Chapter Twenty-Seven: On the banks of the Yalu River

The Yalu River is a large river, especially in the lower reaches and especially near the mouth of the sea, and is five thousand meters wide, which is why? The army did not annex at the mouth of the sea, but instead used the Phoenix Guard as a logistical baggage, because the further downstream, the more difficult it was to cross the Yalu River.

The upper reaches of the Yalu River are even more mountainous and densely forested, which is not suitable for the movement of large armies.

The section east of Phoenix is relatively narrow and easy to cross. Moreover, there are many islands in the river in this area, which divides the river into several sections, and the narrowest part is only one or two hundred meters.

Although it is spring, the melting of ice and snow has caused the Yalu River to rise, but in general, the natural risks of the Yalu River are not as good as those of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.

In April of the nineteenth year of Orthodoxy, the army was already stationed here.

Cao Yi is no stranger to this place, and is even familiar with it.

When he fought with Yexian back then, he also fought side by side with Li Yao on the other side.

Cao Yi took hundreds of guards on the west bank of the Yalu River to look at the opposite side from afar, but saw that the Korean armies were in strict formation, layer upon layer, and between hundreds of miles of rivers, the beacons were connected and the army was blocked, as if it was an iron wall.

If you look closely, the number of gunners and artillery in the camp also accounts for a certain proportion.

After all, when Cao Yi joined forces with Li Yao to fight first, he did not use less firearms, and Li Yao was not a fool, so he would naturally use them in large quantities.

And this thing, for North Korea, there are no technical difficulties.

Firearms are a great convenience for the defending side.

Therefore, North Korea has erected a strong camp across the Yalu River. Li Yao did not leave a flaw for Cao Yi.

Cao Yi knew that there was no fluke at all this time.

However, Cao Yi didn't think about luck.

So under Cao Yi's order, the general offensive began.

The first thing that started was not on both sides of the Yalu River, but at the mouth of the Yalu River, the Shandong Denglai Naval Division and the North Korean Naval Division went to war.

After all, although the lower reaches of the Yalu River are wide, because they are really open, they can also open the sailors. If the Ming navy regained control here, then they could cross the river directly downstream.

Cao Yi didn't want to attack here, because even if he made a breakthrough in the lower reaches of the Yalu River, it would not be smooth, after all, North Korea was mountainous. The northern part of Korea, in particular, is particularly mountainous.

Although the east bank of the Yalu River also has a little narrow coastal flatland, it is still far from the plain, and there are too many places to defend along the way.

Unless you pass Pyongyang, you will not be able to reach a flat river. But there are still rivers and plains.

There is a saying in North Korea that if the Korean Peninsula is flattened, it will be as big as the Central Plains.

Although I am a little arrogant, I think that there are no mountains in my Greater China. But it also shows the topographical characteristics of North Korea.

This is what Cao Yi wants to detour from both sides

back to the reason.

It has to be said that although there is a gap in the combat effectiveness between the North Korean naval division and the Denglai naval division, the gap is not so big that the two sides will decide the winner.

During the reign of King Sejong the Great of Joseon, it was the time when the martial arts of Joseon were at their strongest, when the Jurchens attacked in the north and conquered the Japanese in the east. Now this King Sejong has only been dead for three or four years, so there is some chaos in the upper echelons of Korea, but in terms of the Korean army, it is also the most capable time in the past few hundred years.

The shelter ship of the Denglai Navy Division was not heavy, the artillery was scarce, and most of them were thrown with firearms, and they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat on boarding, and the two sides fought half-pounds and eighty-taels.

And at this time, the midstream also started.

The first to speak was the Shenji Battalion.

Under Zhu Qizhen's planning, the Shenji Battalion is an artillery battalion.

In the 5,000 Shenji battalion, there are a total of several hundred cannons.

Each piece of artillery is less than 500 pounds.

Although these cannon casting techniques did not meet the standards of the late Ming Dynasty, they were all iron cannons. But it's enough to hit the range of more than a mile.

It also set up a position on the side of the Yalu River, and can directly bombard the small islands in the river.

Hit Li Jin's first line of defense.

The small island in the Yalu River was a disputed area between the two countries during the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, the mountains in this area are undulating, but these small islands are of different sizes, but they are easy to cultivate in the river. Therefore, the people gathered here, and in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court specially sent envoys to demarcate the border.

It's just that it hasn't gotten to that point yet.

Because Zhu Qi Town opened up Haixi Town, all kinds of displaced people and immigrants had to move to Haixi first, so Fenghuangwei was negligent at this point.

The Phoenix Guard is just a guard station, and the soldiers in the city plus the families of the people are only tens of thousands of people, and it is already the largest city in this area, so it is regarded as a logistics point and hoards a lot of baggage.

At this moment, there is naturally no one on the island in the river. But it is Li Yao's line of defense.

Li Yao fought against the Ming Dynasty and sued for peace at the same time.

Therefore, in terms of tactics, he did not dare to cross the Yalu River.

To tell the truth, the Dingkou around Phoenix City shows that this area is the corner of the Ming Dynasty, with few people and a large number of undeveloped areas.

Therefore, a large number of materials for the war had to be transported from the Guannai, and the transportation line was very long, but it was different for North Korea, and the Yalu River was much closer to Seoul than the Yalu River was to Beijing.

Many places west of the Yalu River are wasteland, and there is no town at all, and the army has been in Phoenix City recently. This is another difficulty in attacking North Korea by land, the difficulty of the logistical line.

And if North Korea attacks first, it is not impossible. But he didn't dare, and at the same time it was useless, he just took advantage of the fact that the army had not yet arrived, how about taking Phoenix City first?

This advantage is useless in the face of the imperial army, and even

It will be more morally passive, making it more difficult for this war to end.

can only wait for the opposite army to gather and attack first.

It's just that Li Yao never thought of it, but as soon as the Shenji Battalion was powerful, his first line of defense was immediately vulnerable.

One by one, the shells crossed the river and smashed into Jiangxinzhou, but the smashed sawdust flew wildly, and a large number of Korean soldiers had died under the artillery fire before they could see what the Ming army looked like.

Some of them were shot inaccurately, and they smashed into the Yalu River, causing water columns to rise into the sky, as if they had entered a forest composed of water columns in an instant.

Although they are all solid shells, and their lethality is not as good as that of flowering shells, it is also extremely rare for hundreds of cannons, large and small, to exert power together.

On the width of one or two hundred steps, it became a hell on earth in an instant.

This effect surprised both parties.

Cao Yi was also surprised.

If you think about it, you will know that this idea of marshalling the cannons separately came from Zhu Qizhen, and even the idea of forming the six battalions of the Three Thousand Army, the Fifth Army, Yulin, Yongwei, Shenji, and Shooting Sound all came from Zhu Qizhen.

Because in the Ming Dynasty, it was an era of expensive soldiers.

developed to the era of Qi Jiguang, and the mandarin duck array that had appeared.

In each guard station, the standard of three steps and seven horses is also adhered to, even among the individual foot soldiers, there are firearms soldiers, and strange soldiers, and only among the cold weapons troops, spears, swords and shields, bows and arrows are all mixed.

As everyone imagined, countless spears covered the entire plain. Slowly moving forward, it is as if the whole world is moving.

Therefore, the pure army formation proposed by Zhu Qizhen was actually not favored by many generals, after all, the large formation of the Beijing camp has always been a mixture of horses and steps.

In fact, if Cheng Guogong hadn't left his foot soldiers behind, even if he was suddenly ambushed, he would have been able to gain a firm foothold.

Of course, it is a question of who is superior and inferior between pure soldiers and miscellaneous soldiers. Even now it is a military topic, for example, whether tanks are grouped separately or grouped together with armored vehicles, and the guns used in the lowest infantry squad are not the same.

This is a big proposition, it is difficult to say that these generals are all wrong, and Zhu Qizhen is right.

The current formation of the Ming army is from generation to generation in the era of Taizu and Taizong.

It's just that the emperor is the emperor, and there are only 30,000 horses, and it's not like this in the Beijing camp. The ministers will not fight to stop it.

For the Shenji Battalion, many people still feel pity.

used to be a battalion leader, an old battalion that could charge with hard-roofed tile cavalry, but it turned out to be 5,000 company commanders who had no weapons and could only let go of the soldiers, who could not be used alone at all, and must be protected.

Just looking at it today, Cao Yi was immediately surprised, and it seemed that a new era was slowly opening.