lcionline Chapter 359: The army is approaching, and the confrontation is on the riverside
Chapter 359: The army is approaching, and the confrontation is on the riverside
Instead, he continued to send people to contact his allies in Jiangxi, hoping that they would send troops to attack Jiang Li, but the warlords in Jiangxi did not dare to move rashly.
Firstly, they had just finished a battle, the soldiers were tired and had consumed a lot of ammunition, so they did not have the conditions to go on an expedition across provinces.
Secondly, Jiang Li has troops stationed in Hunan and Guangdong. If they dare to lead troops to help Hubei, their hometown will be robbed directly.
As for who stole the money from his hometown, it was hard to say. After all, with the previous experience of Yang Shen, they couldn't guarantee that the person who shot them was definitely an enemy.
As for Hu Duozong, He Chengjun, and Xia Douyan, the three of them combined had a force of over 300,000, plus some local armed forces, temporarily recruited bandits, and a number of captured men.
With another 500,000 mobsters, or 300,000 second-rate regular troops, their strength reached a staggering 800,000.
But even so, many landlords and gentry in Hubei chose to abandon their ancestral heritage and fled north with only a small amount of gold and silver.
Hu Duozong, He Chengjun and Xia Douyan did not stop them. After all, their hearts were not here and there was no point in trying to keep them.
In fact, the most crucial thing is that after these landlords and gentry leave, the money, food, supplies, real estate and shops that they cannot take away will be confiscated and used to maintain the consumption of the 800,000-strong army.
...
As for Jiang Li, he led a large army along the way, and a professional engineering team composed of Xiling Lishi led the way.
They cut through mountains and built bridges over rivers along the way, so the marching speed was quite fast.
But in just seven or eight days, they traveled more than 300 miles and captured 17 counties along the way.
Not only did he recruit 20,000 to 30,000 surrendered soldiers, he also recruited more than 100,000 peasants who had fled to avoid being captured by Hu Duozong, He Chengjun, and Xia Douyan.
Seeing that they were homeless and hungry, Jiang Li waved his hand and sent out tens of thousands of people to transport food and supplies for them and serve as laborers.
Why didn't these people go to transport grain to the local warlords in Hubei, but instead worked for an outsider like Jiang Li?
That is because most of these people are civilians recruited by the guerrillas. They have heard the guerrillas say so many good things about the Anmin Army, so they are naturally very convinced of the Anmin Army.
The most important thing is that Jiang Li promised that after he occupied Hubei, taxes would be greatly reduced, and the land occupied by the landlords would be distributed to the people.
Wouldn't this make them willingly transport food and fodder for Jiang Li?
With so many more laborers, Jiang Li's logistical pressure was instantly reduced, so he immediately sped up his march.
Finally, two days later, they arrived at the bank of the Yangtze River, facing the Hubei warlord forces across the river.
Here, the river is relatively wide, but the water flow is relatively gentle, and it is close to the river surface of Jingzhou.
Seeing that the enemy on the opposite side had built fairly solid fortifications, Jiang Li knew that it would not be feasible to cross the Yangtze River by force.
Firstly, there were not enough boats, and secondly, the Anmin Army was not very good at swimming, so if they tried to force their way across the Yangtze River, there would inevitably be heavy casualties and the cost would outweigh the gain.
But Jiang Li actually already had a plan for this. If he really had to force his way across the Yangtze River, he would choose a place with a narrower lake rather than a place with a wide river.
Previously, Jiang Li ordered his men to set up artillery positions on the river bank. Since their cannons had a larger caliber and a longer range, the artillery positions were set up five kilometers behind the river bank.
Taking into account the width of the river, they were 8,000 meters away from the enemy artillery. The enemy's small-caliber artillery could not reach the artillery positions of the Anmin Army at all.
When the artillery position was completed, Jiang Li ordered the artillery to fire freely. As bursts of huge artillery fire rang out, the defenders in the fortifications on the other side of the river were in trouble.
But Jiang Li did not intend to rely on artillery to defeat the enemy. Instead, he returned to the headquarters and asked officers at all levels for any good ideas.
"Everyone has seen the situation now. The enemy has deployed a large number of fortifications on the river bank. If we force a crossing, we will suffer heavy casualties. Now everyone, tell us what good ideas you have for crossing the river smoothly."
After hearing Jiang Li's question, the officers present racked their brains to think of countermeasures.
And this is exactly what Jiang Li wanted to see. He actually already had a specific plan, but he still wanted to ask for their opinions. While training their problem-solving ability, he also wanted to consider whether there were any problems with his own plan.
After a long while, Jiang Youzhong stood up and said, "Report to the commander, we can find a narrower place to cross the river. Even if we force it, as long as we are fast enough, there won't be many casualties!"
After hearing his words, Jiang Li nodded without saying anything more, but continued to ask for other people's opinions.
Seeing Jiang Youzhong speak, others also expressed their opinions, and finally Jiang Li summarized.
Putting aside the unrealistic ones, he finally got some useful suggestions.
They are feint attack, night attack, breakthrough of weak points, repeatedly creating the illusion of crossing the river, and fire suppression.
After listening to their opinions, Jiang Li made the final arrangements directly.
"I have heard everyone's opinions. We are already using artillery to attract the enemy's attention. We can also try the rest, but the biggest problem at the moment is that we don't have enough ships!"
"The enemy has already requisitioned all nearby ships and destroyed even the fishing boats, so the most important thing next is to get the ships!"
Then he directly named Jiang Youxiao and asked him to take people to find a boat. To be on the safe side, he also ordered people to gather shipbuilders to build a temporary boat.
Afterwards, he ordered troops to march along the Yangtze River to both sides, on the one hand to attract the enemy's attention and disperse its troops, and on the other hand to find a place to cross the river suitable for a feint attack.
For five or six days in a row, the sound of artillery fire on the river bank never stopped. Although the enemy casualties on the opposite side were not large, the Anmin Army was equipped with large-caliber heavy artillery.
So once someone is injured, they will all be missing arms and legs, and there will be no complete casualties at all.
The second- and third-rate soldiers on the opposite side were so frightened by the miserable plight of their companions that they cried for their parents, and their morale dropped at a rate visible to the naked eye.
When Hu Duozong, He Chengjun and Xia Douyan saw that the situation was not good, they immediately came up with various ways to reward the troops and boost their morale.
These methods, in addition to good food and drink, and the promise of high positions and generous salaries, are coupled with intimidation and threats, which are the classic combination of conventional carrots and charts.
However, the intimidating effect of the heavy artillery was too great, and these conventional appeasements alone were not enough to truly pacify these miscellaneous soldiers.
So they got some opium, alcohol and prostitutes to help the soldiers relax.
But the number of prostitutes was limited after all, and it was impossible to satisfy hundreds of thousands of people. So they ordered the soldiers to forcibly capture women from decent families and bring them to the military camp to serve as camp prostitutes, which caused public resentment.