No wonder the gentry and wealthy households in Liping Prefecture are panicking. This is no longer the time when the puppet Tang thief army just emerged. If it was a few months ago, someone said that the puppet Tang thief army was coming, it is estimated that many gentry and wealthy households
They didn't care much, they would hide in the city with peace of mind, waiting for the officers and soldiers to kill those damn rebellious officials and traitors.
He even smiled contemptuously. Are you kidding me? Can a mere bandit threaten the city?
However, the puppet Tang rebel army, which was despised by everyone before, took over the entire Xingquan Mansion in just over a month. Not only did it panic the surrounding state capitals, it was said that even the provincial capital was shaken.
The governor has personally ordered a large army to be raised to encircle and suppress this gang of thieves who are so audacious that they dare to found a country and proclaim themselves emperor.
Not long ago, the official documents from the governor's office arrived at Liping Mansion. Governor Zhu Zhihai asked Liping Mansion to be prepared and strictly guard the city. At the same time, he raised grain and grass to provide military supplies for the army that would arrive in the provincial capital later. It was said that the governor was not only preparing to mobilize provincial troops.
The city garrison is preparing to mobilize troops from across the province to mobilize at least 50,000 troops to wipe out the puppet Tang rebel army.
The pseudo-Tang rebel army that was able to alarm the governor and assembled an army of fifty thousand for this purpose was able to defeat the puppet Tang rebel army in Xingquan Prefecture in just over a month. How could this not scare the gentry and wealthy households?
The army from the provincial capital has not yet arrived, but the puppet Tang rebel army is about to attack. Can Liping Mansion be defended?
Regardless of what the government planned, the wealthy gentry rushed out of Liping Mansion one by one out of a desire to avoid disaster.
The officials at Liping Mansion were helpless. In order to stabilize the city defense and recruit young men for war, they could prevent ordinary people from leaving the city and even recruit young men from the surrounding countryside. However, the officials at Liping Mansion were
I would never dare to stop the wealthy gentry from leaving.
And they won't stop it, for He? Because their family is one of the wealthy gentry who fled.
Since I can't escape because of my official position, I have to let my family escape. Who knows whether the city can be defended by then.
Therefore, the new army of the Tang Dynasty had not yet reached Lipingfu City. All the gentry and wealthy households in Lipingfu City had already fled. Only a few gentry and wealthy households who did not believe that the puppet Tang thief army could break through the city were left.
Holding on.
However, even the families who stayed in the city mostly sent their direct descendants to leave Liping City. This was considered to leave a way out, in case something really happened and the whole family was wiped out in one fell swoop.
Not only the people in Liping City were in panic, but the officials were also in panic. On that day, Liping City had already sent three waves of fast horses to the provincial capital to request reinforcements.
At the same time, the officials of Liping Prefecture also recruited young men from surrounding areas. There were not many regular troops, so they had to recruit many young men to defend the city.
But can they hold on?
In this regard, they themselves have no confidence!
At this time, the new army of the Tang Dynasty, which shocked Liping Mansion, had just entered Liping Mansion. They still had a long way to go before reaching Liping Mansion City, and they also needed to conquer some towns along the way. At the same time, some chieftains along the way also needed to be conquered.
Need to be recovered.
For example, the Second Infantry Regiment needs to capture Tonggu Guard first, and the First Infantry Regiment also needs to capture Pingcha Station first.
These two places are both semi-military towns. When the Ming army pacified the southwest, they set up a large number of guard posts in the southwest provinces in order to threaten the local chieftains.
However, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, most of the toasts in Guizhou, especially in the western region of Guizhou near Huguang, had been completely Chinese. For example, Liping Prefecture and Xingquan Prefecture had the reputation of having many toasts, but in fact the toasts in these areas
It can no longer be compared with the toast from southwest Guizhou and Yunnan.
Nowadays, the Ming Dynasty has already begun to implement the reform of the land and the return of the local people in the southwest map. The prerequisite for the change of the soil and the return of the local people is naturally that the chieftains cannot resist the Ming army.
If the new army of the Tang Dynasty were to attack Yunnan and the southwestern Guizhou region close to Yunnan, they would encounter a large number of chieftains, and they would be chieftains with real military power. It might be quite troublesome, but they would only attack Xingquan Prefecture and Liping Prefecture.
If so, although you will encounter existences like toast, it is basically nothing to worry about.
Even the local guards of the Ming army were able to suppress them, so they were even less able to pose any actual threat to the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
At the same time, when the chieftains in a region are no longer strong, then the local guard posts to prevent chieftains will naturally be relaxed. The guard posts in Xingquan Prefecture, Liping Prefecture and even the surrounding areas are not very strong to begin with.
In the year when the Tang and New armies rose, the Ming army also successively mobilized troops from these local garrison posts, and then lost them one by one in Lanjiang.
This led to the fact that when the new Tang Dynasty army marched into Liping Mansion, it was basically unlikely that they would encounter stubborn resistance from the local Ming army.
The only one who can resist them is the Ming army in the provincial capital that has not yet arrived!
We still don't know when Zhu Zhihai, the governor of Guizhou, will have to gather his troops and travel several hundred miles to Liping Mansion.
This led to the fact that when the new army of the Tang Dynasty entered Liping Mansion, it turned into an armed march.
When the Second Infantry Regiment launched an attack on the Tonggu Guard, they found that the Tonggu Guard had only a few thousand defensive troops left, and most of them were untrained young men. The real regular guard soldiers would never exceed 500 people.
.
There were no surprises in this attack. Before the melee troops of the Second Infantry Regiment could enter the city, they only used two artillery pieces from the reinforced artillery team to blow down a section of Tonggu Guard's low city wall.
The defenders of the Tonggu Guard collapsed on their own.
Some of them abandoned the city and fled, while some who could not escape surrendered on the spot, thereby joining the glorious and great family of the Tang Dynasty.
Li Chunjing was very satisfied that the enemy surrendered without even sending in infantry. He came to the artillery team and praised the two artillery pieces repeatedly.
"These are all good things. If this cannon is fired, an ordinary small city wall can't stop it at all!" Li Chunjing sighed: "It's a pity that there are a few cannons. If there are more than a dozen cannons, our first cannon can't stop it at all!"
The Second Infantry Regiment should also be able to capture Liping City!"
Immediately, someone next to him said: "This is a lot. The First Infantry Regiment only has three heavy artillery!"
In order to strengthen the strength of these two main infantry regiments serving as vanguards, Li Xuan directly gave them the original five 500-pound artillery pieces in the artillery battalion. However, this was only a reinforcement. In terms of organization, these five
The artillery still belongs directly to the artillery battalion.
As for the artillery battalion headquarters left behind, there is now only one 800-jin Italian cannon left. However, the workshops of the Ministry of Industry are already stepping up their efforts to build artillery. It is expected that within the next month, they will be able to obtain three more 800-jin guns. of artillery.
With the help of artillery, the Second Infantry Regiment captured the Tonggu Guard effortlessly, while the First Infantry Regiment encountered even less pressure.
They didn't even encounter organized resistance from the Ming army along the way, not even sporadic harassment.
Through spies' investigation, Hao Bainian found out that the Ming army in Liping Prefecture planned to shrink all its troops and then rely on the solid walls of Liping Prefecture to defend the city.
Since there was no resistance, the First Infantry Regiment naturally recaptured Pingcha Station smoothly, and then directed their troops towards Liping City. The time required to reach Liping City was three days less than they expected. .
The entire march was like an armed march, without any resistance at all!
When they arrived at Liping Mansion, although Li Chunjing's Second Infantry Regiment had not arrived yet, Hao Bainian still planned to fight first to test the strength of Liping Mansion's city defense, so that after the Second Infantry Regiment arrived, he could directly launch a general attack.
After Hao Bainian made such a decision, the First Infantry Regiment naturally began preparations for the siege, that is, it began to cut down wood on the spot to build long ladders and other equipment for climbing the wall. At the same time, it sent out reconnaissance cavalry to continuously conduct on-the-spot investigations of the ambush on Liping Mansion's city wall. The terrain prevents you from encountering any ambush or the like.
While the First Infantry Regiment was doing this, the civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty on the top of Liping City were looking at the new Tang army outside the city with fear.
"Are these the Pseudo-Tang rebels? Their uniforms are so ugly, you can tell at a glance that they are nondescript bandits!" Someone immediately expressed their contempt for the Puppet-Tang rebels.
"Yes, Li Ni claims to be a descendant of Li Tang, but there is a bit of Li Tang's style, which is all nondescript. I heard that their official system is not six departments, but nine. This is simply the most ridiculous thing in the world. From then on From ancient times to the present, there have been three provinces and six departments, but what they did was nine departments. At a glance, you can tell that it is a joke made by the ignorant people in the countryside!"
The speaker obviously did not get the latest information about the Puppet Tang Dynasty. Now the Puppet Tang Dynasty's cabinet has not only nine departments, but has grown to ten.
Moreover, if the Tang Dynasty sends people to continue to expand, the ten parts will soon become eleven, twelve or even more.
But it’s not their fault. It’s not easy for them to know that there are nine dynasties in the Tang Dynasty through hearsay. After all, the Tang Dynasty is still very mysterious to the outside world. Most people still think that they are just a group of bandits. , even in Xingquan Mansion, there are not many people who know the true situation of the Tang Dynasty, let alone in Liping Mansion.
In the Ming army camp, the person who knew the Tang Dynasty best was probably Su Jiakang. Su Jiakang had been dealing with the Tang Dynasty for more than a year. Back then, he led his army to destroy Lijiacun, and later he continued to deal with the Tang Dynasty. The dynasty fought for more than a year.
His understanding of the Tang Dynasty is quite profound.
But it is a pity that he is still a prisoner of war of the Tang Dynasty. Ever since he was captured, he has been kept in a prisoner of war camp, accompanied by several other Ming court civil and military officials who were captured together and refused to surrender.
These civil and military officials of the Ming court did not understand the Tang Dynasty. On the one hand, it caused them to despise the Tang Dynasty, and on the other hand, it also caused them to be extremely panicked about the Tang Dynasty.
They despise it because they have always firmly believed that the Tang Dynasty was just a group of bandits, but what scares them is that they don't understand how a mere bandit can take over a government and even attack Liping Prefecture.