On October 15th, after several days of preparation, the Baoxiang Army finally launched a formal attack on Wuchang City.
The first thing to appear were dozens of various field guns and siege mortars.
These artillery fired at distances ranging from hundreds of meters to the target. The rumble of artillery started in the morning and continued until dusk.
The baggage soldiers transporting artillery shells in the rear used horse-drawn carriages to deliver boxes of various artillery shells and propellants to the front artillery groups for use by each artillery piece.
At the same time, the engineering troops, together with some soldiers from the garrison and civilian laborers recruited from nearby areas, were carrying out fortification operations under the cover of artillery fire.
They began to dig various communication trenches and build parapets to prevent the troops from being attacked by enemy artillery fire when they approached the city wall.
At the same time, these communication trenches also allow artillery, especially mortars, to be deployed closer to increase the hit rate.
After all, the shooting accuracy of these mortars is very poor, and the range is also relatively short. Although they can barely carry out shelling at medium and long distances, the effect will not be very good.
If you want to achieve a better bombardment effect, you often need to get closer to a distance of about three hundred meters for bombardment.
And this requires the cover of soil work.
After all, the Ming army defending the city won't just watch you pull the artillery to a distance of two to three hundred meters for bombardment.
They also have artillery, even if they are traditional artillery such as general cannons and Franco machine guns, it is still no problem to shoot two to three hundred meters.
The Baoxiang Army outside the city carried out heavy shelling and earthworks at the same time, while the Ming Army inside the city suffered heavy casualties from bombings.
In fact, the Ming army in Wuchang City did not stupidly stay in dangerous areas such as the city head to be bombed. After all, many Ming army generals in the city had followed Tang Hui and experienced the Battle of Zhongxiang.
They are very aware of the ferocious firepower of the thieves. If they foolishly send a large number of troops to the city at the beginning of the war, there will be no effect except giving away people.
So in addition to arranging a small number of observers on the top of the city, most of their troops were actually hiding behind the city wall, and the mortars aimed at protecting the thieves could hit and explode behind the city wall. They also built bulletproof walls behind the city wall. of fortification buildings.
However, the artillery of the Baoxiang Army was too powerful. More than 40 mortars took turns bombarding them. Even if the hit and kill rate was lower, they could still kill a lot of enemy troops.
This day's shelling resulted in at least hundreds of casualties in the city, and a large number of buildings behind the city walls were destroyed and even caused fires, sending out billowing smoke.
Although there were more than 20,000 defenders in the city, and city officials also recruited a large number of young men in the city to help defend the city, the casualties of several hundred people were still not small.
More importantly, they can only be passively beaten, which is a fatal blow to morale.
Many people even pessimistically believed that even if the security forces did not take the initiative to launch an infantry attack on the city, if they just bombarded the city like this, they would have killed and injured thousands of people in ten days and a half.
Of course, this is just filtered by them.
It is impossible for the artillery units of the Baoxiang Army to maintain high-intensity shelling without stopping.
The artillerymen can stand it, but neither can the artillery.
Even if the artillery can withstand it, the supply of ammunition will be very troublesome.
After all, artillery has a lifespan, especially the cast-iron mortars of the Baoxiang Army, which only have a lifespan of two to three hundred rounds. Under such high-intensity battles, it is normal to fire dozens of shells a day.
In other words, even if the ammunition tubes are enough, the gunners will not be tired, but they will not be able to sustain such high-intensity shelling for several days.
In fact, this is indeed the case. Starting from the second day, the density of shelling by the Baoxiang Army has slowed down a lot. Except for the suppressive shelling, there is basically no intensive shelling like the first day.
This also made the people in the city feel relieved towards the Ming army, and began to imagine that if the security forces were like this every day, then they would be able to hold on for a month or even more than two or three months.
In this way, we can wait for reinforcements from other directions.
The Ming army had a considerable number of garrison troops in the southern area of southern Chu, that is, Yuezhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture, and Hengyang Prefecture.
There are also more troops in Jiangxi and South Zhili areas.
If they could hold out until these reinforcements arrived, they would be saved.
In fact, as expected by the defenders in Wuchang City, the Ming armies from the above directions were preparing to rescue Wuchang.
The fastest movers were the Ming troops in the areas of Yuezhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture, and Changde Prefecture. They began to gather troops since they learned that they wanted to protect the thieves from crossing the river, and finally assembled about 10,000 troops in the Yuezhou Prefecture area.
The reason why they were able to move so quickly was simply because Yang Sichang was now in his hometown in Wuling County, Changde Prefecture.
Although Yang Sichang's revenge is still going through the process, this does not prevent him from using his influence to put pressure on the Ming army in the above-mentioned places and let them send reinforcements to rescue Wuchang.
However, it was not easy for the tens of thousands of Ming troops to gather together. As soon as they left Baling City and headed towards Wuchang Prefecture, they heard that a security force came from the east and captured Puqi, Wuchang Prefecture.
This army to protect the bandits was the westward detachment led by Colonel Jia Heyun.
They marched westward from the landing ferry, first captured Jiayu, and then went straight to Puqi, spending two days to capture Puqi.
When the Ming army in Yuezhou learned about Jia Heyun's detachment, Jia Heyun was actually leading troops to conquer Chongyang.
Outside Chongyang City, Colonel Jia Heyun looked at the empty city in front and directly ordered: "Let the Second Guard Battalion prepare to attack!"
After the early suppressive bombardment, the Ming army at the top of Chongyang City had already killed and injured dozens of people, and the others did not know where they had gone. Under such circumstances, there is no need to continue to dilly-dally, just send infantry to rush up and that's it. .
Anyway, there weren't many Ming troops stationed in Chongyang City, only a few hundred local guardsmen and civilians, and not even a few short-barreled artillery pieces such as general cannons.
Not every place will be as heavily garrisoned as Wuchang City. The Ming army's military strength is also limited, and it is impossible to garrison troops in all cities.
Most of the Ming army in the Chunan area were basically concentrated in the Wuchang City line, and the remaining part was concentrated in the Yuezhou area.
As for ordinary small counties like Chongyang and Puqi, it is impossible to have many main Ming troops stationed in the field. Some are just local Ming military guards and township warriors.
Facing such an enemy, there is no need to shrink back and attack directly, just like the previous attack on Jiayu and Puqi.
Sure enough, just as Jia Heyun expected, the second garrison battalion, under the cover of its own artillery and musketeers and archers, charged directly to the top of the city, and then seized the city gate to welcome the army into the city.
In this way, the overall situation has been decided.
Then he continued to clear out the stubborn enemies in the city, but Jia and Yun didn't care much about them. He didn't even plan to stay here for too long. After the organized and stubborn enemies in the city were cleared, he would lead his army. Leave and continue west.
Later, he will divide a strengthened garrison battalion and go to Tongcheng to conquer this county that also has few Ming army troops stationed.
And he himself will take the remaining 3,000-strong main force to Linxiang.
It is worth noting that after marching westward and capturing three cities, the number of troops under Jia Heyun not only did not decrease, but increased from more than 3,000 to more than 4,000.
These newly added troops were naturally selected from the prisoners captured along the way.
In accordance with the instructions, the military and political officials accompanying the army selected the prisoners of war captured by the westward detachment on the spot, and then replenished the 23rd garrison regiment on the spot to join the westward detachment.
Therefore, the strength of the garrison regiment continued to increase to 3,000, and an additional garrison battalion was organized.
At the same time, according to the previously formulated plan, the garrison regiment will continue to expand in the future, and then directly expand into a garrison brigade, which will fall under the jurisdiction of the new 8th garrison division.
Before the Baoxiang Army crossed the Yangtze River and headed south, it had formulated an expansion plan for the two garrison divisions. The 7th Garrison Division was expected to be reorganized in the direction of Wuchang Prefecture, while the 8th Garrison Division was expected to be reorganized in the Yuezhou Prefecture area.
Colonel Jia Heyun led more than 3,000 troops to continue westward and soon arrived in Linxiang.
As a result, as soon as they approached Linxiang, they discovered that a Ming army of tens of thousands came ahead, that is, the Ming army marched east from Baling City, Yuezhou Prefecture, trying to reinforce Wuchang Prefecture.
As a result, more than 3,000 rural protection troops fought against tens of thousands of Ming troops about ten kilometers west of Linxiang City.
In this kind of typical field encounter, the Baoxiang Army has always taken advantage of it, because the Baoxiang Army has mobile field artillery with the army. Even those short-barreled artillery pieces of two to three hundred kilograms are installed on special cannons. It was pulled on the rack and ran.
The Baoxiang Army's artillery maneuvered quickly and deployed quickly. Before the Ming army on the opposite side could react, they had already approached and started shelling.
After being caught off guard by the artillery of the Baoxiang Army, the Ming army on the opposite side wanted to stabilize their position and even wanted to launch a counterattack for a time, but then the core combat force of the Baoxiang Army's westward detachment was the third step. The 1st Infantry Battalion under the Corps.
This new main infantry battalion, under the cover of its own two-and-a-half-pound field artillery and a batch of two-hundred-pound short cannons, directly launched a line attack and fired at a group of opponents with musketry. After overwhelming the momentum of the opposite left wing, its heavy armor The spearmen launched a spear charge directly after the musketeers fired a volley at close range.
The musketeers were also wearing light armor, carrying muskets with bayonets, and charged with the spearmen.
When five to six hundred soldiers all wearing armor, and more than two hundred of them were still wearing heavy armor, the two to three thousand left-wing Ming troops on the opposite side were frightened...
Most of the left-wing Ming troops in front of them were just ordinary local guardsmen, and they couldn't stop the five to six hundred soldiers of the First Infantry Battalion who looked like wolves and tigers.
As a result, the left wing of the Ming army collapsed without any surprise.
