I want to be emperor

Chapter 271 Counterattack Xiangyang
The reason why the imperial court was able to mobilize Wu Sangui to go south to suppress thieves was because the Wu family father and son wanted to go south to earn a wave of money and food, and by the way, give Wu Sangui some credit or something, and later promoted him to become a general or something.

It wasn't because the imperial court ordered them to come obediently.

The Wu family father and son didn't want to move, Chongzhen's hundred imperial edicts could not mobilize a single soldier of the Guanning Army, and there was nothing they could do about the Wu family father and son.

Wu Sangui decided to simply ignore Chen Biqian's order, and had no intention of attacking Luyang Pass at all. He didn't even go to the small county town of Lushan Mountain, which had become a large army camp and had no fuel at all. Instead, he led his troops to turn southeast halfway. .

At the same time, he sent a letter to Chen Biqian, saying that he found traces of bandits on the road and they were chasing them all the way...

There are actually bandit troops, but they are just scouts of a few gray thieves.

After all, Wu Sangui brought an army of [-], thousands of them were cavalry. It is impossible for the spies of the Great Chu Empire not to know about such a big movement. In fact, when Wu Sangui was still in Ruzhou City, Huang Dingquan, the commander of the North Route Army, already knew about it. related situation.

Then let the people from the Military Intelligence Department pay close attention to the movements of Wu Sangui's troops.

After all, Wu Sangui came from the front line of Jiliao, and he was an old frontier army who had fought Dongyao for many years. His fighting power must be much stronger than that of the Ming army in the hinterland of the Central Plains.

It turned out that there were only [-] Guanning troops, but Huang Dingquan directly treated them as [-] or even more Ming troops.

Therefore, Wu Sangui and the others also enjoyed the treatment of the detective cavalry's full tracking.

From time to time on the way down south, you can find the traces of the bandit army's scouting cavalry.

That is to say, those reconnaissance cavalry of the bandit army were relatively timid, and they didn't even dare to approach, but just followed from a distance on the periphery, otherwise they would have been killed by Wu Sangui's cavalry unit long ago.

Wu Sangui didn't care too much about these bandit scouts, anyway, these bandit scouts couldn't get close, and couldn't know their details.

Just use them as an excuse, and then continue to lead the army to turn southeast.

go for what?
Suppress the thieves!
Wu Sangui did not forget his main task: take advantage of the opportunity to go south to obtain enough money and food.

His father, Wu Xiang, still had tens of thousands of people to support in Liaodong, and Wu Xiang, who was struggling with money and food, had personally instructed Wu Sangui.

The purpose of going south this time is to collect money and food!
As for suppressing thieves or not, that doesn't matter...

So when Wu Sangui saw that Luyang Pass was not easy to fight, and that Lushan County had been eaten by the local Ming army for more than half a year, he had already starved for hundreds of miles, so he didn't even go to Lushan County, so he just found an excuse to take a detour.

It is said to be a thief, but it is really a thief.

Along the way, I killed some unlucky bandits I encountered, and by the way, I also broke through the manors of rich families who had close ties with the bandits, and gained a lot of money...

He went all the way to the southeast to suppress thieves. In order to make it more realistic, he even drove the few small thieves he met along the way to the confluence, turning them into a so-called group of more than 1000 people. Flow thief.

Then let these thieves go forward according to the route they set up.

How to make the rogues follow their own route? This is also simple. Half of Wu Sangui's troops are cavalry. If you send some cavalry to block the other directions, these rogues can only obediently go to the only one. Life ran away.

Ever since, a very interesting scene was staged in the hinterland of the Central Plains!

A band of about 1000 or less than 2000 bandits ran all the way from Ruzhou to Kaifeng Mansion and then to Runing Mansion. Small county.

And Wu Sangui led 1000 elite soldiers, among whom there were more than [-] cavalry chasers chasing all the way.

After chasing and fleeing, these thieves were unable to be wiped out, and even the scale has been maintained at about 500 people, no more and no less.

However, after several battles with local officers and soldiers in the middle, they suffered losses, and they could quickly recruit the rogues to recover. However, if they wanted to expand the scale, they would often be attacked by Wu Sangui's troops, killing and injuring their rogues, and at the same time stopping them. Loot more money and food.

So much so that in the end, they could only maintain a size of about 500 people.

During this process, Wu Sangui's [-] troops became stronger and stronger one by one, and at the same time, some people were separated to transport a large amount of gold, silver and other materials to the north.

Wu Sangui's operation confused the generals of the Township Protection Army on the opposite side...

At the beginning, Huang Dingquan reported that there were elite soldiers from Jiliao, Guanning, and Ningxia who were going south. I am afraid that those who came would be unkind. For this reason, the Northern Route Army had already raised their combat readiness, canceled their vacations, and just waited for Wu Sangui to come and do trouble with Zuo Liangyu.

But I didn't expect that this person shot a false shot in Ruzhou and went directly to Kaifeng Mansion. That's not counting. By February, this person had already gone to Runing Mansion.

More importantly, although this person ran to Runing Mansion, he never went to the frontline area, but wandered behind.

Whether Huang Dingquan, the commander of the Northern Route Army and the commander of the second division, or Zuo Yingzhe, the commander of the third division, they couldn't understand why Wu Sangui did this.

In the end, it was determined that this Wu Sangui might want to wander around the periphery, attracting their rural protection army to mobilize their troops, or even attract their rural protection army to take the initiative to attack, and then use the cavalry advantage to fight back.

At the same time, I also feel that Wu Sangui and the others may want to contact and join the several frontier troops that went south before. Once these few frontier troops join together, then it will be a frontier army of about [-].

If they are concentrated and maneuver quickly, they can completely attack a certain point before the township protection army counterattacks, and then tear through the defense line of the township protection army and enter the hinterland of northern Chu.

Hence, Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe decided to keep an eye on the movements of Wu Sangui and other Ming armies, and report immediately if they found signs of a large-scale assembly.

At the same time, all front-line troops were ordered to be more vigilant, to reserve supplies in advance, and to make plans to strictly guard against death.

Finally, the North Route Army and the East Route Army each set up strategic mobile forces to provide timely reinforcements when the Ming Army launched a fierce attack.

Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe's idea is very simple, that is to strictly guard against death, to ensure that the hinterland of northern Chu is not lost, and to ensure the smooth progress of the spring offensive to southern Chu in the near future.

However, no matter how they thought about it, Wu Sangui never thought about attacking the defense line of the rural protection army, and he was only thinking about making money and food.

Moreover, Wu Sangui will not join forces with other frontier armies, because they are all competitors...

The money and food in a place is rich, and if you don't dare to directly attack the city or loot the real rich and powerful, you can only start with some ordinary farms in the suburbs.

And these places are rich, and money and food are also rich.

If the other Ming army came to suppress the thieves again, when they Wu Sangui went to suppress the thieves, the harvest would be much less.

You still have to do things like suppressing thieves and stealing money and food by yourself.

Wu Sangui's maneuvers made Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe unable to turn the corner, but there are many understanding people in the Ming army.

In particular, Chen Biqian, the governor of the Eastern Front and the governor of Henan, is not stupid. After receiving impeachment complaints from some local officials, Wu Sangui's military looting, let's take a look at Wu Sangui's so-called route of suppressing thieves.

Then basically you can tell what Wu Sangui is doing.

This man is using the name of the bandit to plunder, to collect money and food for the tens of thousands of soldiers in Liaodong.

However, Chen Biqian is a mature politician. He directly suppressed these impeachments, and he didn't even reprimand Wu Sangui.

Just ask Wu Sangui to lead his army to the front line of Wuyang after "killing" the bandits, and cooperate with Zuo Liangyu to counterattack the Yuzhou defense line, striving to enter the hinterland of Nanyang.

Yes, Chen Biqian still never gave up on counterattacking Nanyang Mansion and Chubei!

And this idea became stronger after he learned that the bandit army had hoarded a large number of troops on both sides of the Yangtze River, especially in Wuchang Prefecture, and seemed to have the intention of going south or east.

He didn't care if the bandit army wanted to go south to Chunan, that was Yang Sichang's business.

If the bandit army wanted to advance eastward, he would be out of reach for a while, and could only let Shi Kefa stick to the front line of Jiujiang in the north of the Yangtze River.

However, if the rebel army is going south or east, it means that the strategic center of gravity of the rebel army is still in the south, and it is impossible to have too many rebel troops on the front line of Nanyang Mansion and Xiangyang Mansion in the north.

Chen Biqian also learned that the bandit army had a very large-scale ordnance workshop outside Xiangyang City, which produced and supplied almost all the guns, armor and other armaments used by the bandits.

in case……

If he can concentrate his forces to enter Nanyang Mansion, and then to Xiangyang Mansion.

At that time, even if Xiangyang City itself cannot be defeated, it will still be able to destroy the ordnance work of the bandit army located on the outskirts of Xiangyang City.

"Xiangyang Armory has the heart to protect the thief, and if it is destroyed, the thief will die!"

If this arsenal can be accepted and controlled, then quite a few of them Mingting will get an arsenal with huge output.

There is such a huge arsenal, and it is not a problem to give the court a few years to get hundreds of long cannons, 10,000+ dry muskets, and 10,000+ armors.

At that time, He Chou will not be exterminated.

Well, as for how much money is needed to maintain the production of such a huge arsenal, the money to purchase raw materials is so high, how to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of workers, and how to solve their ration problem.

This is not what Chen Biqian needs to consider.

But if you want to go to Xiangyang to destroy or even accept this arsenal, you have to go to Xiangyang, the hinterland of northern Chu.

Because Xiangyang is an important place of transportation and a place extending in all directions, if the Ming army has killed and went to Xiangyang, there are many roads to choose from.

From Hanzhong Prefecture to Yunyang, and then to Xiangyang.

From Ruzhou to Luyang Pass and then to Nanyang, Xiangyang.

From Ye County, from Yuzhou, to Nanyang and Xiangyang.

It is also possible to go directly from Queshan to Biyang and then to Xiangyang.

Go south from Yiyang Sanguan in Xinyang Prefecture, conquer the line of Yingshan, and go to Xiangyang Mansion via Suizhou.

Even the troops from the east of Sichuan could directly attack Yunyang Mansion, and finally Xiangyang.

However, none of the above routes work!
(End of this chapter)