Because the main force of Wang Sanwu's elite army joined the defense of the outer city, the city defense of Huai'an City was suddenly stabilized again, and the Qing army finally exhausted its courage and morale after three consecutive days of fierce attacks and paid more than 20,000 casualties, and no longer had the courage and strength to attack Huai'an City, and returned to the old road of siege.

It's normal to think about it, the Qing army doesn't look at the number of people, but the good and the bad are uneven, and the will to fight is not resolute, the previous vigorous expression is just a newcomer, plus the boss came to the front line of the persecution, but once it experienced a series of vicious battles, the Qing army's lack of stamina came out, and the fear of war began to be full of eyes, even if the peak was useless.

Because even if the soldiers are forced to attack, those soldiers will at most pretend to run a certain distance, and run back as soon as the city is shot, at this time, because of the large number of people, even if the supervision team is behind, it is useless, after all, those Qing troops can't fight the city, but it is more than enough to deal with the same equipment of the supervision team.

In other words, the fear of siege has overwhelmed the fear of the warlords and the fear of punishment, and with the fact that each army has its own command, even the monk Lingqin cannot punish him at will, and in this case, it is tantamount to a fool's dream to organize a huge attack.

Therefore, the truly tragic siege battle was actually only three days, but these three days brought more than 3,000 casualties to all departments of the Jingwu Army, most of which were militiamen, and the losses of the main force of the Jingwu Army were very small, a total of only 30 people.

Although it seems that the personnel losses of the Jingwu Army are not large, the ammunition consumption is quite large, especially for the main force of the Jingwu Army, in the past two days, they have fired more than 400 mortar shells, more than 3,200 grenadier shells, 13 rockets, and countless bullets of various types, at least more than 40,000 rounds. As for the consumption of guns, earth cannons, bows and arrows, and rolling wood and thunder stones, it is impossible to count.

If the Qing army continues to attack with this intensity, if he still consumes ammunition according to this kind of process, I am afraid that he will not be able to support it for three days and the ammunition will be exhausted, and then he will only have to fight hand-to-hand with the other party.

Of course, in reality, this is not possible, because of the cruelty of siege warfare. Therefore, most of the time it is a siege, and the real assault operation rarely lasts for more than three days in a row, especially the kind of siege warfare with heavy casualties, which is unlikely to exceed three days.

With the virtue of the Qing army at this time, it is quite rare to be able to support it for three days, and to be able to retreat and recuperate after paying more than 20,000 casualties.

Most of the time, in a siege, the besieging side is not as powerful as the defending side. Most of them chose to besiege, or continued harassment, and with the mental will of the exhausted defenders, they attacked as soon as the Qing army came up. As a result, it is really rare for the director to quickly drain his morale.

It's a pity that the Qing army didn't have many talents who really knew the art of war and combat at this time, and more of them were reckless. Or maybe it's some people with ulterior motives, so they don't think it's a problem in this situation.

Despite the thwart of the attack, and the losses were quite heavy. However, Monk Lingqin did not feel that there was any problem, because the loss was only some infantry, and his main cavalry force was not lost, and although this attack did not work, and Huai'an City was not captured, the fierce Cheng dù was real.

Moreover, even when the battle was at its most intense, the escape route deliberately left by Monk Greenqin to Huai'an City has been unblocked, if there is no accident, the other party's request for help must have been more than one wave, and at that time, the reinforcements of the Jingwu Army will inevitably rush over to support, and he can continue to surround the point to help.

As for whether the Jingwu army would lead the army to support, Monk Greenqin had no doubts, because he had long known that the commander of the defenders was called Wang Sanwu, and this person was Li Yongji's own uncle, even if Li Yongji didn't care for those soldiers, his own uncle wanted to save them.

As long as they dare to come to support, this great plain of Huai'an is the burial place of the elite army! He will let the elite army know what the power of cavalry is!

Perhaps because he didn't think defeat was a thing, and he was also shocked by the tragic siege before, and he had to use these people later, so in order to comfort the generals of all parties, Monk Greenqin deliberately held a so-called celebration banquet in the Chinese military tent.

It's obviously a failure, how can it be a celebration? It's very simple, because tactically they failed, but the strategy is that they think they have won, because they have launched a formal battle against the Jingwu army, besiege Huai'an City, and the next thing is to sit and wait for the other party to hurry over, so that they can wait for their own work and break the opponent's reinforcements!

Regardless of whether others believe these statements or not, Monk Greenqin believed them anyway, so he personally held a glass of wine and was the first to walk in front of Yuan Jiasan: "Come, Lord Yuan, I respect you!" ”

"Ah, I can't be like this." Yuan Jiasan immediately stood up, "It is not good to fight in a lowly position, the prince does not blame the lowly position, and the lowly position is very satisfied, and now it is like this...... Worthy of it, worthy of it. ”

"Your unit is brave in battle, I see it in my eyes, as for not being able to defeat Huai'an City, it is not a crime of war, it is purely a short-haired foreign gun and a foreign cannon that is too sharp." Monk Lingqin waved his hand, "You are the same, you have all been very good in the past few days of fighting!" We Mongolians admire warriors the most, so today we don't care about humility, only friendship, come, I will do it first! ”

After speaking, Seng Lingqin drank all the wine in his hand first, and seeing this, Yuan Jiasan also hurriedly drank the wine in his hand.

When he saw Yuan Jiasan drink all the wine, Monk Greenqin turned around and looked at the generals in the tent: "Everyone! At this point, the national crisis is at the extreme, and we are ordered to rebel, and if we want to succeed, we must work together. Originally, I was worried that everyone had their own ideas and would not contribute to the work, but after this war, I was very relieved. ”

After a pause, Monk Greenqin said: "As for saying that this siege is unfavorable, in fact, it is nothing, I expected it for a long time, and it has nothing to do with you."

You must know that I have seen the sharpness of foreign guns and foreign cannons for a long time, and I have also seen a bigger battle than this when I was in Dagukou. Hmph, compared to these pediatrics, the foreigners' naval guns are earth-shattering. Therefore, if you can't defeat Huai'an City, I don't blame you, after all, the foreign guns and foreign cannons used by the short-haired hairs are attacked head-on, and we suffer too much. But. We also have the advantage that we have more people, and we have more and more powerful cavalry! ”

Speaking of this, Monk Greenqin walked to the big map and gestured casually: "Look, this Huai'an is full of flat land, which is the most suitable for my cavalry brigade to gallop, as long as we surround Huai'an City and force the short hair to come to the rescue, we can wait for work." Hit it halfway!

When the time comes, when the other party comes to the rescue, I will lead the main cavalry force to charge in person and break through the opponent's formation, and then you will lead the infantry to take the opportunity to cover and kill, only this once, you can break the enemy on the plain!

As long as the reinforcements are broken, the short hair guarding Huai'an is just rootless water, and sooner or later it will be in our pocket. Even taking the whole of Gangnam is no longer a problem, so temporary setbacks don't matter, as long as we can win in the end. That's not a problem! ”

"The prince is wise!" Yuan Jiasan was the first to praise, "If it weren't for the prince's explanation, I would continue to be stupid, and the prince made it clear." My waiting heart is now open. ”

Seeing Yuan Jiasan say this, the other generals also reacted, and hurriedly laughed and patted their ass. But he laughed at what Monk Glinqin said.

After laughing, Seng Lingqin waved his hand, and after everyone stopped, he continued: "So, you don't have to be discouraged, let alone frustrated, even if this Huai'an City can't be defeated for the time being, but I have seen your bravery and unity!" As long as we are united, just a short-haired clown, sooner or later it will be just your military exploits, so everyone must brace your spirits and make meritorious contributions in the big battle in the coming day! ”

In this way, in an optimistic atmosphere among the senior officers of the Qing army, the Qing army besieging Huai'an City stayed honestly for five days, neither continued the offensive nor quickly retreated, and did not even bother to repair the barracks, wasting precious time and losing the last opportunity to escape.

In the early morning of the sixth day after the Qing army stopped attacking, that is, the ninth day after the start of the Huai'an offensive battle, the reinforcements of the Jingwu Army led by Li Yongji finally arrived in Huai'an, two days faster than the scheduled time!

It turned out that as early as when Li Yongji received Wang Sanwu's call for help, he began to put aside a qiē and quickly mobilize troops to prepare for the rescue in the north.

Because all the units had perfect radio communications, and the rescue of troops was like fighting fires, Li Yongji did not ask Zhang Wei, who was stationed in Hangzhou, to bring his troops over, but asked the first division stationed in Changzhou to go to Zhenjiang as soon as possible, and then continue to cross the Yangtze River to Yangzhou to join the Jiang Yun regiment stationed there.

As for Li Yongji, he led his guard battalion of 800 people, one man and three horses, and went straight to Zhenjiang, because the speed of the horses was faster, and the guard battalion moved more quickly, and when they arrived at Zhenjiang, the first division led by Zhou Da had not yet arrived.

However, Li Yongji did not have time to wait for the arrival of the first division, so he led his troops to cross the river first, fortunately, the defenders of Zhenjiang had already prepared a batch of ferries in advance, so there was no problem in the process of crossing the river, Li Yongji soon arrived in Yangzhou with the guard battalion, and joined the Jiangyun headquarters stationed in Yangzhou, and decided to wait for the arrival of the first division here with peace of mind.

When Li Yongji arrived in Yangzhou and waited for the First Division to come, it was already the second day of the Huai'an Defense Battle, that is, on this morning, he received a second call from Wang Sanwu, in which he heard the decision made by Wang Sanwu after some ideological struggle, that is, to reveal his true plan.

Li Yongji was indeed surprised when he heard that Wang Sanwu was going to use the entire Huai'an City as bait, and even heard that he was going to give up the outer city, let the Qing army enter the city, and then attack the internal and external forces to annihilate this army, Li Yongji was indeed surprised, but he soon calmed down.

Li Yongji doesn't look like a fourteen-year-old child on the surface, but inside he is a middle-aged man in his thirties, and he has experienced a lot of things since he traveled for such a long time, and he will not be moved by anything.

Indeed, at the beginning, when he heard that Wang Sanwu was so bold, he was very angry, especially when he heard that he actually did not evacuate the people of Huai'an City in advance in order to achieve secrecy, which made Li Yongji even more angry.

However, Wang Sanwu is his uncle after all, and he has always been loved by his mother and grandfather, and his grandfather's family is now an inseparable community of interests with him.

The Jingwu army is not very powerful, and the ideological consciousness is very high, but it is all on the surface, in the bones, this is still a modern army that has not departed from feudal thinking, in such an army. Nepotism is not a matter of class, on the contrary, they are more sensitive to things like unloading the mill and killing donkeys.

In other words, although Wang Sanwu did these things without Li Yongji, first of all, most of the people in the Jingwu Army didn't know, and even if they knew, they would think that this matter was not strict, because Wang Sanwu's plan was for Li Yongji's good, and he didn't have any selfishness.

Li Yongji is not unaware of the disadvantages of these old warlord mentality and factional mentality, nor is he unaware that many of them have actually begun to become corrupt. But he knows that now is not a good time to rectify the situation.

If you want to rectify the wind, you must wait for a really stable situation, and there are enough people to replace those commanders who make mistakes, otherwise it is self-destruction of the Great Wall.

Because he thought about it too much, Li Yongji didn't say anything at the time. just let Wang Sanwu do it himself, and at the same time said that he would speed up the rescue. Li Yongji said this to give Wang Sanwu a chance to reform himself, and also to give himself a buffer.

In Li Yongji's opinion. As a person of this era, Wang Sanwu can understand that kind of mistake, as for whether he can continue to use him in the future, the key depends on whether he can understand it. In other words, the key is whether he can tolerate what he will do in the future.

After all. Wang Sanwu only made a subjective mistake, and admitted his mistake to himself in a timely manner, but in fact it did not cause serious consequences, and he did not give up the outer city of Huai'an City, so that the people suffered, which means that he still has a chance to change.

If Wang Sanwu can change himself in time, take the people of Huai'an City as the first, re-defend Huai'an City, and no longer blindly pursue short-term results, it means that he can still be saved, and he is not mad, such a person, Li Yongji can continue to work together, then it is okay to forgive him this time.

Therefore, Li Yongji's current concept is that it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, after all, the times you live in are different and the values are different, but as long as the mistakes you make are still within my tolerance, and you can move closer to my values, and you can gradually follow your own will, then you can still be saved, and you can continue to use it.

Obviously, Wang Sanwu is the kind of person Li Yongji wants to try his best to save, for example, in the previous call with Wang Sanwu, although he did not explicitly criticize Wang Sanwu, he just said that he would watch it himself, but the later sentence will speed up the rescue, which is already hinting at his dissatisfaction, I believe that as long as Wang Sanwu is a smart person, he will definitely understand Li Yongji's true intentions.

That's right, Li Yongji wants a smart person, a smart person who can keep up with his own thinking, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake, as long as the mistake you make is not very strict, you can repent in time, and you can understand your meaning in time, then it's no problem.

In other words, if Wang Sanwu continued to implement his original policy after this phone call with Li Yongji, let the Qing army enter the outer city, and let the people suffer, then Wang Sanwu would be finished, and Li Yongji would definitely not let him go.

On the contrary, if Wang Sanwu changed his strategy in time, went all out to defend Huai'an City, and did not let a single Qing army enter the city, it would mean that he was smart enough and could continue to use it.

I'm not afraid of being ignorant, I'm not afraid that you'll make mistakes, I'm afraid you're stupid enough, because stupid people can't be saved, you can't imagine what a stupid person can do, and naturally you can't do things with a stupid person!

The so-called not afraid of god-like opponents, but afraid of pig-like teammates, this is the meaning!

Fortunately, whether Wang Sanwu understood it or couldn't get over the psychological hurdle himself, he finally changed his strategy and really defended wholeheartedly, and Wang Sanwu heard these things clearly from Situ and the chief of staff.

However, no matter what decision Wang Sanwu makes, Huai'an City must be saved, and since it is already known that Huai'an City is starting to fight with the Qing army, the rescue operation is naturally as fast as possible.

In order to speed up, Wang Sanwu decided not to wait for the first division to arrive, but to abandon a qiē heavy and heavy weapons, and leave first with the guard battalion and the infantry regiment to which Jiang Yun belonged, as for the first division, let them leave something that they could abandon and rush directly to Huai'an City.

On the surface, this kind of action is of course risky, you must know that the elite army is a force that relies heavily on logistics, and without heavy weapons and sufficient ammunition, it cannot continue to fight.

However, Li Yongji has a golden finger, and he has already communicated with Zhang Xinda, and Zhang Xinda will directly use a batch of ammunition he has accumulated in the South African factory, so he is not afraid of logistics problems at all.

A little inventory was made in Yangzhou, and it was found that there were 800 men in the guard battalion, and since there were three horses with one man when they came, the total number of horses exceeded 2,500.

Jiang Yun's infantry regiment was a standard infantry regiment. There were 3,600 men in total, and because it was the main force, they were all equipped with bicycles, and if they abandoned their baggage and heavy weapons, they would be slightly slower than the cavalry galloping at full strength.

In addition, Yangzhou also has 10,000 newly recruited local garrisons, more than 20,000 militiamen, and 3,000 policemen, but these can only fight with the wind, and cannot really fight evil battles.

Considering that the distance between Yangzhou and Huai'an is only about 170 kilometers. At this distance, the horses can not be spared horsepower, and in addition to the need for soldiers, the subsequent battles also need a certain amount of logistics troops, so Li Yongji decided to let the guard battalion have one person and one horse, and the remaining two horses will be handed over to the elite cavalry of the Jiangyun Infantry Regiment.

In this way, including the guard battalion, the cavalry unit was suddenly expanded to 2,500 people, and the empty bicycles were handed over to the more elite garrisons. Join Jiang Yun's infantry regiment, so that the initial rescue force is 2,500 cavalry. plus 3,600 bikers, for a total of 6,100 men.

The 6,100 men were all selected soldiers, and all their baggage and heavy weapons were abandoned, and they only carried light weapons, dry rations, and water bottles with them. Then he rushed to Huai'an for rescue.

Because they were all lightly armed, the more than 6,000 people rode horses and bicycles in the mode of forced march. It only took one day to arrive at Baoying County on the border between Huai'an and Yangzhou, and after arriving here, Li Yongji passed the guò space-time trading system, quietly released a large number of weapons and equipment and food and baggage, so that the troops could rest for a day, and while recovering their bodies, they began a large-scale outfit operation.

The so-called major change of gear is to abandon all the old Sharps rifles and replace them with automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

Among them, 2,500 cavalrymen, including the guard battalion, were all re-equipped with 56 submachine guns, and the remaining troops were all re-equipped with 56 semi-automatic rifles and 56 light machine guns, and the original Sharps rifles were all replaced for the use of the local militia.

The reason for this, in addition to increasing the density of firepower, is also to provide ammunition supply more conveniently, because these automatic semi-automatic weapons use the same bullets, Zhang Xinda can carry them directly from the arsenal to this side, if there is a Sharps rifle, he has to go to the factory area to get it, it is too inconvenient.

In addition to automatic and semi-automatic weapons, Zhang Xinda also prepared 48 82-mm mortars, 24 Type 63 107-mm towed rocket launchers, and 100 Type 69 rocket launchers for Li Yongji just in case, and the related ammunition could not be counted.

However, these weapons were not issued directly to Li Yongji, but were to be transmitted to Li Yongji after he arrived on the battlefield and established the former enemy position, so as not to slow down the march.

In this way, after everyone had rested, and the soldiers who had come into contact with these weapons for the first time were initially familiar with the performance of the newly acquired weapons, it was only on the third day that the rescue force returned to the north.

However, this time they did not advance rapidly, but kept their bodies, so it took another day, and on the fourth day, that is, the fifth day of the beginning of the Huai'an defense battle, they rushed to Xujia Village, thirty miles outside Huai'an.

Because of the small size of the troops, the secretive operation, and the tragic siege battle just carried out by the Qing army, the reconnaissance operation on the periphery came to an end temporarily, which allowed the elite army brought by Li Yongji to touch Xujia Village, thirty miles outside Huai'an, and was not discovered by the Qing army.

In fact, this is also related to the fact that most of the villagers in Xujia Village were captured by the Qing army before and used as cannon fodder to attack Huai'an City.

Just because of this incident, there are few people in Xujia Village, except for the old people who are children, and most of them hate the Qing army, even if they find out that the Jingwu army is coming, there is no one who reports the news, of course, they can't even think about it, because as soon as the Jingwu army comes, they completely block this area.

After arriving in Xujia Village, Li Yongji first talked to Wang Sanwu in Huai'an City on the phone, and after learning about the current situation of the Qing army, he decided to take advantage of the fact that the Qing army did not find out and hurriedly build fortifications in Xujia Village.

Because whether it is Li Yongji or Wang Sanwu, their opinions are surprisingly unanimous, that is, they all believe that the Qing army did not continue to attack later, in addition to losing the momentum of the attack, the most important thing is to wait for reinforcements from the encirclement point.

No matter how bad the Qing army is, there are still 300,000 troops, and there are 30,000 cavalry troops, and Li Yongji brought too few reinforcements, so he must prepare in advance and not be reckless.

In this way, Li Yongji first built three barbed wire fences outside Xujia Village overnight, and then began to dig trenches, and in addition to digging trenches, bazookas, rocket launchers, mortars, and even related ammunition provided by Zhang Xinda have also quietly appeared here, and the newly formed heavy firepower units have also begun to hurriedly learn how to use these weapons.

Although these people are new to these heavy firepower, they are mainly familiar with the newly emerged Type 63 107mm rocket launchers, such as mortars and rocket launchers, Li Yongji's guard battalion has long been in contact, and there is no difficulty in operating these, and even if it is rocket artillery, as long as it is operated according to the process, it will not be a problem.

In other words, by this time, Li Yongji's 800 guard battalion troops had basically become artillery, and the tasks of the infantry were handed over to others.

Not only that, in order to be able to command this unit more smoothly and give full play to his firepower superiority, Li Yongji also asked Zhang Xinda for a large number of miniature walkie-talkies, so that every soldier is equipped with a walkie-talkie, so that Li Yongji can directly command every soldier, and can also let every soldier fully understand the shape of the battlefield.

In addition, the M56 steel helmet is one per person, although it is a little ugly, but the performance is undoubted; There are also a lot of other auxiliary military materials, such as military tents, military blankets, gas stoves, etc., chocolates, compressed biscuits, all kinds of canned food, and things like tea are piled up into a small mountain, not to mention those officers and soldiers who come into contact with these things for the first time, even the guard battalion of the elite army smacks their tongues.

In this way, it was not until the end of the next day, that is, the sixth day after the start of the defense of Huai'an City, that the Qing army finally reacted and noticed Li Yongji's troops.

And after they sent someone to confirm the news, a day had passed, and on the seventh day, the Qing army finally made a decision and began to send a group of soldiers and horses over, and when they wanted to take action, Li Yongji's Xujiacun sniper base had already dug four circular trenches, and there were barbed wire fences between each trench, plus the previous three barbed wire, a total of seven barbed wire.

By this time, although Li Yongji's troops were also slightly tired, Li Yongji no longer worried about his own security, because not only did he have a relatively complete defensive position, but also the more than 6,000 people he brought with him also had advanced weapons beyond this era.

Now, Li Yongji is planning to rely on the geographical advantage to fight a defensive war, one is to be safe, if the other side does not care about himself, he can slowly wait for the reinforcements of the first division to arrive, and then fight them in a dignified and honest decisive battle after the army gathers; On the contrary, if they dare to come and storm their positions, then let them understand what modern warfare is! (To be continued......)