Chapter 376: The Ming Army of One Step Three Turning Back
After conquering the Tonggu Acropolis, Ming general Qiu Yu sent a good news to the adults at the rear that day, saying that after three days and three nights of hard fighting, the soldiers launched a desperate charge regardless of their own safety, and finally lived up to expectations and successfully captured the Tonggu Acropolis.
He also said that the rebel army suffered many casualties, and the remaining troops fled in panic!
Of course, in order to avoid the adults later saying that he exaggerated his military exploits, concealed reports, etc., he did not directly use accurate figures to describe the number of beheadings. Instead, he used the term "the rebel army suffered many casualties, probably no less than a hundred people".
Brushwork.
To a certain extent, Qiu Yu's battle report is not false, because the Bronze Drum Acropolis was indeed captured by him, even if it was captured after the rebels retreated on their own initiative, it was still captured anyway.
And why the bandit army took the initiative to escape was not because Qiu Yu hurt the bandit army and was frightened by the beating. The bandit army did not want to stay in Tonggu Acropolis to wait for death, so they fled.
The capture of the Tonggu Acropolis was of great strategic significance to the more than 20,000 Ming troops who moved south from the north, because it meant that the Ming Dynasty had finally recovered the first city captured by the puppet Tang rebels, even if
This is just a small earth city.
Instead of just hearing bad news like before, the puppet Tang rebels captured Xingquan Prefecture, Liping Prefecture, etc., and recovered the Tonggu Acropolis, which not only meant that the Ming army had recovered the first city, but also
This means that the offensive of the puppet Tang rebel army has been suppressed.
Subsequently, the Ming Dynasty King's Division will fully enter the strategic counterattack stage, continue to seize Lipingfu City, and then march eastward to Xingquan Prefecture, take over Xingquan City, Zhengtai, Lianhe and other counties, completely regain the land of the two prefectures, and annihilate the puppet Tang rebels.
.
Yes, that's what they thought when Qiu Yu's battle report was sent to the top generals of the Ming Army!
Therefore, the adults above quickly wrote back to Qiu Yu, and asked Qiu Yu to continue his efforts and continue to lead the vanguard south to pursue the remnants of the puppet Tang rebel army, and must annihilate more puppet Tang rebel troops.
At the same time, he did not forget to give generous prizes to Qiu Yu's vanguard as a reward for the vanguard to capture the Bronze Drum Acropolis.
After Qiu Yu received this new order, he didn't know whether to be happy or worried for a while. What made him happy was that a large amount of food and wages were removed from above. Even after half of it was washed away as usual, he was still able to let him go.
The vanguard troops received a lot of silver grain.
But what worried him was that his superiors actually asked him to continue to lead the vanguard south to pursue the remnants of the puppet Tang rebel army.
This pursuit is not that easy!
Anyone who is not careful will run into the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army.
Everyone knows that there are at least several thousand people in the puppet army of the Tang Dynasty, and this number is still the number when the army of the puppet Tang Dynasty first captured Xingquan Mansion. Now that so long has passed, who knows how many people there are in the army of the puppet Tang Dynasty.
.
And after the battle at Tonggu Acropolis, he also deeply felt what Song Zhiwen felt at the beginning, those pseudo-Tang thieves were really difficult to fight!
There were only about 500 puppet Tang rebels in the Tonggu Acropolis before, but more than 2,000 of his own were unable to defeat them. In the end, it was because the puppet Tang rebels retreated on their own initiative that he took advantage of the Tonggu Acropolis.
Recovered.
If we continue to go south, we will definitely encounter more pseudo-Tang rebels. If we run into the main force of the pseudo-Tang rebels, which consists of thousands of people, then the situation will become very, very bad.
But since the superiors have given him an order, he cannot remain indifferent and do nothing. In this case, it is easy for him to be ginsenged, or simply because he is passive and lazy, his superior will say: "Pull him out and kill him!"
Therefore, even though he was unwilling to do so, he was still prepared to take his headquarters to continue southward, but the speed of this southbound trip was inevitably a bit slow.
He stayed in the Tonggu Acropolis for two full days on the pretext of resting, consolidating the city defense, and preventing the counterattack of the puppet Tang rebels. It was not until the third day that more than a thousand people sent by the main force of the Chinese army from the north arrived at the Tonggu Acropolis.
, and after handing over the defense to them, he led his troops to leave.
However, this walk was one step at a time, and they turned back three times. One day passed, and they had only walked ten miles in total.
The reason for walking such a short distance was that they officially set off near noon, stopped at about two o'clock in the afternoon, and then set up camp to spend the night.
In other words, they were gone for less than two hours in total!
Of course, others couldn't find fault with Qiu Yu's actions, because these days everyone's marches are basically the same. They all start very late in the morning, and basically stop in the afternoon, and walk in one day.
Fifteen miles is normal, and twenty miles is too much. As for thirty miles, what, you actually walked thirty miles, you don’t want your life!
The army marched slowly not only because it carried a lot of baggage and walked slowly, but also to prevent accidents.
You can indeed walk dozens of miles from morning to night, but at the end of the day, the soldier's physical energy has been basically exhausted. And if a soldier has no physical energy, what kind of war can he fight?
They rushed out to ambush, and the defeat was almost 100%.
In addition, you must stop early to allow enough time to build a camp. When ancient armies wanted to spend the night, they did not just find a leeward valley and sleep on the ground. Instead, they had to prepare a camp, which must be defensive.
Functions and the location of each unit’s camp are also very particular.
What would happen otherwise?
Bomb the camp!
If the overnight camp is not stable and the arrangements are not appropriate, then at night when it is dark and windy, any movement will have a great chance of causing chaos. Once chaos occurs, the soldiers will not know who the enemy is.
Whether it's an attack or something, it's possible for you to hit your own people in the end.
From ancient times to the present, countless armies have collapsed in dark and windy nights!
Therefore, ancient generals paid special attention to camping at night. Whether the camp used for the night was strong and whether the troop deployment was reasonable were also reference conditions for measuring a general's basic ability.
Qiu Yu walked slowly out of caution, so it would be difficult for others to find fault!
In fact, not only Qiu Yu walked slowly, but the main force of the northern Ming army behind him also walked slowly. It had been several days, and the main force of the Ming army had not yet reached the Tonggu Acropolis.
This made the generals of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty led by Hao Bainian unable to help but speechless!
At first, they thought that the Ming army would be able to reach the gates of Liping Prefecture in just a few days. This made them extremely nervous. Several main infantry regiments rushed for days, and then they rushed to the north of Liping Prefecture, preparing to intercept the Ming army.
The army marched south.
Li Xuan, who was in the rear, led several other troops to travel day and night in order to arrive as early as possible to join the forward troops led by Hao Bainian.
However, the Ming army's march south was much slower than they expected.
At the beginning, Hao Bainian and the others expected to come into contact with the main force of the Ming army within five days, and the decisive battle between the two sides would completely break out within ten days.
But now, half of the ten days have passed, but the main force of the Ming Army on the North Road has not yet reached the Tonggu Acropolis, and only a 2,000-strong Ming Army forward is wandering in front of them.
"Do you think these Ming troops are deliberately delaying their march south so that they can wait for Zhu Zhihai to bring his people from the west to make peace?" Li Chunjing said with a worried look on his face: "If that's the case, I'm afraid it won't be easy to fight then!"
"If these two Ming armies are allowed to join together, we won't be able to fight them separately!" Wang Shanxu was also quite worried.
"How about we take the initiative? Go north and eat the Ming army on the North Road first? At that moment, someone suggested this.
However, Li Chunjing said at this time: "Take the initiative to go north? This is inconsistent with the original plan. Moreover, if we go north now, we will leave our preset battlefield, and the Chinese army led by His Majesty will not be able to catch up in a short time.
It will be difficult for our three infantry regiments to deal with more than 20,000 Ming troops!"
The original strategic plan was to attack the Ming army on the northern route first, but this attack was not to take the initiative, but to intercept the Ming army at a position about 20 miles south of Tongguwei, and to wait for work to face the Ming army.
This decisive battle location was carefully considered by many people. The preset battlefield was located in a small plain that was not too big twenty miles south of the Bronze Drum Acropolis. This small plain was surrounded by mountains on both sides.
A necessary place for traveling from north to south.
Moreover, this small plain is not a dangerous place. On the contrary, it is a flat river, and it is five or six miles wide. There is no way to ambush. However, it is precisely because of the open terrain that the generals of the Ming Army dared to lead their troops to enter and fight decisively with the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
.
After all, no one is stupid. If your pseudo-Tang bandits want to hide in a dangerous place to ambush you, you have to ask them first if the Ming army will come.
At the same time, the place is large enough to allow a large number of troops to deploy, and there is enough space for our own troops and artillery troops to display.
If it were a mountainous area, the many heavy artillery in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty would not be of much use.
Artillery, especially artillery these days, is more effective in flat terrain.
At the same time, the terrain of this place is suitable for a decisive battle, and the distance is also moderate. The Chinese army led by His Majesty himself has enough time to arrive.
But if we take the initiative to go north, it will be equivalent to moving the battlefield of the planned decisive battle to the north. In this way, the geographical advantage will be completely lost, and there is also a question whether the Chinese army led by His Majesty can arrive in time.
At this time, Hao Bainian also stared at the map spread on the table for a long time, and then said: "These Ming troops are coming too slowly. If we wait another half month, the forwards of the Ming troops on the west route will probably reach Liping Fucheng.
We cannot let the Ming army on the North Road move south slowly, and let the fifth battalion turn around and make a counterattack on the Tonggu Acropolis, attracting the main force of the Ming army to speed up to the Tonggu Acropolis!"
Then after pondering for a while, he added: "Send an envoy to the Chinese Army again and ask for your Majesty's permission to move the preset battlefield thirty miles north. We will fight them here for a decisive battle!"
As he spoke, he pointed to the Bronze Drum Acropolis on the map!