Forty miles south of Wuchang City, Zhifang.
This place is one of the camps set up by the Ming army around Wuchang City as its core.
At the same time, it can be regarded as the rear area of the Ming army's camps and checkpoints west of Wuchang City. Before the Baoxiang Army landed, there were about a thousand troops stationed there.
Although there are not many troops, this place is extremely important because it is the logistics transfer station for the Ming army's armies west of Wuchang City, and they have accumulated a lot of grain, grass and other materials.
And this place is the first tactical target of the small battle group led by Lieutenant Colonel Ren Yuanqing.
At this time, the main force of thousands of people led by Brigadier General Han Ziping had already advanced towards Wuchang City. According to the report of the reconnaissance cavalry, the Ming army that originally marched west from Wuchang City had evacuated overnight and ran directly back to Wuchang.
Therefore, Brigadier General Han Ziping is about to lead most of the main troops of the First Brigade eastward to Wuchang. This is not to directly attack Wuchang City, but mainly to station troops outside Wuchang City.
It has three functions. On the one hand, it intercepts Ming troops from other directions and prevents them from entering Wuchang City, especially thousands of Ming troops east of Wuchang City. This will increase the difficulty of the subsequent attack on Wuchang City, and also provide reinforcements or something!
The second is to facilitate other friendly forces, that is, a small force led by Ren Yuanqing and others to clear out the Ming army outside Wuchang City, so as to cut off the land connection between Wuchang City and the surrounding Ming army, and achieve a true strategic encirclement.
In the end, Li Chengtong and others naively hoped that the Ming army in Wuchang would be stupid and then come out to fight with Brigadier General Han Ziping.
After all, the main force that Brigadier General Han Ziping brought to Wuchang City was actually only more than 3,000 people. The Ming army in Wuchang City originally had more than 15,000 people, and he also gathered two to three thousand peripheral Ming forces. This total force It is estimated that there are about 20,000 people.
When the 20,000 Ming army saw an army of more than 3,000 treasure thieves wandering around outside the city, it was hard to guarantee that they wouldn't think that I could also fight.
If the Ming army in Wuchang City really went out to fight, then Li Chengtong would laugh out of his dreams.
As long as the Ming army dared to leave the city, Han Ziping's more than 3,000 people could hold them back, and then other friendly troops of the First Division could quickly attack and force the Ming army to have an upright duel outside Wuchang City.
As for wanting to withdraw after speaking out of the city, there is no such thing as such a good thing.
When the two armies are facing each other at close range, you can't just retreat if you want to. If the Ming army feels uncomfortable after leaving the city and wants to return to the city, it will have to leave thousands of corpses or prisoners of war behind.
Therefore, in fact, the possibility of the Ming army taking the initiative to go out of the city to fight is infinitely close to zero. Otherwise, how can we say that this is the naive idea of Li Chengtong and others.
However, even if the Ming army huddles in Wuchang City and cannot leave, the Baoxiang Army will still have enough confidence to launch a storming attack.
The reason why the cross-river operation was launched this time was that the Baoxiang Army was ready to storm Wuchang City. Without this preparation and confidence, Luo Zhixue would not hastily send troops south.
In order to conquer Wuchang City, the Baoxiang Army prepared a battalion of three mortars. These three mortars have been temporarily organized into a mortar regiment. The regiment currently has forty-eight mortars, of which thirty are ten. There are eight-pound mortars, and eighteen are forty-eight-jin mortars.
In addition, there are a large number of field guns. The First Division alone has six five-pound field guns and twenty-eight two-and-a-half-pound field guns. The First Division is also the first in the Baoxiang Army to directly use the two-and-a-half-pound field guns. Decentralized to the main force at the regiment level.
At present, each infantry regiment has three two-and-a-half-pound field guns. According to the plan, each infantry regiment will have six two-and-a-half-pound field guns in the future, while the division artillery regiment will be equipped with five-pound or even subsequent field guns. Nine pounds of field artillery.
In addition to the main force of the 1st Division, the 1st Cavalry Brigade also has six additional two and a half pound field guns for use as cavalry artillery.
This does not include a batch of 200-pound short-barreled artillery in each army.
The artillery strength of the Baoxiang Army is growing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, and these have given the Baoxiang Army sufficient confidence to cross the river south and attack Wuchang City.
No matter how desperate it is, you can still protect yourself after crossing the river.
Under this series of grand strategies of the Baoxiang Army, the First Infantry Brigade and other troops led by Brigadier General Han Ziping will arrive in Wuchang City first and gradually eliminate the Ming Army garrison points outside Wuchang City.
And wait for more main forces from the rear to arrive to storm Wuchang City.
If we want to truly storm Wuchang City, we have to wait for the pontoon bridge to be erected, a large number of mortars, especially the 48-pound mortars and other artillery to arrive, and then more troops will arrive before they can be launched.
After all, Wuchang City's city defense facilities are relatively complete. If you rush to attack Wuchang City with light troops, you will easily hit your head and bleed.
It was against this backdrop that a force of more than a thousand soldiers led by the Third Infantry Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Ren Yuanqing arrived at Zhifang Market Town.
After Lieutenant Colonel Ren Yuanqing's troops arrived at the place, the local Ming army fell directly into panic, and then a large number of Ming troops began to flee.
These generals in the Ming army have already learned about the defeat of more than 2,000 Ming troops on the front line yesterday. In fact, among the 2,000 Ming troops in Zhifang now, 400 to 500 people were defeated from the front line on the beach yesterday.
The arrival of these defeated troops greatly reduced the morale of the Ming army stationed in Zhifang.
After spending a day in fear, they saw the thieves' army coming, and there were thousands of them, with cannons and cavalry. How dare they resist? They just swarmed. ran away.
The Ming army's active retreat did not disappoint Ren Yuanqing. On the contrary, he was quite happy.
Because after these Ming troops retreated on their own initiative, they directly abandoned a large amount of grain and grass supplies. When these Ming troops retreated, no one even had the intention to set fire to these grain and grass supplies.
After seizing these grain and grass supplies, Ren Yuanqing's command did not even need logistics troops to transport grain and grass. The battle could last for at least a month just relying on these seized grain and grass supplies.
After obtaining a large number of seizures, the morale of Ren Yuanqing's troops greatly increased, and they continued to advance eastward. Their strategic direction was to surround the south of Wuchang City, and then go straight to the Bailukeng area along the Yangtze River in the east of Wuchang City.
This department will work with the main force of the 1st Infantry Brigade to clear out the Ming army outside Wuchang City, one mile and one away, and carry out a strategic siege of Wuchang City.
While Ren Yuanqing's troops continued their operations, the first brigade and other main forces led by Brigadier General Han Ziping also arrived outside Wuchang.
But just as many people expected, even though Han Ziping only arrived outside Wuchang City with more than 3,000 bandits, there were 20,000 Ming troops in the city.
However, the Ming army chose to avoid the battle and assumed a posture of defending Wuchang City.
In this regard, Brigadier General Han Ziping was also a little disappointed.
But when I thought about it, I couldn't really regard all enemies as fools. Even the generals of the Ming army knew that there must be more main forces of the rural protection army coming behind them. If the battle goes unfavorable after leaving the city, it is estimated that It will collapse in minutes.
By then, Wuchang City would have no city defense, but there would not be enough soldiers to garrison it.
Since the Ming army in the city could not retreat, Han Ziping was too lazy to continue wandering under the city. Instead, he circled around six or seven kilometers away from Wuchang City, and finally reached the east side of Wuchang City, and was defeated again with Ren Yuanqing's troops. They defeated two to three thousand Ming troops on the coastal defense line on the east side of Wuchang City.
As a result, there is no second large-scale Ming army within 20 to 30 kilometers outside Wuchang City.
The Baoxiang Army only used a mixed brigade with about 5,000 troops to complete the strategic siege of Wuchang City.
This has to be said to be quite interesting, because judging from the comparison of the strength of the two sides, the Ming army has the absolute advantage, but they do not have the courage to go out of the city to fight, and they do not even have the courage to break out of the encirclement.
After completing the strategic siege of Wuchang City, Major General Li Chengtong, who was in charge of the frontline warfare, was not in a hurry to attack the city, and let the follow-up troops continue to cross the river to transport artillery, ammunition and other supplies.
On the other hand, they continued to send troops to clear out the Ming army in the surrounding cities. When Han Ziping's First Infantry Brigade and other units were operating around Wuchang City, another force of about 3,000 people was launched from the landing ferry. Heading towards Wuchang County.
This unit consists of an infantry battalion directly belonging to the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the 1st Division, a cavalry post belonging to the 1st Division, and a two-and-a-half-pound field artillery post as the core.
In addition, there is a regiment of the 6th Garrison Division of about 2,000 men.
The unit is commanded by Colonel Kang Hongbao, deputy commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade. Its initial target is Wuchang County, and later Daye, Xingguo Prefecture, Fuchi Town and other places. It intends to sweep across the southeastern area of Wuchang Prefecture and finally seize the Fuchi Town area. Intercept troops from northern Jiangxi and reinforce Wuchang City through the plains along the Yangtze River.
On October 9, the first pontoon bridge of the Baoxiang Army was completed, and more troops and supplies began to move south.
On the 10th, the Baoxiang Army sent a third unit to march westward along the Yangtze River. This unit consisted of a main infantry battalion as the core, paired with a garrison regiment, and cavalry and artillery units. It was led by Jia He, deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Brigade. Led by Colonel Yun, his target was the Xianning, Jiayu, Tongshan, Puqi, Chongyang area, and finally reached Yuezhou Prefecture.
Its strategic purpose was similar to that of Kang Hongbao's eastward advance detachment. On the one hand, it was to capture cities and territories and seize these cities where few Ming troops were garrisoned. But more importantly, it was to intercept Ming reinforcements coming from the direction of Yuezhou.
To the east and west, the Baoxiang Army sent two detachments, intending to block the Ming army from Yuezhou, Jiujiang and other directions to reinforce Wuchang, and provide cover for the main force in the rear to attack Wuchang.
Against such a backdrop, large quantities of soldiers, artillery, ammunition, grain and grass from the Home Guard Army are being continuously transported from the north bank of the Yangtze River to the south bank of the Yangtze River via pontoons and ships.
As of October 11, the entire First Division and the Sixth Garrison Division had completed crossing the river, and the First Guards Brigade, the First Cavalry Brigade, and the temporary mortar artillery regiment of the Guards Division also began to cross the river one after another.
On October 12, the Ming army in Wuchang City saw that the rebel army had completely blocked the land connection between Wuchang City and the outside world, and tried to send navy to break through the blockade in order to open the water communication channel.
As a result, a large-scale water battle broke out between the fleets of both sides that day.
And this is a battle between the fifth scum and the third scum. It seems to be a lively battle, but there are always some inexplicable mistakes. The Ming Navy is like this, and the Yangtze River Fleet is not much better.
Especially when a warship of the Yangtze River Fleet rushed towards the enemy fleet with a decisive battle, and was finally blown by the wind. The enemy warship did not hit it, but he failed to control the direction and rushed to the beach. Luo Zhixue went directly to the beach. At the top of the city.
This navy is out of sight!
Major General Xu Zhixian, Chief of Staff, saw His Majesty leaving directly. After looking around, he finally whispered to several army generals beside him: "Now it seems that the great cause of unifying Kyushu can only rely on our army."
