On the 15th, the Ming army launched a rapid "Western Offensive". On the same day, Guangwu held an emergency military meeting at the headquarters in Beijing. He, who had always been dictatorial, was not sure about the current movements of the Ming army.
Before this offensive, not only Guangwu, but also most generals in the headquarters also believed that the next main attack direction of the Ming army would definitely be the east. Because obviously, the eastern battlefield is the Great Plains of North China, which is more suitable for the Ming army to maneuver Advantages. In addition, the eastern battlefield is close to the sea. As the Ming army's front line lengthens, sea transportation may also be needed to supplement it. Although the coast of Jiangsu is alluvial plains and the coastline is straight, when it reaches Shandong, the coastline becomes curved. Qu, there are natural harbors everywhere.
In addition to these benefits, the east also has broad offensive prospects. If Nan Ming really has the ambition to completely defeat the Qing Dynasty, then the east is undoubtedly the closest route to Beijing. If Nan Ming's ambition is only to reach the Yellow River, then the natural danger of the Yellow River in the east will be farther north. Much more. The entire Shandong Peninsula is south of the Yellow River. Even if Nanming does not intend to cross the Yellow River, it can still have enough food south of the Yellow River.
And what is there in the western battlefield? There is no terrain, no future. To the north, Zhengzhou is on the edge of the Yellow River. Even if Zhengzhou is captured, the Yellow River is naturally dangerous to the north of the city. It is October now, and it happens to be the autumn flood, and the river is wide and fast. , the sediment is rolling in, and it is not as easy to build a pontoon bridge as on the Yangtze River. To the west, we can push another 100 kilometers at most to Luoyang. If we go further west, we can push another 130 kilometers at most, and that is Hangu Pass.
Yes, Shanxi and Shaanxi within the pass are very empty, and there are no large-scale garrison. But the Ming army must first be able to enter the pass. The valley of Hangu Pass is really difficult for one man to pass. The narrowest place is only a few meters wide. Its two tanks cannot stand side by side. No matter how powerful the mechanized troops of the Ming army are, they will never be able to break into Hangu Pass, right?
In other words, when the Ming army launches its western offensive, the area it is possible to capture is only a few thousand square kilometers, which is as big as a palm. If it attacks from the east, Nanming will have more than 200,000 square kilometers in front of it. The North China Plain has a broad future for advancement.
At the military meeting, the generals were not used to Guangwu being so "democratic" and did not dare to express their opinions for a while. But in their hearts, most of them tended to think that this was a feint attack by the Ming army in order to make The Qing Dynasty mobilized troops from the eastern legions in Xuzhou and Shangqiu to reinforce Zhengzhou, so that the Ming army's right group army group could take the opportunity to attack north and break through into the North China Plain at a relatively small cost.
When Guangwu saw that everyone was silent, he first expressed his opinion, that is, it was a feint to attack the Ming army. Once he said it, the rest was no problem. A lot of generals were also inclined to this. Feint, now I can say it without any scruples. For a time, all kinds of arguments and arguments were spouted out.
A major general staff officer hesitated to express a concern:
"...There is a Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou...just in case the Ming army..."
As soon as he said the words, there was a brief silence. Everyone looked at him. Many people were saying in their hearts: Finally, some ignorant stupid Qing had picked out these words.
"Um?"
Guangwu raised his eyes, glanced at him coldly, and then said:
"Songhai, what do you mean?"
Sure enough, after a few seconds of silence, another voice said angrily:
"What do you mean? You said Zhengzhou can't hold it? Do you want to blow up the bridge now?"
The speaker was a young man in his twenties. He was Guangwu's younger brother, Prince Shun Yuxuan, the same one who had exchanged hostages with Xiang Xiaoqiang last time.
Songhai turned pale with fright:
"Prince Shun... I didn't mean this... I... I just said that you should make plans just in case..."
"Have you made plans in advance?" Yu Xuan asked, glaring, "What plans have you made in advance? What do you mean? What do you want to do?"
Immediately, someone next to me followed Yi Zhengci and scolded angrily:
"Are you saying that the Qing Dynasty cannot protect the south of the Yellow River? Or that the Qing Dynasty cannot protect the north of the Yellow River? Or that the Southern Ming Dynasty will fight all the way to Beijing?"
"You mean the Qing Dynasty can't defeat the Nanming anyway, why not blow up the bridge early and stay safe on the north side of the Yellow River?"
"Are you saying that there are so many of us, and the Ming army's main attack direction has been misjudged? Are you saying that there are so many of us who are inferior to you? Are you saying that even the emperor...even the emperor is wrong?"
Songhai was so frightened that he suddenly knelt on the ground, his whole body like chaff, and said in a trembling voice:
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty... Your slave... Your slave deserves death... You must not dare... Your slave..."
Guangwu said impatiently:
"Okay, okay, I didn't say what I'm going to do to you. Get up and tell me what you mean... Do you think the Zhengzhou Corps really can't defend it?"
"No, no, no," Songhai was so frightened that he shook his head repeatedly and did not dare to get up. He lay on the ground and said tremblingly, "The Zhengzhou Corps is an elite division of the Qing Dynasty. The south of the Yellow River must be as stable as a rock!"
"Stable as a rock?" Guangwu frowned, "How come it's as stable as a rock? Tell me."
Songhai's face was covered with sweat. He raised his sleeves to wipe it and said smoothly:
"Your Majesty... the Zhengzhou Corps is... composed of the disciples of Guanzhong. Since ancient times... there are poems to prove it... 'Kangfu Qin's army endures hard battles'. The soldiers of Qin are the most capable of fighting.
...This is what Bai Juyi lamented as early as the Tang Dynasty..."
Yu Xuan showed off very actively:
"This is Du Fu's famous poem "Army Chariots", not Bai Juyi's. "Kang Fu's Qin army endured a bitter battle and was driven away like dogs and chickens.'"
Songhai was stunned and quickly thanked Yu Xuan:
"Yes, that's right, it's Du Fu, it's Du Fu... Thank you, Your Majesty, for the tip. Your Majesty is so knowledgeable that I really admire you... Your Majesty, I think of the barbarians of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the cream soldiers who have lived a privileged life since childhood, and met me, Guanxi of the Qing Dynasty.
Xiongbing, isn't that like a sheep seeing a tiger?"
"Guanxi Xiongbing?" Guangwu said calmly, "There are many 'Guanxi Xiongbing' in the garrisons in Jiangsu and Anhui. They can surrender faster than anyone else..."
Songhai became nervous again. He held it in for a few seconds, thought of the words, and said immediately:
"Your Majesty, this is because... because of our Qing Dynasty's tradition of stationing troops in remote places, maintaining stability is extremely effective. However, when foreign enemies invade, if they are not local soldiers, their fighting spirit may not be so strong, because they are not defending
My hometown... But Zhengzhou is different. The Zhengzhou Corps guards the main road leading to Guanzhong and the land of the Three Qins. This kind of battle to protect the home and country is the easiest to inspire the fighting spirit of the soldiers.
...Yes, Your Majesty, look at the battles in the past ten days, our Qing army surrendered... Does that mean that our army is really not as strong as the Ming army? Definitely not, it's just because the soldiers are not defending their hometown and lack fighting spirit...
But now in Zhengzhou, the soldiers are not only defending their hometown, but they are also brave sons of Guanxi. The two factors are combined into one, and they must be as brave as tigers in battle, truly showing the style of our Qing Dynasty heroes!"
These few words were said so beautifully that a large group of people around them were speechless and speechless. Even Guangwu smiled and nodded gently.
Song Hai breathed a sigh of relief, raised his arm and wiped the cold sweat from his head, thinking that this disaster was over. He spoke softly, and in the future when the water was deep and shallow, he must not talk stupidly.
Then, according to his own judgment, Guangwu and other generals formulated a battle plan based on the assumption that the Ming army would mainly attack the east and pretend to attack the west.
…
While the Ming Army's Left Army Group was storming the Zhengzhou Army, the Ming Army's dive bomber formations, escorted by fighter jets, violently bombed the railway north of the Yellow River in Zhengzhou, preventing the Qing Army from passing south along the Yellow River and entering Zhengzhou.
Provide support.
The Ming army launched an advance airport south of the newly occupied Xuchang. The combat radius of fighter jets from here could extend all the way to Xingtai. Stations south of Xingtai: Shahe, Wu'an, Cixian, Anyang, Tangyin, Hebi,
Qixian, Weihui, Xinxiang, and almost half of the Beijing-Southern Railway were all under threat from Ming bombers.
A forward airfield temporarily pushed out by bulldozers is naturally small in scale and cannot accommodate too many fighter jets, that is, two squadrons, less than thirty. But having said that, linear fixed targets such as bombing railways cannot be used.
Too many planes are needed. It’s just less than thirty
A fighter jet escorted two squadrons of dive bombers. They did nothing all day on the 15th. The fighter jets were vigilant in all directions, driving away Qing fighter jets that occasionally came out to fight for their lives. The bombers were just aiming at the thin railway line on the ground, and they were flying again and again.
Once and for all, he dropped the bomb without hesitation.
Although targets like railways are fixed, they are extremely difficult to explode accurately. Because they are not like buildings, vehicles, etc., even if they do not hit directly, the shock wave of a near-missile bomb can still cause damage. As long as you do not use the bomb on something like a railway,
Throwing it 100% into the center of two rails will cause no harm at all. This requirement is simply higher than throwing a bomb into a trench. The trench is wider after all.
Throughout the day, the two groups of planes exchanged repeated bombings. Although it did not cause much damage to the railway itself, it prevented the Qing army from using the railway throughout the day. In the morning, there was also a Qing army train spraying white gas in an attempt to
Braving the bombing, they rushed south, but were strafed by fighter jets for several kilometers. Hundreds of Qing soldiers were killed directly in the carriage. Finally, a bomb landed more than a meter away on the left side of the front of the carriage.
If there was no train on the track, this near miss could not cause any damage to the track. But now the tall body of the train has become the best carrier of the shock wave, and it was immediately lifted off the track, flipped over the roadbed, and took the next section with it.
One of the carriages fell off the roadbed.
Then, those Qing soldiers who hurriedly crawled out with their heads covered with blood became the best targets for planes in the sky. There was no place to hide on either side. Bombs and strafing roared down, and corpses were everywhere on both sides of the railway, and blood flowed into rivers.
On this train, a brigade of Qing troops overturned and strafed with bombs, almost wiping out the whole army.
So throughout the day, the railway south of Xingtai was idle, and no train appeared on it.
…
Throughout the whole day on the 15th, the Ming army aggressively attacked the outskirts of the Zhengzhou Corps, but in fact they did not put in much effort. Apart from bombers buzzing all over the sky and heavy artillery bombardment, there was not much movement on the ground.
, that kind of ex
The tank clusters that were very useful in this stage did not appear. Moreover, the Ming army did not directly attack the front of the Zhengzhou Corps, that is, the south, but always circled from the south to the east. It seemed that it was still very interested in Kaifeng, Lankao, and Shangqiu in the east.
As if interested.
At the same time, in the eastern theater, there was silence to the south of the Xuzhou Corps, and there was no movement from the Ming army. There were only fighter jets in the sky protecting the dive bombers that passed quickly and dropped a few bombs.
At sea, Qing fighter jets flying out from the Shandong Peninsula once again spotted the Ming fleet on the Yellow Sea. This time there were ten cargo ships.
Guangwu made a comprehensive judgment and became more convinced of his prediction. The Ming army's western battlefield was a feint attack. The real main attack direction was in the east.