The first to arrive in Zhangye was the light cavalry unit of the Red Shirt Army, composed of Wang Fuchen's forward battalion and Xue Chaoyi's horse thieves. They were equipped with firecrackers, grenades, sabers, spears and other light weapons. As soon as they arrived, they were on the Xixia company camp.
He opened a hole and broke the siege of Zhangye City.
But the Red Shirt Army had too few soldiers. Five thousand men and horses were as insignificant as a drop in the ocean in front of hundreds of thousands of Xixia troops. The Xixia people opened a circle and let them in. After a fierce fight, the reinforcements finally rushed into Zhangye City, but
There were less than 3,000 people left out of 5,000.
In any case, reinforcements finally arrived, and the morale in the city was greatly boosted. Wu Sangui came to greet Wang Fuchen in person. Seeing that General Wu, who used to be handsome and unrestrained in the past, was now sallow and thin, with sunken eye sockets, Wang Fuchen was not helpless. The food in the city had long been exhausted.
, there is no way to provide decent meals to entertain Wang Fuchen and the others, and because these reinforcements are traveling lightly and do not carry much dry food with them, these three thousand reinforcements will not actually play a big role, but will increase the supply of supplies in the city.
Consumption.
Watching the Xixia army outside the city once again surrounded Zhangye City like an iron barrel, Wu Sangui finally understood the enemy's intention. It was not that they were incapable of taking Zhangye, but they adopted the strategy of siege and reinforcements to induce the Ming army to rush for reinforcements.
With Zhangye as the center, the effective strength of the Ming army was gradually consumed and the logistics of the Ming army was overwhelmed. This was Galdan's wishful thinking.
Wu Sangui hurriedly told Wang Fuchen this idea and asked him to quickly telegraph Liu Ziguang and ask them to return to Lanzhou to defend Lanzhou and not to make unnecessary sacrifices. The thousands of miles long Hexi Corridor is enough to drag down the logistics of any powerful army. Zhangye is the Galdanbu
In a game, whoever jumps in will die.
But it was already too late. Liu Ziguang's rear army arrived in Zhangye three days later. However, this army did not enter the city. Instead, they set up camp twenty miles away from the city, forming a circle with carts and camels.
The caltrops and mines were laid to prevent cavalry, and the Xixia army was so fast that it was unimaginable. It only took half an hour for the scouts to discover the enemy's traces, and a large group of people rushed to look for fighters. Looking at the impregnable Ming army camp, the Xixia army used cavalry to test
He rushed twice, but gave up after encountering fierce counterattacks.
After experiencing the Battle of Ningxia, the Xixia people already understood the fighting methods of the Red Shirt Army. They were very smart and no longer attacked by force. Instead, they surrounded the camp and dug three trenches to hinder the opponent's movements. If you don't let me
Rush in, I won’t let you out yet. It’s already the twelfth lunar month of winter, and there’s not even a blade of grass on the desolate land. There are so many red shirts, horses, camels, and they will never be able to replenish the food and grass after they’ve eaten up. The camp has been destroyed.
The siege is three levels inside and three levels outside, and the transportation team behind cannot get through. As long as the siege lasts for a few months, the Ming army will be defeated without the Xixia army attacking.
The general in charge of the Xixia army is really like a god in using his troops. In this way, the advantages of the Red Shirt Army cannot be used. Facing a strong enemy, the Red Shirt Army has no choice but to hold on, like a shrinking hedgehog. There is nothing anyone in the two armies can do.
No matter who, they were just in a stalemate with each other, but the Xixia army's attack on Zhangye became more fierce. The shelling continued every day, and the sound of killing could be heard dozens of miles away. Seeing that the friendly forces were increasingly unable to support them.
However, he was unable to do anything. The red shirt soldiers were all filled with indignation and asked to go out to fight, but Liu Ziguang rebuked them all.
Relying on the ammunition brought by three thousand reinforcements, Zhangye City managed to hold on for another seven days. After a large number of injured soldiers retreated, they died of cold and starvation. Wu Sangui looked at it with tears in his eyes, but he was helpless. It was winter and the cold was extremely cold.
, almost everything that can be used for heating in Zhangye City has been burned. If this continues, people will freeze to death before they starve to death. The food in the city has long been exhausted. Now they make a living by eating horse meat, which is soaked in snow water.
When cooked, there is no salt, and the taste is as unpalatable as firewood. Even so, many people cannot eat it. In the city, officers and soldiers from different battalions often fight and injure people to death in order to compete for horse meat.
There are currently three factions of troops in this city. In addition to Wang Fuchen's troops, the Western Army is divided into Wu Sangui's Hunan Army and Liu Zongmin's Guanzhong Army. Among them, Liu Zongmin has the largest number of troops. The commander-in-chief, who was a horse thief, has great opinions on Liu Ziguang.
Wu Sangui kept complaining about why Liu Ziguang didn't launch an attack to relieve Zhang Ye when his troops had already arrived outside the city. He even bluntly said that Liu Ziguang wanted to take the opportunity to eradicate his dissident, which made people in the city panic. Wu Sangui had nothing to do with him and could only
I pinched my nose and tried to persuade Liu Zongmin to persevere every day.
The turning point finally came. One day, the grain officer of the Xixia army discovered that the grain trucks coming from Jiayuguan were suddenly interrupted. You must know that there are a full 200,000 troops in the pass, and tens of thousands of grains are consumed every day.
When transportation came from Jiayuguan, the Xixia people suffered no less logistical pressure than the Han people. The grain and grass officer quickly reported it to the general Danzila. Danzila was the first general under Galdan's account. He was brave and resourceful and laid siege to the city for reinforcements.
It was he who made the plan. When he heard that there was a problem with the supply of grain and grass, he quickly sent people to investigate. The results were extremely shocking. It turned out that Jiayuguan was captured by the Ming army three days ago!
This news is unbelievable. Two hundred thousand troops are lying across the Hexi Corridor, with mountains and deserts on the left and right. Could it be that the Ming army had wings and flew over? Danzila was really right. Jiayuguan was the place where the Red Army
The airborne troops of the Shijun Army were captured. Once this important pass blocking the exit of the Hexi Corridor was lost, the food route for Zhangye's 200,000 Xixia army would be cut off. He would be trapped to death before others were trapped. Danzila quickly
Fifty thousand troops were sent to counterattack Jiayuguan, and the remaining troops attacked Zhangye and the Red Shirt Army camp regardless of losses, striving to eliminate the enemy before they ran out of food and grass.
The battle was extremely fierce. The soldiers once engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Xixia Army. There were corpses everywhere outside the camp. The infantry of the Xixia Army were pulled up and destroyed in formations. No one retreated. Only then did Liu Ziguang see the tenacity of the enemy.
Seeing the enemy troops who did not take human life seriously, the red-shirted soldiers were also frightened. It seemed as if they could not kill all the people in the black crowd. The artillery fired and blasted a flesh and blood hole, which was quickly filled.
On the horizon, Xixia infantrymen wearing tattered sheepskin jackets and holding small bucklers and scimitars kept coming, howling and rushing over. The fine steel barrels of the fire guns became red and deformed due to excessive firing, and the shells were fired even more.
If you miss one shot, you will lose sooner or later.
Liu Ziguang personally supervised the battle with the sword given by the emperor. Seeing the general coming to the battlefield, the soldiers' courage increased greatly. They even launched a counterattack and repelled the Xixia attack. They also captured many spears and swords.
Be prepared to use it in melee combat after you run out of ammunition.
In fact, the Xixia people were under great pressure. Danzila did not show favoritism and the military law was extremely strict. No matter who he was, anyone who dared to retreat before the battle would have to be beheaded in public. During the battle, the military law team followed the attacking troops. If the Chinese army did not win the gold medal,
The order is to kill all the people and not to retreat. Anyone who dares to retreat will be served with bows and arrows. A soldier will die if he goes forward, and he will die if he retreats. If you die in the hands of the enemy, you will still get some pension. If you die in military law,
In the hands of the team, it would only bring shame and punishment to the family, so they had no choice but to move forward desperately, and they died one after another.
Danzila was riding on a horse, observing the battlefield situation with a telescope. Although there were countless casualties, he was not moved at all. Anyway, the cost of recruiting these soldiers was very low, and a human life was far less valuable than a war horse, so he
He did not hesitate to use the human sea tactic to fill it up. When the Ming army's ammunition was exhausted, it was time for the elite cavalry to come on stage to clean up the enemy. This tactic was relatively stupid and was not Danzila's original intention. However, the Ming army flew to Jiayuguan and let this man
The famous general was very flustered. He was afraid that the Ming army would come up with another trick, so he used this human sea tactic to make a quick victory.
The battle lasted for a whole day, but they still failed to capture the Ming army's camp, and the Xixia army's energy was exhausted. Danzila ordered the soldiers to harass all night long, not allowing the red shirt army to rest, while his cavalry troops had a good meal.
He went to bed early and waited for the general offensive to be launched in the early morning to eradicate the Red Shirt Army camp in one fell swoop.
At this time, the red shirts' ammunition had been exhausted, and the rifles of the frontline soldiers were empty. Only the bayonets were shining coldly, and the cold wind was blowing like a steel knife cutting the face. The winter temperatures in the Western Regions were so low that it was unimaginable for these Central Plains soldiers to stand in front of the battle line.
The corpses were frozen into lumps of ice, and the blood stains were also frozen into ice cubes. It was slippery to walk on. The winter clothes of the red shirt soldiers were not enough to withstand the wind and cold. Some soldiers sneaked out of the trenches and took off the sheepskin robes from the dead bodies to keep warm.
, more than a dozen huge bonfires were lit in front of the formation to illuminate the battlefield and prepare for enemy night attacks. The bonfires were not made of firewood, but corpses. The smell of burning human flesh and fat filled the air, making people vomit and suffocate.
After a whole day of assault, the Red Shirt Army had lost two trenches and now retreated to the third trench, which was the last trench in front of the wall. They originally wanted to take advantage of the enemy's break to deepen the trench, but the temperature suddenly dropped at night.
During the fall, the ground was as frozen as steel. When shoveled with a shovel, there would only be a bunch of sparks, not even a mark. The soldiers had to huddle in the shallow trenches, wrapped up in their sheepskin jackets, and discussed their future affairs with each other.
.
Many people died in this battle. Seeing Pao Ze, who they had known each other day and night, dying beside them, the soldiers all knew that their death was not far away. Most of them were knowledgeable soldiers who had attended the military preparation school and could
They were writing letters to their families, so they all took out the suicide notes they had already written and exchanged them with each other, promising to help each other take care of their families as long as they survived.
The bonfire reflected the young faces. They came from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, from Huguang, from Shandong and Shanxi, and from the land of Yanzhao, in order to kill the enemy and serve the country and restore the glory of the Han Dynasty. The brainwashing work of the Red Shirt Army was done
It's really good. Although everyone knows that they will die tomorrow, no one is sad. Everyone is vying to show their contempt for death. A few junior officers with scholarly backgrounds even started to write poems. The tragic and heroic poems are infectious.
The young soldiers, sobbing in the north wind, carried the singing of the Manchurian Red Army that gradually sounded from the Red Shirt Army's position to the Xixia Army's camp. Danzila, who had been up all night and was still planning tomorrow's general attack, couldn't help but look at them sideways, thinking about this.
The Han army is indeed very different from those enemies in the past.
In the dark night, snowflakes gradually fell, and no one saw it. Countless airships flew silently towards the bonfire of the Red Shirt Army camp in the night sky...