Qin Chuan stopped Nie Shicheng, not for anything else, but for the high walls that made him feel a little puzzled. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Qin Chuan looked at the bluestone soil on the wall, as well as the surrounding trenches, the soil was still very wet, these things were obviously newly constructed.

If it is a new building, it must be the work of the Qing army, which has been in Pyongyang for a month, but why did the Qing army spend a lot of energy to build these huge enclosures?

Regarding Qin Chuan's questions, not only Nie Shicheng, but also Jiang Zikang, Gao Jishan, Luo Peide, Wu Bingwen, Feng Guozhang, Li Chun, Yu Guangxi, Xin Delin and others were also stunned.

After a long time, Nie Shicheng told Qin Chuan with some puzzlement: "Ming Hong, these enclosures are called sieges in our army, and the soldiers hide here during the war, and when the enemy charges, they can shoot the enemy with shooting holes, and the enemy can only be beaten unless they climb this wall." This kind of fort of ours has been used since Wen Zhenggong formed the Hunan army to conquer Changmao, and it is very effective to defend and resist the enemy. With these five large forts, together with the Great Wall and two forts behind it, the southern defense of Pyongyang must be very solid, and it will definitely be able to keep the enemy back from the south bank, making it difficult for the Japanese army to approach the river bank. ”

The Wen Zhenggong mentioned by Nie Shicheng is Zeng Guofan.

Zeng Guo Fan word Bo Han, number Disheng, the seventieth grandson of Zongsheng Zengzi. The official is the governor of Liangjiang, the governor of Zhili, the scholar of Wuyingdian University, and the first class Yongyi Marquis, and his nickname is Wenzheng.

When Zeng Guofan was in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as a literati, he threw his pen to form the Hunan Army from Rong, and after hundreds of battles, he turned the tide and finally destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Li Hongzhang was also a staff member of Zeng Guofan at the beginning, and later with the support of Zeng Guofan, he independently Huai Army, and only then did he have achievements in later generations.

Zeng Guofan was not only the mainstay of the Qing Dynasty in military affairs, but also had an outstanding reputation in science, and he also made outstanding achievements in the way of economic governance. At the initiative of Zeng Guofan, China's first steamship was built, the first ordnance engineering school was established, the first batch of Western books were printed and translated, and the first batch of students to study in the United States were arranged, that is, the ** children recruited by Qinchuan everywhere. It can be said that Zeng Guofan was a pioneer of China's modernization.

Zeng Guofan also won great praise in later generations, and was known as a modern Chinese politician, physicist, writer, founder and commander of the Hunan army. Together with Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, and Zhang Zhidong, they are known as the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty.

Following Nie Shicheng's point, Qin Chuan found that on the north bank of the river, two or three hundred meters away from the river, about a mile or so away from the Pyongyang city wall, there was a long wall that was two miles long and more than one person high was built parallel to the city wall.

In the open space between the long wall and the Datong River, there is a wasteland that has long been leveled and cleaned, four 75mm Krupp mountain guns are lined up in the open space, and the muzzles of the black hole are pointed to the south bank, and only behind the open space there are more than a dozen livery prefixes with a big Yi character, indicating that these soldiers are the people of the Yi army led by Ma Yukun. Other than that, there was no one left in the huge artillery position.

As for the other artillery position, it did not appear on the riverbank, and it was thought to be located inside the long wall.

The communication between the Qing army's positions on the south and north banks of Datong was maintained by a pontoon bridge.

Nie Shicheng continued: "With these five big forts, our army can attack and retreat on the south bank, which is really a safe and old strategy. ”

Seeing that Qin Chuan was becoming more and more surprised, Nie Shicheng asked, "Ming Hong, what's wrong with being so at your mercy?" ”

Qin Chuan smiled bitterly and said, "Is there another arrangement in the fort?" ”

Jiang Zikang smiled and said: "This fortress is tall and strong, the enemy is rushing, our army can hide in it and shoot it, but the other party can't help us, where do we need any arrangements here." ”

Qin Chuan had already understood the meaning of this fort at this time, to put it bluntly, this so-called fort was just a wall.

It's just that since Nie Shicheng and Jiang Zikang said that this was from Zeng Guofan, Qin Chuan was a little difficult to speak, but he sighed secretly in his heart, feeling that in this era of drastic changes, the most elite troops of the Qing army are still so complacent, stubborn, and do not think about changing from time to time, and still cling to the law that has been established decades ago, which is really sad and lamentable.

It's just that Qin Chuan couldn't look at this extremely bad and outdated fortification, so after thinking about it for a while, he still decided to try his best to make the two senior Beiyang generals in front of him accept his opinion.

Qin Chuan sighed and said: "This kind of siege fort is useful for dealing with long-haired infantry at that time, that is because there are fewer long-haired artillery, and flowering cannons are more scarce at that time, most of them are solid-core shells, and the accuracy of the artillery at that time was not good, and the firing range was short, so the impact effect of this siege fort against the long-haired infantry at that time was acceptable." But now the artillery has not only increased its range, but also its power, and its accuracy is not comparable to that of the past. In my opinion, if there is a war, our troops will be placed in the fort, which will give the Japanese a good opportunity to concentrate their attacks. ”

"As long as the Japanese army has enough shells, even if it does not have to use infantry charges, it can completely use only intensive artillery bombardment to kill and injure our troops in the fort, and after a long time, our troops in the fort will be completely damaged, and the fortress will be self-defeating. Not to mention that as long as the Japanese army concentrates artillery bombardment in one place, it can quickly destroy a section of the fort wall, and then launch a charge, and our side will no longer have the advantage of terrain fortifications, how can this fortress last? ”

"The only thing that works is that this outer trench can still delay the Japanese army approaching."

Qin Chuan's words, so that everyone couldn't help but look at each other, this kind of siege from the famous Hunan army in the past, for decades, and the Hunan army has a deep relationship with the Huai army, whether it is sticking to a place or besieging the enemy, it is the same, and every time the effect is extraordinary, it has been tried and tested. But now in Qin Chuan's mouth, this fortress is unexpectedly vulnerable. Thinking about it carefully, Qin Chuan's words were reasonable, and these people couldn't help but be speechless for a while.

After thinking about it, Jiang Zikang snorted lightly and said disappreciatively.

"Commander Qin is worried, not to mention that this siege started from Wen Zhenggong, and since then it has been tried and tested, let's just say that where do the Japanese have so many cannons? How can you hit so accurately。。。。。。 ”

Jiang Zikang was halfway through his words, remembering that when Qin Chuan was reviewing in the Beiyang Martial Arts Academy the year before last, he had performed a magic cannon stunt, and a few miles away, he could blow down the flag with one shot, and the target was much smaller than this fort, and he couldn't help but stop for a while.

Immediately, Jiang Zikang glanced at Qin Chuan disapprovingly, and said indifferently: "Besides, when you are a soldier and eat food, you live a life with blood added to the sword, where is there a reason for immortals to fight." ”

Jiang Zikang's words couldn't help but make Qin Chuan's heart burst with anger. Although as the saying goes, "one success makes ten thousand bones dry", this cannot be a child's play with the lives of soldiers.

Qin Chuan wanted to have a seizure, but he felt that it was inappropriate, Jiang Zikang not only came to greet him, but also the title of the second grade, not to mention that he had a good relationship with these pedantic Beiyang generals when he first came to Pyongyang, so he had to suppress the anger in his heart.

Nie Shicheng didn't pay attention to Qin Chuan's pale, and remembered the scene of the battle with the Japanese army in Cheng Huan a month ago, he was stunned for a while, and asked Qin Chuan in a condensed tone.

"Minghong, if not, what should it be?"

After more than three years, Qin Chuan has long been familiar with the half-literate and half-white form of sentence formation in people's colloquial language in this era, and knows what Nie Shicheng means, that is, to ask him if he doesn't do this, then what should he do?

Qin Chuan took a deep breath and tried to forget the unhappiness Jiang Zikang brought him.

"Lord Nie, according to Minghong's opinion, we should dig several trenches on the south bank, set up firing positions along the trenches in advance, and then make more than a dozen tunnels for hiding soldiers, cover them with thick logs, and cover them with several layers of sandbags and earth and stones to avoid enemy artillery. Several trenches are connected by trenches and tunnels for traffic. In this way, if the enemy is bombarded, the troops will be hidden, and when the enemy attacks, the troops will be divided along the trenches to shoot, the enemy is in the open, and I am in the dark, and if the enemy wants to attack the trenches, he will not be able to get it unless he pays a huge price. ”

Qin Chuan pointed to the small hill wrapped in the fortress and said: "This hill on the south bank is a commanding height, which can be used as the fulcrum of our defense line. However, the trenches on the hill should be slightly different from the flat ground below, and in the fortifications on the hill, a number of shallow holes can be dug in the trench by the hill to allow the soldiers to hide from the enemy artillery. ”

Qin Chuan stood on the bank of the river, observing the surrounding terrain while pointing and pointing and explaining how to set up defensive positions one by one. Even for the fact that there was only one pontoon bridge on the river, Qin Chuan also pointed out that it was inappropriate, and suggested that two pontoon bridges should be set up, in case one pontoon bridge was blown up by the Japanese army, and there were spare pontoon bridges available, so as not to prevent the troops on the south bank of the south bank of the Datong River from being able to rescue.

At this time, not only in China, but also in Europe and the United States, it still adhered to the war style of the Napoleonic period, and the two sides faced each other, and the defending side was mostly shielded according to the terrain or built strong fortresses to defend it.

If the two sides are in a decisive battle, they often line up their forces in a horizontal row, first bombard each other with artillery fire, and then pull into a skirmish line while shooting at each other, and the two sides are close to each other, the competition is courage, military discipline, and even the two brigades have approached the distance of dozens of meters, and they are all straight up with guns raised to aim and shoot, either knocking down the other side, or being ruthlessly shot by the other side, very bloody, and finally until the start of hand-to-hand combat.

And trench tactics will not be used on a large scale until more than 20 years later, in World War I.

At this time, what Qin Chuan said, these people were unheard of, except for Jiang Zikang's disdain, the rest of the people all had a sense of openness.

Nie Shicheng's expression was already extremely excited, and as soon as he grabbed Qin Chuan's hand, he dragged him into the city.

"Zhongtang's praise is not a lie. Ming Hong has a lot of experience in the way of winning and losing wars, and what he said this time made people suddenly enlightened, and it really made my old soldiers sweat. ”

"To be honest, I was not optimistic about the battle of Pyongyang before, and I just wanted to do my best. Let's go and talk about it in detail in the city, and then report to President Ye to implement it in Pyongyang. ”