I want to be emperor

Chapter 281 Failed Deduction

Therefore, although Chen Yongfu will not participate in the Chunan offensive in the future, he is equally concerned, and even hopes that the South Route Army's operations will be smoother.

It is a pity that through this sand table deduction that simulated the real situation as much as possible, the offensive force headed by the Fifth Division was more difficult to fight against Linxiang.

In a battle against Linxiang, 5000 people were killed or injured, and two to 3000 of them were still the main force of the Fifth Division, which directly caused the Fifth Division to be traumatized.

It will be more troublesome to fight it later.

The sand table deduction is still not over until now. After 5000 casualties, the South Route Army in the deduction finally captured Linxiang and opened the door to Yuezhou Mansion.

The follow-up will definitely continue to be deduced.

But before starting a new round of deduction, His Majesty Luo Zhixue arrived at the staff department. He didn't ask too many things, but conveyed a new situation to the referee department represented by Xu Zhixian.

Add another force to the playing Ming army, and a new Ming army that is comparable to your own main force in terms of equipment, organization, morale and combat effectiveness.

The number of troops is rated as a mixed brigade, and the station is Wuling, Changde Prefecture.

Hearing that Luo Zhixue suddenly changed the conditions for the deduction, Xu Zhixian and the others were quite surprised, although during several exercises, His Majesty liked to increase the strength and equipment of the troops playing the role of the Ming army.

However, it was the first time that a mixed brigade completely modeled on its own main force was directly added to the Ming army's role-playing troops.

But after the previous surprise, Xu Zhixian thought for a while and remembered something, and immediately said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, is this the new standard army created by Yang Sichang?"

Luo Zhixue nodded slightly: "The Internal Affairs Division of the Imperial Academy arrested a few spies sent by Yang Sichang yesterday, and found out a more important situation. The new standard army compiled by Yang Sichang has already formed an army, and the location of the training is not what we thought before. Changsha, the [-] new standard troops in Changsha are just a cover, Yang Sichang gathered his teachers, friends, relatives, and farmers’ children in his hometown of Wuling to form a mixed brigade, and that is Yang Sichang’s real new standard army.”

Hearing what Luo Zhixue said, Xu Zhixian said: "I didn't expect Yang Sichang to be so suspicious, and I didn't expect that he could really create a new standard army with the size of a mixed brigade."

It is not a secret that Yang Sichang launched a new standard army. Not only the high-level officials of the Ming court knew about it, but also many officials and soldiers of the Ming court in southern Chu, even the Great Chu Empire knew a lot.

The Military Intelligence Department of the military has also been paying attention, but Yang Sichang gave a trick to confuse the spies of the Military Intelligence Department.

Before Yang Sichang officially took over last year, he began to advocate the establishment of a new standard army. After he officially took office and arrived in Changsha, he began to prepare and train [-] new standard troops with great fanfare. This is what the Great Chu Empire Military Intelligence Department learned.

According to the information obtained by the Military Intelligence Department, Yang Sichang selected [-] elite soldiers from the guards in Changsha and Hengyang, and then distributed them with guns, and used the new tactics of the Chu army for training.

But several months have passed, and the three thousand new standard troops don't even have many muskets, and the artillery is only two two and a half catties of field guns, and it is still too early to officially become an army.

At the same time, these soldiers, including the generals, were all from the original guards, and their morale was actually no different from the original guards.

Therefore, after the Military Intelligence Department learned about these situations, although the generals of the Chu Army paid attention to it, they didn't take it too seriously. It was just a so-called new army with 3000 people. Soldiers are even more relaxed.

In this sand table deduction, the three thousand so-called new standard troops were also included.

But it never occurred to him that Yang Sichang was planning to establish a new standard army in Changsha with great fanfare, but in fact, before he officially took office, he had already started preparing for the establishment of a new standard army in his hometown.

And this new standard army has completely imitated the main force of the Chu army from the beginning of training, and all the generals and soldiers are newly recruited.

The generals of the new standard army are centered on members of the Yang family and relatives and friends. The leader of this new standard army is Yang Sichang's direct cousin Yang Sixing.

The other officers are all Yang family and their relatives and friends.

The soldiers are also poor children recruited from their hometown in Wuling.

The reason why Yang Sichang started again was because he believed that since he wanted to learn from the Chu thieves, he had to learn thoroughly.

You can't just learn a gun, but also learn their internal composition.

The main force of the Chu bandits are all newly recruited soldiers, and the officers are all trained by themselves. As for those generals who surrendered and came from the old army, they are all in the garrison...

Yang Sichang naturally also learned to do this, so he started from scratch from the generals to the soldiers.

Of course, some middle and low-level officers inevitably recruited some talents from the Guards Army who he thought were good.

He kept secret the new standard army that he had trained in his hometown in Wuling, and what he usually publicized was the half-baked new standard army in Changsha.

The purpose is to give Chu thief a ruthless blow at a critical moment.

The main foreign military intelligence agency of the Great Chu Empire, that is, the military intelligence department of the General Staff Department in southern Chu, should pay more attention to important areas such as Linxiang and Changsha, and pay more attention to the Ming army in the frontline cities.

Not much attention has been paid to the Ming army's hinterland, and there is no special Wuling area, because there is no Ming army in that place, and it is not a strategic place. Naturally, it is impossible for the Military Intelligence Department to invest too much power in this direction.

In addition, in order to conceal the truth, Yang Sichang and the others put the place where the new standard army was trained in a remote place in the countryside. The spies of the Military Intelligence Department at most only paid attention to the situation in Wuling City, and they rarely went to the countryside or even went to the mountains.

Another foreign intelligence agency is the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Commerce. Although this agency is also an intelligence agency, its daily business is generally concentrated on the official movements of the Ming court, public opinion and even commercial intelligence collection. Generally, it does not specifically involve military intelligence business. .

This also led to loopholes in the intelligence investigation of the Great Chu Empire against Yang Sichang's new standard army.

If it wasn't for this time that the Internal Affairs Department of the Imperial Academy caught the spy sent by Yang Sichang, and followed the clues to catch a more important staff under Yang Sichang's command, who knew more about the inside story, I'm afraid they would still be kept in the dark.

It's not surprising that this was kept in the dark. Information transmission is very slow these days, and the flow of people is very small.

Especially in some small places, if a strange face appears, it will easily attract the attention of the local people. If the stranger still inquires about some sensitive military information, then the local government will easily notice it .

The external intelligence collection of the Great Chu Empire mainly relied on buying and wooing the local people. As for the spies sent by Wuchang in the past, they usually took charge of the affairs of the local intelligence station. , mainly locals recruited.

This kind of intelligence gathering mode has its advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes the intelligence agencies of the Great Chu Empire can easily learn about Yang Sichang's recent activities, and even know who he met and what he talked about.

But until now, I don't even know how many troops Yang Sichang has under his command...

But now that he knew it, after Luo Zhixue heard that the staff department was conducting a sand table deduction today, he simply came over, and then told Xu Zhixian the news, and changed the conditions of the exercise.

According to this change, the sand table deduction will soon change.

After taking Linxiang, the Chu army in charge of attacking one side went straight to Baling, Yuezhou.

After Chen Yongfu, who played the role of the general of the Linxiang defenders, and He Renlong, the general who played the role of the support force, joined together, they also quickly retreated south, and took away the defenders of Baling City in Yuezhou. The army retreated to Changsha, and joined with the original ten thousand guards in Changsha and three thousand new standard troops.

After the attacking Chu army took Baling in Yuezhou without bloodshed, they turned southward to Changsha, and then arrived at the Changsha field smoothly, and launched a fierce attack on Changsha.

But at this time, the new [-] new standard troops came out from the Wuling area of ​​Changde Prefecture. They did not go to Changsha, but to the Xiangyin area. The attacker stayed behind a regiment in the Xiangyin area. The garrison is not an opponent at all.

As a result, Xiangyin was captured by the Ming army, which cut off the connection between the Chu army outside Changsha City and the Baling area behind, and also cut off the food, grass and ammunition supplies of the Chu army under Changsha City.

In order to avoid falling into a situation where food, grass and ammunition were not enough, the Chu army chose to retreat from Changsha and went back to encircle and suppress the [-] new standard troops. As a result, the five thousand new standard troops turned around and ran away.

This time, the sand table deduction went on until after midnight, and the generals who played the roles of the Chu army and the Ming army racked their brains for various responses.

At this point in the sand table deduction, it can actually be declared that Chu Jun's role in the sand table deduction has failed this time.

Because they stormed Linxiang and suffered heavy losses.

The attack on Changsha failed again, and was finally forced to retreat.

According to the conventional situation, the follow-up should be that the Great Chu Empire will continue to increase its troops in the direction of Changsha, and this means that the progress of the entire Chunan offensive will be delayed by at least one or two months, and it will also cost a lot of money. The greater national power of the Great Chu Empire will even cause a series of reactions.

And the result of this exercise also made the group led by Xu Zhixian very scared!
In the battle plan formulated by the General Staff and the South Route Army, the one who took Linxiang and then Changsha smoothly did not expect to encounter such great resistance in Linxiang, let alone Wuling. There is actually a new standard army with 5000 people hidden in it, whose combat effectiveness is no less than that of the main force of our own side.

If this is an actual battle, it will put the South Route Army in a huge passive position, and even affect the strategy of going south and east of the entire empire.

Therefore, in the end, Luo Zhixue personally decreed to end this sand table deduction, and let both parties have a good rest for the night, and continue the deduction tomorrow based on the new situation.

(End of this chapter)