Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1814

After a brief thunderstorm, the officers and soldiers of the Ninth Division of the servant army who had just interrupted their offensive went into battle again.

Thunderstorms and heavy rains are common things in this summer in the south of the Yangtze River. If you encounter them, you can only say that you are unlucky and the luck of the Qing army is good. You can't blame anything else.However, the Qing army in Shangyu County may not be able to wait for the next heavy rain, because the inner city, which has been continuously reinforced and built since the end of Shunzhi, has now been bombarded by cannons—rammed earth covered with bricks The city wall is so careless that the people on the east coast have basically abandoned this backward building system, and turned to green bricks and stones as the main source of building materials for the fortress, although the cost will be very high.

Niu Gui imitated the style of the two Marshals Mo and Shao, dressed in military uniform, holding a saber, staring at the dilapidated Shangyu City with piercing eyes.Just now, nearly a thousand selected Erlang, under the cover of eight artillery pieces, used dense musket salvos to wipe out all the stubbornly resisting Qing soldiers on the top of the inner city.Before them, the musketeers of the Qing army who were able to conscript and fight well had already been plowed by officers and soldiers from the seventh mixed battalion with Minie rifles, which greatly facilitated the attack of latecomers, so that it took just over a day. In time, the inner city could hardly stand it anymore.

Cannonballs hit the city wall one by one—the city gate had already been smashed, but the Qing army had a lot of obstacles behind the city gate, such as mud, stones, broken bricks, and rotten wood—every one fell, Niu Gui seemed to be able to hear the tooth-piercing groans of Shangyu County.As a result, when he was thinking about when he could break through the city wall, he heard a loud bang, and a gap several meters long appeared on the top of the city wall, and the lower part had also been severely deformed. long time.

Niu Gui was overjoyed when he saw this, and immediately sent someone to notify the artillery unit that was temporarily assigned to him, and asked them to concentrate their firepower to bombard along the gap, trying to expand the gap until it was big enough to lead the troops through.At the same time, he also asked his subordinates to remember that in the future when building city walls, rammed earth must not be used to save money, especially in today's increasingly powerful artillery.

……

And just when the people from the east bank stormed Shangyu County, at the mouth of the Cao'e River tens of kilometers away to the northwest, many small steam steamers from the east bank had already pulled out many wooden stakes nailed to the bottom of the river.Near these small steamers, five or six naval gunboats with extremely shallow drafts followed the gaps that had been cleared, and headed upstream in one go.Because the Cao'e River is located in the area controlled by the Qing Dynasty, and Shaoxing Prefecture has always been a place with a prosperous population and a developed economy, they had to consider the local demand for shipping, so they only set up obstacles at the mouth of the sea—now it has been taken over by the east coast. People cleaned up a lot—to prevent the ships on the east bank from directly entering the wide area of ​​the downstream river, bombarding and looting everywhere.

The reason why they dared to do this was because the two infantry regiments of the 1000th Division of the Servant Army had just defeated a Qing army guarding a nearby fort, killing and wounding more than [-] people, and captured more than a dozen sea artillery guns at the same time.Because they were unusable and cumbersome, the commander Xie Zhen ordered these artillery pieces to be destroyed, and the gunners were escorted to the camp outside Shangyu County.

After the fort was removed, the pressure on the east coast navy that destroyed the wooden pile was much less.Because from a tactical point of view, the two turrets with mutually horns work together to maximize the blocking ability. After all, in this era, the closer the artillery is, the more accurate it is and the most powerful it is.Like the people on the east bank, the fort on the right bank of the Cao'e River was taken away, and the boats that removed the wooden stakes could clear the obstacles on the right first to avoid the attack of the Qing army's artillery fire on the fort on the left bank.

The scale of the fort of the Qing army is similar to that of this side, and they are all equipped with seventeen or eight heavy artillery pieces for coastal defense.However, due to the angle and distance, only a part of them can hit the small steamers on the east bank that work on the river, and the accuracy is not enough.In addition, the people on the east coast also sent the flagship "Cadiz Rock" of the "Sea of ​​Okhotsk" squadron, which is old but still powerful, to suppress firepower, which further weakened the firepower of the Qing army's fort. In the past few days of operation, only two small steamers on the east coast were sunk, and one "Yaquesa" class armed transport ship was severely damaged. Although the "Cadiz Rock" was shot with more than 1859 rounds, The hull was not irreparably damaged, and the casualties were not heavy, so overall the operation was very successful, with very few ships lost-you must know that warships are extremely disadvantaged in attacking fortresses, otherwise the subsequent [-] In those years, the British fleet would not have been deflated in front of the Dagukou Fort. It was still a corrupt Qing army-of course, the premise was that you ignored the other temporary collection of small and medium-sized hard sailing ships that were sunk by the Qing army's artillery.

The five or six "Amur River"-class shallow-water gunboats that broke through the estuary have shallow draft and fast speed. Each ship is equipped with eight small and medium-caliber artillery.No, I saw that after they broke through the barrier at the entrance to the sea, they immediately went up quickly and sank several small sailboats that looked very suspicious, because there were some soldiers on them who seemed to be wearing Qing military uniforms, which made people have to It is suspected that it is a ship requisitioned by the army.

The Cao'e River is now in the summer wet season, the river is wide and the water is deep, and the "Amur River" class with a draft of less than one meter can basically go anywhere.According to some hydrological data at hand, the naval officer who led the team believed that there would be no problem at all in sailing to Shangyu County.If you go further upstream, the average water depth is probably enough to sail to Xinchang County, but you don’t know if there are shoals in the middle of the river that hinder navigation, so it’s better to be cautious-but everyone thinks it’s not a big problem, because the Qing Dynasty’s own small wooden sailboats on inland rivers dare Sailing upstream, the shallow water gunboat on the east coast, whose draft is almost the same, should sail there without any serious problems.

After these gunboats broke through the mouth of the Cao'e River and reached the upper reaches, they basically announced two things. One is that this wide river is no longer safe for the Qing army. The wolves biting and attacking the gunboats on the east bank ended up with heavy losses; these two also told the commander of the Qing army that now the east bank can quickly transport materials and personnel through the Cao'e River, and the combat durability has been greatly enhanced. The artillery design will never be stopped because the gunpowder is used too much—of course, when the navy ships enter the Cao'e River, they will still face the side attack of the Qing army fort on the left bank, but without the cooperation of the fort on the right bank, this loss can already be achieved Endure it, after all, in the previous confrontation with the "Cadiz Rock" heavy cruiser, the artillery on the Qing army's fort was not without loss.

In addition, the naval gunboats on the east coast—if nothing goes wrong, more naval gunboats will come to reinforce them in the past two days—invaded the Cao'e River, which is also a great bad news for the about 1.8 Qing troops who are standing in Yuyao area ( Although they don't know it yet).Their ammunition was gradually running out, but with the east coast troops attacking them at both ends, their ammunition in stock was depleted quickly, and it was gradually running out, which was quite frustrating.

As a last resort, the Qing army decided to leave Yuyao County, where there were fortifications, forts, and established positions, and the whole army broke through to the west, intending to rush to Shangyu County to see the situation.Naturally, they soon met up with the main force of the East Bank at the halfway point.

……

On June 1680, 6, on the banks of the Yaojiang River 20 miles northeast of Shangyu County, more than [-] officers and soldiers from the east coast, including the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army and the First Regiment of the Fifth Division of the Servant Army, slowly lined up , Blocked more than [-] Yuyao Qing troops who were retreating westward in a hurry.

The eminently proclaimed East Coast Artillery launched a rapid fire attack as usual.Solid, hollow, filled with gunpowder, and not filled with gunpowder, all kinds of shells, under the command of the artillery commander, shot accurately and ruthlessly over the heads of the opposite Qing army.Although there had been a shower just before, and although the soil in the river valley here was relatively soft, the rapid artillery shells still loosened the positions of the Qing army on the opposite side. Some people yelled, but they were quickly reprimanded or directly punished by the officers.

The artillery commander on the east bank put down his binoculars with satisfaction, and then ordered the bombardment to continue.The response of the Qing army surprised him a little. It seems that as more and more foreign weapons and tactics flowed into the land of China, no matter whether it was the Qing, Shun, or Ming armies, their tolerance to muskets and cannons had improved a lot.Of course they can't stay still in the face of artillery bombardment-in fact, no army in this era can do it, and neither can the people on the east coast. That's all - but the meeting has been fought for a few rounds anyway, and there has been no chaos. The growth of the Qing army and the Shun army is indeed relatively rapid, and their officers' ability to absorb advanced military technology and ideas is indeed good, but It is estimated that this is all there is to it, and I believe that if they play a few more rounds, they will also collapse.The artillery commander insisted that even if the enemy was facing an army from the east coast, if they fought for a few more rounds or even a dozen rounds, their morale would plummet and they would collapse. He did not believe that the Qing army was fought with iron.

The sky began to drizzle again.Lieutenant Colonel Junio ​​stood on a small soil bag, carefully observing the battle ahead.At this time, he was not worried about the victory of this battle at all. He was more concerned with observing and evaluating the combat effectiveness of the Qing army, to see how well they absorbed modern military thinking and applied modern military technology.To put it bluntly, he just wanted to see how the military reform of the Green Army of the Qing Dynasty was going with the secret help of the Dutch, English and even the Portuguese!You must know that in Beijing, more than 200 foreign mercenary officers and soldiers have been naturalized by raising the flag, and there are even foreign assistants. People on the east coast have to be vigilant.

Judging from the battlefield now, they seem to be studying well, and they have not improved as much as imagined.However, considering the resistance brought about by the reform of the large and bloated army system of the Qing Dynasty, and the lack of "sparing training" for the Qing army in Hangzhou, unlike the Xiangyang Daying Camp, which has already fought many firearms battles with the Shun Army, so it is now This level is not bad.

"Boom! Boom!" It was the short-range artillery deployed at the front that spoke.The range of these artillery is not far, but most of the shots fired are shotguns and grape bullets, which are extremely lethal in the face of dense formations of enemies.No, the Qing army who had finally gritted their teeth and rushed to the front was immediately disrupted. Some brave people still wanted to continue to charge, some ran around with their heads in their arms, and some turned around to run away. The offensive was over.

"Order: The first and second regiments of the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army attack, and advance with the fleeing Qing soldiers!"

"Order: The First Regiment of the Fifth Division of the New Army Army will attack, focusing on the junction between the two Qing armies near the river bank!"

"Order: The cavalry column (about [-] cavalry, and the [-] cavalry are still patrolling the northern coastal plain) go forward, arrive at the scheduled starting position, and tell Commander Zhou that it is rainy and slippery, which is not conducive to the cavalry to drive and charge, and ask him to take a camera act."

"Order: The Seventh Mixed Battalion immediately set off from a hidden position, intercepting the flanks of the Qing army, and play the role of the final word!"

Junio ​​put down the binoculars, waved his arms wildly, and gave orders one after another from time to time.Beside him, the liaison staff officer called a messenger soldier from time to time, and asked him to ride quickly to the various ministries to deliver orders, so as to realize the combat intention of the superior commander and wipe out the more than 1 Qing troops in front of him.

"Wan Sheng! Kill! Kill! Kill!" The fierce roar of tens of thousands of men shook the earth, shook the river, and at the same time shook the already shaken Qing army brigade, causing it to slowly collapse psychologically.Junio ​​climbed to a higher place, and there were roars from below one after another, one after another, and another.With gray hair, he listened carefully, as if appreciating elegant music, as if listening to the spring, and as if the conductor of later generations stood in front of a huge stage, commanding a magnificent symphony orchestra with fascination.

The Confucian Commander and Confucian Marshal of this meeting seem to have entered a certain realm. It seems that they don't need to open their eyes to watch the battle situation in front of them. They only need to distinguish from the strength of the enemy's killing sound, and then calmly deploy troops General, you can destroy the enemy in one blow and destroy them in one battle!

The shouts of the tens of thousands of troops gradually moved away from the mountain where Junio ​​was, and slowly began to become distant.Correspondingly, the shouts of the enemy Qing army had already become a little noisy, and then became chaotic.The rain did not know when it would stop again. When the sun broke through the cover of the dark clouds and sprinkled the land with golden light again, the orderly, organized, and rhythmic shouts, trumpets, and drums of the Qing army had completely disappeared.

As if consuming all his mind to complete a heroic movement, Junio, who had been standing for a long time, was about to move his position when he suddenly felt dizzy and almost fell to the ground.Fortunately, the combat staff officer who was following him had quick eyes and quick hands, and he supported him, and asked with concern: "Commander, your body..."

"It's okay! I'm old and have been standing for a long time, and I just feel dizzy for a while. The battle is over..." Junio ​​waved his hand to comfort the staff officers and guards who had gathered.

"Yes, Commander! The battle is over, and our army can be regarded as a complete victory!" A young staff officer replied with a blushing face: "The main infantry regiment is advancing forward, the seventh mixed battalion is flanking, and the cavalry brothers finally The dispatch completely disrupted the organization of the Qing army. At this time, all the ministries were chasing death and chasing the north. After this battle, the east of the Cao'e River no longer had any serious opponents. I am afraid that Fuquan in Hangzhou would not have the courage to lead his troops across the river. Let us fight decisively! Xinchang, Shengxian, Shangyu, and Yuyao are four places that we can occupy in a dignified manner. With the natural defense lines of Cao'e River and Kuaiji Mountain, our army is already invincible!"

(End of this chapter)