I want to be emperor

Chapter 414: The Northern Expedition Begins

Through continuous improvement, the cavalry unit has come up with the tactic of coordinating musket cavalry and assault cavalry, and then directly assigned two and a half kilograms of field artillery to the cavalry unit to increase the long-range firepower of the cavalry unit. After so many improvements , The confidence of the cavalry troops of the Chu army has greatly increased.

A cavalry brigade, plus multiple divisional cavalry regiments, in terms of the total number of cavalry, the Chu army's cavalry will not be less than the Ming army's cavalry on the opposite side.

In terms of combat effectiveness, through continuous improvement and many small-scale cavalry battles in December, it has also been proved that the current Chu army cavalry is also capable of fighting one-on-one, and can even occupy Tactical advantage.

This battle can be fought!

As for the biggest shortcoming of the Chu army, the cavalry said that there was nothing wrong with it, and the others would naturally have no problems.

When discussing the battle plan later, the overall atmosphere was relatively relaxed, and even Wei Kaifu of the Military and Political Department was still thinking about making fun of the Ming army on the opposite side: "Based on this calculation, there should be more than 3 new standard troops on the opposite side. It takes a lot of money, food and guns, could it be that they have sold their sons and daughters?"

Xu Zhixian explained with a smile: "According to our information, the money and food of these few of them are basically collected by themselves. The people in Jiangbei are suffering unspeakably now. I heard that even the salt merchants can't stand Song Zushun. He lost the water transport." The official title of the governor was demoted after being impeached because of the ruthless search.”

At this time, Li Chengtong, who was on the side, also said: "As far as the level of their new standard troops is concerned, how much money can they spend? The cost of their 3 people is not enough for us to support 1 people. I see, they are making money." All the money went into their own pockets!"

"However, after losing the supply of guns and ammunition from Zheng Zhilong and the Portuguese, they can still make a lot of guns by themselves. This is worth seeing!"

In the new standard army of the Ming court, especially the new standard army in the Jiangbei area, part of the source of their guns is that they summoned craftsmen to build them. Matchlock guns and field guns are not difficult for the craftsmen on the false Ming side It's just a matter of cost and time.

There are also some guns and ammunition that they purchased through Zheng Zhilong and the Portuguese before.

It's just that after Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Great Chu Empire, they completely lost all kinds of channels at sea, and could only rely on making their own guns.

At this time Xu Zhixian also said: "According to our information, their equipment level is not as good as before. There are more than 5000 new standard troops in Yangzhou, but there are only more than 20 long-barreled artillery. Not even a single new gun was added.”

"There are even fewer in Huai'an, only a dozen or so gates."

"Their new matchlock guns are also seriously insufficient. Our intelligence personnel have seen with their own eyes that many new standard troops are still using old-style bird guns."

"According to our judgment, the number of new standard troops in the Jiangbei area seems to be large, but the average quality should not be as good as the previous Huguang new standard troops and Guangdong and Guangxi new standard troops. Even the Jiangbei new standard troops in the Hezhou period are slightly worse. Some."

"It's probably easier to fight Jiangbei this time than to fight Jiujiang before."

Xu Zhixian's words were also recognized by others.

Although there are more enemies to face in this Jiangbei campaign, the number of new standard troops alone is [-], but considering that the quality of the enemy's new standard troops is not stronger, on the contrary, it has declined .

What's more important is that the strength of the Great Chu Empire's own side has been greatly enhanced during the Jiujiang Battle.

Even if you don't talk about the army strength of the entire Great Chu Empire, if you only count the ground troops currently fighting in the Jiangbei area, there are three divisions, one cavalry brigade and two artillery regiments.

At the same time, the military is also preparing to use the first division, the tenth division, and the No.11 division, the three main divisions equipped with flintlock guns and adopting new tactics, for operations in the Jiangbei area.

In this way, the Chu army can concentrate the strength of six main divisions in the Jiangbei area!

Coupled with the first cavalry brigade, multiple mortar regiments, and several independently attached troops, the strength of the main force alone will reach about 10.

And what about the Ming army?

Their new standard army adds up to about 3 people, and the guards only have more than 4 soldiers, and the total strength is no more than 7.

Even if you don't count the many differences in the quality and equipment of the two sides' troops, just in terms of military strength, the Ming army is at a disadvantage.

If the quality of soldiers and the level of equipment are included, the gap is even greater.

It is difficult to quantify the quality of soldiers, but it can still be compared through the food standards of soldiers.

After all, if you eat well, you can carry out high-intensity physical training. Only after training can the soldiers' physical fitness be better, and only with good physical fitness can they conduct high-intensity various tactics, fighting and other training. Excellent marching speed and the ability to fight for a long time, etc.

Whether the food is good or not has a huge effect on the overall quality of soldiers.

And this is also an important reason why Luo Zhixue has always firmly maintained a high standard of food in the army.

In addition to the quality of soldiers, there is actually a bigger gap between the two sides in terms of equipment levels.

Needless to say, the guards in the Ming army are just a group of cannon fodder with cold weapons and fire guns. No, many senior generals of the Ming army, such as Song Zushun and Yang Sichang, all feel that this group of cannon fodder is in the way. It's a waste of money and food, it's useless...

The guard soldiers under their hands are mostly used as auxiliary troops, repairing fortifications, transporting luggage and so on.

It is a bit similar to the auxiliary personnel of the transportation regiment and the construction battalion under the jurisdiction of the Chu Army's logistics department.

Even the new standard army in the Ming army, its equipment level is far inferior to that of the Chu army.

In terms of the most important artillery, an old field division in the Chu army, such as the artillery unit of the [-]st Guards Division currently fighting in Jiangbei, has a lot of artillery when it is fully staffed.

The divisional artillery regiment has twelve nine-pound field guns, 24 five-pound field guns and twelve 48-pound mortars.

Each infantry regiment, supply regiment, and cavalry regiment each have four 24-jin field guns and four 24-jin mortars, for a total of [-] [-]-jin field guns and [-] [-]-jin mortars.

The artillery of the First Guards Division alone is more than the total number of artillery of the Ming Army in the entire Jiangbei area!
Of course, there is currently only one First Guards Division in this full-stacked unit. As for other units, there will be shortages to a greater or lesser extent.

For example, the Eighth Division, which is also fighting in Jiangbei, currently only has eight nine-pound field guns, sixteen five-pound field cannons, and eighteen two-and-a-half-pound field cannons, and only twelve 24-pound mortars for the time being. Cannons, sixteen [-]-jin mortars.

The overall firepower is much worse than that of the First Guards Division.

However, even such an eighth division has much stronger firepower than the Ming army on the opposite side.

The Eighth Division was able to fight against Zhu Dadian's tens of thousands of troops on the front lines of Hefei, Liuhe, and Fengyang. This is because the local Zhu Dadian's troops were assisted by a large number of frontier cavalry.

If these frontier cavalry hadn't threatened the Chu army's flanks and logistics lines, the Eighth Division would have gone all the way to Fengyang.

The number of troops, the quality of soldiers, the quantity and quality of weapons and equipment, the Chu army is much better than the opposite Ming army.

And these are the reasons why the Great Chu Empire dared to launch a large-scale war in the Jiangbei Plain terrain that was not conducive to its own operations.

In this imperial military affairs meeting in the first month of the lunar year, the top officials of the Great Chu Empire finally finalized the framework of the Jiangbei Operation Plan.

Beginning on the [-]th of the first lunar month, Luo Zhixue officially issued an order to adjust the command system of the Jiangbei and Jiangnan ministries, and re-established the three armies.

Luo Zhixue also set up three armies in the series of eastward campaigns before, but they were withdrawn one after another after the eastward campaign.

After the first army marched into Jiangnan, the first division under its command was stationed in Jiangnan, and the sixth division was transferred to Zhejiang to fight, because it was officially withdrawn after the troops were dispersed.

The Second Army fought in Jiangbei, also because the Fourth Division and the Eighth Division under its jurisdiction were too scattered. The Eighth Division fought in Hefei, while the Fourth Division went to Yangzhou to fight, so it was also withdrawn in the end.

As for the Third Army, it was withdrawn earlier. After the Battle of Northern Jiangxi, the Seventh Division, the main force of the Army, was transferred to southern Jiangxi and other places to fight, while the Guards Division continued to move eastward to participate in the Battle of Jiangnan. After the series of battles, the Third Army was officially withdrawn.

The reason why these three armies were withdrawn one after another was because these three armies were temporarily formed purely for the eastward campaign, and they were not armies with a fixed establishment.

Whether it was before or now, the Chu Army has never established such a fixed-level army-level unit.

The same is true for all garrison commands.

In the Chu army, the largest fixed formation unit is the division.

After all, the division is already big enough, with 5000 people. If two or three divisions form an army with a fixed establishment, then this army can reach 5 to [-] people.

And there are only 30 million in the regular army of the Chu Army!

Whether it is due to military control or strategic arrangements, Luo Zhixue is unlikely to set up multiple fixed formations for a long time, with military-level formations with tens of thousands of troops.

Luo Zhixue used the garrison headquarters and the temporary field army to concentrate larger forces and then launch large-scale operations.

This was the case in the previous Eastward Campaign, as well as in the Guangdong-Guangzhou and Fujian-Zhejiang campaigns, as well as the northern and western fronts of Chubei.

Now in the Jiangbei campaign, there will be no exception.

Luo Zhixue directly established the First Army, Second Army, and Third Army.

The First Army has jurisdiction over the Fourth Division and the First Guards Division, the two main forces that have already fought on the front line of the canal.

The second army is in charge of the Eighth Division and the No.20 Division, which was reinforced from the rear, and will be used for Hefei, Fengyang, and even future operations in the direction of Henan.Speaking of this No.20 division, it still benefited from the preparation and training of the 20th and [-]st divisions of the second-class division, and took over the task of suppressing the important areas in the rear. The division, a field force, was transferred to Hefei and Fengyang.

The Third Army has jurisdiction over the First Division, Tenth Division, and No.11 Division, and these three divisions are all equipped with flintlock guns and adopt new tactics, and this army is actually used for the follow-up Northern Expedition core force.

Because the tactics of the flintlock troops were different from those of the old-style troops, in order to avoid trouble, the top leaders of the Chu army simply organized the three new-style troops that were expected to participate in the Northern Expedition into one army to fight alone.

In addition to these three armies, there will be the Second Guards Division, the main force of the No.15 Division, and the No.20 Second Division behind Jiangnan. On the one hand, it is to suppress the local situation and maintain the local situation. On the other hand, it is also a strategy for the entire Northern Expedition. reserve team.

With the formation of these three field armies, the Northern Expedition officially kicked off.

But the first battle to detonate was not in Yangzhou, nor in Hefei, or even in Chuzhou and other places, but in the seemingly inconspicuous Yuzhou Island off the coast of Haizhou.

On the 25th of the first lunar month, the Beiyang Fleet of the Great Chu Empire gathered hundreds of warships and more than 100 transport ships, equipped with a Marine Battalion of the Navy itself and a reinforced brigade sent by the No.15 Division of the Army, and launched a landing on Yuzhou Island. raid.

And it only took half a day to successfully capture the island, and then headed straight for Suqian inland.

Immediately afterwards, the Fourth Division of the First Army of the Chu Army launched a large-scale bombardment of Yangzhou. The First Guards Division in the north set off from Tianchang and went straight to Gaoyou Prefecture behind Yangzhou.

The third army of the Chu Army, the core force, with the cooperation of the First Cavalry Brigade, launched a surprise attack directly from the Tianchang area to the north. Two divisions went straight to Huai'an, and one division went to Sizhou.

In just a few days, the Chu army launched a fierce attack along the entire Jiangbei canal. It was not what Song Zushun and Yang Sichang had expected before, but simply attacked Yangzhou.

The navy also sent a large number of inland warships equipped with heavy artillery to venture into the canal to bombard Yangzhou City.

Yang Sichang, who had heard the news that Chu thieves were attacking all over the place, combined the news from various sources, and after comparing the maps, he couldn't help but gasp.

"The Chu thief who killed the gods these days has such a big appetite and courage!"

Yang Sichang couldn't see it at this time. According to the strategic deployment and raid direction of the Chu thieves, they were definitely rushing to swallow up the Ming army along the Xuhuai Canal, and even dispatched a large number of warships to take risks in Yuhuai Canal. Zhoudao launched a landing operation, and then rushed to Suqian.

This is obviously to prevent Yang Sichang's troops from Huai'an from fleeing northward.

And this is really the idea of ​​the top Chu army!

Luo Zhixue wanted to wipe out as much of the enemy's vital forces as possible in the Jiangbei area, especially the new standard troops in the enemy's army.

Because fighting in the Jiangbei area, although the supply is not common, it can still be done after all, and the cost of logistics and transportation can also be effectively controlled.

However, if a large number of enemy troops are allowed to flee to Shandong, Henan, and even North Zhili, then the difficulty of the subsequent Chu army's concentration of so many troops and artillery to launch such a large-scale battle will be doubled.

The farther this logistics supply is, the more difficult it will be to supply it, and the more expensive it will be.

Therefore, if possible, Luo Zhixue hoped to wipe out a large number of the enemy's vital forces in the Jiangbei campaign as much as possible, so as to avoid the logistical pressure of the follow-up Northern Expedition after they fled north.

(End of this chapter)