I want to be emperor

Chapter 427 Indispensable Cavalry

It was March 11th in the fourth year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire and the [-]th year of Ming Chongzhen.

On this day, tens of thousands of people from the Great Chu Empire captured Huai'an City. In this battle, there were more than [-] Ming troops in the city, more than [-] were killed and injured, and the remaining [-] people surrendered one after another.

On this day, Yang Sichang suffered a sudden stroke and died. Dozens of civil and military officials from the rest of the Ministry surrendered, fled or died!
After this battle, the Ming court not only lost the two strategic cities of Yangzhou and Huai'an, but also lost the main force of more than 5 people. mark.

After the collapse of the water transportation supervisory standard, from Huai'an to Youzhou, there is no longer a main new standard army!

The Chu army completely wiped out the Jiangbei Xinbiao Army and the Water Transport Supervisor, which brought even greater significance than the capture of Yangzhou City and Huai'an City themselves.

You must know that in the first two months of the battle, the reason why the Chu army did not launch an attack on Yangzhou and Huai'an immediately, but adopted a roundabout attack strategy, first captured Sizhou and even Taoyuan County, Suqian, Qinghe and other places, It is to block the escape route of the two new standard troops to the north.

The Chu army didn't want these two main force new bidders to break through the siege and flee north, and then continue to fight with the Chu army in Shandong, North Zhili and other places.

In that case, although the Chu army can take it down at that time, it will definitely be very troublesome and costly.

After all, launching a large-scale encirclement and annihilation campaign in Jiangbei is much easier than launching a large-scale encirclement and annihilation campaign in Beizhili.

Now that the strategic goal has been successfully achieved, Luo Zhixue is also very satisfied!

At this point in the Jiangbei campaign, most of the strategic goals have been basically completed, leaving Hefei and Fengyang, especially Fengyang, which is a strategically important place, has not yet been won.

And these two places, especially Fengyang City, were more troublesome for the former Chu army.

The trouble is not how strong the fortifications of Fengyang City itself are, but the fortress and the like.

It's the hassle of the marching process.

From Chuzhou controlled by the Chu army to the north all the way to Fengyang City, the road is very empty, which is very suitable for cavalry mobile operations, and the Ming army has deployed more than 5000 cavalry in this area, and all of them can ride horses. Charge, frontier cavalry capable of riding and shooting.

Unfortunately, the cavalry of the Great Chu Empire have not been able to gain any advantage in the Jiangbei area for so long, and they were even beaten most of the time!
The only main cavalry brigade under the Chu army, that is, the first cavalry brigade, is busy fighting fires all day long, and can't do anything else at all...

If these cavalry were left alone, and the army was sent to the north without hesitation, it was estimated that the army would be pinned down by the enemy cavalry before reaching the city of Fengyang, and the safety of the logistics line would be impossible to talk about.

What a fart!

This is also the reason why the Chu army failed to take down Hefei and Fengyang City in the Jiangbei area for so long.

However, with the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the capture of Sizhou and Jiuxian along the Huaihe River by the Chu army, the problem of logistics channels that had plagued the Chu army for several months will no longer be a problem.

The enemy cavalry is strong, so the Chu army will not use land transportation, but water transportation, and directly transport the logistics materials to Fengyang City through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Hongze Lake, and Huaihe River...

You come to intercept the cavalry, the navy's inland river fleet is not a vegetarian, and the firepower of the navy is much more fierce than the army's artillery...

Under such circumstances, the Chu army is also preparing to launch the Battle of Fengyang in the next stage. As for Hefei, which is further south, it seems to be close, but the supply is even more difficult, so it has to be delayed.

Besides, if Fengyang City can be taken, then the Ming army in the southern city of Hefei will easily fall into a huge strategic encirclement. At that time, the Chu army will attack Hefei from Lujiang, Chuzhou, and Fengyang at the same time. , the Ming army in Hefei City is afraid to be surrounded and wiped out.

Therefore, when the Chu army formulated the Hefei Fengyang front-line battle, they decided to fight Fengyang first, and Hefei waited to fight later.

Considering that when going to fight in Fengyang, he may encounter a large number of enemy frontier cavalry, and the possibility of field battles is extremely high. After thinking about this, Luo Zhixue decided to dispatch the main force of the [-]th Division of the new army to go there.

The [-]st Cavalry Brigade and the temporarily transferred [-]st Guards Cavalry Regiment and [-]th Cavalry Regiment will also fight together.

In order to increase the ability of the westward marching troops to resist cavalry attacks, the Chu army allocated some of the many carriages in other troops to the Tenth Division, so that the Tenth Division's supply regiment and other troops could be assigned more carriages.

The four-wheeled carriage can not only carry more supplies, but more importantly, it is easy to form a defensive chariot formation to resist cavalry raids.

They even increased the ration of two and a half catties of field artillery in the Tenth Division.

In the many battles between the Chu army and the Ming army cavalry before, it was found that the two-and-a-half-pound field artillery was light in weight, fast in maneuvering, and easy to deploy. The medicine packs, regardless of the distance, all use standard charges.

The combination of these aspects has led to the fact that although the power of this artillery is average, its rate of fire is extremely fast. Under the control of a skilled gunner, it can achieve five rounds in 2 minutes, which is basically equivalent to the rate of fire of a musket.

And the high rate of fire is very effective against cavalry.

After everything was ready, the two infantry regiments of the Tenth Division and other divisional forces began to march westward along the Huaihe River. They had to go to Jiuxian County to join the No.30 Eighth Regiment of the Tenth Division, and then fight towards Fengyang City together.

The [-]st Cavalry Brigade and the two cavalry regiments marched together with the [-]th Division to provide peripheral cavalry reconnaissance and interception tasks.

As a result, they soon saw a gray army slowly advancing westward, and in the Huaihe River not far from them, there were still a large number of fleets heading together under the cover of the Navy Canal Squadron.

After the 20th Division and other troops moved westward, Luo Zhixue ordered the [-]st and [-]th Divisions of the Third Army to go north to Xuzhou to reinforce the No. [-] Third Mixed Brigade that was attacking Xuzhou.

Accompanying the two main divisions going north, there were more than 2000 supplementary soldiers. These supplementary soldiers were recruits from the recruit training camp over Jinling City.

The reason why it is emphasized that they are recruits is because they are all recruits who have been trained to equip flintlock guns from the beginning.

After these recruits arrive in Xuzhou, they will be incorporated into the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade, and after mixing with the original strength of the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade, the No.20 Three Mixed Brigade will be expanded by two infantry battalions.

No.20 Three Mixed Brigade, although it bears the name of a mixed brigade, the rated establishment at the beginning is to adopt the method of directly controlling the battalion of the brigade. The brigade governs five infantry battalions plus an artillery battalion, a supply battalion, and an engineering battalion. .

However, in order to carry out the cross-sea raid on Haizhou, and the navy's demand for transportation capacity in a short period of time is also limited, so when it starts to fight, there are only three infantry battalions, one artillery battalion, one supply battalion, and a small brigade. It is an assault battalion, with a total strength of just over 4000 troops.

In fact, this force is not as large as the No. 30 Ninth Reinforcement Regiment led by Brigadier General Meng Junli, the deputy commander of the [-]th Division.

Now that the brigade has already fought inland, there is no need to worry about its transportation capacity, so the Ministry of Military and Political Affairs has supplemented the mixed brigade with two infantry battalions and some artillery and other troops according to the scheduled plan, so that No. The 20th Third Mixed Brigade was expanded to five infantry battalions and the full establishment of related artillery, cavalry, baggage and engineers.

The No.20 Third Mixed Brigade with a full establishment will be a large-scale mixed brigade with more than 7000 personnel.

Moreover, it is still a large-scale mixed brigade with mobile combat capabilities, and its combat effectiveness is much stronger than that of a second-class division.

This is why Bai Yangrong, the commander of the No.20 Third Mixed Brigade, is a major general of the army.

The two divisions of the Third Army and a batch of supplementary targets, as well as a large fleet of ships headed north.

Luo Zhixue issued a third strategic order, ordering the First Guards Division and the Fourth Division of the First Army to continue northward and advance towards Shandong.

The First Army marched towards Shandong in order to cooperate with the war in Henan.

When the General Staff of the Great Chu Empire formulated the Northern Expedition, it actually largely referred to Zhu Yuanzhang’s Northern Expedition many years ago, and more considered the huge consumption of its own materials and its dependence on canals and sea transportation. Therefore, the entire Northern Expedition can be It is very clear that the Chu army is basically mobilized around the river and along the coast.

For example, Yangzhou, Gaoyouzhou, Huai'an, Sizhou, Qinghe, Suqian, Fengyang and other cities, as well as the cities where the Chu army mainly attacked and fought large-scale battles with the Ming army, are all cities along the river.

There is also another one that seems inconspicuous, but actually played a considerable tactical role in the early stage, which greatly restrained the early mobilization of troops in the Ming army. This is the coastal city.

Even the follow-up operations will likely follow this principle. The Chu army will march west along the Yellow River and attack Xuzhou, Guide, Kaifeng, Luoyang and other cities along the Yellow River.

At the same time, it will go north along the canal and the coast to attack Shandong.

For example, attack Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion along the canal, and then enter Jinan Mansion and the northern part of Qingzhou Mansion along the Great Qing River.

For example, along the coast, under the cover of the navy, they launched an attack from the coastal direction to the north, capturing the central and southern parts of Qingzhou Prefecture, Laizhou Prefecture, and Dengzhou Prefecture.

During this process, the navy is also preparing to land on the eight islands of Changshan, the capital of Dengzhou, and even directly land and capture Penglai, Dengzhou, in order to hoard and replenish supplies by sea to support the huge consumption of the Northern Expedition Army.

Looking at these offensive directions, it is not difficult to find that in fact, the Chu army's operations are very dependent on logistics. Basically, after leaving the river and the coast, if the land supply is slightly hindered.

Its combat effectiveness, especially artillery firepower, will drop a lot in an instant, and then it is often powerless to face those strong fortresses.

In this regard, Luo Zhixue has no good solution!

A major advantage of the Chu army is its powerful artillery force. It is impossible for the Chu army to give up a large number of artillery in order to reduce logistical pressure.

This is the Chu army without a large number of artillery, is it still the Chu army?
In addition, the Ming army likes to play defensive warfare. When the Chu army fought against the Ming army, it was a process of constantly prying the tortoise shell of the Ming army... As a result, the army under his command had to carry a large number of mortars and heavy siege artillery. These heavy artillery If there are too many, all kinds of ammunition, food and grass for mules and horses will naturally be consumed.

Therefore, logistical dependence cannot be avoided.

And with the continuous development of military technology, the army will rely more and more on logistics.

There is no way to avoid the increasing logistics consumption, so we can only improve the logistics transportation and support capabilities as much as possible.

And the key here is the cavalry!
For contemporary warfare, cavalry is indispensable. The flatter the terrain and the farther away from rivers and coasts, the higher the importance of cavalry.

If there is no cavalry to fight in these places, even the logistics line cannot be guaranteed!
Therefore, Luo Zhixue couldn't help thinking when he looked at the map of Fengyang Mansion.

Now there are thousands of cavalry in Fengyang Mansion, and they are all the elite cavalry of the frontier army. Troops suffer!

If this cavalry can be obtained...

(End of this chapter)