Rumors have long circulated in the army about Man Ming's reward for Zheng Fan, ranging from one hundred thousand to one million silver coins.
As the war became increasingly unfavorable to our side, large areas of territory were occupied by the barbarians, and our side lost troops and generals one after another.
Without any hope of turning defeat into victory, many soldiers were unwilling to fight.
Everyone can surrender voluntarily, but the prerequisite is that they cannot be sent to mine...
This is everyone's minimum requirement. Even if he becomes Shunmin honestly in the future, he will never be willing to be a slave miner.
But everyone also understood that facing the barbarian army armed to the teeth, it was useless to just talk.
If you want to obtain relatively favorable conditions, you must have enough chips in your hands.
Chips can be objects or living people.
The most important living person is, of course, the powerful Zheng Fan, and the puppet emperor Li Weiyu who was ousted by him can only be ranked second.
Now, everyone plans to take advantage of Zheng Fan's arrow to capture this idiot general who is so stupid that he dares to provoke the Ming Empire.
"Kill the rebels!"
Just when the defecting troops were about to succeed, a cry of death suddenly came from behind.
After hearing the news, several groups of people loyal to Zheng Fan immediately rushed over from the surrounding hills where they were stationed.
Their leaders are naturally relatives of the Zheng family, and they vow to advance and retreat with Zheng Fan and never allow traitors to appear.
The defecting troops were caught off guard and were immediately scattered to pieces, completely defeated.
Everyone originally wanted to capture Zheng Fan and run away without even thinking of fighting with other people.
They had already planned to use Zheng Fan as a bargaining chip to surrender to the Ming army. No one wanted to die here.
Their low fighting spirit caused them to be at a disadvantage in this encounter, and they collapsed completely after a while.
Except for some people who broke out of the siege, more than half of them either knelt down and begged for surrender, or were killed by Zheng Fan's men.
"...Okay~! God will not destroy me...I will...win!"
After waking up, Zheng Fan was in a good mood after learning about this incident. This was a good sign, indicating that he would be able to turn the danger into safety.
However, it only took less than three days for the defecting troops who escaped to contact the nearby Ming army. While surrendering to the opponent, they revealed a priceless piece of information, which was Zheng Fan's hiding place.
"Hahahaha! The thief Zheng Fan doesn't know that his death is coming!"
Wanli had been worried that this beast would lead his troops into the hinterland of Indochina, thereby making it more difficult for the coalition forces to encircle and suppress them.
Unexpectedly, the other party actually chose to flee to the northern mountainous area. This was easy to handle. In the end, they would definitely be surrounded by our own side.
After determining the specific location of the prey on the map, Wanli ordered six brigades of Ming troops to move north along the Jinjiang River, a tributary of the Red River.
The special operations battalion first takes a helicopter to the target area. If prey is found, it can decide whether to launch an attack.
In order to prevent the prey from jumping out of its encirclement in a short period of time, Mandai mobilized more than 300 speedboats to transport the infantry.
Each speedboat carries a dozen people, and one batch can transport four to five thousand infantry to the upper reaches of the Jinjiang River.
At the same time, the Air Force increased its reconnaissance efforts in the target area, and hundreds of "Black-footed Albatross" began to conduct circling reconnaissance in the area.
As long as enemy soldiers are found moving, they can immediately launch an attack.
These "black-footed albatross" are scythes. One of them can kill ten monkeys in a day, and hundreds of them can kill thousands.
Wanli knew that after the internal strife, Zheng Fan definitely did not have many troops on hand, only 20,000 at most.
Using fighter planes to carry out repeated harvesting of the unit can continue to damage the morale of the unit while reducing the opponent's troop strength.
The northern part of Annan is mountainous and has complex terrain. It is indeed an excellent guerrilla zone.
However, after the Ming army equipped a large number of helicopters, Zheng Fan's terrain advantage was reduced to a minimum.
Mandai ordered people to build multiple heliports in the middle reaches of Jinjiang River, which greatly shortened the attack distance of helicopters.
With this springboard, the Army Air Forces can dispatch thousands of sorties every day to attack enemy targets in mountainous areas.
The general combat process is for the special operations battalion to take a helicopter to conduct a low-altitude search after the special forces discover the target.
If the opponent has few people, helicopters and special forces can destroy them.
Instead, colored smoke grenades were thrown to indicate the direction of the bomber units.
At the beginning, Zheng Fan's troops were beaten to a pulp by helicopters, and they still didn't understand what was going on.
After the bomber fleet arrived, they were bombarded to the point of crying and howling.
I didn't expect to be bombed in the city or on the plains, but it would still be the same in the mountains.
In the face of the opponent's ruthless carpet bombing, scolding God will not help.
For the Ming army bomber pilots, this was just a routine mission.
Because our own side had absolute air supremacy, a month after the war began, not a single enemy plane appeared in the sky.
If there was such a one, it would be torn to pieces by the escorting "Black-footed Albatross".
The number of fighter planes exported by the Ming Empire to Annan was limited, and before the war began, there were less than a hundred.
Taking into account the North and the South, there are less than fifty aircraft per family. In addition to the daily training losses, even fewer can fly.
So much so that Zhu Cixiang believed that the implementation of "Operation Rolling Thunder" against the northern Annan region would not be effective in training the Air Force fighter units.
There were too few enemy planes, and less than half of them were allocated to each pilot. How could this increase their actual combat experience?
Fortunately, the remnants of Zheng Fan were stubborn enough and entrenched themselves in the mountainous area of northern Annan and refused to surrender, which also gave Ming pilots a valuable opportunity to attack the ground.
The helicopter factory in Beidu has expanded its production capacity and has achieved the small goal of producing one thousand helicopters per year, and the new factory in Nandu has also reached the annual production level of 300 helicopters.
The factory in Citizen, Australia has been officially put into operation this year. It will reach the production capacity of the Nandu factory next year and is expected to achieve an annual output of thousands of helicopters within five years.
The helicopter factory in East China will be launched at the end of this year or early next year, which is more than half a year behind the start of production of the Australian factory.
This was not too late, because other countries could only obtain this weapon after 1730 at the earliest.
The eldest son Zhu Xiangtang and the second son Zhu Xiangzhen both wrote letters stating that helicopters are particularly useful in search and rescue and anti-guerrilla operations.
After Zhu Cixiang thought about it, he followed his sons' wish, which could at least promote the industrialization of the two places and create a large number of jobs at the same time.
Postponing the export of helicopters is, on the one hand, to ensure Daming's technological leadership in rotorcraft, and on the other hand, to ensure that Wang Division prioritizes equipping a sufficient number of helicopters.
This weapon is different from fixed-wing aircraft and must be numerous to establish an advantage.
Like the "Hercules" bomber, if you buy ten of them, you can show off your power to the outside world.
At least twenty or thirty armed helicopters must be exported at a time. If every country wants so many, it will definitely rob the Ming army of demand.
The Army has purchased thousands of "Black Hawk" armed helicopters for its aviation unit, and the number of orders for "Condor" utility helicopters has also reached 1,000.
This is just the beginning, with orders expected to total five thousand Condors.
The Navy's demand for "Sea Hawks" is not small, especially for taking off from amphibious assault ships for beach landing operations.
At present, most of the helicopters produced locally in the Ming Dynasty are used in the Annan battlefield.
Only a small amount was allocated to the northern garrison. In addition, Zhu Cixiang's three younger brothers also received dozens of them each.
Especially Zhu Cizhao and Zhu Ciccan, if these two armies are to engage in jungle warfare, the difficulty will increase sharply without helicopter support.
In the future, Zhu Cihong will increase military assistance to the two brothers, and now he will give priority to the southern and northern battlefields.
The investment of thousands of helicopters gave the Ming army an advantage in mountainous operations.
While improving combat efficiency, encirclement and raids have also become three-dimensional.
Zheng Fan's troops could only march at night. If their position was exposed during the day, they would only be violently attacked by the opponent.
If you want to move during the day, you must pretend to be a Ming army, but this is almost impossible.
Every soldier of the Ming army has a mosquito mask, and their military uniforms and armors, and even the small weapons in their hands are completely different from them.
The helicopter can fly low to observe the target team at close range, and will fire immediately if it detects that something is wrong.
Thousands of Nan'an soldiers might be able to deal with one or two helicopters, but the Ming army's helicopters all appeared in groups.
There are at least twelve in a formation, equipped with machine guns and aerial bombs. The entire formation has strong attack power.
If a helicopter in the formation is attacked, other helicopters will immediately drop bombs and fire back with machine guns.
Through the "Condor" helicopter that can carry special forces, pilots can also know the approximate location of nearby friendly forces.
Since this group of self-righteous monkeys planned to deal with him in the mountains, Wanli planned to use their tactics to annihilate them in the area!
Taking advantage of the huge air superiority, the Ming army that entered the mountainous areas to fight could not only obtain sufficient supplies, but also transport the wounded and sick for immediate treatment.
The helicopter unit of the Army Aviation Force is only responsible for reconnaissance of the enemy and transporting special forces and the wounded and sick. The tasks of bombing and attack are left to the Air Force.
The six brigades sent by Wanli continued to push the front northward, while the three brigades affiliated with Mu Tianbo continued to advance eastward, cooperating with the main force to squeeze the enemy's movement space.
Mu Tianbo's two armies and six brigades marched along the Red River. There were three brigades on each side of the Red River. The troops on the east side were specifically responsible for attacking the mountainous areas in the upper reaches of the Jinjiang River.
After receiving strong support from the imperial air force, the advancement speed was much faster than relying solely on ground forces.
You can walk more than twenty miles a day on mountain roads without worrying about being attacked by the Annan natives.
This is also due to Zheng Fan's deployment of his main force in Guangxi of the Ming Dynasty and the plain areas around the capital.
There were very few troops stationed in the mountainous areas of the northwest, and the defensive force was ineffective, unable to stop the attack of the 30,000 Ming army.
Today, Zheng Fan's remaining troops are surrounded in a mountainous area that is more than 300 miles wide from east to west and more than 200 miles long from north to south.
After internal strife and frequent attacks, Zheng Fan only had less than 5,000 troops at his disposal.
The good news is that the scale has become smaller, and the movement is not so easy to be spotted by the enemies above.
Zheng Fan's plan was to break out of Manming's encirclement first, lead his troops all the way west, spend the dry season in the Red River and Tuojiang River, and enter the jungle area west of Tuojiang River to recuperate.
After organizing a local army of about 30,000 to 40,000 troops, we will wait for an opportunity to counterattack...
"Batalion Commander! It's probably that guy!"
"Oh? So, the big fish let our camp encounter it?"
"Monkey babies are quite capable of fighting, but ordinary monkeys don't have this ability!"
"Well! If that's the case, then don't be polite. Use the radio to contact the surrounding helicopters to come over for support!"
"yes!"
"Send flares and target indicator flares!"
"yes!"
Meng Xiang, commander of the 3rd Special Operations Battalion, has wanted to achieve a small goal since he joined the army and became a special forces soldier.
Today, it seems that the blind cat has encountered a dead mouse and an opportunity to achieve a small goal.
The enemy's resistance in person was very tenacious and seemed completely unlike the Annan natives they had in mind.
Perhaps it was just as his subordinates thought, that his troops encountered Zheng Fan's elite troops.
But as the Ming Dynasty's special forces, they fight the enemy's elite!
If they are not elite, then there is no need to dispatch special forces.
Meng Xiang even thought that it would be worthwhile to compete with Zheng Fan's personal guards!
In addition to one bolt-action sniper rifle in each squad under the special operations battalion, the other nine members are assault rifles.
Although rocket launchers and mortars occupy a large number of units, they can be transported by tractors and helicopters.
It is particularly effective against enemies in fortifications, so these two heavy firepower weapons are not considered a burden.
Once the two sides exchanged fire, the Ming Army's special operations battalion inflicted considerable damage on Zheng Fan's troops.
Using light weapons equipped with scopes, coupled with the cooperation of rocket launchers and mortars, hundreds of people were killed and injured within five minutes.
Although the Annan Army had six to seven hundred men, almost twice as many troops as the Ming Army, they were at a disadvantage in terms of firepower and were beaten to the point where they could not hold their heads up.
The advantages of mountain jungle warfare that they were familiar with and good at were also directly curbed by the opponent. They were more like a group of new recruits who had no experience but broke into the battlefield directly.
In addition to screaming and calling for help, even after the two sides shortened the distance where bombs could be dropped, they even forgot to throw the grenades on their bodies, and their minds were still in a trance.
Each special force of the Ming Army was carefully trained after layers of screening. They were elite infantry in their own right. After being equipped with assault rifles, their combat effectiveness was doubled.
Even if the magazine is empty and a native suddenly jumps out from the opposite side, he will instinctively give up reloading, pull out the short revolver from his waist, and quickly kill the target.
The reason why special forces are equipped with revolvers is that this weapon will not jam, has a very high accuracy rate, is very reliable, and will never fail in actual combat.
Whether it was direct aim or indirect fire, Meng Xiang's men directed all available weapons at the heads of the natives, and explosions occurred one after another.
Even in an encounter where they are at a numerical disadvantage, they can rely on their strong combat effectiveness to forcefully turn the war in their favor.
"Damn it! Hold it back, general! Don't run away!"
Facing the collapsed defense line, the leader who kept waving his sword wanted to intimidate his soldiers, but the surrounding soldiers did not listen to him at all.
It's not that they haven't fought before. It's because they have fought that they know how ferocious and cruel the enemy is in front of you. They won't give you a chance to breathe. They clearly want to bite you to death.
After watching their companions die, the remaining people realized that it was too late if they didn't run away.
So without waiting for the superior's order to retreat, they turned around and ran away.
Don't blame the brothers for not being able to withstand it, it's really the barbarian's firepower that is too fierce.
After the Annan army was defeated by the special operations battalion, Ming army helicopters also appeared over the battlefield.
The pilot must first confirm the identity of both parties before firing, so as not to knock down the swarms of special forces, which would be the end of the world.
When they saw the enemy planes appearing overhead, the defeated soldiers on the ground suddenly realized that the situation was not good.
Not long after, they encountered disaster.
Tree trunks were blown off and the ground was filled with craters.
It can be said responsibly that no guerrilla group can escape unscathed while helicopters still have fuel and ammunition.
With the appearance of the helicopter formation, the battlefield immediately turned into a temporary slaughterhouse...
This is how the other party invaded Guangxi in the Ming Dynasty before, burning, killing, looting, and committing all kinds of evil. Today is the retribution in this world.
Even after the sweep is completed, the helicopter will still circle over the battlefield, and the machine gunner will target a layer of corpses and shoot out the remaining bullets.
The companions behind the machine gunner and assistant shooter used the binoculars hung around their necks to observe whether there were any fish that had slipped through the net when they had no chance to play.
When the special forces start cleaning the battlefield, they don't have to worry so much. They can just drop off their ammunition and supplies nearby and then return to the base without hesitation.
"What is he talking about?"
"This guy said that Zheng Fan seems to be in the mountain area opposite. He doesn't know the exact location!"
"...Yeah! Let the helicopter take him away!"
The few indigenous people who surrendered to the Ming army were briefly interrogated by Meng Xiang's soldiers who could speak Annan and then confessed.
In this attack on Annam, each platoon must be equipped with a Guangxi soldier who speaks Hoi An Nan as a part-time translator.
They don't need to participate in frontline battles. As long as they are responsible for interrogating prisoners, they have completed their mission.
Meng Xiang looked at the big mountain opposite, which was about ten miles away from where he was.
It doesn't look far away, but everyone knows that Wangshan is a dead horse.
And if the gunfire is loud here, it can definitely be heard over there.
After cleaning up this group of monkeys and then going to catch Zheng Fan, as long as the other party was not a fool, he would have escaped long ago.
Even if he led his troops to rush over now, it would still take two or three hours to walk on the ten-mile mountain road.
Helicopters can only take away less than a hundred people, and most of them have to rely on two legs.
Meng Xiang could only ask the pilot to contact the base first, call for more planes, and try to capture the prince first.
Judging from the opponent's identity and the combat effectiveness he showed, he might be one of Zheng Fan's elite.
This means that he is indeed not far from Zheng Fan, and may have touched the shadow of his prey...
In addition to taking away the wounded, the remaining soldiers continued on their way after resting.
Strive to capture the culprit Zheng Fan as soon as possible and make new contributions to the third special operations battalion and even the entire special forces!
"Your Majesty, we must move as soon as possible!"
After Zheng Fan received the report from his subordinates, he immediately planned to change places.
You must not let the dog barbarian catch you, otherwise you will be delayed.
Even if he ends up using Emperor Li Weiju's life in exchange for his own survival, that's okay!
