Chapter 3240
At dusk, the rumble of artillery echoed on the Linhai Plain, and the battle outside Shanhaiguan continued.
The artillerymen on the position all had black faces due to gunpowder smoke, but they were still full of energy. After holding back for three years without a fight, I was finally able to put my best foot forward this time.
In this kind of critical battle, the cavalry is responsible for guarding the periphery and blocking reinforcements, and the infantry is responsible for cleaning the battlefield and eliminating the remaining enemies. The real protagonist on the battlefield is the artillery. The artillery first tears apart the opponent's defense line, destroys the solid fortifications, and clears out the main threatening firepower points. Only then will it be the turn of other arms to take action.
At the end of the day, the artillerymen of the Sixth Army Division had fired nearly a thousand artillery pieces, destroyed more than a dozen fortresses, large and small, and advanced the battle line for more than ten miles. From the current position of the Haihan Army, we can already see the towers of Shanhaiguan in the distance.
But there was no joy on Sun Zhen's face. Although the current progress was pretty good and his troops had maintained extremely low casualty figures, they had to endure a huge consumption of ammunition.
The number of artillery shells fired in just one day exceeded the amount of live ammunition training conducted by the artillery battalion in the past three years of the truce. This also far exceeded Sun Zhen's expectations before the war began. The funds required to purchase these ammunition are huge amounts that are unimaginable by ordinary people.
If we continue to fight at this level, I am afraid that the ammunition prepared by the Sixth Division beforehand will only be enough to capture Shanhaiguan, and may not be able to successfully push Yongping Mansion behind Shanhaiguan.
But Sun Zhen's original plan was to at least push the battle line past Yongping Mansion and advance to Shuntian Mansion, where the capital of the Ming Dynasty is located, to form an effective response to the main attack direction.
Sun Zhen once again looked at the battle map in front of him. There were about four or five fortress groups between the current battle line and Shanhaiguan. Moreover, the closer to Shanhaiguan, the denser the fortress group becomes, and the previous attack methods may need to be adjusted.
Of course, artillery is not the only offensive method available to Sun Zhen. He relies on artillery because it is the simplest and most effective way.
At first, the Qing army retreated in front of Shanhaiguan. First, they were worried about casualties and were unwilling to fight the Ming army here. Second, they lacked shipping capabilities and could not use the nearby Bohai Sea to bypass this key pass, so they chose From the north, he bypassed the Yanshan Mountains and made a large circle to attack Shuntian Mansion.
But the conditions of the Haihan Army are different. Today, the Bohai Sea is almost completely controlled by Haihan, and there are two armed fleets sailing in the Bohai Bay at this time. If the Sixth Army Division needs it, they can call for maritime reinforcements by telegram. In one more day, the armed fleet can arrive near Shanhaiguan to help in the battle.
It's just that for the dignified Sixth Army Division to ask for help from the navy in a low voice, it would be a bit of a loss of face. Moreover, before the war started, Sun Zhen boasted to Chen Yixin that Haikou would definitely break through Shanhaiguan and open the northern gateway to the Ming Dynasty. If this was not achieved, how could he have the dignity to ask for credit after the war?
As night fell, the Haihan army retreated, and Sun Zhen had no intention of organizing a night battle. This was the first day of the battle, and the subsequent combat missions were not easy. Sun Zhen did not want to exhaust the energy of his troops so quickly.
Before dinner, Sun Zhen personally inspected the defense situation of the temporary camp.
Although these fortresses that the Ming Dynasty painstakingly built have been breached by Haihan, they still have certain defensive capabilities as temporary camps to station troops.
However, in order to prevent the Ming army from taking risks, many hidden sentries were deployed outside the camp. Barbed wire fences and other roadblocks were temporarily installed on the main roads to prevent enemy cavalry from charging in at night.
After returning to the tent and having a simple dinner, Sun Zhen summoned his combat staff to listen to a report on today's combat situation.
A staff officer reported: "Currently, the number of Ming army killed based on the corpses in each fortress is about 2,100, and more than 300 people were captured alive. Among them, more than 20 officers at all levels were handed over to Under interrogation by Military Intelligence.”
It sounds like the results are good, but Sun Zhen knows that this number is probably less than one-tenth of the Shanhaiguan defense force, and the real tough battle is still to come. The staff officer continued: "Many standard muskets have been found in various fortresses that have been breached, and their structures have been changed from the bird guns used by the Ming army before."
Then someone presented the trophy. Sun Zhen took it and saw that the bolt structure of the flintlock gun indeed had the shadow of Haihan's old flintlock gun.
Sun Zhen has been in the army for many years and has used various new and old weapons. He can tell at a glance that such changes can effectively improve the firing rate of ammunition.
Sun Zhen looked at the barrel of the gun again and found that it was not a smoothbore gun, but a rifled gun with processed rifling. There was even a gun number engraved on the gun body, which was composed of the heavenly stems and the earthly branches plus numbers.
It seems that the Arms Bureau of the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty has really been busy these years and copied all the details that can be imitated.
Judging from the details of the gun body, Ming Dynasty is still far from Haihan's military industry level, and it is still unable to achieve industrial manufacturing. The output and quality of this purely hand-made standard weapon are bound to be limited.
But judging from the number of seizures, Ming Dynasty has achieved mass production of Suifa rifled guns to a certain extent, which is a danger signal.
However, considering the elite level of the border troops, Sun Zhen was convinced that these were weapons specially provided by the Ming Dynasty to the border troops, and local troops might not receive such treatment.
But given time, with the resources that the Ming Dynasty currently has, if they are invested in the military, it may not be possible to equip an army with all firearms by hand. The strength is likely to be different from the Haihan Army when Sun Zhen first joined the army twenty years ago. Not much.
From this point of view, Sun Zhen felt that the time chosen by the Executive Committee to start the war was excellent. If it were a year or two later, maybe the Ming army he would face would not be so easy to deal with, and maybe even the more powerful artillery could be used. Counterfeited.
There was no talk that night, as both sides obviously wanted to save their energy for the battle after dawn.
Sun Zhen got up early. It was getting dim outside the tent, and cooking teams were already setting up stoves in various parts of the camp to prepare breakfast.
Sun Zhen strolled to the top of the fort wall, raised his head and looked into the distance.
This is the west side of the fortress. It was less affected by the shelling of the Haihan Army yesterday, and the fort wall has basically maintained its original shape.
Sun Zhen stretched out his hand, and the guard immediately handed over the binoculars. He raised his telescope and looked into the distance. The rising sun shone on the city wall of Shanhaiguan, like a silver dragon crawling on the horizon.
From the foot of Yanshan Mountain in the north to the Bohai Sea coast in the south, this coastal passage with a width of only more than ten miles is cut off by the Shanhaiguan Great Wall that runs across it. Conquering this key pass is one of the main goals of the Lu Sixth Division's mission.
(End of chapter)