1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2341
With the current combat strength of the Haihan army, it is certainly not a problem to defeat the Qing army on the frontal battlefield, but after more than two years of confrontation, the Qing army has also learned a lot from the process of repeated defeats. Try to avoid confrontation with the Haihan army on the open battlefield as much as possible, and increase the depth of the position by building a large number of fortifications such as fortifications, thus forming a long-term confrontation with the Haihan army.

Under such circumstances, Haihan wanted to weaken the Qing army through combat operations on the frontal battlefield, and the price he had to pay was not very cost-effective.Moreover, the strength of the Haihan army deployed in the Liaodong area is limited. Even if it has the ability to advance the front line to the north by a large margin, it will be difficult to maintain a larger ruling area.

Therefore, Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun judged the situation and stopped launching offensives on the frontal battlefield. Instead, they prepared to take the snow stepping action as an opportunity to deal a drastic blow to the foundation of Manchu rule in the Liaodong Peninsula.

The terrain of the Liaodong Peninsula is wide in the north and narrow in the south. The Qianshan Mountains run through the entire peninsula from south to north. Only the coastline is a livable plain.Therefore, as long as the Haihan army concentrates its forces to intensify the raids on coastal settlements, take away as many civilians as possible in these areas, and create hundreds of miles of no-man's land, it will make it difficult for the Qing army to obtain food and grass nearby. Material supplies, so as to achieve the effect of weakening its combat power.

The difficulty of implementing this plan is that the Manchu Qing also realized that they could not completely eliminate this risk, so they gradually moved the population settlements along the coast of the Liaodong Peninsula to the inland twenty or thirty miles away from the coast, so as to increase the number of people living in Haihan. Difficulty for the military to loot populations in these areas.As for fully deploying defenses in these areas, it was indeed beyond the capabilities of the Qing army.

Therefore, the Qing army stationed on the Liaodong Peninsula did not have a particularly effective way to deal with this kind of harassment war launched by the Haihan army from time to time. They often had to dispatch troops from nearby to rush to the local area after receiving an alarm.Moreover, the first task of these Qing troops after they arrived in the local area was often not to drive away the Haihan army who had landed, but to drive the local people to the inland away from the coast, so as to prevent these populations from being easily taken away by the Haihan army.

Since there are basically no large cities in these areas, there are no so-called official roads between towns and towns, and the traffic conditions are not ideal, especially after the snowfall begins in winter. Even if the Qing army receives a warning, it is often necessary to rush to the accident site. Also quite time consuming.Even the cavalry would need three or four days to rush from the East and West camps near Jinzhou to towns hundreds of miles away, and such a slow response was often unable to stop the actions taken by the Haihan Army in the local area.

Donggang Town, which was first looted by the Haihan army during this snow treading operation, did not know what happened here until three days later because there was no Qing army stationed nearby.

When the Qing army patrols stepped here, the entire town was deserted. No matter whether they were landlords or poor people, they all disappeared. Food, poultry, livestock, and valuable household items were all removed. .A large number of footprints, ruts, and destroyed carriages were found near the seaside fishing port outside the town. It seems that everything that can be moved, including the residents here, has been shipped away.

This Donggang town has a population of over a thousand, and it suddenly disappeared out of thin air, which is naturally a masterpiece of the Haihan Army.While the patrol team sent people to report to the stronghold upstream, they also sent people to check nearby towns to see if there were any traces of the Haihan Army's activities.

It is not difficult at all to verify this conjecture. When you leave the town and go west, you can see traces of a large number of people passing by on the ground.Although some of them have been covered by the snowfall of the past two days, it can still be seen that these footprints are not as messy as the footprints by the seaside of Donggang Town, and are very likely to be the footprints left by the Haihan Army's march.

The cavalry of the Qing army followed these traces all the way to Changshan Town, twenty miles away, and found that this place was also treated in the same way.The most terrible thing is that they found that the attacker did not leave by boat after he succeeded. The traces of the march continued to extend westward from outside Changshan Town, obviously going to the next destination.

Another day later, the pursuers crossed the Dayang River and pursued to Gushan Town, where they found another Qing army that had been wiped out in the battle.The bullet holes on these corpses indicate that the cause of their death was the shooting of muskets, and of course the only army that used this as a combat method was the Haihan Army.

After chasing here, it has actually exceeded the defense zone to which this patrol team belongs, but after checking inside and outside Gushan Town, the Qing army found out that this is still not the last stop of the Haihan army. Continuing to move westward, it is obvious that there is no intention to stop here.

This patrol team is only a few dozen horsemen and horses, and its strength is smaller than that of the garrison that was wiped out in Gushan Town. Even if it catches up, it will be a moth to the flame, which is obviously not a wise move.It is also not easy to move reinforcements from other places to stop the Haihan Army's actions.

Gushan Town is nearly 300 miles away from their garrison stronghold, and it will take four or five days at the earliest to go back to rescue the soldiers and rush back. At that time, it is impossible to speculate where the Haihan army will march .As for the Qing army camp located at the western end of the Liaodong Peninsula, it was even further away, more than [-] miles away. In order to avoid bumping into the Shanghai Han army on the way, they had to make a detour, and the reaction time required to move the rescue soldiers would only be longer.

During the period before the Qing army responded, the Haihan army had rushed thousands of people from the coast of the Liaodong Peninsula.In order to improve shipping efficiency, these civilians who were shipped out were not sent directly to Jinzhou, but were unloaded at Changshan Islands, which is more than a hundred miles away from Jinzhou.In this way, the time required for the voyage of more than 200 miles can be temporarily saved, so that civilians can be transported out of the area controlled by the Manchu Qing more quickly.

These islands off the coast of the Liaodong Peninsula have long been cleared by the Haihan army. Several large islands in the Changshan Islands have temporarily housed immigrants transported from the Manchu-controlled area before, just for the convenience of management. Moved to Jinzhou for resettlement.

There were some private houses on these islands, and the Haihan army only needed to leave some tents and food, and the people could make do with the islands for a few days.During the period, Jinzhou will also send ships to pick up the people on the island one after another.

As for the safety of these islands, there is no need to worry. After years of raids by Haihan, there are no ships on the coastline controlled by the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, although the Changshan Islands are only twenty or thirty miles away from the coast, they are already full Clear out of reach areas.

Relying on such an efficient transfer method, the Haihan army moved all the villages and towns along the way while advancing from east to west.These villages and towns were small in scale and there was no Qing army stationed there. Occasionally, a few Manchu landlords tried to resist, but they would be quickly suppressed. Therefore, the process of implementing population migration was very smooth.

In this operation, a lot of people from Dongjiang Town were specially employed to be in charge of the publicity work targeting the public, making them understand that they were rescued and not kidnapped when they were escorted out of here.The vast majority of Han people were not willing to be enslaved by the Manchu Qing. Since they had the opportunity to escape here and Dongjiang Town was the guarantee, they were more willing to cooperate.

"I went to see these people who were shipped away. Most of them are not natives of Liaodong, but come from Shanxi, Hebei and other areas in the pass." Wang Tom just returned to the flagship from the coast, and asked Qian Tian Dun talked about his feelings.

Qian Tiandun replied: "The Manchu Qing resettled these Han people from the pass so far away, probably because they wanted to stop them from fleeing and rebelling."

Wang Tom nodded and said: "I think so too, but this time, it's a mistake, it's cheaper for us."

Qian Tiandun said: "But after we finish this round of fishing, it is estimated that there will be no large-scale immigration to these areas after the Manchu Qing Dynasty."

Tom Wang laughed and said, "We're not just catching fish, we're draining the pond."

No matter where these Han people come from, since they are in the hands of Haihan, there is a high probability that they will be included in the population of Haihan's overseas colonies in the future.Haihan has never found a suitable channel to bring in a large number of immigrants from the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty, but now playing the autumn wind on the territory of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it has indirectly fulfilled this wish.However, this knife was really ruthless. Presumably the Qing court must have been shocked and angry after learning about the situation here. It is really hard to say whether people will continue to move to these areas in the future.

Of course, Haihan’s purpose is to weaken the Manchu Qing in this way, and plundering the population is just a means to achieve the goal. If the Qing government is affected by this and no longer moves people in these areas, then it will be too bad for Haihan. There is no loss at all, it is just a move by the Qing Dynasty to survive.

When the patrol team of the Qing army arrived at Gushan Town, the Haihan army had already captured Lizifang Town and Pusa Temple Town, and continued to cross the Shizui River westward, taking Qingdui Town into its pocket.

It is worth mentioning that in the southwest of Qingdui Town, there are a number of villages run by Manchus. They tried to unite with militia groups to resist the Haihan army, and even attacked the immigrant team transferred from Qingdui Town to the sea. Such a reckless attitude is naturally Incurred a military strike by the Special Operations Group.

From north to south, the Special Operations Regiment covered many villages including Keda Kongtun, Xiaoqiaotun, Shengjiatun, Litun, and Luanjiatun, killing and wounding more than [-] militia militiamen.After this series of battles, the Special Forces finally cheered up and dealt with it seriously.

Of course, these Manchu landlords who organized militias to fight against the Haihan army would not be easily let go. The culprits were all executed in public, and their families would also be sent to Fushan Copper Mine to do hard labor.

After completing the campaign against Qingdui Town and its surrounding areas, the Haihan Army stopped for a brief rest, because the next stop, Zhuanghe County, was the most well-fortified place in this operation so far. .

In fact, this is not the first time that the Haihan army has taken action against Zhuanghe, and has taken many people from here.However, the Qing Dynasty obviously didn't want to give up the place where the city had been built. In the past two years, it has been continuously strengthening the county seat, and it seems that it is counting on this place to become a bridgehead against the Haihan army's harassment war.

But this is obviously not such an easy goal to achieve. One of the purposes of the Haihan Army dispatching elite troops this time is to wipe out places like Zhuanghe in one fell swoop.

On the east and west sides of Zhuanghe County, there are two rivers, Zhuanghe and Xiaosi River, which flow into the Yellow Sea from north to south. This terrain can be regarded as a natural barrier for the county, but for the Haihan Army, which has dispatched a large number of combat ships, it is completely different. No substantial blocking effect.

The special operations group landed on the river bank south of the county seat. The Qing army defending the city did not dare to leave the city to fight easily, so they could only watch helplessly as the Haihan army slowly prepared after landing, and moved the artillery one by one. It was unloaded from the ship, and then transported outside the city to put on a posture.

There are also a few tiger squatting guns deployed on the city wall of this county, but they are too inconspicuous compared to the equipment of the Haihan Army.It's not so much a weapon used to hit opponents, it's better to make some noise to embolden yourself.

The Haihan army was basically not disturbed, and deployed artillery positions outside the city without haste. After calibration, they bombarded the area near the city gate.

Although the city walls and gates of the county town have been reinforced, it is only for conventional combat situations. It is impossible to expect that the Haihan army, which has always been coming and going like the wind, would take the trouble to set up artillery outside the city and pose for a strong attack. Start shelling the city walls.

For a while, the shells blasted the stone chips flying across the city, and the defenders dared not show up at all.The wooden city gate obviously couldn't withstand such bombardment, and it was quickly collapsed.

Immediately, under the cover of a large shield, the Musketeers slowly advanced towards the county town. During this period, there were Qing troops on the city wall who tried to shoot arrows outside the city. The target has been shot.

When the infantry advanced to only twenty or thirty steps away from the city wall, they threw several grenades on the city wall, causing ghosts and wolves to howl on the top of the city.When they entered the city from the city gate, there was no strong resistance.

The remaining Qing army and militia armed forces in the city only resisted for a moment before being defeated due to the disparity in combat power.Those with quick legs and feet could slip through the north gate of the county seat and recover their lives, while those who didn't have time to run away, most of them became the ghosts of the guns.

It took the Haihan army a day to take down the county seat and clean up the inside and outside of the city. They escorted the captives and local people to board the ship and transported them away. The city tower was completely blown down.If the Qing army wants to restore the fortifications here in the future, it is bound to carry out a major project.

The two explosions in the county town were so loud that they could be heard ten miles away.The people who had just boarded the ship heard that the Haihan army had blown up the county town, and they were secretly glad that they were still alive and safe to leave Zhuanghe.As for those Manchus, they all looked ashen, knowing that they might never have the chance to come back here again.

(End of this chapter)