Dragon Sea Empire

Along with the first division, the First Artillery Regiment also landed at Dagukou. At the same time, several auxiliary troops including Taiwanese native soldiers also landed one after another.

Some artillery regiments and cannons headed for Tanggu along the mouth of the Baihe River in small fast boats, and some infantry sailed upstream on various fishing boats gathered along the coast of the Bohai Sea. After all the cavalry regiments landed, they quickly rushed to the Yang Liu took Bijiazhuang, which the sailors were defending.

When the cavalry arrived, it happened to be a cavalry unit belonging to the three major battalions of the Beijing Division, the Beijing Army, to reinforce Tianjin Wei. It had just arrived near the battlefield. There were about 2000 cavalrymen of the Jing Army. On the flanks, they are running on the plains several miles away.

Lu Xiaotian, head of the cavalry regiment of the Chinese Army, upheld the tradition of thieves, and took the initiative to launch harassing attacks, constantly moving around the periphery of the infantry of the army, and constantly shooting the flanks and rear troops of the army with cavalry.

The cavalry of the Beijing army couldn't bear it, and attacked the cavalry of the Chinese army from the flank.

Looking at the scattered formation of the cavalry of the Ming army and the slowly unfolding fan formation, Lu Xiaotian and Andrew, the deputy head of the regiment, looked at each other and smiled. Said: "According to the training, the Chinese army will surely win,"

The cavalry shouted "We must win," and quickly lined up in five rows. They stopped and stood like a wall, facing the direction where the officers and soldiers were rushing. Riding on the best Andalusian war horses and Arabian war horses, holding a two-foot-long spear under one armpit in one hand, and holding a lance in the other.

The so-called lance is actually the standard flintlock musket of the infantry brothers who saw off the barrel.

In the chaotic charge of the Ming army, some archers shot arrows, but such bow and arrow shooting was no different from the full set of fine steel plate armor of the heavy armored cavalry in the first row.

When the cavalry of the Ming army rushed to the 50th step of the cavalry position of the Chinese army, the lances of the cavalry of the Chinese army opened fire, "呯呯", "呯". Going up, they inserted the pistols into the holsters hanging on the saddle. At the same time, when they got down like this, they just gave the comrades in the back row a space to shoot.

From the second row to the third row until the end, all the cavalry soldiers of the Chinese Army repeated the actions of the heavy cavalry, and then, the entire cavalry array of the Chinese Army launched in unison, like a huge boulder unstoppably rolling towards a group of ants.

The cavalry of the Ming army did not have the slightest experience in using muskets in cavalry battles. After five rounds of musket fire, the forward line of the cavalry of the Beijing army was in chaos. Although the entire army was still advancing, it had lost speed, that is, lost Gathering the momentum of the charge, the heavy cavalry of the Chinese Army refused to let others know, and crashed into the group of cavalry of the official army like a wall; the light cavalry of the other Chinese Army moved to the two wings, intending to encircle the two wings of the cavalry of the official army.

Although the short Mongolian horses and Sanhe horses ridden by the official cavalry had good stamina, they had no chance when they collided head-on with the heavy cavalry. It is often broken into several knots; and the bamboo poles and iron holsters of the Chinese army can often wear the cavalry of the Beijing army with men and horses together. Falling into a passive situation...

The Beijing army was completely defeated after half an hour. Because the Chinese infantry who came from the river took the rear route, only 2000 of the 300 cavalry escaped from the battlefield. More than 500 were captured, and the rest were not killed. That hurts.

The Chinese Army also lost 200 cavalry, most of them were light cavalry; at the end of the battle, a group of officer cavalry came out to break through the encirclement, desperately charging, and a light cavalry confrontation with the Chinese Army Light Cavalry Battalion, such a battle It is often a head-to-head duel, with one life for another. There is no chance and the death rate is very high. Li Xiao, the former general of Liaodong Dusi Zhongtun and a hundred households, brought his brothers to join the Chinese cavalry. Now he is the deputy battalion commander of the light cavalry battalion. Yes, after interrogating the captured officers and soldiers, he found that the last batch of officer cavalry came from the same place as him, and they were all Liaodong frontier troops who had just been transferred to Beijing.

After the cavalry of the Beijing army almost collapsed, the infantry of the officers and soldiers no longer left the city, standing still and waiting for reinforcements.

The Chinese Army assembled the most high-tech armed forces of this era and surrounded Tianjin Wei. Only four cannons were placed on the Tianjin Weicheng, and the long four walls could not withstand the fire of the cannons due to the lack of corresponding fort structures. recoil.

The Chinese Army launched nearly 300 large and small artillery pieces at one time, including 4 jin-level siege cannons, 4 "Shocking Thunder" mortars that fired heavy explosive shells, and 6 smaller "Thundering Thunder" mortars. " Mortars, and more than 50 light field guns that fired flowering howitzers. In addition, thousands of Thunderbolt rockets were also deployed under the Tianjin Acropolis.

Except for the plain depression in the south, Tianjin Wei has rivers flowing on the other three sides. The natural moat hinders the Chinese Army's infantry from attacking the city, but it cannot stop the bombardment of the city. Moreover, the Chinese Army has successively dug countless trenches around Tianjin Wei. , Moved the cannons to within 200 steps of the city wall of the Tianjin Guards. At this time, the small amount of original artillery of the Tianjin Guards had all been smashed into scrap copper by the artillery fire of the Chinese Army.

At the same time that the first division landed at Dagukou, the Chinese army cut off the waterway for water transportation. The forward approached Wuqing County, cutting off the main traffic route from Tianjin Wei to Shanhaiguan. The fleet of the Chinese Army moved along the coastline of the Bohai Sea, causing the famous Changlu Salt Field along the coast of Tianjin Wei to be controlled by the Chinese Army.

In the Changlu Salt Field, the Chinese Army announced a fair trade policy, and then opened a market at Tanggukou, publicly announcing to the surrounding villages that the Chinese Army is protecting commerce. Both the Chinese Army and the Chinese Company’s jurisdiction need salt. The act of the personnel taking the initiative to ask the owner of the saltworks to pay the money shocked the local businessmen.

Printed leaflets such as the so-called "Seven Great Hatreds" and "Six Great Oaths" were distributed throughout the coastal areas of the Bohai Sea. Even in the capital, there were posts with the same content. Although most people were shocked and suspicious of the contents of the leaflets, the Chinese Army was The excellent military discipline in the occupied area is indeed obvious to all, and when a small number of people do business with them, they are also very satisfied with the extravagance of the soldiers of the Chinese Army. Moreover, the Chinese Army opened the warehouse of the Army Food City and moved out a large amount of food to distribute to The people in the eight neighboring villages were also transported to Shandong to help the victims of disasters in Shandong.

Although some landlords, officials and gentry openly resisted the Chinese army, the Chinese army generally killed these leaders, and drove away the rest; and the Chinese army ignored the officials and gentry who did not cooperate with the Chinese army; For the few active collaborators, the Chinese Army asked them to be in charge of local commerce and trade. The news about the excellent military discipline of the Chinese Army’s pirates and their closeness to the people spread like wildfire. After a few days, the local people gradually no longer feared the “sea pirates” "The Chinese army, one after another, went out of their homes to do business with the Chinese army. The Chinese army opened two recruitment sites under Tanggu and Tianjin Acropolis, piled up a pile of money there, and openly recruited people to work: either to widen the river, or to The construction of the wharf at Dagukou was paid on the spot, and a lot of money was paid to the local people. The people around Tianjin Wei have never seen so much money in their lives. Besides, the Chinese army has excellent military discipline, and the soldiers treat others well. Friendly, so there is an endless stream of people who apply to work.

Fang Congzhe, the chief assistant of the cabinet, suggested to Emperor Wanli that the imperial court issued the "King Qin Order" to the whole world, calling on righteous men from all over the world to destroy pirates together. There are constant disasters, especially in Shandong; the people everywhere are in panic. If a large number of troops are dispatched to King Qin at this time, the defenses of various places will be weakened, and thieves may take advantage of the opportunity to rise.

After several days of discussion, news of the defeat of the cavalry of the Jing army came. At the same time, the news of the encirclement of Tianjin Wei also reached Emperor Wanli.

For the first time ever, Emperor Wanli opened the early court for three consecutive days and called a group of ministers to discuss matters.

Now the actions of the Chinese army have shaken the foundation of the Jingqu region: the cut off of water transportation means that millions of people near the capital, including His Majesty the Emperor himself and his ministers, will face the crisis of food shortage.

The Ministry of War in the imperial court gave a request to mobilize the Liaodong frontier army to enter the customs to resist the pirates, and let Li Rubai, the general soldier of Liaodong, be the commander-in-chief. Immediately, some people thought that the Li family's military power was too powerful and expressed their opposition. Entered the Liaodong Army.

The troops of Xuanda and Jizhou have arrived near the capital one after another. The court really needs to appoint a commander to lead the whole army to fight back against the Chinese army. Needless to say, intrigues, even the chief assistant Fang Congzhe weighed the pros and cons, and was unable to make a decision in order to balance the forces of the various factions.

Therefore, although some units of the Liaodong Army have been ordered to start going south, and frontier troops from Xuanda, Jizhou and even Shaanxi have assembled in the capital, the commander of the army has not been determined.

On the fifth day after Tianjin Wei was surrounded, the Chinese Army completed the construction of the trench fortifications and concentrated all the heavy artillery in the trench 200 steps away from the south city. The dense flintlock muskets were repulsed, and the front of the continuous trenches was densely covered with step-fired rotary mines. The officers and soldiers who attacked at night stepped on the mines and were blown into the air, exposing their whereabouts. Thus, the Chinese army guarding the trenches repel.

Finally, the siege artillery began to show its power.

A few days ago, the Chinese Army bombarded Tianjin Acropolis continuously with flowering bombs, blowing up all the cannons and defensive facilities of the Tianjin Weiming Army garrison. Many buildings.

Now the siege mortars fired, the heavy cannons fired.

The [-]-pound flowering bomb landed on the top of the city with a track clearly discernible to the naked eye. After exploding with a bang, it wiped out people and objects within a radius of several tens of feet from the top of the city. Falling behind the city wall, the Ming army on standby inside the city wall was blown up.

The cannon fired iron bullets weighing dozens of kilograms to hit the city gate tower, one after another endlessly, gradually opening gaps in the city wall, gradually expanding the gap, and slowly the city wall collapsed on a small scale along the gap... 4 heavy gates Cannons weighing more than 2000 kilograms were aimed at the same corner of the South City Gate and bombarded continuously: one shot every 2 minutes, and the two gates were designed at the same time; For two hours, the deafening firing of these four cannons lasted for eight hours.

In the evening, Liu Yi, the guard of the Tianjin Guard, scolded angrily: "Zhi Niang, these pirates really have money and nowhere to spend, so many shells are focused on one place, do they really want to open Tianjin Guard with cannons? "

The next day, the crumbling south gate was bombarded again by a solid iron egg weighing [-] jin. At the same time, all the flowering shells were also concentrated in this place. The continuous explosions had blown out a hole with a radius of several tens of feet near the south gate. No man's land.

At noon, after being hit by several [-]-jin solid iron eggs, the South Gate finally collapsed with a crash, forming a five-foot-wide rocky slope at Tianjin Weinan Gate.

Countless soldiers of the Chinese Army jumped out of the trenches and rushed into the Tianjin Acropolis. The artillery fire of the Chinese Army quickly extended and bombarded the city.

An hour later, Tianjin Wei was captured by the Chinese army.