Chapter 423 Practical Difficulties
After the Battle of Hue in March, the Nguyen regime in South Vietnam was declared overthrown with the fall of Hue City, and Hai Han's main purpose of sending troops was completed. After the war, the North Vietnamese court was no longer able to pay the military expenses required by the Hai Han Militia to continue fighting, so the Hai Han Militia troops, including the Black Tu Port Special Operations Battalion, withdrew to their respective bases and did not participate in the next stage of clearing out the remaining armed forces of South Vietnam. action.
Although the Nguyen regime has fallen, this does not mean that the areas previously ruled by it will immediately change their names and follow the North Vietnamese court. For example, in a large city like Quang Tri, the defenders in the city still chose military resistance rather than surrender. However, the North Vietnamese army's combat capabilities, especially its ability to attack large cities, were far from comparable to those of the Haihan militia.
Before going south to attack Hue City, the North Vietnamese army had already surrounded Quang Tri. However, in order to prevent Hai Han from monopolizing Hue City, North Vietnamese general Zheng Bai chose to lead the main force south to attack Hue first and then turn around to deal with Quang Tri. However, although the battle in Hue was relatively smooth, some troops had to be detached to stay in Hue after the war. First, they had to guard over 10,000 South Vietnamese prisoners of war. Second, they had to maintain the local post-war social order. Third, they had to arrest Those high-ranking South Vietnamese dignitaries who were still hiding somewhere in the city.
By the time Zheng Bai had arranged these tasks, it was already late April, and then Zheng Bai sent his troops north to attack Guangzhi. However, the war did not go as smoothly as he had expected. The garrison in Guangzhi City was the son-in-law of Ruan Fuyuan of South Vietnam. He had no intention of surrendering at all. Instead, he took advantage of the North Vietnamese army going south to besiege Hue to launch an attack on the North Vietnamese army outside the city. After several active attacks, although they failed to achieve a breakthrough, they also caused relatively large casualties to the North Vietnamese Army. By the time Zheng Bai led his large force back to the outside of Guangzhi City, the North Vietnamese troops who had stayed here to surround Guangzhi City had already lost nearly a quarter. If it dragged on for another ten days and a half, they might really be defeated by the city. The South Vietnamese troops inside broke out.
Compared with the Hai Han Militia, the North Vietnamese Army's biggest shortcoming in terms of combat power is that there are too few artillery, which directly leads to the North Vietnamese Army having fewer means in siege warfare and almost only relying on more primitive siege methods. operate. On the other hand, the South Vietnamese army in the city had no way to retreat and the generals were determined to fight to the death. Their fighting will was no worse than that of the attackers outside the city.
After two days of confrontation inside and outside the city, the North Vietnamese launched their offensive. However, due to the lack of long-range firepower attacks, this old-fashioned tactic of relying on soldiers to climb wooden ladders to attack the city did not achieve very good results. In addition to costing thousands of lives in vain, the offensive in the past few days was There is no real gain at all.
Of course, Zheng Bai was not interested in spending time with the defenders under the walls of Guangzhi City, because at this time, their food supplies had to rely on Haihan's ships to be transported from the sea. Every day the war dragged on, the North Vietnamese court had to hire these people. The ship paid nearly a thousand taels for shipping, which was by no means good news for the North Vietnamese Army, which was currently strapped for military spending.
Until this time, Zheng Bai didn't quite understand how the Hai Han militia destroyed the two inner and outer city walls of Hue, because he also concentrated on using artillery to bombard the walls of Quang Tri City, but the effect was obviously not close to destroying the city walls. far away. In the end, he could only attribute this to the fact that the Haihan people still had some secret tactics that had not been disclosed to the North Vietnamese. Although his guess was pretty close, it had no practical effect on the current war situation, so He still had to use the most traditional siege method to attack Quang Tri City.
Under Zheng Bai's strict supervision, ten days later, the North Vietnamese Army finally broke through the north gate of Guangzhi City, and then spent another four days clearing out the remaining South Vietnamese in the city. After the city was broken, all captured South Vietnamese generals were beheaded outside the north gate, and more than 3,000 prisoners of war were packed and gathered under Zheng Bai's order, preparing to be exported to the Haihan people to mortgage war debts.
This battle took the North Vietnamese Army half a month and resulted in more than 2,000 casualties, which was several times greater than the losses in Hue City. And such results also made the North Vietnamese generals more deeply aware of the gap with the Haihan militia - thousands of troops crossed the sea to attack Hue, and only one or two hundred people were killed in the battle, and the city was completely destroyed. Hue won in one fell swoop.
This gap in combat effectiveness has further contributed to the popularity of the "Hai Han supremacy theory" in the North Vietnamese Army. Originally, this theory was only popular among some officers who had received direct training from Hai Han. It was believed that the military theory and armament level of the Hai Han people had reached their peak. If Annan Kingdom wants to become strong, it cannot do without the support and help of Haihan. After the two battles of Hue and Quang Tri, some military officers who originally opposed this theory began to change their minds and believed that this was indeed the case. Instead of continuing to be hostile and wary of Hai Han, they It would be better to take advantage of the fact that the two families have a good relationship and have formed various strategic alliances, and learn more military things from them, so as to strengthen Annan's military strength.
Of course, this effect is exactly what the Haihan Executive Committee expected. In the past two years, it has spent so much energy on supporting and training North Vietnamese military personnel in order to one day influence the direction of Annan's military development. If those in power in the military can be inclined to rely on Haihan, then in the next few years just weapons exports and military training will be enough for Haihan to make a lot of money from Annan.
After the army led by Zheng Bai pacified Guangzhi, they did not have time to take a long rest and quickly went south again, because there were still thousands of miles of territory and dozens of towns south of Hue, waiting for the army to take over them one by one. And some news that makes Zheng Bai very unhappy has come from the south. It is said that the army of the Champa State has been pushing the envelope. After defeating the South Vietnamese army a few months ago, it is still continuing to expand its control area eastward, which is very promising. The posture of taking back all the territory occupied a hundred years ago.
Of course, Zheng Bai also knew that the Champa Kingdom also received some military assistance from the Haihan people, so he would not place his hope on the remaining South Vietnamese troops being able to stop these armed Champa troops. The only way to solve the problem is to lead the army south as soon as possible and block the occupying army from the country.
Zheng Bai was eager to go south to control the situation, but many things were not something he could do if he wanted to. The logistical supply problems faced by this army were almost unsolvable, even if Haihan ships were hired to transport supplies by sea. It is also difficult to maintain the thousands of miles of supply lines from Hue to the southern border. Haihan's fleet can barely maintain a force of three to four thousand people like the militia, but the materials needed by the North Vietnamese army, which has ten times the strength, have exceeded the fleet's operating capacity. Under this situation, Zheng Bai had no better solution, so he could only use the most primitive method-supply on the spot during the march. A relatively simple and easy-to-understand way of saying it is to rush all the way. Anyone who is willing to donate food can still save their family and a small amount of food, but those who are unwilling to cooperate will almost always be looted, and those who dare to resist may even lose their lives. Anyway, During the war, human life was worthless. If someone was killed by the rebels, he would be killed. At most, he would be accused of being a "remnant of South Vietnam" and get away with it.
This method directly caused the area south of Hue to fall into huge chaos. Wherever the North Vietnamese Army went, it was almost like locusts sweeping across. Although Zheng Bai's original intention was just to collect supplies, it was difficult to carry out the order intact when it reached the grassroots level. And for the North Vietnamese army, the north and the south have been separated for many years, and their families are fighting for the north of the river. They don't have much pity and sympathy for the people in the South Vietnam area, and they don't have much psychological pressure when they start robbing property. Soon The operation to collect supplies turned into a feast of plunder.
On the other side of the sea, when the Hai Han Executive Committee sent a special team to Shilu, Zheng Bai commanded his army and also advanced to the Quang Ngai area, four hundred miles south of Hue. At this time, instead of reducing the items accompanying the army due to constant consumption, there were tens of thousands of kilograms more baggage.
In addition to the military rations collected through various means along the way, there are also various personal items looted by the soldiers. After the soldiers grabbed the money, they had no place to store it, let alone spend it during the march. There was no feasible way to transport it back to the north, so they had to gather it together and store it. Often a group of people robbed it. All the belongings were put together in several large boxes, and then taken away together during the march. Fortunately, we also grabbed a lot of livestock such as mules and horses on our way south, so we didn't have to worry about grabbing too many things to transport away.
Zheng Bai is not blind, and he is not unaware of the situation in the army. However, under the current objective situation, it would indeed be unjustifiable if these soldiers are not given material stimulation. Zheng Bai had heard that all Hai Han militiamen would reward their merits after the war, and all property captured during the battle would be confiscated. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese Army did not establish such a rule, even for those who had served in the Hai Han Army. Trained officers would probably not agree to have their share of property confiscated.
The regime in South Vietnam has collapsed, so the army did not encounter resistance similar to that in Quang Tri City in the process of clearing out the remaining forces of South Vietnam. The defenders often collapsed at the first touch, or simply opened the city and surrendered. The frequent and intensive small-scale military conflicts that Zheng Bai was worried about did not occur. But this marching method of robbing and killing along the way also caused another negative consequence, that is, a large number of bankrupt people appeared wherever they passed, and their only choice was probably to leave their homes and flee. As a result, the second wave of refugees appeared in South Vietnam since 1627, and this time the location was no longer the north-south war zone near Zhengjiang, but moved to the southern coasts of Da Nang, Hoi An, Sam Chi, Quang Ngai, and Ninh. Regional towns.
Before the war, the Hai Han Executive Committee requested concession rights from the North Vietnamese court in Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Cam Ranh, and Vung Tau. However, at this time, except for Cam Ranh and Vung Tau further south, Da Nang and Quy Nhon were The two places of Ren and Ren almost became a white land, and people abandoned their homes and fled under the looting of the North Vietnamese army. This situation undoubtedly adds more difficulty to the development plan Haihan wants to implement here. After all, the development and construction of the port requires a large amount of labor. When planning, the executive committee directly planned to recruit the main labor from the local area and only send management personnel from the base camp. But with the North Vietnamese army making such a fuss, I'm afraid the Executive Committee will have to reconsider the distribution of labor sources.
However, the Executive Committee does not have a better way to solve the current problems for North Vietnam, because with the launch of the Shilu project, the Executive Committee needs to concentrate more maritime transport capacity on the Victory Port-Changhua route. , it is simply impossible to send more sea ships to solve the transportation problem of supplies for the North Vietnamese army. The North Vietnamese Army was making a mess in the area, and the Executive Committee could only watch blankly. After all, the original agreement only related to the use rights and ownership of local land, and did not say that the population of the surrounding areas should be reserved for Haihan. .
Regarding this situation, the Executive Committee is also quite helpless. According to the development plan agreed upon by the executive committee members last year, it was originally expected to start construction projects in Shilu and Nanyue at the same time, but now it seems that it may be difficult to do both. After careful consideration, the executive committee decided to first take care of the Shilu Iron Mine, which is closer to Shengli Port and more important to the future development of Chuanchuan Group. Although the construction time of the Shilu iron ore project may be far longer than the time required to develop the South Vietnam port, its importance is not the same.
Regarding this decision, Yan Chujie expressed a point of view at the executive committee that was later widely discussed by the outside world: "With steel, there is combat effectiveness, and with combat effectiveness, what else is there that we can't grab? Where are the ports of South Vietnam?" We won’t lose it. As long as our military strength is strong enough, it is not impossible to take down not only these ports, but also the entire Indochina Peninsula!”
Although the executive committee members do not completely agree with Yan Chujie's slightly extreme views, they have to admit that his statement has some truth. The Haihan militia, armed with muskets and cannons, is almost the most powerful army of the same size in the Far East in this era, and the development of the Shilu Iron Mine is bound to bring about further improvements in military strength and even the overall strength of the entire Crossing Group. When it comes to promotion, where do you want to occupy it? In the end, it’s not the barrel of the gun that has the final say?
So after the executive committee members unified their understanding, the executive committee also made a decision to temporarily stop the port construction plan in South Vietnam and devote all its resources to the development project of Shilu Iron Mine, striving to shorten the scheduled construction period and allow The large project of Shilu Iron Mine was put into actual operation as soon as possible. The decision to make this decision also brought about the outbreak of a new wave of immigrants in 1629.
(End of chapter)