The month of November ended in what seemed to be a total calm, but it was only a superficial calm!

In late November, Emperor Zhengde sent Wang Yiqi, the former governor of the trilateral military affairs, to the south to serve as the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, but this was only a superficial position, because he also sent the governors of Nanzhili, Fujian, and Zhejiang military affairs, in order to rectify military affairs and prevent the puppet Tang thief army from entering the south of the Yangtze River.

Wang Yiqi, this is one of the real bigwigs in the Ming Dynasty in recent years, when it comes to political status, it is much higher than Zhang Yue, and he went south, Emperor Zhengde not only gave him the title of Shangshu of the Nanjing Military Department, but also gave him the title of Prince Taibao.

If you talk about political status alone, Zhang Yue is in front of him, and he can't catch up!

But sometimes things can't be counted like this, because Zhang Yue has soldiers and horses under his hands, and Wang Yiqi's authority is only in Nanzhili, Fujian, and Zhejiang, but he can't control Zhang Yue's head.

After Wang Yiqi arrived in Nanjing along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, he exerted his thunderous means when he was in the border town, and a new official took office with three fires, and he found a random reason on the spot to kill a number of generals of the guard in Nanzhili in a row.

It greatly shocked the Jiangnan officialdom!

Why does Wang Yiqi have this confidence, in addition to Emperor Zhengde's support for him, but also because he took office with 8,000 border troops and 2,000 Beijing battalions!

Put these 10,000 people in Jinling City, who dares to disagree?

In addition, the 20,000 multilateral troops that were transferred to the south before were all under his command!

After shaking the Jiangnan officialdom and establishing his prestige, he also began to rectify military affairs!

What is interesting is that Wang Yiqi's means of rectifying military affairs are actually quite similar to Zhang Yue's, which is also to build guns and artillery to train the new army, of course, the method he adopts is more compromised, he did not directly organize and supervise the standards like Zhang Yue, and turned the guards into workers and peasants.

The first thing he did was to arm the border army!

Before he came to Jiangnan, he had read a lot of documents on military affairs in the south, and knew that it was no longer possible to rely on swords to fight wars, and he had to have guns, so the first thing he did when he arrived in Jiangnan was to replace the existing 20,000 troops with guns and other equipment.

In addition, he began to recruit and supplement some recruits in various local health centers, and followed Zhang Yue's supervision standard to form the 'Jiangnan New Army', and then used the new army to organize and train, as for the old and weak, they were not eliminated, but let them continue to do what they should do in the local health centers.

Of course, the actual effect is not something that outsiders can know, at least before a battle, no one knows whether his method is good or not, but he has only been in Jiangnan for a month, and when he wrote to Emperor Zhengde in December, it is already propaganda, and now the provinces of Jiangnan have more than 300,000 soldiers, all equipped with guns and guns, sharp blades and thick armor, if the pseudo-Tang thief army dares to invade Jiangnan, the thief army will have no return.

After these words reached Zhang Yue's ears, Zhang Yue couldn't help laughing!

Wang Yiqi's old horseman, how can He De be able to train an army of 300,000 in just one month!

This official stayed in Huguang for two or three years, and it took a lot of hard work to train 50,000 governors and 30,000 training troops, a total of only 80,000 troops!

However, your king has only been here for a month, and he can train an army of 300,000? Bragging doesn't make drafts either!

I'm afraid that among these 300,000 people, there are only 20,000 or 30,000 border troops who can fight, and the rest are estimated to be guards and temporarily recruited young people, these guards and temporarily recruited young people, when facing the puppet Tang thief army, if you don't give you the king a banner to drag you back, even if you are lucky, you still expect them to attack the puppet Tang thief army, just kidding.

Not to mention that Zhang Yue scoffed at this, even Yu Dayou was quite speechless, when did an army of 300,000 armed with guns appear in the Jiangnan region? Could it be that Lao Yu, I'm so ill-informed?

300,000 troops, this number is naturally true, but it can also be said to be fake!

Among these 300,000 people, in addition to Yu Dayou's 10,000-strong thief army, there are about 25,000 border troops and 2,000 Beijing battalions, and these troops are actually troops equipped with guns, and there are 10,000 people who are Wang Yiqi's elite drawn from various guards, with about 20,000 newly recruited recruits to form the Jiangnan New Army, these people are still mainly cold weapons, and a few guns are also equipped, but Wang Yiqi is trying to equip them with more guns.

Counting those who can fight and those who can barely fight, there should be about 70,000 people, 10,000 of Yu Dayou's thief army are in Fujian, and more than 20,000 people are concentrated in Fuzhou, and the remaining part is deployed in Anqing and Jinling.

And the rest, naturally, are all guards and temporary young and strong!

If you want to say whether these guards and temporary young men can fight, that's not nonsense!

If the guards and the temporary young and strong can fight, Zhang Yue will not be able to supervise the standard, Yu Dayou will not be able to break the thief army, and even Wang Yiqi himself will not be able to engage in the Jiangnan New Army.

In the battle with the puppet Tang thief army, those guards and temporary young men have completely lost their due role, and even auxiliary operations are incompetent.

From the fact that Emperor Zhengde sent Wang Yiqi to Jiangnan, it can actually be shown that Emperor Zhengde has been preparing in advance for the follow-up loss of control in Jiangxi and the possible war in the Jiangnan region.

If it weren't for the fact that he was facing a major threat, how could Emperor Zhengde directly divide the Jiangnan region into a war zone!

At the same time, it can be seen that Emperor Zhengde's jealousy of Zhang Yue has deepened, and he did not say that he would directly hand over the defense of Jiangnan to Zhang Yue, but sent another important minister of the court to preside.

This major change in the Ming Dynasty in November and December soon reached the ears of Li Xuan of the Tang Dynasty, but Li Xuan did not have much feeling about it.

Whether the enemy is Zhang Yue, Wang Yiqi, or Yu Dayou, there is no essential difference, anyway, they all have to be fought!

The Ming Dynasty engaged in theirs, and the Tang Dynasty fought its own!

In December, the Second Army was replenished, and the new recruits who were replenished also went through a certain period of adaptation, and at the same time, the ammunition consumed was also replenished again.

This also means that the Second Army already has the ability to launch a large-scale strategic offensive again!

And this time, Li Xuan did not delineate too specific strategic goals for the Second Army, not Jiujiang or Fuzhou, but gave a very general goal, that is, to find an opportunity to inflict heavy damage on the Ming army in front of him, and lay a strategic foundation for the subsequent march into Nanzhili.

To put it bluntly, this time the goal is not to attack a certain city, but to annihilate the main army of the Ming army.

At the same time, it is also to fully delegate power to Li Chunjing, how to fight the second army in the follow-up, let the second army decide for itself, as long as it does not deviate from the big framework, then Li Xuan in the rear will not interfere!

And after receiving this kind of order, Li Chunjing was greatly relieved, what he was most afraid of was receiving Li Xuan's order to attack Fuzhou or Jiujiang.

Now whether it is Fuzhou or Jiujiang, they are all built by the Ming army, just like Tietong, if you want to attack strongly, you need to pay huge casualties.

Even if there are many artillery pieces to help the battle, this kind of battle is not easy to fight.

Well, now His Majesty has given himself the power to make his own decisions, so that he can let go of his hands and feet and have a good fight with the Ming army.

Hit Jiujiang? Don't go!

Hit Fuzhou? Or not go!

Where to go?

At the internal strategic meeting of the Second Army, Li Chunjing directly pointed his hand at Wuchang Mansion: "This is our goal this time!" ”

"Rushing to Wuchang? In this case, will it be too difficult, my army's logistics may not be able to maintain, and if we want to raid Wuchang, then the enemy of Jiujiang may come to counterattack Nanchang, and it is even possible to outflank our army's back road! ”

Li Chunjing said disapprerovingly: "They want to counterattack Nanchang, it's not so easy to fight, as for outflanking our army's back road, isn't this just the opportunity to fight with them in the field that we are best at!" ”

Looking at the eyes of his subordinates who were still confused, Li Chunjing said: "The last time I fought Fuzhou, the official said that the enemy must be saved, and this time it is the same!" ”

"According to the intelligence, Wuchang is the base camp of Zhang Yue's department of the puppet Ming Dynasty, there are a large number of ordnance workshops in it, a huge amount of food has been hoarded, and it is even their recruit training base, if we take Wuchang, then it can be said that the roots of Zhang Yue's department have been cut off, you say, such an important Wuchang, will Zhang Yue let us attack?"

Li Chunjing said with confidence: "If the enemy army comes to intercept us, then we will not fight Wuchang, and directly annihilate these Ming troops who dare to go out of the city to meet them, if they don't come out, just right, we will take their lair!" ”

"But how to solve the logistics line?" Someone said it again!

From Nanchang to Wuchang, but it is very far, this way to run, there is no stable logistics line, it is very difficult.

Li Chunjing said: "Don't think about the logistics line, we set off directly with a large number of supplies, it doesn't matter if we go slowly, if we can't go to Wuchang, we can't use the supply line, if we go to Wuchang, Zhang Yue has so many workshops and grain there, are you afraid that there will be no supplies?" ”

Although the army needs logistics supply lines to maintain, theoretically, as long as the army carries enough supplies, it can also support the needs of operations for a long time alone.

However, although Li Chunjing made such a decision, many generals of the Second Army were still a little worried!

This trip to Wuchang is not a small risk!

But Li Chunjing's combat style is like this, if he doesn't take risks, Li Chunjing will not be Li Chunjing.

Because Li Chunjing was preparing to set off with the Fifth Infantry Division and two mixed regiments, that is to say, only one Sixth Infantry Division was left to garrison the huge rear areas such as Nanchang and Fengcheng.

This made Cai Erhu of the 6th Infantry Division feel Alexander!