The attack on Port Diamond was smoother than expected, and there was no trouble at all.

As the first armored battalion came ashore, on the night of the 21st, the Marines launched an attack and often successfully entered the port area.

Although it was resisted by the Fan army, it was not as fierce as imagined.

The key point is that the Fan army only resisted and did not destroy the infrastructure in the port.

In addition to not expecting that the Imperial Marines would attack Diamond Port and not preparing in advance, it also has a lot to do with the morale of the Fan army.

To put it bluntly, most of the Fan army officers and soldiers took the initiative to surrender after they had symbolic resistance.

For the officers and soldiers of the Fifth Land Warrior Division who had fought hard in Gujibang, they were not very adaptable, so they acted a little too cautious.

In the early morning of the 22nd, the Marine Corps controlled the entire port.

However, it was not until the afternoon of the 22nd that the front line troops issued a good news claiming to have occupied the Port of Diamond, and at this time, the Marines had already invaded the city.

To be precise, I drove into the city.

What puzzled the Marine Corps officers and soldiers was that the residents of Diamond Port did not show any fear, let alone resist spontaneously.

When the Marines drove into the city, the local residents' reactions could be said to be very indifferent.

It seems that this war has nothing to do with them.

Of course, this situation is not without a reason.

West Monastery, where the Port of Diamond is located, is directly governed by Decheng, which is very different from those that were originally independent and later annexed by the Vanluo Kingdom.

The most important difference is actually the lack of autonomy.

The result is that West Monastery must unconditionally obey the orders issued by the Decheng Central Government and first enter the state of military control. Those states with autonomy, unless they have been attacked, can postpone the time for mobilization under the pretext of approval from the legislature.

This is definitely not a good thing for the residents of West Monastery.

However, in the three months from September to November, the Fan army stationed in West Monastery forcibly purchased almost 10 million tons of grain according to the order of Decheng.

What is this concept?

Although West Monastery itself is a major grain-producing country and is a major rice-producing area, many places can cook three times a year, due to poor water conservancy facilities and basically no fertilizers are available, the grain yield per unit is not large. In theory, West Monastery's annual rice output is about 35 million tons.

This output seems to be quite large, but the amount that can be requisitioned is not much surplus food.

The key is that West Monastery is also a large population state. According to official statistics, it has exceeded 100 million, but it is definitely more. Even according to 100 million people, West Monastery consumes about 25 million tons of grain every year, and only 10 million tons can be exported.

During peacetime, West Monastery's annual output of grain was indeed around 10 million tons.

Interestingly, in the past few decades, most of the grain exported by West Monastery was sold to Bangladesh, to be precise, purchased by trading companies registered in Bangladesh, and then sold to other countries, most of which flowed to the Liangxia Empire. It was not until a few years ago that Pakistan replaced the Liangxia Empire and became the number one importer of Fanluo rice. The ability of Pakistan to become a major grain importer has a lot to do with its industrialization.

Strictly speaking, almost all countries that have achieved industrialization, or are undergoing industrialization, are grain importers.

The reason is also very simple. The production efficiency of agriculture is too low and far less than that of industry. Therefore, most industrial countries are willing to solve the food problem through imports.

Importing grain is far more cost-effective than producing it yourself!

Not to mention Pakistani Tie, even in the Liangxia Empire, agricultural production is a big problem.

Although the Liangxia Empire has always been the world's number one food producer, in the decades after the war, the rate of grain production in the Liangxia Empire has always been lower than the rate of population growth. If calculated based on the average value, the grain production of the Liangxia Empire has been decreasing.

That is, the efficiency of agricultural production is too low.

Fortunately, the Liangxia Empire took advantage of its dominance in the international food market during the war and more than ten years after the war to establish a fairly complete food trading system. The world's largest grain futures market was in the Liangxia Empire, and the main import and exporters were also in the Liangxia Empire.

In addition, the Liangxia Empire's agricultural mobilization ability was also very strong.

To put it simply, after completing the mobilization, the grain output of the Liangxia Empire could be increased by more than 50%, which not only could meet its own needs, but also meet its main allies. If the wartime rationing system is strictly implemented, it can theoretically meet the grain needs of the entire Oriental Group.

However, within the Oriental Group, there is no need to expand grain production in the Liangxia Empire.

Seven of the top ten grain exporters in the world are members of the Oriental Group. In addition to the Liangxia Empire and Austria, the other five are all countries in the southeast. It can be said that as long as the Liangxia Empire can be self-sufficient, the surplus grain of Austria and the southeast can fill the gap in other countries.

Exporting grain is also the strategic weapon of the Oriental Group.

During peacetime, grain in the southeast region was mainly sold to the western continent.

After the outbreak of the war, the Oriental Group restricted the export of major strategic materials in accordance with the war plan, including crucial food.

More importantly, the imperial authorities seized the last opportunity to expand the scale of food imports.

Before the Kingdom of Vanluo officially joined the war, the empire's traders purchased about 15 million tons of grain from the Kingdom of Vanluo through various channels, mainly rice. Although some of them were not transported away before the Kingdom of Vanluo joined the war, the assault procurement had had a huge impact on the order of the Kingdom of Vanluo. For example, in several major grain-producing countries such as West Monastery, the price of rice rose by 50% in a short period of time.

Affected by this, famine broke out in many areas of the Vanluo Kingdom.

Strictly speaking, the grain output of the Fanluo Kingdom is not large, and it does not even meet the standards of self-sufficiency.

Even according to the statistics released by the Varo authorities, the total general grain output of Varo in New Calendar 149 was 210 million tons, with an average of only 250 kilograms per capita. According to the standards stipulated by the International Food Agency, the minimum standard for food and clothing is 800 grams per day, while the grain produced by Varo, is not exported and distributed to all citizens, with an average of only more than 600 grams per day. The problem is that Varo exports about 30 million tons of rice every year, and it is impossible to achieve even distribution. This means that most Varo people live below the food and clothing line.

In fact, this is also a fact.

Even in peacetime, about 5 million people die of hunger or malnutrition-related diseases in the Kingdom of Vanluo every year.

During the war, especially when food was collected, the problem of food became more prominent.

The key is that it is usually scattered in 1 year and 12 months, or to be precise, it is to sell grain to the outside in batches during the three harvest seasons.

This time, in just three months, 10 million tons of grain were purchased from West Monastery!

It is said to be a purchase, but it is actually a forced requisition. In many places, especially in remote villages, the Fan army responsible for collecting grain will not pay the local residents at all. Even in small towns, they often issue blank notes or write IOUs to ask the farmers who paid the grain to cash in with the local government.

There is no doubt that the local government will definitely not pay the bill issued by the Fan army.

Obviously, for farmers and residents of small towns, the first thing they need to consider is how to fill their stomachs.

As for the war, what does it have to do with them?

Not to mention Gal, there are about 150,000 hungry people just in Port Diamond. Many families have been out of stock for half a month, and people have starved to death almost every day. If it weren't for the port city, many families have rural relatives and good fishing catches, they would have been starved all over the world.

In big cities, especially Gal, the situation is definitely even worse.

What to say is also a new problem faced by the Imperial Army, or a problem that had not been thought of and had to be solved before.

How can we deliver enough food to feed tens of millions of people to the frontline?

That's why after occupying Diamond Port, Ding Zhennan made adjustments to the combat deployment based on the feedback from the front-line commanders.

That is, let the support troops arrive ashore in advance, increase the delivery of support materials, and set up rescue points in the occupied areas.

Although the Marines are here to fight, not to carry out humanitarian rescue, regardless of the life or death of more than 100,000 hungry people, it will definitely not work.

Not to mention anything else, fighting on the front line means that the officers and soldiers who directly face the local residents are also human beings.

Facing disaster victims who are unable to fill their stomachs and do not cover up their clothes, even steel soldiers will feel compassion, not to mention that most officers and soldiers are not heartless.

As a result, the battle against Port Diamond turned into a humanitarian action to help hungry people.

In fact, this is also the thing Ding Zhen was most worried about, or the key to the imperial authorities' unwilling to go deep into the Fanluo Kingdom and unwilling to use troops in the southern subcontinent.

After controlling Port Diamond and to be precise, more than 100,000 hungry people were settled, the Marines did not go north immediately, nor were they in a hurry to deploy air forces to the front line.

It’s not that the troops are not strong enough, but that the materials prepared are not enough.

Although before the attack was launched, in fact, it was the preparation stage, Ding Zhennan accepted the information provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau, that is, the situation in West Monastery was not optimistic, there were a large number of hungry people, and made corresponding preparations, such as tripling the delivery of food and other nutrients, compared with the actual situation, the increase in this investment was not enough, let alone attacking Gal, which had a population of nearly 20 million.

This is no trivial matter.

According to normal standards, 20 million people consume 40,000 tons of food a day. Even if they are based on the food and clothing standard, the average daily food consumption is as high as 16,000 tons.

Of course, it is not to say that Gal's 20 million people have to be supported by the Imperial Army.

However, compared with the already tight transportation capacity, increasing the transportation volume of thousands of tons per day will inevitably increase the logistics support burden.

The key is that there is only one highway from Port Diamond to Gal, and the road conditions are still very bad.

Even if the food is transported to Port Diamond, it may not be able to be delivered to Gal.

To this end, in addition to increasing the supply of nutrients, combat deployment must also be adjusted to advance the combat operations to attack Canning Port.

The reason is also very simple. Port Canning is closer to Gal and transportation is more convenient.

In the next two days, the Marines not only stepped up their landing and built field airports south of Diamond Harbour to speed up the construction of infrastructure, but mainly moved helicopters to the shore and rely on the field airports under construction to enhance the combat efficiency of vertical airlift forces.

The attack on Canning Port is still dominated by air assault.

In areas where river networks make up for it, tanks and other main combat equipment became a burden.

The problems faced by the Imperial Marines were also unable to escape.

Not to mention anything else, the Fan army guarding Port Diamond was just infantry, not to mention the main battle tank, there were not even armored vehicles.

If you want to say it, this is also the key reason why Ding Zhennan dared to adopt air assault tactics.

During these two days, the 31st Special Mixed Fleet, which supported the Marines' operations, did not leave, but turned the muzzle to Port Canning.

On the evening of the 23rd, before sunset, the Van Luo Air Force sent dozens of attack aircraft to launch a counterattack, trying to sneak attack the 31st Special Mixed Fleet that supported the Marine Corps in the offshore. In order to avoid early warning aircraft, the attack aircraft not only flew extremely low altitude throughout the entire flight, but also kept radio silent and broke through the peripheral air defense network of the 31st Special Mixed Fleet. At least before launching the attack, it was not discovered by the early warning aircraft. Unfortunately, after entering Mengwan, the pilots led the team regarded several freighters heading to Port Diamond as warships. Next, more than 20 Van Luo attack aircraft rushed forward and used dozens of bombs to blow seven large freighters into the sky.

In fact, a fire support team of the 31st Special Mixed Fleet with 8 destroyers was about 50 kilometers southwest at that time, and the eight destroyers were replenishing ammunition. Not only were they not in combat readiness, but they even did not even have the necessary warning.

After being attacked suddenly, these 8 destroyers are definitely in danger.

Unfortunately, the leader's trainer was eager to achieve success.

This is also the Vanro Air Force's masterpiece during the Imperial Marines' attack on Port Diamond, and strictly speaking, it is the only counterattack operation.

Since then, before the Imperial army attacked Gal, the Vanluo Air Force has no performance.
To be continued...