The wind rises at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 414: Open Plank Road
Li Yan rested his hands on the wooden table, examining the map spread out on the table.

Standing around him were four generals: Yuan Shizhong, the old Huihui Ma Shouying, Geliyan He Yilong, and Zuojin King He Jin.

In order to defeat the Ming reinforcements in one fell swoop, Li Yan concentrated almost all of his elite troops in Pizhou.

Wang Jun and Li Qingshan also lived in the tent.

Wang Jun looked a little worried. After all, the news coming from the west these days was not good.

Li Qingshan had a blank expression on his face, his eyes lowered, and no one knew what he was thinking.

The Shandong Wanmin Army has completed its reorganization in the past two days, and its numbers and flags have been changed.

Wang Jun was undoubtedly happy to see Li Yan's request for reorganization, and although Li Qingshan was unwilling, the situation was difficult to change. Since saying more would be useless, why should he oppose and lower his impression?

All the generals in the tent stood on both sides of the table.

Although they had just won a great victory in Pizhou, everyone's faces were solemn.

Because the powerful enemy is still there...

"After the soldiers captured Xuzhou, they were divided into two groups."

"One part was led by Gao Qian, the deputy general of Henan Province of the Pseudo-Dynasty. It had about 20,000 people. After this Ming army stayed in Xuzhou, they only sent a part of their troops north to seize Xiaopei, and then there were no other actions."

Li Yan's brows were furrowed and his expression was serious.

The Henan soldiers used to be very weak, but the Henan soldiers led by Gao Qian were new troops trained by Chen Wang himself.

In the previous battle of Quwangpu, Gao Qian led 8,000 Henan soldiers against nearly 20,000 Wanmin troops, but the final result was a small victory for the Henan soldiers.

Luo Tai and Liu Jianyi, who led the attack, reported back that the officers and soldiers' formation was strict and repeated charges failed to open a gap, and that the guns and artillery were very powerful, resulting in heavy casualties among the attacking soldiers.

The soldiers of Henan Camp have changed a lot under his training.

It is no secret that Chen Wang is able to train troops. On the contrary, it is something that everyone in the world knows now.

The Hanzhong army's offensive was extremely fierce.

Li Yan knew clearly that it was difficult to stop the offensive of the Hanzhong army.

But he did not expect that Xuzhou was captured by the Hanzhong army after only five days of defense.

The fall of Xuzhou City was something Li Yan had never expected.

The Xuzhou defenders who managed to evacuate reported that the Hanzhong army's armaments had been strengthened.

The reason why Xuzhou fell was that the city walls were directly collapsed by artillery fire, and then the infantry of the Hanzhong Army directly rushed into the city through the gap.

Li Yan had never seen a cannon that could blow down a city wall, and he had never even heard of one.

Li Yan knew that the imperial court had a type of artillery called the Red Cannon, which came in large and small sizes and was extremely powerful.

The largest red cannon was said to weigh as much as seven thousand kilograms, with the shell alone weighing twenty-three kilograms, and a range of four or five miles.

Now there are some red cannons in his army, but those are small cannons that can only fire shells weighing two or three pounds.

The shells hitting the city wall only broke some bricks but did not cause much damage to the main body of the wall.

The red cannon that was able to blow down the city wall probably fired a shell weighing around 20 kilograms.

This is extremely bad news.

The Hanzhong army was well-equipped with strong armor and sharp weapons.

In front of them were muskets equipped with bayonets that did not affect firing, and there were also the extremely oppressive elite armored cavalry.

Later, there was the infantry red artillery, which was both accurate and fast.

Now there is an additional heavy red cannon that can destroy cities and strongholds.

Li Yan suddenly felt a little powerless.

Mingming's power is growing stronger, Mingming's troops are becoming more numerous, Mingming's territory is expanding, and everything is developing in a good direction.

But why does the situation take a sharp turn for the worse every time the Hanzhong army appears?

Every time the Hanzhong Army appears, it is stronger than the previous one, and the strength of the Hanzhong Army seems to be growing faster than them.

No matter how hard they tried, it seemed there was no way to catch up with the Hanzhong army.

Li Yan clenched his fists, trying his best to suppress the uneasy feeling in his heart.

"There were about 20,000 soldiers and officers heading south, led by General Chen Wang, the pseudo-Chao Ping Tuo general. Suzhou had already fallen on the evening of the 14th."

Yuan Shizhong frowned and explained the changing situation of the war to Li Yan.

"According to the Marshal's previous instructions, the defense of Fengyang has now been fully taken over by General Li Jiyu."

Li Yan looked at the map and listened to the direction of the situation.

Li Jiyu, who had originally gone south to harass Nanjing, had now been ordered by him to return to Fengyang.

The reason why there was no heavy defense on the western front at the beginning was because defense was useless. Chen Wang now had a strong army and was invincible.

But this is under the circumstances where Chen and Wang are united in one force.

The Hanzhong Town led by Chen Wang was indeed very strong, and the troops under his command were indeed numerous.

However, there is no way for all these soldiers to gather together, and there is no way for all these forces to be combined.

Chen Wang now directly controls only the four battalions of Hanzhong Town, the nine battalions of Henan Town, and the eight thousand militiamen in Kaifeng, totaling nearly fifty thousand troops.

There were still about 45,000 people assigned to defend the city and able to be used in field battles.

It is a fact that no matter whether Chen Wang led this army to attack Xuzhou or Fengyang, they would be difficult to resist.

However, all this is based on the assumption that Chen Wang does not divide his troops.

Now that Xuzhou has been lost and Suzhou has also fallen, Chen Wang divided the troops from Henan to garrison Xuzhou and advance in different directions.

In this way, Fengyang may be able to be defended.

As a military general of the imperial court, Chen Wang was under the system and had the name of righteousness, so he could use the power and channels of the imperial court to develop.

But because of this, Chen Wang had to be restricted by the court to a certain extent.

Similarly, if Chen Wang went south and took Fengyang first, then Li Yan could use Xuzhou to make trouble.

We can lose one of the two cities, Xuzhou and Fengyang, but we must not lose both at the same time.

"General Li Jiyu reported that last night, the vanguard cavalry of the officers and soldiers passed Guzhen and headed towards Fengyang. It is expected that on the 19th, most of the officers and soldiers will reach the outskirts of Fengyang City."

"The officers and soldiers heading south were three on horseback and seven on foot, with armored cavalry in the front, sharp-edged soldiers in the middle, and armored soldiers in the back. The cavalry had about four flags from the Hanzhong camp and two flags from the Henan camp. About half of the officers and soldiers were holding sea oath guns."

The Wanmin Army also has its own sources of intelligence, and the name of the Haishi Gun is no secret to them.

Li Yan's gaze continued to wander on the map following Yuan Shizhong's report, and finally fell on Fengyang.

Fengyang was not only one of the important strongholds of the Wanmin Army in Southern Zhili, but also an important hub connecting the Yinghuo Mountain area with Nanjing.

Although most of the Yinghuo Mountain area had been recaptured by Chen Yongfu's troops, there were still many places under the control of the former members of the Gezuo Fifth Battalion.

Li Yan's eyes were deep. Chen Wang's current arrangements were obviously well prepared.

Chen Wang asked Gao Qian to lead a large force to garrison Xuzhou in order to prevent him from leading his troops westward and attacking Xuzhou.

He knew what Chen Wang was thinking, and Chen Wang obviously knew what he was thinking.

In real military campaigns, there are not so many conspiracies and intrigues, nor so many surprising and risky moves.

It is true that many classic battles in history were won by surprise, with the few defeating the many. However, most of the battles that have been lost in the long river of history were almost all fair battles.

The two armies clashed without any fancy moves, using just tactics, the stronger side won and the weaker side perished.

Li Yan stood up straight, raised his head and looked around at the generals in the tent.

Chen Wang had already placed his chess piece on the board. Now the white chess pieces were in full swing, forming a big dragon on the board, trapping him in the southeast.

This is the situation at this point.

The pressure is coming, and the only way to resolve the crisis is to go against the trend.

Li Yan concentrated and calmed down, no longer hesitating.

The day he came out of the dungeon in Qi County, he was no longer Li Xin.

There is only Li Yan in this world now, no longer Li Xin.

He wanted to be a rock, a rock that would stand firm despite thousands of blows. How could he give up so easily? !
"From Xuzhou to Fengyang, there are more than 400 miles. It is impossible for the soldiers to set up defenses along the way."

"Our army has the advantage of the navy, and the transfer and transportation are extremely convenient."

Li Yan said that there was the advantage of the navy, which did sound a little unbelievable.

The Wanmin Army uprising lasted only a few years, and most of the time was spent in Henan. The reason they had a navy was because of Li Qingshan and Wang Jun.

How could these emerging navies possibly suppress the navies that the imperial court had cultivated for many years?

But that is the fact. The imperial court's navy in the South is not even well-decorated, not even a frame. Most of the ships are old, or even converted from civilian ships.

The reported ships only exist on paper. There are not so many ships and sailors in reality.

The practice of eating empty salaries and sucking the blood of soldiers existed not only in the barracks and garrisons in various places, but also in the navy.

In the entire southern country, the only navy that is still combat-capable is the coastal navy in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian.

However, with Zheng Zhilong's recruitment, most of the pirates along the entire southeast coast were wiped out.

The funding available to the coastal navies in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian regions also dropped sharply, and their combat effectiveness naturally declined.

If the coastal navy is so weak, the inland navy will naturally be even weaker.

Most of the Liangshan navy under Li Qingshan were experienced pirates or fishermen, just like Ruan Xiaoer and others in Water Margin.

After acquiring a large number of boats, the Liangshan navy under Li Qingshan became the overlord of the inland rivers.

In the Battle of Pizhou, the navy that the Southern Kingdom had finally assembled collapsed under the double blow from land and sea, and many naval officers and soldiers were absorbed into the Wanmin Army.

At this point, the strength of the Wanmin Army Navy expanded again and it was rampant in the inland rivers.

Although there are still some naval forces in the southern inland rivers, they can barely fight.

However, all these naval forces were concentrated in Nanjing, and the dignitaries in Nanjing were unwilling to let this last naval force go to quell the rebellion.

After all, once this navy is destroyed, Nanjing will be in real danger.

Their safety cannot be guaranteed, so what good will it do even if the rebels are eventually wiped out?

"Officers and soldiers excel in their quality, but our army excels in its numbers."

Li Yan's eyes quickly swept across Xuzhou and Fengyang.

Even after the elimination, the number of cavalry that can be mobilized in the Ten Thousand People's Army now exceeds 30,000.

More than two-thirds of them were elite cavalry and horsemen from the old Revolutionary Left Five Battalions, and the rest were those with excellent horsemanship selected from the various armies in Shandong and Henan.

However, although there are 30,000 cavalrymen, there is a serious shortage of qualified war horses.

Many of the war horses in the cavalry team actually did not meet the standards. When they really went to the battlefield and encountered real cavalry, such as the Guards Cavalry Battalion under the Hanzhong Military Town.

In a head-on confrontation, I'm afraid they would be defeated in just one round.

Thinking of this, Li Yan felt a little helpless.

If you want to get a good war horse, you need more than just money.

There is no way to obtain war horses in large quantities in the south.

The Hanzhong Town cavalry under Chen Wang's command rode tall and strong horses carefully selected from the northwest, which were much taller and larger than ordinary war horses.

Chen Wang is not only rich, but also powerful.

It was the power that gave Chen Wang special channels to obtain war horses.

Li Yan calmed his thoughts and continued.

"Although the Hanzhong army is strong, its weakness is that it has too few soldiers."

"Chen Wang's troops are no more than 20,000 people, of which there are only about 6,000 cavalry. It is difficult to take care of the entire battle line."

"We have a large number of cavalry, and we can attack from multiple fronts to harass their supply logistics, as well as put pressure on the counties along the way."

Now they not only have the advantage of navy ships, but also the advantage of cavalry numbers.

Although there was no way to gain an advantage on the front battlefield, they could attack from all sides to tie up a lot of the Hanzhong army's energy.

The more they are tied up, the less military force the Hanzhong army can deploy to the front battlefield.

"Yuan Shizhong."

"The general is here!"

"You lead two thousand elite cavalrymen to the north..."

Several meetings have been held before, and this meeting is the final summary.

Li Yan did not give any further explanations and gave the order directly.

As orders were issued one after another, all the generals in the tent received flags with corresponding tasks.

Wang Jun was still worried at first, but as Li Yan continued to issue military orders, he regained some of his spirits.

He has been leading troops for some time, so he can naturally see Li Yan's command ability.

The army of hundreds of thousands of people seemed to be in good order under Li Yan's command. This time, the officers and soldiers' attack seemed to be within his expectations and they were obviously confident.

Li Qingshan's eyes flickered, and when his name was called, Li Qingshan stepped forward to respond like everyone else.

But no one noticed that Li Qingshan's expression was gradually becoming gloomy, as if he was making a difficult decision.

"Except for the troops left behind in Pizhou, the rest of the army will follow me south to support Fengyang!"

Li Yan stood up and issued the final order, ending the military meeting.

All the officers and soldiers responded to the order and left the central army tent, and the Pizhou camp was also in an uproar.

Li Yan stood in the tent, watching the generals walking away.

During this military meeting, he actually concealed one thing.

Among all the generals in the Ming court, if we were to say who Li Yan knew best, it would definitely be Chen Wang.

After dealing with him so many times, Li Yan knew very well what kind of person Chen Wang was.

Chen Wang must have raised his troops this time after careful consideration and was confident of victory.

All his current plans were probably within Chen Wang's expectations.

If you want to break the impasse, you have to start from elsewhere!
Li Yan raised his head again, and his gaze passed over the retreating figures of the generals and headed towards the south...