Valley Emperor

This 3rd Infantry Regiment is the basis for him to re-launch the attack. Although this Infantry Regiment has too many recruits now and its combat effectiveness is no longer at its peak, it is the only regular Infantry Regiment under his command. I don’t expect this regiment. , what other troops can he expect from Fang Xitong? Could it be those auxiliary troops or garrison troops?

In addition to the 3rd Infantry Regiment, he does have other troops under his command, including the 4th Garrison Regiment, half a baggage regiment, and auxiliary troops such as Ruojing soldiers and cavalry, but apart from the 3rd Infantry Regiment, artillery and cavalry can only It is a support force, and the originally usable baggage regiment has only two battalions. There are more recruits in these two battalions, because many veterans have been transferred to the 3rd Infantry Regiment.

In addition, the two battalions have heavy tasks, because they have to shoulder the task of escorting materials near the front line. The transportation of materials in the Tang Dynasty has always been transported from the rear to the people for transportation, the robbery battalion or the garrison. escort, and the transportation of materials near the front line is delivered to the baggage unit for escort.

Unless the enemy is completely surrounded for an offensive operation, or simply surrounded by the enemy, the baggage units generally do not participate in front-line battles, because they have to maintain supply lines.

The fourth garrison regiment, which was able to participate in the front-line battle, was unable to capture new Ming army prisoners in Guizhou, so it was difficult for the soldiers to replenish. Although the Privy Council made great efforts to dispatch a part of the garrison reinforcements from Liuzhou, it only recovered to The scale of 2,000 people, and the full staff of a garrison in the Datang King Division is 3,000, and the combat effectiveness of the fourth garrison, which lacks one-third of its members, is relatively weak.

Fortunately, the Third Army supported a garrison regiment, but this garrison regiment could not be won and participated in the front-line battle, because a huge Liping mansion could not only rely on the local robbery camp to maintain the situation, you must know that there are still many left here. As for the small units of the Ming army, in addition, most of the northeastern part of Guizhou has fallen into the hands of the Ming army. Now the Tang army can only resist at the Zhenyuan mansion, and they have been asking for help many times because of the lack of troops.

In order to prevent the Ming army from being killed from the northeast, Fang Xitong also had to send two battalions of garrison troops north to Zhenyuan to strengthen the local defense, not to be able to counterattack the Ming army, but to stabilize the local situation and not allow The Ming army rushed down.

In this case, he can only leave three battalions of garrison troops to garrison after the generosity of Liping Mansion. In addition, there are more than 1,000 people who are worse than the garrison troops, even the slightly stronger bandits and landlords. Unbeatable robbery camp.

So in the end, there were not many troops that he could assemble to attack Liping House, only about 6,000 people, and these 6,000 people were already the most and the most elite troops under his command.

Among these 6,000 people, the 3rd Infantry Regiment is the core!

Early the next morning, Fang Xitong led the 6,000-strong army eastward to Xingquan Mansion again. Because he was almost ambushed by the Ming army last time, he was very cautious this time and sent a large number of reconnaissance cavalry. Go forward to investigate, to avoid hitting the Ming army's ambush Rory again, but caution does not mean that the speed of the advance is slow. In fact, the speed of his advance is quite fast.

The pseudo-Tang thieves army in Liping Mansion moved, and they were still heading towards Xingquan Mansion. The news was soon learned by Tan Rong, but he had already expected this, and he had already left enough troops. response!

The remaining army of more than 35,000 people in Xingquan Mansion, but there are a full 20,000 people who are ready to deal with the enemy of Liping Mansion.

Immediately, he sent a fast horse to order the front-line army to resolutely intercept and block the pseudo-Tang thieves, and not let them take a step closer to Xingquan City.

And all this, Wang Danxu and others in Xingquan Mansion City don't know yet.

In the era of no wireless communication, after a city was completely surrounded, it almost cut off its contact with the outside world. Even if there were occasional fast horses who could take advantage of the darkness and speed to break through and report the news, this method was actually not very safe.

The city of Xingquan Mansion was not very big in the first place, and the Ming army was not all infantry. They also had cavalry. Although they did not have the same large-scale cavalry as the northern frontier army, there were still some scattered cavalry. , it is still possible to block and intercept these fast horses.

I don't know that the surrounding friendly troops have already launched a massive offensive for Wang Danxu, so he still keeps the troops on guard step by step, and at the same time saves food as much as possible.

Even in order to supplement the lack of food, Wang Danxu had already ordered the slaughter of the horses and other animals in the army. As for the chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs and other animals in the city, they had already been killed.

Horses and other livestock in the army are very valuable materials. To put it bluntly, for the King of the Tang Dynasty, the value of a soldier is far less than that of a horse.

But now that they are trapped in the city, and the horses are not available, it is better to kill them for food.

When Wang Danxu was trying his best to prolong his holding time in the city, and when Fang Xitong led his army into Xingquan Mansion, it was about twenty miles west of Jingzhou Prefecture City.

Chen Keqiao was in a pretty good mood, and even Yu Xing had a drink with a few middle and senior officers. This wine was seized from the Ming army's transport team.

Since the troops were stationed outside Jingzhou City, the Fourth Army's life should not be too moist. First intercepted a convoy from Jingzhou City to Xingquan Prefecture, and then intercepted two transports from the hinterland of Huguang to Jingzhou. transport team.

The amount of food and various military supplies seized was incredible. Together with these materials, they also captured more than 200 prisoners of war from the Ming army guards and more than 1,000 people's husbands.

The Fourth Army happily accepted food and other materials, which greatly eased the logistical pressure of the Fourth Army. Even now, even if the Fourth Army has been cut off from the supply line, the food reserves alone can support it for half a month.

Those prisoners of the Ming army were naturally added to the garrison after persuading them one by one according to the previous method, and it was even easier for the civilians to join the baggage transportation unit of the Great Tang Emperor.

Relatively speaking, whether it is the Ming army or the Tang army, these civilians are in urgent need. After all, a large army is fighting outside, and the demand for materials is very large. With more than 60,000 people in Xingquan Prefecture and Jingzhou As far as the Ming army was concerned, in order to supply the 60,000-strong army, Zhang Yue fought at least 30,000 civilians in the rear.

And this is also because of the inland operations. At the same time, most of the cargo required by the Ming army is food, and the rest is relatively small. If it is to fight outside the fortress, depending on the length of the journey, the 60,000-strong army needs at least 100,000 or more behind. Many people come to supply.

In the words of the Grand Master of the Tang Dynasty, because a large number of artillery and muskets were installed, the demand for ammunition was relatively large, and the logistical pressure was also greater. The same number of combat troops required more civilians than the civilian army.

And this is also the reason why Master Wang of the Tang Dynasty tried his best to launch an offensive along the Xijiang River when he went south, hoping to solve the logistical transportation problem by relying on the water transportation of the Xijiang River.

After destroying several Ming army convoys in a row, those Ming army convoys may have received news and finally did not dare to set off from Jingzhou City to Xingquan Mansion or from the hinterland of Huguang to Jingzhou.

When they didn't come, Chen Keqiao was too lazy to deal with it. His strategic goal was not to seize some supplies, but to cut off the supply lines of the Ming army in Jingzhou and Xingquan. As long as this strategic goal could be achieved, the rest would be inferior need.

Now that the supply lines of the Ming armies in the two places have been completely cut off, Chen Keqiao is too lazy to move, and concentrates on letting the troops rest in order to maintain the best condition.

What are you doing to stay in such a good state?

Naturally, he was waiting for the Ming army in Xingquan Mansion to kill him!

Whether it is the Tang army or the Ming army's large-scale force movement, it is basically impossible to hide the other side, because the movements of thousands or even tens of thousands of people are too large, and it is difficult to hide it. In addition, more importantly, although it is said that both sides have There is no large-scale cavalry, but it does not mean that the two sides lack reconnaissance cavalry.

A separatist regime like the King of the Tang Dynasty was able to produce hundreds of cavalry, and the Ming army would naturally not lack these hundreds of cavalry.

In addition, there is another very important reason that the army marches these days are all on foot, and if you are marching on a short or medium distance, you will be on a long distance march.

If it is, it is generally good to walk more than ten kilometers. Unless the situation is urgent or the distance is not far, otherwise, it is difficult to walk twenty kilometers a day.

Of course, this is only limited to normal marching. If you are marching lightly and quickly, theoretically, you can walk 50 kilometers a day. If you change to ancient distance units, it is possible to travel hundreds of miles a day.

But this is only in theory. In fact, there is no general understanding of doing this. Unless it is a simple march, there is no enemy waiting for them in front of them, and they are not afraid that the physical strength of the soldiers will be completely exhausted, and there will be a large-scale fall behind, non-combat attrition.

Don't worry about the large-scale exhaustion of livestock!

A person can walk dozens of kilometers if he grit his teeth~www.wuxiaspot.com~ But horses pulling cannons and ammunition carts can't do it. If they walk dozens of kilometers a day, more than half of the artillery's horses will die.

Moreover, the battles these days are all hand-to-hand combat, but unlike the armies of later generations, when you fight a war, you just need to move your finger and pull the trigger. Soldiers need to wear armor to fight, and then line up for hand-to-hand combat.

After running wild for a day, without sufficient physical strength, the soldiers put on dozens of kilograms of armor and could not even stand still, and they were still fighting!

The marching speed of the troops is slow, but the speed of the scout cavalry is not slow, so it can often appear. The scout cavalry has already run several times to report the letter, and the enemy army is still moving slowly dozens of miles away.

Now there are more than 10,000 Huguang Ming troops coming from Xingquan Mansion. They have just set off for two days and have not returned to Jingzhou. Keqiao has already learned the relevant news. According to his judgment, It will take several days for the two sides to come into contact with each other.

And these days, he decided to do nothing and let the soldiers sleep after training!

He's ready to play one while waiting!