Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 784 Kunyang Chixiao Plan
By early November 1647, as the gunfire in the Central Asian battlefield subsided and both sides entered the battlefield, the situation of Europe, Austria and the Ming Dynasty in the entire South Asian subcontinent became clearer.
In the northwest corner of the subcontinent, Sun Chuanting's group, which had successfully joined forces with Man Gui, occupied the northern part of Afghanistan and Pakistan with Khyber as the core with a strong force of more than 500,000. Due to the existence of this group, the Ottoman and European Union armies, at least in the western section, had completely lost contact.
Now, the 10 newly formed Ottoman divisions and the 10 Indian divisions that Wallenstein took the initiative to withdraw to the west to avoid being attacked from the north and south, about 300,000 people, are stationed on the west side of the Hindu Kush Mountains to prevent Sun Chuanting's group from entering Persia. The 20 new EU divisions from the mainland and the 10 Indian divisions that were originally blocked on the south side of the Khyber Pass were forced to concentrate on the Punjab and Kashmir front because of the existence of Sun Chuanting's group. Even the original EU main force, the 10 divisions stationed in Kanpur, Agra, and Delhi, were forced to concentrate and prepare to deal with the southward movement of Sun Chuanting's group.
In short, Sun Chuanting's troops stationed on the Khyber Rally, a major transportation route, used a force of more than 500,000 to pin down 60 divisions of the European and Austrian armies, with a force of nearly 900,000.
Of course, although the European-Austrian coalition had a clear advantage in terms of manpower, and an even greater advantage in logistics, if a war really came to pass, 20 of the 60 divisions of Indians would have to be eliminated first - by this calculation, the advantage would not be great. And 40 divisions of 600,000 people from low-altitude plains and hilly areas would attack the Sun Chuanting group that had taken advantage of the terrain? Neither Philip nor Ibrahim had any interest in doing so.
The situation in the northeast corner of the subcontinent remained stable: Boris's group blocked the way for Cao Wenzhao's group to enter the South Asian subcontinent. The two sides started fighting in August, and in the past three months, both sides suffered heavy casualties. But Cao Wenzhao was the attacking party after all, so in terms of the casualty ratio, the Ming army suffered a little.
In the southern part of the subcontinent, the Great Kongde blocked the vassal coalition forces under the Ming Dynasty in Andhra, and the front line became stable.
In the central and northern regions of the subcontinent, the Kaiyang Group of the Ming Dynasty with more than one million troops entered the mountainous area of Orissa, but was easily blocked by Durrenni with 300,000 troops...
In short, judging from the current battlefield situation, although the European and Austrian coalition forces had a large group of troops annihilated in Central Asia, at least in the battlefield of the South Asian subcontinent, the coalition forces have resolved all the offensives of the Ming Dynasty, and the entire war seems to have entered a stalemate stage.
If the situation continues like this, both Philip and Ibrahim are optimistic about the upcoming war:
In India, the Ming Dynasty was an absolute foreign army and it was difficult to get support from the locals. Almost all food supplies had to be transported across the sea from the mainland. With such consumption, even if the Ming Dynasty was strong, it would not be able to sustain it for a long time.
More importantly, by March 1648, the coalition navy would have eleven battleships, and heavy cruisers and destroyers would also be replenished in large numbers. Even if the Ming Dynasty had warships to replenish, it would not be possible to replenish four battleships at once (the actual plan of the Ming Dynasty was to replenish one). Therefore, once the naval battle was won, the war situation in the entire subcontinent, which was already in a basically balanced state, would change rapidly.
In addition to pinning their hopes on the navy, Philip and Ibrahim also spared no expense to build up an airship force. According to their plan, by March 1648, in addition to the navy being able to go to war and gain an absolute advantage over the Ming navy, they would also send out a huge air force of thousands of airships to conduct a carpet-style strategic bombing of the more than one million Ming army gathered in the narrow mountains of Orissa...
So, let's just hold on to the stalemate. If the stalemate continues, by March next year, the Ming Dynasty will face a tragic defeat. By then, it will not be as simple as defending the South Asian subcontinent and recovering Central Asia. I'm afraid that the northwest and Indochina Peninsula of the Ming Dynasty will be completely lost. Once such a situation occurs, especially if the inner ring of the South Seas of the Ming Dynasty is broken, how far will the collapse of the Ming Dynasty be?
But unfortunately, Zhu Youdong was already preparing to launch a new campaign in November.
To defend a peninsula as large as India, the defenders certainly cannot spread their troops everywhere, and can only choose a few important points for defense.
The essence of this peninsula is the Ganges Plain between the Himalayas and the Deccan Plateau. Therefore, when the European Union General Staff deployed troops, they deployed heavy troops here. Sixty divisions, 900,000 people, formed a long snake formation along the Ganges.
Because the Ganges River is a fast passage, this long snake formation does not have any problems with slow response. In the vision of the commander of this 900,000-man army, Durenni, the two clusters of Dhaka and Calcutta, each with 15 divisions, are stationed at the most likely landing place for the Ming army. Once the Ming army lands, these two clusters will rely on solid fortifications to inflict heavy casualties on the Ming army.
Afterwards, the two groups would rely on the Ganges and its tributary, the Hooghly River, to quickly move to Patna in the middle reaches of the Ganges, join the 20 divisions there, and force the Ming army to fight a siege again. Then it would be Kanpur, Agra, and Delhi. If the Ming army wanted to win the Indian campaign, it had to penetrate the entire Ganges, face the coalition forces that were waiting for the opportunity and sitting in solid fortifications, and fight countless sieges.
Moreover, as the war progressed, the Ming army had to face not only repeated battles, but also various guerrilla warfare due to the extension of the logistics supply line.
After destroying the Mughal Empire, the Ming Dynasty briefly ruled India for nearly three years. During these two years, Zhu Youdong made serious mistakes: he habitually exempted the newly conquered areas from taxation for three years, and the Indian Governor-General Wen Tiren he sent also adopted a gentle ruling method - but this method worked well in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Only in this magical place of India, people did not appreciate it! Instead, the Chinese were despised by the local Indians because their rule was too gentle and their skin was not white enough.
The EU has been ruling here for nearly nine years. In the past eight years, the EU has been sucking blood from India. The living standards of local Indians have dropped significantly compared to before. However, the people here actually feel very comfortable! They feel honored to be slaves for the white masters: whether it is Hinduism or Buddhism, they are religions for the afterlife. The suffering in this life is for the happiness in the afterlife. So the Ming Dynasty's letting everyone live a good life will make people feel uneasy to some extent!
To conduct guerrilla warfare, the most fundamental condition is that you must gain the support of the local people, or at least their benevolent neutrality. Otherwise, the guerrilla war cannot be fought!
Therefore, if the two sides fought along the Ganges, as the Ming army slowly advanced from the lower reaches of the Ganges to the middle reaches and even the upper reaches, the EU's guerrilla warfare would be a major threat to the Ming army's logistics supply. On the contrary, even if the Ming army sent special forces deep behind enemy lines, facing the vast number of three brothers who followed the white master wholeheartedly, this guerrilla warfare would probably not last long.
Zhu Youdong always felt that he did not have the talent to be a famous general, so he always endured and endured in tactical command. But he himself did not notice that as an emperor who had been taught by Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Keli for many years and had personally held the power of a country for decades, he was already one of the top few people in the Ming Dynasty in terms of strategy.
Therefore, facing the heavy troops in Dhaka and Kolkata, he rejected all objections and ordered the main force of the Ming army to land in Orissa. This seemed to be a helpless move, but it was actually a brilliant move: if the EU coalition forces did not come to block the exit of Orissa, the Ming army could go north from Orissa directly to the middle reaches of the Ganges, completely leaving the coalition forces in Dhaka and Kolkata behind.
So Durenni had no choice but to bring the 20 divisions originally deployed in Patna, the transportation hub of the middle reaches of the Ganges, to block the mountain pass. But when he did this, the long snake formation that the EU coalition had set up in advance was gone!
Now, from Dhaka to Kolkata, and then to Gujaipuri and Raukla in the north of Orissa, this straight line of less than 600 kilometers has gathered 50 divisions of the EU coalition forces, 750,000 people. In particular, the 20 divisions blocked at Gujaipuri and Raukla in the north of Orissa have completely left the waterway and entered the mountains. Therefore, Zhu Youdong felt that the time for a decisive battle was ripe.
In short, the above analysis can be summarized as this conversation.
Durreni: I have set up a great battle formation. Please knock down the fortresses one by one. If you don't kill a million people and spend a year or two, I am not Du. By that time, our navy will have been restored. Then your maritime transportation will be cut off, your army will suffer heavy casualties, and the logistics transportation of the Ganges will be repeatedly harassed by my guerrilla warfare. Your army of more than one million will definitely be wiped out.
Zhu Youdong: No, I will land from another place and hit the weak spot of your long snake formation.
Durren: I have blocked the exit of your new landing place. Please go back and build the fortress along the Ganges River.
Zhu Youdong: Haha, you have blocked the intersection, but you have also exposed your Achilles' heel that was originally hidden a thousand kilometers away directly in front of me. I will take this opportunity to swallow up all of your soldiers in one gulp.
…
On November 10, 1647, the expeditionary headquarters in Yangon issued a new battle plan.
Name of the Battle: Battle of West Bengal.
The code name of the battle plan: Kunyang Chixiao (this is the Chinese term for meteor shower, and Kunyang is the place where the great magician Liu Xiu summoned the meteor shower).
Ming troops participating in the war:
The troops directly participating in the war are 81 divisions, 1.22 million people (including one special forces division and five marine divisions) currently concentrated in Orissa. The second batch of troops dispatched from China, 20 divisions, 300,000 people, just arrived in Yangon. A total of 101 divisions, 1.52 million people. And the transportation and escort of the naval fleet.
Indirect participating forces: three clusters in the northwest, northeast and south of the South Asian subcontinent cooperated in operations.
The goal of the campaign was to annihilate 750,000 enemy troops stationed in Bengal and its vicinity in three major groups, namely, Dacca, Calcutta and Orissa. That is, in this operation, the primary goal was to destroy a large number of enemy manpower, and the gains and losses of strategic points were secondary.
Force Allocation:
All 101 divisions of the Army and Marine Corps are divided into five groups.
The First Group, commanded by General Liu Zhaosun, had 20 divisions under its command. The main task was to attack Gujaipuri and Raulkla in the north of Orissa regardless of casualties.
The Second Group, commanded by Lieutenant General Rochon, had 20 divisions under its command. Main mission: With the help of the navy, withdraw from Orissa, attack from the sea, land in Chittagong south of Dhaka, make a tactical feint to threaten the Boris Group , and attract the EU troops in Dhaka to fight outside the city.
The Third Group, commanded by Lieutenant General Huang Degong, had 35 divisions under its command. The main task was to withdraw from Orissa with the help of the navy, attack from the sea, and land somewhere between Kolkata and Dhaka. They would take the land route, advance lightly and quickly, and cut off the connection between Kolkata and Dhaka.
The Fourth Group, commanded by Lieutenant General Zhang Hong, had five Marine Corps divisions under its command. Its main mission was to withdraw from Orissa with the help of the navy, attack from the sea, land at Dika Village 30 kilometers west of Kolkata (the coastline here could only accommodate such a large number of troops), and then advance northward to cut off the connection between Gujaipuri and Kolkata.
The Fifth Group, commanded by Lieutenant General Gu Dali, Marquis of Zhenyuan—in fact, the real commander was Zhu Youdong himself. The troops consisted of 20 divisions that had just arrived in Yangon. This was the general reserve for the entire battle. If any of the four groups had fighters, the Fifth Group would enter the battlefield and, together with the friendly forces, annihilate all the enemy forces there!
In addition, a special forces division led by Major General Zuo Menggeng fought alone. Its combat mission was to cross the Eastern Ghats and cut off the connection between the two strongholds of Gujaipuri and Raulkla of the Durrani Corps.
In short, the core of the entire Kunyang Chixiao combat plan is: divide the troops and advance, cut off all connections between the enemy's four heavy troop groups, and then gather together to annihilate them!
