"Is it necessary to capture Wuchang City? The king's order only said to capture Wuchang, cut off shipping along the Yangtze River, and block traffic between the north and the south. It did not say to capture Wuchang, right?"
Yang Qi was surprised by what Mai Dahai said. He turned to look at Mai Dahai for a while, which made Mai Dahai look at himself suspiciously and found that there was nothing wrong with him: "What's wrong, Lao Qi, you What is this looking at?"
"Haha, Brother Mai, look at you, you can still speak words. I heard that you have hired a room of Yangzhou thin horses who are literate in Chinese characters. You must have learned from the king. This time in the military academy training class for general officers, I also heard that you are very serious about reading and literacy, and you passed Mr. Xu’s exam,”
Mai Dahai laughed and said confidently: "That's right, now that I can read two thousand characters, I can be considered a scholar." As he spoke, his face became serious: "The ship owner warned me that the reason why I committed a favoritism was Military regulations are because I don’t know the rules, and if I want to know the rules, I have to read more. Therefore, in this training class for general officers, I specially invited Mr. Xu Hongji as my teacher and studied hard for several days..."
The Chinese military officer corps was also greatly affected by the great purge they had just experienced. Yang Qi did not want to say anything more about Mai Dahai's demotion, so he could only point to the Wuchang City Road in the distance: "...the military order said to go straight to Wuchang and cut it off. Regarding north-south transportation, it is true that we did not talk about capturing or capturing Wuchang. However, if we do not go ashore to capture Wuchang, how can we teach the Ming Dynasty a harsh lesson? In this way, let my marines go up and land on the Sheshan River Beach, and the fleet will provide artillery cover. , the infantry brothers landed in Ezhou and pretended to attack Wuchang by land to contain the officers and soldiers. What do you think?"
Mai Dahai is not the kind of young officer of the Chinese Army who is in urgent need of making contributions, so he does not want to land and attack a big city like Wuchang. He thought about it and said: "First, the Marine Corps can gather up to more than 4,000 people; second, we do not carry an attack force." It takes time to dismantle the city's heavy artillery and dismantle the ship's bow cannon for landing. Moreover, Wuchang is an important town on the Yangtze River, and the officers and soldiers will not retreat without a fight. Finally, there is another question. Have you ever thought about it? We have publicly announced that the Western Expedition will directly attack Wuchang. This has been made public. As far as the world is concerned, if we start a landing operation, it means that our ultimate goal is to capture Wuchang. We must capture Wuchang City to declare that we have achieved our final goal. Otherwise, it means that we have not completed this Western Expedition. Your Majesty said, The purpose of this battle was to teach the Ming Dynasty a profound lesson, not to capture the city."
Yang Qi insisted on his point of view: "I think that since the king said that he wants to teach the Ming Dynasty a profound lesson, then conquering Wuchang can achieve this goal. Capturing Wuchang City is to declare that our Chinese army has the ability to capture any city along the Yangtze River. Only in this way can we force this old man from the Zhu family to sit down and negotiate with us."
Mai Dahai frowned and turned to ask the military intelligence spy Mr. Wen: "Mr. Wen, I wonder how the officers and soldiers in the city are deploying their defenses."
Mr. Wen said: "I am still asking my subordinates to draw detailed defense plans. However, the officers and soldiers have been deployed frequently these days, and the defense situation changes every day... We also have hidden stakes among the officers and soldiers guarding the city. There will be no problem in entering and exiting the city wall. Tomorrow morning I will send you a defense plan,"
Mai Dahai said: "First of all, we need to find out the arrangement of heavy firearms of the officers and soldiers. We also need to find out the specific garrison locations, troop strength, weapon configurations, main generals, etc. of each department... Ah Qi, let's first find out the deployment of the officers and soldiers. , and then decide whether to attack the city, how about,"
Yang Qi reluctantly nodded, feeling deep down that Mai Dahai was becoming less and less courageous after experiencing his demotion.
...before deciding whether to capture Wuchang City, the Chinese army did not just park quietly on the Sheshan River, but attacked everywhere. Ten flat-bottomed sand barges and gunboats in the fleet broke into the Han River and bombarded the south of the Han River. In Hanyang City, Chen Daoheng and a large number of Ming troops were defeated in Hanyang City.
During this period, due to the diversion of the Han River during the Chenghua Period of this dynasty, the Han River originally poured into the Yangtze River from the south of Guishan. In the Chenghua Period, its main stream flowed into the Yangtze River from Jijiazui in the north of Guishan. After the redirection, the north bank became a low-lying desert island. Zone, this swamp will become Hankou Town in the future.
With the help of the northeast wind, the Chinese army's schooner cruiser moved from Wuchang to Yuezhou Prefecture (Yueyang) overnight, and used rockets to burn down the Ming army's navy stationed in Dongting Lake. In fact, it was just a dozen small warships converted from fishing boats. , thereafter, until the Chinese fleet withdrew eastward, there were more than ten Chinese warships cruising at the exit of Dongting Lake into the Yangtze River, which restrained a large number of Ming Dynasty military troops in the upper reaches of Wuchang and blocked the entrance of Dongting Lake.
At this moment, most of the officers and soldiers entering Wuchang City are the headquarters of the Huguang General Army and reinforcements from Guizhou, Sichuan, and Jiangxi. These troops have just had a mutiny due to lack of pay. In fact, their combat effectiveness is very questionable. The Governor of Huguang Lin Yu once went to the Prince of Chu's Mansion to ask the current King of Chu, the ninth King of Chu, Zhu Huakui, to sponsor some military pay to defend the city. However, this King of Chu, Zhu Huakui, inherited the stingy tradition of the old Zhu family and was not willing to even show up to show off. They found a eunuch and sent the governor away.
Since Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang in the Ming Dynasty, and Du Xiancheng, the commander-in-chief of Huguang, mobilized people from all walks of life to defend the city, strengthened the defense of Wuchang, and also adjusted the defense positions of the city defenders, Mr. Wen's secret channel out of the city was also affected. Mai Dahai, Yang Qi and others waited until the third day before the Wuchang city defense map arrived.
At the same time, a war situation report and a written order from Yin Feng were sent by a communication ship to the flagship Feilong of the Chinese Army's Yangtze River Task Force on the shore of Sheshan.
Mai Dahai first opened the order: "...Okay, the ship owner ordered us to capture Wuchang and surrounding counties and wait until spring before evacuating. Moreover, the First Taiwan Aboriginal Battalion, the Li Min Battalion, the Luzon Battalion and the Cavalry Brigade Special Battalion are all We have already set off from Chongming Island to support our operations, and a special task force from the Weapons Research Department will come to Wuchang and be placed under my command."
Yang Qizheng was lying on the bow deck of the ship looking at the Ming army's defense map. He breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the order: "Your Majesty is aware of everything, but what is going on with this special task force of the Weapons Research Department?"
"The order did not mention that the Weapons Research Department is under the personal jurisdiction of the King. We can only know the truth after they arrive." Mai Dahai opened the war report and took a look: "Oh, the indigenous battalion and the cavalry battalion are about We can reach Huangzhou tomorrow, Ah Ye, Lao Qi, your Marine Corps has lost Wuhu..."
Hearing this, Yang Qi immediately jumped up from the deck, grabbed the battle report, widened his eyes and said: "What, how is it possible? A night attack by white soldiers, a night attack of only 1,000 people, can defeat my 800 marines." ,"
Ten days ago, the white soldiers in Jinling City broke out from Yuhuatai and sneaked to Wuhu for two nights. With the cooperation of the people in Wuhu City, they broke into the city at night.
The siege of Jinling City by the Chinese army was very loose, and they only occupied a few surrounding strongholds. The strongholds were connected to each other by cavalry patrols, and were supplemented by local militia patrols with fishing boats in the water network.
Luo Quanxiu, the land commander of the Chinese Army's Jiangnan Campaign, was leading the main force of the infantry in a confrontation with the Ming Dynasty official army north of Huzhou. Wuhu and other important strongholds west of Jinling were under the responsibility of the navy. However, the infantry's cavalry patrol did not find Bai Bai who had broken out of the city. The soldiers and the Marine Corps were completely unprepared for the sneak attack. They were indeed completely unprepared because they did not expect that the Ming army could carry out a sneak attack. There were no mines laid under the Wuhu city wall, nor were fishing nets or bells laid on the wall to warn. So on that dark night, the sailors were caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. They had to retreat from Wuhu City. A naval gunboat moored at Wuhu Pier was rushed aboard by white soldiers. The gunner on duty on the ship rushed to the ship at the last moment. It ignited the gunpowder magazine on the gunboat and exploded into pieces together with the gunboat.
"127 brothers were lost, more than 200 were injured, more than 160 flintlock muskets were lost, a third-class gunboat was lost, and 27 cannons..." Yang Qi's face turned livid, and he shook off the notice: "The thief's white pole" Soldier, these Sichuan barbarians are so hateful, no, I have to go..."
Mai Dahai came over and picked up the war report and said calmly: "Forget it, let's fight the battle in front of us. The report said that Luo Quanxiu took his troops to retake Wuhu. This matter has nothing to do with us now. The most important thing is to focus on Wuchang City,"
Yang Qi nodded angrily and went to check the Wuchang defense map again, cursing in his mouth: "We must make the white-pole soldiers suffer a little. The one who led the night attack on Wuhu was Qin Liangyu, the son of Mrs. Qin, Ma Xianglin, huh, Sooner or later, we have to make him look good..."
"There are white-pole soldiers in Hanyang City, led by Qin Bangping, the commander of Shidu, but we have to wait until we capture Wuchang before we can go after them to cause trouble." Mai Dahai held up a telescope and observed Wuchang City while saying: "The shipowner king repeatedly He warned us not to underestimate the enemy. Look, isn’t this still underestimating the enemy? I don’t think it will be easy to defeat Wuchang City. We must use all our strength to fight this battle well,”
The Battle of Wuhu was just a small-scale local counterattack by the Ming army. In order to get in touch with Jiangbei at Wuhu, Sun Chengzong, the Minister of War in Jinling City, and the 780,000 or 80,000 Ming troops under his command were surrounded at the beginning of the first month and were lost. Contact with the outside world. Later, the Ming army was trying to catch people, and the scouts went out of the city many times to investigate. They found that the blockade and encirclement of the Chinese army was not tight, so they sent people out of the city many times to contact the Ming army in northern Zhejiang and western Anhui. However, , more than a thousand Chinese military ships came and went on the Yangtze River, especially on the river directly opposite Jinling City, the Chinese army blocked it so tightly that Jinling City lost contact with the Ming Army in Jiangbei and even the capital.
Therefore, Shizhu Xuanwei, the commander of the Baigan soldiers, personally led his elite troops to attack Wuhu at night. At the same time, he also took the opportunity to send ships to cross the river to the other side and get in touch with the Ming army on the other side of the river. In fact, three days later, Luo Quanxiu led a When the infantry of the regiment arrived, Ma Xiangzuo took the initiative to retreat with his troops. Before leaving, he set a fire in the Wuhu arsenal. After a huge explosion, all the tens of thousands of kilograms of gunpowder concentrated by the Chinese army were destroyed. .
The Tang report of the "big victory" in this night attack was immediately rushed to the capital by Yang Shuzhong, the governor of Fengyang, who was currently commanding the Ming army in Jiangbei. As a result, the Ming army, which had suffered repeated defeats against the maritime pirates for many years, finally After a reasonable victory, the central cabinet of the Ming Dynasty published the transcript of the "Wuhu Great Victory" to the public in the name of Emperor Tianqi, and published it in the imperial newspaper and sent it to all parts of the country. Ma Xiangzuo was awarded the post of commander of the capital for this battle. Of course , he still doesn’t know the reward given to him by the imperial court. After Luo Quanxiu regained Wuhu, Yin Feng ordered the Chinese army to mobilize more warships from the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang into the Yangtze River and blockade the Yangtze River more tightly.
On the fourth night after the Chinese fleet arrived outside Wuchang City, Mai Haisheng, as the chief officer of the navy, rode the communication ship Hailong and followed five large ships to the Sheshan River.
He brought infantry support troops with him, as well as a special unit: the Weapons Research Department Task Force,