Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1707 Rising Wind and Clouds ([-])

And just when the three-masted sailing ship "Antarctic Wolf" left South Chile, at its final destination, the Liaodong Reclamation Area under the jurisdiction of the Denglai Pioneering Team, the officers and soldiers of the Tenth Mixed Battalion marched into the second place in the southwest of Dandong County. An abandoned camp of the Qing army more than ten kilometers away.

This camp was abandoned a day ago. It was originally stationed with more than 2000 green camps of the Han army, rattan players and musketeers recruited from Henan.This place in Henan has been a famous producer of nitrate and lead since the Ming Dynasty. Now, in the 30th year of Taiping, the population has exploded, from 800 million in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties to more than 300 million, although it still has not caught up with the Wanli period. The peak population, but the difference is not very far.

As the population increased, the nitrate industry, which was famous in the Ming Dynasty, gradually recovered and developed. This advantage allowed the Qing government to set up a nitrate field and a gun bureau in Henan to deliver ammunition to the more than 20 troops on the front line in Xiangyang.The person in charge of this matter is Prince Xinjun Eza. Of course, he is only in name. In fact, Henan governor Yao Qisheng is in charge of all matters. Otherwise, what insight and ability do you expect from a 20-year-old prince?Speaking of it, the Qing court is too dependent on Hanchen now, but it still can't hold back its face, so it came up with a model of Manchen's name and Hanchen's work.

And if this pattern is not particularly common in the officialdom, then in the army—especially the army established in the past 5-10 years—the proportion of Han troops and Han generals is really getting higher and higher.In this era when muskets and cannons are popular, the intensity of wars has gradually increased, and the casualties of officers and soldiers have also increased sharply. The small population base of the Manchurian and Han Eight Banners is not enough to support long-term, high-intensity wars, because they cannot afford to die. It would take a long time to replenish one of them, so the Han army and generals had to be recruited on a large scale into the so-called new army.

Although the Eight Banners are still firmly holding the positions of middle and senior officers, as the war continues to deepen, many Han people are promoted due to meritorious service, and then slowly erode the original positions of the Manchus.And this trend still seems irreversible, which undoubtedly made the upper echelons of the Qing court a little panicked. If we continue to fight for decades, the military system will not be controlled by the Han people from top to bottom, right?Therefore, they are even a little afraid of fighting now, but the situation is like this, and they have nothing to do, as if they are caught in an endless loop, unless they can let go of their bodies and completely merge with the Han landlord and gentry class, just like entering the history It is as thoroughly Sinicized as the Jin Kingdom in the Central Plains.

The commander of the new army of more than 1644 in Henan is Zhang Yong, a Han general in his sixties who was transferred from Gansu.This person once fought against the Shun army on the front line of Xiangyang, guarded the northwest for many years, and had many confrontations with Hui cavalry (these people sent tens of thousands of people eastward in [-] and were repelled by Li Zicheng's old battalion). He has made outstanding contributions and is now transferred to Henan. Come, use his rich experience in leading troops to train this new type of army with complete infantry, cavalry, guns, and supplies.In the future, if the battle situation in Xiangyang changes—of course, this is extremely unlikely in the eyes of the Qing army—Henan can use their new army as the core, and then gather other local green battalions to form a strategic reserve team and rush to the front. .

There are many examples similar to Zhang Yong, such as Zhao Liangdong who is training a new army (about 5000 people) in Hanzhong, Sun Sike who is training a new army in Jinzhou, and so on.Of course, the largest new army in the Qing Dynasty was the new army trained by Tu Hai stationed in Jinzhou, with a scale of more than 4.Unlike other troops who use domestically produced artillery and shotguns, in addition to cold weapons, most of the hot weapons in this unit come from England and the Netherlands, and more than [-] European mercenary officers and soldiers are carefully teaching new tactics. Formed an army, but once the training is completed in the future, it will definitely be a strong army, maybe it can fight with the Dashun Emperor Li Laiheng's Silver Spear Efficiency Army.

Now the Henan Qing army stationed in this abandoned camp is actually a man from Zhang Yong's command, led by a general, and he was a bit arrogant at first, and he dared to compete with the men and horses of the First Division of the Liaodong New Army Gestures.As a result, a few days ago, more than 1000 officers and soldiers of the 1500th Mixed Battalion of the Army who came from the Dandong Movement were defeated in the first battle, killing and wounding more than [-] people, and the rest fled in a hurry, losing the ability to continue fighting.

After the [-]th Mixed Battalion won the field battle, they did not immediately rush forward with light soldiers, but sent people to search and clean up the relatively complicated terrain around them, and contacted the nearby friendly forces before raising their troops. Entered this abandoned camp and occupied it.

It is said that the Liaodong War, which lasted for a long time, finally came to an end in the middle of this year.People on the east bank held the situation tenaciously when food, troops and other supplies were relatively tight, and they were not pushed into the Yalu River or into the sea. So far, the three strongholds of Dandong, Jiuliancheng, and Kuandian still stand on the right bank of the Yalu River, silently They mocked the Qing army's large-scale offensive that lasted for three years.

Of course, it's said to be three years, but in fact, the real fighting is only a few months a year, and the rest of the time it's just small-scale harassment.Even in the last year, there were no large-scale offensives. The commander-in-chief of the Qing army, Prince Kang Jieshu, even returned to Shengjing, leaving only the front-line generals to carry out some limited regional offensives.

Naturally, the people on the east coast were able to withstand such an offensive relatively easily, but they were also powerless to fight back: after the three-year siege, not only the Qing army suffered many casualties, but the people on the east coast also killed a large number of experienced veterans. The outbreak of the epidemic caused by shrinking in the fortress, the death toll was even more impressive, so that in the later stage, the strong and strong had to be selected from the reclamation people who had withdrawn to North Korea to supplement the troops, but the overall combat effectiveness inevitably declined.Therefore, when the main force of the Qing army returned and began to retreat due to ineffectiveness, the people on the east bank were also unable to pursue it—maybe they were more afraid that it was a trap of the Qing army—until the arrival of a new force like the Tenth Mixed Battalion.

Although the Army's Tenth Mixed Battalion is not a veteran unit, but a newly formed battalion leader in recent years, its weapons and equipment and training level are far superior to those of the Qing army, even though they really don't have much war experience.Therefore, within one or two months after landing, regardless of the fatigue and discomfort caused by the long-distance voyage, they took the initiative to attack and defeated many small units of the Qing army that were left behind with the momentum of the autumn wind sweeping the fallen leaves, which intensified the intensification of the Qing army. The panic of the army made these cannon fodder troops who had been left behind scrambled to flee, and failed to destroy the place to a greater extent, so many key facilities were preserved, such as houses, canals, warehouses, farmland, Bridges, outposts, camps, etc.

The only regrettable thing is that the [-]th Mixed Battalion set off too late, and there was too much delay on the road, so that when they arrived in Shandong and then landed in Dandong, the war had already come to an end: the main forces of both sides had already With disengagement, only a small group of people are left to move in the wild.

These small groups of people are not only responsible for monitoring and breaking the rear, but also responsible for destroying some infrastructure that has not been destroyed, such as houses, wells (the Qing army also needed accommodation and drinking water before) and even roads.As for those grain stations and fortresses, they have basically been dismantled by the large troops that had withdrawn earlier, and the years of construction efforts of the people on the east coast were ruined.

The timing of the landing of the Tenth Mixed Battalion was precisely at this point in time. With the cooperation of some Shandan cavalry, they maneuvered around Dandong and Jiulian City, and launched a fierce offensive against the enemy's small troops. Nearly a thousand people were killed, injured and captured.Then, under the guidance of the scouts, they boarded several "Yaksa" class armed transport ships of the navy, and landed in the coastal waters of Dadonggou before the Qing army could react, and flanked the largest group of Qing army troops stationed here: There are 2000 new troops in Henan.

Now the battle has long since ended, and the main force of the Tenth Mixed Battalion has successfully entered a Qing army fort near Donggang City in later generations.The scale of this fortress is neither big nor small, and it can accommodate more than 2000 people, which is just enough to accommodate the entire army of the Tenth Mixed Battalion.The fortress is very close to the sea, and there is a very small river port pier leading to the sea. There are three or four small wooden boats parked in a mess beside the pier. There are still some dried meat and grain in the cabin, and I don’t know where they came from. .

However, combined with the recent fact that a navy light cruiser intercepted a Qing Dynasty hard sailing ship on the Dadonggou Ocean, the answer is ready to come out: the Qing army is really brave, knowing that the people on the east coast have the advantage of controlling the sea, they dare to play This trick of smuggling transportation seems to be based on the fact that the number of ships on the east coast is limited, and it is impossible to achieve a long-term and all-round maritime blockade.If you think about the courage and "wisdom" that the Qing army did not have before, then the people on the east coast have every reason to suspect that the "bad water" instilled by the British, Portuguese or Dutch is really unreasonable!

Li Ziqian is the acting battalion commander of the [-]th Mixed Battalion with the rank of captain. He has successively served as a tactical lecturer at Bingtuanbao, a temporary combat staff officer of the first regiment, and deputy director of the tactical research office of the Ministry of the Army.This time he was able to become the hot post of acting battalion commander of the Tenth Mixed Battalion thanks to the help of his big brother Guo Handong. Otherwise, no matter how capable he is, he would have to spend his whole life in the Ministry of Army, so he still treats Guo Handong more favorably. grateful, and regard it as a benefactor.

After leading his troops to Denglai by boat this time, Liao Xiaoyao, the leader of the pioneering team, was overjoyed. He immediately allocated the boats and deployed them to the Liaodong reclamation area where the troops were most urgently needed to deal with the Qing army.And they did live up to expectations. Although the main force of the Qing army had already retreated, the more than 1000 of them cleaned up the Qing guard troops that had not yet been completely withdrawn so cleanly, which was enough to show their capabilities—although the soldiers were much less experienced because of their lack of experience. I was a little flustered, but I could tell that the daily training was very solid, and the training was basically in place. The next step is to accumulate experience.

And after defeating 10 new Qing troops in Donggoubao (the name for this abandoned camp of the Qing army), the battle was basically over.The people on the east bank killed and injured a large number of officers and soldiers, spent tens of thousands of yuan in war expenses, owed the North Koreans hundreds of thousands of shi in food, and wasted three years in exchange for the retreat of the Qing army. This loss is indeed true. Unusually big.

Of course, the Qing army was also injured in this offensive.They mobilized the Eight Banners in the capital, the Eight Banners outside the Guanwai, the Mongolian cavalry, and many troops from Zhili, Shanxi, Henan and other places. They were led by Prince Kang. They fought for three years, but they couldn't push the people from the east bank into the sea. It cannot but be said to be a great setback.What's more, in order to supply the consumption of nearly [-] soldiers, war horses, and draft animals at the peak, the people of Shuntian and Yongping prefectures were also conscripted on a large scale to transfer supplies. The people were full of complaints and exhausted. The savings have been exhausted, and it has reached the point where they have to stop and take a breath. After all, they don't have the "North Korean cash machine" in the hands of the people on the east coast.

Therefore, after the Qing army retreated this time, officials from all levels in Liaodong predicted optimistically that the Qing army would probably not be able to make a comeback within five years, and could only continue to carry out the previous half-dead ranger raids, which were extremely destructive. It's big.Therefore, at this time, they have even sent people across the river to many towns such as Hamgyong Road, Pyongan Road, and Huanghai Road in North Korea where [-] to [-] "refugees" on the east coast have been resettled. They have contacted local North Korean officials and their own officials to discuss When to set off and return to the right bank of the Yalu River - it will definitely be too late to plant and sow, but it is also necessary to restore agricultural facilities in winter and spring and lay a good foundation for next spring's sowing, unless you continue to give up next year's Reclamation, that is exactly what the Qing army wanted to see.

The next task of the Tenth Mixed Battalion is to bring enough supplies, and then carry out activities on the periphery of an arc-shaped area such as Donggou, Phoenix City, and Kuandian, looking for Qing army rangers, mules, transport teams, messengers, etc. kill.If they encounter enemy villages, they will all be destroyed. On the one hand, it will deter and retaliate against the Qing army, and on the other hand, it will also reduce the ability of Qing rangers to obtain supplies in the wild.

This task was given by Major Liao Degong, who is now in charge of the defense of Liaodong. He believes that this kind of action of substituting offense for defense can probably ensure the smooth progress of the rear agricultural recovery operation. At the same time, it can also conduct a "fire investigation" on the Qing side. What is their reaction, is there any army stationed nearby, and what is the ability to counterattack.He believed very much in the combat effectiveness of the [-]th Mixed Battalion equipped with miniguns and light field artillery, so he sent out the only mobile force at hand, put eye drops on the Qing army, and let them know that the tiger's butt was Untouchable.

He was absolutely convinced that if the Qing army failed to seize the opportunity to win in one go this time, there would be almost no chance for the next attack. Not only might they suffer a disgraceful defeat, but they might even be pushed back by the east coast army Lost teacher and lost ground.

(End of this chapter)