I want to be emperor

Chapter 446 The Chu army's storm

The Ming army knew to use trenches to resist the artillery attacks of the Chu army, and the Chu army also knew to use trenches to resist the artillery counterattacks of the Ming army.

Some generals of the Ming army saw that their own artillery counterattack had no effect, so they simply sent infantry to counterattack, trying to expel the Chu army's behavior of digging trenches secretly without fighting directly...

As a result, as soon as these soldiers of the Ming army left the trenches, they were greeted with a large field of shells before they could line up...

After some Ming troops who were lucky enough to break through the firepower of the Chu army and counterattack approached, they soon discovered that the Chu thief infantry on the opposite side had very fierce firepower.

The crackling gunshots are like fried beans, and the denseness makes people suspect that the Chu army hiding in these trenches is not thousands of people, but tens of thousands...

They naturally didn't know that the first batch of Chu troops to participate in the battle was the first ace division of the Chu army, and all members of the first division had already been equipped with flintlock guns.

Its infantry firepower density is several times higher than before!

After fighting back several times, the Ming army on the opposite side completely lost the mind to fight back after killing and wounding thousands of people...

If they continue to counterattack like this, before the Chu army can dig the trench to their eyes, it is estimated that they will have tens of thousands of casualties, and there is no need to fight at that time, just surrender.

Seeing that the Ming army on the opposite side stopped counterattacking, the Chu army was not idle and continued to dig the earth!

To be honest, the battle outside Tianjin was different from General Li Chengtong's expectations!
As the commander of the third army, Li Chengtong can be said to be the first senior general in the Chu army to contact and study various new tactics under the flintlock.

He has participated in the formulation of the various line tactics of the new army that have been practiced for a long time.

This kind of line tactics can be described as meeting gods and killing gods when practicing within the Chu army, and killing Buddhas when encountering Buddhas. When facing the traditional old army, its advantage in firepower density is enough to give the new army a huge tactical advantage.

When the new-style troops are conducting exercises, all the old tactics are unreliable, and they can only use line tactics. When two troops using the new line tactics fight, it seems a bit silly to line up, and then you Fire a musket, I fire a musket.

There is a feeling of standing and shooting each other, so some people in the Chu army, especially cavalry, artillery and other arms, jokingly call this line tactic the queuing and shooting tactic...

It doesn't matter if the name sounds good or not, but this kind of line tactic is really useful when fighting in the wild.

However, a very embarrassing fact is that...

Among the new troops of the Chu Army, except for exercises, they have not used line tactics on a large scale in actual combat...

Not to mention the large scale, it has never been used even in actual combat with hundreds or thousands of people...

Why?

Therefore, since the beginning of the Jiangbei Battle, the Ming army on the opposite side has not given the Chu army a chance to fight among the large-scale infantry!

Whether it was the Battle of Yangzhou, the Battle of Huai'an, or the remaining battles in Jiangbei, it was basically the battle of fortification.

It cannot be said that there are no field battles, but field battles generally occur between cavalry, especially small-scale reconnaissance cavalry.

As for the infantry, the infantry of the Ming army will never come out to play field battles with your Chu army.

Therefore, the line tactics that the three divisions of the Chu Army's Third Army had practiced for a long time were useless to some extent.

In fact, not to mention the line tactics of the new army, even the various field tactics of the old army have not been used in actual combat for a long time...

Again, the Ming army did not give the Chu army the opportunity to fight in the field, especially the field battle between infantry.

Li Chengtong originally thought that this situation would change when he arrived outside Tianjin. After all, Hong Chengchou on the opposite side had 10,000+ people under his command.

So many people can't all hide in the city of Tianjin!

They have to put up a battle in the wild and fight with themselves!

As a result... the Ming army did not hide in Tianjin City, but built many fortresses and trenches around Tianjin City.

This has turned into a tough battle.

As a result, the two main forces, the First Division and the No.11 Division under the command of the Third Army, can only forget about the line tactics and wield shovels and hoes like the engineers. Digging trenches has also begun in the battle of fortifications!
The Ming army hid in the forts and trenches and couldn't come out. You can't send infantry forward by yourself stupidly, and then unilaterally face the artillery on the opposite side.

Even though they fight like this, they can actually rush over in one breath. After all, the rate of fire of the artillery is very limited, but the Chu army is unwilling to suffer such casualties.

Therefore, the Chu army adopted relatively time-consuming and more ammunition consumption, but with fewer casualties, and at the same time it was more secure to dig trenches and advance.

Ever since, such a scene appeared outside Tianjin City!
A large number of Ming troops relied on various forts, trenches, and parapets to resist, and used artillery to carry out continuous artillery counterattacks.

The Chu army continued to advance while digging trenches while carrying out intensive shelling.

Occasionally interspersed with some surprise attacks by the Chu army or counterattacks by the Ming army.

But this kind of assault and counterattack has nothing to do with line tactics. After all, the shells fired by a large number of artillery on both sides are flying around overhead, and the distance of assault and counterattack is often within a hundred meters or even more. advance distance.

In such a small space, there is no time for you to queue up slowly.

When you finish lining up, you will probably be almost killed by the opponent's shelling.

Therefore, the generals of both sides had a tacit understanding, and directly ordered the infantry on the front line to rush up, and then launched hand-to-hand combat.

The battle mode outside Tianjin was very dull to be honest. There was no large-scale charge of thousands or even tens of thousands of people, nor was there hundreds of artillery guns firing rapidly at a single target.

On the contrary, the battle is often multiple or at most a dozen artillery pieces, continuously shelling a target.

Battles between infantry are often limited to hundreds of people.

The Chu army had to temporarily organize more commandos, and let the first division and the No.11 division, which lacked heavy armor and cold weapons, be temporarily responsible for counterattacks.

Assault operations are mainly undertaken by the Eighth Division of the Second Army and the No.20 Division.

It has to be said that these old-fashioned troops still have a relatively large advantage in this kind of fortified battle, especially in assault battles where there are more hand-to-hand combat.

They have a large number of heavily armored spearmen, and sword and shield hands are more useful in this kind of combat.

——

This dreary battle lasted for three days!

However, during these three days, Hong Chengchou and other senior Ming army generals lived like years!

Although the battle is dull and scattered, it seems that there is no scene of a large-scale battle with great momentum.

However, the casualties were not small at all, and the various forts and trenches that the Ming army held on continued to fall.

After all, the Chu Army's hundreds of cannons are not for viewing. Even if they are scattered throughout the battlefield, the firepower density is still very high.

Not to mention that as the traffic trenches continue to advance, a large number of mortars in the Chu army are also advancing one after another. These mortars, which are advanced with the help of traffic trenches and hidden in the front-line trenches, often hit multiple doors, and then point at Ming. A certain section of the trench where the army was assembled was suddenly bombarded.

This kind of shelling seems to be sporadic, and the scale is not large. Often, only a few shells may land and explode!
But the lethality is not small at all. Once a mortar shell hits, it will often cause casualties ranging from a few to a dozen soldiers of the Ming army.

A dozen here, dozens there...

Similar situations were very common in the long front, which led to hundreds of Ming soldiers who were killed or injured by the mortar guns on the front line of the Chu army in one day.

Plus the damage caused by field artillery and heavy artillery!
The artillery units of the Chu army killed at least three or four thousand Ming troops in the first three days during the continuous shelling.

At the same time, more than a thousand people were killed or injured in the infantry assault of the Chu army.

After three days, Hong Chengchou found that he had lost more than 5000 people under his command!
This result made Hong Chengchou feel unbelievable.

Obviously, they didn't fight much. The Chu bandits on the opposite side didn't even launch a serious large-scale attack. They killed 5000 of their own side by relying on sporadic shelling and infantry assaults.

The current war, to be honest, has changed so much that he can't understand it.

General Li Chengtong and other generals of the Chu army, but no matter what Hong Chengchou thought in their hearts, they saw that the results of the previous three days of fighting were not bad, so they continued to implement this tactic.

On July 28, the sixth day after the Chu army launched an offensive against Tianjin City.

More than 1000 temporary commandos from the Eighth Division of the Chu Army’s Second Army, together with tens of thousands of other troops from the Eighth Division, decided to forcibly assault the Ming Army’s East Fortress outside Tianjin City, and completely captured the Ming Army’s defense line. Three strongholds.

This East Fort was one of the most important fortresses of the Ming army in the entire Tianjin defense line, and at least fifteen long-barreled artillery were deployed.

All kinds of messy short-barreled artillery reached two to three hundred pieces, and the total force was at least tens of thousands.

This is actually a fortress built around the entire mountain.

The entire Tianjin defense line is actually Tianjin City in the middle, and then two small fortresses in the east and west, together forming a defense system that supports each other.

Among them, the East Fort has always been the main attack location of the Chu army!

In order to conquer the East Fort, the Chu army concentrated [-] mortars of various calibers and hundreds of field guns of various types.

In addition, the navy also dispatched warships to venture into the Zhigu River, directly approaching and shelling the eastern fortress.

Although the navy only sent five warships into the Zhigu River, the firepower they displayed was quite strong, providing fire support from at least [-] naval guns.

Under the continuous six-day artillery attack by the Chu army, the East Paotai had already changed beyond recognition.

Under such circumstances, Li Chengtong and other senior generals of the Chu army believed that the time was ripe to launch a general attack on the East Fort, so they ordered a general attack on the East Fort.

(End of this chapter)