national surname chiming

Chapter 448 - The Battle to Destroy the Nation - Part [-]

Faced with the desperate charge and full-line attack finally launched by the Qing army, the Ming army's defensive forces in the Neihuang County theater naturally confronted each other.

Neihuang County, as an important place for the Ming army to store grain in winter, is roughly equivalent to the importance of Wuchao to Yuan Shao. Therefore, no matter whether there is an attack from the Qing army, the defense is very strict on weekdays, which can be described as a heavy army.

The camp at Zhangshui Wharf in Huilong Town stretches for several miles, and usually has 30 heavy troops stationed there.There are hundreds of large cellars and silos in the village, and [-] troops are stationed to eat military rations for one winter.

In the depths of the camp where the scouts of the Qing army could not see, during the stalemate between the two armies before, the Ming army dug trenches and built earth walls when they had nothing to do, so that even if the outer fortifications were breached one day, they could still have strategic depths.

This kind of combat thinking was something that the Qing army could not have even imagined before, because in the traditional thinking of ancient warfare, whether it is a city or a strong fortress, it is good to set up a few city walls, sheep and horse walls, or rammed earth fences. The wall is not bad, no matter how many there are, it will only disperse the defensive forces, it is better to concentrate the defense.

In addition to the 4 people returning to Dazhai in Long Town, the Ming army usually stationed 3 horses in Neihuang County, which can be used as a reserve team to support at any time. The clock will be able to add staff in place.

Therefore, these points of information are all public. Before Hauge came to fight, the scouts he sent already knew clearly that the war zone around Neihuang County had to face at least 30 to 20 Ming troops, occupying about the middle of the road. A quarter of the [-] main force of the Ming army.There are also troops from other directions, about [-] people, who can arrive a day or two after the attack.

Hauge knew this situation and dared to fight, naturally because he felt that he had gathered 11 cavalry and [-] infantry, and he was sure to destroy at least the water village in Huilong Town and burn all the food in a day or two.

But unfortunately, he obviously miscalculated.

As the Qing army launched a full-scale charge, they would soon discover that the Ming army on the battlefield around Neihuang County was far more than the 7 people known at the beginning of the investigation!
……

"Very good. It seems that the old traitor Hong Chengchou really found out. He just wanted to cover it up with a history book after his death. The information he provided was quite accurate. Hauge really put all his eggs in one basket."

Seven or eight miles away from the battlefield, on the tower of Ximen City in Neihuang County, at the same moment, Zhang Huangyan, the Governor of Northern Zhili and Henan Province of the Ming Dynasty, was also holding a well-polished new binoculars, overlooking the battlefield in the distance.

At this distance, with the help of a telescope, you can still barely see the movement of the army, just like standing on the top of Horseshoe Mountain and looking towards the airport island when you are playing chicken.

It turned out that Zhang Huangyan, who was usually stationed in Daming, came to Neihuang to sit in person, thanks to God Blessing Daming, so that some old traitors who knew that they would die wanted to ask someone to clean up their stigma after death——

On the evening of the previous day, just one night before Hauge's attack, a few secret agents suddenly touched Zhangshui, surrendered to the Ming army, and expressed that they had important military information to sell.

The patrol team of the Ming army thoroughly searched the body and confirmed that there was no threat, and after general interrogation by Cao Bianjiao, they learned that the other party was from Zu Dashou and Hong Chengchou, so they reluctantly brought them to Zhang Huangyan, revealing that the Qing army was going to desperately attack Shaoliang. information.

The Ming army spent a total of half of the night investigating, questioning, and confirming. It was already very happy. Finally, it made a decision at the end of Haishi, and immediately moved the troops in the central and eastern parts of the war zone to the west one by one quietly to deal with the attack of the Qing army. .

In fact, Zhang Huangyan couldn't guarantee that what Hong Chengchou sent was true until the moment he made the decision, but anyway, the Ming army had an advantage in strength, and some dispatches and reinforcements would not be successful, so it should be prepared.

Moreover, the Ming army only had midnight reaction time, so even if they wanted to mobilize too many troops that were too far away, they would not be able to make it in time.

In a hurry, for the time being, we can only rush to Neihuang County with some quick-response cavalry units, and some infantry who were originally deployed between Neihuang County and Puyang County to patrol along the defense line on the south bank of Zhangshui River , you can enter the nearest camp around Neihuang County.

The final result is that the Ming army relied on the time difference in detecting the enemy's attack in advance in the middle of the night, and reinforced the strength of more than 4 troops to the vicinity of Neihuang.

Among them, more than 2 are the elite cavalry under Cao Bianjiao, and another [-] are the infantry of Li Dingguo's department who are usually responsible for patrolling Zhangnan.

The remaining Ming army was also notified as soon as possible, made preparations as soon as possible, and dispatched westward movements one by one.Although these troops cannot move in place before the start of the battle, they can guarantee that they will be notified shortly after the normal start of the battle and arrive at the battlefield four or five hours in the morning.

In a word, all reinforcements of the Ming army can get an additional five hours of response, which is extremely precious during the decisive battle.

The condition that Hong Chengchou asked Zhang Huangyan was that if he died or disappeared, he hoped that Zhang Huangyan could intercede with Zhu Shuren. When sorting out the real records of Chongzhen, he wrote the part about Hong Chengchou. The part where Hong Chengchou died in Songshan is enough, and there is no need to write it later.

Although this kind of thing is hard to hide, because after Hong Chengchou came to the Qing Dynasty, there were still so many high-ranking court officials of the Qing court who knew that Hong Chengchou had become an official of the Qing Dynasty——

But Hong Chengchou felt that when the Qing court collapsed, with Zhu Shuren's temper, he would even be able to reduce the number of vassal kings in the Ming Dynasty to less than ten surviving families.So, will Zhu Shuren keep the civil servants of the puppet dynasty in Beijing alive?

The magistrate might be able to survive, but the military general would also be able to survive if he fought back and helped kill the Tartars anyway, although he might not be able to keep his military power and official position.

Only civil servants and scholar-bureaucrats, to put it bluntly, Hong Chengchou has long seen through.In the 270th year of the imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty, there were already too many scholars who studied literature. Zhu Shuren's style is obviously to kill half of them and the rest is more than enough to be an official. He doesn't need to keep second ministers at all.

If all the civil officials in Beijing were killed, or at least imprisoned, it would be possible to hide some things and give them a face.

Zhang Huangyan felt that this deal could be negotiated.

……

The inside story behind the decisive battle will not be repeated for the time being. No matter how good the preparations are before the battle, you have to do your best to win the battle.

Li Dingguo, who had just marched to Neihuang Daying last night, brought his [-] former "West Thief" veterans, and was once again in charge of atonement and bear the initial charge of Man Dahai and Boluo.

However, because he proved his reformation in the previous battles, Li Dingguo's current equipment can be regarded as a shotgun replacement. It is no longer like a few years ago in the battle of Nanyang and Xinyang, where he can only carry a spear to deal with melee damage.

Today, half of the soldiers in Li Dingguo's old army are equipped with "made in Wuchang" rifles. The upgrade of equipment also gave the soldiers hope.

Previously, because the Qing army's firepower preparations were too fierce, Li Dingguo did not want the soldiers to suffer in vain, so he gave up the first wall that had been smashed, retreated two or three hundred steps deeper into the camp, and formed multiple roads one after another. Defensive deployment.

The rammed earth walls and wooden fences could not be maintained under the bombardment of Hongyi cannons. Soldiers hiding behind the rammed earth wooden fences might also be crushed to death by big iron balls along with the walls, and even further caused by shrapnel because of the flying pieces of wood. lethal effect.

After Li Dingguo's subordinates paid more than a hundred unnecessary casualties, Li Dingguo also realized this problem, and then he suddenly gritted his teeth and made a difficult and risky decision.

"Don't guard any wooden fences, just pull out the antlers in the trench, everyone hides in the trench for defense, and the lower body gets below the ground level, so you won't be afraid of the direct fire of the red cannon!"

Li Dingguo also adapted to local conditions, learned without a teacher, and chose the trench warfare method.When the soldiers heard the words, out of trust in him, they followed suit one after another, but they were still very scared in their hearts.

After all, ancient warfare was a combination of long-range shooting and hand-to-hand combat. Of course, hiding in the trenches has a huge advantage in avoiding shelling, but once the cavalry rushed to the front, trampled and slashed down from the heights, the soldiers hiding in the ditch would not even have a chance to fight back. up,
Even if you wield a bayonet to resist the enemy desperately, at most you will cut the horse's leg and belly. The length of the weapon is simply not enough to cause fatal injuries to the cavalry on horseback. It is very good if it can stab the cavalry's ankle or calf.

However, Li Dingguo's army is extremely strict, and his old subordinates have followed him for many years, and they are forbidden, so they actually carried out this order to be put to death.

Following Boluo and Mandahai, with Ye Bilong and Aobai as the vanguards, rushing towards them frantically, the Ming army hid in the trench that was originally used as a trap for rejecting horses, sticking their heads to the ground and firing.

"Bang bang bang——" the repeated shots made hundreds of Manchu cavalry howl and fell down. Hot blood splashed on the snow, causing the soft snow to melt immediately, but soon fell again. As the cold condenses again and becomes firmer and more slippery, the snow melts into ice.

The dark red blood ice sprinkled piece by piece on the ground, chilling and strange.

"Aren't these southern barbarians afraid of being trampled by horseshoes? They hide in pits and fire?"

Ye Bilong, who rushed to the first line, was also a little astonished when he saw the battle scene in front of him. He had been fighting with Hauge for several years, and he had never seen such a battle.

But the arrow had to be fired, and the Qing army came in anger. They had already been shot and killed so many robes in the process of approaching, how could they retreat?Seeing this, he ignored it and trampled on the horse.

Countless Manchu cavalry bent down and wielded their spears and sabers, but it was equally difficult to slash and stab the soldiers hiding in the trenches, so they could only rely on the horseshoes as their main means of output.

"Crack——"

"Pfft-"

The sound of tendons snapping and bones, and the sound of teeth piercing into the flesh of the horse's hoof being stabbed and cut, could be heard for a while.

Hundreds of soldiers of the former Western Army Zhao'an were trampled by horseshoes and died tragically on the spot. However, the horse legs of the Manchu cavalry were cut off by spears and bayonets from time to time, and they stumbled and hissed, throwing the cavalry to the ground.

More front-line riflemen finally couldn't bear the pressure, and crouched in the trenches with their heads in their hands, fearing that they would be stepped on by horseshoes. Some antlers in the trenches that hadn't had time to remove them became their amulets at this moment-if the Manchu cavalry If you had to let the horse jump into the ditch and trample on it, it was very likely that it would be directly stuck on the antlers, killing the horse along with it.

The frontline battlefield was once very chaotic and bloody, the two sides were torn together like meat, making it impossible for Ye Bilong and Aobai to quickly resolve the situation.

However, fortunately, the outcome of the battlefield is not determined solely by the fighting of front-line soldiers.Under the command of Li Dingguo, the battalion guards of the Ming army had already formed multiple lines of defense, each guarding several trenches in the battalion.

Paoze in the first line of trenches formed a chaotic battle with the Qing army, and the soldiers in the trench behind were still firing in an orderly manner towards the front, constantly reaping the lives of the Qing army cavalry.

Under the sound of gunfire, there were occasional Ming infantrymen who were fighting to the death in the trenches in the front row, and were accidentally injured by the stray bullets of the friendly troops behind them, but the proportion was definitely very low. Maybe one or two of the twenty casualties were Ming soldiers. Army soldiers were accidentally injured, and the remaining seventeen or eight were all dead or injured.

Moreover, this form of fighting lasted for a while for a cup or two of tea, and the Ming army in the trenches in the front also came back to the memory, hiding in the trenches more and more so that they would not stand up, and would not give the friendly troops behind the chance to be hit by stray bullets. .

In this way, this kind of shooting will only kill the Qing soldiers, and the Qing army will soon fall into chaos.

In order to avoid the endless deep musket firepower in the rear, some Qing troops had to jump directly into the ditch with their horses. Regardless of whether the horses would break their legs or be pierced by antlers, they dismounted regardless of whether they dismounted and followed the Ming army's rifles in the ditch. Soldiers fight in close combat.

Another part of the Qing army was unwilling to abandon their horses, or could not bear to let their horses jump into the trenches and be crippled, so they gritted their teeth and chose to continue charging in depth, trying to break through the Ming army's second and third inner camp trenches.

In this way, regardless of the pig's rapid advance, the killing effect is not bad, but the price is that the Qing army's formation is getting more and more scattered, and the troops are gradually dispersed, and it becomes a separate battle that cannot be unified.

Moreover, the Ming army did not completely adopt trench rifle tactics. After killing more than a mile outside the camp, they soon saw that there was still a Ming army behind them relying on the rammed earth wall, and they were waiting in a dense formation of muskets. With a tight defense that is not afraid of close combat, the bayonet is unanimous, and the long-range and short-range stabs are handy——

Li Dingguo's arrangement is obviously because in the previous battles, he has figured out the range limit of the Qing army's Hongyi cannons. He knows that as long as he abandons the phalanx and sticks to the outermost mile of the camp, put the enemy deep in the camp before fighting. , the cannons of the Qing army could not blast that far, and could not provide fire cover for its cavalry.

Therefore, what the Qing cavalry could destroy was only the Ming army's defense lines within the range of the first few rows of Qing army cannons.

There is no truth beyond the range of the cannon!

"How can these southern barbarians be so tenacious! Even though the first few lines of defense have been broken through, why don't those southern barbarians hiding in the trenches flee or surrender? They are surrounded by my cavalry from the Qing Dynasty in all directions, and they still have to resist stubbornly! What about the southern barbarians? It's time to have such courage!"

Ye Bilong was so furious that he rushed to the death, but finally ran into the main force of Li Dingguo's Chinese army, and repeatedly clashed, and the elite cavalry guards around him also fell to death one after another under the shooting of the Ming army's riflemen.

Perhaps because of his conspicuous performance, after Li Dingguo noticed him, he ordered the small number of rifle snipers in the army who had been on standby to concentrate on firing at him.Finally, under the intensive care of hundreds of riflemen, Ye Bilong was shot several times and died on the spot.

On the other side, Oboi's situation was similarly difficult, but after all, Oboi was the number one warrior in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. He was strong and wore multiple layers of heavy armor. After realizing that he was being taken care of by the musketeers, he reacted quickly and was by his side. After the first group of confidant guards were shot and killed, he retreated quickly, and finally got shot twice in the shoulder, dragging a crippled arm and exiting the battle in embarrassment.

Oboi could retreat, but it was not so easy for the cavalrymen of the Eight Banners who were stuck tightly to retreat.In order to rush up, they have paid countless casualties, and now there are even tens of thousands of robes. On the first mile road after entering the camp, they were divided into countless small teams, trapped in the trench network and fell into hand-to-hand combat with the Ming army. .

If the Qing army completely retreats, then the current full soldiers in the trench king will only have one end-all of them will be killed by the Ming army one after another!
Hauge, who was far away from the battlefield, couldn't see the specific front-line battle situation at all. He only saw a steady stream of Manchurian cavalry rushing into the camp.In such a scene, of course, the Qing army could only continue to invest and carry out the chaotic war to the end.

The fighting was bloody and fierce, because the two armies fought from dawn to full light, and the torches on many Ming army positions that were originally used for lighting at night were not extinguished. It was inevitable that the Qing army would set fire to it during the chaos.

Moreover, there used to be cellars and temporary silos for storing grain in various places in the camp, and naturally there were also in the part of the position that was temporarily taken away by the Qing army.Because the Qing army fought independently and lacked a unified order, they set fires in several places and burned tens of thousands of stones of the Ming army's winter storage.

Seeing some granaries on fire in the superficial camp area, Hauge's confidence was further stimulated. Although he didn't know what proportion of the granaries on fire accounted for the total granary of the Ming army, as long as there was a granary on fire, it meant there was a fire. Hopefully, the morale of the Ming army may also collapse because of this.

"The whole army must use their lives! Yue Le, you should also bring your infantry forward and step up to support Boluo Mandahai! Today I vow to destroy those treacherous barbarians!"

Hauge's eyes were bloodshot, and he piled the last reserve team into the meat grinder regardless.

The casualties of the Manchu cavalry on the front line may have already exceeded ten thousand, and the Ming army must have suffered a lot of battle losses. Fighting, even if you want to flee, you don't know where to flee, you can only stay where you are, and fight back any enemy who dares to approach.

On Li Dingguo's side, groups of reserve teams continued to climb up following the casualties of the frontline soldiers, and the snow in the entire camp gradually turned into slippery blood ice.

The fight lasted for more than an hour, and Li Dingguo's energy was gradually exhausted after carrying the line.However, he firmly believed that Ming would surely win. Before the battle, Governor Zhang told him that he was responsible for putting the enemy into the camp to withstand it. As long as Hauge’s reserve team also joined, Governor Zhang would definitely let General Cao bring the elite cavalry of Ming Dynasty. anti-outflanking.

Sure enough, when the bloody battle lasted until the end of the morning and the beginning of the morning, Zhang Huangyan finally ordered Cao Bianjiao to attack.

"I just got an urgent report from the horse scout. The main force of our infantry who set off from Daming County last night, and the cavalry under Huang Degong's command that was urgently transferred from Qingfeng County, will arrive at the battlefield in two hours.

Li Dingguo couldn't hold it anymore, after all, Hauge had several times as many people as him.You first outflank the Qing army from the left side, threaten Hauge's main formation, prevent the Tartars from looking at each other from head to tail, and relieve Li Dingguo's pressure. "

Cao Bianjiao, who also just rushed to Neihuang last night, did not dare to slack off at all, and immediately accepted his orders.

Just now Zhang Huangyan didn't let him attack as soon as he came up, not only because he was afraid of scaring Hauge away, or deliberately letting Li Dingguo carry the line, but also because Cao Bianjiao's tribe had traveled [-] miles to Neihuang last night. They just rested for less than half an hour, they didn't sleep at night, and they didn't have any energy.

So let Li Dingguo fight for more than an hour first, buy some time for the cavalry to recover their physical strength, eat, drink and rest, and then attack after recovering.

As Cao Bianjiao recharged his batteries and attacked, Haoge's situation finally became precarious. The Boluo Division on the left wing of the Qing army had already lost the vanguard, Ye Bilong. It almost collapsed, and was cut off from the rest of the Qing army.

Thousands of double-barreled rear-loading smoothbore nozzles and revolvers showed their prowess on the jagged battlefield, killing groups of Qing cavalry who had lost their speed like mowing grass.

Boluo was clumsy on the left and right, and resisted desperately for about a quarter of an hour, and was finally beaten to pieces by the Ming army and completely collapsed.

(End of this chapter)