funbook-pk Chapter 610: It's really a knife pulling the butt, it opened my eyes
Chapter 610: It's really a knife pulling the butt, it opened my eyes
"It's the Guards!"
"The Grand Marshal has arrived!"
Upon hearing this, the soldiers and generals around all showed excitement on their faces. No wonder the enemy retreated so decisively. It turned out that the commander-in-chief had arrived.
Most of the soldiers of the Resentful Army had seen the Grand Marshal before, and now they met on the battlefield at such a critical moment, the soldiers who were fighting were all fanatical.
Taking advantage of this momentum, Wu Sangui gave an order and the three forces of Liu Zhaoji, Cao Kun and others joined forces. Under the fierce offensive, Dorgon was forced to reluctantly give up the artillery battalion he had just formed.
After capturing Dorgon's artillery battalion, Wu Sangui did not rashly continue to pursue Dorgon. There were still too many cavalrymen of the Eight Banners, and most of the resentful army were infantry.
An hour later, when the battlefield was almost cleaned up, Zhang Shikang finally led the main force of the Guards to Jinzhou City.
Wu Sangui, Liu Zhaoji and other Jinzhou generals came to pay their respects to him. Zhang Shikang looked at the crumbling walls of Jinzhou's northern city and, with a rare smile, praised Wu Sangui:
"Well done!"
He arrived at Xiaolinghe Posthouse last night. The scouts along the way were spread out for nearly a hundred miles, and he was well aware of the situation in Jinzhou City.
When Zhang Shikang learned about Wu Sangui's actions before the city was broken, he was indeed quite satisfied.
Because before the reorganization of the three armed forces and the patriotic education of the three armed forces, the relationship between the military and the people was actually antagonistic.
The army bullies the people, the people do not trust the army, and even fear the army like a tiger. In the past, if the situation in Jinzhou City was like this, the generals defending the city would not hesitate to sell out the people in the city in order to reduce the losses of the army.
This runs counter to Zhang Shikang's expectations for the future of the army. He always believed that the purpose of the army's existence is to protect the people, not to bully them.
When war breaks out, the army rushes to the front line to protect the people from being slaughtered by foreign races. When natural disasters occur, the army also rushes to the front line to protect the people from wind and rain.
Of course, this was just Zhang Shikang's ideal. After all, this was an era when imperial power was supreme. But if a person has no ideals, what is the difference between him and a salted fish?
At least for now, it is still feasible.
Wu Sangui bowed and said:
"I have fulfilled my mission. By the way, Marshal, we have captured an entire artillery battalion from Dorgon, including thirty red cannons!
"As far as I know, this type of artillery was recently developed by the Pseudo-Qing Dynasty, so I don't think they have many. This time, not only were thirty guns captured, but most of the gunners were also captured. Huang Taiji will definitely not be happy to hear this news!"
Zhang Shikang had actually been mentally prepared for the Qing Dynasty's red cannons.
According to the course of history, it was probably during these two years that the Qing Dynasty began to vigorously cast cannons with the help of Europeans, and the most impressive one was the red cannon.
This thing is actually outdated technology in Europe. Its range is indeed not short, even longer than the old-style falconet of the Ming Dynasty, and its power is also quite strong.
But its biggest drawback was that it was too heavy, weighing several tons. Moreover, in the following hundreds of years, the Qing Dynasty, like the Ming Dynasty before it, made larger and larger artillery pieces.
In Zhang Shikang's eyes, artillery that is not suitable for field combat and can only be used for passive defense is useless no matter how powerful it is.
This is also the reason why Zhang Shikang knew that the Ming Dynasty could build red cannons, but he never put much effort into it, and instead focused on making copper-iron alloy cannons.
As they talked, they rushed towards the general's residence in Jinzhou City.
Soon, the main generals of the Imperial Guards and the Guanning Army gathered at the General's Mansion. It was dinner time, and under Zhang Shikang's order, the Fire Battalion brought the stewed horse meat into the conference hall.
Knowing that Zhang Shikang was not particular about details, and everyone was indeed tired and hungry, for the first quarter of an hour, the hall was almost entirely filled with the sound of people chewing horse meat.
During the lunch break, two groups of Jinyiwei came and reported almost all the situations outside the Great Wall, especially Guihua City, and the military intelligence from Lu Xiangsheng.
Huang Taiji mobilized the entire country, and although the number of troops was not as many as he claimed, it was still more than 100,000.
Although the Tiger Guards had as much manpower as Huang Taiji, they had to allocate most of their forces to garrison along the Great Wall, so they could not concentrate too many forces to rescue the trapped Li Zicheng and Emubu. Jinzhou City was of course also for this reason.
But Lu Xiangsheng did not do nothing. On the one hand, he tried his best to provide support, and on the other hand, he sent light cavalry to harass Huang Taiji many times, preventing him from attacking the city with all his strength.
Now that the Guards' reinforcements have arrived, it's time to end this tense standoff.
Everyone was talking at once, expressing their opinions on the current situation. Some suggested taking advantage of Dorgon's defeat and directly attacking Yizhou City with a large army.
Yizhou City is the largest city on the border between the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, and is only a day and a half away from Jinzhou City.
There were also suggestions that the army should join Lu Xiangsheng to lift the siege of Guihua City together.
What's more, there were those who proposed to divide the troops, to go all the way to Guihua, to bypass Yizhou City, to launch a surprise attack on the interior of the Qing Dynasty, and to make Huang Taiji exhausted in dealing with it.
Zhang Shikang remained noncommittal about his subordinates' proposal. After listening to their speeches, he put down his teacup and concluded:
"The morale of the soldiers is good, which is a good thing, but don't forget that nearly 60 to 70 percent of Huang Taiji's main force has war horses, and the elite even have three horses per person."
Mobility is a force that cannot be ignored. Zhang Shikang did not take it lightly because of his previous victories over the Qing Dynasty.
After all, compared with the dying Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty was at its peak. Even though it suffered several defeats, it had the support of the Mongolian tribes and was never short of war horses.
Not only did each cavalryman have three horses, but the infantry also had mounts.
Moreover, whether it was Huang Taiji, Dorgon, Daishan, Jirgalang, or the young generation of royal generals of the Qing Dynasty that he was familiar with, they were all very powerful in terms of military tactics.
Huang Degong thought for a while and said:
"I also feel that we cannot divide our forces in this battle. The Imperial Guards now have 200 large-caliber bronze cannons, which may be able to attract Huang Taiji to engage in a field battle."
A few years ago, the Imperial Guards were able to make Huang Taiji and Dorgon suffer a lot with their musket phalanx. Now that the muskets have been updated, the phalanx has become even more complete, and they also have a full 200 copper cannons for field use.
You should know that before this, the most Ming Dynasty had done in a field battle in decades was to deploy no more than 40 cannons, all of which were small-caliber French cannons.
They all knew the power of the copper cannons developed by the General Manufacturing Bureau, and it was hard to imagine what the scene would be like when the phalanx of musketeers and two hundred cannons formed a formation and fired at the same time.
Wu Sangui and other reinforcement generals may not know the current strength of the Guards, but Sun Weifan and others are well aware of it. Sun Weifan subconsciously said:
"But Marshal, what if Huang Taiji doesn't come?"
Sun Weifan had just said it casually, but after he said it, he felt that this was entirely possible.
Huang Taiji must have known that the Imperial Guards were not afraid of field battles, after all, they had suffered losses two or three times in a row.
Now the Guards are well prepared, and their military appearance and armaments are incomparable to before. Will Huang Taiji give up his advantage of strong mobility and take the initiative to lead the main force to a decisive battle?
This is indeed a problem.
And it might be a big problem if things go wrong. The imperial court has always been short of food and grass. The reason why the Imperial Guards only sent 60,000 people out of the country was also to save food and grass.
Zhang Shikang was also a little annoyed. All he thought along the way was that it would be best to have a decisive battle with the main force to achieve the goal in one go, which would be both economical and efficient.
Now that I think about it, the excessive firepower has become a problem. The key is that the old problem of insufficient war horses cannot be solved in a short time.
The meeting came to a deadlock, and everyone frowned and remained silent. Half a minute later, another person from the Jinyiwei who was responsible for conveying military intelligence came.
Unlike previous centurions, this time it was Liu Wenbing who came in person. He took out a wax-sealed chicken feather letter from his breast pocket and presented it to Zhang Shikang with both hands.
When the Jinyiwei delivered messages, they were divided into different levels according to the urgency and importance. The highest level was the secret message with a wax seal and chicken feathers nailed to the envelope.
No one is allowed to open this kind of envelope, and only the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard can check it.
Zhang Shikang opened the chicken feather letter expressionlessly, glanced at it briefly in the light from the window, and his frown immediately relaxed. He grinned and said:
"What do you call this? Someone gave me a pillow when I was sleepy. It's like a knife pulling my butt. I've finally opened my eyes!"
As he spoke, he handed the letter in his hand to Sun Weifan and others for circulation.
……