Chapter 313: The Battle of Beijing and Tianjin (2)
Tongzhou, the "east gate of the capital", is under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Shuntian under the jurisdiction of Governor Jiliao. Militarily, it is under the jurisdiction of the left and right guards of Tongzhou under the jurisdiction of Miyun Military Preparation.
At the end of September, an infantry team of the Chinese Army and Taiwanese pirates set off from Wuqing County and went straight to Tongzhou. The commander of the first brigade of the first division was Zhao Tie's old partner, Huang Lue, the former commander of the first battalion of the Kuangbiao Regiment. , he took the main force of 5,000 people from the First Brigade, plus three sailors from the sentry as the forward, and marched rapidly, carrying only dry food and ammunition for seven days and nights, marched 60 miles in one day, attacked and occupied Langfang, and then Then they marched northwest for a day, covering 90 miles, until they reached the gates of Tongzhou City.
That night, thousands of officers and soldiers of Tongzhou Guard heard the sound of cannons and immediately collapsed.
Originally, the soldiers who stayed in Tongzhou were all old and weak, and the troops who were slightly capable of fighting had been transferred to the capital. Coupled with the sharp firearms of the Chinese army, the fierce fighting power had passed through Tianjin Guards and surrounding prefectures and counties, and spread throughout the capital. Qu area, and the officers and soldiers of Tongzhou's left and right guards had been owed pay for six months. Therefore, the officers and soldiers of Tongzhou had no intention of fighting. When they heard the explosion of Chinese army grenades, they thought it was the firing of the legendary siege heavy artillery, and they were shocked. , then collapsed, most of them abandoned the city and fled, and a small part surrendered to the Chinese army.
Huang Luebao was full of energy and wanted to fight a good battle. He marched in a hurry for two consecutive days and rushed to the gate of Tongzhou City. He only rested for two hours. He had just sent people to touch the gate tower of the east city gate and threw a few grenades, but the officers and soldiers immediately all collapsed.
The officers and soldiers opened the west gate and ran all the way towards the capital. The First Brigade did not and could not completely encircle Tongzhou City, so it was too late to catch up with the officers and soldiers. Huang Lue was extremely depressed and had no choice but to send several sentry sailors and musketeers into the city to maintain the defense. He was very unwilling to deal with the issue of public security. After dawn, he summoned his officers at all levels to discuss the next step.
"The Second Brigade will arrive tomorrow. It's unclear whether we can build a fortification and hold on to Tongzhou City so easily. Whether we can knock off the mountain and frighten the tiger," said a young staff officer at the division headquarters.
Huang Lue thought for a while and said: "General Manager Chen gave us an order to attack Tongzhou, threaten the capital, and force the imperial army to come out of the capital to fight with us. Since it is necessary to force, then we have to press hard step by step. I decided to attack the capital. March on,”
The commander of the second brigade of the first division was Yang Dacheng, the former deputy commander of the first regiment. He was more stable than Huang Lue. When he led the team to Tongzhou at noon the next day, he heard that Huang Lue's troops had already set off for the capital. , startled, Yang Dacheng sent an emergency notification to the old camp on the Weibei line in Tianjin, and led his troops to pursue Huang Lue Brigade's route.
Bali Bridge, also known as Yongtong Bridge, is located on the Tonghui River. It is named because it is eight miles away from the west gate of Tongzhou Old City. Bali Bridge is an important passage from Tongzhou to Beijing. It was built in the 11th year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1446). It was built by Huang Lue The troops marched very carefully. Twenty light field guns and ten Thunderbolt rocket vehicles from the artillery battalion affiliated to the brigade headquarters were arranged in the center of the marching column. The entire army advanced at a very slow speed.
About 1 mile away from Bali Bridge, the outpost scouts came back and reported that there were officers and soldiers stationed at the bridge, and the flag belonged to Zhang Chengyin, the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong Army.
The news that the Liaodong soldiers had entered the customs was something that the generals of the Chinese Army had known a few days ago, but this was the first time they discovered that the Liaodong soldiers were marching so fast and had already arrived in Tongzhou, east of the capital.
The garrison at Baliqiao was indeed the Liaodong Qinwang Army led by Governor Guo Guangfu as the chief grain transport officer, and the Liaodong Commander-in-Chief Zhang Chengyin as the main general. It was also the cavalry unit of the Liaodong Commander-in-Chief Zhang Chengyin who had just arrived the day before, with 3,000 cavalry led by the guerrilla Liang Rugui. In addition, there were also a supply camp of Zhang Si and Zhang Yuncheng of 100 households who aided the Liao guerrillas.
This is the forward force of the Liaodong Army. Chief Zhang Chengyin, deputy general Po Tingxiang, and more than 20,000 Liaodong Army troops including General Pu Shifang are still in Shanhaiguan.
The Tongzhou garrison who had fled the night before was also on the other side of Bali Bridge.
They still have more than 2,000 people who can gather and line up in the fields. This is the credit of the guerrilla Liang Rugui; he had just been ordered to camp at Baliqiao the day before, and in the evening he found that a large number of Tongzhou defenders had defeated him. Liang Rugui had the imperial certificate granted by the imperial court. He gave the order directly, so he killed several of the defeated soldiers on the spot, and used both soft and hard tactics to stabilize more than 2,000 deserted soldiers in Tongzhou.
While asking for help from the capital, he ordered the supply camp to deploy a series of carts east of Bali Bridge to form a vehicle formation. At the same time, he arranged the Liaodong Army's supply camp and the remnants of the Tongzhou Army in the vehicle formation, and his own cavalry The main force deployed behind the vehicle formation.
Liang Rugui didn't know anything about the situation of the Chinese army. He only knew that the opponent had a lot of firearms. He arranged the formation to deal with the firearms according to his own understanding: the carriage camp in front, the infantry and cavalry in the back, and each sidecar in the carriage camp. It is equipped with one large Folang machine gun, two small Folang machine guns, one bird cannon, and three quick guns, which are similar to the firearms equipment in Qi Jiguang's camp 50 years ago.
However, the total number of these firearms seems to be considerable, but when scattered across the entire defense line, it appears to be very weak and without depth. Guerrilla Liang Rugui has been fighting in Liaodong for many years, and his firearms combat experience all comes from dealing with the lack of firearms or the fundamental Mongolia without firearms, Jurchens.
The First Brigade of the First Regiment of the Chinese Army, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Huang Lue, the brigade commander, unfolded the formation during the march, directly converting the team from a four-row formation to a three-row formation with sentries as units. Liang Rugui, who was on the van, was surprised to find that under the morning sunshine, the Chinese army's troops transformed into a horizontal formation without any pause, and a gun carriage was launched into the formation.
In the impression of guerrilla Liang Rugui, artillery is a cumbersome thing, which is basically a heavy burden in the field. It can only be transported on a cart. When it reaches the battlefield, it has to be moved down with all hands and hands, and the earthen gun mounts are piled up and placed. For a fixed cannon, the entire barrel must be raised when discharging ammunition. However, the Chinese army's field artillery in front of us is directly mounted on wheels, pushed to the front and rear of the formation, and the figure-eight pillars are unfolded behind the gun carriage to complete the placement of the gun position.
Any field artillery of the Chinese Army, from the smallest 3-pounder to the 12-pound howitzer, has a range, rate of fire, and accuracy much better than the Liaodong Army's Folang machine gun. When 20 artillery pieces are attached to the First Brigade of the Chinese Army, After the battalion's field artillery opened fire, Liang Rugui immediately knew that his troops would be defeated.
The first batch of artillery shells smashed several sidecars in the front, and the explosive shells turned a large car into a torch. One artillery shell passed over the car array and directly drove the Liaodong cavalry array into a bloody lane. Ten Thunderbolts The rocket cars opened fire, each car fired 20 Thunderbolt rockets, and a total of 200 rockets exploded in the Liaodong military formation and overhead.
The Tongzhou soldiers collapsed first. Other soldiers in the baggage camp were at a loss, and some fired desperately. Although the Ming army's firearms were not very accurate, the Chinese army a mile away still suffered a small number of casualties. Huang Lue believed that to avoid casualties, it was better to To break the vehicle formation, he ordered the artillery to fire 10 rounds rapidly and the rocket vehicle to fire two more rounds.
Liang Rugui began to regret: he should not have left the Tongzhou soldiers behind. These guys who had lost the will to fight had implicated the entire Ming army. After the first round of artillery bombardment by the Chinese army, he wanted the cavalry to pass through the car array and attack, but The scattered soldiers made the entire position in chaos, and the cavalry could not launch a charge at all.
With the continuous bombardment of the Chinese Army, the entire vehicle formation gradually collapsed, and the weak firearms counterattack also stopped. Amidst the sound of conch trumpets and drums, the infantry soldiers of the First Brigade of the Chinese Army began to advance neatly. When the chaotic vehicle formation was still about 200 steps away, the field artillery stopped firing, and Thunderbolt rockets continued to fire at the Ming army's rear positions.
A sparse cavalry charge from the Ming Army broke out of a vehicle formation that became a line of fire, and was knocked down by a volley of Chinese infantry. Such a sparse cavalry charge did not pose a threat to the infantry line at all.
Liang Rugui was desperate; his cavalry was in chaos under the attack of artillery fire and thunderbolt rockets, while the enemy's neat infantry line had advanced to 100 steps away, and the entire line was flashing with firelight and spewing smoke from time to time. and bullets, making the chaotic Ming army position even more chaotic.
The Liaodong cavalry, fearless of death, charged at the Chinese infantry line. The sporadic cavalry charges were invariably stopped by the Chinese flintlock muskets.
A bullet hit the leader of Liang Rugui's soldiers and killed him on horseback. Liang Rugui was shocked: he was now at the rear of the position, at least 200 steps away from the Chinese infantry, but the Chinese army's Fire blunderbuss bullets can actually hit his own soldiers; in all his battle experience, he has never heard of bird blunderbuss being able to hit people from such a distance.
His will to fight also collapsed, and he abandoned his soldiers regardless, turning around and fleeing the battlefield with hundreds of his own soldiers.
In the Battle of Baliqiao in Tongzhou, the Ming Army's Liaodong Army's transport camp and the left-wing cavalry battalion lost nearly 1,000 people. The entire army collapsed, and thousands of people surrendered. Huang Lue's troops died in the battle, with more than ten people killed, and slightly more injured.
When Yang Dacheng's second brigade arrived, Huang Lue's troops did not bother to clean the battlefield, leaving only one sentry to guard the prisoners, while the rest of the brigade continued to advance towards the capital.
Yang Dacheng shook his head and ordered several sailor musketeers who came with his troops to stay behind to clean the battlefield and escort the prisoners. He prepared to lead his troops to continue chasing Huang Lue's first brigade.
The commander of the 4th Ryukyu Sentinel of the Marine Corps was very dissatisfied and shouted to Yang Dacheng: "Why should you let your infantry rush to the front to take the lead? Our Marine Corps is not an auxiliary force. We can't always clean the battlefield for you." live,"
Yang Dacheng frowned. Seeing that the captain spoke with a Hainanese accent, he knew that he must be a gangster brought by the ship owner from Yazhou. Since he was the first direct descendant of Yin Feng, he had always been a bit insignificant. He said coldly : "I know that the Mariners can fight. Now we need to fight regular battles to attack the capital. Can your Mariners surpass us in array drills?