The reason why the imperial court was able to mobilize Wu Sangui to go south to suppress the bandits was because the Wu family and his son wanted to go south to make money and food, and at the same time get some credit for Wu Sangui, and later be promoted to the rank of general soldier or something.
But they didn't come obediently just because the court ordered it.
The Wu family and his son did not want to move. A hundred imperial edicts issued by Chongzhen could not mobilize a single soldier of Guan Ning's army, and there was nothing they could do against the Wu family and his son.
Wu Sangui decided to ignore Chen Biqian's order and had no intention of attacking Luyang Pass. He did not even go to the back of Lushan County, which had become a large military camp and had no oil or water at all. Instead, he led his troops to the southeast midway .
At the same time, he also sent a letter to Chen Biqian, saying that traces of the rebels had been found on the road and that they were pursuing them all the way...
There are actually some thief troops, but they are just a few gray thief scouts.
After all, Wu Sangui came with three thousand troops, thousands of whom were cavalry. It was impossible for the spies of the Chu Empire to know such a big movement. In fact, when Wu Sangui was still in Ruzhou City, Huang Dingquan, the commander of the Northern Route Army, already knew relevant circumstances.
Then the people from the Military Intelligence Department were asked to pay close attention to the movements of Wu Sangui's headquarters.
After all, Wu Sangui came from the Jiliao front line and was an old frontier army who had fought against the Dongjiao for many years. His combat effectiveness was definitely much stronger than that of the Ming army in the hinterland of the Central Plains.
There were only three thousand Guan Ning troops, but Huang Dingquan directly treated them as ten thousand Ming troops or even more Ming troops.
Therefore, Wu Sangui and the others also enjoyed the full tracking of the scouts.
From time to time on the way south, you can find traces of the bandit army's reconnaissance cavalry.
That is to say, those thief reconnaissance cavalry were timid and did not even dare to get close. They just followed them from a distance, otherwise they would have been killed by Wu Sangui's cavalry troops long ago.
Wu Sangui didn't care much about these thief scouts. Anyway, these thief scouts couldn't get close enough to know their details.
We can use them as an excuse to continue leading the army to the southeast.
What to do?
Suppress thieves!
Wu Sangui did not forget his main task: to take advantage of the opportunity to go south to obtain enough money and food.
His father Wu Xiang still had tens of thousands of people to support in Liaodong. Wu Xiang, who was struggling with money and food, personally gave Wu Sangui instructions.
The purpose of this trip south is to collect money and food!
As for whether to suppress thieves or not, that doesn't matter...
So when Wu Sangui saw that Luyang Pass was difficult to fight, and that Lushan County had been devoured by the local Ming army for more than half a year, and had already starved to death for hundreds of miles, he didn't even go to Lushan County, so he just found an excuse to take a detour.
It is said to be a suppression of thieves, but it is really a suppression of thieves.
Along the way, I killed some unlucky bandits I encountered, and by the way, I also broke into the manor of a wealthy family who had close ties with the bandits, and gained quite a lot...
He suppressed thieves all the way to the southeast. In order to make it more realistic, he even drove the few small groups of thieves he met along the way to join together, turning them into a group of more than a thousand people. The so-called stray thief.
Then let these bandits move forward according to the route they set.
How to let the bandits follow their own route? This is also simple. Half of Wu Sangui's troops are cavalry. Just send some cavalry to block other directions. These bandits can only obediently go to the only place. Escaped.
Ever since, a very interesting scene was staged in the hinterland of the Central Plains!
A group of bandits with more than a thousand to less than 2,000 people ran all the way from Ruzhou to Kaifeng Mansion and then to Runing Mansion. They also broke into many Zhuangzi along the way, shot a lot of money and grain, and even broke into A small county town.
Wu Sangui led 3,000 elite soldiers, including more than 1,000 cavalry chasing after him.
After chasing and escaping, these bandit troops were unable to be wiped out, and even maintained a size of about 1,500 people, no more, no less.
After several battles with local officers and soldiers along the way, they suffered losses and were able to quickly recruit bandits to recover. However, when they tried to expand their scale, they were often attacked by Wu Sangui's troops, killing and injuring their bandits and blocking them at the same time. Loot more money and food.
So in the end, they could only maintain a size of about 1,500 people.
During this process, each of the three thousand troops under Wu Sangui became stronger and stronger. At the same time, some people were also separated to transport a large amount of gold, silver, soft goods and other materials to the north.
Wu Sangui's operation confused the generals of the Home Guard Army on the opposite side...
At first, Huang Dingquan reported that there were elites from Jiliao Guanning Army going south, and they might be coming from bad intentions. For this reason, the Northern Route Army had already increased its combat readiness, canceled its vacation, and was waiting for Wu Sangui to come over and cause trouble with Zuo Liangyu.
But I didn't expect that this person would make a false shot in Ruzhou and go directly to Kaifeng Mansion. Not to mention, by February, this person would have already gone to Runing Mansion.
What's more important is that although this person ran to Runing Mansion, he never went to the front line area, but wandered behind.
Whether it was Huang Dingquan, the commander of the Northern Route Army who was also the commander of the Second Division, or Zuo Yingzhe, the commander of the Third Division, they could not understand why Wu Sangui did this.
In the end, it was determined that Wu Sangui might want to wander around the periphery, attracting their Hometown Protecting Army to mobilize their troops, or even attracting their Hometown Protecting Army to take the initiative to attack, and then use the advantage of the cavalry to counterattack.
At the same time, I also felt that Wu Sangui and the others might want to contact and join up with the several frontier armies that had gone south before. Once these frontier armies joined together, there would be a border army of approximately 10,000.
If they gather together and move quickly, they can completely attack a certain point before the Baoxiang Army counterattacks, and then tear apart the defense line of the Baoxiang Army and penetrate into the hinterland of northern Chu.
So, after Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe exchanged urgent letters and communicated with each other, they decided to pay close attention to the movements of Wu Sangui and other Ming troops on the one hand, and report them immediately if they found signs of large-scale gatherings.
At the same time, the troops on the front line were ordered to be more vigilant, reserve supplies in advance, and make plans to defend to the death.
Finally, the North Route Army and the East Route Army each established strategic mobile forces to provide timely reinforcements when the Ming army launched a fierce attack.
The idea of Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe is very simple, that is, to defend to the death, ensure that the hinterland of Chubei is not lost, and ensure the smooth progress of the spring Chunan offensive in the near future.
However, no matter how they thought about it, Wu Sangui never thought of attacking the defense line of the Hometown Protection Army. He was only thinking about getting money and food.
Moreover, Wu Sangui will not join forces with several other border armies, because they are competitors to each other...
A place has a lot of money and food, and if it doesn't dare to attack the city directly and rob the truly wealthy and powerful families, it can only attack some ordinary farms in the suburbs.
And these places are rich, and money and food are also rich.
If other Ming troops came to suppress the thieves, when Wu Sangui went to suppress the thieves, the harvest would be much less. If they were unlucky, they wouldn't even be able to eat any of them.
To suppress thieves and steal money and food, you still have to do it yourself.
Wu Sangui's operation made Huang Dingquan and Zuo Yingzhe unable to turn around, but there were many understanding people within the Ming army.
Especially Chen Biqian, the big boss who was the governor of the Eastern Front and the governor of Henan, was not stupid. After receiving continuous impeachment complaints from some local officials about Wu Sangui's military plunder, let's take a look at Wu Sangui's so-called route of suppressing bandits.
Then you can basically tell what Wu Sangui is doing.
This man was using the name of suppressing bandits to launch troops and plunder, to collect money and food for the tens of thousands of soldiers in Liaodong.
However, Chen Biqian was a mature politician. He suppressed all these impeachments without even reprimanding Wu Sangui.
He just asked Wu Sangui to lead his troops to the front line of Wuyang after 'wiping out' the bandits, and cooperated with Zuo Liangyu to counterattack the Yuzhou defense line and strive to penetrate into the hinterland of Nanyang.
Yes, Chen Biqian still never gave up on counterattacking Nanyang Mansion and Chubei!
This idea became even stronger after he learned that the rebels had accumulated a large number of troops on both sides of the Yangtze River, especially in Wuchang Prefecture, and seemed to have the intention of moving south or east.
He has no control over the rebel army going south to Chunan. That is Yang Sichang's business.
If the bandit army wants to advance eastward, he will be beyond his reach for a while and can only let Shi Kefa defend the front line of Jiangbei and Jiujiang.
However, if the rebel army wants to move south or east, this means that the strategic focus of the rebel army is still in the south, and there will not be too many rebel troops in Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture in the north.
Chen Biqian also learned that the bandit army had a very large ordnance workshop outside Xiangyang City, which produced and supplied almost all the guns, armor, and other ordnance for the bandits.
if……
If he can concentrate his forces and attack Nanyang Mansion, then Xiangyang Mansion.
Even if Xiangyang City itself cannot be defeated by then, it will still be able to destroy the rebel army's ordnance work located on the outskirts of Xiangyang City.
"The Xiangyang Arsenal has the heart to protect thieves. If it is destroyed, the thieves will die!"
If this arsenal can be accepted and controlled, then Ming Ting will get an arsenal with huge output.
With such a huge arsenal, it would not be a problem to give the court a few years to build hundreds of long cannons, hundreds of thousands of dry muskets, and hundreds of thousands of armors.
When the time comes, why worry about being captured by the East?
Well, as for how much money is needed to maintain the production of such a huge arsenal, how to pay for purchasing raw materials, how to pay tens of thousands of workers, and how to solve their ration problem.
This is not an issue that Chen Biqian needs to consider.
But if you want to fight to Xiangyang to destroy or even accept this arsenal, you must first fight to Xiangyang, the hinterland of northern Chu.
Because Xiangyang is an important transportation area with connections in all directions, if the Ming army reaches Xiangyang, there will be many roads to choose from.
From Hanzhongfu to Yunyang and then to Xiangyang.
From Ruzhou to Luyang Pass and then to Nanyang and Xiangyang.
From Yexian, from Yuzhou, to Nanyang and Xiangyang.
You can also go directly over the mountains and ridges from Queshan to Biyang and then to Xiangyang.
Go south from Yiyang Sanguan in Xinyang Prefecture and conquer the Yingshan line. You can also go to Xiangyang Prefecture via Suizhou.
Even the troops in eastern Sichuan can directly attack Yunyang Mansion and finally reach Xiangyang.
However, none of the above routes are accessible!
