Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 406 Six Days of Torture

How to observe the combat effectiveness of an army? Needless to say, observation on the battlefield is the most intuitive.

There are many angles to observe the combat effectiveness of an army on a daily basis.

Assembling a team, marching long distances, setting up camp, all these can reflect problems with organization.

Only a highly organized army can be considered an efficient killing machine. Some armies that look loose in daily life will definitely not be very effective on the battlefield.

The generals from Shanhaiguan stayed there for one night and followed for most of the day, and saw the process of the Shenji Camp setting up camp.

In this era where one has to rely on servants to fight tough battles, the performance of the Shenjiying is too outrageous.

"Only Yue and Qi can compare with this army!" The person who said this was the prefect Zhao Wu. He had not followed them for a single day, nor had he even had an immersive experience of it.

But that's what he said! And he said it to Li Chi's messenger.

What does it mean? Yue Fei and Qi Jiguang, the endings of the two are known to anyone who knows a little bit of history. Qi Jiguang himself was able to survive. After the Qi family army was disbanded, one of them was violently disbanded.

This is what it means to destroy the Great Wall by yourself.

Of course, this was not what Zhao Wu meant, but he was hinting at something.

After receiving the reply, Li Chi sat there in a daze for a long time, unable to make up his mind.

In the end, he just told the people around him: "Send someone to spread the news that the Shenjiying is the Jia family army, and Jia Lian is comparable to Yue and Qi. Remember, stir up public opinion."

Li Chi knew very well that not only him, but the entire cabinet had reached a consensus that Jia Lian was no longer a person who could be defeated head-on.

It’s not that the cabinet ministers don’t have means and methods, but they can’t get past the emperor.

A group of top officials of the first and second ranks were completely unable to deal with Jia Lian. This was truly an institutional problem.

The key point is that Jia Lian is too special. From his performance, he never takes power for himself. You can see that he holds so many positions. From the outside, it seems that what Jia Lian really controls are the Five Cities Military Department and the Research and Development Department.

How much power do these two departments have? Their influence on the direction of the court is minimal, and the key lies with the emperor.

But what can I say? Jia Lian's background determined that he was destined to be looked down upon by the so-called group of civil officials, and he must be suppressed.

There is no right or wrong in this kind of thing; it's just a matter of stance.

The Great Zhou Dynasty selected officials through the imperial examination. For those who could make it through the imperial examination, the first prerequisite was that their family could afford to support a scholar.

Such a family cannot be in dire poverty!
Some scholars from poorer families received more or less support from local wealthy people during the imperial examination process.

When one becomes successful, he naturally wants to give back to those who funded him.

Does this set of gameplay look familiar to you? Of course it is familiar, human society has always played this way, the difference is whether you invest in scholars or politicians.

The Jia family belongs to the old money, and those who came to power through the imperial examination belong to the new money. Does the struggle between the new money and the old money sound familiar to you?

To put it simply, industrial capital, financial capital, and high-tech enterprises.

The descendants of the heroes who founded the Great Zhou are now showing signs of withering away after being suppressed by Emperor Chenghui's unremitting efforts.

When the new nobles were eyeing the benefits left behind by the old nobles, they discovered a stubborn person like Jia Lian and naturally wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.

The emperor protects Jia Lian, so naturally everyone is helpless. What should we do? Don't be in a hurry, first brew and lay all kinds of groundwork.

Jia Lian is only one person, and it is impossible for him to never make mistakes in his life. If he makes one mistake, all the small problems in the past will be dug up as evidence.

After a day of marching and setting up camp, the camp became noisy again early the next morning. This time there was no intention of breaking camp. Instead, the various units of the Shenji Camp quickly assembled in teams.

It took only two hours for the nearly 20,000 troops to get up and assemble. It took another three hours to advance to the autumn drill battlefield, deploy the formation, and take an attacking stance.

Han Long's Tongzhou camp was not concentrated in one place. Instead, it used a small river as a barrier and was divided into three camps. The distance between each camp was no more than one mile, forming a "品" structure and echoing each other.

The Shenji Battalion did not rush to launch an attack, but instead sent infantry forward to cover the artillery in building an artillery position. The purpose of this position was to give the artillery a certain degree of self-protection in special circumstances.

The so-called special situation is a desperate charge against the cavalry, and the enemy's artillery counterattack is rare but cannot be guaranteed not to happen. After all, the Tongzhou camp has a staff of 3,000 cavalry.

It was already afternoon, the flag was raised, and the artillery fire began. After the Tongzhou camp noticed the flag, they withdrew from their positions, leaving behind the straw man as a target.

The firing rate of the artillery also opened the eyes of the observers. The average firing rate was one round per minute, which was very fast in that era.

It can fire fast because of the fixed charge bag, and it cannot fire faster because of the smooth chamber wall. The projectile does not need to be made smaller intentionally to ensure airtightness as much as possible.

The Shenji Battalion's thirty-six field guns fired six-pound solid lead bullets. The rumbling sound of the guns, accompanied by rising smoke, continuously hit the defensive positions in the west.

Through the telescope, Jia Lian discovered that the effect of the artillery bombardment was actually not very good. It can only be said that the soldiers of this era have mastered certain methods to deal with the artillery bombardment.

This is not surprising at all. In order to capture Daling City in the late Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty adopted the tactic of digging trenches and besieging. As for why the Qing army later couldn't even defeat the Japanese army, it was because they were rotten.

How can an army fight if its officers don't think about how to win the battle, but only think about getting promoted and making money?
As part of the Beijing Camp, the Tongzhou Camp is the elite force of the empire. Naturally, its combat effectiveness is not comparable to those of the grassroots vagrants.

After the bombardment lasted for half an hour, the staff went up to the position and reported the results of the battle. The defenders hid in the trenches, with less than 50 casualties and more than half of the obstacles in front of the position destroyed.

Han Long, who was informed, thought this was a reasonable judgment. One of his lieutenants led the infantry to guard the camp in the west, and this loss was negligible in terms of combat effectiveness.

As for obstacles, they are just fences and barricades in front of the position.

After confirming the result, the second round of bombardment began, this time with shrapnel shells. Another half hour of bombardment, the continuous explosions formed dust and smoke above the position, which lasted for a long time.

There is a question, why didn't the Tongzhou camp fire back? The answer is simple, it was out of reach. Even if it could reach, it would do no damage to the Shenji camp artillery who had built a defensive position in advance.

The general cannon equipped by the Tongzhou camp had a maximum range of two miles, equivalent to one thousand meters. The artillery position of the Shenji camp was three miles away.

When the infantry launched the attack, the other two camps were also subjected to diversionary attacks, artillery bombardment, infantry preparing to attack, and cavalry ready to intercept at any time.

This enabled the Shenji Battalion to attack the western position smoothly.

After the bombardment of shrapnel shells, the General Staff determined that 30% of the front-line positions were casualties, or about 300 people. At the same time, the artillery suppressed the defenders' artillery (blank ammunition at this time).

After three hours of fierce fighting, repeated tugs of war and shelling, the General Staff ruled that the Shenji Battalion occupied the western camp, and the remaining enemy, about a thousand people, retreated to the middle camp.

Han Long specifically went to the General Staff Office to ask for the basis for the ruling. After reading it, he said he had no objection, and even if he had any, he would not say it. Not to mention, there was no objection, not only no objection, but also left room for maneuver.

Why do we say that? Because when the Shenji Battalion launched the attack, they adopted a tactic of skirmishers in front and lines in the back. The skirmishers who went forward were in groups of ten. After entering the range, they used sandbags to build bunkers and suppressed the opponent's volleys with accurate shooting. The defenders of the western position launched three counterattacks, but they were all beaten back by the subsequent line formations.

The result of the ruling was that the Shenji Battalion suffered about 300 casualties. It was dark, but the autumn drill had not ended. After nightfall, the Shenji Battalion used the distance advantage of the artillery to continuously harass and fire, and continued to harass with skirmisher fire.

Under the premise of the iron will of everyone in the Tongzhou camp of the General Staff, the results of the Shenji Camp's night raids were still very mediocre.

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The attack continued the next day. This time, while attacking the eastern position, the Shenji Battalion launched a diversionary attack from the western position.

After another day of "fierce fighting", the position on the east was lost. At this point, only one camp was left in the Tongzhou camp, which was surrounded on three sides.

After surrounding the middle camp, the Shenji Camp did not launch an attack, but instead harassed it continuously and used cavalry to cut off its retreat, adopting siege tactics. Three days later, the defenders of the Tongzhou camp ran out of ammunition and food, and their attempt to break out failed. Only a small number of them succeeded in breaking out. The autumn drill ended, which lasted for six days.

In the six days, the observation group was terrified. Compared with the soldiers in their hands, they might not be able to hold out for even one day, let alone six days. The steep terrain of Shanhaiguan could be held, but that was after they decided to rebel. By then, it would be a fight of consumption, and a disproportionate consumption. Especially after learning that the six-jin cannon of the Shenjiying could hit six miles (three thousand meters), they were bombed one-sidedly.

Moreover, the tactics for conquering the fortress were not the ones used in the autumn exercises, that is, digging Z-shaped trenches and using low-fire artillery bombardment tactics. The people from the General Staff Office bluntly revealed them, and everyone was speechless.

It is hard to say how long the Shanhaiguan defenders, who only have solid bullets, can withstand the bombardment. After all, it has not happened yet, so we can only guess.

During the six days, the two main characters in Shanhaiguan had different moods.

Li Chi was very relaxed, thanking Jia Lian for helping him out, but he also did not delay him from secretly tripping Jia Lian up. In Shanhaiguan, Li Chi drank a little wine, hugged by a pretty maid, and in his spare time he could go to the city wall to see the scenery, watching the people he didn't like feel uncomfortable, and he was more happy than ever.

Xuan Li's days were like years. Because of the news blockade, he had no idea what happened to the people in the observation group. He only knew that they passively followed the army to the autumn drill. There were cavalry patrols near the autumn drill site, and communication was cut off. Not to mention passing on news, even sparrows could hardly fly out. Some were also scared away by the sound of artillery.

All we got in return was the daily rumbling of artillery fire and the sight of smoke rising in the distance, but nothing else.

He was worried that his trusted followers would be captured, and he was also worried that the people from the observation group would turn against him after they came back and defeat him. He wanted to take his people and escape, but he refused. For the sake of peace, the King of Dongping would probably not allow him to escape, and the chances of him giving the emperor a mysterious head to prove his innocence were higher.

Xuan Li was filled with regret and couldn't sleep for the past two nights. He couldn't hold on any longer and could only get drunk to fall asleep. After six days, Xuan Li could only hope that this torture would end soon.

That afternoon, Xuanli, who was drunk the previous night, was woken up by his personal attendant while he was sleeping. He was very unhappy and wanted to vent his anger, but he heard a sentence: "The masters are back."

Xuanli didn't have time to wash up and got out of bed barefoot. He dressed neatly after being reminded by his personal attendant and came out to meet his subordinates.

A group of people were talking outside and stopped only after Xuanli appeared. Judging from the looks in their eyes, it seemed that they were not so respectful to Xuanli anymore.

Xuan Li muttered to himself, pretending to be calm and asked: "Everyone, have you learned anything from watching? Let me open my eyes, too?"

Just as he finished speaking, he heard Li Chi's voice from outside: "Yes, I want to listen to it too."

After Li Chi entered and took the first seat without any hesitation, everyone came forward and told about what they had seen and heard.

One said that the Shenji Battalion was well disciplined and well-trained. The other said that the Shenji Battalion had a huge advantage in equipment, and if the two armies faced each other, they would probably be beaten unilaterally.

After everyone expressed their opinions, the conclusion was: "We can't beat them! We really can't beat them!"

The special thing about Shanhaiguan is that once Xuanli fails to defeat the opponent in a field battle, he can only fight on defense and rely on the Liao land behind him to replenish his consumption.

After Xuan Li finished listening, he remained silent. Li Chi asked in a relaxed manner, "Does Lord Jia have any message?"

One of Xuan Li's confidants stepped forward and said, "I have asked Lord Jia, and he said that Xuan garrison is not under his jurisdiction, but under the command of His Majesty, the Cabinet and the Ministry of War."

Li Chi laughed and looked at Xuan Li with a mocking face, implying that you still want to listen to the instructions but not the announcement? Now you know, right? The people who control you are here!
Xuan Li still bowed his head and said nothing. Li Chi stood up and clapped his hands: "I wanted to stay for many days, but it's time to return to Beijing."

As Li Chi walked out the door, when one leg passed the threshold, Xuan Li shouted from behind: "Wait a minute, Li Xiang. I have been ordered to go to the capital, and it is just the right time to accompany you."

Li Chi retracted one leg, turned around and looked at Xuan Li and said, "In this case, why not submit a report first, explain your true intentions, and then ask Jia Lian to come to Shanhaiguan to take charge, and you and I will go back to the capital."

Xuan Li nodded repeatedly: "That's exactly what I meant! Let the family pack their bags and prepare to return to Beijing."

“In order to show our sincerity, when Commander Jia arrives, please ask Guard Xuan to go out with me to greet him.” Li Chi took advantage of the victory and forced Xuan Li to sign the treaty under the city.

Xuan Li nodded repeatedly: "That's right!"

Li Chi immediately asked Xuan Li to write a handwritten letter in front of everyone, inviting Jia Lian to come to Shanhaiguan to take charge. At the same time, he also wrote a handwritten letter and sent it together.

With the testimony of the generals to ensure that Xuanli would not cause any more trouble, Li Chi left with ease and went back to take a shower and rest. The Shenji Camp would be able to reach Shanhaiguan before dark tomorrow at the latest.

The torture was finally over, and Xuanli had a good sleep. When he woke up early the next morning, he asked the servants to help him wash and dress. When he had breakfast and was about to go out, someone at the door reported that Li Chi had arrived.

Li Chi had a strange expression when he entered the room, and the look he gave Xuan Li was even stranger!
Xuan Li asked in surprise, "Prime Minister Li, why did you come here so early? What advice do you have for me?"

Li Chi sighed and said, "You'll know if you go out and take a look!"

(End of this chapter)