I want to be emperor

Chapter 299
Changsha was originally just an ordinary prefecture under the rule of the Huguang Province.

Its political status does not even rank among the top five in the huge Huguang area.
In the administration of Huguang, the political center is the undisputed Wuchang City. This city is located in the middle of the north and south of Huguang, and it is also a city along the Yangtze River. It has long been the residence of the Huguang Third Division and the governor of Huguang.

Under Wuchang, there are Yunyang City in Yunyang Prefecture and Yuanzhou in Chenzhou Prefecture. Why are these two cities?
Because Yunyang City is the residence of the governor of Yunyang. When the famous Lu Xiangsheng served as the governor of Yunyang, his residence was in Yunyang.

And Yuanzhou is the residence of Governor Pianyuan.

As the governor's residence, these two cities naturally became the political centers. In the huge Huguang area, the political status of these two places surpassed that of Zhongxiang, Xiangyang and Changsha of Ming Chengtian Mansion.

It is worth mentioning that in the Ming Dynasty, the governor's jurisdiction and the chief minister's jurisdiction, that is, the provinces, were two different things.

The administrative envoy's jurisdiction is a province in the traditional sense. For example, the envoy of Huguang governs the entire Huguang area.

In the case of the governor's jurisdiction, it may be a province, or it may span multiple provinces, or it may be just a few state capitals under one province.

Therefore, there is no such thing as one province and one governor these days. The governor's jurisdiction is mainly formulated based on military needs and changes due to changes in turmoil.

For example, the governor of Yunyang, whose jurisdiction includes the state capitals of the four provinces of Huguang, Shaanxi, Henan, and Sichuan.

Another example is the governor of Pianyuan, which also includes Huguang, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places.

The governor of southern Jiangxi covers the four provinces of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, and Huguang.

The governor of Huguang refers to some areas in Huguang Province, not the entire Huguang Province.

Looking at the chief envoy and the governor's jurisdiction, it can basically be seen that the governor's power in the middle and late Ming Dynasty was heavily biased towards military affairs.

But because the governors belong to the civil servants dispatched by Gyeonggi, and most of them have titles such as the censor of the capital, the censor of the capital, and even the right servant of the Ministry of War, and almost all the governors are dispatched with "admiral military affairs" and hold a large army.

Regardless of whether it is in terms of political status or actual authority, the governor surpasses the local chief secretary, and according to local officials such as the inspector, ranks above the third secretary.

Therefore, most of the governors in the late Ming Dynasty also controlled part of the authority of administration and supervision. Up to now, the governors have become the actual highest officials in the local military administration.

In this way, the political status of each governor's residence gradually increased, and eventually became the local political center.

This is true for Wuchang, Yunyang, and Yuanzhou.

After the three major governors, the political status is more important because Ming Chengtian Mansion governs Zhongxiang, not for anything else, because this place is the hometown of Emperor Jiajing, this is from the Ming court. It can be seen that it was changed to Chengtian Mansion, a mansion name with special meaning.

After Zhong Xiang passed, it was Xiangyang and Changsha. Among them, Xiangyang, as the number one city in the Central Plains, was undoubtedly more important, so Changsha still had to go to the back row.

Before the rise of the Great Chu Empire, Changsha's political status, in the Huguang area, was about sixth or seventh...

However, all this changed after the rise of the Great Chu Empire and the capture of Northern Chu.

Last year, the Great Chu Empire successively conquered all parts of northern Chu. Important cities such as Xiangyang, Yunyang, Zhongxiang, Jiangling, and Hanyang fell under the control of the Great Chu Empire one by one. The strategically important Wuchang also became the forefront.

At that time, the Ming court arrested and imprisoned Tang Hui, the prime minister of military affairs of the five provinces and governor of Huguang, and reinstated Yang Sichang as the new prime minister of military affairs of the five provinces and governor of Huguang.

It's just that the process of seizing love and recovering is more troublesome. It took two or three months before and after. of the capital.

This made Yang Sichang even lose his place of office...

Therefore, Yang Sichang had no choice but to make a second choice and choose Changsha, which had a more important strategic position, as his base.

As a result, Changsha immediately became the political center of the entire Huguang region and even the surrounding provinces and regions under the Ming court.

Yang Sichang, he is not just the governor of Huguang, the governor of Huguang is just a part-time job of his, even if it is the prime minister of the military affairs of the five provinces, it is just his dispatch.

The official of the family is the right servant of the Ministry of war and the right deputy imperial envoy, which is half a rank higher than the right servant of the military department and the right censor of the general governor.

With such a big man sitting in Changsha, Changsha will naturally become one of the political centers in the entire southern region. In the south of the Yangtze River, apart from Yingtianfu Jinling City, Changsha is the most important for the time being.

However, this city, which has been very important to the Ming court for the past six months, is now closed tightly. There are still soldiers patrolling back and forth on the top of the city, and there is panic inside the city.

All this is because a few days ago, people in Changsha city learned the news that the new standard army left army was wiped out in the outskirts of Yiyang, and Yiyang city and Wuling city fell.

It's because yesterday, Chu bandit cavalrymen wearing gray robes and shaved heads appeared one after another outside Changsha City!
Although a large number of Chu rebels have not yet arrived, anyone with a discerning eye knows that the army of Chu rebels is not far from Changsha.

In the city, Yang Sichang was in a very bad mood these two days.

When he learned that the left army of the new standard army, which he had high hopes for, had been wiped out, he almost failed to stabilize his mentality...

The Zuo Army of the new standard army, but before he officially took office, he began to prepare painstakingly. In order to build the Zuo Army of the new standard army, he tried his best to collect money and food, recruit craftsmen to build guns, and even for the Zuo Army of the new standard army to be able to He played a role at the critical moment, and he still cast doubts on his old ways. While hiding the left army, he set up a new standard army and the right army in Changsha with great fanfare, trying to confuse the Chu thieves.

But I still didn't expect that the Chu thieves had just gone south, and the main force didn't come to Changsha. Instead, they went west with their heads covered, and sent tens of thousands of garrison troops south with great fanfare, confusing the Ming army's spies.

By the time Yang Sichang in Changsha figured out that the Chu thieves going south were just a group of garrison troops, it was already too late when none of the thieves had the main force.

Because at that time, the main force of the Chu army had already appeared in Yiyang City and surrounded the left army of the new standard army.

Well, even though Yang Sichang didn't know it at the time, he also felt the crisis, so he quickly sent someone to warn his cousin Yang Sixing, telling him to act cautiously, and if he encountered the main force of the bandit army, he should immediately return to Wuling City.

But just a day after his messengers were sent out, they received a report of an attack on the north, and the left army of the new standard army had been completely wiped out.

The end of the new standard army Zuojun not only means that the more than 5000 main forces that Yang Sichang painstakingly managed for half a year disappeared, but also directly led to a sudden change in the situation in the entire south of Chu as follows.

In the whole of Chu Nan, there was no longer a second main force that could counter the Chu thieves.

In such a situation, Chu Nan is in danger!
Regarding this, Yang Sichang was very anxious, but there was nothing he could do.

Now he has mobilized all the troops he can mobilize, and even the thousands of guards under the remote governor to guard against the local chieftain have been mobilized to Changsha by him.

However, even so, the defensive force in Changsha City is only [-].

These [-] troops seem to be a lot, but there are few guns, bows and arrows and armor.

The only ones who can be pulled out to fight are the more than 2000 people from the right army of the new standard army and about [-] soldiers and family members under the generals.

As for the others, no matter what battalion sentry soldiers, ordinary guard soldiers temporarily pulled into battle, or simply young and strong civilian husbands, they cannot fight.

Under such circumstances, the chances of defending Changsha will definitely not be greater than the chances of defending Linxiang.

When Yang Sichang was frowning in Changsha, the Chu army north of Changsha went south unhurriedly.

The sixth garrison division and the eighth garrison division, which went south many days in advance, were unhappy at first, and then they simply stopped in a small town on the way.

The main force led by Luo Zhixue himself, after the war in Yiyang City and Wuling City ended, moved southward relatively quickly at first, but after taking Ningxiang, the overall speed of going southward also slowed down.

Now, the main force led by Luo Zhixue has just joined the Sixth and Eighth Defense Divisions.

After the rendezvous, the army slowly went south, while sending a partial division east to attack Liuyang, and also dispatched a partial division to bypass and attack Xiangtan.

According to the combat plan formulated by the General Staff, before the army formally besieged Changsha, the two outlying cities of Liuyang and Xiangtan should be destroyed as much as possible, so as to cut off the connection between Changsha and other places, and prevent the external Ming army from reinforcing Changsha.

At the same time, it is also to see if it is possible to attract the Changsha defenders to send troops to rescue, so that they can come to help and wipe out the strength of the Changsha defenders in the field as much as possible.

It's a pity that the Changsha defenders were so stubborn that they didn't even have the slightest idea of ​​sending troops. They watched Liuyang and Xiangtan being taken by the Chu army's partial division.

Since the Ming army defended Changsha, Luo Zhixue had nothing to hesitate, and directly led the army to the outside of Changsha.

On April [-]th, the second year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire, the Chu army, who had been on the road for several days, finally arrived outside Changsha City and began to build camps and fortifications.

Tens of thousands of Chu troops camped outside the city. Looking out from the top of the city gate, the densely packed tents could hardly see the camera at a glance.

Yang Sichang looked at the bandit army outside the city with a solemn expression!

Rao has been in Changsha commanding the army to fight against the Chu thieves for half a year, but in fact this is the first time he has seen the Chu thieves army with his own eyes.

Although the Chu thief's camp was still relatively far away, he could still vaguely see the Chu thief, just like the rumors said, dressed in gray.

Regardless of whether it is the normal clothes or the outer layer of the cloth armor, the main tone is gray. A large group of thieves gather together, just like the dark clouds floating in the sky, which makes people feel depressed.

On the contrary, the rumored Chu thieves' bald heads looked good, because many Chu thieves either wore helmets or gray felt hats.

But the focus of Yang Sichang's attention is not these, but the large number of artillery among these Chu thieves.

Even though it was far away, Yang Sichang still saw batch after batch of hundreds of artillery pieces!
When he saw the Chu bandits' artillery units approaching from afar one after another, his mouth was half open and he couldn't close it for a long time...

How much money did the murderous Chu thief spend to build so many artillery pieces!
At this moment, he suddenly understood and even understood why Wuchang, Linxiang and other cities fell, and he also understood that the left army of his cousin Yang Sixing could not hold on for even two days.

There are hundreds of all kinds of long-barreled field guns, medium and large mortars for this damn Chu thief!

(End of this chapter)