Valley Emperor

The war in the southern part of Huguang started in December of the second year of Xuanping. It can be said that it has lasted for more than a month. During this month, both sides have come and gone to achieve what they want. combat objective.

However, the battle plans of both sides on the battlefield are constantly changing with the changes in the battlefield situation, which means that the plans cannot keep up with the changes!

At the beginning, when the Datang Army went north, Hao Bainian was preparing to advance gradually. First, he won the more important cities south of Hengyang City, such as Yizhang City, Chenzhou City, and Guiyang City, and then launched a general attack on Hengyang City. However, I didn't expect that the Ming army turned out to be a tortoise, with several times the strength of the army, but still hid in the city and dared not come out.

In order to avoid the loss of troops and time in the continuous numerous offensive battles, Hao Bainian adopted the strategy of rushing the main force to the north and leaving the ambush to ambush. However, this gave the Ming army an opportunity to swallow the main force of the pseudo-Tang thief army in one bite. A series of subsequent battles ensued.

But now, the situation on the battlefield is completely different from a month ago. For the Ming army, it is naturally not that good. They lost their soldiers and lost their generals. They also lost Yizhang.

But it was not ideal for Hao Bainian. Although he had annihilated 20,000 Ming troops and captured Yizhang, in the end, he found that the situation he faced had not fundamentally changed from a month ago. The Ming army is still hiding in the strong city and can't come out!

The only change is that there is no need to attack the city and pull out the village as before, and fight several consecutive tough battles. Now, the main force of the Ming army in the southern part of Huguang has gathered in Hengyang City. As long as he can take down Hengyang City, then the entire southern Hunan will follow. The region is basically unable to stop the pace of our own army!

And he also saw another opportunity, that is, after the Ming army in Changsha went south to Hengyang City, how many Ming troops would be left in Changsha City?

Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? How many of them are the main force in the Ming army, that is, the inspectors and frontier troops in their mouths!

If there are very few Ming troops in Changsha, can you attack Changsha?

However, judging from the numerous deployments of the Huguang Ming Army before, Zhang Yue, the pseudo-Ming provincial governor of the six provinces, seems not to be stupid. The proud frontal field ability of the Master of the Tang Dynasty could not be brought into play!

It can be seen from this that Zhang Yue is not stupid, he cannot make Changsha empty!

In case, when I led the troops to attack Changsha, I encountered Changsha that was defended by several people. Even if the defending troops were all local guards, they would not be able to take it down in three or five days. The army can easily cut off the supply line of its main force. What's worse is that if the Ming army in the direction of Hengzhou returns to Changsha, it may fall into the front and back of the Ming army with a total of more than 100,000 or more.

Even though Hao Bainian had great confidence in his First Army, he still did not want to let his troops fall into this predicament of being attacked by front and back!

Alas, now he is a little regretful. The Ming army in Yizhang, Chenzhou and Guiyang fought too badly. If he pretended that the supply line was cut off at that time, I am afraid that the Ming army in Hengyang City would have already come out to surround him. At that time, he will be able to usher in a frontal field battle that he has been striving for, and the first battle will lay the foundation for the victory of the Huguang battle.

It's a pity that he didn't know that the Ming army's moves were so big at that time. When he reacted, the good news of all the troops under his command had already been reported. At that time, he knew that the Ming army was brewing such a big move. .

There is no regret medicine in this world. Since the Ming army is already afraid of being beaten by himself, he has completely abandoned his own plan to besiege, and it is not so easy to get tens of thousands of the main force of the Ming army out of Hengyang City in a short period of time. matter.

Now, he must have a new method, a method to capture Hengyang and even Changsha, a method to annihilate the Ming army in southern Huguang!

Just when Hao Bainian was thinking about how to break the game, Zhang Yue was also frowning in Changsha City!

Hao Bainian in the Puppet Tang Bandit Army was worried about annihilating the Ming Army, while Zhang Yue was worried about how to stop the Northward Front of the Puppet Tang Bandit Army!

As for the main force going north to surround and annihilate the pseudo-Tang bandit army, this idea was completely dispelled after he received a letter from Xu Xinchang!

The letter from Xu Xinchang said that the pirate army of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty had already approached Hengyang City.

At the same time, Zhang Yue also learned from various publicly circulated news that in the second half of last year, Tang thieves carried out a drastic reform of the military system, eliminating the weak garrison army and the robbery battalion. Strengthen the regular army.

In other words, there will be no real thieves and fake thieves in the future pseudo-Tang thief army!

Thinking of this, he just admired and even envied Hao Bainian in the Puppet Tang Bandit Army. People felt that the garrison was unusable, and they said they would be eliminated if they were eliminated, but Zhang Yue also felt that the soldiers in the mainland guards were unusable. We should eliminate them all, and then allocate military funds to train and train the new army.

However, this kind of thinking can only be imagined. Eliminate local guards? According to the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, it is absolutely impossible to do it, let alone a six-province supervisor, even if the cabinet bosses are dispatched collectively, plus a Zhengde emperor, it is impossible to do .

The only thing they can do is like Zhang Yue, while maintaining the local guards, recruit as many young men as possible, and then form a new army.

After the rise of the Tang Dynasty and the continuous fiasco of the Ming army's inland guards, the Ming Dynasty, under the strong push of Emperor Zhengde, who was already lying on the sickbed, started a wave of firearms making and recruiting!

Zhang Yue's superintendent and Yu Dayou's Musketeer Army are typical representatives. In addition to these two typical representatives, in fact, many local officials, especially in the areas close to the front lines of the Tang rebels, have already set off gun-making training. The wave of the new army!

It's just that the scale and momentum of these local officials to build guns and train the army is not so big!

In addition, there is a very important change that local governments have begun to raise their own military expenditures on a large scale!

To build artillery and train the army, the imperial court did not have much money, and most of the military expenditure needed to be raised by the local government. Those local officials did their best to raise military expenditure.

Of course, it is definitely impossible to ask the officials to pay for themselves, and it is also impossible to reach out to the gentry who have the background and background. It can only be apportioned to the ordinary gentry to the merchants, and then levied various fees. All kinds of extortionate taxes, for example, Zhang Yue petitioned for the establishment of 'Taiwan's salaries' in southern provinces such as Huguang, Nanzhili, Fujian, and Sichuan.

This has brought a very serious negative impact!

Well, this does not mean that the Ming Dynasty will lose the central financial power, because the Ming Dynasty has never had the central financial power, and the financial power is in the hands of local officials, so it is not lost.

The real impact of this practice by local officials is that the pressure on ordinary people, especially the people at the bottom, increases instantly!

Although the flat thief's pay proposed by Zhang Yue is apportioned, the average burden on the people is not very heavy, and it can even be said to be very light, but there are policies above and countermeasures below, and when the specific collection of flat thieves pay , the local powerful people will naturally not pay, so their share has to be transferred to the ordinary people who have no power or power.

More importantly, the local officials at the grassroots level often set up additional collections under the name of cleverness. If they should collect one tael of silver, they dare to collect ten tael of silver!

Flat thieves pay, although Zhang Yue received a lot of military expenses to maintain the army, but it also became a carnival feast for the top officials of the cabinet and ordinary officials in the Daming officialdom!

If the actual statistics are carried out, then the tax burden of the people in the southern provinces has at least more than doubled in just one year, and at most, only one-tenth of the increased part is used for the military expenditure of the provinces. Ninety percent went there? Naturally, it entered the private pockets of officials at all levels!

This kind of carnival is not a trivial matter for ordinary people's families who will be ruined if they encounter a little disaster, but a major event that will ruin their family.

Ordinary people in the feudal era had a very low tolerance for disasters, especially the farmers at the bottom, who had to sell their sons and daughters for a little less grain harvest!

In this year, countless people lost their lives under the Meiji era!

Therefore, it shows that the local officials of the dynasty built guns and trained new troops in exchange for the cost of people's hardship.

And this is not what the literati and officials say about the people's life~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Because the literati and the gentry behind the officials are still alive and well, eating what they should eat, drink what they should drink, and no shit. .

The people who are talking about living hard, refer to ordinary people, especially the poorest people at the bottom!

It's a pity that the officials can't see this kind of situation, and they don't care if they see it. These mud-legged people will starve to death. If they dare to rebel, they will directly suppress it!

After using many methods, Zhang Yue managed to maintain such a large-scale army, but now he found that relying on the existing army, he still could not stop the northward offensive of the pseudo-Tang thief army!

Now, he suddenly understands Wang Yue, the former Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi!

It's not that I don't want to kill thieves and make meritorious deeds, but I really can't do anything!

At the beginning, Wang Yue watched helplessly as the pseudo-Tang thieves killed all the way from Liuzhou to Wuzhou, and then to Guangzhou!

Now, Zhang Yue also watched helplessly as the pseudo-Tang bandit army marched northward to Hengyang, but there was nothing he could do about it!