Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 755

On March 1649, 3, outside Yidu County.With his left hand on his hip and his right hand holding a pipe, Mao Desheng stared at the snow-melted road in front of him, silent.

On the official road a hundred meters away, soldiers from the east coast in cotton-padded clothes were walking in the muddy snow, pushing their carts forward with difficulty.The cart was loaded with heavy gunpowder barrels, which were filled with gunpowder stocks made in the gunpowder workshops in Yangma Island and Jeju Island. The horses pulling the cart were driven forward desperately by the whip. With assistance, the carriage was pulled out of a mud pit.

And behind them, is a heavy 12-pounder cannon.This long-barreled heavy gun is extremely heavy. It is a local high-caliber artillery designed and cast for the Far East battlefield. It has a long range, but its powerful siege ability is its most worthy of boast.At this time, this dreadful siege weapon was also struggling on the muddy ground. Four Mongolian horses were strangled by the reins and neighing loudly. Dozens of soldiers pushed and pulled, which made the artillery move slowly. up.

The soldiers were all exhausted at this time, but the officer leading the team still did not let the next group of people go into battle. He was wearing muddy leather boots, encouraging the soldiers in Chinese with a strong accent, asking them to persevere. In the last 5 minutes, transport the artillery to the emplacement that has been built.

The rumble of artillery was still sounding ahead, that was the field artillery (mostly light and small-caliber artillery) that had arrived earlier was shelling the enemy's position.The Qing army also built several strong camps on the hills outside Yidu County (that is, Qingzhou City). These camps were stationed with green battalion soldiers transferred from Dongchang Mansion, and there were also some Manchurian Eight Banners who supervised the battle. The resistance was tougher in the face of the attack launched by the East Coasters.

And with these strongholds in place, the army on the east bank outside the city was like a thorn in their backs, unable to attack the city with all their strength.Especially when the artillery units fell behind due to poor road conditions, the army on the east bank could only rely on their own flesh and blood to attack the established positions of the Qing army.However, these soldiers from the green battalion of the Qing army did not know whether they had taken the wrong medicine or what. To fight?

Although the people on the east coast guessed it was not very accurate, it was not very far from the truth.After Jiang Guan's rebellion in January, the Qing court lost its position for a while. Dorgon, who actually held the power of the Qing court, immediately judged that this rebel army must be wiped out as quickly as possible, otherwise the impact will be extremely bad.But to wipe out Jiang Yu and the various Shanxi rebels who responded to his uprising needed troops, but what the Qing government lacks in the north now is troops!

The goddamn yellow-clothed bandits were making too much noise in Shandong, and then the Yuyuan Army, Qingshan Bandit, Mule Army, Tuanlian Army, Dongping Bandit, and Li Huajing Rebel Army responded accordingly, causing the Qing court to transfer almost all mobile forces in the north Going to Shandong, there are 15 soldiers from the Seventh Army and more than 3 soldiers from the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia.A total of 18 troops were trapped in Shandong, but their opponents, the Huangyi thieves, were no more than 6 or [-] (most of them were mobs). The embarrassment of this made the Qing generals in Shandong speechless .

Since Shandong has attracted so many troops, how many soldiers can the Qing Dynasty use?Dorgon did the math, and there were no more than 4 people in total—almost all of them were Manchurian Eight Banners stationed in Beijing.Oh, maybe there are no more than 4 people now, because veteran Ji Erhalang has led more than 1 Manchurian Eight Banners to the south to Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, and organized a comprehensive campaign to wipe out the "rebellion" of Jin Shenghuan and Wang Deren. The number of Eight Banners is less than [-].

Daming's world is really too big!All Manchuria's strong men over the age of 14 and under [-] have been conscripted. Including the Eight Mongolian Banners, the total number is only [-]. , most of which are fighting in the south), this force is still seriously insufficient.Now these more than [-] people have been scattered like pepper noodles in the past two years, which makes the northern land extremely empty.

There are only [-] soldiers in Beijing, and there are at most [-] people that can be transferred. After all, everyone's property is here now, so we have to leave heavy troops to guard it.In addition, the [-] Mongolian cavalry guarding Tianjin and the thousands of Eight Banners guarding Jinzhou (military industrial base) were also unable to move. These are important armed forces defending Beijing.

The 3 Eight Banners in Nanjing now partly follow Chen Tai southward to conquer Zhejiang and Fujian, and partly go westward to the Jiujiang area to support Jierhalang's Nanchang offensive, and the rest will guard Nanjing, a city of great political significance. The city has no time to escape.And the Eight Manchurian and Mongolian Banners who are currently fighting in Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan have a total of [-] to [-] people. It seems that [-] of these people can be transferred to Shanxi, but it may be cheaper for He Zhen and Zhang Xianzhong for the time being. .In addition, thousands of people from the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia stationed in Xi'an, Yan'an, and Yulin can also be transferred to the east to replace the north, and by the way, cut off Jiang Guan's escape from the north to the desert as quickly as possible.

After such calculations, the Qing government can deploy only a small number of troops, probably only about 5000 troops from the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia ([-] from Beijing, [-] from the western front, and [-] from northern Shaanxi). , and stationed in various places, it is not easy to gather at once.Under such circumstances, Dorgon decisively decided to transfer another [-] Manchurian Eight Banners from the Shandong battlefield to the north, and quickly went west to Shanxi via North Zhili to quell the local chaos.

In this way, the total number of Manchurian Eight Banners who went to Shanxi to quell the chaos will reach about 5000, which should be able to make up for the shortage of cannon fodder in the Green Camp.It's just that the yellow-clothed thieves in Shandong are "very rampant" and have been fighting against the Qing army for several months at the junction of Qingzhou Prefecture and Laizhou Prefecture. A large number of Qing troops have been dragged here and cannot move.Now if we want to transfer more than [-] Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners from Shandong, where the situation is complicated, to go northward—if possible, we will send tens of thousands of green battalions to Shanxi together.

Therefore, at the beginning of February, Dorgon appointed Luck Dehun in Jinan as the commander-in-chief of the military affairs of Beizhili, Shandong, and Henan provinces. Economy".

In mid-February, as Mao Desheng got the news of the withdrawal of the Qing army—this kind of large-scale army transfer was almost hard to hide from others, the army on the east coast began to move frequently, intending to move westward. At this time, Dorgon went to Shandong again. The second order: "The thieves are cunning and skilled in combat. If they are unable to resist, they should make deep ditches and high fortifications to resist the thieves. All the soldiers in Shandong will be given colorful satin and gold. First, they will be paid in March. If you make meritorious service every day, it is no problem to seal your wife and son, I hope all the troops will encourage them."

At the same time, on February 2, the Qing court also sent someone to Mao Desheng, who was urging Ma Xijin, to send a letter of surrender, which stated clearly: "The Qing Dynasty should be transported to Longxing, and the heroes responded. Before Hong Chengchou and Wu Sangui When you know where the destiny lies, change your mind, I will honor your ambitions, and you will all be rewarded; you should judge the situation, abandon the dark and turn to the bright, enjoy wealth and honor, and make great achievements in the world; otherwise, like Li Chuang, his body will be smashed to pieces, his wife will be humiliated, and the great fortune will no longer be. Yin Jian is not far away..."

Of course, Mao Desheng ignored this nonsense letter of surrender. After sending away the envoys of the Qing court, he repeatedly urged the various ministries to speed up the march, and he was determined not to allow the Qing army to retreat smoothly.

Before Jiang Yu’s rebellion, the Qing army had a total of less than 2 people confronting the east bank army at the junction of Qingzhou and Laizhou. The government and Yanzhou government exterminated the Yuyuan Army and other local bandits who had seriously threatened the rule of the Qing court.After the news of the upheaval in Datong came, the Qing government quickly made a decision to withdraw troops, so Tan Tai led [-] Banner soldiers to leave the battle immediately, and immediately went north from Yanzhou after the assembly was completed. The front line confronting the bandits in yellow quietly transferred back the [-] Mongolian cavalry, and went north to Zhili together.

After these elite troops were taken away, the Qing army on the front line also withdrew quickly before the people on the east coast could react, and then moved into the established position in the rear that had already been repaired, intending to stop the yellow-clothed bandits with all their strength. Advance westward in order to buy enough time for Luck Dehun in Jinan Prefecture to adjust his deployment.And Yidu County is the first and most powerful line of defense they resisted. The people on the east coast only need to defeat the Qing army blocking here, and then they can advance all the way to Jinan Prefecture, and there will be no strength along the way. block.Therefore, this is also destined to be a fierce battle for Qingzhou City.

Since late February, days of cloudy and snowy weather have seriously hindered the pace of the east bank troops.Especially the logistics and artillery units spent a lot of time in the muddy snow.In addition, before the Qing army withdrew, it deliberately destroyed the official road, which added countless difficulties to the march of the East Bank army.Therefore, until today (March 3), the siege artillery arrived outside Qingzhou City belatedly after hundreds of soldiers and a large number of mules and horses shouted and neighed.

The Army's light field artillery arrived two days earlier than they did.Before the arrival of the field artillery, the army on the east bank had already launched several rounds of attacks on the camps outside the city guarded by the Qing army.It's just that I didn't expect that the Qing army was extremely stubborn, and it seemed that there were Eight Banners soldiers supervising the battle, so the East Bank army still failed to completely solve the thorns behind them.At that time, a servant barracks team (more than 126 members of Ding Mingwu's troops, almost all mobs) who participated in the attack on the Qing army camp was defeated by the counterattack of those Eight Banners soldiers, and the entire battalion that went up was defeated. After coming down, there were only [-] people left, which was extremely tragic.

Mao Desheng has no mercy for these miscellaneous troops.After seeing these troops being slaughtered by the Qing army like sheep, he replaced a group of servants expressionlessly and continued to consume the strength of the Qing army.After spending a few days like this, the army's field light artillery finally arrived at the front line.

After the artillery arrived at the front line, Mao Desheng was not in a hurry to order an attack across the board.Instead, let the artillery use limited ammunition to carry out targeted strikes against some solid strongholds of the Qing army in order to continue to destroy the opponent's resistance and will.After two days of bombardment like this, Mao Desheng saw that the time was right, and finally decided to launch a general attack on the Qing army camp outside the city.

At twelve noon on March 3th, thousands of servant soldiers who had eaten their fill finished their formation under the command of the officer.Then Mao Desheng waved his hand, amidst the whistling sound of artillery shells, these soldiers shouted and rushed towards the Qing army camp.

The Qingzhou offensive and defensive battle is officially in full swing!

(End of this chapter)