I want to be emperor

Chapter 434 Frontier Army Goes South
He has a deep understanding of Chu thief's strong combat effectiveness. His previous strength was in cavalry, but he was at a comprehensive disadvantage in infantry and artillery.

And once the Chu thieves go north, it will be the time when the Chu thieves have solved the problem of the cavalry. Regardless of whether the Chu thieves have gained more cavalry or found a way to deal with the cavalry, it means that the Chu thieves have already dealt with their own cavalry. Ability.

In this case, once the Chu thieves go northward on a large scale, if I bite the bullet and fight them to the death, I'm afraid I will die miserably.

At this time, what should I do?
Standing in place, relying on cities such as Ye County or Luoyang to resist and defend to the death, that is also the way to die!
In the past few years, not even a single city has really blocked the attack of the Chu army, and even when the Chu army is attacking fortified areas, the firepower is even more fierce, and it is even more difficult to deal with.

Changsha, Jiujiang, Ganzhou, Guilin, Wuzhou, Yangzhou, Huai'an, no matter which one was built by the local Ming army, it was a fortress that could not be conquered by hundreds of thousands of troops.

As a result, under the artillery of the Chu army, everything was like paper.

Therefore, there is no way out simply relying on the city to defend.

Yang Sichang and Zhu Dadian are examples from the past.

In Zuo Liangyu's view, there is only one way to face the Chu thieves' large-scale northward movement, and that is to escape!
Withdraw from Ruzhou and even Henan, and then continue to develop in other places, such as Shanxi.

This not only can temporarily avoid the edge of the Chu thief, but also has a very important point that can lengthen the supply line of the Chu thief.

Zuo Liangyu has fought against the Chu army for several years, and he knows the various situations of the Chu army to some extent. Besides, Zuo Liangyu also has a new standard army under Zuo Liangyu's command, and he also has a large number of artillery.

He is very clear that whether his new standard army or the Chu army has an advantage, it is also a disadvantage.

That's a lot of artillery!

The advantage is that a large number of artillery can bring powerful artillery firepower. As long as there are enough shells, it will be very fierce all the way.

The disadvantage is also a large number of artillery, which requires a large amount of ammunition to be able to exert its combat effectiveness. An artillery without shells is just a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron.

And ammunition is not only expensive, but also very heavy. It needs to be manufactured from the rear and transported to the front line, which requires a huge amount of transportation capacity.

The transportation of the artillery itself and a large amount of ammunition requires a large number of mules and horses, and these mules and horses have brought about an equally serious problem, that is, the consumption of food and grass is extremely high, which in turn requires a large amount of food and grass.

As a result, if you want to maintain an artillery unit for continuous operations, the requirements for logistical forces are very high.

And this requirement will double with the reinforcement of the supply distance.

Zuo Liangyu himself has dozens of artillery pieces under his command, and he has tried to mobilize artillery units for long-distance mobile operations before. Every time he does this, the consumption of food and grass and other materials will make him feel extremely heartbroken.

Even if he controls most of Henan in his hands and conducts various searches for money and food, it is still difficult to maintain a large-scale artillery unit for mobile operations, especially long-distance operations.

As for the Chu army, there are more artillery and their supply lines are longer, which means that it is more difficult for them to supply.

After learning about this, Zuo Liangyu already had a vague idea in his heart two years ago.

When fighting against the Chu thieves, you must not allow the Chu thieves to hoard supplies slowly with peace of mind, and then give yourself a wave of ruthless attacks. You must always attack their logistics supply lines, and actively release a certain amount of space through mobile warfare to lure the enemy deep.

The purpose of luring the enemy deep is not to ambush the Chu army, but to further lengthen the supply line of the Chu army.

Once the supply line is played, the difficulty of supply will increase exponentially. At that time, the Chu army on the front line will naturally lack ammunition and food, and it will be much easier to fight again.

In Zuo Liangyu's eyes, the Chu army without a lot of ammunition to support them was just a group of paper tigers.

And this idea gradually took shape over the past few years, and finally began to plan ahead.

In the end, Zuo Liangyu chose Shanxi!
Shanxi is located to the north of the Yellow River, and there are mountains in the south and east of Shanxi, and the roads are difficult. If you rely on the mountains to defend yourself, it is extremely difficult for the Chu army to break in.

As for the hinterland of Shanxi behind the mountains, although it is not rich, Zuo Liangyu can somehow gather some money and food to support the army.

As long as Shanxi can be controlled, we dare not say that we will compete with the Chu army in the future, but relying on the complex terrain around Shanxi to keep the Chu army from Shanxi is still barely possible.

And to the west of Shanxi is Sun Chuanting in Shaanxi. He didn't know much about Sun Chuanting before, but Sun Chuanting has been very fierce in the past two years. The new Qin army formed by relying on it beat all the thieves who have plagued Shaanxi for many years. They ran away with their heads in their hands, beheaded Gao Yingxiang first, and then defeated Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others one after another, forcing these big gangsters to hide in the mountains with a few backbones and linger on. The arrogance of other places.

For Sun Chuanting, Zuo Liangyu still has some confidence, thinking that Sun Chuanting should be able to defend Tongguan, and then keep the Chu army out of Tongguan.

In the future, Sun Chuanting will guard Shaanxi and sit in Shanxi himself. He can watch the world with a smile and wait for new changes in the situation.

As for what will happen to Shandong, Beizhili and even the Ming court in the future, that is not what he cares about.

It's useless to care, he doesn't think Shandong and Beizhili can stop the Chu army's Northern Expedition!

Look at the strength of the Chu army in the Northern Expedition. There were more than a dozen divisions alone, hundreds of artillery pieces, and they fought all the way from Jiangbei to the north. There was almost no single enemy.

Yang Sichang was defeated in Jiangbei, relying on Yangzhou and Huai'an, and there is a high probability that Shandong and Beizhili, which do not have many new forces behind him, will be unstoppable.

As for the frontiers...

There are quite a few frontier troops, but they can’t all be dispatched. If they are all dispatched to the south, the Jiliao defense line will be finished in minutes, and the Dongcap will be able to drive straight in. By then, this war will probably not be between the Ming army and the Chu army. It's not a matter, but the Dongyao and the Chu army fought again.

Besides, even if all these frontier troops were sent south, Zuo Liangyu still didn't think they could stop the Chu army's attack.

It can be said that Zuo Liangyu is very pessimistic about the future situation.

So when the Chu army started the Northern Expedition, he had actually already started making practical preparations for the northern retreat.

Otherwise, when the Chu army first entered Ruzhou Prefecture and other places, it would not have been able to quickly retreat northward with tens of thousands of troops, and with a clear goal, all the way to Shanxi.

-

Retiring to Shanxi was a plan Zuo Liangyu had formally finalized a year ago. For this reason, he had actually made a lot of preparations in the past year or so.

For example, sending people to survey the route in advance, formulating the northward withdrawal route, and even choosing the foothold after the northward withdrawal, and preparing to garrison troops there to resist the Chu thieves entering Shanxi, he has prepared related plans.

Even after entering Shanxi, the officers and soldiers who control the area in this way have many plans.

Now one of the generals stationed in the southern part of Shanxi is his former subordinate. He was recommended by him to serve as a general in Shanxi last year. He has thousands of troops under his command.

In addition to this person, there are several other people who were also placed in the past by him, or who were recruited in advance.

Zuo Liangyu had already prepared the overall plan for retreating to Shanxi. Now that the Chu army had reached Ruzhou, especially when Zuo Liangyu found that there were many cavalry in the Chu army going north, he naturally did not hesitate. The army withdrew north.

After evacuating to Luoyang, he rested for a few days, and plundered the huge Luoyang by the way. He brought a large amount of money, grain, iron, copper and other materials, as well as thousands of craftsmen, especially gun craftsmen. Withdrew from Luoyang again in mid-May, and then crossed the river to the north bank of the Yellow River.

At this time, the total number of the army under Zuo Liangyu's command, as well as craftsmen and civilian husbands, had exceeded [-].

10 people continued to go northward in a mighty way, over mountains and ridges towards Shanxi.

This operation directly stunned the generals of the Chu army, let alone the Ming court, Chongzhen was mad...

It is rumored that more than a dozen imperial edicts were issued in succession, demanding that Zuo Liangyu lead the army to stop retreating and go south to fight against the Chu thieves.

As a result, the imperial envoys who delivered the decree did not even see Zuo Liangyu...

Zuo Liangyu has already decided that the Great Xia of the Ming Dynasty is about to be overthrown, so what kind of imperial envoys will they take care of there!

Besides, no matter what he said, he was retreating without authorization, and he didn't plan to turn around and go back to Henan to fight the Chu army. What kind of imperial envoy he saw at this time, he was just asking for trouble.

-

Zuo Liangyu ran away regardless of the overall situation, and received an imperial decree from Chongzhen to lead his army into King Guanqin to fight against Chu thieves. Frontier generals from Xuanda, Jiliao and other places also argued about this endlessly.

At the end of May, Zu Dashou, Wu Sangui and other senior generals of the Liaodong frontier army gathered together to discuss whether to join the Guanqin King.

However, many people still hold objections. For example, Wu Xiang and his son are unwilling to enter the customs at this time.

The imperial court wanted to transfer the frontier troops to enter the customs, but they didn't give them a single copper coin... It's no good.

However, despite some people's objections, in the end the frontier troops on Ji Liao's side, especially Liaodong's side, mobilized troops to join King Qin of Guan.

Although Liaodong is said to be under the control of a family of generals, the Ming court has always attached great importance to the local area, and the governors and other civil officials sent there can still stabilize the local situation, and Hong Chengchou also has a good prestige.

Hong Chengchou and several other civil servants naturally supported the entry of King Qin.

With Hong Chengchou and several civil servants on top, even Zu Dashou did not dare to disrespect the order openly.

So the troops who entered the customs were finally dispatched, but not many troops were dispatched to enter the customs, only about 3 people, and the rest were still nestled in the cities of Liaodong to guard against the attacks of the Dong captives.

Zu Dashou took a group of generals, including Wu Xiang, who personally led the army into the customs, and other generals, including Wu Sangui and others, stayed behind in Liaodong.

And Hong Chengchou also led more than 2 frontier troops around Jizhen, um, in fact, it was the more than 2 main Qin army that Hong Chengchou brought from Shaanxi before.

Adding up the two departments, the force is about 6, and they are marching all the way south...

Just when they got near Youzhou City, they started to be hungry, because the food they brought with them was almost gone, but the court didn't give them any food...

Zu Dashou led his troops to Youzhou City to ask for food, but was locked outside the city gate, unable to enter!

Before Chongzhen summoned Zu Dashou several times, now that Zu Dashou has come, Chongzhen and a group of cabinet leaders have no courage to let him enter the city...

Zu Dashou, who was unable to ask for food, was so angry that he directly sent troops to plunder, attracting a group of people to impeach Zu Dashou and other generals, and then Chongzhen ordered Zu Dashou and other generals to be reprimanded. The hat of the plundering army.

Ji Liao's [-] troops quarreled and quarreled all the way, looting and gathering food all the way, and slowly headed south.

At the same time, the Third Army of the Chu Army had already reached the city of Liaocheng, Dongchang Prefecture, Shandong Province, and it took only one day to take down this severely empty city, and then divided its troops and marched eastward into Jinan City.

(End of this chapter)