On the sixteenth day of the first month of the fourth year of Xuanping, Zhaoqing Palace.
Li Xuan stood in front of the window with his hands behind his back, watching the cold rain outside the window beating on the branches and leaves, but now he did not feel sad about spring and autumn at all. Now, he was still thinking about the war in the north.
Because the war in the north has been raging recently, with 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers in Huguang and Jiangxi fighting against the Ming army. Although Li Xuan was at the rear, he was always paying attention.
Not only Li Xuan is paying attention, but the ministers in the court and even the gentry and businessmen who have close ties with the Tang Dynasty are also paying attention. Even the ordinary people are also paying attention.
Everyone could predict that such a large-scale war broke out in the north. It would be a battle with important strategic influence. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was a decisive battle between the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty!
And this battle will not only affect Li Xuan, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, but also affect many people. The officials of the Tang Dynasty, the gentry families of the Tang Dynasty, the farmers who have been divided into fields and exempted from taxes,
They are all a part of the carriage of the Tang Dynasty, and they are all grasshoppers on a rope. Once the front line is defeated, no one can escape.
By the same token, if the frontline wins, it will bring benefits to them!
Li Xuan is expected to truly lead the Tang Dynasty to unify China, and no matter how difficult it is, he can divide the river and rule with the Ming Dynasty. Those ministers of the Tang Dynasty will become the real founding heroes, enjoy glory and wealth, benefit their descendants for hundreds of years, and ordinary people
They can also keep the land they were allocated and continue to enjoy Datang’s preferential agricultural tax policy.
A war with such a major impact was breaking out on the front line, so even though it was the Spring Festival, the entire Tang Dynasty officials also carried out certain activities. Li Xuan presided over ancestor worship and held a court meeting to accept New Year greetings from courtiers.
But neither Li Xuan nor the ministers paid much attention to these activities during the Spring Festival!
However, many people are paying close attention to the latest issue of Datang Chaobao during the New Year period, because this issue of Datang Chaobao published the news that the Tang Dynasty recaptured Hengyang Fucheng without bloodshed.
Of course, as the propaganda tool of the Tang Dynasty, the Datang Chao Bao would not be fair and impartial. On the one hand, it praised the Tang Dynasty king for being invincible and frightening the enemy to the point of collapse without a fight. At the same time, he also praised the
When the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty took over Hengyang City, he launched an efficient fire-fighting and disaster relief operation in Hengyang City. He even highlighted that in order to put out the fire, countless heroic soldiers of the Tang Dynasty worked hard to put out the fire and save people, regardless of their own safety, and several people
Waiting to die for the country and so on.
On the other hand, they vigorously criticized the Ming Dynasty for setting fire to the city, and elevated the matter from a purely military issue to an institutional issue, thus reaching the conclusion that the pseudo-Ming regime did not care about the lives of the people at all.
In short, the Ming Dynasty was scolded as a bloody leader again!
Some people who are not very knowledgeable, after reading such articles, naturally feel that our Tang Dynasty is better, and Ming Dynasty is so bad!
However, some people with independent knowledge will brush off the words of praise or criticism. They only care about the truth of the matter and the chain reaction behind it.
The puppet Ming rebels voluntarily abandoned Hengyang. What does this mean? It means that the Tang Dynasty King's Division has gained a strategic advantage in this autumn and winter offensive that lasted for several months.
Of course, the Tang Dynasty newspaper also used a page smaller than a piece of tofu to report on the war in Nanchang. It said in indifferent terms that our Wang division was fighting fiercely with the enemy in Nanchang and one day defeated the puppet army.
An attack by the Ming thief army resulted in how many thief troops were killed and so-and-so heroic deeds occurred.
However, there is no mention of the dilemma that Nanchang has fallen into a tight siege by the enemy and the 6th Infantry Division can only struggle to support it alone!
When it comes to bad news, the Tang Dynasty newspaper always avoids the important and ignores the important, or simply combines it with other good news and releases it together.
In short, the mission of the Tang Dynasty Newspaper is to let people see and feel that the Tang Dynasty is good everywhere, but the hypocrisy and evil are leaking and vulnerable!
However, there is no shortage of smart people in the world, and a very small number of people can find clues from the court newspapers, and then infer that the situation in Nanchang is not good.
However, pure concern is useless, because they in the rear cannot decide the battle on the front line at all, and being anxious can only mean being anxious.
Let alone them, even Li Xuan himself could only be anxious and passively waiting for news from the front line.
At the rear, the only thing he can do is to provide as many resources as possible to the frontline troops!
Military pay is never less than a penny, and it is paid out on time every month. Promotions and rewards for meritorious soldiers are approved immediately.
All kinds of supplies are also provided as much as possible. The ammunition is often just produced by major arsenals, shipped directly to ships, and then sent to the front line through inland water transportation, land transportation, and thousands of miles away.
Even for strategic decisions, Li Xuan did not interfere at all with the choices of Hao Bainian and Li Chunjing!
Li Chunjing said he would attack Wuchang!
He said yes!
Li Chunjing went to Yuezhou instead of Wuchang, and then went to Changsha after conquering Yuezhou!
Li Xuan not only said yes, but also gave a verbal message, encouraging Li Chunjing not to be burdened and to fight freely. It doesn't matter even if he loses. I will personally support you later.
Later, news came that Hao Bainian did not go to Changsha, but changed his route to intercept and pursue the Hengyang Ming Army. He also abandoned artillery and purely used infantry and cavalry to pursue. After receiving the news, Li Xuan was a little worried about whether Hao Bainian would fall into the trenches.
The ship capsized, thus affecting the Battle of Changsha, but he still did not say no.
Regarding the recent military memorials submitted by the military, Li Xuan's comments only had simple words such as "understood" and "read".
He gave these generals full power!
As long as these generals can bring him satisfactory results, he doesn't mind supporting them!
However, if they lose, if they really lose, then don't expect Li Xuan to trust them anymore.
Although there is no ever-victorious general in the world, in such a large-scale decisive battle, the Tang Dynasty cannot afford to lose, and he, Li Xuan, cannot afford to lose!
From now on, I'm afraid that he, Li Xuan, will lead an army to conquer in person again!
Li Xuan, who was meditating in front of the window, watched the rain outside the window grow from small to heavy, then from heavy to light, and then stopped. At this time, there was a knock on the door: "Your Majesty, Minister Zeng of the Privy Council is requesting an audience!"
Li Xuan didn't look back, he just said: "Let him come in!"
After a while, the door of the office was pushed open. A lecturer brought Zeng Ziwen in and bowed out. However, Zeng Ziwen was different from usual. Although he pretended to be calm, his face
But he couldn't hide his joy.
At this time, I only heard him say: "Your Majesty, what a great victory, what a great victory for the First Army!"
Hearing this, Li Xuan turned around. After hearing the word "big victory", he smiled, went back to his dragon chair and sat down, and said, "What a great victory, it makes Aiqing happy."
so!"
Zeng Ziwen stepped forward at this time, and then took out a memorial: "General Hao led the First Army to completely annihilate the Hengyang Ming Army. Cheng Hong'an, the commander of the former army of the rebel army, was defeated and died of poisoning!"
"This is General Hao's personal battle report. Please read it!"
When Li Xuan heard the words, his heart jumped twice, and his breathing inevitably became a little faster. However, his expression remained calm. He just took the battle report with a smile, and then started to read it.
You can tell at a glance that this letter is written by Hao Bainian. Even Li Xuan can feel Hao Bainian's joy and excitement when he wrote this battle report from Hao Bainian's handwriting and wording!
In this pursuit operation, Hao Bainian used the main force of the First Army of 14,000 men and the forward force of nearly 4,000 people, with a total force of 18,000 to pursue the Hengyang Ming Army Cheng Hongan's force of nearly 23,000 people.
With neither side having the support of field artillery or other heavy artillery, the two sides had a field battle between cavalry versus cavalry and infantry versus infantry!
It took most of the day, but the actual battle process only lasted about half an hour, and it was the annihilation of Cheng Hongan's troops in one fell swoop!
Finally, Hao Bainian said that the first army of this battle killed at least 5,000 enemy troops in the frontal decisive battle. In the subsequent pursuit phase, they successively annihilated more than 2,000 enemy troops, and captured nearly 10,000 people, and thousands more civilians.
The army fled without a trace.
Although its own casualties were not small, reaching nearly 2,000 people, compared with the Ming army's total casualties of more than 8,000 people, the ratio was still one to four!
And more importantly, the result of these casualties was not only the casualties of these 8,000 enemy troops, but the destruction of an entire Hengyang Ming army!
If we add the more than 5,000 people killed and wounded by the First Army's forwards at Shenjiadu, then the 30,000 soldiers and horses brought by Cheng Hongan from Hengyang were all wiped out after these two battles.
Even though there were thousands of remnant soldiers who escaped, they lost their organization and could no longer pose a threat to the Tang Dynasty King's Division!
The total number of casualties in these two battles of the First Army was less than 3,000, but it resulted in the destruction of 30,000 Ming troops, and these 30,000 were not the previous guardsmen, but Ming troops.
The elite supervise the new army and local army training.
These 30,000 battle results are more strategically significant than the previous 100,000 battle results!
After watching, Li Xuan finally changed from smiling to laughing, and then said: "Okay, the first army fought well, and the second army fought well too!"
The destruction of the Hengyang Ming Army will have a huge impact. If the Hengyang Ming Army is destroyed, can Changsha still be defended? Li Xuan does not think so, even if the Ming Army can rely on city defense for a month or two
, but it will eventually be conquered by the main force of the First Army and the Second Army.
After capturing Changsha, it’s time to march to Wuchang and return to support Nanchang!
Li Xuan read the battle report again, and then said: "The victory of this battle is all due to the hard work of the frontline soldiers. The meritorious soldiers must be rewarded generously!"