Valley Emperor

When Li Xuan left Jinling City, he also announced that the Southwest Campaign, which had been in preparation for several months, was officially launched!

Li Xuan hadn't arrived in Jiujiang yet, and Yu Jia had just arrived in Dangtu County. When he stopped by to inspect the state-owned enterprises such as Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant in Dangtu Industrial Zone, several units of the Datang Army had already launched offensives one after another. The current main battle is It is concentrated in the junction of Henan and Hubei, that is, the Sanguan area of ​​Yiyang, as well as the Qizhou area of ​​Huguang.

The ones responsible for the attack from north to south were not the participating troops originally planned for this battle, but an infantry regiment of the 9th Infantry Division directly belonging to the Fourth Army and the 16th Reserve Division stationed in Xinyang Prefecture. The unit launched a fierce attack from the front line of Xinyang Prefecture in the south of Henan. The place in front of it was the right army of the inspector who was stationed at the three passes of Yiyang, with about 10,000 people.

However, in this direction, the troops invested by both sides are not considered to be the main force, because Dabie Mountain acts as a natural barrier. In southern Henan and northern Anhui, the Datang Army was unable to invest before capturing the three passes of Yiyang. Heavy.

If you want to enter Huguang, the best way, or even the only way, is to first capture the three passes of Yiyang.

However, in such an important military town, Zhang Yue naturally deployed heavy troops to garrison, and using the advantages of the pass, casually garrisoning tens of thousands of people was enough to block the pace of the Datang Army from Henan to Hubei.

If the Datang Army really dispatched tens of thousands of troops to attack, Zhang Yue would wake up with a smile, because he could send more troops to reinforce it at any time, and then fought to the death with the Datang Army at the Three Passes of Yiyang. When the time is uncertain, the teeth of the Datang Army will be broken, which is far better than the head-to-head confrontation with the Datang Army in other areas.

However, the Tang Army is not stupid. Although they boast of their ability to attack the fortress, they are not stupid enough to have to fight with Zhang Yue at the third pass of Yiyang!

They can go the other way!

Therefore, although Yiyang Sanguan seems to be important, in fact, no one has invested heavily there, and it is a secondary front.

In the early stage of the Southwest Campaign, the real important front was actually the area of ​​Qizhou, Hubei Province. More precisely, it should be the plain area on the north bank of the Yangtze River. The main cities include Song County, Huangmei County, Qizhou, Guang Jixian and Qizhou prefecture.

The above four cities are the most important line of defense deployed by Zhang Yue's superintendent in southeastern Hubei, guarding the long and narrow area from the southern Dabie Mountains to the Yangtze River.

If the Datang Army wanted to directly attack Hubei from the northern Anhui and Henan, but did not want to cross the mountains, they could only take two paths, one is the three passes in Yiyang, and the other is through Qizhou.

Relatively speaking, although there are more Ming troops in Qizhou, it is easier for a heavy firepower force like the Datang Army.

First of all, the support of the navy can be obtained just on the Yangtze River, and a large amount of materials, especially the supply of ammunition, can be obtained at any time through the river.

Now the Yangtze River Fleet has completely suppressed Zhang Yue's supervising navy. Before the battle was launched, the Yangtze Fleet had already fought several battles, annihilating many ships of the supervising navy, and their ships were even capable of Navigating all the way to Wuchang, after occupying the advantage of the Yangtze River, it would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

The two main divisions of the Second Army plus two mixed regiments and several heavy artillery units, cavalry units, namely the 3rd Infantry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, the 4th Mixed Regiment, the Fifth Mixed Regiment, the 1st Heavy Artillery Battalion, the 2nd The heavy artillery battalion, the third heavy artillery battalion, the second cavalry detachment, and even a temporarily strengthened independent cargo regiment and other troops, a total of more than 50,000 people rushed to Susong from the front line of Taihu Lake in northern Anhui!

Although Susong is a small place, it is the bridgehead of Zhang Yue Dubiao's defense line in southeastern Hubei. Its strength is not weak, and at least 15,000 people have been deployed. He planned to go out of the city to fight against the Datang Army, but instead focused on building various fortifications and deploying artillery.

This also led to the fact that although the army here is only 15,000 people, the artillery in it is far more than the deployment of 15,000 people in the superintendent. For an ordinary superintendent, if there are 15,000 people, it will be assigned two or three. Ten field guns are not bad, but here, there are at least fifty field guns.

As for the shotguns such as the Wankou Cannon and the Folang Machine Cannon, there are hundreds of them!

The artillery here is densely packed, and the small place of Susong is armed like a hedgehog, so that in the past two years or so, the Datang Army has tried to attack this place many times, but in the end they were unsuccessful.

Everyone knows the plan of the inspector. They don't expect a counter-offensive. He just wants to put a nail in Susong, so that the Datang Army will not dare to attack Qizhou along the plains on the north bank of the Yangtze River unscrupulously.

The Datang Army can also choose to bypass this place, but to bypass this place, at least nearly 10,000 troops must be left to contain the Ming army in the city, which is very difficult for the Datang Army, which is tight in strength.

But if you don't leave enough troops for containment, you go around, and they will kill Taihu Lake on the back, and take away Taihu Lake, an important supply base for the Second Army of the Datang Army.

It is also possible to attack the Second Army from behind.

As a result, the strategic situation will be extremely bad for the Second Army.

In order to avoid accidents, the Second Army intends to solve the big nail of Su Song once and for all!

In the face of this hedgehog-like fortified city, there is nothing to say, we must attack, bombard with artillery, dig tunnels for blasting, in short, prepare to crush the defenders of the city with absolute superior firepower.

For this reason, the Second Army has concentrated three heavy artillery battalions, as well as two field artillery regiments, field artillery regiments prepared by two large battalions, and the Second Army itself has concentrated more than 50 artillery regiments. of heavy howitzers, more than one hundred and fifty five- and nine-pound field guns.

Moreover, in order to siege the city, this time Wang Chaohong pulled his face, asked the Navy for help, and brought four 14-pound ship-mounted heavy artillery from the Navy!

That is a 14-pound ship-mounted cannon. It is the main force of the Tang Dynasty's warships and the main guns of the Lianzhou-class cruisers. The power is beyond words!

The Navy's request for the Army has not been delayed. After all, the Army also hoped to be able to equip 14-pound cannons as siege artillery. However, because the output of 14-pound artillery is limited, the Navy needs to guarantee the number of 14-pound artillery for cruisers. I also asked the army for help, saying that it is to meet the needs of the navy first, otherwise it would be embarrassing to build a cruiser without artillery.

At that time, it was also promised that if the army needed it, the navy would send heavy artillery units to help.

In order to realize this promise, the navy directly temporarily called the main gun to be installed on a newly commissioned cruiser, and even the gunners were directly transferred from the cruiser to form a heavy gun of the navy. team.

Of course, the navy only produces artillery and gunners. The horses and other materials needed to bring the artillery to the battlefield still have to be solved by the army.

It can also be seen from this that Wang Chaohong attaches great importance to attacking Su Song!

This is a tough battle. There is nothing to say. It is a tough fight. Is it better to see if your shield is more powerful or my spear is more powerful!

The pseudo-Tang thieves were killed from Taihu Lake. The news was soon known by the superintendent defenders in Susong City, and it was quickly judged that the pseudo-Tang thieves were about to launch a general attack!

It is not a secret at all that the pseudo-Tang thief army is going to launch a general attack on the southwest. The Tang Dynasty newspaper will say this once every once in a while. Even Zhang Yue has seen it and knows that the Tang Dynasty is preparing to fight against it. Southwest attack.

But when it came, where to launch the attack, where is their main attack area, these are top military secrets, Zhang Yue and the others are naturally impossible to know.

But now, when the Ming army saw more than 50,000 troops attacking Susong, they immediately knew that the pirate army of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty was going to use Qizhou as a breakthrough point and enter Hubei.

Therefore, it didn't take long for the Ming army in the Huangmei, Guangji, and Qizhou directions behind Susong to be quickly reinforced.

But it's not about entering the city. The defenders in several places converged, and their strength reached more than 50,000. Susong's place was too small, and it was almost enough to accommodate the original 15,000 people to fight. Although more troops can be put in, the effect of the increase will not be too great.

Therefore, they are preparing to gather in Huangmei, and then cooperate with the defenders in the direction of Su Song to fight a coordinated defensive operation. If there is a chance, they don't mind fighting a combination of inside and outside, and a heavy blow to the Datang Army.

Don't think that their reinforcements are only more than 50,000, plus Su Song's 15,000 defenders, it is only more than 65,000, and it is not more than the second army's strength there, but Zhang Yue's army The inspector is different from other Ming troops.

Since Zhang Yue established the superintendent, this army has been the most powerful enemy of the Tang Dynasty Wang Shi~www.wuxiaspot.com~ The various names in the Ming army before, the new army equipped with guns, such as the Bandit Army, The Jiangnan new army, the Jiangbei new army, the training army in the northern provinces, the Xinjingying, and the new frontier army are all inferior to Zhang Yue.

In the early days, the bandit army was on a par with the superintendent, but the number was too small, and they fled all the way in Fujian to Zhejiang, and then to Anqing, basically losing more than half of their combat effectiveness!

On the other hand, Zhang Yue's superintendent became stronger as he got older!

That's right, even though the Superintendent had not won a large-scale battle during the battle with the Great Tang Emperor, the older he got, the stronger he became!

It is not only that the army has expanded from tens of thousands of people in the past to more than 100,000 now, but it is the only new army of all Ming armies with complete guns and guns. In some small and medium-scale battles, sometimes Still able to win.

The hundreds of thousands of new supervising troops have given Zhang Yue and other supervising generals, and even King Jing, the confidence to fight against the King of the Tang Dynasty!

And now, what the Master of the Tang Dynasty has to do is to defeat the superintendent, shatter all their confidence, and let them know that there is only a dead end against the Tang Dynasty!