When the puppet Tang bandits march south to Guangxi, the local Ming Dynasty officials will naturally react accordingly!
When Hao Bainian and others captured Huaiyuan and Rong County, the Ming army in the entire Guangxi territory, and even parts of Guangdong, had already begun to move.
First of all, of course, the local officers and soldiers in Liuzhou gathered together to defend Liuzhou City, while the Ming army from other directions rushed towards Liuzhou one after another, and finally gathered a large army to defeat the puppet Tang rebel army.
However, due to the backward communication methods, the contacts among these Ming troops were not frequent and timely, and this gave Hao Bainian an opportunity!
"Ignore Liuzhou City for now. The Fifth Guard Regiment is watching over there. I don't think there will be any big problems! Our top priority now is to defeat the eight thousand Ming army, and then defeat several other Ming forces.
The army must not be allowed to gather together, let alone allow them to reach Liuzhou smoothly!"
Hao Bainian, who was already in Xiangzhou, wanted to defeat the Ming army troops coming from Wuzhou and other directions. Naturally, Li Xuan in Xingquan Mansion was unable to know Hao Bainian's many arrangements in time.
Although military reports are delivered by fast horses, this will still be delayed for several days!
So Li Xuan still doesn't know that Hao Bainian has decided not to attack Liuzhou first, but to use Liuzhou as a bait and then attack various areas to aid the Ming army.
On this day, his focus was not on the south, but on Guizhou itself.
The 2nd Infantry Brigade and the two garrison brigades had already divided their forces to move north and west long before the 1st Infantry Brigade and the 3rd garrison brigade went south.
Most of the troops in Guizhou Province had been brought to Liping Mansion by Zhu Zhihai. In the end, they were all defeated by the puppet Tang rebel army. There were very few Ming army defensive forces in other places in Guizhou.
Regardless of whether it was the northward detachment or the westward detachment, they encountered no actual resistance along the way. The northward detachment had successfully captured Zhenyuan Prefecture, Sizhou Prefecture and other counties, and almost occupied the entire northeastern Guizhou.
Got it in the bag.
As for the Westward Detachment, they have successfully captured Ligu Prefecture and Duyun Prefecture, and are marching towards Guiyang Prefecture. It is estimated that the next time they receive news from the Westward Detachment, they will have already arrived at Guiyang City.
The military operations in Guizhou Province were quite smooth. This was certainly due to the heavy losses suffered by the Ming Dynasty in Guizhou Province, but it was also related to the fact that the Ming army in Guizhou Province was afraid of being beaten.
When the Northward Detachment attacked Zhenyuan Prefecture, there were still more than 3,000 officers and soldiers and thousands of young men and women in the city. However, only two days after the attack, the Ming generals who defended the city led their troops to escape privately, leaving behind a miserable legacy.
The civil servants were forced. The situation was similar with the Westward Detachment. There were originally several thousand Ming troops who fled back to Ligu Prefecture, but when faced with the Tang Dynasty King's Division who was pursuing them from behind, they didn't even resist.
They continued to retreat, giving up Liguzhou and Duyun Prefecture.
It is said that these defeated soldiers have fled to Guiyang City, and they probably want to rely on Guiyang City to make their final resistance.
The Ming army retreated without a fight, which made the Tang Dynasty's military operations in Guizhou Province more like an armed parade, without encountering the enemy at all.
If they have an enemy, it's the terrain!
Guizhou is located in the southwestern part of the country, with not much else but mountains. And these days, the army cannot march by train or plane, so it can only walk on two legs.
Li Xuan estimated that even if the rear troops did not encounter actual military resistance in Guizhou, with this marching speed, it would take two months or even longer to capture the entire Guizhou!
But this kind of thing cannot be rushed!
It is impossible to capture the entire Guizhou and establish effective control in a short period of time, but the rule in several nearby prefectures and counties still needs to be established quickly.
Why?
Because there are taxes and conscription!
As the scale of the Tang Dynasty grew larger and larger, so did the expenses in all aspects!
No matter what era you are in, a penny will stump a heroic man!
In today's Tang Dynasty, there are more and more officials. We can't always owe this salary. We have to pay it, and it costs money!
What's more important is that the size of the Tang Army is getting bigger and bigger, and the cost of this army is also getting bigger and bigger!
Among them, just the food that supplies tens of thousands of people is not a small amount!
Secondly, many people and institutions in the Tang Dynasty directly or indirectly served the army, such as the many workshops at the Ministry of Industry.
Thousands of workers inside are providing services to the army!
Even an organization as awesome as the Tax Inspection Team is, in the final analysis, just there to raise military funds!
In order to maintain the daily expenses of this large army, in order to continue to expand the number of regular troops, and in order to enable these troops to maintain their combat effectiveness, many officials in the Tang Dynasty tried their best to do this!
The Ministry of Industry is thinking about ways to increase production every day, and the Tax Department is thinking about how to make more money every day!
But Xingquan Mansion and Liping Mansion are poor. Even if they plunder everything, they can't afford to support such an army. So the only way is to expand externally.
Use the population and taxes of the newly occupied areas to maintain the needs of the troops!
This is also because the civil servants of the Tang Dynasty always followed the army. Every time the army conquered a city, the civil servants of the cabinet would immediately take over. Then other various institutions and people's livelihood affairs could be left alone, but the Ministry of War
The recruitment station and the tax department of the tax department must be established in the shortest possible time and start working quickly.
Just like in Huaiyuan County, not long after the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty conquered this county, people from the tax inspection team had already started to come to collect autumn taxes one by one according to the roster.
Conquer a land and immediately collect money and recruit troops. This is an important part of the current expansion of the Tang Dynasty!
Nowadays, the same thing is done in other areas of Guizhou!
However, Guizhou is poor and many prefectures and counties do not have many people and cannot collect much tax revenue, so they can only accumulate a little.
It was only a matter of time before he captured the entire Guizhou, and Li Xuan was not in a hurry, so he still had the mood and time to play with the women in the harem.
Especially the concubine Li Bai who has recently entered the palace. Well, she was also the former girl Cui'er. She is indeed an expert who has received professional training. She is very knowledgeable about things under the bed and can perform various difficult positions.
In other words, Li Xuan was allowed to stay in her yard for many days in a row.
This also aroused dissatisfaction between Ye and Dong Yunyun. It is said that Dong Yunyun has worn Libi's shoes several times.
However, Li Xuan didn't bother to pay attention to the petty thoughts between these women. As long as it didn't hinder his enjoyment, he didn't bother to care about anything else. Besides, there was Queen Mother Bai supervising her!
What kind of person is Empress Dowager Bai? In the current government, no one except her dares to yell at Liu Bagou, the chief minister of the cabinet. Every time Liu Bagou annoys her, she will scold Liu Bagou bloody.
.
With such a ruthless character sitting in the harem, Li Xuan thought that those women would not be able to make a difference!
This morning, after Li Xuan came out of Concubine Li's house again, before leaving, he said, "There's no need to send my concubine away. It's cold outside. Well, I'll come over in the evening and try..."
Then he lowered his voice and said, "Try a new trick!"
Concubine Li suddenly looked arrogant, then she hit Li Xuan with her little hand and said, "Your Majesty, how are you doing?"
"That must be bad!" Li Xuan laughed, and then went out with a few of his personal maids.
In addition to the scope of the harem, after arriving in the front yard, Huo Shouqi, a bachelor at the time, was already waiting with several members of the Han Dynasty.
"I respectfully welcome your Majesty!"
Li Xuan kept walking and raised his hands slightly: "No need to be polite, let's go!"
After that, he did not go towards the office, but towards the gate outside the palace. As he walked, he asked Huo Shouqi: "Are you all ready?"
Huo Shouqi said: "Your Majesty, we have prepared for the military parade on the school grounds this time!"
Li Xuan said: "That's good, it's getting late, let's go straight away!"
On the way, Li Xuan directly got on his horse, and then began to leave the palace under the escort of dozens of cavalry from the guard camp. At the same time, Zeng Ziwen and other senior generals and civil servants also followed behind. The generals rode horses and the civil servants sat in sedan chairs.
There were more than a hundred people in the group.
The destination of their trip is the Grand Campus outside the city, which is where the 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Artillery Battalion, 1st Cavalry Battalion and other troops are stationed!
Naturally, Li Xuan would not come to this campus to participate in any military parade for no reason, but because the Fifth Infantry Regiment was officially full a few days ago!
Although there is still a lot of equipment that has not expired, once the number of personnel is full, it can barely be declared an army, so a review was organized.
Of course, the review is actually just incidental. More importantly, Li Xuan is ready to watch the actual drill of the heavy artillery!
That's right, after many days, the craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty finally produced the first 1,300-pound heavy cannon after much hard work. This cannon was roughly similar to the previous prototype.
There are heavy artillery and infantry at the same time. If you practice like this, it will be a typical infantry-artillery collaboration.
By the time Li Xuan led a group of people to the campus outside the city, the entire campus was already ready, and all the troops preparing to participate in the drill had already lined up and assembled.
Looking down from the highest point of the hillside, I saw several phalanxes arranged below!
At this time, Zeng Ziwen said on the side: "In order to better simulate the puppet Ming thief army, the Seventh Garrison Regiment specially transferred many Ming army generals as staff officers. At the same time, in order to better restore the number of the Ming army, the Seventh Guards Regiment
The strength of the infantry regiment will be calculated as twice as high!"
"This exercise will involve a 12,000-strong Ming army encountering an infantry regiment of our army and several auxiliary troops in the wild!"
After finishing speaking, Zeng Ziwen added: "In addition, in this battle, the First Cavalry Battalion will play the role of the Ming Army's elite frontier troops with thousands of cavalry!"
Li Xuandao: "And what about the Fifth Infantry Regiment? In addition to their inherent infantry, what other configurations do they have?"
"According to the plan, the Fifth Infantry Regiment will be a unit reinforced by brigade artillery, cavalry, and baggage. In addition to the original three main infantry battalions and two reserve battalions, it will also have a cavalry team of 100 cavalry.
A battalion artillery team has six battalion guns, a heavy artillery team has two 800-pound heavy guns, and a transport battalion!
Li Xuan listened and watched, and then didn't say much. He quickly nodded and said: "Since everything is ready, let's get started!"