A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 538 Crossing the River
Lao Bainiu: I went to Xiamen, then transferred to Shanghai, and now I’m finally back.

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When the Ming army went out to assemble, the Qing army under the city of Jinzhou also went out to form a camp.

Large and small arrays of Qing troops flying various flags spread across the north and west of Jinzhou City, as well as the south across the Xiaoling River.

At this time, the city of Jinzhou had already been besieged by walls and ditches. The layout of Huangtu Ridge and Rufeng Mountain was the same as that of Huangtuling and Rufeng Mountain.

A main wall and a deep trench, plus two shallower trenches. In front of the first trench, thick wooden stakes are placed, with ropes tied to the stakes and bells hung. Hounds are set up by the many stakes.

Because they are located on the Pingchuan wilderness, these moats were excavated and built higher and deeper than Rufeng Mountain and Huangtu Ridge. The curved main wall, together with the moat in front of the wall, circled the entire city of Jinzhou for dozens of miles. long.

In particular, on the side of the main wall facing the city, countless crenels were built so that the besieging army could calmly guard against the crenels.

Because the three trenches are not far away, they are all within the firing range of the Qing army's bows and arrows and bird guns, so it is very difficult for the Ming army in the city to charge out.

And behind the main wall, there are big camps of the Qing army's banners. In front of the big camp, low walls and trenches are also dug, and if Jinzhou City is besieged, there are four barriers.

In addition, there are a large number of hounds guarding the trenches. These Manchurian dogs are extremely cautious. Whenever they hear the bell at night, they will group up and bark.Zu Dashou in Jinzhou City tried to break through the siege countless times, but it was difficult to break through the siege of the Qing army.

Moreover, the Qing army was tightly surrounded and airtight, making it difficult for the defenders in the city to go out of the city to collect firewood. In fact, Jinzhou City currently has enough food and grass, but it lacks firewood. The defenders have already demolished houses and doors for cooking. Many chariots were chopped off to burn firewood.

Not only that, after the Qing army withdrew its troops from Shimen Mountain and other places on a large scale, on the east and north sides of Jinzhou City, a few miles away from the Nuerhe River, the same arc-shaped wall rose from the ground.It is the same type of two ditches and three walls, and the walls are higher, the trenches are deeper, and each trench is densely covered with sharp wooden thorn traps.

In this place, many cannons of Wuzhenhachao Cannon Battalion of the Han Army Banner are arranged on the high earthen wall. The range of these cannons mostly covers both sides of the Daughter River. Faced with these terrible defensive measures.

If the Ming army crosses the Baigu River, in addition to facing the impact of the Mongolian Eight Banners cavalry stationed on Liangjia Mountain and the banks of the Baigu River, the artillery fire from the Wuzhenhachao Battalion of the Han Army Banner can also attack them from the side. .

It is conceivable that if Wang Dou hadn't changed his attack strategy, the Ming army would have been strewn with corpses and blood on both sides of the Naughty River, east and north of Jinzhou City.

In particular, the south bank of the Daughter River is narrow, with many mountains and few plains, so the troops cannot be deployed. They can only endure the raging artillery of the Qing army on the other side, and use the tactics of refueling to transport the troops bit by bit.

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The deployment of the Qing army was rigorous. They crossed the road and garrisoned camps. When they spread out their formation, it seemed that the entire wilderness outside the city of Jinzhou was covered by a sea of ​​their flags and armor.All the flags were in full formation, waiting for the Ming army to cross the river.

The Han Army’s Gushan Ezhenlong banner with the crescent moon symbol flutters, and next to the eight woven golden dragon banners, there is another tall Taijitu banner. Yizheng Jin nodded, looking at his daughter He's side.

The place where they stood was on the Tucheng not far from the Nvnu River in the east of Jinzhou City. At the crenels of the Tucheng at this time, there were many Eight Banners Han soldiers who were no different from the Manchurian soldiers, and there were also red soldiers. Foam nailed cotton armor, a North Korean soldier with a three-pronged pole on the top of the helmet.

Most of these armored soldiers of the Han Army Banners were armed with blunderbusses. After Huang Taiji formed the Eight Banners of Han, the total number of Han army cattle recorded in the Eight Banners reached more than [-], and the number of Dingkou was more than [-], which was more than that of the Eight Banners of Mongolia.

These Dingkou are all counted as soldiers, Yu Ding, the many coated slaves are not counted in Niulu Dingkou.

They are also not qualified to participate in battles, and at most they serve as handymen during wartime, doing some coolie work such as transporting grain and grass, digging trenches, building equipment, and feeding horses.If you work hard, you may be selected into the Eight Banners of Han Dynasty.

At this time, there were about 8000 Gunners in the Han Army Banner, distributed among the Han Army Banners, and the rest were sword, shield and gunmen.The most powerful force is Kong Youde's 3000-strong blunderbuss unit, which once fought against the Shunxiang Army in Pinggu.

In addition to these Han army flags and Korean soldiers, the huge artillery group of Wuzhenhachao Artillery Battalion is also all deployed here.

Including the Heavenly Blessing and Cheering General Cannons made of gold in the future, some artillery pieces brought by Kong Youde from Dengzhou, and the Shenwei General Cannons cast later in the Qing Dynasty. At this time, there are more than 150 large and small Hongyi Cannons in the Wuzhenhachao Cannon Battalion .

In the past years, a lot of Flang machines and other guns were seized from the Ming army. For example, when the Qing army fought against Bai Guangen's Jizhen army a few days ago, they captured many chariots and hundreds of various Flang machines in one go.However, due to the lack of gunners, these seized Francophones and other cannons have always been seldom used, and have been piled up in the warehouse to accumulate dust.

Even so, because there were many French robot gunners in the Qing Dynasty, Hong Yi, represented by Eduardo, had trained the Qing country gunners for several years. Artillery troops, so the strength of the Wuzhenhachao Artillery Battalion in the Qing Dynasty should not be underestimated.

If it weren't for Wang Dou's appearance, based on how familiar this army is with gun gauges, gun rulers, square meters, and artillery, no one in the Ming army's artillery troops could be their opponent.

In fact, when the Qing army entered the pass, Kong Youde's artillery unit made great contributions to the Qing's siege of the city.

The emerging power group has a terrifying ability to learn. A few days ago, the Ming army piled up sandbags and soil bags in front of the artillery to prevent artillery fire. At this time, these Qing gunners have learned well.

On the earth city, high platforms were built one after another. On those high platforms, there were a series of Shenwei heavy artillery pieces of the Qing army. In front of each artillery piece, there were layers of earth bags. Prevent shells from harming gunners and artillery.

The sound of various flags hunting, standing here, you can clearly see the situation on the other side of the Naughty River, the movement of the Ming army, and waves of Qing army sentry cavalry, and from time to time send back detailed information about the Ming army on the other side of the river.

Kong Youde is the only person who owns a binoculars among the Gegu Mountains of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty. He holds the binoculars with great vigor and looks at his daughter He Fang from time to time.

In the binoculars, the Ming army on the south bank of the river was densely packed. Not only the riverbank was covered with their formations, but some gentle mountains were also full of their troops.

Looking at their banners, one can tell that the first targets to cross the river are Ma Ke and Tang Tong's Shan Haijun and Miyun Army.

Crossing the river and grabbing the beach are actually a series of very complicated tactics, which require a lot of organizational skills of all parties. It can be seen that Ma Ke and Tang Tong lack this ability, and the performance of all parties displayed is messy.

Because all the pontoon bridges on the Daughter River were burned down by the Qing army, there were many Ming army ships floating on the river at this time, including large ships, small boats, and many small sampans. , and then lined up in rows, covered with planks, and connected with chains and ropes.

The ant-like folk craftsmen either carried planks back and forth, or felled wood on the spot, and split some trees into planks. The materials used to build the pontoon bridge are also varied, even door panels.The sound of slogans, orders, and roars made the Daughter River very lively, and it was like a large market for a while.

In order to protect the civilian craftsmen and craftsmen, it can be seen that the Ming army used some warships of the Longwu Navy of Juehua Island.These warships drove back and forth, transporting batches of Ming troops ashore, and then these people formed some chaotic formations on the river beach, nervously defending.

There are only a few places where the Daughter River can be easily landed. In some shallow water areas, warships cannot dock, and some small sampans are lowered from the warships. They are all swords and shields.

After they landed, all of them had different images, some were swearing, some were shouting, some even grew up in the inland land, and they were terrified even when they got on the boat, and after getting off the boat, they just lay on the ground and didn't move for a long time.

Then, under Shangguan's roar, he reluctantly formed a defensive line by the river.

On the whole, the crossing of the river by Ma Ke and Tang Tongbu was progressing slowly, and there was no ugly Yinmao for a long time. After a long time, the people who crossed the river were also sparse, accounting for only a very small part of the total number of them.

Seeing their unhurried appearance, the Qing army on the other side was anxious for them.

Some sentry cavalry of the Qing army, as well as the artillery of the Wuzhenhachao Cannon Battalion, occasionally attacked them when the Ming army built a pontoon bridge and crossed the river by boat. .

In fact, Eduardo, the commander of the Uzenhachao Artillery Battalion, once surveyed the geographical terrain on the north bank of the Daughter River in detail. Like in Huangtu Ridge, every few dozen steps, the riverside area was marked, and the gunners in the battalion , just press the mark to shell, the accuracy cannot be so low.

This is also the purpose of the Qing army to release the water, lest the Ming army suffer heavy casualties when crossing the river, and scare them away from crossing the river.Nor can it fail to hit all the shots, causing the Ming army to have doubts, and it is also possible to stop crossing the river.

When the Qing army attacked, the Flang planes on the naval warships of the Ming army also fired back, and some Flang planes in the towns of the Make Department and the Tang Tong Department on the shore also fired cover.

Because of the strong request of Ma Ke and others, Fu Tingfu, a guerrilla from the Shenji Battalion who had supported Ma Ke and others, once again led some of his soldiers and horses to support the troops crossing the river with [-] mortars and [-] rocket vehicles.However, Fu Tingfu was shrewd and refused to cross the river first anyway. He only set up the artillery on the mountains behind and bombarded the small group of cavalry forced by the Qing army.

Generally speaking, the artillery of the Ming army could hardly pose a threat to the Wuzhenha super artillery battalion in Tucheng and the harassing Qing cavalry.The Qing Artillery Battalion, out of strategic considerations, basically focused on frightening, and each other's artillery caused very few casualties to both sides.

Seeing the movement of the Ming army in the binoculars, Kong Youde snorted coldly. If it weren't for the emperor's strict order, a burst of artillery bombardment from his Wuzhenhachao artillery battalion would have crushed the Ming army on both sides of the Naughty River. and flee.

At the same time, he regretted that Wang Dou's Jingbian army did not appear by the daughter's river at this time, otherwise, under the sharp artillery of his own side, his army would definitely suffer a lot, and let out a lot of bad breath in Pinggu back then .

(End of this chapter)