Chapter 623-Malacca Straits
Translator: ryangohsf
Editor: Nora
The voyage squadron continued on their journey.
Going past the Spratly Islands region, they soon entered the Johor Straits.
On the topic of the Johor Straits, one had to mention the Johor State. The South China Sea split Johor into two parts. The west Johor State was located in the Malay Peninsula; the north of it was connected to Siam, the south connected to Singapore, the east Johor State was located north of Borneo, and its south was connected to Java State.
The states of Johor, Siam, Singapore, and Java, including the neighboring Annan, Luzon, Brunei, Nanzhang, Zhenla, and Laos, were all members of the Southeast Asian Alliance.
Based on the federal regional planning, the ten states of the ASEAN were considered the South East Asia Region. Hence, these ten states competed and worked with one another in the game.
As a member of the east alliance, Johor State was famous for its tin mines, as its tin deposits were the greatest the world. The Johor in history slowly became famous due to the discovery of tin.
Who knows how much blood and disputes the tin mines caused within Johor state.
On the topic of tin, China historically desired the Johor's tin mines, especially the high-quality tin. Tin could be used for the inner layer of tea boxes and helped to defend against humidity.
Apart from that, the peppers of Johor also had a famous reputation in the west.
Apart from these two specialties, Johor did not have anything else of interest to Ouyang Shuo. For this voyage, the final destination of the squadron was to reach England after traveling past the english straights; it was an unprecedented task.
If the squadron could purchase peppers and ship them to the west to sell, they could earn a massive amount. However, Ouyang Shuo was not planning to do that.
In truth, when the squadron sailed into the Johor straits, Ouyang Shuo had already started to have intentions about a certain bullet-sized country.
It was Singapore.
Singapore neighbored Johor; they were separated by the Johor straits, on the east Xinzhou Straits with Java. It was located at the southern tip of the Malacca Straits, an important strategic choke point.
The Malacca Straits was a sea route that connected the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. If someone from Europe or Africa wanted to travel to South East Asia or East Asia, they would need to past this route.
Singapore was smaller than even a County in China, and they had less than four hundred thousand players.
Such a country occupied this important chokepoint, so how could it not be eye-catching?
Even if the game map expanded by ten times, the entire Singapore only covered seven thousand square miles, not even the size of a grade 3 County, which reached ten thousand square miles.
After excluding the only imperial city in Singapore, Lion City, and the small islands around it, Singapore spanned an even smaller amount of land.
Hence, the entire Singapore only had a single County, and they had five to six villages on the islands. Apart from that, there were no other player territories.
The biggest port in Singapore had the name of the best port in Asia. Lion City was located near the Xinzhou Port; this was the strategic attack point.
To avoid the imperial city, the Grade 2 Fengshan County was located on the east shore of Singapore.
As for the player guilds, there was only one large guild known as the Temasek Mercenary Guild, which was housed in Lion City. Apart from that, there were only some scattered adventure groups and some causal adventure gamemode players.
Even so, it would be difficult for Ouyang Shuo to occupy Singapore.
Even without mentioning other reasons, just the one hundred thousand combat occupation players would be enough to handle the voyage squadron, much less the guards inside the imperial city.
Based on Gaia's settings, the number of troops housed in the city would be 10% of the population. If a country had more than one imperial city, this number would be split evenly.
Hence, since China had one hundred million players, each imperial city had around one million soldiers.
As a result, it was incredibly difficult for a Lord to take down an imperial city. One must know that these troops were all elite with good equipment.
After the emperor moved into the imperial city, the soldiers inside would change to the special troops of that dynasty. For example, Xianyang City had the famous and terrifying Qin Iron Army.
Moreover, the one leading these armies would be the likes of Wang Jian and Meng Tian, such famous generals.
Similarly, those in Luoyang were basically of the Han Iron Cavalry.
Based on the four hundred thousand players in Singapore, there should be around forty thousand troops in Lion City.
If they were fighting at home, Shanhai City definitely would not fear forty thousand troops. They could simply take out any one of the legion corps and easily destroy them.
The problem was that the troops that Ouyang Shuo currently led was an alliance squadron formed from two divisions.
Additionally, Fengshan County was also a Grade 2 County, so they should have no less than five thousand troops.
One hundred thousand combat occupation players, forty thousand Lion City troops, and five thousand Fengshan County troops; these groups formed the main force of Singapore. If Ouyang Shuo wanted to occupy Lion City, he would need to destroy these three forces one by one.
That's right, destroy.
After all, during a country war, neither side could surrender.
The only matter that Ouyang Shuo felt was fortunate was that Singapore belonged to the Chinese circle and followed the same technology tree. Hence, Singapore lacked the strong boats and cannons of the west.
If not, they would have stood no chance.
4th month, 20th day, on board the voyage squadron ship, Dragon Head.
The Cima boats that were sent out to investigate the geography of Singapore had returned with detailed intel.
In the battle room on the 3rd floor of Dragon Head, the four generals, Zheng He, Chen Dameng, Pei Donglai and Yanhuo Yaonie stared at the map drawn by the intelligence officer, as they discussed strategy.
Ouyang Shuo sat at the helm without saying a word.
He did not just come up with attacking Singapore recently. When he had set the voyaging plan, he had created a mock-up strategy. Zheng He was also briefed on this matter.
However, the other three generals were surprised. As they needed to keep the matter a secret, these three were only told when they left the Spratly islands.
Out of the three, Yanhuo Yaonie felt the most astonished.
Chen Dameng as the Personal Guards Captain did not think have many thoughts on the matter, as his job was to protect the Lord's safety. Pei Donglai was a proper army person, so he only cared about following orders.
Yanhuo Yaonie was different, as he was a player with great foresight. He knew that occupying Singapore would be of incredible value to the rise of Shanhai City, especially in terms of ruling the seas.
Once again, the Lord's ambitions left him amazed.
One had to mention that Yanhuo Yaonie's heart was burning. He felt truly fortunate that he chose to join Shanhai City. Otherwise, he would not have the chance to participate in this tantamount mission.
One could imagine how crazy the players in China would grow once they received the news. In reality, the Chinese players had experienced countless conflicts with Singapore.
Although the two could be said to be allies, they were also many altercations.
Once Shanhai City occupied Singapore, the Chinese players would feel delighted.
"I feel that the key to this battle is to quickly take down Lion City." Yanhuo Yaonie stared at the map and continued, "If this battle drags on, the neighbouring countries would join in. At that time, we would be under attack from multiple sides and can only regretfully retreat."
Yanhuo Yaonie was truly direct, pointing right out the possibility of defeat.
When Chen Dameng heard these words, he stared at Yanhuo Yaonie.
Naturally, Yanhuo Yaonie would not bother with Chen Dameng, and he turned around to look at Ouyang Shuo.
"Three days, we only have three days." Ouyang Shuo said.
As for how to attack Singapore, before the voyage, Ouyang Shuo had asked the Military Affairs Bureau to run some simulations. Their conclusion was that they could not take more than three days, as if they did, the situation might get out of hand.
However, they lacked detailed first-hand intel at the time, so they could not form a specific battle plan.
Ouyang Shuo agreed with their conjecture. In his last life, a few famous wars had warned them that the ASEAN was a beehive. If one did not pay attention, they might be dealt a heavy blow.
Hence, they needed to fight fast and end the war quickly.
"The enemy players alone number one hundred thousand. Even if they line up for us to kill them, it'll still take a long time. Three days is too rushed." Pei Donglai frowned.
"So, we can only use tactics." Yanhuo Yaonie suggested once more, suddenly stepping forward and pointing to Fengshan County, "Lion City and Fengshan County, one in the middle, the other to the east. The key is misdirection; we should split the squadron into two."
"One will attack Fengshan County. The moment it is attacked, the country war will start, and the players will rush to help Fengshan. We can use it as a bait to destroy the Singapore players."
Yanhuo Yaonie's plan made their eyes light up.
"Continue." Ouyang Shuo did not show any emotions.
"The other group will disguise themselves and hide on the ocean. When the situation in Fengshan County enters a stalemate, this group will kill out into Xingzhou Harbour and attack Lion City. At that time, there will only be forty thousand troops inside, so it'll be much easier." Yanhuo Yaonie explained.
"Forty thousand with a city to defend. The players within will also fight to the death. After splitting the troops, can we still take it down easily?" Pei Donglai did not believe it would be that simple, "If we enter a stalemate, the enemy might make use of the chance to counter attack. It's a bad idea."