Dragon Sea Empire

"Is it necessary to capture Wuchang City? Your Majesty's order only said to attack Wuchang, cut off the shipping along the Yangtze River, and block the north-south traffic. It didn't mean to capture Wuchang, right?"

What Mai Dahai said surprised Yang Qi, he turned his head to look at Mai Dahai for a while, and saw that Mai Dahai looked at himself suspiciously, and found that there was nothing wrong with him: "What's wrong, old Qi, you This is what to look at,"

"Hehe, Big Brother Mai, look at you, you can still speak and write. I heard that you bought a house of Yangzhou skinny horses who can read and write. You learned from the king. This time, the training class for generals in the military academy. I also heard that you are serious about reading and literacy, and you even passed Mr. Xu's exam."

Mai Dahai chuckled, and said brazenly: "That's right, I can know two thousand characters now, so I can be regarded as a scholar." He said, his face became serious: "The owner of the ship told me that the reason why I committed favoritism The military regulations are because I don't know the truth, and if I want to understand the truth, I need to read a lot, so I specially invited Mr. Xu Hongji as a teacher for this training class for generals, and I studied hard for a few days..."

The Chinese Army officer corps was also greatly impacted by the great purge that had just been experienced. Yang Qi didn’t want to say anything about Mai Dahai’s demotion, so he could only point to Wuchang City in the distance: “…the military order says that it will go directly to Wuchang, and cut off the The north-south traffic did not mention capture or capture. However, if you don’t go ashore to capture Wuchang, how can you teach the Ming court a lesson? In this way, let my marines go up and land on the Snake Mountain River Beach, and the fleet provides artillery cover , the infantry brothers landed in Ezhou, feinted to attack Wuchang by land to contain the officers and soldiers, what do you think?"

Mai Dahai is not the kind of young officer of the Chinese Army who urgently needs to make contributions, so he does not want to land and attack a big city like Wuchang. After thinking about it, he said: "First, the Marine Corps can gather more than 4000 people at most; It takes time to dismantle the bow guns in the city, and Wuchang is an important city on the Yangtze River. The officers and soldiers will not retreat without a fight. Finally, there is another problem. Have you ever thought about it? We publicly announced that the Western Expedition will go straight to Wuchang, which has been publicly announced As far as the world is concerned, if we start the landing operation, it means that our ultimate goal is to capture Wuchang. We must capture Wuchang City to declare that we have achieved the final goal. Otherwise, it means that we have not completed this Western Expedition. Your Majesty said, The purpose of this battle is to teach the Ming Dynasty a profound lesson, not to seize the city, "

Yang Qi insisted on his own point of view: "I believe that since your majesty said that he wanted to teach the Ming court a profound lesson, then capturing Wuchang will achieve this goal. Seizing Wuchang City is to declare that our Chinese army is capable of capturing any city along the Yangtze River. Only in this way can the old man of the Zhu family be forced to sit down and negotiate with us."

Mai Dahai frowned, and turned to ask Mr. Wen, the spy of the Ministry of Military Intelligence: "Mr. Wen, I don't know how the officers and soldiers in the city are deploying their defenses."

Mr. Wen said: "I'm still asking my subordinates to draw the detailed deployment map, but these days the officers and soldiers are frequently deployed, and the deployment situation changes every day... We also have hidden stakes among the officers and soldiers defending the city. It is no problem to enter and exit the city wall. I'll send you the defense map."

Mai Haidao: "First of all, we need to find out the deployment of heavy weapons of the officers and soldiers, and also find out the specific places where the officers and troops are stationed, the strength of the troops, the configuration of weapons, the main generals, etc... Ah Qi, let's find out the deployment of the officers and soldiers first. , and then decide whether to attack the city and how, "

Yang Qi reluctantly nodded, thinking in his heart that after the demotion incident, Mai Dahai became less and less courageous.

... Before deciding whether to capture Wuchang City, the Chinese Army did not just park quietly on the Snake Mountain River, but attacked everywhere. Ten flat-bottomed sand boats and gunboats in the fleet broke into the Han River and bombarded the south of the Han River In Hanyang City, Chen Daoheng and a large number of defeated Ming troops were in Hanyang City.

During this period, due to the diversion of the Han River in the Chenghua period of the current dynasty, the Han River originally flowed into the Yangtze River from the south of Guishan Mountain, and its mainstream flowed into the Yangtze River from Jijiazui in the north of Guishan Mountain in the Chenghua Year. In the future, this swamp will become Hankou Town.

With the help of the northeast wind, the Chinese Army's schooner cruiser went from Wuchang to Yuezhou Prefecture (Yueyang) overnight, and burned the Ming army's navy stationed in Dongting Lake with rockets. In fact, it was just a dozen small warships converted from fishing boats. Since then, until the Chinese military fleet retreated eastward, more than ten Chinese military warships had been cruising at the exit of Dongting Lake into the Yangtze River, pinning down a large number of Ming Dynasty military troops in the upper reaches of Wuchang and blocking the mouth of Dongting Lake.

At this moment, most of the officers and troops entering Wuchang City are the headquarters of the Huguang General Army and reinforcements from Guizhou, Sichuan, and Jiangxi. These troops have just had a mutiny for a while because of lack of pay. In fact, their combat effectiveness is very doubtful. The governor of Huguang Lin Yu once went to the Chu Palace to beg the current King of Chu, Zhu Huakui, the ninth generation King of Chu, to sponsor a little military salary to defend the city, but this Chu King Zhu Huakui inherited the old Zhu family's stingy tradition, and he was not willing to even come forward to perfunctory. Find a eunuch and send the governor away.

Because Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang in the Ming Dynasty, and Du Xiancheng, the commander-in-chief of Huguang, mobilized people from all walks of life to defend the city, strengthened the defense of Wuchang city, and also adjusted the defensive positions of the city defenders, so Mr. Wen's secret way out of the city was also affected. Mai Dahai, Yang Qi and others waited until the third day for the Wuchang city defense map.

At the same time, a battle report and a written order from Yin Feng were sent by the communication ship to the flagship Feilong of the Yangtze River Task Force of the Chinese Army on the shore of Snake Mountain.

Mai Dahai first opened the order: "...Okay, the ship owner ordered me to take down Wuchang and surrounding counties, and then evacuate after the beginning of spring. Moreover, the Taiwan Aboriginal First Battalion, the Li Min Battalion, the Luzon Battalion and the Cavalry Brigade Special Battalion all It has already departed from Chongming Island to support our operations, and the task force of the Weapons Research Department will come to Wuchang and be assigned to my command, "

Yang Qi was lying on the bow deck to check the deployment map of the Ming army, and heaved a sigh of relief after hearing the order: "Your Majesty, you know the truth, but what's the matter with this task force of the Weapons Research Department?"

"It was not mentioned in the order that the weapon research department is under the jurisdiction of the king himself. We can only find out when they come." Mai Dahai opened the battle report and glanced at it: "Oh, the indigenous battalion and the cavalry battalion are about I can reach Huangzhou tomorrow, Ah Ye, Lao Qi, your marines lost Wuhu..."

Hearing this, Yang Qi immediately jumped up from the deck, snatched the battle report, widened his eyes and said: "What, how is it possible, a night attack with only 1000 soldiers can defeat my 800 marines ,"

Ten days ago, the white-armed soldiers in Jinling City broke through from Yuhuatai and sneaked to Wuhu for two nights. With the cooperation of Wuhu City, they broke into the city in the dark.

The siege of Jinling City by the Chinese army was very loose, and only occupied a few surrounding strongholds. The strongholds were connected with each other by cavalry patrols, and the local militiamen used fishing boats to patrol the water network.

Luo Quanxiu, the land commander of the Chinese Army's Jiangnan Campaign, led the main force of the infantry to confront the Ming Dynasty army north of Huzhou. The important strongholds west of Jinling, such as Wuhu, were in charge of the navy. The soldiers, the sailors and the marines were completely unprepared for a sneak attack. They were indeed completely unprepared, because they never thought that the Ming army could carry out a sneak attack. They did not plant landmines under the city wall of Wuhu, nor did they lay down fishing nets and bells on the wall for warning. So in that dark night, the sailors were caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. They had to withdraw from Wuhu City. A naval gunboat moored at Wuhu Wharf was rushed aboard by white soldiers. The gunpowder magazine on the gunboat was ignited, and it was blown to pieces together with the gunboat.

"127 brothers were lost, more than 200 were injured, more than 160 flintlock muskets were lost, a third-class gunboat was lost, and 27 cannons were lost..." Yang Qi's face was livid, and he threw away the notification: "The thief's white rod Bing, these Sichuan barbarians are so hateful, no, I have to go..."

Mai Dahai walked over to pick up the war report, and said lightly: "Forget it, let's fight the battle ahead. The report said that Luo Quanxiu took his troops to recapture Wuhu. This matter has nothing to do with us now." , concentrate on watching this Wuchang City is the most important thing, "

Yang Qi nodded resentfully, and went to check the Wuchang defense map, cursing: "We must let the white soldiers suffer. The one who led the night attack on Wuhu was Ma Xianglin, the son of Qin Liangyu, the old lady Qin. Hmph, Sooner or later, he has to make him look good..."

"There are white soldiers in Hanyang City, led by Qin Bangping, the capital of Shijie, but we can't trouble them until we take Wuchang down," Mai Dahai said while observing Wuchang City with a binoculars: "The captain of the ship has repeatedly Warn us not to underestimate the enemy, you see, isn’t this still underestimating the enemy? I don’t think it will be easy to fight Wuchang City, we have to do our best to win this battle.”

The Battle of Wuhu was just a small-scale local counterattack by the Ming army. In order to get in touch with Jiangbei at Wuhu, Sun Chengzong, the Minister of War in Jinling City, and the [-] to [-] Ming troops under his command lost their lives after being surrounded at the beginning of the first month. Contact with the outside world. Later, the Ming army caught new hands and sent scouts out of the city many times, and found that the blockade and siege of the Chinese army was not tight, so they sent people out of the city many times to contact the Ming army in the direction of northern Zhejiang and western Anhui. More than a thousand ships of the Chinese army came and went on the Yangtze River, especially on the river facing Jinling City, the Chinese army blocked it tightly, and Jinling City lost contact with the Ming army in Jiangbei and even the capital.

Therefore, Shi Zhu, the commander of the white-armed soldiers, sent Ma Xianglin to personally lead the elite troops of his headquarters to attack Wuhu at night. When the regiment's infantry arrived, Ma Xiangyu took the initiative to retreat with the troops. Before leaving, he set fire to the Wuhu arsenal. After a huge explosion, all the tens of thousands of catties of gunpowder concentrated by the Chinese army were destroyed. up.

The Tang newspaper of the night attack on the "big victory" was immediately rushed to the capital by Yang Shuzhong, the governor of Fengyang who was currently in command of the Ming army in Jiangbei, and sent it to the capital for eight hundred miles. With a justifiable victory, the cabinet center of the Ming court published a copy of the "Wuhu Great Victory" in the name of Emperor Tianqi to the public, and published it in the mansion newspaper and sent it to all parts of the country. , He still doesn't know the rewards given to him by the imperial court. After Luo Quanxiu recovered Wuhu, Yin Feng ordered the Chinese Army to mobilize more warships from the coast of Fujian and Zhejiang into the Yangtze River, and block the Yangtze River more tightly.

On the fourth night when the Chinese fleet arrived outside Wuchang City, Mai Haisheng, as the chief officer of the navy, took the communication ship Hailong and followed five large blessing boats to the Snake Mountain River.

He took the infantry support unit, and a special unit: the Ordnance Research Department Task Force,