For Zhu Mian, holding the northern front is enough to make a difference. But as a military general, the merits of holding the defense line undefeated and annihilating tens of thousands of rebels are completely different. The Ming army's merits are calculated based on their heads, and Zhou Mengxiong's tens of thousands of troops are countless.
First level.
Zhu Mian first transferred half of the Fifth Army Camp's men and nearly 10,000 people to the Sanshan Lake defense line to consolidate his rearguard to prevent the front army from becoming a lonely force. After making preparations, he felt that there was no danger, and then led the Shenji Camp and the Fifth Army Camp's cavalry to the north.
They marched to fight, preparing to defeat the invading rebels in the wilderness. But before the official army could catch up, the rebels suddenly ran away. As they continued to advance, a ditch wall camp group on the south bank of Yangzhuang Lake lay in front of them, making it impossible to pursue them.
At this time, the front line of the official army was stretched, and they had actually fallen into an unnoticed dangerous situation. The elite Shenji Battalion and the cavalry of the Fifth Army Battalion had penetrated 20 miles into the water network area, and behind them, to the north of Sanshan Lake, half of the troops of the Fifth Army Battalion were consolidated.
On the rear wing, these soldiers and horses are all from the Beijing camp. The North Route Army is elite and has heavy troops in the front. The county town is an important town that Zhu Mian considers, and there are five remaining military camps left behind. The middle of the east and west ends has become a weak point, and the army can only be used as a guard.
Build fortifications and station them.
Zhou Mengxiong took the opportunity to order the 20,000 troops of the Pingyuan Camp of the rear army to march south from the Yangtze River, and most of the Zhongwu Camp of the Chinese Army followed them from the north. This road seemed roundabout, but in fact it was only a few dozen miles away from the county seat.
After the Suzaku Army found out that the fifth army camp was left behind in the county town, they decisively gave up their plan to take advantage of the opportunity to capture the county town, and then inserted heavy troops through the middle. The guard camp on the riverside in the north of the county town was disrupted by an attack by the new army, and was unable to send troops to stop it.
, sit back and watch as a large number of new army troops march southward from the defense zone.
Within one day, the new army arrived at the east side of the defense line on the north bank of Sanshan Lake, behind the forward line of the official army, and then began to dig ditches and build walls, and rushed to build a large number of camps. The first unit of the Fifth Army Battalion, which was responsible for the safety of the rear wing of Zhu Mian's front army, obtained
Their mission was to defend the rear and station their troops in camps; when they realized that the rebels were trying to encircle them from behind, they hurriedly gathered troops to attack eastward. By this time, the rebels had already deployed more than 30,000 heavy troops behind them.
At the same time, Zhou Mengxiong deployed ambush troops far outside the lake in advance, and entered the designated locations in batches to start building ditch wall defenses. There are many lakes in this area, and they are roughly distributed on all sides, except for the eastern exit, which is one or twenty miles wide.
, other lands have narrow sections, and it is very easy to block roads.
Zhu Mian almost suddenly discovered that he was surrounded for no apparent reason. He planned to attack the rebels on a trial basis, but only two days passed before he fell into siege.
Zhu Mian is still confused by the urgent military information reported from the Sanshan Lake defense line. He feels that he has been very cautious. When he tried to attack the rebels, he also considered the security of the rear, so he left nearly 10,000 troops of the Fifth Army Camp behind;
The eastern exit is more than ten miles wide. How can it be blocked to complete the siege?
Up to now, Zhu Mian did not feel cornered and could still remain calm. He ordered the forwards to withdraw eastward, and then returned to the Fifth Army Camp to prepare to personally inspect how the rebels intercepted them from behind.
The group passed the camp on the north bank of Sanshan Lake and walked a few hundred steps eastward, and saw the rebels' activity area. They had built two rows of ditch-walled camps there, and the two rows were staggered like the word "pin" asymmetrically, forming a network.
Layout. Calculated based on the width of the north and south defense lines, there are at least thirty such camps; each camp is visually garrisoned by several hundred or nearly a thousand people. It is estimated that within two days the rebels have deployed about 30,000 troops here.
After Zhu Mian observed the battlefield, he already knew something in his mind. Although the 30,000 rebels cut off their retreat, the defense line was more than ten miles wide and the force was actually relatively weak. As long as they broke through from one place, the army would not be surrounded.
; Perhaps we can also take the opportunity to annihilate the rebels who have penetrated deep into the battlefield.
When the cavalry of the Shenji Battalion and the Fifth Army Battalion of the former army withdrew to Sanshan Lake, almost all the elite officers and soldiers gathered here that day, nearly 30,000 infantry and cavalrymen, all of whom were soldiers of the Beijing camp. Zhu Mian decided to launch an attack on the betrayal army's defense line the next day.
attack.
However, Zhu Mian found that this attack was obviously very difficult. The infantry swarmed up and were immediately fired upon by a dense volley of guns. Moreover, the rebels used three rounds of fire similar to Shenji camp firearms, taking turns to fire very densely; other camps on the side
They would also use artillery shelling. The officers and soldiers suffered huge losses in their attack. They were beaten to pieces before they even reached the front of the camp, and they lost their vigor even when they got closer.
On the first day, there was no result, and then the officers and soldiers gradually started to panic.
The besieged officers and soldiers were short of food and grass. Zhu Mian had never planned to go on a long-term expedition before. The granary was in the city and the supply line was on the river. Suddenly trapped between the lakes, the troops and horses would be without food within three days, and even the ammunition and arrows were not enough to support them.
For a long time, 20,000 to 30,000 people plus thousands of horses need food. They will not be able to get supplies in a short time, and they will be destroyed without having to fight themselves.
The generals of each battalion in the Beijing camp have not yet let go of their contempt for the new rebel army. They cursed the rebels as despicable in front of the Chinese army Zhu Mian. One of them proposed a tactic to gather tens of thousands of people together and use human waves to
The tide passed.
But this tactic may not achieve the expected effect. If nearly 30,000 people are gathered and spread out into a square, there will be more than 170 people, at least two to three hundred paces wide, even more if you include horses; a crowd of two to three hundred paces wide will surge up.
, they will be massacred by guns and artillery from several camps at the same time. If the situation is not good, the whole army may fall into chaos and collapse. And if you attack in columns, it is a fueling tactic.
The next day, Zhu Mian ordered the Shenji Battalion to attack the rebel camp with firearms, and at the same time sent scouts dozens of miles in all directions to explore other ways out. But the whole day was fruitless, and the way out had been blocked; unless he swam back from the lake,
It was late October and the lake was almost frozen. Most of the soldiers in the capital camp were northerners who didn’t know how to swim. Going into the water was undoubtedly a recipe for death.
It may be possible for the officers and soldiers in the county to temporarily collect small boats and rafts to transport food and grass, but to satisfy the supply transportation of 30,000 people, it may take a long time to find so many ships. The army cannot afford to wait that long, because the news of food shortage has caused military morale
turmoil.
Zhu Mian was not a military commander in the Beijing camp, but a general appointed by Zhang Fu. He could command the battalions with authority in ordinary times, but at this time there were signs that he could not be mobilized. The cavalry general of the fifth military camp asked the cavalry to break out first and break out from the gap between the camps.
Rush out in the gap.
The cavalry should be able to break through if they charge in and pay a certain amount of casualties, but this will further weaken the combat effectiveness of the remaining infantry. Zhu Mian tried to stop it, but almost led to a mutiny and was killed. In the end, he was unable to stop the cavalry who had no food or grass to feed their horses.
Desperate to leave.
Only two days into the siege, Zhu Mian finally felt the suffocating fear. On the battlefield, the consequences of a missed move would be very serious. Life and death were only a matter of a thought, affecting the lives of millions of people.