New Shun 1730

The reasons for opposing from a purely military perspective are different from those of Clive.

Jafar also firmly opposed the strategy proposed by Vice Admiral Watson to defend the bastion and make Dashun's troops stay under the strong city.

His reasons for opposition were more political.

Bengal did not have a navy strong enough to scare Dashun.

The Ganges... The Ganges is not the Hooghly River.

The widest part of the lower reaches of the Ganges is 20 to 30 miles wide. Not to mention the passage of the fleet, even if the fleet is circling in it, it can turn around.

Dashun held Siraj, the orthodox Bengal Jiedushi, the designated successor of the old Jiedushi before his death.

At the beginning, it was the military leaders and tax collectors who worked together to push the old Jiedushi to the top. In order to thank the British East India Company for its help, Jafar emptied the treasury.

He had to cede other places to Britain as collateral. In theory, it could be returned after collecting taxes to the contract amount, but this had already caused dissatisfaction among those in the country.

Another thing is that the British supported Hindu merchants.

The original Shia and Sunni merchants, or the Moors in general, were quite dissatisfied. After all, the Mughal Empire also levied a tax on non-Muslims during the heyday of Aurangzeb. Now that the British have come, those Indian merchants are shaking. Can they tolerate this?

Jafar's betrayal is really not a good reputation, and there are many people who curse him in private. After all, turning against one's side in battle is a bad name in all countries and cultural circles - it is better to rebel in advance than to turn against one's side in battle as a subordinate.

That's the problem.

Dashun completely controls the sea power, and its transportation capacity has been demonstrated. It can quickly transport the troops of Ceylon and Malacca to the mouth of the Hooghly River.

So, after seeing the British sink warships, sailors go ashore, and gunboats strengthen the defense of the bastions, why did they have to attack Fort William?

Why not go up the Ganges and let Dhaka, Rajshahi and others surrender without a fight?

With the remaining hope left by Siraj's grandfather and Jafar's many excessive actions to please the British, especially the actions that touched the interests of the previously privileged Muslim merchants, it was no difficulty to go up the Ganges.

At that time, Bengal would stand on the side of Dashun. Siraj led the Bengal army to cooperate with Dashun to slowly attack Fort William. What's the difficulty?

Did Jafar have to rely on himself to fight against Dashun's more than 10,000 troops on the banks of the Ganges?

Once Siraj was restored, Dashun would have money, rice, labor, and gunpowder in Bengal. Wouldn't it be a more convenient defeat?

Or did the British army plan to pit Jafar and run back to South India on foot while Dashun attacked Bengal?

Not to mention whether he could go back or not, even if he went back, would Dashun use all its troops here? Was there no garrison in Fort St. George?

Did the British think that with their infantry and sailors, they could replicate the martial arts of the Dashun Army that quickly broke through Fort St. George?

Besides...

Jafar did not understand modern warfare. He did not know how the Dashun Army captured Fort St. George, but he knew that the Dashun Army quickly captured Fort St. George.

So, in his opinion, it would be difficult for the British Army to defend Fort William.

Therefore, whether the Dashun Army crossed the Ganges River and used Siraj to gain the support of the Bengali nobles; or insisted on attacking Calcutta first and breaking through Fort William... it was not difficult.

Lieutenant General Watson's proposal was opposed by Clive and Jafar in terms of strategy.

After listening to the opinions of both sides, he had to admit that it seemed to make sense. The Dashun Army now controls the command of the sea, which is a situation that the British rarely encounter, and they have no idea how to deal with it. Therefore, the initiative is in the hands of the Dashun Army. Even if Fort William is impregnable, what if the Dashun Army does not attack Fort William first?

What if it takes the Ganges River first?

And then, Lieutenant Colonel Coote's words made Watson speechless.

"Mr. Lieutenant General, all your plans are based on the premise that the Chinese will definitely take the initiative to attack."

"But will they definitely choose to take the initiative to attack?"

"You have to know that they have always been so shameless when choosing the time to start a war. Just like the previous war against the Dutch, they chose the time of the War of the Austrian Succession."

"And now, Europe is in chaos. The French have captured Menorca, and the army is also approaching Hanover step by step..."

With the speed of information transmission at this time, they certainly didn't know that the French offensive in Hanover had failed, nor did they know that Dashun had assembled a fleet to Europe.

So, Kurt's idea was naturally right.

"Admiral, the Chinese may not necessarily take the initiative to attack. What if they stationed on Sagar Island? What if they built a city like the Dutch did on Penghu?"

"What if they sent their fleets, which were enough to fight a decisive naval battle in Europe, to attack the company's merchant ships? You know, we did not sign the anti-piracy and anti-privatization convention they advocated in Aachen."

"What if they want to show their military power to the whole of India and transport tens of thousands of troops from their empire here?"

"What if they choose to build a city on Sagar Island, blockade Bengal with the navy, and then slowly take over Pondicherry, Mumbai, Fort St. David, Goa in Portugal, Tranquilla in Denmark, and even Mozambique, the trade warehouses in the Red Sea, and the trade warehouses in Persia?"

"Their naval power is invincible east of the Cape of Good Hope. They only need one-tenth of their naval power to bankrupt the company - just like the disgusting economic means they used against the Dutch."

"The French say that we always confuse war and trade, but in fact, we have like-minded people in Asia."

"Let's review their several wars, Ryukyu, Japan, Southeast Asia, Batavia, the Netherlands... They are also a group of people who confuse war and trade."

"Last time, they used such disgusting tactics to create the Amsterdam stock market crash and the destruction of the VOC."

This speech left Watson speechless.

Yes, he himself felt that he was a little too wishful.

Before the rainy season came, Dashun had enough time to take over the French legacy and also gnaw down various fortresses and castles in South India, including Mumbai.

Dashun did destroy the Dutch East India Company, but did this prevent them from having a close relationship with the Dutch to smuggle together?

If Dashun followed the same rules and destroyed the London East India Company, would this prevent them from cooperating with West Indian merchants to smuggle to England?

If so, why did Dashun have to capture Calcutta before the rainy season?

Why not build a castle on Sagar Island, blockade Bengal with the navy, and take over the Indian colonies bit by bit by taking advantage of the fact that Europe was unable to support India in the war?

It is certainly right to think so.

However, even if these people had their brains broken, they did not expect that Dashun's strategy did not want to repeat the story of destroying the VOC at all.

Instead, it was to completely destroy the British navigation regulations and completely integrate Europe into the so-called "free trade" tariff agreement.

Therefore, since they did not know this grand strategy, they naturally had a doubt about whether Dashun would take the initiative to attack Calcutta.

Of course, Watson was definitely wrong in both tactics and strategy in Bengal alone.

Clive's analysis from a purely military perspective was correct. Sailors going ashore and gunboats entering the fort were actually useless. They could only give the defenders a little mysterious confidence, pretending that they could defend with more people and more guns.

Jafar's analysis from a political perspective was also correct. Defending Fort William, the Bengal army watched from a distance and waited for the Dashun army to tire, but Dashun could really go through the Ganges and directly enter the core cities of Bengal.

If we must make an analogy, Rajshahi and Dhaka along the Ganges are similar to Jinling and Zhenjiang before Dashun's sea transportation. Calcutta, at this time, is not important in Bengal.

Dashun still has Siraj in its hands.

Or, let's make an analogy like this: the original Yongli Emperor in history successfully escaped, and a few years later, he took the Crusaders and the reinforcements of the Japanese shogunate and captured Nanjing and Zhenjiang.

From Jafar's perspective, how could he accept this strategy?

So, after a debate, the British and the Bengalese reached an opinion that both sides could accept.

Gather the British and Bengali coalition forces and take the initiative to attack before the follow-up troops of Dashun arrive continuously.

This may still have a glimmer of hope.

Whether the field battle can be won is unknown.

But if you defend Fort William, you will definitely die.

Without the ability to win in a field battle or without reinforcements, the city defense is a dead end. It is only a matter of time before the city is broken.

The key to the problem lies in how Europe will be fought? Even if everything goes well in Europe, which is greatly beneficial to Britain, and the French fleet is completely destroyed, how long will it take for Britain to send a fleet to support India?

And how large a fleet is needed to fight and completely destroy the Dashun Navy not far from Malacca?

With George Anson's fleet, two-thirds of the long-distance logistics supply level will die in a round-the-world voyage? How to win east of the Cape of Good Hope?

After figuring out this problem, active attack becomes the only correct choice.

Militarily, once the victory is won, Dashun may choose to attack other places. Although the blockade, the British army can work together with the nobles of Bengal to use one or two years to train a super-large new army and build bastions in Dhaka and Rajshahi.

Politically, once the victory is won, those nobles who are wavering between whether to choose Jafar or Siraj will once again show their loyalty.

However, the only flaw is that even if the two sides reach a consensus, they can't gather many troops.

Jafar dare not pull all the troops loyal to him to the front line. He has to reserve enough troops to prevent the nobles from "rebelling" and raiding his nest to show his loyalty.

And those wavering nobles, Jafar dare not use them, and the British don't dare to use them either. The previous battle that pitted Siraj was a battlefield defection, and neither the British nor Jafar wanted to repeat the story of that time.

A battle that determines the fate of Bengal and even the entire India in the future is about to start south of Kolkata.

In this battle, the British and Bengal coalition forces totaled more than 12,000 people.

Among them, the British and British-trained Indian native soldiers, 1,400 people. The weak Bengal infantry, 6,000 people. Jafar's cavalry and elephant soldiers, 4,000 people.

22 cannons over 6 pounds.

On the Dashun side, excluding the soldiers in the baggage camp, there were a total of 15,000 people.

Among them, there are 6,000 conscripted soldiers from Ceylon; 2,200 elite combat engineers; 2,000 regular Nanyang cavalry from Dashun; 2,000 marines from four battalions supporting the Malacca direction, belonging to the Temasek Military Town, Borneo Military Town, and Java Military Town; 600 Bugis light cavalry supported by the tributary states in the Nanyang direction and noble cavalry from the Nanyang tributary states; 400 elite rifled musket hunters.

90 cannons over 6 pounds. 12 fast cavalry cannons. Battalion artillery and the light mortars or grenade launchers of the engineers are not counted.

The navy's supportive surface firepower includes 4 standard French 74-gun battleships and 18 standard fast and cheap 36-gun cruisers, equipped with 26 24-jin guns and 10 12-jin guns. Their main task is to wander around and capture British merchant ships, but for the time being they have been captured and the British India Squadron has been destroyed before they are spread out to capture British merchant ships.