From ancient times to the present, when two armies are fighting, there are only a few ways to obtain the enemy's information. In addition to the much-talked-about "Guxu Technique", there are many other methods mentioned in military books, such as using space, battlefield reconnaissance, tongue grabbing, etc. wait.
The intelligence that Fu Bao worked hard to get was correct. The key was that the Northern Navy's completely different tactical system and endless equipment made it impossible for the Qing army to use the old method to correctly estimate the strength of the opponent. In addition, when Qianlong left Baoning, he instructed him not to reveal the true combat power of the Northern Navy to the Zasak banner owners in Khalkha, lest these people become disloyal to the imperial court.
Although forty years had passed since the "Removal of Posts", Qianlong had always been wary of these princes of Khalkha, Taiji; he asked them to go to Rehe every year for an audience, both for marriage and for checks and balances. It can be said that there is a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other.
However, although the senior officials of the Qing court knew that the Northern Navy's combat power was terrifying and that various methods were used on the battlefield, they did not dare to tell the truth to the Khalkha ministries.
First of all, it is difficult to explain. There are many things that the Manchus themselves still don’t understand and are confused. For example, the eighteen-bead strong light flashlight, from the Manchu perspective, could not find any reasonable explanation for this thing other than "witchcraft".
The second is that once it is made too clear, it will definitely have a negative impact on the morale of the military. Take machine guns for example. Everyone in the Qing court, from the Military Aircraft Department to the Ministry of War, knew that the Northern Navy had a "spark gun" that could fire continuously, which was a hundred times more vicious than the rapid-fire guns commonly used by Northern Navy soldiers. However, for the Khalkha Mongolian ministries that have never fought against the Northern Navy, speaking too clearly will have the opposite effect.
As for the cannons of the Northern Navy, this is even more true. If the Zasak Taijis of the various Khalkha ministries knew that the cannons of the Northern Navy were more powerful and fired faster than the "Wucheng Yonggu General Cannon" of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it is estimated that many princes and Taijis would They would all retreat and even have second thoughts about the court.
Tsarist Russia at least had a flintlock gun and regimental artillery. The Mongolian archers in Khalkha had only bows and arrows, and they were perfect cannon fodder.
Now, whether it was Qianlong or the minister Wang below, they were extremely afraid of the Northern Navy's move to send troops to Outer Mongolia; because some people had already guessed that Zhao Xin's move was probably intended to cut off the Manchus' retreat to the west.
After capturing Khalkha Mongolia, you can take Urumqi and Ili directly along the Khovd South Road. The Northeast is gone, and the Northwest is gone. If Zhao Xin leads his army ashore from Dagokou, the Manchu and Qing monarchs will have no choice but to flee to the south of the Yangtze River just like the Southern Ming Dynasty did. But the problem is that the Northern Navy has large iron ships and various Like gunboats, Jiangnan is not safe either.
As a result, the Manchu and Qing monarchs could only go to Sichuan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou. A place of miasma, it would be sheer suicide to go there!
By the way, just when Boryeong was struggling, messy gunfire came from the northeast. His heart suddenly thumped. Needless to say, Ailong'a was already at war!
"Commander, what should I do?"
The night wind suddenly blew by, Baoning's whole body trembled, and his face instantly turned pale.
"It is a disgrace to the country to lose an army, and you will die if you go back." He had completely figured it out at this time. In order to deal with the Northern Navy this time, the imperial court had already used all its strength to deal with the Northern Navy. If it were to withdraw tonight, tens of thousands of troops would be in vain, and he There will be no way out.
Thinking of this, he drew out his sword and said to the captain of the soldiers: "Pass my order to the whole army to cross the river! We must bring down these two mountains tonight!"
This night in Chahantuoluohai was destined to be uneventful. Although the four thousand Qing troops who attacked at night on the south road were defeated, the Qing army still had 9,000 troops on the middle and north roads. What's more, due to the communication conditions in these years, it was impossible for the Qing army on the northern route to know the specific situation in the south, so Ailonga launched according to the prescribed time.
As the reconnaissance platoon fought and retreated, the ground began to tremble as if explosives had been ignited. The running footsteps of countless people startled the tired birds to fly up with a "hula", flapping their wings and swaying in the night sky. dance.
As the flares lit up in the air again, the Northern Navy soldiers on the hilltop position on the north side could see with the naked eye that large areas of black soldiers were rushing towards the hill where they were, like waves of black, quickly rushing to the foot of the hill. .
"Kill!" Seeing his men fighting bravely one by one, Ailonga, the counselor and minister of Uriyasutai, shouted with his arms: "Kill all the pirates in the North Sea, and each person will be rewarded with thirty taels of silver! Whoever gets one head will have three additional levels of military merit. !”
Bullets rained down from the mountainside, and in an instant, dozens of Mongolian soldiers at the front were knocked to the ground. The traps buried at the foot of the mountain and on the slopes during the day were triggered from time to time by someone's touch, followed by the explosion of grenades.
At this moment, to the west of the North Navy position, the ground shook and shouts of killing came. The middle Qing army led by Baoning was forcibly crossing the Tesi River.
The eight mortars located on the artillery position were already firing like crazy, and the directions of the rulers at the foot of the mountain had been measured in advance. Load and fire! Load and fire. ． ． ． ． ．
The first and second battalions were on full fire with light and heavy weapons, and the cooks responsible for cooking were all helping to transport ammunition into the trenches. Second Battalion Commander Zhou Zhong loudly ordered the two companies going down the mountain to come back quickly on the walkie-talkie. He could no longer care about blaming himself. No one expected that there would be so many Qing troops attacking at night.
Hearing the gunshots from the north, and seeing the Beihai navy present suddenly abandoning their men and turning around to leave, the thousands of captured Qing troops on the south road secretly rejoiced, and many of them untied their legs. The rope, and then fled into the darkness.
The sound of killing at the foot of the mountain was loud, and the bright and dark light and shadow reflected on Michelang's iron-like face. In the field of vision of the telescope, densely packed Qing troops arrived at the foot of the mountain one after another, and then rushed up.
Xingfu, the deputy capital commander who led the attack of Zhasak Tuhan's troops, suffered heavy losses after several rounds of charges. He retreated in embarrassment with seven or eight of his guards, and shouted to Ailonga as he ran: " Military Gate! The North Pirates' guns and cannons were too powerful, and more than 800 of my men were killed..."
Ailong'a stood motionless, with two hundred Eight Banners Mongolian soldiers behind him. He turned a blind eye to the stray bullets whizzing around him. After listening to Xingfu's words, he asked after a while: "How many people do you have left?"
"There are more than a thousand."
"You dare to withdraw when there are still more than a thousand? Have you forgotten the rules set in the previous military meeting?!"
"Military Gate!"
Xingfu had noticed that Ailong'a's tone was wrong, but he claimed to be a member of the clan and a third-level auxiliary to the country. Ailonga should not dare to do anything to him, so he took a few steps forward and was about to explain, but Ailonga He raised his hand, and the cold Yanling knife penetrated his chest.
"Which general dares to abandon his troops and flee, this is an example!" Under the light and shadow, Ailonga kicked Xingfu in the stomach and drew out his knife at the same time. Seeing that a yellow-belted clan member was killed like this, Xingfu's guards and several Zasak Taiji who led the troops to retreat were so frightened that they retreated.
Ailonga held the bloody saber and shouted sternly at the Zasak lords: "The great emperor has always treated you with kindness like a mountain, and today is the time to repay the favor! Mongolian men who are not afraid of death, follow me!"
The flag-bearers present were stunned for a moment, then suddenly shouted in unison, leading their retreating men to turn around and charge towards the mountain again.
When the Qing army entered only fifty meters away from the Beihai Navy's position, grenades as dense as raindrops fell from the night sky, and clusters of fire and smoke rose up, blasting the Qing army to the point of howling like ghosts and wolves.
"Don't stop! Keep charging!" Ailonga, who was squatting down in the smoke, suddenly stood up, shouted, and rushed into the smoke with more than 20 guards. Behind him, waves of Mongolians followed.
At this point, both the ordinary archers and the Zasak lords knew that there was no way out, otherwise the whole army would collapse.
The barrels of the Beihai navy's machine guns had been red-painted, and the machine gunners had no time to change the barrels. They just tightened the triggers and kept firing left and right. The deputy shooter on the side was loading bullets like crazy, but still couldn't supply them.
At this time, the Qing army attacking from the north had reached a position only fifty meters away from the trenches of the Northern Navy. The archers and the few gunners hiding behind the pile of corpses began to shoot. The Northern Navy on the position immediately There were casualties. As the firepower weakened, a dozen Qing troops finally entered the first trench.
By this time, many Northern Navy soldiers had exhausted their ammunition, and bloody hand-to-hand combat began.
There was a hail of knives and arrows, screams and howls. Some soldiers had their arms chopped off, their necks broken, and their Tianling Gai flew away. There were also some Mongolians who had bayonets pierced into their chests and abdomens, with their intestines bleeding all over the place. Rain of blood was splashed in the first trench, heads and severed limbs were kicked and rolled around, and occasionally there was an explosion, which was the grenade on the wounded soldier of the Northern Navy.
"Get out! Get out!"
The remaining soldiers of the Northern Navy in the first trench retreated along the communication trench. The soldiers in charge of the rear thrust their bayonets into the chests of the Qing troops who were rushing up from time to time. As thousands of Qing troops rushed into position, the first trench was lost.
"They are all good! Keep killing! Leave no one behind!" Ailonga jumped into the trench and shouted excitedly.
Just when the Qing army thought victory was in sight, some unknown objects suddenly rolled out from the edge of the second trench more than 20 meters away. When the spindle-shaped shell rolled on the hillside, there was a clanging sound of metal hitting. When these strange-shaped things twisted and rolled into the first trench, the Mongolian soldiers crowded in the tunnel dodged to both sides.
"What is this?" Someone touched it with the knife in his hand, and there was a metallic crunch. "Iron?"
Just when the Mongolian soldiers were confused, fire suddenly burst out in the trench. boom! boom! boom. ． ． ． ． ．
"What a pity! We failed!" A brief thought flashed through Ailon'a's mind, and then he was thrown into the air.
Hundreds of lives were wiped out in an instant, and the huge explosions made the entire hill look like a volcano erupting. Such a scene made thousands of Mongolian soldiers at the foot of the mountain terrified. When the blood rain mixed with soil, gravel and stumps fell from the sky, pouring blood on the faces of the Qing army at the foot of the mountain, the entire Qing army on both sides of the northwest collapsed immediately.
That night, the North Navy's "Southward Detachment" fought with 800 men against 13,000 Qing troops, killing and wounding more than 6,000 people, and capturing more than 1,500 people. Baoning, who was defeated and returned to his camp, was defeated early the next morning. He ordered the entire army to retreat seventy miles.
As for the two battalions led by Mi Shilang, two companies on the hilltop position on the north side suffered heavy losses in hand-to-hand combat; on the south side, one company under Zhou Zhong was almost wiped out, and Zhou Zhong himself was stabbed in hand-to-hand combat. Fortunately, the two companies sent earlier rushed back with all their might and were able to push back the Qing army attacking in the middle. The most critical thing is that if Mislang hadn't ordered the artillerymen to use the mortar shells as explosives at the critical moment, the North Navy, which was almost out of bullets, might have been completely wiped out.
Looking back in hindsight, Mishilang and his group's actions in the Chahantuoluo Sea completely disrupted Qianlong's entire deployment. The Qing army in the west of Hangai Mountain was completely unable to provide support to the Agui army in the east. After this battle, the Jasak lords of Khalkha who participated in the war no longer dared to face the Northern Navy's front, which laid a solid foundation for the "southern detachment" to finally occupy Khovd.
On the third day after the battle at Chahantuoluohai, the radio station of the "Southbound Detachment" finally restored contact with Chiyan City. In the evening of that day, Zhao Xin, who had just arrived in Khabarovsk for only one day, saw the telegram.
"Great!" After reading the telegram, Zhao Xin slammed the table in excitement.
Wang Zhenyi, who was teaching A Miao how to play Go, asked curiously: "What are you so happy about?"
"Military secrets."
When Wang Zhenyi heard this, she rolled her eyes at Zhao Xin, wondering who would know. But she also knew that the thing that could make Zhao Xin happy now probably had something to do with Khalkha.
She has been inspecting with Zhao Xin for more than ten days. Although there has been no real progress, the relationship between the two has become much closer. As they got closer, Wang Zhenyi also had a better understanding of Zhao Xin's character. Even in private, he never mentioned military matters to himself or A Miao.
Zhao Xin laughed after hearing this, pulled out a map from the desk, looked at it carefully for a moment, and then said: "I have to leave for a few days for something, should you two wait for me here, or take a boat first?" Going to Heilongjiang City?"
Wang Zhenyi was silent for a while and said softly: "How many days?"
"Five to seven days."
"Then we'll wait for you to come back." Wang Zhenyi blurted out without thinking, and then her cheeks turned a little red.
"Well, originally I wanted to visit Lin Ziping, so I'll leave it to you and Mr. Rong Fu."
Considering the situation at Hu Ji's side, Zhao Xin felt that he had to go there. Although the number of soldiers cannot be replenished, food and ammunition must be replenished. After all, Chahantuoluohai is still more than 900 miles away from Ulyasutai. Transporting supplies from Chiyan City is too much, so I can only go there myself.
In addition, Huji and the others also captured more than 1,500 prisoners. If they can be reformed and won over, they can become civil servants instead of soldiers, thereby expanding the influence of the Northern Navy in Tangnu Ulianghai and Zhasak Tuhan.
In the future, at least one regiment of troops must be deployed in Ulyasutai and Khovd. However, it is unrealistic to mobilize troops from Beihai Town, and the problem of troop sources must be solved locally.
