I want to be emperor

Chapter 432 Take full control of Jiangbei
For the front line battles in Hefei and Fengyang, what troubled the Chu army before was not how strong Fengyang City was, but how strong the troops under Zhu Dadian's command were.

It is difficult to guarantee the safety of the marching process and the follow-up logistics line.

And this security threat came directly from a large number of Ming army frontier cavalry in the Jiangbei area.

It is also rooted in the cavalry of the Ming army in the Jiangbei area.

When most of the Ming cavalry in Jiangbei voted for Chu, these problems disappeared in an instant.

Ever since, the Tenth Division arrived at Fengyang City smoothly, and then launched a fierce attack on Fengyang City with guns and artillery.

Facts have once again proved that there is no Ming army these days, and no city can truly block the onslaught of the Chu army.

When dozens of large-caliber mortars and dozens of field artillery shelled Fengyang City, Zhu Dadian's troops couldn't resist at all.

Only three days after the siege, Fengyang City was captured by the Chu army.

More than [-] defenders in Fengyang City were killed or injured, and the rest surrendered. Zhu Dadian set himself on fire and died!

After the fall of Fengyang City, the news spread to Hefei, the capital of Luzhou, which directly led to civil strife in the local defenders, and a direct fight between the capitulators and the recalcitrants.

In the end, after the capitulation faction suppressed the civil strife with an absolute advantage, thousands of defenders took the initiative to leave the city and surrendered to the Eighth Division outside the city.

With Fengyang City and Hefei, the two most important defensive strongholds of the Ming court in the hinterland of Jiangbei, being successively occupied by the Chu army, the Great Chu Empire can also officially declare that it has controlled most of Jiangbei, and a large number of Chu troops have begun to move towards the northern part of Jiangbei. The region and even Henan and Shandong began to advance!
This also means that the Northern Expedition set off by the Great Chu Empire has entered the second stage: the Central Plains Campaign and the Shandong Campaign!
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On April [-]th, the fourth year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire, Huai'an City along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Luo Zhixue supported the convening of a new round of strategic meeting before the imperial court. At the strategic meeting, according to the current situation, Luo Zhixue asked the military to prepare and formulate the next stage of combat plan.

Luo Zhixue put forward three requirements for the strategic goals of the next stage.

The first is to take down the remaining garrisons in Jiangbei, including Lu'an in Luzhou Prefecture, and many other cities in Fengyang Prefecture, such as Shouzhou, Yingzhou, Bozhou, Mengcheng, Suzhou, etc., and at the same time eliminate the local soldiers and thieves And other large-scale illegal armed forces, in order to fully bring the Jiangbei region into the rule of the Great Chu Empire.

The second is to occupy the area south of the Yellow River and seize Tongguan. Even if Tongguan cannot be seized, heavy troops must be stationed outside Tongguan to prevent the new Qin army from Shaanxi from coming out of Tongguan, and at the same time to guard against the Ming army from Shanxi. It affected the actions of the Chu army in the Central Plains and Shandong.

Third, capture several strategic locations in Shandong in the south of Beizhili, laying a solid foundation for the follow-up to fully control Shandong and march into Beizhili.

These three strategic requirements put forward by Luo Zhixue actually corresponded to the second phase of the Northern Expedition, which was to capture the Central Plains and Shandong.

In the specific plan, the Chu army wanted to block the Ming army in the direction of Shaanxi and Shanxi first, so as not to let them interfere with the Chu army's battle in the Central Plains and North China, and then seize Shandong. Then go north on a large scale to the North China Plain, that is, North Zhili, especially Youzhou City.

In response to the strategic requirements put forward by Luo Zhixue, the military, headed by the General Staff, is destined to have a corresponding strategic plan.

The first is the slight readjustment of the various units that went north to participate in the war, and the deployment of strategic tasks.

The First Army is in charge of fighting in the eastern direction of Shandong. Its First Guards Division and Fourth Division have a total of nearly 3 people. It is planned to start from Haizhou and continue to advance northward, planning to capture Qingzhou, Jiaozhou and other places.

In addition, the Army’s No.20 Third Mixed Brigade, which had just won Xuzhou, was reassigned to Haizhou, preparing to work with the Navy’s [-]st Marine Regiment to jointly execute the battle plan of landing on Changshan Eight Islands in the Yellow Sea and subsequently capturing Dengzhou.

In order to facilitate the overall planning and command of the battle in the east-central part of Shandong, the No.20 Three-Mixed Brigade was also temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of the First Army.

The third army is responsible for the eastern direction of Shandong, mainly the main attack task in the direction of the canal. They will forcibly advance all the way along the canal. Their combat goal at this stage is to take down all the places along the canal and capture the surrounding areas.

The main tactical targets are Yanzhou, Dongchang, Daming and Jinan Prefecture.

Because the scope of responsibility in this direction is relatively large, and at the same time it is expected to encounter a large number of frontier troops drawn from the north by the Ming army, and may even encounter soldiers from the East, the third army is also the most powerful. , the Tenth Division, and the No.11 Division will become the main combat force in the early stage. At the same time, the First Cavalry Brigade and the Second Cavalry Brigade will also join the Third Army's combat sequence. There are more than 5 people.

As for the various transportation regiments that assist in the transportation of supplies in the rear, the Chu army has never included these troops in the scope of troop statistics.

The second army is in charge of the follow-up war in the Jiangbei area. After all, many places in the Jiangbei area have not yet been captured. Even if the follow-up can be swept down, it will take time. How should I put it, the march of the army will also take time no……

However, the follow-up battle in Jiangbei does not require too many troops, so the Eighth Division under the Second Army will directly transfer to Ruzhou Prefecture with the cooperation of the Third Cavalry Brigade to cooperate with the south line of the Dabie Mountain Pass such as Yiyang Sanguan. The various ministries of the Third Division captured Ruzhou Prefecture.

When the third division enters Ruzhou, the eighth division can continue to go north, and together with the No.20 division, they can capture Kaifeng and Guide mansions in Henan.

At the same time, the First Division, No.16 Division, and Third Division stationed in Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture were reorganized into the Fourth Army, which was responsible for the subsequent capture of Ruzhou Prefecture, Henan Prefecture, and Ruzhou. To seize Tongguan, even if Tongguan cannot be seized, Tongguan must be blocked to prevent Sun Chuanting's new Qin army from coming out of Tongguan.

Sun Chuanting has several thousand cavalrymen of the new Qin army. Once they are allowed to break out of the Central Plains, they will easily cause big troubles for the Chu army.

After the army formulated relevant combat plans, Luo Zhixue did not hesitate too much, and quickly approved various combat plans.

Then sent away the senior generals who returned to Huai'an to participate in the imperial strategy meeting.

After entering mid-April, the Army of the Great Chu Empire began to act in accordance with this strategic deployment.

However, the units of the Second Army in the direction of Jiangbei were the first to act. For example, they were closer to the enemy, and the target was not too difficult to hit, so they had to move faster.

Good news came one after another.

On April [-]th, the Eighth Division of the Chu Army conquered Lu'an, wiped out more than a thousand enemies, and then headed towards the shopping mall in the direction of Ruzhou Prefecture, Henan.

On April [-], the Eighth Division of the Chu Army captured the Shangcheng and officially entered Henan.

The No.20 Division on the other side first took over the local area and surrendered to Dingyuan. Suizhou arrived in Fengyang City and took over the defense of the 39th Division. Captured Yingzhou on April 25.

The No.20 Brigade of the No.40 Division successively captured Guzhen and Suzhou, gathered troops in Bozhou, and captured Bozhou on the 29th.

The two divisions under the Second Army swept across all parts of Jiangbei in only half a month, and then entered the Henan Prefecture area one after another.

When it entered May, the Second Army of the Chu Army had completely ended the medium and large-scale battles in Luzhou Mansion and Fengyang Mansion, and then fully advanced the front to the Henan area.

At the same time, the [-]th mixed brigade of the second-class division, which was reorganized by accepting the new local standard army, began to garrison various places in Jiangbei and cleared out the local remnants.

Luo Zhixue was quite satisfied with the progress of these small and medium-scale wars.

Sometimes large-scale battles are important, but some small and medium-scale battles are also important.

In a war, there are not many large-scale battles involving tens of thousands of people. Most of the time, the wars between the two sides are medium-scale battles that revolve around a city-by-city battle with a battle scale of about a few thousand people.

The Chu Army had launched the Northern Expedition for several months, and in fact they fought two relatively fierce large-scale battles with the Ming Army, namely the Battle of Yangzhou and the Battle of Huai'an. As for the others, they were either relatively small in scale or not very intense.

However, these seemingly ordinary battles also directly affected the progress of the strategic direction, and also tested the command resilience of front-line commanders and the overall quality of soldiers.

If it is not done well, it will cause relatively large casualties, and these casualties do not seem to be many in each game, but they cannot stand fighting every day, fighting everywhere, dozens of casualties today, and another one or two hundred casualties in the next county tomorrow. But it's just a small amount.

When the Second Army carried out sweeping operations in the Jiangbei area, even though it was going smoothly, it did not encounter much resistance. However, the casualties still exceeded 500 people, all of which were sporadic casualties.

However, the two main forces, the First Army and the Third Army in the direction of Xuzhou and Haizhou, have not suffered any casualties for the time being.

The main reason is that the Chu army still needs to hoard a large amount of ammunition, food, grass and other supplies in Xuzhou and Haizhou for the follow-up troops to use in the northward operations. However, it is limited by the canal or sea transportation, and the transportation capacity is limited, so it is so huge. It will also take time to transfer the amount of materials.

According to the military's plan, the war in Shandong will not start until May.

Before that, I didn't do anything else, just rush to transport various strategic materials, replenish and replace guns, etc.

Before that, the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Navy and Army had to act in advance. They would go north ahead of time and land on Changshan Eight Islands just like they landed in Haizhou in the previous Jiangbei Campaign.

On the one hand, it is to contain the enemy, and on the other hand, it is also to transport a large amount of supplies to the eight islands of Changshan in advance, so that they can provide nearby supplies to the various units of the First Army that have entered the eastern part of the Shandong Peninsula.

Henceforth, Major General Bai Yangrong, the brigade commander of the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade, led his troops to board the ship and go north with curses...

It's useless to just scold, the boat is bumpy all the way, and what should be vomited is still to be vomited...

When Bai Yangrong arrived at Changshan Island, one of the eight islands of Changshan, by boat, he was helped ashore by someone!
After landing, Bai Yangrong's face was extremely pale, and he weakly cursed at a group of naval officers behind him: "Classic national curse... In this life, if I take your navy boat again, I will write my surname upside down!"

But after saying this, the chief of staff next to him with the same pale face and weak footsteps said weakly: "Brigade Commander, we have to land in Penglai again by boat..."

When Bai Yangrong heard it, his face became even uglier, and he let out another curse, and then said: "I'm fucking swimming over..."

(End of this chapter)