Chapter 395: Troops Arrive in the Inner City
According to the prior agreement between the two parties, after Ruan Wenwen's garrison surrendered, he himself would personally perform the task of leading the way and guide the Haihan militia to launch an attack to the south of the city. There is still a distance of more than two miles from the bridge guarded by Ruan Wenwen to the outskirts of the imperial city. It is definitely much better for people who are familiar with the defense situation in the city to lead the way than the militia groups pushing through on their own.
As Ruan Chinggui promised beforehand, the leading party in the city has arranged a safe marching channel to the south of the city. Some people were even more active than Ruan Wenwen. Before the militia army arrived, they had already gathered their troops and piled all their weapons together, waiting to surrender. In just over an hour, Haihan's side received more than 2,200 surrendered troops from the defenders. The militia army entered the southern half of the city under the guidance of the leading party without firing a shot.
The defenders in the city had known a few days ago that the Haihan people had breached the city wall in the northeast corner and established a defensive position in that area. However, the Haihan people had been besieged by the defenders in the following days and had made almost no gains. any progress. This gave many people renewed hope, believing that they could rely on the city's narrow terrain and superior force to suppress the Haihan Militia in the northeast corner, and use time to slowly wear down their opponent's victory. However, while these people were still daydreaming, nearly 3,000 soldiers from the Hai Han Militia had quietly entered the city and advanced southward along the city wall to the core of Hue City.
When the militia soldiers in gray military uniforms appeared at the Imperial City Garrison Department, which was only two blocks away from the Imperial City, the South Vietnamese Guardsmen stationed nearby immediately exploded - the Haihan militia group unexpectedly attacked without any warning. After attacking here, are all the defenders in the northern half of the city dead?
At this juncture, the defending general made a very serious mistake. He did not immediately launch troops to attack the small vanguard of the Haihan Militia. Instead, he chose to wait and see while gathering troops. As a result, he missed the opportunity to fight. The Haihan Militia had enough time to transport the artillery behind the team to the front line for deployment. When five artillery pieces lined up in the street and aimed at the gate of the garrison department, the outcome of this battle was already determined.
Five artillery pieces roared one after another, and the shells flew over the empty street, smashing the gate of the Garrison Department and the dense barricades outside the door to pieces. Some South Vietnamese soldiers who tried to launch a counterattack during the shelling were also stopped a hundred meters away by the dense musket lead bullets, and could not get close to the Hai Han Militia camp.
After four rounds of artillery bombardment, the gate of the garrison department and the walls on both sides were reduced to ruins. There were also dozens of casualties in the yard behind the gate. Qian Tiandun gave an order, and the soldiers formed a formation with rifles in hand and launched an attack on the garrison department at a steady pace. Under the suppression of absolute firepower superiority, any attempt to use personal bravery to engage in close combat is futile. For the few rebels who are not afraid of death, the soldiers will not be stingy with their bullets.
Although some of the defenders followed the commander and evacuated the battlefield from the back door of the Garrison Department, the loss here still immediately paralyzed the command system of the Royal Forest Army. Thousands of defenders deployed outside the imperial city could only organize small-scale sporadic counterattacks without command. This was a godsend opportunity for the Haihan Militia, which was good at battlefield command. By noon, the walls of the Imperial City had entered the musket range of the vanguard. At this time, most of the Imperial Guards guarding the Imperial City had abandoned their posts outside the city and chose to withdraw to defend within the Imperial City. .
The actions of the Royal Forest Army directly caused chaos among the defenders in other areas of the city. Due to their limited status, they were unable to retreat into the imperial city, and they did not know what the battle was like. Rumors immediately spread in the city. There are even rumors that the Haihan militia has surrounded the imperial city and is intensifying its attack, and is about to break the city. The Royal Forest Army, which lost its command, failed to send messengers in time to notify the defenders in various parts of the city to return to the defense. This resulted in repeated delays in fighter planes, allowing the Haihan militia to calmly demolish private houses outside the imperial city that blocked the artillery fire. Build siege positions.
The densely packed houses outside the imperial city posed a great obstacle to the subsequent offensive of the Haihan Militia. The officers had to stop their progress and first organized soldiers and civilians to demolish the buildings. However, this action was not part of the original battle plan. among.
"Tear down all the walls of the courtyard on the left! Hurry!" Yu Tiezhu, who was ordered to clean up the site, loudly issued an order to his soldiers and civilians. The order he received was to demolish all the houses and walls blocking shooting on the left side of the street in front of him before dark, and this was obviously not an easy task.
Seven or eight soldiers worked together to hold the head of a long wooden pillar and hit the wall one by one. These were beams that had just been demolished from another house, and were now being used as tools for forced demolition. Several groups of people carried the wood and kept hitting it, and soon the brick wall collapsed towards the courtyard. There was a cry of exclamation in the courtyard. Several men tried to resist with knives and guns, but they were immediately beaten to pieces by the musketeers who came up to take over. At this time, no one cares whether these people are good citizens or defenders. As long as they try to attack the militia, they can meet the standard of shooting back.
The forced demolition operation slowed down the militia's attack so much that Qian Tiandun had to stop his subsequent combat plan and wait for the militiamen to clear a large enough space in front of the position. Fortunately, most of the artillery of the South Vietnamese defenders was deployed on the outer city walls. The imperial city walls did not have any long-range weapons. Some defenders who dared to expose their heads and bodies through the crenellations and shoot civilians outside the city with bows and arrows were also squatted nearby. The snipers on the rooftops everywhere were calling names one by one.
Hue Imperial City imitated the design of the Ming Dynasty's imperial city. It also has a central axis layout of one palace and one square. It contains palaces such as Qinzheng Palace, Qiancheng Palace, Kunthai Palace, Guangming Palace, Gongguang Palace, and Taihe Palace. In terms of architecture, there are four gates around the imperial city: Meridian Gate, Heping Gate, Xianren Gate, and Zhangde Gate. It is basically a miniature version of the Forbidden City. At this time, the position established by the Haihan Militia was facing the Peace Arch in the northeast.
The frontline headquarters hoped to clear an area outside the Peace Gate as soon as possible, then set up artillery to storm the Imperial City, using a simple and crude method to break the last line of defense of the South Vietnamese defenders. However, since there are far more private houses here than imagined, this battle plan has to be postponed.
During the demolition process that lasted all afternoon, the militia troops encountered even more resistance than during their march through the city in the morning. A large number of scattered South Vietnamese soldiers and people carried out spontaneous resistance actions, which caused some trouble for the militia army and greatly slowed down the demolition. So, the officers responsible for directing the demolition of houses later applied to Qian Tiandun directly. Use artillery to bombard the walls so as not to miss the progress required by the command.
As of nightfall that day, only about two-thirds of the demolition area required by the headquarters had been completed. Grassroots officers believed that at the current speed, tomorrow's demolition operation would probably take half a day to complete the task.
Fortunately, the clearing of the occupied areas after entering the city went very smoothly, and almost no decent resistance was encountered. This is of course directly related to the fact that almost all the defenders in the occupied areas have chosen to surrender. In areas that have not been subjected to forced demolition measures, local people do not have much willingness to resist, and most of them choose to close their doors and seek happiness for themselves.
"We injured more than 30 people and killed four when we demolished a house? What are you doing?" Yan Chujie, who had just arrived from outside the city, couldn't help but became angry when he saw today's casualty report. He had been outside the city this afternoon. He was busy arranging for the thousands of South Vietnamese troops to be surrendered in the morning and did not enter the city to supervise the battle. The results obtained in the afternoon obviously did not satisfy him.
"Mr. Yan, although the defenders were dispersed by us, they are basically still trapped in the city and have not escaped. You have not seen the scene today. If you just knock down a wall, there will be one or two on the other side. Hundreds of people rushed over to fight. If the brothers hadn't been well-trained, the casualties would have been much more." Qiao Zhiya, one of the on-site commanders of today's demolition operation, took the initiative to defend himself.
"We did not expect to encounter so much resistance at the beginning. Later, after allowing the armed forces to cooperate with the operation, there were fewer casualties." Qian Tiandun, as the frontline combat commander, also defended.
Yan Chujie probably realized that his tone just now was a bit too strong, and nodded: "It's not that I care too much about casualties, but that our troop strength is too small. If the battle losses increase, it will easily affect the overall combat effectiveness!"
As the battle reaches the current stage, the Haihan Militia's shortcomings in military strength have become more and more obvious. In this expedition to Hue, the Hai Han side dispatched a total of more than 4,000 people, including nearly 1,000 civilians. Excluding the navy, there were actually only more than 2,000 troops able to enter the city to fight. If such a small number of manpower were to be dispersed in the city of Hue, it would be almost like spreading pepper noodles. Therefore, the combat strategy chosen by the headquarters was to only attack one road and never divide the troops. However, even so, the distribution of troops was already stretched thin, and hundreds of naval soldiers had to be transferred ashore to guard the prisoners outside the city.
It has been exactly one month since the war started on the 22nd of last month. The number of casualties in the Haihan Militia has exceeded three digits, and the number of wounded soldiers who need to retreat from the firing line to recuperate is three times as many. This means that In this month of fighting, the Haihan Militia lost almost three companies of combatants. This level of combat attrition will undoubtedly have a very obvious impact on the militia, which is not already strong in military strength. Some non-important positions had to be supplemented by civilian personnel with reserve militia qualifications to maintain the normal combat effectiveness of the troops. Based on the Military Commission's pre-war estimates, if the battle damage figure reaches double the current number and the war is not over yet, then the militia troops going out will probably have to consider whether they need to withdraw their troops early.
If the situation really develops to that point, it will undoubtedly be a failed expedition for the military. Eliminating the South Vietnamese regime is the primary goal of this military operation. If this operation fails to achieve this goal, the militia will probably have to spend several more months accumulating strength before launching the next attack. This is obviously not the case between the Military Commission and the executive. What the committee wants to see happen. Yan Chujie was so anxious because he was worried that the battle damage would be too high and would affect the next battle. "Let's talk about the current battle situation in the city!" Yan Chujie also felt that it was useless to talk about this topic, so he took the initiative to shift everyone's attention to the analysis of the current battle situation.
Qian Tiandun pointed to the defense map of Hue City on the table and explained: "At present, the area from the northeast corner along the city wall to the southeast has been cleared, but there are still a large number of South Vietnamese defenders in the west and south of the city. According to Judging from the information provided by the surrendered South Vietnamese officers, it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 to 15,000 remaining defenders in the city.”
"Does this number include the defenders in the imperial city?" Yan Chujie asked with a frown.
Qian Tiandun shook his head and said: "There are about four thousand defenders in the imperial city, which are not included in the number I just mentioned."
"Is there any good news that should make us relax?" Yan Chujie was obviously not happy about this situation and could only ask half-jokingly.
"The good news is that the South Vietnamese army guarding the Imperial City does not have many heavy weapons available. The few heavy artillery in the Imperial City are said to be deployed at the Meridian Gate facing the Xiangjiang River. It is estimated that they will be moved in a while. No nest. So at least for the next two days, our artillery deployed outside the Peace Arch will have an overwhelming advantage." Qiao Zhiya paused and added: "But there is also bad news."
"What's the bad news?" Before Yan Chujie could relax, he was lifted up by Qiao Zhiya's words again.
Qiao Zhiya continued: "According to the information we know now, the imperial city's defenses are very strong, and its walls are no worse than those of the outer city. Coupled with the blessing of the moat, it may be a bit troublesome for us to attack in a short time. .”
The "bad news" mentioned by Qiao Zhiya is undoubtedly a very real problem. Due to the small area of the imperial city, the area where the defense forces are deployed in the city will be relatively dense. The militia's approach of breaking through a point to establish a forward position when attacking the outer city is probably difficult to copy directly, because the outer city covers a large area and it takes more time for reinforcements to arrive at the gap in the city wall, and the imperial city is smaller in area. , if thousands of people are in place to make up for the defense at the first time, it will definitely put great pressure on the vanguard troops attacking the city. Although they have 100% confidence in the combat effectiveness of their own troops, unless it is a last resort, the senior officials are not willing to use their hard-earned elite troops to fight against the monkey soldiers of South Vietnam.
The situation that the command headquarters now faces is a bit of a dilemma. If you want to speed up the battle and end this war as soon as possible, you will probably have to attack the imperial city head-on, which will inevitably cause more casualties on your side. If we fight more safely and slowly consume the fighting power of the defending troops, we will be able to win this battle sooner or later, but we don't know how long it will last, maybe ten days and a half, maybe a little longer. The longer the battle drags on, the greater the burden will be on the militia fighting across the sea, and their own combat effectiveness will continue to decline due to the extension of the combat period.
"I personally have a combat plan, but I'm not sure about its feasibility." Seeing Yan Chujie frowning and staring at the map for a long time, Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to propose a new idea.
"Let's talk about it first!" Yan Chujie looked up at Qiao Zhiya and said.
"Actually, the blasting method we used when breaking through the outer city was very good. I think we can definitely use the same method again." Seeing the disapproval look on Yan Chujie's face, Qiao Zhiya continued: "I know what you want to say. , if the gap in the city wall we demolish through blasting is too small, it will of course be blocked by the city’s defenders. We might as well go bigger and demolish the entire Peace Arch!”
Qiao Zhiya got excited, leaned over and pointed at the map and said: "Look, about three hundred meters behind the Peace Arch is the central axis of the imperial city. Our artillery can hit the imperial palace directly from the current position without crossing the river. , what will the defenders in the city do to resist our bombardment?”
Qian Tiandun interrupted: "We can also bombard the palace in the city now. We just need to increase the firing angle of the artillery."
"But that would be completely inaccurate, and there is no way to directly verify the effectiveness of the shelling. The most important thing is that those in power in the city can intuitively see how the artillery positions outside the city hit the shells above their heads. This will definitely be more shocking!" Qiao Zhiya looked excited, as if he had imagined the scene of the defenders and dignitaries in the city scrambling to escape the bombardment.
"After all, you just want to play blasting! Is your nickname Michael Bay?" Yan Chujie pointed out Qiao Zhiya's bad taste without politeness. But he couldn't deny that the combat plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya did have certain feasibility. If the tower of the Peace Arch can really be taken down, then the gap in the city wall, which is more than 100 meters long, cannot be repaired by the defenders in the city.
"When we blew up the outer city wall, we used hundreds of kilograms of explosives to blow up a four- to five-meter gap. You want to blow down the Heping Gate tower. Are you sure the explosives we brought are enough?" Qian Tiandun But he was not very interested in the battle plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya.
"The explosives made after time travel must be a little less powerful, but I happen to still have some inventory on hand!" Qiao Zhiya showed a proud smile on his face: "The TNT we bought before time travel has been shipped this time, and it just happened to be sent. Useful.”
The TNT explosives Qiao Zhiya mentioned were of course not materials purchased by the group, but the private property of the North American Gang. They purchased a large amount of military supplies before crossing, including hundreds of kilograms of TNT explosives and detonators for detonation. Although he didn't know whether they would be put to use, under the insistence of Qiao Zhiya, a big bomber, Wang Tom still transported these dangerous goods to the front line of Hue by ship.
(End of chapter)