Chongzhen Ming Dynasty: Starting from Meishan Chapter 529 Trench Warfare
Dorgon has high hopes for tonight's first wave of shelling.
However, the cruel reality soon gave him a blow.
The expected salvo of hundreds of artillery fire did not come, but instead there was an unexpected explosion.
A dazzling red light suddenly appeared in the darkness ahead, and then there was a loud explosion, and then there was a faint sound of weapons clashing, and shouts of killing, and then a bonfire in the Ming army's formation outside.
They went out one after another, and the entire battlefield instantly became dark.
Dorgon's face fell instantly.
Hou Fangyu lost his voice and said, "What happened?"
"You don't know this? This is the ambushes of the Ming Army."
This time, Cao Eryu finally took the opportunity to show off his superiority in front of Hou Fangyu.
Dorgon was also a little angry: "Jiang Xuan, this idiot, can't do such a small thing well."
Dorgon had long warned Jiang Xuan to be careful of the ambushing troops, but he still fell into the trap.
Jiang Xuan was really an idiot. He was thrown into chaos just by encountering an ambushing army. When the ambushing army detonated the mines to warn the enemy, Jiang Xuan immediately stopped the entire Green Battalion.
Then he sent someone to ask Dorgon if he wanted to continue to approach?
Dorgon really wanted to kill Jiang Xuan, but he held back in the end.
Dorgon immediately ordered Jiang Xuan to fire from the current distance.
After receiving the order, Jiang Xuan decisively launched an artillery attack on the Ming army.
But only God knows how effective this wave of bombardment will be.
Because the current distance is almost 600 steps, and it is a blind shot at night.
After firing a cannon, eight teams of packers carried large bales of hay that had been temporarily collected, and quietly approached the four Ming army formations under the cover of sidecars.
Two sidecars loaded with hay approached each Ming army formation.
Because of the cover of night, it was difficult to detect the Ming troops in the outer square formation.
It wasn't until another ambushing army detonated landmines as a warning that the Ming army became aware of it.
But it was difficult to see clearly in the dark, and the Ming army was unable to do anything when they discovered it.
It wasn't until Jiannu Baoyi came within twenty steps under the cover of the sidecar that the Ming army finally saw clearly the shadows of Jiannu and the sidecar through the reflection of the snow.
The Ming army immediately began to take turns firing cannons.
The squatting tiger cannons in the formation also opened fire one after another.
However, a flintlock gun cannot penetrate a sidecar at all.
Although the closed-mouth bullets of the Tiger Crouching Cannon can penetrate sidecars, they are not accurate.
So we fought ping-ping-pong-pong for a while, but still couldn't stop Jiannu.
But at this time, the Ming army also discovered that there was only one sidecar and a small number of slaves approaching them from each direction, so they immediately sent out an infantry sentry to launch a counterattack.
The attacking infantry successfully killed the Jiannu.
But before being beaten to death, Jiannu still set fire to the hay on the side carriage.
The burning haystacks emitted a dazzling light, illuminating dozens of steps in a radius as bright as day, and the walls of the side carriages of the Ming army's formation were illuminated at once.
At this time, the Green Battalion's camel swivel gun had completed reloading.
Using the light of the fire to quickly complete their aim, the Green Battalion launched the second wave of artillery fire.
The effect of the second wave of bombardment will definitely be much better than the first wave of bombardment.
Accompanied by the "booming" sound of artillery and the shattering sounds of "Kacha" and "Kacha", at least thirty sidecars were smashed or punctured in an instant.
…
Xu Yingwei stood on the chao car and took in all this, and his heart sank instantly.
With his keen battlefield insight, Xu Yingwei instantly judged Jiannu's intention. Jiannu wanted to fight a war of attrition with the Ming army, sacrificing a small number of coats and sidecars, lighting up the battlefield, and exchanging their camel artillery for a
The opportunity to destroy the Ming army's sidecar formation, and the Ming army had no good way to deal with this.
Xu Yingwei immediately summoned four infantry brigade commanders including Gu Yanwu, Lu Xiangtong, Jiang Tianyi and Lu Yuding to the formation.
By the way, the battalion-level and brigade-level chief officers of the New Army are all served by Qin Wang Shizi, and they are all temporarily appointed. That is, when there is a combat mission, they are temporarily appointed, and after the battle is over, they will be automatically relieved of the corresponding duties.
When there is a war next time, battalion and brigade-level commanders will be temporarily appointed again.
Gu Yanwu and the others quickly arrived at the formation.
But the four of them couldn't think of any good solution.
The main reason is that they are fooling around and not knowing where the "ignition team" of the Jiannu slaves will infiltrate.
The only way they could think of was to send out a large number of hunting teams to wander in the middle area, specifically to search for and kill the "ignition teams" that had infiltrated the Jiannu slaves.
The Ming army did so.
But soon we encountered new problems.
Soon after the Ming army sent out a hunting team, Jiannu also sent out a large number of white-armored soldiers.
In the first battle between the two sides, the Ming army suffered a heavy loss. Most of the more than a hundred hunting teams and more than a hundred New Army soldiers they sent were hunted down by white-armored soldiers of the Jiannu slaves, and only less than ten of them escaped.
Chaos fighting in the dark has always been the strong point of Jiannu.
In the end, there was really no choice but to bombard them with artillery.
Just use the Crouching Tiger Cannon to fire randomly in all directions.
As you can imagine, the result is basically useless.
In less than two hours, almost at the time of Hai Zheng, the two side walls of the four sidecars facing Jiannu were basically beaten to a pulp and could no longer provide protection.
As a last resort, Xu Yingwei could only order the side cars on the other two sides of the car to be dismantled, but this was not a long-term solution, because it would only take two hours at most, and the side cars on the two side walls that had been demolished would be beaten to pieces.
.
Thinking of this, Lu Xiangtong almost cried out: "No, I have to think of a way quickly."
"There's nothing to worry about. If it doesn't work, just fight with Jian Nu." Gu Yanwu said with a dark face.
"Brother Ning Ren, what you said is wrong." Jiang Tianyi said solemnly, "The Holy One made it clear before leaving that this battle is a battle to build confidence. You can only win, not lose!"
"Then what can you do?" Gu Yanwu said angrily.
"The formation of sidecars can't be saved at a glance, and Jiannu's cannon can hit us at a glance. We can't just dig a hole and bury ourselves first, and then get out when Jiannu attacks, right?"
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Gu Yanwu was the speaker without intention, but Xu Yingwei's heart moved after hearing it.
"Bury it?" Xu Yingwei pondered for a moment and then said excitedly, "Yes!"
After saying this, Xu Yingwei patted Gu Yanwu's shoulder hard again and said with a smile: "Brother Ning Ren, it's really thanks to you that I'm here this time. I'll report it to His Majesty later. If our army wins this Hunhe battle, you will
The first achievement."
"Brother Youzhen, what did you say?" Gu Yanwu was confused after hearing this.
"Don't forget there are trenches!" Xu Yingwei said with a smile, "The infantry of the four peripheral infantry brigades and all the artillery of the Tiger Crouching Artillery Command all entered the trenches and were on standby, waiting for Jiannu's final general attack."
"Yes, there is a trench!" Gu Yanwu and the other four's eyes lit up instantly.
"Go back quickly." Xu Yingwei said, "This time I will give Jiannu a hard blow."
"Okay." Gu Yanwu and the other four agreed, and immediately rushed back to their positions.
After sending away Gu Yanwu and four others, Xu Yingwei readjusted the artillery deployment.
100 4-inch field guns were temporarily organized into four field artillery commanders by Xu Yingwei, each commander was responsible for providing fire support to a hollow square array on the periphery.
…
At this time, Xu Yingwei and others did not realize that one of their unconscious actions would make the firearms tactics on the Eastern battlefield go astray again, and trench warfare would come out nearly three hundred years earlier.
Even Chongzhen, a time traveler, had not thought of this.
Chongzhen thought of using sidecars to form a vehicle formation to provide protection for the Ming army's musketeers, preventing them from being shot in a queue like the musketeers on the Western battlefield.
But trench warfare, Chongzhen really didn't think of it.
This is actually a mindset. In Chongzhen's subconscious, trench warfare would have real significance only when heavy machine guns and breech-loading rifles came out.
In the era of front-loading muskets, trench warfare didn't make much sense.
However, tactics are never good or bad, only whether they are applicable or not, and the results of the same tactics may be completely different on another battlefield.
For example, use sidecars to form a vehicle formation.
This is a very good tactic on the Liaodong plains or grasslands.
But if it goes to the high mountains and forests of the Southwest, or to the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, it will only be a burden to the army, which is a negative asset.
Another example is trenches. If the Ming army attacks, they will be useless.
But by coincidence, it happened to be the Ming army's defense. What was even more coincidental was that because the ground was frozen too hard, the ring trench that the Ming army spent a long time digging was only more than five feet deep and two feet wide.
This depth is just enough for musketeers to stand and shoot in the trench.
And this width is just enough to accommodate three rows of musketeers firing alternately.
Everything was just right, so a brand new tactic was born.
Of course, this tactic has great limitations. Once the enemy is not eager for a decisive battle, it is useless.
But at this time, the Qing army was obviously eager to attack. Dorgon wanted to defeat the Ming army before dawn and capture Chongzhen to prevent Chongzhen from running away sitting on the Kongming Lantern.
…
The Qing army continued to send out wrapped sidecars to light up the Ming army's positions.
By the light of the fire, the Qing army's camel revolving guns launched continuous bombardments. At 3 o'clock in the morning at the end of Chou Dynasty, the four sidecar formations of the Ming army on the periphery were completely destroyed.
Not surprisingly, a large number of Ming troops were also killed.
Therefore, Dorgon couldn't wait to devote all his main forces to launch a general attack.
This time it was really a general attack. More than 16,000 Eight Banners Han troops pushed sidecars in front, 10,000 Eight Banners Manchu troops pushed behind, and there were 20,000 Eight Banners Mongolians and more than 20,000 Horqin Mongolian light troops.
The cavalry marched outside.
As for Green Camp and Baoyi, they retired after their success and temporarily retreated to the rear.
Dorgon actually saw Ming troops in the trench, but he didn't pay attention at all.
First, because the coated slaves' suicide lighting only lit up a few small sections of trenches, Dorgon took it for granted that there were only a few small sections of trenches with Ming troops. Second, because Dorgon had never seen trench warfare, so he simply
