Episode 92 Heading North? Eastward?

But today it was the opposite, and instead the infantry ran to the front. Seeing that Taiyuan City could not pass through for a while, he asked the infantry to get off the car and walk, bypass the city from the mountain roads on both sides of Taiyuan City, and rush to the north of the city to attack the remnants of the Qing army. Some light tanks and fully tracked armored vehicles with good cross-country ability also climbed over the mountain roads on both sides outside the city. Most of the bulky self-propelled guns, towed artillery, wheeled military vehicles, etc., still honestly passed through the jubilant Taiyuan City.

As soon as the Ming infantry bypassed the city of Taiyuan, they immediately climbed on those light tanks and armored vehicles and attacked like wolves.

The mountains on the east and west sides have become "flaming mountains", and the thick smoke mixed with the ashes of the grass and trees is blown by the north wind, and the soldiers of the Ming army are so smoked that they can't open their eyes. But even so, it can't stop their "arrogance" as victors. Soon, a large group of half-burned and half-smoked Qing troops appeared in front of them, all supporting each other, half-dead and walking north. As soon as they saw the Ming army coming, those who could run threw down their companions and immediately ran away. The wounded, and those who were so choked that they couldn't run, lay on the ground and surrendered directly.

The reporters accompanying the Ming army in Shanxi were given priority to sit on light tanks and armored vehicles, and followed the first wave of Ming troops to the north. They climbed beside the tanks and armored vehicles, held up the cameras and video cameras in their hands, and kept filming the Qing troops all over the mountains. At first, I only saw a small group of Qing troops, but later as I advanced northward, I would encounter several times more Qing troops every kilometer, or run away in embarrassment, or sit on the ground and surrender if I couldn't run. By an hour or so, tens of thousands of Qing prisoners had been captured.

Keeping their mission in mind, the People's Guard Political and Labor Corps pulled the journalists, especially the foreign ones, to interrogate the prisoners on the spot right next to the tank. Under the filming of the hand-cranked camera, those captives of 1510 told themselves which unit they belonged to, what orders they were on, how they sneaked to Shanxi, how they went out day and night, how they hid in the woods, and how they prepared to occupy Taiyuan City...... It's all out of the way.

The political workers were overjoyed, and the reporters accompanying the army were even more ecstatic. Yesterday, Beijing was still "refuting rumors" in a righteous and strict manner, and today it has seized tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of living evidence. This big mouth was pumped on the face of the Qing court, and it was sturdy.

The Ming army sent additional manpower to ease order in Taiyuan City, and soon opened up several wide streets for the army to pass quickly. The excited citizens were also invited to the side, to see if they could, and they were not allowed to squeeze into the line any longer. This time the passage of mechanized troops was several times faster. By noon, a mechanized division of the People's Guard, which was the vanguard, and three army motorized infantry divisions, basically passed through Taiyuan City with their heavy equipment.

The vanguard continued to advance rapidly northward, leaving behind an army infantry division to search for prisoners in the mountains and forests north of Taiyuan City. By the time the meal was served at noon, about 150,000 to 180,000 Qing prisoners had been gathered and sat in several open areas waiting to be processed.

According to the prisoners' confessions, the entire Shanxi Corps had five Eight Banner Divisions and 15 Han Army Divisions, with a total strength of about 28-300,000 people. That is to say, a third to half of the Qing army is still scattered. A considerable part of these scattered Qing troops must have been blown up and burned to death on the mountain, and did not come down. Others, still in a straggler state, either fled north or wandered around.

Now it can be said that the Shanxi Corps of the Qing Army, five Eight Banner Divisions and fifteen elite Han Army Divisions, have all been reimbursed. The vast gate of Beishan West has been opened, and there is not a single Qing army in front of it, leaving it to the Ming army to occupy.

……

After Taiyuan, there are more mountains and fewer plains. According to the original plan of the Ming army headquarters, after passing Taiyuan, it should swing all the way to the north, occupy Daixian at maximum speed, pass through Yanmen Pass, and then take Datong, and then pounce on Zhangjiakou to the northeast, take the Zhangjiakou tank base of the Northern Qing Dynasty, and at the same time threaten Beijing from the north.

- Of course, the old men of the high command, including Xiang Xiaoqiang, did not expect to be able to enter Beijing directly from Zhangjiakou. It's good to be able to hit Xuanhua. The Beijing-Tianjin defense circle of the Northern Qing Dynasty is heavily armed and elite soldiers gathered, and Xishan, Yanshan, and Badaling are all lofty mountains and mountains, and the pillboxes and batteries are dense, and they are not so easy to fight. In addition, there is no railway on this road, even if there is no resistance at all, just march, the Ming army is already at the end of the crossbow when it arrives in Zhangjiakou. And the Qing soldiers of the Beijing and Tianjin generation are fighting on the inside line, waiting for work. However, if the Ming Army's Left Army Group could advance to Zhangjiakou - even if it only advanced to Datong, it would be able to tie the entire Beijing-Tianjin Corps and the Northern Corps firmly to the north, and it would be impossible to go south to participate in the Central Plains War.

This was the original more optimistic plan. But now the offensive of Army Group Right is seriously blocked, and one can even say "frustrated". By noon, it was only an average of 4-5 kilometers to the north. Moreover, although the casualties were still within the tolerance range of the Ming army, they were quite large.

Li Gensheng and the others were to worry about the specific operations, and Xiang Xiaoqiang only studied strategic issues with a few old men.

Xiang Xiaoqiang spent the morning pondering the giant map in the hall. The more he pondered, the more he felt that he should let the Army Group on the Left stop advancing northward, turn eastward, and take Shijiazhuang first.

"As long as Shijiazhuang is taken," Xiang Xiaoqiang knocked on the map in a small conference room and said to the two old men Zhang and Tang, "then south of Shijiazhuang and north of the Yellow River, half of Zhili will be won." You see, there are two large north-south railways in the North China Plain in the Northern Qing Dynasty, one is the Jinpu Railway in the east, and the other is the Jingnan Railway in the west, next to Shanxi.

"Shijiazhuang is an important hub of the Jingnan line, take Shijiazhuang, then a series of places south of Shijiazhuang: Xingtai, Handan, Anyang, Xinxiang, immediately lost the railway supply, plus there are not a few soldiers, it is not a fight to surrender. After taking down this large piece in the southwest corner of Zhili, we can then move eastward, attack Shandong from the north of the Yellow River, and insert it in the back of the Central Plains Corps of the Qing Army. In this way, the north and south are attacked, and the Central Plains Corps is also defeated.

"Even if the Central Plains Corps is tightly defended, we can't beat the Yellow River to the south for a while, so we blow up the Jinan Yellow River Bridge, which is equivalent to keeping the Central Plains Corps in Shandong. The Central Plains Corps has become a lone army, so not only do we have no heart to resist anymore, but we can let go of the advance north of the Yellow River, and we don't have to worry about the Central Plains Corps behind the buttocks. The battle situation in Shandong and Xuzhou was handed over to the right army group to slowly grind with it.

"In addition, Shijiazhuang is also a railway hub in North China. If you take Shijiazhuang, you will take the Jingnan line south of Shijiazhuang. After taking the Jingnan line south of Shijiazhuang, then we will have a railway from Nanyang to Shijiazhuang, and our left army group will have a railway. We can load the logistical supplies on the train in Nanyang, and then go straight north to Shijiazhuang, and then from Shijiazhuang to the west, along the Shilu Railway into Shanxi.

"This is equivalent to saying that in the future, we will have a railway supply line in Shanxi, and we will no longer have to go around from Sanmenxia and Hanguguan as we are doing now, and we will have to cross the Yellow River pontoon bridge in the north, and then use cars to transport it north from the big ravine...... As long as we have this railway in our hands, we will blow up the Jinan Bridge and lock up the Central Plains Corps in Shandong...... Then you can concentrate your efforts and attack Beijing in a big way. ”

……

Xiang Xiaoqiang was foaming at the mouth, his eyebrows were dancing, Zhang Zhaoxian and Tang Yunsheng looked at each other, and then looked at the map, but they didn't speak, they were all pondering.

When Xiang Xiaoqiang was almost finished talking and looked at the two of them hopefully, Tang Yunsheng shook his head and said:

"Well, your idea is bold and it sounds appealing. But...... Have you ever thought about it, there must be a premise for all this you said: the Beijing-Tianjin Corps and the Northern Corps of the Qing Dynasty will not move their troops and will not go south to reinforce Shijiazhuang. And if we want to prevent the heavy Qing troops from going south for reinforcements, then our left army group must first take the whole of Shanxi, advance to Datong and Zhangjiakou, and appear behind Beijing. - In that case, the Qing prisoners would rather abandon the Central Plains Corps than let the heavy troops leave the Beijing-Tianjin defensive circle. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang was stunned for a moment, looked at the map again, and suddenly realized that one of the important purposes of the left army group to occupy the entire Shanxi was to threaten the Beijing-Tianjin defensive circle and contain the Qing army's Beijing-Tianjin corps, so that the right army group could let go of the decisive battle in the south. Now like this...... It seems a bit of a sacrifice.

Tang Yunsheng continued:

"If you look at the map, the terrain of Shanxi is easy to defend and difficult to attack. And now Shanxi is very empty, and there are not many Qing troops. This is a God-given opportunity. It was too late for the Qing army to reinforce Shanxi on two legs, and we sat on the wheels of the car and could take the whole of Shanxi in three or four days. And after we occupy it, it will be difficult for the Qing army to recapture it. What better opportunity could there be? Shanxi's topography and geographical location allow it to advance and retreat, and it can threaten the North China Plain anytime and anywhere.

"As long as we occupy Shanxi, then the Jingnan Line, Shijiazhuang, or the North China Plain will all be ours sooner or later. But if we are in a hurry to attack Shijiazhuang first, and leave time for the Qing army to occupy Beishanxi, then it will be difficult to say what the battlefield in North China will look like in the future. …… If we don't get it right, even if we later conquer Shandong, Zhili, and even Beijing, the Qing Dynasty will still divide one side in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, and we will never be able to get rid of it. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang also nodded again and again when he heard it, and felt that it made sense, Jiang was still old and spicy. But he always felt that it was a pity to let go of such a good opportunity. If we don't take Shijiazhuang and attack the Central Plains Corps from behind, after the reinforcements of the Beijing-Tianjin Corps move south along the Jingnan Line, and the Shijiazhuang, Xingtai, and Handan lines are filled with the Eight Banner Divisions, it will be more difficult for the Army Group Left, which is already weak in strength and tight in transportation, to threaten the North China Plain from Shanxi.

Even, if the reinforcements of the Qing army on the Jingnan Line in the west and the Central Plains Corps on the Jinpu Line in the east were connected and used to support each other by using the North China Railway Network, then the already difficult battle in the south would be even more difficult.

In particular, the Jingnan Railway. If this major trunk line is in our hands and not in our hands, the impact on the strategic battle situation will be very different.

If the Jingnan Line is not in hand, and the Left Army Group only relies on road transportation, then even if it occupies the whole of Shanxi and advances to Datong or Zhangjiakou, it will be the end of the crossbow, and it can only be placed there to see.

But if the Jingnan Line is in hand, and the Left Army Group can be transported by straight-line railway, then it will not be the "end of the strong crossbow". A direct attack on Beijing from Shijiazhuang, combined with a landing on the Bohai Sea, was "howling".