I want to be emperor

Chapter 343

In order to capture Jinling City before the snow fell, the Chu army moved relatively quickly after capturing Hukou. Even in order to continue eastward, they did not allocate the main force to attack some small surrounding cities.

For these small cities, they are basically left to the garrison to attack, although the Chu army also dispatched a small number of main forces as the core backbone.

But these main forces are mainly used to suppress the field, to prevent the garrison from being ambushed, and by the way, to serve as the supervisory team.

As for the work of siege, in addition to the artillery support of the main force, the battle between the infantry is still dominated by the infantry of the garrison.

In this way, it is also possible to take advantage of the large number of surrendered soldiers recruited during the Battle of the Eastward Campaign, so as not to let them eat for free...

During the Eastward Campaign, according to the previous rules of the Chu army, a large number of surrendered soldiers were reorganized. Except for some elites in the new standard army who were directly supplemented to the main forces, the other part of the new standard army and the battalion sentry Soldiers, etc., are basically incorporated into the garrison.

In a series of battles in Jiujiang, plus a series of battles such as the subsequent attack on Wuchang, the Chu army accepted a large number of surrendered troops and reorganized the No.11 garrison division and No.12 garrison division. The Seventh Garrison Division has also regained full strength.

And these three garrison divisions are also the main forces of the Chu army to fight in the Jiangxi area and even Chizhou Prefecture, Huizhou Prefecture and other areas to attack various non-strategic places.

After the Chu army continued to advance eastward and captured Chizhou Mansion one after another, and killed Taiping Mansion.

Luo Zhixue selected people from the surrendered troops to set up the No.13 Garrison Division.

At the same time, the No.14 garrison division was also set up in the Jiangbei area with surrendered troops.

After capturing Wuhu, Luo Zhixue officially established the Anlu governor area, which governed Chizhou, Huizhou, Ningguo, Taiping, Anqing, Luzhou, and Hezhou in the south of the Yangtze River.

The governor's resident is Anqing. At the same time, the Anlu Garrison Headquarters was established to temporarily govern the No.13 Garrison Division and the No.14 Garrison Division.

However, in the province of Anlu, the garrison troops fighting are not limited to these two garrison divisions, but also the fifth garrison division and the seventh garrison division.

It's just that the Fifth Garrison Division belongs to the Chubei Garrison Command, and the Seventh Garrison Division belongs to the Jiangxi Garrison Command.

At the same time, because these two garrison divisions are fighting outside, they are actually directly under the command of the staff. If nothing else, the two garrison divisions with relatively strong combat effectiveness will continue to fight with the first army and the second army respectively. Will not stay in Chubei or Jiangxi.

The combat effectiveness of the garrison of the Chu army is naturally not enough in front of the main division, and the quality of the soldiers and the level of equipment are far inferior.

But if compared with the battalion sentinels in the Ming army, they can be regarded as relatively capable of fighting.

After all, the garrison in the Chu army, except for a few soldiers from the original new standard army who were not selected as the main force, most of them were actually elite soldiers selected from the sentinels of the Ming army camp.

Not all prisoners of war can join the garrison of the Chu army if they want to. The proportion of the entire selection is about one-half, or even about one-third.

At the same time, even if these are garrison troops, their equipment may not be good, but the food supply is not bad.

After all, the Chu army was not short of food, and they would not treat soldiers as harshly as the Ming army. As long as they were soldiers fighting for Luo Zhixue, at least they could get enough food.

The quality of this food supply may be slightly worse than that of the main force, but the quantity is definitely enough.

When the food supply came up, it immediately captured the morale of the soldiers of the garrison.

On the one hand, there is not enough to eat every day, and on the other hand, there is enough to eat every day. This difference alone is enough to make the soldiers of the Chu army's garrison burst out with a stronger morale than the sentinels of the Ming army camp.

At the same time, the equipment is generally better. Although the weapons and armor they equip are all weapons and equipment captured from the Ming army, but because of the large amount of captured equipment, and at the same time, only a part of the soldiers were selected to be selected as the garrison during the reorganization process. Therefore, the reorganization process Here, the garrison basically did not use traditional equipment such as swords and spears.

The armor and artillery may be a bit worse, but proportionally speaking, they are much stronger than the battalion sentinels of the Ming army.

In addition, there is another more critical point, that is, the garrison divisions in the Chu army are also equipped with field artillery. Even if it is only two and a half catties of field artillery, a division is only a field artillery battalion with only twelve guns. some.

The soldiers in the traditional battalion sentry, together with the field artillery, this way is actually similar to the way Hong Chengchou took.

Hong Chengchou also continued to use the old-style battalion sentinel, and then directly matched the new-style thief-killing gun, that is, the field gun, to fight.

Not to mention, the effect is not bad.

The cost of building an army is low, the cost is relatively small, and the combat effectiveness can be guaranteed.

Such a garrison of the Chu army is often handy when attacking some small cities and taking charge of some secondary fronts.

So much so that some civil and military officials of the Ming court on the opposite side were greatly puzzled.

These Chu thieves were obviously part of their officers and soldiers not long ago, and their combat effectiveness was not very good.

Why did they go to Chu thief's side, the people were still the same people, and even the equipment was the same equipment, so the fighting power soared all of a sudden.

This is unreasonable!
While a large number of local officials in the Ming court were puzzled and even cursed, several garrison divisions in the Chu army attacked the city and plundered land all the way.

In Jiangxi on the southern front, the No.11 garrison division first captured Ruizhou Prefecture, then Yuanzhou Prefecture, and finally joined forces with the [-]th garrison division affiliated to the South Chu Defense Command in Pingxiang.

The other garrison division of the Jiangxi Garrison Command, the No.12 garrison division, is located in Raozhou Prefecture and Guangxin Prefecture. Now the soldiers have reached the Jiangshan area of ​​​​Zhejiang, which is adjacent to Guangxin Prefecture. Continue to fight like this in the follow-up. At the same time, if the Ming army in Zhejiang is not strong enough, maybe the No. 12 garrison division can fight alone to the Jinhua area in the hinterland of Zhejiang.

These two garrison divisions continued to fight on two lines, one east and one west, which also freed up the Seventh Division, the main force of the Chu Army in the Jiangxi area, to continue to attack important cities in the Ganjiang River Basin and other areas.

The Seventh Division captured Fengcheng first, then went south to Linjiang, and the other brigade captured Fuzhou.

Immediately afterwards, the two brigades of the Seventh Division rushed towards Ji'an Mansion from two directions.

There were not many Ming troops in Ji'an Mansion, and they couldn't stop the onslaught of the Seventh Division. At the beginning of October, after the Seventh Division of the Chu Army captured Wan'an and Longquan, the southernmost places in the Central Jiangxi Plain, basically The entire Ji'an Mansion was declared to be completely under the rule of the Great Chu Empire.

However, the seventh division also took the initiative to stop and continue southward.

This is because if you continue to go south, you will enter the Ganzhou Prefecture area, and this place has many mountains and rough roads. For troops like the Seventh Division, which have a lot of artillery and a lot of ammunition, these places are very unfriendly. ...

The mobile marching speed of the troops is difficult to guarantee, and the logistical security is difficult to guarantee, and they are easily ambushed by the enemy.

The Chu army had encountered this kind of trouble before in the southern and western regions of southern Chu and even in the eastern Sichuan region.

It's not that you can't fight, but it's more troublesome to fight, and the time is much slower.

Not to mention other things, it is not easy just to pull these five-pound field guns weighing thousands of catties or even nine-pound field guns weighing two to three thousand catties.

Without these powerful field artillery, the combat effectiveness of the Chu army will drop by at least half immediately. If you don't want to take the lives of the light infantry directly to pile up, then you can only slowly open the road and build bridges, waiting for the field artillery to slow down. up.

This is also the reason why the progress of the Chu army in the above-mentioned areas is very slow.

Now the Chu army's operations in the Jiangxi area have also entered this stage, limited by the terrain, and at the same time, the Chu army is unwilling to let the main force suffer a lot of casualties, so naturally there is no way to make a quick victory.

But more importantly, after the Chu army took Ji'an Mansion, the Great Chu Empire has basically controlled most of the population gathering places and grain-producing areas in the central and northern regions of Jiangxi.

As for Ganzhou Mansion in the south and some other mountainous areas, they are not very attractive to the Chu army in a short period of time.

Under such circumstances, most of the resources of the Great Chu Empire need to be supplied to the eastward campaign to maintain the army's continuous operations in the Jiangbei and Jiangnan regions.

In the case of limited resources, especially ammunition supply, the Logistics Department of the Great Chu Empire Military Affairs Academy basically gave priority to replenishing all kinds of ammunition to the Jiangbei and Jiangnan regions. In the end, the logistics department simply cut off most of the ammunition supply to Jiangxi.

Now that the Seventh Division is fighting in Jiangxi, it seems to have a lot of artillery, but they dare not let go to fight, otherwise the ammunition will be used up in minutes, and the artillery will become useless.

In the absence of ammunition supplies, after entering October, the large-scale offensive of the main force of the Chu army in the Jiangxi area was actually suspended.

But the main force couldn't fight because of lack of ammunition, but the garrison with few firearms could still continue to fight.

Especially the No.12 garrison division, even after entering October, even if it is far away from the rear supply station, it still relies on local recruitment of food to strongly maintain the combat effectiveness of its cold weapon troops.

Forcibly relying on traditional cold weapons to fight, they successively won Jiangshan and Changshan, and completely opened the door to enter the western part of Zhejiang. The governor of Zhejiang and other officials were greatly frightened, and they began to mobilize troops from all over the province to reinforce Quzhou, In order to prevent the Chu thieves from entering the hinterland of Zhejiang.

The outstanding performance of the No.12 garrison even attracted the attention of Luo Zhixue, the current emperor of the Great Chu Empire in Dangtu.

Looking at the battle report of the No.12 garrison division sent by Jiangxi, Luo Zhixue nodded slightly and said, "It seems that Chen Yongfu was chosen as the division commander, and he did not choose the wrong person. He is really good at fighting."

Xu Zhixian said: "Your Majesty is still wise, with a pair of insightful eyes. If you hadn't promoted him to be the teacher, Your Majesty, even if he has all kinds of abilities, Chen Yongfu would not be able to show it!"

"There is also He Renlong. Now he is leading the No.14 garrison division to fight well in Jiangbei, and this is all because of your majesty, you employ people well!"

After hearing this, Luo Zhixue chuckled. Although he knew that Xu Zhixian was flattering him, Luo Zhixue was in a good mood when he heard it.

Not everyone dared to use the surrendered general so reassuringly and boldly, and let the surrendered general directly serve as the commander-in-chief of the first army.

But he, Luo Zhixue, dared!
Although Han Tong placed a lot of secret sighs around these two people, any slight changes in these two people would be dead.

But...

Almost every senior general in the Chu army had Hantong's spies by his side, so Luo Zhixue did not treat Chen Yongfu and He Renlong as special.

All are treated equally.

And this kind of equal treatment is not something that every superior can give to those surrendered generals.

But Luo Zhixue dared to give it to him!
As long as Luo Zhixue works hard for him, Luo Zhixue will never begrudge the title of high official and rich salary.

In the same way, as long as he dares to have second thoughts about him, Luo Zhixue, then Luo Zhixue will never hesitate, and those who should be exterminated will be exterminated.

Fortunately, at least there are no high-level second-five boys in the Great Chu Empire. After all, the empire is currently expanding at a high speed, and the prospects are quite good, and many discerning people can see that the Great Chu Empire continues to expand like this. It is appropriate to talk about unifying China, but it is appropriate to separate half of the country.

Now is the time to make meritorious deeds, a little bit of effort and wealth will be obtained, there is no need to be a traitor.

As for traitors in the middle and lower ranks, that was unavoidable, and Luo Zhixue didn't take it to heart.

Because of the expansion of the Great Chu Empire, many people have seen further hope, which has led to the ability to unite the civil servants and generals under their command.

But on Ming Ting's side, the situation is reversed.

When the Ming court issued an order to dismiss Wang Jiazhen, arrest him and put him in prison, he replaced him with Empress Fan Jingwen who only talked about living and dying with Jinling City every day, but actually had no way out.

Many people in Jinling City had strange thoughts.

Those who only want to run away are worthy of Ming Ting and Chongzhen.

There are still many people who don't run away, don't want to resist, but want to hook up with the Chu thief, and want to turn around and become the official of Da Chu.

Many people even use Xie Xuelong and Shi Kefa as examples to convince themselves and others.

The governor, Xie Xuelong and Shi Kefa, who are deeply favored by the emperor, can both join the Chu bandits, and this Xie Xuelong has become Jiangxi's chief envoy, and Shi Kefa has become the right servant of the Ministry of War. Why can't they do it?
Everyone is a courtier of Ming Dynasty, no one is more noble than anyone else.

What Shi Kefa and the others can do, we can do too.

Therefore, many people really hooked up with the Chu thieves, and wanted to use Jinling City, Fan Jingwen and others as votes, so that they could continue to be high-ranking officials after they arrived at the Great Chu Empire.

Among these people, there is a very special person, that is Li Yuankui, the right servant of the Nanjing Ministry of Industry.

Because this person is the real big boss behind Fenghe Trading Company.

And Fenghe Commercial Bank is the first-tier supplier of various strategic materials of the Great Chu Empire, and it is also the largest single supplier of strategic materials.

Just this year, the Great Chu Empire has purchased various strategic materials with a total of 160 million taels of silver through Fenghe Commercial Bank.

Behind the rise of the Great Chu Empire is the great contribution of Fenghe Commercial Bank.

Because as the real big boss of Fenghe Commercial Bank, Li Yuankui also made great contributions to the Great Chu Empire.

The Great Chu Empire had promised Li Yuankui a long time ago that when the army entered Jinling City, it was the beginning of his Li family enjoying the top glory and wealth.

But just like this, Li Yuankui was worried and dissatisfied.

He wanted to reflect more of his value, so that he could obtain a real high-ranking official position in the Great Chu Empire, not just a dispensable position.

He has even set his sights on the target official position: the right servant of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade.

It's not Shi Kefa's nameless right servant of the Ministry of War, but the right servant of the Ministry of Commerce with real power!
But if you want to gain real power, you need to show your own value and pay enough.

And he has already been doing this. Now when Fenghe Commercial Bank purchases various materials for Dachu, except for the cost of goods, channel transportation costs, and maintenance operating costs, Fenghe Commercial Bank has no net profit at all, let alone huge profits. up.

But just this is not enough, Li Yuankui wants to play a big ticket, so big that the Great Chu Empire is willing to offer himself the position of the right servant of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade with real power.

(End of this chapter)