Episode 93 Sparrow War

On the left side of the Shanxi battlefield, after the Ming army broke through Taiyuan, it did not encounter any resistance, and drove all the way in. By the time it was time to set up camp in the evening, the northernmost vanguard had already driven through Yuanping County, which was still more than ten kilometers away from Dai County and about 20 kilometers away from Yanmen Pass. Yanmen Pass is a pass on the Hengshan Mountain Range. From Yanmen Pass, it passes through the Hengshan Mountain Range, and the north side is a belt with many plains and few mountains.

The Ming army command predicts that tomorrow morning after passing the Yanmen Pass, and then advancing several dozen kilometers to the northeast, it will be able to reach Datong in the evening. The day after tomorrow, occupy Datong, and spend another day consolidating in the east, west, and north directions, and the whole of Shanxi will be taken. The next target is Zhangjiakou.

However, the war in the Eastern Central Plains was fought extremely hard. By 7 p.m. on the 27th, the entire front had advanced only about 7 kilometers on average.

The Ming army was very uncomfortable with the great change in the Qing army's will to fight, and interrogated many prisoners of war throughout the day. Whether it was a prisoner of war of the Eight Banners Division or a prisoner of war of the Han army, they all said the order from above: if you die in battle, your family can get a large pension, and if you surrender, you must be dealt with according to treason. Immediate family members, i.e. parents, are executed, and the rest of the family is sent to hard labor for life. Therefore, they are not willing to surrender until they have to.

At first, the Ming army didn't believe it, because no army had ever given such a cruel order in ancient and modern times. Capture on the battlefield is inevitable, and it would be too sensational to have to kill the whole family just because they were captured. But after a whole day of interrogation, various units on the battlefield and thousands of prisoners were interrogated, and the answers were much the same.

This information was gradually taken seriously by the intelligence officers of all fronts, and they were summarized upwards one after another, and in the evening, it was transmitted back to the Nanjing Command.

The question that had depressed the High Command all day now finally had an answer. It turned out that what quickly raised the Qing army's will to resist was such a "cruel order".

The entire high command was in an uproar for a while.

The generals lamented that they had never heard of any army in history that had done this. This kind of order is what the Qing Lu can give out. Only Xiang Xiaoqiang suspects that this eighty percent was instigated by that Molotov, right? Wasn't this kind of policy of "one person surrendering and the whole family being involved" later became the killer weapon of the Soviet army. If it weren't for this policy, in '41 and '42, what would Stalin do to withstand the German attack? Now in this time and space, Lao Maozi should not want to test it on us Chinese first.

However, in the face of the Qing army's policy, the Ming army had no way to break it for a while, so it could only cheer up and redouble its efforts to attack.

……

It was getting dark, and the Ming army's attacks in various places gradually eased, and then they consolidated their positions and stopped the attack. The night was not conducive to the development of the advantages of the Ming army. First of all, there is no air cover, and secondly, the tank has become half-blind and basically useless.

Throughout the night, the flares of the Qing army's hundreds of kilometers long position were not broken. One group after another, after taking off, they lined up and slowly floated down. The ground between the two armies was brightly illuminated and white, and the devastated ground was full of craters, with bright bulges accompanied by black craters, like the surface of the moon. Endless stretches of broken barbed wire swayed in the wind, reflecting the cold light of metal, which was extremely eerie.

Although the large-scale offensive was stopped, the Ming army still did not intend to let the Qing army sleep well. From time to time, they suddenly came to a burst of artillery bombardment at a certain place in the Qing army's position, and assumed the posture that they were about to attack from there. Then, the Qing troops on the more than ten kilometers of defense line were all worried and did not dare to sleep, grabbing their guns and staring intently at the direction of the Ming army's position, ready to meet at any time. But I always waited for an hour or two, but there was no movement at all.

After several times like this, the Qing army also confirmed that the Ming army was bluffing, and once again strengthened the idea that "the Ming army has no air superiority and tank superiority at night and will not attack". In the second half of the night, the Ming army engaged in this kind of "artillery teasing" again, and the Qing army was not too nervous. In addition to the necessary precautions, everyone else should go to bed.

At two or three o'clock in the second half of the night, the Ming army estimated that the Qing army was also numb to the "artillery fire teasing", and began to change its tactics, no longer firing artillery shells, but signal flares and smoke screen shells.

For a time, the sky over the Ming army's position was red, green, and white...... Signal flares of various colors appeared one after another, as if the divisions and regiments had suddenly stepped up their cipher communication, as if they were about to make some big move. Next, the Ming army began to fight smoke screens again. With the sound of rows of artillery in the rear, batches of smoke bombs fell in front of the Qing army's position, spraying thick smoke wildly, and suddenly obscuring the sight of the Qing army's observation post. The night was already dark, and with so many smoke screens, the sight of the Qing army's observation post was suddenly extremely poor.

As a result, the Qing army became nervous again. In the Qing defense section with smoke screens, the soldiers who had been arranged to sleep were now woken up, rubbing their eyes, clutching their rifles, and lying on the edge of the trenches ready to meet a possible attack.

But as in the first half of the night, the Qing army's position was noisy and tense for a long time, and nothing happened on the other side.

After the Ming army engaged in two separate sections of the Qing army's defense, the Qing army was under fire and was ready to retaliate with a tooth for a tooth and launch an artillery bombardment on the Ming army's position.

But that's the benefit of initiative. Now the initiative on the battlefield is in the hands of the Ming army, the Ming army is the attacker, and the Qing army is the defender. The Ming army shelled the positions of the Qing army, and the Qing army would be nervous, because the Ming army really had the possibility of attacking. But the Qing army shelled the positions of the Ming army, and the Ming army would not be nervous, because it was impossible for the Qing army to take the initiative to attack.

In fact, the Ming army was expecting the Qing army to abandon its fixed position and jump out of the trenches to charge at it. The Qing army was not so stupid, it would not be so stupid as to give up the trenches that had been operating for more than a month, and use flesh and blood to hedge against the planes and tanks of the Ming army.

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Originally, the normal battle between the two armies of A and B, Party A has air superiority and armor superiority, and Party B only has superiority in troops, trenches and artillery, so it is true that Party A attacks and Party B defends during the day, but at night, when Party A completely loses air superiority and partially loses armor superiority, Party B should seize the opportunity, give full play to its own military and artillery superiority, actively attack Party A, start a night battle, and strive to recover the defeat during the day. Because night is always an ally of the weak, the great disparity between the two sides during the day is often no longer so great at night.

However, in addition to the respective advantages and disadvantages of the two armies, the Ming and Qing armies also had advantages in training, automatic weapons, and morale. The quality of individual soldiers, the level of training, the organizational ability, and the firepower of the light weapons in the hands of the Ming army were not comparable to those of the Qing army. And these are all killer moves in night battles. In addition to the level of training, automatic weapons, and organizational ability of the troops, the Qing army was far inferior to the Ming army, and it also had the most fatal weakness - morale.

Now the Qing army has been kidnapped by the imperial court and has to seriously resist. They will seriously resist in order not to surrender en masse for the sake of their families. But it is also limited to serious resistance, and will not seriously attack. Jumping out of the trenches and charging at the Ming positions, the chances of being captured must have been much higher than staying in the trenches.

This kind of night attack requires agility, boldness, and a high degree of subjective initiative. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to have high morale, and it is the soldier's desire to attack the enemy, not to be forced with a gun. Now even if the Qing soldiers take care of their families and have to be ordered to charge the Ming army, then every soldier's mind is how to save their lives, and then escape back when they have the opportunity.

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When the Qing army was bombarded, the Ming army still slept and slept, and the observation that should be observed was not at all like the Qing army's heart was always hanging.

The Qing army shelled for a while, and he didn't think it was interesting. Let the soldiers attack, it is estimated that they will either collapse at the touch of a button or there will be no return, and then the flag will die down.

The Qing army has died down, and the Ming army has stopped, how can the Qing army sleep well. Otherwise, the spirit of the Qing army will be so good during the day tomorrow, how will the battle be fought. So according to the original plan, signal flares and smoke screens were fired again.

The Qing army has been fooled twice, and they are no longer nervous. Based on the repeated experience of this night, the commanders of the Qing army were convinced that no matter how much the Ming army tried, it was just harassment, and it was impossible for them to attack like this without air cover and tank superiority. Faced with layers of smoke screens, the Qing commanders simply increased their observation posts and doubled their patrol teams.

But at half past three in the second half of the night, this time, the Ming army didn't simply fight the smoke screen. After the Ming army fired a smoke screen for a while, the smoke screen in front of the Qing army's position was thick to a certain extent, and began to dispatch some tank platoons and armored car companies, a group of more than a dozen vehicles, and the engines roared in the direction of the Qing army's position. Along the way, they met Qing army patrols, and the machine guns on tanks, machine guns, and submachine guns on armored vehicles spat out tongues of fire, and almost instantly beat the Qing army patrol of those few people into a sieve.

On the side of the Qing army's position, some of the defense sections heard the sound of machine guns, some of the defense sections heard the sound of tank guns, and some of the defense sections heard the roar of engines...... But the smoke was thick in front of me, and new smoke bombs kept coming and exploding, and nothing could be observed.

The Qing army's defense line was completely hairy, and it had already had a certain resistance to the Ming army's "sparrow war", but now the psychological defense line has been broken again - a large number of tanks are about to drive under their noses!

In extreme fear, the commanders ordered artillery to meet them. For a while, the rear of the Qing army was again full of 10,000 cannons, and the vast area between the two armies burst into bursts of light.

However, at night, the line of sight is already very poor, and even with the help of flares, a series of shooting elements such as searching for targets, estimating distances, calculating angles, calculating movement speeds, etc., will be greatly reduced. In addition, now that the Ming army is slamming smoke bombs, the Qing army observers can't find the target at all, let alone calculate the yuan. Although the Qing army had a lot of artillery, the anti-tank guns could not find a target at all, and could only use howitzers to bombard blindly, not even indirect aiming.

However, as long as the target of the tank does not hit directly, it does not care about shelling. The tank detachments of the Ming army did not turn on their lights, but just dangled in front of the Qing army, scaring the Qing army with the roar of the engine.

In this case, even though the Qing army knew that the Ming army might still be harassing, they did not dare to sleep. After all, the tank is just around the corner, and it may actually come at any time.

The Ming army harassed like this for an hour, and when the goal was achieved, the tank detachments collected their troops one after another, drove back to rest, and the smoke screen bombs were no longer fired.

Gradually, the smoke screen cleared, and the vast area between the two armies returned to "refreshment". The flares of the Qing army were also thinned.

……

After almost a night of tossing, the Qing army's more than 500-kilometer defense line, there was not a single section of the troops that slept well. They were constantly harassed and intimidated by various means by the Ming army, and they were often gathered again after falling asleep, sleeping again after being nervous for a while, and being gathered again after falling asleep...... In this way, at half past four in the morning and almost five o'clock in the morning, all the front-line Qing troops of the entire defense line could not stand it: they fought for a day during the day, and they could not sleep well at night. Lack of sleep, coupled with repeated tossing and turning from nervous to relaxed, and then nervous and then relaxed, are on the verge of collapse, and the mind is already like a mess of paste.

The first-line commanders of the Qing army reported to the higher authorities one after another, applying for a change of guard with the second- and third-line troops in the rear.

Beijing, Guangwu was also tossed all night and did not sleep well, and there were several false alarms in a row. However, he also strictly ordered his subordinates to report immediately if the Central Plains Corps was attacked again. When it was almost dawn in the early hours of the morning, he was also yawning and his eyes were red, but he had to redouble his spirits.

He looked at the clock, and it was almost five o'clock. He immediately grabbed the phone and reached the headquarters of the Central Plains Corps in Xuzhou, and strictly ordered them to redouble their vigilance and be ready to repel the real attack of the Ming army at dawn at any time.

Attacking at dawn, this is the consistent method of the Ming army, and everyone is already experienced.

In fact, there is no need for strict orders from the Central Plains Corps, and the entire command system of the Central Plains Corps also understands that the more dawn it is, the more dangerous it is, and no matter whether the soldiers open their eyes or not, they all carry guns to the front line to supervise the battle.

For more than 500 kilometers, the entire Qing army's defense line was like a great enemy, all the artillery was in position, the shells were loaded, and the barrels were raised high.

In the intricate trenches, the yawning Qing soldiers also cheered up at this time, lying in front of the trenches, holding rifles, machine guns, and anti-tank guns, staring at the ruined earth in the distance.

……

Half an hour passed.

An hour passed.

An hour and a half passed.

The sun slowly came out and rose slowly, and the whole earth was covered with a layer of crimson morning sun.

In front of the position, a large flock of sparrows chirped, one moment rushing into the sky, the next falling in search of food.

Occasionally, a magpie flew down and jumped on the ground, as if trying to rummage through the blasted dirt to see what delicious insects were there.

It's past eight o'clock.

The problem was that there was no movement on the side of the Ming army's position.