"According to the strategy formulated by our Privy Council in advance, although there are some mistakes in the current first phase, the First Army failed to successfully attack Huangzhou, but the flaws are not concealed. The sneak attack on Huangzhou was originally an additional combat mission in the first phase. If
If we can achieve the best, we can greatly speed up the process of the Southwest Campaign. If we cannot achieve it, we can continue to proceed according to the original plan!"
In Jiujiang, in the huge combat conference room in the temporary palace, Li Xuan sat on the dragon chair at the top as usual in the imperial meeting, and more than ten senior military generals were seated at the rectangular table below!
The seats of these more than ten senior generals are also clearly differentiated. On the left are the army generals headed by Lieutenant General Lei Wan, the director of the Privy Council's Operations Department. After him, they temporarily rushed back to Jiujiang from Susong on a naval communication speedboat to participate.
Wang Chaohong, commander of the Second Army, who attended the imperial strategic meeting, and Li Chunjing, commander of the First Army, who rushed back from Wuchang.
The remaining few are several other important generals of the Privy Council, including the Deputy Minister of Operations of the Department of Operations who is also the Director of the Staff Department, the Director of the Logistics Department, the Director of the Ordnance Department, the Director of the Military Intelligence Department, and others.
These army generals occupied the left side of the rectangular table.
Opposite them were Vice Admiral Bao Yifen, Director of the Military Command Department of the Naval Command, Rear Admiral Chen Pingyang, Commander of the Yangtze Fleet, and several other naval generals.
Sitting on the right side with the admirals, below the admirals are the three chiefs of staff of the Guards.
This is a royal strategy meeting that brings together senior generals of the Army, Navy, and Guards. Among the generals present, the lowest ranking officer is a major general. Even a brigadier general is not qualified to appear in such a royal strategic meeting.
However, in such a high-level imperial strategic meeting, there was no one below the rank of brigadier general, no one from the cabinet, but there were still people from the Hanlin Academy.
The chief of the Army Section, the Navy Section, the Survey and Statistics Section, and the director of the Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy are all there.
Of course, in this meeting, these people from the Hanlin Academy were just attending the meeting and had no qualifications to intervene at all. The director of the Secretariat, a senior official of the fourth rank, was to some extent the leader of the Hanlin Academy.
A person with a bachelor's degree in the academy can only act as a record-taker on such occasions.
The Hanlin Academy of the Tang Dynasty was different from the Hanlin Academy in the past dynasties. To be more strict, it only bore the name of the Hanlin Academy, but what it did was the emperor's private secretarial agency.
It has a secretariat, each department, and a total of more than 20 departments. Except for the secretariat, which is special, the section chiefs of other departments are all ministerial bachelors of the fifth rank, and the deputy section chiefs are ministerial bachelors of the fifth rank.
, Section members at all levels serve as readers for the sixth grade, serve as lecturers for the sixth grade, compile and edit for the seventh grade, and compile for the seventh grade.
The Secretariat is quite special. The director is a fourth-grade Hanlin bachelor, and the deputy director is a fifth-grade attendant bachelor. There are also four attendant bachelors who are responsible for 24-hour rotation. In addition, there are also attendants,
Secretaries at all levels including lecturers.
Because the director of the Secretariat is a fourth-grade Hanlin bachelor, and his rank is higher than that of the other department heads, sometimes people think that the director of the Secretariat is the Tang Dynasty version of the Hanlin Academy's chief bachelor.
However, this is just how outsiders see it. In fact, the various departments within the Hanlin Academy, including the Secretariat, have no jurisdiction over each other and are independent of each other.
When it comes to who is more powerful in the Hanlin Academy, there is no need to ask. It must be Mr. Li Daobing, the section chief of the Survey and Statistics Department of the Hanlin Academy. Although he is only a fifth-rank official, he controls more than ten thousand Hantong Eagle Dogs. No one else
Do you know if he has any evidence of his own corruption and bending the law? Basically, when an official meets Li Daobing, he doesn't look good. Why?
They are afraid!
However, Li Daobing has always kept a low profile. As the leader of Hantong, he basically does not interact with other officials. He has always adhered to his duty as a retainer and never formed a party for personal gain. Except for Li Xuan, he ignored everyone else!
Li Daobing knew that he was completely different from other courtiers. He was from Lijia Village. He was a tenant of Li Xuan's family back then, and he was also a distant relative of the Li family. Although this relationship is not a big deal, in some cases it is
It's very useful.
And this caution has allowed him to maintain his position as chief of the Survey and Statistics Section of the Hanlin Academy in the past few years!
Today, Li Daobing naturally couldn't say a word, and he didn't even look at it. He came to listen today. It was a routine matter. After all, a battle as big as the Southwest Campaign cannot be separated from the support of intelligence.
As for the intelligence providers, in addition to the Military Intelligence Department, naturally his Hantong is also indispensable!
Not only Li Daobing, but also several other people in the Hanlin Academy acted as if they were not present and did not say a word. Today, they are not qualified to intervene in matters such as this, which are related to the empire's strategy for the next few years.
Lei Wan and other senior generals in the military were also members of the Hanlin Academy, especially since Li Daobing did not exist. Anyway, every large-scale strategic meeting before the imperial court was indispensable without these people from the Hanlin Academy. They also
got used to.
Lei Wan then continued: "The first phase has ended successfully. After the Second Army captured Susong, it is replenishing ammunition for the second phase of combat missions!"
"In the second phase of the Southwest Campaign, our strategic goal is not to capture Hanyang, because according to our intelligence, Zhang Yue has already made Hanyang impregnable in the past few years. Although there are not many troops at this stage, only about 20,000 people,
However, Hanyang has already become a fortress, with numerous artillery deployed, and once our army advances near Hanyang, the enemy can mobilize troops from surrounding areas to return reinforcements at any time, and may be attacked from both front and rear!
Because our plan for the second phase is not to attack Hanyang, but to cut off the connection between the entire southwest region, especially the connection between Hubei and Sichuan.
At present, the Puppet Ming Dynasty's defense deployment in Hubei is generally in Huangzhou Prefecture. There are about 50,000 troops on the Qizhou front line. In De'an Prefecture and Xinyang, there are about 10,000 troops. In Hanyang City, there are about 20,000 troops.
There are about 10,000 troops in Anlu Prefecture, about 5,000 troops in Xiangyang Prefecture, and about 10,000 troops in Jingzhou Prefecture.
According to our estimates, there are about 110,000 pseudo-Ming supervisors in the entire Hubei region north of the Yangtze River.
In addition to Hubei, there should be 30,000 puppet Ming governors in Sichuan, and there are about 20,000 puppet troops from other factions.
In the Yunnan area, there were about 10,000 supervisors, and King Mu had about 20,000 troops.
In other words, all the main forces of the Puppet Ming Dynasty are gathered in Hubei, and the thief Zhang Yue is also personally stationed in Hanyang!
As long as we annihilate the Ming army in Hubei, the remaining Ming armies in Sichuan and Yunnan will be nothing more than clowns!
In order to annihilate the Hubei Ming Army and prevent them from escaping into Sichuan, our main attack target in the second stage is here!"
Having said this, Lieutenant General Lei Wan pointed directly to a city on the map: Jingzhou!
Although many people present had actually seen the Southwest Strategy proposed by the Privy Council Operations Department, and knew that the main target in the second phase was Jingzhou, but now that Lei Wan was talking about it, they couldn't help but turn their attention to the map on the map.
Jingzhou.
This place was one of the nine states in ancient times. It was the capital of the Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It was also used as a capital by various political powers in later generations. For a long time, it was the political center of the south. However, with the economic development of China,
After the center gradually moved south to the south of the Yangtze River, Jingzhou began to wither away like other areas in the Central Plains.
Now, even in Huguang, its political and economic center is not in Jingzhou, but in Wuchang and Hanyang.
This can be seen from Zhang Yue's choice. His base camp was in Wuchang before. After the fall of Wuchang, he went directly across the river to Hanyang.
However, this does not mean that Jingzhou is no longer important. On the contrary, it is still very important, at least for the current southwest strategy of the Tang Dynasty, it is very important.
Because this place is the connection node between Sichuan and central and eastern Hubei, if the Tang army can capture this place, it can completely separate the Ming armies in Sichuan and Huguang areas, and then defeat them one by one.
This is why the main target of the second phase of the Southwest Strategy is Jingzhou.
"In order to ensure that Jingzhou can be captured, we are preparing to use the Second Division of the First Army as the main force to attack Jingzhou City. In addition, the third mixed regiment will launch a diversionary attack on Anluzhou.
The 1st Infantry Division and 10th Mixed Regiment of the First Army will cross the river and land in the west of Hanyang, making a posture of attacking Hanyang to confuse the enemy's sight and intercept the enemy's possible westward escape."
The First Army has a total of four main forces: the First Infantry Division, the Second Infantry Division, the Third Mixed Regiment, and the Tenth Mixed Regiment, but this time they are used dispersedly and are not all concentrated together like the Second Army!"
"At the same time, because the strength of the troops is not too sufficient, our army has already deployed the seventh mixed regiment, and is expected to launch an attack on the Badong area from the Shizhou line to intercept the puppet Ming army that may come out of Sichuan for reinforcements!"
"The various units of the Second Army will continue to launch a fierce attack on Huangzhou Prefecture from the Qizhou line to contain the main force of the Ming Army and shake the Ming Army's defense here!"
As Lei Wan finished speaking, basically the entire second phase tactical arrangement was fully revealed. The core purpose was to capture Jingzhou. In order to capture Jingzhou, other units also cooperated and launched attacks separately.
Lei Wan manages the tactical aspects, but for a large-scale battle, it is naturally impossible to have only one operations department. In fact, several other departments are also very important, especially the logistics department.
There are not as many people in the Logistics Department as Lei Wan said. He simply said that the Logistics Department has already stockpiled enough ammunition and other materials in Yuezhou for 30,000 people to launch three large-scale battles in succession. Among them, only food is enough for three people.
Ten thousand people consume it for more than half a year.
It is used to support the related operations of the 2nd Infantry Division, the 7th Mixed Regiment, and the 3rd Mixed Regiment. It is completely sufficient!
As for the ammunition and other supplies needed by other units of the First Army and the Second Army, they are replenished from the nearest Wuchang, while the bulk of them are continuously transported from Jiujiang!
People from the Logistics Department are very proud to say that they have prepared thousands of large and small transport ships in Jiujiang. Almost all civilian ships in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have been recruited. At the same time, a large number of civilian ships have been recruited from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
At the same time, the Navy has also dispatched a large number of large-tonnage transport ships. However, the Navy's transport ships are relatively large and are responsible for the transportation tasks in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The transportation tasks after passing Jiujiang are undertaken by small and medium-sized ships of the Logistics Department.
.
They have great confidence in completing the logistics support work of the army!
The battle plan is in place, the troops are well prepared, and the logistics supplies are on the way. So what are you waiting for? Let’s start fighting!
After the imperial battle meeting, Li Xuan officially ordered the second phase of the battle to capture Jingzhou and lock the 100,000 governors in Hubei in the cage of Hubei to prevent them from escaping into Sichuan!
It's just that when the Tang Dynasty King did this, they didn't ask Zhang Yue if he could run away, let alone whether he could run away!