The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 360 Another piece of fat meat

The next morning, although the sun had risen in the east and the birds were singing happily in the woods, the crystal clear dew formed at night still hung on the slightly yellow leaves and grass leaves.

Whenever the breeze blows, the dew on the leaves of trees and grass will sway in the wind, and the dew on them will also flash with sparkling light, as if the leaves of trees and grass were sprinkled with tiny pearls.

At the edge of the sparse woods, Teng Yuzhao was leaning against a tree trunk, looking at the official road that was looming in the thin morning mist about a mile outside the forest, and was thinking deeply.

Ever since evacuating the capital, Teng Yuzhao's inner conflict has been lingering in his mind.

He had always been unwilling to leave the capital so easily. After repeatedly weighing the pros and cons, he finally decided to take advantage of the opportunity when the Allied Forces reinforcements that had just arrived from Tianjin were still catching their breath and had not yet been fully repaired, to tear off a piece of meat from the Allied Forces and bleed them heavily.

Teng Yuzhao knew very well that every time the coalition forces went through a battle like the one they had on the night of evacuating the capital, they would suffer a massive "blood loss", and every time they lost blood, they would become weaker.

On the contrary, as the coalition forces become weaker and weaker, the vanguard army will become more and more powerful like a bloodthirsty beast.

If this battle is fought well, it will likely give the vanguard army a period of stable development and growth.

What Teng Yuzao lacks most now is time.

Teng Yuzhao firmly believed that if he was given another three months, he could raise an army of 200,000 based on the existing vanguard army.

At that time, he would be able to confront the coalition forces in individual areas or on local battlefields.

Moreover, Teng Yuzao estimated that the coalition forces might have already begun to actively seek peace talks at that time.

If the vanguard army is too weak before the peace talks, the court will still lack the confidence to negotiate and will inevitably make more concessions.

Teng Yuzhao also felt powerless in the face of threats from foreigners during negotiations.

Therefore, his best option was to strike a heavy blow to the coalition forces while they were still sending more troops like adding fuel to the fire.

Moreover, the weapons and ammunition needed for the expansion of the vanguard army will mainly come from the coalition forces.

Although Master Qian had already established contact with Zhang Zhidong, Zhang Zhidong also took the initiative to propose to exchange the rifles he had sent for the Maxim bullets from the Hanyang Gun Factory, which were urgently needed and also the most scarce, as well as various types of artillery shells, mainly 75mm mountain artillery shells.

However, the production capacity of the Hanyang Factory was very limited, and the Maxim ammunition and artillery shells obtained were not enough to fully meet his needs.

Therefore, this time, after receiving the report from Li Yaoting's intelligence personnel, Teng Yuzao set his sights on the coalition's transport troops.

According to intelligence, the Allied transport troops set out from Tianjin the day before yesterday, following closely behind the 30,000 main German troops and the 20,000 new Russian reinforcements that were transferred from outside the Great Wall to Zhili by sea.

After half a month of harassment warfare, the coalition forces besieging the capital had consumed a large amount of ammunition and continued to replenish it.

Therefore, the amount of weapons and ammunition that the Allied transport team had to transport this time was extremely large. Not only were there the ammunition urgently needed by the more than 100,000 Allied troops besieging the capital, but there were also weapons and ammunition brought by the German and Russian troops who had just arrived, and even artillery units and a large number of winter clothes transferred by the British, French and Americans from their colonies in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Moreover, among the artillery units transferred by the British, French and American coalition forces, there are many large-caliber artillery.

Therefore, this transport team carried a huge amount of weapons, ammunition and other military supplies.

In order to ensure the safety of this huge amount of arms and other military supplies, the coalition forces had to take drastic measures.

Not only was it escorted by a Japanese baggage regiment responsible for transporting supplies, but it was also escorted by a brigade of the 4th Division that had recently arrived urgently from mainland Japan.

In addition, there were more than 10,000 emergency reinforcements from the United States, Britain and France following behind.

Moreover, the regiment's transport team set out behind the 50,000 German and Russian troops.

Despite this, Teng Yuzhao was still determined to ambush the transport team.

If the coalition's transport troops can be successfully ambushed, it will be of great benefit to the vanguard army.

If a large number of weapons and ammunition can be seized, it will definitely be a great opportunity for the vanguard army to kill two birds with one stone.

With a large number of weapons and ammunition, not only can the strength of the vanguard army be greatly strengthened, but it can also severely hit the coalition forces while forcing them to slow down their invasion due to lack of ammunition. In this way, Teng Yuzao can gain more time to develop and strengthen his vanguard army.

Although it is extremely difficult to seize these weapons and ammunition under the heavy escort of the coalition forces, even if they cannot be taken away, blowing them up on the spot will be a huge blow to the coalition forces, and can also slow down their invasion and buy precious time for the vanguard army.

Teng Yuzhao even believed that if this battle could successfully seize the coalition forces' weapons and ammunition, it might become a turning point in the fight against the coalition invasion.

Even if it's a bit risky, it's worth it.

This is the fundamental reason why Teng Yuzhao was determined to fight this battle even if it would result in heavy casualties.

Teng Yuzhao's current location is on the only way from Langfang to the capital, ten miles north of Anding. It is more than sixty miles away from Langfang and almost eighty miles away from the capital.

The U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Regiment and an artillery company were stationed in Langfang, specifically to ensure the logistical supply line for the Allied Forces' attack on the capital.

This ambush site was selected by Teng Yuzhao and Wei Jinghai after repeated research.

This is because this place is neither far nor near from the capital. If it is a cavalry unit, it can arrive in half a day, but if an infantry unit wants to get here, it may not be able to arrive in a day even if it marches quickly.

Even if the garrison in Langfang sends reinforcements, it will take two hours.

Therefore, Teng Yuzao and his troops hurriedly arrived at noon yesterday. The troops did not enter the designated area to rest until before midnight last night, and then quietly entered the ambush area when the sky just got light. Teng Yuzao's headquarters was set up in this small forest.

The troops could rest, but Teng Yuzhao could not.

According to Li Yaoting's intelligence, just yesterday morning, they should have received news that the Allied forces besieging the capital had suffered heavy losses. The 50,000 German and Russian reinforcements had already abandoned their transport troops and marched quickly to the capital.

The main forces of the German and Russian armies dared to rush to the capital first, probably because they did not know that the vanguard army would withdraw after winning a great victory and breaking the Allied siege of the capital in one fell swoop, and was already in an extremely favorable confrontation situation.

The coalition forces near the capital should be the most fearful now. Although they still have more troops than the vanguard army, they have suffered continuous casualties and are now divided into two parts. They should be extremely worried about being attacked by the vanguard army and being defeated one by one.

However, it was extremely dangerous to merge the troops in the south and north of the city into one place. If they left their defensive positions, they would most likely be besieged by the heavy forces assembled by the vanguard army during the movement.

All of this will prompt the coalition forces near the capital to desperately urge these reinforcements to arrive in the capital as soon as possible.

More than half a day was enough for these 50,000 elite coalition forces to cover more than half of their distance. In other words, if Teng Yuzhao ambushed the coalition transport team here, these 50,000 coalition forces would definitely not be able to return in time for support.

This made Teng Yuzhao very excited, and he almost cheered, because it meant that he had a great chance of successfully seizing this batch of weapons and ammunition.

Although the remaining coalition forces still had more than 20,000 escort troops, Teng Yuzhao led almost his entire army this time, with nearly 70,000 troops.

In addition to the main force of Cao Futian's independent column, which escorted supplies and prisoners, it also escorted nearly 5,000 wounded soldiers to Luzhou Prefecture and handed them over to Li Yulin, who had already led the camp office to move there.

Cao Futian and Pan Jinshan personally led the remaining three battalions and three artillery battalions of the artillery association to Yanchang, with their backs against the Yongding River, and were building blocking positions to cover the main force led by Teng Yuzhao to seize the weapons and ammunition and then successfully evacuate safely.

All the rest of the troops were brought over by Teng Yuzhao, including not only the three mixed brigades, but also the assault column which had suffered heavy casualties, the guards brigade which had much inferior combat effectiveness, and the baggage troops directly under Teng Yuzhao's headquarters, all of which were brought over by Teng Yuzhao without a single one left.

A large number of pack horses and hundreds of large carts controlled by the baggage battalion were also brought along, with the aim of seizing as much ammunition and supplies from the coalition forces as possible.

These pack horses and carts of the baggage camp were originally used to transport weapons, supplies and wounded soldiers when evacuating the capital. In order to transport as many weapons and ammunition as possible from the Allied Forces' transport team, these pack horses and carts were brought by Teng Yuzhao.

The supplies and wounded soldiers transported from the capital were urgently requisitioned on the spot by the Independent Column in the nearby towns and villages in the name of the Governor-General of Zhili.

"Marshal, our reconnaissance post has just sent back new intelligence. The deputy chief of staff asks you to return to the headquarters immediately."

A staff officer who came running over hurriedly said behind Teng Yuzhao.

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(End of this chapter)