1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 395
According to the prior agreement between the two parties, after Ruan Jingwen's garrison surrendered, he would personally carry out the task of leading the way and guide the Haihan militia to launch an attack to the south of the city.There is still more than two miles away from the bridge guarded by Ruan Jingwen to the outskirts of the imperial city. It is definitely better to have someone who is familiar with the defense situation in the city lead the way than the militia to push them over by themselves.

As Ruan Jinggui promised in advance, the leading party in the city has arranged a safe marching route to the south of the city.Some people were even more active than Ruan Jingwen. Before the militia army arrived, they had assembled their troops and piled up all their weapons and waited to surrender.In just over an hour, Haihan's side received more than 2200 defenders.The militia army entered the southern half of the city under the guidance of the leading party without firing a single shot.

The defenders in the city had known a few days ago that the Haihan people had breached the city wall in the northeast corner and established a defensive position in that area, but the Haihan people had been besieged by the defenders for the next few days, with little success. any progress.This rekindled hope in many people's hearts, thinking that the Haihan militia could be suppressed in the northeast corner by virtue of the narrow terrain and force superiority in the city, and use time to slowly wear down the opponent's victory.However, while these people were still daydreaming, nearly [-] Haihan militia soldiers had quietly entered the city and pushed south along the city wall to the core area of ​​Hue City.

When militia soldiers in gray uniforms appeared at the Imperial City Defense Division, which was only two streets away from the imperial city, the South Vietnamese Royal Forest Army stationed nearby immediately blew up their nests—the Haihan militia did not have any warnings. After attacking here, are all the defenders in the northern half of the city dead?
At this juncture, the general of the defending army made a very serious mistake. He did not immediately attack the small vanguard of the Haihan Militia, but chose to wait and see while gathering troops, and he missed the opportunity. The Haihan militia had enough time to transport the artillery dragged behind the team to the front line for deployment.When five artillery pieces were lined up on the street and aimed at the gate of the garrison department, the outcome of this battle was already doomed.

Five cannons roared one after another, and the shells flew over the empty street, smashing the gate of the garrison department together with the densely packed barricades outside the gate.Some of the South Vietnamese soldiers who tried to launch a counterattack during the shelling interval were also blocked by the dense lead bullets of muskets and stopped a hundred meters away, unable to approach the camp of the Haihan militia at all.

After four rounds of artillery bombardment, the gate of the garrison department and the walls on both sides had been reduced to ruins, and there were dozens of casualties in the yard behind the gate.At Qian Tiandun's order, the soldiers lined up with their rifles in hand, and attacked the garrison department at a steady pace.Under the suppression of the absolute superiority of firepower, any attempt to use personal bravery to perform close combat is futile. For the few rebels who are not afraid of death, the soldiers will not be stingy with their bullets.

Although part of the defenders followed the commander and withdrew from the battlefield through the back door of the Garrison Division, the fall here still paralyzed the command system of the Royal Forest Army.Thousands of defenders deployed on the outskirts of the imperial city lost their command and could only organize small-scale sporadic counterattacks. This was a godsend opportunity for the Haihan militia, which is good at battlefield command.By noon, the walls of the imperial city had already entered the musket range of the vanguard. At this time, most of the Imperial Forest Army guarding the imperial city had given up their garrison outside the city and chose to retreat to the imperial city for defense. .

The actions of the imperial forest army directly caused confusion among the defenders in other areas of the city. Due to their limited status, they were unable to retreat into the imperial city, and they didn't know how the battle was going. Rumors immediately spread in the city.There were even rumors that the Haihan militia had surrounded the imperial city and were stepping up their attack, and they were about to break through the city.The Royal Forest Army, which lost its command, did not send messengers in time to notify the defenders in various parts of the city to return to defense. Build a siege position.

The densely packed houses outside the imperial city greatly hindered the next offensive of the Haihan militia. The officers had to stop their progress and organize soldiers and civilians to demolish them first. However, this action was not in the original battle plan. among.

"Tear down all the walls of the courtyard on the left! Hurry up!" Yu Tiezhu, who was ordered to clean up the site, gave orders loudly to the soldiers and peasants under him.The order he received was to remove all the houses and fences on the left side of the street in front of him that blocked the shooting before dark, and this was obviously not an easy task to complete.

Seven or eight soldiers hugged a long wooden post together and slammed into the wall one after another.This is a beam that was demolished from another private house just now, and they are now using it as a tool for demolition.Several groups of people carried the wood and kept hitting it, and soon the brick wall collapsed towards the courtyard.There was a burst of exclamation in the courtyard. Several men tried to resist with knives and guns, but they were immediately beaten into a sieve by the Musketeers who came up to replace them.At such a time, no one would care whether these people were good citizens or defenders. As long as they tried to attack the militia, they could meet the standard of shooting back.

The forced demolition greatly slowed down the attack speed of the militia, so that Qian Tiandun had to stop the follow-up battle plan and wait for the militiamen to clear a large enough space in front of the position.Fortunately, most of the artillery of the South Vietnamese defenders were placed on the outer city walls, but the walls of the imperial city did not have any long-range weapons. Some defenders who dared to stick their heads and bodies out of the crenels and shoot the civilians outside the city with bows and arrows were also squatted nearby. Snipers on rooftops everywhere called names.

The imperial city of Hue imitated the design of the imperial city of the Ming Dynasty. It is also a central axis pattern of one hall and one square. There are palaces such as Qinzheng Hall, Qiancheng Hall, Kuntai Palace, Guangming Hall, Gongguang Hall, and Supreme Harmony Hall. Buildings, the imperial city is surrounded by four gates: Meridian Gate, Heping Gate, Xianren Gate, and Zhangde Gate, basically a miniature version of the Forbidden City.At this time, the position set up by the Haihan militia was facing the Heping Gate in the northeast direction.

The frontline headquarters hoped to clear an area outside the Peace Gate as soon as possible, and then set up artillery to storm the imperial city, breaking the last line of defense of the South Vietnamese defenders in a simple and rude way.However, because there are far more and denser houses here than expected, this battle plan had to be delayed.

During the demolition that lasted all afternoon, the militia encountered even more resistance than when they marched through the city in the morning.A large number of scattered South Vietnamese soldiers and people carried out spontaneous resistance actions, which caused some troubles for the militia army, and greatly slowed down the speed of forced demolition, so that the officers in charge of commanding the demolition of houses later applied to Qian Tiandun, directly Use artillery to bombard the fence so as not to miss the progress of the operation required by the command.

As night fell that day, only about two-thirds of the demolition area required by the headquarters had been completed. The grassroots officers believed that at the current speed, tomorrow's demolition operation would probably take half a day to complete the task.

Fortunately, the clearing of the occupied area after entering the city went very smoothly, and there was almost no decent resistance. This is of course directly related to the fact that almost all the defenders in the occupied area have chosen to surrender.In areas that have not been subjected to forced demolition measures, the local people do not have much willingness to resist, and most of them choose to close their doors and households to seek blessings for themselves.

"When we demolished a house, we injured more than 30 people and killed four? What is this going on?" Yan Chujie, who just came from outside the city, couldn't help being angry when he saw today's casualty report. He has been busy outside the city this afternoon. The thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers who were arranged to receive in the morning did not enter the city to supervise the battle, and the results achieved in the afternoon obviously did not satisfy him.

"Mr. Yan, although it is true that the defenders were dispersed by us, they are basically still trapped in the city and have not escaped. You did not see today's scene. Just knock down a wall, and there are 200 people on the other side of the wall." People rushed over to fight desperately, if the brothers were not well-trained, the casualties would have been more than that." Qiao Zhiya was one of the on-site commanders of today's forced demolition operation, and at this time he took the initiative to stand up and defend.

"We didn't expect to encounter so much resistance at the beginning, but after the armed forces cooperated in the operation, there were fewer casualties." Qian Tiandun also defended himself as the frontline combat commander.

Yan Chujie probably also realized that his tone just now was a bit too serious, nodded and said: "It's not that I care too much about casualties, but that our troops are too small, and if there are too many battle losses, it will easily affect the overall combat effectiveness!"

At the current stage of the battle, the shortcomings of the Haihan militia became more and more obvious.In this expedition to Hue, the Haihan side dispatched a total of more than 4000 people, including nearly 2000 supply civilians, and excluding the navy, there are actually only more than [-] troops who can enter the city to fight.If such a small number of people were to be scattered in the city of Hue, it would basically be like spreading pepper noodles. Therefore, the combat strategy chosen by the headquarters was to only attack one road and never divide the troops.However, even so, the distribution of troops has been stretched, and even hundreds of naval soldiers had to be transferred ashore to guard the prisoners outside the city.

It has been exactly one month since the start of the war on the 22nd of last month, and the number of dead soldiers in the Haihan militia has exceeded three digits, and the number of wounded soldiers who need to retreat from the line of fire to recuperate is three times this, which means that this one In the last month of fighting, the Haihan militia lost almost three companies of fighters.This level of combat attrition will undoubtedly have a very obvious impact on the militias that are not strong enough.Some non-important posts had to be supplemented by civilians with reserve militia qualifications to maintain the normal combat effectiveness of the troops.According to the estimates of the Military Commission before the war, if the number of battle damage doubles the current figure, and the war is not over, then the militia army that is going on the expedition will probably have to consider whether it is necessary to withdraw its troops in advance.

If the situation really develops to that point, it will undoubtedly be a failed expedition for the military.The elimination of the South Vietnamese regime is the primary goal of this military operation. If this goal cannot be achieved in this operation, it will take another few months for the militia to gather strength before launching the next attack. what the committee wants to see.Yan Chujie was so anxious because he was worried that the high battle damage would affect the next battle.

"Tell me about the current battle situation in the city!" Yan Chujie also felt that it was useless to talk about this topic, so he took the initiative to shift everyone's attention to the analysis of the current battle situation.

Pointing to the city defense map of Hue City on the table, Qian Tiandun explained: "At present, the area from the northeast corner along the city wall to the southeast has been cleaned up, but there are still a large number of South Vietnamese defenders in the west and south of the city. Judging from the information provided by the surrendered South Vietnamese officers, it is estimated that there are about 5000 to [-] remaining defenders in the city."

"Does this number include the defenders in the imperial city?" Yan Chujie asked with a frown.

Qian Tiandun shook his head and said, "There are about [-] defenders in the imperial city, which are not included in the number I just mentioned."

"Then is there any good news for us to relax?" Yan Chujie obviously couldn't be happy about this situation, so he could only ask half-jokingly.

"The good news is that the South Vietnamese army guarding the imperial city doesn't have many heavy weapons available. The few heavy artillery pieces in the imperial city are said to be deployed at the Meridian Gate facing the Xiangjiang River. It is estimated that they will be moved in a while. No nest. So at least in the next two days, our artillery deployed outside the Peace Gate will have an overwhelming advantage." Qiao Zhiya paused, and added: "But there is also a bad news."

"What bad news?" Before Yan Chujie could relax, he was suspended by Qiao Zhiya's words again.

Qiao Zhiya went on to say: "According to what we know now, the defense of the imperial city is very strong, and its walls are no worse than the outer city. With the blessing of the moat, it may be a little troublesome for us to attack in a short time. .”

The "bad news" mentioned by Qiao Zhiya is undoubtedly a very real problem. Due to the small size of the imperial city, the deployment area of ​​the defensive forces in the city will be relatively dense.It may be difficult for the militia to establish a forward position by breaking through a point when attacking the outer city, because the outer city has a large area, and it will take more time for reinforcements to rush to the gap in the city wall, and the imperial city is relatively small , if thousands of people are in place to supplement the defense at the first time, it will definitely cause great pressure on the vanguard of the city.Although they have 100% confidence in the combat effectiveness of their own troops, if it is not a last resort, the high-level officials are not willing to use the elite troops they have worked hard to cultivate to fight the monkey soldiers in South Vietnam.

The situation that the headquarters is now facing is a bit of a dilemma. If you want to speed up the battle process and end this battle as soon as possible, you will probably have to attack the imperial city head-on, and this will inevitably cause more casualties on your side.If you want to play it safe and slowly consume the combat power of the city defenders, you will be able to win this battle sooner or later, but you don't know how long it will last, maybe ten days and a half months, maybe it will be longer.And the longer the battle is dragged on, the greater the burden will be on the militias fighting across the sea, and their own combat effectiveness will continue to decline due to the extension of the combat period.

"I personally have a battle plan, but I'm not sure about its feasibility." Seeing that Yan Chujie was frowning and staring at the map for a long time, Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to propose a new idea.

"Let's listen first!" Yan Chujie looked up at Qiao Zhiya and said.

"Actually, the blasting method we used to break through the outer city was very good. I think we can use the same method again." Seeing Yan Chujie's disapproving expression, Qiao Zhiya continued, "I know what you want to say , if the gap in the city wall we demolished by blasting is too small, of course it will be blocked by the defenders in the city, we might as well play a little bigger and tear down the entire Peace Gate!"

Qiao Zhiya got excited and leaned over to point to the map and said, "Look, about 300 meters behind the Gate of Peace is the central axis of the imperial city. Our artillery can directly hit the imperial palace from the current position without crossing the river. At that time, what will the defenders in the city use to resist our shelling?"

Qian Tiandun interjected: "We can also bombard the imperial palace in the city now, as long as we adjust the angle of the artillery to be larger."

"But that's not accurate at all, and there's no way to directly verify the effect of the shelling. The most important thing is that those in power in the city can directly see how the artillery positions outside the city hit the shells on top of their heads, This will definitely be more intimidating!" Qiao Zhiya looked excited, and seemed to have imagined the scene of the defenders and dignitaries in the city scrambling to escape the shelling.

"After all, you just want to play blasting! Is your nickname Michael Bay?" Yan Chujie unceremoniously pointed out Qiao Zhiya's bad taste.But he couldn't deny that the combat plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya was indeed feasible to a certain extent.If the gate tower of Heping Gate could really be taken down, then the garrison in the city would not be able to mend the gap in the city wall that was more than [-] meters long.

"When we blew up the walls of the outer city, we used hundreds of catties of explosives to blow up a gap of four or five meters. If you want to blow up the tower of Hepingmen, are you sure we have enough explosives?" Qian Tiandun However, he was not very impressed with the combat plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya.

"The explosives made after time travel must be a bit weak, but I still have some in stock!" Qiao Zhiya showed a smug smile on his face: "The TNT we bought before time travel has been shipped this time, and it happens to be sent Useful."

Of course, the TNT explosives mentioned by Qiao Zhiya are not the materials purchased by the group, but the private property of the North American Gang.They purchased a large amount of military supplies before crossing, including hundreds of kilograms of TNT explosives and detonators for detonation.Although I don't know if it will come in handy, under the insistence of Qiao Zhiya, a big bomber, Tom Wang still transported these dangerous goods to the front line of Hue by boat.

(End of this chapter)