After the strategic plan of counterattacking Xingquan Mansion and entering Guizhou failed, Zhang Yue now fully realized that it would definitely not be possible to succeed in exterminating the puppet Tang thief army in a short period of time.

Today's puppet Tang thief army has become powerful, with nearly two and a half provinces of territory, of which Guangxi is completely controlled by the puppet Tang thief army, using these territories, the puppet Tang thief army has expanded more than 100,000 or even more.

Moreover, these pseudo-Tang thieves still have a huge advantage in firearms, and it is very difficult to fight.

If the firearms of your own officers and soldiers are not good, how can you counterattack the scum of combat effectiveness?

Since the counteroffensive cannot be achieved, it is naturally necessary to adopt a strategic defense.

After learning of the defeat in the Battle of Xingquanfu, on the one hand, he sent a fast horse to Tan Rong to send a letter, in which instead of blaming Tan Rong for losing his troops, he comforted him that victory or defeat was a common thing in soldiers, and he would try his best to deal with him in the court to ensure that the court would not blame him.

However, after comforting, he also strictly ordered Tan Rong to manage the defense of Zhenyuan Mansion and Chenzhou Mansion to ensure that the puppet Tang thief army would not enter the hinterland of Huguang from this direction, and at the same time block the puppet Tang thief army from advancing to Sichuan.

At the same time, he also promised that he would continue to send him more troops, armaments, food and grass from the rear.

And it also gave strategic guidance, that is, to avoid large-scale field battles with the pseudo-Tang thief army, especially the real thieves in the pseudo-Tang thief army, as much as possible, and to avoid large-scale field head-on battles that determine the outcome as much as possible.

The reason is very simple, you can't beat it!

The puppet Tang thief army has already told the Ming army through a number of large-scale frontal field battles that it is not feasible to fight this kind of field frontal decisive battle, even if the Ming army has more than two or three times the strength advantage.

At the same time, he also hoped that Tan Rong would pay attention to the development of the battle in Guilin!

It is said that although the nearly 10,000 Ming army that went south to Guilin failed to achieve the results of large-scale destruction and injury of the puppet Tang thief army, it successfully dealt a blow to the arrogance of the puppet Tang thief army through a small estimate of the attack battle, and at the same time killed and injured many fake thieves who defected to the puppet Tang Dynasty, and dragged down the main force of many puppet Tang thief army.

After Tan Rong received Zhang Yue's letter, he was also relieved, with Zhang Yue's statement, he was relieved, what he was most afraid of was that Zhang Yue would hold him accountable, and even throw him out as a scapegoat for the defeat of Xingquan Mansion.

Now instead of being responsible, on the contrary, Tan Rong also asked him to take over the tens of thousands of Ming troops that were originally in the northeast of Guizhou, and he would also send him reinforcements, so that he was almost fully responsible for the war on the northern front, which moved him.

As for the tactics of the Ming army in Guilin, it also gave him great inspiration!

That's right, their frontal field battle against the Ming army is indeed unable to defeat the pseudo-Tang thief army, and even large-scale city defense operations are not easy to fight, but it doesn't mean that they can't attack and disturb the war!

The puppet Tang thief army is not all real thieves, most of them are fake thieves, and the rear maintains the supply line, and the people who rule are all fake thief troops with weak combat strength.

If you can't beat the real thief, can't you beat the fake thief?

Therefore, he was also preparing to emulate the Ming army in Guilin, avoid a large-scale decisive battle with the main force of the puppet Tang thief army, and specially attack the supply line of the puppet Tang thief army and attack their poorly guarded small cities.

I don't want to win much victory, I just want to slow down the offensive pace of the puppet Tang thief army.

In fact, this strategy of the Ming army is still feasible, just like the judgment of the generals of the Ming army, the scale of the Tang Dynasty division is so large, but in fact, there are not many main forces that can fight, and most of them need to be put into the front line of operations, at most they are stationed in some important cities, and other places, such as ordinary state capitals and even small county towns, are actually garrisons composed of Ming army troops and local thieves to assist in defense, and their combat effectiveness is worrying.

This is also the reason why many small cities on the Guilin side have been repeatedly attacked by the Ming army!

In the city where the main force of the Tang Dynasty is located, the Ming army will never go, and will specially pick a city that is not garrisoned by the main force to fight, and after the fight, if the main force of the Tang army does not come, then they will not leave, but when the main force of the Tang Dynasty comes, they will not defend the city, and they will run away.

Therefore, the defenders on the Guilin side have a great headache, although it is said that the supply line can be maintained, and the important big cities can also be defended, but they can't control the entire Guilin Prefecture.

In the final analysis, it is because there are not enough regular troops!

If these more than 100,000 troops are regular troops, then there are so many things!

But then again, if Li Xuan had more than 100,000 rules, what kind of Guilin security war would he still fight with the Ming army, and he would have led the army to conquer Jiangnan in person.

He is worried about the scenery on both sides of the Qinhuai River, and it is not a day or two!

After instructing Tan Rong to take a defensive position on the northern front, he began to organize the defense of the first line of Baoqing Mansion again, once Jingzhou was completely lost, then Baoqing Mansion would be the front line to resist the westward advance of the puppet Tang thief army from Jingzhou.

And once Baoqing Mansion is lost, the soldiers of the puppet Tang thief army can go straight to Changsha, and once Changsha is threatened by the Tang thief's soldiers, the situation will be serious, so Jingzhou can be lost, but Baoqing Mansion, especially Xunyang City, the capital of the province, must not be lost, this is the city that Zhang Yue is determined to defend to the death.

And the Yongzhou Mansion in the south of Baoqing Mansion is still safe for the time being, and the tens of thousands of Ming troops on the Guilin side are fighting quite well, although they have not achieved any great results, but they are firmly fixed in Guilin Mansion, so that the local pseudo-Tang thief army cannot move.

As long as the tens of thousands of Ming troops are not annihilated, then Yongzhou Mansion is safe.

However, the Shaozhou Mansion in Guangdong over there made him more worried, although the central and northern areas of Shaozhou Mansion were still in the hands of the Ming army, but the number of Ming troops over there was not much, and the puppet Tang thief army had arrived under the city of Shaozhou, once the puppet Tang thief army launched a large-scale attack, I am afraid it would not be able to hold it.

Therefore, he hoped to enrich the defensive strength of Shaozhou Mansion as much as possible during the rainy season, when the puppet Tang thief army was inconvenient to move, and at the same time was held back by Guangzhou with a large number of troops, and the existing nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses were not enough, and it was safer to increase the number of troops by 20,000 or even more than 30,000.

However, it costs money to recruit soldiers and horses, so while he is planning to consolidate the defense line, he is constantly sending folds to the Beijing division, and these twists and turns are almost all asking for assistance, asking for money, soldiers, food, in short.

In addition, he also sent a letter to Wang Yue, the governor of Liangguang, hoping that the military and people of Guangzhou could continue to hold on, and he had already coordinated the naval division on the Fujian side and part of the army to reinforce Guangdong.

Just when Zhang Yue was anxious and tried his best to maintain the situation, there was a peaceful scene on Zhaoqing's side!

In the palace, Li Xuan, who received good news from the front, defeated the tens of thousands of troops of the Ming army and recovered the lost territory of Fuxingquan Mansion, such as Zhengtai County, the land of Longxing, which the courtiers attach great importance to, is not worthy of his joy, what really makes him happy is that thousands of troops in Xingquan Mansion have been saved.

In the Tang Army, which was besieged in the city of Xingquan Mansion before, the main force was the Fourth Infantry Regiment, which was one of the few regular infantry regiments in the Tang Dynasty that could fight tough battles, and it was of great significance to keep this infantry regiment.

Therefore, he instructed the Operations Division, the Ordnance Division, and other institutions that the reorganization of the Fourth Infantry Regiment must be carried out as a matter of priority, and strive to restore the combat effectiveness of the Fourth Infantry Regiment at an early date.

Although from the most optimistic scenario, the 4th Infantry Regiment, which had suffered such a heavy loss, was not able to resume the fighting at its peak for more than a month or even two months, but it managed to keep this unit.

It is much easier to restore the combat effectiveness of the 4th Infantry Regiment than to build a new 5th Infantry Brigade!

Keeping the Fourth Infantry Regiment was also the preservation of other troops in the city, and it also made Li Xuan dispel the idea of replacing Fang Xitong, but when Fang Xitong failed to rescue and lost his troops, he thought about replacing him, but considering that the temporary change of generals had too much impact on morale, and he couldn't find anyone to replace Fang Xitong for a while, so he let Fang Xitong continue to lead the army.

But now that the situation has been saved, and the follow-up battle summary Fang Xitong is okay, he also lifted the board and put it down gently.

It's just that he sent a holy decree of encouragement, what is encouragement, it is nothing more than letting Fang Xitong work hard, otherwise next time this kind of thing happens, I will kill someone.

After this battle, Fang Xitong was also ruthless, leading the headquarters of the Second Army to continue to pursue the Ming army fleeing north, and then commanded the defenders of Zhenyuan Mansion to launch a counteroffensive, which can be regarded as achieving certain results.

However, at this time, Tan Rong had already changed his previous strategy, adopting the strategy of avoiding the battle with the main force and attacking the grain road with a partial division, and Fang Xi would not be able to achieve too large-scale victory at the same time.

In addition, the strength of the Second Army was half-crippled after the First Battle of Xingquanfu and the defensive battle in northeastern Guizhou, the Fourth Infantry Regiment suffered heavy losses, and it could not recover its combat effectiveness for at least a month, and the First Garrison Brigade was almost disabled.

In addition, he also left a garrison regiment and a temporary regiment on the Guiyang side, so his strength was not very sufficient.

So it can only be a postponement of a large-scale offensive and prepare for a period of rest!

Although the defenders in the city are not many or strong, there are also seven or eight thousand regular troops and young people, and Chen Keqiao does not have many heavy artillery, and he himself does not want to lose too many troops, at first he wanted to leave a part of the troops to continue to besiege the city, and the main force was ready to send reinforcements.

But Zhang Yue is not stupid, he doesn't send reinforcements, and in the end he has no choice but to give up the idea of sending reinforcements, and is ready to pull out the nail of Jingzhou City first.

This is going to be a tough battle, and I don't want to have too many casualties, so naturally I can only grind little by little, at least ten days and half a month, don't expect to be able to break through the city.

However, Li Xuan doesn't care much about these fronts now, anyway, the Second Army and the Fourth Army still occupy the strategic initiative, at most the progress is slower, and now Li Xuan is more concerned about Guangzhou.

With the coming of summer, the preparations for the capture of Guangzhou by the Tang Dynasty have also been completed, which means that the battle of Guangzhou is about to begin!