The Ming army is coming!
They came in a mighty way along the north bank of the Yellow River, and the number of people exceeded 100,000! Before the infantry brigade arrived with artillery, baggage, and civilian servants, the cavalry had already arrived. About three to four thousand "black gun mule soldiers", in companies or platoons, were on the two main lines of the Qing army in the north and south of the Yellow River. It spread out around the camp, blocking large and small intersections, occupying surrounding villages, and cutting off the communication between the two major camps and the outside world. Along with the "black gun mule soldiers" came more than a thousand "foreign horse soldiers", who also marched on mules and led tall and burly foreign horses. Above, there is a frightening cold glow in the winter sunshine.
More than a thousand "foreign horse soldiers" were divided into two teams and wandered in the open space four or five miles away from the Henan camp and the Hebei camp respectively. This was a clear demonstration of frightening the Qing troops in the two camps - the Ming cavalry was invincible in the world! If you have the guts to give it a try, come on over! If you come, you will be dead!
Both Chen Tai and Tu Hai went to the "upper platform" of the Henan camp to observe the formation. They held up their binoculars and looked at these majestic Ming army cavalry with gloomy expressions - these cavalry were not only good at riding, but also each had a full suit. The black plate armor looks intimidating!
Both of them are knowledgeable about military affairs. Chen Tai is a "veteran" who has experienced many battles. Although Tu Hai has never been on the battlefield, he has read a lot of military books. After following Chen Tai, he was not ashamed to ask questions and also learned all about military use. ability. So both of them knew that although the number of Ming army cavalry in front of them was not large, it was enough to overwhelm the 20,000 troops under their command in a field battle.
"Damn it," Chen Tai put down the telescope and cursed, "Even the cavalry is inferior to others, how can we continue this battle!"
Tu Hai was still watching with a telescope. He was watching the Ming Army infantry passing through the ice of the Yellow River, and then spreading out, camping and occupying high ground or key points in an orderly manner on the south bank of the Yellow River.
Among them, the high ground is the embankment of the Yellow River. The terrain around Kaifeng is very flat, which means that the embankment of the Yellow River has been continuously raised over thousands of years to become an artificial highland. The two camps of the Qing army in the north and south of the Yellow River were built according to the Yellow River embankments, so the two camps had two floors, the upper one was built on the embankments. It had two functions. One was to prevent the Ming army from seizing the entire river. Dams - Isn't the purpose of the Qing army's Henan camp to cover their digging of Yellow River dykes so that the Henan capital could be flooded? If the Ming army occupied all the embankments, where would they dig?
Another function of the "upper level of the camp" is to cover the retreat of the defenders of the Henan camp. Although the Henan camp is strong, once the Yellow River water rushes down, it will probably not be able to withstand it. Therefore, after digging the embankment, the Qing army had to retreat, otherwise they would not be digging the embankment, but burying their own graves.
If the Qing troops in the Henan camp wanted to retreat to the Hebei camp, they had to cross the pontoon, and the two ends of the pontoon were connected to the second floors of the North and South camps.
Because of these two uses, the second floor of the North and South Camps, in Tu Hai's opinion, is the key to this battle between the North and South Camps of the Yellow River.
The Ming army seemed to have noticed this. A group of musketeers formed a very dense formation on the embankment four or five miles east of the second floor of the Henan Camp. Behind them, there are many soldiers and civilians carrying large bags and building barriers...
Tu Hai put down his binoculars, his eyes still fixed on the group of musketeers in a dense formation - this musketeer looked weird. The team of at least 2,000 people was all made up of musketeers, and the formation was so dense that they were shoulder to shoulder. Already......
"Linzhou, what did you see?" Chen Tai also noticed something unusual about Tuhai at this time.
"Commander," Tuhai pointed to the army's musketeers, "Have you seen those Nanman musketeers? Their formation seems to be very dense!"
"I saw it..." Chen Tai said, "It's a little denser. Unfortunately, the top of the embankment is too narrow, so it's not easy to use cavalry. Otherwise, they will be in trouble."
Chen Tai didn't seem to pay much attention to it. Although Tu Hai felt something was wrong, he couldn't say anything and didn't pay attention.
Chen Tai said to Tuhai again: "Linzhou, don't worry... Our camp is extremely strong, and there are also a large number of Folang machine guns and Hongyi cannons, as well as 2,000 firecrackers. The Nanman What are you going to use to beat me? If you really use a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, you will have played into the hands of the Emperor Taishu."
"What the commander said is absolutely true." Of course Tu Hai was worried, but he still couldn't take the superior's opinion seriously. He just had to look at it, and maybe he would know the secret after another look.
...
"Admiral, our No. 1 base on the Yellow River embankment has been repaired!"
Yan Yingyuan, with a small Chinese army headquarters, had just crossed the Yellow River on the ice, when his military advisor Xu Ermo sent him good news.
"There was no fighting?" Yan Yingyuan asked.
"No," Xu Ermo said, "our fusiliers didn't even have a chance to perform."
What Tuhai saw was a fusilier regiment, which, like the "Ocean Horse Regiment", was Yan Yingyuan's trump card!
This type of fusiliary unit, which specializes in lining up and shooting, can form a denser formation, load and shoot faster, and is less affected by bad weather, so it has an overwhelming advantage over the matchlock unit. of.
On the Yellow River embankment, cavalry has no place to use, so pikemen are of little use. The pure musketry fusiliers regiment just exerts its power. If the Qing army sent out musketeers to fight, they would definitely die ugly.
"It's okay if they don't send out musketeers!" Yan Yingyuan said, "This is our trump card... Let's save it for Dodo."
"Admiral," Xu Ermo said, "there's still base two!"
Yan Yingyuan smiled and said: "There is no problem. If they can watch us build the first base, they will not interfere with our second base...No. 1 and 2 are completed, and the next step is the siege dam. , the problem now is that there are not necessarily enough manpower.”
"Manpower is not a problem," Xu Ermo said. "Deputy Admiral Feng (Feng San) has promised to bring in another 100,000 people within half a month! The weather will be warm by then, and it will be time to dig soil to repair the dam... .... We can work for a month at most, and by the beginning of March, we will be able to dig out the dam of the Yellow River and flood the Henan camp of the Donglu Army!"
It turns out that this is the method Yan Yingyuan and Xu Ermo used to deal with the Qing army's Henan camp! Aren’t you going to dig a dam?
Okay, we Ming Dynasty will also come to dig, and we will dig before you do. Before digging the Yellow River embankments, a circle of embankments should be built around Daying, Henan to form a flood storage area. Then bring in the water from the Yellow River, and don't bring it in when the water rises, as this will easily break down the dykes surrounding the city. It was slowly diverted in March and April, and while diverting water, the embankments surrounding the city were reinforced. Finally, the Henan camp of the Qing army was soaked in water!
This Henan camp is a bastion made of sandbags and soil. It can fire artillery, but it cannot prevent blisters. Even if the blisters could be prevented, Duduo's plan to dig the Yellow River dam and flood the Henan prefecture was in vain.
Of course, the amount of work required for this style of play is huge. At least 200,000 people would be needed to help dig the earth and build the dam, which would require a lot of expenditure! Not only do they have to provide food for so many people, they also have to spend money to hire workers.
So Feng San, a local snake in Henan, was transferred from Runing to Yan Yingyuan's army, specifically responsible for spending money to attract people.
In addition, Zhu Cihong also transferred a group of military officers who had participated in the Huanghuai Transport Management Project from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Household Affairs (the Ministry of Household Affairs was in charge of the canal) to direct the construction of the siege dams.
Xu Ermo said with a smile: "The emperor's uncle of Donglu probably doesn't know how many dams we built and how much soil we dug during the Yellow-Huaiyun Project... We dug a way for the Yellow River to enter the sea! He wants to tell us Competing with river workers is really humiliating yourself. Once our siege dams take shape, I guess the emperor's uncle will come to the Yellow River to die!"
Yan Yingyuan sneered and said: "He will be defeated miserably when he comes! The Yangma Cavalry Regiment and the Fusiliers Regiment are all prepared for him! I don't believe it. Can his new igniter army compare with ours?"
