The Chu army that reached Gaoyou Prefecture was actually an old opponent that Huang Tinghao was familiar with: the First Guards Division.
Last year, the First Guards Division had crossed the river to participate in the Jiangbei Campaign, and subsequently captured the two cities of Chuzhou and Tianchang.
For a long period of time, the First Guards Division used Tianchang as its advance base and frequently sent troops eastward along the canal. It even visited Gaoyou Prefecture several times.
Huang Tinghao and his troops have fought against the troops of the First Guards Division several times.
This First Guards Division gave him the feeling that it was more difficult to deal with than the Fourth Division that he had faced before.
When he learned that the First Guards Division was the Guards of Luo Zhixue, the leader of the Chu bandits, he was relieved.
After all, they are the emperor's personal soldiers among the Chu thieves, and those with stronger combat capabilities are also being cleaned up.
And this made him even less confident in keeping Gaoyou Prefecture.
——
The subsequent development of the battle was indeed as he expected. Even if he led six to seven thousand troops under his command to resist and defend, the gap in firepower, especially artillery fire, was too big.
In the afternoon of the second day after the Chu Army's First Guards Division reached Gaoyou Prefecture, it began to attack the Ming Army's fortress positions outside Gaoyou Prefecture.
The defense line deployed by the Ming army in Gaoyou Prefecture was different from the defense lines of the Ming army in other directions. It did not rely solely on the defense of the city itself, but moved the main battlefield to the civil fortifications outside the city, and had mature counterattack firepower. , when the time is right, infantry will even be dispatched to launch a counterattack.
This is a major feature of Song Zushun's troops. They adopted a strategy of defending while attacking, rather than just shrinking and defending.
To be honest, this is very rare!
Few other Ming armies, like them, dared to fight back when faced with the Chu army's attack!
Regardless of whether they can't or dare not, in short, very few people do this, but Song Zushun's troops often do this.
They did the same thing at the Hezhou defense line before, using a large number of civil fortifications to prevent artillery bombardment. When the Chu army's infantry rushed up, these Ming soldiers from the Jiangbei New Biao Army would not stupidly continue to hide on the parapets and Instead of resisting in the trenches, they will rush out to launch a counterattack.
Although most of the time they lose more than they win, this kind of close-range melee can also cause considerable casualties to the Chu army.
In the Battle of Hezhou, the Fourth Division was attacked several times and suffered heavy casualties. In order to avoid too many casualties, the Fourth Division fought slowly, and finally the Jiangbei New Standard Army was forced to resist. The Chu army stayed there for several months.
As a general who participated in the Battle of Hezhou, Huang Tinghao naturally copied the defense line in the Battle of Hezhou and followed Song Zushun's tactical thinking: defense while attacking!
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When the Chu army dispatched an infantry battalion on the western front to launch a tentative attack on the third day, Huang Tinghao decisively dispatched a Xinbiao army battalion to launch a counterattack.
This counterattack achieved certain results at the beginning. When the two sides fought together, many Chu thieves were killed and injured.
However, at this time, the disadvantage of the Jiangbei New Standard Army's sparse troops in Gaoyou Prefecture was further amplified.
When the Chu army sent two more battalions to join the melee, an infantry battalion of the Jiangbei New Biao Army that launched a counterattack could not hold on.
At this time, Huang Tinghao was unable to mobilize more New Standard Army troops for reinforcements. He only had three main battalions under his command. These three battalions were deployed on the left and right wings and in the middle city.
When the infantry battalion on the western front fell into a disadvantage, Huang Tinghao could only ask more than a thousand guardsmen to come forward to support.
According to the plan, these guardsmen were to use muskets, bows and arrows in short robes to block the chasing Chu infantry, and cover the remaining three to four hundred people of the main infantry battalion of the New Biao Army as they retreated.
But at this time, the Chu army's artillery unit launched another round of rapid-fire covering artillery bombardment on the Ming army's front, and concentrated at least more than forty artillery pieces.
The more than a thousand guardsmen, who had just prepared to attack but lacked experience in fighting the main force of the Chu army and did not know how to effectively avoid artillery bombardments, were suddenly bombarded by fierce bombardment. Those who were bombed suddenly fell over.
Immediately afterwards...these guardsmen turned around and ran away, running faster than the New Standard Army soldiers who retreated from the front line...
Seeing that all the more than a thousand guardsmen in front had fled in the blink of an eye, Huang Tinghao, who was watching and commanding the battle on the top of the city, murmured: "I knew, I knew I shouldn't trust them, it was just a round of shelling. Just shoot them all, let’s play, the defense line is going to play!”
At the same time, in the division headquarters of the 1st Guards Division on the opposite side, Lieutenant General Li Dongshao looked at the front line with a trace of disdain on his lips: "It seems that the staff's judgment is correct. The strength of the troops on the opposite side seems to have increased a lot. , but the average combat effectiveness has dropped a lot, just a trial attack is not enough!"
"Since the opponent is weak, don't waste time. Let the second regiment also launch an attack. We will capture Gaoyou today and then go south to Yangzhou."
"The Fourth Division is still waiting for us in Yangzhou!"
When Li Dongshao saw that the Ming army on the opposite side was not very strong and their fighting will was not very high, especially when their guard soldiers were as big as colanders, he decisively ordered to expand the scale of the attack.
Under his order, the 2nd Guards Regiment under the 1st Guards Division soon also launched an attack.
On the entire battlefield, in addition to the artillery unit, the 1st Guards Division has deployed two infantry regiments to launch a front-line attack.
The total strength of these two infantry regiments is already twice that of the new standard troops in the Gaozhou garrison.
As for the garrison soldiers... the more than a thousand garrison soldiers were defeated after being shelled just now, which once again proved that the garrison soldiers in the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty were not even qualified to be cannon fodder.
Not to mention the Ming court's inland guards, even the Chu army, which has better treatment, better cold weapons and equipment, and better overall combat effectiveness, cannot adapt to this new type of gun-based war. .
The inability to adapt to the war of the new era was also the reason why the Chu army was determined to completely eliminate the garrison.
It has even been made clear that even if a large number of prisoners of war are accepted in subsequent wars, there will be no new garrison.
At that time, qualified personnel will be directly added to the regular army. As for those who are unqualified, they will be directly assigned to reclamation camps, construction camps, and labor camps.
The traditional army with cold weapons and fire portal guns is completely unable to adapt to contemporary warfare.
This point was very clearly reflected in both the Ming and Chu armies.
Under such circumstances, one cannot blame the generals on both sides for consciously ignoring the three to four thousand garrison soldiers...
In Huang Tinghao's subsequent defensive operations, he relied on two thousand new standard troops to fight hard. As for the guards, the most they could do was attract the attention of the Chu army and then use them to consume the Chu army's ammunition.
The offensive force of the First Guards Division also focused its attack on the Jiangbei New Standard Army.
After the two sides fought fiercely for most of the day, in the afternoon, the Chu army had completely crushed the resistance of Huang Tinghao's new standard army.
At around four o'clock in the afternoon, facing a complete defeat, Huang Tinghao had no choice but to surrender with only a thousand people left in the New Biao Army under his command.
As for the breakout...
The Chu army has long surrounded Gaoyou Prefecture!
Why did the First Guards Division clearly have more than 14,000 troops, but only the artillery unit and two infantry regiments attacked Gaoyou Prefecture, with a total of only about 6,000 troops?
"Gene Era"
It is because some of the troops are responsible for the encirclement in other directions, and a reinforcement group is sent to the outer periphery of the southern line of Gaoyou Prefecture to prevent reinforcements from Yangzhou City.
The Chu Army's First Guards Division devoted half of its troops to encirclement and reinforcements...
Well, even though not even half of the Ming army's reinforcements came over until Gaoyouzhou City was captured, we can't stop deploying peripheral troops just because there are no enemy reinforcements.
When fighting, you need to take precautions.
When thousands of troops of the First Guards Division were deployed on the periphery, Huang Tinghao's troops were actually completely surrounded, with no way to break out.
The breakout failed, and Huang Tinghao was not willing to lead nearly a thousand remaining troops to fight to the last moment and then be wiped out. He still had some feelings for the soldiers under his command and was unwilling to let them die in vain.
In Gaoyou Prefecture, he also resisted tenaciously. Even when there was a huge disadvantage, he resolutely led his troops to resist and paid more than half of the casualties for it.
Huang Tinghao asked himself whether he could stand up to the imperial court and Emperor Chongzhen, whom he had never seen before and who had never given him a salary.
I just feel a little ashamed of my old boss Song Zushun.
But he couldn't let his nearly a thousand remnant soldiers make unnecessary sacrifices just because he felt a little guilty about his old boss Song Zushun.
They had been resisting for most of the day, and there was no large-scale retreat or surrender until Huang Tinghao ordered to surrender. Huang Tinghao saw this all.
The soldiers trusted him and were willing to sacrifice their lives for him, but he, Huang Tinghao, could not take them to death.
Therefore, Huang Tinghao finally chose to surrender.
But before surrendering, Huang Tinghao also did a private matter.
He sent his own soldiers to the city and killed the local magistrate and several other civil servants.
Even the heads were thrown into the pit one by one by him!
Damn it, ever since he was stationed in Gaoyou Prefecture, these civil servants, especially the local magistrate, have disliked him and made trouble for him every day. One day he was impeached for setting up cards to collect taxes, and the next he was impeached for forcibly apportioning taxes and plundering. , which makes the people’s livelihood miserable.
Setting up cards to collect money and asking the gentry to allocate military expenses was a routine operation for local officers and soldiers to collect military expenses, and it was a very restrained method of raising military expenses.
The imperial court does not give money and food to support the army, and your local government in Gaoyou Prefecture does not give money to support the army. What will I do with the thousands of people under my command? There is no card collection, no stalling, let alone fighting, even eating and drinking is a problem.
We can't all starve to death!
I didn't directly let my army plunder the countryside and rob the city of Gaoyou. I had already restrained myself. Zuo Liangyu and Wu Sangui from the north would have robbed you a hundred times. Your wives and daughters were all sold to you for military expenses...
Moreover, the money and food allocated do not go into my own pocket, Huang Tinghao, but are used to support the army, and the army raised is used to protect Gaoyou Prefecture.
You guys are impeaching shit...
In the end, what made him unhappy was that he actually had to split the money he got from setting up a card to collect taxes and apportion it with Zhizhou and the others...
In the end, only 70% was used for military expenditures, and the remaining 30% was pocketed by these civil servants.
Huang Tinghao had long been dissatisfied with them, and now he was going to surrender anyway. He would no longer hang out in the court, so he might as well kill them all.
Moreover, killing them first can prevent these people from defecting to the Chu army and continuing to serve as officials...
When he thought that they would most likely turn around and surrender, and then continue to be officials in style, Huang Tinghao felt as if he had eaten several kilograms of flies alive. It was very disgusting.
If you don't kill them, Huang Tinghao will not have clear ideas!
After killing them, they threw their heads into the pit. Huang Tinghao felt relieved.
Then he waved his hand: "Let's go out of the city and surrender!"
