In early July of the seventh year of Xuanping, the First Army of the Tang Dynasty officially entered Chengdu Prefecture. When its forward force, the Second Infantry Regiment of the First Infantry Division, arrived on the outskirts of Chengdu Prefecture, before they could conduct a test attack on the city, the people inside the city
A mutiny broke out in the Ming army, and the rebels killed Queen Jing and surrendered to the city.
The Chengdu Prefecture was captured by the Tang Dynasty without a single soldier. Most of the other state capitals were determined by propaganda. The few who resisted were in vain. They were unable to withstand the attack of the Tang Dynasty's royal division.
The war in Sichuan was completely over in just two months, and all that was left was for the good news to spread eastwards!
In August, Li Xuan received the good news that Sichuan and Yunnan had been pacified, and he was immediately in a good mood!
Because with Sichuan and Yunnan being completely captured, the southwest has now been completely recovered. After a while, Liaodong will be captured, and the world can be completely unified!
How can you be in a bad mood when such a good thing is happening!
Immediately, the imperial edict was passed down, and the work of rewarding the meritorious soldiers in the Southwest War must be done well, and the aftermath of the casualties must also be done well, and the pensions must be provided as soon as possible.
The Tang Dynasty is what it is today, all thanks to the fighting of the Tang Dynasty kings and masters.
And the basic foundation for Li Xuan's unification of China, and even subsequent rule of China, is also in the military, so everyone can be treated badly, but the soldiers cannot be treated badly!
At the same time, Li Xuan ordered the Ministry of Industry to choose a suitable place on the outskirts of Jinling City to build a cemetery dedicated to honoring the martyred soldiers. He also said that every year in the future, he would personally lead the ministers to worship the martyred soldiers.
As soon as this news came out, it boosted morale even more. Many generals cried and shouted, "The Emperor is a wise man!"
Although the status of soldiers in the founding era of the People's Republic of China has been good since ancient times, they often only lasted for a short period of time after the founding of the People's Republic of China. And even so, the entire social environment still discriminates against soldiers very seriously. A good man is not a soldier.
, this sentence basically fully expresses the traditional concepts of people for thousands of years.
But now, Li Xuan is about to change this concept!
Soldiers must have a high social status to ensure their treatment, thereby attracting more talents.
Of course, Li Xuan's own selfishness is also involved here. After all, the army is his base, and he always puts the army in an important position when considering it.
Treating the army favorably means treating his own direct forces favorably. If something messy happens in the future, the civilian officials may betray him at any time, but for the army, he must ensure that he will not betray him casually.
Building a cemetery for soldiers is just one of many measures.
The Southwest Campaign was over, and Li Xuan also convened a meeting of the imperial army and navy at the right time to discuss how to regain the last lost land of Liaodong and completely complete the unification, well, at least to restore the territory before the overthrow of the former Ming Dynasty.
At this imperial strategic meeting, both the navy and the army showed great confidence. The navy said that the navy had already made preparations, and the fleet could ensure that not a single sampan of the navy in Liaodong could leave the sea.
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It can effectively ensure the safety of maritime transportation and provide fire support for the army in coastal areas.
The Army said that it is now deploying troops, and given three months, it will be able to assemble 50,000 reinforcements in Shandong, Hebei and other regions.
Naturally, these 50,000 reinforcements cannot include the Third Army, because the Third Army is originally stationed in Hebei!
If nothing else goes wrong, these 50,000 reinforcements should be the Sixth Army!
Because according to the strategic deployment plan of the Privy Council, after the Southwest Campaign ends, some of the troops participating in the Southwest Campaign will be stationed locally, some will go to the northwest, and some will return to defend Jiangnan.
The specific arrangement is for the Fifth Army to rush to the northwest and take over the northwest defense area, reducing the huge pressure on the Fourth Army and allowing the Fourth Army to more effectively station troops in northern Shaanxi and parts of northern Shanxi, especially Yulin and Ningxia in the Hetao area.
The front line is the main combat readiness direction of the Fourth Army.
The specific defense areas of the Fifth Army will be western Shaanxi and northwestern Shaanxi, mainly Shaanxi Xingdusi, such as Suzhou, Liangzhou, Xining, and Lanzhou.
The First Army will return to defend Jiangnan!
The Second Army will continue to be stationed in the Sichuan area, and at the same time, part of it will return to defend western Huguang. After all, this area has just been conquered, and the area has been controlled by Zhang Yue for many years. Without a large number of troops stationed to maintain high pressure, it is easy to cause trouble.
As for the two independent fighting units, the 4th Infantry Division is still stationed in Yunnan, and the 7th Mixed Regiment returns to defend Guiyang.
In other words, in this series of troop adjustments, only the First Army will be freed up to defend the Zhili Fourth Road.
After arriving in the south of the Yangtze River, this army will be stationed in the Fourth Road of Zhili and assume the important task of defending the capital. The newly formed Sixth Army will go to the north.
However, the current strength of the Sixth Army is still a bit weak. There are only the 13th Infantry Division and the 14th Infantry Division. According to the scheduled plan, the 15th Infantry Division, which is being organized, will also join the Sixth Army's combat sequence.
By then, the total strength of the three infantry divisions, plus the 1st Lancer Regiment and some independent artillery units, will reach about 60,000 people.
This new unit will also become the main reinforcements in the Liaodong Campaign, and together with some units of the Third Army, will jointly undertake the main operations in the Liaodong Campaign.
At the same time, as usual, the Guards will also send a temporary brigade to participate in the Liaodong Campaign. This temporary brigade is also of an old size, with a size of about 5,000 people, no more, no less.
Army Lieutenant General Lei Wan said that in about three months, the Army will assemble four infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade, a lancer regiment, a number of independent heavy artillery, baggage and other auxiliary units for the Liaodong Campaign in Shandong and Hebei.
The total number of combat troops exceeds 70,000.
These 70,000 people, strictly according to the calculation method of the Tang Army, are the main front-line combat troops. They do not include the reserve divisions, the civilians in the transportation group of the Logistics Department, and they also do not include the local militia in Hebei and Shandong.
If all were counted, it would be difficult to calculate, because the number of civilians who provide supplies to the frontline troops alone is estimated to exceed 100,000, and there are also estimated to be so many reserve divisions that guard the rear logistics supply lines.
Twenty to thirty thousand people.
In short, this is a lot of troops!
Although there are still not as many as the Liaodong Ming army!
King Hui's Ming army was not idle during this period. According to the report of the Military Intelligence Department, King Hui integrated the Ming army in the Liaodong area and formed a pure Ming army of about 50,000 people.
But King Hui not only had the 50,000 Ming army, but also many Jurchen tribes, Tatar tribes and even Korean troops to help out. According to statistics, the Tatar tribe's cavalry alone may exceed 30,000 cavalry.
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It is no exaggeration to say that the total strength exceeds 100,000!
But there is a question mark over how many of these 100,000 people can fight.
Although the 50,000 Ming troops under King Hui's command were all frontier troops, they were severely lacking in guns and artillery. King Hui was not King Jing. Although King Jing was a puppet in Sichuan, Sichuan had Zhang Yue, and Zhang Yue had a supervisor.
Ah, the guns and artillery were very complete, and the fighting gave the Tang Dynasty a headache. The southwest battle was fought with almost all the strength of the country, and that's why the fight went so smoothly.
Otherwise, we don’t know how long the fight will be delayed.
But King Hui's side only has some of the guns that led the Northeast to the Northeast, and they probably made some of them themselves in recent years. But based on the information from the Intelligence Department, their equipment level is not even comparable to that of the Superintendent.
, it is incomparable to the Jiangnan New Army or the New Forbidden Army led by Zhengde himself.
The series of battles between the Liaodong Temporary Regiment and the local Ming Army in the Liaodong Peninsula also confirmed this point. The Ming Army in Liaodong was seriously short of guns and artillery.
The Ming army under King Hui was like this, and the Korean army, Jurchen army, and Tatar army who helped out were even worse!
However, when attacking Liaodong, the main enemy of the Tang Dynasty King's Division was not these Ming troops or other infantry armies, but the cavalry of the Eastern Tatars such as the Duoyan Guards and the Chahar Tribe!
The 30,000 Tatar cavalry estimated by the Military Intelligence Department are the biggest threat to their eastward march into Liaodong!
Otherwise, the Third Army could have captured Shanhaiguan by itself before, and then fought all the way to Guangning to capture Jinzhou.
Why not fight? On the one hand, it is certainly because the Tang Dynasty's strategic center of gravity has moved southward, and there is insufficient support for the Third Army in the north, with insufficient ammunition and soldiers. But on the other hand, the main reason is that the three guards of Duoyan are worried about taking advantage of the Third Army.
When the main force advanced eastward, it was driven south from the north, and then directly cut off the Third Army's logistics supply line and even its retreat route.
Therefore, the Third Army was forced to divide its troops to garrison various parts of the Great Wall to prevent the Tatar cavalry, including Duoyan Sanwei and others who were attracted by King Hui, from breaking through the Great Wall and heading south. If the troops were divided and garrisoned, the Third Army would not have enough troops in the direction of Shanhaiguan.
In the early days, the Third Army could still garrison nearly 10,000 people here. However, as the force became tighter and the fortifications inside Shanhaiguan were built, the Third Army simply garrisoned only 5,000 people here, leaving the rest
Three thousand troops were transferred to other places.
Today's Third Army seems to be powerful, but it is restrained by various Tatar forces. In fact, there are not many troops that can be mobilized for the Liaodong war. The main force in the subsequent attack on Liaodong is actually the newly formed Sixth Army.
force.
It sounds a bit unreliable to send a new army to attack Liaodong, but the staff of the Privy Council are not stupid.
What is the most important thing in fighting Liaodong? It is not to attack the 50,000 Ming troops under King Hui and the tens of thousands of Korean, Jurchen and other infantry, but to defend against the Tatar cavalry such as Duoyan Sanwei. Well, at the same time, we must
Including An Dahan who took advantage of the situation.
Therefore, the main force of the Third Army cannot move easily and must be firmly anchored in the border towns in northern Hebei.
As for whether the Sixth Army can defeat the Ming Army of King Hui of Liaodong, the staff of the Privy Council expressed confidence in this!
Although the Sixth Army is a new unit, the officers, non-commissioned officers and other backbones in it are not new recruits. They are all elite backbones drawn from various units. The new unit just means that there are more recruits in it.
But even these recruits have gone through a complete three months of recruit training, followed by several months of military training. From a purely training perspective, these recruits are no longer considered recruits. I think most of them are
They have served for more than half a year, but they have never been on the battlefield. When they go to the battlefield and see blood, they will naturally grow up quickly!