Bai Yangrong led the main force of the Seventh Army in an overly cautious marching way, directly taking a detour and marching along the coastline. This made the Dongji people on the opposite side speechless and helpless...
They had few troops to begin with, and their artillery was not even a fraction of the Chu army's artillery.
At the same time, their reinforcements won’t be coming for a while...
With the strength of the Chu army and the number of artillery, coupled with the Chu army's past record of attacking fortresses, it would be extremely difficult for the Dongji people to defend Fuzhou!
Originally, they were counting on waiting for reinforcements, but the reinforcements never came.
It was hundreds of kilometers from Jinzhou to Shenyang. The messengers flew for several days to convey the information to Shenyang, and then Huang Taiji in Shenyang could mobilize troops according to the situation.
But this force is not so easy to mobilize!
Now the Dongjiu people actually don't have many troops left in the rear. The main force is basically concentrated on the front line of the Liaoxi Corridor and they are playing a staring game with the Dongjiu people!
There are not many troops in the rear, and they are mainly on alert to prevent small-scale landings and harassment by the Chu army.
At the same time, the deployment of troops in the rear is not too concentrated. Basically, there are a few thousand here, a few thousand there, and then there are dozens of hundreds of people in some small coastal observation fortresses.
The Liaodong Peninsula can also be regarded as their heavily fortified area. The three places including Lushunkou, Jinzhou City and Fuzhou City have deployed a total of 10,000 troops.
At the same time, there were thousands of scattered people in the surrounding coastal fortresses.
It should be said that these more than 10,000 people are stationed on the Liaodong Peninsula, which is enough. It is no problem to deal with small-scale landing attacks and harassment. The Chu army can also deal with a few thousand people landing.
However, the Dongji people did not expect that the Chu barbarians on the opposite side would actually play so much with the landing, bringing tens of thousands of them over at once, and they had all the guns and even a large number of heavy artillery as the main force.
So much so that the situation suddenly became passive.
Therefore, Huang Taiji wanted to mobilize troops to reinforce the direction of Fuzhou. It would take a lot of time to mobilize scattered troops from the rear, and he could not mobilize many. If he was exhausted, he could only mobilize another 10,000 or 20,000 troops.
After allocating these troops at the same time, other coastal areas will be empty. When the time comes, the Chu army will randomly send a few thousand people to land, and it will be a big problem.
If troops are directly transferred from the western Liaoning front line, the impact will not be great, but it will also take time.
Due to the limited total strength of the Dongjiu people and the heavy deployment of troops in the Western Liaoning Corridor, it was destined that the Dongjiu people would not be able to mobilize a large number of troops to the Liaodong Peninsula in a short period of time.
In this way, Fuzhou City will not be able to obtain a large number of reinforcements in a short period of time.
If there are no reinforcements in a short time, it will be more difficult to defend Fuzhou.
Therefore, the Dongji people in Fuzhou City initially wanted to use their more than 2,000 cavalry to delay the Chu army's advance through harassment and other methods, so as to buy time to wait for reinforcements.
However, the Chu army was overly cautious and did not allow their East Riding Cavalry to find a chance to attack along the way. At most, they only had a few fights with the Chu Army's scout cavalry on the periphery, although they relied on their own cavalry quantity and quality advantages. In this small-scale cavalry battle, they gained a considerable advantage.
But this small local victory cannot affect the overall situation at all!
They could only watch as the 30,000-strong army marched straight towards Fuzhou!
In this regard, the Dongji people had no choice but to hold on in Fuzhou, hoping to hold on until reinforcements arrived from the rear. For this reason, the Fuzhou defenders had gone to Shenyang several times to ask for emergency help.
As for giving up Fuzhou and running away!
They had all abandoned Jinzhou and ran away. Although the superior Huang Taiji did not blame them, he still sent someone to reprimand them. After all, the Eastern Capture Army stationed here failed to make good use of Lushunkou and Jinzhou. The city's special terrain advantage drove the Chu army into the sea. It can be said that they watched the Chu army land before their eyes, and then voluntarily abandoned Jinzhou City.
If we give up Fuzhou again at this time, I'm afraid it won't be easy to explain to our superiors.
In this way, the defenders of Fuzhou quickly strengthened the city defense with the idea of defending for ten days and a half to wait for reinforcements.
Time passed through September, and after October, the main force of the Seventh Army led by Lieutenant General Bai Yangrong finally arrived in Fuzhou City.
Their journey was not smooth.
On the one hand, the cavalry of the Eastern Captives were always watching eagerly from the side, making the thousands of half-skilled cavalry of the Seventh Army nervous and not daring to relax at all times.
The infantry always has at least one infantry regiment on the periphery, marching in battle formation facing the enemy's cavalry.
Only in this way can the large number of infantry and artillery behind them be covered to march at normal speed.
But even so, marching is quite troublesome. After all, the cavalry of the East Capture People can also move. From time to time, they will make short-distance rapid maneuvers, which makes the Chu Army's cavalry troops and the infantry regiments on guard outside become nervous.
As soon as the Dongjiu people's cavalry moves, the Chu army's cavalry must follow suit to prevent the opponent from bypassing their own cavalry and directly attacking the center of the rear quickly.
Even if the Chu army's cavalry is not as good as the opponent's, if the Dongdu cavalry really charges forward, the Chu army's cavalry will still be able to entangle the opponent for a moment.
As long as it can block the opponent for a while, an infantry regiment in the rear that maintains a fighting formation can quickly move forward to support.
If the battle between the cavalry was so intense that the cavalry on both sides fell into a melee, then it would still be a great benefit to the Chu army.
Because when the infantry and fast light artillery of the Chu army come up, it is still unclear whether these Eastern cavalry can leave.
This is why even though these Eastern Cavalrymen kept trying to make detours and other maneuvers, they found that the Chu Army cavalry was always following closely and firmly protecting the Chu Army's flanks. They did not have the guts to really charge forward.
As a result, the two sides continued to attack and intercepted for many days, until the Chu army reached Fuzhou City.
After seeing the Fuzhou City Wall, Bai Yangrong breathed a sigh of relief!
Damn, this kind of long-distance march under the threat of enemy cavalry is really tiring. If you are not careful, you may suffer huge losses.
You must always pay attention to the movements of the opponent's cavalry, and at the same time maintain a high level of vigilance yourself and react quickly.
This was the Chu army. If it had been another army, it would have been unable to withstand the pressure halfway and would have retreated.
Why can the Chu army do it?
Well, there is a saying in the football world that the goalkeeper of a weak team is the goalkeeper.
This means that teams with relatively poor strength are being beaten every day, and the goalkeepers are making saves all day long... They have far more training opportunities than other strong teams, so the probability of emergence of excellent goalkeepers is, Far bigger than those of wealthy teams... Of course, other wealthy teams buy ready-made ones.
The same is true in the military field!
Compared with the Chu army, the Ming army's cavalry had an advantage for a long time. Even in the Western Ming Dynasty, Sun Chuanting still had a good cavalry force.
Because the strength of the Chu army's cavalry was poor... they could not stop the enemy's large number of cavalry, so they forced the Chu army's infantry and artillery to rely on their own efforts. They considered many ways to offset the advantage of the enemy's cavalry, among which fighting against the cavalry was the most important. heavy.
For example, the musketeers equipped with flintlock muskets under the new organization created hollow square formations purely to resist the impact of cavalry.
In addition, many line tactics of infantry are also used to resist cavalry attacks. For example, when the Chu army was at Lushunkou, the first battalion of the 90th Infantry Regiment used the line tactics of occupying the top of the hill and arranging in a line. In fact, Can also be used against cavalry.
Being condescending can effectively offset and limit the enemy's cavalry's rapid level-up, reducing the enemy's level-up speed.
And the formation of three rows in a row can greatly unleash the intensive firepower!
An infantry battalion, using this tactic, can fire out 1,500 rounds of ammunition per minute, which is enough to offset the bows and arrows fired by the mounted cavalry.
What, you said the enemy cavalry rushed over on their own initiative?
This...should not be such a stupid cavalry general, right? I think should not be……
Under normal circumstances, the cavalry will not attack the closely formed infantry array, so it is just a three-line infantry formation that looks very thin!
Moreover, the Chu army's three-row formation was actually not thin... It seemed that there were only three rows, but in fact the soldiers were shoulder to shoulder, and the troop density was very high.
In such a tight formation, the formation of musketeers transformed into short spearmen is a formation that no cavalry would want to charge...even the heavy cavalry dressed in iron cans...in fact, with the speed of the heavy cavalry, they cannot charge forward. They had to be harvested by the Musketeers before!
Heavy cavalry cannot withstand bullets, even if the cavalry is strong and can wear a super thick heavy armor, the kind made of fine steel...
However, it is of no use if a war horse cannot bear bullets...
This is why the heavy cavalry wearing iron cans gradually declined and eventually disappeared on the battlefield, replaced by various light cavalry and cuirassiers. Iron cans can't hold bullets anyway, so they might as well be mobile!
The line tactics used by the Chu army still restrained the cavalry to a certain extent, but that is not absolute. Again, the cavalry has two legs plus four legs, but for those cavalry who ride two or even three horses, , that is to add eight legs or even twelve legs...
The short-distance mobility of cavalry on the battlefield is naturally better than that of infantry, and it is much stronger.
Therefore, the cavalry can run, just like what the East Riding Cavalry did before, they will use their own mobility to constantly adjust their direction and try to attack.
If you don't get a chance, change the direction and do it again...
If it weren't for the two cavalry regiments of the Chu army, determined to intercept them with all their might, gritting their teeth and constantly adjusting their positions according to the position of the enemy cavalry, the cavalry would have found a loophole and rushed in.
Once the enemy cavalry finds a weak point and rushes in, it will be an absolute disaster for the infantry and artillery on the march.
Most of the generals of the Chu army knew this very well, so they always paid great attention to the defense against enemy cavalry on the battlefield.
As early as when fighting the Ming army on the Central Plains battlefield and the Guanzhong battlefield, the Ming army often took advantage of the cavalry to carry out attacks. The Chu army's response method was to use weak cavalry to intercept and entangle the enemy, so that some infantry were always in a state of combat readiness, etc. After their own weak cavalry entangled the opponent, they immediately stepped forward to reinforce them, using guns and artillery to send the enemy's cavalry, which had slowed down, to the west.
If you do this kind of thing a lot, you will naturally gain various insights and experiences.
In the Army Officer Academy, students in the infantry, artillery, and even baggage and engineering departments all need to learn specialized courses on cavalry defense.
This shows that the Chu army attaches great importance to anti-cavalry!
There is no way, who makes the Chu Empire lack excellent war horses and excellent traditional cavalry, and this situation will not be solved in a short time.
The best unit to fight against cavalry is cavalry!
If the cavalry fails, we have to think of another way.
As for creating a large number of excellent cavalry in a short period of time, this is impossible!
It doesn’t matter whether the Chu army is strong or not, the key thing is that the training period for cavalry is too long, it can take several years...
Even though the Dachu Empire has invested huge manpower and material resources in building cavalry, conservative estimates suggest that it will take at least three to five years to see obvious results.
How can I put it, cavalry is easy to get, but war horses are hard to find!
The horse administration of the Da Chu Empire has been launched, and the breeding of fine war horses is also in progress. However, the breeding of horses takes time. It takes several years for horses to grow up from birth, and then it takes another time to expand the size of the fine horse herd. several years……
Without a large number of excellent war horses, naturally there will not be a large number of excellent cavalry...
Whether you are playing the classical oriental cavalry or the various new-style cavalry devised by the Chu army, you must have a horse...
It's a pity that the Chu Empire is short of horses. Well, to be precise, it's not a shortage of horses. The Chu Empire still has a lot of inferior horses. The Chu army really lacks excellent war horses!
The lack of horses led to poor cavalry, which prompted the Chu army to come up with many messy anti-cavalry tactics... They just had to imitate the Song people and create heavy armored infantry.
Well, let’s not talk about it. In fact, Chu Jun actually tried this, but it was of no use...
In addition, the Chu army actually has a lot of heavy armored infantry... The infantry battalion under the old organization is composed of half spearmen and half musketeers, and one-third of these half spearmen are heavy armored spearmen. Spearman.
These heavy-armored spearmen are all wearing full-body heavy armor. This kind of heavy-armored spearmen are actually heavy armored infantry in the cold weapon era. In terms of protective capabilities, the heavy-armored spearmen in the Chu army are much better. The ancient heavy armored infantry from a hundred years ago were much stronger...
This is the result of improved armor protection capabilities after technological innovation.
In the past, when outsiders, especially the generals of the Ming army, described the Chu army, they would often say this: Chu thieves have many guns and thick armor.
The Chu army's armor coverage rate is very high, and the front-line soldiers are basically 100% armored.
The old-style first-class divisions were even able to arm one-third of their spearmen into fully armored spearmen.
Because the current new first-class divisions are all musketeers, most of the soldiers wear light half-body armor. Only the grenadiers can see full-body heavy armor, but the grenadiers do not wear it in daily combat, only Heavy armor is only worn in special circumstances, such as in assault operations.
Although armor is still commonly equipped in the Chu army, it is no longer developing in the direction of heavy armor, but in the direction of light armor.
As for dealing with cavalry... the top generals of the Chu army firmly believed that cannonballs and bullets were the only solution!
After using cannonballs and bullets to kill the enemy cavalry on the charge, there will naturally be no chance of the enemy cavalry rushing up...
The long-term disadvantage of cavalry led the Chu army to focus on anti-cavalry tactics. The same situation also happened in other directions!
This point is also evident in the previous Ming army's new standard army.
Looking at East Asia, which military has the strongest defense in the past ten years? There is no doubt that it is the Ming army. Well, the explanation army is not accurate enough. What is more accurate is the new standard army prepared by the governors.
Why? Wasn't he forced by the Chu army...
Encountering the Chu army, which was powerful in the field and had a large number of guns and artillery, they could only think about how to defend the city all day long. Not to mention, after the research and practical experience of many generals in the Ming army, they built The city defense system is getting better and better, so much so that the Chu army, which has a large number of artillery, has a headache...
Conversely, looking at East Asia, which military has the strongest ability to attack difficult situations in the past ten years? This must be the Chu army.
Why is the Chu army so powerful in attacking fortresses?
It was because the Ming army on the opposite side continued to develop a city defense system, forcing the Chu army to continuously strengthen their siege methods.
The solid shells fired by traditional field artillery were basically useless against the city defense system of the New Standard Army. They forced the Chu Army to use mortars that were extremely cost-effective and very dangerous to use. Later, they also forced the Chu Army to develop new types of explosive shells. Finally the howitzer was produced.
Under the attack of the new howitzers, the main force of the remaining forces of the Ming Dynasty, the New Qin Army under Sun Chuanting, could not hold it back and was finished.
After the New Qin Army was finished, the Western Ming Dynasty was completely finished. The remaining Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou areas did not have many New Standard Army equipped with guns and artillery, and could not replicate the New Standard Army's special city defense system.
The city defense system of the New Standard Army is also based on its own equipment with a large number of guns and artillery. Those core fortresses outside the city do not have long-barreled artillery such as two-and-a-half-pound field guns and five-pound field guns, which serve as the core combat force. Basically useless.
In terms of attacking fortifications and the city defense system, the Ming Xinbiao Army and the Chu Army were like spears and shields to each other, stimulating each other and making progress.
In terms of cavalry and anti-cavalry tactics, the Ming army and the Chu army also have a spear and shield relationship. Now, the spear and shield still exist, but the spear has been replaced by the Dongdu cavalry from the Ming army cavalry.
However, in the face of the Chu army's continuously upgraded and strengthened anti-cavalry tactics, the Dongjiu people's cavalry could not get too much advantage. They could only watch the Chu army attack Fuzhou City.
As for the Seventh Army, which is equipped with a large number of artillery, especially a large number of howitzers, let alone a city with a traditional city defense system like Fuzhou, even if it was built a few years ago by the Ming Dynasty's new standard army All kinds of new city defense systems are also accurate.
At that time, tens of thousands of New Qin troops were stationed. Taking advantage of the natural and dangerous geographical location, and equipped with at least dozens of field guns and hundreds of various types of traditional short-barreled shotguns, the Tongguan defense line was smashed open by the Chu army using new howitzers. A gap was opened, and the entire defense line was torn apart.
Nowadays, Fuzhou City, which doesn't even have many anti-gun fortifications and only a dozen or so long-barreled artillery, can't stop the Chu army!
And all this was fully proved after the Chu army launched the siege on the first day!
When the Chu army directly used more than a hundred artillery pieces to bombard Fuzhou City, a Donglu general who was standing on the city wall commanding the defenders looked at the cannonballs flying in the sky, the city head and various places in the city. Continuous explosions...
Eyes widened, mouth slightly open...
The whole person seemed to be frightened. It was not until a 150mm grenade fired by an 18-pound light howitzer landed in front of him that he seemed to come back to his senses with a frightened expression on his face, followed by a loud bang. , his whole world became dark and quiet...
A few low-level Dongli officers nearby looked at the Dongli generals who had been bombed in a lake of flesh and blood. Their expressions were dull. Then no one said anything, and they all ran down the city wall quickly!
It's a pity that it's still not safe for them to run down the city wall!
The flexible trajectories of the grenades launched by the Chu army's howitzers made it easier to attack a city, especially when the enemy was not threatened by a large number of artillery. The Chu army's artillery troops simply used dozens of nine-pound and eighteen-pound light howitzers. Deploy it close and directly engage in large-angle artillery fire. This ballistic trajectory is comparable to that of a mortar.
Under such circumstances, a large number of grenade shells fell directly from the sky, instead of flying straight from the opposite direction...
This also means that many grenades will cross the city wall and explode not far behind the city wall, instead of flying directly over the battlements like those field artillery with straight trajectories. You know that they will fall on the city wall. There!
A large number of grenades exploded on the city wall and at the front and rear positions, which made the Dongji people guarding the city not know how to deal with it.
They have never experienced such a war!
In their impression, war is about fighting and killing. Soldiers from both sides collide and fight. Whoever can't hold on loses.
Even the Dongji people were equipped with guns and cannons, but to a large extent, the outcome of the war was determined by the fighting of the front-line infantry and cavalry.
But now...the Chu barbarians on the opposite side haven't even come up yet, and our own side has already suffered heavy casualties.
There are explosions and smoke everywhere, and it's not safe anywhere.
It is not safe on top of the city, nor is it safe behind the city wall. To the Dongbiao soldiers who are inside, these situations seem as if the whole world is exploding. Even if they are hiding in a house not far behind the city wall, it is even more dangerous. .
Because if the grenade directly hits the house and explodes, it will be killed by the collapsed defenses if not killed.
In order to avoid the explosion, they ran around like headless flies, but running around was actually more dangerous...
Grenades are different from solid bullets. Grenades rely on shrapnel to kill, and the lethality of shrapnel is greatest in open areas.
If you run around in an open space, shrapnel flying everywhere will find you!
The best way is to hide in a corner that can block the shrapnel, and then pray not to be directly hit by the shell!
Of course, there are also large-caliber howitzers in the Chu army. The shells of these large-caliber howitzers have a larger charge and can form a relatively large shock wave after explosion. Therefore, if you encounter large-caliber shells, even if you are hiding in a bunker, you will not Must be safe.
The Dongji people have never experienced such a situation, and they don't know how to deal with it.
