Chapter 1489 Han Army Flag
"Look carefully at the changes in their military flags." Qian Tiandun reminded Li Nai when he saw that he couldn't figure it out.
Li Nai observed for a while and finally understood what Qian Tiandun meant. After that, there was actually a banner with a big word "geng" written on it in the formation of the Later Jin army. Obviously, this was the Han military flag in the Later Jin army. The only general named Geng in the Han army banner was Geng Zhongming, the rebel general of the Ming Dynasty.
Geng Zhongming was a Han from Liaodong, but he joined Hou Jin as a soldier in his early years and rose to the rank of Chief Qian. Later he defected to Pidao and worked under Mao Wenlong as an errand. He was highly valued by him and was promoted to the rank of general in Dongjiang Town. After Mao Wenlong died at the hands of Yuan Chonghuan in the second year of Chongzhen, Geng Zhongming refused to obey the jurisdiction and went to Dengzhou, Shandong to join Sun Yuanhua, and then became a staff general of the Chinese Army. After Kong Youde launched a mutiny in Wuqiao in the fourth year of Chongzhen, Geng Zhongming acted as Kong Youde's internal response in Dengzhou, and he cooperated with internal and external forces to capture the city of Dengzhou.
In the sixth year of Chongzhen's reign, the Dengzhou rebels finally couldn't hold on anymore. Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming abandoned the city and fled to the sea, and then surrendered to Houjin. Emperor Taiji of the Later Jin Dynasty came out to welcome Shili, awarded Geng Zhongming the position of chief military officer, and called the rebels they brought out from the Ming Dynasty "God's Blessing Soldiers".
According to the original history, after Huang Taiji proclaimed himself emperor this year, Geng Zhongming would be named King Huaishun, and together with King Kong Youde and King Zhishun Shang Kexi, they would be called the "Three Shun Kings". Including Huang Taiji's personal expedition to North Korea later, Geng Zhongming's capital He was one of the senior generals who followed him, and his position in the Jin Army was very important. However, Haihan's intervention changed the original historical trajectory. After the Jin army suffered consecutive defeats in Jinzhou, Huang Taiji lost the mood to ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor. Naturally, Geng Jingzhong's appointment as king was postponed indefinitely.
Azig has been failing in Jinzhou and cannot open up the situation. Even General Yangguli died on the battlefield here. Huang Taiji naturally cannot be satisfied with such a record. However, the troops of the Manchuria Banner and the Mongolian Banner relied on cavalry as their main combat force, so sending reinforcements to Jinzhou was nothing more than a tactic to boost their opponents' record. Huang Taiji thought twice and decided to transfer the Han Army Flag, which was equipped with a higher proportion of muskets and artillery, to Jinzhou to deal with the mysterious and powerful Hai Han Army.
The Han military flag had a rather special status in the Later Jin Army. On the one hand, the Han people were often treated as slaves in Liaodong and their social status was extremely low. On the other hand, the troops brought to Liaodong by the rebel generals of the Ming Dynasty were valued by Huang Taiji. A special organization was set up called the Han Army Flag. The Manchu generals actually looked down upon these surrendered generals, and they only respected Huang Taiji because they were intimidated by his majesty. But as a soldier, his status must be maintained by his achievements. Whether the Han army flag has the combat effectiveness equivalent to his status, being transferred to Jinzhou to deal with the Haihan people is actually a test.
Geng Zhongming actually did not want to take this mission. Before he fled to Liaodong to pay gold, he had already heard that a group of very impressive armed merchants had emerged from the south. They not only established a country on Qiongzhou Island, but also claimed The dominant Baizhi in the South China Sea was also defeated by him.
Shortly after Geng Zhongming paid gold in the sixth year of Chongzhen, he heard that the Haihan army went north to capture Zhoushan Island outside Hangzhou Bay. Another year later, the Haihan army's tentacles reached Dengzhou, Shandong. Geng Zhongming originally thought that the Ming Dynasty would react violently to this invasion, but he did not expect that the Haihan people quickly established a foothold in Dengzhou and began to turn their attention to Liaodong.
When Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde fled across the sea from Dengzhou to Liaodong, they also took a group of naval personnel and a large number of ships with them. It can be said that they were the first organized professional naval force in the post-Jin Dynasty army. However, the Haihan people sent fleets to sweep up and down the Liaodong coast from time to time. Within a few months, they destroyed most of the warships they finally brought here, and the remaining ships could only be avoided by hiding in the upper reaches of the inland river. Attack by Haihan warships. Haihan's armed forces on the water were invincible, which was also Geng Zhongming's first intuitive impression of the Haihan army.
But even so, Geng Zhongming did not expect that the Haihan Army would one day send troops to land in Liaodong, and put on a posture of never leaving once I came. In his opinion, almost all the Han people in southern Jinzhou were moved to the north, and it would be difficult for the Haihan people to survive even if they occupied such a sparsely populated area. Besides, this place originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty. What motivation did the Haihan people have to fight such a thankless battle for the Ming Dynasty?
As the war that started last winter gradually progressed in a direction unfavorable to Hou Jin, Geng Zhongming gradually realized that the purpose of this opponent's coming to Liaodong was not to avenge Ming or regain lost territory, but that the Haihan people themselves planned to Liaodong occupied an area - just as they had done before in the south.
Azig and Yangguli fought very hard in Jinzhou. From last winter to now, they have hardly achieved any good results. A lot of people under their command, Jia La E Zhen and Niu Lu E Zhen, were killed in the battle. In the end, Yang Guli also killed a lot of people. Gu Li also joined in. Under such circumstances, Huang Taiji was transferred to support Geng Zhongming. Geng Zhongming believed that his situation was actually not much better than that of Azig. In the past few months, at least a dozen troops had fallen into the hands of the Haihan people. Niu Lu, and a considerable proportion of them were cavalry. Geng Zhongming was not arrogant enough to think that his troops could defeat such a large number of Houjin troops.
What Azig gained during this period was only less than twenty prisoners and an unknown but certainly not much more number of enemies killed. Geng Zhongming even thought with some malice that if Azig had not been Nurhachi's biological son and had made many achievements in the past, he would have been punished by Huang Taiji long ago for such a record.
The military information obtained by the Jin Army through interrogation of prisoners and other reconnaissance methods had been delivered to Geng Zhongming a few days ago, but there were not many useful parts. There were not even any officers among the few prisoners, which made the information that could be obtained from the prisoners difficult to use. Apart from knowing that the number of troops deployed by the Haihan Army in Liaodong would not exceed 5,000, and the names of several Haihan generals who commanded the battle, there was no other valuable information.
As for the rifles distributed by the Haihan Army that he had luckily seized, Geng Zhongming had personally inspected them. However, the structure of those rifles was obviously different from the matchlock guns and Lumi guns equipped by his troops. The gunpowder used , projectiles are completely different, even the gun craftsmen in the army could only shake their heads after seeing it, saying that it is difficult to imitate in batches. Not to mention anything else, the steel used in the barrel and body cannot be made by today's Houjin. However, its range, lethality and accuracy are indeed far superior to the weapons equipped by its own troops, and it can even fire several rounds of bullets continuously. It is no wonder that Azig's cavalry cannot get any advantage on the battlefield. Geng Zhongming believes that the main reason why Hou Jin and Hai Han presented a one-sided situation on the battlefield is that the performance of the weapons between the two sides is too different, and it is difficult for our own existing tactics to eliminate the disadvantages in weapons. He originally hoped to find some technologies that could be used in Haihan's weapons, but the fact is that the technical generation gap between the two sides is so great that even if there are samples in front of him, it is difficult to completely imitate them. This is undoubtedly a huge blow to Geng Zhongming, who is bent on shortening the gap in weapon performance between the two sides.
Geng Zhongming was very dissatisfied with this. The reason why Huang Taiji valued his original gold offer was because he brought a large number of military craftsmen to Houjin and brought the technology of making guns and gunpowder to this backward civilization. Huang Taiji attached great importance to the advancement of weapons and equipment, and did not look down on firearms tactics just because the Ming army was defeated by him. He also gave craftsmen the authority and sufficient funds to develop new weapons. But now when he really needed to use these technologies, he was told that the arms manufacturing technology he had mastered could not even reach the opponent's threshold, and he did not even dare to tell Huang Taiji this news, so as not to let him develop weapons for the Han Army Flag. Disappointed by manufacturing capabilities.
Even if there was no way to imitate the opponent's weapons, the battle would still have to continue, so Geng Zhongming had no choice but to bite the bullet and bring his troops to Jinzhou to confront the legendary Haihan army that had never been defeated on the battlefield.
Geng Zhongming's troops waited outside Jinzhou City for two days before waiting for the opportunity for the Haihan Army to take the initiative to leave the fortress and come out for activities. Although he knew that this might be another trap set by Haihan, Azig still ordered to assemble troops including Han army flags to launch an offensive against Haihan army. Of course, because Geng Zhongming's department participated in this operation, the mission of other Houjin troops became a feint attack and coordination operation, and the task of acting as the main force on the battlefield was handed over to Geng Zhongming's department.
Geng Zhongming was mute and couldn't explain the hardships of eating coptis. He was not as arrogant as a warrior like Azig. He would think that the Hou Jin Army was already number one in the world. If Haihan's record in the south was not fraudulent, then the Hou Jin Army would probably It is difficult to be qualified to be on an equal footing with the opponent on the battlefield. Moreover, the few maritime armed forces of Hou Jin Dynasty were almost wiped out by Haihan Navy, and they were almost defenseless against Haihan's harassment campaign on the rear coast. Fighting in this extremely asymmetrical situation, trying to defeat a well-prepared opponent is tantamount to wishful thinking.
Geng Zhongming had seen all the previous and subsequent Jin Cavalry battles. Although the offensive was fierce, it failed to cause any real trouble to the Haihan Army in almost the entire process. However, the opponent's artillery strikes easily tore apart the cavalry's attack formation, making it difficult for the Houjin Cavalry to shorten the fighting distance to their advantage. After suffering hundreds of cavalry casualties, the cavalry responsible for the feint attack could only withdraw from the battlefield in frustration and return to the rear to regroup.
Geng Zhongming knew that the time had come for him to appear on the stage. Although he was not sure of defeating his opponent, the current situation did not allow him to choose whether to fight or not. Azig's order had been sent to the Han army to attack immediately. Geng Zhongming could only act in accordance with the military order and summon the generals to fight. He just hoped that his opponent would not be too excited and give himself some time to react, at least not as embarrassingly defeated as the cavalry.
But it was a pity that his wish could not be accepted by the commander on the opposite side. After Qian Tiandun identified the identity of this enemy force, he had already decided to give the other side some suffering. Qian Tiandun didn't even have the slightest favorable impression of villains like Geng Zhongming who had treason and surrendered to the enemy. Since they had met them on the battlefield, he didn't mind spending more time educating them - if he could kill Geng Zhongming directly. Nothing could be better.
Qian Tiandun immediately issued an order for the two mobile companies originally assembled nearby to mount their horses and prepare to attack. These two mobile companies were recently transformed from the units under the special operations battalion. The biggest change is that each soldier received a war horse, which upgraded them from infantry units to more mobile light cavalry units. Although the equestrian skills of these soldiers are far less proficient than those of the veterans who have been tempered for several years in the cavalry battalion, they can at least cooperate with the cavalry battalion to perform some fast forward and fast retreat tactics. After previous dealings, the Jin cavalry had been on the defensive to lure the enemy to attack, so they did not use cavalry troops. But now that the opponent has sent Han army flags also equipped with muskets and artillery, Qian Tiandun no longer intends to hide his secrets.
Of course, Harugong would not miss such an opportunity. When he pulled the reins, he planned to personally go into battle to direct the next battle. Qian Tiandun did not stop him, but reminded him not to charge too hard and to keep a safe distance from the enemy formation. With their current status, it's not worth it to get injured on the battlefield just for fighting bravely.
Qian Tiandun also ordered to notify the sniper team in the formation to look for the enemy general Geng Zhongming. Once his identity is confirmed, he can shoot and kill him without asking for instructions. If anyone can kill Geng Zhongming, he will be rewarded immediately after the battle. It happened that Bai Kesi was also near Sujiapu at this time. He fully represented the executive committee, saving even the time of sending a telegram to request instructions. It was a pity that Qian Tiandun did not follow Morgan out today, but went to the field hospital for a surgical operation. Otherwise, with Morgan present, he would have been much more sure of killing Geng Zhongming.
Geng Zhongming really didn't expect that the Haihan Army's reaction would be much more intense than before. Before his troops entered the battlefield, he saw hundreds of riders coming out of the opponent's formation, slowly coming out from the left and right wings. It looked as if he was planning to attack him from three sides on the battlefield.
Geng Zhongming had been carefully watching the opponent's movements. When he saw that the momentum was not good, he immediately ordered the troops to stop advancing, and at the same time dispatched cavalry to both sides of the infantry formation to serve as guards. Although he also knew that his own cavalry might not be able to block the opponent's attack, even if it was just psychological comfort, it was better than exposing his flanks to the enemy's cavalry.
It was not until his own cavalry was in place that Geng Zhongming felt a little relieved and ordered the military formation to continue to move forward. The troops under his command had guns and artillery, but he was not too afraid of Haihan's cavalry launching a charge. Just seeing that these Haihan cavalry were equipped with rifles made Geng Zhongming feel a little uneasy.
(End of chapter)