Chapter five hundred and sixty-one waiting for work
This third infantry regiment is where he has the confidence to launch another offensive. Although this infantry regiment now has too many recruits and its combat effectiveness is no longer as good as its peak, it is the only regular infantry regiment under his command. He does not expect this regiment to
, what other troops could Fang Xitong count on? Could it be that he could count on those auxiliary troops or garrison troops?
In addition to the Third Infantry Regiment, he does have other troops under his command, including the Fourth Garrison Regiment, half a baggage regiment, as well as auxiliary troops such as infantry and cavalry. However, except for the Third Infantry Regiment, artillery and cavalry can only
Considered as a support force, the originally usable baggage regiment only had two battalions. There were more recruits in these two battalions because many veterans had been transferred to the Third Infantry Regiment.
In addition, the tasks of the baggage troops of these two battalions are also very heavy, because they have to shoulder the task of escorting materials near the front line. Material transportation in the Tang Dynasty has always been carried out by civilians, capture camps or garrison troops.
Escort, while the transportation of materials near the front line is delivered to the baggage troops for escort.
Unless the enemy is completely surrounded and engaged in offensive operations, or simply surrounded by the enemy, baggage troops generally do not participate in frontline battles because they have to maintain supply lines.
The other Fourth Garrison Regiment that could participate in the front-line battle failed to capture new Ming army prisoners in Guizhou, so it was difficult to replenish soldiers. Although the Privy Council tried their best to dispatch a part of the garrison reinforcements from Liuzhou, they only recovered to
The size of the regiment is two thousand, and the full strength of a garrison regiment in the Tang Dynasty King's Division is only three thousand men. The fourth garrison regiment, which is short of one-third of its members, has a relatively weak combat effectiveness.
Fortunately, the Third Army supported a garrison regiment, but this garrison regiment could not be taken down to participate in the front-line battle, because the huge Liping Prefecture could not rely solely on the local bandit capture camp to maintain the situation. You must know that there are still many thieves left here.
As for the small force of the Ming Army, most of the northeastern part of Guizhou has fallen into the hands of the Ming Army. Now the Tang Army can only resist in Zhenyuan Prefecture, and has asked for help many times due to insufficient troops.
In order to prevent the Ming army from coming down from the northeast, Fang Xitong had to mobilize two battalions of garrison troops to go north to Zhenyuan Mansion to strengthen the local defense, not to be able to counterattack the Ming army, but to stabilize the local situation and not allow
The Ming army rushed down.
In this case, after he was generous in Liping Mansion, he could only leave three battalions of garrison troops to garrison. In addition, there were about a thousand more people who were worse than the garrison troops. Even the slightly stronger bandits and landlords were armed.
An unbeatable bandit camp.
So in the end, he was able to gather not many troops to attack Liping Mansion, only about 6,000 people, and these 6,000 people were already the most and the most elite troops he could use.
Among these six thousand people, the third infantry regiment is the core!
Early the next morning, Fang Xitong led the six thousand troops to march eastward to Xingquan Mansion again. Because he was almost ambushed by the Ming army last time, he was very cautious this time when marching eastward and sent a large number of reconnaissance cavalry.
He went out for reconnaissance to avoid running into the ambush of the Ming army again. However, being cautious did not mean that his advance was slow. In fact, his advance was quite fast.
The puppet Tang rebel army in Liping Mansion moved and headed towards Xingquan Mansion in large numbers. This news was quickly learned by Tan Rong, but he had already expected it and had already left enough troops.
response!
There are more than 35,000 troops left in Xingquan Mansion, but a full 20,000 are prepared to deal with the enemies of Liping Mansion.
Immediately, he sent out fast horses to send orders to the frontline troops to resolutely intercept and stop the puppet Tang rebels, and not allow them to get closer to Xingquan Fucheng.
But Wang Shanxu and others in Xingquan City don't know all this yet.
In an era without wireless communications, after a city was completely surrounded, it was almost cut off from the outside world. Even if occasionally a fast horse could take advantage of the darkness and speed to break through and report the news, this method was not very safe.
Xingquan Fucheng is not that big to begin with, and the Ming army is not all infantry. They also have cavalry. Although they do not have a large-scale cavalry unit like the northern frontier army, there are still some scattered cavalry.
, it is still possible to block and intercept these messengers.
Wang Shanxu, who didn't know that the friendly troops on the periphery were launching a massive offensive for him, still ordered his troops to defend step by step while saving food as much as possible.
Even in order to supplement the shortage of food, Wang Shanxu had already reluctantly ordered the slaughter of horses and other livestock in the army. As for the chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs and other livestock in the city, they had already been killed.
Horses and other livestock in the army are very valuable materials. To put it bluntly, to the Tang Dynasty King, the value of a soldier is far less than the value of a horse.
But now that we are trapped in the city and the horses are no longer needed, we might as well kill them for food.
While Wang Shanxu was trying his best to extend the holding time in the city, Fang Xitong led his army into Xingquan Mansion, which was about twenty miles west of Jingzhou City.
Chen Keqiao was in a pretty good mood, and even had the pleasure of having a drink with several middle- and high-level officers. The wine was seized from the Ming army's transport team.
Since stationing troops outside Jingzhou City, the Fourth Army has not had a good life. First, it intercepted a transport team from Jingzhou City bound for Xingquan Prefecture, and then intercepted two transport teams from the hinterland of Huguang to Jingzhou.
Transport team.
They seized a huge amount of grain and various military supplies. Along with these supplies, they also captured more than 200 prisoners of war from the Ming Army Guards Station and more than 1,000 civilian husbands.
The Fourth Army happily accepts food and other supplies, which greatly reduces the logistics pressure on the Fourth Army. Even now, even if the Fourth Army is cut off from its supply line, the food reserves alone can last for half a month.
Naturally, those prisoners of the Ming army were persuaded one by one to join the garrison in the same way as in the past, but the civilians were even simpler, allowing them to join the baggage transport unit of the Tang Dynasty King's Division.
Relatively speaking, whether it is the Ming army or the Tang army, these civilians are in urgent need. After all, a large army is fighting abroad, and the demand for supplies is very large. In Xingquan Prefecture, there are more than 60,000 people in Jingzhou.
As for the Ming army, in order to supply the 60,000-strong army, Zhang Yue conquered at least 30,000 civilians in the rear.
And this is because of the inland fighting. At the same time, most of the baggage required by the Ming army is food, and there are relatively few other items. If it is fighting outside the fortress, depending on the length of the road, the 60,000-strong army will need at least 100,000 or even more behind it.
Many peasants came to supply it.
For the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty, because it has installed a large number of artillery and muskets, the demand for ammunition is relatively large, and the logistics pressure is also greater. The same number of combat troops requires more civilians than the civilian army.
This is also the reason why the Tang Dynasty King tried his best to launch an offensive along the Xijiang River when he went south, hoping to rely on the water transportation of the Xijiang River to solve the logistics and transportation problems.
After knocking out several Ming army transport teams in succession, those Ming army transport teams may have received the news and finally did not dare to set off from Jingzhou City to Xingquan Prefecture or from the hinterland of Huguang to Jingzhou.
They stopped coming, and Chen Keqiao was too lazy to care. His strategic goal was not to seize some supplies, but to cut off the Ming army's supply lines in Jingzhou and Xingquan Prefecture. As long as this strategic goal could be achieved, everything else would be secondary.
need.
Now that the supply lines of the Ming armies in the two places have been completely cut off, Chen Keqiao is too lazy to move, and is focused on letting the troops rest and recuperate to maintain the best condition.
What are you doing to stay in such good shape?
Naturally, we are waiting for the Ming army in Xingquan Mansion to come over!
Regardless of whether it is the Tang Army or the Ming Army's large-scale troop movement, it is basically impossible to hide it from the other side, because the movements of thousands or even tens of thousands of people are too large to be concealed. In addition, more importantly, although both sides
There is no large-scale cavalry, but it does not mean that both sides lack reconnaissance cavalry.
A separatist regime like the Tang Dynasty King's Division was able to produce hundreds of cavalry. Naturally, the Ming army would not be short of these hundreds of cavalry.
In addition, another very important reason is that the army marches these days are all on foot. If it is a short to medium distance march, it will be a long distance march.
Generally speaking, walking more than ten kilometers is good. Unless the situation is urgent or the distance is not far, otherwise, it is difficult to walk twenty kilometers in a day.
Of course, this is only limited to normal marches. If it is a light and urgent march, theoretically it can cover fifty kilometers a day. If used in ancient distance units, it is possible to travel a hundred miles a day.
But this is only theoretical. In fact, no general would do this, unless it is a simple march, there is no enemy waiting for them in front, and there is no fear that the soldiers' physical energy will be completely exhausted, and there will be large-scale lag behind and non-combat attrition.
Don’t worry about large-scale exhaustion of livestock!
A person can still walk dozens of kilometers if he grits his teeth, but horses pulling cannons and ammunition trucks cannot do it. If he walks dozens of kilometers a day, more than half of the horses in the artillery unit will die.
Moreover, the battles these days are all hand-to-hand combat. Unlike the armies of later generations, when fighting, they just move their fingers and pull the trigger. Soldiers need to put on armor and then line up to fight hand-to-hand.
After running wildly for a day, the soldiers did not have sufficient physical fitness. It was estimated that the soldiers could not even stand firmly while wearing dozens of kilograms of armor, and they were still fighting!
The troops marched slowly, but the scouts were not slow, so they often appeared. The scouts had already run several times to report back, and the enemy troops were still moving slowly dozens of miles away.
Now more than 10,000 Huguangming troops have come from Xingquan Prefecture. They have just set off for two days and have not yet returned to Jingzhou. Keqiao has already learned the relevant news. According to his judgment,
It will take several days for the two sides to contact each other.
In the past few days, he decided to do nothing and let the soldiers sleep instead of training!