After the Yenisei Dispatch Army under the Second Army of the Chu Army successfully captured the city of Bratsk, they used the place as a base to rest and reorganize to relieve the fatigue of the soldiers caused by the arduous march over the past month.
At the same time, logistics agencies also began to use the city as a material transfer base, gathering a large amount of logistics materials here, and creating a relatively stable logistics transportation system.
After the Yenisei dispatched troops rested here for five days, they once again set foot on the westward march.
It is already early August. If you are in the Jiangnan area at this time, it is still the time when autumn is in full swing and the heat is unbearable.
However, in the area north of Xiaobeihai, early autumn here is already relatively cold, and it is foreseeable that in two or three months it will be covered with snow and enter the real cold winter season.
In the cold winter in a place like this, normal activities in the wild would become very troublesome, let alone fighting.
Therefore, the Chu army needs to capture the city of Yeniseisk before the real winter arrives.
Even if it is impossible to capture the city of Yeniseysk before the cold winter arrives, it is necessary to arrive early, build a camp before winter arrives, and stock up on enough supplies to survive the winter.
This time, the Chu army's Yenisei dispatched troops had no intention of retreating.
Even if they could not capture Yeniseisk before winter arrived, the Chu army continued to blockade and surround the place, waiting for the weather to get warmer to continue launching attacks.
Taking the city of Yeniseisk in one go was the established plan of the Chu Army's Second Army.
Therefore, after resting for five days, the Yenisey dispatched troops once again marched westward along the Angara River. This time they headed straight for the city of Yeniseysk.
The city of Yeniseysk is located on the west bank of the middle reaches of the Yenisey River, not far from the intersection where the Angara River joins the Yenisey River.
Not only that, the city of Yeniseysk is also an important transportation node connecting the Ob River, Yenisey River Basin, and Lena River Basin, a series of Siberian water networks.
The two main passages from the Ob River to the Yenisey River Basin, and the point where their downstream passages connect to the Yenisey River are located one or two hundred kilometers downstream of the city of Yeniseisk.
The upstream channel is near the city of Yeniseisk. Of course, this channel is not directly connected by water, but requires a section of land-water channel (a land channel between two rivers), and this channel , is also the channel most used by Russians and with the best traffic conditions.
The eastern end of its land and water channel is the city of Yeniseisk!
Mainly able to control this area, then the Chu army can not only directly cut off the upstream channel, but also go one or two hundred kilometers north to cut off the downstream channel as well.
If the Russians want to continue heading east in the future, they can only take the northern passage around the Arctic Circle. That road is not easy to walk, and the freezing period is very long.
Of course, other new routes can also be taken, but waterways can no longer be used on a large scale and long land passages need to be taken. This is basically impossible to maintain large-scale personnel exchanges and material transportation.
Based on this series of circumstances, it can be seen that the city of Yeniseysk is the undisputed first strategic location in Siberia, at least for the contemporary seventeenth century.
Going east from here, you can go all the way to the Lena River, and you can even continue east to the Pacific Ocean.
To the west, you can go to the Ob River Basin.
Yeniseisk is the center point of a series of Siberian water networks!
It is precisely because the geographical location of this place is so important that the Russians built a fortress city here in 1619, and continued to expand and increase defense capabilities and develop the surrounding areas over the next thirty years.
In the past seven or eight years, the continued threat posed by the Chu army has forced the Russians to increase the construction of various fortifications in the city of Yeniseisk.
Today, in the 21st year of Chengshun (1655 AD), the city of Yeniseisk is no longer small, with more than a thousand Russian regular troops and mercenaries garrisoned all year round.
At the same time, there are many business contacts, newly arrived Russian immigrants, etc.
The entire city has officials, various troops, commodities, and civilians. The population can reach five to six thousand people. At the same time, there are many villages and towns developed by Russian immigrants around the city. There are also many Russian immigrants living in this area. .
As for the indigenous people, there are even more. There are at least 10,000 or 20,000 people in the surrounding area. However, even if these indigenous people were conquered by the Russians, they still live a life of fishing, hunting and herding deer. At the same time, these indigenous people have all kinds of things in their hands. Furs are also the biggest motivation for Russians in the Far East.
The direct motive for why the Russians came to Siberia was for the large amount of precious furs.
This is different from the Chu Empire's expansion into the northern and western borders to ensure the overall security of the north.
If economic interests were purely taken into consideration, then the Northern Strategy of the Dachu Empire would be a big loss... tens of millions of dollars were thrown into it, and it would not be possible to make it back just by relying on some fur business.
This is also an important feature of the Chu Empire's external expansion, that is, it does not pay much attention to economic interests, at least not short-term economic interests.
The idea of the senior officials of the Dachu Empire is that regardless of how to make money in the future, they should occupy the land first, and then slowly figure out how to develop and make money.
As for land, the more the better.
This is most obvious in the northern strategy. This broken place is a pure loss for the current Great Chu Empire!
But the high-ranking officials of the empire don’t care about this military loss. Military expenses have to be paid every year anyway...
Instead of letting the big men in the army and navy use their military expenses to eat, drink, and gamble, they should not go to the battlefield to fight for the interests of the empire.
This involves the military expenditure distribution model of the Dachu Empire. The empire's military expenditures are composed of two parts. One is the annual regular military expenditure. This is given according to a certain expenditure budget ratio. In the early years, the ratio was 2%. Ten, now it is about 18%, which works out to more than 46 million in conventional army and navy military expenditures a year.
This cost does not include the Guards, whose military expenses are paid separately from royal funds.
There is also a temporary war expense, which has no quota. The original intention is to provide an additional batch of military expenses when the war breaks out.
But the Great Chu Empire has never given any temporary war expenses since it wiped out the Dongji people... Even if it was accurate before, the Great Chu Empire has never given any temporary war expenses again. A series of battles All necessary expenses are paid from regular military expenditures.
Because regular military expenditures have to be paid every year, the amount given has already made a lot of civilian officials heartbroken... This year, it has exceeded 40 million.
The civil servants could not wait to rob all the military generals, and then put all the 40 to 50 million in their pockets.
However, these civil servants can only imagine in their dreams that if anyone dares to propose reducing conventional military expenditures, their military generals will really come to the door of the civilian officials' homes with guns and cannons...
This has also formed the pattern of the military and political parties in the empire in the past ten years. They usually play their own roles. When it comes to money, the civilian government group has no courage to reduce regular military expenditures, but the military cannot expect to be able to obtain temporary war funds in this life. It’s a waste!
Guo Quanshu, the Minister of Counselor and Minister of Civil Affairs, publicly stated: Unless there is a danger of destroying the country, temporary war expenses must not be opened.
Because regular military expenditures are so high every year, so much when there is a war, and so much when there is no war, so whenever there is no large-scale external war, a large number of civilian officials in the upper echelons of the empire look at the army and navy. Very unhappy... We, a group of decent civil servants, worked very hard to get a few bucks... But those bastards got tens of millions for not doing anything...
Therefore, the empire's civil servants have always supported the military's external expansion.
After all, you have to do things after you get the money. There are tens of millions of military expenditures every year. Looking at the past dynasties, which dynasty and which army have such treatment!
With so much money, if your military doesn’t take down the whole world, I’ll be ashamed of you!
Of course, the scale of this war must be controlled and it must be just within the range that regular military expenditures can support. If it accidentally exceeds the limit and wants any temporary war expenditures, the civil servants will laugh, then turn around and leave.
If you want temporary war funds, let alone doors, there are no windows...
So you can see that the external expansion of the Dachu Empire over the years is actually very regular... that is, there will be a relatively large-scale wave every two or three years. Why is there such an interval? Because the military needs to save money for war. ah……
After saving up for two or three years, there will be a big wave. This has been the norm for the Chu Empire's external expansion in the past ten years!
The Northern Strategy cannot escape this practice. From preparation to actual implementation, the military prepared for more than two years.
Such long-term preparations also paid off. From the first day of the launch of the northern strategy, the Chu army's actions were overwhelming from the first day with sufficient troops and strong logistical support.
Well, of course, you can also describe it this way: massive funds are burning!
Throw in millions and tens of millions, and even the Chu army in the Arctic Circle can kill them... If that doesn't work, then add more money!
With the support of massive funds, the Yenisei dispatched troops of the Chu army marched westward from the city of Bratsk, along the Angara River, and continued to advance by alternating land and water.
Along the way, we also accepted several small Russian strongholds. The people in these small Russian strongholds on the Angara River had already fled before the Chu army arrived.
After all, the news of the fall of Brazik City has been arriving one after another, which already made them panic.
With the arrival of the defeated troops in Bratsk, their luck was completely crushed, and they immediately followed the retreating army and retreated all the way to the west.
So much so that the Chu army directly accepted a number of small Russian strongholds on the Angara River without any fighting. These small strongholds also became supply transfer stations for the Chu army along the way.
After all, these small strongholds are often built in strategically located places. They are important nodes along the river and are very suitable for use as supply transfer stations to provide supplies and rest for passing ships.
With the successive arrival of the Chu army, especially when the defeated soldiers and civilians from the Angara Valley arrived in Yeniseisk, they instantly caused panic among the soldiers and civilians in the city.
The Russians in Yeniseisk had gradually learned about the war launched by the Chu Empire against them, but due to the distance, they had never been able to learn about the news from the front line.
It was not until many days after the fall of Bratsk that the communication personnel took the risk of taking a boat down the river and finally reported the news to the Russian army in Yeniseisk.
This time point is probably early August.
After learning of the fall of Bratsk, the Russian army in Yeniseysk immediately stopped its original plan to reinforce Bratsk and began to actively prepare for war by shrinking its troops, strengthening city defenses, and hoarding food and ammunition.
But at that time, they still had certain illusions in their minds, that is, they believed that the Chu army would not be able to reach Yeniseisk this year, but would come next year.
They still have time to continue preparing for the war!
They believed that after the Chu army captured the city of Bratsk, its personnel needed to rest, supplies needed to be replenished, and logistics lines needed to be established, all of which took a lot of time.
At the same time, although it is very fast to take the water route from Bratsk to Yeniseisk, the waterway of the Angara River is not considered safe. Without multiple round trips and a large number of experienced captains, a large-scale rash The risk of troop transportation and material transportation will be very high, and the generals of the Chu army will most likely not choose to take the water route directly.
Instead, they will alternately take the water route or simply take the land route along the river. In this case, the whole journey will take at least two months of marching time.
Including the rest time and the time required for marching, by the time the Chu army reached Yeniseisk, it would be the cold winter.
Under such circumstances, the Chu army is very likely to choose to slow down the all-out attack, and instead take rest and recuperation, strengthen control of the captured areas, and gradually explore the route from Bratsk to Yeniseisk to prepare for next year's attack. .
In other words, the Russians judge that the Chu army is more likely to attack Yeniseisk next year.
They can continue to survive until next year, and use this precious time to increase their efforts to plunder the wealth of nearby indigenous people.
It’s just that the wishes of these Russians were in vain!
The Chu army did not rest in the city of Bratsk for too long. Instead, they rested for just a few days and continued westward after receiving new supplies.
And the speed of the westward advance exceeded the Russians' expectations.
Although the Chu army did not travel by water all the way, the overall speed was still relatively fast due to the alternating water routes... Although the Chu army was not familiar with the hydrological conditions in the middle and lower reaches of Angara, the Russians were familiar with it. The Chu army was in Bratsk There were a lot of prisoners captured!
Among these prisoners were people who were familiar with the situation along Angara. These people were selected and used as guides to lead the way.
Of course, the Da Chu Empire did not treat them badly and gave these guides future freedom and financial rewards. If they were willing to completely surrender to the Da Chu Empire, they could also accept education and become subjects of the Da Chu Empire.
They are not afraid of these guides leading the way randomly, because the guide is not one person, but dozens of people. The Chu army will cross-compare the routes they pointed out. If the routes pointed out by each other do not match...then the matter will be serious. .
The military intelligence agents accompanying the army will let them know what the top ten tortures are!
Led by a large number of experienced Russian guides, the Chu army passed through the middle and lower reaches of the Angara River faster than through the upper reaches...
Because of the thought of gathering a large amount of hydrological confidence in the river, and the fact that hydrographic reconnaissance ships would be dispatched in advance to conduct actual measurements, the Chu army was more courageous during the specific march.
In some of the more dangerous sections of the river, only people are allowed to go ashore and pass through on land, but materials are still transported through ships and transported at risk, which generally increases the speed...
After all, the Da Chu Empire has a lot of supplies, so even if a small number of ships sink in dangerous river sections, it will not be a big problem. The captains and sailors are all naval officers. They are proficient in water and have rich self-rescue capabilities, so personnel risks can be controlled.
But if a troop transport ship sinks, a large number of people will fall into the water. It will be very troublesome to rescue them. If one fails, there will be massive casualties.
Using guides and a certain amount of material losses, the most important thing was that the physical fitness of the Chu army soldiers was so good that the marching speed was quite fast, far exceeding the Russians' expectations.
The physical fitness of the soldiers of the Chu army has always been very good. However, during the civil unification war, when the people under the rule did not have enough to eat, the soldiers of the Chu army were already overfed and could still eat occasionally every three days. Eat some poultry eggs or broth or something to satisfy your cravings.
Good food allowed the soldiers of the Chu army to be fully trained, and good training resulted in the physical fitness of the soldiers of the Chu army being very good.
This good physical fitness was eventually fed back to the march, creating the Chu army's powerful walking marching ability.
When the roads are good, it is easy to walk thirty kilometers a day. Even when the roads are not good, the light infantry can still walk more than ten or twenty kilometers.
During the march on the Angara River, because a large amount of materials, including heavy cargo such as artillery, were transported by ship, even in dangerous sections of the river, the infantry marching on the ground were actually marching lightly and only needed to carry Just bring your sidearm and personal items.
Under such circumstances, the speed of marching on foot is quite fast.
The overall rapid march of the Chu army far exceeded the Russians' expectations. In the end, the Russians in Yeniseisk discovered that they had not yet completed comprehensive strategic preparations, and there was no sign of the troops mobilized from the rear.
The Chu army had already crossed the Yenisey River by boat in mid-September, reached the west bank of the Yenisey River, and directly approached the city of Yeniseisk.
What frightened the Russians even more was that in order to win the city of Yeniseysk before the severe cold weather arrived, the Chu army did not linger for several days to make various preparations as usual after arriving in the city. Instead, they pulled out artillery for a fierce bombardment that day, and sent infantry to launch a tentative attack.
Not only the ground bombardment, but also a large number of Chu army's inland river gunboats directly approached and then carried out close-range bombardment!
The day before, the city of Yeniseysk was peaceful, but now, a day later, the city of Yeniseysk is filled with cannons and wailing everywhere!
The reason why the Chu Army fought so resolutely and decisively actually had something to do with the Chu Army's own guilty conscience!
When crossing the river on this first day, even if there were enough ships, due to the time required to cross the river, it was impossible for the Chu army to transport more than 10,000 people and thousands of war horses and draft horses across the river at the same time. ah!
The first batch of Chu troops to cross the river and land were only infantry and artillery!
In order to avoid being counterattacked by the Russians when the Chu army just crossed the river, the Chu army directly came to preemptively strike. After passing by, they started filming without saying a word...
It stunned the Russians directly!
This is also the effect that the Chu army wants. It doesn't matter whether they attack the city or not. What's important is to knock down the enemy's morale and prevent them from thinking of counterattacking... to provide more troops, supplies and cavalry units for the rear. to buy time to cross the river.
As a result, the Russian troops in the city of Yeniseisk flew around like headless flies for several hours amidst the explosions. It was only in the evening that they thought about whether to go out of the city for a counterattack...
But at that time, more than a thousand cavalry of the Chu army had successfully crossed the river, and thousands of fine cavalry were pulled out and placed south of the city of Yeniseisk...
When the Russians saw it, they thought, well, they fought back like crazy, just go back and hide!
The Russians stopped fighting back, and the Chu army's cover operation also stopped at the end of the artillery bombardment and infantry attack. Then both sides went back to their homes and looked for their mothers!
As a result, the first day's offensive and defensive battle in Yeniseisk ended with a start and a tail end.
But the end of this time is just preparation for the subsequent larger-scale and more brutal offensive and defensive battle!
(End of chapter)
