Toungoo City is in emergency!
Wang Mang, the White Elephant of Jinlou, who was having a bad time, was so worried that he called all the royal nobles and the late emperor's veteran generals who were accompanying the army into his golden brocade tent.
Each of these people has a large property in Toungu City. Even if they go south, their connection with Toungu City is not interrupted. So almost at the same time that Mang Yingli got the news, they all got the news too.
Different from the "official news" that Mang Yingli received, the news they received was sent by their own servants sent by their own families. The terms used in various reports were even more exaggerated, such as "thousands of cannons bombarding the city" and "hundreds of thousands of troops." There are many sayings such as "iron barrels siege the city".
Although the nobles and generals in front knew very well that the Ming army could not have a hundred thousand troops to besiege the city, and the theory of "thousands of artillery" was definitely nonsense, otherwise this battle would have been a fart. Simply surrendering would be the end of the matter, but they knew very well the reason why these messages came from home, and they also knew the troubles facing Toungoo City.
The main force of the Ming army did not withdraw eastward, but suddenly went to Taungoo!
These royal families, nobles, old and new generals all gathered together to discuss how to persuade the king, but before they could come up with a result, Mang Yingli's summons came.
Toungu City is the "Longxing Land" of the Toungu Dynasty and is also the capital of the country. Everyone understands the importance of Toungu City. If Toungu is lost, it will be equivalent to having its roots dug up. Who can bear this crime? rise? Even Mang Yingli couldn't do it, so when the first "Taungoo crisis" happened before, Mang Yingli had to withdraw his troops from the northern front and come back for rescue.
And this time was no exception. Mang Yingli told his subordinates straight out of the gate that he had to go back to relieve the siege of Toungoo City. There was no need to talk about this. What he really wanted to discuss was another issue: What to do about Bago?
Everyone is very clear about the current situation, and there is actually no problem in withdrawing troops. Although this group of people in Bago City relied on the power of muskets and bastions to defeat the Burmese army in the first day's trial attack, they did not dare to think about attacking easily again, but these people are just a group of new soldiers after all, and they should be allowed to leave the city. It's impossible. No general with a right mind would impulsively choose such a suicidal battle.
However, the trouble is that if we withdraw so straightforwardly, where will everyone lose their face? When they first sent out troops, they were very ambitious. They wanted to wipe out the main force of the Ming Army in southern Burma and kill the Mon rebels in one fell swoop.
There was a fight with the "main force" of the Ming army in the north, but they didn't get any advantage. When they withdrew, they were tricked by Liu Wei, who not only killed the late emperor's brother and general Wang Shumangzhuo, but also the White Elephant King himself. It was a huge loss of face to almost be captured.
But at least that time we could shirk the responsibility. Firstly, everyone was eager to go south to rescue Taungoo. Secondly, the other party was the son of the famous Ming army general Liu Xian. It was not a big problem to mention the famous general in advance. After all, Myanmar also has a popular "dragon". "A dragon begets a phoenix, a phoenix begets a phoenix", so no matter how many soldiers Liu Wei brought, everyone subconsciously regarded him as the main force of the Ming army.
But this time it’s different!
The leader of the Ming army on the southern front has now been investigated clearly. He is just a chieftain from Guangxi in the past, not a world-famous general. Forget about the toast, the key point is that the other party is still a young female toast, which is even more troublesome.
You must know that in Burmese culture at this time, women had no status at all, and the status gap between men and women was several times worse than in the Ming Dynasty. Now that the leader of the Ming army is a woman, it means that even if the Burmese army wins, it will not have a glorious record. On the other hand, if it loses...
Just thinking about it makes me feel ashamed!
This woman is now attacked and saved. If the Burmese army simply withdraws its troops, it means that the previous intended target has been forced to give up. To a certain extent, it is already a missed move. .
Therefore, considering the face, it is not advisable to abandon Bago City and return to Taungu. Mang Yingli did not explicitly say this, but everyone understood it.
It's just that I understand, but the solution is hard to find.
Some people suggested that it is better to find a way to conquer Bago as soon as possible. Everyone will go back with the glorious record of conquering Bago, and the morale of the army will be higher. In addition, Bago is rich, and the supplies will be more abundant when the army returns. .
But Captain Reddy, as a military adviser, expressed his point of view very bluntly: It is impossible to do it.
According to his "careful observation" in the past three or four days, although the opponent's bastion is a newly constructed temporary building that may not be more than a month old, due to "uncertain reasons", the solidity of these buildings is not bad at all, and even It can be said that the quality is superior. The only shortcoming is that the construction time is efficient, which means that the "big bastion" is not particularly complete, and the thickness may not meet the "universal European standards".
In a word, although this is a castrated version of the temporary large bastion, without one or two hundred long heavy artillery, it is impossible to achieve a breakthrough in a short period of time by relying on manpower. Regarding this view, Captain Reddy expressed his willingness to "swear in the name of God" to prove that what he said was true and not alarmist.
Although Captain Reddy has limited men and horses, he has been employed by Burma since the time of the late Emperor and has participated in dozens of battles, large and small. The Burmese army generals are quite convinced of his military qualities, so after he said this, " The idea of capturing Bago as soon as possible" died out.
Since the troops cannot be withdrawn at will, but they cannot take it for a while, there is only one way left: leaving some troops to continue the siege, and the main force to go back to rescue Taungoo.
But this also faces a problem: How many people are left to besiege the city?
If there are too few left, the siege will be a joke. For example, if there are only 10,000 people left, we can't even encircle Bago City. Is it a ghost siege?
But if they stay too much, everyone feels that it is not safe: the Ming army on the southern front has never declared how many troops it has, and so far the Burmese side can only guess.
In the beginning, Burma's guess was quite accurate. The estimate was that "the Ming army on the southern front was about thirty to forty thousand people" - they may have included the fleet.
Later, because the Ming army created a new army composed of Mon people, this data suddenly began to "float". Some said 80,000, some said 100,000, and some even said 150,000. This data became even more confusing. It's not even close to the real situation.
Mang Yingli tended to believe that the actual strength of the Ming army did not exceed 50,000, and Captain Reddy believed that it did not exceed 30,000. But regardless of 30,000 or 50,000, one thing is certain: the Ming army that attacked Toungoo must be the Ming army on the southern front. The main force of the army!
This truth is actually obvious - the "high" flag now hanging on the top of Bago City instead of the "yellow" flag means that the Ming army general Huang Zhiting is not in the city.
After the losses suffered that day, the Burmese army's strength can only be said to be barely around 70,000. If too many troops are left to besiege the city, then the troops returning to rescue Bago will not have much advantage over the main force of the Ming army. .
What is the level of the main force of the Ming army? If the strength shown by Liu Pingbu that day was to be followed, even the most arrogant people in the Burmese army would feel scared. After subconscious consideration, they didn't think they could win one-on-one.
This is bad. Even according to Captain Reddy's most optimistic estimate, if the other party counts 30,000, then one's own side must have 50,000 or 60,000 before he thinks he can fight.
The powerful White Elephant King of Jinlou actually found that his troops were stretched thin, and Mang Yingli's mood suddenly became worse. After thinking for a long time, he finally decided that life was more important than face. Mang Yingli made up his mind: he would leave 10,000 people to continue the siege, and the remaining 60,000 troops would pack up and return north immediately.
Fortunately, the generals under their command were very "sensible" this time and did not express any objections. There was only a slight dispute over the next issue of "who stayed."
Because some generals believe that the hundreds of Portuguese mercenaries should be left outside Bago City. The reason is that leaving only 10,000 people to besiege the city is too thin the force. Although everyone does not know the actual strength of Bago City, It is clear, but it cannot be less than tens of thousands of people.
If those tens of thousands of people really fight desperately out of the city to fight in the field, it will not be easy for the ten thousand of our own side to gather from the siege. If there is no elite force to hold the battle, they may end up losing the battle, and the situation will be embarrassing.
Mang Yingli asked Captain Reddy what he thought, and the latter said it didn't matter - "Employees have no right to choose tasks, unless the task involves death."
After much thought, Mang Yingli still felt that it was safest to bring the Portuguese mercenaries with him, so he rejected the suggestion, leaving only 10,000 ordinary Burmese troops to continue the "siege" in Bago, while he led some of the Portuguese mercenaries The 60,000-strong army, including the army, immediately returned north.
Of course, the movements of the Burmese army cannot be hidden from Gao Silian, who has binoculars in hand, but Gao Silian also has questions about the withdrawal of the main force of the Burmese army - why did they go north?
Gao Silian was in the siege. He didn't know that Huang Zhiting had gone to Toungu City. Therefore, according to his assumption, even if Mangyingli wanted to find bad luck with the main force of the expeditionary force, he should go east. Going north would be a mistake. What kind of genius operation?
Could it be that a coup or even a mutiny broke out in Toungoo City?
Gao Silian is worthy of being a colonial envoy, and he pays great attention to seizing opportunities. Although he still doesn't understand the meaning of Mangyingli's evacuation to the north, it does not prevent him from making preparations in advance.
what to prepare? Of course I'm ready to fight back!
The Burmese army looks down on the Mon army because the battle in which Mang Yinglong quelled the Mon Bago Dynasty went so smoothly. The main force of more than 10,000 people defeated the "80,000 army" of the Bago Dynasty led by the king himself in one battle. Directly destroy the country in one battle.
But in fact, there is a story behind that battle.
As early as the thirteenth year of Jiajing, Mang Ruiti had just succeeded to the throne of Burma. At only 19 years old, Mang Ruiti was in battle for the first time. With Mang Yinglong as the vanguard, he attacked the Bago Dynasty in the south. But the result was not good. Mang Ruiti and Mang Yinglong attacked Bago three times, but all failed.
Three years later, Mangrui Ti used counterintuitive tactics to eliminate the two famous twin generals of the Bago Dynasty, Binnyarao and Binnyajang, and attacked Bago for the fourth time. King Meng believed that Gayubi thought he was no match, so He abandoned the defense of the royal capital and fled with his army. Mang Ruiti ordered the pursuit, but the forward troops led by Mang Yinglong defeated the main force of the Meng people in the Battle of Nangyou before the main force arrived. After this battle, Mang Rui Ti gave Mang Yinglong the title of "Brother King".
So we can speculate on two points here: First, because the two famous generals of the Mon people were killed, their military morale must have been unstable. Otherwise, King Bago would not have dared to defend the capital, and instead wanted to escape - -This shows that if the Burmese army had not launched a massive offensive, civil strife might have broken out in Bago;
The second is that since King Bago was determined to escape, he was probably unprepared and was engaged in a "decapitation battle" by the elite forwards of the Burmese army led by Mang Yinglong - King Bago was either directly killed. They were killed in formation, or captured (the record is unknown). In short, the 80,000-strong army simply collapsed.
So looking at it from the other side, the Meng people may not be so poor in combat effectiveness. Their failure was mainly due to the inability of their own king. First, he destroyed the Great Wall in a stratagem, and then in a panic, Mang Yinglong caught the flaw and "beheaded him". ".
For the Mon people, this was a bit of a "crime other than war." Later, the Mon people even restored the state for a period of time after Mang Ruiti's death. As for the rebellions in other periods, they came and went one after another without stopping at all. This can also prove from the side that the Mon people are not convinced by the defeat.
Gao Silian has basically understood the past events in the past few days, and also understood the revengeful mentality of the Mon soldiers, but he still refused the requests of the Mon soldiers who came to ask for a fight when Mangyingli's army just left.
It's not that he refuses to fight, but he wants to wait a little, at least to make sure that the main force of the Burmese army has indeed gone far, before he can go out to fight in the city. Otherwise, what if Mang Yingli was deceiving, to lure his main force out of the city?
Taking advantage of the fact that there were only 10,000 people left in the Burmese army and the so-called "siege" was full of loopholes, Gao Silian selected elite soldiers to go out of the city to investigate the news. After another day and night, he finally confirmed that the main force of the Burmese army had indeed returned north, and that it was still possible to leave. We were in a hurry, and we must have traveled nearly a hundred miles by now.
Without hesitation, Gao Silian even ignored that it was already afternoon. He temporarily reorganized the army and gathered all the more than 100 middle and lower-level officers who were members of the Gao family into the 10,000 new army, and then personally led the 10,000-person army. The army went out to fight in the city.
It was a bold move to pit 10,000 recruits against 10,000 elite soldiers, but Gao Silian was also bold in his subtlety.
Instead of attacking from all sides, he first sent people to build a great momentum in Nancheng, giving the impression that he was going to lead his army to break out and escape. When the Burmese army began to nervously concentrate troops and horses in the south city, and the troops at each city gate began to relax due to temporary deployment, Gao Silian suddenly led his troops straight out of the north gate.
At this time, there were only about 2,000 Burmese troops left in the north city. Seeing the large army coming out of the city, the Burmese army called for help urgently, blasting smoke and beating drums, while concentrating their troops and horses, preparing to fight against this "death-conscious" Mon recruits. A head-on fight.
This long-established self-confidence has long since turned into conceit, and this conceit has completely ruined them.
For this battle, Gao Silian, who was brave enough, concentrated 2,500 of the 3,000 Wanli-1 muskets Huang Zhiting left him in the army. The density of firepower on the tower had dropped to the lowest level.
The two thousand five hundred Wanli Yi Style played their greatest role under the complacent attack of the Burmese army.
Gao Silian used a trick he had used when pioneering Huaying: the front row held spears as camouflage. When the enemy charged at a relatively close distance, he suddenly ordered the front row soldiers to half-crouch with their spears inserted (the knives in the bayonet formation were replaced by Spear), and the back row will immediately start a standard three-stage attack.
No matter how the Burmese army claims to be an elite force, in the final analysis, it is nothing more than a cold-weapon army. The only hot-weapon troops they have seen are Portuguese mercenaries, but the number of Portuguese mercenaries is too small, and the scene of "queuing up to be shot" is not that big. Scary, so this Burmese army has no idea how terrifying it is to line up and shoot on a large scale.
A crushing defeat was booked.
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