In the face of Li Dingguo's firm progress, Bai Wenxuan said without worry:

"Even so, even if our army can rely on the strength of the army to take Ava, then what? The Burmese army may have stockpiled food and grass in Ava, but when the city is breached, it will definitely try to set fire to it, and it is not possible to guarantee how much it can recover.

Second, even if the Burmese army could not burn the grain and grass when the city was breached, they must have had time to clear the wall in advance, collect all the ships along the river around Ava City, and pull them to the capital city of Bago at the mouth of the sea downstream to assemble.

Anyway, the Burmese have enough supplies in Awa, which is their hinterland, and the supplies are all assembled before the war, and there is no need to transport them during the war, so when the war starts, they can already ensure that there is not a single ship left in Ava City.

As a result, even if our army broke Ava, it would not be able to raise enough ships for the subsequent shipping supply of the Indra Bhatta River, and it would not be able to use the river from Ava to Bago to ensure the logistics of the subsequent attack. ”

The most difficult thing for the army to switch logistics routes between the two rivers on the east and west slopes of Kyauksan Mountain is not how to cross Kyauksan, but even if it is overturned, if the enemy clears the field on the other side of the river and takes away or destroys all the ships, even if you succeed in crossing the mountain, you will not be able to find new ships.

Kyaukshan is not a small broken mountain like the Golden Horn in Constantinople, and it is impossible to "sail on dry land" for more than 100 miles to pull boats on the Nu River into the Indra Bhatta River. Mangbai dared to do "everything east of Kyauksan", which is relying on this.

However, in the face of Bai Wenxuan's concerns, Li Dingguo once again showed that he had a plan in his mind and had a premeditated plan: "As long as you can kill the past and take Ava, the ship is not a problem." It is much easier to travel 8,000 miles by sea than 100,000 miles on dry land.

At the beginning of this battle, after I recognized Mangbai's strategic intentions, I had already stepped up Pegasus and asked the Guangdong reinforcements to act according to the second set of plans. Before the war, the prince nodded his head, and asked Zheng Chenggong to lead the sailors of Kyushu and Fujian to move to Guangdong in advance.

As long as our army can gain a firm foothold along the Indra Bhatta River, it can drive straight in, and after two months of sailing, the sailors of Guangdong can basically go around Bago, and can land against the current from the mouth of the river and open up the whole territory. I was powerless against Burma and Vietnam before, but it was because there was only land to attack. Now that the land route is attacked, the fleet will be provided by sea at one time, and it is not a problem to completely destroy Mangbai! ”

Li Dingguo did not expect that during the subsequent campaign, every sum of supplies would allow Zheng Chenggong to sail 8,000 miles from Guangdong, bypass Malacca to Bago and dock, and then swim upstream to Ava.

However, as long as Zheng Chenggong does this for the first time, it will be convenient to follow-up. The key is that after Zheng Chenggong arrives, he can leave part of the ship behind. In this way, after Li Dingguo conquered Ava City, he could get enough transport ships under Ava City for subsequent transshipment and propulsion.

To put it bluntly, whether it is ammunition or supplies, the Yunnan Theater has raised enough in the past five years, and what is lacking is only transportation capacity. If Zheng Chenggong's great outflanking detour can chisel through the channel of the Indra Bhatta River, then everything will be done.

Of course, this kind of thing must also be kept secret in advance, because if the secret is leaked, the Burmese may abolish the shipping of the Indra Bhatta River in advance-

For example, barrage and weir, make shoals and reefs, or any iron cable across the river, dark cones at the bottom of the river and other damage tactics can be used, and the Burmese themselves will no longer use this lifeline of river navigation, and the Ming army will also be abolished to supply.

Don't think this kind of thing is impossible, because more than two hundred years ago, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the Vietnamese used this trick to abolish Zhu Di's attack - at that time, because the Ming Dynasty had a sea ban, it was clear that Guangxi to Vietnam could be supplied by coastal sea, but the Ming Dynasty lacked sea ships and could only rely on the Red River shipping supply from Yunnan to Vietnam.

Then at that time, the Vietnamese set up N more self-abandoned waterway destruction facilities in the Red River, and even in the estuary delta, there were various artificial dredging and silting to create dangerous shoals to ensure that the ships of the Ming Dynasty could not sail into the middle of the Red River, and finally forced Zhu Di's Ming army to cut off supplies and could only rob and force countless Vietnamese civilians, and finally the Ming army returned defeated.

Insiders have always fought logistics, and the frontal battlefield is just the last thing.

It was precisely because Li Dingguo was afraid that the Burmese would realize that this killer move would destroy the shipping route in advance, so he even hid it from his own people.

Before the war, only Zhu Shuren, Li Dingguo and Zheng Chenggong knew about this alternative plan. Moreover, Zhu Shuren also authorized that once Li Dingguo found that there was a need for implementation, he could contact Zheng Chenggong on his own and act according to the plan, without having to temporarily ask Nanjing.

After all, it is much faster to contact Guangdong directly from Yunnan, if you go to Nanjing first, and then instruct Guangdong from Nanjing, the daylily will be cold.

After Bai Wenxuan and Feng Shuangli finally knew the overall plan, they let go of their worries and said that they would fight hard to serve the country and not lose face to Hou Ye.

Li Dingguo is still only a marquis, and Zheng Chenggong was already a prince of the country seven or eight years ago - who let Zheng Chenggong capture Kyushu Island and defeat the Fusang people. Li Dingguo can't envy it.

So this time, he was also holding back his strength, so he pointed to dealing with Myanmar and Vietnam to make some great contributions, fight for the position of the national prince, and also give his subordinate Bai Wenxuan Feng Shuangli a marquis.

However, in the end, it was inevitable that Zheng Chenggong's navy would cooperate with him, and his position in the DPRK in this life was destined to be overpressed by Zheng Chenggong.

……

The plan was established, and Li Dingguo was also a decisive person, and finally chose to leave the camp along the Nu River on the ninth day of the first month of October, and go west deep into the Kyaukshan Mountains to launch a land offensive.

Because they had to climb the mountain, they couldn't bring heavy Hongyi cannons, so they only carried a new steel-cast cavalry cannon with a weight of less than 1,500 catties as a follow-up firepower.

And the heavy artillery of more than 3,000 catties can only be left in the camps around Lashio to defend the rear road.

In fact, there is a greater risk in this kind of firepower. Because the firepower of today's Burmese army is actually far stronger than that of the Qing army more than ten years ago. The Burmese had been trading with the Portuguese and Dutch for forty years, and there were plenty of original European Hongyi cannons available.

This means that in the subsequent siege and defense battles, the weight of the artillery of the defending side may be more than twice as heavy as that of the attacking side, and the range will be farther than that of the attacking side. In this way, the siege artillery positions will be completely within the coverage of the defending artillery, and it will definitely be very difficult if it does not rely on the strict construction of the siege camp to ensure the defense artillery.

However, Li Dingguo is still very optimistic, he knows all the difficulties, and at the same time, it is also the inducement to cause the enemy to be paralyzed and careless, as long as it is used well, the surprise attack will be more successful.

……

Sure enough, the Ming army began to try to cross Kyaukshan Mountain from the ninth day of October, and the Burmese army really fell into slackness again after the previous half a month of stalemate, and thought that Li Dingguo knew that it was powerful, and did not dare to climb over Kyaukshan to find death.

However, Li Dingguo just did what they thought was looking for death, and as a result, the Burmese army, which was left in several peripheral passes and camps at the eastern foot of Kyaukshan Mountain, was once again severely attacked by the Ming army's concentrated superior forces.

Located in the first line of the Kyaukyue Town camp, about three or four thousand Burmese troops, was killed by the Ming army in half a day, after all, the Ming army's muskets were an era more advanced than them, and the offensive strength was also ten times that of the defenders of Kyaukyue Village, and the second kill was also very reasonable.

Subsequently, the Ming army continued to advance rapidly, and in just three days, it reached Kyaukmei County in the southern section of Kyaukshan Pass.

Kyaukmei County is located on the main ridge of Kyaukmei Mountain, is the lowest point of the main ridge of Kyaukmei Mountain in the area of hundreds of miles nearby, and it is the most convenient to cross, east of Kyaukmei County, the Ming army is uphill all the way, after this mountain pass, it is all the way down the mountain to the west.

Because of the importance of this place, Mang Bai usually stationed tens of thousands of troops in Kyaukmei County, and scattered other troops in various passes, as well as in the city of Ava in the rear—

It is impossible for Mangbai to pile up hundreds of thousands of troops on the mountains, because it is too difficult to hold the army food supply for a long time, so the main force can only be placed in the big cities in the plain valley area in peacetime. After figuring out the direction of the main attack of the Qingming army, we will increase our troops to the attacked pass.

All this made the Burmese army's action to reinforce Kyaukmei appear a little sluggish, and Li Dingguo seized the opportunity to take the county seat after two days of bloody fighting.

The tactics of the Ming army were also very simple and rude, directly pulling up the cavalry artillery to blast open the city wall of the county, and then the rifle team swarmed in and rushed forward.

The Burmese army was quickly suppressed by insufficient musketeers in the local area.

Although the other soldiers who used bows and arrows were numerous and could also rely on the difficult terrain to output firepower, their arrows could not hurt the vital points of the cuirassier musketeers, even the hands and feet protected by light armor could only cause skin trauma, and finally formed a one-sided slaughter.

The Burmese army is very similar to the Indian army, that is, they do not pay attention to the problem of armor piercing, because few people can wear thick heavy armor in tropical warfare, and many of their locals even wear only linen clothes in order to cool down, which leads to the fact that armor-piercing weapons are useless at all.

The Burmese army defending the city was finally annihilated by the Ming army, with more than 20,000 people, and the grain stocks in the county town did not have time to burn, so Li Dingguo was cheapened in vain.

The main forces of Mangbai from other directions did not arrive from all directions until the day after the Kyaukmei County was breached, because the county seat had been lost, so they had to station other relatively low-lying western slope passes in the Kyaukva Valley Road to block the road to prevent the Ming army from advancing again.

More than 20,000 troops were wiped out, which made the morale of the Burmese army more and more low, but Mangbai was still confident, personally inspecting the armies, and desperately cheering up the generals under his command:

"Don't worry! Li Dingguo: This is looking for death by himself! Although he broke the small county of Kyaukmei, he easily left the Nujiang River valley and went deep into the Kyaukmei Mountain, as long as we were besieged by the group, within a month or two, Li Dingguo would die!

In such a dense forest, smoke and miasma are rampant, can the northerners survive? Moreover, the king has already inquired about the remnants of the Kyaukmei defenders who broke through, and I heard them say that the Ming army only sought a quick victory when attacking the city, and fought recklessly, and the losses were not small.

It was only because our arrows could not break through the armor that most of the Ming troops were slightly injured - but Li Dingguo underestimated the danger of the slight injuries in the Burmese rainforest! In such a hot and rainy place, those Ming soldiers with flesh wounds will soon suppurate and die! Debridement and bandaging can't be saved! Hold on, our army will win! ”

Under the personal encouragement of Mangbai, the soldiers of the Burmese army finally recovered a little morale, and felt that it made sense. Although more than 20,000 people were killed by Li Dingguo, after all, it was in exchange for seducing Li Dingguo from the Nujiang River to the depths of Kyaukshan Mountain.

As long as you grit your teeth and survive, the power of nature can kill the Ming army! It doesn't matter if you're crushed in a frontal fight!

……

Li Dingguo began to climb the mountains on the ninth day of October, began to attack Kyaukmei County on the 11th, and broke the city on the 14th. After the city was breached, it took two days to repair before it once again put on the posture of attacking the Burmese reinforcements.

However, the defense of the Burmese army was very resolute, and in the first two days of attacking, the Burmese were forced to fill in with human lives, blocking the Kyaukvak Valley Road to death, and although Li Dingguo achieved a good lethal exchange ratio, he still failed to achieve a breakthrough.

In addition, after all, the Burmese feel that they are "defending their home and country" and feel that they have no way to retreat, so they insist on fighting to the death no matter how many casualties there are. Li Dingguo didn't want to waste his life with the other party, so he had to postpone the offensive.

On the other hand, this is also one of Li Dingguo's tricks to show weakness and deceit, he hopes that Mang Bai will misjudge because of this, and feel that there are many soldiers in the Ming army who have been reduced due to minor injuries and heat and humidity, and feel that the Ming army is unable to fight again, so as to induce Mang Bai to relax his guard again.

As a result, when the battle in the valley continued until 20 October, Li Dingguo finally assumed a posture of "exhaustion," stopped the attack, and turned to the east to "break through," pretending that he was exhausted by the continuous high intensity of the battle and needed to retreat to the bank of the Nu River for repair.

Because after retreating to the Nu River, the Burmese army will not be able to cut off Li Dingguo's grain, grass and ammunition, and Li Dingguo can rely on the materials transported by Yunnan via the Nu River waterway.

In order to play more realistically, Li Dingguo also planned to set a fire in the city and burn down all the houses when he "gave up Kyaukmei County". As for the surplus food, it can be taken with the army.

In addition, he also deliberately leaked false information to the Burmese army that was approaching every day through various channels, so that the Burmese people really thought that "because of the killing and wounding of the Burmese army's bows and arrows, the Ming army had many minor wounded, and after staying in the rainforest and mountainous areas for nearly ten days, it finally began to purulent and infected, and a large number of serious illnesses had to go back for treatment."

After getting these negative news from the Ming army, how could Mang Bai be willing to let Li Dingguo go? Therefore, before Li Dingguo set fire to the county town of Kyaukmei, he frantically divided his troops and took the mountain road to cut off the Ming army's way of coming, preventing Li Dingguo from retreating to Lashio by the Nu River.

However, in this case, it was the turn of the Burmese to rely on the strong fortifications of the valley and reverse the offensive and defensive positions.

The Burmese army left at the western foot of Kyaukshan had layers of fortifications, and when they were camped, the Burmese army could also transport the Hongyi artillery in the rear Ava City to strengthen the defensive position.

The Burmese army, which went around the mountains, had no geographical advantage at all, and could only fight with the Ming army in the field, and they could not carry any artillery, so they were absolutely crushed by the Ming Dynasty in terms of firepower. The reason why Mang Bai had to stop him in the face of a huge casualty exchange ratio was to consume Li Dingguo and let Li Dingguo's army die in large numbers in the Kyaukshan rainforest.

In this way, Li Dingguo secretly pinched the supply of concentrated sulfuric acid, which could disinfect scalpels and gauze, and the efficiency of debridement surgery for lightly injured people far exceeded Mangbai's imagination, and Mangbai was tantamount to being bled in vain.

In the rainy season, the rainforest drinking water pollution, mosquito breeding, and a large number of diseases and deaths of the Ming army did not appear, or the degree was much lower than originally expected.

Li Dingguo also ignored the warning of the Academy of Sciences, saying that carbolic acid disinfection may introduce some new toxicity, and long-term exposure is harmful to health, but he can use disinfectant water vigorously - carbolic acid has another scientific name called "phenol", which theoretically belongs to three categories of carcinogens in the chemical standards of later generations (the third class is already considered light, and the first class is heavy). For example, the formaldehyde residue in decoration can be regarded as a class of carcinogens)

But how can the people of the Ming Dynasty manage this? If you don't use too much disinfectant, you may die right now. The excessive use of disinfectant water may be several times greater in ten or twenty years, how to choose Li Dingguo knows very well in his heart, and he doesn't understand those medical principles very well.

This is like those people in the war-torn areas of Africa in later generations, most of them will die at the age of 30, where will they be afraid of Ai's disease?

The imperial court agreed before the war that soldiers who fought in Burma would be given a lifelong health allowance in the future, and they could also retire five years in advance to receive a pension. With this condition, the soldiers were happy to use this disinfectant, which was said to be a bit dangerous.

The reason why Zhu Shuren thought of such a disposal measure was nothing more than to compare the positions of welders and other who burned electric welding in later generations, because "long-term engagement will be harmful to health, and you can retire five years early, and add seniority", embezzled it to the Ming Dynasty, slightly changed its appearance, and made it an additional pension subsidy for retired soldiers.

……

With mental calculations or not, the Ming army obviously did not lose a large number of troops due to flesh wounds and tropical diseases, but the Burmese army mistakenly thought that they had this kind of battle damage, so they dragged it out regardless of casualties.

Such a meat grinder battle quickly consumed the main force of Burma not lightly, and the Burmese soldiers who blocked the return of the Ming army were almost thousands of casualties every day, in exchange for "making it difficult for the Ming army to retreat quickly, and they could only fight and walk on the mountain road every day, and travel ten miles a day."

At this rate, it is estimated that Li Dingguo will have to walk for ten days and eight days to withdraw to Lashio by the Nu River. And this section of the road was filled in with the lives of the Burmese soldiers.

From 20 October to the end of October, the number of casualties and diseases among the Burmese increased by as much as 40,000 or 50,000, and the morale of those who were still alive was furious, and they completely fell to the bottom, and their physical condition was not good.

The entire Kyaukvale Valley Road has almost become a Verdun meat grinder in this era, crushing the flesh and blood of the Burmese army in batches.

After the time entered November, Li Dingguo felt that the acting was almost done, and Mangbai was also consumed by his seduction, and finally decided to take the opportunity to close the net.

On the second day of November, the Kyauksan area, which had not rained for seven or eight consecutive days, ushered in the last rainstorm at the end of this year's rainy season.

Considering the interval between the two rains, the local three propaganda and six comfort guides captured by Li Dingguo all said that it rained again after such a long time, so it is estimated that the next rain will wait until after the entire dry season.

Li Dingguo pondered for a moment, and ordered the whole army to change the previous posture of "pretending to flee to the east", turn around and kill a horse pistol, and directly pounce on the main force on the west side of the reckless white behind him.

"Attacking on such a rainy day?" Bai Wenxuan and Feng Shuangli couldn't help but be a little worried.

Li Dingguo Zhizhu smiled fiercely while holding the ground: "Of course I didn't attack when the rain was the heaviest, let the soldiers wrap their muskets in oilcloth and attack when the rain turned light, the Burmese muskets were completely waterproof, and the artillery was not waterproof at all."

Originally, our army could not attack to the west with all its strength, because the road between Kyaukmei and Ava was blocked by the Burmese army's Hongyi artillery. Now that the Burmese military firearms have been scrapped after the rain, our military firearms have been waterproof and improved over the years, and that is a one-sided massacre! Let the soldiers not be stingy and take out the smokeless ammunition that has been treasured for a month! Today they are allowed to open up to shoot smokeless powder shells! ”

(End of chapter)