"Report! Tongguan Cao Beile has an emergency military situation! ”

"Read!"

"Li Chuang's puppet Wushan Boma Shiyao Department of millions of people in Tongguan, digging heavy trenches, erecting forts, building forts, digging ditches to fight against our army! Cao Beile's attacks were frustrated several times, and he suffered a lot of losses! It is also reported that Tian Jianxiu, the puppet Mianhou stationed in Chang'an, and the puppet rebel who was stationed in Suide and Hanzhong were the first to be high, Zhao Guangyuan crossed the river from Xiheyi, commanding 300,000 infantry Ding of Yi Han Fanhui, and 100,000 troops of Zong Min, the general of thieves, crossed the river from Pingyang to the north. He also reported that Li Ziben personally commanded 3.5 million troops, and set off from Chang'an on the 2nd day of the seventh month. The three-way march is coming by the day. Cao Beile asked the two masters to quickly reinforce the front line of Luoyang Tongguan! ”

The emergency military situation was like a basin of cold water, which suddenly cooled down the atmosphere of the originally hot banquet hall. Everyone looked at each other.

After a while, Duoduo's wild laughter sounded in the Yin'an Palace: "Okay! Good! I'm not afraid of you, Li Chuang, and my Qing soldiers and horses in a decisive battle! I'm afraid you're running around! This king is going to hunt you down everywhere! ”

His attitude can be regarded as a reassuring pill for the generals present, that is! Li Zicheng's main force of the Dashun army was all pressed, and Cao Zhenyan was also a Baylor, commanding the partial division of the West Road Centaur, how could he get a bargain in a place like Tongguan, which has always been a natural danger?

"Today, we just have enough wine, eat enough meat, and go back to the camp tomorrow to rectify the soldiers and horses, and we will send troops in three days!" Duoduo raised the bronze bowl in his hand and shouted.

"Subordinates listen to the general! After drinking enough wine and eating enough meat, I will send troops to Tongguan only in the future! ”

The generals of the Eight Banners and the generals of the newly attached army were like wolves howling, and they responded in unison.

Half a month later, Duoduo's army arrived at the front line of Tongguan through Luoyang and Shaanxi County, and met with Cao Zhenyan and Cao Beile in front of Niutouyuan, not far ahead, which was the first pass of Tongguan.

This journey made Dodor and his generals miserable. Along the way there are ravines everywhere, fragmented soil plains, earth beams, earth ditches towering in all directions, sometimes the distance between the two plains seems to be very short, but it is not easy to walk, so that some of the soldiers who surrendered to the Qing army in Zhili and Henan, Shandong and other places are extremely uncomfortable, and deeply feel what it means to be close at hand, far away in the world.

Tongguan is like this here, the erosion of long-term flowing water, coupled with the strong permeability of loess, and subsidence, the lack of vegetation protection for thousands of years, is the slope is divided into fragments, the ravines are staggered, increasing the difficulty of passage.

The road is very dry, a gust of north wind swept through, that is, the sky is full of loess raised, the heaven and earth are a piece of yellow, splitting the head and covering the face of the people and horses wrapped in the loess. The roads are not wide, in many places they are so narrow that even a wheelbarrow cannot pass through, and there are some broken gullies crossing them, making the road even more uneven. The steep walls on both sides extend, full of weeds and vines intertwined, uneven, occasionally dotted with a few low jujube trees and dogwoods, the bare earth walls seem to be like that for thousands of years, with an indescribable sense of desolation, as if immersed in thousands of years of historical vicissitudes, the desolation and heaviness are deeply pressed in people's hearts.

However, Duoduo did not have time to feel nostalgic for the ancients and history at this time, he replied with a whip to Cao Zhenyan's invitation to receive the wind and wash the dust, and accompanied by Cao Zhenyan, he led his generals to begin to observe the terrain in this area of Tongguan.

At this time, his more than 100,000 infantry cavalry artillery team was constantly passing through the stone bridge of Gudonggou in Xiyu at the junction of Henan and Shaanxi, and camped on the Pingchuan River five miles away from Jinqiao Pass, north and east of Niutou Plateau.

This Sichuan is adjacent to the Yellow River in the north, although there is a step-like layered plateau, but the drop is roughly not large, almost a flat plateau, suitable for camping. There are many villages in Kawakami Plateau, and of course the villagers fled at this time. The hills and hills along the river were also controlled to ensure that the army could drink water.

Not only that, but Duoduo ordered the felling of trees and the construction of a bridge over the east ditch, not for 10,000 years, but for a year or two to ensure the passage of people and vehicles. Otherwise, a mere stone bridge cannot meet the needs of the army.

Tongguan terrain ravines vertical and horizontal, the plateau is everywhere, it is easy to set up ambushes, especially from the golden steep pass to the east city gate, the five-mile passage is narrow and steep, and the south depends on the source of the Niutou Mountain, the army enters, if it is in the ambush, it is really called every day should not be, and the earth is not spiritual.

"Straight sissy thief! In such a dangerous terrain, the thieves relied on the terrain to build fortifications, and our soldiers and horses entered more at one time, and the mountain roads were narrow and could not be used, which was the target of people's artillery. It's less in it, and it's useless, and it's the same as giving meat to the wolf! No wonder Cao Baylor has suffered a loss here! ”

Just after seeing Jin Qiguan, the generals under Duoduo frowned and gasped.

On the plateau, in the ravines, you can vaguely see the trenches, pillboxes, forts, and cave-style fortifications set up by the Dashun army everywhere, and it is not clear what they are used for. However, from the location of those fortifications, these battle-hardened generals were able to sketch a picture in their minds: their soldiers and horses rushed along the mountain road, and were knocked to the ground like prey by cannons, buckshots, bows and arrows fired from the gun emplacements and pillboxes. Even if they are lucky enough to rush over, maybe at the turn of the mountain road, there is a large group of Dashun soldiers and horses hidden behind them, and the knives and guns in their hands will happily release the blood of these Qing soldiers and horses who rushed in by luck to nourish the yellow earth under their feet!

With the help of telescopes, one can carefully observe the distant ditches that are still being strengthened and the terrain being reinforced, beyond the effective accuracy range of the artillery. The sight that appeared in the mirror tube made people a little dumbfounded, and several people made a "hissing" sound behind Duoduo as if they had a toothache, which was that they were gasping for cold air.

People with white sheep's belly handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads shuttled back and forth, like industrious ant colonies, cutting steep cliffs, digging trenches, digging caves, and stacking earth walls.

A Yuanwang ditch is quite dangerous along the way, many slopes are steep and straight, but the people have long-term exchanges, there are still many ditch paths, after all, the Yuanwang ditch is too long, there are more than 20 miles, it is impossible to be the terrain of the ridge, it is easy to cross the ditch and there are many gentle places, and there are official roads on both sides of the pass.

The places where people are busy building fortifications to change the terrain are those places that are easy to cross the ditch and go uphill, and from the middle and upper slopes, the roads are built with dense low walls, which are not only at the intersections, but are distributed in layers according to the slope and road conditions.

Not like the high highway straight in later generations, the path at this time is of course meandering, according to the slope of the curve bend like a zigzag, the junction of Henan and Shaanxi belongs to the plateau structure, the slope is mostly that kind of step potential, like a layer of terraces, forming a good natural line of defense. Those ladder cliffs are generally one zhang high, or about two or three zhang, basically still a slope of 90 degrees, many trails are under the ladder cliffs, winding around the upper plateau.

A series of low walls were built on top of the ladder cliffs, about the height of a person's chest. The defenders can shoot arrows with guns or bow and arrow firearms to protect their own side, but if they attack on the uphill hill, they are basically within the range of the defenders' flank fire behind the low wall, which naturally has a disadvantage.

Because it is a small road, the troops cannot be opened. If you want to climb up from under the cliff, it is not so easy to climb, so you can only squeeze on the road and be beaten.

Because of the construction of low walls, the people on the opposite side dug under the earth cliffs, making many of those places into trenches and making it more difficult to climb.

Not only that, because of the topography of the plateau, there are many gullies and some trails. It winds up from the valley, and on both sides of the road, there are many beams and soil bags. The road is from below, the mountain is wrapped on both sides, if there is a pass everywhere, the defenders hold both sides, there is a husband when the pass, ten thousand people do not open the trend.

This kind of gully trail. According to the favorable terrain, the defenders also built many low walls. If you attack, you will have to face fire from both sides.

At some of the wider intersections, artillery forts were also built, and the guns could vaguely be watched with black holes, and there were also low walls on both sides of the forts. Relying on the terrain, the fort is built like the horse face of the city, and the low wall fortifications protrude out of a part, and the fortifications on the left and right wings can coordinate with each other within the firing range to form a cross fire, once the Qing army breaks in, the artillery in the fort can be eliminated with side fire, fire support for their own side. Not only that, in front of each fort, in addition to the wattle basket wicker basket filled with soil to defend against artillery shells, a deep pit was dug in front of the fort, which was also used to defend against artillery projectiles.

Between the low walls, which were stacked on top of each other, it was dark, and it seemed that there were trenches between them for mutual communication and mobilization of troops. It was clear to Dodor that some of the cliffs were mounded with dirt, so that the defenders of the various lines could reinforce or retreat, and they could rely on these facilities for counterattacks.

In addition to the arrangement on the slope, there are also large and small artillery pieces in many places on the edge of the plateau, and the perimeter is protected by earthen baskets filled with loess.

Because the distance between the two plateaus is not the same, some are more than 100 paces, some are more than one mile, and some are two or three miles, and the effective firing range of the general and the little franc machine guns is only more than one mile, so those artillery pieces are mostly arranged in places close to each other on the two plateaus.

Such a fortification made Duoduo look very familiar. It's not just him, but under his golden dragon, the generals and officers of the Eight Banners who followed him all the way to the Sanqin Gate from outside the gate, many of them are very familiar with such a defensive position. If they were not on the attacking side, they would have felt that such a position would look very friendly!

The Tashan system adopted a similar defense system against Li Huamei in Tashan. It's just that they are now on the attacking side, and they are not like Li Huamei, who can use a sea of fire to flood the defenders' positions at any cost.

However, unlike Li Huamei's crossing the sea, Duoduo has cannon fodder in his hands that can be used for consumption, these hundreds of thousands of horses, the Eight Banners are not more than 10,000 soldiers, and the rest are all obtained from recruiting rebels along the way, which can be squandered by him at will.

"I don't know how many dead and injured people will be killed and injured to take this Yuanwanggou."

"It's just that this is the only official road to the west, don't go here. Cannons and baggage were difficult to transport. ”

Duoduo and Cao Zhenyan conversed in a low Manchurian voice.

"Without artillery, it is impossible to capture Tongguan City. Beat! This far-reaching ditch is to be filled with 10,000 people, and this king will also take it down for him! ”

Duoduo was very determined, but Cao Zhenyan, as their brother's coat background, was still very clear about this master's thoughts in his heart. Duoduo wanted to use the offensive of Tongguan to attract Li Zicheng's main force of soldiers and horses here. He also saw the military report that Yulin City in the north had been taken by Jiang Jian and others, and nearly 100,000 horses and horses had pressed over from northern Shaanxi to Guanzhong. Although the terrain of Tongguan is not conducive to attacking, it is also not conducive to maneuvering for the defending side. As long as the army from the north reaches Guanzhong, Li Zicheng's Dashun army will be in chaos without a fight!

Moreover, the strategic significance of Yuanwanggou is indeed worth fighting for at the expense of casualties. This official road of Yuanwanggou controls the east-west traffic, although there are roads elsewhere, but such as the village-level roads in later generations can only traffic to the villages, if you want to travel for a long time and pass through the big city, you have to take a special national highway. Even if it works by taking the trail. I often don't know how many unjust roads to detour, and many roads are not suitable for large baggage traffic. The importance of roads for transporting baggage was naturally well known to the generals of the Qing army, who had a large number of artillery pieces since the Guanwai period. However, if each ditch had to be fought for with so many troops, it would not only delay time, but also be detrimental to the reputation of Duoduo.

Cao Zhenyan pondered for a moment and said: "Master, the minions have also surveyed the terrain around Tongguan these days, and in the humble opinion of the minions, it is better for our army to wave troops to capture Niutou Plateau, and arrange soldiers and horses along the slope of the loess lane, so that they are not afraid of thieves and ambushes." ”

And they all looked at the bull's hill, and when they looked up from the bottom, it was like a mountain range. This hill lives in the south of Pingchuan, crosses the ancient east ditch of Xiyu at the junction of Henan and Shaanxi, spreads from east to west, and extends to the side of Yuanwanggou. There are still a lot of trails on the plateau, and it is easy for the horse infantry to go up, which can be regarded as a countermeasure. Moreover, if the heavy artillery of the artillery team was pulled up, it could provide artillery support for the infantry attack of the Qing army.

"Let's go! Check it out! ”

With a whip to eliminate the dust, Duoduo was in front, Cao Zhenyan rode his horse to follow, and hundreds of fine horses set off the yellow dust in the sky. The group went up to the plateau, and the vast plateau in front of them gave people a kind of spiritual shock. This bull head plateau is also known locally as the east plateau. The area is larger than the south plateau, the terrain is high in the north and low in the south, because it is cut by the Yellow River valley, Yuanwanggou and iron ditch, the loess plateau is like a bull's head to get its name, it belongs to a part of the arid plateau, although there are some tunbao. However, the military and civilians have been worried about water for generations, and there is a saying in the local area that "if a woman does not marry a cow, it is more difficult to eat water than to eat oil".

At present, it is the dry season of winter, and the water of several ditches in the valley has been decreasing day by day, and the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Qing army Dashun Army are stationed within a radius of dozens of miles, how can they be supplied? They only got deep and steep iron ditches, and even went to the Yellow River to carry and carry water, which made it even more difficult to provide logistical supplies. The mighty soldiers and horses have been spread all over the Pingchuan River, and countless auxiliary soldiers and servants are sweating like rain. Busy cutting down trees, digging soil, transporting stones, digging trenches and setting up camps, all kinds of tents spread to the north of the Yellow River.

There is also a steady stream of troops coming on the official road to Ruxiang Township to the east, like the tide of the sea, the carts, wheelbarrows, mules, horses, donkeys, and baggage teams are endless, the horsemen are galloping, coming and going, and there is a scene of momentum like a rainbow.

There was a sound of tsk from the generals beside him, and Prince Yu Duoduo was also complacent. The field of vision on this hill is vast, not to mention the Yellow River, even the Wei River, the confluence of the two rivers can be faintly seen.

"Master, the slave thinks that your camp should be set up on the hill. Condescending, in control of the overall situation, the river under the hill can be used as a gathering place for baggage. Cao Zhenyan slapped a sycophant very appropriately. This is the place he specially left for Dodor to camp.

The east plateau is generally flat and wide, except for the two ends of the plateau, especially close to the iron ditch at the south end, the ravine is everywhere, as much as the "Kui Ridge" terrain, it is the kind of steep deep ditch, or two opposite and steep mountain cliffs, the slopes on both sides are straight and less curved, this kind of terrain is called "Lai Ridge" by the people of Shaanxi.

Along the way, Duoduo listened to Cao Zhenyan's introduction to the terrain characteristics along the way, and he also knew what a beam was, what a hill was, and what a ridge was. The erosion of the river will turn the plain into a "plateau", many ditches divide the "plateau" into many "beams", the beam is not very wide, one is a long strip, but the ditch under the beam is deeper, the two beams can sing to each other, but they have to go down the ditch and then go up the beam to walk on the old half a day.

There are ditches on the "beams" after erosion, and these ditches cut the beams into several sections, and each section is surrounded by ditches, leaving only a high mound of earth standing alone, which is the "ridge", and it is not a simple matter to pass through these beams and ridges.

Such terrain is extremely unfavorable for the movement, deployment, and offensive of a large number of troops. After reading the terrain and returning to Cao Zhenyan's trip for Prince Yu, Duoduo changed his anger when he first arrived in Tongguan, and comforted Cao Zhenyan with kind words. Originally! With such a lack of morality, it is already a great achievement to be able to fight back to Henan without being counterattacked by the Dashun army.

Outside the camp, on the road leading to Niutouyuan, the gunners, drivers, and people of the Qing army's Wuzhenchao Battalion began to carry the cannons and went to the direction of Niutouyuan.

It was cold, and the ground was frozen as hard as steel. The action of the heavy artillery seems to be better, but the heavy artillery of General Shenwei, which weighs 3, 4,000 catties, 4,000 catties, or 5,000 catties at every turn, has to stop and find a way to carry the heavy artillery wagons in the potholes, and from time to time there are car ditches and rain ditches lying across the road.

The four-wheeled iron gun carriage ran over deep marks on the ground, and when passing through these potholes, the gunners whipped the cattle and horses dragging the guns in front of them.

In order to hurry, many of the horses and cattle in the battalion had died of exhaustion, and even some of the people who had been caught pushing the artillery with the army were so tired that they vomited blood and fell to the ground. There are also some cows and horses who are so tired that they are foaming at the mouth, and no matter how the driver whips and whips, it is difficult to move forward.