Chapter 688 685 [Another One Who Breaks Military Discipline]
"The casualty statistics are out." Wang Yaochen handed over a report.
Wang Tingchen opened it and took a look, and suddenly became silent.
Counting from the day when the cannon fodder attacked the city until the city was completely occupied, the casualties of the Datong Army were as follows:
1,552 people were killed, 743 were seriously injured, and 3,639 were slightly injured. The casualty rate reached 43.9.
Wang Tingchen was a Ming border general who came over to serve. The Ming army often lost tens of thousands, but there were no casualties in front of him that made him heartbroken.
These are all cavalrymen who have been trained for several years, and each one is extremely valuable. Many people died in battle. They were hit by rolling logs, shot by bows and arrows when they were climbing the city, or they were surrounded and killed after climbing first.
Even if they died in battle, they should die on the battlefield while riding horses. It is not worth losing their lives during the siege!
Wang Yaochen comforted him and said: "These Tatars guarding the city are all elite members of the Puppet Qing Dynasty, and they are all desperate. If they hadn't killed the enemy generals on the southern city wall and flanked the west city to open the city gate, the Tatar soldiers would have continued to fight hard. We So many people were killed and injured, but it’s actually…not unjust.”
"I understand," Wang Tingchen sighed, "but these are soldiers we have personally trained. Since the cavalry division was established, I did not expect that it would suffer the most losses during the siege."
Wang Yaochen said: "There is also good news. The city is full of wheat and livestock. Most of the wheat was just harvested this year. The Tatars collected it and prepared it as military rations to send troops to support Sarhu. The livestock were also collected to transport military rations. , now they are all captured by us."
Wang Tingchen said: "If we had arrived a few days earlier, the Tatars would have not had time to gather their troops and could easily capture the city. In the final analysis, the attack speed is too slow and we should not waste so much time in the north."
"Who knew that the Tatars would be sending troops?" Wang Yaochen said.
The cavalry division swept through the villages in the north, hoping to quickly eliminate the effective Tatar forces. As a result, after the raids, we realized that something was wrong. There were too few Tatars in the countryside, and many of the young men had been sent to fight.
Wang Tingchen calmed down and said: "Send an order to the entire army to repair for two days. The seriously injured and military doctors will be left behind, and the rest of the troops will continue to attack!"
Here you can go directly to the main battlefield and march along the Huifa River, Baiyun River, and Hun River, and only need to climb a few low mountains on the way.
But the distance is quite long, a full 300 miles, and the march in the valleys and mountains is not fast.
A few days later, the cavalry division passed through a place called Siping, which was already part of Qingyuan County in later generations.
"Destroy the weapons workshop!"
"If there is resistance, we will kill without mercy and arrest all the craftsmen!"
Hundreds of years later, there were many "Sipings" in the Northeast, such as Big Siping Town, North Siping Township, and Xiao Siping Village. Without exception, it must be the bow and arrow production base of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The original meaning of "Siping" in Manchu is "arrow shaft making".
At this moment, on the southern battlefield, Yang Zhenqing's independent regiment is also attacking Siping - Xiaosiping Village of Dasiping Town hundreds of years later.
Yang Zhenqing set out from Crow Pass (in Weiziyu Town), crossed the Liao Great Wall, and headed straight for Dasiping Town.
A lot of the land outside Crow Falcon Pass originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty.
Li Chengliang arbitrarily abandoned six castles and gave them to Nurhaci on the grounds that "the land is so lonely and difficult to defend".
As for the Kuandian area further south, I was too lazy to attack it. The Ming Dynasty built many fortresses in Kuandian, including Kuandian Fort, Xindian Fort, Yongdian Fort, Damian Fort and Changdian Fort. After the Manchu Qing occupation, the local people were forcibly moved away and it has been abandoned for 20 to 30 years.
It wasn't until Dayu'er moved the capital to Hetuala that people came to cultivate Kuandian again.
But the population is still sparse, with twenty or thirty households in a village making up the sky, and in many places there are only a few households.
Going to conquer the scattered Tatars in the mountains is simply a waste of food and grass.
It is much more comfortable to go east from Crow Falcon Pass. You only need to build a few castles along the way. Twenty miles to the east is the Tatar gold mine, and thirty miles to the southeast is the Tatar bow and arrow production base.
Former fort.
It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and a mountain on the south, with a narrow valley between the two mountains.
The independent regiment traveled day and night, taking a small boat unexpectedly, and only chose to go ashore after passing the castle.
The guard of this castle is called Dai Qing, a name that has become widespread. Mongolians and Jurchens don’t have too many people named Dai Qing, Dai Qin, and Dai Qing, which means “brave ones.”
Even Dorgon's title before he was crowned king was "Mergen Daiqing", which means "the wise warrior".
The Dai Qing in front of me is probably not very brave. When he woke up, he found that thousands of enemies appeared behind the castle, and his face turned pale with fear.
The function of the front fort is to block the army. Thousands of people can easily row across without any baggage.
"Go and persuade us to surrender!" Yang Zhenqing said.
A Chinese Jurchen warrior quickly ran to the bottom of the castle and shouted at the top of his voice: "Listen to the defenders inside, 200,000 Datong Heavenly Soldiers have surrounded Saarhu. The puppet Qing court is almost gone. If you resist stubbornly, you will die with the puppet Qing Dynasty. If Kaicheng surrenders, you still have a chance to survive!"
The Tatar archers listened carefully and did not choose to release arrows.
Dai Qing became silent, hesitating whether to surrender.
Back when Nurhachi first started his army, guarding this place was a lucrative position. Because the Crow Falcon Pass in front is an important trade channel between the Ming Dynasty and Jianzhou Jurchen, a rich amount of oil and water can be obtained here every month.
But now, trade is prohibited, and garrisoning this fort is just like a ban, and you may be attacked by the Datong Army at any time.
"Arrests!"
Without waiting for the defenders to make a decision, Yang Zhenqing ordered action.
The castle is not big and cannot accommodate many people. There were only a hundred or so defenders inside, and their families all farmed and lived in the valley north of the castle.
Yang Zhenqing left a thousand men to block the castle. The remaining soldiers were divided into small teams and began to sweep the valley to the north.
"Bang bang bang!"
Gunshots continued to be heard, and the defenders were worried about their families, and all of them lost their fighting spirit.
In fact, they had no fighting spirit to begin with, and even the sentries on duty at night were slacking off. Otherwise, how could Yang Zhenqing have easily gone around to the back of the castle.
Most of the real Tatar elites were taken away by Mandahai, and those with strong bones were hit by the cavalry division. And these are all ordinary bannermen who have become the Eight Banners Army. As long as they are young and strong, they can join the army. Many of them don't even have cotton armor, and only wear leather armor to fight.
Dai Qing looked around and found that the soldiers looked sad and did not look like they were defending the castle.
"Open the door and surrender!"
Dai Qing gritted his teeth and said.
He didn't want to be buried with the Manchus, and he was not a Manchu noble. On the contrary, he fought with the Manchus. Two of his brothers had died, and the goods that his father and brother had snatched from the Han region had long been abandoned in Haizhou.
To put it bluntly, as the castle guard, Dai Qing couldn't even afford to drink sorghum wine, so he could just keep himself full.
More than a hundred Tatar soldiers left the castle one after another.
Yang Zhenqing confiscated their armor and sneered: "I only said I would give you a chance to live, but I didn't say you would all survive. Let's line up to draw lots, one out of ten will be drawn, and one out of ten will be killed. Those who are unlucky will be beheaded. Think of it as taking the blame for others! You Tatars deserve to die!"
This practice is a serious violation of military discipline.
But Yang Zhenqing didn't care about that much. It didn't matter whether he was promoted or not. He only joined the army to kill the Tatars. If he hadn't still been responsible for military tasks, he would probably kill all the surrendered Tatars!
The Tatar soldiers who surrendered were horrified when they heard this, but they took a chance.
If you kill one out of ten, your chances of survival are very high.
They have been disarmed and can only draw lots. A group of ten people would blindly draw weeds, and those who drew short would be beheaded.
"Spare my life, I don't want to die!"
The first unlucky man appeared and tried to struggle to escape, but was held down by Datong soldiers. The people in the same group with him all had expressions that looked like they were surviving the disaster, and they were glad that it was not them who were beheaded to establish their authority.
"I...I want to draw lots too?" Dai Qing was so scared that his body was shaking.
Yang Zhenqing smiled and said: "It's all the same!"
Dai Qing didn't dare to look anymore, closed his eyes and stretched out his hand, found a piece of weed and pulled it out.
When he opened his eyes again, his heart was filled with ecstasy, and he fell to the ground paralyzed with all his strength.
The last group consisted of less than ten people.
Yang Zhenqing pointed to the Tatar prisoners captured in the village, selected a few of the strongest ones, made up ten and continued to draw lots.
This approach is even worse. After this war, his title will definitely be gone, and he will not even be able to lead troops in the country. He will most likely be thrown to Luzon to become an officer.
After learning that the castle had been captured, the grain transporters several miles away led the mules and horses carrying the baggage and rushed as quickly as possible to join the army.
Yang Zhenqing said: "Detach a hundred peasant soldiers to garrison this fort, and assign twenty soldiers to guard these Tatar civilians. Those Tatar soldiers who are not dead will follow me to fight. If more than two Tatars are killed, then Forgive you for your past sins!”
In this way, Dai Qing, who had just surrendered, took his soldiers and continued to march with Yang Zhenqing.
Yang Zhenqing's move may seem risky, but he actually understands the psychology of surrendering troops. These Tatar soldiers have abandoned the city and surrendered. Even if they return to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, they will be questioned.
What's more, they just drew lots and escaped from the hell gate. If he surrenders but rebels again, wouldn’t the lot of life and death just drawn be in vain?
Furthermore, many of their family members are in the hands of the Datong Army!
Drawing lots to kill people is not just about venting anger.
It is not only to establish authority, but also to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the captives.
Dai Qing's two brothers died at the hands of the Datong Army, and he himself was almost killed just now. But this guy is still lecturing the soldiers: "Listen carefully, kill two Tatars and you can wash away your sins. For the sake of your family and yourself, kill them all! Kill the Tatars, kill the Tatars." !”
"Kill the Tartars, kill the Tartars!"
A group of Tatar soldiers who had no fighting spirit, who had just surrendered, actually shouted to kill the Tatars, and seemed to have a fighting spirit.
Following the Taizi River and continuing east for more than ten miles, we came to the second castle.
Yang Zhenqing said to Dai Qing: "Go and persuade the general to surrender. If you can persuade the general to surrender, you can get away with it without killing two Tatars!"
Dai Qing was overjoyed, knelt down and kowtowed to Yang Zhenqing, and then rushed to the castle: "Anba, I am Dai Qing, and I have surrendered the Datong Heavenly Soldiers. Surrender quickly and give you a chance to survive. Sal On the other side of Hu, 500,000 Datong Heavenly Soldiers have surrounded Saerhu City. Do you still want to be buried with the little emperor?"