I want to be emperor

Chapter 335 Xie Xuelong's Pledge of Allegiance (Two in One)

Conquering Nanchang did not cause any major surprises within the Great Chu Empire, after all, it was already expected.

Even though Nanchang is the provincial government of Jiangxi, it cannot conceal the fact that its city defenses are sparse and the garrison is scarce.

In the past, Wang Jiazhen, Shi Kefa and other senior governors on the east line of the Ming court, in order to build the Jiujiang line of defense and keep the Chu army out of Jiujiang, basically searched for governors of Anlu, Jiujiang, and some governors of Yingtian and Nanjiang. Most of the troops in the surrounding areas such as the governor of Jiangxi.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to gather nearly [-] troops on the Jiujiang defense line.

However, in this way, it also means that Nanchang, Fuzhou, Ruizhou, Linjiang and other cities in the rear are unlikely to have many troops stationed.

Under such circumstances, when the Chu army was on the front line of Jiujiang, they annihilated more than 8000 Ming troops by conquering Jiujiang prefecture, and after two battles in the De'an suburban battle and the De'an siege battle, they wiped out about [-] Ming troops. people.

This also means that most of the troops deployed by the Ming court on the Jiujiang defense line have been wiped out, leaving only less than [-] troops stationed at Hukou.
It also means that the huge north-central region of Jiangxi has completely opened the door to the Chu army.

After all, even a provincial capital like Nanchang in the rear only has two or three thousand troops stationed there, plus about two thousand troops who fled from De'an and went south.All the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, together with the defeated soldiers, are only five thousand.

As for the defenders of other cities, there are even fewer, and there are none of the new standard troops.

Even if the Chu army only sent a newly formed army, the [-]th Division, which was not yet fully formed, went south with the cooperation of the [-]st Cavalry Brigade, and did not even allocate an independent artillery regiment dedicated to attacking the city. It won't be a big problem.

The actual combat also proved this point.

After the Seventh Division took De'an with an almost unstoppable posture, it quickly took Nanchang City with the cooperation of the Ming army who instigated rebellion in Nanchang City.

The so-called Battle of Nanchang seemed to have been blocked and prepared for several days ahead, but the actual battle broke out only lasted about one morning.

The Seventh Division of the Chu Army who entered the city took full control of Nanchang City in only one morning, and ensured the safety of many official warehouses and private grain storehouses in the city without causing a fire.

After taking Nanchang City, the main force of the Seventh Division did not stay in Nanchang City for long, but handed over the local defense to the No. The brigade cooperated to go south.

The follow-up tasks of the Seventh Division and the First Cavalry Brigade are still very heavy. They will continue to sweep many prefectures and counties in the northern and central regions of Jiangxi.

Although these prefectures and counties do not have the main force of the Ming army, they will more or less have some troops garrisoned, and there are still quite a few cities with 2000 people garrisoned.

To deal with these cities with few garrison troops, the seventh division of the main force of the Chu army going south was also very straightforward. With two infantry brigades as the core, it was matched with cavalry, artillery and other troops to form two troops of 5000 each. The multi-person mixed brigade combat detachment went south.

One, the No.13 brigade went straight to Fengcheng along the Ganjiang River, and then the department will continue to go south along the Ganjiang River, attack Linjiang Mansion, Ji'an Mansion and other areas, and finally fight all the way to Ganzhou Mansion.

One, namely the No.14 Brigade, will head southeast and attack Jinxian first, then attack Fuzhou Prefecture and Jianchang Prefecture. Mansion, Raozhou Mansion and other places, and finally Chen Bing in Hukou, cooperated with the First Division and other troops to launch a cross-river operation.

Of course, the premise is that the first division and other troops have not been able to launch the cross-river operation for a long time.

After all, the No. 14 brigade wanted to fight all the way to the north and south, and finally went to Hukou. Even with the cooperation of the first cavalry brigade, the difficulty was not small, and the most important thing was that it would take a lot of time.

If you want to wait until the No.14 brigade completes many tasks and finally dispatches troops to Hukou, it will probably take a month or two.

The first division and other troops cannot wait so long.

The time for the Chu army to advance eastward is still relatively tight. At least try to win the sleeping place in winter, and it is best to win Jinling City directly.

In this way, it is doomed that it is impossible for the Chu army to waste a month or two in Hukou. ,

As for whether it is possible to let the southward force of the Seventh Division not sweep across the central and northern regions of Jiangxi, but directly bypass Poyang Lake and go directly to the mouth of the lake.

From a military point of view, this decision is possible.

But economically it is not worth the candle.

Don't forget that the direct reason for the Chu army's eastward advance is to unify China in a big way, but in a small way, the goal of the Chu army's eastward advance is very simple and pure.

That is to enter northern Jiangxi and Jiangnan to seize local money and food to avoid financial bankruptcy!

So after defeating Jiujiang and entering northern Jiangxi, the first goal of the Chu army is not to annihilate how many Ming armies and conquer how many cities, but to take advantage of the Ming army's reaction, well, those powerful gentry and big households run away with money and food Before the road, it swept across the northern and southern regions of Jiangxi with lightning speed, especially those areas of the Ganjiang River system with developed water transportation and a lot of fertile land.

And this is also the most important strategic task of the Seventh Division.

To put it bluntly, the money and food needed for the subsequent eastward advance of the Chu army are all waiting for the Seventh Division to collect money and food from the attacking land.

Therefore, it is impossible for the Seventh Division to say that it would not seize so much money and food, but instead carried out a purely military mission and went directly to Hukou.

War is the continuation of politics, and politics is the continuation of economics.

After all, war is essentially a struggle of interests.

As for wars that are purely due to conflicts of will, there are very few wars, and most of the wars are due to conflicts of interests.

What is benefit?

Money and food!

Behind the money and food, it represents national strength, whether the people can have enough to eat, and whether the capitalists can make money, and it represents too many things.

The eastward advance of the Chu army was directly driven by benefits, money and food.

After the seventh division went south, it launched a sweep, and a garrison division in the rear, that is, the No.11 garrison division, after completing the reorganization, went south one after another and cooperated with the seventh division and the first cavalry brigade to sweep.

The basic mode is that the elite cavalry units of the [-]st Cavalry Brigade will kill the city first, blockade and block the enemy's escape route, and then the main infantry and artillery of the [-]th Division will follow up to attack the city.

After the attack, the troops of the No. 11 garrison division will follow up and be responsible for the follow-up operations to suppress the garrison.

At the same time, the garrison also needs to be responsible for maintaining the security of the logistics line of the troops going south.

Therefore, the troops going south to fight are not only the seventh division and the first cavalry brigade, but also the No.11 garrison division.

And the No.11 garrison division gradually expanded in size because it continued to accept surrendered troops in the process of going south.

After the Battle of De'an, the No.8000 Garrison Division, which had only about 11 people at the time, accepted about 3000 troops selected from it.

After the Battle of Nanchang, the No.11 Garrison Division accepted another 2000 selected soldiers.

At this time, the size of the No.11 Garrison Division has expanded to about 1 people.

But this has not been played yet, and soon as the Seventh Division continued to carry out combat operations in various state capitals in Jiangxi, a large number of prisoners were reorganized and qualified soldiers were selected.

Soon, the size of the No.11 Garrison Division had expanded to more than 5000 people, and even in order to arrange for so many surrenders, a temporary supplementary brigade had to be established.

Naturally, a garrison with so many troops will not do.

The garrison division of the Chu army consists of one division and two brigades, plus a field artillery battalion, supply regiment, engineering battalion, and cavalry battalion.

It is not normal to have three brigades, so the Military Affairs Council soon issued an order. The No.11 Garrison Division Supplementary Brigade was independent and expanded into the No.12 Garrison Brigade. The troops received by various ministries in Jiangxi will be replenished one after another. into the division.

In this way, the combat strength of the Great Chu Empire's army in Jiangxi's south and south has reached the designation of one main division, two garrison divisions and one cavalry brigade.

Based on the fact that there are a lot of troops going south, and at the same time, the Chu army has been facing mixed operations between the main force and the garrison for a long time, but there is also a situation where the main force is frequently mobilized, and the garrison is often stationed in a certain place for a long time.

Luo Zhixue began to make certain changes to the command system of the garrison.

This led to the emergence of the Jiangxi Garrison Command.

The Jiangxi Garrison Command is in charge of the garrison forces in Jiangxi, and is responsible for many civilian tasks such as conscription, military and civilian work.

It is worth noting that this Jiangxi Garrison Command only governs the Seventh Garrison Division, the No.11 Garrison Division, and the No.12 Garrison Division.

The other main forces that are also fighting in Jiangxi are not under the command of this garrison command.

However, in order to allow the garrison to better cooperate with the main force in operations, the commander of the Jiangxi garrison headquarters was concurrently served by Major General Huang Xiangbin, commander of the Seventh Division.

In addition, not only in Jiangxi, but also in several other places, a unified garrison command was established.

For the time being, there is the Henan Garrison Command, which is actually the former North Route Army Command, mainly the First Garrison Division fighting in Dang Nanyang Mansion.

Shaanxi Garrison Command, this is the former West Route Army Command, mainly the Second Garrison Division fighting in the Guanzhong Prefecture area

The Sichuan Garrison Command, which is a newly established force, is dominated by the Fourth Garrison Division of the Garrison Army that previously fought in eastern Sichuan.

The Chubei Garrison Command was also set up to govern the Fifth Garrison Division.

The Chunan Garrison Command was established, with jurisdiction over the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Garrison Divisions.

And Han Tianfu, that is, Gyeonggi, because of its special status, does not have a garrison headquarters. The Gyeonggi Garrison Command continues to manage various civilian positions such as recruiting soldiers, military and civilians, and the Gyeonggi Garrison Command nominally also governs the Guards.

In this way, the Great Chu Empire has already set up a garrison command in the provinces that are fully or partially controlled, that is, the provinces where the governors have been established, and it is clear that the garrison command has many tasks such as conscription, military and civilian.

As a result, a relatively complete system of local force command systems has been formed.

It is worth noting that the main forces of the Great Chu Empire Army are still not under the jurisdiction of the garrison headquarters.

Regardless of whether it is the temporary mixed regiments, the main divisions, or even some other independent main forces, or the Guards, they are all not under the command of the garrison headquarters, but directly under the jurisdiction of the Military Affairs Council.

Through the establishment of the garrison command, Luo Zhixue once again clarified the difference between the main division and the garrison division.

One is the main field force, and the other is the local garrison.

Different tasks, different resource allocation.

After all, the garrison troops in the Chu army were originally just to settle a large number of prisoners of war, and by the way, selected some soldiers who could fight for their own use.

But I really never expected to rely on these garrison troops to fight.

In fact, the combat effectiveness of these garrison troops is not very good. It is okay to use them to deal with the battalion sentinels in the Ming army, but it is obviously not enough to deal with the new standard troops in the Ming army.

If it is said that the follow-up went north and confronted Dongyao, these garrison troops would also be sent to death as cannon fodder.

Therefore, in Luo Zhixue's mind, these garrison troops were just a temporary measure, to be used first.

When the combat tasks are not tense, or the garrison of a certain garrison has become the hinterland of the rear, after there are no combat tasks.

Then these garrison troops should be further streamlined, and the truly usable elites should be selected and reorganized into the main force. Although the quality of the garrison divisions is a little bit poor, they are picked and picked, and one division is downsized into a mixed regiment organized by the main force. Barely can.

Such a mixed regiment with the main force and equipment is much stronger than a garrison division.

And select the remaining soldiers of the garrison army and arrange to go to the fields to support themselves in order to save military expenses.

After several years of farming, depending on the situation, they will be transferred to the frontier for reclamation, or simply retired and demobilized so that they can become farmers or workers again.

After such an integration, there will be no garrison left.

Through the establishment of the garrison headquarters in each province, the top military officials once again knew Luo Zhixue's attitude towards the garrison and his future arrangements.

First reorganize them to take on secondary combat missions, and when there are no missions, they will be directly streamlined, and the elite will be selected and trained as the main force. The rest will be cultivated and retired after a few years.

In this way, a large number of surrendered soldiers can be arranged, so that these surrendered soldiers will not be allowed to wander to other places to endanger public security, or even turn into thieves, and at the same time, the support of military expenditure can be continuously controlled.

The top military officials are also very supportive of this.

Now the military expenditure is too huge, and a large part of the military expenditure is actually the cost of personnel.

Because of the particularity of the garrison from prisoners of war, with the continuous expansion of the Great Chu Empire, the scale will inevitably continue to expand, and the expansion speed is faster than that of the main force.

In a battle of southern Chu, the Chu army expanded two garrison divisions.

It has been less than a month since the Eastward Campaign has been fully fought, but two garrison divisions have been expanded. When the fight continues, it is not known how many garrison divisions will be expanded.

And these garrison divisions, no matter how strong or weak they are, will cost money and food.

People have to eat, right?

There are more and more garrison divisions, and it has begun to seriously squeeze out the military expenditure share of the main force. Therefore, it is necessary to control the size of the garrison divisions.

As for the continuous streamlining and elimination of the garrison soldiers, in fact, the Great Chu Empire had already done this once last year.

When the capital was established in Wuchang, the garrison divisions under the command of the Great Chu Empire Army at that time probably had more than [-] troops in each division.

But after some streamlining, basically there were only more than 7000 people left in each division at that time. The laid-off garrison soldiers went to reclamation or engaged in construction work to support themselves.

Now, with the large-scale expansion of the defenders again, Luo Zhixue has directly clarified this method.

In the future, there will be a lot of cold weapons, no combat effectiveness, and the garrison, which is obviously behind the times, will not be able to lose its tail.

And when Luo Zhixue finalized the garrison headquarters of each province, and once again clarified the use of the garrison, a large amount of money and food was also collected from the northern and central regions of Jiangxi, and then collected into the official hands of the Great Chu Empire to support the next step. war.

Because after the capture of the central and northern regions of Jiangxi, a large amount of money and food was collected, Huang Chengxuan, the Minister of Finance, walked a lot straighter in recent days.

At the Imperial Counselor Meeting, Huang Chengxuan said with a smile on his face: "This time the army did a good job, and the tax department did an even better job. The various trophies captured in the south and the confiscated money and food of the recalcitrant dignitaries and gentry have been discounted. , plus the floating wealth in cash probably exceeds 800 million taels of silver, which is no less than what we gained in Chunan before."

"And a considerable part of it is precious food, which is even more rare."

Luo Zhixue also had a smile on his face: "Huang Aiqing still knows the importance and the urgency!"

Huang Xiangbin led the Seventh Division to fight south, which was actually very challenging. This challenge was not a military challenge, but an economic challenge.

How to fight can save and seize more money and food to the greatest extent.

This is a very critical question.

Going south to win battles is nothing, but being able to seize millions of taels of property is a real skill.

And Huang Xiangbin obviously did a very good job.

In the imperial meeting this time, there were several senior civil servants who participated in the meeting, and these civil officials were all talking about administrative or financial matters.

As for military affairs, that is a matter for the military, and Huang Chengxuan and Guo Quanshu are irrelevant.

At this meeting, apart from how to arrange the follow-up of the money and food seized in Jiangxi, the main topic was to finalize the candidates for the governor of Jiangxi, the chief envoy, the procurator, and the prefect of Nanchang and many other senior officials on the ground in Jiangxi.

Before the war, the Great Chu Empire had already established the Yamen of the prefect of Jiujiang Prefecture in advance, and began to initially build the Yamen of the Governor of Jiangxi.

However, more senior appointments have not been made in time.

Now that the army has successively captured most of Jiangxi, the selection of the governor of Jiangxi cannot be delayed.

After some deliberations, Luo Zhixue referred to many selected candidates in detail, and finally selected Han Yuanji, the former prefect of Huangzhou Prefecture and director of the Agriculture Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, as the governor of Jiangxi.

However, there are two special people among the others, that is, Huang Xingwen, who was demoted by the Ming court, and Xie Xuelong, who was captured.

When the city of Nanchang was broken, Huang Xingwen directly called out Luo Zhixue as His Majesty, and directly declared that the city would serve Great Chu.

And this person's identity is not simple, he is the deputy envoy of the inspectorate, the supervising army patrolling Ruizhou and other prefectures. He was valued by Shi Kefa and even Wang Jiazhen in the past. On the ground in Jiangxi, his political status is worse than that of Jiangxi governor Xie Xuelong. Some.

It doesn't matter whether this kind of person is sincere or not, but since they have publicly boarded the thief ship of the Great Chu Empire, it is naturally impossible for them to go down. Officer's hat, and sent a team of guards to 'protect' the man.

As for Xie Xuelong, he did not surrender, but was captured.

And this is also the first time that the Great Chu Empire has captured a high-ranking Ming court official at the governor level, and the political implications are extremely important.

Such a person naturally cannot let him die easily, let alone let him go.

In response to this person, Han Tong and the Military Intelligence Department directly cooperated and sent a team of elite spies to Xinghua in Nanzhili overnight, which is Xie Xuelong's hometown.

The kidnapping... No, it was to protect Xie Xuelong's immediate family members in his old home.

After all, Xie Xuelong had already been "surrendered" to the Great Chu Empire, and even the 6-word letter of allegiance, stamped with Xie Xuelong's personal seal, had already been published.

When Xie Xuelong saw this letter of loyalty, he was speechless...

When did I, Xie Xuelong, say that I would be loyal to you hypocrites?

But no matter what, after this letter of allegiance is announced, there is a high probability that the Ming court will be furious, and then the Xie family will be wiped out!
The Great Chu Empire naturally wanted to protect Xie Xuelong's family.

In the face of Xie Xuelong, a high-ranking official with strong political significance, Luo Zhixue had already made up his mind, regardless of what this person thinks, whether he is willing or not, and regardless of his ability, let alone his character,
He will hang this person high and act as a model!
It is a model used to attack the prestige of the Ming court, the morale of the Ming army, and boost one's own prestige and morale, as well as the hearts of the people.

"Look, even this kind of high-ranking official has defected to our Great Chu Empire, and you still surrender..."

As a result, Xie Xuelong, who was still imprisoned a few days ago, discovered that he had been "written" out of a letter of allegiance inexplicably, and then his detention became house arrest...

Just three days later, Xie Xuelong, who was still under house arrest, was appointed by Luo Zhixue as Jiangxi Chief Envoy.

Even if there are eight guards with knives and muskets staring at him, Xie Xuelong still firmly refuses, and his attitude is extremely tough. He said that he would rather die than become a hypocritical official. go!

Until a man from Hantong walked up to him and muttered a few words, he could vaguely hear something like killing the whole family...

In the end, Xie Xuelong sighed, knelt down obediently and accepted the imperial decree, and became a glorious civil servant of the Great Chu Empire.

Thus, in a series of battles in Jiangxi, a governor who was captured by the Great Chu Empire, and a vice envoy and supervisor who was second only to the governor in actual status, suddenly became an official of the Great Chu Empire.

Regardless of what they think in their hearts, but from the outside world, especially from Ming Ting's point of view, the two of them are already traitors!

(End of this chapter)