Chapter 1838: Blocked in front and pursued by soldiers
In the past two years, Takahashi Minami has rarely participated in front-line combat operations, because he also understands that his most important function is to command operations, not to go to the front line to kill the enemy. However, the current special combat environment rekindled his passion for participating in the battle. While swimming in the Qingchuan River, he even had flashbacks of the battle in Annan. Armed swimming was one of his strengths at that time. The leaders even joked that he could swim all the way if he was thrown into the sea in Annan. Return to Sanya.
After so many years, Gao Qiaonan's physical condition is definitely not as good as it was back then, but swimming across the Qingchuan River, which is more than 100 meters wide, is not a problem, not to mention that he has several subordinates with excellent water skills around him who are crossing the river. Acting as his bodyguard in the process.
Gao Qiaonan successfully landed on the Shitan River on the other side and immediately ordered the troops to be assembled as soon as possible to distribute weapons. However, after crossing the Qingchuan River, hundreds of Han soldiers were scattered on the river bank for a long time due to differences in swimming ability, and it took quite a while to regroup at night to complete. After final counting, three people still disappeared in the Qingchuan River, but the situation was better than Takahashi Minami expected. There was no time to look for these missing people at the moment. After completing the assembly, they rested on the river beach for about half an hour, and then walked upstream along the river bank.
Although it is not easy to swim and complete the assembly at night, it is not that difficult to find the target. In order to complete the bridge construction as soon as possible, the Qing army also lit fires at night to continue the work. The bright light in the Xiangshan Valley can be seen from a long distance away. The logging team that arrived on the north bank of the Chongchon River by raft before dark also carried out logging operations overnight with the help of fire lighting. This is the most conspicuous target for the Haihan Army.
There are tens of thousands of Qing army camps protecting the bridge construction site in the river valley, and there is no need to worry about the Haihan army in the mountains and forests on the south bank of the Chongchuan River attacking it. However, due to limited transport capacity on the north shore, apart from the logging teams, there were only a small number of Qing troops serving as escorts.
The troops led by Takahashi Nan slowly approached the logging area in the darkness. In order to prevent the Qing army from setting up an ambush in the dark, he specially arranged for the troops to slow down the advance and placed scouts who were good at platooning at the front to open the way. And this arrangement did have a significant effect. The scouts indeed saw through several hidden sentries of the Qing army along the way, and used crossbow arrows and personal assassination methods to quietly take down these hidden sentries.
It wasn't until the Haihan army advanced to the edge of the logging area that the Qing army finally discovered their existence. But at this time, the Qing army was in the light, and the Haihan army in the dark had already formed an arc on the periphery. As soon as the battle started, it was a one-sided scene. Hundreds of unprepared Qing soldiers quickly They fell under the crossfire, and although the remaining people were willing to resist, the enemies hiding in the dark made them unable to do anything, and they continued to fall under the cold gunfire one after another.
Takahashi Minami also personally participated in the battle with a gun. Although he was not a sharpshooter, he spent more time handling guns than most people in the army during his military service. His combat experience was also first-rate. Even if he was in a long battle, But after returning to this environment, he can still exert his due combat effectiveness. He is also very aware of his own strength, so he specifically looks for clearing soldiers in bright places to attack. He can achieve extremely high hit rates at this relatively close combat distance, and he has hit several targets in a short time.
By the time the Qing army thought of extinguishing the fire to hide their whereabouts, the overall situation of the war here had been decided, and it was too late to turn out the lighting. Some Qing soldiers who were lucky enough to escape did not dare to turn back and fight, so they could only jump into the river and swim to the stone beach in the middle of the river.
The Qing army had noticed the fighting on the north bank, but was unable to rush to the rescue in time due to lack of ships. They could only watch helplessly as their companions on the other side rushed out of the forest, and then jumped into the river to escape accompanied by gunfire.
No one can answer the question why enemy ambushes appeared in the mountains and forests on the north bank, but one thing is certain: the Qing army's plan to log logging on the north bank will definitely be delayed because of this. Huang Taiji was very upset when he heard the news. He thought that he should have tried his best to send more troops to the north coast to serve as guards, so that the Haihan Army would not have the courage to launch a night attack.
After the battle, Takahashi Minami ordered the team to gather, count the number of people and then clean the battlefield. The Haihan Army suffered a total of more than 40 casualties in this battle, but the results were quite satisfactory. More than 300 Qing soldiers were killed and wounded. As for how many people panicked and failed to escape by jumping into the river, that is It’s unknown. The logging team sent by the Qing army to the north bank had only cut down about twenty trees before it was interrupted by this battle. Gao Qiaonan ordered all the logging tools picked up on the battlefield to be thrown into the river, and then led his troops to retreat to a distance to engage in the battle. The location was about two miles away, in case the Qing army also launched night attacks in the same way.
At this time, the Qing army did not dare to use rafts to forcefully cross the river. Otherwise, the Haihan army with unknown strength on the north bank would attack them halfway across the river, and the damage in the battle might not be limited to the troops who were attacked earlier. Even if they want to make a comeback, they can only wait until dawn.
At this time, the most uneasy situation was that in addition to the Qing army, there were also the coalition forces remaining on the south bank of the Qingchuan River. The officers of the first battalion disapproved of Takahashi Nan's decision to go into battle in person, because after he left, the coalition operations lacked an authoritative commander to deploy and deploy. If the troops who swam to the north bank could not fight, If everything goes well, if Takahashi Minami is unable to rejoin the large forces, then the next battle will be difficult to fight, and may even lead to chaos due to the lack of him, the former enemy commander-in-chief.
Fortunately, the Qing army did not expect this cross-river night attack at all, so the operation went relatively smoothly. After the battle, Gao Qiaonan sent an orderly soldier back to the south bank with his own password to issue combat instructions to the coalition forces.
With the current strength of the coalition forces, it is a very dangerous choice to divide the troops on both sides of the river to fight the Qing army. If someone is accidentally entangled by the Qing army, the troops on the other side of the Qingchuan River will not be able to rush to the rescue. Therefore, Gao Qiaonan's order to the troops on the south bank was not to advance rashly, and to wait until dawn to see the Qing army's movements before choosing an opportunity to launch a surprise attack, but not to get into a fight with the Qing army.
After dawn, the Qing army couldn't wait to organize a wave of cross-river assaults, but they failed. There was no trace of the Haihan army in the logging area, and there were only corpses of Qing soldiers scattered on the ground. Of course, all the logging tools that were supposed to be left on the ground were naturally missing.
At this time, the Qing army had no time to organize and clean up the surrounding mountains and forests, so they had to quickly organize the next group of logging teams. Although they no longer had enough logging tools, they could only send more people to attack with swords. This sword is used to chop down thick trees, so it is naturally not as useful as an ax or saw, and the blade will soon break. However, there is no other way to think of at the moment. It is important to cross the river to escape, so I can only make do with it.
But Haihan's offensive would not end there. Throughout the morning, the Qing troops on both sides of the Qingchuan River were constantly attacked by sneak attacks from nearby mountains and forests. Although the intensity of these attacks may not be too great, and they often retreat after a while, they ultimately make it difficult for the Qing army to focus all their attention on building bridges to cross the river. If you ignore it, what was clearly a sneak attack of a hundred people quickly turned into a surprise attack of a thousand people, forcing the Qing army to mobilize large forces to fight against it. But when the Qing army really got into full swing, it would be a big fight. The enemy But quietly disappeared into the mountains and forests again. This kind of guerrilla warfare made the Qing army very uncomfortable. Huang Taiji wanted to order the troops to disperse into the mountains and forests for clearing operations several times, but his reason reminded him that this might be what the enemy wanted to achieve, so he could only endure it. .
Despite the embarrassing situation of interception and pursuit, the Qing army successfully completed the marching channel across the Qingchuan River at noon that day. Two simple wooden bridges connected the north and south banks to the stone beach in the middle of the river, allowing The large Qing army on the south bank could finally withdraw to the north more calmly.
After all, the coalition follow-up troops coming from the lower reaches of the Qingchuan River failed to catch up with this opportunity. Although Gao Qiaonan was unwilling, he also knew that his troops had limited strength and could not take the risk of forcing the Qing army to cross the river. It can still only carry out harassment operations on the periphery.
Although the Qing army seemed to be in a passive state of being beaten, tens of thousands of troops could still take turns to deal with the harassment of the Haihan army. The troops led by Takahashi Minami were already in a very tired state after marching and fighting in the wild for several days, and there were not many combat supplies left. Their combat effectiveness was slowly declining, and their battle losses were increasing.
Gao Qiaonan used a telescope to observe the traffic conditions of the wooden bridge built by the Qing army from a distance, and quickly calculated that its capacity was about three to four thousand people per hour. However, the rafts that the Qing army continued to launch could still carry at least three to four thousand people per hour. Send one or two thousand people across the river, so at most the Qing army can basically move to the north bank after dark tonight.
Takahashi Nan waited patiently until the afternoon, and finally received news of reinforcements. An infantry battalion coming from the lower reaches by boat had arrived at the place where they swam last night, and found the mark they left on the stone beach on the river bank. He had already landed on the shore and arrived. However, due to the limited navigation conditions in the upper reaches of the Qingchuan River, all combat ships of the coalition fleet were unable to reach here. Therefore, only a few troop transport ships provided by the North Koreans came, so there was no need to count on heavy firepower output from the river.
But objectively speaking, in front of tens of thousands of Qing troops, just one battalion of reinforcements could not completely change the balance of strength between the two sides, nor was it enough to intercept the Qing troops in this valley. What Gao Qiaonan can do now is to use the two infantry battalions in hand plus more than a thousand coalition soldiers to cause as much damage to the Qing army as possible and increase the consumption on their retreat.
The straight-line distance from the Xiangshan Valley to the Yalu River in the northwest is about two hundred miles. However, the Qing army has penetrated deep into the interior of Korea in order to cross the river to escape. From here to the Yalu River are continuous mountainous areas, so the actual journey is at least About three to four hundred miles.
The supplies of the Qing army are almost at their lowest, with only four or five days of rations left at most. Now they can't expect to get a lot of supplies in this sparsely populated mountainous area. They can only evacuate north as soon as possible and try to return to the Qing territory as soon as possible. .
In fact, the Haihan Army also faced the same problem. Because they were eager to catch up with the Qing Army, the two troops that rushed here did not carry too much supplies. After going deep into the inland, it was difficult for both the coalition forces and the North Koreans to attack the Qing army. Logistics and transportation lines were set up for them in a short period of time. Therefore, in the next battle, the troops led by Takahashi Minami will probably have to fight hard for a few more days.
Although there was no good way to take down the large Qing army, the coalition forces still successfully captured the three thousand soldiers and horses left behind by the Qing army. After the two Jia La Er Zhen who led the team were each killed by stray bullets, the remaining Qing army quickly became a mess and had no intention of fighting the coalition forces anymore. Some Qing troops couldn't wait to cross the river on the wooden bridge, so they jumped directly into the river and swam forcefully. Others chose to escape into the nearby mountains and forests, probably with the idea of waiting for the storm to pass before finding a place to cross the river and return home. However, a considerable number of Qing troops were still besieged on the rocky beach on the south bank of the Xiangshan Valley. After some futile resistance, it quickly turned into a one-sided killing.
At least a thousand Qing soldiers were shot dead by the coalition forces with muskets and other weapons on the rocky beach, and their blood even dyed part of the river downstream red. The allied forces were red-eyed, especially the Korean soldiers who had been suppressed by Takahashi Nan and were unable to go to the battlefield in the past few days. At this time, they burst out with uncontrollable ferocity and killed all the Qing troops on the river bank. .
After hearing about this incident, Takahashi Nan did not give any special instructions. He knew that the Korean army finally had a chance to vent, and naturally he would throw all his long-suffering anger on the Qing army, which was unable to resist. If these Qing soldiers were to stay as prisoners of war, it would probably be difficult for North Korea to deal with them, and Haihan didn't want to take on such a hot potato. Killing them all would be a way to make it easier for all parties.
In the next few days, the two sides escaped and chased each other, launching a brutal tug-of-war in the mountains and forests of northern North Korea. In order for the main force to escape smoothly, the Qing army frequently resorted to tail-cutting to survive. Each time, a few Qing troops were assigned to act as suicide squads to slow down the pursuers. Although such a trick is simple, it is indeed effective. When the coalition forces encounter these desperadoes, they can only clean them up before they can continue to move forward. After two or three days, the main force of the Qing army had already stretched out half a day's journey, and basically no one could be seen.
However, the march route of the Qing army did not go directly to the Yalu River, because the other side was also surrounded by deserted mountains. Even if they crossed the river, there would still be no supplies. Therefore, they planned to go to the lower reaches of the Yalu River first, and plunder Korean villages and towns along the way to obtain supplies, and wait for the march. Arrive at Uiju and then cross the river to return home.
(End of chapter)