Chapter 280 The sword points at Japan () to give hope
What should I do if the road is blocked?
This problem not only caused headaches and tensions for the Japanese army, but even Gao Pragmatic, who was in charge of Sichuan, became a little nervous.
The Japanese army was understandably nervous. For them, they were fighting in a foreign country. Now they were surrounded on three sides and faced the sea on one side. The navy didn't know their situation and couldn't come to pick them up - and they didn't have the ability.
Then they are naturally worried about being surrounded and annihilated in a battle.
But why should Gao Pragmatic be nervous?
Without him, this battle was not in line with the war mentality of surrounding three ques and one, and Gao pragmatically knew that this encirclement was not as unbreakable as the Japanese army had scared him.
What is the current actual troop formation of the Ming army?
There are less than 10,000 people on the Western Front, that is, the Lianhua Mountain Defense Line, and Gao Pragmatic still has about 7,000 people left in Sichuan. The entire Western Front has about 16,000 troops. There should have been a few more.
But those people were all chieftains of the Sichuan Army. Secondly, they had been stationed in Jeolla Province to secure North Korea's granaries, so not all of them were transferred back for this battle.
On the eastern front, they mainly outflanked Liu Wei's troops, which had a strength of 15,000. The Japanese army misjudged this matter. They thought that Li Rumei's troops should also have gone in this direction, but in fact they did not.
The current location of Li Rumei's tribe is actually about 60 miles north of Lianhua Mountain. This place is currently just a small settlement, and the name is not even known to the pragmatic people. However, this place still has a serious name in later generations of Korea, called Yining County.
In other words, Li Rumei's tribe is actually between Jinzhou and Changning, a little southwest of Sanjia where Liu Wei's tribe used to wait and wait. He came here to some extent because the defense on the northern line of Lianhua Mountain was empty after Liu Wei's tribe went to block the Japanese army's retreat.
That's why I came here to make up for it.
But this means that the Japanese army made the right bet, that is, if the Japanese army really attacks Jinzhou, they will definitely be discovered by Li Rumei. Considering the difference in the marching speed of the two sides, there is a high probability that the Japanese army will be attacked by Li Rumei before they reach Jinzhou.
Side attack.
At first glance, the current situation is that the Ming army has blocked the Japanese army in three directions, but a closer look will reveal that the strength of this encirclement circle is actually seriously insufficient: 16,000 soldiers under the direct command of Gao Jingjing on the western front, and 15,000 soldiers under Liu Wei on the eastern front
Thousands, Li Rumei has the strongest force on the northern front, with 23,000.
However, even if the three groups are added together, the total strength of the Ming army is only 54,000. So, how many Japanese troops are there?
Not counting Kato Kiyomasa and Shimazu Yoshihiro who stayed in Hanyang at that time, the total strength of the Japanese army when the main force moved south from Hanyang was 95,000. Due to Li Rumei's harassment and attacks along the way, the Japanese army before launching the Battle of Lotus Mountain
The total number of troops has decreased slightly, but is still around 90,000.
If we look at previous experience, who is stronger, the 54,000 Ming army or the 90,000 Japanese army? Of course, the Ming army is stronger. After all, based on the results of the Battle of Biti Hall, the Japanese army has a seven-fold advantage in strength.
It is impossible to capture a single Ming army. If the gap between strength and weakness is not "huge", it is at least "huge".
But the problem is that the two sides are currently changing offensive and defensive positions. It is the Ming army that is surrounding the Japanese army. This means that the Ming army is a dispersed force. The Japanese army is now gathering troops in one place. With no way out, there may be a fight between trapped beasts.
, it might even be able to achieve the effect of a desperate fight, but the situation would be different.
Assuming that the Japanese army attacks all the way alone, except for Li Rumei's troops on the northern line, which the Japanese army may not know about for the time being, it should not be regarded as a target. Then, whether the Japanese army is advancing westward or withdrawing eastward, when facing the Gao Pragmatic Headquarters and Liu Wei's troops, they will have about six times the strength
Military superiority.
Because Liu Wei's tribe has been listed as one of the main forces of the Southern Army by Gao Pragmatic over the years, its equipment level and training intensity are very good, and they have been further tempered in the Battle of Yunnan and Burma and the Battle of Pingbo. Gao Pragmatic believes that they are good at defensive operations.
It is still unlikely that China will be defeated by the Japanese army, at least it should be able to survive until Li Rumei's reinforcements arrive.
However, Gao Pragmatic's side is not necessarily so. The real core main forces on his side are three thousand Xuanda Jingqi and three thousand white pole soldiers, and the remaining 10,000 are Sichuan chieftain soldiers.
One thing to say is that the combat effectiveness of the Sichuan chieftain soldiers is not weak, but their equipment system is still not strong even after Gao Pragmatic temporarily strengthened them and gave them some artillery.
First of all, artillery is a technical branch in this era. It is not possible to just give anyone a cannon and they will be able to use it. The chieftains themselves will not use these artillery at all. If they are allowed to operate the cannon by themselves, it will be considered as Amitabha if they do not blow themselves up.
I'm afraid the best I can do is just to hear the sound, and there is no need to have any hope for accuracy.
The high-pragmatic reinforcement is actually to temporarily dispatch the Marine artillery (not naval gunners) on the Sea Trade Alliance fleet to the chieftain army. When they need to fight, they will carry out the battle on their own and alone. The chieftains only need to tell them the combat mission.
However, the rest is useless. As for whether the mission is reasonable, the Marine Artillery Battalion Commander will consult with the chieftain.
Secondly, the chieftain soldiers themselves have almost no hot weapons, and they are all old-fashioned cold weapon troops. Although they are generally more daring to fight than the non-domestic troops of the Ming army, facing the Japanese iron artillery team with the nature of a gun formation, this kind of daring to fight is
This means that before a close combat occurs, they have to endure two or three rounds of volleys, which puts them at a disadvantage from the beginning.
In addition, the Japanese army's melee combat capabilities are not weak, so assuming that the battle is just chieftain soldiers versus the Japanese army, it is actually difficult to explain how much advantage the army can take.
In the final analysis, the main reasons why the Ming army is stronger than the Japanese army are two points: the advantage of firearms and the advantage of cavalry. Since the Japanese army can't find a way to solve these two points, there is a situation where "field combat is impossible". This situation is consistent with
In history, the Ming army was mostly defeated in field battles against the Jin army, which is fundamentally different.
First of all, let’s make it clear that the so-called Ming army could not defeat the Eight Banners in field battles is actually a false proposition. Because the Ming army won many battles in the field battles or evenly matched the wins and losses.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! For example, in the Battle of Ningjin, Mangui fought against the Eight Banners on the way to aid Ningyuan and the outcome was even, and they did not lose to the Eight Banners in the field battle under Ningyuan City.
In the Battle of Daling River, a Ming army even knocked off the leader of the Eight Banners, Duduo. If Duduo had not been rescued by his subordinates, history might have changed.
There is also the Battle of Hunhe River. The white-pole soldiers once defeated the Eight Banners and Hong Ba La, and captured two generals of the Eight Banners. In the Battle of Songjin, the Ming army took the initiative to attack at the Battle of Rufeng Mountain, and the outcome of both sides was determined.
quite.
The "Ming and Qing Historical Materials" compiled by the Ming Dynasty Archives Collection and Taiwan retains a lot of original archives and newspapers. If you look closely, you will find that many battles are not as described in "Qing Shilu" and "Manchu Old Archives".
As boasted, the Eight Banners are invincible.
In fact, on the eve of the fall of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th year of Chongzhen's reign, the Eight Banners attacked Ningyuan, but Wu Sangui even used the cannons hidden in the formation to blur the shells in his face, and finally suffered a huge defeat.
To be honest, most of the Eight Banners' victories in previous wars have gone through a very difficult process. For example, in the Songjin War, it was precisely because the Qing army was in an unfavorable situation that Dorgon and other banner leaders even proposed to withdraw, which forced Huang Taiji to drag his illness and bleed.
He rushed to the Songjin battlefield with a nosebleed.
A careful study of the battles of the Ming and Qing Dynasties reveals that in these battles, especially in many local field battles, the Ming army fought very well and did not show obvious defeat. However, in the end, in all major battles, except for Ningyuan and Ningjin, the Ming army fought very well.
The army basically lost.
This seems weird, but if you really want to explore, you have to think deeply about why this is the case. As a fan, Gao Pragmatic has seen some forum discussions before, and even participated in them himself, and remembers some interesting things.
For example, in the Battle of Hunhe River, the Liao army sat back and did not save the Baigan soldiers and the Zhejiang soldiers. Why not save them? In fact, it was not that the Liao army was greedy for life and feared death, but that the Liao army and the Southern army had conflicts to begin with (when they aided Korea)
There were conflicts (this matter has been mentioned previously). What was even worse was that the Southern Army not only had conflicts with the Liao Army, but also had conflicts with the Jizhen border army at that time.
Why are the Nan soldiers and Baigan soldiers deployed in separate rivers? This is not a tactical plan at all, but a complete distrust between the two armies, because before aiding the Liao Dynasty, the two armies had already had a group fight in Jizhen. Not only did each have their own
There were casualties, and even artillery was used. How can we talk about trust and cooperation in such a tense relationship? To put it bluntly, if the enemies are not stumbling against each other at the moment, their consciences will not be broken.
In addition, some generals often choose to escape in order to preserve their strength. For example, in the Battle of Changshan in the Daling River, Wu Xiang led his cavalry and two Yi cavalry cavalry to flee directly, leaving Song Wei's chariot camp and infantry to the emperor.
Tai Chi. When he returned to Jinzhou and did an inventory, he found that the troops he led did not suffer much losses.
What does this situation mean? It means that at this time, the court's control has further declined, the military has become increasingly privatized, and warlordism has begun to officially appear.
There are also some people who take advantage of war to enrich the country. In the late Ming Dynasty, grain transported to the Liaodong Sea in the Bohai Bay often drifted, and often at a fixed rate. This is the Bohai Bay. If sailing in the Bohai Sea is so dangerous, then
How did you make the voyage to the Western Sea? Based on that level of submersion, no one would be able to return from the voyage.
To give another example, during the Songjin War, many people said that Huang Taiji raided Hong Chengchou's granary, which was the key to the defeat of the Ming army. But in fact, the prince of Joseon, who was sent by the Qing army to transport grain, discovered that the so-called grain in that granary was all rancid.
Can't smell it and can't eat it at all.
What is the actual situation? In fact, the stored grains shipped to Liaodong have been "mixed with sand and chaff" by officials. The prince of Joseon was shocked by this and made a fuss.
In addition to the above accidents, the Western French Party, which was highly praised by later generations, once proposed to train 20,000 soldiers in the 47th year of Wanli. The quoted price was 400,000 for various ordnance barracks and 500,000 for food and salary. In other words, if 20,000 soldiers were trained, they would dare to
The imperial court asked for 900,000 taels. This price made the later governors of Ji Liao cry and complain that the Liao salary was too little!
The reason for such a high price is "to make extremely sophisticated equipment, one person can eat several people's wages", and then a funny thing happened: During the Chongzhen period, the Western French Party finally began to train troops in Shandong, and the soldiers they trained were for a chicken, and finally rebelled.
Voted the Eight Flags.
No, how could you, an elite soldier who "eats for one person and pays for others", be so hungry that you grab a chicken? Is the money unable to buy anything or is it going to places it shouldn't go?
In the early days of Chongzhen, the soldiers in the Beijing camp were paid 1, 24, and 1 hu of rice per month, but they had no combat effectiveness. They ate 978,000 shi of food a year, but only fewer than 10,000 soldiers were selected.
The monthly salary of Guan Ning Army is 1.4 taels plus 1 hu of rice; the monthly salary of Nanbing is 1.5 to 1.7 taels; the monthly salary of Dongjiang Army is 7 liang plus 1 hu of rice; the other Jiubian Army towns are even worse, ranging from 2 to 8 liang.
For example, in Ji Town, there are those with 4.5 cents and there are those with 7.5 cents. They are all soldiers, but the difference is so big.
Yongping City originally had 1,000 model soldiers, and Minzhuang had more than 2,000 cavalry troops. After the outbreak of the Liao Dynasty, an additional 3,000 Zhongwu Camps were established. However, Chongzhen launched a campaign to eliminate troops, and the battalion strength was reduced by two-thirds, and the cavalry troops were reduced.
Sixty-seven out of ten. So when it came to the Jisi Incident, it was easily defeated by the Qing army.
Qi Jiguang once customized the rockets used for the Ji Guard Tower, which cost 5 cents of silver each to produce a qualified product, and the inventory had to be eliminated and replaced with new ones every year. By the Chongzhen period of the late Ming Dynasty, the rockets had become 8 cents each, but in fact
The craftsman was only given 4 cents of silver to make it, and it was never replaced.
Not to mention what other uses this kind of rocket has besides being set off as fireworks, we need to ask whose pocket the other 4 cents ended up in.
For another example, in the 19th year of Wanli, the imperial court assigned 80,000 troops to the town of Datong, responsible for guarding 600 miles. However, by the time Chongzhen arrived, there were only more than 10,000 soldiers left in the important town of Datong. Raising horses was such a major matter that only a small amount of bean grass was given in the Spring and Autumn Period.
, Xia Qiu... let them graze by themselves.
"There are no soldiers in the Liao Dynasty, but there are no soldiers. The generals' family members are numerous." A family in western Liaoning eats the pay of five or six soldiers, and half of the family members' pay goes into the general's pocket.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! It was mentioned earlier that Guan Ning’s monthly salary was 1.4 taels, but in fact most of it was deducted to the servants, and then only 4 taels were actually paid to ordinary soldiers. Zu’s family has more than enough to save servants
, Wu Xiang raised three thousand Yi Ding, all as a good business.
When the Liao Dynasty first broke out, the imperial court mobilized troops from Sichuan, Hu and Guizhou provinces. This was originally a routine operation of the Ming Dynasty, but when you mobilized troops, you also mobilized chieftain troops. As a result, in order to make up the numbers and reduce expenditures, the Ministry of War recruited the unowned Miao people to gather these troops.
Among the reinforcements. However, many of these Miao people had feuds with each other, so "the people who were killed because of feuds rushed in together." Who knows what kind of magic operation this was.
In short, in the original history, the Ming army could not defeat the Jin army. The main reason may not be that the "Ming army" was not good, but that the "Ming system" was not good - those old bad systems were collapsing faster and faster.
Everyone was only interested in making money from it, so they finally played GG.
The current military reform of the Ming Dynasty has not actually touched the reform of the servant system. Gao Pragmatic has only separated out equipment manufacturing, and at the same time greatly strengthened financial supervision and transparency. In essence, the military system of the Ming Dynasty still has the tendency of warlordism.
It's just... how to put it, if the Ming Dynasty's army has become a warlord, then Gao Pragmatic himself is now the biggest warlord under the imperial power. When will he attack him with a knife? No one knows.
However, the good news is that for the time being, this kind of warlordization also means that the Ming army on the Korean battlefield currently does not dare to just protect itself - the big warlord leader personally sits in charge, and the little leaders all rely on him to feed themselves, so they dare not not fight attentively.
Looking back at the Japanese army, the controversy over its military discussions was also due to warlordism. Everyone was a daimyo, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a "martial arts leader". The leader took him to grab the benefits, so naturally everyone competed for the first place, but now suddenly found that the benefits were not available.
If you say that you can still fold all your old capital into it, then you have all kinds of thoughts.
However, except for Ukita Hideie, no one really regards loyalty to Taikaku as their highest purpose. Unless they have no choice.
Under what circumstances will it be a last resort? Naturally, it is when there is no other way out.
Therefore, when Gao Jingshi learned that the Japanese vanguard's attack had been frustrated, he temporarily stopped the offensive and retreated, and then suddenly ordered that the troops on the Lianhua Mountain frontline should immediately withdraw to Sichuan. At the same time, he also issued the latest instructions to Li Rumei and Liu Wei.
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