national surname chiming

Chapter 369: Strategic Stalemate Stage
The Qing army fought bloody battles from noon to late at night, and finally had to retreat in embarrassment. Azig was also full of anger in his heart, but there was nothing he could do.

The number of casualties that Man Dahai reported to him was really shocking.

Although most of the thousands of people lost in the battle were the infantry of the Han army flag and the surrendered puppet army of the Ming Dynasty, only more than 1000 people were the real elites of the Eight Banners, but this number is enough for Azig to hurt his muscles and bones. it's -

Man Dahai said that there are 5000 to [-] pairs of iron-coated cotton armor left in the city, but it does not mean that [-] people really died, because the elites of the Eight Banners among them all went into battle wearing two layers of heavy armor. Two armors fell.

Coupled with the harassment battle before the siege of the city a while ago, the vanguard cavalry was attacked and destroyed by Zhu Wenzhen. Since Azig crossed Tongbai Mountain, more than 2000 children of the Eight Banners have died.

He brought a total of 3 soldiers and horses from the Eight Banners.This is equivalent to taking down the counties on the outskirts of Nanyang Prefecture, and it has already paid one-tenth of the cumulative death of Manchu soldiers!
If a siege battle of this intensity is fought for another half a month, and Manchu soldiers die at this rate every day, his flags will be completely wiped out in 20 days—of course, Azig will definitely not be able to fight in actual battles. Being so stunned and having suffered so much today, he already planned to make a long-term plan.

Unable to attack by force, Azig worked tirelessly that night and called all the generals and staff to discuss.

Everyone is also very tired, but no one dares to rest, racking their brains and brainstorming.

Man Dahai didn't understand technology, so he suggested from a strategic level: "Uncle, let our army divide up, while continuing to besiege Nanyang County, maintain pressure and attack slowly.

The other way went south, burning, killing, and looting all places north of the Han River. If you can find a boat, search it.

Anyway, we can't make things easier for those Han Chinese and southern barbarians!Be sure to hurt them, let them fear, and know the end of fighting against my Qing Dynasty! "

Azig curled his lips, not paying attention to Man Dahai's suggestion. At least half of what he said was nonsense. He wanted to find a ready-made boat in the north of the Han River... It's not like he hasn't tried it before!Is it interesting to talk about the impossible!

However, the discussion was originally a process of mutual inspiration. He made a few comments and approved the inconsequential parts, but it inspired Tong Tulai next to him.

Tong Tulai is good at attacking the heart and fighting internally. When he rolled his eyes, he found that Man Dahai's tactics can be combined with some insidious tricks, so he hurriedly said courteously:

"My lord, although Man Beizi's words cannot be used directly, they are quite good. The slave thinks that my Daqing is best at taking advantage of barbarians' disunity and disintegrating people's hearts. Declare to the outside world that the guard has surrendered, and then send someone pretending to be the guard to burn, kill and loot in the Ming army defense area further back..."

Just as he said this, Azig interrupted impatiently: "This Huangyan is Zhu Shuren's cousin. Zhu Shuren's deployment made it clear that he was ready to be isolated from the front and rear. He was sure that his cousin would not surrender. ! Your stupid trick is useless!"

Tong Tulai was not in a hurry, and explained in a slow and round manner: "The servant is just giving examples of strategies that have been used and are useful. If we really want to apply them in practice, of course we need to adjust them according to the current situation and local conditions.

For example, Zhang Huang said that he was loyal, so we don’t need to say that he surrendered, but after a while, he announced to Xiangyang, Fancheng and other places that the outer city of Nanyang had been breached, and only the inner city was in danger, luring the Nanman army behind to come to rescue anxiously. , my Qing Dynasty can seize the opportunity to fight in the field with dignity, and I don't have to suffer from this kind of uselessness in attacking the fortifications. "

Azig: "This kind of news is too complicated, why should the enemy believe it?"

Tong Tulai: "Your Majesty, what is the purpose of Manzi's insistence on leaving such a nail in Nanyang County in the north of the Han River? It is to cut off the waterway of the Baihe River and prevent the northern boats from going south.

Then if we spared no expense and secretly built some warships on the north bank of the Han River, bluffing, and then said that they came from Ye County and other places through the Baihe River, wouldn't the Xiangyang defenders suspect that Nanyang had already gone wrong? ?
If the outer city of Nanyang is lost and the outer wall is controlled by our army, our army can calmly dismantle the hidden reef barricades outside the northeast corner of the city wall, so that our fleet can transport supplies unimpeded——

Just imagine, in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", when Du Yulou's boat went down to Yizhou, he was able to break the "iron cable Hengjiang" of Dongwu Wumi in Jianping County. Could it be that he defended it with the bow and crossbow of the Wu people?of course not!It must have been Du who broke Wumi's garrison in Yiling in advance, making it impossible for the Wu people to defend by land and water.

Today we pretend to be able to break through Zhang Huangyan's "dark cone blocking the river", the reason is the same.As long as Hannan's Ming army believes it, it will hit its morale hard. If it loses its behavior and advances easily and retreats easily, how about giving our army a chance? "

Azig originally didn't care much about this kind of whimsy, but the last half of Tong Tulai's words can be regarded as quoting scriptures, which scratched his itching - all the princes of the Qing army watched "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" to command the war, Tong Tulai Lai just cited an example of the Western Jin Dynasty destroying Wu and breaking the iron chain to cross the river. Azig felt that it was very auspicious, and it was very in line with the current situation.

"My Great Qing Dynasty" is like the Western Jin Dynasty in his eyes, while Nanming is just the Eastern Wu Dynasty!

After he regained his patience, he thought about it for a while, and after thinking about it, he understood the essence of Tong Tulai's strategy——

If we want to actually build a ship, in the south of Nanyang of the Baihe River, we will use the existing people's resources, manpower and timber to temporarily build a new fleet that is large enough to cross the river and participate in the Hanshui water battle. It will definitely take a huge amount of time, and it will take half a year. indefinite.

But the essence of Tong Tulai is not to really make it, but to cut corners and cut materials to make something that looks like it. He can even hide in the Baihe River during the day and only drive a feint shot on the Hanshui River at night.

If you want to make some appearance, let the Ming army south of Hanshui believe that "the navy force of the Qing army has entered Hanshui", the construction time will be much shorter, and it may be done in a month.

To put it bluntly, it is similar to the fact that before the Normandy landing in the later generations, the Allied forces wanted to deceive Dover, which is opposite the port of Calais, and actually get the equipment of Patton's Third Army, which would cost a lot.

But the Allies don’t need to have as many tanks as Patton’s regiment. They can get a bunch of inflatable tanks for German reconnaissance planes to take pictures, and at most, General Patton himself to pretend to inspect it. The cost is much lower and faster. Much more.

Specific to the current Nanyang campaign, it will take a month or so to complete a new round of strategic deception and strive for opportunities for war, which may still be a bit slow.

But the problem is that Azig has no better choice right now. Anyway, it is impossible to storm Nanyang regardless of casualties. The follow-up can only be a siege plus a war of attrition, building new forts, and trying to slowly gnaw at them with curved and blind artillery City walls and city guards.

Such a form of siege does not require too much manpower. At least half of the 10,000+ people are idle. In this case, why not let the idle half of the people find ways to do something, whether they have dates or not. Pole, what if you accidentally plant a willow and gain something else?
In principle, Azig agreed with Tong Tulai's idea, and asked the troops to prepare for both hands. While fighting a protracted war to bombard the city, they prepared all kinds of deception and fraud regardless of whether it was effective or not.

Anyway, even if the Xiangyang defender cannot be convinced that something happened to Nanyang, there is no loss.Maybe he could take a gamble of "making Zhang Huangyan mistakenly think that the Nanyang guard mistakenly thought that something happened to him", and he had to try to break out, at least send someone out to report and contact him, so that the rear believed that he was fine.

That way, Azig can at least intercept and kill a wave of Zhang Huangyan's messengers and breakout troops, which is easier to kill than the opponent hiding in the city.

The suspicion chain brought about by lack of self-confidence has always been deceitful at both ends.

You can be very confident in yourself, and your colleagues can also be very confident in you,
But that doesn't mean you have confidence in your peers' confidence in you, nor does it mean that your peers have confidence in your confidence in yourself.

He has used anti-interference for decades in the Qing Dynasty, and most of the time, one room is accurate, which can be said to have touched the extreme of the treacherous mentality in this field.

……

The Qing army's initial attack was unfavorable, and it turned to a steady and steady attack.In Nanyang City, Zhang Huangyan's life in the Ming Army was actually not easy.

In the bloody battle on the first day, the Qing army suffered thousands of deaths and injuries, while the Ming army had more than 1000 casualties just for the blocking troops.From the overall point of view, it is just an exchange ratio between [-]:[-] and [-]:[-].

If it is a field battle, if the Ming army can replace two or three Qing troops with one, then with the original strength of the Ming army, even the generals of the army will wake up laughing.But this is a city defense battle, and it is still blocking the opening to seduce the enemy to come up and output. It is not too honorable to hit this ratio.

Moreover, the Ming army had the opportunity to clean up the battlefield after the war, at least the battlefield at the root of the city wall could be cleaned.After counting the results and losses, Zhang Huangyan estimated that the casualties of the Qing army on the opposite side were at most over 1000 people. They were stabbed to death by the blocked Li Dingguo's army with spears as dense as hedgehogs, accounting for only a small half of the casualties of the Qing army.

More than half of the remaining casualties were blocked at the openings, and then killed by the cross-range firepower from the top of the city, that is, by muskets, bows, crossbows and rolling logs and stones.From this point of view, the exchange ratio between the Ming army and the Qing army in melee combat is almost one to one.

Zhang Huangyan is very good at summarizing and introspecting. He personally inspected many corpses and found that the most elite heavy infantry of the Qing army wearing double iron-clad cotton armor had been stabbed with all their strength by spears with high-quality forged steel tips, and many of them could not stab them. Go in, only to deflect after piercing the outer armor, and then leave a deep scratch groove on the inner armor.

As for the blocking soldiers under Li Dingguo's command, many of the long spears in their hands were twisted in such a huge confrontation-the forged steel gun heads produced by the Daye County Arsenal are strong enough, unless they are repeatedly stabbed too many times. Metal fatigue will be bad.However, the ash shaft and other wooden gun shafts matched with high-quality gun heads, even if they are strengthened, cannot withstand such a huge twisting loss.

Of course, since ancient times, gun shafts have not been directly made of steel, because it is too cold in winter and will be slippery after being soaked in blood and sweat.So how to solve this problem can only be considered later. Maybe you can consider using steel threaded rods and drilling holes to nest into wooden sticks.

Anyway, the length of the spearmen fighting in formation is generally more than one and a half feet long. This kind of spearmen requires the pole to be elastic and shake to dance out the spears, so it doesn't matter if it is harder.Zhang Huangyan doesn't know how to slap his brains, and then leave it to professional people to think about professional things.

All he can do right now is to improve the treatment of Li Dingguo's department—after today's battle, he feels that it is necessary to evenly distribute the armor in the arsenal.

In the follow-up days of defending the city, the armor equipment is distinguished by tasks, and it is no longer the same as before, "the one-piece forged steel breastplate produced by Daye Arsenal is only allocated to the direct line troops who have followed Zhu Shuren for many years", and then let the old bandits use the original Zhang Xianzhong's leftover armor. armor and captured armor.

Later, Zhang Huangyan decided which one was responsible for blocking the wall in melee combat, and made sure that they gave priority to the temporary allocation of forged steel breastplates. Veterans of the direct line of troops who refused to accept it could also participate in this most dangerous task.This should solve the internal dissatisfaction problem.

After thinking about it, Zhang Huangyan also summoned Li Dingguo overnight, first said some words of encouragement to him, and personally toasted him with three bowls of wine, and then announced his decision.

Li Dingguo also heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that this was further trust from Lord Daotai.It is also an honor to be willing to give them the armor of the direct line troops temporarily.

He hurriedly thanked his subordinates on behalf of his subordinates. After returning to his camp, he was flexible and adjusted the distribution method of the treatment promised by Zhang Huangyan.

He asked several generals of the Paoze Department under his command to volunteer in the next few days, vying for the role of the fire brigade patrolling and blocking the entrance.Whoever undertakes this kind of heavy duty first, the part of the high-quality armor left behind will be given priority to them permanently——

Li Dingguo knew very well that Zhang Huangyan said just now that about two to three thousand pairs of curved steel breastplates forged in one piece can be allocated for his brothers.When the crisis is over, not all of these breastplates will be taken back, maybe more than half of them will be taken back, and the remaining part, who will leave it to, depends on performance.

Those who are fighting with Li Dingguo now are nothing more than the main surrendered generals under Zhang Xianzhong, Feng Shuangli and Bai Wenxuan. Feng Shuangli was seconded from Sun Kewang, and only Bai Wenxuan has been following Li Dingguo.

At this moment, of course, Bai Wenxuan couldn't let Sun Kewang's old department look down on him. He quickly said that his troops would take on this most dangerous task in the next few days. He only asked the military sect and Master Daotai to truthfully state their loyalty and bravery, and give them priority at that time. Permanently upgrade equipment.

The first batch of [-] sets of one-piece forged steel breastplates distributed by Zhang Huangyan from the warehouse were quickly distributed to Bai Wenxuan's camp.

After a day of bloody battle, the soldiers were covered in blood. Even the uninjured soldiers were all stinky. Many of them were the blood of the enemy or the robe, mixed with the sweat of the soil.

Although the water level of the Baihe River was not too low in early winter, and it was convenient to get water in the city, the weather was too cold, so how could the soldiers take a bath after a bloody battle.Let me show you some meat. After the bloody battle, you can eat a few mouthfuls of white feather chicken and add a little dried tilapia, which is already very good.

Since Zhang Huangyan wanted to issue armor to the soldiers, he naturally had to prepare the necessary equipment. He ordered some firewood rations from the warehouse in the army, boiled enough hot water, and soaked all the soldiers for the armor change, so that the armor could be changed cleanly.

In the cold and sticky blood-smelling atmosphere of early winter, the soldiers struggled to get up when they heard that they could take a bath. Li Dingguo also personally encouraged and inspected all the soldiers, announcing the decision of the imperial court to send armor, which aroused excitement in the audience.

"Finally, there is that kind of shining and reflective breastplate! I have seen that kind of armor, and the musketeer guards next to Zhang Daotai are wearing the same kind. If you don't wear a burqa, you will think it is a large breastplate." The mirror looks brighter than a breastplate, but it’s not good to look in the mirror and make people magnified and fat.”

The soldiers said one after another, while many people squeezed into a big pot and took a bath excitedly.After a while, everyone knew how useful this kind of bright and sophisticated armor was like a distorting mirror.

Because firewood needs to be used sparingly, there is no chance to go out of the city to cut firewood after the siege, so it is not possible to let the water be completely heated before soaking, because it will cool down during the process of placing it, which is a waste of heat.

They are all boiled directly in the huge army pot. When the water temperature is slightly warm, people will take turns to go down in batches. After soaking for a while, they will come up and wipe it off quickly. The firepower, to avoid water temperature scald people.

The water temperature is slightly hotter, and it can also urge the soldiers who cannot bear the heat to get up quickly, and don't soak for too long.

After a night's rest, Li Dingguo's troops were full of morale the next day, and regained their courage to fight the Tartars to the death.Everyone sees hope, sees the ascending channel, and knows that they will soon return to the right track.

-

PS: I went out to see some minor problems today, so I won’t open the chapters, and I haven’t saved the manuscript. I feel a little bit of a running account.

I am 1200 degrees myopic, and I can't even wear contact lenses.The nose pads of the old glasses have not been changed for a long time. I am fat and greasy and my skin is not good. The skin disease on the bridge of the nose is full of pus.I asked the doctor to test it and apply some ointment, but the pain was so painful that I couldn't put on my glasses.

I'm going out tomorrow, so I'll fix my glasses and change the nose pads. The doctor said it's fungus.As soon as I fix my glasses, I can't work for half a day.So tomorrow, there will be a chapter of four to five thousand words.

By the way, I have to change the map. Tomorrow, the Huguang battlefield will be stalemate, and then I will change the map to write about the protagonist and Duoduo. I will also quietly sort out the strategy.

Try to resume two more shifts on Monday (at present, I can only say strive, if it still hurts when I put on glasses and presses the bridge of the nose, it will be troublesome).

Alas, last year I still wanted to keep losing weight, but Yang Guo Yangkang didn't dare to exercise vigorously for more than a month, and I gained back to nearly 180 catties, and all kinds of greasy problems returned.

(End of this chapter)