Dragon Sea Empire

On this day, the 5000 Ming army led by Wang Huazhen advanced in three routes. More than [-] of the main force of the Chinese army crossed the Pingyang Bridge in the morning.In the evening, General Jiang Chaodong commanded Liaodong Governor Wang Huazhen's personal battalion, and escorted Wang Huazhen to a small village three miles west of Xining Fort.

The [-] right troops of the Guangning Army set off from Shisanshan Station, [-] miles southwest of Guangning Wei, and it would take three days to reach the vicinity of Xining Fort.

The left army of the Ming army also had 2 people. They started from Zhenwu Fort, a hundred and fifty miles east of Guangning Weidong, and marched along the original Great Wall of Hetao in Liaohe River. It is estimated that they could reach the north of Xining Fort in a day.

In fact, on the road from Shanhaiguan to Guangning, nearly [-] Ming troops were deployed to guard this long supply line.On this most important supply line of the Ming army in western Liaoning, the Beiyang Fleet of the Chinese Navy is still launching small-scale landing and sneak attacks, and constantly harassing guerrillas.

Wang Huazhen, governor of Liaodong, rode a horse, surrounded by a group of staff and scribes, and urged the Ming army to attack the fort as soon as he arrived at the battlefield.He believed that the Ming army suddenly arrived at Xining Fort, just to launch an attack in one go. Taking advantage of the frightened pirates in the fortress, they captured Xining Fort in one fell swoop, and then marched eastward across the Sancha River and went straight to Haizhou.

Facing this order, striker guerrilla Zu Dashou was very helpless, his lieutenant Qi Bingzhong was short-tempered, and directly yelled at Wang Huazhen as an idiot.The infantry brothers of the Chinese army have been marching for a whole day, and now they are exhausted, how can they attack the fortress.

Zu Dashou is not a good-tempered person either, but after being a famous general in the former Liaodong Town, he knows a little bit about how to behave in the officialdom.He said to Qi Bingzhong: "Now our chief military officer Liu Qu has not arrived, and we have no place to intercede. After all, Mr. Wang is the leader of an army. Since he has ordered, he must give him face. Send two battalions of brothers , the thunder is loud and the rain is little, let's attack for a while."

Wang Huazhen didn't know that, in fact, last night, Zhang Pan had already learned about the Ming army's marching schedule and all the deployment of the Ming army through the Ministry of Military Intelligence.This is the masterpiece of Zeng Jiuye of the Liaodong Branch of the Military Intelligence Department: He bought several middle and lower-level generals of the Ming army in Guangning City, and also planted hidden insiders in Wang Huazhen's staff team.

At this time, Zeng Jiuye was on the Ximen Bastion of Xining Fort, with Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Pan of the Xining garrison, and with them was Captain Guo Yun of the Supervising Army.At this time, the sun had not yet set below the horizon. Taking advantage of the afterglow of the setting sun, Guo Yun held up his binoculars to observe the Ming army on the opposite side, silently estimating the number of Ming troops.After a while, he said: "Lieutenant Colonel Zhang, 180 flags of hundreds of households have appeared in the Ming army. The actual number of officers and soldiers under the command of a hundred households should be 20 people. More than 20000 officers and soldiers of our army have arrived face to face."

"They don't seem to have any plans to set up camp. What's going on?" Zhang Pan held up his binoculars and leaned on the cannon placed in a corner of the bastion, and said doubtfully, "Could it be that they want to attack the fort overnight?"

"Really, they really set up an offensive formation, the shield soldiers lined up in front, and even the carts were pushed out." Guo Yun sneered: "These guys are just in a daze, do you think we are easy to bully? Zhang Defen, how about we fire a shot? Their striker is already within range of our 36-pound gun."

"It's boring, let's talk about it after they take action." Zhang Pan shook his head: "Wait a minute, don't fire the five heavy artillery in the west, let them camp within the range of our heavy artillery..."

During the day, the Mongolian cavalry sentry constantly monitored the progress of the Ming army, and reported the situation to the Xiningbao fortress area in time.Now, most of the civilians in the original fortress have been evacuated outside the fortress a few days ago, leaving more than a thousand young adults who are willing to contribute to the Chinese army and are organized as a logistical auxiliary force to carry arms for the defenders at the head of the city. ammunition.

The Chinese army in the fortress not only knew the Ming army's attack plan in advance, but also did not panic at all as Wang Huazhen expected.

When the Ming army arrived at Fort Xining, all the defenders of the Chinese army had already entered the fortress area and were ready for the battle.The Ming army's first attack on Xining Fort launched by Zu Dashou soon ended in tragedy.

Under the reflection of the blood-red sunset, the 2000 Ming army infantry at the two battalion heads attacked the strong wall of Xining Fort without the cover of artillery fire.

They launched an attack from about two miles west of the fortress. As soon as the attack started, they were bombarded by the Chinese Army's thunderbolt rockets, six-pound light field artillery, and bombardment with flowering bullets.When they were less than a mile away from the fort, hundreds of Ming soldiers had been killed.

At this time, Zhang Pan transferred five field cannons from other directions of the fortress, and joined the ranks of firing on the Ming army to the west.The pull-style flintlock ammunition was shot out at the maximum rate of fire and landed in the dense crowd of Ming soldiers.

Therefore, less than three hundred steps away from the fortress, the soldiers of the Ming army could not bear the bombardment of the flowering bullets, and they scattered.

The soldiers of the Chinese Army cheered, and then someone complained loudly: "You son of a bitch, why did they collapse before we had time to shoot!"

"Soft, too soft, let's go out of the city to chase after it for a while?"

"Go to hell, just stay here, it's the Tartar cavalry's business to chase after him."

"Who are you talking about Tartars? My old lady is a Mongolian..."

"Shut up, the lord of the guard will give the order, and all the soldiers will stand by!"

……

Zu Dashou, who was stout and short, shook his head, furiously, pointed at his nose and scolded several generals of Qianfeng camp.He didn't expect this attack to be effective, but he didn't expect that the two battalion leaders would not give him face so much, and they collapsed halfway.The soldiers at the head of the battalion came from the original soldiers of the Ming army and guards in the east of the Liaohe River. They were veterans under Zu Dashou, but they lost all their face. Most of the living soldiers threw away their weapons and equipment and fled back empty-handed. .They have never fought against the Chinese Army, so they have no concept of the legendary "sharp firearms" of the Chinese Army. As a result, they were bombarded by repeated bombs as soon as they came up. The entire army collapsed within 10 minutes of the charge, killing three More than a hundred people.

At this time, there were bursts of explosions far away from the east of Xining Fort.This is the sound when the Sancha River pontoon bridge was blown up.

Wang Huazhen rushed to the front line of Xining Fort enthusiastically, hoping to see a hearty victory, but what he saw was the tragic scene of 2000 Ming soldiers fleeing under the artillery fire of Xining Fort.

Immediately afterwards, he received a report from the cavalry battalion of the Chinese army: the Sancha River pontoon bridge was blown up by the pirate army, and the cavalry killed the general ancestor.

Wang Huazhen's face was ashen. The governor of Liaodong, who had been waving a goose feather fan in the shape of Zhuge Kongming, got off his horse and strode to Zu Dashou's place.

"Ancestor Guerrilla, add troops and fight again! You must take down this small fortress in front of you tonight. If you succeed, I will serve you to the imperial court."

Zu Dashou was really angry at this moment. The news that he had failed to cross the Sancha River in front of him had come. The ancestor who was killed at the head of the pontoon bridge became a cousin of his ancestor's side branch.Moreover, his two battalion leaders collapsed too quickly, and he was very unwilling.Therefore, upon hearing Wang Huazhen's words, he immediately agreed: "I obey, Wang Junmen, the young general requests that you lend me the cannons of the Beijing camp."

The so-called cannons in the Beijing camp were imitated by the Ministry of War based on the Western cannons brought by Xu Guangqi, and distributed to the Beijing camp for use. There are no more than ten guns in the whole army, and now five of them have been transported to Xining Fort.

At the moment, the artillerymen of the Beijing battalion brought by Wang Huazhen from the capital used a ox cart to drag the fake version of the Hongyi cannon and pushed towards the front line of Xining Fort.At this time, night had fallen on the land of Liaodong, and a bright crescent moon hung in the sky. Coupled with the light of the torches lit by the Ming army, the soldiers of the Chinese army on the fortress could vaguely see the movements of the Qingming army.

Most of the Ming army in this era did not know how to fight at night. The main reason was that they lacked communication tools at night and were unable to organize effective military operations. Stealing camps and robbing villages by night mostly appeared in romance novels, and actual battles were relatively rare.Unless it is a well-trained elite unit that is not afraid of death, it generally does not adopt night combat tactics.

Therefore, the Ming army prepared to attack the city with great fanfare at night, which was beyond Zhang Pan's expectations.

However, he wasn't worried about it.Within 300 steps of the fortress walls, a ring of flint-tapped mines was laid.Zhang Pan had already deployed ten honeycomb guns on the west wall, and he was confident that he would kill and injure the Ming troops in large numbers before they approached the city wall.

Everything turned out as he expected.The cannons of the Ming army did not help Zu Dashou's newly organized attack. These five cannons could only fire solid bullets, and their range was about the same as that of the light field artillery of the Chinese army, but their firing speed was three times slower than that of the light field artillery of the Chinese army. .

After only two rounds of the counterfeit Western cannon fired, the artillery positions of the Ming army were covered by the artillery fire of the Chinese army. The gunners died in seven or eight, and the artillery support of the Ming army was suspended.

This time Zu Dashou dispatched a group of troops from his own battalion to urge the three battalions of the Guangning Army to attack the west wall of the fortress.

Intensive artillery fire made gaps in the attacking Ming army crowd. Between the flames and black smoke, severed limbs and remains flew in the air and disappeared into the night.

Then, the troops of the Ming army stepped on landmines, and more people flew into the air at the last moment of their lives.Subsequently, the manual rapid-fire burst gun began to harvest the lives of the Ming army.After all the Ming troops in the first row were knocked to the ground by rapid-fire burst guns, the Chinese army once again disintegrated the attack of the Ming army by relying on artillery fire, rockets, mines, and manual machine guns.

This time, Wang Huazhen witnessed the fierce firepower of the Chinese Army at close range, her face was pale, her lips were trembling and she was speechless.

The Ming army's first attack on Xining Fort ended with more than 300 casualties.

On the second day, Wang Huazhen ordered all the troops to set up camp, and called various generals to discuss how to attack the fortress.He had given up the idea of ​​a quick fight, but he was still confident of victory.