Zhou Yun was very excited by this proposal. For a moment, Zhou Yun even wanted to initiate a strategic shift immediately.
But he soon realized that this might not end well. . .
"I am guarding Jiujiang and have the responsibility to defend the territory. The main force of the army is still there. If I flee without fighting, I will be accused in the future. What should I do? Moreover, the bandit army is not the best in the world, nor is it the Ming army. We will flee without fighting. , isn’t it a shame?”
All the generals remained silent.
They are not civil servants. If they make mistakes, they can be exiled instead of being killed. Military generals do not have such preferential treatment.
And indeed, the main force of the army is still there, as well as a city and relatively strong city defenses. It would really be unsightly to flee without a fight.
Furthermore, the reason why the peasant army won was because they took the initiative to attack and the Song army was unprepared. Now that the Song army was prepared, how could it be easily defeated?
Who do they think they are?
Ming army?
If the Ming army came, Zhou Yun would definitely turn in immediately without even thinking about it, because he knew that he would never be able to defeat the Ming army.
But these guys are not the Ming army, so what do they have to be afraid of?
Several generals around Zhou Yun also reacted at the same time and refuted the suggestion of escaping. Instead, they suggested that Zhou Yun defend Dehua and then wait for an opportunity to counterattack and knock off the arrogance of the peasant army.
"The reason why they won before was mainly due to the internal discord in our army and the improper employment of personnel by the court. Now the generals are brave and the generals are responsible for their orders. There are still more than 20,000 troops. It is not a problem to hold on and wait for reinforcements.
Our army only needs to immediately send people to ask for reinforcements from the Ezhou army. Once their reinforcements arrive, we can defeat the rebel army by cooperating inside and outside! Then regain the lost ground on Jiangnan West Road and kill all the bandits! "
A group of cronies will provide Zhou Yun with very good tactics.
After Zhou Yun heard this, the panic in his heart gradually subsided and was replaced by calmness.
This time the peasant army's action was indeed unexpected, so he was a little surprised, but if he thought about it carefully, the peasant army had been suppressed and beaten several times in the past. Even if there was a counterattack, it was because of the internal discord among the Southern Song generals. , otherwise the peasant army would have been abolished long ago.
He also heard that in the previous battle, Wu Gong suppressed the peasant army before retreating. The peasant army was breathless. If the bureaucrats hadn't cheated him, he would have won the battle long ago.
The peasant army has always been passively beaten and has always been a bandit army. Even if they occasionally have good results, it cannot change their identity as a bandit army.
In this way, Zhou Yun re-established his psychological advantage over the peasant army, and felt that as long as the Song army had the courage to fight back, the peasant army's weak legs would be defeated.
Zhou Yun then made the decision to stick to it.
He immediately ordered the army to go to the city for defense, quickly deployed the city defenses, and formed a confrontation with the military camp outside the city. He also deployed defenses outside the city, dug trenches, and strengthened the defensive power.
Then he quickly sent people to Ezhou to ask for help from the Ezhou army, and asked the Ezhou army to send troops to assist, stop the enemy in the Jiujiang area, and prevent the war from burning into Ezhou.
After doing these things, Zhou Yun felt that he was stable.
Therefore, when he learned that the vanguard of the peasant army was approaching Dehua County, he decided to send troops forward to prevent the peasant army from approaching Dehua County and buy more time.
He felt that there was still a gap between the peasant army and the regular army under his command. As long as there was a head-on confrontation and the army reacted, there was absolutely no chance of the peasant army winning.
Zhou Yun arranged for Chen Chao, the bravest of his subordinates, to lead four thousand soldiers to attack the peasant army. Chen Chao swore in front of Zhou Yun that he would defeat the peasant army and give them some color.
On March 15, the 4,000-strong Peasant Army Pioneer Army led by Zhang Xiaohu and the 4,000-strong Song Army led by Chen Chao engaged in an encounter.
Zhang Xiaohu immediately ordered the vanguard army to meet them head-on, formed a military formation and attacked forward, fighting the Song army head-on.
From crossbow shooting to hand-to-hand combat, the peasant army performed very bravely and tenaciously. Zhang Xiaohu personally led a small number of cavalry to confront the Song Army's equally small number of cavalry. He personally killed three Song Army cavalry and led his men. Achieve victory.
The victory of the cavalry led by Zhang Xiaohu was a sign of the victory of the peasant army. Because the cavalry was defeated, Chen Chao was frightened and frightened by Zhang Xiaohu's personal attack on the Chinese army, so he abandoned his troops and ran away.
Originally, this Song army was still fighting with the peasant army, and the military battle between the two sides was not over yet. As a result, when the general ran away, the soldiers stopped fighting and ran with him. Soon, they were defeated like a mountain.
Chen Chao fled and the Song army collapsed. Zhang Xiaohu led the vanguard army to win again. The path forward for the peasant army had been completely opened. Zhao Yucheng commanded his troops to advance westward, aiming directly at Dehua County.
Zhou Yun did not expect that the Song army failed in the face-to-face confrontation with the peasant army forward. Facing Chen Chao who knelt in front of him to plead guilty, he was furious and immediately ordered Chen Chao to be taken down and thrown into prison to wait for punishment after the war.
Chen Chao was captured, but the war continued. According to spies' reports, the peasant army quickly advanced towards Dehua County after defeating the Song army. The number of people was at least more than 40,000, and its strength was almost twice that of the Song army. .
This was an exact number, which was more credible than the previous vague numbers, so Zhou Yun was surprised.
In just a few years, how did this army, which was once beaten into the mountains, develop so fast?
Although the Song Army also tried to collect military intelligence on the Peasant Army, due to the Peasant Army's strong anti-reconnaissance awareness, the spies sent by the Song Army often suffered heavy casualties and could not bring back accurate information. Sometimes merchants even passed through The information brought by businessmen is more accurate than the information brought by spies.
Moreover, the military organization of the Peasant Army was completely different from that of the Song Army, and he did not understand it very well.
Zhou Yun only knew that the Peasant Army was the military name of an army with four divisions under it. However, both army and division were ancient military organization titles. They seemed to have been used more frequently in the pre-Qin era, while the Song Army's organization was An army, an army, a general, and a team are completely different.
Therefore, Zhou Yun did not know how many people there were in an army of the Peasant Army, how many men there were in a division, or the specific number of people in the Peasant Army.
So when the main force of the peasant army was dispatched to take the initiative to attack, he realized that he was at an absolute disadvantage.
He took a deep breath and realized that if he did not decisively ask for help from the Ezhou army, he would fight alone against the peasant army whose strength was far superior to his.
That's very bad.
He completely lost the courage and idea to continue sending troops to fight the peasant army. He only wanted to shrink his troops and engage in defensive operations in Dehua County. He relied on his defensive advantages to resist the peasant army and waited for reinforcements to come to help him.
He believed that he could get help from the Ezhou army.
First, he and Wang Shun had a personal relationship. Both of them had served in the Lin'an Forbidden Army. Regardless of their relationship, they were still considered acquaintances. They had drinks together and there were no conflicts or disputes. Wang Shun would not ignore him.
Secondly, if he falls, Wang Shun will have no good fruits to eat. The proportion of recruits in Wang Shun's Ezhou army is higher than his. The number of recruits is huge, and there are only 30,000 people. If they can't join forces with him, how can they win? What to fight against the peasant army?
These two reasons were enough for Zhou Yun to believe that he could get help from Wang Shun, so he did not escape. Instead, he sat in the city and tried his best to get soldiers to strengthen the city defense and prepare for defensive operations.
Zhao Yucheng was overjoyed when he learned that Zhang Xiaohu had defeated the Song Army's field force head-on. Now he was sure that the peasant army's military strength had made great progress in the past year or so, while the Song Army had made little progress.
The thing like watching Lin Xunzhan die in front of him and being unable to do anything about it should probably never happen again.
The peasant army is now very strong!
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