I want to be emperor

Chapter 435
As many people expected, after the Chu army captured Jiangbei, the subsequent Northern Expedition was in full swing, and there was no actual resistance at all.

In April, the Chu army had already controlled the entire area of ​​Jiangbei, and pushed the front line to the area of ​​Runing Mansion in Henan.

After entering May, the Second Army and Fourth Army of the Great Chu Empire launched an all-out offensive in the Henan area. Zuo Liangyu fled without a fight and directly withdrew to Shanxi.

Ever since, the Second Army and the Fourth Army took down Runing Mansion, Ruzhou, Henan Mansion, Kaifeng Mansion, and Guide Mansion almost effortlessly, and captured Ruzhou, Luoyang, Kaifeng and other important cities.

These large cities basically did not carry out Xiangyang's resistance. In many cities, even before the Chu army had reached the gates, local officials and gentry had directly opened the gates and surrendered.

That is to say, Luoyang relied on the remaining local young guards to resist to a certain extent, but this resistance was meaningless.

In less than a day, the second division of the fourth army of the Chu army killed them.

After capturing Luoyang City, the Great Chu Empire was also surprised to find that the money and food confiscated in Luoyang was far more than ordinary cities, and it was second only to Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Jinling City, which are famous and rich in the world.

And the reason is because of King Fu in Luoyang City.

In King Fu's vassal mansion, there is so much money and food stored that it can surprise the well-informed Chu tax officials.

In a mere vassal prince's mansion, it turned out that five or six million taels worth of cash floating wealth and various curios were copied out.

This is not counting the huge number of various shops, houses, land and other fixed assets. If these are all counted, there will be more.

The Great Chu Empire had copied so many vassals, and it was the first time they met such a rich vassal.

Ever since, he accepted a large amount of money and food with a smile while being surprised.

Immediately afterwards, he couldn't wait to report the victory to Huai'an, saying that just the gain from the city of Luoyang was worth the total cost of the various ministries fighting in Henan in the second phase of the Northern Expedition.

The rest is pure profit!
Luo Zhixue was also very happy about this, and sent a condolence decree to the tax officials in charge of the local confiscation work.

The imperial decree said that although the Henan Taxation Department is a new team, it has displayed a tenacious combat style and achieved great results in confiscation and taxation work. I am very relieved.

I hope that tax officials and policemen at all levels in Henan will continue to carry forward the fighting spirit of not being afraid of hardships or tiredness, continue to do a good job in confiscation and taxation, and contribute their own strength to the unification of Huaxia.

From this imperial decree, it can basically be seen that what the Great Chu Empire did in Henan in April and May, in fact, the fighting was secondary, the confiscation and tax collection were the main ones, and when they came back, it was also for various people's livelihoods Relief, work-for-relief, resettlement of all kinds of messy refugees, and restoration of local people's livelihood.

As for fighting...they have to be ranked third or fourth.

There is no way, with Zuo Liangyu's retreat, there are not even a small number of guard soldiers in Henan, and there is no way to carry out any resistance at all.

Not to mention the tens of thousands of troops from the army sweeping past, just relying on the two to three thousand armed tax police under the Henan Taxation Department, it is estimated that they can sweep the whole of Henan.

Fortunately, when Zuo Liangyu withdrew to Shanxi, he sent someone to tell Sun Chuanting in advance that he had already run away. If you, Sun Chuanting, didn't want to die, quickly send heavy troops to garrison Tongguan, which caused Sun Chuanting to mobilize heavy troops to strengthen it about seven or eight days in advance. Tongguan's defense was compromised, otherwise Tongguan would probably have been taken by the Chu army.

After the Fourth Army took Luoyang City, it found that Tongguan had been guarded by Sun Chuanting's heavy troops, so it was not in a hurry to attack Tongguan. Instead, it directly dispatched an entire mixed brigade and a group of independent mortars outside Tongguan. And build a defense line on the spot.

It is necessary to separate Shaanxi from the Central Plains and prevent a large number of new Qin troops under Sun Chuanting from entering the Central Plains to affect one's own strategy. It is not necessary to conquer Tongguan. It is also possible to block the gate directly outside Tongguan.

Then, on the front line of Tongguan, the thousands of Chu army and the tens of thousands of Ming army built their own defense lines hundreds of kilometers away, and then stared at each other...

However, in the east of Tongguan, the actions of the Chu army did not stop.

-

On May 28, the Second Division under the Fourth Army crossed the Yellow River and captured Huaiqing Mansion, which also had no defensive force. Immediately afterwards, the Third Division, which was also directly under the Fourth Army, also crossed the Yellow River and captured Kaifeng Mansion. In the north, Yangwu, Fengqiu and other places went north to capture Weihui Mansion, and cooperated with the Third Army on the East Road to continue northward and captured Zhangde Mansion.

In other words, by the time June entered, the whole of Henan had already fallen under the control of the Chu army.

The No. 16 Division of the Fourth Army of the Great Chu Empire was stationed at strategic points on the western defense line, such as Tongguan and Lushi, and confronted Sun Chuanting's troops in Shanxi.

Its second division was stationed in the area around Luoyang, including Huaiqing Mansion on the north bank of the Yellow River and other places, and confronted Zuo Liangyu's troops in Shanxi.

The third division is stationed in Zhangde Mansion, Weihui Mansion, Daming Mansion and Kaifeng Mansion in the rear.

The three divisions under the entire Fourth Army fought against Sun Chuanting's troops and Zuo Liangyu's troops on the one hand, and suppressed the newly occupied Henan provinces at the same time.

As for the Second Army, which originally participated in the battle in Henan, it has already followed the pace of the Third Army and continued to go north.

In the direction of the canal in Shandong, the Third Army officially launched an offensive northward from Xuzhou in May. In this direction, the Third Army also encountered some obstacles, and the biggest obstacle was not the resistance of the Ming army, but It was the Ming army that blocked the shipwreck along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal...

There are also smart people in the Ming army. They know that your Chu army will march along the river, otherwise the supply will be very troublesome, so they collect all kinds of ships, and even dump sand and gravel directly, just to block the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

When I was in Pizhou, before the Ming army withdrew, all the locks of the local canal were destroyed, and the interrupted canal was blocked at the same time.

In order to quickly repair more than a dozen ship locks along the way and re-open this section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in a short period of time, the Chu army was forced to organize thousands of engineers and tens of thousands of civilians to work for more than a month. This section of the canal was opened.

This is one of the reasons why the Northern Expedition of the Third Army was delayed until May.

In May, after the Third Army entered Shandong, it found that the local Beijing-Hangzhou Canal was still severely blocked. There was no way but to dredge the canal while advancing slowly.

During this process, the battles were not actually fought. Most of the time, the infantry and artillery of the Third Army were doing nothing, resting for a few days and then marching for a day.

At the same time, tens of thousands of civilians and thousands of engineers are struggling to dredge the canal.

Against this background, the Third Army of the Chu Army took Yanzhou, Juye and other places, and then went north to capture Dongping, Dong'e, Pingyin and other places first.

When the engineering troops in the rear dredged the canal to the Daqing River, that is, in June, the Third Army also took advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Liaocheng, the prefecture of Dongchang Prefecture, and at the same time divided a division to attack Jinan City.

At the same time, the two divisions of the First Army fighting in the eastern part of Shandong, also after marching in May, the First Guards Division has already killed and captured Qingzhou Yidu, while the Fourth Division has killed and captured Jiaozhou and others. The land is currently going to Dengzhou, and it is estimated that it will not be long before Penglai and No.20 three mixed brigades in Dengzhou will join forces.

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The No.20 three-mixed brigade that landed on Changshan Eight Islands before landed on Changshan Eight Islands in May after a long and painful sea transportation.

The personnel of the 23rd Mixed Brigade were exhausted due to sea transportation. As for the mules and horses... This time, more than half of the mules and horses carried by the ship died without accident, and the rest became soft-legged shrimps.

The No. 20 three-mixed brigade landed on Changshan Island and corrected for a full four or five days before initially recovering, and then continued to capture and seize other islands in Changshan Eight Islands with cooperation.

Because there are no Ming troops stationed on other islands, the early landing operations were basically carried out by the navy itself, and their army only sent people to garrison there after the war.

This time the Beishang Navy also brought a first marine regiment.

Even when it landed on Changshan Island before, the landing battle was actually fought by the Marine Corps. When the No. 20 Third Mixed Brigade of the Army landed, the ground battle had actually been completely resolved.

It's just that there is only one marine regiment in the navy. The tactical tasks of this marine regiment are very heavy, and it is impossible to be stationed in a certain place for a long time as an ordinary force.

After the battle of Changshan and Eight Islands, the marine regiment will probably be transferred to Dayuan Island in the southern coastal area after a period of rest.

Recently, the Great Chu Empire is not limited to the Northern Expedition... the sea to the south is actually quite busy.

For example, after the capture of Guangzhou last year, in order to cut off the supply of guns to Zheng Zhilong by the Portuguese in Macau, the Chu army did not talk nonsense with the Portuguese at all, and directly sent troops to take back Macau.

As for the various agreements that the Portuguese signed with the Ming court before, it doesn’t matter whether these things are legal or not, but the Great Chu Empire is not the Ming court, so it does not recognize the various agreements of the Ming court.

Anyway, the local general of the Chu Army, in fact, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, the garrison commander of Guangdong and Guangxi, felt that the Portuguese in Macau were an unstable factor, so he simply expelled the Portuguese.

As for trade and the like, the Great Chu Empire doesn’t allow you Portuguese to trade, you don’t need to go to the small place of Macau, you can come to Guangzhou directly.

Along the Pearl River estuary all the way to Guangzhou, the Great Chu Empire has deployed numerous river defense forts, and your barbarian ships trade under our coastal defense artillery, so we have a sense of security!

If you dare to act recklessly, the coastal defense artillery will directly fire, and at the same time, the navy stationed in Xiangjiang will directly dispatch to block the Pearl River estuary, and you will not be able to escape...

This naturally also attracted resistance and even revenge from the Portuguese, but well, these are trivial matters and innocuous.

Anyway, the coast of Huaxia was controlled by Zheng Zhilong at the beginning, and the Portuguese sent warships to blockade and attack the coast. This has nothing to do with the Great Chu Empire...

As for the future and even now... do business if you love to do business, get out if you don't do business, and fight if you want to fight. Anyway, after the current Great Chu Empire Navy has accepted a large number of warships from Zheng Zhilong's fleet, its overall strength can be regarded as a dominance in East Asia. If you want to hit me, go ahead.

Therefore, recently, the Great Chu Empire had a lot of conflicts with the Portuguese in the south, and even the Spaniards and the Dutch. Hastily mobilized the fleet and marines to go south, ready to fight...

(End of this chapter)