readx;?“ Your Excellency, General, are you really not going to send troops to reinforce Peshawar? ”

"No, don't worry about the northwest, our enemy is in Bengal!" Will. Hemming said categorically, "Lawrence of Peshawar has 15,000 defenders, Jammu. Kashmir is also a staunch supporter of us, and they are more than enough to withstand any offensive from Afghanistan. Pen %Fun %Cabinet www.biquge.info And Hill Ali Khan is not so easy to defeat. The Afghans are very difficult to deal with, very difficult to deal with! We all know that! ”

More than 30 years ago, in 1839, almost at the same time as the Opium War, the British also invaded the Emirate of Afghanistan, occupied Kabul for a time, and installed a puppet regime, establishing colonial rule throughout Afghanistan. But the Afghan people immediately rose up and waged a guerrilla war against the British. Relying on favorable terrain, the guerrillas in various localities flexibly attacked the enemy, attacked British outposts, cut off the enemy's communication and supply lines, and recovered important towns. Under the heavy blows of the Afghan guerrillas, the British army was demoralized and panicked.

On November 2, 1841, a major uprising broke out in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and the citizens of Kabul, who had been incited by religious fanaticism, rushed to the British stronghold with all kinds of primitive weapons in their hands, exerting incredible combat effectiveness and overwhelming the entire city of Kabul that night. By 9 November, the rebels had captured Kabul to Bala? All the strongholds between the Hesar fortresses, and then the British minister McNaughton was killed, and the British army was forced to retreat. The remnants of the British army and their entourage, 16,000 members and their families, were ambushed by the rebels several times along the retreat to Jalalabad, and only one seriously wounded military doctor ran back to Jalalabad. The news of the total annihilation of the British army was reported.

Afterwards. The Anglo-Indian authorities, unwilling to accept defeat, launched a second invasion. It also recaptured the Afghan capital of Kabul in September 1842. However, the anti-British struggle of the Afghan people has intensified as a result. Fearing another crushing defeat, the British had to withdraw to India on 20 October. The Anglo-Afghan war, which lasted three and a half years, cost the British nearly 40,000 men and more than £15 million.

In contrast, in the Opium Wars fought during the same period, the British lost only a few hundred people (most of them died of disease and soil adaptation), of which only 60 were killed...... And now, the Western Qing, as the heir of the Manchu Qing, is actually going to send troops to Afghanistan! And no wonder Will. Hemming took it as a joke.

"General, the Chinese may enlist Afghans to join them in the Indus Valley." Evelyn. Wood reminded with some concern. "They've invaded India more than once in history!"

Will. Hemming smiled: "Well, but before they invade India, they need to unify themselves first." At least have a strong leader. In this way, the fragmented Afghan tribes can be united, like Ahmad Shah. Durrani (founder of the Durrani dynasty) is the same as Mahmud Sultan (the second monarch of the Ghaznavid dynasty). But I don't think that Kim Jae-fu of the Western Qing Dynasty has such a talent, and as far as I know, the Western Qing Dynasty has already enshrined Buddhism as the state religion! ”

Although he married the caliph of the True God Cult, it did not mean that he was not afraid of the expanding influence of the True God Cult. For this reason, the religious policy implemented by the Ming Dynasty has always been to suppress the true god religion, such as prohibiting true god believers (including other believers) with Ming nationality from being loyal to any natural person other than the Ming Emperor, and prohibiting the opening of religious schools for teenagers in the Ming Dynasty. Such a policy was initially implemented only in the Ming Dynasty, but it was very soon. Other countries in the Wuhua Zhuxia system began to follow suit. The Western Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Kingdom were the barriers to curb the expansion and influence of the True God Cult in Xihua and the northwest of the Ming Dynasty, and naturally became a thorn in the side of the radicals of the True God Religion in Central Asia. Afghanistan is also a particularly stubborn region where the True God Cult is strong.

"Admiral. And what about the Battle of Bengal? "Evelyn. Wood now knows Will. Hemming will not take any action to reinforce northwestern India until the battle of Bengal is decided. "Are we going to speed up the pace of the decisive battle? The Chinese have already occupied Brahmin Barya and Shahbazpur, which are only a dozen kilometers from the Mekna River. ”

"No, there's no need to speed up the decisive battle, let's continue to wait." Will. Hemming walked to the map table and looked at a military map of East Bengal in 1/50,000. On the map, along the Mekna, Danu and Garni rivers, all of them are densely packed with troop numbers and military symbols. An army of 200,000 troops and more than 200 kilometers of fortified blockade along the river have been constructed.

……

The rain fell in front of Zhu Guowei and weaved a rain wall, and the world in the rain became blurry, and it was impossible to see clearly in the distance. But the king of Dali, who was squatting on the embankment, still held a telescope and tried to observe everything on the other side of the Mekna River. It was a defensive position for the British and Indian troops, but it was not a defensive system of continuous trenches, barbed wire, and deer barricades. Rather, they are low fortresses that look like graves.

"The British built a line of defense consisting of fortresses?" Zhu Guowei put down the binoculars and asked in a low voice.

"Yes, the headquarters has already led people across the river to reconnoitre, and it is a ring defensive position composed of fortresses, and there are trenches around the fortress to protect them, and there are also trenches, but only one is arranged in a ring shape. Each ring defensive position consisted of about ten to fifteen civil blockhouses, and looking at the size of the defensive position, it is estimated that a battalion could be stationed. The distance between each of the two ring defensive positions was about 2,000 meters and could be blocked with machine guns. ”

A battalion commander of the Dali Army squatted beside Zhu Guowei and pointed to the bulging fortresses on the opposite bank.

"Where are their cannons? Is there artillery in the Ring? Zhu Guowei asked.

"I tried it a few times, but they didn't open fire."

"How is the combat effectiveness of the defenders?"

"They didn't come out when we attacked, they just stayed there, no different from ordinary Indian troops." The battalion commander replied.

"The soldiers are all Indians?"

"It's Nepalese." The battalion commander said, "I caught a few of their patrolmen, and after interrogation they found that they were all soldiers hired by the British from Nepal. ”

"Gurkha mercenaries?" Zhu Guowei had heard of the Gurkha mercenaries, which were recruited by the British in Nepal -- Nepal is a country that has always been between China and Britain, and although it has privately submitted to the Ming Dynasty, it has not broken the treaty signed with Britain and still allows Britain to recruit soldiers within its territory. However, the instructors of the Royal Army Military Academy of the Ming Dynasty did not think that the foreign mercenaries of the British were any elite, and in the eyes of the Ming officers who had fought Russia and the United States, except for the Ming Army and their French teachers, there was no army in this world that was considered elite.

"How deep was the British line?"

"There is another line of the same line about 2,000 meters after the first line."

But two lines of fortifications...... There may be some reserves and artillery in the back, which is really not an impregnable line of defense. Thinking of this, Zhu Guowei put away the binoculars and retreated. But here, under the threat of Indian artillery fire across the river, he, the king of a country, cannot afford to take risks here all the time.

The group retreated silently, arrived at an Indian village, spread out a map in a large house that had been used as a former enemy headquarters, and discussed with the accompanying staff officers of the Dali Army and the 18th Mountain Army. The focus is on whether to concentrate forces to break through the Indian army's defensive line? Dhaka is just 70 kilometres away, and the Mekna River is already the last danger outside Dhaka. If Dhaka is occupied by the Chinese army, the princes of India will surely launch a great uprising immediately! However, some people have also pointed out that the Chinese army is now fighting without logistics in the Bengal Plain, and although it is not difficult to raise food, the ammunition is getting less and less. In this case, positional warfare with the enemy should be avoided, the tactics of maneuvering east of the Mekna River can be adopted, as long as the presence in East Bengal is maintained, sooner or later India will be in chaos! Or, simply wave your army south, march to Chittagong, join forces with the King of Siam to defeat Chitta, and then go north to fight with Wil. The decisive battle of Hemming. However, the opinion of this staff officer was opposed by most people, and Zhu Guowei did not agree with it, not because Dhaka was close at hand. It's that this way is too smooth, and no one thinks that a pillbox defense line can stop the footsteps of the Chinese army. Besides, even if the attack is unfavorable, it will be too late to go south and north. (To be continued......)