Chapter five hundred and seventy-two Zhang Yue, who is devastated
After the strategic idea of counterattacking Xingquan Prefecture and advancing into Guizhou failed, Zhang Yue now fully realized that annihilating the puppet Tang rebel army would not be successful in a short time.
Nowadays, the Puppet Tang Dynasty Rebel Army has become so powerful that it owns nearly two and a half provinces. Among them, Guangxi is completely controlled by the Puppet Tang Dynasty Rebel Army. Using these territories, the Puppet Tang Dynasty Rebel Army has expanded its army to more than 100,000 or more.
Moreover, these pseudo-Tang thieves also have a huge advantage in firearms, making it very difficult to fight.
How can one's own army counterattack if its own army's firearms are incompetent and its combat effectiveness is poor?
Since we cannot counterattack, we naturally need to adopt a strategic defense.
After learning that the battle of Xingquan Mansion was failed, he sent a fast horse to write a letter to Tan Rong. Instead of blaming Tan Rong for losing his troops, the letter comforted him that victory or defeat is a common thing for military strategists and should not be taken to heart.
Even if the government is defeated in the war, he will try his best to deal with it in the court to ensure that the court will not blame him.
However, after comforting him, he also strictly ordered Tan Rong to manage the frontline defense of Zhenyuan Prefecture and Chenzhou Prefecture to ensure that the puppet Tang rebel army would not enter the hinterland of Huguang from this direction, and at the same time prevent the puppet Tang rebel army from advancing towards Sichuan.
At the same time, he also made a promise that he would continue to send more troops, ordnance, food, grass, etc. from the rear.
And it also gave strategic guidance, which is to avoid large-scale outdoor battles with the Puppet Tang thief army, especially the real thieves in the Puppet Tang thief army, and the large-scale outdoor decisive battle that determines the outcome is even more important.
Should be avoided as much as possible.
The reason is very simple, you can’t beat it!
The puppet Tang thief army has told the Ming army through many large-scale frontal decisive battles in the field that it is not feasible to fight such a frontal decisive battle in the field, even if the Ming army has a strength advantage of more than two or three times.
At the same time, he also hoped that Tan Rong could pay attention to the development of the battle in Guilin!
It is said that although the nearly ten thousand Ming troops who marched south to Guilin failed to achieve large-scale destruction of the puppet Tang rebels, they successfully defeated the arrogance of the puppet Tang rebels through a small-scale attack, and at the same time killed many people who had defected to the puppet Tang.
fake thieves and held back many main forces of the fake Tang thieves.
After Tan Rong received Zhang Yue's letter, he was relieved. With Zhang Yue's statement, he felt relieved. What he feared most was that Zhang Yue would hold him accountable and even throw him out as a prisoner.
The scapegoat for Xingquan Mansion's failure.
Now, not only did he have no responsibility, but Tan Rong also asked him to take over the tens of thousands of Ming troops originally in northeastern Guizhou, and would also send him reinforcements, making him almost fully responsible for the northern front war. This moved him very much, and when he met
What's there to say about having a boss like this? You have to do your best to get the job done.
As for the tactics of the Guilin Ming Army, they also gave him great inspiration!
Yes, it is true that they cannot defeat the Ming army in frontal field battles, and even large-scale city defense operations are not easy to fight, but it does not mean that they cannot conduct raids and disturbances!
Not all of the puppet Tang thief army were real thieves, most of them were fake thieves. The supply lines in the rear were maintained and controlled by fake thieves with weak combat power.
If you can't beat the real thief, is it possible that you can't beat the fake thief?
Therefore, he was also preparing to imitate the Ming army in Guilin and avoid a large-scale decisive battle with the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army. He would specifically attack the supply lines of the puppet Tang rebel army and attack their poorly defended small cities.
They don't want to win a big victory, they just want to delay the attack of the puppet Tang rebel army.
In fact, this strategy of the Ming army is still feasible. Just as the Ming army generals judged, the Tang Dynasty King's Division is so large in scale, but there are not many main forces that can actually fight, and most of them need to be deployed.
When fighting on the front line, at most they are stationed in some important cities. In other places, such as ordinary state capitals and even small counties, they are actually garrison troops composed of soldiers dropped by the Ming army and local bandit camps to assist in defense. Their combat effectiveness
Worrying.
This is also the reason why many small cities in Guilin were repeatedly attacked by the Ming army!
The Ming army would never go to the cities where the main force of the Tang Dynasty was, and would specifically pick out cities where the main force was not garrisoned. Moreover, after the attack, if the main force of the Tang army did not come, they would not leave, but once the main force of the Tang army came, they would not leave.
Instead of defending the city, they just ran away.
This caused the defenders on the Guilin side to have a huge headache. Although the supply lines could be maintained and important cities could be defended, they could not control the entire Guilin Prefecture.
In the final analysis, it is because there are not enough regular troops!
If these more than 100,000 troops were all regular troops, then there would be so many things going on!
But then again, if Li Xuan had more than 100,000 regular soldiers, he would have fought a security war in Guilin with the Ming army and would have led his army to conquer Jiangnan.
He missed the scenery on both sides of the Qinhuai River for more than a day or two!
After instructing Tan Rong to take a defensive position on the northern front, he began to organize the front-line defense of Baoqing Mansion. Once Jingzhou was completely lost, Baoqing Mansion would be the front line to resist the puppet Tang rebel army's westward advance from Jingzhou.
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Once Baoqing Mansion is lost, the troops of the puppet Tang rebels can go straight to Changsha. Once Changsha is threatened by the troops of the Tang rebels, the situation will be serious, so Jingzhou can be lost, but Baoqing
The mansion, especially Xunyang City, the mansion's capital, must not be lost. This is the city that Zhang Yue is determined to defend.
Yongzhou Prefecture, south of Baoqing Prefecture, is still safe for the time being. The tens of thousands of Ming troops on the other side of Guilin are fighting pretty well. Although they have not achieved any great results, they are firmly anchored in Guilin Prefecture.
The local puppet Tang bandits were immobilized.
As long as these tens of thousands of Ming troops are not wiped out, Yongzhou Prefecture will be safe.
However, he was more worried about Shaozhou Prefecture in Guangdong over there. Although the central and northern areas of Shaozhou Prefecture were still in the hands of the Ming army, the number of Ming troops there was not large, and the puppet Tang bandits had already arrived at the foot of Shaozhou City.
Once the puppet Tang rebels launch a large-scale attack, they may not be able to defend it.
Therefore, he hoped to enrich the defense force of Shaozhou Prefecture as much as possible during the rainy season, when the puppet Tang rebel army had difficulty moving and was restrained by Guangzhou in large numbers. The existing nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses were not enough.
, it is safer to add 20,000 or even 30,000 more troops.
However, recruiting soldiers and horses requires money, so while he was planning to consolidate the defense line, he continued to send memorials to the capital, and these memorials were almost all requests for assistance, money, soldiers, food, in short, etc.
All.
In addition, he also sent a letter to Wang Yue, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, hoping that the soldiers and civilians of Guangzhou could continue to hold on. He had already coordinated the navy and part of the army in Fujian to reinforce Guangdong.
Just when Zhang Yue was worried and trying his best to maintain the situation, there was a peaceful scene in Zhaoqing!
In the palace, Li Xuan and Long Yan were overjoyed after receiving the good news from the front line. They defeated tens of thousands of Ming troops and recovered the lost territory of Xingquan Prefecture. For example, Zhengtai County, the land of Longxing that the courtiers valued very much, was not worthy of his happiness. What really made him happy was , thousands of troops in Xingquan Mansion were saved.
The main force of the Tang army that was previously besieged in Xingquanfu City was the Fourth Infantry Regiment. This was one of the few regular army infantry regiments in the Tang Dynasty that could fight hard. It was of great significance to preserve this infantry regiment.
Therefore, he instructed the Operations Department, Ordnance Department and other agencies that the 4th Infantry Regiment's replenishment must be prioritized and strive to restore the 4th Infantry Regiment's combat effectiveness as soon as possible.
Although looking at the most optimistic scenario, the severely damaged Fourth Infantry Regiment will not be able to return to its peak combat status for more than a month or even two months, at least this unit has been saved.
It is much easier to restore the combat effectiveness of the 4th Infantry Regiment than to build a new 5th Infantry Brigade!
Saving the Fourth Infantry Regiment and other troops in the city also made Li Xuan give up the idea of replacing Fang Xitong. However, when Fang Xitong failed to rescue and lost troops, he thought about giving him up. Replacement, but considering that a sudden change would have a great impact on morale, and he couldn't find anyone to replace Fang Xitong for a while, so he let Fang Xitong continue to lead the army.
But now that the situation has been restored, and Fang Xitong's performance in the subsequent battles was pretty good, he raised the board and put it down gently.
I just sent an imperial edict of encouragement. What is encouragement, it is nothing more than asking Fang Xitong to work hard, otherwise I will kill someone if something like this happens again next time.
After this battle, Fang Xitong also became ruthless and led the headquarters of the Second Army to continue to pursue the Ming army fleeing north. He then directed the defenders at Zhenyuan Prefecture to launch a counterattack, which was considered to have achieved certain results.
However, at this time, Tan Rong had already changed his previous strategy and adopted the strategy of avoiding the battle with the main force and attacking the grain road with a partial force. Fang Xitong was unable to achieve a large-scale victory for a while.
In addition, the strength of the Second Army was already half disabled after the battle of Xingquanfu in northeastern Guizhou. The Fourth Infantry Regiment suffered heavy losses and was unable to regain its combat effectiveness for at least a month. The First Guard Brigade was also almost disabled.
In addition, he also left a garrison regiment and a temporary regiment in Guiyang, so the strength is not very sufficient.
Therefore, we can only postpone the large-scale offensive and prepare for a period of rest!
During this period, Chen Keqiao was competing with Jingzhou. Although the garrison in the city was not large or strong, there were at least seven or eight thousand regular troops and young men. Chen Keqiao did not have many heavy artillery under his command, and he himself I didn't want to lose too many troops, so at first I thought of leaving some troops to continue the siege, and the main force was ready to send reinforcements.
However, Zhang Yue was not stupid and refused to send reinforcements. In the end, he had no choice but to give up the idea of reinforcement and prepare to remove the nail in Jingzhou City first.
We have to fight a tough battle, and we don't want too many casualties. Naturally, we can only grind it out bit by bit. Don't expect to be able to conquer the city in at least ten days and a half.
But now Li Xuan doesn't care much about these fronts. Anyway, the Second Army and the Fourth Army still occupy the strategic initiative. At most, the progress is slower. Now Li Xuan is more concerned about Guangzhou.
As summer is approaching, the Tang Dynasty King's Division has completed all preparations for conquering Guangzhou, which means that the battle for Guangzhou is about to begin!