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Volume 1: Saving the Three Thousand Beauties in the Harem Chapter 453: Battle of Dingzhou

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    (Da Meng is really a strong man, and his rewards are getting more and more amazing. Thank you! It¡¯s necessary.)

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    On the eighth day of the fifth lunar month, Marshal of Xia's military and horse capital and King Chage of Jin gathered together 5,000 elite soldiers from Xingqing Prefecture, 3,000 soldiers from Huaizhou, 2,000 soldiers from Jingzhou, 2,000 soldiers from Shunzhou, and 5,000 soldiers from Xiangqing Army from Lingzhou.  Thousand, another 10,000 servants were recruited, a total of more than 28,000 soldiers and horses, and they rushed to Dingzhou in a mighty manner.

    Although Cha Ge claims to be a famous contemporary general, he never dares to underestimate a ten thousand strong army that can repeatedly defeat the Jin Army, cross uninhabited deserts, and implement thousands of miles of roundabouts.  The so-called attack with five troops and encircle it with ten troops, with less than 30,000 troops, how can they capture a fortified city guarded by tens of thousands of troops?

    Therefore, after Cha Ge led the army to go out, he issued an urgent military order and urgently mobilized the southeastern border. Each of the five military divisions sent 4,000 troops, totaling 20,000. Together, they could make up 50,000. In this way,  There is a chance of winning.

    Of course, the deployment of 20,000 troops and horses from the front line will inevitably lead to an empty defense line, but now there is not much to worry about. The first priority at the moment is to pull out this thorn in the heart.  If the border is lost, the country will be able to bear the loss of some territory and villages at most.  And if this poisonous insect that has got into the belly cannot be eliminated as soon as possible, it will corrode the foundation of the country, seriously shake the foundation of the country, and even cause moral instability and collapse of the soldiers at the front.

    The lesser of two evils, no matter what, Chage must assemble as many troops as possible in the shortest possible time to cut off this scourge in one fell swoop, even if the Chinese army occupies part of the border territory and loses tens of thousands of troops.  No matter what!

    The troops and horses on the front line are hundreds or hundreds of miles away from Xingqing Mansion. If they wait until the troops are gathered before going out to fight, I am afraid that the Chinese troops in Dingzhou will all reach Xingzhou City.  Of course Brother Cha cannot let this situation happen, otherwise the people will be angry even if the king doesn't take action on him.

    Twenty-eight thousand troops went out in advance, followed by twenty thousand reinforcements. No matter the cost, Dingzhou was recaptured within one month.

    This is the guarantee that Brother Cha made to the leader of the country, Li Qianshun, before he went on the expedition.  In Li Qianshun's view, Brother Cha's promise was already quite cautious and conservative.  There is no talk of annihilating all the enemy forces.  There is no mention of taking advantage of the victory to pursue it.  Recapture Keyimen, or drive the enemy troops into the desert, just to seize the state.  This shows that the first general of the Xia Kingdom attaches great importance to and is careful about the current enemy.  Don't dare to be careless in the slightest.

    Xingqing Mansion and Dingzhou are only five or sixty miles apart.  If the army moves in a hurry.  It can arrive in the morning and in the evening.  However, in order to prevent an enemy ambush, Chage did not dare to march too fast.  Prioritize steady advancement.  When it was time to apply for the license in the afternoon, the vanguard came to report that the front was twenty miles away from Dingzhou, and no large enemy troops were found in ambush.  However, a few miles away on the left side of the official road, there was an abandoned village where there seemed to be a suspicious enemy.

    This situation immediately attracted Cha Ge's attention, and he immediately decided to check it out personally. Under the heavy protection of three hundred iron kites, the iron hooves were like drums, roaring like thunder, rolling up clouds of smoke and dust, and rushed up the mountain ridge along the road.

    To the west of the Xia Kingdom¡¯s capital is the Helan Mountain, which runs north-south, towering into the clouds.  Affected by the terrain, the section from Xingqingfu to Dingzhou is dotted with loess hills of varying heights on the left (west) side of the roadside.  These loess hills all have the same characteristics: sparse vegetation, loose soil, steep slopes, and rounded tops.

    This area is different from other areas of the Xia Kingdom. Since the capital and Dingzhou are close at hand, except for herdsmen, few Xia Kingdom people have settled outside the city walls, so there are very few villages in the surrounding area.  Of course, it's not that there are no young masters. There are still some villages nearby. Looking down from the top of the mountain where Cha Ge is, there is a medium-sized village two miles away.

    There was a general who was familiar with the situation at Cha Ge's side, giving him guidance and explanation: "This village is called 'Pojun' and has been built for a long time. It was first built in the second year of Yong'an (1099). At that time, there was a rebellious party (referring to the Empress Dowager Liang).  The clan) were dissatisfied with the new emperor and fled into the Helan Mountains to cause trouble for the bandits, so they built this stronghold. Three years later, the rebels were wiped out and the stronghold was abandoned. It has been thirty years now."

    Brother Cha looked down from a high position, but he saw that the village was small, with broken walls and half-collapsed houses. There were more than a hundred people hiding behind the walls, and occasionally people could be seen in the dilapidated houses behind.  But judging from the size of the village, no matter what, it cannot hold a battalion of men and horses.

    Cha Ge thought for a while and understood his opponent's intention: "This is a strategy to contain the enemy. The road on this mountain is steep and narrow. If our army is stagnant at the bottom of the mountain, even if there are tens of thousands of troops, we can only attack with a small number of troops."  . In this way, we can delay the time and contain our army's progress. If our army ignores it, the enemy can also take advantage of the situation to attack our transportation lines."

    At this time, a Xia general asked for instructions: "Marshal, why don't you let the last general lead the troops to try to attack. There don't seem to be many enemy troops, and they may be able to attack them with one drum."

    Brother Cha pondered for a moment and nodded in agreement: "Yes."

    This Xia general quickly ordered five hundred elite Bubazi who were good at mountain warfare. Wearing armor and carrying cards, they set up camp step by step and launched an attack to the southeast of Pojunzhai, which has a gentler terrain.

    ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?When they were five or sixty steps into the village, more than thirty musketeers suddenly appeared from behind the wall of the village, and then there was a loud sound of gunfire.  Xia Jun fell to the ground one after another and rolled down the hillside.  After the musketeers fired one wave, they retreated. Another wave came from behind, and another burst of gunfire knocked down all the soldiers.  Within a moment of meeting each other, Bubazi fell down thirty or forty people, and the rest were all frustrated and retreated hastily.

    The tens of thousands of Xia troops watching the battle were in a commotion, and were immediately scolded by generals at all levels to calm down.

    After a while, the Xia general just now, with a face full of shame, knelt down in front of Brother Cha, bowed his head and said: "The last general has made a bad start, and has damaged the spirit of the army. Please punish the marshal."

    Brother Cha did not even glance at his generals. He stared at the small village and nodded slowly: "The Chinese army's firearms are really sharp. It is said that most of the gunpowder is sourced from our country. After this battle, we need to do some research and development."  ." He turned around and said calmly, "Although this attack has revealed the strength of the enemy's army, it has dampened the spirit of our army. You will be punished with thirty sticks and a two-level reduction. You can go and receive your punishment."

    General Na Xia kowtowed repeatedly, his face full of gratitude.  This man was an old subordinate of Brother Cha. He knew that the marshal was very strict in running the army. If he was defeated at the beginning like this, and the defeat was so ugly, he would usually be beheaded to enforce military law.  This time, I saved my life.

    "The number of enemy troops in Pojunzhai is only three to four hundred. Their purpose is only to delay the progress of our army. Or they may attack the rear team's baggage pass the order." Brother Cha did not want to entangle tens of thousands of troops with this small group of people, "Xiang  The Qing army sent out one battalion of 500 men and the Shunzhou army sent out two battalions of 1,000 men. They set up camp and built a stronghold to watch and block the enemy troops on the top of the mountain. Do not let the enemy troops come down the mountain to attack the army's baggage. Wait for Li Rong to lead the army.  After 20,000 soldiers arrived, they were ordered to pull out the stronghold, confiscate weapons, and leave no humans or animals behind."

    After a slight delay, the Xia army continued on the road, while the army was on high alert.  Don't let your guard down at all just because the enemy army only has a few hundred people.  Brother Cha's cautiousness is evident.  The Chinese troops who broke through the army camp did not behave unusually except for staring at them with eager eyes.

    Although the current situation is somewhat similar to the blocking battle at Nerling that day, the terrain is completely different - at the foot of Nerling that day, the mountain road was only a few dozen feet wide.  There is a big river in front.  There were pursuers behind.  The Jin army had no choice but to capture the top of the mountain before they could escape.  The road here is flat and wide.  It's several miles wide and it's impossible to intercept, not to mention it's Xia Jun's home field.  If Brother Cha was not in a hurry and didn't want to get too entangled, he could just bring up the siege equipment at the rear and destroy this tiny place, which would only take a day and a half.

    ¡­¡­

    At dusk on the eighth day of the lunar month, the Xia army rushed to the foot of Dingzhou City and set up camp.  The reaction of the Chinese army in Dingzhou was as expected - the walls were strong and the fields were clear, the four gates were firmly closed, guns were loaded with live ammunition, and the formation was ready.

    Digging trenches, erecting fences, and piling earth into fortresses cannot be accomplished in a day.  When it came time to use real swords and guns, Brother Cha was not in a hurry to attack.  He led the guards and observed repeatedly around Dingzhou City.  He successively rejected the strategies proposed by his subordinates to cut off the water flow, dig tunnels to attack, and attack the city with ants.

    Dingzhou is fed by three rivers, one of which is the Yellow River. One month may not be enough to fill the river; tunnel attack is the strength of the Chinese army, so the defense must be tight, and the Dingzhou city foundation is extremely solid, making it difficult to operate; ant attack the city  ?  Judging from the firearms of the Chinese army seen today, the losses will probably be heavy.  It's okay to capture Dingzhou, but if the loss of troops is too great and Dingzhou fails to be captured, things will be difficult.

    In the end, Cha Ge decided to give full play to the advantage of fighting at home and having a force several times that of the enemy, and adopted the "fortress method" to capture Dingzhou.

    The so-called "city fortification method" is to pile earth into a city, the height of which is the same as the surrounding city wall, or even higher.  First, select a city head that is far away from the stone arrows and start piling earth. After reaching the ideal height, you can move the earth, dump the earth, and push forward to continuously reduce the distance between the two cities.  Down to the moat, the space between the earthen city and the city wall could no longer hinder the army's attack on the city.  In this way, the attacker can fight at the same height as the defender, and even build a bridge to climb the city.

    To implement this siege method, the following conditions must be met: there are hills and mountains nearby, which can continuously collect soil; it is the summer and autumn season, the soil is soft and easy to dig, and there is no risk that continuous rain will turn the earth city into a quagmire; the military force accounts for  Absolute advantage.

    The weather is right (summer), the location is right (near the mountains), the troops are there, the city is fortified, and the conditions are met.

    On the tenth day of the fifth lunar month, the Xia army piled soil simultaneously from the east, south and west directions, starting from a hundred feet away.  At such a long distance, neither thunder cannons nor missiles could reach it, and they could only watch silently as the Xia army's auxiliary soldiers and servants below the city shuttled back and forth like ants, fetching mounds of earth from the nearby mountains for the city.

    The Xia army also sent out a large number of cavalry to patrol near the six city gates of Dingzhou to prevent the Chinese army from suddenly leaving the city to attack.

    On May 13th, after four days of unremitting efforts, three long Tuchengs, ten feet wide and half a foot taller than Dingzhou City, had been extended to thirty feet away from Dingzhou.  The Chinese army in the city also began to counterattack.

    First the missile launcher ejects thunderbolts, and then??Thunder cannon throws explosive packets.  The initial effect was good, but the explosion caused the auxiliary soldiers and servicemen of the Xia army to transport earth fall down one by one and fled in all directions. The project was stalled for most of the day.  After that, it exploded several times, causing many casualties to Xia Jun.  However, as time went by, the effects of these two poorly accurate weapons gradually became less than satisfactory.

    First of all, the 12th Division did not carry many long-range weapons in this long-distance attack. In addition, due to the losses along the way through the Gobi Desert, only twenty missiles and eighteen flying thunder cannons were finally able to reach Dingzhou intact.  .  Weapons with poor performance and accuracy such as thunder cannons rely on large numbers and intensive bombing to exert their terrifying lethality.  If the number is too small, the power will be difficult to express.

    Secondly, the auxiliary soldiers and servicemen of the Xia army were not regular troops. When they saw the explosives falling from the sky, they immediately dispersed. After the explosion, they gathered again under the driving of the regular soldiers.  Due to the lack of ground troops to coordinate the attack and expand the results, such monotonous and sporadic attacks would not be helpful to the battle even if they frighten the enemy and reduce their morale to zero.  Moreover, most of the casualties were from non-combat troops, which could only weaken the Xia Army's combat power. Not only was it a waste of ammunition, but it also blew up the Xia Army's skin. They had certain psychological immunity and defensive methods against the bombardment, and they were no longer as good as before.  I was so frightened when I saw him.

    Guarding general Wang Gui had no choice but to order the bombardment to stop. After all, the explosive packs could not withstand such waste. Thunderbolt bombs were thrown intermittently to maintain a certain deterrent effect and delay the Xia army's construction of the city.

    On May 15th, the three-sided earth city was advanced to a distance of ten feet from the moat, and the spatial distance from Dingzhou City was less than twenty feet.  Both sides were within the striking range of muskets and crossbows. From this moment on, the Xia army and the Chinese army officially fought.

    The Hua Army's muskets are sharp and can break through armor within twenty feet. Not to mention the auxiliary soldiers and servants who lack protection, even the regular soldiers of the Xia Army, wearing armor and carrying cards, are difficult to defend.  Those who were shot were either dead or injured, and basically lost the ability to fight or move again.  Xia soldiers were more afraid of muskets than thunder bullets and explosive packets.  After all, the latter fell from the sky and was visible to the naked eye, so there was still some possibility of escaping. However, by the time you saw the musket pellets, you were already dead, or not far away from death This naturally greatly delayed the progress of building the city.

    The lethality of the Xia army's bows and crossbows cannot be underestimated. Not to mention the bows and arrows, the powerful crossbows alone pose a considerable threat to the Chinese army.  Cha Geben was an advocate of the Xia army's organized and large-scale use of powerful crossbows.  It was under his vigorous promotion that Xia Jun formally formed the "Strong Crossbow Army" and achieved quite impressive results in the war against Song Dynasty.  Now that Brother Cha is personally supervising the division's operations, how could he lack such a powerful unit?

    The powerful crossbow used by the Xia army is similar to the Mahuang crossbow of the Song army, and it can penetrate armor at a hundred steps without any hindrance.  If crossbows were not direct-fire weapons, and the Chinese army was defending the city with arrow stacks, pheasant saucers, wooden signs, and even shelters, the casualties would not be less than those of the Xia army.

    You must know that the biggest advantage of muskets compared with crossbows is their long-lasting combat effectiveness, and this advantage is based on the opponent's strength being similar to yours, or twice as many.  Xia Jun's strong crossbow army is nearly half of the five thousand strong army from Xingqing Mansion, with a total of 2,000 people - this is two-thirds of the strength of the capital's strong crossbow army, which shows that Brother Cha has really spent a lot of money.  .

    And how many musketeers are there in the Dingzhou garrison?  Less than a thousand!  They were stationed in four directions, with most of them concentrated in the east, south and west directions to block the enemy.  The scattered troops and insufficient firepower prevented the advantages of concentrated musket shooting from being fully realized.

    Dingzhou Guard General Wang Gui was also trained as an officer at the Taiyuan Military Academy. It¡¯s not that he didn¡¯t know how to use muskets intensively to maximize their power. It¡¯s really hard for a clever woman to make a meal without straw - he only had this little medium-range firepower at hand, but  It would be difficult to defend a city as large as Dingzhou!

    On May 18th, the final moment came. Xia Jun paid a heavy price of 3,000 casualties in seven days, and finally pushed the Tucheng to the moat, and could use siege equipment to attack.

    The Dingzhou defense battle has reached its most critical moment.  (To be continued)
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