Wild North America 1846

June 14, 1846

noon

Rio Rancho is one of the few oasis towns in the deserted New Mexico. The most precious water source of the Holy River flows through here, giving birth to an oasis with rich water and grass nearby. The river is the basis of this land full of Gobi, desert and dark red rocks.

A spring of life on the vast earth,

New Mexico's only source of water comes from the mighty Colorado River, which flows south from Colorado through central and eastern New Mexico.

The Holy River, a tributary of the Colorado River, forks in the middle of the state and meanders toward the northwest. Wherever the river passes, it nourishes life and turns barren land into pastures and pastoral areas.

The ever-flowing Holy River flows through the dry land, creating a series of towns built along the river such as Rio Rancho, Milan, Gallup, Flagstaff, Kingman, and Las Vegas.

, the oases strung together like a string of pearls, showing a geographical direction from east to west, which is consistent with the area where the Shenghuang River flows.

Follow the winding dirt road built in the town from east to west, passing through the above towns, and heading west to Los Angeles on the west coast of North America. It is the only land passage from the United States to California.

from a military perspective

Following Rio Rancho, Gallup, and Las Vegas, heading west deep until reaching Los Angeles, and then turning north to attack San Francisco and Sacramento is the only feasible advance route for the US military.

Along this route, there are abundant water sources, pastures, and small western towns scattered like a string of pearls, which can provide the necessary supplies needed by the army along the way, especially precious water sources, which are not available to the American Continental Union Army equipped with a large number of horses.

missing resources.

The Western Route Army, led by Colonel Stephen Carney, consisted of more than 1,700 troops. It initially set off from Detroit by train and headed northeast to Kansas City, where it had already reached the terminal station of the railway line.

After a brief rest in Kansas City, the U.S. Army on the Western Route used horses and carriages to maneuver westward through the vast Kansas wilderness and Gobi, reaching Denver in a journey of about 740 kilometers.

After a short rest in this coal mining town, we turned north and approached the town of Rio Rancho across more than 600 kilometers of uninhabited land. It was really a long journey, and we experienced all the hardships along the way.

Although the march route taken by the US military is a bit detoured, you can take the train from Detroit to Kansas City, which is more than 1,300 kilometers away, which greatly reduces the pain of traveling.

Otherwise, the distance from Detroit to Denver is 2,043 kilometers. There are no modern transportation facilities between the two places, and there is no 1-kilometer railway built. Only the indigenous Indian tribes chase the winding paths left by the buffalo herds. This is a disaster for military logistics.

A disaster.

In the early 1840s

The number of railroads in the United States has exceeded 5,000 miles, and by 1846 it had exceeded 12,000 miles. They were densely distributed in eastern and central North America, forming a criss-crossing railway network.

Developed transportation conditions facilitated the U.S. federal army to quickly deploy a large number of troops to southern Texas, but that was all.

in the vast Midwest

American capital has not yet touched this area. Railways, roads, and bridges are all blank. The cavalry can only ride horses across thousands of miles of grasslands, Gobi and deserts to march towards the Kingdom of the Tang Dynasty.

With the development of railways, long-distance telegraph lines covered wider areas, and telegraphs made it possible for information that originally took weeks to be transmitted to be reached instantly.

By 1846, the total length of telegraph lines in the United States had reached 17,000 miles, connecting the five major river regions in the east and central areas with developed heavy industries, and reaching south to Texas and Florida, forming a long-distance telegraph network as dense as a spider web.

In the vast and desolate northwest, there is also a blank.

riccio rancho

Captain James Kahn forcefully spat out the grass stalks he was chewing in his mouth. He looked at the ruined battlefield with smoke rising in front of him. There were more than twenty American corpses lying on the street in front of him. The anger in his eyes flashed away.

He loudly called to his men to carry the injured soldier into the house for treatment, and then shouted: "Lu, Lu, where are you?"

"Here...Captain, are you looking for me?" A lieutenant officer ran over from the corner of the street behind him, panting rapidly.

He is Lu Zhiran, the musketeer squadron leader of the advance team. He belongs to the first batch of Central American immigrants. He has worked in Cuban plantations and on the Panama Railway. He has been in America for more than five years.

Lu Zhiran was promoted from the front line because of his strong organizational skills, proficiency in writing, and some English and Spanish. After a short military training, he served as the squadron leader of the musketry team.

"Lu, we must repair the area bombarded by artillery to prevent the Yankees from rushing in. You quickly take people to see if there are any tables and door panels that can be disassembled. I will arrange for others to dig and fill. The barricades must be reinforced.

one time."

"tnnd these Americans, they even brought artillery with them during a long march, catching us off guard, damn it!"

"Don't complain, Lu. Fortunately, we are well prepared. Now we must thwart the Yankees' offensive momentum. I don't think they will bring a lot of cannonballs and gunpowder. The premise is that we have to hold on."

"Okay, the musketeers on the position cannot be withdrawn. I will take the Mexicans to look for them first."

Just do it

Lu Zhiran immediately took several soldiers to greet the Mexican gunmen, preparing to search for door panels and bed panels in the town, and continue to strengthen the existing barricades that were bombarded by artillery.

Today is the fourth day since the U.S. military arrived. From the afternoon of June 11, when the leading U.S. cavalry force was repulsed, to the arrival of the large U.S. cavalry force on the 13th, there were only a few small-scale exchanges of fire.

Facing the prepared army of the Tang Dynasty, the Yankees engaged in several tentative exchanges of fire and retreated, leaving behind more than 30 corpses. They never came to die again.

After Captain Stephen Carney of the U.S. Federal Army arrived with his troops, he personally inspected the front line of Rio Rancho Town and found that the town had formed a solid defense, like a small fortress. He frowned.

For any cavalry unit, attacking difficult positions is not a strong point.

He didn't expect that the small Tang Kingdom army would dare to go so far to defend?

In Colonel Stephen Carney's plan, he thought that only in Los Angeles or San Francisco could he encounter stubborn resistance from the enemy. After all, it was only a small armed force, with only a thousand people said to be?

Due to the lack of information, the information Mr. Colonel received was already from more than two months ago, which was completely different from the facts.

Colonel Stephen Carney tried to send people to persuade them to surrender, but before entering the opponent's position, he was forced to retreat by several strong warning shots.

The attitude of the defenders is obvious, they are to defend the town of Rio Rancho.

In the two days after the arrival of more than 300 US cavalry advance troops, the town's defenders never attempted to leave the town to counterattack. Instead, they continued to reinforce the barricades, building them to more than two meters high and one meter thick, as if they were solid.

It's like a small city wall.

The real battle began on the morning of the 14th. Colonel Stephen Carney took out his trump card and used seven 6-pound Napoleon cannons brought all the way to bombard the enemy in turn to cover the attack of the dismounted cavalry.

The bronze-cast Napoleon cannon is mounted on a solid axle. This front-loading smoothbore gun fires prototype cast iron shells, blasting shells or shrapnel shells. These cannons are manufactured according to French drawings. The US military is equipped with two calibers of 6 pounds and 12 pounds.

Mainly used to attack enemy solid targets.

Colonel Stephen Carney brought a lighter 6-pound gun with a caliber of 93mm and a caliber of 117mm. It can fire at a speed of two rounds per minute. The barrel length is 1.68 meters. The full gun weighs more than 550 kilograms. It is installed on

Model 1841 light field gun mount.

After a morning of fierce fighting, about 110 rounds of artillery shells were fired, which only opened several large gaps in the barricade, killing and wounding more than 20 enemy soldiers.

Stephen Carney's cavalry were forced to dismount and fight on foot. During the attack, they encountered intensive volley fire, resulting in a total of more than 170 casualties, of which less than 60 were injured.

Because the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty had strong barricade defenses and could hide in windows and shoot from high altitudes, the number of casualties in the battle was much less than that of the US military. Only thirty or forty people were killed. More than half of the casualties were caused by violent shelling.

.

Such a difficult battle situation made Colonel Stephen Carney filled with rage. This damn barricade, the damn Orientals, and this damn bad place, everything was terrible!

The US military camp is located on the bank of the Holy Yellow River. It consists of neat tents one after another. It is about 6 kilometers away from the town of Rio Rancho. Patrols and cavalry carrying guns often pass by, which is full of the chilling atmosphere of the war period.

in the military camp

The painful howls and groans of the wounded could be heard from time to time. In this era of lack of medical treatment and medicine, 60% of injuries depended on the soldiers' resistance, 30% depended on God's blessing, and only 10% depended on simple or crude treatment.

New Mexico has a typical desert climate, with scorching sunshine and little rain. In mid-June, the temperature at noon has exceeded 35 degrees. The heavily armed soldiers have soaked their clothes with sweat and can only drink water desperately while holding water bottles.

During this morning's attack, seven or eight soldiers had already fainted from heatstroke.

Colonel Stephen Carney was very upset now, and he knew it;

The temperature gets higher as you go further into this damn place. During the hottest months of July and August, the temperature is as high as 47 degrees, and even higher in some places.

If we cannot capture the small town in front of us as soon as possible and quickly cross more than 1,260 kilometers of western wilderness to Los Angeles, the situation will get worse.

Departing from Kansas City, the westward-moving force led by Colonel Stephen Carney now has a logistics line of more than 1,300 kilometers, which is completely supported by a horse-drawn convoy. When it set off, it was loaded with 50 horse-drawn wagons of supplies, and finally arrived in Rio Rancho.

There were less than 15 vehicles, and a large amount of other supplies were consumed in the process.

Among them, only the black beans and other fine materials needed by the horses accounted for more than half. Plus ammunition, guns and other necessities, it was only enough for his army for a week.

If the damn town in front of them cannot be conquered and the lone army led by Colonel Stephen Carney continues to advance deeper, the enemy may cut off the logistics line at any time, then it will really be over.

The situation ahead has been identified. A large number of reinforcements, totaling more than a thousand people, have recently arrived in the town of Gallup, about 190 kilometers away. This makes the current situation extremely serious.

Colonel Stephen Carney sighed deeply, spread out the letter paper, picked up a quill and began to write a letter asking for help. He stated in the letter;

Every effort will be made to capture and occupy the current town of Rio Rancho, but a large amount of supplies and reinforcements will be requested to continue the difficult western expedition...