Chapter 1815 Who is faster
The subsequent operations of the coalition forces were also very smooth, and it took only a short time to take control of Dazheng Town without any damage. Although there were a few large Manchu families in the town who did not have time to escape, they did not dare to resort to force to resist after seeing the scale of the incoming coalition forces. As the rulers, the Manchus were unwilling to take the lead in resistance, and the Han people had even less reason to resist.
After the Haihan Army arrived, these wealthy Manchu families expressed their willingness to use their property in exchange for the opportunity to leave Dazheng Town safely. After all, they had long heard about the recent actions of the coalition forces near the Liaodong coast. In the villages and towns that encountered attacks , as long as the Manchus who took resistance measures were either killed or injured, and the entire population of the village and town would be transported away by Haihan ships after the battle. If these Manchus want to leave this place safely, they have no choice but to give up their money, food and property.
After receiving the report, Wang Tom did not order the extermination of all the Manchus here, but asked his subordinates to imprison them together and release them after the Haihan army evacuated Dazheng Town, so as not to let the nearby Qing army take control. More immediate information on coalition forces.
As for the Han people in the town, the coalition forces will gather them and escort them to the seaside to board ships and transport them to Haihan's own control area for resettlement. Although the population of Dazheng Town is only more than a thousand people, Wang Tom will not be dissatisfied with the lack of sparrow meat. If he can harvest this kind of harvest ten or eight times in a month, it will be beneficial to the population growth of Haihan's colonies in the north. It will be of great help.
Although Dazheng Town is not a prosperous place, after some searching by the coalition forces, there was still some harvest, which was barely enough to subsidize the military expenses of this operation. In addition, almost all the iron and bronze items in the town have also been looted. Transporting these metal items back for re-smelting will also bring a huge profit.
Until the coalition forces withdrew from this place, the Qing army did not appear again. It seemed that the previous battle had made the Qing army give up the idea of actively driving the coalition forces away from here. This made Ximeng, who was holding his breath, slightly disappointed. He had originally hoped that the Qing army would fight back with bloodshed, and then the coalition forces would teach them a profound lesson.
"Want to fight against the Qing army? Don't worry, there will be many opportunities in the future!" Wang Tom sensed Ximang's unfinished thoughts and took the initiative to comfort him: "Don't forget, we will return to Korea to deal with the main force of the Qing army. ! ”
Ximang sighed: "But by then, the Qing army will be far stronger than ours, right? Twenty times? Thirty or thirty times? Or more? Just thinking about it is very exciting. Maybe we shouldn't Return to North Korea and continue to treat this place as the main battlefield!”
There was a hint of worry in Ximang's tone. Although he could probably understand Haihan's strategic intention to take the initiative to let the Qing army enter North Korea, he was actually not very optimistic about whether the Koreans could delay the Qing army's march south, setting the stage for the next step for the coalition forces. Take action to gain more buffer time. If the Qing army's strength reaches about 100,000 as Haihan expected, then the huge disparity in strength will also greatly limit the tactical options of the coalition forces. For example, an action such as moving far away from the fleet and going deep into the interior will bear great risks. The coalition may have to give up most of its plans to fight on land and can only adopt a more conservative response to control the situation in North Korea. several major rivers.
Wang Tom just smiled and said nothing. He and Qian Tiandun changed the original battle plan again and again. The main reason was mostly political factors, but he was unable to explain these deep-seated reasons in detail to Xi Mang. Although the revised combat plan has increased the risks of the operation a lot, the benefits to be gained from it have also increased, far exceeding Haihan's original plan.
Of course, before returning to the Korean Peninsula, the coalition forces had to make full use of the Qing's lack of defense and capture as many Han people as possible from its rule to enrich their control areas. Dazheng Town is one of these series The first stop for action.
The Qing army went to North Korea to burn, kill and plunder, while Haihan chose to attack the Qing-controlled areas. In fact, part of the combat objectives of both sides were the same, which was to plunder the population, money and food of the target area. But speaking of it, the resistance to the actions of the coalition forces was much smaller. After all, the coalition forces abducted Han Chinese from the Liaodong coast. To put it bluntly, they were actually rescued from the fire pit. The resistance and resistance they had to face were not particularly strong. It is far better than the situation of the Qing army in North Korea.
Among the coalition forces currently moving north from the south, except for the independent regiment, which is still stationed in North Korea, almost all other troops participated in this operation commanded by Wang Tom. Even Jinzhou specially sent more than ten sailboats to Guanglu Island to wait for orders, specifically responsible for transporting the abducted people back.
If the efficiency of the operation were to compete, the Qing would naturally be unable to catch up with the Shanghai Han, and Wang Tom also hoped to use his country's strengths to defeat the Qing in this battle for people. It would be a very interesting thing for Huang Taiji to suddenly discover one day that the rate at which he was snatching people from North Korea was not as fast as the rate at which his own country was losing its population during the same period.
Due to the large number of people kidnapped from Dazheng Town, the coalition forces stayed here for one more night and took two days to move all the people in this area to the sea. Of course, for this reason, the refugee camp on Guanglu Island had to work overtime to expand. Otherwise, even if Liu Shang, a local veteran, was in charge of the refugee reception affairs, it would be difficult to cope with the sudden arrival of a large number of refugees.
After dealing with the Han refugees in Dazheng Town, the coalition forces once again took a boat out to sea, heading to Zhuanghe, another place that the Portuguese fleet had visited before. There are many villages and towns in the Zhuang River Basin. However, last time the Portuguese acted in a hurry and only attacked the settlement closest to the coast. This time, based on the confessions of local refugees, the coalition forces will carry out operations in the Zhuang River and Xiaosi River Basin. Sweep. As long as they don't run into the large Qing army, Wang Tom is optimistic that the coalition forces can harvest at least about 3,000 people in this area.
In order to prevent the Qing army from dispatching troops to the east coast of Liaoning, the Haihan garrison in Jinzhou also began to become active, and under the command of Chen Yixin, it began to exert pressure on the north.
On June 15, the Jinzhou garrison suddenly moved out of the defense line, formed an artillery array that had not been deployed for a long time, and destroyed several Qing army fortresses with several hours of artillery bombardment.
Although the battle method of shelling the fortress is quite large, the consumption is also huge. In half a day, one-third of the ammunition reserves of the Jinzhou defense line were consumed. However, the results achieved were in line with Haihan's expectations. The local Qing general Geng Zhongming believed that Haihan might want to take advantage of the main force of the Qing army to attack the Korean Peninsula to seek a breakthrough in Jinzhou, Liaodong, so he hurriedly He directed the soldiers and horses deployed nearby to gather in the direction of Jinzhou to prevent the fortress defense line that he had spent more than a year building gradually from being broken through by the Haihan Army. In fact, the troops currently stationed near the Jinzhou defense line are not the elite of the Haihan Army, but army troops transferred from the south last year. These troops are more than capable of defending, but they do not yet have the strength to attack the Liaodong Peninsula alone. The purpose of making this proactive gesture was to prevent the Qing army from worrying about the large-scale looting taking place on the Liaodong coast. For this reason, Chen Yixin did not hesitate to use a large amount of ammunition to create the illusion that Haihan intended to attack the Liaodong Peninsula, forcing the opponent to concentrate his forces on the Jinzhou front line.
Of course, if such a situation makes the Qing army unable to restrain itself and wants to pull out from behind its defense line for a confrontation, then Chen Yixin is also confident that he will use a large number of artillery to teach the opponent another profound lesson. However, Geng Zhongming showed great restraint and did not attack rashly. He only strengthened the garrison strength of his own defense line. As for the emergencies from all over the Liaodong coast, Geng Zhongming can't take care of them at the moment. After all, his task is to guard the gate of Jinzhou, not the entire long coastline of the Liaodong Peninsula. No matter how many blooms of Haihan are suspected, The plan was for another purpose. As long as he made sure that the line of defense in front of him was not broken by Haihan, everything would be fine.
While Haihan was aggressively taking action on the Liaodong Peninsula, the Qing army was also advancing the front line in North Korea with overwhelming force. After capturing Longchuan in one fell swoop, the Qing army continued to march southward and advanced into Yanzhou.
Although Yanzhou has the word "zhou" in its name, it is actually not a big place. The level of city defense is almost the same as that of Longchuan, but the size of the garrison is slightly larger, reaching more than a thousand people. When the Qing army had as many as three thousand men in the vanguard battalion, it still seemed a little weak.
The military general stationed in Yanzhou is named Li Xun, but his origin has no direct relationship with the Li family that currently rules North Korea. But Li Xun was also a ruthless man. When he received the news that the Qing army was crossing the river, he ordered the north and west gates to be blocked with bricks and stones. The east side of Yanzhou City is built against a mountain, so there are only three city gates in the north, west and south. After blocking two places, only the south gate is left for access. Li Xun simply let the people in the city decide where to stay, until after nightfall last night, he ordered the remaining south gate to be blocked. The soldiers and civilians who remain in the city now plan to live or die with the city.
The Qing army that attacked here came again according to the previous pattern of attacking Longchuan, hoping to capture this small city as quickly as possible. However, this time they were unable to easily break the city. The Korean defenders in the city used bows and arrows to express their attitude to the invaders outside the city. Before the Qing army could attack the city, they had already dumped more than 20 corpses outside the city.
The Qing generals who led the troops did not stop there. They still sent out two Niu Lu to continue the attack on the city. However, their preparations were too hasty. After several siege ladders were put up on the top of the city, they were all used by the defenders to roll stones with wood. It was smashed, and in the end we had to withdraw our troops before making plans.
The morale of the defenders in the city was greatly boosted after repelling the first wave of Qing offensive. Li Xun ordered the demolition of the houses in the city close to the city wall, and moved heavy objects such as masonry and beams onto the city wall to serve as logs and rolling stones. He also ordered people to kill pigs and sheep to reward those who participated in the war.
But before sunset that day, Azig led an army of ten thousand people to arrive outside Yanzhou City. After Li Xun saw the enemy military formation outside the city from the top of the city, he remained silent for a long time. No matter how optimistic you are, after realizing the disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves, it may be difficult for you to have much confidence in defending this small town.
Early the next morning, the Qing army launched another attack on Yanzhou City. This time, the cavalry-based vanguard battalion was not the main force of the attack. Under the cover of trebuchets and bows and arrows, about two thousand Qing troops attacked Yanzhou City from the west, and after a brief stalemate, they attacked Yanzhou City. At the top of the city. In the hand-to-hand fighting, the Korean army's combat effectiveness was obviously inferior to that of the Qing army. From launching the attack to breaking through the city defense, the Qing army took no more than a cup of tea.
Fortunately, Li Xun had blocked the city gate from the inside the day before yesterday. Although the Qing army had attacked the city and gained a foothold, it was still unable to quickly send troops into the city. Instead, the defenders took the initiative to distance themselves and then covered the city. After two waves of arrows were fired, the Qing army threw more than a dozen corpses on the top of the city.
But this casualty did not move Azig who saw hope of breaking the city. He waved his riding whip and dropped three more impressive infantrymen on the battlefield.
When there were more than a hundred Qing troops on top of the city, the defenders finally could no longer hold on to the defense line and had to retreat step by step into the city. As more and more Qing troops climbed over the city wall and entered the city, the decline of the defenders gradually became apparent. Although Li Xun was brave, in this kind of war involving a unit of thousands of people, personal force was basically unable to change the direction of the war. After fighting for a while, Li Xun was injured and exhausted and was captured. Then the defenders fell into a leaderless state and were quickly suppressed by the Qing army. However, the Qing army soon discovered that Yanzhou was actually an empty city. The people in the city had already fled, and there was not much food left.
Azig was furious after hearing about the situation in the city and ordered Li Xun and more than a dozen of the defending officers to be beheaded in public display. If it were not for the large amount of labor required for the army to continue its southern expedition, he even wanted to order all the prisoners in Yanzhou to be executed.
The Qing army's attack on Yanzhou took far longer than expected, and the casualties also reached three digits. It was considered the first slightly difficult and tough battle they encountered after entering North Korea. However, Huang Taiji requested to continue advancing south as quickly as possible, so Azig, after ordering the disposal of the prisoners here, led his army to continue advancing and attack Tieshan, thirty miles away to the south.
Before sunset that day, Tieshan was taken away by a wave of Qing troops. There were also many people here who had just fled from Yanzhou in the north yesterday. Unexpectedly, they were only delayed in Tieshan for one day, but they still could not escape the fate of being captured. Although the Korean army stationed in Tieshan resisted, due to their limited strength, they did not cause much trouble to the Qing army. In the end, more than 500 defenders left the battlefield and fled to nearby Xuanchuan.
The Qing army captured three small cities in three days after crossing the river. The advance was not unsatisfactory, but the population, money and food they obtained from North Korea were still not as good as Haihan's gains in Liaodong.
(End of chapter)