I want to be emperor

Chapter 416
The Chu Army troops that had reached Gaoyou Prefecture were actually Huang Tinghao's familiar old opponents: the First Guards Division.

Last year, the First Guards Division had already crossed the river to participate in the Jiangbei Campaign, and then conquered the two cities of Chuzhou and Tianchang.

For a long period of time afterward, the First Guards Division used Tianchang as its forward base, and frequently sent troops eastward along the canal, and even visited Gaoyou Prefecture several times.

Huang Tinghao led the troops under his command and had fought against the troops of the [-]st Guards Division several times.

The first guard division gave him the feeling that it was even more difficult to deal with than the fourth division that had faced the state before.

And when he learned that the first guard division was the guard unit of Luo Zhixue, the leader of the Chu bandits, he was relieved.

After all, he is the emperor's pro-army among the Chu thieves, and the stronger combat power is still being cleaned up.

And this made him even less confident in keeping Gaoyouzhou.

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The subsequent development of the battle situation was indeed as he expected. Even if he took six or seven thousand troops under his command to resist and defend to the death, the gap in firepower, especially artillery fire, was too great.

In the afternoon of the second day after arriving in Gaoyouzhou, the First Guards Division of the Chu Army began to attack the fort positions of the Ming army on the outskirts of Gaoyouzhou.

The defense line deployed by the Ming army in Gaoyou Prefecture is different from the defense lines of the Ming army in other directions. It did not rely solely on the defense of the city itself, but shifted the main battlefield to the civil engineering works outside the city, and has mature counterattack firepower. , When the time is right, infantry will even be dispatched to launch a counterattack.

This is a major feature of Song Zushun's troops. They adopted a strategy of attacking while defending, rather than blindly defending.

This is honestly, very rare!

Few other Ming troops would dare to fight back when faced with the Chu army's attack like them!

It doesn't matter whether they can't or dare not, in short, very few people do this, but Song Zushun's troops often do it.

They did the same thing on the Hezhou defense line before. They used a lot of earthworks to defend against shelling. When the infantry of the Chu army rushed up, these Ming army soldiers of the Jiangbei new standard army would not continue to hide in the parapet. Instead of resisting in the trenches, they will actively rush out to launch a counterattack.

Although most of the time there are more defeats than victories, this kind of close-range melee can also bring a lot of casualties to the Chu army.

In the Battle of Hezhou, the Fourth Division was fought back several times, and the casualties were not small at one time. The follow-up was to avoid too many casualties, so they fought slowly, and finally let the Jiangbei New Standard Army forcefully resist. He lived in the army of Chu for several months.

As a general who participated in the Battle of Hezhou, Huang Tinghao naturally copied the defense line in the Battle of Hezhou, and followed Song Zushun's tactical thinking: There is an attack in defense!
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When the Chu army dispatched an infantry battalion to launch a tentative attack on the western front on the third day, Huang Tinghao decisively dispatched a new standard army battalion to launch a counterattack.

This time the counterattack achieved certain results at the beginning. When the two sides fought together, many Chu thieves were killed and injured.

However, at this time, the disadvantage of the Jiangbei New Standard Army in Gaoyou Prefecture with few troops was further magnified.

When the Chu army sent two more battalions to join the melee, an infantry battalion of the Jiangbei New Standard Army who launched a counterattack could not hold on.

At this time, Huang Tinghao had no way to mobilize more troops from the new standard army to reinforce him. He had only three main battalions under his command. These three battalions were deployed on the left and right wings and the city in the middle.

When the infantry battalion on the western front fell into a disadvantage, Huang Tinghao could only let more than a thousand guards come forward to support.

According to the plan, these soldiers in the guards will fire muskets, bows and arrows and short robes to block the infantry of the Chu army who are chasing up, and to cover the remaining 400 soldiers of the main infantry battalion of the new standard army.

But at this time, the artillery unit of the Chu army launched another round of rapid-fire covering bombardment on the front of the Ming army, and at least concentrated more than 40 artillery pieces.

The more than 1000 guards who were just about to attack, lacked experience in combat with the main force of the Chu army, and did not know how to effectively evade the shelling were violently shelled, and the people who were bombed immediately fell on their backs.

Immediately afterwards...the soldiers of the guards turned around and ran away, faster than the soldiers of the new Standard Army who retreated from the front line...

Seeing the more than 1000 guard soldiers running away in the blink of an eye, Huang Tinghao, who was watching the battle from the top of the city, murmured: "I know, I know that I shouldn't trust them. It's just a round of shelling. It's all shot, it's time to play, the defense line is going to play!"

At the same time, in the division headquarters of the [-]st Guards Division on the opposite side, Lieutenant General Li Dongshao looked at the front line with a trace of disdain: "It seems that the judgment of the staff department is correct, and the strength of the opposite side seems to have increased a lot. , but the average combat power has dropped a lot, just a round of tentative attacks will not work!"

"Since the opponent's combat power is weak, don't waste time, let the second regiment launch an attack, take Gaoyou today, and then go south to Yangzhou."

"The Fourth Division is still waiting for us in Yangzhou!"

Li Dongshao saw that the strength of the Ming army on the opposite side was not strong, and the will to fight was not very high, especially after their guard soldiers were like a colander, he decisively ordered to expand the scale of the attack.

Under his order, the Second Guards Regiment under the First Guards Division soon launched an attack.

On the entire battlefield, in addition to the artillery unit, the First Guards Division has invested two infantry regiments to launch a front-line attack.

The total strength of these two infantry regiments is already more than twice that of the new standard army in the Gaozhou garrison.

As for the guards... the more than 1000 guards broke up after being bombarded just now, which has once again proved that the guards in the inland areas of the Ming court are not even qualified to be cannon fodder.

Not to mention the inland guards of the Ming court, even the garrison of the Chu army, which has better treatment, better cold weapons and better overall combat effectiveness, cannot adapt to this new type of war dominated by guns. up.

The inability to adapt to the war in the new era is also the reason why the Chu army is determined to eliminate the garrison in an all-round way.

It has even been made clear that even if a large number of prisoners of war are accepted in the follow-up war, there will be no new garrison.

At that time, qualified personnel will be directly added to the regular army. As for those who are unqualified, they will be directly organized into reclamation battalions, construction battalions, and migrant worker battalions.

An army with traditional cold weapons and fire door guns is completely unable to adapt to contemporary warfare.

This point, whether in the Ming army or in the Chu army, has been very clearly reflected.

Under such circumstances, one cannot blame the generals who were fighting on both sides for consciously ignoring the [-] or [-] guard soldiers...

In Huang Tinghao's follow-up defensive operations, he relied on [-] new standard troops to fight hard. As for the guards, at most they were used to attract the attention of the Chu army and then use them to consume the ammunition of the Chu army.

The attacking force of the First Guards Division also focused on the Jiangbei New Standard Army.

After half a day of fierce fighting between the two sides, in the afternoon, the Chu army had completely smashed the resistance of Huang Tinghao's new standard army.

At around four o'clock in the afternoon, facing Huang Tinghao, who had been completely defeated and his new standard army had less than a thousand people left, he chose to surrender in desperation.

As for the breakout...

The Chu army has already surrounded Gaoyou Prefecture!
Why does the First Guards Division obviously have more than 4000 troops, but only the artillery unit and two infantry regiments attacked Gaoyou Prefecture, with a total of about 6000 troops?
It is because some of the troops are responsible for the encirclement in several other directions, and a reinforced regiment was sent to the outer periphery of the southern line of Gaoyouzhou to prevent reinforcements from Yangzhou from coming.

The First Guards Division of the Chu Army used half of its troops for encirclement and reinforcements...

Well, even though no reinforcements from the Ming army came to kill them until the city of Gaoyou was taken down, but we can't stop deploying peripheral troops just because there is no reinforcement from the enemy.

In war, it is necessary to take precautions.

When the thousands of troops of the First Guards Division were deployed on the periphery, Huang Tinghao's troops were actually completely surrounded, and there was no way to break through.

He failed to break through, and Huang Tinghao was unwilling to lead nearly a thousand remnants to fight to the last moment, and then the entire army was wiped out. He still had some affection for the soldiers under his command, and he was unwilling to let them die in vain.

In Gaoyou Prefecture, he had also resisted stubbornly. Even when there was a huge disadvantage, he resolutely led his troops to resist, and paid more than half of the casualties for it.

Huang Tinghao thought to himself that he could stand up to the imperial court, the Chongzhen Emperor who had never met him before and never paid him a salary.

It's just that I feel ashamed of my old boss Song Zushun.

But he couldn't let nearly a thousand remnants under his command make indifferent sacrifices just because he felt a little guilty for his old boss Song Zushun.

They have been stubborn for a long time, and there was no large-scale rout or surrender until Huang Tinghao ordered to surrender. Huang Tinghao saw it all.

The soldiers trusted him and were willing to work hard for him, so Huang Tinghao couldn't take them to die with him.

Therefore, Huang Tinghao finally chose to surrender.

But before surrendering, Huang Tinghao did a personal thing.

He sent his own soldiers to the city, and chopped down the local magistrate and several other civil servants.

Even the heads were thrown into the latrine one by one by him!

Damn, since he was stationed in Gaoyou Prefecture, these civil servants, especially the local magistrates, have disliked him and troubled him every day, impeaching him for tax collection today, impeaching him for forced apportionment tomorrow, and looting , and the people are in dire straits.

Set up a card to collect money and find gentry to apportion military expenses. This is a routine operation for local officers and soldiers to collect military expenses, and this is very restrained in the means of collecting military expenses.

The imperial court does not give money and food to support the army, and your local government in Gaoyou Prefecture does not give money to support the army. What should I do with the thousands of people under my command?There is no card to collect money, and there is no war, even eating and drinking is a problem.

Can't let us all starve to death!

I didn't directly let the army under his command go to plunder the countryside, and looting the city of Gaoyouzhou was already very restrained. Instead, Zuo Liangyu in the north, and Wu Sangui and the others have already robbed you a hundred times. Your wives and daughters are sold to you for military expenses...

Moreover, the apportioned money and food did not go into Huang Tinghao's own pocket, but were used to raise the army, and the raised army was used to protect Gaoyou Prefecture.

You impeach me ass...

In the end, what made him unhappy was that he had to share the money with the Zhizhou and the others for the tax collection and apportionment of the card...

In the end, only [-]% was used for military expenses, and the remaining [-]% were put into their own pockets by these civil servants.

Huang Tinghao has long been unhappy with them, and now he is going to surrender anyway, and he will no longer hang around in the Ming court, so he simply killed them all.

And killing them first can prevent these people from turning around and surrendering to the Chu army to continue to be officials...

Thinking that they were very likely to turn around and vote for Chu, and then continue to be an official in style, Huang Tinghao felt disgusted like a fly that had eaten several catties raw.

If you don't kill them, Huang Tinghao's thoughts will not be clear!

After killing them, he threw the heads of these people into the latrine, and Huang Tinghao felt relieved.

Then he waved his hand: "Go, leave the city and surrender!"

(End of this chapter)