Chapter 395 Troops Arrive in the Inner City

According to the prior agreement between the two parties, after Ruan Wenwen's garrison surrendered, he himself would personally perform the task of leading the way and guide the Haihan militia to launch an attack to the south of the city. There was still more than two miles from the bridge guarded by Ruan Wenwen to the outskirts of the imperial city.

, it is definitely much better to have people who are familiar with the defense situation in the city lead the way than the militia to push through on their own.

Just as Ruan Jinggui promised beforehand, the leading party in the city has arranged a safe marching channel to the south of the city. Some people are even more active than Ruan Jinggui. Before the militia army arrived, they had already assembled their troops and put all their weapons

They were all piled together and waiting to surrender. In just over an hour, the Haihan side received more than 2,200 surrendered troops from the defenders. The militia army entered the southern half of the city under the guidance of the leading party without firing a single shot.

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The defenders in the city had known a few days ago that the Haihan people had breached the city wall in the northeast corner and established a defensive position in that area. However, the Haihan people had been besieged by the defenders in the following days and had made almost no gains.

Any progress. This gave many people hope again, thinking that they could rely on the narrow terrain and military superiority in the city to suppress the Haihan Militia in the northeast corner, and use time to slowly wear down the opponent's victory. However,

While these people were still daydreaming, nearly 3,000 soldiers from the Han militia group had quietly entered the city and pushed southward along the city wall to the core of Hue City.

When the militia soldiers in gray military uniforms appeared at the Imperial City Garrison Department, which was only two blocks away from the Imperial City, the South Vietnamese Guardsmen stationed nearby immediately exploded - the Haihan militia group unexpectedly attacked without any warning.

After attacking here, are all the defenders in the northern half of the city dead?

At this juncture, the defending general made a very serious mistake. He did not immediately launch troops to attack the small vanguard of the Haihan Militia. Instead, he chose to wait and see while gathering troops. As a result, he missed the opportunity to fight.

The Haihan Militia had enough time to transport the artillery behind the team to the front line for deployment. When five artillery lined up on the street and aimed at the gate of the garrison department, the outcome of this battle was already determined.

Five artillery pieces roared one after another, and the shells flew over the empty street, smashing the gate of the garrison department and the dense barricades outside the door to pieces. Some South Vietnamese soldiers who tried to launch a counterattack during the shelling were also killed by the dense musketry.

The lead bullets were blocked a hundred meters away, making it impossible to get close to the Haihan militia camp.

After four rounds of artillery bombardment, the gate of the garrison department and the walls on both sides had been reduced to rubble, and there were dozens of casualties in the yard behind the gate. Qian Tiandun gave an order, and the soldiers lined up with rifles.

Formed, they launched an attack on the garrison department at a steady pace. Under the suppression of the absolute firepower superiority, any attempt to use personal bravery to perform close combat was in vain. For the few resisters who were not afraid of death, the soldiers

They won't be stingy with their bullets either.

Although some of the defenders followed the commander and evacuated the battlefield from the back door of the Garrison Department, the fall here still caused the command system of the Royal Forest Army to immediately fall into a state of paralysis. Thousands of defenders deployed outside the imperial city could only

Small-scale sporadic counterattacks were organized, which was a godsend opportunity for the Haihan militia, which was good at battlefield command. By noon, the walls of the imperial city had entered the musket range of the vanguard, and at this time the imperial city was guarded.

Most of the imperial guardsmen had abandoned their positions outside the city after losing their command, and chose to retreat to defend within the imperial city.

The actions of the Royal Forest Army directly caused chaos among the defenders in other areas of the city. Due to their status, they were unable to retreat into the Imperial City, and they did not know what the situation was like. Rumors immediately spread in the city. There were even rumors that the Haihan Militia had surrounded the Imperial City.

, were stepping up their attack, and were about to break the city. The Imperial Guards, who had lost their command, failed to send messengers in time to notify the defenders in various parts of the city to return to the defense. This resulted in repeated delays in fighter planes, allowing the Haihan militia to calmly attack.

Demolish the houses outside the imperial city that blocked the artillery fire and establish a siege position.

The densely packed houses outside the imperial city posed a great obstacle to the subsequent offensive of the Haihan Militia. The officers had to stop their advance and first organized soldiers and civilians to demolish the buildings. However, this action was not part of the original battle plan.

among.

"Tear down all the walls of the courtyard on the left! Hurry!" Yu Tiezhu, who was ordered to clean up the site, loudly issued an order to his soldiers and civilians. The order he received was to clear the left side of the street in front of him before dark.

All the houses and walls that blocked the shooting were torn down, which was obviously not an easy task.

Seven or eight soldiers worked together to hold a long wooden pillar head and hit it against the wall. This was a beam that had just been demolished from another house, and was now used as a demolition tool. Several groups of people carried it

Under the constant impact of the wood, the brick wall soon collapsed towards the courtyard. There was a burst of exclamation in the courtyard, and several men tried to resist with swords and guns, but they were immediately beaten to pieces by the musketeers who came up to replace them.

.At this time, no one cares whether these people are good citizens or defenders. As long as they try to attack the militia, they can meet the standard of shooting back.

The forced demolition operation greatly slowed down the attack speed of the militia, so that Qian Tiandun had to stop the follow-up combat plan and wait for the civilians to clear a large enough open space in front of the position. Fortunately, most of the artillery of the South Vietnamese defenders was deployed in

On the outer city walls, the imperial city walls did not have any long-range weapons. Some defenders who dared to expose their heads and bodies from the crenellations and shoot civilians outside the city with bows and arrows were also named by snipers squatting on nearby rooftops.

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Hue Imperial City imitated the design of the Ming Dynasty's imperial city. It also has a central axis layout of one palace and one square. It contains palaces such as Qinzheng Palace, Qiancheng Palace, Kuntai Palace, Guangming Palace, Gongguang Palace, and Taihe Palace.

Building, there are four gates around the imperial city: Meridian Gate, Heping Gate, Xianren Gate, and Zhangde Gate. It is basically a miniature version of the Forbidden City. At this time, the position set up by the Haihan Militia was facing the northeast

of Peace Arch.

The frontline headquarters hopes to clear an area outside the Peace Arch as soon as possible, and then set up artillery to storm the Imperial City, breaking through the last line of defense of the South Vietnamese defenders in a simple and crude way. However, since there are far more civilian houses here than imagined,

This combat plan also had to be postponed.

During the forced demolition that lasted all afternoon, the militia army encountered even more resistance than during their march through the city in the morning. A large number of scattered South Vietnamese soldiers and people carried out spontaneous resistance actions, causing some trouble for the militia army.

And it greatly slowed down the speed of forced demolition, so that the officers responsible for directing the demolition of houses later applied to Qian Tiandun to directly bombard the wall with artillery, so as not to fail to keep up with the progress of the action required by the headquarters.

As of nightfall that day, only about two-thirds of the demolition area required by the headquarters had been completed. Grassroots officers believed that at the current speed, tomorrow's demolition operation would probably take half a day to complete the task.

Fortunately, the clearance of the occupied areas after entering the city went very smoothly, and there was almost no decent resistance. This is of course also directly related to the fact that almost all the defenders in the occupied areas chose to surrender.

In the region, the local people do not have much willingness to resist, and most of them choose to close their doors and seek happiness for themselves.

"We injured more than 30 people and killed four when we demolished a house? What are you doing?" Yan Chujie, who had just arrived from outside the city, couldn't help but became angry when he saw today's casualty report. He had been outside the city this afternoon.

He was busy arranging for the thousands of South Vietnamese troops to be surrendered in the morning and did not enter the city to supervise the battle. The results obtained in the afternoon obviously did not satisfy him.

"Mr. Yan, although the defenders were dispersed by us, they are basically still trapped in the city and have not escaped. You have not seen the scene today. If you just knock down a wall, there will be one or two on the other side.

Hundreds of people rushed over to fight to the death. If the brothers hadn't been well-trained, the casualties would have been much more than that." Qiao Zhiya was one of the on-site commanders of today's forced demolition operation. At this time, he took the initiative to stand up and defend himself.

"We did not expect to encounter so much resistance at the beginning. Later, after allowing the armed forces to cooperate in the operation, there were fewer casualties." Qian Tiandun, as the frontline combat commander, also defended.

Yan Chujie probably realized that his tone just now was a bit too strong, and nodded: "It's not that I care too much about casualties, but that our troops are too small. If the battle losses are too high, it will easily affect the overall combat effectiveness!"

At this stage of the battle, the shortcomings of the Hai Han militia in terms of strength have become more and more obvious. In this expedition to Hue, the Hai Han side dispatched a total of more than 4,000 people, including nearly a thousand heavy civilians. Excluding the navy, they could

There were actually only more than 2,000 troops entering the city to fight. If such a small number of people were to be scattered in Hue City, they would be almost like sprinkling pepper noodles. Therefore, the combat strategy chosen by the headquarters was to only attack one road and never divide the troops.

However, even so, the distribution of troops was already stretched thin, and hundreds of naval soldiers had to be transferred ashore to guard the prisoners outside the city.

It has been exactly one month since the war started on the 22nd of last month. The number of people killed in the Haihan Militia has exceeded three digits, and the number of wounded soldiers who need to retreat from the firing line to recuperate is three times as many. This means that

In this month of fighting, the Haihan Militia lost almost three companies of combat personnel. This level of combat attrition will undoubtedly have a very obvious impact on the originally weak militia. Some non-important

The positions had to be supplemented by civilians with reserve militia qualifications to maintain the normal combat effectiveness of the troops. According to the Military Commission's pre-war estimates, if the battle losses doubled and the war was not over yet, the militiamen who went out to fight would be

The military will probably have to consider whether it needs to withdraw its troops early.

If the situation really develops to that point, it will undoubtedly be a failed expedition for the military. The elimination of the South Vietnamese regime is the primary goal of this military operation. If this operation fails to achieve this goal, the militia will probably have to spend several more

It would take months to gather strength before launching the next attack. This was obviously not a situation that the Military Commission and the Executive Committee wanted to see. Yan Chujie was so anxious because he was worried that the battle damage would be too high and would affect the next battle.

"Let's talk about the current battle situation in the city!" Yan Chujie also felt that it was useless to talk about this topic, so he took the initiative to shift everyone's attention to the analysis of the current battle situation.

Qian Tiandun pointed to the defense map of Hue City on the table and explained: "At present, the area from the northeast corner along the city wall to the southeast has been cleared, but there are still a large number of South Vietnamese defenders in the west and south of the city. According to

Judging from the information provided by the surrendered South Vietnamese officers, it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 to 15,000 remaining defenders in the city."

"Does this number include the defenders in the imperial city?" Yan Chujie asked with a frown.

Qian Tiandun shook his head and said: "There are about four thousand defenders in the imperial city, which are not included in the number I just mentioned."

"Is there any good news that should make us relax?" Yan Chujie was obviously not happy about this situation and could only ask half-jokingly.

"The good news is that the South Vietnamese army guarding the Imperial City does not have many heavy weapons available. The few heavy artillery in the Imperial City are said to be deployed at the Meridian Gate facing the Xiangjiang River. It is estimated that they will be moved in a while.

We can't leave the nest. So at least for the next two days, our artillery deployed outside the Peace Arch will have an overwhelming advantage." Qiao Zhiya paused and added: "But there is also bad news."

"What's the bad news?" Before Yan Chujie could relax, he was lifted up by Qiao Zhiya's words again.

Qiao Zhiya continued: "According to the information we know now, the imperial city's defenses are very strong, and its walls are no worse than those of the outer city. Coupled with the blessing of the moat, it may be a bit troublesome for us to attack in a short time.

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The "bad news" mentioned by Qiao Zhiya is undoubtedly a very real problem. Due to the small area of ​​the imperial city, the deployment area of ​​the defensive forces in the city will be relatively dense. When attacking the outer city, the militia will establish a forward position by breaking through a point.

I'm afraid it's difficult to directly copy the approach, because the outer city covers a larger area, and it will take more time for reinforcements to arrive at the gap in the city wall, and the imperial city is smaller in area. If thousands of people are in place to make up for the defense at the first time,

It will definitely put great pressure on the vanguard troops that invade the city. Although they have 100% confidence in the combat effectiveness of their own troops, if it is not a last resort, the senior officials are not willing to use the elite troops they have worked so hard to cultivate.

Go fight the South Vietnamese monkey soldiers.

The situation that the command headquarters is facing now is a bit of a dilemma. If you want to speed up the battle and end this war as soon as possible, you will probably have to attack the imperial city head-on, and this will inevitably cause more casualties to your own side. If

We have to fight more cautiously and slowly consume the fighting power of the defending troops. Sooner or later, we will be able to win this battle, but we don’t know how long it will last. Maybe ten days and a half, maybe even longer. And

The longer the battle drags on, the greater the burden will be on the militia fighting across the sea, and their own combat effectiveness will continue to decline due to the extension of the combat period.

"I personally have a combat plan, but I'm not sure about its feasibility." Seeing Yan Chujie frowning and staring at the map for a long time, Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to propose a new idea.

"Let's talk about it first!" Yan Chujie looked up at Qiao Zhiya and said.

"Actually, the blasting method we used when breaking through the outer city was very good. I think we can definitely use the same method again." Seeing the disapproval look on Yan Chujie's face, Qiao Zhiya continued: "I know what you want to say.

, if the gap in the city wall we demolish through blasting is too small, it will of course be blocked by the city's defenders, we might as well go bigger and demolish the entire Peace Arch!"

Qiao Zhiya got excited, leaned over and pointed to the map and said: "Look, about three hundred meters behind the Peace Arch is the central axis of the imperial city. Our artillery can hit the imperial palace directly from the current position without crossing the river.

, what will the defenders in the city do to resist our bombardment?"

Qian Tiandun interrupted: "We can also bombard the palace in the city now. We just need to increase the firing angle of the artillery."

"But that would be completely inaccurate, and there is no way to directly verify the effectiveness of the shelling. The most important thing is that those in power in the city can intuitively see how the artillery positions outside the city hit the shells above their heads.

This will definitely be more intimidating!" Qiao Zhiya looked excited, as if he had already imagined the scene of the defenders and dignitaries in the city scrambling to escape the bombardment.

"After all, you just want to play with blasting! Is your nickname Michael Bay?" Yan Chujie pointed out Qiao Zhiya's bad taste unceremoniously. But he couldn't deny that the combat plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya did have certain feasibility.

.If the tower of the Peace Arch can really be taken down, then the gap in the city wall, which is more than 100 meters long, cannot be repaired by the defenders in the city no matter what.

"When we blew up the outer city wall, we used hundreds of kilograms of explosives to blast a four- to five-meter gap. You want to blow down the Heping Arch tower. Are you sure the explosives we brought are enough?" Qian Tiandun

But he was not very interested in the battle plan proposed by Qiao Zhiya.

"The explosives made after time travel must be a little less powerful, but I happen to still have some inventory on hand!" Qiao Zhiya showed a proud smile on his face: "The TNT we bought before time travel has been shipped this time, and it just happened to be dispatched.

Come in handy."

The TNT explosives Qiao Zhiya mentioned were of course not materials purchased by the group, but the private property of the North American Gang. They purchased a large amount of military materials before crossing over, including hundreds of kilograms of TNT explosives and detonators for detonation. Although not

Knowing whether they could be used, but at the insistence of Qiao Zhiya, a big bomber, Wang Tom still transported these dangerous goods by ship to the front line of Hue.
Chapter completed!