Episode 28: Feint Attack

On the 15th, the Ming army launched a rapid "Western offensive". On the same day, Guangwu, in the Beijing Command, held an emergency military meeting. He has always been arbitrary, and he is not sure about the current trends of the Ming army.

Before this offensive, not only Guangwu, but most generals in the commander also believed that the next main attack direction of the Ming army was definitely the east. Because it is obvious that the eastern battlefield was the Great Plain of North China, which is more suitable for the Ming army to play its maneuver advantage. In addition, the eastern battlefield is close to the sea, and as the Ming army's front line is lengthened, it may also require sea transportation as a supplement. Although the coastlines along Jiangsu are alluvial plains and the coastline is straight, when it comes to Shandong, the coastline becomes winding and natural harbors are everywhere.

In addition to these benefits, the east has a broad future for offensive. If the Nanming really had the ambition to completely defeat the Qing Dynasty, then the east would undoubtedly be the closest route to Beijing. If the Nanming ambition was just to reach the Yellow River, then the Yellow River in the east would be much more dangerously northward. The entire Shandong Peninsula was south of the Yellow River. Even if the Nanming did not plan to cross the Yellow River, it would eat well south of the Yellow River.

What is there in the western battlefield? If the terrain has no terrain, there is no future. To the north, Zhengzhou is on the edge of the Yellow River. Even if Zhengzhou is occupied, the Yellow River will be natural danger in the north of the city. Now in October, it is still autumn flood. The river water is wide and fast, and the mud and sand are rolling, but it is not as easy as building a pontoon bridge as on the Yangtze River. To the west, it will take another 100 kilometers and advance to Luoyang. To the west, it will be more than 130 kilometers, which is Hangu Pass.

Yes, Shanxi and Shaanxi in the pass are both empty and there are no large-scale troops stationed. But the Ming army must first enter Guanzhong. The valley of Hangu Pass is really a one-man who can pass by ten thousand men. The narrowest place is only a few meters wide, and neither of its two tanks can be arranged side by side. No matter how powerful the mechanized troops of the Ming army are, they will not be able to enter Hangu Pass, right?

In other words, the Ming army launched a western offensive, and the area that might have been captured was only a few thousand square kilometers, the size of a palm. If we fight from the east, the North China Plain in front of the Southern Ming Dynasty would be more than 200,000 square kilometers, which would be a broad advancement prospect.

At the military meeting, the generals were still not used to being so "democratic" in Guangwu, and they did not dare to express their opinions for the time being. However, in their hearts, most of them tended to be the feint of the Ming army, in order to allow the Qing Dynasty to draw troops from Xuzhou and Shangqiu Eastern Army to reinforce Zhengzhou, so that the Ming army's right-road army group took the opportunity to attack north and break through to the North China Plain at a relatively small price.

Seeing that everyone was not talking, Guangwu first expressed his opinion, that is, he tended to be a feint attack by the Ming army. Once he said it, it would be no problem for the next step. A large number of generals were originally inclined to be a feint attack, but this time he could say it without any scruples. For a moment, all kinds of arguments and arguments were spoken out incessantly.

A major general adviser hesitated to express a concern:

"...There is a Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou... What if the Ming army..."

After a word was spoken, there was a short silence. Everyone looked at him. Many people were saying in their hearts: Finally, an ignorant young man picked out this topic.

"Um?"

Guangwu raised his eyes, glanced at him coldly, and said:

"Songhai, what do you mean."

Sure enough, after a few seconds of quiet, another voice said angrily:

"What do you mean? You said Zhengzhou cannot be defended? Do you want to blow up the bridge now?"

The person who spoke was a young man in his twenties, Guangwu's younger brother, Prince Shun Yuqin, who was the one who exchanged hostages with Xiang Xiaoqiang last time.

Song Hai was so scared that his face turned pale:

"Prince Shun... I don't mean that... I just want to make plans just in case..."

"Make plans early?" Yu Qi stared at his eyes, "What are the plans early? What do you mean? What do you want to do?"

Someone next to him immediately followed Yizheng's words and angrily scolded:

"Do you say that the Qing Dynasty could not protect the south of the Yellow River? Or did the Qing Dynasty could not protect the north of the Yellow River? Or would the Nanming Dynasty fight to Beijing?"

"What you mean is that the Qing Dynasty could not defeat the Southern Ming Dynasty anyway. It would be better to blow up the bridge early and stay north of the Yellow River safely?"

"Did you say that so many of us are wrong in the direction of the Ming army's main attack? Do you want to say that so many of us are not as good as you? Do you want to say that even the emperor... even the emperor is wrong?"

Song Hai was so scared that he knelt on the ground, his whole body was like a sieve, and said in a trembling voice:

"The emperor...the slave...the slave deserves death...the slave...the slave must not...the slave..."

Guangwu said impatiently:

"Okay, okay, I didn't say what I wanted 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 scared 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 army of the Qing Dynasty. It will definitely be as stable as a rock south of the Yellow River!"

"As stable as a rock?" Guangwu frowned, "How can it be as stable as a rock? Tell me."

Song Hai's face was sweating like rain. He raised his sleeve and tried to wipe it, and said:

"The Emperor... Zhengzhou Corps is... composed of the children of Guanzhong. Since ancient times... there have been poems as evidence... 'Besides, the Qin army is enduring hard fighting'. The soldiers in Qin are the most capable of fighting... This is what Bai Juyi sighed in the Tang Dynasty as early as the Tang Dynasty..."

Yuqi showed off very actively:

"This is Du Fu's famous work "The War Cars", not Bai Juyi. "Besides, the Qin army is resistant to hard fighting and is driven away by dogs and chickens."

Song Hai was stunned and hurriedly thanked Yu Qing:

"Yes, it's Du Fu, it's Du Fu... Thank you for your advice. The prince is very knowledgeable and really admires me... The emperor, think of the barbarians of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the cream soldier who has lived a superior life since childhood, when I saw my Guanxi soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, wasn't it like a sheep and a tiger?"

"Guanxi soldiers?" Guangwu said lightly, "The garrisons in Jiangsu and Anhui have many 'Guanxi soldiers', and they surrender faster than anyone else..."

Song Hai became nervous again. He held it in for a few seconds, thought of the words, and immediately said:

"Your Majesty, this is because... because of our tradition of garrisoning troops in different places in the Qing Dynasty, maintaining stability is excellent. However, when foreign enemies invade, they are not local soldiers, but they may not be so strong in fighting spirit, because they are not defending their hometown... But Zhengzhou is different. The Zhengzhou Corps guards the important road leading to Guanzhong and the Three Qins. This kind of battle to defend the country is the easiest to inspire the fighting spirit of the soldiers... Yes, you see the battle in the first ten days, and the surrender of our Qing army has become a wind... Is that true that our army is not as strong as the Ming army? It is definitely not, but because the soldiers do not defend their hometown and lack fighting spirit... And now in Zhengzhou, the soldiers are both defending their hometown and are brave children of Guanxi. The two major factors are combined into one, and the battle will inevitably be as brave as a tiger, which truly shows the style of our Qing army!"

These words sound extremely nice, and a large group of people who were hurt by the insults could no longer say anything. Even Guangwu smiled and nodded slightly.

Song Hai breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, raised his arm and wiped the cold sweat on his head, thinking that this disaster was over. His own words were light and he must not speak foolishly when he didn't know the depth of the water in the future.

Then, Guangwu, according to his own judgment, and with his generals, formulated a combat plan according to the assumption that the Ming army was mainly attacking the east and feinting the west.

...

Just as the Ming army left-wing army group attacked the Zhengzhou army's army, under the escort of fighter jets, the Ming army's dive bomber formation violently bombed the railway north of the Yellow River in Zhengzhou to prevent the Qing army from going south through the railway and entering Zhengzhou for support.

The Ming army launched a forward airport south of the newly occupied Xuchang, from which the combat radius of the fighter jets could be extended to Xingtai. The stations south of Xingtai: Shahe, Wu'an, Cixian, Anyang, Tangyin, Hebi, Qixian, Weihui, Xinxiang, almost half of the Beijing-nan railway was threatened by Ming army bombers.

The forward airport that was temporarily launched by a bulldozer is naturally not large in scale and cannot accommodate too many fighter jets, that is, two squadrons, less than thirty. But then again, the linear fixed targets of railways are not needed. There are less than thirty fighters, escorting dive bombers of two squadrons, and doing nothing all day on the 15th. The fighter jets alerted all directions and drove away the Qing army fighter jets that occasionally came out to fight. The bombers aimed at the thin railway lines on the ground, and then threw bombs perseveredly.

Although the target of railways is fixed, it is extremely difficult to blow up accurately. Because it is not like buildings, vehicles, or something, even if it does not hit directly, the near-lost shock wave can cause damage. As for railways, as long as you don’t throw the bomb 100% into the center of two rails, it will be no harm at all. This requirement is even higher than throwing the bomb into a trenches. The trenches are at least wider.

All day long, two groups of aircraft were replacing repeated bombings. Although they did not cause much damage to the railway itself, the Qing army did not use the railway throughout the day. In the morning, there was a Qing army lined up with white air, trying to rush southwards with bombing. As a result, they were first fired several kilometers by fighter jets. Hundreds of Qing soldiers were killed in the carriage, and finally a bomb landed more than one meter away from the left side of the front of the car.

If there were no trains on the rails, this near-blasting loss would not cause any damage to the rails. But now the tall body of the train has become the best carrier of the shock wave, and it is suddenly lifted out of the track, and the roadbed is turned off, and the roadbed is followed by the carriages behind it.

Then, the Qing soldiers who were covered in blood and crawled out in a hurry became the best targets for planes in the sky, with bare and nowhere to hide. Bombs and strafing fires whistled down, and corpses were suddenly spread all over the field and blood flowed into a river.

On this train, a brigade of Qing army was overturned and bombed, and almost wiped out the entire army.

So throughout the day, the railways south of Xingtai were idle, and no train appeared on it.

...

All day on the 15th, the Ming army attacked the outer edge of the Zhengzhou Corps with its teeth and claws, but in fact it did not put in much effort. Apart from the buzzing bombers and heavy artillery bombardment, the movement on the ground was not very big, and the tank cluster that was very useful in the previous stage did not appear. Moreover, the Ming army did not directly attack the front of the Zhengzhou Corps, that is, the south, and always circled east from the south, as if they were still very interested in Kaifeng, Lankao, and Shangqiu in the east.

At the same time, in the Eastern Theater Command, the south side of the Xuzhou Corps was silent, and the Ming army did not move at all. However, fighter jets kept protecting the dive bombers to pass quickly and drop a few bombs.

On the sea, Qing army fighter jets flying out of the Shandong Peninsula once again discovered the Ming army's fleet on the Yellow Sea. This time there were ten cargo ships.

Guangwu's comprehensive judgment made him more convinced of his own expectations. The Ming army was a feint attack on the western battlefield. The real main attack direction was in the east.
Chapter completed!