Chapter 423 Practical Difficulties

After the Battle of Hue in March, the Nguyen regime in South Vietnam was declared overthrown with the fall of Hue City, and the main purpose of Hai Han's troops was accomplished. After the war, the North Vietnamese court was no longer able to pay the Hai Han militia for continued operations.

As a result, the Haihan militia units, including the Black Tu Port Special Operations Battalion, withdrew to their respective bases and did not participate in the next stage of the operation to wipe out the remaining armed forces of South Vietnam.

Although the Nguyen regime has fallen, this does not mean that the areas previously ruled by it will immediately change their names and follow the North Vietnamese court. For example, in a big city like Quang Tri, the defenders in the city still choose military resistance rather than

Raise your hands and surrender. However, the North Vietnamese army's combat capability, especially its ability to attack large cities, is far from comparable to that of the Haihan militia.

Before going south to attack Hue City, the North Vietnamese army had already surrounded Quangzhi. However, in order to prevent Haihan from monopolizing Hue City, North Vietnamese general Zheng Bai chose to lead the main force south to attack Hue first and then turn around to deal with Quangzhi.

However, although the battle in Hue was relatively smooth, some troops had to be detached to stay in Hue after the war. First, they had to guard over 10,000 South Vietnamese prisoners of war. Second, they had to maintain the local post-war social order. Third, they had to arrest

Those high-ranking South Vietnamese officials and dignitaries still hiding somewhere in the city.

By the time Zheng Bai had arranged all these tasks, it was already late April, and then Zheng Bai sent his troops north to attack Guangzhi. However, the battle did not go as smoothly as he had expected. The defender in Guangzhi City was the son-in-law of Ruan Fuyuan of South Vietnam.

He had no intention of surrendering. Instead, he took advantage of the North Vietnamese army moving south to besiege Hue and launched several active attacks on the North Vietnamese army outside the city. Although it failed to achieve a breakout, it also caused relatively large casualties to the North Vietnamese army. etc.

Zheng Bai led a large force back to the outside of Guangzhi City. The North Vietnamese troops who stayed here to surround Guangzhi City had actually lost nearly a quarter. If it dragged on for another ten days and a half, they might really be defeated by the city.

The South Vietnamese army broke out.

Compared with the Hai Han Militia, the North Vietnamese Army's biggest shortcoming in terms of combat power is that there are too few artillery, which directly leads to the North Vietnamese Army having fewer means in siege warfare and almost only relying on more primitive siege methods.

Operation. On the other hand, the South Vietnamese army in the city had no way to retreat and the generals were determined to fight to the death. Their fighting will was no worse than that of the attackers outside the city.

After the two sides faced off inside and outside the city for two days, the North Vietnamese Army launched an offensive. However, due to the lack of long-range firepower, this old-fashioned tactic of relying on soldiers to climb wooden ladders to siege the city did not achieve very good results.

Apart from the cost of thousands of lives, the offensive for several days produced no substantial gains at all.

Of course, Zheng Bai was not interested in spending time with the defenders under the walls of Guangzhi City, because at this time, their food supply had to rely on Haihan's ships to be transported from the sea. Every day the war dragged on, the North Vietnamese court had to hire these people.

The ship paid nearly a thousand taels for shipping, which was by no means good news for the North Vietnamese Army, which was currently facing tight military expenditures.

Until this time, Zheng Bai didn't quite understand how the Hai Han militia destroyed the two city walls inside and outside Hue, because he also concentrated on using artillery to bombard the walls of Quang Tri City, but the effect was obviously not as good as the city walls.

Far away. In the end, he could only attribute this to the fact that the Haihan people still had some secret tactics that had not been disclosed to the North Vietnamese. Although his guess was close to ten, it had no practical effect on the current war situation.

effect, so he still had to use the most traditional siege method to attack Guangzhi City.

Under Zheng Bai's strict supervision, ten days later, the North Vietnamese army finally broke through the north gate of Guangzhi City, and then spent another four days to clear out the remaining South Vietnamese in the city. After the city was broken, all captured South Vietnamese generals were beheaded in the north.

Outside the gate, more than 3,000 prisoners of war were packed and gathered under Zheng Bai's order, preparing to be exported to the Haihan people to mortgage war debts.

This battle took the North Vietnamese army half a month, and resulted in more than 2,000 casualties, which was several times greater than the losses in Hue City. Such results also made the North Vietnamese generals more profound.

Realizing the gap with the Haihan militia, thousands of troops crossed the sea to attack Hue. Only one or two hundred people were killed in the battle, and they captured the fortified city of Hue in one fell swoop.

This gap in combat effectiveness has further contributed to the popularity of the "Hai Han supremacy theory" in the North Vietnamese Army. Originally, this theory was only popular among some officers who had received direct training from Hai Han. It was believed that the military theory and armament level of the Hai Han people had reached their peak.

If Annan Kingdom wants to become strong, it cannot leave the support and help of Hai Han. After the two battles of Hue and Quang Tri, some officers who originally opposed this theory began to change their minds and believed that the facts

This is indeed the case. Instead of continuing to be hostile and wary towards Haihan, it is better to take advantage of the fact that the two families have a good relationship and have formed various strategic alliances to learn more military things from him.

To strengthen Annan's military strength.

Of course, this effect is exactly what the Haihan Executive Committee expected. In the past two years, it has spent so much energy on supporting and training North Vietnamese military personnel in order to one day influence the direction of Annan's military development. If the military is in power

If investors can be inclined to rely on Haihan, then in the next few years just arms exports and military training will be enough for Haihan to make a lot of money from Annan.

After the army led by Zheng Bai pacified Guangzhi, they did not have time to take a long rest and quickly went south again, because there were still thousands of miles of territory and dozens of towns south of Hue, waiting for the army to take them over one by one. And to the south

Some news has come that makes Zheng Bai very unhappy. It is said that the army of the Champa Kingdom is pushing the envelope. After defeating the South Vietnamese army a few months ago, it is still continuing to expand its control area eastward. It is likely that it will take hundreds of years.

The posture of taking back all the former occupied territory.

Of course, Zheng Bai also knew that the Champa Kingdom also received some military assistance from the Haihan people, so he would not place his hope on the remaining South Vietnamese troops to stop these armed Champa troops. The only way to solve the problem

The way is to lead the army south as soon as possible and block the occupying army from the country.

Zheng Bai was anxious to go south to control the situation, but many things were not something he could do if he wanted to. The logistical supply problems faced by this army were almost unsolvable, even if Haihan ships were hired to transport supplies by sea.

It is also difficult to maintain the thousands of miles of supply lines from Hue to the southern border. Hai Han's fleet can barely maintain a force of three to four thousand people like the militia, but the supplies needed by the North Vietnamese army with ten times the strength

, but it has exceeded the operating capacity of the fleet.

Under this situation, Zheng Bai had no better solution, so he could only use the most primitive method-supply supplies on the spot during the march. A simpler and easier-to-understand way of saying it was to grab supplies along the way. Anyone who was willing to donate

The people who are in need of food can still save their families and a small amount of food, but those who are unwilling to cooperate will almost all be looted, and those who dare to resist may even lose their lives. Anyway, during the war, people are not alive.

It was valuable. If he was killed by the rebels, he would be killed. At most, he would be accused of being a "remnant of South Vietnam" and get away with it.

This method directly caused the area south of Hue to fall into huge chaos. Wherever the North Vietnamese Army went, it was almost like locusts sweeping across it. Although Zheng Bai's original intention was just to collect supplies, this kind of order reached the grassroots level.

It would be difficult to continue to implement it as it is. Moreover, for the North Vietnamese army, the north and the south have been separated for many years, and their families are fighting for the north of the river. They do not have much pity and sympathy for the people in the South Vietnamese area, and they do not start to rob property.

There will be too much psychological pressure, and the operation to collect supplies will soon turn into a feast of plunder.

On the other side of the sea, when the Hai Han Executive Committee sent a special team to Shilu, Zheng Bai commanded his army to advance to the Quang Ngai area four hundred miles south of Hue. At this time, not only did the army have no accompanying items

It was reduced due to constant consumption, but instead tens of thousands of kilograms of extra baggage weight was added.

In addition to the military rations collected through various means along the way, there are also various personal items robbed by the soldiers. After the soldiers robbed the money, they had no place to store it, let alone where to store it.

The money was spent during the march, and there was no feasible way to transport it back to the north, so they had to be stored together. Often a group of people would put all the looted property together in a few large boxes, and then take it away together during the march.

Fortunately, we also grabbed a lot of livestock such as mules and horses on our way south, so we don’t have to worry about taking too many things to transport away.

Zheng Bai is not blind, and he is not unaware of the situation in the army. However, under the current objective situation, if these soldiers are not given material stimulation, it would indeed be unreasonable. Zheng Bai, on the other hand, is not blind.

I have heard that all Hai Han militiamen will reward their merits after the war, and all property captured during the battle must be confiscated. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese Army did not establish such a rule, even for those who had been trained in the Hai Han Army.

An officer would probably not agree to have his share of property confiscated.

The South Vietnamese regime had collapsed, so the army did not encounter resistance similar to that in Guangzhi City in the process of clearing out the remaining forces of South Vietnam. The defenders often collapsed at the first touch, or simply opened the city and surrendered. What Zheng Bai was worried about

Frequent and intensive small-scale military conflicts did not occur. However, this marching method of looting and killing also caused another negative consequence, that is, a large number of bankrupt people appeared wherever they passed, and their only option was

The only choice was to leave home and flee. So there was the second wave of refugees in South Vietnam since 1627, and this time the location was no longer the north-south war zone near Zhengjiang, but moved to Da Nang and Hoi An in the south.

, Sanqi, Guangyi, Anning and other coastal towns.

Before the war, the Hai Han Executive Committee asked the North Vietnamese court for concession rights in Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Cam Ranh, and Vung Tau. However, at this time, except for Cam Ranh and Vung Tau further south, Da Nang and Quy Nhon were

The two places of Ren and Ren have almost become white land, and people have abandoned their homes and fled under the looting of the North Vietnamese army. This situation undoubtedly adds more difficulty to the development plan that Haihan wants to implement here.

After all, the development and construction of the port requires a large amount of labor. When planning, the Executive Committee directly planned to recruit the main labor from the local area and only send management personnel from the base camp. But if the North Vietnamese army makes such a fuss, I am afraid that the Executive Committee

It is necessary to reconsider the distribution of labor sources.

However, the Executive Committee does not have a better way to solve the current problem for North Vietnam, because with the launch of the Shilu project, the Executive Committee needs to concentrate more maritime transport capacity on the Victory Port-Changhua route.

, it is simply impossible to send more sea ships to solve the transportation problem of supplies for the North Vietnamese Army. The North Vietnamese Army made a mess locally, and the Executive Committee could only watch with blank eyes. After all, the original agreement only involved local land.

The right to use and own the land, and it did not say that the population of the surrounding areas should be reserved for Haihan.

Regarding this situation, the Executive Committee is quite helpless. According to the development plan agreed upon by the Executive Committee last year, it was originally expected to start construction projects in Shilu and Nanyue at the same time, but now it seems that it may be difficult to do both. After repeated weighing,

The Executive Committee decided to first take care of the Shilu Iron Mine, which is closer to Victory Port and more important to the future development of the Cross Group. Although the construction time of the Shilu Iron Mine Project may be far longer than the time required to develop the South Vietnam Port,

But the importance is different.

Regarding this decision, Yan Chujie expressed a point of view at the executive committee that was later widely discussed by the outside world: "With steel, there is combat effectiveness, and with combat effectiveness, what else is there that we cannot grab? Where are the ports of South Vietnam?

It’s not like we’re going to lose it. As long as our military strength is strong enough, it’s not impossible to capture the entire Indo-China Peninsula in the future, let alone these ports!”

Although the executive committee members do not completely agree with Yan Chujie's slightly extreme views, they have to admit that his statement has a certain degree of truth. The Haihan militia armed with muskets and cannons is almost the same size as the Far East in this era.

It is an army with the strongest combat capability, and the development of the Shilu Iron Mine will inevitably bring about a further improvement in military strength and even the overall strength of the entire Cross-Travel Group. In the end, it is not the gun that has the final say as to where it wants to occupy?

So after the executive committee members unified their understanding, the executive committee also made a decision to temporarily stop the port construction plan in South Vietnam and devote all its resources to the development project of Shilu Iron Mine, striving to shorten the scheduled construction period and allow

The large project of Shilu Iron Mine was put into actual operation as soon as possible. This decision also brought about the outbreak of a new wave of immigrants in 1629.
Chapter completed!