Chapter 735: 735 Defend Xicong
Chapter 735 Chapter 735 Defending Xicong
To be honest, Zhao Kai still hopes to cause some trouble for Feng Kezhi and make the general lose some of his power.
However, Zhao Kai is not willing to trade the southern oil fields and the vast swaths of mountains and rivers in the southeast for such an opportunity to weaken the power of the general.
The price is too high.
So he took a breath, adjusted his emotions, and said, "Leave all affairs in the southeast to Zhao Chen..."
He paused for a moment, and then continued: "As for the general, you...please perform meritorious service and rescue General Qian Jinhang!"
"I accept the order! I will do my best to rescue Qian Jinhang... and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers under his command!" Feng Kezhi bowed his head and accepted the order. Of course he knew that what Zhao Kai cared about was not Qian Jinhang, but the hundreds of thousands of troops from his Dahua Empire outside Xicong!
Only by bringing these hundreds of thousands of soldiers back to the empire can Dahua be able to continue the war! After all, they can't afford to lose!
From the perspective of the Dahua Empire, the southern oil fields that have been blown up to the sky are actually still safe and sound. However, the Tang State knew this news very late.
Redman, who had occupied Nanfengkou, was still focusing on the direction of Lijiacun at this time. The main force of the Tang army was narrowing the encirclement, preparing to surround Dahua's troops in Xicong under Xicong City.
Qian Jinhang was shocked when he just received the news that Nanfengkou was missing. This news was equivalent to negating almost all his previous judgments.
The Tang army's strength in the direction of Nanfengkou has been strengthened. The Tang army, which defeated the reinforcements at Nanfengkou, now has a firm foothold with the backing of Nanfengkou and Lijiacun.
Qian Jinhang's previous judgment that he could gather 100,000 defeated troops was also wrong. He wasted two days and only recovered tens of thousands of troops.
However, his capital is still very rich. The Dahua troops near Xicong still have more than 600,000 troops, and these troops also control a large area.
What makes Qian Jinhang desperate is that there is almost no hope for his breakout: the Tang Army's encirclement was thinnest in the direction of the south wind outlet, which was already very thick, and it was impossible to break out from this direction.
You must know that he is now deeply trapped in Xicong. He cannot capture Xicong, and it is even more impossible to turn back and capture Nanfengkou.
So Qian Jinhang blocked the news that Nanfengkou was missing. He tried his best to comfort his subordinates and told them that he would act immediately after receiving the order to break out and lead his troops to kill Nanfengkou.
For his lie, he even actually mobilized troops and moved the armored troops originally intended to attack Sishui City in the Tang Dynasty to the direction of Lijia Village.
But in fact, he had actually received a death order from Feng Kezhi, ordering him to immediately break out in the direction of Nanfengkou and recapture Nanfengkou at all costs.
Feng Kezhi's order actually had two purposes. One was to really let Qian Jinhang break out of the encirclement, because there were no Dahua troops near Qian Jinhang who could rescue him.
Another purpose was actually to prepare to sacrifice Qian Jinhang so that Qian Jinhang's breakthrough would attract the Tang army's attention and buy more time for Prince Zhao Chen to strengthen the Zangjian Gorge defense line.
This is definitely a plan that kills two birds with one stone. The only question is whether Qian Jinhang has the ability to break through, or how long Qian Jinhang can last in Xicong.
Qian Jinhang was not prepared to carry out Feng Kezhi's orders because his troops could not persist in fighting in the field. The reality is: if he sticks to Xicong, he may be able to hold on for more than ten days. If he leaves Xicong and heads for Lijia Village, he may completely collapse halfway.
To the north is the reinforced defense line of the Tang Army, and there are no strategic strongholds. There is no way for hundreds of thousands of troops to go in this direction.
Not to mention heading south, that is the border between Tang and Chu, with rolling mountains in all directions. If these 600,000 people go to Chu State and see the population, it is estimated that only 20,000 people will be left.
What's more, even if he really fled to Chu with tens of thousands of people, he lost all his cannons, all his tanks and cars, all his shells and fuel... How could he go back to Dahua?
After receiving Feng Kezhi's order, Qian Jinhang knew that Feng Kezhi's breakout order had two meanings. He had to fight! No matter how he fights, he must fight to attract Tang Jun's attention.
Therefore, fleeing to Chu State is not allowed. If Dahua's troops escape into the mountains and forests, the Tang Army only needs to arrange some troops to ensure that Qian Jinhang's troops will not turn back.
At that time, at least 200,000 Tang troops will press towards the Zangjian Gorge, threatening Jiange... The situation of the Dahua Empire will really be in danger.
If the Southern Oilfield is lost and the Jiange is lost again, the dignity of the Dahua Empire will be completely lost. Neither Feng Kezhi nor Zhao Kai dare to think about what will be left by then.
Qian Jinhang knew Feng Kezhi, or he had already seen through Zhao Kai. In this situation, he has no other choice. He can persist as long as he can. This is what he can and must do.
Therefore, he secretly sent a telegram to Feng Kezhi, telling the imperial general the situation he faced: It is impossible for me to break out of the encirclement, and I can probably hold on to Xicong for a few more days. After seeing this call back, Feng Kezhi suddenly felt a little moved. Only then did he realize that whether it was Han Zhiyuan or Ding Hong, the one who could really understand him was actually Qian Jinhang.
But now there is no way to get Qian Jinhang back safely, so Feng Kezhi decisively sent a telegram to Qian Jinhang, ordering him to stick to Xicong and fight to the last moment.
At the same time, Feng Kezhi went to the palace again, met with Zhao Kai, asked Qian Jinhang for a higher military rank, and added the big character "GI" in front of the general's name.
Yes, Qian Jinhang also became a general, but he was only a second-grade general, which was still inferior to Feng Kezhi's imperial general.
But this name is already very bluffing within the Dahua Empire, because in the past few decades, the Dahua Empire has not had a second "great general".
Hence, the otherworldly version of Paulus, just like the real Paulus, was successfully promoted after being surrounded, and he had a bit of a sense of being an extremely popular minister.
This is how the magical thing began. With almost everyone knowing it, Feng Kezhi sent a new message, ordering Qian Jinhang to defend Xicong and not take a step back.
Emperor Zhao Kai vigorously advocated Qian Jinhang's loyalty and patriotism in the court, hoping that Qian Jinhang could hold his position in Xicong and attract the main force of the Tang army.
Shen Chuan announced that the Great China Empire had recruited 1 million new soldiers to join the Qin and Chu armies, preparing to retake Nanfengkou and then fight to the death with the Tang army!
After a series of official appointments and promises, and a series of true and false assurances, the morale of the Dahua troops near Xicong was more or less appeased, and for a while there were no more officers clamoring to break out.
But the difficulty will never really disappear just because you don’t look at it. While Qian Jinhang struggled to maintain the status quo and began to strengthen the defenses near Xicong, his supplies were decreasing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
After all, there are 600,000 people! We have to eat every day and fight every day. It would be weird if the supplies we hoarded were not running low.
Soon, the Dahua army no longer dared to waste the ammunition in their hands: some small-scale battles were not allowed, and many positions were abandoned in a planned way.
After all, the cannonballs are shot one less and the bullets are shot one less. In this case, who dares to let go and waste it? So we can only retreat to save supplies.
For Qian Jinhang, giving up some defense areas is not completely without benefits. At least material distribution and troop dispatching have become more convenient, and a lot of waste on the road has been saved.
However, everyone found that they were getting further and further away from Nanfengkou - the Dahua armored force that had been transferred to the direction of Lijiacun retreated more than 30 kilometers in one breath after encountering the squeeze of the Tang Army's armored force.
During this retreat, everyone discovered another fact: the fuel in their hands seemed to be constantly being consumed. Tanks are still in use, cars are in use, and soldiers still use them to keep warm.
Each division headquarters needs lighting, especially for troops stationed in the wild. Officers also need to burn some fuel for heating and drying. In addition, in order to keep communications open, they also need to generate electricity.
As a result, as time went by, various armies experienced fuel shortages. Many cars and tanks were abandoned, which in turn caused the combat effectiveness of Dahua's army to plummet.
The thing that ran out the fastest was food. Although the Tang army was squeezing the Dahua troops in the encirclement, they deliberately did not annihilate the Dahua troops in the encirclement on a large scale.
So the large Dahua army did not lose any soldiers, so the daily food consumption was very huge.
Qian Jinhang can reduce the amount of ammunition and save fuel expenses, but the only thing he can't do is make the soldiers eat less.
The Dahua soldiers who are crowded into increasingly smaller positions no matter what the people above them think, they must eat two meals a day.
This is already the bottom line: Under normal circumstances, troops should eat three meals a day to maintain better physical strength and combat effectiveness. But after all, there are not many countries in the world that have enough food and clothing, so the basic guarantee for recruiting soldiers in most countries is two meals a day, not three meals a day for the Tang army.
But if they cannot eat two meals a day, then the troops of these countries will not only lose their combat effectiveness: they will mutiny, break up their camps and roar, and pull out their commanders and beat them to death.
This kind of thing is not without precedent. The Great China Empire had similar things happen to its own troops in the early years, and there were countless such things in the armies of Chu State and Zheng State Qi State, which had even worse combat effectiveness.
In the end, Qian Jinhang had no choice but to let some troops attack Xicong, hoping to find some food from the city to supplement his little remaining military rations.
—
Here’s an update on yesterday’s leave.
(End of this chapter)