ps: Thanks to he219, the monthly ticket for compound acetic acid.
The bad news that the Lulong Army had taken action came from the defeated troops stationed in Yangxin in the north of Dizhou. According to this group of defeated soldiers, the Lulong Army cavalry raided Yangxin, and after a fight, they quickly captured the city.
The defenders could only choose to evacuate.
When Liu Chongba saw the number of defeated troops who escaped, he immediately knew that these defeated troops had not fought with the Lu Long Army at all. According to what the defeated soldiers said, the Lu Long Army was a cavalry surprise attack. If a battle really occurred, these defeated troops would not be able to return at all.
Liu Chongba had no intention of defending Yangxin, so he only placed less than 200 men in Yangxin, which only served as a warning. So he did not punish these defeated troops, but only asked them in detail
Due to the enemy's situation, the defeated soldiers went down to rest.
That night, Liu Chongba once again reiterated the military law, requiring his subordinates to strictly guard the city, and at the same time gather all the ships into the water pass for strict protection.
At noon the next day, the rangers sent out to investigate sent back a warning that the Lulong Army Brigade appeared thirty miles west of Yanci, estimated to number more than 5,000 people. The Lulong Army was under the banner of the "Cangzhou Army", and the commander's surname was "Zhong"
, a large group of soldiers and horses marched eastward along the river and came straight to Yanci.
Is this the main Lulong force that defeated Wei Boya's army in the south of Cangzhou? It seems that the Lulong army is determined to win against them.
Liu Chongba immediately held a military meeting to discuss response strategies.
There were two opinions at the military meeting, one was to fight, and the other was to retreat. Those who fought were infantry generals, who accounted for the majority, and those who advocated retreat were navy officers, who made up a minority.
The Xuanwu Army has won countless battles over the years, and the generals are so arrogant that they look down on the armies of other vassals. In their eyes, the only real threat is the Hedong Army, which is the only enemy in the world that the Xuanwu Army needs to treat with caution.
Especially when they attacked Liu Rengong on the Cangzhou battlefield the year before last, Liu Chongba's troops also participated in the battle. Everyone did not think that there was anything remarkable about Lu Long's army.
The navy officers were more cautious. They believed that Yanci was now an isolated city. There was Lulong in Hebei and Qingqing in Henan. We should not waste our troops here. Instead, we should give full play to the advantages of boats and go west along the Yellow River to meet Ge Congzhou.
But the biggest problem is that although the navy has many boats, they are mainly small boats and there are not many large ships. After all, this is the north, and water battles are not as frequent as in the south. And in a strict sense
, Yanci's navy cannot be regarded as a real navy, compared with the southern navy. They are at best boatmen, and their purpose is only to transport troops, horses and supplies across the river.
The transport capacity of the Yanji navy is not strong. It can carry more than a thousand sergeants, or thousands of stones of food and other supplies at one time. If it retreats, the fleet will go upstream and it will take at least three days to reach Jeju. Then it will disembark.
Go south and meet up with Ge Congzhou's troops who are besieging Yanzhou. Such a journey can only carry 600 to 800 soldiers for evacuation at a time, which is very inefficient.
The key issue is that once the first retreating army and horses leave Yanci, the morale of the troops in the city will be dispersed, and the soldiers will inevitably lose their fighting spirit. Whether they can defend Yanci will be a big problem. Even for the time being.
Defended. After the second batch of evacuated sergeants boarded the ship, would the remaining defenders collapse? Liu Chongba did not dare to bet.
After long deliberations, Liu Chongba made up his mind to defend the city with all his troops. If you want to board the ship and evacuate, you will be punished according to military law!
When Liu Chongba made up his mind to defend Yanci, Li Chengzhong had already arrived at Yangxin, fifty miles north of Yanci. There were no telegraphs and telephones in this era, so the transmission of military information would often lag behind for a long time. If Li Chengzhong still stayed in Youzhou, this kind of
The lag may even last as long as ten days or half a month, making it impossible to control the war ahead.
In fact, this is the reason why the head coach of this era either visited the enemy in person, or authorized the general to "receive military orders from abroad." Even the most prestigious Liang Wang Zhu Quanzhong, the most powerful leader in the world, had to run away from the east every year.
To the west, from the south to the north, who can truly understand the hardships involved? If King Liang had stayed in Bianzhou to issue orders, I am afraid that his generals would have ceded the territory to themselves, and the Xuanwu Army could only
Even if you are afraid, you cannot escape the fate of the unknown body.
During the war to unify Hebei in the winter of the second year of Tianfu, because Salanna gave birth to a daughter, Li Chengzhong stayed in Youzhou and did not go to the former enemy to supervise the army in person. He tried to command remotely. As a result, the war developed to a later stage and was completely separated from the military.
Under the control of the General Staff Office, some military forces have even taken matters into their own hands.
For example, at the two major security companies, Youyan and Liaodong, under the control of Han Yanhui, Li Xiaoxi carried out a massacre and asked the Jiedu government to try every means to wipe his ass; Zhao Zaili attacked Weizhou quite violently, and if it weren't for the Military Command
He took precautions and sent out messenger troops in advance. Whether he would directly invade Henan or even reach Bianzhou is unknown.
Another example is the Yingzhou Army, which easily conquered Yizhou. The "peaceful journey" to Dingzhou and Hengzhou made them feel quite unhappy. After occupying Jingxingkou, a battalion of the Yingzhou Army crossed Jingxingkou and entered Taiyuan Prefecture.
The troops reached the Chengtian Army under the control of Hedong, which directly led to negotiations with Zhang Chengye, the supervisor of Hedong. Later, Li Chengzhong used the excuse of "pursuing the Yiwu defeated army" to get over the matter.
After returning from the Eastern Expedition to the Bohai Sea in the first year of Tianfu, Li Chengzhong came up with the idea of homing pigeons. However, this was a highly technical job that could not be achieved overnight. The Bureau of Investigation and Statistics found a few Youzhou dudes who were good at regulating birds.
, but I have never heard of homing pigeons, and pigeon populations are rare in Hebei. It was not until last year that a group of pigeons were brought back from Longyou, but they were not adapted to the climate and most of them died.
The Bureau of Investigation and Statistics carefully served the remaining dozens of pigeons, mainly those dudes from Youzhou who were good at taming birds, plus two falconers who paid tribute to the Khitan royal court. They had been training these pigeons for more than half a year, and finally,
Yuan could only barely return to Youzhou from Yongnu, a hundred miles away. Therefore, Li Chengzhong's homing pigeon plan was far from being realized, and he could only continue to control the army of his former enemy.
After capturing Yangxin, the General Administration of Military Staff established the Dizhou Camp in Yangxin City. Zhang Xingzhong personally served as the camp manager, Jiang Miao served as the camp supervisor, and Zhong Shao also led the camp Sima. Yuhou Yang Keshi, the military commander of the Yuhou Division, took the lead
Responsible for combat planning, Liang De'an, the commander of the Military Law Department of the Education and Education Department, is in charge of military discipline, and Cui He, the newly appointed commander of the allocation office of the Logistics Department, is in charge of logistics.
Zhou Kan, the Training Department, has completely immersed himself in the affairs he is in charge of, and is becoming more and more interested in the work of training troops. Whenever a group of new soldiers or new officers are trained and added to the army, Zhou Kan can feel his sincere joy
Joy, this joy will turn into motivation, urging him to recruit the next batch of recruits.
Li Chengzhong originally considered that Zhou Kan had repeatedly complained about not having the opportunity to lead the army in combat, so he asked him to take the post of Marching Sima, but unexpectedly he was rejected by Zhou Kan. At this moment, the new fifth officer class of Bailangshan Military Academy was starting. , it was also the occasion when the new recruits from the four major recruit training bases were stationed. Li Chengzhong went to the Training Department to inform Zhou Kan of the "good news" that he would be transferred to the battlefield. However, Zhou Kan waved his hand impatiently, saying that he was very busy and could not As soon as he left for Dizhou, he buried his head again in a mountain of official documents, which made Li Chengzhong extremely embarrassed.
The Dizhou camp gathered three armies: the Cangzhou Army, the Huaiyue Allied Army and the newly established Weizhou Army. Five logistics battalions from the Logistics Department were also mobilized to fight with the army. The total number of troops exceeded 25,000. It was the largest military force assembled by Li Chengzhong after he became rich. Among them , there are nearly 8,000 cavalrymen, and the Cangzhou Army Old Camp also includes a 200-man Mo Daodu squadron, which can be described as a luxurious lineup.
In addition, in accordance with Li Chengzhong's request, the General Administration of Military Staff changed the past method of recruiting soldiers and depositing grain, paying freight to private merchants, and the merchants were responsible for the transportation task. The merchants first organized transportation to Qianning Military Food Station to purchase grain and other combat supplies. , after the food and materials arrived at Yangxinxing Camp, Cui He issued them an "arrears agreement" issued by Youyan United Bank, and the price paid was about 20% higher than the merchants' bid from Qianning Army. The merchants You can take these "arrears agreement" to Youyan United Bank to redeem the money, or you can go directly to Lutai Salt Farm to exchange for salt.
The merchants are very good at settling accounts. They unanimously adopted a good method. They first recruited Cangzhou refugees who had not returned home in Youzhou and Cangzhou, then purchased the popular Youyan Xi cars and organized the Cangzhou refugees to go south. After the Qianning army transported food to the Yangxin camp, the refugees were disbanded on the spot. The merchants sold the Xi cars to the camp or the Cangzhou government at the original price, and then paid the refugees a fee. The refugees were based on this fee. They each returned to their hometowns, and then went to the government to receive the deeds to the five acres of land assigned to them.
After such a cycle, the General Administration of Military Staff saved the transshipment fees of food and materials, merchants earned the transshipment difference, the strong men and common people in various states were spared the hardship of government service, the Cangzhou refugees returned home smoothly, and the Cangzhou government also Manpower is now available to resume production and rebuild.
Because they missed the spring plowing, many of the young Cangzhou refugees stayed in the Yangxinxing camp, numbering more than five thousand. They were organized into teams by Cui He to assist the craftsmen of the logistics camp in building siege equipment.
This was Li Chengzhong's first formal siege after he founded his army. The enemy was the Xuanwu Army, which was powerful in the Central Plains, so everyone in the camp was very careful and cautious.
The general strategic policy deployed by Li Chengzhong was to "encircle and attack slowly", which means to block the city for many times to prevent Liu Chongba's troops from fleeing, and then slowly attack the city to practice siege tactics and increase the Lu Long Army's siege experience. To this end, The camp staff formulated a series of siege plans and prepared to test them one by one.
By the end of April, large combat equipment such as ladders, cones, trebuchets, and locomotives were all completed. The Lulong Army moved towards Yanci from three directions, with the Cangzhou Army in the west, the Huaiyue Allied Army in the north, and the Weizhou Army in the east. , tightly surrounding Liu Chongba in Yanci City. (To be continued.)