Du Danqing, who knew that he was trapped in a strategic encirclement, was not too worried!
Because he knew that with the Huangzhou defense line, the 50,000 troops in hand, and the large amount of ammunition and food stored in the city in advance, he was absolutely sure that he could hold it for at least one month. If the situation is better, he could hold it for two months or even three.
Monthly is possible.
Even if he had to face a flanking attack from both front and rear, and besieged by a total of more than 80,000 puppet Tang rebels!
As long as you can hold the Huangzhou defense line, you can give the commander-in-chief on the Hanyang front line in the rear time to calmly deploy your troops and generals!
When the Superintendent personally leads the army eastward to Huangzhou, it will be the time to launch a counterattack against the puppet Tang rebels on the front line of Tuanfeng. By then, it is very likely that all the puppet Tang rebels who dare to land in Tuanfeng will be wiped out.
This resulted in a great victory that Dubiao had never achieved in the past few years!
Du Danqing has his own strategic vision, but unfortunately, Li Xuan also has his own plan!
Naturally, the battle plan of the Tang Dynasty King's Division cannot be carried out according to Du Danqing's vision!
Du Danqing, he still underestimated the determination of the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty and Li Xuan's determination. He never thought that in this southwest battle, the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty's goal was not only to conquer a certain place, but also to conquer a certain place.
The main goal is to annihilate Du Biao.
Therefore, when the Fifth Army landed in Tuanfeng and defeated the 3,000 troops of Du Biao's troops stationed in Tuanfeng, Du Danqing's left army contracted across the board. The envoy he sent to request Zhang Yue to send troops was still on horseback.
While running.
In the Jiangxia area on the other side of Hanyang Fucheng, the First Infantry Division of the First Army, the Tenth Mixed Regiment, the First Lancer Regiment, and two heavy artillery battalions have begun to board ships on a large scale.
If nothing else happens, they will start crossing the river at dawn tomorrow!
The total strength of the troops crossing the river was not too large, only about 25,000. However, in the Hanyang area on the other side of the Yangtze River, there were at least 20,000 supervisory Chinese troops garrisoned, and they also relied on numerous fortifications.
It is almost impossible to conquer Hanyang with this part of the First Army.
However, Zhang Yue and others did not know that the First Army's landing on the west side of Hanyang was not to conquer Hanyang. Their core goal was to intercept Zhang Yue's escape to the west. The second purpose was to contain the Supervisory Biao Chinese Army in the Hanyang area and prevent them from doing so.
Reinforce the Huangzhou front line.
Now the Fifth Army and the Second Army are attacking the front line of Huangzhou. As long as they can hold back the Ming army in the Hanyang area, the Second Army and the Fifth Army together will be quite sure to annihilate the Governor's Left Army in one fell swoop.
The main force of the First Army is about to cross the river. The governor on the other side of the Yangtze River is not blind. He has long seen the puppet Tang rebel army on the other side of the Yangtze making big moves. For this reason, they are also nervous. The governor here is the Chinese Army.
All the troops have been mobilized.
At the same time, the young men recruited also continued to seize the time to build the defense line and make the many fortifications stronger.
Early the next morning, the long-prepared battle to cross the river officially began. This was a battle across the river that both sides knew about.
The supervisor on the opposite side had long expected that they would cross the river, so he had already made many preparations in advance. As for the First Army, they were even more secretive and were preparing to forcibly cross the river and land.
The First Army relies not on their own combat effectiveness, but on the artillery on the battleships of the Yangtze River Fleet.
In order to support the First Army's cross-river operations, the Yangtze River Fleet dispatched a total of about 80 inland river warships, and these river warships will have been patrolling this section of the river and will be close to the shore at any time to provide fire support for the First Army.
Although the firepower of these eighty river warships is not very powerful, they add up to more than two hundred artillery pieces!
Moreover, the navy never begrudges the losses of these river warships in this kind of operations to support landings. When necessary, they will even directly rush to the beach to close the distance and fire artillery to cover the landing troops.
After being stranded on the beach, they sometimes even ignored the hull and directly pulled down the artillery on it, then organized it into the Marine Corps' artillery unit, and went directly ashore to support the army's operations.
After all, being stranded on the beach does not mean that the ship will be damaged, not to mention that even if it is really damaged, the hull is actually not worth much money.
The inland river warships of the Tang Dynasty generally only have a few dozen tons. They are quite cheap and very convenient and fast to build. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the Datang Navy to build hundreds of them in just a few years.
A river warship.
Even when they were originally designed, temporary emergencies were taken into consideration. After the country is unified, most of these inland river warships will be retired from active service, or converted into military ships with other functions, or simply converted into cargo ships for sale.
To put it bluntly, today's hundreds of inland river warships are basically emergency products that can be used for a few years. Many processes actually adopt the standards of civilian ships.
Unlike those ocean-going battleships, those ocean-going battleships have been in service for at least ten to twenty years or even longer, so the standards of materials and craftsmanship are higher.
The First Army crossed the river. Under the cover of more than 80 naval river warships, the remaining troops, the Supervisory Navy, tried to resist and sent out only more than 30 warships. However, it did not take long before half of them were annihilated by the navy.
, the rest fled in panic!
In the face of absolute superiority, the Superintendent Navy had almost no resistance!
Immediately afterwards, many ships began to wash up on the beach to serve as temporary trestles, but this was not over yet. More ships began to anchor directly on the Yangtze River, connecting one after another.
Master Wang of the Tang Dynasty, we are going to build a pontoon bridge!
Different from the many previous cross-river operations, this time the Tang Dynasty King's Division tried to set up a pontoon bridge directly on the Yangtze River to land.
In the previous landing operations on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it was too difficult to set up pontoons because the river was too wide. In addition, time was tight at the time, so we simply used ship transportation for landing.
In the previous two Huangzhou landing operations, no pontoon bridge was set up because it was not needed.
However, this time it landed on the west side of Hanyang. Considering that after the First Army landed, the resistance it encountered would be more intense and the logistics requirements would be relatively high. In addition, the navy had an absolute advantage in this place, so we tried to set up
The floating bridge.
Although the Tang Dynasty King's Division has enough ships, it is quite tense to use these ships when facing multi-front operations. If there is a pontoon bridge as a channel for crossing the river and subsequent material supply, then it must be convenient.
many.
The First Army crossed the river, and the Dubiao Navy resisted desperately. However, the resistance of the Dubiao Navy was meaningless because they encountered an unavoidable incident and did not even bring any consequences to the First Army crossing the river.
Every bit of loss.
However, just because the Dubiao Navy cannot resist, does not mean that the Dubiao Army on the shore cannot resist!
However, this kind of resistance does not mean beachhead resistance, but preparations to rely on fortifications to resist the Tang Army's attack on Hanyang!
However, Zhang Yue waited for a full day and did not see the preparations of these puppet Tang bandits to come and capture Hanyang!
They did not approach and then start digging trenches or making various preparations for siege. Instead, after successfully landing, they began to build fortifications outside the city.
If you didn't know better, you would have thought that the people of the First Army were going to build a new city outside Hanyang City!
What do these pseudo-Tang bandits want?
Instead of crossing the river to attack Hanyang, they set up camp and built defensive fortresses several miles outside the city, close to the river. This is abnormal!
It didn't take long for him to understand why this abnormal situation happened.
Because he finally received an urgent report from Du Danqing!
An army of about 30,000 puppet Tang rebels, Tuan Fengdeng behind Huangzhou City, together with 50,000 puppet army of Tang rebels in front of Huangzhou City, formed a strategic encirclement situation with front and rear attacks.
Damn it, these puppet Tang bandits crossed the river not to attack Hanyang, but to contain themselves.
Zhang Yue has been in charge of the southern provinces for so many years and has been dealing with the puppet Tang rebels for a long time. Although he is still a civilian official, he can still think clearly about basic strategic issues.
The bandits landed on the west side of Tuanfeng and Hanyang at the same time. Why?
They were trying to contain themselves while surrounding and annihilating Du Danqing's Supervisor Biao Zuojun!
The situation seems a little bad!
However, this was just the beginning. Next, before he could decide whether to reinforce Huangzhou or defend Hanyang to avoid being attacked by the bandit army Li Chunjing's troops, he received another piece of news.
This news was sent by Fei Qinxiang, the commander-in-chief of the right army of the governor garrisoned in Anluzhou, who said that a puppet army of about 5,000 Tang rebels had crossed the river and landed in Anluzhou, and their troops were aimed directly at Mianyang Prefecture.
It was also rare to find out the number of the unit, and told Zhang Yue in a letter that the rebel army was their old rival, the third mixed regiment of the Puppet Tang Dynasty that had been stationed at the border between Wuchang Prefecture and Yuezhou Prefecture for a long time.
.
Although Fei Qinxiang said quite confidently in his letter that he was already preparing to personally lead the main force from Qianjiang to reinforce Mianyang Prefecture. By then, the Dubiao garrison in Mianyang Prefecture would have at least 5,000 people.
It is possible for Jiang's puppet Tang rebel army to drive off the Yangtze River troops, but it is still possible to defend Mianyang Prefecture.
He also said that if necessary, he would deploy troops from other directions to reinforce Mianyang Prefecture, so that Mr. Zhang Yue does not have to worry, Anlu Prefecture is as stable as Mount Tai!
But after seeing the news, Zhang Yue's eyebrows furrowed even more!
What do these pseudo-Tang rebels want to do?
It turned out that they attacked from multiple directions at the same time, and the time before and after was almost the same. Is this the action of each general of the Puppet Tang thief army, or is it a unified plan?
If it is a unified plan? What exactly do the puppet Tang rebels want?
He had a very bad premonition at this time!
Frowning, he suddenly remembered something, and then called his staff in: "Who are the various units of the bandit army that are invading Huguang now?"