Chapter 580: The Battle of the Daling River (I)

From the moment the first batch of supplies arrived, throughout the remainder of late August into early September, the Yongping Li Jichun Division began receiving strategic matériel in an unbroken stream.

An endless flow of private merchant caravans set out from Tianjin, bringing great quantities of fodder, uniforms, weapons, and warhorses.

As of now, the Spring Thunder Camp has 1,200 soldiers actually on the rolls, including 300 recruits with less than three months of training. That is to say, the number of soldiers with over half a year of training who are qualified to take the field is 900.

Yet the military stores currently stockpiled in the fortress can equip 3,000 men. The grain reserves among them can sustain 3,000 men and horses in the field for half a year, or hold a city under siege for ten months.

The above figures are calculated according to the New Army's consumption quotas stipulated in a certain logistics regulation. If one were to follow the old-army operational model that Assistant Regional Commander Li privately calculated, these supplies would be more than enough to let 10,000 Great Ming beggars hold a city for a year and a half with plenty to spare.

And so the somewhat neurotic Lord Li has lately been lingering in the warehouses, unable to tear himself away.

Row upon row of firearms, tin after tin of compressed biscuit, pack after pack of uniforms, blade upon blade of swords and spears, and those fine, fat, powerfully built steeds... ever since he joined the army, Lao Li has never seen such extravagantly lavish matériel reserves.

Having once again personally counted and inspected the mountain of military supplies piled high in the storehouse, Assistant Regional Commander Li was bursting with pride and satisfaction, laughing heartily with his hands clasped behind his back.

From this moment on, Yongping Fortress, and the Spring Thunder Camp entrenched within it, have been completely reborn, formally becoming one of the Crossing Faction's critical military strongpoints in the northern territories of the Ming state.

There are some matters that, at Assistant Regional Commander Li's rank, he is not yet privy to. According to the planning, Yongping Fortress will continue to have warehouses built, secretly stockpiling military supplies. In the future, it must be capable, at a minimum, of supporting high-intensity combat operations for an army-corps-level force.

So the current stockpile of supplies, truth be told, wouldn't impress anyone back in the southern industrial zones the Transmigrators have painstakingly cultivated... it can only shock a northern pauper like Li Jichun who has never seen the wider world.

In addition to the regular supplies, taking into account the narrow terrain and the absence of waterway networks beyond the pass, in early September, Tianjin Station specially dispatched cavalry from the Independent Cavalry Battalion to escort a shipment of special combat matériel to the Spring Thunder Camp: landmines.

As for simple cast-iron landmines, given the Transmigrators' current industrial capability, they can naturally produce them whenever they wish.

The reason this thing hasn't been used on a large scale in the south is mainly because their opponents are weaklings — a landmine is a defensive weapon. In the south, no power base has yet been able to push Grand Commandant Cao's retainers to the point of burying landmines for defense; all anyone ever sees is the Transmigrators running around bullying everyone else every day.

Add to that the humidity of the south — these landmines are troublesome and labor-intensive to store. One careless moment of dampness, and they turn into unpredictable great killers just like dud shells in a mine. So they have never been widely deployed.

It was only this time, to deal with matters beyond the pass, and also because the General Staff wanted to test in advance the combat capability of various new weapons in the north, that the order was given for the arsenal to specially produce a batch of cast-iron landmines and send them thousands of miles to the Li Jichun Division.

The landmine models sent to the Li Jichun Division are very few — only two types: the "Warm Type One" and the "Warm Type Two."

The two landmine types are virtually identical in size, appearance, and power; the only difference is the detonation method: one is pressure-triggered, the other pull-triggered.

All in all, the manufacturing craftsmanship of the Warm Brand Landmine is quite advanced... because it is backed by later-generation industrial theory and a proper industrial production line, even an old-style cast-iron landmine can surpass those crude border-region goods of the native Eighth Route by seven or eight streets.

The outer casing of the Warm Brand Landmine is made of cast-iron fragments produced using an uneven casting method. Upon detonation, the cast-iron shards of varying thickness can scatter more easily, inflicting greater damage on the enemy.

Considering that enemies of this era all use dense formations and are unfamiliar with landmine warfare, the Warm series is generally on the large side. The black lumps, the size of a child's head, are stuffed full of specialized Black Powder — this differs from the saltpeter-sulfur ratio of gunpowder for firearms and cannons that requires stable burning; this one single-mindedly pursues a violent instantaneous explosive effect, the so-called Fierce Fire Powder.

In a single landmine, the component with the highest technology content is the Responsible For.

The fuzes of the Warm Brand series are all the simplest contact fuzes. For the Crossing Army's ordnance system, which has already produced countless percussion caps, this poses no difficulty whatsoever. What truly tests their industrial capability is, on the contrary, moisture-proofing and preventing accidental detonation. After all, the Crossing system's current chemical production capacity is still quite weak, and certain chemicals with limited applications have not yet been placed on the production list.

Because of this, accompanying the several hundred landmines this time is a full squad-sized instructor team. Besides training the soldiers of the Li Jichun Division in the safe use of landmines, the instructors are also to accompany the army on the campaign beyond the pass, in order to gather operational data on the new weapon in the northern region.

Military supplies are the foundation of a war. By the time the Li Jichun Division was more or less prepared, the calendar had already reached October. And on the very day of October 10th, Li Jichun, Assistant Regional Commander of Yongping Fortress, formally received the conscription order sent by Grand Secretary Sun from Shanhai Pass.

At the same time he received this order, a telegram from the General Staff also arrived on Li Jichun's desk. The middle-aged man once again tasted the enormous advantage of informationization; he instantly understood the full context behind Grand Secretary Sun's conscription order.

Ever since the Later Jin grand army besieged the city in early September, Zu Dashou's division had been holed up inside Dalinghe Fort, locked in a confrontation with the Later Jin grand army, with both sides locked in a seesaw battle.

During this process, Sun Chengzong, commanding from Shanhai Pass, organized three waves of reinforcements to rescue Zu Dashou.

The first wave of reinforcements came in mid-September, composed of two thousand garrison troops from Songshan. Due to the overwhelming disparity in numbers, this force was easily defeated by the Jin troops.

A few days after the first wave of reinforcements was routed, the second wave arrived — led by the famously notorious teammate-selling maniac Wu Sangui's father, the Escape Master and Regional Commander Wu Xiang, with six thousand troops from Jinzhou. As a result, Wu Xiang's division was soundly defeated by the Later Jin's great general Ajige and fled back to Jinzhou City.

By early October, after Wu Xiang's division had licked its wounds, it came to the rescue once again. This time, Huang Taiji personally came to fight. The result of the battle was very Guanning Army... Wu Xiang's six thousand-plus troops were charged and slaughtered by Huang Taiji's personal guard of two hundred White Armor soldiers. When the Later Jin grand army arrived, it was yet another glorious scene of pursuing victory with red flags waving... Wu Xiang's six thousand men were utterly routed and fled back.

Upon hearing this news, Sun Chengzong was extremely anxious, so the old man went all in. On top of the grand army already assembled, he once again issued orders to draw out all Ming Army units in the north that could arrive in time, preparing to set out and rescue Zu Dashou.

This time, Li Jichun, the Yongping Assistant Regional Commander, also received a conscription order.

In theory, the Yongping Assistant Regional Commander, being a stone's throw from Shanhai Pass, should have received his orders long ago. However, due to certain high-level political reasons — the Vice Minister of War, Peng Runan, is a member of Wen Tiren's clique — military reports involving Yongping Fortress had, before this, been deliberately or inadvertently suppressed by the Ministry of War.

This time, had Sun Chengzong not become desperate, Li Jichun would probably still be honestly staying put in Yongping, training troops and avoiding calamity.

Of course, at this stage, there was no way for the Li Jichun Division to avoid making the trip to Shanhai Pass. Fortunately, they had made thorough preparations beforehand, so on the very day he received the conscription order, Lao Li summoned all the camp's senior officers and staff officers and convened a mobilization meeting.

Yes, a mobilization meeting. As for the military strategy after heading beyond the pass, Li Jichun had long ago been "given personal instructions" remotely via telegrams from the General Staff. Assistant Regional Commander Li even knew that on the distant, wave-tossed sea, there was even a fleet coming to reinforce them, with the target reportedly being the slave-builders' rear flank. So for the Spring Thunder Camp, the more important strategic meeting had, in fact, already been held among the core team.