Since the Chinese Imperial Army has an all-round superiority in terms of people's morale and troops, and after accumulation, it forms an overwhelming advantage, so according to normal circumstances, the battle of the Qing Dynasty should be extremely easy.

However, this is not the case, strictly speaking, the battle of the Qing Dynasty was not as easy as the Chinese Imperial Army imagined.

Among them, what is particularly surprising is that the most powerful First Route Army was blocked under the city of Jinzhou, and after seven days of strong attack, after paying more than 2,000 casualties, it still did not capture the city that was originally expected to be taken in three days at most, and finally because of the excessive casualties, it had to retreat ten miles and set up camp and began to confront the Qing army in Jinzhou City.

Although the difficulty of fighting Jinzhou City had been predicted in advance, when the news came, Li Yongji still couldn't believe it, and didn't believe that the Qing army was so difficult to fight.

Soon, he asked Zhou Da and the staff officers to report on the battle situation, and slowly, he also understood the whole story.

It turned out that because Li Yongji did not have a vigorous Northern Expedition to the Manchus after the capture of Beijing, the Qing court had a chance to breathe, and out of a sense of crisis, after the fall of Shanhaiguan, the Manchus began to do their best to build a Jinzhou defense line with Jinzhou as the core, the purpose of which was to resist the attack of the Chinese Imperial Army.

For the sake of this Jinzhou defense line, Prince Gong Yi? Not to mention the personal supervision, it also cost a lot of money, with the help of the Russians, the city wall of Jinzhou City was widened and thickened, built into a fortress-style fortress, and a lot of heavy artillery purchased from the Russians was added.

At the same time as rebuilding Jinzhou City, the Qing court also deployed heavy troops here, not only a new army of 10,000 all-foreign guns and artillery, but also 30,000 elite soldiers of the Eight Banners and 50,000 green battalions, plus the Jinzhou local militia group, the total number of defenders exceeded 100,000.

In order to boost morale, but also to avoid unauthorized power, the then Xianfeng Emperor put Prince Gong Yi? Sent to Jinzhou City. Sitting in Jinzhou in person, coupled with a strong group of soldiers, it didn't take long for Jinzhou City to really become a de facto modern fortress.

Originally, it was difficult to fight just such a fortress, but God also seemed to be against the imperial army, just when Zhou Da led the troops to launch the Battle of Jinzhou, there was a wave of cold snaps, and the temperature plummeted to below zero, which not only increased the difficulty of the siege party, but also Yi? They also had people splash water on the city walls. The walls of the city were frozen, and they became slippery and did not leave their hands, which made it more difficult to attack the city.

What's even more troublesome is that Jinzhou City is because of Yi? Sit down, Prince Gong? In the past, he did almost everything himself, and he had a good relationship with the generals under him, and more than half of the troops here were Manchus or Mongols, and after such a long run-in, the combat power was also very considerable. In particular, the morale is commendable, far from being comparable to the original Qing army.

It can be said that the garrison of Jinzhou was the real elite of the Qing court. The birth of this elite team was forced out by Li Yongji.

If Li Yongji hadn't driven the family back to the Northeast and left it for so long, the family would have slowly honed a little combat effectiveness. Instead, after taking Beijing, he went directly to the Northern Expedition, so it is estimated that the Qing court would have perished long ago, and there was no need to work as hard as now.

Therefore. From a certain Cheng dù above, when Prince Gong Yi? Abandoning Beijing's approach must have done the right thing, and it really gave the Qing court a buffer time.

Well, now this evil result will be eaten by the imperial army, Zhou Da led an army of 200,000, many of which are elite and strong, and there are also a lot of heavy firepower, but there is still no way to take this Jinzhou City.

Because the Chinese Imperial Army attaches great importance to human life, it is absolutely impossible to use the method of attacking the city by ants, so it still uses the old method, that is, to bombard the city with artillery, and then send sharpshooters to shoot at the head of the city, and at the same time use loudspeakers to carry out propaganda offensives, hoping to shake the morale of the other side.

According to the usual practice, as soon as these moves are made, the morale of the opponent will drop greatly, and when the opponent's wall cannot support it and is collapsed, they can send troops to press on it and attack it in one go, while the opponent's morale is low and usually there will not be too strong resistance.

The original Battle of Jinan, the Battle of Tianjin, and the Battle of Tianjing, almost all used this model, and the results were quite good.

However, the domestic siege warfare of the past, although smooth, all had two common characteristics:

First, although the city defense of those cities is good, it is still an ancient city wall design, and most of them are city defenses suitable for ordinary people to live in, not fortress structures, whether it is the thickness of the city walls or the design of the city walls, they cannot resist the bombardment of large-caliber artillery.

Second, although there were defenders in those cities, they were demoralized for various reasons at that time, and the quantity and quality of weapons of the defenders were too different from the army led by Li Yongji himself at that time, which was almost equivalent to a modern army fighting an ancient army, and the difference between victory and defeat was too great.

However, these two characteristics are completely different in Jinzhou City.

Although Jinzhou City was also designed according to the ancient city wall in the past, using blue bricks and stones, when it was later reinforced, it was designed with the help of the Russians, and it was designed in the style of a hexagonal fortress.

To put it simply, on the basis of the original city wall of Jinzhou City, the city wall is thickened with brick clay, so that the original city wall becomes an inner fortress, and the outer city wall becomes an outer fortress.

In order to resist the strong artillery of the Chinese Imperial Army, the newly added outer walls of Jinzhou City are only about 8 meters high, but the thickness is also terrifying 10 meters!

Although the city wall is not made of reinforced concrete, but green bricks and clay poured with rice soup, the 10-meter-thick city wall is still quite strong in anti-artillery effect, even if it is hit by a 155 mm caliber heavy cannon, it will not be able to tear through such a thick city defense.

In particular, the outer fortress of this bastion design also has six edges and corners, which not only does not have dead angle defense, but also increases the defensive power, and there are many anti-cannon holes on the city wall, which can allow people to avoid shelling, plus the width of the city wall can accommodate more defenders, so the defense is not generally high.

As for the city gates, there are three floors, and the innermost two layers of the gates are thickened, and they are both large iron gates with cast iron hanging on the periphery, which can only be raised by a winch, and such gates are not afraid of artillery bombardment at all.

Such a modern fortress building, coupled with the help of the cold snap, splashed water into ice outside the wall, increased the solidity of the fortress, so that even if it was bombarded with heavy artillery, it was not a problem to take this kind of city wall.

Especially. There were a lot of Russian-sponsored artillery in the inner city, and almost all of these guns were Russian-supported naval guns, which were basically taken down from the ships of the Siberian Fleet.

That is, thanks to the support of the Russians, there were not only a large number of 12-pounder guns, but also 36 24-pounder cannons, and 12 32-pounder cannons, and in terms of shells, in addition to a large number of solid shells, there were also a small number of flowering explosive shells. The maximum firing range is up to 2330 meters.

With so many foreign cannons, coupled with the original various homemade bronze cannons, the city defense of Jinzhou City has reached a terrifying level, at least in this era, it is a fairly qualified military fortress.

The strong construction of the city's defenses, the large number of troops with good morale, coupled with the food stored in advance enough to last for two years and a large amount of ammunition, moved the ordinary people of the entire city, especially the Han Chinese, to the rear. At present, only military and paramilitary personnel are left in the entire Jinzhou City, and it has become a veritable fortress castle.

With such a fortress, Zhou Da's First Route Army was a little helpless, even those expensive 155mm howitzers. It is impossible to open this turtle-like city defense.

Although the power of the 155-mm howitzer is also very great, it is also very difficult to open such a city defense, not to mention the limited number of those shells, and it is impossible to bomb them indefinitely. As for others, such as the revised 12-pounder Napoleonic gun, it is even more helpless to take this kind of wall.

Obviously, during the period when Li Yongji stopped moving forward. The Qing army, with the help of the Russians, had found a way to defend itself against modern artillery, and the Jinzhou Line was born out of this situation.

In fact, the intelligence personnel had already reported to Li Yongji about the construction of the Jinzhou defense line, but Li Yongji never took it seriously, because he always felt that the Qing court could not make any decent fortress at all, and no matter how good the fortress was, how could it block modern weapons.

In other words, Li Yongji has always been full of confidence in his 155-mm howitzer, and feels that under the attack of this kind of howitzer, no matter how much the Qing army builds a city defense, it will be in vain to build more city defenses.

But it is precisely this arrogance that makes his army helpless under the city of Jinzhou.

Just when the First Route Army was stagnating, the Second Route Army also encountered similar trouble, that is, Liaoyang City was not ordinarily difficult to fight, and it was also turned into a fortress fortress.

It turned out that the Qing army was not stupid, especially after experiencing the Opium War and being raided and landed by the British from the sea, they were also worried about the naval assault capability of the Chinese Imperial Army.

The Qing court knew that the navy of the Chinese Imperial Army was very strong, so although it set up a defense in Niuzhuang, it did not expect to be able to block the amphibious landing force covered by naval guns from the beginning, so the Qing army strengthened the construction of inland Liaoyang in order to prevent the Chinese Imperial Army from attacking Fengtian City from the sea, and turned Liaoyang into a fortress fortress.

From this point of view, in fact, no matter whether the Chinese Imperial Army raided Yingkou or not, they would eventually have to go through the Liaoyang Fortress, which is why it was so easy for them to land at the beginning, completely because the coastal defense of the Qing army was an ornament, and the defenders had more early warning functions than defensive functions.

Therefore, after the Second Route Army landed at Yingkou, when it continued to attack Liaoyang, it ran into trouble, because they also could not break through the Liaoyang defense line.

The scale of Liaoyang City is much smaller than Jinzhou City, and it is easier to renovate, and now Liaoyang City, like Jinzhou City, is to strengthen and widen the city wall, and copy the design of Jinzhou City, and also make a hexagonal fortress.

The outermost city wall of this fortress is 6 meters high and 8 meters thick, plus the inner city of the urn city, from the inside to the outside from high to low, there are a total of three city defenses, that is to say, to break through this Liaoyang City, you must break through three levels in a row.

Although the scale of Liaoyang City is smaller than that of Jinzhou City, it is still not something that the Second Route Army can break, the Second Route Army does not have 155mm howitzers, and their siege artillery is the traditional self-made modified 12-pounder Napoleon cannon, which faces the walls of Liaoyang City, except for laying a little skin, there is no substantial damage at all.

However, the advantage is that Liaoyang's firepower is relatively poor, there are no 32-pounder guns, and the strongest firepower is only 12 24-pounder guns supported by the Russians, and there are only 30 12-pounder guns, which is not a little worse than Jinzhou City, but even if there are only these cannons, the power is quite strong, especially when relying on the fortress, it poses a considerable threat to the Second Route Army, so that the entire attacking force does not dare to get too close to Liaoyang City.

Other than that. The number of defenders in Liaoyang is also small, only 40,000 people in total, in addition to the 5,000 new troops, half of the other defenders are the Eight Banners and half are the Green Battalion, but the combat effectiveness is still considerable.

In other words, both the First and Second Route Armies were in trouble, and they were under the city. There was no way to advance, only the Third Route Army that attacked Mongolia was still smooth, and the road was like a bamboo, and there was no force that could stop it.

In other words, in the face of the attack of the Third Route Army, the Mongols did not have the strength to come to stop it at all, and in the face of the naturalized city that was quite okay, as before, as soon as the army arrived. They surrendered automatically.

However, this was not a good thing, because according to intelligence, the main forces of the Mongol princes had retreated significantly. It is still not clear where it is, but it can only be roughly estimated that it may be in the Baotou area along the Yellow River, and it is in the intelligence. The name of Monk Grinqin also appeared.

It is said that Monk Lingqin had already fled back to his hometown and re-raised a group of troops and horses in the local area, which was the idea of retreating in great strides. It is likely to be his opinion, after all, although he was defeated and lost, after all, he was a figure who had dealt with the Imperial Army, and he knew the advantage of the Imperial Army in terms of firepower.

"It seems that it is really not worry-free." Li Yongji sighed, "One is not careful, I didn't expect that the dead fish of the Manchu Qing Dynasty could actually jump out of a flower, make so many famous halls, and block my hundreds of thousands of troops, all blame me, careless, raising tigers for trouble, raising tigers for trouble." ”

"You don't have to blame yourself too much." Zhou Shengjun, chief of the operational staff who came to report the situation, said. "According to the feedback of the front-line intelligence officers, the reason why the Qing army was able to build these fortresses in such a short period of time was because of the intervention of the Russians, and without the help of the Russians, they would not have been able to get these things at all.

In fact, as early as after our troops entered Beijing and occupied the area around Shanhaiguan, the Russians began to help the Qing army design and build the Jinzhou defense line and the Liaoyang defense line. And not only these two lines of defense, but their new capital, Mukden City, is said to have been fortified, and it has also become a fortified city that can withstand modern artillery attacks. There are also the heavy artillery of those fortresses, which are so powerful that they cannot make them themselves at all, and according to the return of Neiying, they are almost all the naval guns of the Siberian fleet of the Russian army.

According to Nei Ying, at the beginning, the Qing army was not equipped with so much heavy artillery, but since the defeat of the Russian expeditionary fleet and the Russians planned to negotiate peace with us, their Siberian fleet unloaded all the heavy artillery and sold it to the Manchus at a preferential price, in fact, it was to support the Qing court in disguise, just to make trouble for us.

Therefore, it is all a conspiracy of the Russians, and not all of it is the fault of His Majesty. ”

"Alright, you don't have to excuse me." Li Yongji smiled faintly, "Whether it's my fault or not, I know very well in my heart." Hey, to put it bluntly, I didn't take them seriously at the beginning, thinking that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was rotten in the morning, and after taking Beijing, I let down my guard and got busy with other things, and I didn't continue the Northern Expedition in one go, and completely cut off the roots. Otherwise, it wouldn't have given them a chance to breathe, and it would have become this climate. Hmph, if I hadn't stopped fighting for half a year, even if they had the help of the Russians, where would they have the time to build a fortress. ”

"陛xià......"

"Okay, let's not talk about that, the most important thing now is how to deal with this situation." Li Yongji asked, "Now that winter has begun, the weather will get colder and colder in the future, and the more it drags on, the worse the situation will only be worse for us." Moreover, the army is outside, and the daily consumption is quite large, and it has dragged on for a long time, and the financial pressure on us is not small...... In short, is there any way for your staff to take these cities as best possible and make a quick decision? ”

"Qiyu Majesty." Zhou Shengjun said, "According to the current information from the front line, Jinzhou and Liaoyang are not able to be taken for a while, and a forced attack will only damage more lives, but the effect is not necessarily good, so the safest way is to leave one army to besiege for a long time, and other troops will bypass these cities and continue to attack other cities, or even directly attack Fengtian City, giving full play to the advantage of our large number of people." ”

"You're saying that a few troops will continue to besiege these cities, while the rest of the troops will make a detour to attack their hinterland?"

"That's right." Zhou Shengjun nodded, "Although we can't attack those fortresses in the short term, relatively speaking, their troops don't dare to go out of the city to fight with us, and we still have an absolute advantage in field warfare, so the initiative in this war is still in our hands." ”

"But have you ever thought about it, these cities are stuck in the choke point leading to Fengtian City. If we had to bypass these cities, we would have a lot more logistical pressure. As far as I know, apart from these places, most of the places have no real roads, and they are very difficult to walk. Now there is a cold snap, and if there is another snowfall, it will be really miserable. ”

"Well, I think if we send more mules and horses, and send a mule-horse army, we won't need too many people. Thirty or fifty thousand is enough, and it should still be possible to take a detour. Zhou Shengjun said, "Even if there are thirty or fifty thousand, the defenders of Fengtian City can't beat it, we only need to send a force to fight under Fengtian City, then presumably the Qing court should surrender." ”

"And what if they don't surrender?" Li Yongji said, "What if our partial division hits the city of Fengtian, but the Qing army in Fengtian still does not surrender, or even resists stubbornly?" Or rather. If the defense of Mukden City is so difficult to handle, and our troops can't defeat it, then what should we do? Do you want to let a lone army deep in the rear confront each other under Fengtian City for a long time? ”

"If you don't. In the short term, we will not be able to break Jinzhou and Liaoyang. Zhou Shengjun said, "Your Majesty, with all due respect, according to the return from the front. These two cities are not easy to take by storming, they can only be besieged, so. Our plan is to abandon the plan of quick battle and quick victory, change to a plan of long-term siege, give full play to the invincible advantage of our army in field battles, and leave a few troops to confront them and slowly wear them down. ”

"Kill them?"

"Yes." Zhou Shengjun said, "The Qing army's financial aspects are definitely far worse than ours, they have only built such a few fortresses with the strength of the country, if there is a long-term confrontation, how long can they last?" One month? Two months? Half? A year? It's not that I underestimate them, it won't take half a year for them to survive.

Therefore, we can leave between 30,000 and 50,000 troops under each city and continue to confront their fortresses, while the large army will be withdrawn to recuperate in order to reduce our attrition.

When the spring of next year begins, the weather is not so cold, we can continue to raise troops, occupy all their other cities except these cities, and even occupy their farmland, so that they can not plant and harvest with peace of mind, so that they can not grow and harvest grain with peace of mind, they can only continue to eat and store grain, I believe that it will not be long before they don't have to fight, and they themselves will be defeated. ”

"Of course I know what you're saying." Li Yongji said with an indignant look, "Fight for national strength, of course this is no problem, or in other words, the Manchus are against us, and defeat is inevitable." However, now that I am engaged in such a big battle, just because of a few cities, I have withdrawn my troops in a gray manner, where will I put this face? Can't you come up with a quick solution? ”

"陛xià." Zhou Shengjun persuaded, "Fighting a war is not a child's play, Sun Tzu once said that soldiers, the major affairs of the country, the place of death and life, and the way of survival, must not be ignored." Now that we know that we will not be able to defeat the enemy in a short period of time, we should not continue to be stubborn for the sake of saving face, because that will only cost the people and money, and lose the morale of our troops in vain.

Anyway, the advantage lies in me, we have more people, more money, more territory, and more soldiers, and we are good at field warfare, and the longer the time drags on, the greater our advantage will be. Therefore, whether in terms of cost or other aspects, we should abandon the plan of quick solution and change to a strategy of long-term confrontation with them, which is the best policy. ”

"And what if I have to do it quickly?" Li Yongji asked with a smile.

"That's right." Zhou Shengjun sighed, "If Your Majesty has to fight quickly, then I only have two ways." ”

"Oh? Two other ways? Let's hear it. ”

"The first way is naturally to forcibly attack and attack the city with ants." Zhou Shengjun said, "This is an old method, fill with human lives, we have a lot of people, morale is slightly higher, and the weapons are slightly stronger than them, if you don't count the casualties, I believe you can still take Jinzhou and Liaoyang, and if the Qing court still refuses to surrender, then continue to attack Fengtian City, continue to use this method, and finally fall sooner or later." Although the trick of forcibly attacking the city is old-fashioned, it is better than there is no solution, as long as our people are more powerful and not afraid of sacrifice, we can do it, of course, this trick is also very damaging to us, and it is best not to use it as a last resort. ”

"And what about your second option?"

"The second way is to use poison * gas warfare." Zhou Shengjun said, "Recently, I happened to see a book on poison * gas warfare, which contains the usage of poison * gas warfare and the effect of poison * gas warfare. As far as I know, our army happens to have poisonous * air bombs, but it is still a secret test unit. If His Majesty is willing to put this secret force into use and use poison * gas to attack, I believe the effect should be good. ”

"You know a lot." Li Yongji nodded.

"That's because Your Majesty didn't keep the secret unit that used poison * gas a secret secret from our Operations Staff Office." Zhou Shengjun said, "On the contrary, the personnel composition of this unit and the results of combat exercises are all in charge of the personnel of our combat staff office, and even the results of the tests are recorded by us, so I know the actual power of this unit." ”

"Well, I almost forgot about it." Li Yongji said, "That's right, I plan to bring this secret force to deal with the Americans, if it is used on the head of the Qing army, the effect is estimated to be good, but I am afraid that it will be leaked in advance." It's best to play surprise attack to get the most out of it, and if you make the other party react and find a countermeasure, it's actually not that scary. ”

"If His Majesty is worried about leaks, this shouldn't be a big problem." Zhou Shengjun said, "We can let people put * poison at night, so that the gods don't know it, and then send a small force to attack afterwards, and then keep it strictly secret, the matter should not be big." After all, we don't have many foreigners here, and when the time comes, we will get some false news, such as buying off the internal response in advance, poisoning their food and drink, etc., which should not make people find out the details of that army. ”

"That's right." Li Yongji narrowed his eyes, "Forget it, let people try the effect in Liaoyang, accumulate experience, there are few people in Liaoyang, the city is almost full of people, and the significance of occupying Liaoyang to the Second Route Army is also very important." As for Jinzhou, there is no need for it, there are too many people, the impact is too great, and the news cannot be controlled. ”

"Understood, I'll find a way to go down and arrange it." Zhou Shengjun said, "In this case, will this army be transported by ship or airship?" ”

"Just use the airship to transport it, hurry up, anyway, there are not many people in this force." Li Yongji said, "In addition, if you arrange it, no matter whether the special operation of this secret force is successful in Liaoyang or not, you must make a withdrawal plan."

To put it simply, it is to implement your original confrontation plan, leave a small part of the troops under the city, and consume it with the Qing army, consume it with them, and when the weather is warm next year, it will be enough to send troops to suppress it, in short, let them spend this last year, you see, am I very humane? (To be continued......)