Chapter 376: New Outlook of the Ministry of Rites (XII)
Urban headed eastward, passed Gongyi, and headed straight for Zhengxian. At the end of the mountainous area, he saw a large plain unfolding before his eyes.
Zheng County is located in the western part of the Huanghuai Plain. In the mountains, there are only mountains and hills. Here, the ground in the field of vision is still undulating, but at the end of the field of vision is a fuzzy thin line. This thin line is the boundary between the sky and the ground. It is impossible to imagine such a scenery in the mountains.
Someone had already sent food here, and it was the Kang family, who was later known as Kang Baiwan. This family had been prosperous in the local area for a hundred years, so of course they were familiar with the people. When they saw the government troops coming, they did not dare to resist at all. Moreover, as gentry, the Kang family was also happy to see the court wipe out the rebels.
But after sending so much food, Urban was nowhere to be seen. This Qing general was preparing for the next war with all his heart. The Qing army moved forward and soon found a good terrain. Just when the Qing army found a place to fight with the Chinese army, the Chinese army had already appeared in the Qing army's sight.
On the Loess Plain, Urban galloped on horseback, supervising the civil engineering works of the Qing army. The Qing army occupied the area near the river for easy access to water. Water was the most important need. If there was no water for a day, no army could survive.
With water sources as the layout, the Qing army and the Huaxia army began to confront each other. The Huaxia army stationed 70,000 troops in Henan. This time, 5,000 troops were left to guard Kaifeng and several important cities, and the rest were all dispatched to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army.
Ding Shuaimin, Li Hao and others were all young officers who had participated in the exercise and performed well. They were also the first young soldiers to become army-level commanders. So the troops were ordered to take the lead. Li Hao from the logistics department also looked at the terrain and couldn't help sighing.
Ding Shuaimin, who was judged by the exercise headquarters as a "traitor who led the Qing army to seize the headquarters" and therefore did not "live to see the victory", smiled and said: "It's just that everyone wants to see how they fight. Let's fight well and let the Qing army know how powerful we are."
Li Hao was not so optimistic. There was no strategic location to defend on the Great Plains, so both sides had to fight freely in the field. However, other troops did not approach immediately, which was obviously because they were worried about offending the commander of the Henan Theater.
The commander of the Henan War Zone who stayed in Kaifeng thought it would be a good idea to wait for the Qing army to disperse. The more dispersed the Qing army was, the fewer troops there were. The individual combat effectiveness of the Huaxia Army was much higher than that of the Qing army, and it seemed that the troops were more likely to win if they fought in a dispersed manner.
However, the result of the discussion made the commander of the theater very unhappy. Because the young people led by Ding Shuaimin all wanted a decisive battle to completely eliminate the Qing army. Ding Shuaimin's reason was that if the Qing army fought in different directions, the Chinese army would have to chase the Qing army. It would be too tiring.
Even though the theater commander believed that the Qing army would be equally exhausted, the various troops felt that this idea was indeed reliable and supported Ding Shuaimin's decision.
Li Hao proposed a view that if the Qing army could be annihilated in one fell swoop, the Huaxia army in Henan could mobilize troops to reinforce battlefields in other directions. Letting the Qing army disperse would inevitably prolong the battle in Henan Province.
Everyone wanted to make a contribution, and no one wanted to fight. At the meeting held by the Ministry of Rites, the commander of the theater was rejected. The angry commander stayed in Kaifeng, waiting to see what results these guys could achieve under the command of the Ministry of Rites.
Perhaps because of this, the moods of the various troops were very different. At least the troops led by Ding Shuaimin were the first to engage in battle with the Qing army.
Sighing, the Chinese army began to prepare. One army, three divisions. Plain warfare relies on fighting people, and a full-strength division has nearly 10,000 people. One army, three divisions, the total number of troops reached 30,000. It accounted for about half of the offensive force this time.
Intelligence was constantly transmitted to the headquarters, and Ding Shuaimin listened to the news in the headquarters. The progress of the war was just as the staff judged, and the execution was quite formulaic. The only surprising thing was that the Qing army put more effort into fortifications.
They dug waist-high tunnels, and the troops knelt on one knee and fired inside.
This type of shelter was first invented by the Chinese Army. They dug shallow trenches to block bullets, and the effect was very good.
"If they can dig, we can dig too." Ding Shuaimin replied coldly.
Sure enough, the engineers of the Huaxia Army wielded their engineer shovels and dug trenches on the battlefield under the hail of bullets. The trenches wound and wound their way straight to the Qing army's positions. The soil on the loess plain was soft, and every shovelful of soil was gone.
Many of the Chinese soldiers are from Anhui, and the engineers from Anhui are full of praise for this kind of soil.
The frontline personnel of the Chinese army no longer crouched, but hid themselves in the ditch and advanced by crawling forward according to the training content. This is also the difference between young soldiers and old-school soldiers. Old-school soldiers are very skilled in queuing and shooting, and their various regiment commanders, battalion commanders, company commanders, and platoon leaders are all people they approve of. Young people who don't approve of the old guys can only rely on new tactics to get new opportunities.
In the exercise, the young soldiers were able to succeed by extending the trenches and first destroying the left wing of the superior enemy, so that they would have a chance to fight the enemy to the death. If both sides were lined up to be shot, the exercise would not be completed anyway.
According to the report, the Qing army's reaction was still as conservative as predicted. They still used volleys to deal with the attack of the Huaxia army. Ding Shuaimin frowned slightly, thinking that it was not appropriate to say so. Conservative means never changing the old-fashioned methods. The performance of the Qing army was indeed "conservative at the level of the Huaxia army" in the eyes of the Huaxia army. However, from the perspective of the Qing army, their changes were big enough.
In particular, the Qing army insisted on replacing all matchlock rifles with flintlock rifles without percussion caps. This progress was undoubtedly a leap forward, which shows that the Qing army's current orders were not only not conservative, but even very radical.
Seeing that Ding Shuaimin did not join in mocking the Qing army, everyone in the headquarters who wanted to use this opportunity to ease the atmosphere stopped mentioning it . While nervously waiting for new news, they began to prepare the next response plan based on the progress of the situation.
The plan was made before the war, and each node had a corresponding landmark event, and each node also had to deal with many different situations that followed. This was a very heavy burden, and the staff officers racked their brains and worked so hard to make the plan that they almost vomited blood.
At this moment, a messenger rushed into the headquarters and reported: "Report, a troop has rushed into the Qing army position, and was suddenly surrounded!"
"Ah?" Everyone was a little surprised.
The Chinese army rushed into the Qing army formation, and then they killed everyone like crazy. It was always like this in the past, so why was it that this time the troops were surrounded as soon as they rushed in? Did the Qing army take some magic medicine? Why did they suddenly become so good at fighting?
Before he could ask clearly, another messenger rushed in, "Report, the front-line troops have been engaged in a fierce battle with the Qing army. The commander of the 15th Division asked whether we should start a full-scale charge!"
Everyone looked at the army commander Ding Shuaimin. Ding Shuaimin almost shouted out the words of assault, but when the words came to his lips, he still felt something was wrong. Finally, he resisted the urge and ordered: "Save the troops that were trapped in the enemy's formation. Find out what happened first!"
At this time, there was a rumble of artillery outside, and even the young soldiers could tell which ones were from the Qing army and which ones were from the Chinese army. The Chinese army's artillery was bombarding fiercely, but the Qing army's artillery was also fighting back tenaciously.
After a while, the sound of the artillery finally died down. After a while, it finally stopped. Ding Shuaimin could no longer wait, so he called the guards and headed straight for the 15th Division's position.
The 15th Division was carrying people back. Stretchers were carried one after another, and Ding Shuaimin and the officers and soldiers around him all changed their expressions. If it weren't for the exercise, the Chinese Army would never have suffered such a huge loss.
Seeing the bloody wounded on the stretchers, Ding Shuaimin wondered if he had made a mistake. The entire army was participating in an exercise at a military academy. In the experience of the old brothers of the Huaxia Army, the Huaxia Army had never suffered such heavy casualties.
When they arrived at the 15th Division Headquarters, the division commander Sun Cunren was sweating profusely. The heat was one reason, but he was really anxious. When he saw Ding Shuaimin, Sun Cunren immediately rushed up and shouted, "The Qing army set a trap, and they used a sneaky trick!"
Ding Shuaimin did not answer this question, but directly ordered: "Don't tell me, call the people who have been evacuated first and let them speak!"
"Not many were evacuated. Two companies were trapped, and less than ten were evacuated. They are all injured. Send them to the hospital!"
"Then how do you know that the Qing army used secret tactics?" Ding Shuaimin shouted.
After being called out like that, Sun Cunren calmed down a little. "I asked a few questions first, and everyone said that the Qing army used the Yin method."
"Go to the hospital and ask!" Ding Shuaimin shouted.
It was getting late, and both sides withdrew their troops. The Huaxia Army headquarters was crowded with people. The staff began to draw the latest Qing Army positions according to the information they had asked. While they were busy, the leaders of each division and the members of the Ministry of Rites were discussing below.
After finishing the drawing, Sun Cunren walked to the blackboard and introduced the Qing army's position layout to everyone.
What could be seen on the battlefield was that the Qing army had dug a waist-deep trench and forced the Qing soldiers to kneel inside and fire.
Hearing this, everyone frowned. Digging trenches is not strange at all. It can conceal oneself and facilitate the transportation of troops. These are all good methods. The Chinese army adopted them a long time ago.
The Qing army dug fortifications, some of which were iron tools. Most of them were wooden tools. So it is not impossible to use the terrain to build some fortifications. According to people familiar with this area, it is impossible for the Qing army to build a communication trench that hid a large number of people.
Up to now, the communication trenches of the Qing army were all straight. If a shell hit them, a group of people would be doomed. And according to the observation from the high platform set up by the artillery, many shells hit the very narrow communication trenches of the Qing army. It is impossible for the Qing army to have such means.
With such doubts, everyone listened to Ding Shuaimin's continued speech. Soon, everyone was shocked.
From the outside, the Qing army was just learning how to dig trenches for defense, but the Chinese soldiers who rushed in saw something very different. One of the platoon leaders who was most seriously injured, in his last moments before death, recounted what he saw.
The Qing army actually dug a cave for hiding soldiers outside the trench. When the Chinese army rushed into the Qing army's front line and broke through the defense, they left the torn Qing army's front line behind. As a result, the Qing army in the cave rushed out and attacked from behind. This is how they were surrounded.
Some people frowned, shocked by the change of the Qing army. In the silence, someone suddenly shouted: "Isn't this the reverse slope trench that Your Majesty mentioned?"
As soon as these words came out, many people understood what was going on. There was an immediate burst of exclamations in the meeting hall.
The so-called tunnels were first developed from cat ear holes, which are holes dug on the inner or outer walls of the trench. The smallest cat ear hole can only accommodate one person squatting inside. This solves the problem of a shell falling into the trench and exploding. As long as it does not fall in front of you, it will not cause any harm to you.
But if the density of the shells reaches a certain level and falls directly in front of the cat-ear cave you are in, the people inside will still be killed. What should you do? Keep digging inside. If you are still likely to be hit by the enemy, then turn around. After turning around, it will be difficult for the enemy's shells to directly kill people.
Such cat-ear holes gradually developed into the earliest primitive tunnel, the "horseshoe-shaped tunnel". A cat-ear hole on the left was dug in and turned right, and a cat-ear hole on the right was dug in and turned left, and the two cat-ear holes were connected inside. This was the earliest tunnel fortification.
The so-called reverse slope tunnel refers to the tunnel entrance facing the direction of the own position. One of the main purposes of the tunnel is to allow troops to encircle the enemy from behind after the enemy rushes into the own position.
The young officers of the Chinese Army were all shocked by this change. Because this knowledge was only taught in military academies, and in practice it was just attacking trenches. The purpose was to get close to the enemy while both sides were shooting at each other in the trenches.
This is a tactic that young soldiers have to learn when facing the cruel settings in exercises. If the older brothers were fighting, they would line up and push forward.
The difference between newcomers and veterans is not necessarily their views on the Ministry of Rites, but their views on tactics. Young people are more willing to use new tactics to prove themselves and rely on new tactics to get a chance to be promoted faster.
Seeing tactics that even the newcomers might not believe they could see, everyone recalled the various seemingly inhumane exercises arranged by Huo Chong, and many of them broke out in a sweat.
Seeing that some of his people were affected, Ding Shuaimin shouted, "Your Majesty has already said this, so there must be a way to solve it. Let's discuss it first, there must be a way. If not, rush to your Majesty, your Majesty can also solve it."
After hearing Ding Shuaimin mention Huo Chong, the officers felt relieved. Huo Chong was Huo Chong after all, the backbone of everyone. Not to mention that although the battle situation was beyond the expectations of the front line, it was not beyond Huo Chong's expectations. As long as Huo Chong could come up with a solution, it would definitely be done.
If Huo Chong was here at this moment, he would probably just shake his head and sigh, because the reverse slope tactic should not have appeared in such a scene.
Historically, the firepower of the US military was extremely strong. The stone mountain was also cut down by several meters.
After the surface position was lost, the surviving officers and soldiers immediately moved into the tunnels. For example, the backbone of the Eighth Company retreated into the "F"-shaped tunnel. When the U.S. troops rushed up the mountain with great enthusiasm, they found that it was very difficult to eliminate the volunteers in the tunnel. If they attacked from the top of the tunnel, the limestone layer above was 35 meters thick, and artillery shells and bombs were useless. They could only dig shafts for blasting, but how easy was it to break through the 35-meter rock layer? If they attacked from the main tunnel entrance, the U.S. troops would be completely exposed to the firepower coverage of our rear artillery group.
Although the artillery fire of the 7th Division of the US Army was very fierce (300 large-caliber artillery), the artillery concentrated by the 15th Army of the Volunteer Army was also not weak. The Battle of Shangganling started on October 14. By October 19, Commander Qin had transferred 44 heavy artillery and a "Katyusha" rocket artillery regiment. Therefore, every time the US military tried to attack or destroy the tunnel entrance from the reverse slope, it would be severely killed by our artillery group in the direction of Wusheng Mountain. In addition, the officers and soldiers in the tunnels were determined to defend the tunnel entrance, so the US military could not succeed in attacking many times. Thus, a peculiar battlefield pattern was formed in which the US military occupied the hilltop and our army occupied the tunnel below. The Volunteer Army could not let the enemy stay comfortably on it. Every two to three days, they would definitely rush out of the tunnel at night to counterattack and drive the Americans down the mountain. Later, during the day, the US military dispatched troops to counterattack, so the Volunteer Army withdrew to the tunnel again. In this way, the casualties of the battles on both sides increased step by step, and the two highlands became a "meat grinder".
No matter which side of the Korean War, they can easily crush the Qing army, or even the Chinese army. This anti-tunnel is just something Huo Chong thinks is worth talking about, and he himself has not really studied it.
However, the Chinese army does not care. The backbone is the flag, so let everyone feel at ease. As for how to solve the problem, everyone has their own way. Now that we are at ease, we can study how to deal with it.
While the Chinese army was nervously looking for a way to deal with the situation, the Qing army officers were very happy. In the big tent, General Urban held up a bowl of wine and said, "Brothers, we have killed more than 200 bandits, so we have won. The army is not allowed to drink alcohol, so I can only invite everyone to drink this bowl. When we win, I will invite everyone to drink well!"
After saying that, he raised his wine bowl and drank it all. The wine of this era was all light wine. Before the Qing Dynasty was still in the capital, when Huo Chong had not rebelled. Potato liquor was popular for a short time. However, as the Qing Dynasty court went west to Xi'an, there was no money to buy potato liquor.
When the generals heard that there was wine to drink, they all cheered. However, no one dared to act rashly, and they quickly raised their wine bowls and drank the wine. Many people sighed comfortably. In these two years, everyone has suffered a lot in this poor place in the northwest!
Most of the people present at the meeting were Manchu generals. Urban put down his wine bowl and said, "I thought the Han people's military books were all foggy and vague, but I didn't expect them to be really capable. Those Han people who read them worked hard to read them, and they found a way to hide soldiers in caves. This is a good thing. With this, we don't have to worry about the enemy army rushing in!"
The Manchu generals all agreed, especially the one who had fought fiercely this time. He shouted loudly: "General, is there a better way to use these caves? If we can dig more, we won't have to worry about not being able to defend them in the future. Then we can turn around and trap the enemy army to death!"
With that said, the atmosphere became even more lively. Urban pondered for a moment. In fact, he didn't care about the soldier cave. As the meritorious general failed to say, digging a pit is not easy. It's better with the iron tools here. It's not easy to dig a pit with a wooden shovel even on the loess plain.
But this method was so effective that he couldn't give it up. Urban asked the guards to guard the door and took out a drawing.
