Although the coalition forces quickly put out the fire after the fire, an inventory later found that two-thirds of the various cultural and historical materials and archives in the county government had been burned. Most of the rest was also doused with the water that was poured into the fire, and there are really not many that can be used.

Zheng Ting could only admit that he was unlucky after inspecting the fire, and let people collect the bones of the dead soldiers, as for how to give an account to Qian Tiandun, this pot can only be pushed to the captured Chengmai Zhixian and others. Zheng Ting also specially told the soldiers guarding the captives not to abuse them too much, lest no one take the blame if the culprit was forced to death.

Zheng Ting's army spent the night in Chengmai County, leaving 300 men to guard the city, and the rest of the troops left the city and continued to advance towards the northeast of Qiongzhou. At this time, a large army that had sailed out of Lingao County had landed on the northwest coast of Qiongzhou a day earlier.

Organizing two successive large-scale landings by coalition forces within 10 days was a great test of the physical strength of the troops participating in the battle and the ability of coordination between the various units and transport departments.

Qian Tiandun rode on a dark brown war horse and quietly watched the troops who were gathering on the coast. Several heavy siege guns were trapped on the beach, and the baggage troops were laying a passage with planks and straw mats, and then trying to pull them out with animal power. At this time, the news of the fall of Danzhou should have reached Fucheng, and if the siege troops want to take this target, they may take the means of strong attack, and the huge siege artillery is also prepared for this.

So far, the implementation of the Liaoyuan plan has been relatively smooth, and in the process of advancing all the way from Danzhou to the west, it has not encountered relatively decent resistance, and the three battles in one state and two counties have been won in half a day, with a very low casualty rate, more than 1,500 people have been captured, and the actual control of the three cities of this size has been completed.

As for the farms and villages scattered around the city, the coalition forces did not rush to clean them up, their task was to take the main strategic nodes in the north of Qiongzhou Island, and as for the comprehensive clean-up of these territories, it will be taken over by the Haihan militia in the future.

The land ownership situation in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island is far more complicated than that in the south, and the population density and cultivated land development here far exceed that in the sparsely populated south, and the Haihan Executive Committee will inevitably encounter much more fierce opposition and resistance than the southern part of the country if it wants to implement public ownership of land. As a result, the coalition forces did not bother with settlements outside the main cities during the rapid advance, leaving these troubles to the department responsible for taking over in the future.

"Go to the communications platoon and ask, what is the latest news from the navy?" Qian Tiandun ordered. A naval fleet disguised as pirates is currently cruising the Qiongzhou Strait, blockading the coastline near the capital city of Qiongzhou.

Soon the navy's reply was sent to Qian Tiandun, and in the past two days, the navy had intercepted twelve ships that had set off from the capital city of Qiongzhou to the mainland, nine of which were merchant ships or civilian ships, and the other three were small warships that had been left in Shuizhai and did not fight in the extermination division some time ago. The purpose of these ships going to the mainland was naturally to ask for help urgently.

The garrison of Qiongzhou has a few catties and taels, and outsiders may not know it, but the high-ranking officials in the capital city of Qiongzhou still know it. After the news of the fall of Danzhou City reached the Fucheng side, it immediately exploded. Although there had been news in the past month or two that the pirates would attack Qiongzhou Island, the official did not take this kind of early warning from the folk rumors as far away, nor did they make any corresponding preparations, but the lack of news from the fleet sent out a few days ago has made the officials more and more uneasy.

Thousands of pirates attacked Danzhou City, and took the city in only half a day, and there were dozens of Danzhou officials, but none of them escaped. After capturing Danzhou, the pirates did not rush to sack the city, but continued to advance eastward, without the slightest intention of stopping. From this little bit of information, a lot of information can actually be interpreted.

First of all, the fleet sent out by the Fucheng side to suppress the bandits is likely to be more than auspicious - since the pirates have enough transportation power to send thousands of people to land in Danzhou Bay, then the size of their fleet must be far larger than the fleet of the sailors, and they did not send troops to Danzhou many days after the sailors set off, so the sailors should not miss them at sea, in other words, this group of pirates is very likely to defeat the Daming sailors first, and then implement the landing plan in Danzhou.

Secondly, it only took half a day for the pirates to take Danzhou City after landing, which not only shows that its combat power is terrifying, but also shows that this is not an unprepared raid, and thousands of people can cross the sea and attack a fortified city immediately after marching twenty miles.

Third, the pirates did not stop at Danzhou to loot, but continued to advance eastward, which also confirmed the rumored that the pirates wanted to capture Qiongzhou Island. And from Danzhou to the east, the biggest goal is undoubtedly Fucheng. If you want to occupy Qiongzhou Island, this is definitely a must-attack place, and between Danzhou and Fucheng, there are no decent defensive strongholds at all, and there is not even a chance to slow down their advance. If the other party really has the heart to attack Fucheng, the distance between the two places is two hundred miles, and it will only be a matter of a few days to advance to the vicinity of Fucheng.

Therefore, while preparing for war, Fucheng also sent messengers to Guangzhou to ask for help. However, it is obviously difficult to avoid the eyes and ears of Haihan in this kind of means of calling for help, and the fleet on the sea has already received a telegram notification as soon as it crosses the river in the south, and it is almost impossible for a ship to go to sea alone to escape the prepared interception.

However, the battle plan drawn up by the General Staff was not to blindly intercept, but to create enough tension for the means to be used by Haihan in the future. After Qian Tiandun read the navy's report, he ordered again: "Inform the navy that the people can relax." ”

Songkouzi did not let the dignitaries on the Fucheng side flee to the mainland by boat, but gave the messengers sent by Fucheng the opportunity to send the news of the pirate attack on Qiongzhou Island to Guangzhou, and then use this to create a public opinion basis for the next military intervention of the Haihan.

And when the Military Commission formulated the battle plan, it did not intend to storm the capital city as soon as it came up, after all, this is the seat of Qiongzhou governance, and it is also the current political and cultural and economic center in the north of Qiongzhou Island. If possible, the military commissar hoped to be able to take over the city in a peaceful way.

This is not an impossible task, and the General Staff has long had an overall plan for it, and whether or not it can be realized in the end depends to a great extent on the coordination and cooperation ability of various departments. If it really doesn't work, then you can only count on the nearly twenty siege guns that have taken a lot of effort to get here.

On October 11, the large force of the coalition army advanced ten miles west of the capital city of Qiongzhou, and here joined Zheng Ting's troops, who had hurried from Chengmai County. And the garrison of Qiongzhou Fucheng did not sit still, and a staff general led a force of 2,000 people to the outside of the city to prepare for battle.

However, according to the battle plan of the General Staff, the coalition army led by Qian Tiandun did not quickly sweep the task of the Fucheng garrison, to be precise, the task of the coalition army was actually to besiege Fucheng and strive for better conditions for the next Haihan intervention, rather than quickly occupying Fucheng after defeating the garrison here.

In the face of the Ming army who came to invite the battle, Qian Tiandun's order was short and ruthless: "Just bombard them with artillery fire." ”

So the two artillery batteries in the coalition army quickly deployed in front of the formation, set up artillery, loaded ammunition, and then carried out five rounds of rapid fire at the Ming camp that was still watching the excitement a mile away.

At this distance, the accuracy and lethality of small-caliber artillery were greatly limited, but they still caused some casualties to the Ming army. The Ming army did not choose to retreat immediately because of this, but also launched the artillery in its own formation, trying to make a move with the opponent. But their attempt was immediately dealt a blow, and after the commander of the Haihan artillery position saw through his binoculars that the other side was also sacrificing artillery, he immediately ordered the artillery to concentrate the fire and use the density of fire to make up for the lack of accuracy and lethality.

After only three rounds of firing, a gun that had just been pushed to the front line of the Ming army was hit by a concentrated shell, and the flying cannon body directly killed the two gunners next to him. Although the Ming army still stubbornly set up artillery and carried out several rounds of bombardment with Haihan, it was obvious that the range of the Ming army's artillery was too poor and could not cause substantial damage to the Haihan camp at all. After more than an hour of sporadic artillery battles, the Ming army, which had paid more than 30 lives, chose to retreat.

Qian Tiandun did not let the troops under his command continue to pursue and kill, and now he only needs to arrange the marching and stationing locations of each department, and then gradually complete the siege of Fucheng. By this time, ninety percent of the combat missions for which the coalition forces were responsible had actually been completed. Qian Tiandun was already planning to sit down and watch the play and wait to see how things developed.

However, Zheng Ting, who came here as a general of the coalition army, did not understand this arrangement of Haihan very well, and quickly found Qian Tiandun to ask: "General Qian, at this time, the enemy army is defeated and retreating, why doesn't our army take advantage of the victory to pursue? If we send out cavalry at this time and pursue it with the tail, maybe we can capture the city gate in one fell swoop and attack the capital city of Qiongzhou!"

Qian Tiandun shook his head and said, "General Zheng, you think things too simply. This city is easy to fight, but it is not enough to fight down, how can we make the Ming court recognize the actual control of Qiongzhou Island by our Haihan, this is the ultimate goal of this war. Our previous fast attack, our current slow attack, all the tactical arrangements, are actually aimed at achieving this purpose. ”

Zheng Ting was puzzled: "You don't want to fall out with Daming, I understand this truth." But with this slow-attacking style of play, how can you take this Qiongzhou capital city?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and said, "Don't worry, take your time, you'll see in a few days." ”

After several active attacks were repulsed by the coalition forces in succession, the morale of the Ming army was also affected to a certain extent. Although they are the ones who take the initiative to attack, they have no way to deal effective damage to their opponents, whether it is a musket or a cannon, they are inferior to their opponents in terms of range. The commander in command of the battle even had two larger guns of greater caliber removed from the city walls, hoping to use the range of these two guns to teach the opponent a lesson. However, I didn't expect that the opponent's formation was not only the kind of small-caliber artillery that fired fist-sized shells, but also heavy artillery that could shoot several miles, whether it was range or accuracy, the general artillery that the Ming army finally transported to the line of fire was still inferior to the opponent.

The next day, the two sides continued to fight again, and after a night of rest, Qian Tiandun sent the platoon of the Annan team to engage in the battle this time. The reason why the Annan Army went up to fight this first battle was not that Qian Tiandun was worried about the battle damage of his own troops, but that the weapons equipped by the militia army were all short-range high-power muskets, and in terms of firing range, they were not as good as the Sanya-made old-fashioned arquebuses and flintlock pistols equipped by the Annan Army.

The Annan army, which had been trained by Haihan, relied on the sharp firearms in its hands and quickly gained a clear advantage in the engagement. Although the Ming side is also equipped with a lot of muskets, its proportion only accounts for about 30% of the total strength, while the proportion of musketeers in the Annan Army is as high as more than 70%, and the firepower density alone is not of the same level. Coupled with the performance advantages of the Annan Army's individual weapons, the battle loss ratio between the two sides was as high as more than 1 to 8. The military strength of the Ming army was already very limited, so it naturally couldn't withstand such a rapid attrition, and Mingjin withdrew after only a short moment of fighting.

Probably aware of their own losses in weapons and tactics, the Ming army continued to retreat that afternoon, and then this retreat did not stop again, retreating all the way into the city.

At this time, the strength of the coalition army west of Fucheng was probably only about 4,000, but after occupying the advantage on the battlefield, Qian Tiandun still commanded the troops and unscrupulously encircled the capital city of Qiongzhou.

Of course, with the existing troops, it is actually impossible to encircle on all sides in the real sense, and it is basically just to set up camps outside the three gates of the south, east and west, arrange positions, and block the passages in and out of the city. Fortunately, there are only three gates in the capital city of Qiongzhou, otherwise the coalition army is really a bit stretched to besiege the city.

At this time, it was far more than the coalition army of a few thousand men and horses involved in this war, and as the offensive from west to east advanced, the coalition army also requisitioned a large number of civilians along the way to be responsible for the transportation of logistics and baggage. As for food, there was no big problem, and the logistics department had already prepared enough grain and grass for 5,000 people to supply for two months. As long as there is enough labor, it is enough to ensure the supply of food from the coastline to the supply line of the combat site.