1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 396 Invading the Imperial City
"This is a strategic reserve. If you use it, you can use it less. Are you sure you want to use it here?" Qian Tiandun questioned, "We can't make TNT in a short time, right?"

"Large-scale production is definitely not possible at this stage, but a small amount can be produced in the laboratory. Trinitrotoluene is not a rare thing." When it comes to chemical issues, Qiao Zhiya can be regarded as an authority in the headquarters : "Sulfuric acid and nitric acid can now be produced by themselves in Shengli Port. Toluene is a little troublesome. It needs to be extracted from the coal tar sent by Heitu Port. Basically, it can only be completed in the laboratory, and the production capacity is very small. It is used as a detonator. Mercury fulminate is not a problem either, it was trial-produced last year, but the stability in use is not very good, and the chemical department is still trying to improve it.”

"How is the cost of this thing compared to the earthen explosives used now?" Yan Chujie immediately regained his spirits. If the Haihan militia can equip TNT as a regular combat preparation, then the tactics that can be used in battles will be more abundant in the future.

"There is no comparison for the time being. The cost of laboratory production is too high, and the output is very small. I also want to mass-produce this thing as soon as possible, but I am afraid it will not be possible in the short term." Qiao Zhiya also seemed very regretful about this, but he was very sorry Quickly bring the topic back to the main topic: "I carefully observed the structure of the Heping Gate on the battlefield today. In fact, it is much easier to blow up the Heping Gate than the city wall. There are three door openings under the tower, and the force structure is stronger than the city wall. It is much weaker, as long as you find the right location to blast, the amount of explosives you need is actually not very large.”

Yan Chujie shook his head and said, "The question is how did you go to construct and arrange the bomb site? Not to mention the defenders on the tower, but there is a moat in between. Could it be that the militiamen carried wooden rafts to fill the river? And our Engineers may not understand things like force structures."

"Ordinary engineers definitely can't do this kind of technical work..." Qiao Zhiya looked at Yan Chujie and said, "Leave this to me myself!"

"It seems that you have already prepared an action plan!" Qian Tiandun responded with a smile: "Then how do you need us to cooperate with you?"

"Send someone outside the city to pick up the things on the boat and send them over as soon as possible. I'll pick out some engineers who understand water. I'll start tonight. If everything goes well, I can probably finish the preparations tomorrow." Qiao Zhiya said confidently. Said.

Three hours later, several figures quietly slipped into the moat outside the imperial city from the darkness.The moat of the imperial city is only ten meters wide. Outside the Heping Gate, there was originally a two-section bridge. The outer section has fixed piers and bridge decks, and the inner section is a suspension bridge that can be raised.However, before the Royal Forest Army withdrew into the imperial city, they did not forget to remove all the fixed part of the bridge deck. Even if the suspension bridge can be lowered now, it will not be able to reach the river bank at the other end.At this time, the other side of the closed city gate should have been filled with wooden pillars, and maybe stones were used to block the other end of the gate opening, so they don't have to worry about the gate suddenly opening and being rushed out by the defenders. in force.

After slowly swimming across the river, these people climbed up the river bank, entered the gate of the gate tower of the Heping Gate of the Imperial City, put down their burdens, and swam back to the other side lightly.These few people walked back and forth in the moat twice before transporting all the things they needed to the gate of the tower, and then quietly lurked.

After dawn, the troops of the Haihan Militia outside the city aimed several artillery pieces at the city tower, firing every few minutes or so.Although the small-caliber artillery used by the army can cause very limited damage to this large building, the deterrent effect of this attack is very significant, and soon the defenders on the tower chose to evacuate this too obvious target position , leaving only a small number of sentries on the walls on both sides of the tower to monitor the movement of the enemy outside the city.

Of course, the few people in the tower hole were not idle, they were taking advantage of the excitement outside, they were digging holes in the city wall with hand drills and planting explosives.According to Qiao Zhiya's rough estimate, they need to place dozens of detonation points under the tower to make the tower collapse after the explosion.It is not an easy job to punch so many holes in the stone bricks by hand, but it is also a last resort. If you use a chisel to hit hard, the sound will be difficult to hide from the defenders on the city wall.

The militia troops outside the city didn't stay idle because of this. Except for some people who continued yesterday's forced demolitions, each company was ordered to start cleaning up some government agencies in the occupied area.The six ministries, Dutongfu, Guozijian, Qintianjian and other institutions under the Nanyue court are all outside the imperial city, and there are many things that the executive committee is interested in in these institutions. The mansions of the rich and powerful were naturally also the key targets of raids—the material rewards issued by the militia after the war basically relied on ransacking homes in Hue City.Even if the Haihan militia does not attack these places, the North Vietnamese army will not let them go after the city is broken. However, the Military Commission insists on not cooperating with the North Vietnamese army to attack the city.

With the guidance of the local leading party, the troops performing missions basically no longer need to try their luck by mistake, and the efficiency of house raids has become very high.Although the militia has strict rules prohibiting soldiers from hiding their personal interests during this process, everyone's enthusiasm for this task is obviously much higher than that of forced demolition - seeing boxes of gold, silver and jewelry being loaded and transported outside the city , Thinking that after the war, they will be able to share their own dividends, almost everyone is as motivated as if they were fully wound up.

At the same time, it wasn't just the militia that was causing trouble in the city of Hue. Thousands of South Vietnamese stragglers who had succeeded or failed were doing the same thing in the other half of the city.Since the militia troops did not have enough troops to surround the imperial city, some defenders could still keep in touch with the senior officials in the city on the other side of the imperial city.However, part of the army that was dispersed during the siege had become headless chickens. At this time, as long as someone took the lead in making trouble, someone would immediately follow suit.The rebels didn't let go of their courage at the beginning, they just rushed into the homes of ordinary people to plunder, but soon this kind of riot escalated out of control, and the wealthy families in the high-walled compound obviously had more money, so they naturally became rebels The main target of their robbery.

"Our people have already started to attack the West City?" Qian Tiandun put down his binoculars and asked Yan Chujie with some doubts.In fact, you don't need to use binoculars. You can see black smoke rising from many places in the western urban area with the naked eye, and you can vaguely hear the sound of killing in the wind.

Yan Chujie shook his head and said, "It's not ours."

"Did the North Vietnamese invade by themselves?" Tom Wang asked in amazement.After he sent the materials needed for the blasting from outside the city yesterday, he stayed at the forward position and never left.

"Probably not. If they are going to attack the city, they will at least give us a heads-up." Although Yan Chujie is not sure what happened in the west city, he can more or less guess: "It's probably because the South Vietnamese defenders messed up on their own. There should be a lot of people who want to take advantage of the chaos to make a fortune at this time. Let them make a fuss, so that no one will interfere with what we are going to do."

The chaos caused by the rebellious army in the city was far more serious than the Haihan officers imagined, so that the senior officials of the Ruan family in the palace had to order the surviving troops in the Xicheng area to quell the rebellious soldiers—if these people were not stopped as soon as possible, Then even if the Haihan people can't take the city of Hue in the end, the city will be destroyed by the rebels.

In the afternoon, an even more unbelievable situation occurred in the city. A large number of people fled from the west city and poured into the eastern city controlled by the Haihan militia to escape the rioters.Although this area is already an "enemy-occupied area" for the local people, it is clear that the social order here is better than the urban area controlled by the South Vietnamese army.Except for a few powerful families, as long as ordinary people did not take the initiative to attack the Haihan militia, they were basically safe and sound, and they were not looted by the militia. Prioritize looting those big families pointed out by the leading party.

Most of the soldiers who made trouble in the west city had already seen the strength of the Haihan militia, so they gave up the pursuit of these people with a tacit understanding, and controlled their scope of action outside the defense line of the Haihan militia.After eating the bullets from the militia's rifles, the few rebels who hadn't spotted the signs quickly retracted their claws, not daring to provoke this difficult opponent again.

This unreasonable situation made the officers on Haihan’s side dumbfounded. They should be playing the role of an unjust invader in this war, but why did the orange color change in the middle of the battle and become ordinary people instead? Guardians?

After nightfall that day, the engineering team that had worked under the Gate of Peace for a day finally sneaked back to their own camp safely.When Qiao Zhiya returned to the tent of the headquarters, he collapsed on a chair, unable to change the wet clothes on his body.

Seeing this, Wang Tom hurriedly asked the orderly to fetch dry towels and clothes, and helped him up with Qian Tiandun to take off his clothes.After a while, Morgan also came in with a bowl of hot ginger soup: "You will feel better after drinking this. This is the unique recipe that Major Guwei taught me."

Qiao Zhiya changed his clothes, drank ginger soup, and slumped on the chair for a while before recovering, shook his head and said, "I have never been so tired after crossing, even when I dug sand to build a station in Victory Harbor Relax now, I really underestimated the amount of work this time."

As Qiao Zhiya said, he spread out his hands and showed them to everyone. Both palms were red, and blood blisters had appeared in several places. It could be seen that he was really exhausted after the day.

"How much have you completed now? How about I take over from you? You can be in charge of technical guidance. I still have the skills to install explosives and bury detonators." Qian Tiandun volunteered.

"No need." Qiao Zhiya shook his head lightly and said, "It's all set up, and I brought back the blasting fuse. The explosives are not used up, but the electric detonators we brought over before crossing are basically used up this time. That’s right, if you want to do this kind of thing in the future, you can only use soil detonators.”

Yan Chujie asked in a deep voice, "Are you sure there is no problem?"

"If the tower doesn't blow up, I, Qiao Zhiya, will go back to Tian Dushou's laboratory immediately!" Qiao Zhiya couldn't help grinning while swearing, because at this time Morgan was using medical equipment to process the blood from his hands. Bubble.

"Everyone prepare separately!" After Yan Chujie received an affirmative answer, he asked everyone to start preparing for the offensive that will be taken on the following day.

"Wait, do you want to notify the North Vietnamese Army?" Qian Tiandun asked.

Although the military advisory group sent by North Vietnam has been placed outside the city, and they have not even been able to enter the city. All the battlefield information they have learned comes from the oral description of the liaison officer of the Haihan militia, but it seems that tomorrow will be launched. It's time for a general attack, and it seems a little unreasonable if you don't say hello to your allies.

Yan Chujie hesitated for a moment, nodded and said: "Then say hello to them, but it's too late today, let them know tomorrow morning!"

According to Yan Chujie's order, the liaison officer woke up the officers of the North Vietnam Military Observer Corps at dawn the next day, and informed them of the news that the general attack on the imperial city would be launched today.And the busy military observation team sent people to ride around to the North Vietnamese army station in the west, and when the news reached the desk of coach Zheng Bai, almost two hours had passed.

When Zheng Bo was in the camp and scolded the Haihan people for playing tricks, the Haihan militia's position outside the imperial city had entered the final stage of combat preparation.The forced demolition work for two consecutive days has achieved quite remarkable results. An open space with a width and depth of more than 300 meters has been cleared outside the Heping Gate.Now, nearly forty artillery pieces of different calibers are densely arranged in this open space, ranging from the 3-pound small guns equipped by the Heitugang special warfare battalion to the 48-pound mortars specially used for siege, covering almost all the current Haihan people. All specifications of artillery that have been installed by the regiment army.

Of course, this situation also attracted the attention of the defenders on the city wall, but they can only stare blankly now.According to the images taken from a high altitude with a drone yesterday, the defenders in the city have already dismantled the cannons on the other side of the city wall, but they will be transported to the Hepingmen and the forts will be re-erected. It is not a task that can be completed in a short while.In the city, no matter whether you use equipment such as bows and arrows or trebuchets, the range cannot reach the position of the Haihan people.Therefore, for the Haihan people to set up artillery positions outside the city, the defenders have no practical countermeasures available.

At this time, Qiao Zhiya was waiting for an order from the headquarters in a private house separated by a moat from the Heping Gate.No one noticed that there were several little finger-thick black lines extending into the moat from this house, and the defenders on the tower did not expect that they were standing on top of a big explosive package at this time.

At 30 o'clock in the morning, after everything was ready, Yan Chujie gave Qiao Zhiya an order through the walkie-talkie. After Qiao Zhiya pressed the detonator, he heard a series of explosions coming from the downstairs of the Heping Gate. Although it was not as good as the explosion of the outer wall a few days ago It was such a big battle at the time, but the effect of this explosion far exceeded that of the last time.I saw that the city tower with a height of more than ten meters began to collapse downwards before the sound of the explosion ended. About five seconds later, the city tower with a width of more than [-] meters completely collapsed into a pile of rubble, dust and smoke flew up, and the two armies His vision was completely obscured.

After a few minutes, the dust dissipated, and the sight in front of them shocked both sides.As Qiao Zhiya predicted before the operation, after the tower collapsed, both sides inside and outside the city could see each other clearly through this gap. From the artillery position on the Haihan side, they could clearly see the ground about two miles away. The Nanyue Palace building outside, and the defenders in the city who were panicked.

"Aim at target No. [-] and fire!" Following the officer's order, the artillery on the artillery position began to roar one after another, and shells flew over the collapsed tower with a scream, and smashed into the palace in the middle of the imperial city architecture.

Almost at the same time that the Hepingmen tower collapsed, the defenders in the imperial city began to lose their will to continue to resist, because as long as they were not blind, they could confirm that the surrounding walls could no longer protect themselves and this crumbling regime. up.A large number of defenders began to choose to flee to the west, because there were no traces of the Haihan people outside the city wall there, and they still had a chance to escape.

When the Haihan militia began to build a pontoon bridge on the moat, the defenders showed no resistance at all. The militiamen confidently and boldly connected pieces of wooden rafts on the river, and the militia infantry followed closely behind. While flying in the air, the soldiers of the militia had already rushed across the pontoon bridge and stepped on the ruins of the collapsed tower.

"The city is broken! The Haihan people came in!"

With the shouts of some defeated soldiers, the defenders in the city quickly lost their will to resist and began to choose to flee.As a result, the militia did not encounter too much resistance when they entered the imperial city. Almost all the clear-headed defenders chose to flock to the gates in the other three directions, which were the escape gates for them.

"Scatter the companies and control the predetermined area!" Yan Chujie can only issue combat orders to the officers through the walkie-talkie.After the Haihan militia army entered the imperial city, it was difficult to cover everything. They could only occupy some important targets first, and strive to control the top figures of the Ruan family.

However, among the rebellious army, it was not easy to catch the ruler of the Ruan family, and Yan Chujie didn't want to chase too hard and cause the defenders to rebound.After much consideration, Yan Chujie decided to leave this piece of fat to the North Vietnamese army who set up an encirclement outside the city.

About half an hour after the Haihan militia entered the Peace Gate, the west gate of Hue City was opened with a bang, and thousands of remnants rushed to the plain to the west, hoping to escape into the Changshan Mountains.

(End of this chapter)