On July 20, the 14th year of Chengshun, the 23rd Cavalry Regiment of the Chu Empire Army captured Chijin City.

The more than 800 Jungar troops in Chijin City failed to break out and collapsed, with more than 300 casualties on the spot. Most of the remaining troops surrendered and some escaped.

However, the stolen Zhungeer army failed to escape in the end. Instead, they were intercepted and pursued by the Chu army's cavalry and were killed, injured or surrendered.

In the end, all the more than 800 enemy troops were destroyed.

In an actual battle between the two sides, Sun Huabei brought a good start to the Chu Empire. He wiped out all the enemy troops and captured hundreds of war horses. At the same time, after the breakout battle outside the city, he took advantage of the situation to take over the Red Gold City and created a good foundation for the Chu Empire.

The empire's army established a steady supply depot and subsequent material transfer stations.

In the evening of the same day, Major General Xu Donglai, commander of the Sixth Cavalry Division, led the Sixth Cavalry Division, the Fifth Infantry Regiment, and the Second Baggage Regiment to successfully arrive at Red Gold City.

In the evening of that day, Major General Xu Northeast Army, who was the forward commander and commander of the 6th Cavalry Division, held a brief meeting at which the follow-up combat plan was finalized.

In fact, the combat plan has already been formulated in Jiayuguan, and several different sets of combat plans have been formulated according to different situations. However, in actual operations, these combat plans formulated in advance still need to be carried out in a timely manner according to the actual situation.

Adjust.

According to the order of Xu Dongbei Army Major General, the forward troops will continue to march at high speed and attack Kuyu City (Suoyang Town), which was once the Shazhou Guards station in the early Ming Dynasty.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty established Shazhou Guard in the Western Regions. It was originally stationed in Shazhou, that is, Dunhuang. Later, the Ming Dynasty carried out strategic contraction in the Western Regions, and Shazhou Guard moved east to Kuyu. The world once called this place Shazhou Guard. In fact, this place was not

The sandbank, the ancient sandbank is still hundreds of kilometers away to the west!

The original Shazhou City was abandoned by the Ming Dynasty and taken over by the local Mongols. The Ming Dynasty nominally established Shihandong Zuowei here, but it actually lost control. Later, the place was controlled by the Turpan people.

However, considering that Guazhou to the northwest of Kuyu City is very close, even if the enemy forces in the city are blocked when attacking Kuyu City, the enemy forces in the direction of Guazhou may still be late to the Chu army's attack.

In order to cover up the real situation as much as possible and delay the time for the main force of Zhungeer in the direction of Hami to react, adjustments were made to the combat plan.

While planning to attack Kuyu with the main force, a cavalry force was sent to bypass Kuyu City and continue to attack Guazhou. The purpose was not to capture Guazhou, but to cut off the connection between Guazhou and Hami in the rear.

Information blockade and short-circuiting the battlefield are Xu Donglai's main strategic purposes.

As for the attack on Kuyu and Guazhou itself, it is actually not difficult. In fact, these two places are not the main deployment direction of Zhungeer, but only a symbolic deployment of hundreds of troops.

Just like Chijin City, these troops are not used to resist large-scale Chu army attacks, but to resist small-scale attacks and report the situation back in time.

This is a very typical outpost.

Even without relying on the main force coming from the rear, more than 10,000 people from Xu Dong can easily conquer the above-mentioned places.

Because these places are just small cities between Jiayuguan and Hami. They are not big cities in themselves. They have a small permanent population and not much food supply for military supplies. There is not enough food supply in the local area, so it is naturally difficult to garrison them.

Too many troops.

In the Hexi region, there are only two places suitable for garrisoning heavy troops, one is Hami and the other is Jiayuguan. The two areas are hundreds of kilometers apart. In fact, they are not suitable for garrisoning large numbers of troops, and it is difficult to provide a large amount of food and grass for the army.

In order for these places to provide a large amount of food and grass, a certain period of cultivation and development is required, and the time required is at least several years or even longer.

Although the Gansu governor's office has prepared to mobilize and organize people from the Guandong (Jiayuguan) area to go to Chijin, Shazhou, Guazhou and other places for reclamation, this will take time.

In a short period of time, these places will not be able to bring any supply of food and grass to the Western Expedition of the Great Chu Empire Army. At most, they will serve as transfer stations.

——

After formulating the battle plan, the Chu army units began to take action.

Early the next morning, as the vanguard of the entire army, the 23rd Cavalry Regiment, which is good at running attacks, will still be the first to set off. They will take the first step and bypass Kuyu City to reach Guazhou and blockade the direction of Guazhou and Hami.

Contact.

Xu Dongbei continued to lead the main force of the 6th Cavalry Division, the 5th Infantry Regiment, the 2nd Baggage Regiment and other troops westward to Shazhou City.

Just as Xu Dongbei led the forward army to continue the action, there was also a Chu army in the rear that also left Jiayuguan and began to advance westward.

This unit is personally commanded by Army Lieutenant General Liao Hongpo, commander of the Fourth Cavalry Corps, and has jurisdiction over the 13th Cavalry Division, the 14th Cavalry Division, and the 2nd Infantry Division, with a total of more than 25,000 people.

The forward troops led by Xu Dongbei are also directly under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Cavalry Army.

The Fourth Cavalry Corps was the core force of the Chu Empire garrisoning Jiayuguan. It had three cavalry divisions, the Sixth Cavalry Division, the Thirteenth Cavalry Division and the Fourteenth Cavalry Division.

These three cavalry divisions are all first-class cavalry divisions in the Chu army. They are fully equipped all year round. Among the cavalry divisions in the Chu army, their combat effectiveness is at the first level.

The Chu army seems to have many cavalry divisions, thirty in total, and there are dozens of cavalry regiments attached to the infantry divisions. However, in fact, there are not many cavalry units that are fully staffed and maintain combat readiness all year round.

, are basically deployed in important strategic locations on the frontier or hinterland.

The Fourth Cavalry Corps is the only fully combat-ready cavalry corps, and it also has three cuirassier regiments that cost a lot of money and food to form!

As for the Second Division, it was not under the control of the army before, but was temporarily strengthened to the Fourth Cavalry Army.

After all, this battle is expected to involve attacking the city, especially Hami. The cavalry unit is naturally useful for attacking the field, but it is nonsense to say that it is used to attack the city.

Although the cavalry unit is also equipped with artillery, there is not even a 115mm field gun, and the largest caliber is only a 90mm field gun.

In order to attack Hami City, the First Army Headquarters temporarily strengthened the Second Division, a first-class combat readiness division, to the Fourth Cavalry Corps to support cavalry operations.

The strengthened Fourth Cavalry Army, let alone the First Army, is not the largest in the entire Chu Empire Army, but it is definitely the military-level unit with the most powerful combat capability.

It has more than 10,000 cavalry and more than 15,000 infantry and artillery, all first-class troops with combat readiness.

The dispatch of such troops also means that the top brass of the army are determined to win as big a victory as possible with limited logistical support, a victory that can defeat other people in the country, especially those bastards in the navy.

Shut up the victory.

For this reason, the Army did not hesitate to send out most of the core main forces of the First Army.

After the Fourth Cavalry Army launched its attack, although the First Group Army in the Shaanxi-Gansu region still had a large number of troops, there was actually only one third division left in the combat readiness division.

Speaking of which, the First Army actually has a very large number of troops, including five first-class divisions, thirteen second-class divisions, and twelve cavalry divisions.

Because of the destruction of the Dongji people and the rise of the Jungar people, the northwest region also became a heavily fortified area of ​​the empire, gathering a large number of army troops.

However, most of these troops are actually conventional troops. There are only five division-level troops that are truly in a state of combat readiness.

The remaining troops, even the three so-called first-class divisions, are actually in a regular state, with complete equipment, but insufficient personnel. On weekdays, they only maintain about 12,000 people, which is far from 15,000 people.

There are still thousands of people missing from the full list.

If we want to reach the peak state, we still need to recruit thousands of people.

Not to mention the rest, those second-class divisions range from 6,000 to 8,000 men, and generally lack mules and horses.

So despite the fact that the First Army has a large number of troops, most of these troops are still based on defensive operations. If it comes to defensive operations, the opposite Zhungeer will not be able to get in no matter how hard he jumps.

But if you want to fight out, it will be much more troublesome. Mobility is a troublesome thing.

This is because the Army has limited military expenditures and has to maintain a strength of more than one million, so it has to make compromises. Even a considerable part of the former Class A Division has been weakened.

Before large-scale mobilization and replenishment, the first group army could actually pull out only tens of thousands of people for the first time.

The rest of the troops don't even have mules and horses. If they just drag them out and fight the nomads in the Gobi Desert and grasslands, they will die miserably.

This is also the reason why after deciding to take action against the Geers, the Army dispatched four units: the Second Infantry Division, the Sixth Cavalry Division, the Thirteenth Cavalry Division, and the Fourteenth Cavalry Division, because in the northwest region, there are only

Of the five troops in combat readiness, the remaining third division is not yet in the border area, but in Lanzhou behind.

In such a huge area at the rear, we have to keep a combat readiness division as a precaution... If the combat readiness forces in Gansu are wiped out by aliens, then there will only be a bunch of second-class divisions left in the rear.

Besides, the enemies of the Da Chu Empire Army are not just the Jungar people, there are also potential enemies in the country.

How should I put it? In the past thirteen years of Chengshun, the military has exterminated more than 60 rebellions, large and small. The targets of the rebellion were all kinds of people. Most of them were chieftains from Southwest, Qingkang and other regions, and quite a few were from

There are too many gentry, landlords, powerful and other random people in remote areas.

The largest rebellion was the rebellion of a chieftain in the Kangxi area. Because he was unwilling to give up his power and accept the empire's policy of repatriation, he brazenly assembled thousands of troops to rebel.

The Chu army's garrison strength in the Kangxi Province area was very heavy.

As for the Shaanxi-Gansu region, not all of them are good people. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were the most thieves from all walks of life, and that was Shaanxi-Gansu.

Therefore, many of the forces of the First Group Army in the Shaanxi-Gansu region are actually used internally but not externally...

It is necessary to leave a combat readiness division in the rear and several first-class divisions and cavalry divisions in the rear.

However, as the battle on the frontline began, some troops in the First Group Army also began to mobilize, especially those near Jiayuguan, and began to concentrate on replenishing troops, mules, horses, and various equipment. They needed to move westward.

On the one hand, it is to fill the void in the Jiayuguan defense line after the Fourth Cavalry Army's westward advance, and on the other hand, it serves as the strategic reserve of the Fourth Cavalry Army.

However, reinforcements are also extremely cautious when they come forward. There are obviously many troops in the rear, but when reinforcements come forward, they strictly control the number of troops, instead of directly mobilizing tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops with just one order.
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It's easy to get out, but it's just as easy to starve to death after getting there!

The amount of land that can be cultivated in Jiayuguan is limited, and the food that can be supplied is also limited. The previous supply of about 30,000 troops was not enough, and long-term support from the rear with food and grass was required.

If the rear is ignored and directly reinforces hundreds of thousands of troops, even if they just go to Jiayuguan, the difficulty of logistical supply will increase sharply.

It is estimated that the additional logistics troops or civilians transporting grain and grass will have to add hundreds of thousands of people.

In order to meet the food and fodder needs of the frontline army and more logistics personnel in the rear...the money and food required is enough to give Luo Zhixue a headache!

Why is it difficult to advance westward? This is why it is difficult!

It is easy to go with large-scale troops, but it is not easy to go without going hungry.

For this reason, the army's top brass directly dispatched the most elite combat-ready troops in order to maximize their combat effectiveness under the limited supply of food and grass.

Army Lieutenant General Liao Hongpo also knows the responsibilities he shoulders.

Let’s not talk about other things in this battle, but Hami must be won, otherwise we will not be able to explain to Jinling, and to use the words earlier, we will have no face to face His Majesty...
To be continued...