Not only the Chu army would dig civil fortifications, but also the Dongqi army... But their civil fortifications tended to be more traditional, and their level was even lower than that of the Ming army during the Jiangnan and Jiangbei campaigns...
Again, the Dongji people have not been severely beaten by intensive shelling, and they do not feel the importance of anti-artillery fortifications for the time being... When they attacked Shanhaiguan, they also followed their own past experience.
As a result, Zhu Xingfa watched the massive construction work on the opposite side and began to build many messy fortifications. However, these fortifications basically lacked the ability to prevent artillery, especially the ability to launch mortars.
Zhu Xingfa was wondering, would the other party want to give him a big gift?
So, when the Dongqiu people had great difficulty and spent seven or eight days digging many fortress trenches, garrisoning troops in front, and preparing to gradually approach, they were suddenly attacked by an intensive shelling by the Chu army!
In one breath, Zhu Xingfa pulled out all the mortars in the army, from the 18-pound mortars for infantry support firepower to the 48-pound siege mortars, and put them in front.
Then a surprise mortar bombardment was launched against the fortress deployed close to the Dongjiu people!
Their various messy forts seriously lacked the top fortifications of the mortars, and some artillery emplacements deployed close to them did not have ring-shaped sandbag defenses. They were all deployed naked on the forts.
These have become the key targets of the Chu army's nearly one hundred mortars!
When the mortar launched an intensive bombardment, various types of long-barreled artillery also launched an intensive bombardment, and then the commandos under the First Division took the initiative to go out and launch several local counterattacks!
On this day, Dongjiao and Zu Dashou's troops suffered heavy losses!
The number of casualties alone reached more than 5,000, and a large number of them were artillerymen, heavy armored soldiers and other elite and technical units.
In addition, more than ten large and small red cannons deployed nearby were destroyed!
Coupled with the losses of more than a thousand people on the first day of the previous attack, and the scattered losses of more than a thousand people in the past seven or eight days, the Dongji and Zu Dashou coalition forces had already lost more than 1,000 troops before they could even see the city wall of Shanhaiguan clearly. seven thousand people,
Mahler Gobi, this ridiculous Shanhaiguan... Huang Taiji was also a resolute and decisive person. When he saw something was wrong, he immediately led the army to retreat to Guangning Zhongqian Post.
The battle with the Chu bandits and even the subsequent entry into the customs must be carefully considered!
Now, Huang Taiji is going to stabilize the internal situation first...
So, after returning to Guangning Zhongqian, when Huang Taiji summoned Zu Dashou, Wu Sangui and other generals of the Western Liaoning Army, he directly sent armored soldiers to hack them to death...
Since the Liaoxi Corridor is under his control and cannot be entered, he cannot really return Liaoxi to Zu Dashou and let him control Liaoxi forever... Isn't that nonsense!
In addition, Zu Dashou and his Liao army were also under the supervision of the Eastern Capture Army at this time. Huang Taiji naturally wanted to take the opportunity to completely control the Liaoxi Army of more than 50,000 people.
Kill this group of senior generals, and then use a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other. You won't be afraid that you won't be able to recapture these more than 50,000 ordinary soldiers.
In this regard, Huang Taiji is still somewhat confident.
As a result, Zu Dashou's king of Liao and Wu Sangui's king of Pingxi only served for less than half a month, and even lost their lives...
In order to avoid future troubles, Huang Taiji even killed many of their closest generals.
Immediately afterwards, Huang Taiji opened a granary, fed the Liao soldiers on the spot, and incorporated them into the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty to enjoy the treatment of the Eight Banners. This was considered to have initially stabilized these ordinary soldiers.
While Huang Taiji stabilized the rear, he also began to imitate the previous Ming army and began to strengthen the city defenses.
Since they can't enter the pass, they naturally have to prevent the Chu thieves from getting out of the pass.
However, Huang Taiji didn't expect that the city defenses in the Liaoxi Corridor alone could stop the Chu thieves from advancing eastward. They had more ruthless tricks!
After suffering the hardships at Shanhaiguan, Huang Taiji turned around and sent Hauge to lead tens of thousands of cavalry to circumvent Mongolia... and attack the front line of Xuanfu in Miyun.
Since we can't win a tough battle, who would be stupid enough to fight you face to face? I'll go around Mongolia, tear through the weak defense line of the Great Wall at a certain point, and directly plunder North Zhili and Shandong. Let's see what you Chu thieves can do to me!
Secondly, although Huang Taiji led his troops to strengthen the city defenses of Guangning Zhongqian and other cities, he still never thought of relying on the city defenses to fight the Chu thieves!
The many examples of defeats in the previous Ming Dynasty show that the Chu thieves have very strong attack capabilities and cannot be easily stopped.
What he has to do is, when the Chu thieves advance eastward, he will directly pull the army out and have a field battle with the Chu thieves on the plains!
Fighting in the field is their strength in robbing people!
——
It's just that Huang Taiji didn't know it at this time, or he knew it, but he didn't care: in fact, what the Chu army was best at was not attacking fortresses, let alone defense, but field battles!
Especially the kind where the armies of both sides square off and fight face to face!
The Chu army's line tactics, field artillery and even flintlocks, bayonets, etc., to put it bluntly, were specially designed for large-scale field battles.
It's a pity that except for a few large-scale field battles with Lu Xiangsheng and Zuo Liangyu in the early years, the Chu army has not fought many such field battles.
Those Ming troops didn't give the Chu army a chance to fight in the field!
Perhaps, one day in the future, the Dongji people can accompany the Chu army in a large-scale outdoor battle.
But, that’s what happens next!
——
As for now, since Huang Taiji took the initiative to retreat eastward and Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa stabilized the Shanhaiguan defense line, due to his limited troops and troublesome supplies, he did not cause any extra problems and continued to defend Shanhaiguan.
He needs to wait for the friendly forces in the rear to settle the various fronts in Beizhili. He needs to wait for the logistics department to transport more artillery and artillery shells, especially heavy artillery.
Finally, if he marches eastward in a big way, he will need more cavalry support!
The Dongjiu and Liao troops on the opposite side joined forces and had tens of thousands of cavalry. Not to mention the Mongolian cavalry under the Dongjiu people, the four to five thousand Guanning cavalry in the Liao army alone were enough for them to drink a pot.
In order to avoid a disastrous defeat caused by rushing eastward, Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa chose a cautious plan: stick to Shanhaiguan!
And this is actually his main strategic mission!
Before leading the army to Shanhaiguan, the strategic task assigned to him by General Li Chengtong was to seize Shanhaiguan. If he could not seize Shanhaiguan, he would block Shanhaiguan.
In short, the Dongjiu people cannot be allowed to fight out from the direction of Shanhaiguan.
Looking at it now, Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa has successfully completed the strategic tasks assigned by Li Chengtong.
Do you just know that the right army in the rear is fighting like this?
——
What Zhu Xingfa didn't know was that it was much easier for the friendly forces in the rear than him.
Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa still needs to face the pressure brought by the 200,000 Japanese army, but friendly forces such as the Second Army and the 10th Division do not have so much pressure.
The 20th Division and the 10th Division went north to Xuanfu, Jizhen and other places respectively, and basically did not encounter too strong resistance.
Since Chongzhen was dead and the Ming Dynasty was dead, the strength of the remaining frontier troops in the north was not very good. After all, Hong Chengchou had already mobilized a total of 80,000 frontier troops from Jiliao and Xuanda to go south to Tianjin. The last eight Only more than 4,000 Guan Ning's cavalry were left in the Wanbian Army to flee. A small number of others were killed or injured, and the rest were captured by the Chu army.
There are not many border troops left in Jizhen, Xuanda and other places!
At the same time, for these border troops, the Chu army still shouted the slogan of preferential treatment of prisoners of war as always. This also led to many border troops, led by local generals, to surrender very decisively.
The Chu army had not yet killed many of the fortresses and border towns in the border areas, and even before they had sent envoys to persuade them to surrender, the local generals directly changed their banners, and then took the initiative to contact the Chu army to start an uprising.
If local civil servants or other generals disagree, brutal internal fighting will often break out.
When a large number of border troops rebelled, the Chu army did not spend much effort at all and directly controlled some important cities, such as Jizhou Town, Zunhua, Pinggu, Miyun, Changping, Yanqing, Juyongguan, and Longmenwei. , Xuanfu Town, Huai'an and other places.
There is currently a part of the 20th Division that has already gone to the front line of Datong Prefecture in Shanxi Province, and the local Ming army does not have much intention to resist. It is probably based on rumors.
The large-scale propaganda in various northern border towns depends on the situation. The main reason is that the current situation is very good for the Chu Empire!
Now the Chu Empire has taken control of the southern provinces, as well as Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Shandong, and the Central Plains east of Tongguan. Now it has even taken over Northern Zhili.
The most important thing is that Chongzhen, his clan, and many ministers and dignitaries of the Ming court were killed by the Chu army in Youzhou City.
The Ming Dynasty has been declared destroyed.
Under such circumstances, it is basically difficult for people who are not particularly stubborn or have a large number of troops to develop a stubborn resistance to the Chu Dynasty.
In addition, the Chu army often gave preferential treatment to these border troops for their surrender. After they were eliminated and selected to a certain extent, a large number of ordinary border soldiers were gradually reorganized into second-class divisions.
The soldiers of this second-class division are treated as regular soldiers in the Chu army, and their treatment is higher than that of the previous garrison.
This kind of treatment is what many frontier soldiers only dream of!
Although the Chu army killed many officials in Youzhou City, they still maintained preferential treatment towards ordinary soldiers, regardless of whether they surrendered or surrendered.
After all, the value of both parties was different to the Chu Dynasty.
To a certain extent, the Chu Dynasty needed to recruit these frontier troops to alleviate the shortage of troops on the northern front line, but it did not need these civil servants who only knew how to make money through corruption.
As for the lack of manpower in the local administrative offices, there is no need to worry about this. Guo Quanshu of the Ministry of Personnel Affairs had already begun to prepare manpower before the Northern Expedition.
The Da Chu Empire has summoned many officials from various places in advance, and temporarily recruited local scholars as officials in Jiangbei and the newly occupied areas. I dare not say anything else, but it is setting up administrative offices in time to maintain basic rule.
