With the capture of Changsha, Luo Zhixue has decided to return to the DPRK with his troops to prepare for the subsequent eastward campaign.
However, before returning to Wuchang, he had to make arrangements for the subsequent war in Chunan.
The first thing is to promote Han Ziping, commander of the Southern Route Army and commander of the Fifth Division, to lieutenant general.
Han Ziping's promotion did not come with too many surprises. Before the Chunan War, the reason why Luo Zhixue chose him as the commander of the Fifth Division and formed the South Route Army with the Fifth Division as the core was because he had already had the idea of letting Han Ziping take charge of one side. .
Later, when Han Ziping served as the commander of the South Route Army and the commander of the Fifth Division, he lived up to his expectations.
Before the Chunan War was officially launched, Han Ziping led a group of generals from the Southern Route Army and staff members to formulate a detailed battle plan for the Chunan War. The Chu Army was able to successfully capture Linxiang and Changsha, while also The ability to completely annihilate the New Standard Left Army in the battle on the outskirts of Yiyang was indispensable to the strategic plan formulated by Han Ziping before the war.
After the battle was launched, Han Ziping, the commander of the Southern Route Army, became a figurehead for a time. He participated more in the battle as the commander of the Fifth Division, and the performance of the Fifth Division was also remarkable.
And these were enough for Luo Zhixue to finally make up his mind to support Han Ziping to truly coordinate the war in Chunan.
After being promoted to lieutenant general, Han Ziping will command the 5th Division, the temporary 4th Mixed Regiment, the 2nd Mortar Regiment, the 3rd Garrison Division, the 6th Garrison Division, the 8th Garrison Division and the newly formed 10th Garrison Division. The division fought in the southern Chu area.
Because there are many troops under overall command and the area is wide, they need to face the Ming army from Chunan, Yunnan-Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and other directions at the same time.
In addition, there are also a number of generals at the lower level waiting for promotion, so Han Ziping is no longer suitable to continue to serve as the commander of the fifth division, and must make room for other meritorious generals.
Because the commander of the Fifth Division will be the deputy commander of the division, Lin Siyong, and his military rank will be promoted from brigadier general to major general.
Lin Siyong was also a senior general in the Chu army, and he was a former defector to the Ming army. However, he was just a low-level sentry officer when he surrendered. Therefore, he basically did not suffer any negative effects of being demoted after surrendering, and he continued smoothly. He started working in low-level positions, and because of his literacy, he successively entered the battalion school to study, and then step by step he served as battalion commander, regimental commander, brigade commander, and deputy division commander.
During the Battle of Chunan, Lin Siyong and Han Ziping did a pretty good job together, and they were promoted this time.
After the promotion of Han Ziping and Lin Siyong, the main generals of the Southern Route Army are basically in place.
On the third day of May, the Chu army, which had rested in Changsha for several days, attacked again. Han Ziping led the Fifth Division and other troops to attack Hengyang.
There were not many defenders in Hengyang at all. Even if Yang Sichang moved in with some troops after breaking through, there was no way he could withstand the offensive of 20,000 to 30,000 Chu troops.
Yang Sichang simply stopped guarding Hengyang and fled south with more than 6,000 defeated soldiers. He fled all the way to Zhaoqing, Guangdong. At the same time, he continued to mobilize troops and even mobilized troops from Guangdong and Guangxi to rely on southern Chunan. Fighting in complex mountainous areas.
After Han Ziping led his army to capture Hengyang, he did not continue to pursue southward. Instead, he left part of the garrison behind and then led his troops to attack Baoqing Mansion and captured Shaoyang and other places.
As a result, the main plain areas in the southern Chu region, that is, the densely populated areas and important grain-producing areas, are basically under the control of the Chu army.
Although the Southern Route Army will continue to fight the Ming Army in the follow-up period to win over other areas, the Chu Army's strategic purpose has actually been achieved during the entire Chunan offensive.
On May 18, after seeing that the situation in Chunan had stabilized, Luo Zhixue did not stop in Changsha and directly led the Guards Division and the Ninth Guards Division back eastward.
The defense of the Chunan area will be fully transferred to the South Route Army Headquarters.
In order to better rule the Chunan region, Luo Zhixue also established the provincial administrative agency "Governor of Chunan" for the first time.
Before this, because the ruling area was not very large, and the capital of the Great Chu Empire was in Wuchang, there was not much need to establish a governor-level organization.
However, after taking over most of southern Chu, many places were too far away from Wuchang. At the same time, the number of state capitals under the rule of the Chu Empire increased significantly, so it was no longer suitable to directly rule the state capitals.
For this reason, when Luo Zhixue was still in Changsha, he decreed the establishment of the Chunan Governor's Office and appointed Dong Minghui, the governor of Yuezhou Prefecture who was more familiar with the situation in Chunan, as the first Chunan Governor.
The jurisdiction of the Governor of Southern Chu will cover all other state capitals in the Southern Chu region except Hantian Prefecture and Jingzhou Prefecture, including Yuezhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture, Changde Prefecture, Hengyang Prefecture, Baoqing Prefecture, Chenzhou Prefecture, and Yongzhou Prefecture. and four provincial states.
The governor's residence is Changsha. At the same time, along with the establishment of the governor's yamen, there are three judicial and taxation agencies, Chunan Supervisory Court, Chunan Trial Court, and Chunan Taxation Court, which are independent of the governor's yamen.
It can be seen from the establishment of this institution that the governors in the Chu Empire were different from those in the Ming Dynasty. First of all, this governor had no military power, and at the same time, he had no taxation power. Even the judicial power was subject to certain restrictions.
The main authority of this governor lies in administrative power, which is somewhat similar to the chief envoy of the Ming Dynasty, but has higher authority than the chief envoy of the Ming Dynasty and has certain judicial powers.
Because the Supervisory Yuan and the Judicial Yuan are under the dual jurisdiction of the governor's Yamen and the Gyeonggi Supervisory Yuan and the Judicial Yuan.
Generally speaking, the authority of the governor of the Chu Empire was between that of the Ming court governor and the chief envoy.
The establishment of the Governor of Southern Chu also meant that the expansion of the Chu Empire had embarked on a new high-speed lane.
After leaving Changsha and returning to Wuchang, Luo Zhixue once again ordered the establishment of the Governor's Office of Northern Chu, established various colleges in Northern Chu, and appointed Gan Xiuming, the prefect of Xiangyang, as the first Governor of Northern Chu.
The jurisdiction of the governor of Northern Chu is Xiangyang Prefecture, Yunyang Prefecture, Junzhou Prefecture, Anlu Prefecture, Jingzhou Prefecture, De'an Prefecture, and Huangzhou Prefecture.
As a result, the huge Huguang was divided into three parts by Luo Zhixue. The north was the governor's jurisdiction of Northern Chu, and the south was the governor's jurisdiction of southern Chu. Moreover, the governor's jurisdiction of the Great Chu Empire belonged to the entire provincial-level organization, and the governor of the Ming Dynasty. Jurisdictions pay more attention to military functions.
In addition to the two major governor areas of Chu North and Chu South, there is still a Han Tianfu with a special status in the Huguang area.
As the seat of the capital, Han Tianfu will naturally not be included in any governor's jurisdiction, but will directly fall under the jurisdiction of the capital.
After arriving in Wuchang, Luo Zhixue once again ordered the formation of a governor of Henan, with the temporary headquarters in Nanyang City.
The governor of Henan seems to be relatively vain, because the Henan area controlled by the Chu Empire currently only has Nanyang Prefecture and some mountainous areas in the southwest of Ruzhou. There is even an area in Nanyang Prefecture that is still under the control of the Ming army. .
That is Ye County, which is now Zuo Liangyu's base camp. If the Chu army had not made up its mind and dispatched tens of thousands of main forces to go north for the Northern Expedition, it would have been impossible to hope to kill Zuo Liangyu and conquer Ye County.
However, even though there was only an isolated Nanyang Mansion, Luo Zhixue directly established the governor of Henan, established the governor's office and the fourth hospital.
After all, the governor of northern Chu could not control the affairs of Nanyang Mansion, and the distance directly under the central government was too far.
At the same time, the affairs of the governor of Henan are not only limited to Nanyang Prefecture, but also include the establishment of underground governments such as Fuzhou and County in the surrounding enemy-occupied areas in advance, to understand the local situation in advance, and to collect various intelligence to lay the foundation for the subsequent formal rule. Base.
Therefore, although there is only one Nanyang Prefecture in the actual ruling area of the Henan Governor, in fact, under the rule of the Henan Governor, the Ruzhou Prefecture Magistrate's Yamen, the Henan Prefecture Magistrate's Yamen, and the Runing Prefecture Magistrate's Yamen will be established one after another.
Even in Kaifeng Prefecture, which is far away from the area controlled by the Chu army, a small number of personnel will be sent to set up the Kaifeng Prefecture Magistrate's Office locally and start secret work.
It has been a long-standing tradition of the Chu Empire to set up secret yamen in advance in enemy-occupied areas to carry out intelligence collection and personnel recruitment.
This is not just done in Henan, but actually done in other places as well. However, there are no actual control areas in other places, so there is no grand governor's office.
The establishment of three governor's jurisdictions was a major move in the internal affairs of the Chu Empire promoted by Luo Zhi after the Battle of Changsha.
By establishing three governor-general jurisdictions, the Chu Empire finally fully constructed a multi-level local governance structure of the central government-province/direct government-prefecture/provincial prefecture-county/prefecture-town-village.
At the same time, it also further improved the official system and established a relatively crude, but already popular promotion channel for officials.
It would not be like before, where the magistrate and the minister, two positions with huge differences in levels, would actually be transferred to each other.
Just when Luo Zhixue was further improving internal affairs in Wuchang and making various preparations for the subsequent eastward war.
The Forbidden City in the north is immersed in gloom!
"They are all a bunch of rubbish, a bunch of rubbish!"
"They all sound nice, but when they go into battle they are all trash, they are all rats!"
"What did he tell me at the beginning? He said that as long as there are many parties to surround and defend the city, the Chu thieves can be controlled. After the position is stabilized, he will send troops to counterattack Chu Bei and destroy Luo Ni in one fell swoop."
"But now, how did he do it..."
"Changsha fell, Hengyang fell, tens of thousands of troops were lost, most of Chunan fell into the hands of thieves, and all the important land of money and food was lost."
"The situation in Chunan is so corrupt. How can he, Yang Sichang, deserve my trust?"
"Forget it, he actually dared to flee without a fight. He abandoned Hengyang and fled to Guangdong with his troops. Such a rebellious minister cannot comfort the souls of tens of thousands of soldiers without killing him!"
Chongzhen watched the news coming from the south that it was Yang Sichang who fled without fighting in Hengyang. His hands could not help but tremble...
I am even more angry and desperate than before after receiving the disastrous defeat in Linxiang, the disastrous defeat in Yiyang, and the capture of Changsha!
Linxiang and even Changsha were defeated. Although Chongzhen was very angry at the time, he also knew that the Chu thieves were coming fiercely and it was possible that they could not hold on.
Although it failed in the end, it still endured stubborn resistance.
As for Yang Sichang, although Chongzhen issued several decrees to punish him, he even had his title of right minister of the Ministry of War removed, and his title of right deputy imperial envoy was demoted to right imperial censor after the Battle of Changsha.
However, he still did not take off the title of Prime Minister Yang Sichang for military affairs in the five provinces.
Chongzhen still hoped in his heart that Yang Sichang would be able to make meritorious deeds.
However, when he saw Yang Sichang abandoning Hengyang and fleeing to Guangdong with his remaining defeated soldiers, he could no longer hold back the anger in his heart:
"Yang Sichang lost the city and territory, escaped from the battle, and was immediately arrested by the royal guards and sent to Beijing to await trial!"
