The Dacheng Kingdom had certain psychological expectations for the invasion of the Dachu Empire. After all, last year, the Dachu Empire had already sent a fleet to wander around and evacuate overseas Chinese, and also went to several major coastal ports in the Ayutthaya Kingdom. In a circle, not only the hydrological conditions were surveyed, but also the naval strength of the Ayutthaya Kingdom and the situation of some forts along the coast were clearly understood.
These actions of the Da Chu Empire Navy basically made it clear that the High Speed Dacheng Kingdom is coming to fight you.
Otherwise, if it were just a matter of spying on various intelligences, why would there be a large-scale evacuation of overseas Chinese?
Therefore, since last year, the Dacheng Kingdom has begun to actively prepare for war. No matter whether the Dachu Empire will come over in the end, it is always right to prepare in advance.
To this end, while the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was recruiting troops to prepare for war, building ships, and building coastal defense forts, it also contacted the Dutch and purchased weapons and equipment such as matchlocks and artillery from the Dutch.
The preparations can be said to be sufficient. If used to deal with Western colonists, they are basically suitable!
But this kind of war preparation is still not enough in the eyes of the Chu Empire!
As for their navy, it is still mainly based on offshore ships. There are also many galleys, which look good, but there are not many artillery, and the overall scale is not large.
In front of the huge navy of the Chu Empire, it is vulnerable!
In fact, Southeast Asian countries are limited by their national power. Their navies are not large in size and their technology is not very good. They cannot even stop the armed merchant ships of Western colonists, let alone a large number of professional warships from the Chu Empire.
Four Jinling-class battleships moved to Bangkok Bay, plus six cruisers and eighteen frigates, which was enough to sink all the small sampans in the Ayutthaya Kingdom on the sea!
It took only one day for the Dachu Imperial Navy to defeat the so-called fleet that the Ayutthaya Kingdom had finally raised at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River. More than twenty ships were destroyed or captured, and dozens more ships were forced to flee into the Chao Phraya River. , trying to continue to use the narrow space of the river to offset the powerful firepower advantage of the Chu Empire's large sailing ships.
However, after the Chu navy defeated the navy of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, it did not foolishly send its main battleships into the Chao Phraya River immediately. Instead, it covered the ground troops and began a large-scale landing.
When the landing began, a series of ground battles broke out between the two sides.
This kind of ground battle makes the people of the Ayutthaya Kingdom even more desperate than the battle at sea.
In the battle at sea, the gap between the two sides can be seen. Even the Dacheng Kingdom can predict the strength and actions of the Dachu Empire's navy.
This is also the reason why they decisively retreated to the Chao Phraya River after losing the first naval battle.
Because they knew that even if they couldn't defeat them at sea, as long as they retreated to the river, they would be enough to stop the fleet of the Chu Empire from moving up the river.
But in the ground battle...the tactics and effects of the Dachu Empire's ground troops were completely beyond their expectations.
The first large-scale battle between the two sides occurred on the east bank of the Chao Phraya River estuary. More than 4,000 people from the Ayutthaya Kingdom defended the city, but they could not hold on for even a day.
The Chu army simply used a batch of five-jin and nine-jin field artillery to smash their thin city walls to pieces... and then covered the nine-jin light howitzers and eighteen-jin light howitzers to launch a large-scale attack on the defenders of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Covered bombardment.
Amidst the rumbling cannons, the Siamese army did not even see the infantry of the Chu army. They suffered heavy casualties and were finally forced to retreat!
In this siege battle, the Chu army did not even use large-caliber siege howitzers on a large scale... It's not that they didn't exist, but these heavy siege cannons were still at the port or on the mobile road.
The Thirteenth Division of the Chu Army and the Marine Corps wanted to conduct a trial attack first to see how strong the place was.
This was also a conventional method used by the Chu army during the early domestic unification war. They first used exploratory attacks to understand the opponent's situation, find weaknesses, and provide favorable intelligence for the subsequent general offensive.
But what Chu Jun didn't expect was that the opponent's city wall was so unbeatable...
Even if you hit them with solid bullets from field artillery, their city walls can be smashed to pieces. Moreover, the opponent basically has no concept of guarding against grenades, and they have not prepared sandbags, dug trenches, or cannon-proof holes at all.
So much so that when they were bombarded by a large number of lightweight grenades from the Chu army, namely nine-pound grenades and eighteen-pound grenades, there was simply not enough anti-artillery fortifications to evade.
This ultimately resulted in heavy casualties.
So much so that Major General Nie Hongyun, the deputy commander of the Siam Expeditionary Force who led the attack, and the commander of the Army's Thirteenth Division in charge of all ground battles, were filled with emotion...
Nie Hongyun is also a veteran who has been through the domestic unification war and has also been on the Liaodong battlefield. In his concept, no matter how bad the city wall is, it is only seven or eight meters thick. If it is a military fortress, it is more than ten meters thick every minute. At the same time, it is also There will be a large number of anti-gun fortifications and a large number of light and heavy artillery deployed.
This is how the Ming and Eastern invaders used to play... Every time the Chu army attacked their city, it was like beating a turtle shell. Without hundreds of cannons and heavy artillery that can fire grenades, it would be impossible to attack them at all. Can't fight...
Because ordinary field artillery can't hit it, at least solid shells fired from the 14-pound cannon are needed, or direct shelling with grenades is used to suppress the enemy's strength.
But after traveling to Southeast Asia for a fight, I found that the opponent's city wall was not very good and there was no need for heavy artillery.
"This expedition to Siam seems to be easier than I expected!"
Nie Hongyun basically figured out the situation on the ground through a siege battle.
Although the Siamese army opposite also used guns and artillery, and there were a lot of them, they all used matchlocks and the number of artillery was not large.
Moreover, these Siamese troops lacked cavalry. A few days after landing, they did not even encounter Siamese cavalry with more than a few hundred people at a time.
Not to mention Siam, even when Myanmar and the Chu army fought before, there were no cavalry, but there were elephant soldiers. However, the elephant soldiers looked very powerful and intimidating. In fact, their maneuverability was not very good. It is difficult to maneuver as quickly as the cavalry, constantly containing the enemy array and creating opportunities.
To some extent, elephant soldiers are more like heavy infantry, which is completely different from the tactical positioning of cavalry.
However, the Chu army's guns are sharp and their firepower is very powerful. The elephant soldiers are just living targets in front of the artillery!
Myanmar's elephant soldiers basically failed to play any practical role in the battle with the Chu army.
On the Dacheng Kingdom side, large-scale elephant soldiers have not been seen yet, but the Chu army is not afraid either.
In Nie Hongyun's opinion, the level of weapons and equipment of the Dacheng Kingdom was probably the level of the Ming and New Standard Army during the Unification War in the Valley, and was even inferior to the Dongjiu people.
Matchlocks, a small number of artillery and a large number of cold weapon infantry.
They are no match for their own Thirteenth Division!
Let's not talk about the quality of the soldiers, just say that the equipment is far behind our own.
Today, the Chu army has completed a comprehensive equipment reform. Both the A and B divisions have all been equipped with flintlock muskets, and the organization has also adopted a unified three-regiment system.
However, in order to control military expenditures and adapt to different links, there are many types.
We will not talk about technical arms such as cavalry and artillery, but only infantry divisions.
There are first-class divisions in the infantry division, and there are still twenty-seven first-class divisions at present. However, among the twenty-seven first-class divisions, not all first-class divisions are fully combat-ready divisions. Currently, only twenty are. They are fully manned and ready to fight at any time. Most of them are deployed on the border, and a few are deployed in strategic locations in the country. The strength of these first-class divisions is basically more than 15,000 people.
There are seventeen other divisions, although they are also first-class divisions, but they are not in combat readiness. They have full weapons but not enough personnel. However, the situation is much better than that of the second-class divisions. They can be drawn out to fight at any time, but their combat effectiveness is lower. species, with a military strength of about 12,000.
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The second-class division is a typical local garrison force. In order to control military expenditures, it requires almost no mobility. Artillery, cavalry, logistics and other technical arms have been reduced in size, and only the backbone of the troops is retained, with an average strength of about 7,000.
Because the strength of the troops is only about 7,000, the Class B Division even lacks infantry troops. Although there are nominally three infantry regiments, each infantry regiment also has three infantry battalions, and each infantry battalion also has six infantry sentries. There are also three infantry teams in this post.
But they are all short of strength and lack of personnel. Most of them just maintain the basic framework. At most, they can build a full complement of infantry with relatively strong combat effectiveness.
Through the three states of combat readiness, standing readiness, and garrison, the Da Chu Empire Army successfully reduced its troops and controlled military expenditures while maintaining a large number of division-level establishments.
However, while the personnel were being controlled, the Dachu Empire Army did not stop its preparation and reserve of weapons and equipment.
The flintlock muskets have been completely re-equipped, and the flintlock muskets that were in service in earlier years have been replaced and sealed as the most combat readiness materials.
As for the Thirteenth Division that was sent to fight overseas, it was naturally a combat-ready force in the Great Chu Empire.
They are fully equipped, but the weapons and equipment are different from those deployed in other places, especially in the north.
Mainly on artillery, we mainly deploy lightweight artillery. Whether it is a regiment-affiliated two-and-a-half-pound field gun or a division-affiliated five-pound or nine-pound field gun, they are all specialized lightweight artillery. The barrels are relatively short and heavy. Be lighter.
Such a Thirteenth Division was simply not something that an army like the Siamese Army, which was still stuck in the early seventeenth century or even the sixteenth century, could resist.
This point was fully demonstrated in a battle in Thonburi, west of the Chao Phraya River, 20 kilometers south of Ayutthaya City.
In order to keep the Chu army out of Ayutthaya, the Siamese army urgently mobilized all available troops in the vicinity and gathered more than 30,000 troops to fight.
There are more than 6,000 arquebusiers among them, as well as more than a dozen Western-style artillery purchased from the Dutch, Portuguese and other Western colonists.
There were also more than two hundred war elephants and some short horses.
This kind of strength, for Siam, can be regarded as using up all the family resources to fight for it.
As for the Chu army, there were only more than 6,000 people, and there were still hundreds of people staying at the Hekou landing site and some supply transfer stations established along the way.
Only more than 6,500 people actually faced the Siamese army in Thonburi. The main force was composed of troops from the 13th Division, as well as some auxiliary marines.
But when the fight actually started, the Chu army directly suppressed them and even made the Siamese army on the opposite side run away!
Because, in this battle, the Chu army seemed to have few people, but in fact it mobilized more than fifty field cannons and field howitzers. In addition, the navy also temporarily organized a group of gunners and naval guns to go ashore. To provide support, not only the number of artillery pieces is twice that of the opponent, but the performance is also far higher than that of the opponent, and the caliber is also higher than that of the opponent.
In addition, the Chu army also had a large cavalry regiment with more than 800 cavalry.
The most important thing is the flintlock guns and tactics used by the Chu army's infantry!
As soon as the battle began, the Chu army's field artillery unit directly took full control of the field. Solid shells and grenades covered an area of nearly one kilometer. Before the two sides came into close contact, the Siamese army had already begun to suffer a lot of casualties.
In order to avoid being annihilated by the formation before entering the battlefield, the Siamese army's phalanxes were forced to disengage and disperse the dense formation!
Then they were attacked by the Chu army's light cavalry!
The cavalrymen of the Thirteenth Cavalry Regiment roared up... They were still pulling two and a half kilograms of cavalry cannons up. They first used the cavalry cannon to beat up the war elephants on the opposite side and fled in panic. Then these cavalrymen waved their cavalry swords. He rushed forward and kept harvesting the enemy heads that had been scattered in the formation.
When the Siamese army finally got close and the infantry on both sides began to fight... it would be even more tragic.
The Siamese still used matchlock guns and cold weapons, and they still used half-cold and half-hot tactics, but the Chu army, on the other hand, had a direct line of infantry...
After getting close, they directly fired a dense bullet net in a dense formation!
The firepower difference between the infantry on both sides is six to seven times greater... How can we fight this... There is no way to fight!
After a brief exchange between the infantry of both sides, the Siamese infantry on the opposite side was defeated.
Nie Hongyun looked a little bored looking at the Siamese troops fleeing in chaos on the battlefield...
There's a fight going on here and there, and we're obviously here for an outing!
The Siamese army was defeated in Thonburi, and thousands of people were killed and injured on the spot. Later, they were pursued by the Chu army and killed and wounded more than 4,000 people.
There were more than 30,000 troops, and more than 5,000 were directly killed or injured. The rest abandoned their armor and fled empty-handed. Most of them had lost their organization and could not return. However, there were only about 10,000 people who had organized to escape back to the capital city. .
When the news of the defeat came back to Ayutthaya, the kings and ministers of the Ayutthaya Kingdom were frightened...
In fact, they were somewhat mentally prepared for defeat, but they did not expect it to be so miserable.
In one day... no, less than half a day, the thirty thousand army was defeated, and then there were five thousand casualties and tens of thousands missing?
Can you please stop being so exaggerated?
As for how many casualties it caused to the Chu army?
The general of the defeated army said that there were at least a thousand people... Well, this was already the greatest result he could exaggerate.
As for the actual situation?
In the Battle of Thonburi, the Chu army only killed three people and wounded 38 others!
This is a battle that subverts the imagination of the kings and ministers of the Ayutthaya Kingdom!
It not only subverted the Ayutthaya Kingdom, but also subverted the worldview of other indigenous countries in Southeast Asia.
Even the Dutch were stunned when they heard the news, saying it was impossible!
Again, they thought it was normal for the Chu army to win, but it was abnormal for them to win so easily.
