"From this point of view, in addition to the garrisons on the east and west wings, we can fill 150,000 troops and horses in Guangcheng, Ruyang, Xiangcheng, Zhaoling, Wuyang and other places, which is enough to resist the enemy's attack!"
After the establishment of the Beijing-Xiang Production Department, Xu Wujiang stayed in Jingzhou, serving as the governor of the state and the military supervisor, controlling the farmland and the placement of the troops in the four counties in northern Jingbei and Nancai County, training, and taking advantage of the spring breeze to guard against banditry.
Prepare defenses along the river and lower reaches of the Han River.
This time he also rushed to Biyang to participate in the war preparation meeting, and only then did he know the final judgment of the Military Intelligence Department on the enemy's autumn and winter offensive.
The enemy could only mobilize a total of about 300,000 troops in the middle. Xu Wujiang thought that Beijing and Xiang relied on mature defense lines on the front battlefield and assembled 150,000 troops, which would be enough to resist.
The west flank defense line of Beijing and Xiangzhou is Wuguan-Xichuan.
Xu Huai is determined to abandon Shangluo and has already reduced his defense line to the Wuguan River area, which is narrow and mountainous. Considering that the enemy general Montulie on the western front will not have too strong an offensive intention to attack Wuguan this autumn and winter, with the 10,000 troops currently led by Fan Zongqi
The standing troops and horses, combined with the reserve troops and horses in nearby villages that are both farming and fighting, should be enough to cope with the situation.
??????????????????The east wing Shenzhou camp defense area includes Queshan County, Qingyi Lingying City, Huaiyuan County, Chushan County, Xinyang County, Luoshan County and other places.
Inside.
Sun Yanzhou, Hu Dangzhou and others joined the rebel leaders mainly because of their opportunistic mentality. Since they and their soldiers and their families were resettled in Jianye, Jingnan and other places, they did not bear extreme pressure and were unlikely to surrender to the enemy easily.
.
At present, it is difficult to imagine that the Red Hu people on the central line and the main force of troops on the eastern front would easily abandon the frontal battlefield. Without sufficient preparation, the army would directly cross the Huaihe River, which had a short freezing period, to besiege Huangchuan and other cities.
Therefore, there is no need to worry about major problems arising from the returned troops in the short term.
The main pressure on the defense line on the northeastern flank of Beijing and Xiangzhou is mainly in the direction of Queshan and Qingyi Ridge.
However, considering that the freezing period of Ruying and other rivers and the flood plains on both sides of Ruying and hundreds of miles deep are also very short, the military strength endured by Queshan, Qingyi Ridge and other places is also relatively small.
Based on the elite left army of more than 15,000 people currently led by Xu Xin'an, the main reason for expanding the size of the east wing garrison to 30,000 people is to ensure that production on the inner line is not disrupted.
When it comes to the frontal battlefield of Ruzhou and Caizhou, it is divided into east and west wings.
The west wing is the gap between Jishan and Yishui, and Guangchengze at the northwest foot of Funiu Mountain. It is also the western end of the Ruzhou trough basin. It is also the battlefield of the Guangcheng War before the fall of Ruyang. At that time, Yang Lin and Yang Qiye
The main force of Zuo Xiaosheng's army led by his father and son was repulsed by Cao Shixiong here, and they were forced to defend Ruyang and Liangxian respectively. Eventually, Ruyang fell into an isolated and helpless predicament and fell.
In the past two years, Jingxiang (Chushan) not only built the Guangcheng Military Village, which covers an area of four miles in depth, to the north of Guangchengze to strengthen the defense of the western flank of Ruzhou, but also re-opened the connection between Songxian, Ruyang and Lushan.
The Jiufeng Mountain Pass in between.
As the northern section of Sanya Road on the west line of Wanluo, after the restoration of the post road at Jiufeng Mountain Pass, if Ruyang is besieged again, reinforcements can go from the upper reaches of the Shuishui River (Shahe) through Jiufeng Mountain Pass to the south of Ruyang City.
The plank road between Ruyang and Songxian has also been built, making Ruyang, Songxian and Guangcheng's three cities (villages) horns with each other, forming a strong line of defense that controls the chokepoint and is not afraid of isolation and blockade - in addition to this
In addition, there are several tunnels across Jishan in Ruzhou, all of which are easy to defend but difficult to attack.
The enemy troops sent troops from Luoyang and moved south along the right bank of Yishui River. In addition to the narrow passage between Yishui River and Wan'an Mountain and Jishan Mountain, they were oppressed by Guangcheng Village and the mountains at the southeastern foot of Jishan Mountain, which provided a battlefield for them to deploy their troops.
Space is limited.
Therefore, based on the right army commanded by Wang Xian, the defensive troops and horses were expanded to about 50,000, and everyone believed that there would not be any major problems.
The difficulty of the Rucai defense line is on the eastern front.
The enemy can cross the Yingshui River from Xuzhou, advance to Xiangcheng, Zhaoling and other cities on the north bank of Rushui River (Xishui River), and compete with Jingxiang for control of the upper reaches of Rushui River and the east entrance of Ruzhou Basin.
However, thanks to the great victory of Ruying, the Ru River was opened up, forming a floodplain area extending for hundreds of miles between Ru Ying and Ru Ying. Later, it even affected the entire middle and lower reaches of the Ru Ying River.
Except for the short freezing period, the middle and lower reaches between Ruying and Ruying are full of muddy swamps, which makes the enemy dare not easily set foot in it. During the short freezing period, enemy cavalry will enter and harass, and usually there will be no more than one.
moon.
This actually shortened the Caizhou defense line, which was originally more than 400 miles long, to more than 100 miles wide.
On the more than 100-mile defense line, Jingxiang (Chushan) relied on Ru River (Beishui River) and the two cities of Xiangcheng and Zhaoling to build strong defenses.
And a perfect line of defense.
Based on the troops and horses of the former army headed by Chen Zixiao, the defensive troops and horses in Xiangcheng, Zhaoling, Wuyang and other places were expanded to 100,000, which everyone thought was enough to resist the enemy's attack.
Overall calculation shows that the total mobilization scale for Beijing and Xiangzhou to withstand the enemy's attack this winter is slightly less than 200,000 people.
This is a result that Jingxiang can fully bear at this time.
At this time, autumn grain sowing has been completed throughout Beijing and Xiangzhou, and this year's summer grain harvest has been bumper again. Only the 5 million acres of farmland under the jurisdiction of the control department, the summer grain harvest has reached more than 7 million dan. In addition to basically solving the problem of famine among the hungry people, the system has
The company's military ration reserves are also close to one million dan.
Relying on the defense line that has been carefully built over the past few years, and with relatively sufficient money and food, everyone is still confident in mobilizing a total of 200,000 troops to fill the defense line, focusing on defense, to withstand the attack of the Red Husbands.
The suggestion given by the Military Intelligence Department was also to mobilize 200,000 troops, but Xu Huai was thinking about another thing these days. At this time, he raised the question, looked at Shi Zhen and asked:
"If we mobilize 300,000 troops, will the production department's money and food be able to sustain it?"
Shi Zhen was still thinking deeply about Xu Huai's question. Su Laochang couldn't help his doubts and asked:
"Do you think there will be a chance to counterattack this autumn and winter, or maybe there will be a chance to fight the enemy in Ruying this autumn and winter?"
Xu Huai had already decided on a defense-focused strategy for this autumn and winter.
The four war zones, as well as the four counties of Nanyang, Xiangyang, Jingbei and Xincai County are advancing many affairs according to this.
If you successfully withstand the enemy's offensive and still look for opportunities to counterattack, then many places will not be adequately prepared.
Defense and offense are very different in terms of the combat effectiveness requirements of generals and material investment.
Everyone also looked at Xu Huai in surprise. Mobilizing 300,000 horses was almost the limit of the commander, and this limit was limited to defense and did not have the ability to launch a large-scale counterattack.
At most, the battle will be fought between Ruying and the enemy's main force, but it would be too difficult to cross the Ying River and enter Xuzhou and Chenzhou.
They even took the initiative to come out of the fortress and engage in field battles with the enemy. With so many men and horses, there was a huge gap in soldiers, armor, war equipment, etc. The original plan was to spend two years making up for this gap.
If hundreds of thousands of generals were allowed to go to the battlefield simply with spears, the casualties would be too difficult to control.
No one understood why Xu Huai asked this question.
Xu Huai shook his head and said calmly: "No, this autumn and winter, all defense zones must resolutely implement a defense-focused strategy - I just want to make the defense this autumn and winter more difficult and more reluctant!"
Xu Huai said this, Shi Zhen and Han Gui both glanced at Dong Cheng subconsciously.
Mobilizing 300,000 horses to finally resist the enemy's attack is different from mobilizing 200,000 horses to resist the enemy's attack. The former will not reflect the stronger mobilization ability of Jingxiang and Xiangzhou, but will make Jingxiang and Xiangzhou resist this time.
It seems more forced and more thrilling.
After all, when human life was the most despicable thing in the world, when the Dongjing bandit army was ravaging Jinghu Lake, they still claimed to have millions of soldiers.
After wiping out the Dongjing coalition forces, Beijing and Xiang collected hundreds of refugees, including as many as 400,000 young and strong men. This is no secret.
In order to resist the offensive of the Red Husbands, Jingxiang hurriedly dragged two to three hundred thousand young men with little training onto the battlefield. They could only guarantee basic food and were given a spear each. Naturally, they were far more powerful than ten men.
It would be much more embarrassing to organize 20,000 to 30,000 well-drilled young men equipped with sophisticated armor into a battalion.
This also shows that the producer is even less confident in his heart when facing the menacing enemy forces.
However, did Xu Huai intend to do this to confuse the enemy?
This time the production department held a preparation meeting. In addition to the main generals of the production department, Cheng Lunying, Xu Wujiang, Chen Zixiao, Wang Xian, Tang Pan, Xu Xin'an, Fan Zongqi and other state and camp generals all rushed back.
Most of these people were direct henchmen who had followed Xu Huainan in the Northern War for many years. Cheng Lunying had clearly followed Chushan long before the Zheng family and his son led the Shenwu Army to Huainan. Therefore, after the establishment of the Zhisi, he was able to serve as the prefect of Xiangyang.
Xu Huai recommended Dong Cheng to such an important position as in charge of criminal and prison affairs, mainly because he valued Dong Cheng's past reputation and used Dong Cheng to contact and supervise the officials appointed by the imperial court in the various prefectures on Jingxiang Road.
However, apart from the not very pleasant past events during the Tongbaishan Bandit Rebellion, Dong Cheng was deeply grateful because of Xu Huai's extraordinary recommendation. From then on, his heart was completely devoted to the production department and the Jingsheng Houfu.
, everyone still has doubts.
However, it is not convenient to exclude Dong Cheng from today's fighting meeting.
Although the previous preparation discussions were top secret, as long as the secrets were not leaked to the Chihu people, there would not be much of a problem - in this regard, Dong Cheng was still worthy of trust.
However, Xu Huai proposed at this time that he hoped to mobilize 300,000 troops to prepare for war this autumn and winter. The real motivation behind this could not be easily passed to the ears other than those close to Beijing and Xiangxiang. Shi Zhen and Han Gui doubted whether Dong Cheng was still there.
trustworthy?
When Dong Cheng saw Shi Zhen, Han Gui looked over, pondered for a moment, raised his hands to Xu Huai and said: "The enemy is powerful, and Beijing and Xiang are weak and weak, so it is difficult to resist. So you should not act on your own initiative, but you must sincerely appeal to the imperial court for support."
