I want to be emperor

Chapter 488 Jiliao War of Attrition
Since the Northern Expedition, whether on the western front or in Sichuan, the military operations launched by the Great Chu Empire seem to be large-scale, but in fact they have not encountered stubborn resistance from the enemy, and most of the battles have taken place naturally. , When the army arrives, the opponent often collapses on its own or simply surrenders.

The whole situation seemed to be like the autumn wind sweeping the fallen leaves!
The intensity of the entire war was not even as great as the one medium-scale and several small-scale battles with the Eastern Captives in spring and summer.

In the spring of this year, the Chu army fought a medium-scale battle with Dongyao on the opposite side in the direction of Jizhen. The main reason was that a small Mongolian tribe wanted to take the initiative to surrender to the Great Chu Empire. The control of the Mongolian tribe, but also in order to get more horses, chose to accept and send troops to cover the tribe's southern attachment.

Therefore, in April, there was a fight with Dongyao. The Chu army sent about 4000 troops to escort them out of the Great Wall, and Dongyao sent [-] people to pursue them.

The troops of both sides are mainly cavalry, but the Chu army has more cavalry artillery, so although the strength of the traditional cavalry of the Chu army is slightly weaker, they still successfully welcome this small Mongolian tribe to the south and beat them fiercely. The blow to the prestige of the Eastern Captives in Eastern Mongolia also gained a large number of horses.

The intensity of this battle was relatively high. More than 400 people from the Chu army died in the grasslands north of the Great Wall, and more than 500 people from the Dongyao side died in battle.

In addition to this medium-scale battle, many other battles with a scale of less than a thousand people were also fierce. These battles with a scale of less than a thousand people were either fighting between cavalry, or fighting for small forts in the west of Liaoning. The battles are often very tragic.

This has nothing to do with the level of combat effectiveness. The main reason is that the morale of the troops on both sides is relatively high, and the will to fight is relatively tenacious, so they will not easily retreat and admit defeat in a fight.

To be honest, fighting captives has a relatively high resilience, and at the same time has unified organizational capabilities, and there are a large number of cavalry fighting, and there is a large number of experienced soldiers. The enemy is relatively unfamiliar to the Great Chu Empire, and even once felt difficult .

The main reason is that the previous enemies of the Great Chu Empire were all the Ming army, and in the early days, they were mainly the inland guards of the Ming army. The combat effectiveness of these inland guards was very limited, especially their morale was extremely low, and their organizational skills were even worse.

Many seemingly grand battles are actually a bit of a joke. Just hit the opponent and they will collapse. Even if it is a seemingly tragic battle, as long as the Chu army's artillery pushes up and bombards intensively, the opponent will often collapse by itself.

After the Northern Expedition, although they encountered the main force of the Ming army, the Chu army had too much advantage at that time. Especially in the Tianjin campaign, the Chu army had an absolute advantage in terms of military strength, firepower, and logistics. At that time, Hong Chengchou The Ming army led by them hardly had much resistance.

More importantly, these frontier troops surrendered no slower than the inland guards.

Under such circumstances, to a certain extent, the Chu army got used to fighting such weak people. Many front-line generals felt that as long as they pulled up the artillery to fight a few times, the opponent would often be defeated.

However, when the enemy was replaced by the Eastern Captivity, many of the past victories were no longer useful.

For example, in a fortified battle, after dispatching heavy armored infantry to tear through a certain line of defense of a fortress, the Ming army would often be defeated on its own, but those Dongyao people were different. These Dongyao people would organize armored soldiers to rush up to resist , and then desperately drove out the commando of the Chu army.

When encountering danger, these Dongbang people would not risk their lives, and directly pointed some light artillery at the gap to cover the shelling regardless of whether the enemy is the enemy...

Another example is that although the weapons and equipment of Dongyao are not good in the eyes of the Chu army, their armor rate is not good, and the quality of some armor is not good. …

But some people have it anyway.

Fewer and inferior artillery can also cause casualties to Chu soldiers.

So from last autumn to this autumn, in the past year, the Chu army and Dongyao fought a lot of battles. Fortunately, in large-scale battles, the Chu army was able to overthrow the opponent by relying on its absolute firepower advantage.

However, in some small and medium-scale combat forces, although the Chu army still has an advantage, this advantage is not overwhelming.

Especially since this summer, some small-scale combat forces of the Eastern Captives outside Shanhaiguan often use the method of showing the enemy to be weak. The artillery or mortars exploded slowly, hiding until the Chu army's infantry rushed up, and then ran out to directly engage in close-range hand-to-hand combat with the Chu army's infantry.

So much so that even if this small fortress was captured in the end, a large number of garrisoned enemy troops were wiped out, but the casualties of one's own side would not be small. Basically, one thousand enemies were killed and five hundred were self-damaged.

Obviously, after several defeats in last autumn and spring, the Eastern Capo had already reversed some of their tactics and adopted various fighting methods that maximized their strengths and avoided their weaknesses.

That is to say, in terms of strategy, the Great Chu Empire Army has an absolute strategic defensive advantage on the Jiliao front, and the Eastern captives cannot enter. big difficulty.

This kind of difficulty does not mean that it cannot be defeated, but that the casualties paid are relatively large.

This may not feel good to the traditional army, and it may even feel that it is good to win steadily like this, but for many generals of the Chu army, it does not feel so good.

Many of the Chu army's previous battles were in low-casualty mode. A battle of tens of thousands of people killed or injured a few hundred people was fine.

You let them kill and injure hundreds of people in a battle of thousands of people, the Chu army felt that the casualties were too great, and even reported to Luo Zhixue, saying that there were heavy casualties on the front line, hoping to give up the continuous oppression and advance. strategy.

These cases were collected from the front line to Jinling City one after another, and finally reached Luo Zhixue's ears.

Immediately afterwards, Luo Zhixue criticized the underestimation and arrogance of the army in several military meetings before the imperial court. At the same time, he emphasized that the army is the sword of the emperor and the pillar of the country. The fighting spirit of the people fighting for living space.

There is no such thing as death in a war, let alone a life-and-death national war. After hundreds of people die, they will shout, and then ask for strategic contraction and abandon continuous oppression.

This is simply making fun of the empire's tens of millions of military expenditures a year and China's unified national policy.

It is the established national policy of the Great Chu Empire to send troops to captives and finally regain Liaodong, and Luo Zhixue does not intend to delay this matter for too long. He needs to solve the biggest external threat, the captives, as soon as possible, and then Bring down the extremely high military expenditures to normal levels, and free up resources for the restoration of people's livelihood and economic development in the country.

In Luo Zhixue's plan, this year will resolve the internal wars, that is, the wars on the western front, Sichuan, and southwest. Now the western front and Sichuan have been settled, and the Yunnan-Guizhou campaign has officially launched in September. It is expected that it will be settled within a few months. The war on the front line of Yunnan and Guizhou.

By next year, the Great Chu Empire should gather its main force to march in the Northeast, to fight a war of annihilation, and to crush the captives in the East!

Before launching a full-scale strategic offensive next year, the eastern exile forces in the direction of Jiliao need to be further tested and seize many outer fortresses to prepare for the large-scale advance of the army.

At the same time, through this continuous attrition battle, the troops will be trained, and the situation on the opposite side will be further understood, which will also further consume the enemy's manpower and material resources.

Because the Chu army killed hundreds of people, it is very heartbreaking, and the death of hundreds of people in the East captivity is even more heartbreaking. The Military Intelligence Department has obtained accurate information. The Dongbo side is already feeling a headache in the face of the continuous attrition of the Chu army, and has to take many measures to carry out the war. In response, even some troops in the rear to maintain order had to be transferred to the front line one after another.

After all, there were only 5 or [-] soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Eastern Captives.

In addition, the Mongolian Eight Banners, which are directly under the jurisdiction of Dongyao, also have a force of [-] to [-].

There are more Han Eight Banners, and there should be about [-] in total, a considerable part of which is the original Ming Liaoxi Frontier Army, namely Zu Dashou and Wu Sangui's troops.

In addition, the Dongbang people can mobilize and submit to them, but there are tens of thousands of troops from other Mongolian tribes that have not been directly incorporated into the Mongolian Eight Banners.

And these are the total strength, about [-] to [-].

And don't think that all the troops of Dongyao people can fight, this is impossible, even in the Chu army, there are low-cost troops such as second-class divisions.

Leaving aside the Mongolian Eight Banners and the Han Eight Banners, let’s just talk about their Eastern Captive Eight Banners. There are also several ranks of soldiers within them. Among them, there are not so many elite armored soldiers, that is, those white armored soldiers.

The above is still about the strength of the troops, and you don’t think they seem to have a lot of troops, but this scale is already the result of their general mobilization, that is, all the young and strong men under their rule are incorporated into the army.

Except for these young and strong, the rest are almost all old and young women and children.

That is to say, in a short period of time, once the front line suffers too many casualties, it is almost impossible to replenish their troops.

Even if they are full of money and food, guns and guns are everywhere, because there are not enough young and strong.

What's more, the continuous oppressive battle has caused a large number of young and middle-aged people from the Eastern captivity to be dragged to the front line, and farming has been greatly troubled.

This continued consumption, coupled with the strong blockade of all border towns by the Great Chu Empire, prohibiting the entry and exit of civilians, and the complete cancellation of trade in border towns, made Dongyao lose the source of external food sources.

It is estimated that there may be a super-large-scale famine on the Dongyao side by next year.

Under such circumstances, it will naturally be easier when the Chu army wants to fight captives next year.

As for the continuous casualties caused by the war of attrition...

War is a cruel thing!

(End of this chapter)