The Sun Never Sets In Spain

Without letting Asania wait for long, under the crisis of life and death, most of the army of the Republic rushed to the front line within a week and immediately went into combat.

It is true that the Republican forces are too weak. The Fifth Army has only organized a few feint attacks, and there are already faint signs of breaking the line of defense.

At 5 o'clock in the morning on June 6, when the day was about to dawn, Assania's portable crew boarded the transport ship.

It stands to reason that a professional landing ship should be used for landing, but there is currently no such thing in the world.

Not to mention landing ships, most of the ships carried by the Second Army are just ordinary commercial wooden ships. If transported by warships alone, Spain may have to go back and forth more than 20 trips to Cuba.

Under the moonlight, Asania undulated slightly with the deck, and under his feet was the flagship of this temporary fleet, the ironclad Tetuan.

It is one of Spain's seven iron armored ships, and it is also the first iron armored ship built by Spain itself. It is a wooden hull with iron armor.

It is 85 meters long, 17 meters wide, has a displacement of 6,200 tons, and is equipped with 30 68-pound artillery. It is undoubtedly the most powerful warship of this era.

Assania is located here and feels very safe. Although the Republic of Cuba does not have a navy, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no shore defense or field artillery fire back during the landing. If he is sunk by a merchant ship, he will lose money.

This possibility is very small, but it is by no means zero. The wooden structure of the merchant ship is exposed and has no ability to fight back. It is possible to be killed or set on fire.

In a hurry, the fleet sailed quite close to the coast of Cuba, even only a few hundred meters away.

On the way, they saw a lighthouse that was shining brightly. Although they were too far away to see the movement there, the lighthouse also spotted them no accident.

"Which port is this?" Assania turned to ask the guide he hired around.

This guide, who claims to have left footprints all over Cuba, first handed the oil lamp in his hand to the guard next to him, and then took out a map from his pocket.

By the light, he pointed: "This is the port of Sivanicou. Their lighthouse is very famous in the local area. Seeing it means that we are about to leave Camaguey Province."

Asania nodded. The port here is too close to the front line and is heavily guarded, not their goal.

As for being discovered... it is absolutely impossible for a horse to have a boat running fast. Even if there is a telegram in the port—probably not—you need to report it and then coordinate and then issue instructions. They have plenty of time to complete the landing.

After continuing to sail for two hours until the sun rose, they were even spotted by some coastal residents who got up early to go fishing, and the fleet still didn't do anything to them.

The fishermen were left in a daze, thanking them for escaping.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, after a journey without surprises, the Second Army came to the eastern province of Holguin in Cuba, and less than ten kilometers further ahead was the port city of Mayak.

This landing site was carefully selected by them. The coast is flat and suitable for landing. It is not an important port and the defense force is weak.

This is a small-scale fishing port. Its main function is to provide a trading place for nearby fishermen. There is only one guard team to maintain order, with a total number of no more than 100.

Taking into account that most ports in this era will retain a certain degree of self-defense, no matter how small the port, the threat of coastal defense artillery to ships will always exist.

Assania was actually preparing to keep the warships far away, and let's talk about a round of saturated shelling first-even if the guide repeatedly emphasized that there would be no danger.

However, Assania's order failed to pass, the fleet commander Julio was not as cautious as he was, and he was quite repulsive of the army's command of the navy.

The lieutenant admiral blocked Assania's mouth with a domestic confession to "minimize civilian casualties", and then sent a small canoe to the port.

Even though there were only four soldiers aboard the canoe, the Port Guard did not dare to do anything to them.

After a short while, the small wooden boat returned on the same route, bringing back only two soldiers.

According to their dictation, the port guard team agreed to borrow the port and had already surrendered, only begging the fleet not to fire artillery.

The other two soldiers who did not return, one supervised the only shore defense gun in the port, and the other supervised his 87 prisoners.

Facing Julio's pride, even if he was slapped in the face, Assania was not angry, and he was cheerful.

Soldiers complete the landing without blood, even if the navy takes the bulk of the credit, his army can be lightened.

To be cautious, they first transported hundreds of soldiers by canoe to ensure absolute control of the port before embarking on a large-scale landing.

Said to be large-scale, limited by the number of canoes, it can only transport about 1,200 people back and forth at a time.

The entire landing process became unusually slow. One morning passed, and more than half of the people remained on the ship.

If they landed so slowly during World War II, the landing craft hadn't had any firepower, and it would have all been ruined long ago.

But now it was children fighting. It was more than 3 hours since they controlled the fishing port. They didn't see a reinforcement from Mayak City. The whole landing process seemed to be on vacation.

Obviously, Mayak can't draw enough troops to support him at all. It is estimated that he is now desperately gathering troops to protect himself.

This was also confirmed later. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the Second Army, which finally completed the landing, came outside Mayak City, facing the soldiers of the Republic who were waiting in full battle. The number seemed to be quite large, probably 5 to 6000 people.

They relied on the city wall and attacked frontally, and the Second Army had to pay some casualties.

It is a pity that Mayak city was built too close to the coast, and the north and west of the city are full of bottomless waters.

The **** fleet quickly assembled to the west. One part continued to fire at the port to keep it under pressure to prevent the counterattacks from shore defense artillery from causing too many casualties, and the other part began to project shells on the city wall from a distance.

The warship’s accuracy is not flattering. However, the power of the 68-pound gun is far from comparable to that of the 6-pound and 12-pound field guns. A gap will appear on the wall at any shot.

The fleet’s ammunition is quite sufficient, and there is no need for naval battles. If necessary, even spare ammunition is not needed, and as many as there are.

The fleet maintains a rate of fire of one to two minutes. On average, 10 shells fall around the city wall every minute.

Cooperating with the frontal attack of the Second Army, the city wall was breached without persisting for 20 minutes.

Assania is a little strange, the opponent's fighting will is still strong, but the scheduling is very chaotic.

He didn't know the reason until he entered the city. The upper-class people of Mayak were originally appointed by the Republic after the colonial government drove away. They had no industry and no sense of belonging. As soon as they saw such a large fleet, they knew they couldn't stop it. Just ran away.

Most of the high-level army is on the front line, and this has caused the soldiers' defense chaos.