Valley Emperor

With these reinforcements, it became possible for him to continue going north, because he was able to use the new reinforcements to contain the scattered Ming army in Guilin, and then dispatched the main force to advance north quickly.

Without waiting for these reinforcements to arrive, Chen Keqiao calculated the strength of his own troops, and immediately led the 5th Infantry Regiment as the core force to the north quickly, and even Guilin City was too lazy to leave the main force to defend, only leaving It's just a garrison of a battalion in the lower district.

As for what the Ming army wanted, let it take it away. Anyway, the 6th Infantry Regiment, the 6th Garrison Brigade, and the 1st Battalion of the Liuzhou Independence Regiment led by Colonel Zhou Yibao, the deputy brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade, will teach them how to behave. .

He took away the 5th Infantry Regiment, the 1st Regiment, and a small number of garrison troops, and left several battalions of garrison troops to garrison Guilin Fucheng and other important locations.

At the same time, it is also an order for the follow-up reinforcements to go north to clear the Ming army in Guilin Mansion after going north. Although these Ming troops are only 10,000 people in size, they are still divided into several activities. If it is a head-on encounter, Chen Keqiao is confident. Completely annihilate them, but they are hiding, only attacking the food supply of the Great Tang Wangshi, attacking small cities, and not confronting the Fourth Army head-on.

Therefore, these people are also a great threat to the Fourth Army. Although Chen Keqiao himself planned to leave, he still asked the following troops from Wuzhou to encircle and suppress these Ming troops.

If these Ming troops are not killed, the logistics supply line of the Fourth Army will not be able to obtain complete security.

Chen Keqiao led the 5th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Regiment to the north. Li Chunjing's 3rd Army also dispatched troops to concentrate on Liuzhou, and also sent a garrison regiment stationed in Liuzhou to Liping House.

The 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Second Army in Liping Prefecture also took the time to rest and replenish, replenish new recruits, and replenish ammunition in order to restore combat effectiveness.

These are all for the rescue of the 4th Infantry Regiment and other troops that were besieged in the city of Xingquan.

Just as many troops on the periphery were working hard to rescue the Fourth Infantry Regiment, in Xingquan Mansion, Wang Danxu stood on the top of the city with a look of exhaustion and observed the Ming army outside the city.

His tired face was naturally not because of the battle with the Ming army. Wang Danxu was the head of the regiment and the rank of colonel. He had already left the level of personally fighting against enemy soldiers, and it was not because of the Ming army's siege that he was exhausted.

This has been under siege for two months, and I have experienced everything that should be experienced. Under this long-term siege, many things have become accustomed.

The reason why he had a tired look on his face was because it was too late when discussing military affairs yesterday, and today he got up early in the morning to inspect the various units in the city.

When patrolling all over the city, it is natural to forget to observe the Ming army outside the city.

From his line of sight, the Ming army outside the city seemed to be setting up a home in Xingquan City, building a huge and solid camp, layer by layer.

"These thieves' camps are getting stronger and stronger. I'm afraid there is no way to go out of the city and beat them by surprise!" Seeing this scene, Wang Shanxu showed a pity.

"These thieves have fought against us many times, and now they have learned to be smart!" At this time, the subordinate officers next to him also echoed his words.

"That is, when they first arrived outside the city, they were beaten by us, and the casualties were no less than hundreds. If we didn't know how to strengthen the camp, these thieves would have been destroyed by us long ago!"

When the Huguang Ming Army outside the city arrived outside Xingquan Mansion for the first time, because they were not familiar with the combat mode of the Tang Dynasty Wang Shi, and their defenses were not strict enough, the troops commanded by Wang Danxu took the initiative to go out of the city to fight a small counterattack, killing and injuring Ming. There are at least five hundred soldiers in the army.

But later the Ming army learned to be smart and guarded very closely.

"I don't know when the reinforcements will arrive. Although we can still defend the city wall, we can't hold on for long. Now the food in the city is less than five days' consumption. Even if we save it, it will last for ten days at most. , After ten days, I am afraid I will run out of food!"

"Is it only ten days? Didn't we requisition the food in the city, why is it not enough?" Wang Danxu said.

Others immediately replied: "Although we have requisitioned the grain of various grain merchants in the city, but we have been besieging the city for many days. Before, we strictly prohibited the grain merchants from hoarding and selling, and the grain merchants are running out of grain!"

Wang Danxu said: "There must be food in the city, especially those big families, send troops to go and buy all the surplus food in the hands of the people, um, give money, don't make a slap!"

After being besieged for two months, the food in the city of Xingquan Mansion has long been insufficient. Although it is said that the Second Army had hoarded a lot of food in Xingquan Mansion, but there are not only the army in the city, but also more than 20,000 people. Well, these people don't have so much food.

When the people's food was exhausted, in order to avoid starvation to death, Wang Danxu and the officials of the prefect of Xingquan Prefecture discussed it and decided to provide some of the military food to help the people.

Of course, the Tang Dynasty never did business at return. This relief food is not given for free, but as a work-for-work!

In order to defend the city, a large number of fortifications must be built. For example, the city wall should be heightened and thickened, and the anti-artillery fortifications at the top of the city can avoid the Ming army's Wankou guns.

In the traditional defense of the city, there has always been a lack of help from the young and strong labor force.

After the implementation of food-for-work, the consumption of military rations increased rapidly. Even after the military adopted decisive measures to directly give money and forcibly requisition the food from all the grain merchants in the city, it was still unable to prevent the rapid reduction of the reserves of military rations. .

Up to now, Wang Danxu, who has no choice, has already planned to forcibly levy food from those who have surplus food in the city.

But Wang Danxu knew very well that even so, he wouldn't be able to last long, because the food reserves in the city were always limited, whether it was military food, civilian food, or government food, it was always limited.

And this upper limit will not exceed three months at most!

In other words, in less than a month, I am afraid that the whole city will be completely short of food.

When he thought of this terrifying scene, his scalp felt numb!

If there is enough food, he still has the confidence to continue defending the city, because after defending the city for two months, it is not that the Ming army has not tried to attack Xingquanfu City, but under his own resistance, the city defense system is getting stronger and stronger. Each time, he could only throw away a large piece of corpses and flee in embarrassment.

Therefore, from the military point of view of a single village, if the Ming army did not pay at least tens of thousands of casualties or even more casualties, it would be impossible to take down Xingquan Prefecture.

And at least tens of thousands of casualties or even more, even Zhang Yue, the governor of the four provinces, has to consider carefully. This is not to say that he is reluctant to pay tens of thousands of casualties. On the contrary, if possible, Zhang Yue would rather sacrifice a There are more than 10,000 people, because these soldiers are just a number in Zhang Yue's view.

Now he is recruiting a large number of soldiers in the huge area of ​​Huguang and Guangxi, dispatching more soldiers from the garrison, and at the same time, he is also asking the imperial court to send reinforcements from southern Zhili, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces.

This soldier, what he has in his hand, is that if he gives him a month's effort, he will be able to make up another 20,000 to 30,000 people.

But in Zhang Yue's view, these soldiers are cannon fodder that can be sacrificed, but this is not the case for the front-line Ming army generals and the cannon fodder soldiers themselves.

For soldiers, of course, their own lives are the most important, let us go to death and think beautifully.

For generals, these soldiers, especially their direct relatives and recruits, are the cornerstones of their promotion and fortune. They can defeat battles, but they must not let all their soldiers die.

If he killed all his soldiers in order to take down Xingquan Mansion, Zhang Yue would naturally have made a huge contribution, but they themselves became bare commanders, and they knew Zhang Yue with their ass. It is absolutely impossible to give them new recruits to lead them.

The soldiers are generals. Now the soldiers recruited by Zhang Yue are all Zhang Yue's army, but they have nothing to do with the generals of the guards under the city of Xingquan.

So even if Zhang Yue wanted to attack at a cost of tens of thousands of people, he could not get the support of the front-line generals.

How good the siege is, they starved the pseudo-Tang thieves to death without dying, and then took the credit for Fuxingquanfu City in vain. They were right in thinking that way. Now Wang Danxu in the city is indeed very embarrassed by the siege. .

Xingquan City is the same as it is, Wang Danxu and the others cannot break through the siege, and the Ming army does not attack by force, and the follow-up variables can only be seen by the more than 4,000 troops led by Fang Xitong of the Second Army and the north from Guilin, led by Chen Keqiao led the performance of the troops.

The war on the Guizhou side also deeply stimulated Li Xuan~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Looking at the besieged Xingquan Mansion on the map, Li Xuan felt that the scale of the rebellion was getting bigger and bigger, but it was also getting bigger and bigger. Difficult.

As early as the Huangzhushan era, even when he occupied Zhengtai County, he didn't think it was more difficult than it is now, on the contrary, it was easier.

After occupying the territory of the three provinces and having 100,000 troops, Li Xuan found that his strength had grown.

In the end, after thinking about it, he came to a conclusion: it is not that he is not good enough, nor that the Ming army is very good, but that his army is not enough.

The Huguang Ming Army had 60,000 to 70,000 troops when they arrived, while the Second Army's regular army in Guizhou was only 5,000 or 6,000, and the garrison was 10,000. This was a huge disadvantage in the fight.

If the army is not large enough, continue to expand the army, but the expansion of the army is also very difficult!

Not to mention other military expansion plans, just one 5th Infantry Brigade broke his heart.