I want to be emperor

Chapter 272 Chen Biqian's Determination
The Ming army wanted to counterattack Chubei, and even went to the hinterland of Xiangyang City to destroy the arsenal of the Great Chu Empire.
It can be said to be difficult.

Going east from Guanzhong Mansion, the road is difficult to pass, and the eastern part of Guanzhong Mansion, that is, Xunyang, is garrisoned by the Second Garrison Division of the Chu Army.

Although this second garrison division is just a garrison division, its combat effectiveness is quite good. There are more than a dozen field guns of two and a half catties attached to it, and there are thirty or forty general guns weighing more than two hundred catties, and Franco cannons.

Even in the face of Hong Chengchou's 5 to 5000 Ming troops, they were able to fight back and forth. In the autumn and winter of last year, they even fought a counterattack, annihilating [-] Ming troops.

In this direction, the Ming army seems to have a lot of people, but its overall quality is not good, so it seems to be on the offensive but in fact it can't get in at all.

It is impossible to win Xunyang and enter Yunyang Mansion, let alone go all the way to Xiangyang.

Not to mention that in this direction, the main force of the Chu army, that is, the temporary first mixed battalion, was still in Yunyang City.

In addition, there is a very important point that the troops in the direction of Shaanxi are under the jurisdiction of Governor Hong Chengchou, and have nothing to do with Chen Biqian.

Chen Biqian wants to counterattack Xiangyang, but it doesn't mean that Hong Chengchou thinks the same.

Hong Chengchou has written to the imperial court many times, and his attitude is very clear, that is, to stabilize the front line of Guanzhong Mansion and Xi'an Mansion, resist the attack of the thieves, and at the same time draw out his hands to continue to encircle and suppress Gao Yingxiang and other rogues. After half a year, that is, In the middle of the ninth year of Chongzhen, the Shaanxi bandits headed by Gao Yingxiang were completely wiped out.

As the saying goes, to fight against the outside world, one must first secure the inside.

First clean up the thieves in Shaanxi, then integrate the three forces to leave Tongguan, and then counterattack Nanyang Mansion to the south.

That is to say, Hong Chengchou did not agree with Chen Biqian's plan to counterattack Nanyang on a large scale in spring and summer, but wanted to postpone the time of this major counterattack for another three months or even more than half a year.

Therefore, basically don't expect the Ming army to launch a counterattack from Guanzhong Mansion.

In the east of Sichuan, although the famous general Qin Liangyu personally led a group of Qin family generals to sit in Wushan on the front line of Fengjie, the attack of the security bandits was fruitless many times.

But at the same time, limited by the special terrain of Wushan and Badong, they basically don't expect to be able to counterattack Badong. If they can't take Badong, they can't talk about going eastward along the river.

As for looking through the mountains and walking along the Dachang and Zhushan lines, it is unreliable. Those places are full of mountains. It is easy for a large number of people to go there, but don’t expect to be able to bring much luggage. If the light soldiers are killed, they will be taken by the security thieves. up.

In addition, the main force in the east of Sichuan is the Tusi Baigan soldiers, and the Weisuo soldiers are only a few to cooperate in the battle. It is not a big problem for the Tusi Baigan soldiers to protect their hometown and defend Wushan and Fengjie, but you want them to come out of Sichuan. Combat, then there are many problems that need to be solved.

Looking at the Guanzhong Mansion and the Kuizhou Mansion in eastern Sichuan, you will find that, despite the fact that the Chu army does not have many main forces in these two directions, it is too difficult for the local Ming army to counterattack. Counterattacks are more difficult.

On the line of Runing Mansion, don't count on the direction of Xinyang Prefecture in the south. If this direction is so easy to break through, then the Yiyang Three Passes here will not be famous all over the world. After the Ming army lost the Yiyang Three Passes in panic, Basically, it means that unless there is a huge change in the strength of the enemy and us, otherwise don't expect to launch a counterattack from this direction.

A little to the north is indeed the line of mountains and Biyang. This place is also blocked by hills and mountains, but overall the terrain is passable.

But, the bandit protection army also stationed heavy troops in this direction. There are at least six or seven thousand troops stationed on the front line of Biyang. At the same time, it is not too far from Yuzhou in the north, Tanghe in the northwest, and Nanyang. Good, once the Ming army launches a large-scale attack from this direction, the Biyang bandit army only needs to hold for three to five days, and the Ming army will have to face tens of thousands or even more than [-] guards.

Looking back is very likely to turn into a field battle.

But to be honest, according to what Chen Biqian heard in the past, even if he himself has never been on the battlefield, he still knows that the army under his command will suffer a great loss in a field battle with the thieves.

Farther south, the Jiangbei and Jiangxi frontlines were facing the main force of security thieves, and they were very reluctant to defend the city, clamoring for reinforcements every day.

It is impossible to counterattack.

It is also because of the huge strategic pressure faced in this direction, especially the huge pressure faced by the Jiangbei and Jiangbei frontlines, that Chen Biqian had the idea of ​​​​launching a large-scale counterattack to Chubei in the spring and summer.

In his opinion, if he didn't put some pressure on the thieves, Jiangbei and Jiangbei would be unable to defend themselves.

By the way, there is also the Chunan line further south. Well, the Chunan line is under the control of Yang Sichang, and it has nothing to do with Chen Biqian. Besides, Yang Sichang is in trouble now. The situation in the Changsha line of South Chuyue Prefecture is worse than that of Jiangbei and Jiangbei. Crisis, how can there be any troops to fight back.

Looking around, Chen Biqian could only focus his counterattack on the northern line under his control.

The northern line is divided into Luyang Pass and Yuzhou. Don't count on Luyang Pass, that poor place is no better than Yiyang Sanguan.

If you really want to smash Luyang Pass, even if the bandits don't reinforce Luyang Pass, the Ming army will still have tens of thousands of casualties if they want to take it down.

However, it is impossible for the thieves not to reinforce Luyang Pass.

So breaking through Luyang Pass is impossible.

You have to ask how Chen Biqian came to this conclusion.

This is also thanks to Wu Sangui's actions.

Before, he ordered Wu Sangui to go to Lushan County to prepare for the counterattack of Luyang Pass, but Wu Sangui promised well at the beginning, but suddenly changed his mind and ran away when he approached Lushan County.

Although Chen Biqian was very angry at Wu Sangui's behavior, Chen Biqian was not stupid.

He could accuse Wu Sangui, but he would not ignore Wu Sangui's vision and ability.

This Wu Sangui is the son of Wu Xiang. Although he is young, he has been fighting on the front line of Liaodong for many years. A few years ago, he led the army to fight the rebellion in Shandong. Let’s not talk about his character, but his ability to lead troops to fight is comparable to a vote The general is much stronger.

Since such Wu Sangui voluntarily avoided Luyang Pass, then Chen Biqian could basically come to a conclusion that the poor place of Luyang Pass should not be taken down.

In the end, Chen Biqian set his sights on Yuzhou!
Yuzhou guards the Fangcheng ancient road. If this line can be opened, then the army can enter along the Fangcheng ancient road.

At the same time, the Yuzhou side is not considered a dangerous pass. The Fangcheng ancient road where Yuzhou is located is a passage more than ten kilometers wide. Lines of defense of multiple forts.

In other words, after the fight started, the Ming army did not have to attack Yuzhou directly, but could attack other small fortresses garrisoned by the Chu army outside Yuzhou city.

If the Chu army retreated to Yuzhou to defend it, then the Ming army could still leave some troops to besiege the city, and some troops could go directly to the hinterland of Nanyang Mansion.

At that time, it is fine to besiege the city to fight for aid or directly attack the hinterland city.

The area to the east of Yuzhou has flat terrain and convenient transportation.

This is beneficial for the Ming army to assemble a large army and launch a large army to attack the city. It can even wait until a batch of Hongyi artillery arrives and deploys.

That's right, it's the Hongyi Cannon!
After Chen Biqian took office as the governor, he had already written to Chongzhen asking for the Hongyi cannon.

What Chen Biqian and Yang Sichang insisted on was different, or that they didn't have the courage and courage to search for so much money and food to do it.

His method is to make all kinds of crying for the court, even hinting at threatening the bandit army to go east to the Central Plains, Jiangbei, etc...

In the end, the court was asked to give money, food and guns.

Among them, there are a total of sixteen Hongyi cannons, which are regarded as military weapons by the Ming army.

Of the sixteen red barbarian cannons, ten were originally planned by the imperial court to be sent to Xuanda and Jiliao lines to guard the border last year, and the other six were directly transferred from Henan, Shandong and other places.

There are sixteen Hongyi cannons, the light ones weigh more than 1000 jin, and the heavy ones weigh more than 3000 jin, which are quite powerful.

To be honest, the power of these sixteen Hongyi cannons was no worse than the five-jin and nine-jin field cannons in the Township Protection Army, and they were even stronger in terms of pure power.

Because these Hongyi cannons are essentially naval cannons, with longer barrels and 22 or three times the diameter.

In order to control the weight of the field guns of the rural protection army, the multiple diameters are relatively small, and the multiple diameters of the nine-pound field guns are only eighteen times.

The smaller the diameter, the lower the power will naturally be.

However, this is only theoretical data. This Hongyi cannon seems to have a large diameter, so you have to see if the gunners of the Ming army dare to fully charge it... Can this artillery withstand a full charge?

Furthermore, it depends on whether the gunners of the Ming army can accurately hit the target.

Last but not least is mobility.

The maneuverability of artillery is very important, not to mention the maneuverability of the Hongyi cannons of the Ming army. From the very beginning, the Ming court never considered using them in field battles, and they were basically deployed on the top of the city. Used to defend the city.

On the other hand, after Dongyao got the Hongyi cannon, they directly improved the gun mount and used the Hongyi cannon to fight in the field. However, due to the heavy weight of the Hongyi cannon and the problem of the gun mount, the maneuverability was extremely limited.

Of course, performance and mobility are all small problems in Chen Biqian's view, he doesn't understand and doesn't care.

Anyway, he only knew that he would soon have sixteen red cannons under his hands.

And with this kind of big killer, Chen Biqian has more confidence in conquering Yuzhou City.

However, the transportation of the Hongyi cannons was difficult, and it would take at least one and a half months for these Hongyi cannons to arrive. Before that, Chen Biqian planned to make other preparations.

For this reason, he wrote to Wu Sangui, asking him to come to the front line of Yuzhou as soon as possible, and hinted that as long as Wu Sangui came here, the previous disobedience and looting could be forgotten.

In addition to mobilizing Wu Sangui, Chen Biqian also mobilized two other frontier troops with a total of 8000 people to Yuzhou.

In this way, there are three frontier armies, with a total of 1000 people, of which [-] are cavalry!

In addition to the 3 frontier troops, Chen Biqian also planned to transfer 5000 troops from Zuo Liangyu's troops in Ye County, 5000 defenders from the Ruzhou garrison, and about [-] troops from the front line of Runing Prefecture. About [-] troops were deployed from Kaifeng and other places.

In addition, there are 5000 standard soldiers directly under Chen Biqian,
If everything goes well in this battle, then Chen Biqian can gather an army of at least 5000 people, which is not considered young and strong.

It includes 500 Hongyi cannons, 3000 frontier cavalry and 8000 ordinary cavalry for a total of [-] cavalry, more than [-] cannons weighing more than [-] catties, general guns, and Flang machines, and various artillery pieces weighing less than [-] catties. There are more than [-] small guns such as attacking army guns, tiger squatting guns, and bowl guns, more than [-] bird guns of various types, and more than [-] fire guns such as three-eyed guns.

Chen Biqian has already made up his mind: Even if it is a death blow, he must gnaw down Yuzhou, and then open the door to the hinterland of Chubei!
(End of this chapter)