1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2340
Chen Yixin was standing on the wall of the isthmus defense line, holding a telescope to observe the battle between the two armies in the wilderness.Although the current battle situation is that the Haihan side is clearly superior and has caused a lot of casualties to the Qing army, but Chen Yixin's face does not show a look of joy because of this.

In this season, it is very risky to deploy the artillery units with poor maneuverability to the field outside the position, and in order to hide their whereabouts, no infantry units are arranged nearby to guard them. This is actually a very risky approach. , this artillery unit may not be able to retreat completely after attacking the opponent.

However, in the past two years, the Qing army had more losses than victories in this area. Chen Yixin also expected that the opponent would not directly invest heavy troops when he was shielded from battlefield reconnaissance methods, so he made this bold deployment.Facts have proved that this risky move was successful in actual combat. The cavalry of the Qing army went into battle after two rounds of close-range shelling with almost no defense. Han's artillery positions launched a counterattack.

But this strange trick can only be used once on the battlefield. Since the Qing army discovered that there was a hidden artillery position in this place, they will naturally not repeat the same mistakes.However, setting up such a hidden position will take two or three days at the fastest construction time, and a lot of migrant workers will have to be invested. Judging from the current reaction of the Qing army, it may be difficult to completely shield the opponent's reconnaissance methods, and probably no longer. Find another place to replicate this tactic.

The killing effect on the Qing army was not the main consideration for Chen Yixin's deployment. He hoped to mislead the Qing army's judgment and make the Qing army think that the main force of the Haihan army would move forward from the isthmus defense line and directly attack Daheishan.After all, Haihan's artillery units had already left their original position, which could be regarded as a very obvious signal of attack.

If the Qing army had made such a judgment, then in order to prevent the Haihan army from attacking, the garrisons of the two camps in the east and west of Daheishan would not be easily transferred to other places in the near future, so as to achieve the purpose of containing the main force of the Qing army with a feint attack.But whether this wave of fighting can achieve the desired effect, Chen Yixin is actually not very sure.

The two armies have fought on this front for more than two years, and there have been no less than a hundred armed conflicts, large and small. It can be said that they know each other well, and it is not easy to form effective tactical deception.Since Azig was very careful to send only one cavalry to test the truth, and did not rashly mobilize a large force into the battlefield, then the routine designed by Chen Yixin may not be able to deceive him.

Chen Yixin didn't dare to take risks with the few hundred cavalry at hand, so the Haihan Army didn't pursue the fleeing Qing cavalry too far, and only followed behind them symbolically for a while before stopping voluntarily.

Zhu Chen led his team slowly back to the place where the battle was fought just now, while covering the retreat of the artillery, while checking the enemy's casualties.But this time he didn't get off his horse and pick up the knife to cut off the head. It wasn't his own meritorious service. Complete head.

But the battle situation was not completely one-sided. In the process of luring the enemy to go deep just now, Hai Han also lost more than a dozen cavalry, and even Zhu Chen's team lost one person.However, compared with the casualties of the Qing army, the losses of the Haihan army are indeed still acceptable.

In the short period of battle just now, hundreds of Qing troops were knocked down by the overwhelming grape bombs. Such killing efficiency would indeed make people feel hopeless, and it was difficult to develop the determination to charge when facing the artillery formation.

Some soldiers walked slowly among the corpses, killing the still alive men and horses with bayonets attached to their rifles.The artillerymen skillfully put the artillery carts on the pack horses and began to evacuate their positions.The mobility of these artillery was extremely poor in the snowy environment, and if they wanted to stay in the wild overnight, they had to arrange troops to be stationed nearby for protection, so Chen Yixin simply ordered the artillery troops to withdraw to the defensive position.

And the Haihan soldiers who died in this battle have also been brought back on horses.Soldiers serving in Jinzhou will arrange their own funerals in advance. They can choose to be buried in the local military cemetery after death, or transport the cremated bones back to Sanya for burial.But no matter which one you choose, the spirits of the fallen soldiers will be enshrined in the Hall of Martyrs in Sanya and become heroes admired by the people for generations.

Zhu Chen stood in front of his companion's corpse for a moment to express his condolences, but his mood didn't fluctuate much, not even much sadness.Because the patrol team has been active on the front line for a long time, it often fought against the Qing army, so it became the army with the highest casualty ratio among the Jinzhou garrison. Zhu Chen himself had the experience of being seriously injured several times and narrowly escaped death. Well, he may well have become a tablet in Valhalla too.

Zhu Chen has seen such casualties too many times. A soldier shrouded in horse leather can be regarded as a well-deserved death. What's more, the country has given a pretty good pension to the soldiers who died in battle. sorry.A person like Zhu Chen who had nothing to worry about at all, took life and death very lightly. He had already killed enough of the Qing soldiers. If he hadn't taken the safety of his brothers into consideration, his fighting methods might have been more aggressive.

Later that day, Chen Yixin listened to the report on today's battle with the Qing army.Compared with the previous battles for the control of the Jinzhou Isthmus, today's confrontation can only be regarded as a small conflict. Although it caused triple-digit casualties to the Qing army, Chen Yixin also understands that this loss is not important to the Qing army. Serious, far from the level of injury.

After listening to the battle report, Chen Yixin then listened to Liu Shang's report on logistics.The local area has organized [-] civilians on standby to transport luggage, rush to build fortifications, etc., and the relevant combat materials are basically in place, enough to support the Jinzhou garrison to fight several major battles.

As for the next action plan on the Jinzhou Isthmus, Chen Yixin decided to depend on the reaction of the Qing army.If the opponent continues to send a small group of people to detect their own movements as before, then follow the previous deployment and use cavalry patrols to redeem the opponent's spies and continue to keep this area invisible.

But if Azig resolutely sends more troops to clear the fog on the battlefield, then Haihan's side will probably have to restrain themselves and retreat to the isthmus line of defense.On the Dongshan side, Chen Yixin decided to stay on guard for a few more days in order to contain the Qing army in Dongdaying.

Compared with the troops stationed on the Datong River in North Korea, the combat effectiveness of the Jinzhou garrison did have a certain gap, and the strength of the troops was not enough to implement the combat plan of actively advancing northward. There were indeed not many ways to contain the nearby Qing army.Perhaps after such a toss, they could only buy two or three days for the friendly forces of Datongjiang, but for Chen Yixin, this was already the best that the Jinzhou garrison could do.

Chen Yixin checked the time. If there were no accidents, Qian Tiandun's special operations group should have landed somewhere on the Liaodong coast by this time.

Just as Chen Yixin thought, Qian Tiandun and Wang Tom were watching the troops landing on the nearby coast on the flagship Wei Neng near the coastline four hundred miles away from the Jinzhou Isthmus.

Although the Liaodong coastline on the North Korean side is hundreds of miles long, there are actually not many people in the area near the coastline, and there are only a few large cities, towns and counties, so there are not many targets for them to choose from.According to the action plan agreed by Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun, this time they plan to clean up all these targets.

The first target they chose was Donggang Town near the mouth of the Yalu River.The livelihood of this small town is mainly based on land reclamation, and the resident population is no more than a thousand people, basically all of whom are Han Chinese. There are only officials and tax collectors stationed by the Qing government in the town, but there is no army stationed there.Rather than not paying attention to the value here, it is better to say that the limited output here cannot support a long-term army.

Of course, this was not the first time that the Haihan army visited this kind of almost undefended target, but this time it was different from the previous superficial looting operations. The two commanders planned to completely evacuate the town.

For this reason, in addition to dispatching warships, the Navy also dispatched all troop carriers from the Datongjiang Base to participate in this operation.A troop carrier can carry more than 300 people. For a small place like Donggang Town, only four or five ships can transport all the people away.

The landing of the Special Operations Group in Donggang Town did not encounter any resistance. After landing, the cavalry team quickly circled to the north of the town and blocked the road leading from the town to the inland area.

Soldiers then went door to door and began clearing the town of people, driving them to the sea to board boats.As for the few Manchus here, the Haihan army will not let them go.Although these Manchus are not suitable for resettling in Jinzhou as immigrants, there is no problem in transporting them to Shandong for mining.

During this period, a few Manchus tried to resist, but the Haihan army would not show mercy at such a time. Anyone who resisted was punished as an enemy spy and executed directly.

After the execution of several rioting Manchus in public, the rest became much more honest.Although the Han people do not know where they will be transported, at least they will no longer be exploited by the Manchus. For them, this is already an excellent result.

After completing the sweep of Donggang Town, the Special Forces did not return to the ship, but continued westward.According to the information we have, there is a Changshan Town with a smaller population more than ten miles west of Donggang Town.

So two hours later, Changshan Town quickly fell under the control of the Haihan Army in the same way, and then the entire town was completely emptied, and all the people were escorted to the seaside to board the boat.In just one morning, about [-] immigrants were successfully harvested.

"We should have taken such an action one or two years earlier." Tom Wang said with emotion: "It's too easy to get people from these places!"

Qian Tiandun said with a smile: "Two years ago, it might not have been so easy. When we sent troops to sweep the coast of Liaodong, we dared not venture deep into the inland. The troops who landed were far from enough to pack up an entire town like now. Walk."

Cleaning up the Liaodong coast has become a routine task every year since Haihan occupied Jinzhou. However, as Qian Tiandun said, the Haihan army was not stable at that time, and did not dare to send too many troops into the interior. Land activities, and there is not enough transport capacity and materials to support such operations, so although every time the sweep of the Liaodong coast is rewarding, it is impossible to uproot the populated areas like now.

Performing this kind of mission with elite troops such as special forces and the Marine Corps may seem like an overkill, but in fact, because these elite troops are more capable of executing orders, their operational efficiency will also increase accordingly.If they really encountered a situation that required the use of force, their response would be more secure.

In the afternoon of that day, the special operations group continued to march westward about ten miles inland from the coastline, and successively took away two towns, Beijingzi Town and Yiquan Town.The population of these two towns is not large, but there are more than 1000 people in total.

By the time the people of Yihuan Town were driven to the beach to board the boat, it was already dark.The special operations group chose to camp near the shore and continue to sweep west tomorrow.The [-] captives who had boarded the ship were transported overnight to Jinzhou, [-] miles away, where they would be reborn.

Early the next morning, the special operations group continued on the road, connecting two places in Huangtukan Town and Gushan Town.Among them, near Gushan Town, the Haihan army finally encountered the first Qing army in two days.

This Qing army consisted of no more than 200 people. After only a symbolic resistance, it was quickly defeated by the special operations group. More than [-] people were killed or injured. Most of the rest were captured, and only a few escaped on horseback.There is a huge difference in combat power between the two sides, but the Special Forces did not lose any manpower, only a few people were injured.

This Gushan town is already thirty miles away from the coastline, and Gaoqiaonan can only send out a company of troops to escort the people to the seaside and board the boat.

After solving Gushan Town, the Special Operations Regiment divided into two groups, one of which marched southwest to Bodhisattva Town, and the other continued to the west, with the goal of Lizifang Town more than 20 miles away.

According to the mopping method Haihan adopted at this time, although there must still be some places that were missed, at least [-]% to [-]% of the population in these areas had been relocated.As far as the local agricultural cultivation level is concerned, if so much labor force is lost all at once, thousands of acres of arable land will soon lose output, and this loss will continue to expand.

For the Qing Dynasty, what was lost was not only the thousands of farmers who plowed the fields and fished, but also the materials and wealth they continuously created through production activities.And if you want to relocate Han people from other places to make up for the population loss in these places, it will cost a lot of money.

(End of this chapter)