national surname chiming

Chapter 447 Survival of the Qing Dynasty, a battle here

After Hong Chengchou was convinced that Hauge had listened to Man Dahai and Boluo's suggestions, he fell silent, and in the next few days, he never gave Hauge any advice.

He knew that since he reached this stage in the Qing Dynasty, the hope of turning things around was already very slim.

Even if Hauge listened to him, he was just playing it safe and conserving a little more strength. Even if he loses in the future, the loss can be controlled as much as possible, but it doesn't increase the chance of winning much.

In the face of absolute strength, strategy cannot fundamentally reverse the strength.

And Hauge chose the route of Mandahai and Boluo, which means that he has to bet bigger and fight harder. The winning rate may be higher than Hong Chengchou's prudent strategy, but if he fails to bet, the cost of losing will be even greater. many.

These two routes cannot be said to be absolutely right or wrong. If you buy it and leave it, you can go to the black one by one.

After Hong Chengchou figured it out, he began to pack his luggage quietly in a daze, so that he could run faster if something happened - he didn't know whether he was imitating Ju Shou before the Guandu battle, or Yang Xiu during the Hanzhong battle.

Time passed quickly. Haoge and his party had to wait for the snow to fall and the Zhangshui to freeze before looking for an opportunity to fight the Ming army. As time approached the twelfth lunar month, such weather would come soon.In the process of waiting for the heavy snow, Wu Sangui, Jiang Yu and Li Fuming's advance was also steady and steady, and they had maneuvered behind the main force of the Qing army.

On this day, around the third day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole area of ​​Daming Mansion was covered by heavy snow.The scope of the heavy snow is very wide. Several prefectures around Hebei and even Dongchang Mansion in Shandong next door are all falling continuously.

When Hong Chengchou saw the heavy snow, he couldn't help but feel a little dignified. Early the next morning, he rode out to the camp to observe. Sure enough, he saw that the Zhangshui River was covered with ice, and the ice surface was also covered with snow. From a distance, it was a vast expanse of whiteness, and it was difficult to distinguish the mud from the mud. land and river.

Hong Chengchou could only use the height of the terrain to barely estimate the position of the river, and asked his attendants to dig out a few small stones from under the snow along the river.

He held the stone in his hand, estimated the distance, and smashed it to the place where it was estimated to be the surface of the river.

"Pu Ka Tong" the slight sound of piercing the snow was mixed with the sound of ice cracking, and the stone finally fell into Zhangshui.

Hong Chengchou looked up at the sky in a daze, and sighed: "The cold is not thick enough, but judging by the weather, it will be a decisive battle within a day or two at most."

Returning to the temporary yamen in Linzhang County, Hong Chengchou was thinking about how his life might end when suddenly another old acquaintance came to visit him—not a Manchu colleague, but the kind of old traitor who surrendered with him back then.

For such an old story, Hong Chengchou, who feels more and more lonely now, naturally wants to meet him immediately, so his attendants quickly let him in.

Hong Chengchou was shocked when he saw it: "Brother Fuyu, why did you come here? Didn't Prince Su ask you to lead the army to help guard Xingtai? Could it be that Xingtai has already fallen?"

It turned out that the person who came was Zu Dashou. Speaking of it, it was also the fuse that caused Hong Chengchou to fall into a heavy siege and eventually surrender to the enemy during the Songjin War.

In the Songjin War, Hong Chengchou was forced to advance because Chongzhen forced him to rescue Zu Dashou who was besieged in Jinzhou.In the end, Hong Chengchou was finished, and Zu Dashou also voted, and he was regarded as a difficult brother.

Zu Dashou was also in a very complicated mood: "Xingtai was indeed lost, but it was not considered to be taken by the Ming army. After several fierce battles, Tunqi Beizi voluntarily abandoned the defense. Prince Su agreed and asked him to retreat to Shahe First line defense.

Anyway, Prince Su felt that time had passed enough, there was no need to waste Baqierlang's life in vain, and the Ming army that had just advanced to Shahe in the past few days would not be able to keep up with the decisive battle on the frontal battlefield. "

Hauge had already made a plan before the battle. Regardless of the gains and losses of a city or a place, he defended the flanks of the western front in order to prevent the part of the Ming army that detoured from Shanxi to Hebei from rushing to the battlefield to help in the decisive battle.

Now that it is snowing heavily and the temperature is plummeting, Hauge feels that the decisive battle is within a day or two, so Xingtai has been attacked too hard and the casualties are too high, so give up if you have to.However, the sluggish Qing army on the western front retreated to Shahe, and it could be delayed for a few more days, which was enough time.

If the decisive battle is won, the land that is abandoned now can be taken back; if the decisive battle is lost, the land that has not been lost now will also be lost in the future, which is meaningless.

Of course Hong Chengchou could understand all this, but he still couldn't understand why Zu Dashou was arranged to come here.

He thought for a while, and couldn't help but continue to ask: "But even if Xingtai abandons the defense and withdraws from Shahe, shouldn't your trilogy continue to defend in Shahe? Why did it come here? Brother Fuyu, with all due respect, before Su The Prince is not too worried about your department directly participating in the decisive battle..."

After Zu Dashou entered the Qing Dynasty, he still had a certain status in the Han army banner, and his trilogy was also compiled into it.Among the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty, the Zhenghuang Banner and the Two White Banners all have ancestors.

It's just that Zu Dashou himself has been guarded against, and he is not allowed to lead the army directly, mainly because he is too capable of surrendering to both sides.Even if the ancestral family wanted to lead the army, the Qing government would detain all the family members. For example, when his son Zu Zepu or nephew Zu Zeyuan were to lead the army, Zu Dashou himself was detained in Beijing.

This time Hauge was still wary of him, and he was not allowed to fight head-on on the battlefield. He was obviously afraid that he would cause trouble and damage the morale of the allies.

Facing Hong Chengchou's puzzlement, Zu Dashou just smiled wryly: "Prince Su, this time, let me stay in Linzhang to watch a play, and I don't know where the tunes go.

Please think about it, who is now attacking Xingtai and then advancing on Shahe?It's Sangui!Can the prince rest assured that I will help Tunqi guard the Shahe River? "

Hong Chengchou suddenly realized that Zu Dashou was Wu Sangui's uncle, and now that Wu Sangui had fought in Xingtai, it was really impossible for Hauge to let his uncle defend his nephew, that would be too dangerous.It can only be to detain all the generals of the ancestral family, and then only draw their troops, take the generals as hostages, and force them to be cannon fodder under the eyes of the main force of the Qing army.

In addition, Hong Chengchou had just observed the weather and knew that a decisive battle was imminent. At this time, the purpose of Zu Dashou's call was already clear.

He couldn't help but have a sense of fate that everything is right and wrong, and all the agencies have done their calculations, but they have nothing in the end: "Hahahaha...Brother Fuyu, you have repeated it several times in your life, nothing more than wanting to keep our ancestral army and keep your Liaoxi generals." Benefits, in the end, are inevitably in vain.

You and I are villains in vain - now, Hong is not afraid of speaking rudely, if you want to show your head to Prince Su, you can go at any time, just say Hong is disrespectful.

Back then, I was really disheartened. I felt that there was such a self-willed lord like the first emperor in the world. There was no reason for Ming to be loyal to a person who was destined to perish. What is good to write.

If it comes down to the Qing Dynasty, at any rate, it will be my colleagues who will compile the "History of Ming Dynasty" in the future, and maybe a good bird will choose a tree to live in, and a good minister will choose a master.Zi Gong said, "Zhou's evil was worse than it was. That's why a gentleman is evil and lives in the low class, and the world's slander belongs to him."

People in the Spring and Autumn Period knew that although Shang Zhou's evil deeds existed, they were by no means as many as those that were sung by hundreds of schools of thought.It's just that Shang Zhou has been destroyed for a long time. In order to sell their own opinions, hundreds of schools of thought must call Shang Zhou every time they cite examples of lessons from the evil deeds of subjugation.

Die for the loser, even if you get a good reputation for a while, a hundred years later, you will inevitably be tarnished by the scholars of the new dynasty who hold the history pen.Since the death of Qi Taishi, Jin Donghu, and Tai Shigong, there have been thousands of 800 years in the world that there are no historians who are not afraid of death, and dare to usurp the current dynasty.Hong is too aware of the character of today's scholars, if I died in Songshan at that time, future generations may not think that I am vigorous...

Who would have thought that in the end Zhu Shuren would turn out to be born and bring Daming back!I was really a villain in vain... I am already fifty-six, so why do I regret dying?It is impossible to lower Ming Dynasty again, and it is also unbearable to be humiliated repeatedly.If I can die here, the future historians will say that I was martyred in Songshan and my whereabouts are unknown..."

Zu Dashou was also kept silent, and had to apologize a few words, saying that he was the one who caused Hong Chengchou to fall into a heavy siege, and finally surrendered.The two of them could only drink and get drunk, and they didn't know what they were plotting.

……

Another day and a half passed quickly, and it was midnight on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.

It has been snowing heavily for two full days. Although the snow seems to be trending down, anyone with a little life experience knows that in the cold winter, the temperature will only be colder than when it snows when the snow melts after the first clear of the blizzard.

Therefore, the remaining water in Zhangshui has been completely frozen, even if it is armored heavy riding horses galloping, or even using a carriage to pull Hongyi heavy artillery across the river, there is absolutely no problem.

Hauge himself has moved from Wei County to Linzhang County to the west in the past few days, so that he can attack the Ming army's grain camp in Neihuang at any time.

At this moment, everything was fully prepared, and the arrow had to be launched. Hauge ordered the troops to catch up on sleep during the day, prepare food at the second watch, and complete the assembly and march out of the camp at the third watch. Can rush to Huilong Town in the west of Neihuang County, that is, the wharf grain town on the south bank of Zhangshui River.

With a 10,000+ army attacking, it is impossible to engage in a sneak attack, and fighting at night will lead to confusion among one's own side.Therefore, the most extreme style of play can only be "marching at night and fighting at dawn".

Everything seemed to be going well. After several hours of hard work, at half past five o'clock, 10,000+ Qing troops had appeared on the battlefield with a frontal width of tens of miles, spreading along the Zhangshui River.

Before this battle, Hauge assembled a total frontal force of only 27 to [-] troops. The consumption and harassment some time ago, and small-scale operations resulted in a cumulative loss of [-] to [-] troops.
Therefore, the number of soldiers available at the moment is at most 26, stationed in the three counties along the Zhangzhou, and the battlefield is [-] or [-] miles wide.

For today's battle, Hauge selected 16 people from among them, and placed them on the western front between Linzhang County and Neihuang County alone. The rest of Wei County, Daming and other Middle Road and East Road theaters add up to only 10. people.

It's not that Hauge doesn't want to concentrate more troops, but that if he concentrates, he won't be able to deploy his troops, and he won't be able to quickly enter the battle.Fortunately, the troops staying in the middle and east roads will not be idle. They will also launch feint attacks at the right time to contain the enemy on the opposite side, so that the Ming army cannot concentrate all its strength to rescue on the west side.

The role they played was equivalent to when Cao Cao went to Wuchao to cook food, someone also needed someone to stand up to Zhang He Gao Lan in Guandu Camp.Cao Bianjiao and Huang Degong in Puyang, Qingfeng and other places, in Hauge's view, look like Zhang He Gaolan.

In addition, despite the fact that Hauge only assembled 26 of the 16 people in this main offensive, the strength of the troops has never been counted on the number of people, but also on the composition of quality.

The 16 troops sent by Haogla to the Linzhang-Neihuang battlefield already included at least five and a half of all six Manchu banners on the front line, and [-] Manchu cavalry.There are also almost all the Mongolian army flags, a total of [-] Mongolian cavalry.

A total of 11 cavalry, plus [-] Han army flags, green battalion infantry, and artillery, from the perspective of composition, this is definitely the strongest blow he has gathered since the founding of the Qing Dynasty.

Whether it was Saerhu or the Songshan War, even if all the Eight Banners were fought, the mobilization rate at that time was not so high, and it was impossible to allow all Manchurian men over the age of 15 to serve as soldiers.

Today, Hauge put two-thirds of the cavalry force that the entire Qing Dynasty, including Mongolia, can control, and put all his eggs in one basket here.

In addition to the cavalry, in order to ensure that they could break through the fortifications of the Ming army in the first place, Hauge also brought in the largest artillery unit since the founding of the Qing Dynasty!
When Dorgon tried his best to break through Shanhaiguan with the Eight Banners, he only concentrated seventy or eighty cannons in a desperate attempt.

Later, Duoduo led an army of 15 to conquer the south of the Yangtze River, and only 46 Hongyi cannons were brought with him when he sent troops.Finally, when they reached the city of Nanjing and launched a desperate battle, only [-] Hongyi cannons were left to bombard the city wall of Nanjing.

In contrast, Hauge gathered as many Hongyi cannons as he could get today, and the total number reached an astonishing 130!

About 110 of them are second-hand goods before the Qing army entered the customs, and the remaining [-] doors were slowly rebuilt and improved in the past six years after entering the customs.

After all, Doduo, Azig, and Abatai collapsed three times before, and they have lost at least [-]% to [-]% of the inventory accumulated before the Qing army entered the customs. Of course, the cannons that Haoge took out mainly depended on these six years Frugal new build too.

According to the original industrial base of the northern region and the production capacity of the Tartars outside the customs, when Dorgon was alive, he once thought that he could increase the production capacity of the Qing Dynasty's heavy artillery to fifty pieces per year.It's a pity that things backfired. The front line was defeated repeatedly, and there were often thieves inside, and the productivity damage was too great.

In fact, in the past six years, the production capacity of the artillery industry in the Manchu Qing Dynasty has been more than halved from the theoretical value. After so many years of saving, there is still no production of [-] units. Giving Hauge so much today is already doing everything possible.If you want more, you have to. The cannons on the city wall of Beijing were also brought in.

……

Seeing that all the cavalry artillery were in place, Hauge finally gave the order for the general attack.

For a while, in the darkness before dawn, a hundred artillery fires were fired at the position on the north bank of the Zhangshui River, and they bombarded the Inner Huang City and Huilong Town Wharf camp on the south bank indiscriminately.

The Qing army has also suffered enough from the Ming army's cavalry artillery tactics in recent years, and gradually recalled it, and tried to learn, so that the heavy artillery could have the ability to quickly advance with the cavalry.

It's a pity that the Qing army's technological and engineering capabilities were always weak, so even if they learned it hard, they only learned a superficial tactic, that is, using a newly built heavy-duty horse-drawn artillery cart to drag the heavy artillery and march quickly with the cavalry troops.

However, the Qing army could not learn from the rapid deployment and rapid advancement of the cavalry artillery of the Ming army. Therefore, after their artillery positions moved quickly over long distances, once they were deployed to the combat state, it was difficult to maneuver and advance.

In other words, it may take several hours to switch from the firing state to the loading state, advance forward, and redeploy, and advance forward two or three times a day at most.

In contrast, the most important thing about the cavalry artillery of the Ming army is not the speed of maneuvering, but the flexible deployment. After the enemy retreats, the range is out of reach, and it can be reloaded and trailered within a few minutes. Inside, he redeployed and fired again, and he might be able to move forward two or three times in an hour.

However, these differences were not obvious at the beginning of the war. Anyway, the Qing army only wanted to blast the outlying fortifications of the Ming army's camp, and these were fixed targets.

All of a sudden, the Ming army's grain camp in Huilong town was full of flames, tents and warehouses collapsed.The walls of the village, built with rammed earth dug out of trenches, were cracked everywhere by solid iron bullets, and the pickets on the wooden fence on it collapsed and broke, and pieces of wood flew around.

Seeing that the initial firepower preparation was effective, Hauge immediately asked his general Ye Bilong to lead a few Jiala Manchu cavalry, and immediately launched a tentative charge towards the position where the Ming army barracks wall had been blasted out of the gap.

However, he also had a good eye, knowing that the Ming army would not be defeated so easily, and he also told Ye Bilong not to advance rashly before attacking, and if the Ming army organized counterattack firepower, he would retreat quickly.

Ye Bilong took the order to go, thousands of Manchu riders, with non-slip straw ropes tied to the hooves of the horses, stepped on the ice and charged on the frozen Zhangshui ice.

"Don't retreat! Don't shout loudly to disturb the morale of the army! The rifle team is ready! Fire!"

The general of the Ming army on the opposite side was also unambiguous. When the fortification barracks wall was blown to pieces, all the musketeers who watched the night had occupied the commanding heights behind the wreckage, and pointed the loaded black hole guns at Zhangshui River. river surface.

With the order to fire, thousands of Wuchang-made rifles spit out flames, causing the Manchu cavalry under Ye Bilong to scream and fall down from time to time.

The cavalry of the Qing army also used their bows to counterattack, shooting randomly and blindly, and the arrows poured down like rain for a while. The sound of various bullets and shells tearing the air and breaking the wind screamed strangely, bringing bursts of death.

Ye Bilong didn't like to fight, and found that the Ming army's rifle team didn't show any weakness because of the sudden attack at the beginning, so he immediately retreated, only leaving hundreds of casualties.

As Ye Bilong retreated, Hauge saw that the direct attack was ineffective, so he poured all his resources into more adequate bombardment firepower preparations.

Fortunately, the Ming army on the opposite side was not idle. Even though the Qing army's artillery positions in the distance could not be seen at first in the dark, after the Qing army fired five or six rounds, the Ming army artillery also relied on the fire to push back, and they were roughly sure. One direction, began to counterattack violently.Most of the artillery in this era still shoots directly, and does not need ranging, and can fire in a good left and right direction.

Only those artillery pieces that use explosive bullets, or mortars, need precise impact points to ensure the blasting power. Now that they are in the dark, they have to learn from the Qing army to shoot solid iron bullets first.

"The southern barbarians actually have so many heavy artillery in this camp? How strong is their current national strength?"

Seeing the cannon blasting a few cups of tea, Hauge observed with Hongyi's original old-fashioned binoculars, secretly terrified in his heart.

He didn't know how many cannons the Ming army had on the opposite side, but at least the Ming army's artillery was more powerful than him, probably at least two hundred.This is only on the side of Neihuang County. If the battlefields in Puyang and other places are included, the Ming army does not know how many artillery pieces it will have.

Fortunately, the Qing army had no fortifications to destroy. As long as the iron balls did not directly hit the troops and the artillery itself, there was nothing to lose. It was nothing more than changing lives.

Up to now, the Qing army can no longer refuse to be able to exchange lives with the Ming army in a safe and stable manner.

Seeing the darkness and bombardment for more than a quarter of an hour, the sky finally gradually brightened, and the enemy on the opposite side could be observed more clearly.

In the morning light, Hauge could see from a distance that the camp on the opposite side was in ruins, and the wall and trench system along the bank of the Zhangshui River was almost completely destroyed. The cavalry could break through wherever they wanted along the entire front Where to break through.

However, the artillerymen of the Ming army hid quite far away. Judging from the position where the fire came out when they fired, it was at least a mile behind the camp wall. The artillery of the Qing army can only bombard the fortifications of the Ming army and the infantry filling the line of defense.

As the sky gradually brightened, the accuracy of the Ming army's shelling began to improve, and explosive bombs began to be used. The Qing army soon had heavy artillery bombarded by the Ming army, and the surrounding Qing army artillerymen were killed or injured for a while.

Hauge knew that he couldn't delay any longer, so he gave the order for a general attack across the board.

"We can't delay any longer, otherwise the range of the Nanmanzi's artillery is farther than that of our army, and they will only be consumed by them in vain. All the concession cavalry pressed up, forcing the Ming army not to hide behind to avoid the artillery!

Man Dahai, you attack from the left wing, let Oboi be your vanguard!Boluo, you attack from the right and let Ebiron lead you!The survival of the Qing Dynasty, in this battle, we must do our best and fight to the death! "

(End of this chapter)