Chapter 1233: The Decisive Battle Fight
On 11 April, the battle at Jiagouji had entered its third day, and yesterday the 1st Brigade began to launch a counterattack after repelling several enemy attacks one after another.
Under the command of Tian Zhong, the 1st Brigade adopted the tactic of taking turns to assault from three areas, with battalions as combat units, under the cover of artillery fire, tore a hole in the enemy's defensive line, assaulted forward for 2 to 300 paces, and then moved to the defensive position on the spot, never exceeding the range of artillery. Thus forming three salients on the battlefield.
Then, with the mortar detachment and battalion that followed the army, and the light artillery such as the Baizi Gun that was attached to it, bombarded the enemy in the recess, forcing the Yuan army that was attacked on both sides to retreat in order to avoid being divided and surrounded. The Song army in front of them took advantage of the situation to pursue and re-level the battle line, and the artillery then shifted their positions to follow up, and launched artillery bombardment on the enemy again to carry out a new round of attacks.
This tactic of the Song army seemed clumsy and the speed of the advance was slow, but the effect was extremely significant, not only inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy with very few casualties, forcing the enemy to constantly retreat, especially giving a devastating blow to its morale, so that in the subsequent battle, as long as the cannon sounded, they ran backwards, and they did not even have the heart to resist.
Seeing that the Song army continued to advance, the several thousand troops on their own side were difficult to resist, and the enemy army continued to increase its troops, but it was still unable to stabilize the defensive line, and it still kept retreating, and sent the supervising team to kill dozens of people again and again but could not prevent the rout.
In the evening, the Song army stopped its attack, and the enemy army in the south of the ditch had been compressed into a narrow area about three miles long and less than two miles wide, using trees, stones, and even corpses to build an improvised defensive line to defend it. At this time, not to mention opening the way back to Xuzhou, even the ability to counterattack has been lost.
The enemy forces on the Nankou side also made no progress, and the 2nd Brigade further consolidated its position after strengthening the defenses against the mountains on both sides of the junction. They occupied the favorable terrain and fired at the enemy from a high position, while the enemy had to climb the hill and attack on the back, and also suffered from artillery suppression, and in one day they captured only a few innocuous mountain packs at the foot of the mountain, but they paid thousands of casualties.
The battle report of the 1st Brigade said that the corpses of the enemy were scattered all over the field in a fierce battle. At the beginning, there were enemy troops rushing to retreat, but as the battle line advanced, the enemy was already running for his own life, and the corpses were like mounds, and there was no time to take care of them. The stumps and corpses were within reach, and they could only walk on the corpses, bleeding all over the ditches, reaching the ankles, and the soil was stained red, and the blood was rushing to the sky. After the war, seven of the enemy's dead were wounded by artillery fire, the rest were killed by guns, and more than 30 seals from more than 100 enemy households were found, hundreds of banners were collected, and weapons and armor were piled up like a mountain, and there was no time to check them. Due to the fact that the corpses were all broken by the guns, and the corpses were very heavy, it was not enough to count them one by one, and the rough calculation of the enemy's death in the battle was about 6,000.
According to the battle report of the Second Brigade, the enemy was anxious to open the passage to the south, and the offensive was very fierce, one after another, attacking more than 100 times in one day, more than 40 attacks above the battalion level, and dispatching more than 10,000 troops. Due to the favorable terrain occupied by our troops and the construction of strong fortifications, the enemy's attack was thwarted. However, the enemy mostly attacks in dense formations, and most of them attack from the back, and our army can make meritorious contributions by shooting with muskets, and in the close combat of mountain attack and defense, grenades are the best, and artillery is even more than a dozen enemy casualties if a shell falls. After the battle, the enemy's corpses were piled up in ravines, blood flowed like streams, and weapons were discarded all over the field, and because it was difficult to examine them in detail, the enemy's casualties could only be estimated to be more than 4,000 by visual inspection......
Today was the deadline for the complete annihilation of Hararuwei, but the command post was extremely busy, with the signal troops of various units coming in and out to report on their combat preparations, and the participating troops summing up the situation reported by various units and constantly sending people to inquire about ominous things. And Ni Liang in the side hall seemed unfazed at this time, and even if he replied, it was often just a few words, not a word.
"Du Shuai, all departments have completed pre-battle preparations and mobilization, waiting for the offensive order!" Xiao Ting came in to give a message and ask for orders.
"Our army has been attacking for hundreds of miles, and has been fighting for two days in a row, and is already very tired, is it too hasty to launch a decisive battle today!" Ni Liang was a little hesitant at this time, and asked softly.
"Du Shuai, the lower officials think that a quick decision is the best." Xiao Ting knew that the responsibility on Du Shuai's shoulders was too heavy, and he was worried that he would fall into a place of no return if he made a mistake, so he couldn't help but hesitate and hesitate on the last step, and at this time he needed to push him.
"How's the morale of the ministries?" Ni Liang raised his head and asked.
"Du Shuai, in two days, our army has successfully annihilated more than 10,000 enemies, and its morale is high. In the past two days, the casualties of our army have been far lower than expected, less than 10 percent, and the military strength has remained intact. And it is the reserves of the brigades that are the vanguard this time, they have already rested for a day, they are full of physical strength, and they are able to complete the task of breakthrough! On the other hand, the enemy's casualties were close to forty percent, and they were encircled, coupled with the death of the commander, and they were defeated under the siege one after another, and their morale was low, and they were on the verge of collapse. Xiao Ting replied.
"Okay, order artillery fire to be prepared, and attack in a quarter of an hour!" After Ni Liang clenched his fists a few times, he struck the table and gave the battle order.
"Please go to the palace to fight!" Xiao Ting nodded and said.
'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' Three red flares rose into the sky with a whistling sound, and they were very bright in the twilight sky, reflecting the blood-stained earth even more red!
'Boom, boom, ......boom' and the cannon began to sound, and at first it was possible to tell the count, but soon they were joined together, and the echo of the valley made the roar continue, and the mountains trembled.
Ni Liang held the binoculars and first looked at the position of the first brigade under his feet, they would take the lead in attacking, only to see hundreds of mortars and dozens of rapid-fire guns in front of the formation in unison, pouring iron and fire into the enemy camp, these small cannons actually played the power of heavy artillery, which made him feel refreshed. After the shelling began, the infantry troops also began to line up, and the battalion units lined up three arrays, standing in the smoke of gunpowder, fluttering under the flag.
Under this circumstance, Ni Liang was a little excited, although he couldn't see the faces of the soldiers in the queue clearly, but his heart had already appeared on the resolute faces of those soldiers who had experienced a hundred battles, and they must be full of courage to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions and step on the enemy formation, and his eyes were full of murderous aura and blazing eyes that defied everything. This made him enthusiastic, and he had the urge to be a member of the queue and join them in the enemy formation to kill the enemy.
But Ni Liang quickly calmed down, and his heart was a little gloomy, he was no longer a personal guard beside His Royal Highness King Wei back then, and he could accompany him to charge into battle, and he was happy to take revenge. Now Your Majesty and your own identities are different, Your Majesty is already the lord of a country that rules hundreds of millions of people, and he is also the commander of 100,000 elites under his command, and there is no chance to come to the front in person, and His Majesty may be even more depressed, and can only look at the battlefield from a distance of 100 miles.
Ni Liang's eyes turned to the enemy camp, and at this moment he was already shrouded in heavy gunpowder smoke under the fierce artillery bombardment, and he could only faintly see the enemy soldiers dodging in panic in the light of the explosion, fleeing backwards, trying to stay away from the bombardment of artillery fire. But this headless fly-like rampage can only lead them to another death trap.
A quarter of an hour passed quickly, and the artillery began to fire forward, by which time the enemy's rudimentary camp had been completely destroyed and could no longer be an obstacle to the advance of the Song army. The drums of war were suddenly sounded, accompanied by the sound of loud trumpets and shrill whistles and neat footsteps, and the whole line began to move forward, and the artillery fire also fell down.
"Mighty, mighty, mighty!"
The majestic slogan of "Great Song Dynasty is mighty, Your Majesty is mighty......" was accompanied by the rhythmic sound of slapping the butt of the gun, and the Song army's array gradually accelerated, putting pressure on the enemy formation.
After the shelling stopped, the enemy forces reluctantly organized themselves and tried to stop the advance of the Song army, but under the volley of muskets, they suffered casualties before they could get close. Under the fierce fighting for several days, the frightened enemy army, who had already suffered heavy casualties, was pressed by the indomitable momentum of the other party, and could no longer hold on, turned around and retreated. The Song army quickly changed its formation and pursued in a straggler formation.
The dispersed Yuan army broke up the blocking warlords and rushed to the only flat bridge that could lead to the west side of the dry ditch. On weekdays, the bridge where two large cars can pass side by side is instantly crowded with people, who run fast and smoothly, and if they run slowly, they will inevitably be crushed by the crowd that swarms the bridge railing, and I don't know how many people fall under the bridge. And more people rushed to this only passage, and everyone wanted to run for their lives, thinking of the thousands of people huddled together, the inevitable occurrence of a stampede, and countless people being pushed down the dry ditch, trampled to death, squeezed to death, hacked to death by their comrades who were in a hurry to cross the bridge.
The flat bridge paved with stone slabs finally could not bear the weight of so many people, and collapsed with a bang, and hundreds of people on the bridge fell into the ditch in unison. Seeing that the pursuing Song army was getting closer and closer, the people behind were constantly knocked down by bullets, stabbed to death by the Song army that caught up, and the Yuan soldiers who could not cross the bridge jumped into the dry ditch desperately, and they struggled to climb to the opposite bank without falling to death, and more people either fell to death, or were stoned to death and trampled to death by the people who jumped down later. But at this time, even if the people behind wanted to stop, it was impossible for them to be knocked into the ditch by the people who arrived one after another.
With the efforts of the Yuan army, who were eager to flee for their lives, the trench that was two zhang deep was filled with dead corpses in a short time, forming a bridge paved with human flesh more than ten zhang wide. The pursuing Song army then followed in their footsteps and rushed across the dry ditch, quickly unfolding again, regrouping to establish a line of attack, while the artillery also arrived and fired at the counterattacking enemy cavalry......
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