Although Dorgon was ready to abandon his army and flee south lightly, he still had high hopes that the reinforcements could capture Daming Mansion and open up the road back north. Of course, before that, he still had to
It was important to defend Kaifeng, so not only defensive fortifications were built against Chenliu and Zhuxian Town, but the defensive forces in the two places were also at a considerable cost.
Although there are only 30,000 troops stationed in Chenliu and Zhuxian Town, this is because these two places are not large, and it is useless to send more troops. Moreover, the troops stationed are all elite soldiers of the Qing army in Kaifeng.
Dorgon not only took the remaining more than 18,000 new troops and
More than 120 artillery pieces, as well as other remaining firearms in Kaifeng City, were all assigned to the two defense lines. In addition, if there were losses, Kaifeng would also replenish them at any time. Therefore, it can also be said that once Chen Liu and Zhu Xian
If the town is lost, Kaifeng City cannot be defended at all.
Of course, this is partly because Kaifeng must be defended before the winner can be determined on the battlefield in northern Henan. Dorgon also has another idea, that is, if the reinforcements cannot capture Daming Mansion, then all the hundreds of thousands of troops will be thrown into the ground.
The battlefield in the Central Plains is here. Instead of arriving,
It was better to be annihilated by the Chinese army at that time. It is better to fight to the death with the Chinese army at this time, while the hope of the whole army is still alive and there is still some fighting spirit, even if they are all ruined on the battlefields of Chenliu and Zhuxian Town
, and can also consume more of the Chinese Army’s troops.
At this time, the Qing army also received news from the front line of Damingfu that the coalition's Eastern Route Army was making good progress and had successively broken through three blocking positions of the Chinese army, and was very likely to capture Damingfu.
After the Chinese army captured the front line of Daming and Zhangde, although it cut off the retreat route of the Qing army in the Central Plains, the Chinese army could only block the main road and could not cut off every small road passing through Daming Mansion and Zhangde Mansion because they did not have enough troops.
The army is big
Although the army cannot pass through this area, individual spies can still pass news back and forth between the two places through some mountain roads and trails. Therefore, various news from the north can still be delivered to Kaifeng Mansion, although of course the time is slower than normal.
a few days.
However, this news finally came in time, because it was just before the Chinese army launched its attack on Kaifeng. For the Qing army, this news was undoubtedly a shot in the arm, so their morale was also greatly boosted. After all, hope had appeared.
The Chinese Army launched an attack on Chenliu County on October 14th. Due to the experience of the Southern Henan Campaign, the Chinese Army was not eager to launch an attack on the Qing Army immediately. Instead, it adopted the same large-scale earthworks method used in the Southern Henan Campaign.
Forced advance tactics, steady and steady attacks, gradual attacks, digging trenches all the way to the Qing army's forward positions, capturing and consolidating every village.
On the outskirts of Chenliu County, the Qing army occupied a total of five stations: Wangzhuang Village, Shinianzhuang, Banzhuang, Sanlibaozhuang and Dasi Village. Although the outermost trenches were not connected to each other, they were distributed in multiple layers.
It is criss-crossed and very complex. At the same time, there are also a few battles in southern Henan.
The defeated troops in the battlefield fled to Kaifeng, so the Qing army guarding Kaifeng also knew that the Chinese army had used geotechnical force advance tactics on the battlefield in southern Henan. During this period, the Qing army also discussed some ways to deal with the geotechnical force advance tactics.
Combining trench-on-trench tactics with short raids
That is, while the Chinese army was digging trenches, the Qing army was also digging trenches from its own position toward the Chinese army's position. The difference was that the Chinese army dug zigzag trenches that extended toward the Qing army. The Qing army dug circles of horizontal trenches to cut off the Chinese army's trenches.
The Chinese army brought with them more than 50,000 civilians, but the Qing army was simpler and directly recruited civilians from the Kaifeng area to dig trenches. Therefore, in the first two days of the battle, both sides did not dispatch ground troops, but only deployed troops in their positions. They used artillery fire on each other, while the civilians on both sides were vigorously wielding shovels, hoes, pickaxes and other tools below the horizon, and were diligently digging soil in the vast fields and plains of Henan.
If you look down from the sky at this time, you can clearly see that from the positions of both sides, intricate maze-like trenches and dense layers of trenches like spider webs are constantly approaching each other.
Three days later, the trenches dug by both sides finally came into contact. Several zigzag-shaped longitudinal trenches of the Chinese army were connected with the horizontal trenches of the Qing army. At the moment when the trenches of the Chinese army and the trenches of the Qing army were connected, , the calm on the battlefield was immediately broken, as Qing soldiers and Chinese soldiers fought fiercely in the narrow tunnels, waving their weapons.
But now the trenches on the battlefield are like a maze, with various horizontal and vertical directions, staggered and messy. Therefore, although the two sides have started fighting, it is only a part of this maze, and the fighting is taking place below the horizon. If you stand a little further on the ground, It is difficult to find that a fierce battle has begun in this place, because the civilians and soldiers who are digging trenches in other places do not know yet, and are still working hard to carry out soil work, all the way to the trenches with the opponent. Connected to this.
As the trenches of both sides came into contact with more and more points, the scope of the battle gradually expanded. On the fifth day, there were as many as seventeen connecting points between the trenches of both sides, and the combat areas were basically distributed. On the entire front, both sides stopped soil work at the same time and began to devote all their efforts to the battle.
But this was a very strange and strange battle. In the history of the war between the Chinese army and the Qing army, although there have been hundreds of battles, big and small, and all kinds of battles have been fought, there has never been one like this. The battle, because a large part of the battle between the two sides was actually carried out below the ground level.
To be honest, neither side had ever experienced this kind of combat method before, so at the beginning, they both seemed extremely uncomfortable with it, and the battle soon turned into various chaotic situations.
At first, both sides fought in the trenches, but because the space in the trenches was too narrow, the contact area between the two sides was limited. So someone soon discovered that if they climbed out of the trenches at this time and went to the ground, they could fight back. The enemy troops fighting in the trenches have a commanding advantage. Especially at this time, shooting at the enemy troops in the trenches with muskets or throwing grenades can often achieve very impressive results. Therefore, many soldiers climbed up one after another. Get out of the trench and insert yourself from the ground to the edge of the enemy's trench.
But soon the opponents discovered this and followed suit, so both sides climbed out of the trenches to fight. As a result, the battle quickly expanded from the trenches to the ground outside the trenches, forming a three-dimensional battle above and below ground.
After a period of fierce fighting, someone discovered that after the soldiers came to the ground to fight, a lot of space in the trenches was suddenly vacated. In many areas, the trenches were even completely empty. In this way, You can use the cover of the trenches to go around behind the enemy troops on the ground, and flank or encircle the enemy troops in parts of the battlefield. As a result, on local battlefields in many places, soldiers from both sides continued to fight in the trenches and on the ground. Changing positions, going up and down, disappearing and appearing, also made the entire battle situation more complicated.
The soldiers who were originally killing the advancing soldiers in the trenches suddenly looked up and found that there were countless enemy troops standing outside the trenches, launching ruthless attacks on the enemies in the trenches on the edge of the trenches on the ground. Soldiers fighting on the ground will suddenly find that a group of enemies will suddenly appear behind them and surround them. At this time, the two sides have become intertwined, and it is almost impossible to distinguish between the enemy's and ours' fronts, and the enemy's troops. In our army, there is me among you, and you among me. The soldiers on both sides are mixed and mixed together.
Therefore, the entire battlefield can only be described in one word - chaos, extreme chaos. At this time, the commands of both sides could not be communicated to the fighting units normally, and the commanders had actually lost control of the progress of the battle. The understanding and control have no effect. The battle can only be completed by relying on the individual ability of the soldiers, group cooperation and the ability of the front-line small team commander.
The soldiers fighting on the front line were also completely confused because they could not receive any instructions from their headquarters. They did not know where they were or what their goals were. They could only shuttle back and forth in the maze-like trenches, sometimes even Go out to observe the situation on the battlefield, determine your position, start fighting immediately when you encounter the enemy, fight only when you can, and retreat immediately if you can't defeat it. You exchange positions back and forth on the ground and in the trench, completely falling into chaos. During the battle.
In such a chaotic battle, it is a cruel mental and physical torture for the soldiers on both sides, because many conventional common sense on the battlefield will become invalid here. When surrounding the enemy, you may have been beaten. The enemy is surrounded; when there is no way out, you might be able to escape from the underground trench; who doesn't know when and where the enemy will appear, and where will he be surrounded by the enemy, or where? It has already penetrated behind the enemy.
Because most of the battles were almost encounters, as soon as the soldiers from both sides came into contact, they immediately engaged in close combat, hand-to-hand combat, random shooting of muskets, and random explosions of grenades. Although some places were occupied, after discovering that something was wrong, they It was immediately abandoned; in some places, the two sides launched repeated battles and changed hands several times.
In the trenches and on the surface, the corpses of dead soldiers from both sides were mixed together and scattered everywhere. When Tianfu came down, both sides sent out personnel to search for and transport them back. At first, fighting broke out again when they met, but later They all went about their own business, and the next day, a new round of bullying and killing began again on this land where the blood was still fresh.