1826. Chapter 1826 Dilemma
Chapter 1826 Dilemma
Although Pyongyang City has been abandoned by the North Korean defenders, the various buildings and infrastructure in the city have been completely preserved. After Huang Taiji arrived at the front line, he requisitioned an official office in the city as a temporary palace and headquarters.
Although Huang Taiji had proclaimed himself emperor, he still carried on most of the Manchu living habits. He was not as particular about food, clothing, and travel as the Han royal family. He was more willing to focus on commanding and fighting. In Anton
After coming down, he ordered people to clear out a flower hall in the government office, and then asked the craftsmen to make a sand table about one foot square in it.
This command technique was learned by Huang Taiji from the Han generals. It is simple and easy to use. It is far better than using crude maps to study strategies and issue orders in the past. Huang Taiji specially asked a few prisoners of war to know more about the area.
The Koreans who knew the geographical environment asked them to help the craftsmen build this sand table based on the map.
The content of this sand table is the area from Anzhou to Seoul. The coastline, mountains, and rivers in between are basically reduced and restored according to the actual topography. Huang Taiji originally wanted to plan the route of the next southward march on the sand table.
However, after receiving the latest battle reports from the front line, he realized that he might have considered the war south of the Datong River too early. It did not seem easy to cross the river under the eyes of the Haihan people.
According to the battle report sent back by Azig, the Haihan people built a large-scale military stronghold in the lower reaches of the Datong River. Except that they did not have time to build fortresses and city walls, other defenses were basically in place, and they were ready to fight a protracted war.
appearance. If Azig's description is true, then there is no doubt that the statement that the Haihan Army withdrew from the Korean War some time ago is false. The Haihan people were just pretending to confuse the Qing army, but were secretly building strongholds to prepare for war. And from Korea
Judging from the fact that the people evacuated Pyongyang City, it should have been approved by Haihan, or even the instruction from Haihan.
Haihan asked the Korean army to withdraw to the south of the Datong River for defense, but he built such a military stronghold on the north bank of the Datong River. The meaning of provocation was quite strong. Of course, the Qing army could choose to ignore Haihan's position in the lower reaches of the Datong River.
At that stronghold, we tried to carry out the river-crossing operation upstream at our own pace. As long as we could allow the main force to cross the river, this stronghold would naturally be useless.
But there is a problem that must be solved in this way, and that is to first defeat the armed fleet on the river. Judging from the current reconnaissance situation, the force of the fleet led by Haihan to blockade the Datong River far exceeds the previous times.
However, what frustrated Huang Taiji and the Qing generals was that after arriving in Pyongyang, they searched back and forth for a long time and found no usable boats on the river banks upstream and downstream of Pyongyang.
The only place with ships is probably the newly built Haihan stronghold downstream. Huang Taiji even has reason to believe that the dock there is the supply station for the Haihan fleet.
If they can't find enough vehicles, how will the Qing army cross the Datong River, which is closely monitored by their opponents? This seems to be back to the Yalu River two months ago, when the Qing army could abandon Jiulian City and find another place to cross the river.
point, but changing the original march plan would mean a setback in morale, and the subsequent combat plan would also have to be adjusted accordingly. If the Haihan Army had not taken the initiative to withdraw from the Yalu River at that time, the Qing Army would have eventually had to go upstream to find another crossing point.
Just fine.
But the situation here in the Datong River is far more complicated than that in the Yalu River. Even if the Qing army is willing to spend time to go around the upstream section of the river that the opponent's fleet cannot reach to cross the river, they will eventually have to go south along the river again and return to the Datong River Basin. And the sea
The scale of the armed fleet deployed by the Han Dynasty on the Datong River was far greater than that of the Yalu River period. It was not easy to bypass the entire Datong River basin.
Huang Taiji stared blankly at the sand table in the flower hall and remained silent for a long time. He didn't even ask for the opinions of his civil and military officials because he knew very well that no one would be able to come up with a proper solution to this matter.
If we were to be held up here in the Datong River for a month or even longer, we would have to use a large army to defeat the armed stronghold downstream.
To knock down the Haihan people's carefully prepared defense line for two months, it would be difficult for Huang Taiji to have a clear estimate of how many casualties the Qing army would have to pay during the attack. However, as the commander-in-chief of this operation, he must do it in advance.
The worst-case scenario is that the situation in Jinzhou, Liaodong, will happen again on the banks of the Datong River. Although the Qing army has an absolute advantage in terms of force size, no one can guarantee that it will be able to defeat this target in the lower reaches of the Datong River.
Although Azig himself did not come back in person, Huang Taiji could feel Azig's helplessness from the report sent back. If Huang Taiji ordered Azig's troops to forcibly attack the target, then of course Azig would do it.
However, if there are heavy casualties during the battle, then sending other troops to fight in the area will inevitably be affected by the previous results.
Moreover, Haihan had only sent a fleet to fight before, and the army troops had only briefly appeared in Jiulian City. Huang Taiji did not think that the opponent's military strength was only the troops on the Yalu River, and this stronghold was said to be quite large, and a lot of manpower was used to attack it.
To carry out construction, the army troops stationed there will definitely have a large number of troops. Azig only brought five thousand troops to that location. If a strong attack was to be launched, all of these troops would probably be lost in the area.
Although Huang Taiji was not a soft-hearted person, he did not want to let his troops die in vain, so the idea of immediately ordering a strong attack only flashed through his mind and was abandoned.
Since there is no immediate solution at the moment, Huang Taiji can only take a more prudent approach and continue to send more scouts upstream and downstream to find a suitable place to cross the river. The so-called suitable no longer means that the geographical environment is convenient for crossing.
Jiang, but to find the monitoring blind spots of the Haihan Fleet on the river. But this possibility is indeed unlikely. Huang Taiji knows that his opponents have many ways to eliminate these blind spots, such as asking North Koreans who are familiar with the hydrological conditions of the Datong River to formulate
For sections of the river that require focused monitoring, and for some locations where crossing the river is extremely difficult, it is enough to station a small number of troops on the other side to guard the river bank.
Under the current situation, even if the Qing army could send one or two thousand people across the river at one time, it would not mean much. The North Korean army must have completed defense on the other side. Even if the Qing army did not take its combat effectiveness seriously, if it wanted to deal with the cross
Jiang's small Qing army, the North Korean army can still fight.
"Is the Qing army retreating now?" On a newly built watchtower about 100 feet behind the defense line, Jin Sangxian, who witnessed the entire battle, still couldn't believe it. The arrogant Qing army only launched one attack.
, after hitting a snag, he decisively called for gold and retreated his troops.
"What can we do if we don't retreat? Although they are barbarians who have not yet been truly civilized, they are not stupid. They know that they cannot attack this line of defense with their abilities, so they can only watch the excitement from a distance." Qian Tiandun said calmly.
Putting down the telescope, he explained to Kim Sang-hyun: "The charge they launched was to test the defensive strength of this line of defense. Now that it has been tested, they have stopped."
Jin Sangxian was slightly disappointed with the Qing army's bullying behavior, but he still boasted skillfully about the stable output of the Haihan Independent Regiment. He saw clearly the battle between the two armies just now, and the Qing army simply failed
This caused actual trouble for the Haihan troops on the position, and they were repulsed without even crossing the outer Haogou.
After the Qing army retreated, the Haihan formation calmly sent out a company of infantry and hundreds of civilians to clean up the battlefield. Some horses that had lost their owners stopped on the battlefield and did not retreat with the Qing army. Naturally,
They became Haihan's trophies, and the weapons, flags, and personal belongings left on the battlefield were all picked up one by one and loaded into trucks and transported back to the base.
As for the wounded soldiers of the Qing army who had lost the ability to move, if they still showed the intention to resist, the Haihan soldiers stood far away and shot them to death. Those who gave up resistance were asked to be carried to the big house by civilians.
In the car, transport it back to the base first to see if you can find out any useful information.
Jin Sangxian has no interest in cleaning the battlefield anymore, but it is not easy to get up to this six-foot-high watchtower, and it will make your legs weak when you go down. Kim Sangxian hesitated for a long time and still did not dare to let go. Qian Tiandun
They could only have someone tie a rope around his waist, fix the other end to the railing at the top of the observation tower, and then arrange for someone to hold Kim Sang-hun's trembling legs below and slowly lower him down.
There are several watchtowers like this used to monitor enemy movements in the base. This kind of wooden tower is not complicated to build, but its sturdiness is not ideal and can only be regarded as a temporary facility.
When there was really a strong wind, I didn't dare to send anyone up there. Kim Sang-hyun requested to go up to watch the battle. As a last resort, Qian Tiandun came to accompany him in person. He didn't expect that the North Koreans couldn't come down after going up, and they had to use such an embarrassing method.
Find a way to slip down.
Jin Sangxian finally slipped to the ground. If it weren't for the help of his men from the side, he might have been a little unsteady. However, his mood is much more relaxed now than a few days ago, and he doesn't care about being embarrassed in public.
As long as the Qing army can be blocked on the north bank of the Datong River, what does this little humiliation matter? If the Qing army can be driven back to Liaodong, Kim Sang-heon will have no problem climbing this watchtower every day.
Jin Sangxian rested for a while, and Qian Tiandun had also come down from the watchtower. Jin Sangxian waved his hand and dismissed his men. He stood up and walked to Qian Tiandun. He asked kindly: "General Qian, the Qing army cannot attack this place."
Will the defensive line turn to other places to find solutions?"
In fact, this issue had already been explained to Jin Sangxian when he explained the battle plan to him earlier. Qian Tiandun knew that Jin Sangxian was not unaware of the secret, but he just wanted to use it to gain peace of mind for himself.
Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "Since they have found out that this place is easy to defend and difficult to attack, they will definitely try to find opportunities to cross the river from other places. If nothing else happens, the Qing army will probably not attack here again in the next two or three days.
, but our coalition fleet should have some door-to-door deals to do."
The allied fleet on the Taedong River has recently added a member, the North Korean Navy as the master. The wooden house ships and turtle ships, which are crude in appearance but have strong defenses, are the main warships of the North Korean Navy. Of course, this defense is relative to
For the warships of other countries in East Asia in this era, it doesn't matter whether they are strong or not compared to the Haihan warship that uses large-caliber naval guns. The results of one shot are almost the same.
During the period when the Qing army was dragged in Anzhou, North Korea mobilized most of its warships from the south and rushed to the Datong River to join the coalition fleet led by Haihan. Although the weapons used by the North Korean warships were compared with those of other warships,
Several fleets are slightly out of date, but they are quite numerous. There are more than 40 warships with a displacement of more than 100 tons, and there are even three turtle ships with a layer of iron armor attached to the outer shell. According to Wang Tom's estimate
, its displacement should be equivalent to that of an expedition-class warship.
Although the combat effectiveness of the North Korean fleet is one level lower, its complementary role in controlling the Datong River is very obvious. With the addition of these dozens of warships, the coalition fleet's control of the river can be increased by at least fifty miles. Moreover, the North Korean authorities also
At Wang Tom's request, 60 to 70 civilian ships in good condition and fast speed were mobilized. Each ship was equipped with a number of North Korean soldiers, and they were deployed to some monitoring blind spots that were not suitable for crossing the river to assume the role of sentinels on the water.
.As long as the enemy is detected and a signal is sent out, allied warships will arrive within an hour to assist.
After being supplemented by the North Korean navy, the coalition fleet can deploy its main force to the river near Pyongyang and wait for the Qing army to try to cross the river. The Haihan fleet led by Wang Tom is even hidden on the south bank of Yanggak Island. If
If the Qing army wanted to use Yangjiao Island as a springboard to cross the river, they would probably have no choice but to go back and forth.
With such a simple method of crossing the river, the Qing army naturally thought of it. The plan they made for crossing the river was to use rafts to transport troops to Yangjiao Island in the center of the river at night. After the troops hidden on the island reached a certain size, they could then use them to cross the river.
Complete the trip from Yangjiao Island to the south bank of the Datong River in the same way. Of course, this river crossing plan has a prerequisite, which is the absolute control of Yangjiao Island. Otherwise, once the opponent discovers that the established Qing army is hiding on Yangjiao Island, then
If not, even the escape route will be cut off.
Although the operational risks of this plan are extremely high, for the Qing army who could not come up with a better way, they could only treat the dead horse as a live doctor and try it first. However, their small actions could not be hidden at all.
The Haihan fleet came well prepared. Wang Tom even climbed up the mast at night and used a telescope with night vision function to confirm that the Qing army had landed on this small island with an area of only 1.2 square kilometers.
Of course, the Qing army did not intend to hang themselves on this tree. Almost at the same time, Qing troops also crossed the river and landed on the Lingluo Island and Toulao Island in the Pyongyang River section at night.
Chapter completed!