After the capture of Danzhou, there are only two small county towns left between here and the capital of Qiongzhou, Lingao and Chengmai, and according to the preliminary reconnaissance and survey, these two counties have limited troops, the city defense is weak, and there is no big threat to the coalition army. Takahashinan even made a military order, and it only took an hour to take this kind of small county town with weak defenses.

Of course, the greatest difficulty facing the coalition forces was not the limited number and combat effectiveness of the guards in Lingao County, but the distance of 60 miles from Danzhou City to Lingao County - this distance was almost three times that of Danzhou Bay Baimajing Wharf to Danzhou City.

It would be a bit impractical to fight a blitzkrieg with very high mechanical requirements at the level of equipment in the seventeenth century, in the primitive traffic conditions of this time and space. Even if the team led by Qian Tiandun has undergone a long period of rigorous training, it cannot change the fact that the mobility ability is not enough. If you have to rely on the foot strength of the soldiers to carry out continuous long-distance attacks, it will inevitably greatly affect the combat effectiveness.

As the commander, Qian Tiandun naturally would not be unaware of the stakes, but he had already had a solution to the problem, and immediately after entering the city, he asked people to collect cattle and horses in the city and gather them as a means of transportation for the next move. Of course, it is impossible to immediately turn the militia soldiers, who have only been trained in infantry, into cavalry, and even if there are enough horses, they can only ride slowly.

Just 10 days before the launch of the Liaoyuan Operation, the Danzhou Office and several Daming commercial banks jointly trafficked a batch of pack horses from the mainland to Danzhou, saying that they planned to renovate the official road leading from Danzhou to Fucheng through Lingao and Chengmai counties. For this reason, a large-scale horse farm was built outside the West Gate, and hundreds of pack horses were kept in captivity. Of course, the renovation of the official road is not the real purpose of trafficking these pack horses to Danzhou, after the troops led by Qian Tiandun arrived, they went to receive this batch of pack horses as soon as possible.

In addition to the cattle and horses collected from all over the city, the mobility of the militia army has finally been guaranteed to a certain extent, and the short-distance delivery capacity has also increased several times compared with before. At least for the next leg of the journey to the east, the main force will not have to break its legs.

The battle plan drawn up by the General Staff of the Central Military Commission was to take Danzhou as the www.biquge.info of the Biqu Pavilion, push it from west to east along Lingao and Chengmai, and finally uproot Fucheng, the largest stronghold, to complete the actual control of the northern coast. The biggest difficulty in this battle plan is not how to storm the city and defeat the Ming army, but how to enable the Annan coalition forces carrying out combat missions to achieve rapid mobility between various battlefields, and ensure that the logistics supply of these thousands of troops can keep up with the advance speed of the front-line troops. At the moment, the only means of transport that can be used are livestock.

The militia army that entered the city temporarily requisitioned all the restaurants and restaurants in the city to make lunch for the troops of the thousands of people. Of course, due to the current status of the pirate, these meals and drinks will definitely not be paid. However, in addition, Qian Tiandun still strictly ordered all ministries, in addition to a clear target of arrest, not to arbitrarily break into people's homes, let alone loot or harm innocent people at will.

Of course, during the war, there will always be some guys who fish in troubled waters, and Danzhou City will not be an exception, during the period when the coalition forces entered the city to control the various urban areas, they caught a lot of guys who took advantage of the chaos to steal or rob, and some of them even said that they could "share the account" with the coalition forces without knowing whether they were alive or dead. For this kind of guy who wants money and doesn't want to die, the officers who caught them were also a little crying and laughing. After consulting Qian Tiandun, all the people who tried to make a fortune in the war were arrested and sent to the seashore in long strings, where they would be waiting for a long life as miners in the Heitugang Coal Mine.

During the soldiers' meals, Qian Tiandun had some of the city's unofficial leaders gathered, including local merchants, scholars and scholars, as well as some gentry. In order to ensure that after the withdrawal of the large army, they could continue to maintain effective control, Qian Tiandun believed that it was necessary to stabilize the situation of these high-level figures, and let them help maintain social order and the turnover of daily necessities during this period. Of course, the most important thing is to ring the alarm bell in front of these people, so that they can dispel some uneasy thoughts.

As Qian Tiandun, it is definitely not suitable to come forward to do this, so Zheng Ting was temporarily arrested and asked to give these locals a vaccination. Zheng Ting didn't shirk much, and took on the task very happily. During the previous year's protection of the **** to recover the south of Annan, Zheng Ting was also one of the generals who led the troops, and he did this kind of thing at that time.

On the afternoon of October 3, just over two hours after the capture of Danzhou City, the east gate of Danzhou City was opened, and hundreds of horse-drawn carriages and ox carts ran out of the city and drove northeast along the official road. That night, the vanguard on horseback had marched only about ten miles to the county seat of Lingao, and the main force had already stepped into the confines of Lingao County.

Although Lingao County was not a tricky target, considering the efficiency of the operation, Qian Tiandun did not ask this tired team to launch an attack overnight, but arranged for the troops to set up camp in the field to rest for one night.

The next morning, after a night's rest, the coalition forces seized control of the gate of Lingao County in almost exactly the same way as the previous day, and then the large army swarmed up and occupied the small county town. Compared with this "huge" army, the size of the city's population of only about 2,000 people is obviously not a big wave. In the siege battle, no one was killed on the side of the coalition army, and only two people were killed in the Ming guard army defending the city, and the others fled, surrendered and surrendered, and did not encounter strong means of resistance. Lin Kochi County did not stick to it like the Lord Zhizhou in Danzhou, but slipped directly through the gate at the other end when the city was broken.

However, this is not the time to escape if you want to, the magistrate escaped only seven or eight miles, and was intercepted by the action team carrying out the blockade mission on the periphery.

After capturing Lingao County, the coalition forces began to divide their troops into two routes, all the way to the southeast, and attacked Chengmai County. The other way is along the Wenlan River outside Lingao County to the sea, where they will take a fleet of boats from Danzhou Bay and follow the coastline directly to land near Fucheng.

Responsible for attacking Chengmai County is the Annan militia army led by Zheng Ting's 1,000 Annan guards **** plus two companies, and the Annan army is the main force, and the militia army is responsible for assisting, which is also the only battle in the entire Liaoyuan operation that is determined to be fought by the Annan army. Therefore, Zheng Ting attached great importance to this, and almost all of the veterans selected were excellent veterans who had performed well in the Southern Campaign last year.

On October 6, the army led by Zheng Ting arrived outside the county seat of Chengmai.

At this time, the news that the pirates landed near Danzhou on a large scale and captured Danzhou had already reached Chengmai, and the tactics of sneaking up and grabbing the city gate would not work. Zheng Ting could only let his troops set up a position and prepare for a siege battle.

There are not many guards stationed in Chengmai County, only 300 people, and there are still many shortages. Zheng Ting didn't bother to do any persuasion and other actions, anyway, this time he came here to train the troops, if he didn't fight a fight, where would the effect of this training come from? Besides, Qian Tiandun also gave him full autonomy, as long as he didn't kill innocents indiscriminately on Chengmai's side. The militia of those two companies actually played the role of supervising the war.

Zheng Ting, who had received formal military training in Sanya, knew very well how to fight this kind of siege warfare, so when he saw that the gate of Chengmai County was closed, he immediately asked people to drag the artillery out. Although it was only a few small three-pounder and six-pounder cannons, it was more than enough to attack the gates of such a small county town.

After a few cannon shots, the four-inch-thick gate was struck crookedly, and although it had not yet fallen, it was already crumbling. Zheng Ting was not in a hurry to command his men and horses to rush up, anyway, all the arms consumption this time was provided by Hai Han, and he didn't have to care about the amount of ammunition consumed.

After several small cannons fired three more rounds and completely knocked down the city gate, Zheng Ting unhurriedly drew his command knife and waved forward to give the order to attack. Although there were still sporadic Ming troops poking their heads out of the city walls at this time, trying to resist the attack with bows and arrows and old-fashioned arquebuses, these recalcitrant elements were quickly named with rifles by several militia snipers standing more than 200 meters away.

Zheng Ting also knew that Qian Tiandun had a group of sharpshooters under him, using a special kind of musket, which could maintain extremely high hitting accuracy from a distance of 100 zhang, but it was the first time he had seen these people shoot on the battlefield, and he couldn't help but ask the Haihan officer next to him: "What is the range of this rifle?"

The officer replied proudly: "If the rifle is properly tuned and operated by a skilled hand, it can hit a target two feet in diameter from a distance of two miles." ”

Zheng Ting couldn't help but gasp when he heard this, this kind of shooting distance is almost farther than artillery, and the accuracy of hitting is even more unattainable by artillery - after the firing range exceeds one mile, the landing point of the artillery can basically only be controlled by luck. With such a powerful weapon, if the two armies were facing each other, taking advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to directly shoot the generals in their formation, wouldn't it be an unsolvable tactic?

Zheng Ting thought for a while and said, "If the weather is gloomy and inconvenient, or if it's rainy, will it have an impact?"

"The impact is definitely there. The officer nodded, not intending to hide this flaw, but before Zheng Ting could recover his strength, he listened to him continue: "So in order to make up for such shortcomings, Chief Qian came up with a tactic, which is the Phalanx. ”

"What is the Phalanx?" Zheng Ting asked puzzled.

"What is the so-called phalanx...... the officer pointed to a few snipers who were aiming at the city with their guns in their hands, and said: "General Zheng, please see, the general tactic is mostly three or five snipers aiming at the target on the periphery, this tactic is very useful when the weather conditions are good, and the hit rate is also quite high. However, if the weather conditions are bad and it is not convenient to aim and shoot, then we will adopt another tactic, that is, to concentrate more than ten snipers, under the unified command of a commander, and carry out a concentrated attack after determining the target. This tactic is what we call the Phalanx. ”

Zheng Ting was even more shocked when he heard this, this tactic is not only useful when the weather conditions are bad, in fact, this tactic can be used whenever hitting some important targets to ensure the hit rate. It's hard to imagine what it's like to be aimed at more than ten of these rifles from a distance, and at such a distance, I'm afraid you can't even feel the murderous aura of your opponent, let alone make any predictions in advance.

As he spoke, the recalcitrant rebels on the city had been cleared, and Zheng Ting's troops rushed into the city like wolves. However, street fighting was obviously not the strength of this unit, and it took almost an hour before the officer reported to Zheng Ting, saying that he had fully controlled the county seat of Chengmai.

Zheng Ting frowned, even if the link of snatching the city gate is not counted, this combat speed is far less than that of the Haihan militia in Lingao County. Zheng Ting asked in a deep voice, "What is the situation of casualties?"

The officer clenched his fists and bowed his head in response: "Our side lost seven people, wounded more than 30 people, killed more than 70 enemies, and captured more than 200 people. ”

"How could there be such a large number of casualties!" Zheng Ting couldn't help but scold. The Haihan militia attacked Lingao County, and took the city without a single soldier dying, but when it was their turn to fight Chengmai, the combat effect was so different. There was also Haihan's overseer team watching beside him, and Zheng Ting's face was really a little unbearable.

"The general was angry, and this incident was purely accidental. The officer hurriedly defended: "When we attacked the county office, we never thought that the other party would pour fire oil and other fire-causing things in the county office, and only ignited it after our army entered, but several soldiers failed to escape in time, and there were casualties." The arsonists have taken down all but those who died on the spot. ”

"What? set fire!" Zheng Ting couldn't sit still at all: "Has the fire been extinguished?"

"The fire is very big, there is only a deep well in the county office, and there is no way to lift water, so ......" The officer also sensed Zheng Ting's anger, and the more he spoke, the quieter his voice became, and finally he couldn't go on.

"It's just a bunch of rubbish!" Zheng Ting's mood was completely ruined. Qian Tiandun also specially greeted him, asking him to protect all kinds of literary and historical materials in the county's yali, and not to let the rebels destroy these things. At that time, Zheng Ting also patted his chest and gave Qian Tiandun a package ticket, saying that he would definitely hand over Chengmai County to Haihan completely. However, it has only been two days since the incident, and this has already been a slap in the face. This county government has been burned down, and when he sees Qian Tiandun again, how should Zheng Ting explain to him?

"You didn't lose my Zheng Ting's face, you lost the face of Annan's ****, do you know!" Zheng Ting was furious and scolded the officer who came to report the news.