Although the Hometown Protection Army has successively captured many cities in the past few months, even a fortified city like Xiangyang, the gold content is actually very average.
The Baoxiang Army's ability to capture Xiangyang was based on a surprise attack, which does not explain how strong the Baoxiang Army's attack capability is.
In addition, most of the other cities captured by the Baoxiang Army were those where the defenders had few troops and low morale, and would collapse in a casual attack.
When encountering a city where the Ming army had slightly more defenders, the Baoxiang army actually did not fight smoothly.
For example, in Yuzhou, the Fourth Mixed Brigade spent more than half a month gnawing at it, killing thousands of people before it was captured. If it hadn't been for a large number of surrendered soldiers to be replenished along the way, the Fourth Mixed Brigade would have been finished long ago.
For example, at Luyang Pass, the defenders at that time had no more than a thousand people, but the Baoxiang Army used the main force of the Second Infantry Brigade, and they attacked from the north and the south together, but they only took it at the cost of relatively heavy casualties.
After the Baoxiang Army moved south from Funiu Mountain, there were actually not many casualties in the series of battles fought, and more than half of them were caused by the capture of Yuzhou City and Luyang Pass.
Luo Zhixue also noticed from a series of siege battles that the Baoxiang Army now has a very obvious shortcoming, that is, its ability to attack fortresses is actually very average.
Under such circumstances, if Yicheng is garrisoned with tens of thousands of troops, it will be easy to break the teeth of the rural defense army!
However, Luo Zhixue knew the strengths and weaknesses of his own army, but he didn't know if the Huguang Ming Army knew it.
But it is expected that they will have some understanding. After all, the news of Lu Xiangsheng's defeat should have spread to many places. The Huguang Ming Army in the south will definitely be the first to get the news.
Even if they don't know exactly how Lu Xiangsheng was defeated, they must be on guard against the Home Guard Army.
If they hadn't been extremely wary of the rural defense army, they would have probably killed them in Xiangyang City long ago.
However, from May to mid-June now, more than a month has passed but they have never come. This is already very revealing.
Regardless of whether they were timid or had other plans, it all showed that they did not treat the Baoxiang Army as ordinary rebels.
They are very cautious!
This caution makes it easy to defend the city.
Facing an enemy that cannot defend itself, the current Home Guard Army has no good solution for the time being, except to fight with human lives.
The Baoxiang Army's ability to attack fortresses was weak, which was an important reason why Luo Zhixue ordered Ding Gangyi, the Xiangyang Arsenal, to supervise the trial production of short-barreled heavy artillery for sieges and study matchlock explosive ammunition.
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But no matter whether the Ming army is cautious or aggressive, the southward strategy of the Baoxiang Army will not change. Taking ten thousand steps back, then the Ming army really has tens of thousands of troops to defend Yicheng, so the big deal is that the Baoxiang Army He fought with the Ming army in Yicheng.
No matter what, Yicheng must be captured and the Han River channel opened so that the army can move south smoothly.
After Luo Zhixue stayed in Xinye City for a day, he continued his journey south by boat.
Three days later, we successfully arrived at Xiangyang City and stayed at the General's Mansion.
The road was bumpy, and he also had to deal with numerous military and political affairs while on the road, which made Luo Zhixue tired both physically and mentally.
Therefore, after entering the city that afternoon, Luo Zhixue did not ask the Staff Department to arrange any more meetings. He only met with a small number of military and political officials, then ended his daily work in the evening and went to the back house to rest.
Nowadays, the Baoxiang Army is in the stage of rising and fighting everywhere. There are many military and political affairs, and even working overtime until twelve o'clock in the evening may not be able to handle them all.
After tonight, unless there is an urgent military matter, don't expect to pull Luo Zhixue out of the back house.
At the same time, Luo Zhixue is also thinking about continuing to reform the Staff Affairs Department, so that the Staff Affairs Department, an organization reformed from the Internal Affairs Office, can truly function as a secretarial agency and reduce his own workload, instead of just arranging schedules and writing a few official documents. That’s all.
Luo Zhixue estimated that the current territory of the Baoxiang Army was no more than two prefectures. Strictly speaking, it was less than two prefectures, and its army only numbered more than 20,000 people.
This shit happens when one thing happens after another without stopping.
If this continues, when the Baoxiang Army continues to expand in size and occupy more territory, won't he, Luo Zhixue, be forced to death from exhaustion?
What's more, even if you work twelve hours a day, you won't be able to finish so much work even if you are exhausted.
It's just that this kind of secretarial organization also needs to be highly cautious. If it doesn't happen, it will become the Ming Dynasty version of the Secretary of Ceremony.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with being a ceremonial supervisor. It is even a good system used by the imperial power to restrain civil servants.
But the problem is that the officials in the Ming Dynasty's Li Jian were all physically disabled eunuchs who had no one to follow them when they rebelled!
The honor and disgrace of these eunuchs all depended on the emperor's personal trust. As long as the emperor was dissatisfied, they would be killed directly.
Moreover, eunuchs and civil servants are naturally at odds with each other. If the emperor kills a eunuch, the civil servants will applaud him!
For the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, the eunuchs who were in charge of rites were responsible for doing things when they had trouble, especially all kinds of objectionable things, such as inspecting hundreds of officials, confiscating their homes and annihilating their clans, collecting business taxes from the gentry, etc.
After using it, he directly threw a black pot into it and killed it to calm the anger from outside.
After the killing, a new group of eunuchs will be established to continue their work...
Very useful!
Of course, not every emperor of the Ming Dynasty could make good use of the ceremonial supervisor. For example, Chongzhen could not make good use of it... Such an easy-to-use institution was abolished by him!
From then on, the checks and balances of power in the Chongzhen Dynasty were completely destroyed...civilians held the power alone and without any checks, all kinds of fucked-up things happened.
As a result, the Ming Dynasty's raids on the east became more and more miserable, and the uprisings became more and more chaotic.
In the end, Li Zicheng entered the capital and ended the Ming Dynasty.
The civil servants of the Ming Dynasty who had crippled the Ming Dynasty unscrupulously voted for Li Zicheng on the spot. However, Li Zicheng's good times did not last long, and he was quickly defeated by Dongli and Wu Sangui.
But it didn't matter. When these civil servants saw that Li Zicheng had failed, they turned around, knelt down and surrendered to the East...
If Chongzhen, who hung himself from Meishan, could still see his former courtiers after his death, I don't know what he would think about the scene of three-surnamed domestic slaves, even disregarding their integrity and directly defecting to the barbarians.
Perhaps, he will still shout: I am not the king of the subjugation of the country, but all the ministers of the country are the subjects of the subjugation of the country!
The Supervisor of Ceremonies in the Ming Dynasty was a good tool to check and balance power, but the Counseling Department of the General's Mansion created by Luo Zhixue was a standard civil service organization with a completely different nature.
If the Ministry of Staff and the Supervisor of Ceremonies are given the same power, then powerful officials who evade the imperial power will appear in minutes.
At that time, Luo Zhixue had to worry about whether there would be a rebellion.
I can't even sleep well.
Therefore, even if he has the idea of delegating power to the Staff Affairs Department, Luo Zhixue will still be more cautious and will not make any moves in the short term.
Now I am slowly thinking about how to reform. I will wait until the expansion continues and I can no longer handle so many affairs personally, and then I will carry out reforms.
As for now, let’s get tired first!
Alas, this rebel leader is really tired!
Hou Yunmeng saw Luo Zhixue half-leaning by the bathtub with his eyes closed, frowning from time to time. She didn't know what Luo Zhixue was thinking about, but she expected it to be the military and political events outside.
She didn't understand and didn't dare to ask. She just scrubbed Luo Zhixue gently, for fear of disturbing Luo Zhixue.
The same goes for Wang Qiaoer on the side.
This time, the two girls were also taken by Luo Zhixue, and they went south from Nanyang City to Xiangyang City. They continued to serve as Luo Zhixue's personal maids and also served as bed warmers.
In fact, Luo Zhixue didn't have any special thoughts about them. When he met them in Nanyang City General Beppu, he just felt that these two women were more in line with his modern aesthetics, so he took a few more glances.
When he saw these two girls when he was washing up later, he didn't worry too much and went straight to them. This was the end of his boyish skills in this life.
Added some new beauty to my life in this era.
Speaking of which, since his soul possessed Luo Zhixue last year, Luo Zhixue was either on the way to escape or leading his army to fight, and spent most of his time in Funiu Mountain, maintaining his childish self.
This is not because Luo Zhixue is a monk and is not interested in women, but that he had little chance to meet young women before, let alone young women who fit his aesthetics.
There are actually many women in Funiu Mountain, but most of them are refugee farm girls who have escaped. Like men, these women need to work hard for two meals a day, and have to do various heavy farm work or housework every day. wait.
Not only was she exposed to wind and sun, but she also didn't have enough to eat, her face was sallow and her skin was thin, and she didn't have any better clothes, so she didn't look like a beauty.
Beautiful women, especially beauties in ancient times, not to mention all, but most of them only appear in families who have no worries about food and clothing.
Because women's beauty depends on their genes, and families with adequate food and clothing will naturally not marry anyone who is too ugly, and their genes will naturally improve over time.
What's more important is the day-to-day maintenance.
At least you have to have enough nutrition, otherwise you won't be as beautiful as you are skinny.
At least you should be pampered. You have to do farm work every day and be exposed to the wind and sun. Damn it if your skin can get better...
Combining many things together, in ancient times, beauties were most likely to appear only in families who had no worries about food and clothing. The probability of beauties appearing in poor and humble families was very low. They could not even eat enough. What beauty is there...
As for beauties who come from a poor and humble background, but have been nurtured and nurtured, they are no longer considered to be from a poor and humble background, and must be classified as belonging to a family with no worries about food and clothing.
In Funiu Mountain, there are not many families who have no worries about food and clothing. They are all refugees who have escaped.
Naturally, Luo Zhixue would not be greedy for these women, so he never found any women. There were only a few old ladies and ordinary maids around him who took care of daily life.
After going south, the chance of meeting a beautiful woman will be much greater, but Luo Zhixue has been fearfully leading his army to fight in the past two months, so how can he be in the mood to find a woman.
What's more, he spent most of his time leading his troops in battle and never stopped at all.
The few days he spent in Nanyang City could be regarded as the rare rest time he had in recent times.
And Guo Quanshu and the others took advantage of this time to compete with a lot of beauties for Luo Zhixue...
Luo Zhixue could vaguely guess that this was an arrangement from his subordinates, but he didn't refuse.
People, work is very important, but appropriate adjustments are also very important.
While Luo Zhixue was resting in the backyard, several civil servants, including Guo Quanshu and Huang Chengxuan, gathered together in private to discuss in secret.
The topic this time was much higher than the secret discussion in Nanyang City about offering Luo Zhixue a personal maid!
This time they were discussing how to resolve the marriage of General Luo Zhixue.
Although Luo Zhixue is young, he is still sixteen years old. It is time to marry a wife and start a family.
But in the hearts of Guo Quanshu and others, although Luo Zhixue has not become king or emperor now, it will be a matter of time.
Therefore, although they are currently discussing what kind of wife they should find for Luo Zhixue, in fact Guo Quanshu and the others are completely focused on choosing the future queen...
So this marriage matter has been discussed and discussed without any conclusion.
The main reason is that it is difficult to find a suitable 'Queen' candidate!
