On the second day of November in the fifth year of Xiaokang, it was Shenshi in the afternoon.
In Kyaukme County, which has been repeatedly sawn, burned and razed to the ground, tens of thousands of the main force of the Burmese army stationed here are in the most relaxed state——
At least, compared to other times in the past half month, today is indeed the most relaxed.
There are a total of 70,000 to 80,000 Burmese troops in the surrounding area, and more than half of them are stationed in Kyaukme County. However, because the city is too small, the troops that cannot be stationed have to set up camps one by one along the Kyaukvalley Road.
And the reason why they dare to be so lax is not unreasonable. Who made it rain again this morning? As the rainy season is about to end completely, it has not rained for several days, but it started to rain again today, with a heavy rainfall.
It is more durable,
The heavy rain has been falling from the beginning to the end, and it has not completely stopped at this moment. It is still a bit pattering, just like the last bit of urine left by a prostate patient.
In such weather, the muskets bought by the Burmese army from the Dutch were completely useless. It seems that the Ming army has also become a tiger with its teeth pulled out. What else is there to worry about?
Even the King of Myanmar, Mangbai himself, felt this way. So much so that even the arrangements for scouts and scouts were reduced. It was raining heavily and the mountain road was difficult to walk. Since there was destined to be no enemy attack, why bother?
However, fate is not as good as fate. At the beginning of Shenshi (3 p.m.), the garrison of Jiaomei County suddenly received a scout report, indicating that the army had reached less than twenty miles away from the county seat.
After all, when a large army is stationed, scouts still have to be dispatched. Whether the weather is good or bad, and the probability of a battle, only affects the density of the scouts and the distance they are spread out. It cannot be completely eliminated. Therefore, no matter how slow the Burmese army is, when the Ming army is quick to take action,
When it hit my face, I reacted in time.
Mang Bai was taking a lunch break at the time, and when he heard the report from his subordinates, he felt incredible.
"What? The Ming army actually attacked at this time? They have retreated dozens of miles in the past few days, and now they are trying to fight back. Didn't they already start marching when it rained heavily? Is Li Dingguo looking for death?
Quick, order the whole army to go out of the city to attack! The musketeers put on bayonets and supervise the battle behind them, let the archers take the lead to defend against the enemy, and prepare for field battles along the valley!"
The subordinates were a little puzzled, and someone suggested: "Your Majesty, why are you rushing to fight in the field? If the Ming army dares to come, can't we just defend the city?"
Mang Bai glanced at the coward general with disdain and said proudly: "It is rare for Li Dingguo to take the initiative to attack and die. Of course, he must bite him hard so that he cannot get rid of the pursuit after he is defeated, and finally kill him and seriously injure him!"
If our army defends the city, once Li Dingguo fails to attack and retreats in an orderly manner, how can our army still catch Li Dingguo if we rush to open the city gate to pursue him? How can we ensure that we take full advantage of Li Dingguo's haste and panic when he retreats?
Moreover, this Jiaomei County town has been breached twice in just half a month. Each time the defenders set fire to the city and destroyed it when they withdrew, and deliberately dug up the city defenses. As for the city defenses now, there is no difference at all whether they have them or not. Since there is nothing worthwhile
Taking advantage of the advantageous location, it is better to go out of the city to fight in the field and hold on tight!
You don’t need to be afraid. Li Dingguo has been besieged by us for many days and must be at the end of his battle. His soldiers have been killed by suppurating wounds. The mosquito miasma must also have greatly reduced the Ming army’s combat effectiveness. Today is their last ditch effort.
!”
Some cowardly subordinates will be reprimanded, while other flattering subordinates will praise them one after another: "Your Majesty knows the enemy is ahead of the enemy and uses his troops like a god. This time Li Dingguo wants to die, so we will help him!"
…
The atmosphere was so high that it would be a bit disappointing for the audience if it wasn't. A quarter of an hour later, the two armies lined up against each other at the entrance of the Jiao Valley, and a fight was imminent.
Because of the narrow terrain of the mountainous area, although the number of the Burmese army was three times that of the attacking Ming army, the frontal width of the formation was almost the same.
Both sides were more or less drawn into a long snake formation, and there were still many rear troops that could not be pushed away at all. At that time, they could only use the tactic of adding fuel to the battlefield one by one.
Mang Bai was very confident and even came to supervise the battle in person. However, he also heard that the Ming Army had a rifled gun with a very long range and accurate shooting, so he would not be stupid enough to show his face directly. Therefore, he always had countless sword and shield hand guards around him, even if he wanted to shout.
Let the ordering soldiers find the scolding players in the front row to execute.
There was not much to say in the rhetoric between the two sides. They were just blaming the other side for betrayal, greed, and evil. Anyway, neither side could dampen the morale of the other side. After a brief exchange of words, the Ming army launched an attack using stacked formations.
"Archers, prepare!" On the Burmese army's side, the front-line war supervising generals also felt as if they were facing a powerful enemy, and were ready to order the archers to fire arrows in groups at any time.
In the tropical areas of South Asia and Southeast Asia, crossbows are rarely used, and bows and arrows are mainly used. The range of bows and arrows is often much closer than that of northern peoples.
This is because the tropical humid climate will cause animal tendons to age quickly, so bows and arrows in tropical rainforest climates are made of less elastic materials such as flax fiber as bowstrings. The elastic potential energy when releasing the arrow mainly depends on the bow.
This is accomplished by the elastic deformation of solid wood.
The reason why no one uses crossbows is because the hard body of the crossbow has poor deformation and energy storage. The crossbow mainly relies on strings to deform and store energy. Without the use of beef tendon strings, the crossbow is useless.
Such a harsh environment has caused the Burmese army's bow and arrow range to be severely suppressed by the Ming army's artillery. The archers even need to charge forward for a while under fire before they can start to release arrows. That's why the Burmese army suffered such heavy casualties in previous battles.
, we can only place our hopes on tropical viruses and minor wound infections.
Today, the Burmese archers dared to stand still and wait for the Ming army to approach, instead of rushing forward and rushing to release arrows. Apparently, this was because soldiers at all levels had received encouragement from above before the war.
Knowing that the Ming Army's musketeers had no use today and could only rush forward to fight with bayonets, the morale of the Burmese Army's archers was uncharacteristically high.
Unfortunately, this high spirit was soon dashed as the Ming army entered the range of Wuchang-made muskets.
The front-line generals of the Burmese army did not give the order to fire arrows. They were still waiting for the Ming army to get closer, but the Ming army in the front row fired first.
"Bang, bang, bang—" Thousands of bullets flew through the air, instantly causing a bloody storm in the Burmese army array on the opposite side.
The Burmese army seemed to have no reaction at all, and was stunned for a few seconds. It was not until the second and third rows of Ming soldiers also stacked up and opened fire that the chaos of the Burmese army completely broke out.
"The Ming army's muskets can fire after heavy rain!"
"The rain hasn't completely stopped, can it be used at this time?"
"Is it possible that the rain no longer affects the musketry? Quickly, let our army's musketry team also come forward to shoot. We must suppress the Ming army!"
From the grassroots Burmese army officers, to senior generals, and even Burmese King Mangbai, everyone was instantly shocked, and then made different panic responses.
Some ordinary soldiers just wanted to escape, and some junior officers wanted to urge the archers to rush forward immediately and get close to the shooter. But Mangbai wanted to break the pot and take a gamble to try his own Dutch musket.
It can also be used in such critical environments.
It's a pity that tens of thousands of troops are crowded into a group. How can they change their formations and moves so quickly?
The one-sided massacre must last for at least five or six minutes, or even ten minutes, before the Burmese army can respond effectively. And under this cross-fire density of tens of thousands of bullets per minute, the morale of the army will drop after ten minutes.
How it will collapse is simply unimaginable.
Pieces of barrages, or walls of bullets, roared into the faces of the Burmese army soldiers, and rows of Burmese army archers fell to the ground with blood flowing in rivers.
The Ming army was not in a hurry to charge forward. The soldiers who fired each round only walked three or four steps in front of their teammates in the previous round, stopped, and then opened fire. The two hundred or so steps between the enemy and our vanguards
The Ming army had to use it sparingly, otherwise they would be in front of the enemy in a short while.
The chaotic Burmese army did not always wait to die or flee, but some also rushed forward against the trend.
It's a pity that the density of firepower of the Ming army's artillery array could have completely blocked the charge of the Manchu cavalry fifteen years ago, let alone the Burmese charge on foot on the mountain road at this moment?
Due to the hot and humid environment, the Burmese army generally lacked armor. When the front-line generals of the Ming army saw the soldiers rushing up, they immediately ordered all their own soldiers to replace them with shotgun shells.
Within a hundred steps, smokeless gunpowder fixed shotguns are used to hit unarmored targets. This is so refreshing that it no longer needs any description. Anyone on earth who has played gun games can imagine it.
In the end, the most ferocious, determined and fastest Burmese warriors only rushed sixty steps in front of the Ming army, and then they were all taken away. Not even a single person rushed within the fifty-step mark.
.
When all the Burmese soldiers who charged up with bloody courage at the beginning were killed without leaving any one alive, the Ming army replaced them with double-shot single-head bombs, and the battle was basically over, and the rest was just garbage time.
Thousands of Burmese soldiers were slaughtered mercilessly in chaos and congestion, and even Burmese King Mangbai could not suppress them.
In the end, in order to prevent his central army's flag formation from being overturned by the retreating soldiers, Mangbai even had to let the flag formation's sword and shield bearers frantically kill the retreating archers and spearmen.
Then let all the Burmese army musketeers fix their bayonets and line up to stab any soldiers who dare to disrupt their own positions. Although the Dutch muskets used by the Burmese army musketeers can be re-removed with bayonets in a combat environment to try to shoot from a long distance,
But after all, it was not as convenient as the Ming army's ferrule bayonet, which brought greater confusion.
"Kill Mangbai! Destroy the Burmese thieves! Kill Mangbai! Destroy the Burmese thieves!" The Ming army's killing speed did not slow down at all, and they crushed the rebels crazily and drove them back to collapse and flee.
The soldiers of the Burmese army fought with each other for a long time. Mangbai finally couldn't resist it. Even he was injured by shrapnel. He had to seize the horse and let the bodyguards fight to escape. As the king's bodyguards began to kill him,
If people seize the road, the Burmese army will be completely finished.
Tens of thousands of broken troops fled along the Jiaoshan Valley, and the twenty to thirty thousand wounded who were originally stranded in Jiaomei County were all withdrawn from the front during the ten-day war of attrition. They were completely abandoned at this moment, and no one was left.
Don't worry about the lives of these people who have lost their mobility.
…
Li Dingguo's pursuit finally lasted for half the afternoon and half the night. He only allowed the soldiers to sleep for less than two hours in the middle of the night when the night was completely dark. Then they started to pursue him on the road again at 10:00 the next morning.
More torches were used to illuminate the mountain roads, and some officers even used kerosene lamp samples that had just been trial-produced by the Daming Academy of Sciences in the rear.
The next day was another whole day's pursuit, which lasted for fifteen hours in total.
The nearly 30,000 wounded soldiers left by the Burmese army from previous battles were all abandoned. The Ming army would not waste precious medical supplies, so they all ended their suffering. The new casualties in this battle were also more than 50,000 or 60,000.
huge.
By the early morning of the fourth day of November, counting the losses of all parties, Mangbai had lost at least 90,000 men, of whom more than 40,000 were directly killed (including the wounded who were executed with last-ditch wounds), and the others were injured or missing.
——And in a combat environment like Jiaoshan, the so-called disappearance is actually very likely to fall into the valley directly during the escape, and no bones will be left.
Li Dingguo took a short rest, spent a few days clearing out the remaining enemies on both wings, ensuring the rear logistics supply route, and after replenishing a wave of supplies, he hurriedly launched a new offensive on the seventh day of October.
Finally, within two days, they completely penetrated the Kyauksan Mountains, entered the Irrawaddy River Valley plain, and reached the gates of Ava City.
As for the Burmese army, because Mang Bai himself had been injured by shrapnel a few days ago, the army was panic-stricken and failed to seize the window period of rest in the past few days to make adjustments. In the end, Li Dingguo forced him up.
The size of the Burmese army in Ava City is still at least several times that of Li Dingguo's Ming army. However, the proportion of wounded among them is too high, and the morale of those who are not injured is extremely low. The main reason is that they are completely overwhelmed by the Ming army's ability to survive after a heavy rain.
The muskets exerting their firepower were so frightening that they could not even imagine such an existence.
Due to lack of troops, Li Dingguo was determined to attack the city, but he was really unsure of encircling it on all sides, so he finally chose to attack only one side and give up the other three sides.
Facing Li Dingguo's posture of trying to attack the fortress, Mang Bai, who was still recovering from his injuries, stood up and asked the guards to carry him to inspect the city defense, comfort and encourage the soldiers, and asked the defenders to mobilize all the Hongyi cannons to prepare for a bombardment with Li Dingguo.
.
"Generals must fight to the death! There is still hope for our army in this battle! Previously, Li Dingguo only relied on the sharp guns of the Ming army to break through some places without fortified cities! But Awa is the capital of Burma, how can it be compared to the small county of Kyaukmei?
The Hongyi cannons I have accumulated over the years in Myanmar are definitely more powerful than the firearms brought by the Ming army over the mountains, and we will definitely be able to defend them!"
This encouragement from the Burmese king did have some effect. Many Burmese army generals finally remembered that the Burmese army still had an absolute advantage in one aspect, and that was city defense artillery!
This is not to say that Burma's Hongyi cannons are stronger than those of the Ming Dynasty. This is impossible. They have been fighting for these few months and have understood the situation clearly.
But the Burmese generals all knew that the really powerful heavy artillery of the Ming army could not be pulled overland over the Kyaukshan Mountains to the city of Ava. Therefore, the Ming army either had no artillery or only had light artillery that could accompany the army over the mountains.
Myanmar's geographical advantage is, after all, the last and strongest trump card of the Burmese army! Even if this war is ultimately lost and forced to cede territory and beg for mercy, Li Dingguo's siege attempt should be defeated before suing for peace, otherwise I'm afraid it will be
The price offered by the Ming army could be so high that Burma would be destroyed!
With the final confidence, the main force of the Burmese army rarely chose to retreat and abandon Ava. Instead, the entire army defended the city and even sent messengers to all parties to order troops to serve the king. They also urgently mobilized reinforcements from the capital Bago in the rear.
…
While the Burmese were relying on artillery to defend, Li Dingguo would certainly not be idle. As soon as he arrived at the foot of Awa City, he first established a strong siege camp, and then relied on the camp to dig trenches and carry out earthwork work.
Extends under the city wall.
The Burmese people couldn't understand what he was doing, so they had no choice but to let him do what he did.
There is no doubt that Li Dingguo’s purpose is to reproduce the Woban siege method invented by the Ming Dynasty at the end of the Ming and Qing wars. And the Woban siege method used by Li Dingguo today is absolutely pure in taste——
Because the thirty-three-year-old General Vauban Sebastien Le Prestre Vauban himself was in Li Dingguo's army and contributed to today's critical battle.
Vauban was recruited by the Ming Dynasty in his weak years about five or six years after Zhu Shuren recruited Descartes. He has been in the Ming Dynasty army for twelve years now.
Just because the peace era has been relatively long, it is not easy to achieve results by serving directly in the army. In the past few years, Vauban was often seconded to the Academy of Sciences to do military engineering research. This year, he finally got the opportunity to fight in actual combat.
The trench construction of the Vauban siege method was relatively slow. It usually required digging more than two thousand yards of trenches close to traffic and thousands of yards of fan-rings to install semi-buried artillery positions, which took a total of one or two months.
However, it is only late November anyway, and the New Year will be just around the corner in a month or two. The weather is not too hot. As long as the Ming army has sufficient supplies of ammunition and medical drugs, they will not be afraid of being unable to take root.
When the Burmese city defenders first saw that the Ming army had reached the fortified city, they actually built high forts and deep ditches, dug various trenches, and tried to make a circuitous route out of the city to counterattack the Ming army's flank and cut off Li Dingguo's supplies.
It's a pity that the Burmese army's previous defeats were too tragic and they didn't have the strength to fight in the field. Anyone who left Awa City was in vain. They were lured and annihilated by Li Dingguo, and they were unable to block Li Dingguo's supply line.
In order to reduce logistical pressure, Li Dingguo used all his transportation capacity to transport ammunition and medicine, and relied on local plundering and supplies for food. Even if Awa City was not broken, the surrounding area of Awa City was already the most fertile agricultural area in Myanmar. In addition, Myanmar
Grain can be harvested three times a year. Seeing that it will be harvested again at the end of the year, Li Dingguo can harvest the grain that is not yet fully mature in advance.
After such a stalemate for a month, as time came to the end of the year, Vauban's siege construction finally began to take shape. The Ming army was able to push the cavalry cannon, which weighed more than a thousand kilograms, to a position more than a mile outside the city wall, and then used
Semi-buried underground firing method, using high-throw ballistics to launch explosive shells to bombard the city.
Until this moment, the Burmese troops defending the city were completely panicked. They desperately used heavy Hongyi artillery that was two or three times heavier than the Ming army's cavalry artillery. But their shells could only hit the half-buried cave carefully dug by Wo Bang.
on the ground of the artillery position, and then bounced away.
In desperation, the Burmese army tried to bomb the Ming army's communication trenches, but the trajectory of the artillery shells also failed to hit the bottom of the trenches, and they all bounced off the side walls and the ground.
It was not until this moment that the Burmese people fully realized how many times the Ming Dynasty's attainments in ballistics and ballistic defense engineering were much more advanced than they, the illiterate Southern Barbarians.
The house leaked and it rained continuously all night. Just when the city of Ava finally began to be bombed by the Ming army, urgent bad news came from the direction of Bago, the capital of the south.
"Your Majesty! It's not good! Zheng Chenggong's fleet attacked at the mouth of the Indra River outside Bago City, and launched a landing operation at the mouth of the river! The Ming warships have already penetrated the mouth of the river and entered the inland river!"
"What? Why did the Ming army come from the south? Hurry! Go back and defend Bago!" Mang Bai felt a burst of blood rushing to his head.
The main force of his army had been exhausted by Li Dingguo's successive annihilation battles, and the remaining troops were stuck in the meat grinder of Ava City.
Now the city of Ava has once again fallen into a state of unilateral massacre and shelling due to Vauban's siege method. The only hope that "the Ming army's supplies can be cut off" has also come to nothing because of the appearance of Zheng Chenggong. Mang Bai has realized