The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 388 The situation suddenly changed
The battle started suddenly and ended quickly.

Not only was the ambush discovered by the vanguard, but it was also caught in a fire, which forced the Japanese army to come under heavy fire from the Konoe Corps.

In addition, although the Japanese cavalry unit that ambushed also had about 5,000 people, they were still far from having an advantage in terms of manpower.

Moreover, the Guards were far away in the dark night, while they were in the blazing sea of ​​fire on both sides, making them obvious targets.

Especially when they saw that a huge fire had also broken out among the cavalry units behind the Guards in the south, they knew that the situation of the troops behind them would not be much better than theirs, and they became even more desperate.

Under such harsh circumstances, the Japanese ambush troops would no longer have the will to fight.

Therefore, before Teng Yuzhao ordered his troops to attack, the Japanese cavalry on the northernmost side had already begun to flee from the battlefield which was illuminated by the fire as if it were daytime. As soon as the charge of the Imperial Guards Association sounded, the Japanese cavalry no longer cared about anything else and turned around and ran.

At this point, the situation on the battlefield had completely reversed. The ambushing party became the fleeing party, while the party that should have been ambushed became the victorious pursuing force.

As the charge sounded in front, a charge was also heard a mile behind.

At this time, the signalmen sent by Wu Peifu to deliver the message should not have arrived at Li Zixiong yet. Their charge was probably a change made by Li Zixiong to his mission based on the changes in the battlefield situation.

Not only did Teng Yuzao not object to Li Zixiong's practice of changing orders without authorization, on the contrary he also admired Li Zixiong very much.

A qualified commander is one who does not rigidly follow orders but can make appropriate adjustments to tasks according to changes in the battlefield situation. It seems that Li Zixiong is a man of courage.

After the troops of the Imperial Guard Association rushed through the section of official road that had turned into a sea of ​​fire, Teng Yuzhao also quickly passed through this area with the special guard squadron.

Fearing that the seriously wounded but not dead Japanese cavalry would make a last-ditch struggle, Xu Ting commanded the guard squadron to surround Teng Yuzao. As they marched, they shot or stabbed to death any living Japanese soldiers they found.

Teng Yuzao did not blame Xu Ting for killing the prisoners without permission, and turned a blind eye to it.

In such a situation, he had no time to treat the enemy's wounded, let alone to retreat with seriously injured prisoners. It would be best if he could reduce the burden.

What’s more, the other party is the Japanese devils!

Teng Yuzhao had no mercy at all for these little devils. This was destined to be a battle in which there would be no prisoners.

Fortunately, when Teng Yuzhao walked across the battlefield, he saw only the corpses of short Japanese cavalrymen in black uniforms, and did not find any casualties in uniforms of other colors.

In other words, the cavalry of that American regiment did not participate in the ambush. They should have been cooperating with some Japanese troops in chasing them from behind.

While walking on the official road, the heat waves coming from the burning green tents on both sides still made people feel unbearable.

Teng Yuzhao took a rough look at the situation on the battlefield. There were probably more than a thousand Japanese soldiers killed in battles and bombings. If those killed during the pursuit were included, the number was estimated to be more than two thousand, which was only two-fifths of the Japanese troops involved in the ambush.

Although such results did not satisfy Teng Yuzhao, it was better than nothing.

Moreover, although the Imperial Guards had the advantage in manpower and firepower, on such a battlefield, since the Imperial Guards could only flank the Japanese ambush troops who had to escape from the green tent, their superior manpower and firepower could not be fully utilized, and the best outcome would be a defeat.

Because it was night, the troops of the Imperial Guard Association did not chase too far. They only chased them two miles away, and the remaining Japanese troops once again sneaked into the green tent.

It was extremely dangerous to enter the green gauze tent at night to pursue the fleeing Japanese troops. Not only would one be ambushed by the Japanese troops hiding in the dark, but one might even be accidentally injured by one's own comrades. Therefore, one could only stand outside the green gauze tent and fire a burst of shots into the tent.

Fearing that Japanese soldiers might be hiding in the green tents and shooting at them, Wu Peifu found the mortar commander and fired several incendiary bombs from a distance at the upwind side of the green tents on both sides of the official road. Seeing that the green tents in the distance were already on fire, he ordered the battlefield to be cleaned up.

The result of cleaning up the battlefield was not much different from what Teng Yuzhao had estimated. Including the Japanese troops who were chasing and fleeing, only a little over 2,000 Japanese cavalry were killed.

There were more than three thousand guns, and even four Hotchkiss heavy machine guns were seized.

As for the fact that the Japanese heavy machine guns did not have time to open fire, this was normal, because when the Japanese troops escaped from the fire and ran to the open space and the official road, the sudden fire had already caused serious chaos in the Japanese cavalry abdominal muscle troops. Not only did the heavy machine guns have no firing range, some heavy machine guns were even lost in the burning green gauze tent.

Fortunately, the dry straw burned quickly and the fire soon spread in, so the heavy machine gun placed on the ground was not burned.

The unexpected surprise was that when they were chasing the fleeing enemy, some of them did not flee into the green gauze tent, but fled directly to the war horses they left two miles away. More than 1,600 ponies were seized by the Guards Association troops who followed closely.

The two thousand people behind were chasing the Japanese and American troops. After seeing the fire in the ambush circle and hearing the sound of artillery and intensive shooting, they began to retreat.

Since the Japanese cavalry had no artillery, the current artillery sounds must have come from the vanguard army. And since the vanguard army had time to fire, it meant that they had discovered their ambush troops in advance.

If the ambush is discovered, failure is inevitable.

Li Zixiong led the team in pursuit and also seized a batch of war horses. Although the number was small, there were 122 quarter horses among them.

The Quarter Horse originated in America. It has extremely fast short-distance sprint speed. Within 400 meters, even a purebred horse cannot beat it. It was even called the Bolt of racehorses in later generations.

The Quarter Horse is an American Horse, so it must have been the U.S. Army’s cavalry warhorse.

Sure enough, when someone was sent to inquire, it turned out that Li Zixiong and his men had killed more than 160 US cavalrymen.

Teng Yuzao knew that this should be because the enemy knew that Teng Yuzao had certain requirements for the Americans, which was that they still had to be captured. For fear of being blamed by Teng Yuzao, he did not dare to report it.

In night battles, due to poor visibility, one could be killed by the enemy if one is slightly careless. The enemy would lose their combat effectiveness as soon as possible, so it is normal not to capture prisoners.

In response to Li Zixiong's behavior, Teng Yuzao could only smile bitterly.

After quickly cleaning up the battlefield, the Guards began marching again, and they increased their speed.

Since it took some time to defeat these Japanese ambushes, we had to speed up and catch up.

After just over an hour of rushing, he met a staff officer from the headquarters sent by Wei Jinghai.

I just received intelligence that the coalition forces in the capital have already set out.

Although the scouts could not see the number of coalition forces clearly at night, the coalition forces were divided into two groups, and the strength of each group must be between 30,000 and 40,000.

Now, they were marching quickly along the banks of the Yongding River. Wei Jinghai asked Teng Yuzao to rush to Xinzhuang as soon as possible. Teng Yuzao was a little surprised by Wei Jinghai's information.

In Teng Yuzhao's view, his successive destruction and defeat of the Allied Forces' 10,000-strong army was enough to demonstrate the strength of the vanguard army. He believed that the Allied Forces would never give him another chance.

But he never expected that this time the coalition forces would still dare to divide their forces and attack.

The fact that the coalition forces dare to divide their forces shows that they are now fearless.

There could only be one reason, and that was that their military strength had been significantly increased, with more than 50,000 German and Tsarist Russian troops arriving, bringing the total strength of the Allied forces near the capital to 150,000.

Although the coalition forces arrived overnight and tried to take back the large amount of weapons, ammunition and supplies that had been seized from them, Teng Yuzhao was not worried about the safety of the seized weapons, ammunition and supplies.

This was because Yanjiachang was originally Teng Yuzhao's strategy to confuse the enemy, and it was not the only place he had to pass through to cross the Yongding River on his actual evacuation route with the captured materials.

Although three battalions of Cao Futian's independent column and artillery were left there to cooperate, and trenches were dug and fortifications were built on a large scale, it was just a bluff.

There is only one purpose, which is to cover the actual crossing point of the troops transporting captured materials.

In Teng Yuzhao's plan, the actual place to cross the Yongding River was not Yanjiachang, but Xinzhuang.

Xinzhuang is located south of Yanjiachang. Crossing the river here can not only effectively prevent being blocked by the Allied Forces in the area east of the Yongding River.

This move will also allow the vanguard army and the captured weapons, ammunition and supplies to reach a safe area earlier, freeing up the troops to go into battle lightly and deal with the coalition forces without any worries.

Although Xinzhuang did not have a bridge that could accommodate carts loaded with weapons and ammunition, there was only a thin and narrow wooden bridge that packhorses and people could pass through, but Teng Yuzhao's staff office had only one staff officer from Xinzhuang, who was very familiar with the Yongding River in this area. Near Xinzhuang, there was a section of the river where the water not only flowed slowly but was also extremely shallow, so carts could wade through it directly.

When there was military intelligence, Teng Yuzhao naturally had to rush there in time. The two sides were ten to fifteen miles apart, and if they walked, it would take about an hour.

In order to get there as quickly as possible, Teng Yuzhao directly took the captured American cavalry horses and rode them. Although there were still a small number of people in the special guard squadron who did not have such horses, he could not care less and could only let these people ride on the Japanese cavalry's ponies and follow.

The retreating troops of the vanguard army did not enter Xinzhuang, but turned a fork in the road to its south and went directly to the river bank.

Led by the staff officer waiting at the intersection, Teng Yuzhao successfully reached the river bank.

At this time, the river bank was already crowded with large carts and packhorses loaded with supplies, and the surrounding open spaces were even more crowded with people.

Although officers kept yelling at the soldiers and the people driving the carts to be quiet, the people could still be seen talking in low voices.

As for the neighing of horses, it is not convenient to prohibit it under temporary conditions, and the neighing of horses is heard all the time.

The troops crossed the river in order along a creaky wooden bridge not far away, and even pack horses could pass through the bridge.

But the same cannot be said for carts loaded with weapons, ammunition and supplies. If such heavy carts are put on the bridge, the flimsy wooden bridge will most likely collapse.

The cart was in a shallow river more than 100 meters downstream of the wooden bridge and waded across the river directly.

However, the riverbed was not entirely sandy and there was silt in some places. It was difficult for a fully loaded cart to pass by itself if it was pulled by horses, so the soldiers had to help the horses push and pull.

When he saw Teng Yuzhao, Wei Jinghai did not have time to report the situation of crossing the river, and hurriedly pulled Teng Yuzhao into a tent a little further away from the river bank.

In the tent, Liu Yuzhi, Li Xiangze, Liu Shijiu, Hu Dianjia, Cao Futian, Pan Jinshan, Liu Changfa and others were crowded in the tent, puffing smoke and talking in low voices.

When they saw Wei Jinghai pulling Teng Yuzhao into the tent, these people stopped talking.

Knowing that the situation was urgent, Wei Jinghai had summoned all the generals.

Teng Yuzao didn't waste any more words. He waved his hand for everyone to sit down, and then spoke directly to Wei Jinghai.

"Let me tell you the situation first."

Since Wei Jinghai had already informed the generals of the situation before Teng Yuzhao came, Wei Jinghai directly pointed to the map that had been hung up and spoke.

"Marshal, the foreign devils who gathered near the capital have already set out. The latest time should be yesterday afternoon. When our scouts discovered the coalition forces, it was already 11:00 p.m. in Fengtai."

"The coalition forces are divided into two groups, one to the north of the Yongding River and the other to the south of the Yongding River. They are now marching along the river. Their targets should be Yanjiachang and Dongxianpo."

"Handsome"

As soon as Wei Jinghai finished introducing the situation, Liu Shijiu spoke hurriedly.

"According to our prediction, the foreign devils are likely to come with their entire army this time, and this time it turned out to be just as we expected."

"However, our original plan was to retreat and avoid the main force of the foreign devils. Then, since the foreign devils dare not go too deep, we and the foreign devils will probably be in a period of peace."

"But the situation is a little different now. The foreign devils have 50,000 more reinforcements. It's hard to say whether they can still get along peacefully with us for the time being."

"So, let's teach those foreign devils a lesson. Otherwise, we won't be safe."

Liu Shijiu's words represent the mentality of some generals, but the situation is urgent now and he is urgently needed to make a decision as soon as possible. He does not have much time to seek everyone's opinions.

Teng Yuzhao took the cup of tea handed to him by Wei Jinghai, took a sip to moisten his throat, and then put the cup down.

"Time is tight, so I'll just speak my mind directly."

Teng Yuzao took a deep breath and said, "I agree to change the original battle plan, and I support fighting a big battle with the foreign devils now, even if we will suffer heavy losses for it, we will not hesitate!"

The generals, who were already in high spirits, were all a little surprised after hearing Teng Yuzao say that they could pay a heavy loss for this!
Because, since the uprising in Tianjin, Teng Yuzhao has never said this, and what he said today was a bit abnormal!
This couldn't but surprise these generals!
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(End of this chapter)