Changsha was originally just an ordinary city under the jurisdiction of the huge Hunan Province.
Its political status is not even ranked among the top five in the huge Huguang area.
In the administration of Huguang, the political center is the undisputed Wuchang City. This city is located at the midpoint between north and south of Huguang and is a city along the Yangtze River. It has long been the residence of the Third Division of Huguang and the governor of Huguang.
Below Wuchang are Yunyang City in Yunyang Prefecture and Yuanzhou in Chenzhou Prefecture. Why are these two cities?
Because Yunyang City is the residence of the governor of Yunyang. When the famous Lu Xiangsheng was the governor of Yunyang, his residence was in Yunyang.
Yuanzhou is the residence of Governor Pianyuan.
As the governor's residence, these two cities naturally became the political center. In the huge Huguang area, the political status of these two places exceeded that of Chengtianfu Zhongxiang, Xiangyang and Changsha in the Ming Dynasty.
It is worth mentioning that in the Ming Dynasty, the governor's jurisdiction and the chief envoy's jurisdiction, that is, the province, were two different things.
The area under the jurisdiction of the chief envoy is a province in the traditional sense. For example, the entire Huguang region is under the jurisdiction of the chief envoy of Huguang.
The governor's jurisdiction may be a province, it may span multiple provinces, or it may be just a number of state capitals under one province.
Therefore, there is no such thing as one governor per province these days. The governor's jurisdiction is mainly determined according to military needs and changes due to changes in unrest.
For example, the governor of Yunyang has jurisdiction over the state capitals of Huguang, Shaanxi, Henan, and Sichuan provinces.
Another example is the Governor of Pianyuan, which also includes Huguang, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places.
The governor of southern Jiangxi, covering the four provinces of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian and Huguang.
The governor of Huguang refers to a part of the province, not the entire province.
Looking at the administrative envoys and the governor's jurisdiction, it can basically be seen that the powers of the governor in the middle and late Ming Dynasty were heavily biased towards military affairs.
However, because the governors were civil servants sent from Gyeonggi Province, and most of them had titles such as censor of the capital, deputy censor of the capital, or even right minister of the Ministry of War, and almost all the governors were assigned as 'Admiral of Military Affairs' and held large armies.
Regardless of whether in terms of political status or actual authority, the governor surpassed the local chief secretary, envoys and other local officials, and ranked above the three divisions.
Therefore, most of the governors in the late Ming Dynasty also controlled some administrative, supervisory and other powers. Up to now, the governors have become the de facto officials responsible for the highest local military administration.
In this way, the political status of each governor's residence gradually increased, and eventually became the local political center.
This is the case in Wuchang, Yunyang, and Yuanzhou.
After the three major governorships, the more important political position was that of Ming Chengtian Prefecture Zhongxiang. For no other reason than this place was the hometown of Emperor Jiajing. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty forcibly changed the name of this place from Anlu Prefecture. This can be seen from the change to a name with special significance such as Chengtian Mansion.
After Zhongxiang, there are Xiangyang and Changsha. Among them, Xiangyang, as the first fortified city in the Central Plains, is undoubtedly more important, so Changsha can still only be ranked at the back.
Before the rise of the Chu Empire, Changsha's political status in the Huguang area was only around sixth or seventh...
However, all this changed after the rise of the Chu Empire and the capture of Northern Chu.
Last year, the Chu Empire successively captured various parts of northern Chu. Important cities such as Xiangyang, Yunyang, Zhongxiang, Jiangling, and Hanyang fell under the control of the Chu Empire one by one. The strategically important Wuchang also became the frontline.
At that time, the Ming court arrested and imprisoned Tang Hui, the prime minister for military affairs of the five provinces and governor of Huguang, and seized the opportunity to reinstate Yang Sichang as the new prime minister for military affairs of the five provinces and governor of Huguang.
It's just that the process of reviving love is more troublesome. It took a full two or three months. By the time the Ming court completed the process of reviving love, Wuchang had been captured by the Great Chu Empire and became the capital of the Great Chu Empire. 's capital.
As a result, Yang Sichang no longer even has the place where he took office...
Therefore, Yang Sichang could only settle for the next best thing and chose Changsha, which was strategically important and important, as his base.
As a result, Changsha suddenly became the political center of the entire Huguang region and even several surrounding provinces under the Ming Dynasty.
Yang Sichang is not just the governor of Huguang. The governor of Huguang is just a part-time job for him. Even if he is the prime minister of the military affairs of the five provinces, it is just his dispatch.
His official position is the right minister of the Ministry of War and the right deputy governor of the capital, which is half a rank higher than the ordinary governor's right minister of the military ministry and right deputy governor of the capital.
With such a big boss sitting in Changsha, Changsha will naturally become one of the political centers in the entire southern region. South of the Yangtze River, apart from Yingtianfu Jinling City, Changsha is the most important for the time being.
However, this city, which has been very important to the Ming Dynasty in the past six months, is now closed tightly. There are soldiers patrolling the city top, and there is also panic in the city.
All this is because everyone in Changsha City has learned the news that the New Standard Army's left army was completely destroyed in the suburbs of Yiyang a few days ago, and that Yiyang City and Wuling City were lost.
This is especially because since yesterday, Chu thieves cavalry wearing gray robes and shaved heads have appeared outside Changsha City one after another!
Although the large group of Chu bandit soldiers and horses have not arrived yet, anyone with a discerning eye knows that the Chu bandit army is not far from Changsha.
In the city, Yang Sichang has been in a very bad mood for the past two days.
When he learned that the new left army, which he had high hopes for, had been completely wiped out, he almost couldn't calm down...
The New Standard Army Zuojun, but he had painstakingly started preparations before he officially took office. In order to build the New Standard Army Zuojun, he worked hard to collect money and food, recruit craftsmen to build guns, and even in order for the New Standard Army Zuojun to be able to When it came to play a role at a critical moment, he still maintained his old suspicions. While hiding the left army, he launched a new standard army and the right army in Changsha with great fanfare, trying to confuse the Chu thieves.
But I still didn't expect that just after the Chu rebels went south, the main force did not come to Changsha. Instead, they marched westward with their heads covered, and sent tens of thousands of garrison troops southward with great fanfare, confusing the Ming army's spies.
By the time Yang Sichang in Changsha figured out that the Chu bandits going south were just a group of garrison troops, and that none of the main force of the bandit army was missing, it was already too late.
Because at that time, the main force of the Chu army had already appeared in Yiyang City and surrounded the left army of the New Biao Army.
Well, although Yang Sichang didn't know it at the time, he felt the crisis and quickly sent someone to warn his cousin Yang Sixing, asking him to act with caution. If he encounters the main force of the rebel army, he should immediately retreat to Wuling City.
But just one day after his messenger was sent out, he received a report of the attack from the north. The left army of the New Standard Army had been completely wiped out.
The end of the new standard army's left army not only meant that the more than 5,000 main forces that Yang Sichang had worked hard for for half a year were in vain, but also directly led to the sudden change in the situation in Chunan as follows.
The entire Chu Nan can no longer pull out a second main force that can compete with the Chu thieves.
In such a situation, Chu Nan is in danger!
Yang Sichang was very anxious about this, but he had no idea.
Now he has mobilized all the troops he can mobilize, including thousands of guardsmen under remote governors who guard the local chieftains, and he has mobilized them to Changsha.
However, even so, the defensive force in Changsha City was only 30,000.
These 30,000 troops seem to be a lot, but they have few guns, bows, arrows and armor.
The only people who could be pulled out to fight were the more than 3,000 people from the New Standard Army's right army and about 2,000 personal servants and servants under each general.
As for other people, no matter what kind of battalion sentry soldiers, ordinary guard soldiers who were temporarily pulled into the battle, or simply young and strong civilians, they could not be beaten.
Under such circumstances, the chance of holding Changsha is definitely not greater than the chance of holding Linxiang.
While Yang Sichang was frowning in Changsha, the Chu army north of Changsha was moving south unhurriedly.
The Sixth and Eighth Garrison Divisions, which had moved south many days in advance, did not move quickly at the beginning, and then simply stopped in a small town on the way.
After the main force led by Luo Zhixue personally ended the war in Yiyang City and Wuling City, the speed of moving southward was relatively fast at first. However, after taking Ningxiang, the overall speed of moving southward also slowed down.
Now, the main force led by Luo Zhixue has just joined the Sixth and Eighth Defense Divisions.
After converging, the army slowly moved south, while sending a partial division east to attack Liuyang, and also dispatched a partial division to bypass and attack Xiangtan.
According to the battle plan formulated by the General Staff, before the army formally besieged Changsha, it was necessary to destroy the two outlying cities of Liuyang and Xiangtan as much as possible to cut off the connection between Changsha and other places and prevent external Ming troops from reinforcing Changsha.
At the same time, it was also to see if we could attract the Changsha garrison to send troops to rescue, so that we could come to the rescue and eliminate the Changsha garrison as much as possible in the field.
It is a pity that the Changsha defenders were very stubborn and had no idea of sending troops. They watched Liuyang and Xiangtan being captured by the Chu army's partial division.
Since the Ming army was firmly entrenched in Changsha, Luo Zhixue had nothing to hesitate and led the army directly to the outside of Changsha.
On April 18, the second year of Chengshun in the Chu Empire, the Chu army, which had been on the road for several days, finally arrived outside Changsha and began to build camps and fortifications.
Tens of thousands of Chu troops were camped outside the city. Looking out from the top of the city gate, the densely packed tents could hardly be seen from the camera.
Yang Sichang looked at the bandits outside the city with a solemn expression!
Even though he has been sitting in Changsha commanding the army to fight against the Chu bandits for half a year, this is actually the first time he has seen the Chu bandit army with his own eyes.
Although the Chu bandit camp is still relatively far away, you can still vaguely see that the Chu bandit is dressed in gray just like the rumors said.
Whether it is regular clothes or the outer cloth of the cloth armor, the main tone is gray. A large group of Chu thieves gathered together, just like the dark clouds floating in the sky, making people feel depressed just looking at them.
However, the Chu thieves' uniformly bald heads in the rumors are good to see, because many Chu thieves either wear helmets or gray felt hats.
However, Yang Sichang's focus was not on these, but on the large number of artillery among these Chu thieves.
Even though they were far apart, Yang Sichang still saw batch after batch of hundreds of artillery pieces!
When he saw the artillery troops of the Chu thieves approaching one after another from a distance, his mouth was open for a long time without being able to close...
How much money did the Chu thieves who were killed on this day plunder to build so many artillery pieces?
At this moment, he suddenly understood and even understood why Wuchang, Linxiang and other cities fell, and he also understood why his cousin Yang Sixing's left army could not hold on for only two days.
These damn Chu thieves have hundreds of various long-barreled field artillery, medium and large mortars!
