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Chapter 997: Landing Battle at Enniao Port
At noon the next day, when the rescue fleet was still 30 kilometers away from Enniao Port, the vanguard fleet sent a ship back to deliver a very troubling piece of news: no enemy ships were found in the waters near Enniao Port.

In order to avoid an ambush, the vanguard fleet did not dare to get too close to the port, nor did they attempt to enter it. Instead, they continued to expand the search range to 80 kilometers westward, but still did not see a single ship.

"Send a communications ship into the port!" Hong Tao is not a god, so he naturally doesn't know where the enemy has gone. However, he can't get the answer by floating on the sea. The only way is to send people to observe near the port.

At this time, the high-paid sailors on the communication ship have to fight for their lives. If there is an ambush or the port has been occupied by the enemy, there will be little possibility for them to return.

"Could it be that they saw that the port was heavily defended and there was no chance of victory, so they withdrew first?"

Cohen would come to Enniao Port at least once a year, and his knowledge of the defense capabilities here was second only to the Ming Navy generals. Seeing this, he quickly complained, because he had been thinking all night and still couldn't figure out how to suggest to the head office. The best solution was to not find the enemy and maintain the status quo in the future.

"If they evacuated voluntarily, the Enniao Port garrison fleet should be patrolling outside the port area, unless they are all sunk. In that case, the commander here will be in trouble!"

Hong Tao did not completely object to Cohen's speculation, as it was a possibility. But the probability of it happening was not high. As long as the commander and staff of Enniao Port did not go crazy, the garrison fleet could not defeat the enemy due to the numerical disadvantage, but it could not be sunk. But where did they go?
An hour and a half later, with the arrival of the Yuhengwei staff, the answer came. Enniao Port was still under the control of the Luzhanwei, and the garrison fleet was not sunk, but followed the enemy fleet to the west for monitoring.

49 days ago, after sending out three communication ships, Yuhengwei Commander Zhu Neng did not pin all his hopes on reinforcements, but began to prepare for a defensive battle without stopping.

One day later, in the early morning, with the roar of cannons on the fort, the defense battle of Enniao Port began. Taking advantage of the night, the fleet, which did not reveal any identity, approached the outside of Enniao Port, but did not rush into the port. Instead, it launched dozens of small boats, filled them with soldiers, and prepared to land at any time.

Fortunately, they had no intention of entering the port, otherwise they would have suffered a great loss before they even started landing. Three iron chains were laid on the channel leading to the port, one end was fixed to the dock and the other end was fixed to the breakwater.

The iron chain cannot stop the impact of a sailboat weighing hundreds of tons, but it can catch the rudder and cause damage. Once the rudder is broken, the heavy sailboat will become a headless fly, pushed by wind and current to the shore, and then run aground somewhere.

Even though the sailboat ran aground, the water was still several meters deep, so it was not easy to wade ashore. At this time, the artillery on the shore would start to call out the names, using the stranded sailboat as a fixed target.

Since they were not fooled, when the sky turned pale and the visibility of the artillery position met the shooting requirements, the cannons still fired at the landing boats.

Although the hit rate was disastrous, it was still effective. From the rowing movements, it can be seen that the soldiers on the boats were extremely scared and were waving their oars desperately, wishing they could fly to the beach in one go.

From a topographical point of view, Enniao Port is not easy to defend. Its crescent-shaped shape does not have any natural barriers to restrict the entry and exit of surface ships. Except for a cape on the west side that extends into the sea, there are no towering cliffs. Instead, there are many flat beaches.

The only thing that was good for defense was the two rivers, located on the east side of the commercial and military docks. As long as we held the cape battery and the two docks and forced the enemy to land on the beach further east, we could use the rivers to fight a blocking battle.

This mysterious fleet obviously did not pass by by chance and had some understanding of the terrain features of Enniao Port. Instead of attacking the closer commercial dock, they chose the farther military dock and avoided the artillery batteries on the cape as much as possible. Of course, there are also three artillery batteries on the military dock, but they are all built with rocks, and in terms of range and deterrence, they are far less powerful than the cape artillery batteries high above.

However, features that can be easily discovered by outsiders may sometimes be false. When Enniao Port formulated its defense plan, it gave up the idea of ​​relying on artillery groups due to geographical reasons and turned to using hidden bunkers.

It is not yet visible at the commercial port, but the closer you get to the military port, the easier it is to spot a very strange building.

It is like a giant turtle shell in the bushes at the end of the beach, some of which are only 100 to 200 meters away from the sea, while others are several hundred meters away. If you don't walk very close, it's hard to find that it is a man-made building.

The turtle shell is not closed, with windows of different sizes scattered around it, some of which are only wide enough to fit a hand in, and some as thick as a thigh. Looking from the outside in, you will find that it is empty, and one or two meters deep underground, there are doors and passages for people to pass through.

However, it is difficult for outsiders to find a way to enter the turtle shell, and in fact, outsiders are not allowed to approach this area. Residents of the commercial docks and Enniao City are only allowed to move west of the Enniao River. The east of the river is a restricted area, patrolled day and night by Marines.

The Navy called these turtle shells mushroom forts, a name that is more descriptive than turtle shells, because only a small part of the defense system is exposed outside the beach, and more is hidden underground.

There is at least one secret passage under each turtle shell or mushroom cap, connecting to another or several nearby turtle shells. The distance from the east bank of the Enniao River to the military dock is 6 kilometers, with at least two layers of mushroom forts, secret passages and trenches 200 meters apart.

It is 12 kilometers from the military dock to the Kosa River in the east. There are similar facilities in between. There are not only many of them, but even more on the west bank of the Kosa River, 2 kilometers inland along the river bank.

If you ask how much manpower and resources are needed to build a 20-kilometer-long bunker, secret tunnels and trenches, Hong Tao will easily spit out two words: free!

Apart from building two lime kilns and cement kilns in a valley a few kilometers away, the Empire's investment in the defense system of Enniao Port was basically zero.

They were all constructed by tribal captives captured by the Xhosa people during their conquests, including not only the defense system, but also the two docks and the Enniao City.

All the empire paid was thousands of steel knives and hundreds of steel crossbows. After the Xhosa people obtained these weapons, they were like a new type of military force that crossed the ages in South Africa. Their combat effectiveness suddenly increased several times, and they swept away all their former enemy tribes.

Oh, yes, and horses. Compared with the Mongolian grasslands, the South African grasslands are more vast. After more than ten years of breeding, the Xhosa people have become a nomadic people in Africa. They can not only use the horses they raise for their own use, but also exchange some of them with the navy for daily necessities.

(End of this chapter)