Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2367: Battle of Bihar (Part )
The Western Expedition Army of Southern Xinjiang defeated the vanguard of the Eastern Expedition of the Mughal Empire outside the city of Rajmahar, and the empire's Padishah Jahangir retreated to this location - Gao Youshi received the battle report at this location.

The battle report was written by Liu Xin, who almost completely downplayed his own role in the report, and praised Gao Yuan's correct command and the outstanding performance of officers at all levels from all angles. At first glance, there was nothing wrong with it, but Gao Youshi obviously would not accept it without thinking, as he could predict that Gao Yuan's command must have been guided by Liu Xin.

However, it doesn't matter. Being able to listen to correct opinions and accept them carefully is also a proof of being an excellent commander. At least from this point of view, Gao Yuan is still qualified.

As for whether Gao Yuan took the initiative to accept the guidance or had to accept the guidance because of the strict order from his father Gao Youshi, it is hard to say. All I can say is that from the words used in Liu Xin's battle report, Gao Yuan's cooperation should be good, and the probability of him taking the initiative to accept the guidance is higher.

Of course, Gao Youshi thought that he knew Liu Xin better. He judged that if Gao Yuan pretended to obey her but secretly disobeyed her, or even privately resisted her, she would most likely explain the situation directly to him - she had this special trait.

The question now is, what will happen next? Gao Fusi's understanding of India's history and geography is far less than that of China and Europe, so he immediately found a map drawn by Jinghua. The accuracy of this map is not as good as the one drawn for the Ming Dynasty, but it is basically enough.

Gao Fusi first found the location of Rajmahar (Note: this place basically corresponds to Rajshahi in later generations), roughly imagined the terrain conditions, and then connected it with Liu Xin's battle report. A 3D battlefield situation map immediately formed in his mind - this was certainly not Gao Fusi's sudden change of system flow, but an ability formed after playing many games such as "Total War", which normal players should have.

Now that Jahangir has retreated from Rajmahar, he should have retreated to Bihar. The two sides should form a short-term confrontation, and then it depends on whether Jahangir's desire to attack is strong or weak. If he is strong, he will soon launch another attack. If he is weak, he may need to wait for about half a month before attacking again - Gao Youshi estimated that half a month should be enough time for the Mughal Empire's army to gather.

If we infer from the results of the Battle of Rajmahar, it seems that the Southern Xinjiang Army fought this battle a bit conservatively. It seems that if the Southern Xinjiang Army had not chosen to just use more than a thousand elite cavalry to attack and dampen the enemy's morale, but had directly gone out of the city to fight a decisive battle with the Mughal vanguard, they might have been able to wipe out the vanguard.

However, this is actually impossible, because from the perspective of the battle situation, the Southern Xinjiang Army's troop disadvantage is obvious. Liu Xin, who is on the front line, is unlikely to adopt a desperate combat approach, but will try to play it as safe as possible.

This requires a review of the force structure of the Southern Xinjiang Army during this Western Expedition. This Western Expedition was divided into two routes, the northern and southern routes. The commander of the northern route was Ruan Song, who was the deputy commander of the Pegu Garrison Army and the commander of the Second Town before the war; the deputy commander was Xia Zhongming, the crown prince of Pegu. The northern route army had 12700 troops from the Second Town of the Pegu Garrison Army, plus 5000 southern troops from the Pegu Royal Palace Guard, a total of 17700 people, known as . After successfully capturing Arakan, this northern route army stayed in Arakan as a temporary garrison and did not continue westward to Bangladesh.

Therefore, the Nanjiang Western Expeditionary Army that entered Bengal was actually another route, namely the Southern Route Army, the main force of the Western Expedition. Aside from the surface forces provided by the Nanyang Fleet, the Southern Route Army's land force deployment was as follows:
定南警备军第二镇统制高思纲部12700人；金边警备军第三镇统制高思峣部12700人；义安府黄应聘部狼兵一协4500余人(本编4038人，临时加强了一营马队、一营炮队)；暂编旧港警备军第三镇岑云汉部第一协约4500人(有高珗临时给予的加强)；万象警备军第二镇第一协岑懋仁部约4000人；金边警备军第三镇第二协黄从辙部约4000人；海东府黄氏狼兵第二镇第一协黄南锦部约4000人；高渊南下时高务实派给他的精锐武装家丁1000余人。

Adding up the above forces, we can see that the total force of the Southern Xinjiang Western Expedition Army entering Bengal was about 47000, which is only half of the Mughal Empire's Eastern Expedition Army.

Although after occupying Bengal, the South Xinjiang Army also gained the allegiance of some local armed forces (i.e. the similar vassal armed forces under the Mapuni system of the Mughal Empire mentioned above), and even took the lead in organizing some security forces, these people obviously could not be fully trusted by the South Xinjiang Army - whether in terms of loyalty or combat effectiveness, the South Xinjiang Army could not trust them.

In other words, when the main force of the Mughal Empire attacked, the Southern Xinjiang Army could only rely on its own troops that had entered Bengal, totaling less than 50,000 people. What's worse, the security situation in Bengal has only improved slightly from the worst time, and a large number of Southern Xinjiang main forces still need to be left behind to guard and deter, so that there are actually only about 30,000 main forces in Rajmahar City on the front line.

These troops were only roughly equivalent to the vanguard of the Mughal Empire. Liu Xin certainly couldn't throw all his troops into battle - it wouldn't matter if he won, but if he lost, he would be doomed. Even a draw was unacceptable, and too much loss was also unacceptable, otherwise what was the point of fighting in the follow-up battle?
Superior forces have their own ways of fighting, and inferior forces have their own ways of fighting. We can't even apply Nurhaci's fighting method in the historical Battle of Sarhu, "No matter how many routes you come, I will only go one route", because after Nurhaci's troops were gathered into one route, they had a clear advantage in force against any of the three routes of the Ming army. In the Battle of Rajmahal, even if the Nanjiang Army in the city came out in full force, they could not form a force advantage over the vanguard of the Mughal Empire.

Therefore, the situation that Gao Youshi could judge now was very clear: Liu Xin and others were forced to fight a "reckless battle" outside the city due to insufficient troops and the lack of a stable ruling foundation in the local area. Therefore, they decided to fight a defensive battle in Rajmahar, or at most a defensive counterattack (which required the main force of the Mughal army to suffer serious setbacks and damage under the city). Then they took advantage of Jahangir's underestimation of the enemy and defeated the vanguard of the Mughal Empire first, gaining a morale advantage, which was beneficial to the possible long-term defense of the city.

From the current actual situation, this plan is the safest, because even if all of Jahangir's troops arrive and rely on their strength to surround Rajmahal on three sides and cut off the land supply route of the Southern Xinjiang Army, it will be useless. First, the Southern Xinjiang Army has already stored a large amount of food in the city, and second, there is a big river to the south of Rajmahal. With the Southern Xinjiang Army's strong water advantage, this water supply route is safe.

However, even so, Gao Youshi still felt that it was not right to just defend Rajmahar, and he must make some moves in other areas, which is what the art of war says "to unite with the right forces and to win with the unexpected."

Rajmahar is not Moscow, and it is impossible to rely on General Dong to "cripple" the enemy. As long as Jahangir does not lose his mind and slowly retreats as soon as he finds that his losses are too heavy, the Southern Xinjiang Army can only watch him retreat safely, and the whole battle will have limited significance.

But if they could achieve a surprise victory, for example, by taking advantage of the water route and quietly mobilizing an elite force to encircle the Mughal army from behind, and then the Southern Xinjiang Army in the city launched a coordinated attack, they might be able to achieve a great victory by attacking from both sides.

Of course, whether this plan will be implemented depends on the level of vigilance of the Mughal army. If the enemy is very alert and has specially arranged a group of elite troops behind the army to prepare for a surprise attack, this plan will basically fail.

However, the advantage of water routes can still be utilized, and the only thing to do is to change the sneak attack on the Mughal army's rear to harassing its food supply - because the gap in troop strength is too large, it is basically impossible to cut off the enemy's food supply, and the most that can be done is harassment.

But Gao Youshi thought about it again and felt that doing so would probably still be mostly a psychological blow, and the actual effect might be average. The reason was that the Ganges Plain was originally a rich grain-producing area. Even if the Mughal army's grain route was really harassed, they might still collect grain locally. Although it would cause serious damage to the local area, it would definitely help them overcome the military food shortage.

Now, Gao Youshi was also a bit troubled. According to his usual combat habits, he rarely fought such a battle with inferior forces. After all, he never thought that he had the ability of Napoleon in the military level, and could win a big battle like the Battle of the Three Emperors with inferior forces.

His advantages are actually mainly before the war - I have the ability to form a series of advantages before the war, such as manpower advantage, equipment advantage, logistics advantage, organizational advantage, etc., so when the war really comes, as long as I don't recklessly attack, I will win by just attacking directly.

But this is not the case with Bengal now. Basically, except for the advantage of "elite soldiers and sufficient food", the gap in military strength is too large, much greater than Napoleon's military disadvantage in the Battle of the Three Emperors - at that time, the French army had 74000 people, and the Russian-Austrian coalition army had 86000 people.

What is the situation in Rajmahal now? The Southern Xinjiang Army has about 30,000 people (not including surface forces and sailors), while the Mughal Army has more than 90,000 people.

After much thought, Gao Youshi still felt that this military disadvantage was too great. After all, based on the performance of the Southern Xinjiang Army in the two previous battles with the Mughal Army (the first was the battle with Akbar the Great), although the Mughal Army's combat effectiveness was indeed inferior to that of the Southern Xinjiang Army, the gap was obviously not so large that the Southern Xinjiang Army could fight three at once and still win.

In this case, Gao Youshi felt that although Liu Xin and Gao Yuan on the front line had not proposed to send more troops, as the de facto supreme ruler of southern Xinjiang, he should still take the initiative to provide some reinforcements to Bangladesh.

In his opinion, Gao Yuan did not mention the increase of troops, probably because he was worried that he would be looked down upon by his father, and it might also shake his prestige that was still being gradually established in Jinghua; Liu Xin did not mention the increase of troops, firstly because she did not want to be looked down upon, and secondly because she felt that she could indeed defend Rajmahar with the existing strength. However, they could think so, but Gao Youshi was unwilling to only guarantee the defense of Rajmahar in such a battle - you, Jahangir, took the initiative to tear up the alliance and attack me, if I don't teach you a lesson, do you think I am easy to deal with?
After going over the troop deployment of the Southern Xinjiang Garrison Army in his mind, Gao Youshi picked up his pen and wrote down lines of small words.

"Order: The 4th Regiment of the Thang Long Garrison and the 3rd Regiment of the Jingang Garrison are to be transferred to the Kingdom of Bengal immediately, and both are under the command of the Western Expedition Army's Chief and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Gao Yuan and Liu Xin as before.

The Dhaka Garrison was to be organized into three towns at an accelerated pace, with vacancies to be temporarily made up by reserve personnel from Siam and Annam; weapons and equipment would be replenished by the arsenals in Thang Long, Jingang and Dinh Nam, and any vacancies would be urgently produced and allocated by the Beijing Ordnance Factory as needed; the selection of officers would be temporarily subject to preliminary review by the Southern Xinjiang Military Command Department and would not have to wait for approval from the capital, and would be decided after the war based on their merits.

The Second 'Dongning' Independent Brigade and the Fifth 'Jiugang' Independent Brigade of the Nanyang Fleet Marine Corps were transferred to the Kingdom of Bengal, and both were under the command of the Western Expedition Army's Chief and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Gao Yuan and Liu Xin as before.

Special approval of 400,000 taels of silver for the Western Expedition Army, which will be allocated from the profits handed over by the Nanyang Fleet last year; special approval of 30,000 tons of rice for food and wages from the Kingdom of Pegu, 50,000 tons of corn from the Liaodong Farm, and 4,000 tons of salted and dried fish from the Annan General Office..."

Although Gao Youshi was busy with the king's affairs recently, he still had a rough idea of ​​his various properties and was adept at allocating various materials. He did not need to ask the secretariat for more than a dozen kinds of military rations and supplies, and he made the decision easily. It can only be said that he really had a good grasp of financial management.

After writing it, he checked it again, then called Gao Qi and asked him to quickly send the order to the relevant persons in charge. Gao Qi carefully read it twice, and personally led people to rush to the capital to deliver the order by carrier pigeon. I won't go into details here.

What Gao Youshi didn't know was that when he issued this series of orders to reinforce the front line, there were also changes in Rajmohar. This change was initiated by the Southern Xinjiang Army.

It turned out that after the initial victory outside Rajmahar, the Southern Xinjiang Army did not relax its vigilance. Since the front line knew that Gao Youshi might be on his way back to Beijing, it was unknown whether they could receive the battle report in time. Therefore, Gao Yuan and Liu Xin discussed that although Jahangir was defeated, his main force was intact and he could make a comeback at any time. Therefore, they decided to take the initiative and send an elite cavalry deep behind enemy lines to conduct guerrilla warfare to weaken the Mughal Empire's logistical supply lines and continue to shake the morale of its front line.

In view of the results of this battle, this cavalry continued to use the elite cavalry led by Gao Shizhong. The more than 1,000 elite cavalry under Gao Shizhong were all servants brought from the north, with superb riding skills and incomparable bravery. This time they changed into clothes stripped from the defeated Mughal captives, carrying only the necessary dried meat and dry food supplies, quietly left Rajmahal, crossed the Ganges, and galloped towards Bihar.

Bihar is generally a Gangetic plain, but it is divided into two parts, north and south, by the Ganges. India's terrain generally rises from north to south, which is reflected in Bihar: the north is a complete alluvial plain, while the south gradually forms some hilly areas. Gao Shizhong's combat goal is to destroy the Mughal army's logistics line in the hilly areas in southern Bihar.

I would like to briefly explain here that it was extremely difficult to supply an army of 100,000 in that era, so the food and wages of the Mughal Empire's Eastern Expedition Army were not all transported via a single line from the capital Agra, but several states (roughly equivalent to provinces) along the way were each responsible for a portion of the food and wages.

In this case, destroying the food and money supply line in southern Bihar can at least affect about two-fifths of the army's supplies - of course, this does not mean that these two-fifths can be completely cut off, it depends on the extent of the damage.

A few days later, Gao Shizhong's cavalry arrived in the southern hills of Bihar. They avoided the main traffic arteries, chose a hidden path, passed through the dense jungle, and quietly approached the Mughal logistics transit station.

As night fell, Gao Shizhong gave the order to attack. The cavalry rushed out of the darkness like ghosts, with torches and rockets flying, instantly turning the Mughal camp into a sea of ​​fire. The soldiers and civilians of the Mughal Empire woke up from their dreams, panicked, and were in chaos. They were completely unable to organize an effective resistance. Gao Shizhong's cavalry rushed left and right in the camp, not only destroying food and grass, burning tents, but also causing great losses to the Mughal army and a large group of civilians.

In the chaos, Gao Shizhong's cavalry did not linger in the battle. After completing the sabotage mission, they quickly withdrew and soon disappeared into the night. Although the Mughal pursuers barely organized themselves to follow them, it was too late. They also lost their way as soon as they entered the jungle, and finally could only return in vain.

In the next few days, Gao Shizhong's cavalry wandered like ghosts in the hilly areas of southern Bihar. They sometimes attacked small Mughal patrols and sometimes destroyed important traffic routes, such as burning or blowing up small and medium-sized bridges, causing chaos in this part of the Mughal army's logistics supply line.

Jahangir was of course extremely angry, but even though he sent out the elite cavalry that his ancestors had brought from Afghanistan, he was still helpless against this elusive southern Xinjiang cavalry. In a complex mixed area of ​​hills and plains, an elite cavalry could basically avoid being caught as long as they didn't want to be caught.

After another successful night attack, Gao Shizhong's cavalry rested in a hidden valley. Gao Shizhong sat by the campfire, listening to the scout's report, frowning. He knew that despite some achievements, the main force of the Mughal Empire was still strong, and they also had a large number of cavalry, so he had to be careful and careful. If he was not careful, he would be bitten and then fall into an unfavorable battle, losing precious troops in vain.

At this time, a cavalryman hurried over to report: "Captain (Gao Shizhong's temporary position after his transfer to the south was first "Proper Guard Cavalry Captain", and after Gao Shishi was promoted to Duke, it was changed to "Crown Prince's Personal Guard Cavalry Captain", so it was called "Captain"), we found another Mughal granary next to a village more than ten miles to the west, and this time the granary seems to be quite large, with fourteen large warehouses!"

Gao Shizhong's eyes flashed with a gleam of light. According to previous experience, there were at least 200,000 catties of grain in the fourteen warehouses (note that it was catties, not tons). He immediately ordered: "Everyone, get on the horse. Tonight, we are going to give Jahangir a bigger surprise!"

Night fell again, and Gao Shizhong's cavalry approached the Mughal granary silently like a cheetah in the dark. Perhaps because this transit station was quite important, the granary was not set up in the village, but was set up outside the village alone, thus losing the passive warning effect of the villagers and even animals such as chickens and dogs.

The Mughal soldiers guarding the granary were unaware of the danger until the ceramic oil cans of the Southern Xinjiang Army fell and smashed to the ground, and the smell of kerosene could no longer be covered. Then they realized that the situation was not good. However, Gao Shizhong did not give them a chance to react. Rockets rained down from the sky, and they panicked and realized that they had been caught in another attack.

Gao Shizhong was fully armored, and he still led the way into the granary. His sword flashed cold rays in the firelight, and the Mughal soldiers fell one after another. The servants and cavalry followed closely behind him, and they quickly set fire to the granaries that were not ignited by the rain of arrows. The flames shot up into the sky, illuminating the night sky red.

By the time the nearby Mughal reinforcements arrived, Gao Shizhong's cavalry had already disappeared into the night, leaving behind only a sea of ​​fire and confused Mughal soldiers - dead or alive.

The target of the attack was indeed an important transit station. They not only burned the food, but also the granary. It would be difficult to rebuild the warehouse within ten days or half a month. This dealt a heavy blow to the Mughal Empire's logistical supply line and once again greatly weakened their morale.

When the news reached Rajmohar, Liu Xin and Gao Yuan both praised Gao Shizhong's actions. Liu Xin wrote in the battle report to Gao Youshi: "Gao Shizhong's troops penetrated deep into the enemy's rear, repeatedly made remarkable achievements, and were both wise and brave. He is truly a role model for our southern Xinjiang."

When Jahangir learned that the granary was burned, he was so angry that his face turned blue and he kicked five or six wine jars in a row. He knew that the situation of the war had become more complicated, and he had to re-evaluate the strength of the Southern Xinjiang Army and formulate new countermeasures.
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PS: This chapter should have been posted yesterday, but I watched too much of the video of the Zhuhai Air Show, so I just wrote a little more and added it in today. It’s almost 6K.