Valley Emperor

When nearly 1,000 people from the assault battalion and nearly 800 heavy-armored infantrymen boarded the city head, this Shaoyang offensive and defensive battle was decided, and the next thing was just garbage time on the battlefield!

Half an hour later, Hao Bainian put down the binoculars and said, "The next final battle will be handed over to you, well, to clear the remnants of the enemy in the city, you must pay attention to the means and control your own casualties, this city has been taken down. , I don't want any accidents to happen!"

"After the end, report the victory to Zhaoqing. Well, let them send hundreds of sets of plate armor. Although this thing is a bit heavy, it is still very useful in melee combat!"

Hao Bainian gave an order to a group of senior generals of the First Army behind him, that is, to walk down this mountain outside the city!

This siege battle has already come to an end, and the next ending is garbage time. He doesn't have so much time and energy to personally command an army of tens of thousands to eliminate the remaining enemies in the city. This is the work of his generals.

However, although Shaoyang was conquered, Hao Bainian was not too happy, because according to the situation of the battle, the number of Ming troops in the city was less than estimated.

They had previously judged that there were at least 30,000 Ming troops in the city, but when they actually attacked, they were not resisted by so many Ming troops.

After all, the Ming army in the city is more than 10,000 people, and it is estimated that there are less than 20,000 people. It is precisely because there are not many Ming troops in the city that he can take it down with one general attack.

At the same time, the resistance of the Ming army in the city is not firm, which makes Hao Bainian think that this Shaoyang city may have been indirectly abandoned by the Ming army!

There are so many Ming troops in the Huguang area, and it is impossible for a big city like Shaoyang to have only more than 10,000 young and old to defend.

This is not normal!

Sure enough, the captured prisoners quickly learned that a few days ago, after learning that the Tang army was attacking, part of the defenders in the city had already left for Changsha, and the number of Ming troops who left reached 8,000 or 9,000. , and they are all elite main forces, and the rest of the defenders are almost all local guardsmen, and there is not a single recruit of the superintendent.

After hearing this news, Hao Bainian didn't know yet that Zhang Yue was probably starting to give up the periphery and concentrated his strength to defend the two cities of Hengyang and Changsha.

Ming Jun's head-shrinking turtle has been shrinking its head like this, it's not easy to fight next time!

Now whether it is Hengyang or Changsha, they have become hard bones and are hard to chew. Moreover, these two cities are also important strategic cities in Huguang. If you want to go north to Dongting Lake or even the Yangtze River, these two cities will not be won. No way!

Could it be true that it has been under siege for a year and a half?

Hao Bainian went north this time, and the more he fought, the more difficult it became, so much so that he was a little irritable.

It is mid-February now, and it will be the rainy season after another two months. At that time, the movement of our army will be ineffective, and the use of muskets and artillery will also be greatly restricted. offensive.

In this way, the Army has no way to achieve the strategic plan made last year: to conquer Changsha before the arrival of the three-year rainy season in Xuanping, and advance the troops to the Yangtze River Basin!

This northward offensive was delayed for too long, and the Ming Dynasty was able to mobilize more forces to go south. Now that the Tang Dynasty fought against the Ming Dynasty with the land of three provinces, it was already very difficult.

The three provinces of Italy raise a hundred thousand troops, and the military expenditure is tens of millions every year, but there is no way to maintain it for too long!

If the Ming Dynasty continued to allocate a steady stream of troops to fill it up, even if the Tang army was brave and good at fighting, I am afraid that it would be consumed by the Ming army!

Quick decision, this is the core strategy of the Tang Dynasty, to quickly defeat the Ming army in an area, then occupy that area, expand your own population and wealth, and then expand your army to continue to grow in a snowball manner. The previous model of the development of the Tang Dynasty is also the established strategy of the Tang Dynasty in the next one or two years.

But now, this strategy seems to be ineffective. Most of the main force of the Datang Army has been dragged on the front line of Huguang. Although small wins have continued, they have been unable to open the situation for a long time, which makes Hao Bainian quite worried!

Hao Bainian on the frontline of Huguang was troubled, and Zhang Yue was equally uncomfortable!

After receiving the report of Shaoyang's fall, Zhang Yue, who knew that Shaoyang couldn't keep it, couldn't help but sigh!

The battle situation in Huguang is getting more and more difficult to maintain. Originally, he did not want to give up Shaoyang, but the thieves were so powerful that the troops he could fight were limited. Now most of the troops are stationed in Hengyang and Changsha. A little less, in order to prevent the pseudo-Tang thieves from bypassing Hengyang and attacking Changsha, he voluntarily gave up Shaoyang, and sent thousands of supervisors in Shaoyang and thousands of the backbone of the guards back to Changsha!

Now that Changsha has enough troops, its safety is guaranteed, and Hengyang is safe for a while, but he is a little confused about how to fight next!

Passive defense is definitely not enough. Although such a tactic can delay the attack speed of the pseudo-Tang thief army, it only delays the northward march of the pseudo-Tang thief army. This passive defense city will always fall.

Whether it is Hengyang or Changsha, it is the same!

Even according to Zhang Yue's optimistic estimate, it would be good for Hengyang to hold on for half a year, and Changsha is about the same time, and what does this mean?

This means that maybe a year later, the pseudo-Tang thief army will be able to enter Dongting Lake, and then drink horses in the Yangtze River!

He could almost guess how the pirate army of the Tang Dynasty acted after it entered the Yangtze River Basin, and went straight east along the river, killing Yingtianfu in southern Zhili all the way, and capturing Nanjing, a city with important political and commercial status.

Once Yingtianfu is lost, then it can basically declare that the entire Jiangnan is finished!

And this is absolutely unacceptable to the court. Not to mention that the fall of Jiangnan will cause the court to lose Jiangnan, a tax-heavy place. More importantly, after Jiangnan is lost, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal will be finished, and the water transportation will also be finished.

Without water transportation, people in the northern provinces, especially the capital, would starve to death!

Zhang Yue shuddered at the thought of this happening. The situation was so terrifying that he didn't dare to think about it.

At the same time, this is also the reason why he asked Song Zhiwen to recruit and train troops in Wuchang Mansion. If you can't hold it, then you will stick to Wuchang.

But even so, there is a possibility that the pseudo-Tang thief army will bypass Yuezhou and even Wuchang, and then directly enter Jiujiang Prefecture!

So now Zhang Yue feels that the current situation is extremely difficult!

Difficult!

Hao Bainian and Zhang Yue, the front-line generals representing both sides, are full of worries about the current battle situation, and they are like a pair of brothers in distress.

At the same time, Li Xuan also learned about the predicament Hao Bainian was facing through the battle reports that were continuously sent back from the front line!

Now it seems that some core tactics of the current Datang Army must be changed. For example, in addition to the frontal large-scale decisive battle and siege warfare, some small-scale combat methods need to be added.

Since the Ming army was firmly defending the city, the Datang Army had to change the corresponding strategy, mainly adopting siege and attacking vast rural areas.

Immediately, Li Xuan issued relevant attention to the Privy Council, and discussed the possibility of giving up attacking large cities and instead attacking some small and medium cities and rural areas.

In the decree issued by the Privy Council, Li Xuan clearly stated that the war with the puppet Ming Dynasty is not a competition for one city and one place, but a competition for strategic resources, which include population and various materials.

And this era is still the agricultural era, the main population is concentrated in extensive rural areas, the population in the cities is very limited, and the cities these days are purely consumer cities, once they control the rural areas and surround their cities, So even if their city has a large amount of grain, it is impossible to support it for long.

After receiving Li Xuan's will, the army generals and many staff officers in the Privy Council also began to discuss a new war model.

Because in the current situation, unless the Tang Dynasty can come up with a large number of heavy siege artillery, otherwise, it is still relatively difficult to conquer such a strong city as Hengyang City, or it will take a long time. Either pay heavy casualties, both of which are unacceptable to the Tang Dynasty.

The Huguang frontline encountered difficulties, and Li Xuan also began to no longer insist on pursuing the strategy of capturing Changsha in a short time, and then entering the Yangtze River from Dongting Lake, but was ready to change his direction.

This huge north side is not the only place in the southern part of Huguang that can be used as the main attack point. In addition to the southern part of Huguang, there is also Jiangxi!

However, due to the limited strategic resources of the Tang Dynasty, they were limited to the southern part of Huguang. Therefore, although there is also the Fifth Infantry Division in Jiangxi, the Fifth Infantry Division lacks food and ammunition, so it has been unable to launch large scale of the offensive.

With the current military production and logistics system of the Tang Dynasty, there is still no ability to maintain large-scale battles in both directions at the same time!

But now, he is preparing to adjust the limited supply of military supplies. Since the Huguang side is deadlocked, he will free up resources to supply the 5th Infantry Division first, and let the 5th Infantry Division attack the north.

Can't capture Changsha~www.wuxiaspot.com~ It is also possible to take Nanchang!

Even if Nanchang cannot be won, it is not a big problem. At least it can mobilize the strength of the Ming army and prevent the Ming army from concentrating its forces on the southern part of Huguang. In this way, it can also reduce the pressure of Hao Bainian's first army in southern Huguang. .

Li Xuan's order was quickly passed on to the Fifth Infantry Division. Along with Li Xuan's order, there were also a batch of supplementary guns and a large amount of ammunition!

In late February, the 5th Infantry Division swore to go out, and the commander of the 5th Infantry Division, Major General Wang Danxu personally led the troops to the forefront, and the next day the vanguard troops captured Longnan.

The 5th Infantry Division's northward advance was from the northern part of Huizhou Prefecture and Nanxiong Prefecture at the same time, and the troops that attacked from Nanxiong Prefecture also captured Xinfeng in just three days.

Immediately, the soldiers of the 5th Infantry Division pointed directly at Ganzhou Fufucheng.

And the pseudo-Tang thief army suddenly launched a fierce attack in the south of Jiangxi. Ganzhou was threatened by the thief army, which immediately shocked the local area of ​​Jiangxi. The document requesting rescue was like a snowflake flying to Zhang Yue's location and even the capital!