Chapter 517 The troops are approaching the city

Although the coalition troops quickly put out the fire after the fire, an inventory afterwards found that two-thirds of the various cultural and historical materials and files in the county government were burned. Most of the remaining parts were also poured in by water poured in when putting out the fire.

There are really only a small number of people who can put it to use if they know it thoroughly.

After inspecting the fire scene, Zheng Ting could only admit that he was unlucky and had the bodies of the dead soldiers collected. As for how to report to Qian Tiandun, the blame could only be placed on the captured Chengmai County Magistrate and others.

Zheng Ting also specifically told the soldiers guarding the prisoners not to torture them too much, lest the culprit be forced to death and no one would take the blame.

Zheng Ting's troops spent the night in Chengmai County, leaving 300 men to guard the city. The remaining troops left the city and continued to advance toward Qiongzhou Fucheng in the northeast. At this time, a large force sailed out to sea from Lingao County.

, had landed on the northwest coast of Qiongzhou Fucheng one day ago.

Organizing two consecutive large-scale landings by the coalition forces within ten days was a great test for both the physical strength of the participating troops and the coordination capabilities between the various troops and transportation departments.

Qian Tiandun was riding on a dark brown war horse and quietly looked at the troops gathering on the coast. Several heavy siege guns were stuck on the beach, and the baggage troops were paving a passage with wooden planks and straw mats.

, and then tried to use animal power to pull out these cannons. By this time, the news of the fall of Danzhou should have reached Fucheng, and if the siege troops wanted to capture this target, they might resort to a forceful attack with a huge caliber siege force.

The cannon was prepared for this purpose.

So far, the plan to start a prairie fire has been relatively smooth. It has not encountered any decent resistance while advancing from Danzhou to the west. Three battles in one state and two counties were all won within half a day.

With a very low casualty rate, more than 1,500 people were captured, and actual control of these three cities was completed.

As for the farms and villages scattered around the city, the coalition forces are not in a hurry to clean them up. Their mission is to capture the main strategic nodes in the north of Qiongzhou Island. As for the comprehensive cleanup of these sites, the Haihan Militia will take over in the future.

conduct.

The land ownership situation in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island is far more complicated than in the southern part. The population density and the degree of cultivated land development here are far higher than in the southern part of the country where the land was vast and sparsely populated before. If the Haihan Executive Committee wants to implement public land ownership in the northern part, it will inevitably encounter difficulties.

There was much fiercer opposition and resistance in the south. Therefore, the coalition forces did not pay attention to the settlements outside the main cities during their rapid advance, but left all these troubles to the departments responsible for taking over in the future.

"Go to the communications platoon and ask if there is any latest news from the navy?" Qian Tiandun ordered. A naval fleet disguised as pirates is currently cruising in the Qiongzhou Strait, blocking the coastline near Qiongzhou's capital city.

Soon the navy's reply was sent to Qian Tiandun. In the past two days, the navy had intercepted twelve ships heading to the mainland from Qiongzhou Fucheng, nine of which were merchant ships or civilian ships, and the other three were

They were the small warships that were left behind in the water village during the extermination of the navy some time ago and did not go into battle. The purpose of these ships heading to the mainland was naturally to seek help in an emergency.

Outsiders may not know how many pounds or taels the garrison in Qiongzhou has, but the senior officials in Qiongzhou City still know it well. After the news of the fall of Danzhou City reached Fucheng, it immediately exploded. Although the news of the fall of Qiongzhou City immediately exploded.

In the past two months, there has been news that pirates will attack Qiongzhou Island, but the official did not regard such folk rumors as early warning, and did not make any corresponding preparations. However, the fleet sent out a few days ago has not yet arrived.

The news has made officials increasingly uneasy.

Thousands of pirates attacked the city of Danzhou and captured the city in just half a day. No one among the dozens of officials in Danzhou escaped. However, after the pirates captured Danzhou, they did not rush to loot the city, but continued to advance eastward.

, and has no intention of giving up at all. From this piece of news, a lot of information can actually be deciphered.

First of all, the fleet sent out to suppress the bandits from Fucheng is likely to be in trouble - since the pirates have enough transportation capacity to deliver thousands of people to land in Danzhou Bay, the size of their fleet must be much larger than that of the navy

fleet, and they did not send troops to Danzhou until many days after the navy set off, then there should be no possibility of the navy missing them at sea. In other words, this group of pirates most likely defeated the Ming Dynasty first.

The navy then implemented the landing plan in Danzhou.

Secondly, it only took half a day for the pirates to capture the city of Danzhou after landing. In addition to showing their terrifying combat power, it also showed that this was not an unprepared raid. Thousands of people could cross the sea and march twenty miles immediately.

When attacking a fortified city, as long as you use your brain to think about it, you will understand that this is definitely an action that has been planned for a long time, rather than the whim of this group of pirates.

Third, the pirates did not stop and loot in Danzhou, but continued to advance eastward. This also confirms the rumor that the pirates wanted to capture Qiongzhou Island. There is no doubt that the biggest goal is to advance eastward from Danzhou.

It's Fucheng. If you want to capture Qiongzhou Island, this must be the place to attack. But between Danzhou and Fucheng, there is no decent defensive stronghold at all, and there is no chance to even slow down their advance. If the opponent

We are really ready to attack Fucheng. The two places are two hundred miles apart, and it will only take a few days to advance to the vicinity of Fucheng.

Therefore, while Fucheng was preparing for war, it also sent messengers to Guangzhou to ask for help. However, this method of asking for help was obviously difficult to avoid Haihan's eyes and ears. As soon as they crossed the Nanjiang River, the fleet on the other side of the sea had already been notified by telegram.

, it is almost impossible for a ship going out to sea alone to escape from a prepared interception.

However, the combat plan formulated by the staff is not just about interception, but to create enough tension through interception for Haihan's subsequent methods. After reading the navy's report, Qian Tiandun ordered:

: "Notify the people in the Navy that they can relax."

Songkouzi did not allow the dignitaries from Fucheng to escape to the mainland by boat, but gave the messenger sent by Fucheng the opportunity to send the news that Qiongzhou Island was attacked by pirates to Guangzhou, and then use this to prepare Haihan's next military plan.

Involved in creating the basis of public opinion.

When the Military Commission formulated the battle plan, it did not plan to storm the capital city right away. After all, this is the administrative seat of Qiongzhou, and it is also the political, cultural and economic center of the northern part of Qiongzhou Island. If we destroy this place, we will eventually have to do it ourselves.

It is not cost-effective to spend money to rebuild. If possible, the Military Commission hopes to take over the city in a peaceful way.

This is not an impossible task. The staff department has already had a comprehensive plan for this. As for whether it can be realized in the end, it depends to a large extent on the coordination and cooperation capabilities of various departments. If it really doesn't work, then you can only count on spending money.

The nearly twenty siege cannons that came here with a lot of luck taught them how to behave.

On October 11, the large coalition forces advanced to ten miles west of Qiongzhou Fucheng, where they met up with Zheng Ting's troops who hurriedly came from Chengmai County. The garrison in Qiongzhou Fucheng did not sit still and waited for death. It was led by a staff general.

An army of two thousand people came outside the city to prepare for battle.

However, according to the operational plan of the General Staff, the coalition forces led by Qian Tiandun did not have the task of quickly sweeping away the garrison in Fucheng. To be precise, the task of the coalition forces was to besiege Fucheng and strive for better conditions for the subsequent Haihan intervention.

After defeating the garrison here, quickly occupy the city.

Facing the Ming army who came to invite a fight, Qian Tiandun's order seemed brief and ruthless: "Just blast them away with artillery fire."

So the two artillery companies in the coalition quickly deployed in front of the formation, set up artillery, loaded ammunition, and then fired five rounds of rapid fire at the Ming army camp a mile away who was still watching the excitement.

At this distance, the accuracy and lethality of small-caliber artillery were greatly limited, but it still caused a certain amount of casualties to the Ming army. The Ming army did not immediately choose to retreat because of this, but also launched its own formation.

The artillery that was hit tried to compete with the opponent. But their attempt was immediately hit. After the commander on the Haihan artillery position used binoculars to see that the opponent also used artillery, he immediately directed the artillery to focus the fire, using

Firepower density to make up for the lack of accuracy and lethality.

After only three rounds of shooting, an artillery piece that had just been pushed to the front line of the Ming army was hit by a concentrated shell. The flying gun body directly killed the two gunners next to it. Although the Ming army still had the courage to set up the

They used artillery and conducted several rounds of bombardment with Haihan, but it was obvious that the Ming army's artillery range was too disadvantageous and could not cause substantial damage to the Haihan camp. After more than an hour of sporadic artillery battles, they paid

The Ming army, which suffered more than thirty lives, chose to retreat angrily.

Qian Tiandun did not let his troops continue the pursuit. Now he only needed to arrange the march and garrison locations of each unit, and then gradually complete the encirclement of Fucheng. By this time, 90% of the combat tasks responsible for the coalition forces had been completed.

.Qian Tiandun had already planned to sit down and watch the show and wait and see how things would develop.

However, Zheng Ting, who came here as a coalition general, did not understand Haihan's arrangement very well. He quickly found Qian Tiandun and asked: "General Qian, the enemy is retreating at this time, why doesn't our army take advantage of the victory to pursue it?

If we dispatch the cavalry at this time and pursue them in tandem, we might be able to seize the city gate in one fell swoop and invade Qiongzhou City!"

Qian Tiandun shook his head and said: "General Zheng, you think things are too simple. This city is easy to fight, but just defeating it is not enough. How can we make the Ming court recognize our Haihan's actual control of Qiongzhou Island?

This is the ultimate goal of this war. Our previous fast attack, current slow attack, and all tactical arrangements are actually to achieve this goal."

Zheng Ting said in confusion: "I understand that you don't want to fall out with the Ming Dynasty. But how can you win the capital of Qiongzhou with this slow attack method?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and said: "Don't worry, take your time and see. You will see the result in a few days."

After several consecutive active attacks were repelled by the coalition forces, the morale of the Ming army was also affected to a certain extent. Although they were the ones who took the initiative to attack, they were unable to cause effective damage to their opponents, whether it was muskets or guns.

The range of the artillery was inferior to that of the opponent. The general who commanded the battle even had two artillery pieces with larger diameters removed from the city wall, hoping to use the range of these two to teach the opponent a lesson. However, he did not expect

The opponent's formation not only includes small-caliber cannons that can fire fist-sized shells, but also heavy artillery that can fire for several miles. Regardless of range or accuracy, the Ming army's large general cannons that were finally transported to the firing line are still

It's not as good as its opponents.

The two sides continued to fight again the next day. After a night's rest, Qian Tiandun sent the Annan Army's gun volley formation forward to engage in the battle. The reason why he arranged for the Annan Army to take the lead was not that Qian Tiandun was worried about his own troops.

The battle losses were due to the fact that the weapons equipped by the militia army were short-range and high-power muskets, which were not as good as the Sanya-made old matchlocks and flintlock muskets equipped by the Annan Army in terms of range. The Annan Army used the tactic of queuing to shoot, which made the Annan Army

It is more suitable for the troops to go up.

The Annan army trained by Haihan relied on the sharp firearms in their hands and quickly gained a clear advantage in the battle. Although the Ming Dynasty was also equipped with many muskets, their proportion only accounted for about 30% of the total force, and

The proportion of musketeers in the Annan Army is as high as more than 70%. The firepower density alone is not at the same level. Coupled with the performance advantages of the Annan Army's individual weapons, the battle loss ratio between the two sides is as high as over 1:8. The Ming Army

The military strength was already very limited, and naturally it could not sustain such a rapid depletion. They only fought for a short time and then retreated.

Probably also aware of their own disadvantages in terms of weapons and tactics, the Ming army continued to retreat that afternoon, and then the retreat did not stop and retreated all the way into the city.

The coalition's strength west of Fucheng at this time was only about 4,000, but after taking advantage of the battlefield, Qian Tiandun still commanded the troops and encircled Qiongzhou Fucheng unscrupulously.

Of course, with the existing military strength, it is actually impossible to encircle the city in a true sense. Basically, it means setting up camps outside the three gates of the southeast and west, setting up positions, and blocking the passages in and out of the city. Fortunately,

Qiongzhou's capital city only has three gates, otherwise the coalition forces would be really stretched to besiege the city.

At this time, there were far more than the thousands of coalition troops participating in this war. As the offensive advanced from west to east, the coalition also recruited a large number of civilians along the way to be responsible for the transportation of logistical supplies. As for food, there was not much of a problem.

The logistics department has already prepared for this battle enough food and grass to supply five thousand people for two months. As long as the labor force is sufficient, it can ensure the supply line of food supplies from the coastline to the combat location.
Chapter completed!