The second year of Chengshun of the Chu Empire and the ninth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty.

On March 18, the Chu army gathered nearly 50,000 troops and more than 300 artillery pieces of various types to officially launch a general attack on Linxiang!

On March 22nd, the Chu army captured Linxiang. The leader of the Ming army, Yu Xiuwen, the commander-in-chief of Huguang Army, committed suicide. Wang Xinghuai, the right counselor of the Huguang Chief Envoy who was supervising the army, hung the beam. Except for more than 2,000 of the 20,000 defenders, they fled, and the rest were likely to fight.

Dead or captured.

On March 23, the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Chu Army captured Tumen Town, blocked the Weishui line, and cut off the land transportation links between Baling and Changsha. In the afternoon of that day, the 5th Division Cavalry Regiment and the 8th Garrison Cavalry Regiment

Arrive at Baling, Yuezhou Prefecture.

On March 24, the main force of the Chu Army's Fifth Division arrived at Baling. After attacking the city for an hour, most of the defenders fled and more than a thousand remaining soldiers surrendered. The Yuezhou magistrate did not know where he was.

Civil and military officials were burned to death or fled or surrendered.

On the afternoon of March 24, the Chu Imperial Navy’s Xiangjiang Fleet officially entered Dongting Lake and set up a Xiangjiang Fleet base in Baling, Yuezhou. Most of the dozens of Ming army warships, large and small, that were originally stationed in Baling fled into the Dongting Lake.

Deep in Dongting Lake, a few surrendered on the spot.

On March 25, Luo Zhixue led the Guards and other troops to Tumen Town. At this time, the entire Guards Division, a mortar regiment, and a cavalry brigade had gathered on the front line of Tumen Town.

At the same time, the Fifth Division and the Eighth Garrison Division and the Second Mortar Regiment in Baling, Yuezhou were ordered to move south quickly, and the local defense was temporarily handed over to the Marine Corps of the Navy.

In addition, in the past few days, the Sixth Defense Division and the newly reorganized Ninth Defense Division, which had passed emergency reorganization, were required to quickly and completely reorganize the Sixth Defense Division and move south. The Ninth Defense Division was to garrison Linxiang and at the same time send troops to garrison Baling.

, Tumen Town and other areas.

In this series of arrangements, the 9th Garrison Division will be responsible for rear defense, while other units will go south to participate in the war.

Just when Luo Zhixue was dispatching troops and generals in Tumen Town to prepare for the next offensive.

Yang Sichang, who was in Changsha, finally learned the news of the fall of Linxiang. After learning the news, Yang Sichang suddenly felt dizzy and lost his balance. If his entourage hadn't had quick eyesight and quick hands to support him in time, he would have been on the spot.

Fall.

After calming down for a while, he waved his hand slightly to indicate that his entourage did not need to continue supporting him. He took a deep breath and said, "Where is Yu Zongbing?"

The confidant who came to report the urgent military situation lowered his voice and said: "General Yu went to the battlefield to fight against the traitors. He would rather die than retreat. He committed suicide at the last moment to serve His Majesty."

After Yang Sichang heard this, he took a deep breath and said, "Of the 20,000 troops, no one escaped?"

The confidant said: "Some people must have escaped, but not many. According to the spies in front, there were about a few thousand people who broke out when the city was broken. However, later the Chu cavalry pursued and intercepted them, and most of them were stopped again.

There are only a few people left to break out, but they have all been scattered and cannot be gathered together."

Yang Sichang closed his eyes at this time: "I didn't expect that the Linxiang defense line, which had been working hard for half a year and the general who refused to retreat, plus 20,000 troops, could still not stop the Chu thieves' guns!"

"In just five days, Linxiang was captured. The Chu thieves' guns and artillery were sharper than we expected!"

A general soldier next to him also interjected: "I heard that the Chu thieves used more than 300 cannons of various kinds in order to attack Linxiang this time, and half of them were fired. It's really shocking!"

"How did these Chu thieves create so many guns?"

"It's okay if it's just an ordinary small cannon of a few dozen kilograms or even a short cannon of one or two hundred kilograms. Not to mention hundreds of cannons, it's not surprising even three thousand cannons. But most of these cannons among the Chu thieves are

The weight of each of the red barbarian cannon and the large flowering cannon ranges from several hundred kilograms to several thousand kilograms."

"I have been casting cannons in Changsha for half a year and invested tens of thousands. Now I have only cast more than twenty two-and-a-half kilogram long cannons, and only three five-kilogram long cannons. Flowering cannons are simpler, but

Only a dozen or so statues were cast!"

"However, fake Chu can be cast in hundreds. How did they do it?"

"Even though they have plundered a large amount of money and food, they can't conjure tens of thousands of skilled craftsmen out of thin air!"

"How did they cast so many cannons without enough craftsmen?"

Not to mention that the subordinate generals couldn't figure it out, even Yang Sichang himself couldn't understand why Pseudo-Chu was able to cast so many guns.

Just like what the subordinates said, money or not is still a trivial matter. What matters is that there are so many skilled craftsmen from Puppet Chu?

In this regard, they simply did not know that the arsenal of the Da Chu Empire used mechanical equipment on a large scale and adopted assembly line operations. The entire production method was completely different from the Ming army's traditional manual workshops to build guns and cannons.

The military production of the Da Chu Empire used a large number of mechanical equipment and a large number of skilled ordinary workers to replace the traditional senior craftsmen.

Although the cost of a single gun has not decreased much, the output has experienced explosive growth.

However, Yang Sichang and the others did not know about these things at all, or they had never paid attention to these things before.

Since the rise of the Chu thieves last year, the civil and military officials of the Ming court have supported the Chu thieves' army and paid attention to their weapons, organization and tactics.

Yang Sichang was one of the representative figures. While paying attention to understanding, he also proposed the establishment of a new standard army and his own new army to fight against the Chu thieves.

However, they only paid attention to these superficial things and did not invest too much energy in paying attention to why the Da Chu Empire was able to arm such a large new army with hundreds of artillery, and was still using a very

It is growing faster than they can comprehend.

At this time, Yang Sichang was in a very complicated mood. After thinking for a long time, he said: "Linxiang has been lost, and now I am afraid that Baling cannot be saved. The Chu thieves will definitely continue to go south and kill me in Changsha."

"Go ahead and send the order. All surrounding troops will be concentrated in Changsha. Let the defenders of Xiangyin also retreat to Yiyang. Xiangyin cannot be defended anyway, and holding on to it is just a sudden loss of troops. It is better to open the road and let them come to Changsha!"

"Recruiting civilians to urgently strengthen the city defense of Changsha, especially building more and better artillery defense fortifications. The Chu thieves' attack on the city is nothing more than relying on guns and artillery. As long as their artillery bombardment is blocked, Changsha will be as stable as Mount Tai."

"Send fast horses to Wuling and let the left army of the New Standard Army move out. Once the Chu thieves attack our Changsha, let the left army go east to attack the rear of the thieves, cut off their food routes, and force the thieves to retreat!"

"Let the gun workshops in the city work day and night to make a batch of guns as soon as possible. Although the New Standard Army Right Army is used as a cover in the front, the soldiers are also elites drawn from various guards, and they are also in accordance with the

Those trained under the new military law, once the guns and artillery are in place, they are better than the battalion sentries!"

"Well, time is still too tight. If we are given another two or three months, the left army will be able to train more elites, the right army will be able to become an army, and the Chinese army will be able to put up a fight.

Even if the new standard army of 15,000 people is unable to counterattack Wuchang by then, it will not be a big problem to defend the eastern part of Yuezhou."

"Now... we can only defend Changsha"

Yang Sichang responded, and many Ming soldiers on fast horses left the city, carrying Yang Sichang's orders to the Ming troops and officials in other directions.

As for Luo Zhixue, he did not lead his troops south as quickly as Yang Sichang expected. Instead, he waited for two days in Tumen Town for the arrival of the Fifth Division and the Eighth Garrison Division, and also waited for the baggage troops.

After a large amount of ammunition, food and baggage transport arrived, a new round of operations began.

Early in the morning on March 27th, the Chu army continued to move south!

Luo Zhixue personally led the Guards Division, the Fifth Division, the Eighth Garrison Division, two mortar regiments, and the First Cavalry Brigade southward to Xiangyin.

In addition, a garrison brigade was sent to detour south to Pingjiang, and the county of Pingjiang was also captured. Although this place is not important and there are not many Ming troops there, it still needs to be captured early to avoid the Chu army in Changsha.

During the battle in this area, enemy troops emerged from this direction and cut off the Chu army's retreat.

Yang Sichang had already ordered the voluntary abandonment of Xiangyin. Before the Chu army arrived, all the defenders and officials in the city had fled. Not only were all the people gone, but all kinds of supplies were also taken away.<

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This made many people in the Chu Army have objections, especially those in the Logistics Department and Finance Department.

The Logistics Department also thought about seizing a batch of grain during the attack on Xiangyin to avoid transporting a large amount of grain from the rear. However, they did not expect that not only did they not catch a grain of grain, but they also had to manage the rations of tens of thousands of people in the city...

When the Ming army withdrew, they took away all the food in the city, including the food from the grain stores. In addition to their own rations, the tens of thousands of people in the city had no way to obtain rations from the outside world, such as the grain stores.

And if the Da Chu Empire didn't want to watch tens of thousands of people starve to death, then it would have to squeeze out military rations to feed the people in the arcade city.

Although the relief is only for a few days, as long as you can catch your breath, the official grain bank under the control of the Dachu Empire, that is, the grain bank under the Grain Reserves Department, will transport the grain. Generally speaking, it does not cost a lot of money.

.

But the problem is that this will still cause fierce competition for the rations of the troops heading south, and it will also cause fierce competition for precious transportation capacity.

The logistics department was scolding the Ming court for not respecting martial ethics, and the finance department was also very angry...

After the army entered the city, the Finance Department, which was originally prepared to receive a large amount of property, found that there was not even a hair in Xiangyin city...

There was nothing in the official warehouse, and all the officials fled. The remaining low-level officials also surrendered immediately because they had to confiscate their homes.

All the ordinary gentry and wealthy people in the city also ran away, taking everything they could carry with them when they left, especially the fine gold and silver that were easy to carry.

As a result, officials from the Finance Department came excitedly with a group of carriages ready to transport gold and silver, and then looked at the empty Xiangyin and couldn't help but curse...

It’s just that these are trivial matters and cannot affect the Chu army’s established strategy!

After arriving in Xiangyin and resting for a day, the Chu army began to divide its troops.

The Eighth Garrison Division and the Sixth Garrison Division began to move south with great fanfare!

But secretly, the two main divisions, the Fifth Division and the Guards Division, except for a regiment of the Guards Division that stayed behind in Xiangyin, the other divisions joined the 1st Cavalry Brigade and turned westward, heading straight for Wuling.
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The goal of Luo Zhixue and others is very clear, that is, the new standard army of 5,000 people in Wuling, Changde Prefecture.

The Chu army wanted to concentrate its main force first and kill the 5,000 new standard troops before turning around and besieging Changsha.

It is worth mentioning that this new standard left army, which was regarded as the main combat target by the Chu army, had left Wuling and marched eastward. They wanted to attack the Chu army's flank and rear and cut off the Chu army's food when the Chu army went south to attack Changsha.

Road, cut off the way back.

According to the direction of travel of the two armies, if no major accident occurs, they will collide head-on on the Yiyang-Yuanjiang line!
Chapter completed!