readx;

Chapter 934: An incomparably boring offense and defense

By October of the 14th year of Wanli, a hundred miles around the Mantaoer Gold Mine had become a war zone, and all the merchant guards were ordered not to leave the town at will. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The only ones who are active outside are those cavalry who are attached to the Naturalized City, and they often have small-scale conflicts with the Tartar cavalry in the Mantaoer gold mine, while the merchant regiment armed forces stationed on the Mantaoer side are trained under the management of General Tan to fight tough battles, and the other party has an advantage in numbers, and the terrain is not suitable for the development of large chariot formations, so it is necessary to improve the coordination and cooperation of the armed forces of each caravan.

The Korqin tribe did not just strengthen the power of Mantao, and in the area further east of Mantao, there were water meadows, alkali lakes, and trade points occupied by various caravans, which were harassed by the Horqin cavalry after October, and suffered heavy losses.

Firearms were limited, and not every settlement would be equipped with firearms, because the front was to the east, and they all thought they were in the rear and were safe.

After all, the Horqin Department is familiar with the terrain here, and knows how to cross the border without being discovered by the armed merchants who are full of merchants, even if it is discovered by those cavalry on the side of the city, too small a force will not be able to stop the large force of cavalry, and even if it is to go back to inform it, the speed of the cart is not comparable to the cavalry after all.

Thinking that they were in the rear, many of the strongholds that were negligent in guarding suffered big losses, and the cavalry roared, and many of these strongholds did not even have a wooden wall, so they were directly rushed into by the other party.

Their weapons were broadswords and spears at best, but in the contest of such cold weapons, they had no advantage over the cavalry of the Horqin Division, and it was inevitable that they would suffer heavy casualties.

In fact, after five strongholds were destroyed, the merchant forces on Mantaoer's side received the news, because they were surrounded by Tartar cavalry in the vast grassland, and it was difficult to escape.

These strongholds actually have no power, the merchant house to maintain the guard is a lot of money, the businessman pursues profits, if it is not for Wang Tong's mandatory regulations, and these armed forces can be looted to benefit, there are businessmen who have long been going to complain and give up, but expanding the scale is still what only those big businessmen do, many merchants who are not large enough, and even hand over their guards to the big businessmen for trusteeship, and they have a name.

In this attack on the gold mines, according to the rule that the more forces invested in the Naturalized City, the more benefits will be obtained, and the wealthy merchants who can send men are all sending as many armed forces as possible.

The armament of the merchant group is limited, and there are more ones on one side, and there are naturally fewer ones on the other side, and there are not many guards arranged for those newly beaten water meadows and alkali lakes or something, or even no guards.

Since there was no defense, the outcome can be imagined, and the occupied places were uprooted by the Tartar cavalry one by one, with many casualties.

In the face of such a situation, small and medium-sized businessmen beat their chests in distress, but the big businessmen are even more determined to take down this set of gold mines, and after they are laid, the losses can be made up from above.

For Sanjiang Commercial Bank, where everything comes according to the rules and is not greedy for more chewing, there is naturally no such thing, and everything is still intact.

Now that it has reached such a situation, General Tan can't care about the chaos elsewhere, a lot of materials armed by the merchant group have been accumulated, and the logistics route is transported from Longmen and Gubeikou, and the escort materials are all border generals' private soldiers and merchant group arms, so there is no need to worry about harassment.

General Tan simply let you do whatever you want, I only fight on one side, he doubled the bounty of the enemy's head, let the cavalry who followed the merchant group to go out to guerrilla and privateer, let the cavalry deal with the cavalry, and the merchant group armed with carts and firearms concentrated on training, preparing to attack the full set of gold mines.

Because for the Horqin Ministry, other places can be indisputable, but this set of gold mines, which is not only a big source of wealth, but also a geographical gateway, is indisputable.

No matter how many forces he arranged on the grassland, as long as the merchant forces attacked the gold mines, these guerrilla forces would inevitably come to the rescue, and the battle situation would become a positional war that the merchant forces liked.

In the second half of October, another team came to Datong Town, which said that it was the escort of Datong's merchants, but in fact it was the private soldiers of the Ma family and the generals of Datong and the local wealthy merchants recruited people.

It was at this time that the battle began, and the brigade of men and horses rushed out in full sets, rushing to the gold mine, what kind of strategy situation, it was really about to reach the approaching battle, that is, a simple comparison of forces.

More than 4,000 cavalry from the city side of the army around the merchant group, the light cavalry scattered on the grassland of the Horqin Department are all rushing to Mantao, this distance, the march is only a day, the army moves, the nuisance of the small group of cavalry has no effect, close to it will be eaten by the city cavalry.

The forces of the steppe were accustomed to horseback warfare, rapid assault and looting and burning, and few of them could fight any hard battles, especially offensive and defensive battles that required civil work.

But the miners who were full of gold were aware of this, and they dug trenches and pits around the gold mines to strengthen the soil fence while the land was not yet frozen.

It is impossible to expect the cart to fall into the trenches and pits stupidly, but these things are on the road, but they can hinder the movement of the army, don't look at the distance of a day.

The gold mines are located in the remote foothills, and the large array of carts cannot be connected end to end on flat land, taking care of each other, often scattered, sometimes pushing or dragging by manpower, and there are slopes and woods on both sides of the road.

Walking very slowly, and there were often cold arrows shot from both sides of the road, after dozens of people were killed and wounded by arrows, Tan Jiang simply dispatched the elite of each merchant group and the brave men of the cavalry near the city, first formed a team, went to the woods in front of the road to clear the guerrilla enemy, and then marched forward.

Around the gold mines, there are flat and spacious places, and the carts go out of the mountain road to camp here, after all, this is not a grassland, and it is impossible to regulate the carts that are connected to each other to form a circular array.

The generals sent by the Horqin Department were obviously experienced and familiar with the tactics of the merchant army, and just when the merchant army went out of the mountain road in order and was ready to set up camp, the cavalry rushed out from the earth fence where the gold mine was located, and there were two other directions.

In the other party's most unguarded, harassed along the way, and then the harassment stopped, one tightened and one loosened, in the case of some relaxation and peace of mind, the cavalry stood out, but also the meaning of attacking it unprepared.

Moreover, in such a situation, the horses on the cart have just been unloaded, and the defensive position of the cart cannot be formed, which is the best time, if you can take the opportunity to rush in, then there will be results.

The reactions of the merchant group were different, the newly recruited cadres were all running in a panic, and the guards who had been trained in the Naturalization City for many years were picking up the fire and fighting, and the companions with spears were guarding beside them.

A large group of more than 10,000 men and horses can be regarded as a large army, but at this time it is a chaos, there is already a direction that has been rushed in by the Tartar cavalry, and the other two directions are beaten by the fire guns, even if they are close, the guards dare to climb into the carriage and fight desperately with spears.

Those brave men newly recruited in the provinces, may be considered outlaws in the township, once they arrived at such a scene, they saw the Tartar cavalry horseshoe like thunder, the cavalry waved their knives and shouted, and the earth-shaking momentum rushed over, where a few people rolled up their sleeves and waved their knives to fight for their lives, originally followed by the majestic team in all directions, the Tartars were not worth mentioning at all, today I saw the real scene, and even some people were directly frightened to the ground and trampled to death by the war horses, and there were people who were blocked in front of them when they ran, and looked at their companions with knives, There were also horses pulling carts left unattended, running and bumping around, and the situation was not like this.

But those who have experienced a period of time on the grassland, as well as those who are veterans, are completely different, they are used to fighting, they will not panic at all when they encounter such a scene, they gather in groups, under the cover of the cavalry on the side of the city, while putting the cart into a formation, while killing the enemy, and quickly stabilized the situation.

And whether the border generals sent by each border town are different, they still have some rules, since the general situation is stable, they are under the dispatch of General Tan, they began to fight with the Tartar cavalry that rushed in, and drove them out of the formation.

Taiji, who is also a Tartar, is cautious, and he didn't dare to invest too much strength at first, but when he wanted to invest in the future, the cavalry in the city had already been transferred out by General Tan for emergency, and even if he invested, it would not have much effect.

The first battle was still a loss on the side of the merchant group armed forces, and the atmosphere couldn't help but be a little stuffy, but General Tan was not finished, after the camp was set up, he found out all the people who were engaged in the battle and ran around, and arrested more than a dozen of them, and beheaded them in the marching method, and as a result, there were still these people who were familiar with each other shouting there, this is not an army, how to talk about military law, he thought it was reasonable, and he was also arrested by General Tan and cut off his head together.

After cutting it, let people carry their heads with spears and walk around the team, shocking the whole army, whose industry is Sanjiang Commercial Bank, who is General Tan, and who is the naturalized merchant group, General Tan said that it is military law, that is military law.

On the second day, the boring siege began, there was no artillery and catapults, and if you wanted to open the city, you could only climb the wall in hand-to-hand combat, and the people of the Horqin Department hid behind the earthen wall, and if you rushed closer, you would fight hand-to-hand, and if you wanted to hit with a firecracker, then you would shrink your head, and the two sides were deadlocked, and the casualties of the naturalized merchant group besieging the city were heavier.

What's even more troublesome is that after two days of fighting, it actually snowed, and in this situation it was inconvenient to use firearms, and the Tartars in the earthen enclosure actually fought back twice......