I want to be emperor

Chapter 417 The Huge Encirclement
Huang Tinghao led his army to surrender when the situation was irretrievable!

With Huang Tinghao's surrender, the Battle of Gaoyouzhou came to an end.

In this battle, on the side of the Ming army, Huang Tinghao's new standard army killed more than 600 people, and there were five or six hundred people who were seriously injured. The remaining people who were intact and slightly injured were less than a thousand people.

There were also many casualties among the soldiers in the guard, at least nearly a thousand people were killed or injured.

As for the Chu army, because they had an absolute superiority in military strength and firepower, the casualties were not too large. The main reason was that they were attacked by the enemy's new standard forces several times in the early stage of the battle, and some people were killed or injured in the melee.

According to the final statistics, more than 200 people were killed and more than [-] were injured.

In addition to killing the enemy and capturing Gaoyou Prefecture, the results of the Chu army also captured a lot of spoils.

Including the weapons and equipment of the Ming army, including more than 600 matchlock guns made locally by the Ming army, more than 800 bird guns, four field guns weighing two and a half catties, more than ten short-barreled general guns weighing more than two hundred catties, Buddha Lang machine cannons, etc. In addition, there are dozens of bowl-mouth cannons weighing tens of catties and hundreds of catties, and tiger crouching cannons.

And there are more armor, swords, spears, and fire door guns.

In addition, dozens of war horses and more than 100 batches of mules and horses were seized.

In the end, a batch of food and cash floats were also seized.

Among them, the gold and silver floating wealth is naturally obtained from the ransacking of the officials and recalcitrant gentry in the city, and the food is the original military rations of the Ming army, as well as the grain stored in some grain stores in the city controlled by the officials and recalcitrant gentry.

Overall, the harvest is quite good.

Lieutenant General Li Dongshao was also in a good mood about this.

After the Battle of Gaoyouzhou, Li Dongshao left a reinforced battalion in the local area to guard, guarding and reorganizing thousands of prisoners of war by the way, while he himself led the main force down the canal to Yangzhou City.

Just as he said before, the fourth division is still waiting for his first guard division outside Yangzhou city.

The strength of the Ming army in Yangzhou City is much larger than that in Gaoyouzhou. Song Zushun deployed about 1 main forces of the Jiangbei New Standard Army in Yangzhou. In addition, there are about [-] guards in Yangzhou to assist in defense.

The strength of the Ming army in the entire Yangzhou city is about 2, and there are more than 20 large and small long-barreled artillery.

Although the strength of the Fourth Division that attacked Yangzhou City in the early stage is not bad, it is still more troublesome if you want to harden Yangzhou City, which has perfect fortifications and a large number of enemy troops. City, I am afraid that the Fourth Division will also suffer heavy losses.

When one's own side has an advantage in military strength, the high-level Chu army will naturally not let the fourth division fight alone under the city of Yangzhou, but let the first guard division take Gaoyouzhou first, and then go south, and the fourth division The division launched the final general attack on Yangzhou City together.

The Fourth Division arrived at Yangzhou City first. In addition to carrying out a lot of preparations and clearing out some outlying strongholds of the Ming army, it also aimed to contain the Ming army in the city and prevent them from sending troops to reinforce Gaoyouzhou or simply running away!

The core goal of the Chu army's Jiangbei campaign is to occupy the Jiangbei area, but they also want to kill all the main forces of the Ming army in the Jiangbei area.

It is necessary to let them flee back to Shandong, Henan and other places in the north and continue to fight against the Chu army.

When most of the main force of the First Guards Division went south to Yangzhou City, several other units of the Chu Army also came into contact with the Ming Army one after another and battles broke out.

On the front line of Haizhou, the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Army escorted by the Navy, with the cooperation of the Navy's [-]st Marine Regiment, began to advance inland after capturing Yuzhou Island, and successfully captured Haizhou City three days later.

Immediately, a large number of ships transporting logistics materials of the Chu army began to use the wharf of Haizhou City to unload a large amount of combat materials, including a large amount of food, ammunition and artillery.

The previous batch of nine-pound field artillery was too heavy, and when they landed on Yuzhou Island, they landed directly on the beach. This kind of heavy field artillery was not easy to move down directly, so they waited until the Chu army captured the outside of Haizhou City. Behind a wharf that can berth sea ships, a batch of six nine-pound field guns were moved down.

These six nine-pound field guns are the main artillery of the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade. With these six nine-pound field guns, the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade will continue to advance inland and lose the navy's naval artillery fire. After providing full support, it can also ensure that it still has the support of large-caliber artillery.

No.20 Three Mixed Brigade, the designation of this mixed brigade was actually obtained in the last few days. Before that, they were actually subordinate troops of the No.15 Division, and the No.15 Division was actually a No.15 mixed brigade The brigade expanded.

In order to land on Yuzhou Island, capture Suqian, and cut Huai'an from Xuzhou, Shandong and other places, the Army directly transferred an infantry regiment, a supply battalion, five artillery posts, and a The cavalry battalion formed a mixed force.

Considering that the unit will fight independently on the front line in the future, in order to better command, the Army simply reported that this mixed unit was separately organized as the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Army. Direct supplementation at the rear.

In other words, the current mixed force no longer belongs to the No. 15 division, but belongs to an independent combat unit.

And this independent combat unit is different from the Chu army that participated in the Jiangbei Battle and other battles in the past!
They are a new type of army that uses quick-fire rifles and its infantry is all musketeers.

As a result, after several days of fighting with the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Chu Army, the thousands of Ming Army guards stationed there, they didn't even see a single spearman...

This once made the local Ming army guards very confused...

At the same time, they also discovered that the firearms of these Chu thief musketeers were different. They could fire without a matchlock, and they could advance in a dense formation when fighting...

When these Chu thieves advanced in a dense formation, their firepower was very fierce, completely exceeding the expectations of the Ming army.

These Ming soldiers have actually seen the firepower of the new standard army, but compared with the firepower of these Chu thieves, the firepower of the new standard army is at least several times worse.

The powerful firepower of the infantry is also the reason why the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Army was able to quickly take down Haizhou City after landing without large-caliber field guns and mortars.

Fusiliers and arquebuses seem to have similar rates of fire, but because fusiliers can form a denser formation side by side, they can concentrate more troops in a fixed width to form a stronger firepower density.

And the stronger firepower density, coupled with the bayonet, is enough to allow the shooter to directly undertake all infantry combat tasks on the battlefield, and they do not need spearmen for cover...

After the spearmen were not needed, after these spearmen were transformed into fusiliers, the firepower density of the troops was further doubled.

This has also led to the fact that the firepower of the new infantry using flintlock guns must be at least three or four times higher than that of the old main force using matchlock guns and spearmen!
This is why the flintlock can completely eliminate the matchlock gun!
The four times or even more increase in firepower density will form a huge tactical advantage on the battlefield.

But the local Ming army didn't know about this. They just marveled at the sharpness of the Chu thief's guns, and then either fled or surrendered after being unable to resist.

Few people even paid attention to the infantry firepower of the Chu army, why it suddenly became so powerful.

The Ming army’s thinking, the Chu army would naturally not respond to it. After the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade captured Haizhou City, it only took a day to rest and replenish supplies, and began to kill in the direction of Suqian the next day. .

As for the garrison work of Haizhou City and Yuzhou Island, it was fully handed over to the First Marine Regiment of the Navy.

The No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Army headed all the way to Suqian. At the same time, another new unit in the Chu Army, the Tenth Division, also arrived in Sizhou and launched an attack.

The Tenth Division, this is actually the first new division-level unit in the Chu Army, earlier than the Second Guards Division.

Although this is the first time for this unit to participate in large-scale actual combat, it has been trained for more than a year before, and has also participated in some low-intensity operations to encircle and suppress illegal armed forces in Jiangnan, southern Anhui and other places.

So although the fight was a bit naive at the beginning, after two days of fighting, the Tenth Division showed the combat effectiveness that the main force should have.

They quickly captured Sizhou.

Thousands of Ming troops in Sizhou either surrendered or fled, but did not make too strong a resistance.

In fact, in the first ten days of the Jiangbei Campaign, the Chu army successively launched three large-scale battles: the Haizhou Campaign, the Gaoyouzhou Campaign, and the Sizhou Campaign.

Only Huang Tinghao's troops in Gaoyou Prefecture resisted stubbornly!

The Ming army in the direction of Haizhou and Sizhou is mainly composed of local guards and even young and strong civilians. The will to resist is very weak, and the combat effectiveness is also very poor, not to mention the level of equipment. There are not many general guns...

Therefore, their resistance was more of a symbolic one, and it did not play any role other than serving as a sharpening stone for the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade and the Tenth Division, two new troops.

With the capture of Sizhou by the Tenth Division of the Chu Army, Zhu Dadian's headquarters in the direction of Hefei and Fengyang have been initially cut off, and the editor's water contact with Yang Sichang's department in the direction of Huai'an has been initially cut off.

After all, by controlling Sizhou, the Chu army can directly strangle the inland river traffic from the middle and upper reaches of the Huaihe River to Hongze Lake.

Without the water channel of the Huaihe River, although Huai'an and Fengyang can still maintain contact, it will not be so convenient, especially large-scale troop transfers will be more troublesome.

And this is also the tactical goal of the Tenth Division of the Chu Army to capture Sizhou first.

Immediately afterwards, the Tenth Division did not stop, nor did it mobilize eastward to Huai'an, but divided into two groups. The No. 30 Eighth Infantry Regiment as the core marched westward along the Huaihe River, trying to capture Jiuxian and other places , All the way to Fengyang City.

The No. 30 Ninth Infantry Regiment as the core reinforced regiment, under the cover of the Tenth Cavalry Regiment, went north to Taoyuan County, trying to join forces with the No. 20 Three-Mixed Brigade of the Army heading towards Suqian.

At the same time, the First Cavalry Brigade also wandered from Fengyang to Sizhou, closely monitoring and intercepting possible large-scale enemy cavalry, and covering the safety of the main infantry and other troops in the rear.

Looking at the attack direction of the Tenth Division and the First Cavalry Brigade, it is not difficult to see that the strategic task of the Tenth Division is to cut off the connection between Zhu Dadian's troops and Yang Sichang's troops, and at the same time cooperate with the No.20 three mixed brigade to cut off Yang Sichang's troops. The Ministry and the rear Shandong, Henan and other directions of the Ming army.

If you look at it on the map, you will find that the 20th Division and the No. [-] No. [-] Mixed Brigade are like two fists, one left and one right swinging towards the hinterland of the Ming army. Once the two fists join forces.

Then a huge strategic encirclement will appear!

Whether it is Yang Sichang's department or Song Zushun's department, they will all be surrounded by this narrow area along the Jiangbei Canal.

This is also the reason why the Chu army only fought around the periphery in the early stage of the battle, but they did not attack Yangzhou by force, nor did they rush to Huai'an.

Because as long as the Chu army captured the peripheral places such as Suqian, Taoyuan, Sizhou, Gaoyouzhou, etc., Yang Sichang's troops and Song Zushun's troops would be two dishes of the Chu army's appetizers.

Even if they huddled in Huai'an and Yangzhou in the future, it would not change the ending of their entire army being wiped out.

(End of this chapter)