Chapter 442: Three Thousand Soldiers Destroy the Puppet Tang
Huaiyuan County, Liuzhou Prefecture, is located in the north of Liuzhou Fucheng and the upper reaches of the Liujiang River. Its most famous feature is that it happens to be the intersection of Hejiang River, Xunjiang River and Rongjiang River. Hejiang River, Xunjiang River and Miaojiang River converge here, and then together
Merged into Rongjiang.
The Rongjiang River goes further down and merges into the Wuyang River and other rivers, and then merges into the Liujiang River!
The Liujiang River is an important transportation river in contemporary Guangxi, and Huaiyuan County, located in the upper reaches of the Liujiang River, is also extremely important because of its important geographical location.
If the Army of the Tang Dynasty wants to go south to Liuzhou, especially if it wants to go south to Liuzhou along the upper reaches of the Liujiang River, it must conquer Huaiyuan County!
It is not surprising that after entering Guangxi, Hao Bainian did not go there. Instead, he formed a small circle and went straight to Huaiyuan County.
The purpose is to open up transportation links in the upper reaches of Liujiang River after taking Huaiyuan County!
Hao Bainian's army's demand for military supplies was too huge, especially ammunition, which relied heavily on logistics. Since Guizhou and Guangxi have many mountainous areas, it would be too troublesome and expensive to simply rely on land transportation for these logistics supplies.
So if Liujiang can be used as a logistics transportation supply line, it will be much easier!
In order to open up the Liujiang supply line, Hao Bainian chose Huaiyuan as the target of attack. He even tried to kill a chicken with a knife, bringing over 5,000 people from his army of tens of thousands, and personally arranged the troops to attack Huaiyuan County.
Small county town!
The puppet Tang rebel army came, and there were five thousand people there. This frightened the local Ming Dynasty officials in Huaiyuan!
Although Huaiyuan County was established because of its important geographical location, it was mainly used to serve water transportation and to intimidate the surrounding chieftains.
But when there is a large city of Liuzhou in the south that can guard the Liujiang Passage, the Ming Dynasty will naturally not station heavy troops here. Normally, only a few hundred soldiers will be stationed here.
In the past six months, the puppet Tang rebels in Xingquan Prefecture in the north have become more and more fierce. Even after they captured Xingquan Prefecture and Liping Prefecture, it also made Guangxi officials in the south a little worried.
Therefore, a lot of additional soldiers were sent to the north. However, these additional soldiers were actually not many. There were only more than 2,000 soldiers in total, and most of them were stationed in Liuzhou Fucheng. They were only sent to Huaiyuan County.
There were only five hundred people.
In other words, when Hao Bainian led an army of five thousand to Huaiyuan County, there were only a thousand Ming troops here!
Under this situation, the officials in Huaiyuan County looked at the five thousand troops outside the city, and there were many artillery in these armies, and they were still bombarding the weak Huaiyuan County with artillery. It was difficult for them not to despair.
In this battle, there were no waves at all. The first wave of attacks by the five thousand army, even if not all of the five thousand people fought, only the Ming troops in three garrison camps were attacked in the first wave.
The First Infantry Regiment of the First Infantry Brigade, the core force under Hao Bainian, did not go into battle at all, but the Ming army in the city could not resist it at all.
They only made token resistance before completely collapsing!
Most of them escaped, a few resisted and were killed, and some surrendered!
As for the Ming Dynasty officials in the city, the county magistrate committed suicide, and other officials also fled and some surrendered!
In just half a day, Hao Bainian had already entered the small county town of Huaiyuan County!
However, after conquering Huaiyuan County, Hao Bainian did not feel too happy, because this was a normal thing. It was strange that he could not conquer it. It was natural that he had conquered it.
Naturally, it was impossible for the five thousand troops to rush into the small Huaiyuan County. In fact, only more than a thousand people entered the city, and more troops were stationed outside the city.
That night, Hao Bainian summoned the generals according to the tradition of the Tang Dynasty kings and began to arrange the next strategy!
Since a rough battle plan had been basically drawn up before coming here, the strategy meeting that night didn't say much, it was just about issuing the plan that had been made in advance.
According to the original plan, the southward army led by Hao Bainian would split up after entering Guangxi, and a small number of troops would continue to march westward to Guilin. However, this force was only a partial division, and the troops under its jurisdiction were only a reserve of the regular army.
Battalion, which is the Second Reserve Battalion of the Second Infantry Regiment, and there is also the Thirteenth Garrison Battalion composed of descendants of the Ming Army, with a total strength of about 1,200 people.
Their mission does not mean that they must capture Guilin, as long as they can contain some of the Ming army. Of course, if possible, it is still possible to capture Guilin by the way.
And the real main force of the Tang Dynasty King's Division will continue to move south!
Before Hao Bainian led his army to attack Huaiyuan County, he had actually sent the main forwards south to Rong County!
If Huaiyuan County is an important transportation hub related to Liujiang water transportation, then Rong County is the northern gate of Liuzhou. After conquering Rong County, it means that Liuzhou has opened its northern gate to them!
And Liuzhou is their first strategic target in this trip south to Guangxi!
After capturing Liuzhou, it can basically be declared that the Tang Dynasty has established a firm foothold in Guangxi and can integrate local forces to prepare for the next step of controlling the entire territory of Guangxi and even conquering Wuzhou.
It is expected that by that time, the political center and industrial center of the Tang Dynasty will gradually shift to Guangxi!
In order to capture Liuzhou before the Ming army could react, Hao Bainian had already sent his main forwards south to Rong County before leading his army to Huaiyuan County.
As a result, the army of more than 10,000 heading south led by Hao Bainian was actually divided into three parts!
The 2nd Reserve Battalion and the 13th Garrison Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Regiment marched eastward to Guilin as a partial division, led by Lieutenant Colonel Xu Ke, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment!
The second part is the main forward. The main forward has already moved south yesterday. The number and combat effectiveness of this forward force are much stronger than the westward division led by Lieutenant Colonel Xu Ke!
Because this forward is composed of the remaining three main battalions of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, the 1st Reserve Battalion, the 2nd Cavalry Battalion, and the 11th Garrison Battalion of the 3rd Garrison Brigade, with a total strength of nearly three
Thousands of people!
The unit was personally led by Colonel Li Chunjing, commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment.
His mission was to capture Rongxian before the Ming army could react. If the main force of the Ming army arrived in Rongxian first, they would bypass Rongxian first and intercept the Ming reinforcements coming from Liuzhou, so that Hao Bainian could lead the follow-up
The troops attacked Rong County to provide cover.
In fact, when Hao Bainian led the troops to leave Huaiyuan County, Li Chunjing had already led the forward troops to the foot of Rong County.
After briefly observing the situation in the city, Li Chunjing made a preliminary judgment that the Ming army in Rong County was quite large, probably no less than 3,000 in total, and according to information revealed from locals, many of the soldiers in Rong County were
Ma Du just arrived in Rong County a few days ago.
It is obvious that the Ming army in Guangxi has discovered the puppet Tang rebel army moving south and has begun to make corresponding arrangements. Otherwise, they would not have temporarily sent more than 2,000 troops to Rong County.
of.
There were three thousand Ming troops in the city, but this did not make Li Chunjing flinch. As soon as he arrived outside Rong County, he immediately arranged his troops to prepare to attack the city.
But what surprised him was that the Ming army in Rong County was so courageous that they actually dared to go out of the city to fight!
Li Chunjing hadn't seen a Ming army dare to take the initiative to fight his own troops in the wild for a long time. Could it be that after fighting for so long, they still didn't know that what his Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty was best at was frontal decisive battles in the wild?
In fact, they really don't know, because due to the lack of information, the Ming army in Guangxi really doesn't know much about the specific tactics of the puppet Tang rebel army in Guizhou.
If it were Song Zhiwen or Zhu Zhihai, they would definitely not do such a stupid thing. It is not necessarily possible to defend the city with a fortified defense. If they still play field battles, isn't this asking for death?
But at this time, the person in charge of the defense of Rong County was obviously neither Zhu Zhihai nor Song Zhiwen, so the Ming army came out. With fearless courage, the three thousand Ming army launched an attack on the three thousand Tang army outside the city!
Seeing the Ming army rushing over, even Li Chunjing had to admire them!
This kind of courage has never been possessed by even our own troops!
Facing the Ming army that he sent to seek death, Li Chunjing was naturally not polite. He also did not prepare any siege and directly ordered the troops to form a formation to meet the enemy!
According to the tradition of the Tang Dynasty, each battalion formed a tight infantry square formation, and more than 150 cavalrymen under the second infantry battalion raided the formation from the rear!
When the Army of the Tang Dynasty formed a formation to meet the enemy, many battalion commanders and captain-level officers in the Second Infantry Regiment looked at the Ming army rushing over with puzzled faces, let alone the officers in the regular army!
Even the surrendered soldiers of the Ming Army in the 11th Garrison Battalion under the 13th Garrison Brigade looked like fools as they watched the Ming Army rush over!
You guys are so stupid, you actually dare to attack their pseudo-Tang bandit army. Oh, no, it's the military formation of our Tang Dynasty king's division. We are simply getting impatient.
Immediately, there was a former Ming Army soldier who had surrendered outside the city and became a sergeant platoon leader in the Tang Army garrison. He looked disdainful and said to the soldiers beside him: "These fools, they were in Liping Fucheng back then."
At that time, more than 30,000 of us were defeated. They were only 3,000 people, and they dared to attack the main force of our King's Division. It's a joke!"
Yes, I was defeated back then, how could you not be defeated?
Doesn't that mean you are better than me?
How is this possible, absolutely impossible!
Many people in the Tang army were shocked, looking at the three thousand Ming troops rushing up like fools. Cen Xiong, who was leading the attack in the Ming army array, also looked at the pseudo-Tang rebels in front of him with a confused look:
Facing the charge of their own army of soldiers, why didn't they run away like other rebels?
Haven't they heard of the great reputation of these soldiers who are invincible and invincible?
Three thousand soldiers were enough to destroy the Tang Dynasty!
With doubts, Cen Xiong led three thousand soldiers and rushed towards the formation of the Second Infantry Regiment like a tide!