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Chapter 1186 Mountain War 5
Fighting a war is actually like many daily jobs and games. If you want to do it well, you have to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses. The Ming army has a unique firepower advantage. As long as you can play to your advantage and avoid entering the enemy's combat mode, your chances of winning are very high.

Specifically in mountain warfare, the enemy would use the terrain to limit the battlefield to one or several very small areas, greatly limiting the Ming army's firepower advantage.

For example, a preset position and artillery position were built somewhere on a rugged mountain road to give the artillery a wider firing range. However, the attacking side was limited by the terrain, with no cover or firing range, so the soldiers could only charge forward with their lives at risk, and the losses would be huge.

Now the situation has changed. It doesn't matter where the enemy sets up their positions. Unless there is an extreme situation where there has been only one road to Mount Huashan since ancient times, the army will not take the usual route when attacking. Any place where people can pass is an attack route.

When encountering the enemy's regular fortifications built in areas with complex terrain, do not attack them forcefully. Instead, exert a certain amount of pressure on the front, then detour from the left and right sides to encircle them. After finding a suitable angle for attack, break through from a relatively easy direction.

Does that mean that once you are familiar with this set of tactics, you will be safe in mountain warfare? The answer is no. Any tactic has its limitations, which depend on the local terrain.

It is applicable in the mountainous areas of northern China, where there is relatively little mountain vegetation and a relatively wide field of vision. The range and accuracy of the rifle can be fully utilized, and there is no need to worry about running into an encirclement of enemies that outnumber the enemy by several times.

This is not applicable in Annan, Luzon or mountainous areas with dense forests. Soldiers cannot see far in dense forests, and the power of rifles is weakened by the trees. Too dispersed formations are more vulnerable to enemy attacks.

Therefore, tactics are static, and a flexible command system based on knowing both oneself and the enemy is the key. Knowing the battle environment in advance, making correct estimates, and deploying troops reasonably are the basic skills that senior commanders need to master.

When Hong Tao made the decision to lead the army in person, he had already learned about the general climate, terrain and other relevant information of the battle area. Therefore, he went against the majority opinion and did not choose the Marine Corps, which was more suitable for long-distance landing operations. Instead, he specially dispatched the army from several northern corps to accompany him, just waiting for this moment.

The effect was quite good from the time the attack was launched to noon. The Ottomans had indeed deployed a large number of fortifications and artillery positions near the mountain road in advance, and were very skilled in earthwork, making it difficult to detect their traces with the naked eye or a telescope.

If the Ming army were to advance along the mountain road in the conventional way, due to the restricted terrain, they could only advance in small groups and then be attacked by three-dimensional fire from the front, left, right, and even above. However, their own artillery fire could not be fully deployed and could not provide effective support.

It doesn't mean that they can't take the city, but the casualties will increase. With these few thousand soldiers, they may not be able to walk dozens of miles of mountain roads. If the casualties are too great, they will also face the risk of being attacked by cavalry during the retreat.

But faced with the sudden change of the Ming army, the Ottomans' iron barrel formation immediately seemed a bit clumsy. The advance on the mountain road was expectedly slow. The nearby hillsides, behind large rocks, and on the tops of the hills were all Ottomans' hiding caves and artillery positions, giving them the advantage of being high above.

In some places, there was no need to waste bullets at all. All they had to do was push the rubble down, and the Ming army on the mountain road would have to quickly find a place to hide. If they were accidentally hit by the rocks, they would be seriously injured if not killed.

At this time, the Ming army responsible for attacking the mountain road would stop advancing, find a good cover, and shoot with rifles at a relatively long distance, adding some pressure to the defenders. The Ming army climbing the hillside began to seize nearby hilltops and detour to the sides and rear of the enemy's preset positions. The advantage of the preset positions is that they are solid, the terrain is complex, and they are easy to defend and difficult to attack, but they also have disadvantages, which are still fatal. It cannot move, and it cannot even turn around. As long as the two sides are broken through and the enemy gets around behind it, it will basically be useless.

Can we add preset positions for defense on both sides? Of course we can, provided that there is enough time and manpower, because the preset positions on both sides also have problems on both sides. If we extend this way, we may have to build a Great Wall to solve most of the problems... In fact, the Great Wall also has two sides!

Unfortunately, the Ottomans did not have so much time and manpower to build a Maginot Line in more than 20 days. They just wanted to inflict as much casualties on the Ming army as possible on these dozens of miles of mountain roads and drag the battle into a stalemate.

The Ottoman garrison could afford to delay the march by relying on supplies from Damascus, but the Ming army needed to transport supplies and ammunition from the Euphrates River hundreds of kilometers away by camel, which was obviously not an option.

Whenever the Ming army was damaged and had to retreat, the Sipahi cavalry would demonstrate their skills in long-distance raids, harassing the enemy day and night along the way, looking for weaknesses and delivering fatal blows.

However, facing the scattered Ming soldiers all over the mountains, the Ottoman defenders had no way to deal with them. Using muskets at a distance would be inaccurate and would easily expose their hiding places; using artillery was too inefficient, and several shells might not necessarily kill an enemy, and the artillery would have to stop firing for a long time to cool down.

The Guards Corps was worthy of being the main force of the Ottoman army. Seeing this, they immediately chose to bring the Ming army closer to attack, increasing the hit rate. But the effect was still not ideal. The Ming army was too scattered and the distance between them was very far, making it difficult to attack several people at the same time.

As long as one Ming soldier was attacked, the nearby Ming soldiers would soon discover the location of the cave, and then the defenders would have no chance of showing up again. If the stalemate could continue, it would be a good result, but unfortunately the Ming army refused.

They would put something bigger than an egg on the muzzle of the gun, aim at the entrance of the cave where the soldiers were hiding from a distance of several dozen meters, and pull the trigger. No one knew what kind of magic was used, but an explosion would occur near the entrance of the cave, and those who were unlucky would be blown up directly in the cave.

Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the explosion, the Ming army approached the cave entrance and threw in an iron ball smaller than a gunpowder can. A few seconds later, there was another even more violent explosion.

At this distance, the Ottoman defenders in the cave had no chance of survival and were trapped in the cave like mice. What was even more tragic was that they had no chance to surrender at this time. The brutal Ming army would not accept surrender at all. When they saw the enemy, they would shoot them without any explanation and would not even give them room for negotiation.

In fact, there is no way to discuss it. The two sides do not speak the same language. Who would risk their life and communicate with the enemy using gestures for a long time in a battlefield full of bullets?

In this way, the hiding caves were cleared one by one, the hilltops were occupied one after another, and the mountain roads were opened up one by one. Although the progress was not fast, it was solid and bloody. If the few or dozens of Ottoman soldiers in the cave did not escape before the arrival of the Ming army, they would all die in battle, and not a single one would be able to escape.

(End of this chapter)