Chapter five hundred and seventy-four the royal drive to Guangzhou
With the end of April and the arrival of May, after completing the reorganization, the 3rd Garrison Brigade, which has expanded to nearly 10,000 people, has arrived in Guangzhou!
Now almost the entire main force of the First Army and the Third Guard Brigade are gathered under the city of Guangzhou. As long as the weather improves and the Tang Army is more fully prepared, a general offensive against Guangzhou will be launched!
In order to boost morale and increase the strength of the troops on the front line, Li Xuan was preparing to conduct another personal expedition and took more than 3,000 guardsmen southward!
There are more than 3,000 people in the Guards, all types of arms are complete, among which the Guards artillery battalion is equipped with twelve 800-jin heavy cannons and six 1,200-jin heavy cannons!
In the past two months, the Tang Dynasty has obtained a large amount of raw materials by conquering Guangxi and northeastern Guangdong.
In this battle, Li Xuan was determined to defeat Guangzhou in one battle and remove the last nail in the way of the Tang Dynasty sweeping Guangdong and Guangxi, thus establishing the rule of the Tang Dynasty in Guangdong, Guangxi and even the entire southern region.
Therefore, Li Xuan is far more concerned about the battle in Guangzhou than he is about the war in Guizhou and Huguang. As for the war in western Guangxi and even the march into Yunnan, Li Xuan now doesn't even want to watch it. He allows Li Chunjing to lead the third party.
The army is going to toss about it, but that's all it is to do over there.
Not even better, not even worse.
But in Guangzhou, Li Xuan not only personally took care of the preparations before the war, but even prepared to lead the army to attack personally.
Li Xuan wanted to go on a personal expedition. Although Liu Bagou and the others also put forward certain opinions this time, saying that the front line was dangerous and telling Li Xuan not to take risks easily, their dissuasion might have been useful two years ago, but today, it has been
Li Xuan, who really controlled the entire Tang Dynasty, didn't bother to pay attention to the words of these civil servants.
He was going to command the attack on Guangzhou, but he was not going to climb the city wall of Guangzhou himself with a knife.
Besides, with the presence of the First Army, the Guards and the Third Guard Brigade, even if the siege fails, there won't be much danger. If the army dares to take the initiative to go out of the city to fight, Li Xuan will laugh out of his dreams!
On the sixth day of May, after everything was ready, Li Xuan, Empress Dowager Bai, Empress Dong, and Ye had a family reunion breakfast, and then officially led the accompanying civil and military officials and guards to set off.
When he went on an expedition, Li Xuan wore his dragon-patterned military uniform as usual and rode a fast horse. This time it was not that he did not want to take a naval ship to go south, but now on the Xijiang River east of Antelope Gorge, the Tang Navy simply could not
There is no way to control it. If the army goes south in ships and is caught by the Ming Navy, it will be in big trouble.
In addition, many people misunderstand that the Pearl River near Guangzhou is connected to the main stream of the Xijiang River, but in fact it is not.
The Pearl River in the broad sense even refers to the Pearl River Basin in the Pearl River Delta region, including the Xijiang, Beijiang, Dongjiang and other rivers. The Pearl River in the narrow sense is actually just a small tributary flowing through Guangzhou. However, although this tributary Pearl River is not long,
, but the river is very broad.
The Xijiang River does not flow through Guangzhou, and its outlet to the sea is not the Pearl River Estuary, but in Zhuhai, and there are several other small estuaries.
This means that actually there is no way to reach Guangzhou if you go down the river from the Xijiang River.
Of course, the Pearl River Delta region has a dense water network. Although the main stream of the Xijiang River does not flow through Guangzhou, you can still enter the Pearl River from the Xijiang River through some small waterways and then reach Guangzhou.
However, the navigability of these small waterways is very average. If the river is difficult to turn around and is easily blocked by the Ming navy, the fleet of the Tang Dynasty King's fleet will be in a dilemma.
Therefore, whether it is the former First Army or the current Guards led by Li Xuan, they will advance on foot. Even in order to avoid encountering the Ming Navy, they will first go north and then cross Beijiang from the Sihui area.
, then continue eastbound through the Pearl River and many other tributary water networks, and then enter from the north of Guangzhou City.
The entire journey was also the route used by the First Army to march eastward to Guangzhou. It is also the main logistics supply line for the Tang Dynasty to maintain the First Army and the Third Guard Brigade on the front line.
When they crossed Beijiang from Sihui, Colonel Lei Wan, the accompanying deputy director of the Operations Department, complained about the Tang navy, saying that they only huddled under the Antelope Gorge fort. If they dared to come out and defeat the Ming navy,
If the Xijiang waterway is completely controlled, how can it be so troublesome? It would be so convenient to go directly down the river from Zhaoqing and then pass through the Pearl River Estuary to Guangzhou.
But it was just a slight complaint. If he really made a plan to let the Tang Navy go to war and actively seek out the Ming Navy to fight, he would definitely not do this.
There is no other reason. The Tang navy is still too weak and cannot defeat the Ming navy in the Pearl River Basin. There is basically no other possibility except to die when going out to fight.
Without the strength of the navy, the army in the Tang Dynasty's royal division could only fight on its own.
Although there are many ships and many naval guns in the Ming Navy, they can't get ashore. At most, they can only provide artillery support to the Ming Army in the Pearl River. But the King of the Tang Dynasty did not stupidly come from Guangzhou Nancheng.
That is to say, if they launch an attack on the side near the Pearl River, they will launch an attack from the north, east or even west, but not the south.
If it is shown that the navy of the Ming Dynasty gave up its ships and went ashore to fight on foot in order to support the defenders in the city, Hao Bainian had a hundred confidence to annihilate these Ming navy on land.
It is a pity that the navy of the Ming Army is not stupid. They know that the puppet Tang rebel army is powerful in land warfare, but they have no courage to abandon the ship and let the sailors go ashore to fight. If they were so brave, they would have landed directly in Zhaoqing to fight.
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Furthermore, although the gain or loss of Guangzhou City is very important, the loss of Guangzhou City is none of their business. As long as the fleet is there, these navy can go anywhere.
All the way eastward, Li Xuan is still busy every day!
He naturally doesn't care about military affairs, especially the detailed marching affairs. There is a group of officers below to handle it, so he only needs to focus on the general direction. On the contrary, even if he leads the army to march in person, there are still many things that consume him the most time.
A mess of administrative matters.
Because of the many systems he established in order to centralize imperial power, there were a lot of government affairs that needed to be handled by him personally. Even though the Hanlin Academy, a huge occult institution, helped reduce his burden, the Hanlin Academy was not a decision-making body, it was just a decision-making body.
It is just an auxiliary organization, and many government affairs require Li Xuan's personal approval before they can be carried out.
To put it bluntly, if Li Xuan does not work for a day, the government affairs of the Tang Dynasty will be paralyzed for a day!
Although this is a bit tiring, Li Xuan knows deeply that now is not the time to be lazy. No matter how tired he is, he must firmly hold the power in his hands. If he wants to be lazy and enjoy happiness, he can wait until later.
Therefore, in this personal expedition, in addition to military officials and the Guards, he also brought half of the senior cabinet officials and Hanlin Academy officials. At the same time, he also borrowed the military's post system to establish close contact with Zhaoqing. Every day
There will be fast horses carrying a large number of government documents to Li Xuan, and then Li Xuan will send them back to Zhaoqing after processing, and then let each tribe complete the implementation.
Although this was a bit troublesome, Li Xuan showed no sign of giving up his rights. He didn't want the people left behind in Zhaoqing to cause a lot of trouble while he was leading the army to conquer the country.
Although the Tang Dynasty has occupied several provinces, it is still too fragile. He must always pay attention to it and take care of it carefully, and he cannot let Liu Bagou and the others ruin it.
It doesn't matter if they seek death themselves, but Li Xuan doesn't want to die!
Because the rainy season here in Guangdong is still going on. Although there is no southerly wind every day like in March and April, and even the clothes can't be dried for a whole month, it still rains frequently.
This kind of weather that often rains is naturally not suitable for launching the Battle of Guangzhou, so the Guards led by Li Xuan were not in a hurry, but rushed to Guangzhou leisurely.
When they arrived at the temporary headquarters of the First Army set up at the foot of Baiyun Mountain in the north of Guangzhou, the sky finally began to clear up.
Taking advantage of this rare sunny day, Hao Bainian and other frontline generals also put a lot of effort into organizing a huge welcome ceremony, arranging for thousands of troops to line up to respond, and even arranged a small-scale review to show Li Xuan
High morale of frontline troops.
Wearing a military uniform and riding a war horse, Li Xuan slowly passed by the reviewing troops of the First Infantry Regiment of the First Army. Li Xuan nodded slightly to Hao Bainian who was following him: "The morale of the troops is maintained well. It seems that
Hao Aiqing has worked hard, thank you!"
Hao Bainian immediately said: "I am scared. Compared with your Majesty's hard work day and night, how can this thing be considered hard work? The soldiers can maintain high morale and strong combat power, all thanks to your Majesty's wisdom!"
Li Xuan said that he had worked hard, and as a minister, Hao Bainian naturally did not dare to accept it. Even if it was really hard, he had to say that it was not hard!
Besides, the entire Tang Dynasty now knows that His Majesty is a workaholic. Especially in the past year or so, with Li Xuan slowly restructuring and centralizing power, he has been dealing with a huge amount of government affairs almost every day, not only
He handles numerous paperwork and reports, and maintains a morning court every day. He also meets with many ministers every day, listens to their work reports or their thoughts before taking office, and gives corresponding suggestions.
Your Majesty is as busy as a dog every day. As a minister, you dare to say that you are busy and hard? You are looking for death!
After a brief inspection of the First Infantry Regiment, Li Xuan did not have a long discussion with many generals on the spot. As a newcomer, he had better rest for a day first.
The First Army has been besieging Guangzhou City for more than two months, and has been preparing to conquer Guangzhou City for more than two months. The Guangzhou Campaign was launched in just one or two days.
After a good night's sleep, Li Xuancai held an expanded imperial strategy meeting the next day. Major civil and military officials from various departments of the First Army, the Third Garrison Brigade, the Guards, the Privy Council, and the Ministry of War all participated!
After looking around at the dozens of high-ranking civil and military officials sitting and standing below, Li Xuan, who was sitting on the dragon's chair, slowly spoke: "I believe all of you dear friends know the importance of the Battle of Guangzhou, but I still want to say
, this battle is related to the foundation of the empire, and there must be no room for failure!"
After saying this, Li Xuan looked at everyone's expressions and found that all of these officials were extremely cautious regardless of their martial arts and no one showed a relaxed look. Then he slowly continued: "How should we fight in Guangzhou?
Dear friends, you can speak freely, and if you can come up with feasible strategies, I will not hesitate to reward you!"