Chapter 1837 Delaying Time
Although the Independent Regiment is good at fighting in the mountains, more than 2,000 multinational coalition forces scattered in the mountains and forests have to deal with the tens of thousands of Qing troops in the mountain valleys. Takahashi Nan will not arrogantly think that in this situation, the opponent can be easily defeated. Therefore, his current tactics still plan to focus on harassment and delay the Qing army's actions as much as possible.
The officers sent by Annan to this unit have all received training in the Haihan Army, so there are no compatibility issues in communication, command system, and tactical style, and they can be directly commanded by Gao Qiaonan. The Portuguese were a little more troublesome and could not seamlessly connect with the Haihan Army like the Annan Army. Takahashi Nan gave the leader Ximang the power to act independently, but still reminded Ximang to maintain control when fighting the Qing army. distance to avoid being surrounded by the Qing army.
As for the weak North Korean army, considering that most of the battles took place in rugged and mountainous terrain, Takahashi Minami did not even intend to use the North Korean troops as cannon fodder. He was not prepared to put them into the battlefield in an organized manner to avoid being panicked. The North Koreans disrupted their position. In addition to the guides assigned to the grassroots units, the remaining North Korean troops were dispatched to the rear to be responsible for logistics tasks.
Since the Qing army invested a lot of manpower, the construction of the wooden bridge across the river in the valley was progressing very quickly. Gao Qiaonan was unwilling to delay it any longer, so the battle started two hours after the coalition forces arrived at Xiangshan. However, Gao Qiaonan's first target was not the main force of the Qing army camped in the valley, but the group of people who were assigned the task of cutting down trees.
Almost at the same moment, the sound of musket shooting rang out from many locations in the Xiangshan Valley, and several logging teams were attacked from the dense forest. Although some Qing soldiers who were not afraid of death tried to use the logging tools in their hands to fight back, they were knocked to the ground by bullets fired from the forest before they could even see the enemy.
In order to ensure work efficiency, the Qing army did not use captured Koreans as lumberjacks, so there was no need to allocate more manpower to act as guards. However, this arrangement made it easier for the coalition forces. As long as they saw someone cutting down trees, they could fire directly without worrying about accidental damage and dissatisfaction among the North Korean officers and soldiers in the army.
In just a short moment of fighting, the Qing army was caught off guard and lost nearly a hundred men. The survivors had to give up the work at hand. In this situation, it was more important to escape from the woods to save their lives. The Qing troops outside the forest reacted relatively quickly. In a short period of time, they assembled several thousand troops to set up a temporary defense line. They even brought out several small cannons and pointed them at the mountain forest where the accident occurred, preparing to attack. possible enemy forces.
But how could Gao Qiaonan give up cover and rush out to engage in a head-on battle with the Qing army? After achieving their initial goal, the coalition forces immediately terminated the battle and returned to a latent state.
The Qing army waited for a long time and saw no further movement in the forest. They also expected that this might just be a harassment operation, so they sent a small team into the forest to investigate. Sure enough, the enemy army had disappeared long ago.
This hit-and-run strategy caused a headache for the Qing army, which was not good at fighting in mountains and forests. The most effective cavalry in the formation was completely useless in this special environment, and only cold weapons were dispatched. The infantrymen entering the mountains and forests seemed to be delivering food to the enemy. Although there were many soldiers of Orion origin in the Qing army who were familiar with the mountain and forest environment, in large-scale battles, personal bravery was almost impossible to change the trend of the battle. On the contrary, it would attract concentrated fire due to being too prominent.
However, the task of building a bridge to cross the river was urgent. The Qing army only stalled for a moment before sending logging teams into the mountains and forests again. The difference was that this time the Qing army no longer allowed the logging teams to disperse. Instead, they designated an area and consisted of two thousand people. More infantrymen were on guard duty on the outside, while the logging team was operating under armed protection.
Of course, such warning was not enough to deter the coalition troops watching in the mountains and forests. Not long after the Qing army resumed work, the coalition forces in the forest launched another attack on the Qing troops. However, the instructions received by the Qing army were very clear, which was to defend the perimeter of the logging area as much as possible and prevent the enemy from having the opportunity to shoot the logging team at close range, so as to ensure a continuous supply of wood for projects in the river valley.
Therefore, although these Qing troops were unable to resist the stray bullets fired from the mountains and forests, they did not dare to retreat without authorization. They used tree branches as bunkers, huddled up and waited for the enemy to approach before looking for fighters. Although many Qing troops were shot and fell during this period, most of the Qing troops successfully avoided the cold shots in the forest with the dense natural bunkers around them.
Now the problem has returned to the side of the coalition forces. In a dense forest environment, facing an enemy with obviously superior strength, if they advance rashly without strict organization, it is easy for the Qing army to close the fighting distance and form a close fight. In that case, the advantages of the coalition's weapons and tactics will be greatly weakened. Once they get into a fight, they may be quickly surrounded by the Qing army. At that time, the passive party will become themselves.
But if no adjustments are made to the Qing army's response, it will be difficult to pose a threat to the logging teams hundreds of meters away in the current environment. As long as the Qing army can delay this situation for another day and a half, allow the bridge in the river valley to be built, and allow the main force to have a channel to retreat to the north of the Yangtze River, then it will be cost-effective for them to die in this forest even if another 1,800 people die. .
The coalition forces that had been pursuing this point had almost given up all their heavy weapons. At this time, there was no need to expect tactics such as artillery to clear the way. If you want to open up the situation, you can only adopt a more risky strategy.
Although the Independent Regiment is good at fighting in mountain and forest environments, it also specifically means that when it takes the initiative, it can use guerrilla warfare in the forest to defeat its opponents. However, if we are forced to actively shorten the combat distance due to the situation and launch an offensive concentrated on one area, then the opponent with rich combat experience will soon notice this change, which means that we will face the risk of the opponent launching a counterattack.
Of course, the independent regiment is not unable to fight tough battles, but with the current strength of the troops, the commander must weigh the pros and cons of how much sacrifice will be required to fight the Qing army, and whether the combat objectives can be achieved.
Time is limited. If you delay for a moment longer, the Qing army will have one more chance of retreating unscathed. Looking at the sky in Gaoqiao South, it will be dark for at least two or three hours. Although the Qing army may not stop the logging project after dark, at least then the coalition forces will have more opportunities to get closer. Launch a surprise attack. And as soon as tomorrow, the second and third battalions of the independent regiment should be able to arrive nearby. By then, with the increase in troops, they will have more tactical choices, and they may not suffer a loss if they open up a battle array and engage in a head-on confrontation with the Qing army.
Gao Qiaonan quickly straightened out his thinking, at least delaying the Qing army's crossing of the river until tomorrow, and the phased goal was to make it difficult for the Qing army to continue logging operations before dark. Although taking the initiative to fight the Qing army now will inevitably cause certain battle losses, the possibility of achieving the combat goal is still very high. After weighing it up, Gao Qiaonan issued a new combat order, launching attacks in three directions against the logging areas protected by the Qing army, with the goal of preventing the opponent from logging, but he needed to be careful to pay attention to the enemy's movements. , to avoid getting into close combat with the enemy. Takahashi Nan knew very well that once a fight entered, the speed at which the Qing army invested troops in the combat zone might make it too late for the Qing army to escape and evacuate the battlefield. This would be a very dangerous operation for the Haihan army.
As soon as the battle started, casualties began to appear on the coalition side. When the Qing army realized that the fighting distance had shortened to the point where they could launch a counterattack, they decisively began to jump out of their hiding places and shoot arrows at the sound of gunfire in the forest - this was also the only long-range attack method the Qing army currently had. .
When the Qing army fired arrows, they may not have seen the location of the target. To a certain extent, they relied on luck to hit the target. However, the base number cannot be matched. If seven or eight arrows are fired after a gunshot, there will always be blind cats. Hit a dead rat.
It's just that the coalition forces don't care about that much at the moment. Now that they have received the order, they must carry out the tactics. Although shortening the combat distance will increase the combat risks of coalition soldiers, the corresponding hit rate and killing efficiency will also increase. Clear troops who want to use trees as bunkers will not be able to hide so easily when the distance is shortened. . Most of the rifles equipped by the coalition forces are made in Haihan, and their shooting accuracy within 100 meters is much higher than that of the Qing soldiers' bows and arrows. In addition, the seven-shot rifles of the independent regiment have an astonishingly high shooting frequency. Only a few guns can target many enemies. A large area forms effective fire suppression, so the enemy-killing efficiency is still much higher than that of the opponent.
The sudden strong attacks launched from several directions indeed disrupted the Qing army's deployment, because the previous actions of the coalition forces to retreat after a wave of harassment made the Qing army think that this was just a spying behavior by a small group of troops, but they did not expect that there was an ambush in the mountains and forests. More than 2,000 armed enemy troops. Even if the troops are divided into three groups, the intensity of their firepower output is by no means what these Qing troops scattered in the forest can resist.
However, there were also a handful of Qing soldiers who held back until the coalition forces advanced closer before jumping out of their hiding places and fighting closely with swords and guns. However, the effect of this combat method is very limited. Those who can hide until the end are often individual soldiers, making it difficult to form a sustained combat effectiveness. However, when the coalition forces advance, they mostly use squads as a unit, even if one or two people in the lead are suddenly affected by the incident. If they fail to withstand the Qing soldiers' fighting, their companions will immediately step forward to rescue them, and together they will kill the fish that have slipped through the net.
Takahashi Nan quickly realized that the Qing army's defense line was not as strong as he expected, and the number of troops invested was not too much. He quickly commanded the troops to break through and kill the logging team first, and take away as much of the Qing army's logging tools as possible. After all, although the army will have some logging tools such as large axes and saws, it is unlikely that there will be too many - this is the main reason why the Qing army dispatched logging teams with a limited scale.
When they realized that the troops sent to the forest had not successfully defended the defense line, the Qing army quickly dispatched additional troops to the logging areas in the forest. Three thousand Qing troops poured into the forest about ten minutes after the battle began. It's just that this action was a little slow. Their logging team had received a fatal order not to evacuate. At this time, there were already a lot of casualties. What's more, the enemy troops who retreated immediately after successfully attacking took away some of their logging tools.
Huang Taiji was furious after hearing the news and ordered all remaining logging tools to be gathered together and the original logging arrangements to be adjusted. Just when the enemy launched a surprise attack, Huang Taiji thought of a safer way, which was to use the existing rafts to send some people to the other side, and then cut wood on the other side to complete the construction of the other half of the bridge. He did not believe that the Haihan army could deploy defenses on both sides of the Qingchuan River at the same time. As long as the bridge was built in one day, tens of thousands of troops could quickly retreat to the north of the river and get rid of the Haihan army's pursuit.
Gao Qiaonan, who retreated to the forest, first confirmed that the Qing army had not launched a pursuit, and then asked various ministries to count the battle damage and rescue the wounded. In the previous short confrontation, the coalition forces had lost nearly a hundred people, and more than 300 people were lightly or seriously injured. This also shows that the Qing army is not a soft persimmon in close combat.
However, judging from the combat effects, this assault battle basically achieved the combat goal that Takahashi Nan expected. It destroyed the Qing army's logging team, and the number of Qing soldiers wounded and killed should be around a thousand. Although there was a certain amount of luck, fortunately, the battle damage and results were within the acceptable range of Gaoqiao Nan, and the Qing army did stop logging operations in this area, and it seemed that they were going to find another way.
The Qing army's use of rafts to cross the river did not escape the surveillance of the coalition forces, but Takahashi Nan was not aware of the true intention of this move at the first time. It wasn't until the sky got dark and the Qing army still didn't send out the logging team to resume work that Gao Qiaonan suddenly figured out the Qing army's plan.
Gao Qiaonan's response strategy was very simple and crude, that is, he personally led a group of troops to swim across the Qingchuan River overnight and went to the other side to eliminate the Qing army's logging team and delay their bridge construction progress.
The riskiest part of this plan was not the battle with the Qing army, but the night swim. Although the river here has narrowed to less than a hundred meters, swimming and regrouping at night are still extremely risky, and it is not easy even for elite troops like the Independent Regiment. At this time, he did miss the existence of the Marine Corps. After all, almost all of the soldiers in that unit were from the navy, and their water resistance was much better than that of the soldiers of the Independent Regiment.
In order to avoid being noticed by the Qing army, Gao Qiaonan led hundreds of selected soldiers to go downstream first, wrapped all the guns and ammunition with rain-proof tarps, fixed them to several temporary small rafts, and then used water-based The best soldiers steered the raft in the water and reissued their weapons when they reached the other side. In this way, swimming soldiers can focus on their swimming direction and physical distribution without worrying about water intrusion into their guns and ammunition.
After everything was prepared, these hundreds of people went down to the Qingchuan River in the dark night and swam quietly to the other side.
(End of chapter)