I want to be emperor

Chapter 291 New Standard Army Left Army Yang Sixing
More than 40 miles southeast of Wuling City in Changde Mansion, a Ming army that is too similar to the ordinary Ming army is advancing.

Although this Ming army was wearing the robes of the Ming army, they did not carry all kinds of messy weapons like ordinary Ming troops.

The individual weapons of the Ming army are simple and uniform. About a thousand or so people are equipped with muskets, and the muskets are not the common bird guns in the Ming army, but the large bird guns in the Chu thief.

There are also a thousand and a few people who are equipped with spears. These spears are also unified Zhang and a half spears, and this is the standard spear that the Chu army spears use the most.

As for the traditional sword and shield players and archers, there are only a handful of them, and there are only a few dozen of these traditional sword and shield players or archers in every hundreds of people.

And these Ming troops marched in a formation of about 600 people, with spearmen and musketeers accounting for most of them, and only a few traditional infantry. Standard Infantry Battalion.

Just by looking at these infantry battalions, one can determine the identities of these Ming troops. They are the Zuo Jun, the new standard army that Yang Sichang placed high hopes on and secretly summoned Xiangyong to train in his hometown of Wuling.

In addition to having six infantry battalions, the left army of the new standard army also organized a field artillery battalion following the example of the Chu army. The supply battalion, a cavalry battalion with about [-] cavalry, in addition to an engineer battalion and other auxiliary troops.

This organization, this staffing and weapon configuration are completely a copy of a mixed brigade in the main force of the Great Chu Empire Army.

In order to build this new standard left army, Yang Sichang racked his brains to raise a lot of money and food, searched for many craftsmen to make guns, and spent nearly half a year of continuous recruiting and training, and finally formed an army last month.

The commander-in-chief of the army was Yang Sixing, Yang Sichang's cousin.

Yang Sixing, who was thirty-three in his forties, raised people for thousands of years, and became an official in his early years, although the starting point was relatively low because of his background.

But he had the support of Yang Sichang and his son, plus he had been working in Shaanxi for a long time and faced thieves. Many local officials were killed and injured, and many officials were unwilling to come to Shaanxi to serve.

So he did pretty well, successfully passed the seventh-rank threshold, which is difficult for most of the officials from Juren background, and then served as an official in a certain city in Shaanxi that was just captured by thieves and killed the county official. The magistrate of the county.

Well, the main reason is that this place is a low-level county, and the surrounding area is full of thieves, it is too dangerous, but any official who has a choice is unwilling to come here to serve as a county magistrate.

And this became Yang Sixing's opportunity.

With the support of his cousin Yang Sichang and uncle Yang He, he crossed the threshold of the seventh rank and became the magistrate of the county.

During his tenure as county magistrate, Yang Sixing recruited brave men from the countryside to guard the county seat, led his troops to fight against rogues many times, killed many rogues, and gained the reputation of being a good soldier and good at suppressing thieves.

Afterwards, he was gradually promoted, becoming the magistrate of a scattered state in Shaanxi, and his rank was also raised from the fifth rank.

It's just that he was born in Juren, even with the great help of Yang Sichang and his son, but he was able to get mixed up from the fifth rank Zhizhou in the regular promotion, that basically reached the limit.

If you want to make a further breakthrough, such as obtaining the position of a fellow official of the fifth rank, or further becoming a senior member of the fourth rank, it is basically impossible.

The unspoken rules of the Ming court's officialdom do not allow too many such things to happen. In the decades of Wanli, there were less than two-handed senior officials from Juren's background. Although there are more in the Chongzhen Dynasty today, they are only in single digits.

It can be seen from this that the officials of Juren background have great limitations, no matter whether you have the ability or talent, but the upper limit is basically restricted to death. If you want to further break through the limit of the fourth rank, you have to make great contributions. If you look down on the heroes, and the court is in urgent need of talents, then it will work.

Otherwise, don't count on it.

With the death of Yang Sichang's father, after Yang Sichang Ding You, Yang Sixing, who had no backer to help him, lost his ambition to continue his official career. In addition, Hong Chengchou in Shaanxi covered the sky with one hand, and Hong Chengchou would not give Yang Sichang face, so Yang Sixing did nothing. is also unsatisfactory.

In the end, he simply resigned and returned home.

However, not long after returning to his hometown, Yang Sichang was arrested.

The first thing Yang Sichang wanted to do when he recovered was to train a new standard army. It happened that his cousin Yang Sichang returned, and this man had a reputation of being a soldier, and he had also led soldiers on the battlefield to fight bandits.

So I simply asked my cousin to preside over the preparation and training of the new standard army, and also recommended him a fifth-rank Huguang inspector Si Qian, who was in charge of the new standard army Zuo Jun. For training matters, he will patrol the military affairs of Changde Mansion and Jingzhou Mansion.

This rekindled Yang Sixing's ambition to continue to make a breakthrough in his official career.

Therefore, since last year, he has been recruiting village braves in his hometown and all kinds of talents in the guard to train the new standard army, the left army.

With Yang Sichang's strong support and his own efforts, after about half a year of hard work, the new standard army, the Zuo Army, finally officially declared its formation last month.

The entire left army of the new standard army has six battalions of infantry, one battalion of artillery, one battalion of baggage, one battalion of cavalry, and one battalion of engineers. The total strength of the whole army is more than [-].

All soldiers are equipped with spears or guns for killing bandits, and the artillery team is equipped with twelve guns for killing bandits of two and a half catties, and three guns for killing bandits of five catties.

Among them, the two-and-a-half catty field artillery uses six artillery pieces as a whistle.

In other words, six artillery pieces are used as a post, and three posts form a battalion. This is the artillery establishment of the Chu army last year. Later, due to production capacity constraints, mules and horses were scarce, and the artillery units cost a lot, the Chu army reduced the artillery. For the establishment of the post, four artillery posts are used as an artillery post, and three artillery posts are used as a new establishment of an artillery battalion.

However, this is only a rated establishment. In fact, in some main forces, or under special circumstances, there are still six artillery posts.

At that time, when Yang Sichang and the others imitated the establishment of the Chu army, they still imitated the establishment of the Chu army in the summer and autumn of last year, so the artillery formation also learned the six-door system of artillery posts.

But although in theory, the number of full-stacked artillery in one artillery post of the new standard army is more than that of the Chu army, this is only in theory.

The artillery formation of the field troops in the Chu Army is based on regiments. The artillery regiment to which a main division belongs has three field artillery battalions and one mortar battalion.

In addition, in the artillery units of the Fifth Division and the First Division, the field artillery belonging to the artillery regiment has been upgraded to the five-pound field artillery and the nine-pound field artillery. The Corps is directly under the artillery.

The artillery battalion in the Left Army of the New Standard Army seems to have fifteen artillery pieces, but most of them are two-and-a-half-pound field artillery posts, and there are only three five-pound field artillery pieces.

If we really want to fight with the field artillery battalion in the artillery unit of the Fifth Division, I am afraid that we will be hanged.

In the divisional artillery unit of the Fifth Division, a field artillery battalion is standard to have eight five-pound field artillery and four nine-pound field artillery.

These twelve cannons are all medium and large caliber cannons, both in terms of effective range and power, far exceeding the two-and-a-half catty field cannons.

However, Yang Sixing didn't worry much about this, or it was useless to worry. Anyway, it was impossible for him to get more five-pound field cannons in a short time, let alone nine-pound field cannons.

Although the two-and-a-half catties field cannon is less powerful, it is still a long-barreled field cannon. It is no problem to fight hundreds of battles. If it is used properly, it can also play a huge role.

Besides, Yang Sixing, who led the army eastward this time, did not plan to head straight to Changsha, and then fight to the death with the main force of the Chu thieves on the front line of Changsha.

His task is very simple, that is to cut off the rear grain road of the Chu thieves, and force the Chu thieves going south to retreat, so as to keep Changsha.

Under such circumstances, he can completely avoid the main force of the Chu thieves, and attack the small-scale main force of the Chu thieves in the rear, or simply those second-rate garrison troops.

It's just that Yang Sixing didn't expect that the main force of the Chu army that he wanted to avoid was coming straight towards him dozens of miles in front of him.

Yang Sixing thought that the main force of the Chu army had already gone south to Changsha, but he never thought that the Chu army turned a blind eye to Changsha, a strategically important place in the south, but the main force went westward and came straight to Wuling.

It would never have occurred to him that the main force of the Chu army's westward march was not to capture the city, but simply to come for his new standard army, the Zuo army.

Before setting off in Xiangyin, Luo Zhixue personally gave instructions to a group of generals: "During the battle, don't worry too much about the gains and losses of a city or a pool. You should limit your goals to the enemy's vital forces, especially the main force. !"

"As long as we can kill the Zuo Army of the new standard army first, and destroy the only main force of the Ming army in the southern Chu area, Changsha, Hengyang, and even the entire southern Chu are within easy reach!"

This instruction to Luo Zhixue also made a group of generals of the Chu army feel more relaxed when commanding, and they were able to use tactics more flexibly and even boldly.

The main force of the Chu army marched eastward all the way, without even planning to spend any time in Yiyang City, and didn't even stop or pass near Yiyang City, and directly detoured to the north of Yiyang City.

Anyway, the thousands of Ming troops in Yiyang City probably didn't have the guts to come out. Even if they came out and tried to cooperate with the Wuling defenders, they would be in the hands of the Chu army.

Compared with attacking the city, what the Chu army is more powerful is its field combat ability.

The line tactics of the Chu army, the organization and equipment of infantry battalions, and even a large number of field artillery were all born for field battles, especially large-scale field battles.

As for the siege ability, it was because the Ming army had been huddled in various cities, and the Chu army had to equip mortars to strengthen the siege ability.

From the beginning to the present, large-scale field battles have been the best fighting method of the Chu army.

The Ming army in Yiyang City did not run out boldly, but watched a large number of Chu troops pass around the city from a distance, and then went straight to Wuling.

Seeing a large number of Chu thieves heading towards Wuling, several officials at the head of Yiyang City lowered their heads and pondered for a while, and one of them said: "Looking at where the Chu thieves are going, I'm afraid they are going to Wuling. Will it run head-on with Yang Bingxian's Zuo Jun?"

"No, there are at least 2 Chu thieves, and Yang Bingxian has only [-] under his command. We must report the news to Yang Bingxian immediately!"

However, although the Chu army did not take the initiative to attack Yiyang City, they still left some cavalry outside the city for monitoring. Once there was an order from the Ming army to ride horses in the city, they rushed to intercept it.

The news of Yiyang City could not be spread at all.

In fact, it was too late to spread the news, because at this time, in fact, the new standard left army led by Yang Sixing was only a dozen miles away from Yiyang City.

When Yiyang City sent out messengers, the reconnaissance cavalry from both sides had already made contact with each other.

(End of this chapter)