When nearly a thousand people from the assault battalion and nearly 800 heavy armored infantry boarded the city, the outcome of this Shaoyang offensive and defensive battle was decided, and what followed was just garbage time on the battlefield!
Half an hour later, Hao Bainian put down the telescope, and then said: "The final battle will be left to you. Well, the key to clearing out the remaining enemies in the city is to pay attention to your methods and control your own casualties. This city has been taken.
, I don’t want any accidents to happen!”
"After finishing, let's report the victory to Zhaoqing. Well, let them send hundreds of sets of plate armor. Although this thing is a bit heavy, it is still very useful in melee combat!"
Hao Bainian gave an order to a group of senior generals of the First Army behind him and walked down the mountain outside the city!
This siege battle has come to an end, and the next ending is garbage time. He does not have so much time and energy to personally command tens of thousands of troops to clear out the remaining enemies in the city. This is all the work of his generals.
However, although Shaoyang was captured, Hao Bainian was not overly happy because according to the battle situation, the number of Ming troops in the city was smaller than expected.
They had previously judged that there were at least 30,000 Ming troops in the city, but when they actually attacked, they did not encounter resistance from so many Ming troops.
After all calculations, there were only more than 10,000 Ming troops in the city, and it was estimated that it was less than 20,000. It was precisely because of the small number of Ming troops in the city that he was able to capture it with a single general attack.
At the same time, the Ming army's will to resist in the city was not firm, which made Hao Bainian think that Shaoyang City might have been indirectly abandoned by the Ming army!
There are so many Ming troops in the Huguang area, and it is impossible for a big city like Shaoyang to be weakly defended by only more than 10,000 old and young people. This force is not even as large as that in Guiyang Prefecture!
This is not normal!
Sure enough, it was quickly learned from the captured prisoners that a few days ago, after learning of the massive attack by the Tang Army, some of the defenders in the city had already left and headed north to Changsha, and the number of Ming troops who left reached eight or nine thousand people
, and they were all elite main force. The remaining people defending the city were almost all local guardsmen, and not a single recruiter from the Supervisory Standard was seen.
After hearing the news, Hao Bainian did not know that Zhang Yue might have begun to abandon the outer perimeter and concentrate his efforts to defend the two cities of Hengyang and Changsha.
The Ming army is acting like a coward and has been keeping its head down like this. It will be difficult to fight next!
Now both Hengyang and Changsha have become hard bones to chew. Moreover, these two cities are also important strategic cities for Huguang. If you want to go north to Dongting Lake or even drink from the Yangtze River, you cannot win these two cities.
That’s not possible!
Is it really going to be a siege for a year and a half?
When Hao Bainian went north this time, the fighting became more and more difficult, which made him a little irritable.
It's already mid-February now, and the rainy season will begin in another two months. By then, our army will not be able to move in a smooth manner, and the use of muskets and artillery will also be greatly restricted. At that time, we will have to suspend large-scale operations just like last year.
offensive.
As a result, the army will not be able to achieve the strategic plan formulated last year: to capture Changsha before the rainy season in the third year of Xuanping and advance its troops to the Yangtze River Basin!
The northward offensive was delayed for too long, and the Ming Dynasty was able to mobilize more forces to go south. Now the Tang Dynasty has found it very difficult to fight against the Ming Dynasty with three provinces.
There is no way to maintain an army of 100,000 troops in three provinces of Italy and spend tens of millions of military expenditures every year for a long time!
If the Ming Dynasty continued to mobilize troops to fill up the army, no matter how brave and skillful the Tang Army was, they would probably be exhausted by the Ming Army!
Quick victory was the core strategy of the Tang Dynasty. Quickly defeat the Ming army in an area, then occupy the area, expand one's population and wealth, and then expand the army to continue to grow in a snowballing manner. This was
The previous development model of the Tang Dynasty was also the established strategy of the Tang Dynasty in the next one or two years.
But now, this strategy seems to have failed. Most of the main force of the Tang Army is dragged on the Huguang front line. Although small victories continue, it has been unable to open up the situation. This makes Hao Bainian quite worried!
Hao Bainian on the Huguang front line was troubled, and Zhang Yue was equally unhappy!
After receiving the report of the fall of Shaoyang, Zhang Yue couldn't help but sigh even though he had known for a long time that Shaoyang could not be defended!
The war situation in Huguang is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Originally, he did not want to give up Shaoyang, but the rebel army is powerful and the troops he can fight are limited. Now most of the troops are stationed in Hengyang and Changsha.
A little less, in order to prevent the puppet Tang rebels from bypassing Hengyang and attacking Changsha, he voluntarily abandoned Shaoyang and transferred thousands of supervisors and thousands of backbone guards in Shaoyang to defend Changsha!
Now that Changsha has sufficient troops and security is guaranteed, Hengyang is also safe for a while, but he is a little confused as to how to fight next!
Passive defense is definitely not possible. Although such tactics can slow down the attack speed of the puppet Tang rebel army, it only slows down the puppet Tang rebel army's march north. This passively defended city will eventually fall.
This is true whether it is Hengyang or Changsha!
Even according to Zhang Yue's optimistic estimate, it would be good if Hengyang could hold on for half a year. Changsha would be around the same time, and what does this mean?
This means that maybe one year later, the puppet Tang bandit army will be able to enter Dongting Lake and drink from the Yangtze River!
He could almost guess what the puppet Tang bandits did after entering the Yangtze River Basin. They marched directly eastward along the river, killing Yingtian Mansion in Zhili in the south, and captured Nanjing, a city with important political and commercial status.
Once Yingtian Mansion is lost, it can basically declare that the whole of Jiangnan is doomed!
And this is absolutely unacceptable to the court. Not to mention that the fall of Jiangnan will cause the court to lose Jiangnan, an important tax area. More importantly, after losing Jiangnan, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal will be finished, and water transportation will also be finished.
Without water transportation, people in the northern provinces, especially the capital, would starve to death!
Zhang Yue shuddered at the thought of such a situation happening. That situation was so terrifying that he didn't dare to think about it deeply.
At the same time, this is also the reason why he asked Song Zhiwen to recruit and train troops in Wuchang Prefecture. He just thought that if Changsha was lost, he would retreat to Yuezhou. Wuchang was so generous that he could still provide soldiers and supplies. Once even Yuezhou was also
If you can't defend it anymore, then defend Wuchang.
But even so, there is a possibility that the puppet Tang bandits would bypass Yuezhou or even Wuchang, and then directly enter Jiujiang Prefecture!
So Zhang Yue now feels that the current situation is extremely difficult!
It’s difficult!
Hao Bainian and Zhang Yue, who each represent the front-line generals of both sides, are full of worries about the current war situation, and they are like brothers in need.
At the same time, Li Xuan also learned about the dilemma faced by Hao Bainian through the battle reports that continued to be sent back from the front line!
Now it seems that some of the current core tactics of the Tang Army must be changed. For example, in addition to frontal large-scale decisive battles and siege battles, some small-scale combat methods also need to be added.
Since the Ming army firmly defended the city, the Tang army had to change its corresponding strategy and focus on besieging the city and conquering the vast rural areas.
Immediately, Li Xuan sent relevant notices to the Privy Council and discussed the possibility of giving up attacking large cities and instead attacking some small and medium-sized cities and rural areas.
In the decree issued by the Privy Council, Li Xuan clearly stated that the war with the puppet Ming Dynasty was not a fight for one city or one place, but a fight for strategic resources, including population, various materials, etc.
This era was still an agricultural era, and the main population was concentrated in extensive rural areas. The population in cities was very limited, and the cities in these days were pure consumption cities. Once one's side controlled the rural areas and surrounded their cities,
So even if their city has a large amount of food stored in it, it won't be able to sustain it for long.
After receiving Li Xuan's order, the army generals and many staff officers in the Privy Council also began to discuss a new war model.
Because in the current situation, unless the Tang Dynasty can come up with a large number of heavy siege artillery, otherwise, it will be relatively difficult to conquer a strong city like Hengyang City, or it will take a long time.
Either they had to pay heavy casualties, both of which were unacceptable to the Tang Dynasty.
The front line of Huguang encountered difficulties, and Li Xuan no longer insisted on pursuing the strategy of capturing Changsha in a short time and then advancing from Dongting Lake to the Yangtze River, but was preparing to change direction.
In this huge north, southern Huguang is not the only place that can be used as the main attack location. In addition to southern Huguang, there is also Jiangxi!
However, due to the limited strategic resources of the Tang Dynasty, they were previously limited to southern Huguang. Therefore, although Jiangxi also has the Fifth Infantry Division, the Fifth Infantry Division lacks food, pay, and ammunition, so it has been unable to launch a major offensive.
A massive offensive.
With the current military production and logistics system of the Tang Dynasty, it still does not have the ability to launch large-scale battles in both directions at the same time!
But now, he is preparing to adjust the limited supply of military supplies. Since the Huguang side is in a stalemate, he will free up resources to give priority to the 5th Infantry Division, allowing the 5th Infantry Division to launch an attack to the north.
If you can't capture Changsha, you can capture Nanchang!
Even if Nanchang cannot be captured, it is not a big problem. At least the Ming army can be mobilized to prevent the Ming army from concentrating all its forces in southern Huguang. In this way, it can also reduce the pressure on Hao Bainian's First Army in southern Huguang.
.
Li Xuan's order was quickly passed to the Fifth Infantry Division. Along with Li Xuan's order, there was also a batch of supplementary guns and a large amount of ammunition!
In late February, the Fifth Infantry Division swore to go out. The commander of the Fifth Infantry Division, Major General Wang Shanxu, personally led the troops at the forefront. The forward troops captured Longnan the next day.
The Fifth Infantry Division's northward advance was from the northern part of Huizhou Prefecture and Nanxiong Prefecture at the same time. The troops attacking from Nanxiong Prefecture also captured Xinfeng in just three days.
Immediately, the troops of the 5th Infantry Division were directed towards the capital city of Ganzhou.
The puppet Tang rebel army suddenly launched a fierce attack in the south of Jiangxi. Ganzhou was threatened by the rebel army, which immediately shocked the local people in Jiangxi. Documents requesting rescue were flown like snowflakes to Zhang Yue and even the capital!