I want to be emperor

Chapter 418 The Unlucky 23 Mixed Brigade

The Great Chu Empire was Chengshun for four years, and Ming Chongzhen was 11 years old.

On February 30, after a long-distance attack, the No. [-] Ninth Infantry Regiment of the Tenth Division of the Chu Army finally reached Taoyuan County.

At this time, more than a thousand defenders in Taoyuan County were already panicked. You must know that the local defenders are not the main force in the Ming army. Most of the more than 1000 people are young and strong civilian husbands and government servants recruited by the local government.

And the local officials also knew that the strength of the defenders under their hands was extremely poor, and it was impossible to stop the attack of the Chu army.

It is known that the Chu army that rushed to the outside of Taoyuan County has only one reinforced regiment, but its actual strength exceeds about 4000.

And this is only a part of the Chu army going north. In fact, there is a Tenth Cavalry Regiment wandering around the periphery to guard against Ming army reinforcements, especially Ming army cavalry attacks.

Therefore, the main troops who arrived at Taoyuan City were infantry, artillery, and luggage, with a strength of about 4000.

The reason why there is only one reinforced regiment with more than 4000 troops is mainly because the No. 30 Ninth Infantry Regiment belongs to the Tenth Division, and the Tenth Division is the earliest and most standard constant in the Chu Army.

Because this Chu army is the tenth division with a new type of organization using flintlock guns.

The new-style units that use flintlock guns in the Chu army have a different organization from the old-style units. There is no brigade organization, but a division directly governs three infantry regiments, a supply regiment, an artillery regiment, a cavalry regiment, and an engineering regiment. Barracks, light infantry battalions and other divisional units.

The reason why we did not continue to use the brigade organization is because the regiment-level organization in the new organization is too large.

In the new establishment, the number of infantry regiments has reached more than 3000, and there are three infantry battalions and one artillery battalion under the regiment. The subordinate infantry battalions have more than 900 infantry battalions.

Each infantry battalion has six posts, five of which are musket posts, with 120 musketeers, and one grenadier post with 140 grenadiers.

Because of the expansion of the infantry battalion, the regiment-level organization was expanded. In order to avoid the division-level troops from reaching a huge establishment of more than 2 people, they finally chose to adopt the method of a division-directed regiment. In specific battles, an infantry regiment is often used as the basis The core, strengthen a number of auxiliary forces to form a reinforced regiment to fight.

In other words, the strategic unit of the Chu army in the new army is the division, while the tactical unit is the regiment.

The No.30 Ninth Regiment of the Tenth Division under this organization, after strengthening the auxiliary troops such as field artillery, heavy soldiers, engineers, and divisional cavalry, the strength of the reinforced regiment has reached more than 4000.

In general, the strength of the mixed brigade is equivalent to that of the previous mixed brigade.

The main force of the [-] Chu army's regular army rushed to Taoyuan County, and just looking at it was enough to make the officials of Taoyuan County on the top of the city tremble with fear.

Immediately afterwards, they made a very realistic choice from the heart.

He directly opened the city gate to welcome Master Chu to enter the city...

resistance?

What kind of jokes are you making about Huayi, just those thousands of patchwork, not even two fire guns, and two armored defenders can stop the menacing Chu army from outside the city?
They don't believe it themselves!

In order to protect the lives of more than a thousand soldiers in the city, thousands of civilians and gentry officials in the city, they decisively chose to open the city gate and surrender before the Chu army officially launched an attack.

Now that the defenders and officials in Taoyuan County have surrendered, Brigadier General Meng Junli, the deputy division commander of the 30th Division, who led the No.[-] Ninth Infantry Regiment, the Tenth Cavalry Regiment, and the First Artillery Battalion under the Tenth Artillery Regiment to fight northward, did not overdo it. Make things difficult for those who surrender.

They didn't even support the tax officials to clean up the city as they did in the past.

The main reason is that they came here to play interspersed siege operations this time, not to search for money and food after the capture of Taoyuan County, so that even the officials of the tax department did not come with them.

So after he led the army into the city, he only took over the official warehouses of the local government, and then symbolically accepted all kinds of money, food and materials donated by the local gentry, and did not engage in confiscation or other actions.

This is all to avoid unrest in the local area and cause armed backlash from the gentry and landlords.

Although the Chu army was not afraid of any armed resistance from these landlords, it was still a troublesome matter. Now that Brigadier General Meng Junli had important tasks to attend to, he was not in the mood to play house games with the local gentry and landlords.

So, after entering the city, he simply rectified the young and strong local people who had surrendered, and then simply selected dozens of soldiers who were born as soldiers and who knew how to ride horses to supplement his own supply unit on the spot, and the rest waited on the spot. Disbanded, so that they will not be used by those who are interested in the future.

Subsequently, Meng Junli left an infantry battalion in Taoyuan County and several artillery troops with a scale of [-] people for garrison, while he himself led his troops to go north along the canal and in the direction of Suqian.

He has already been notified by the No.20 Three-mixed Brigade, saying that the No.20 Three-mixed Brigade is about to arrive in Suqian, but the scouts of the No.20 Three-mixed Brigade discovered that there is a Ming army of about two to 3000 people from Shandong. The army headed towards Suqian for reinforcements.

At the same time, in the direction of Xuzhou, some Ming troops were sent south to reinforce Suqian.

Obviously, in the past period of time, the surrounding Ming army has been aware of the Chu army's strategic intentions, knowing that the Chu army is heading for Suqian, so the surrounding Ming army began to reinforce Suqian.

Due to insufficient firepower and supply difficulties, coupled with a large number of enemy reinforcements to Suqian, the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade finally requested the assistance of the Tenth Division.

This is mainly because the No.20 Tri-Mixed Brigade landed from the sea and launched an attack inland. They carried a limited number of artillery pieces and ammunition. And ammunition is somewhat of a disadvantage.

When the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade marched inland from Haizhou, it lacked everything...

In terms of artillery, there are only four nine-pound field cannons, four five-pound field cannons, and six two-and-a-half-pound field cannons, and the ammunition is also limited.

The transportation is also very worrying. Some of the mules and horses transported by boats died because they were not used to the turbulence at sea, and some even turned into soft-legged shrimps even when they arrived in Haizhou, forcing the Chu army to temporarily settle in Haizhou and surrounding areas. Requisition mules and horses.

However, it is difficult to collect a large number of mules and horses in a short period of time and in a small area.

As a result, when the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade marched to Suqian, the mules and horses used could barely pull the cannons and ammunition, and there were a large number of ordinary carriages, but they lacked mules and horses. A large number of civilian men were recruited to directly carry forward with the army.

As a result, it has been raining in the Haizhou area for the past few days. Although the rain is not heavy, which is the level of ordinary spring rain, it has been raining for two or three days in a row, making the road muddy and difficult to walk.

When marching, there were two nine-pound field guns that were unlucky. They didn't pay attention when crossing the river, and they directly crushed a bridge that had been in disrepair for a long time. The two nine-pound field guns, mules, horses and dozens of soldiers fell directly Even if the river is not a big river, it is about ten meters wide and several meters deep. It will be impossible to fish up a ton of nine-pound field artillery for a while...

In the end, we can only leave a small number of manpower, continue to find people to salvage the artillery locally, and the main force will continue to move forward.

Going west this way, the No.20 Three-Mixed Brigade suffered a lot.

It can be said that the Chu army and the Ming army have fought for several years, and the main force has never been in such a mess... Along the way, they didn't even see many shadows of the enemy, but they were ashamed of being tossed.

The angry Major General Bai Yangrong, the commander of No.20 No. [-] Mixed Brigade, cursed repeatedly.

After a while, he scolded the thieves, God has no eyes, this is obviously only February, and it's not the rainy season yet, you are raining ass.

After a while, they scolded those people in the logistics department, saying that they were all blind, and their mother didn't even prepare the raincoats for the soldiers, so they had to take all kinds of raincoats from the people in Haizhou City and surrounding villages. All rainproof equipment such as bamboo hats, bamboo hats, etc. have been conscripted... that's not enough.

After a while, he scolded those bastards in the navy. He was walking like a zombie when he drove the boat, jumping and jumping, causing a lot of soldiers under his command to vomit and diarrhea. Adaptive training, good adaptability to seasickness, finally survived.

However, the hundreds of mules and horses carried by the army failed to hold up, and half of them died at sea. When they arrived in Haizhou, the remaining half turned into soft-legged shrimp...

In the end, along the way, Bai Yangrong scolded this and that...

"I've been a dragon since I was in Funiu Mountain. I don't know how many big and small battles I have fought, but I've never been so aggrieved!"

This was the first sentence Brigadier General Bai Yangrong said after seeing Brigadier General Meng Junli, the deputy commander of the Tenth Division...

Meng Junli glanced at Bai Yangrong's dirty general uniform with mud on his body, and looked at the short and thin donkey under his ass...

Then he showed a sympathetic look and said: "Brother Bai, this is really... well, it's been a hard journey!"

That's it, Bai Yangrong waved his hands: "I'm afraid of hard work, the most important thing is to camp in a dilapidated village on the way here, but it rained at night, and the house where I stored the gunpowder collapsed directly, and half of the propellant for this artillery was gone. ..."

"Hey, I'm afraid you'll have to support a batch of propellant for the Suqian attack this time. Otherwise, the few remaining artillery pieces under my hand won't be able to fire a few shots."

Meng Jun said vigorously: "Don't worry about this. I carry a lot of ammunition with the army. I didn't fire a single shot when I attacked Taoyuan County before. The ammunition is still full, and the logistics troops behind are still transporting to our army. Ammunition, so you don’t have to worry about ammunition during Suqian World War I.”

After the two discussed the follow-up battle against Suqian, they separated and went back to each team. When they went back, Meng Junli couldn't help but look back at Bai Yangrong.

This person has been plagued by bad luck recently, very dangerous!

When I came by boat, I encountered wind and waves, and then the mules and horses of the whole army were finished...

After arriving in Haizhou, Jiangbei is a huge place. During this period of time, it didn't rain there, but it rained in Haizhou...

In addition, when marching, the bridges were crushed so that the artillery fell into the river; when camping, the warehouse for storing gunpowder collapsed directly...

Adding all these together, he seriously suspected that if he got close to Bai Yangrong, he would be easily affected by his bad luck.

Well, it's decided, let Bai Yangrong take his 23rd mixed brigade northward to Pizhou area, and go to the periphery to intercept the enemy's reinforcements.

In short, Meng Junli doesn't want to play with Bai Yangrong for the time being...for fear of being infected by his bad luck.

As far as Suqian City is concerned, it’s just a small broken city, he can just fight it by himself.

(End of this chapter)