The Western Expedition Army of Southern Xinjiang defeated the Mughal Empire's Eastern Expedition Pioneer Army outside the city of Rajmohar, and the Empire's Empress Padishah Jahangircang withdrew - this is where Gao Pragmatic received the battle report.
The battle report was written by Liu Xin, who almost completely downplayed his role in the battle report, but praised Gao Yuan's correct command from all angles and the outstanding performance of generals at all levels. At first glance, there is no problem at all, but Gao is pragmatic
Obviously he would not accept it without hesitation. He could predict that Gao Yuan's command must be guided by Liu Xin.
But, it doesn't matter. Being able to listen to correct opinions and accept them wholeheartedly is proof of your excellence as a commander. At least from this point of view, Gao Yuan is still qualified.
As for whether Gao Yuan took the initiative to accept the guidance here, or whether he had to accept the guidance because Gao Pragmatic, a father, had strict orders, it is hard to say. It can only be said that judging from the wording in Liu Xin's battle report, Gao Yuan
Yuan's cooperation should be good, and the probability of taking the initiative to accept guidance will be higher.
Of course, this is why Gao Jingshi thinks he understands Liu Xin relatively well. Because he judges that if Gao Yuan violates her openly or secretly, or even conflicts with her in private, she will most likely explain the situation to him directly - she has this special characteristic.
The question now is, what will happen next? Gao Pragmatic’s understanding of the historical geography of India is far less than that of China and Europe, so he immediately found the map drawn by Jinghua. The accuracy of this map is not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, but basically
That's enough.
Gao Pragmatic first found the location of Rajmohar (note: this place basically corresponds to Rajshahi in later generations), roughly imagined the terrain, and then contacted Liu Xin's battle report, and immediately formed a 3D battlefield situation map in his mind -
- This is of course not a sudden change of high pragmatism, but an ability formed after playing too many games such as "Total War", which normal players should have.
Now that Jahangir retreated from the city of Rajmohar, he should have retreated to the Bihar area. There should be a short-term confrontation between the two sides. Then it will depend on whether Jahangir's desire to attack is strong or weak. If so,
, he will launch another attack soon. If it is weak, then he may need to wait about half a month before attacking again - Gao pragmatically estimates that half a month should be enough time for the Mughal Empire army to gather together.
If we extrapolate from the results of the Battle of Rajmohar, it seems that the Southern Xinjiang Army fought a bit conservatively in this battle. It seems that if the Southern Xinjiang Army chose not to just attack with more than a thousand elite cavalry to weaken the enemy's spirit, but to directly leave the city.
A decisive battle with the Mughal vanguard army, maybe the vanguard army can be completely annihilated.
However, this is actually impossible, because from the perspective of the battle situation, the Southern Xinjiang Army's military disadvantage is obvious. Liu Xin, who is on the front line, is unlikely to adopt an all-or-nothing approach to combat, but will try his best to fight.
Seek stability if possible.
This is where we need to review the force structure of the Southern Xinjiang Army’s Western Expedition. The Western Expedition was divided into two routes, the North and the South. The commander of the North Route Army was Ruan Song. Before the war, he was the deputy commander of the Bago Garrison Army and the commander of the second town;
The deputy commander is Xia Zhongming, the prince of Bago. The strength of the North Route Army is 12,700 people from the Second Town of the Bago Guard Army, plus 5,000 people from the Southern Army of the Bago Palace Guards, for a total of 17,700 people, known as 50,000. This is
After successfully capturing Arakan, the Zhibei Route Army stayed in Arakan as a temporary garrison and did not continue westward into Bangladesh.
Therefore, the Southern Xinjiang Western Expedition Army entering Bangladesh is actually another route, that is, the Southern Route Army, which is the main force of the Western Expedition. Ignoring the surface power provided by the Nanyang Fleet, the South Route Army's army configuration is as follows:
The second town of the Dinh Nam Garrison controls 12,700 people from the Ko Sigang Department; the third town of the Phnom Penh Garrison controls 12,700 people from the Ko Siyao Department; the Nghe An Prefecture’s Huang Ying Department has more than 4,500 people from the First Association of Wolf Soldiers (4,038 people in the original number, and the first battalion was temporarily strengthened
Cavalry, 1st Battalion Artillery); temporarily designated as the First Agreement of the Cen Yunhan Department of the Third Town of the Old Port Guards 4500
people (with temporary reinforcements from Gao Jue); about 4,000 people from the First Association Cen Maoren Department of the Second Town of the Vientiane Guard Army; about 4,000 people from the Huang Congzhe Department of the Second Association of the Third Town of the Phnom Penh Guard Army; Huang Clan Wolf Soldiers of Haidong Prefecture
There are about 4,000 people in the Huangnan Jin tribe of the First Association of the Second Town; when Gao Yuan went south, Gao Pragmatic sent him more than 1,000 elite armed servants.
Adding up the strength of the above parts, it can be seen that the total strength of the Southern Xinjiang Western Expedition Army entering Bangladesh is about 47,000 people, only half of the Mughal Empire's Eastern Expedition Army.
Although after occupying Bangladesh, the Southern Xinjiang Army also gained support from some local armed forces (i.e., the vassal-like armed forces under the Mapuni system of the Mughal Empire mentioned earlier), and even took the lead in organizing some security forces, but these people
Obviously, they cannot be completely trusted by the Southern Xinjiang Army - whether it is loyalty or combat effectiveness, the Southern Xinjiang Army cannot trust them.
In other words, when the main force of the Mughal Empire attacks, the Southern Xinjiang Army can still only rely on its own troops that have entered Bangladesh, with a total of less than 50,000 people. What’s worse is that the security situation in Bangladesh is still only worse than
The worst situation has been alleviated, but it is still necessary to leave a large number of main forces in southern Xinjiang to guard and deter, so that the frontline city of Rajmohar actually only has about 30,000 main forces.
The strength of these troops is only roughly the same as that of the Mughal Empire's vanguard army. Of course Liu Xin cannot risk all his troops to fight - it goes without saying that if he wins, if he loses, it will be doomed. Even a draw cannot be accepted, the loss is too great.
It is also unacceptable. Otherwise, why would we fight in the subsequent battles?
The superior force has a superior force strategy, and the inferior force has a inferior force strategy. We can't even apply Nurhaci's strategy in the historical Battle of Sarhu, "No matter how many ways you come, I only go all the way." Because Nurhachi's strategy at the time
troops
After gathering into one army, any of the three armies of the Ming army had a clear advantage in strength. In the battle of Rajmohar, even if the southern Xinjiang army in the city came out in full force, they could not defeat the Mughal Empire.
The vanguard army forms a strength advantage.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! So it is obvious what Gao Wuzhi can judge now: Liu Xin and others are forced by insufficient troops and have no stable basis for local rule.
He dared to go out of the city to "fight", so he made up his mind to fight in Rajmer.
Ha'er fought a defensive battle, or at most a defensive counterattack (which required the main force of the Mughal army to be seriously frustrated and damaged under the city). Then they took advantage of Jahangir's underestimation of the enemy and defeated the Mughal Empire's vanguard army first, gaining morale.
The advantage will be beneficial to the possible long-term city defense battle that may follow.
Judging from the current actual situation, this plan is the safest, because even if all Jahangir's army arrives and surrounds Rajmohar on three sides with its strength, it will not cut off the land supply route of the Southern Xinjiang Army.
Firstly, the Southern Xinjiang Army has stocked up a large amount of food in the city, and secondly, there is a big river to the south of Rajmohar City. With the Southern Xinjiang Army's strong water advantage, this water food route is safe.
But even so, Gao Pragmatic still felt that it was wrong to just stick to Rajmohar, and some movement must be made in other aspects. This is what the art of war says: "Win with the right combination and win with the unexpected".
Rajmohar is not Moscow and cannot rely on General Dong to "crippling" the enemy. As long as Jahangir does not lose his mind and slowly retreats as soon as he finds that his losses are too great, then the Southern Xinjiang Army
You can almost just watch him retreat safely, and the whole battle has limited meaning.
But if we can win by surprise, such as using the waterway advantage to quietly mobilize an elite force to outflank the Mughal army, and then the southern Xinjiang army in the city launches a coordinated attack, it is possible to achieve a great victory under the attack from both front and rear.
Of course, whether or not to implement this will depend on the vigilance of the Mughal army. If the enemy is very vigilant and arranges a elite force behind the army to prepare for a sneak attack, this plan will basically go bankrupt.
However, the waterway advantage can still be exploited, just change the sneak attack on the back of the Mughal army to harassing its food routes - because the difference in strength is too large, it is basically impossible to cut off the enemy's food routes, and at best it will be harassment.
However, after Gao Pragmatic thought about it, he felt that this might still be mostly a psychological attack, and the actual impact might be average. The reason is that the Ganges Plain is a rich grain-producing area, and even if the Mughal army really attacked the grain route,
If they are serious, they may also requisition food locally. Although it will cause serious harm to the local area, they will definitely be able to overcome the military food shortage.
At this time, Gao Pragmatic also had a headache. According to his usual combat habits, he rarely fought such battles with inferior troops. After all, he never felt that he had Napoleon's ability at the military level to fight with inferior troops.
Win a big battle like the Battle of Three Emperors.
His advantage is actually mainly before the war - I have the ability to form a series of advantages such as troop strength, equipment advantage, logistics advantage, organizational advantage, etc. before the war. So when it comes to the war, as long as I don't make any mistakes, I can directly draw A
Go up and win.
But this is not the case in Bangladesh now. Basically, except for the advantage of "well-equipped soldiers and sufficient food", the gap in military strength is really too big, much greater than Napoleon's military disadvantage in the Battle of Three Emperors - the French army at that time
There are 74,000 people, and the Russian-Austrian coalition forces have 86,000 people.
What is the current situation in Rajmohar? The southern Xinjiang army is about 30,000 people (not counting surface forces and sailors), while the Mughal army is over 90,000 people.
After much thought, Gao Pragmatic still felt that this military disadvantage was too great. After all, based on the performance of the two previous battles between the Southern Xinjiang Army and the Mughal Army (the first was with Emperor Akbar), the Mogul Army
Although the combat effectiveness of the Wo'er Army is indeed inferior to that of the Southern Xinjiang Army, the gap is obviously not so big that the Southern Xinjiang Army can win one against three.
In this case, Gao Pragmatic felt that although Liu Xin and Gao Yuan on the front line had not asked for additional troops, as the de facto supreme ruler of southern Xinjiang, he should still take the initiative to provide some reinforcements to Bangladesh.
In his opinion, Gao Yuan did not mention increasing troops because he was probably worried about being looked down upon by his father, and at the same time, it might also shake his prestige within Beijing, which was still being gradually established; Liu Xin did not mention increasing troops.
It may be that she doesn't want to be looked down upon, and secondly, it may be that she feels that she can indeed defend Rajmohar with her current strength.
However, they can think this way, being highly pragmatic but not willing to just guarantee to defend Rajmohar in such a battle - you, Jahangir, even took the initiative to tear up the alliance and attack me, I won't give you any color,
Do you think I'm easy to get along with?
After going through the troop deployment of the Southern Xinjiang garrison in his mind, Gao pragmatically wrote down lines of small characters.
"Order: The fourth town of Thang Long Garrison and the third town of Jinggang Garrison will be transferred to the Kingdom of Bangladesh immediately. They are all under the control of Gao Yuan and Liu Xin, the chief and deputy commander-in-chief of the Western Expeditionary Army.
The Dhaka Garrison accelerated its training and established three towns. The vacancies were temporarily filled by Siamese and Annan reservists. Weapons and equipment were transferred from the three armories of Thang Long, Jinggang, and Dinnan. The remaining vacancies were ordered by the Jinghua Ordnance Industry.
Emergency production and allocation according to needs; the selection of officers shall be submitted to the Southern Xinjiang Military Command for preliminary review without waiting for the approval of the capital, and will be decided after the war based on merits and demerits.
The Second 'Dongning' Independent Association and the Fifth 'Old Port' Independent Association of the Nanyang Fleet Marine Corps were transferred to the Kingdom of Bangladesh. They were all under the control of Gao Yuan and Liu Xin, the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of the Western Expeditionary Army, as before.
A special military payment of 400,000 taels of silver was allocated to the Western Expeditionary Army, which was allocated from the profits handed over by the Nanyang Fleet last year; a special ration of 30,000 tons of rice was allocated by the Bago Kingdom, 50,000 tons of corn was urgently allocated by Liaodong Farm, and 4,000 tons of salted and dried fish were allocated by
The Annan Metropolitan Envoy Division allocated..."
Although Gao Pragmatic has been busy with royal affairs recently, he still has a rough idea of his various family properties, and he is very good at mobilizing all kinds of materials. He has more than a dozen kinds of military supplies and military supplies. He doesn't have to ask the secretariat, he can do it all by himself.
Second, it was easy to decide. I can only say that he really knows how to manage finances.
After he finished writing, he checked it again, then called Gao Qi and asked him to quickly send the order to the corresponding person in charge according to the destination. Gao Qi read it twice carefully, and personally led people to rush to Feige, the capital, to deliver the letter
, I won’t go into details here.
What Gao Pangshi didn't know was that just when he issued this series of instructions to reinforce the front line, there were also changes in Rajmohar. This change was initiated by the Southern Xinjiang Army.
It turned out that after the victory in the initial battle outside Rajmohar City, the Southern Xinjiang Army did not relax its vigilance. Since the front line knew that Gao Pragmatic might be on his way back to Beijing and wondered whether the battle report could be received in time, Gao Yuan discussed with Liu Xin
, believed that although Jahangir was defeated, his main force was intact and could come back at any time. Therefore, they decided to take the initiative and send an elite cavalry deep behind enemy lines to conduct guerrilla raids to weaken the Mughal Empire's logistics supply lines.
Continue to shake its frontline morale.
In view of the results of this battle, this cavalry continued to use the elite cavalry of servants led by Gao Shizhong. The more than a thousand elite cavalry under Gao Shizhong were all servants brought from the north, with superb riding skills and incomparable bravery. This time they replaced
Carrying only the necessary supplies of dried meat and dry food, they quietly left Rajmohar, crossed the Ganges River, and sped away towards Bihar.
The Bihar region is generally a Ganges plain area, but it is divided into north and south parts by the Ganges River. India's terrain as a whole gradually rises from north to south, which is reflected in the Bihar region: the north is
It was a complete alluvial plain, with some hilly areas gradually forming in the south. Gao Shizhong's operational goal was to destroy the Mughal army's logistics line in the hilly areas south of Bihar.
Let me briefly explain here that it was very difficult to supply an army of 100,000 people in this era. Therefore, all the food and wages for the Mughal Empire's Eastern Expedition were not transported from the capital Agra in a single line, but from several states (approximately equal to provinces) along the way.
Each is responsible for a part.
In this case, destroying the food and salary supply line in southern Bihar can affect at least about two-fifths of the army's supply - of course, this does not mean that these two-fifths can be completely cut off, depending on the degree of damage.
.
A few days later, Gao Shizhong's cavalry arrived in the southern hills of Bihar. They avoided the main traffic arteries, chose a hidden path, passed through the dense jungle, and quietly approached the Mughal logistics.
Transfer station.
As night fell, Gao Shizhong gave the order to attack. The cavalry rushed out of the darkness like ghosts, and torches and rockets flew together, instantly turning the Mughal camp into a sea of fire. The soldiers and civilians of the Mughal Empire started from
They woke up in a panic and were in a mess, unable to organize effective resistance. Gao Shizhong's cavalry rushed left and right in the camp, not only destroying food and grass, burning tents, but also causing damage to the Mughal army and a large group of civilians.
suffered a great loss.
In the chaos, Gao Shizhong's cavalry did not hesitate to fight. They quickly withdrew after completing their sabotage mission and quickly disappeared into the night. Although the Mughal pursuers were reluctantly organized and wanted to follow them, it was already too late.
Needless to say, I lost my way the first time I entered the jungle, and in the end I could only curse and return without success.
In the next few days, Gao Shizhong's cavalry wandered around the hilly areas of southern Bihar like ghosts. Sometimes they attacked small groups of Mughal patrols, and sometimes they destroyed traffic arteries, such as burning or blowing up small and medium-sized bridges.
Class, which caused this part of the Mughal army's logistical supply line to fall into chaos.
Of course, Jahangir was extremely angry, but even if he sent out the elite cavalry brought from Afghanistan by his ancestors, he was still helpless against this elusive southern Xinjiang cavalry. In the complex mixed hills and plains area, as long as an elite cavalry does not want to
If you get caught, you can basically avoid getting caught.
After another successful night attack, Gao Shizhong's cavalry rested in a hidden valley. Gao Shizhong sat by the campfire, listening to the scout's report, frowning. He knew that despite some achievements, the Moghul army
The main force of the empire is still strong, and they also have a lot of cavalry on hand, so they must be careful and careful. If they are not careful, they will be bitten, and then fall into an unfavorable battle, losing precious troops in vain.
troops.
At this moment, a cavalryman hurriedly came to report: "The position (the temporary position after Gao Shizhong's transfer to the south was first the "cavalry title of the imperial guard", and later Gao Pragmatic was promoted to the Duke of the country and was changed to the "cavalry title of the crown prince", so it was called
"Zone"), we found another Mughal granary next to a village more than ten miles to the west, and this time the granary looks quite large, with a total of fourteen large granaries!"
A flash of light flashed in Gao Shizhong's eyes. According to previous experience, the fourteen warehouses contained at least 200,000 kilograms of grain (note that it is kilograms, not tons). He immediately ordered: "Everyone mounts up. Tonight, we are going to give
A bigger surprise for Jahangir!”
Night fell again, and Gao Shizhong's cavalry, like cheetahs in the dark, quietly approached the Mughal granary. Perhaps because of the importance of this transfer station, this granary was not located in the village, but was set up alone in the village.
In addition, this will lose the passive warning effect of villagers and even animals such as chickens and dogs.
The Mughal soldiers guarding the granary did not realize that the danger was coming. It was not until the southern Xinjiang army's pottery oil jars fell and smashed to the ground, and the smell of kerosene could not be concealed, that they realized that the situation was not good. However, Gao Shizhong did not know at all.
Giving them a chance to react, rockets rained down from the sky, and they panicked and realized that they had been caught in another attack.
Gao Shizhong was fully armored, but he still rushed into the granary first. His sword flashed cold light in the firelight, and the Mughal soldiers fell one after another. The servants' elite cavalry followed closely behind, and they quickly ignited the fire.
The granary was ignited by the rain of arrows, and the flames shot up into the sky, illuminating the night sky red.
By the time the approaching Mughal reinforcements arrived, Gao Shizhong's cavalry had already disappeared into the night, leaving only a sea of fire and chaotic Mughal soldiers - dead or alive.
This attack was indeed an important transit station. They not only burned the grain, but also burned the granary. In less than ten days and a half, it would be difficult to even rebuild the warehouse. This gave the Mughal Empire's logistics supply line
It caused a big blow and once again greatly weakened their morale.
The news came back to Rajmohar, and both Liu Xin and Gao Yuan expressed their appreciation for Gao Shizhong's actions. Liu Xin wrote in the battle report to Gao Shizhi: "Gao Shizhong went deep into the enemy's rear, repeatedly performed extraordinary feats, and was both wise and courageous.
Be a role model for me in southern Xinjiang."
When Jahangir heard the news that the granary here was burned, he was so angry that he kicked five or six wine cans into pieces. He knew that the situation in this war had become more complicated, and he had to start again.
Assess the strength of the Southern Xinjiang Army and formulate new countermeasures.
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PS: This chapter was originally supposed to be posted yesterday, but I ended up watching the Zhuhai Air Show video too much, so I just wrote a little more today and added it in. It’s almost 6K.