When the imperial decree deposing and arresting Wang Jiazhen, together with the imperial decree appointing Fan Jingwen as the governor of Nanjing, arrived at Jinling City, the Chu army had just captured Wuhu, Taiping Prefecture, which was only more than a hundred kilometers away from Jinling City.
A group of civil servants and generals in Jinling City asked him what to do?
Fan Jingwen said: "Unite as one, stand firm and wait for help."
Faced with a series of questions from his subordinates, such as: The bandit army is huge, the city's defenders only have 20,000 troops, and there are only a dozen cannons. How should we hold on when facing the Chu bandits' attack?
How many reinforcements will there be? Where did it come from? When will you arrive?
There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city. What if the rebels besiege the city and there will be insufficient food and grass?
Fan Jingwen faced these problems, but he had no solution!
Defend the city? It was easier said than done. There were only ten thousand defenders in the city, and most of them were old, young and weak. Some of the elite soldiers in the city had actually been transferred to the Jiujiang defense line and were lost, including the three thousand new standard troops under Governor Yingtian.
Today, there are only more than 20,000 troops in the city, of which the new standard army is only 2,000 newly recruited and trained by Governor Yingtian.
There are not many artillery. Because of the previous support for the Jiujiang defense line, Wang Jiazhen sent many artillery, especially the useful Hongyi cannon, and even general artillery, Folangji and other artillery to the Jiujiang defense line, while the remaining ones on the top of Jinling City were Among the artillery, there are only a dozen Hongyi artillery pieces, and the remaining general cannons weighing more than 200 kilograms, and the Folangji can only be twenty or thirty pieces.
Not to mention the city defense system, Jinling City is too big, the perimeter of the city wall alone is dozens of miles, and the city area is so large that such a large place cannot build complete fortress defenses like other cities.
Because the amount of the project is too large, it is impossible to cover it completely. We can only selectively reinforce fortifications in some areas. However, the Chu thieves are not stupid. Jinling City is so big, they can completely bypass the Ming army's heavily fortified areas. Attack at weak points.
There are insufficient troops, not many artillery, and the city defenses are not very good.
Fan Jingwen has no hope of holding on to the city!
As for reinforcements?
Although there are still some troops in the surrounding prefectures and counties, they are not large, and the south of the Yangtze River has been at peace for a long time. The number of Japanese pirates who used to roam the coast is now relatively small. After all, Zheng Zhilong has been recruited as an official of the Ming Dynasty, and there are some along the coasts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The number of pirate attacks has been greatly reduced.
As for the current bandits or bandits, they are still far away from Jiangnan.
Under such circumstances, it was naturally impossible for the local area to maintain too many elite troops, and the only troops were gradually transferred to the western front to fight the Chu army.
In order to deploy the Jiujiang defense line, many troops in the south of the Yangtze River, including the New Biao Army under Governor Yingtian, were transferred to Jiujiang.
After the news of the fall of Jiujiang reached, Wang Jiazhen urgently dispatched many reinforcements from surrounding areas to reinforce the front lines such as Hukou, Anqing Prefecture, and Chizhou Prefecture.
After Hukou was also finished, Wang Jiazhen organized a third reinforcement.
Before and after this, Wang Jiazhen transferred almost all the troops in Jiangnan that could fight, and even some of Zhejiang's troops to the Western Front. The total number was at least more than 50,000, including several thousand new standard troops.
But these Jiangnan troops who went to the Western Front never returned.
Now there are not many troops left in the entire Jiangnan region.
After Wang Jiazhen fell in Anqing, he urgently mobilized the last batch of fresh troops from surrounding areas to garrison Jinling City.
Nowadays, in the entire Jiangnan, except for the more than 20,000 troops in Jinling City, there are not many troops elsewhere.
It is impossible for Fan Jingwen to mobilize reinforcements from the Jiangnan or even Zhejiang areas, because there are no soldiers to mobilize for him. At most, they will only temporarily recruit civilians.
However, many actual battles between the Ming Army and the Chu Army have proven that, let alone the common people, even ordinary guardsmen are useless against the Chu Army, and they can't even consume much ammunition for Chu thieves.
There are no reinforcements in the Jiangnan area, but there are still some fresh troops in the Jiangbei area, such as the troops under the governors such as the Governor of Fengyang and the Governor of Water Transport, as well as the Jiangbei New Standard Army previously trained by Wang Jiazhen.
The New Standard Army compiled by the former Nanjing Governor Wang Jiazhen had only four to five thousand troops and a serious lack of equipment due to its short time.
However, the Ming army in the Jiangbei area is also very busy now, and most of them cannot protect themselves.
Previously, the Ming army in the Jiangbei region, such as the troops under Governor Fengyang and the Jiangbei New Biao Army, all tried to reinforce Anqing City under Wang Jiazhen's orders, but before they arrived, Anqing City was captured by the Chu army. .
Subsequently, the Chu Army's First Cavalry Brigade also crossed the river in Anqing, and cooperated with the Chu Army's Second Army to continue attacking eastward, successively capturing Qianshan, Tongcheng, Lujiang, Wuwei Prefecture and other places.
One part of the Second Army is now heading north to the Hefei area of Luzhou Prefecture, and part of it is continuing eastward to Hezhou.
Now Governor Fengyang and other troops from Jiangbei are trying to control the Chu Army's Eighth Division and other troops from moving northward in the Hefei area.
The Jiangbei New Biao Army was previously ordered to garrison Hezhou with the local Ming army in an attempt to block the eastward advance of the Chu Army's Fourth Division.
These Ming troops in the Jiangbei area cannot leave either.
The defense force is insufficient and there are not many reinforcements. What can Fan Jingwen do?
He could only say a lot of things such as saying that he would rather die than surrender for two hundred years. He also said that he had already prepared a coffin and vowed to live and die together in Nanjing... trying to boost morale.
However, none of the civil and military officials in the city are stupid.
When they saw Fan Jingwen's appearance, they knew that Jinling City was doomed.
As a result, some people first sent their family members out of the city, and at the same time prepared escape routes for themselves, waiting for the Chu thieves to kill them and run away immediately.
Others quietly contacted people from the Military Intelligence Department of the General Staff Department of the Great Chu Empire.
In October in Jinling City, people’s hearts are filled with excitement!
In Wuhu, more than 100 kilometers west of Jinling City, Luo Zhixue just led the First Guards Division to arrive here.
Before he arrived at such a place, the First Army had already left this place and continued to advance eastward, attacking Dangtu.
If nothing unexpected happens in the future, the First Army will continue to advance eastward, and it is estimated that it will not take long to reach Jinling City.
At the same time, in the Jiangbei area, the Second Army is currently divided into two groups. Although the Eighth Division has insufficient troops and is heading north to Hefei, it has directly separated from the Yangtze River waterway, causing supply difficulties. Therefore, the war going north is progressing slowly.
However, the progress of the Fourth Division's attack on Hezhou is relatively smooth. According to the latest battle report, the Fourth Division has basically captured the surrounding areas of Hezhou and is preparing to launch a general attack on Hezhou.
Once the Fourth Division can capture Hezhou, the First Army and other troops advancing eastward in the south of the Yangtze River will no longer have to worry about the Ming army crossing the river from the Hezhou area and cutting off their retreat.
Moreover, if the Fourth Division continues to advance eastward, it can directly capture Jiangpu across the river from Jinling City, directly cutting off the Ming army in Jinling City and many powerful gentry's escape route across the river to the north.
In fact, it is easier and more convenient to cut off the connection between Jinling City and Jiangpu on the north bank and use the navy's fleet to blockade it, but it is not easy for the navy now.
The Yangtze River Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy had already sailed eastward along the Yangtze River after the Battle of Anqing. In addition to cooperating with the army to attack the cities along the way, some warships had actually gone directly outside Jinling City to test the strength of the local Ming Navy. , but the news fed back by the Navy is not optimistic!
On the pier outside Jinling City, reinforcements from the Ming Navy were already arriving from the coastal areas.
Many of these Ming Navy ships were large ships operating along the coast, and there were quite a few of them.
The most important thing is that the combat effectiveness of these Ming navy troops who came from the coast for reinforcements is much stronger than that of the Ming army army...
Many Ming naval forces inside either fought with pirates all year round, or were simply recruited from pirates, and some of them were from Zheng Zhilong's fleet!
As for the navy of the Dachu Empire, it seems that there are a lot of warships, but in fact most of them are small boats. The only ones that can barely compete with the large coastal warships of the Ming Army are the six first-class inland warships.
In response to the Ming Dynasty's coastal navy that appeared in the Jinling City area, the navy stated that the navy has the ability and confidence to ensure the progress of the Jinling City battle, and to block the enemy forces in the waters east of Jinling City to prevent the enemy navy from destroying Jinling City. Yangtze River waterway to the west.
The implicit meaning of this statement is that the navy is not confident that it can kill the Ming Navy in the Yangtze River Basin.
It has to be said that this is also the first real military problem that Chu Jundong encountered when he came in, and there is no good solution in a short time.
After all, the Chu army's own naval strength was like this. Even if it captured a group of Ming navy warships, it would still be difficult to compete with the Ming court's coastal navy.
If you want to gain an advantage, you can only wait for the newly built warships to be built and launched one after another, and more qualified sailors and gunners to be trained.
And this takes time.
Naturally, Luo Zhixue would not wait patiently for the navy to slowly expand its strength and completely control the lower reaches of the Yangtze River before launching an attack.
The Eastward Campaign has reached this point, and the Chu Empire does not have much time to wait slowly.
It is now the Little Ice Age, and the weather in October is already very cold. It has begun to snow in the northernmost Nanyang Mansion under the control of the Chu Army.
Even the Eighth Division, which was fighting in the Hefei area, mentioned in many battle reports that the weather was getting colder.
According to the experience of previous years, even after October enters the Jiangnan region, the weather will quickly become colder, and heavy snow may fall at any time.
Once the heavy snow falls, it will inevitably cause huge obstacles to the Chu army's large-scale military operations.
Even if the Chu army has prepared enough winter clothes in advance, heavy snow will make marching difficult and material transportation more difficult.
Everyone in the Chu army, not even Luo Zhixue, was willing to attack Jinling City or even Jiangnan when it was snowing heavily.
But if we delay the fight and wait until the cold winter passes, it will give the Ming court more time. By then, it is estimated that more reinforcements will come to the Jiangnan area.
If possible, Luo Zhixue still hopes to go to the entire Jiangnan before entering the real snowy weather.
Even if they cannot capture the entire Jiangnan, they must at least capture Jinling City.
Calculating this, there is not much time left for Luo Zhixue and the Chu army.
