Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 612 Empty Shandong

On August 1647, 8, at the head of Ye County, the morning light was slightly dew.Surrounded by a group of generals with shining five-pointed stars on their shoulders, Marshal Mo Mingmo watched the situation in the distance.

It is said that the Qing army did come fast enough, but most of them were cavalry, about two to three thousand cavalry. It seems that most of the costumes were Manchurian Zhenghongqi soldiers stationed in Jinan, sometimes mixed with some Mongols or Han troops. Hetuo's soldiers and horses should be sufficient.

During the Battle of Yantai, 700 Mongolian Eight Banners cavalrymen were attacked by about 200 East Coast cavalrymen during the battle. They were caught off guard and left more than [-] corpses on the spot. .Later, the Hetuo Department who fled to Laizhou lost more than [-] wounded soldiers one after another, and lost nearly a thousand people as a whole, which can be called a rare and major loss since entering the customs.

Although the Eight Banners soldiers suffered losses of more than 1000 soldiers several times in the counterattacks launched by the Shun Army in Henan and Shanxi, it must be known that it was a battle with a scale of 10 people, and the combat effectiveness and fighting will of the Shun Army at that time were much better than they are now. Tenacious, so such losses are not so surprising.However, the Qing army fought several battles with the bandits in yellow, and there were two battles in which the nationalities (Manchus) lost a lot. One was in Baipu Town, Tongzhou, and the other was in Yantai. downwind.These two cavalry clashes between the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners added up to 600 people killed in battle, and the casualties were so large that even Dorgon, who was far away in Beijing, was alarmed.

After Haoge returned to Beijing, it was Luck Dehun who led [-] cavalry to garrison Jinan in charge of the situation in Shandong.This person participated in many major battles during the process of the Manchu Qing going south in history. He wiped out many anti-Qing forces, almost penetrated the entire southern China, and made great contributions to the unification of the Qing court.But in this time and space, he was obviously unlucky. The severe situation around Liaohai made it difficult for him, a veteran general, to be firmly nailed to Jinan.

There is no way, the thieves in yellow are elusive, fighting here today and there tomorrow, exhausting the Qing army.If you gather a large number of troops to pursue and suppress them, the bandits in yellow will pat their buttocks and leave by boat to fight elsewhere, often causing the Qing army to press the gourd and float the ladle, which is very distressing.

This time, hearing that the yellow-clothed thieves were besieging the prefectures and counties of the second prefecture of Denglai, Luck Dehun wanted to rescue them but was extremely hesitant.First of all, after many years of fighting, the yellow-clothed bandits now have a large number of troops and strong combat power.I heard that the yellow-clothed thieves will have no less than [-] troops, so the Qing army must gather at least [-] soldiers and horses to overwhelm them to have a chance of winning, and there must be a considerable proportion of cavalry and artillery among them.

But now the difficulty lies here. The situation in the south is entering a critical moment. A large number of Qing court's effective forces have been transferred to Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, and of course there is the more important battlefield in Hubei.After hundreds of thousands of troops were transferred away, the north was immediately empty.

Before this war, the Qing army stationed about 7 people in Shandong (5 people went south to Yangzhou to help suppress the yellow-clothed thieves in May). After the disastrous defeats in Yantai and Dengzhou, the strength of the Qing court in Shandong has dropped sharply. , there are less than 2 people left, and almost all of them are deployed on the front lines of Qingzhou and Jinan.At this time, there are only thousands of remnant soldiers and defeated generals guarding some cities in the Jiaodong area. They are powerless to harass the people on the east bank, and the people on the east bank don't bother to pay attention to them.

Such a small force seems to be able to repel the yellow-clothed thieves, but don't forget that in order to prevent people from the east coast from landing and fighting everywhere, the Qing court set up three headquarters in Binzhou, Yizhou, Jiaozhou, and Dengzhou. The soldiers and a lieutenant general are also scattered in various places, and it is difficult to gather them together in a short time.At this time, Dengzhou Town had just suffered heavy losses, Jiaozhou Town had also suffered heavy losses (the commander-in-chief Ke Yongsheng was injured), and Yizhou Town had gone south to help Yangzhou a while ago. The [-] green battalion under Thai's command is gone.

His strength plus the remnants of Jiaozhou Town and Dengzhou Town, as well as the small Qing army stationed in various places, add up to only close to 5 people.Moreover, it is thousands of miles away from Laizhou, and there are many food, grass and equipment that need to be purchased for the expedition, so how can they be mobilized in a short time.

That's what Mo Ming came up with this time. He has been in Shandong for many years, and although he doesn't know the details of the strength of the Qing army, he probably has a few.After raging in Jiangbei this time and attracting a large number of Qing troops, he returned to rely on the artillery towers repaired outside Yantai Fort to gradually break through the city walls that besieged Yantai Fort, and then fought continuously with lightning speed, defeating Ke in one fell swoop. The two towns of Qing troops led by Yongsheng, Chen Jin and others killed a lot of people.

After the two Qing armies were severely damaged, the large army on the east bank began to march westward along the coastline to Laizhou, and the small Qing army along the way was powerless to resist.And the east coast army, which has a navy to transport supplies, does not need any logistics transportation lines at all, which makes the remaining Qing troops in Denglai and Denglai lose the ability to harass the east coast logistics.

It can be said that what is placed in front of the small [-] army on the east bank is an unusually empty open land.The only thing that can threaten the people on the east coast in the short term is Jinan's Five Thousand Eight Banners horse team. In Mo Ming's eyes, it was just a plate of dishes, and sending soldiers out to battle could compete with them.Therefore, Marshal Mo, who is currently stationed in Maye County with [-] troops, is full of ambition and excitement. Let's end the five years of fighting career.

"Commander, 2000 people from Qin Shangxing have already lined up at the ferry in the west of the city. They collected a large number of ships. At present, the military team has also built a pontoon bridge with their assistance. The Qing cavalry did not dare to attack. In addition, Zhai Cong'e's department 500 people have also rushed to the west of the city, but they did not dare to cross the river. Captain Mao Desheng, who was in charge of the front enemy command, decided to send two squadrons of the first battalion of the self-propelled team with rich experience to cross the river in case of surprise attack by the enemy.” Do it again Second Lieutenant Junior, who had captured Adjutant Mo Ming, trotted over to report.

The navy's four transport ships that have completed maintenance have just sent two 4500 soldiers from Zhai Cong'er and Qin Shangxing on Jeju Island to the beach of Ye County in the past two days. Under strict surveillance, they didn't dare to make any changes, and could only watch helplessly as the reinforcements from the east bank successfully landed.

"The first battalion and the second battalion of the Eight Banners New Army went out of the city to escort the logistics convoy across the river. The second brigade of the stand-up team assigned a musketeer squadron, and together with the 102nd company of the army, it was under the unified command of Captain Xiao Xi and also escorted the logistics convoy. Captain Zhang Xudong Take the main force of the first wing and get ready to go, and the rest of the troops will continue to stand by." Mo Ming quickly gave the order.

Although there were two or three thousand Qing cavalry peeping outside the city, Mo Ming didn't take them seriously.Now the work in Ye County has almost been completed, and the county that was ransacked by the East Coasters for the second time actually has nothing to offer.But it doesn't matter, the biggest oil and water in the county is the population.So under Marshal Mo's order, thousands of people in Ye County were forcibly forced onto the four boats of the East Coasters whether they wanted to or not, and their destination was neither Yantai nor Jeju, but Dengzhou.

Yes, that's right, Dengzhou!When Marshal Mo held a military meeting two days ago to discuss the series of cities that had been conquered this time, all the generals agreed that Dengzhou City should be permanently occupied.Especially Chen Zhilong, who had just surrendered, knelt down and begged Marshal Mo to occupy Dengzhou and not let him "return to the hands of the Tartars".

Although Mo Ming is not very enthusiastic about occupying Dengzhou - because it will obviously divide the troops of the people on the east bank, but considering that the famous city of Denglai has high walls, deep pools and backs to the sea (there is a water city leading directly to the sea), it is indeed A pretty nice port city.More importantly, the capital city occupying the Denglai area has great political significance. If the Manchu Qing cannot recover Dengzhou for a long time, the impact will be extremely bad. Many former Ming generals who have surrendered to the Manchu Qing will inevitably There will also be a lot of doubts.

Besides, part of the army was surrendered in this battle, and how to place them has now become a difficult problem.It is naturally impossible for these green battalions of the Qing army to let them fight in the field, but if they are only defending the city, they are still more than capable.Thinking of this, Mo Ming quickly made a decision to occupy Dengzhou City permanently.At the same time, he also began to send orders to the soldiers on the east bank who stayed in Dengzhou City to immediately organize the people in the city to repair the city wall that had just been bombarded by the artillery on the east bank.

And Heishui City will also squeeze out some ships tonnage to transport a large amount of cement and red bricks after being notified. The difficulty of the enemy's siege.The repaired Dengzhou City will be guarded by Chen Zhilong. This guy and his core subordinates not only beheaded many soldiers from the Eight Banners and high officials of the Qing court in public, but also wrote a lot of pornographic articles about Dorgon and Shunzhi's mother. It's hard to turn back.

Well, when the time comes, let this guy collect more surrendered troops, and hand over Dengzhou City to him, so that there is no need to divide the troops of the East Bank army.At most, he could support some artillerymen trained locally in Yantai. These artillerymen were unified under the command of the officers on the east coast, and were responsible for killing and injuring the Qing army's active forces when the Qing army attacked the city. If the army wants to take down Dengzhou City, it will be very difficult.

As for the water village in Dengzhou City, there was originally a "small sea" in it that could moor a large number of ships, but it had not been taken care of for many years in the late Ming Dynasty, and the silting was serious.At present, the water depth is only more than one meter, and only small boats can barely get in and out. Large steam engine sailboats cannot enter at all. Therefore, the attraction of this port to people on the east coast is greatly reduced. Let Chen Zhilong toss it. Anyway, when the Qing army attacked, they would die. Not his own lineage troops.

On August 1647, 8, under the watchful eyes of thousands of cavalry from the Qing army, the entire army on the east coast crossed Ye River and continued to march westward. Their next destination was Changyi County.

(End of this chapter)