Chapter 81 Commanding the troops in Hangzhou

Author: Scholar Wu

Chapter 81 Commanding the troops in Hangzhou

This battle was extremely difficult. In addition to the heavy losses suffered by Jingnan Camp, Chongming Camp and Shenji Camp also suffered certain casualties. Fortunately, the 4,000 Eight Banners led by Pingnan General Jin were finally annihilated in Huzhou.

After hearing that Si'an Town and Heping Town had been burned down by the Qing army, and that a large number of people were now homeless, Qian Mo ordered these people to be resettled in the newly built cottage on Tianmu Mountain, and to supplement the manpower of the workshop.

Jiaxing has become increasingly unsafe and may turn into a war zone at any time. Qian Mo ordered all Tianjiazhuang's workshops and villagers to move to Tianmu Mountain.

Wang Zaixing's troops have now tricked the Qing army twice. Although these two Qing armies have been completely annihilated, there is no guarantee that no fish have slipped through the net. Jiaxing and the others can't go back now, so they might as well form a new battalion and stay in the Ming Dynasty.

among the military ranks.

However, this "Battle of Huzhou" left no one alive, and Qian Mo could not boost the morale of the soldiers and civilians in Huzhou by beheading the Eight Banners soldiers in public.

So I wanted to order people to build a "Beijing Temple" outside Huzhou City with the bones of the Eight Banners soldiers. However, considering that the weather was getting hotter, in order to avoid causing the plague, in the end I just built a pile of earth on their mass graves and ordered

A monument was erected to record this "Battle of Huzhou".

Gu Xin'er's "Excerpted Opera" troupe also rehearsed two new scripts overnight, "Jingnan Camp's Bloody Battle at Si'an Town" and "Eight Banners Soldiers Killed in Huzhou City". For a time, the morale of the people in Huzhou against the Qing Dynasty was high, and young people began to enthusiastically

Sign up to join the army.

After Song Yingxing arrived in Tianjiazhuang, after some research with Xu Ermo and Father Philip, he finally improved the blast furnace. Now the temperature of the furnace fire has exceeded 1,600 degrees, and higher quality steel can be refined.

The service life of fire guns cast from these steels is much longer than the current ones, and the consumption of gun tube replacement every month is also much less. This has increased the output of Lumi guns to a certain extent and can now reach a monthly

2000 strokes.

After being finalized and produced for so long, Lumi gun finally received its first improvement.

Since the steel quality of the gun tube has been improved, it can withstand more gunpowder. After slight modifications to the fire door and machine rail, the effective killing distance has been increased from 80 steps to 90 steps. This model is temporarily called

Type 1 Rumi gun.

With the production of high-quality steel, it is now possible to cast iron cannons.

The density of iron is lower than that of copper, so iron cannons are lighter than copper cannons of the same caliber.

Of course, the main factor limiting the Ming army's cannon casting was raw materials. The copper mines in Zhejiang were difficult to produce, but the iron ore mines were relatively easy.

According to Qian Mo's request, in order to facilitate the portability of small-caliber artillery such as the Tiger Crouching Cannon, the gun body and base were all disassembled for easy portability and could be assembled and used at any time, similar to later mortars.

There are no problems with the casting technology of the Folang machine gun and the Hongyi cannon, but now the firearms workshop in Tianjiazhuang is being moved to the village in Tianmu Mountain. This will affect the output for almost half a month.

In the Battle of Huzhou, the Ming army was quite passive because it had no cavalry and a serious lack of mobility.

Encountering the Qing cavalry on the battlefield, the Ming army couldn't retreat even if they wanted to, and couldn't catch up even if they wanted to. If Wang Zaixing hadn't used his undercover status to steal the Qing army's camp in the middle of the night, Qian Mo would have really taken advantage of the Qing army.

The cavalry had no choice but to watch them return to Hangzhou.

Qian Mo also understood the importance of forming cavalry. Even if it was difficult to train a qualified cavalry unit in a short time, the mounted infantry was much more mobile than ordinary infantry.

This time, more than 4,000 Qing horses were captured, and Qian Mo built a horse farm outside Huzhou City.

Most of the Qing soldiers under Wang Zaixing could ride horses, so they were simply reorganized into a new cavalry battalion "Huzhou Battalion".

Since the Ming army currently lacks generals who are good at cavalry warfare, Weng Zhiheng, the commander-in-chief of Suhu, directed Wang Zaixing to take charge of training.

The battalions under Governor Suhu were also reorganized and expanded, and the chief generals of each battalion were upgraded to the rank of commander-in-chief.

The first-class battalion of Chongming Battalion is composed of General Lu Shanhai and Deputy General Hong Fugui; it has a strength of 3,000 troops, 1,000 Rumi muskets, and 10 Crouching Tiger cannons.

The first-class battalion of Jingnan Battalion has General Zhang Xiaofan and Deputy General Zhou Bao; it has 3,000 troops, 1,000 Rumi muskets, 200 pieces of iron armor, and 10 squatting tiger cannons.

The first-class battalion of the Shenji Battalion has Huang Yu as the commander-in-chief and Wang Yongfu as the deputy commander-in-chief. It has 3,000 troops, 2,000 Rumi guns, 20 squatting tiger cannons, and 10 Qianjin Folang machine cannons.

The first-class Huzhou Battalion has Wang Zaixing, the commander-in-chief, and Hu Xiuquan, the deputy commander-in-chief (formerly Hu Bao Commander-in-Chief of Anji Prefecture). It has 3,000 troops, 1,000 Rumi muskets, and 4,000 war horses.

The second-class battalion of the Jiaxing Battalion has Qian An, the commander-in-chief, and Li Qi, the deputy commander-in-chief. It has 2,000 troops, 1,000 Rumi muskets, 20 squatting tiger cannons, and 10 Qianjin Folang machine artillery pieces.

The second-class Taihu Battalion has Wu Qi as the commander-in-chief, with a strength of 2,000 troops and 1,000 Rumi muskets.

Although the strength of the troops was suddenly expanded to 16,000, the number of firecrackers was seriously insufficient. Fortunately, many cold weapons of the Qing army were captured, and finally the new soldiers were not sent into battle with bare hands.

But there is nothing we can do about the training of soldiers. The world is undergoing tremendous changes and time is waiting for us. It is impossible to wait until the new soldiers are slowly trained before going out to fight. The only way is to use the old to lead the new and to fight as training.

Xia Wanchun's Suhu Governor's Yamen also moved from Shengui Island in Taihu Lake to Huzhou City.

Gu Yanwu was fully responsible for the production and construction of Tianmu Mountain. All firearms, cannon casting and other military production workshops in Tianjiazhuang were moved to Tianmu Mountain; weaving workshops and other civilian commodity workshops were moved to Huzhou City.

Tianjiazhuang only has the function of temporary warehouse and bastion defense.

In addition, a sheep and horse wall is also planned to be built next to the moat in Huzhou City to increase the effective protection of the moat.

A small bastion was built in three places: Nanxun Town in the east of Huzhou, the site of the original Si'an Town in Anji Prefecture, and Changxing County in the north of Huzhou to strengthen Huzhou's defense and protect Huzhou from the east, west and north.

Although he has not received accurate news from the Intelligence Department, Qian Mo remembers that the Qing army will counterattack Jiangxi at the end of May.

Sooner or later, there will still be a fierce battle in Huzhou. He must seize the time to build some fortifications, so that he can attract some Qing troops to Jin Shenghuan in Jiangxi.

At the same time, the garrisons in various places were also readjusted.

Wu Qi's Taihu Camp left 1,000 people to guard the islands in Taihu Lake, and sent another 1,000 people to Changxing County in the north of Huzhou to supervise the construction of the fortress.

Qian An's Jiaxing camp left 1,000 men to garrison the Tianjiazhuang bastion, and the remaining 1,000 men to garrison the stockade on Tianmu Mountain.

3,000 people from the Huzhou Battalion were stationed in Huzhou Fucheng and Wukang and Deqing counties in the south, and were responsible for the construction of the bastion in Nanxun.

The Jingnan Battalion was stationed in Anji Prefecture and Xiaofeng County, and was responsible for the construction of the bastion in Si'an Town. It also stationed troops at Dusong Pass in the south of Xiaofeng County, ready to threaten Hangzhou from the direction of Lin'an at any time.

Before the main force of the Qing army goes south, it is the best opportunity for the Ming army to expand. Although now the Ming army in Huzhou is in urgent need of time to recuperate, consolidate city defenses, and train the army.

But Qian Mo couldn't wait any longer. Historically, Jin Shenghuan and Wang Deren fought for nearly 8 months for Nanming in Nanchang. However, during these 8 months, although Nanming also wanted to rescue Jiangxi, it took almost no measures.

Act effectively and miss opportunities.

At this time, all the general soldiers and important officials under the Suhu Governor's Mansion had gathered in Huzhou Mansion to discuss the next battle plan.

Different from the usual meetings held in front of the map, a huge sand table was placed on the table in the middle.

The sand table not only contains famous mountains and rivers such as Taihu Lake, Tianmu Mountain, and the Yangtze River, but also cities such as Huzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanjing.

Moreover, small flags of different colors were used to indicate the affiliations of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The current situation of both parties can be said to be clear at a glance.

These battle-hardened generals secretly expressed their surprise and asked who had created this kind of combat sandbox. It was much more convenient than a map.

After hearing everyone's approval, Liu Tongchun showed a satisfied smile.

It was Liu Tongchun who was captured by the Intelligence Department outside Nanchang City with a topographic map of Jiangxi and preparing to go to Nanjing to report the matter. Qian Mo saw that he had a good knowledge of maps and appointed him as a staff officer of the Governor's Mansion.

He was ordered to specially make this sand table based on the data. After countless experiments, he finally made this Jiangnan terrain sand table with sand, covering almost the entire Jiangnan area.

At this time, Liu Tongchun said proudly: "This is a sand table that was made under the instruction of Governor Qian for your analysis."

After everyone's deliberation, it was believed that there were four attack directions before the Huzhou Ming Army.

The first direction of attack was to march eastward and capture the Su and Song Mansion together with the Ming army in Chongming.

After Tian Xiong's 5,000 troops went south to reinforce eastern Zhejiang, the troops of the Soviet Union and Song Dynasty were only 10,000, and there were no Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners in charge.

Now that Hangzhou's troops are empty, it is temporarily unable to invade Huzhou again. Theoretically, Qian Mo can take the opportunity to capture the Su and Song Dynasties and establish himself as the governor of Suhu.

But there are four disadvantages to capturing Susong.

First, Bashan's 5,000 Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners are still in Nanjing and Zhenjiang and can support the Susong area at any time, which increases the variables in attacking Susong.

Second, the Qing army in this area had to guard against the Ming army in Chongming, so the possibility of taking the initiative to attack Huzhou was not high.

Qian Mo left Zhejiang and Huizhou, two strategic areas where the Ming and Qing Dynasties were fighting life and death, to attack Su Song. This was equivalent to making a big slow move in the chess game of the world. It was obviously

Let the Qing army breathe a sigh of relief.

As a master of chess, Qian Mo would naturally not play chess like this.

Thirdly, the two houses of Su and Song were also undefeable. After taking it, Qian Mo did not have the strength to defend so many bases, which was equivalent to tying himself up and tying up his own hands and feet.

Fourth, after capturing Su Song, the main force of the Eight Banners going south will inevitably attack him. Is he trying to attract the firepower of the Qing army for Jin Shenghuan, or is he choosing such a battlefield that is not conducive to him.

Therefore, Qian Mo immediately denied attacking the Susong area.

The second direction is to go north from Huzhou, capture Yixing, Liyang, and Jurong all the way to Nanjing.

There are indeed not many troops around Nanjing now, and this route is also quite concealed.

If Jin Shenghuan led the Northern Expedition and contained the main force of the Qing army around Nanjing, and Qian Mo acted as a partial force to sneak attack on Nanjing, it would still have a certain surprise attack effect.

However, Jiang Riguang's Northern Expeditionary Army has not even captured Huizhou. Although it has contained some Qing troops, there are still many troops around Nanjing. Although Qian Mo's sneak attack on Nanjing at this time can change the situation of the war, the possibility of success is low.

A direct sneak attack on Nanjing was also denied by Qian Mo.

The third direction is to march towards Anhui, capture Guangde, and then cooperate with the Ming army to capture Huizhou.

That is to fight back along the route of Jin Li's sneak attack on Huzhou, take advantage of the lack of Qing troops to occupy Guangde, and join forces with Jiang Riguang's Northern Expeditionary Army in Huizhou, so that they can march north again to Nanjing.

In fact, this route is the offensive route that Qian Mo wants to take the most.

First of all, the Qing army in Guangde did not have many troops and could be easily captured.

Secondly, Huizhou and Xuancheng areas in southern Anhui are both wealthy areas, and taking them here can greatly increase your income.

Moreover, Huizhou is mountainous, which is the best place to block the Qing army from moving south to Jiangxi. Taking it here also opened up the supply line between the Zhejiang Ming Army and the Jiangxi Ming Army.
To be continued...