brought by General Gates from the Forge Valley received training from the famous Far Eastern general Viglaf in winter, and their quality has improved significantly, there is still a certain gap compared with the Fiji regular army.

The gap in equipment levels between the two sides is even greater.

The War of Independence has been fought for a whole year, and the Continental Army has yet to solve the most basic shortage of guns and ammunition. Of the 20,000 officers and soldiers of General Gates, only half are equipped with rifles, and the rest can only use cold weapons such as bows, crossbows, and swords. Make do with it.

There was a serious shortage of guns, and there were only more than 300 heavy weapons such as cannons, less than half of the enemy's army. If the large-caliber naval guns of the Feizhen Navy were included, the disparity in firepower was even greater.

According to General Gates' own deduction, if the Southern Army of the Continental Army confronts the enemy head-on on the plains outside Port-Prince, facing the ferocious firepower of the Feizhen line rifle phalanx and the cannon, it will collapse within two hours. .

So, does the Continental Army still have units with better equipment and stronger combat effectiveness?

There really are!

The cavalry division stationed in the town of Howth, equipped with more than 70% of the new rifles, coupled with the advantages of the cavalry in terms of mobility and impact, is suitable for dealing with the Fiji line infantry. It stands to reason that it should become General Gates A trump card in the hand that decides the outcome.

It's a pity that the direct commander of this unit is Gates' deadly enemy Isaac Hooker, and the officer class has been infiltrated by cult elements into a sieve, only obeying Hooker, General Gates can't get past Hulk. Ke directly dispatched the cavalry division, which was very inconvenient to command.

General Gates couldn't help feeling angry when he thought of Hooker's cavalry division.

It's all due to the blind command of the literati and bureaucrats in the Continental Congress, which delayed his plan to rectify and reorganize the cavalry division, otherwise the current situation would not be so embarrassing.

Considering that the cavalry division in Howth Town does not necessarily obey the command, General Gates has no confidence to take the initiative to attack and seek a head-on confrontation with the Winthrop Corps. Taking a defensive position has become the only countermeasure.

The question is can it hold it?

After a round of emergency repairs, the city defense facilities of Prince Port barely reached the defense level of Freeport, which is incomparable with Midgard City.

The most powerful thing in Feizhen is not the army, but the naval fleet. The reason why Freeport and Midgard Port fell one after another was mainly because they could not withstand the heavy artillery bombardment of the Royal Navy fleet led by General William Howe.

Now that the Howe Fleet has majestically appeared in the bay of Prince's Harbor, the battleship has set up a cannon, and its black muzzle is pointing at the port area. Neither Freeport nor Midgard Port can withstand it. How can the fate of Prince's Port be different?

If there is any difference, the residents of Port Prince are more miserable than their compatriots in Freeport and Midgard.

When the Feizhen army attacked the city of Midgard and Freeport, it mainly relied on the shelling of warships. The psychological intimidation of the residents in the city was far greater than the actual damage. However, this time was different. They followed Earl Winthrop to attack In addition to the Royal Fleet in Port Prince... there are four full naval wings!

As far as siege warfare is concerned, the killing efficiency of cannons and warships has to be slightly lower. The real killer is the air force bombing team with heavy incendiary bombs!

On the afternoon of May 5, Earl Winthrop learned that General Gates refused to surrender, and decided to show this ignorant guy a little color--the color shown by fire and blood.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, General William Howe received instructions from His Excellency the Governor and immediately ordered the fleet to bombard the port area of ​​Prince Port.

At the same time, a total of 404 giant crows equipped with aerial bombs took off from the motherships of their respective squadrons, and flew over the urban area of ​​Port Prince in groups, and dived and bombed one by one. "Fire glue" bombs were dropped on the shops on both sides of the street and houses in the residential area. After the explosion, flames soared into the sky, countless wooden buildings were ignited, and black smoke billowed out, blocking the sunlight above the city.

Until night fell, the Fizen HNA troops were on duty for four rounds of bombing missions. They dropped a total of 320,000 pounds of incendiary bombs on the urban area of ​​Port Prince, causing half of the city to become a purgatory on earth. The night sky was as bright as day with raging flames. Residents were burnt to death and injured no less than a thousand people, and the property damage and psychological deterrence caused were even more immeasurable.

Charles Gates did not personally experience the "Defense of Freeport" in the autumn of 1626, and he was also absent from the two "Defense of Forge Valley" that broke out later. Air defense measures were prepared in advance in Prince Port, and they were caught off guard by this wave of dark bombing.

The parliament building where the Continental Army headquarters is located was also bombed, forcing General Gates to lead his staff to hide in the basement until dark, and did not return to the surface until the bombardment outside subsided.

The parliament building is a very solid stone building. After being bombarded indiscriminately, the doors, windows, tables and chairs were all burned to nothing, and the walls were blackened by the thick smoke, but it still stood tall.