Chapter 322

Nanchang, Chu King Palace.

"Yongzhou was lost so quickly; what are Min Wuliu and Song Zetao doing?"

Looking at the battle report, Wang Weihao couldn't help but roar.

Losing a battle didn't matter, but losing so quickly was a problem.

From receiving the request for help to the bad news of Yongzhou's fall, the interval was less than two days.

In his view, there were only two possibilities for this situation.

Either the enemy was too powerful, or the garrison was too useless.

Under normal circumstances, a strategic location like Yongzhou shouldn't be a problem for ten thousand soldiers to defend for a few months.

If the defending general was powerful and the material reserves in the city were sufficient, holding out for a few years was possible.

Even if the city finally fell, the price paid by the attacking side would far exceed the garrison's casualties.

"Prince, calm your anger!"

"Yongzhou has fallen; the enemy's next target must be Hengyang.

The urgent matter is to order the Hengyang garrison to strengthen precautions and not give the enemy any opportunity.

If possible, it would be best to mobilize some troops from nearby prefectures and send them to reinforce Hengyang.

As for holding people accountable, it's better to discuss it after finding General Min and Prefect Song."

Chancellor Chang Junyi advised.

The imperial army fought too fast; Yongzhou was like paper, broken with a poke.

If they didn't take action in time and lost Hengyang Prefecture, letting the imperial army push the front line to Changsha, then the situation in Huguang would completely deteriorate.

Sitting on Huguang and Jiangxi to stabilize the Southeast, and holding the Southeast to take the world; this was the strategic vision proposed by Chang Junyi.

Losing the pillar of Huguang and relying entirely on Jiangxi, one could at most hold one side.

Since ancient times, there were countless warlords who held Jiangxi, but not a single one had used it as a foundation to take the world.

In fact, even if they occupied both Huguang and Jiangxi, Great Chu was still strategically dangerous.

It was a place of four battles, without a stable rear.

Going out was very easy, and it was equally easy for the enemy to attack.

In the struggle for the dragon in troubled times, there had always been the saying of "golden corners, silver edges, and grassy bellies."

Influenced by the southward shift of the economic center, the current Huguang and Jiangxi had become grassy bellies.

Wang Weihao advocated moving west back then, which was actually to occupy the "corners."

Unfortunately, creation played tricks on people; the White Lotus Sect started an army in the border areas but didn't stabilize their basic board.

Migrating all the way to Huguang and Jiangnan, they truly developed and grew.

It looked like a military problem, but it was actually an economic and population problem.

The dense population and economic prosperity of Huguang and Jiangnan provided the rebel army with the manpower, material, and financial resources to develop and grow.

This was a resource that the two Guang regions couldn't compare to.

In fact, the two Guang regions were only truly developed during the Great Dayu Dynasty; to be precise, it was mainly the development of Guangdong.

The biggest measure for the development of Guangxi was the immigrants and agricultural production technology brought under the garrison system.

There was no specific data on the real population; anyway, the official registered population of the two Guang regions added together was less than half of Jiangxi's.

"Ministry of War, come up with a reinforcement plan as soon as possible, and ensure that Hengyang is not lost.

Notify all levels of Yamen to speed up preparations, and order all units to march to Ganzhou, striving to launch an attack on the pseudo-dynasty before the end of the month!"

Wang Weihao nodded and said.

The more troops there were, the greater the difficulty of mobilization.

In order to take the two Guang regions, the Chu State planned to send fifty thousand troops and conscripted eight hundred thousand civilians for this purpose.

From preparation to now, it had been tossed for several months, and they were still transporting strategic materials.

This was still because there were two major water systems, the Gan River and the Xiang River, in the territory, which reduced the land transport distance and saved a lot of manpower.

Looking at the map on the wall, Wang Weihao felt less and less confident about this military action.

When the strategy was formulated, it was planned to launch a great battle in Shaozhou Prefecture and attract the imperial army's main force there for a decisive battle.

Now the situation had changed; the imperial army took the lead in Huguang and quickly took Yongzhou.

Whether the original plan could succeed, no one could say for sure.

It just so happened that the strategic plan was not an order that could be changed.

The army could be mobilized quickly, but logistics and grain had no way to be moved to the front line all at once.

Essentially, the imperial army's fighting style was a countermeasure taken based on their strategic deployment.

If the main battlefield had been placed on the Yongzhou line before, then the direction from which the imperial army killed their way over would have changed from Huguang to Jiangxi.

There was no way; Li Mu dared to fight their hundreds of thousands of troops with a few tens of thousands of battle-hardened soldiers.

The demand for logistics from both sides was not on the same level at all.

The advantage in troop numbers required sacrificing flexibility in logistics.

Generally speaking, the fewer troops dispatched, the more convenient tactical adjustments were.

When the troops mobilized reached fifty thousand, all the materials needed had to be prepared in advance and transported to the designated location.

After the war broke out, any large-scale military adjustment was a test of logistics.

Many times, even knowing that there were problems with strategic deployment, the commander could only bite the bullet and execute the original plan due to logistical constraints.

"Report!"

"Urgent report from the front line, the imperial army suddenly landed in Songjiang Prefecture..."

Having just digested the bad news of Yongzhou's fall, Songjiang Prefecture had an accident, directly catching everyone off guard.

This time, Wang Weihao did not scold.

The Chu State only stuck a foot in Songjiang, mainly to negotiate terms with the Wu State, and did not station heavy troops.

"It seems our transaction with the Wu State was known to the court in advance.

The imperial army suddenly killed their way into Songjiang Prefecture; the previous land exchange negotiation is afraid it will be hard to complete.

How much influence such a change has on our Chu State, let all the lords discuss it!"

Wang Weihao said with a blank expression.

Although the Wu Chu states both came out of the White Lotus Holy Kingdom, they still couldn't change the fact that they had become competitors in the great drama of fighting for the world.

Except when confronting Great Dayu, they were allies, but at other times, their relationship had never been good.

Although the high levels tried their best to suppress conflict, they still didn't trip each other up less.

Extending tentacles to Songjiang Prefecture was actually to disgust the Wu State and retaliate for the other side extending their hands to Zhejiang.

It was just that they moved too late, only getting two counties, and the influence was too small.

On the contrary, the Wu State took advantage of their attack on Hangzhou to occupy Jinhua Prefecture and several surrounding county cities first, making Hangzhou City almost an enclave.

In fact, both countries had many enclaves in each other's territory.

On one hand, it was caused by grabbing territory; on the other hand, it was the sequelae of splitting the family.

When everyone was mixing in the White Lotus Holy Kingdom together, in order to cooperate better in battle.

Generals of their own factions taking orders under the other side was a common occurrence.

After splitting the family, some people transformed their political stance, while some people still remained loyal to their old boss.

The territory occupied by these die-hard members flew the banners of their respective old bosses and became pieces of enclaves.

Both sides had die-hards under the other side, belonging to holding hostages for each other.

With the incense feelings of the past, plus the fact that the high levels of both sides didn't want to kill each other and make Great Dayu cheap, they naturally chose to negotiate to solve the problem.

"Prince, this is a conspiracy of the pseudo-dynasty.

The more the enemy wants to obstruct, the more we must do it.

The enclave problem has become the biggest obstacle between the Wu Chu states and must be solved as soon as possible.

As long as the Wu State side isn't stupid, they should know that land exchange is urgent.

We only have that much territory in Songjiang Prefecture; losing it is losing it, and it has minimal impact on Great Chu.

The pseudo-dynasty attacking Songjiang Prefecture, the one who should be anxious is the Wu State.

Songjiang Prefecture is next to Suzhou Prefecture and is not far from Yingtian Prefecture.

The enemy is still fighting under the banner of recovering Nanjing, and the strategic goal is clear at a glance.

Now it depends on the intensity of the pseudo-dynasty's attack. If the pseudo-dynasty invests heavy troops, I'm afraid the Wu State's Northern Expedition plan will be affected."

Minister of Personnel Huang Shanyan was the first to express his position.

In order to advance the great cause of anti-Dayu, the Wu Chu states chose to mutually recognize the legitimacy of each other's regimes in order to expand political influence.

Such political measures undoubtedly played an important role in uniting rebel armies from all sides.

Opening this precedent, later people who held one side and established a country independently could also obtain recognition.

Of course, this legitimacy mainly depended on one's own strength.

The Wu Chu states chose to compromise with each other because everyone's strength was similar and they had a common enemy, Great Dayu; internal strife and consumption were equivalent to self-destruction.

Other rebel armies currently had relatively small momentum and were not yet qualified to sit at the table.

"Prince, Minister Huang is right.

In the short term, our main task is anti-Dayu, which requires uniting the strength of all parties to complete.

The gain or loss of one city or one piece of land is not worth mentioning at all in front of the general trend of the world.

For the Chu-Wu alliance, what does it matter to let them have a few city cities!"

Minister of Revenue Xiao Yushan immediately supported.

Only by handling the Wu Chu relationship well could they rest assured to go south, and the Wu State could rest assured to go north.

The main force of the two Guang regions was on the Huguang front line, and a partial force killing their way into Songjiang Prefecture had more political significance than military significance.

The fleet went down the river, looking at Hengyang City in the distance, Li Mu suddenly had the idea of a surprise attack on Changsha.

It wasn't just confidence in the combat effectiveness of the troops under his command, but also confidence in the Great Dayu officials.

Like Yongzhou, these prefectures like Hengyang and Changsha had also been recovered by the imperial army for a period of time before the King-Saving War.

The officials of Yongzhou, in order to save costs, came up with a tofu-dreg city defense.

There was no reason why Great Dayu officials in other regions would suddenly change their style.

It had nothing to do with whether they were clean; back then, the court ordered local officials to repair the city walls within a time limit, and it wasn't just targeting Yongzhou; other prefectures also received orders.

The newly recovered land had little local income, and the court refused to allocate funds.

Without playing tricks, it was not generally difficult for local officials to complete the task.

The rebel army was also a makeshift team.

It was easy to find problems, but difficult to solve them.

Li Mu didn't believe that in such a short time, the rebel army had cleaned up the place and had the time to check the quality of the city walls.

While the Hengyang siege battle was starting, a garrison of troops quietly left and headed straight for Changsha.

Whether they could break the city depended mainly on the rebel army's troop deployment.

In recent days, the rebel army had been mobilizing troops, and the changes in garrison troops in various places were very fast.

The speed at which scouts collected information couldn't keep up with their troop deployment changes.

(End of chapter)