He was well aware of the Chu thieves' strong combat effectiveness. His previous strength was in cavalry, but he had overall disadvantages in infantry and artillery.
Once the Chu thieves go north, it will be the time when the Chu thieves have solved the problem of cavalry. Regardless of whether the Chu thieves have obtained more cavalry or they have found a way to deal with the cavalry, it means that the Chu thieves have already dealt with their own cavalry. Ability.
Under such circumstances, once the Chu thieves move north in large numbers, if I bite the bullet and fight with them, I'm afraid I will end up dying miserably.
What should I do at this time?
Defending where you are and relying on cities such as Ye County or Luoyang to resist and defend is the same way to death!
In the past few years, not a single city has really blocked the Chu army's attack. Even when the Chu army was attacking fortresses, its firepower was even more fierce and difficult to deal with.
Changsha, Jiujiang, Ganzhou, Guilin, Wuzhou, Yangzhou, Huai'an, no matter which one they are, are built with iron barrels by the local Ming army. They are said to be fortresses that cannot be conquered by hundreds of thousands of troops.
As a result, under the Chu army's artillery, they were all the same as those in Zhihu.
Therefore, there is no way out simply relying on the city to defend it.
Yang Sichang and Zhu Dadian are examples of this.
In Zuo Liangyu's view, facing the large-scale march of Chu thieves northward, there is only one way, and that is to escape!
Evacuate Ruzhou or even Henan, and then continue development in other places, such as Shanxi.
This can not only temporarily avoid the Chu thieves' attack, but also, more importantly, can lengthen the Chu thieves' supply line.
Zuo Liangyu has fought against the Chu army for several years, and he is somewhat familiar with the various situations of the Chu army. Besides, Zuo Liangyu also has a new standard army under his command and a large number of artillery.
He knew very well that whether his new standard army or the Chu army had both advantages and disadvantages.
That's a lot of artillery!
The advantage is that a large number of artillery can bring powerful artillery firepower. As long as the shell tubes are enough, it will be very fierce to blast all the way.
The disadvantage is also that a large number of artillery requires a large amount of ammunition to exert its combat effectiveness. An artillery without shells is just a pile of scrap metal.
Ammunition is not only expensive, but also very heavy. It needs to be manufactured from the rear and transported to the front line. This requires a huge amount of transportation capacity.
The artillery itself and the transportation of large amounts of ammunition required a large number of mules and horses, and these mules and horses brought an equally serious problem, that is, a huge consumption of grain and grass, which in turn required a large amount of grain and grass.
This leads to the fact that if you want to maintain an artillery unit in continuous operations, the requirements for logistics are very high.
And this requirement will double as the supply distance increases.
Zuo Liangyu also had dozens of artillery pieces under his command. He had tried to mobilize artillery units for long-distance mobile operations before. Every time he did this, the consumption of food, grass and other materials would make him extremely heartbroken.
Even if he controls most of Henan and conducts various searches for money and food, it is still difficult to maintain a large-scale artillery unit for mobile operations, especially long-distance operations.
As for the Chu army, they have more artillery and their supply lines are longer, which means that it is more difficult for them to supply.
After learning this, Zuo Liangyu already had the idea of a model lake in his mind two years ago.
When fighting against the Chu thieves, one must not let the Chu thieves slowly hoard supplies in peace and contentment, and then attack themselves harshly. They must attack their logistics supply lines at all times, and actively open up a certain amount of space to lure the enemy deeper through mobile warfare.
This attempt to lure the enemy deep was not to ambush the Chu army, but purely to further lengthen the Chu army's supply line.
The difficulty of supply will increase exponentially if the supply line is blocked. By then, the Chu army on the front line will naturally lack ammunition and food, and it will be much easier to fight again.
The Chu army without a large amount of ammunition as support was nothing more than a group of paper tigers in Zuo Liangyu's view.
And this idea gradually took shape over the past few years, and finally began to plan ahead.
In the end, Zuo Liangyu chose Shanxi!
Shanxi is located to the north of the Yellow River, and there are mountains in the south and east of Shanxi. The roads are difficult to travel. If you rely on the mountains to defend yourself, it will be extremely difficult for the Chu army to invade.
Although the hinterland of Shanxi behind the mountains is not rich, it can still allow Zuo Liangyu to gather some money and food to support the army.
As long as Shanxi can be controlled, I dare not say that I will compete with the Chu army in the future, but relying on the complex terrain around Shanxi to keep the Chu army out of Shanxi can still be done.
To the west of Shanxi is Shaanxi Sun Chuanting. He didn't know much about Sun Chuanting before, but in the past two years, Sun Chuanting has been very ferocious. The new Qin army formed based on it has beaten all the thieves who have harmed Shaanxi for many years. The rats scurry around, first beheading Gao Yingxiang, and then defeating Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others one after another, forcing these big bandit leaders to hide in the mountains with only a few backbones to survive. They were not at all the same as those who had conquered Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Chu a few years ago. So heroic.
Zuo Liangyu still had some confidence in Sun Chuanting and felt that Sun Chuanting should be able to defend Tongguan and then block the Chu army from Tongguan.
In the future, Sun Chuanting will guard Shaanxi and sit in Shanxi. He can watch the world with a smile and wait for new changes in the situation.
As for what will happen to Shandong, Northern Zhili and even the Ming Dynasty in the future, that is not what he cares about.
It's useless to care. He doesn't think that Shandong and Beizhili can stop the Chu army's Northern Expedition!
Look at the strength of the Chu army in the Northern Expedition. There were more than a dozen divisions alone, with hundreds of artillery pieces. They fought all the way from Jiangbei to the north, and there was almost no enemy at all.
Yang Sichang was defeated in Jiangbei, relying on Yangzhou and Huai'an. Shandong and Beizhili, which did not have many fresh troops behind him, would most likely be unable to stop him.
As for the border troops...
There are quite a few border troops, but they cannot all be mobilized. If they are all mobilized southward, the Jiliao defense line will be destroyed in minutes, and Dongdu will be able to advance straight in. By then, this war will probably not be between the Ming and Chu armies. It happened, but the Dongluo and Chu troops fought again.
Besides, even if all these border troops were mobilized south, Zuo Liangyu still did not think that they could stop the Chu army's attack.
It can be said that Zuo Liangyu is very pessimistic about the future situation.
So when the Chu army began its Northern Expedition, he had actually begun to make practical preparations for its northern retreat.
Otherwise, when the Chu army had just entered Ruzhou Prefecture and other places, it would not have been able to quickly retreat north with tens of thousands of troops, with a clear goal, all the way to Shanxi.
——
Retreating to Shanxi was Zuo Liangyu's plan that had been officially finalized a year ago. For this, he had actually made a lot of preparations over the past year or so.
For example, he had already prepared relevant plans such as sending people to survey the route in advance, formulating the northward retreat route, and even choosing where to stay after the northward retreat, and preparing to garrison troops there to resist the Chu bandits from entering Shanxi.
Even after entering Shanxi, the officers and soldiers who controlled the local area had many plans.
One of the current generals stationed in southern Shanxi is his former subordinate. He recommended him to Shanxi last year as a general and has thousands of troops under his command.
In addition to this person, there were several other people who he had arranged for, or had won over in advance.
Zuo Liangyu had already prepared the overall plan to retreat to Shanxi. Now as soon as the Chu army reached Ruzhou, especially when Zuo Liangyu discovered that there were many cavalry in the Chu army going north, he naturally did not hesitate. He led his troops to withdraw north.
After retreating to Luoyang, they rested for a few days, and by the way, they looted the huge Luoyang. They took with them a large amount of money, grain, iron, copper and other materials, as well as thousands of people and various craftsmen, especially gunsmiths. Zuo Liangyu was there. In mid-May, they withdrew from Luoyang again, and then crossed the river to the north bank of the Yellow River.
At this time, the total number of troops led by Zuo Liangyu, as well as craftsmen, civilians, etc., exceeded 100,000.
"First Evolution"
One hundred thousand people continued to move northward in a mighty manner, heading over the mountains and ridges towards Shanxi.
This operation directly stunned the generals of the Chu army, not to mention the Ming court, and Chongzhen was even mad...
It is said that more than a dozen imperial edicts were issued in succession, requiring Zuo Liangyu to lead his army to stop retreating and go south to fight against the Chu thieves.
As a result, these imperial envoys who conveyed the decree did not even see Zuo Liangyu...
Zuo Liangyu has already concluded that the Great Xia of the Ming Dynasty is about to collapse, so what kind of imperial envoy will they care about?
Besides, no matter what he said, he was retreating without authorization, and he had no intention of turning around and returning to Henan to fight with the Chu army. What kind of imperial envoy was there at this time? He was just asking for trouble.
——
Regardless of the overall situation, Zuo Liangyu ran away directly, and received the imperial edict from Chongzhen, asking them to lead his troops into King Guan Qin to fight against the Chu thieves. The border army generals in Xuanda, Jiliao and other places also argued about this. endlessly.
In late May, Zu Dashou, Wu Sangui and other senior generals from the Liaodong frontier army gathered together to discuss whether to join the Guan Qinwang.
However, many people still hold objections. For example, Wu Xiang and his son are unwilling to enter the customs at this time.
The imperial court wanted to mobilize the border troops to enter the pass, but they wouldn't give them a single copper... It didn't do any good, so forget it. The important thing was to enter the pass and fight with the Chu thieves. The risk was very high.
However, despite some objections, in the end the border troops from Ji Liao, especially those from Liaodong, still mobilized their troops to join King Qin of Guan.
Although the Liaodong side was said to be controlled by the general family, the Ming court had always attached great importance to the area. The governors and other civilian officials sent there could still stabilize the local situation, and Hong Chengchou also had good prestige.
Hong Chengchou and several other civil servants naturally strongly supported King Qin's entry into Guan.
With Hong Chengchou and several civil servants suppressing him, even Zu Dashou did not dare to defy the order openly.
Therefore, the troops sent into the Pass were finally sent, but the number of troops sent into the Pass was not large, only about 30,000, and the rest were still nestled in various cities in Liaodong to guard against the attacks of the Eastern Capture.
Zu Dashou led a group of generals, including Wu Xiang, to personally lead the army into the pass. Other generals, including Wu Sangui and others, stayed in Liaodong.
And Hong Chengchou also led more than 20,000 frontier troops in the Jizhen area. Well, in fact, they were the more than 20,000 main Qin troops that Hong Chengchou brought from Shaanxi.
The combined strength of the two armies was about 60,000, and they marched southward...
Just when they reached the vicinity of Youzhou City, they began to feel hungry, because the food they brought with the army was almost exhausted, but the imperial court did not replenish any food for them...
Zu Dashou led his troops to Youzhou City to ask for food, but was locked outside the city gate and could not get in!
Chongzhen had summoned Zu Dashou several times before, but now that Zu Dashou was here, Chongzhen and a group of cabinet elders did not have the courage to let him enter the city...
Zu Dashou was so angry that his request for food failed, so he launched an army to plunder, which attracted a group of people to impeach Zu Dashou and other generals. Immediately, Chongzhen issued an order to reprimand Zu Dashou and other generals. By the way, Hong Chengchou was also accused of being a lax military governor. A looting hat.
Ji Liao's 60,000-strong army quarreled and plundered, gathered food, and headed south slowly.
At the same time, the Third Army of the Chu Army had also reached the gates of Liaocheng City, Dongchang Prefecture, Shandong Province. It only took one day to capture this severely empty city, and then divided its troops eastward to Jinan City.
