1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2342
After conquering Zhuanghe County, the Haihan Army then launched a sweeping sweep of the villages within a few miles of the county.Perhaps because of the presence of government offices in the county seat, the proportion of Manchus in this area is obviously much higher than in other places, and there are more cases of armed resistance.

However, the strength gap between the two sides is too large, and it is no difficulty for the Haihan army to defeat these rural armed forces.But in order to ensure safety, these Manchus must be separated from the Han civilians after they are captured, and more troops must be allocated to carry out the escort task, which is not a big trouble.

But for the commander, this kind of trouble that can be solved by adding more manpower is not a problem at all. The real trouble that is difficult to deal with right now is the increasingly cold weather in Liaodong.

If it's just cold weather, it's fine. After all, elite troops like the Special Operations Regiment have issued warm clothes and sufficient food and supplies. However, the snowfall in Liaodong caused trouble for infantry marching in the field. easy fix.

After landing, the special operations group spends most of their time inland [-] to [-] miles away from the coastline, and in order to fight for time, they must march quickly between towns, so mobility is particularly important.Almost all the war horses raised in the Datongjiang base were put into this operation, but even so, it was still far from meeting the mobility needs of the troops.

Even with the addition of the pack horses looted from towns along the way during the operation, only about one-fifth of the troops are able to advance on horseback.When the weather is fine, the impact is not too great, but recently Liaodong has started to snow frequently, and it is extremely inconvenient to march and camp for long distances in the snow-covered wilderness.What's more, an army like the Haihan Army, which relies heavily on the logistics system, must keep the supply channels open at all times, and the difficulty of transferring combat materials from the sea to the inland after snowfall has also increased a lot. Put in more manpower.

"If it continues to snow for two or three days like this, we will probably have to withdraw our troops in advance." Qian Tiandun patted the snowflakes on his shoulder, and said worriedly: "The infantry's marching speed in the field has been reduced by half. , but the situation is still very difficult, and it is difficult to push through like a few days ago."

Wang Tom said: "Or withdraw the main force to the sea first, keep only a small number of cavalry on land, and reorganize the landing at the next location."

Qian Tiandun said: "Going back to the sea is certainly a solution, but if we do this, we may have to give up those inland villages and towns."

Withdrawing the main force of the troops to the sea for maneuvering will definitely be better than the current marching situation, and at the same time, it can also solve the problem of logistical supplies by the way.If it is only for one or two days of operations against near-shore targets, then the combat materials carried by a single soldier are basically sufficient.But if you want to go to those targets that are tens of miles away from the coastline, the landing troops will definitely have to carry more supplies, and even need to dispatch vehicles such as carriages. The snow in the wilderness will become an obstacle to logistical supplies.

According to the information found from the county government, many villages and towns under the jurisdiction of the county seat are located in the inland north of the county seat and close to the mountainous area. It is estimated that it takes a day to go back and forth from the county seat. If a large number of people are to be escorted back, the speed of travel must be It will be much slower.In order to avoid an overnight stay on the way, it is even possible to delay an extra day on the return journey so that you can start early and complete the return journey during the day.

Wang Tom was silent for a moment before responding: "With the population size of those villages and towns, it's not worth our time and effort. We'll focus on the villages and towns near the coastline this time. As for the inland places that slip through the net... maybe we can Come back again next spring!"

Qian Tiandun nodded in agreement with his opinion: "It seems that this is the only way... I hope the weather will not continue to deteriorate, and give us a few more days."

For most of the Han people who were forced to leave here by the Haihan Army, they actually didn't know what kind of situation they were in.These Han people were robbed by the Qing army from the northern border area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, and they were resettled to the place where they live now after traveling thousands of miles. They started farming again, but before they lived a few days of clean life, they fell into war again. among.

Haihan is still a strange existence to most of them. They don't know where Haihan country is located, and why the army of Haihan country came here to rescue themselves.But being able to escape the rule of the Manchus is at least not a bad thing.Seeing the Haihan soldiers execute those Manchu landlords who were usually very arrogant in public, many people felt very happy.

Obviously, this is an army that is more powerful than the Qing army, and its strength seems to far exceed that of Ming's frontier army.And this army didn't seem to intend to send them back to Daming, but was planning to send them to the place ruled by Haihan Kingdom for resettlement.Although apprehensive about such a prospect, the people can only obey the arrangement. After all, all the Manchus who tried to resist the Haihan army were killed. It is better to be obedient in order to survive.

Perhaps it was God's blessing that the snowfall that had lasted for several days suddenly stopped. Although the field was still muddy due to the snow, at least the situation did not get worse.After discussing with Qian Tiandun, Tom Wang decided to seize the opportunity when the weather turned fine and collect as many people as possible from nearby villages and towns.

At the same time, in Jinzhou, hundreds of miles away, Liu Shang, who was in charge of civil affairs, was in the busiest period after he came to Liaodong.

In the past two years, Liu Shang was also responsible for accepting and resettling the immigrants brought back from the Manchu-controlled area by the Haihan army, but there was no such a large number of people coming as this year, and at the same time he had to take care of the logistical support of the Jinzhou front , and handle local civil affairs.

The inability to separate parts is what Liu Shang feels most clearly at this time.He wants to arrange for the fleet to go to sea to pick up the people who have just been brought out in the Changshan Islands. At the same time, he also needs to do a good job of resettling and accepting immigrants locally, so that he can take over thousands of people in one go. Not an easy job.

However, the confrontation and sporadic fighting between the front line and the Qing army continued, and all kinds of combat materials must be continuously transported to the front line positions. It is also necessary to ensure that the soldiers and civilians on the defense line can have enough food and clothing, and that injuries and illnesses can be treated in time. Treatment, the complexity of these matters, and only he, the client, can understand.

Fortunately, Liu Shang has been training all the way from Shandong to Liaodong in the past few years, and he has been dealing with civil affairs almost every day, so although there are many affairs at the moment, he can still be busy and not chaotic.

Chen Yixin has been guarding the isthmus defense line these days, and has no time to carefully ask about the civil affairs in the rear, but Liu Shang can handle these things in an orderly manner, and Chen Yixin also sees it.With such a competent subordinate to share his worries, Chen Yixin was able to concentrate all his attention on the confrontation with the Qing army.

After using the concealed artillery position to carry out a surprise attack on the Qing army a few days ago, Chen Yixin took the initiative to take the defensive position and did not rush forward.The Qing army really judged that Haihan might launch an offensive against Daheishan immediately because of this battle, so they threw thousands of soldiers and horses to the front of the isthmus defense line to stop Haihan's actions.

However, the Qing army was also very careful. Although it dispatched a large force, it did not launch a counterattack against the isthmus defense line, but only ensured that the Haihan army could not easily advance northward.

Chen Yixin's purpose was to contain the main force of the Qing army with a feint attack, and the response of the Qing army was exactly what he expected.However, in order to ensure that the Qing army would not be suspicious, Chen Yixin still ordered the cavalry to move forward every day, and the direction of Dongshan continued to make noise, making a gesture of preparing for a strong attack to confuse the Qing army.

But after two consecutive heavy snowfalls in Jinzhou, the snow in the wilderness had already reached a foot thick, and it was difficult for even the cavalry to move in the wilderness.Facing such harsh weather, Chen Yixin also had to put down his flag and withdraw his troops temporarily.As for the troops who were already stationed in Dongshan, they had to withdraw from the sea because of the inconvenience of supply due to the heavy snow closure.

And these two heavy snowfalls also made the Qing army stationed in the Daheishan area completely relieved. Under the current environment, the Haihan army can no longer launch a large-scale attack, even if there are sporadic small groups of troops crossing the snowfield and entering the Daheishan , it is also difficult to form a climate.Azig directly ordered the troops to withdraw to the East and West camps, leaving only the daily cavalry patrols.

Chen Yixin keeps in touch with Wang Tom through the radio every day. Hearing that not only did it not snow heavily in the place where they are, but the weather has turned fine, he couldn't help but sigh that it was God's blessing, so that they could have more time to grab from the local area. transport population.

The Qing army in Daheishan did not know until the end of the month that the Haihan army was attacking coastal villages and towns from sea to land. More than ten towns and one county seat had been completely evacuated by the Haihan army like locusts passing through. The population has been at least 5000 people.

Azig received this news, combined with the recent performance of the Haihan troops in the Jinzhou Isthmus, and finally realized that Jinzhou should use feints to attract attention, but the real attack is hundreds of miles away. coastline.

But even knowing the movements of the Haihan army, it was difficult for Azig to respond effectively.The Haihan army attacked from sea to land, and the Qing army had no warships on the entire east coast of the Liaodong Peninsula, so it was impossible to completely drive away the Haihan army.What's more, the place where the accident happened is hundreds of miles away from the Daheishan camp. When Azige sent people to rush there, the situation there would have been turned upside down.

But if they just sit idly by and let the Haihan army continue to plunder in Haihan, Liaodong, Azig can roughly predict what the consequences will be.For Azig, whether to save or not, how to save, this is really a headache for him.

Due to the military pressure exerted by Haihan on the Jinzhou and Yalu River borders, the deployment of the Qing army in Liaodong was also concentrated in these two places. Mobilize troops to defend key areas.

However, such a deployment will inevitably leave a large number of blank defensive areas on the Liaodong coast, allowing the Haihan Army to take advantage of it.Outside of winter, it is still possible to strengthen patrols to give timely warnings and drive the people inland to avoid the offensive of the Haihan Army.But once the east and west lines entered a wartime state, the Qing army had to concentrate its forces on the border to deal with it, and it was difficult to maintain the density of patrols near the coast.This time, the Haihan army caught the gap and pushed away more than a dozen villages and towns in one go, and the Qing army failed to respond in time.

After thinking about it, Azige thought that it was too late to send troops to rescue these places, and once large-scale deployment of troops would give the Haihan Army on the Jinzhou side an opportunity to take advantage of it, it would increase the risk instead.

In the end, Azig only sent a few teams of cavalry to inform the villages and towns near the coast as soon as possible, and organized the people to evade inland first, and return to their original residence after the Haihan army retreated.

But there is a big problem with Azig's move, that is, it has entered the midwinter season, and how to survive the cold wind and snow is a big problem for the people to go out to escape.It may be possible to survive a day or two by lighting a fire to keep warm, but with a few more days, it is not easy for these hundreds of people to survive in the wild.Forcibly driving these people into the wild, if they were not taken away by the Haihan army, they would freeze to death a lot.

The special operations group seized the gap when the Qing army was unresponsive and continued to collect people near Zhuanghe County.The troops sent by Qian Tiandun found that the snow cover thirty miles west of Zhuanghe was already more than one foot deep, and it was difficult for the infantry to march in the wild, so he decided to end the operation in Zhuanghe County. .

At this time, some Han farmers in the vicinity heard that the county town had been captured by foreign troops, that all the Manchus had been killed, and that all Han people could leave the area by boat, so they rushed to join them.These people are not necessarily admiring the prestige of the Haihan army, but they know that if they don't leave at this time, they will probably be used as scapegoats when the Qing army turns around and settles the case.

Since staying here is likely to be bad luck, it is better to leave directly with the Haihan army.Although these people don't know where the Haihan country is, at least these Haihan soldiers speak Chinese with the appearance of Han people, and they should be able to quickly adapt to the local environment after going to the Haihan country.

At the beginning of December, the Haihan army had taken away nearly 6000 people from the coast of Liaodong during the half-month snow treading operation.Among them, the ratio of Han people to Manchus is about ten to one. These Han people who came back from the Ming Dynasty are all at a disadvantage to Haihan. When they settle down in Jinzhou, the number of naturalized citizens in the Liaodong colony will increase again. Thousands of them.

As for the Manchurians, what awaits them is a long and endless career as a miner.Regardless of whether they participated in the invasion of Daming, most of them could only dig soil in the pits of the Fushan Copper Mine until they died.Such an arrangement actually has nothing to do with hatred, but because of the current international environment, it is the safest way to deal with them in this way.

(End of this chapter)