Chapter 1986
After a short rest of an hour, a team of 12 people led by Sun Bing set off from this temporary station under the cover of night, while the remaining personnel stayed here to continue carrying materials and building fortifications and bunkers.
It was not the first time for the Marines participating in the operation to enter the Qing-controlled areas to perform combat missions. In the past, Haihan dispatched fleets to sweep the coasts of the Qing-occupied areas. In many cases, they would send troops to land and directly While attacking the Qing army, they would also kidnap the people who settled near the coast. Every year the Qing army adopted measures on the border of the Ming Dynasty, and the Haihan army would also repeat them. The long coastline made it difficult for the Qing army to guard against, so they could only issue decrees to allow coastal residents to move back to settle in inland areas to avoid as much as possible. Passive loss of population.
These members of the Marine Corps have all participated in "flesh-cutting" operations like this, and they are not completely unfamiliar with the environment in the Qing-occupied areas. To go to the Qing army camp, you need to cross nearly ten miles of mountainous terrain. Fortunately, the snowfall in the past few days has not been heavy, and there is only a thin layer of snow on the ground, which does not have a great impact on the field march.
However, when Sun Bing and his group were walking in the silent forest, their feet would still make a squeaking sound due to the pressure of the snow. Sun Bing arranged for the team to lengthen the distance between them to avoid making too much noise. Although the Qing army is unlikely to deploy night sentries in the wild environment during this season, they still have to be careful. After all, exposing their whereabouts may cause the operation to be terminated early.
Although the straight-line distance from the temporary stronghold to the target area is not too far, the actual mileage of the mountain march is twice as long as the straight-line distance, and there are many sections up and down the hillside. In addition, the march is at night without lighting, so the speed is very high. It was relatively slow and it was already late at night when we arrived near our destination. Fortunately, the journey went smoothly without any trouble.
Sun Bing unscrewed the kettle and took two large gulps of cold water. The cold feeling in his throat cheered him up a little. He raised his hands and rolled up his sleeves and looked at the time again. The small fluorescent pointer on the dial confirmed what he had just done. The march took a little longer than planned, but fortunately it was getting late after winter, so they still had some time to rest and recuperate.
Sun Bing looked out from the gap in the forest. There were little lights flashing on the plain in the distance. Sun Bing knew that they were the embers of the bonfire in the Qing army's camp. However, the specific situation cannot be seen at this time, and we will probably have to wait until dawn before further observation can be made.
"Rest in batches and wait until dawn before making plans." Sun Bing quickly made a decision.
Before dawn, Sun Bing ate some dry food to replenish his strength. He is taller and heavier than ordinary people, so he eats more than most people. The food that other people eat three times a day is probably only enough for him. Eat two meals, which also led to him carrying more food than others when performing field combat missions to be enough to sustain the same amount of time. But fortunately, he is not lacking in strength, and his size is not in vain. His load capacity is far better than that of ordinary people. In addition to the extra food, he even has the energy to carry an extra combat base. of ammunition.
After replenishing the food, Sun Bing took out his sleeping bag and got in for a while. Such a big heart can only be possessed by veterans who have been in battle for a long time. They should seize every gap during the battle to replenish their spirits and restore their physical strength, so that they can maintain the best condition when fighting the enemy.
Sun Bing didn't lie down for long before he got up. He took the initiative to replace one of his subordinates who was on guard. Then he stared in the direction of the Qing army's camp and quietly waited for dawn.
As the sky grew brighter, the Qing army camp in the distance began to appear in full view. Perhaps because the Qing army had full confidence in the fortress defense line in the south, there were no fortifications such as walls or trenches set up around the camp. The entire camp was just a few large tent areas demarcated by Niulu.
Sun Bing took out the telescope, carefully wiped the snow water on the lens barrel with a chamois leather, and then raised it to his eyes to observe the Qing army camp in the distance.
Of course, these tents of the Qing army are far less useful than the field tents used by the Haihan regular army. Most of them are triangular tents made of coarse cloth and fur. Only two or three people can sleep in one tent, while the tents used by the Haihan army The military tent is made of high-quality canvas and special brackets. At least twenty to thirty people can live in a tent, and the comfort is far better than the small tents of the Qing army.
However, the Qing army still has advantages that make Sun Bing envious. For example, the horses seen inside and outside the camp now roughly count at least hundreds. The horses here alone should have exceeded Haihan's in Jinzhou. The total number of war horses owned by the garrison.
Such a number of war horses is still an elusive goal for the Haihan Army, and the maneuverability gained by the Qing Army greatly made up for their disadvantages in weapons and equipment, allowing them to quickly deploy troops to the front. Any point, and this is precisely what the Haihan Army is still difficult to achieve.
The terrain of the Jinzhou area is narrow, and a considerable part of it is mountainous and hilly. Most of the plains are used for agricultural development. There is no suitable environment for the development of animal husbandry. The only military horse farm has raised several hundred horses. The carrying capacity has almost been reached, and there is no way to continue to expand the breeding scale for the time being.
Therefore, in addition to Jinzhou, the military also raises some military horses in Fushan County, Shandong Province to meet the combat needs of the Haihan Army in Northeast Asia. This year, Haihan also added a new place to raise war horses, which is North Korea across the sea. If Haihan wants to raise horses in a circle in the Datong River Basin, he should not encounter any official resistance from North Korea. However, the military horse farm there is still under planning, and it is estimated that it will have to wait until next year at the earliest before it can be put into use.
But the Qing army did not have these worries. There were enough pastures in the western Liaoning plain to accommodate thousands of horses. The cost of training war horses was much lower than that of Haihan, and the cavalry could be picked up in large quantities. Such advantages in arms also made Haihan feel helpless.
Of course, every inch has its shortcomings and its strengths. Although the Haihan Army is not as mobile as its opponents on land, when it comes to its dominance at sea, the Haihan Army has left the opponent out of sight, and has even disappeared to the sea. The ability to fight. Without such an absolute advantage, the military would not take the risk of delivering the Marines directly from the sea to areas behind enemy lines.
Smoke began to rise in the camp, and the Qing troops left the tents one after another. However, perhaps because this army was composed of men and horses drawn from various places, unlike the Haihan Army, which had a unified training arrangement, the camp was still Many of the tents were motionless, and it seemed that not everyone was planning to get up for breakfast.
The work of monitoring the movements of the Qing military camp was not completed by Sun Bing alone. The command headquarters distributed multiple telescopes to them for this operation so that they could monitor a larger area at the same time. Although they do not have to engage in battle with the enemy, their work is not easy. From dawn to sunset, they must maintain at least three to four telescopes to monitor the camp area at the same time, and they must also pay attention to the area surrounding the camp. The main purpose of this kind of monitoring is to observe the Qing army's defense changes and see if they can find the team using the new muskets from their daily defense changes. But this is actually somewhat of a matter of luck, because they don't know how big the team is, where they will be stationed, and whether they will be scheduled to play again.
However, Sun Bing knew that reconnaissance missions are what they are. Only after peeling away the layers of fog can it be possible to obtain truly valuable military information. It is impossible for the enemy to proactively provide that key information to him. He can only remain patient and pay attention to various details. , it is possible to collect the required intelligence information.
Starting from the morning, twelve people, including Sun Bing, were divided into groups of four. One group monitored the Qing military camp, one group was responsible for surrounding security, and another group was resting and on standby. The three groups rotated every hour or so. The content can be described as very boring, but everyone performed their tasks silently. They only exchanged a few words in low voices when changing posts, and the content was also about handing over the work at hand.
Although it has not yet entered the middle of winter, it has already snowed a few times, and the temperature in the wild is also quite low. If you squat in the forest for a little longer, your hands and feet will become numb from the cold. Sun Bing silently took a breath and rubbed his hands a few times to make them warmer, and then continued to observe the situation in the Qing military camp with a telescope.
According to the information Sun Bing knows, this military intelligence camp is one of the two camps behind the Qing army's fortress defense line. Because it is located to the east, the records of the Haihan Military Intelligence Bureau label it as "East Camp", while the other The "West Camp" is located at the western end of the defense line, which is relatively far away from where he is now, at least about fifty miles away.
However, the Marines chose "Dong Daying" as the primary reconnaissance target. In addition to being close to the Yellow Sea and making it easier to sneak in from the sea, another important reason is that the Haihan patrol that was attacked was near the eastern end of the fortress defense line. Something happened in the area.
Considering the convenience of deployment and supply of the Qing army's musketeers, their station is undoubtedly more likely to be located within the "East Day Camp". Such a unit, no matter how big its establishment is, is hard-won for the Qing army, so it will definitely be given relatively generous treatment, such as setting aside an exclusive station for it in the camp.
Such an inference is of course very reasonable, but the problem is that this "East Camp" is not a small place. Thousands of Qing troops and their logistical equipment, accompanying soldiers and civilians, etc. are all stationed here. , if you include stables, warehouses, military supplies offices, headquarters and other related institutions, the area occupied is estimated to be three to four square kilometers. As far as can be seen, the houses of at least two villages are located within the scope of "Dong Daying". Of course, the villagers in these villages have not lived here for a long time, and their houses have been destroyed by the Qing army. Requisitioned without compensation as temporary residence for senior military officers or for other purposes.
Even if Sun Bing's team has four people and four telescopes monitoring the camp at the same time, it is still difficult to cover everything. Especially for the villages in the distance, only the peripheral conditions can be seen from the field of view of the telescope, and that is one of the places where Sun Bing suspected that the Qing army's musketeers might be stationed.
Finally, it was time to take a break again. Sun Bing handed the telescope to his subordinates and told him several places that needed to be monitored. Then he walked to the side to rest. This kind of surveillance operation was not a problem for him physically. However, after using a telescope to observe the environment for a long time, his eyes were very tired. He even felt that the things around him were a bit blurry and his eyes were no longer in focus. .
Sun Bing knew that his eyes were too tired, so he quickly closed his eyes and rested for a while, then took out his notebook and studied his morning surveillance records.
Sun Bing didn't know many words before he joined the army, let alone write. However, after joining the army, he received literacy education in the army and gradually learned to read and write. Moreover, he also knew that after being promoted to a certain level in the army, he would be able to read and write. In terms of cultural requirements, if you can't even write a combat report, then your life as a company commander will probably be over. Therefore, he himself was very attentive. As early as the beginning of the year when he set off to fight in Manila, he began to learn to record some key points during the battle.
The pen is a pencil that only officers above the company level can receive. Sun Bing likes this gadget very much. It is much more convenient to use than a brush and is easy to carry. He can take it out at any time to write down two pens when performing tasks in the field. The only unpleasant thing is that the pencil's writing on the paper is easy to blur. Sometimes I keep the note with the content on my body for a few days, and when I take it out again, I can no longer see the content clearly.
Sun Bing's surveillance was to observe and record at the same time. In addition to paying attention to the musketeers, he would also take advantage of this rare opportunity to observe the Qing army's establishment, garrison habits, attendance arrangements, etc. After the mission is over and you return to the rear, this information will also become important reference materials for the military.
After reading his records, he took out the map and compared it with the camp in the distance. He used a pencil to mark the approximate scope of the Qing army camp on the map. Then he marked his location and drew a line from the temporary camp on the seaside. The route to the current location.
Being able to read and draw maps is also one of the requirements of the Haihan Army for senior officers. Sun Bing's current level is still far from drawing maps, but it is not enough for him to rely on ready-made maps to do some correction and annotation work. It's not too difficult either.
With these records and annotations, he can then adjust the existing surveillance measures when he rests at night, so that his men can focus more on several key areas.
Throughout the whole day, Sun Bing conducted four surveillance missions, but no one saw the Qing troops equipped with muskets within the surveillance range. However, Sun Bing was not discouraged. He also knew that this matter could not be rushed. He could see if he could get a better view by adjusting the surveillance location tomorrow.
(End of chapter)