When nearly 1,000 people from the assault battalion and nearly 800 heavy armored infantry landed at the top of the city, the victory and defeat of this Shaoyang offensive and defensive battle were decided, and the next thing was just garbage time on the battlefield!

Half an hour later, Hao Bonian put down the binoculars, and then said: "The next final battle will be handed over to you, well, the thing to clear the remnants of the enemy in the city is to pay attention to the means and control your own casualties, this city has been taken, and this official doesn't want any accidents to happen!" ”

"After the finish, report to Zhaoqing, well, let them send hundreds of sets of plate armor over, although this thing is a little heavier, but it is still very useful in melee combat!"

Hao Bonian gave an order to a group of senior generals of the First Army behind him, and walked down the high mountain outside the city!

This siege battle has come to an end, and the next end is garbage time, he doesn't have so much time and energy to personally command tens of thousands of troops to clear the remnants of the enemy in the city, this is the work of his generals.

However, although Shaoyang was conquered, Hao Bonian was not too happy, because according to the situation of the battle, the number of Ming troops in the city was less than estimated.

Previously, they judged that there were at least 30,000 Ming troops in the city, but when they actually attacked, they were not resisted by so many Ming troops.

After a full battle, there were more than 10,000 Ming troops in the city, and it was estimated that there were less than 20,000 people.

At the same time, the will of the Ming army in the city to resist is not firm, which makes Hao Bonian think that this Shaoyang City may have been indirectly abandoned by the Ming army!

There are so many Ming troops in the Huguang area, and it is impossible for a big city like Shaoyang to be weakly defended by more than 10,000 people and young people, and this force is not even as large as the city of Guiyangzhou!

This is not normal!

Sure enough, it was quickly learned through the captured captives that a few days ago, after learning that the Tang Army was attacking, some of the defenders in the city had already left the north for Changsha, and the Ming army that left reached eight or nine thousand, and they were all elite main forces, and almost all the people who defended the city were local guards, and they did not see a single recruit of the superintendent.

After learning the news, Hao Bonian didn't know that this Zhang Yue was probably starting to abandon the periphery and accurately concentrate on defending the two cities of Hengyang and Changsha.

The Ming army has been shrinking its head like this when the turtle has shrunk its head, and it will be difficult to fight next!

Now whether it is Hengyang or Changsha, it has become a hard bone, it is not easy to gnaw, and these two cities are important strategic cities in Huguang, if you want to go north to Dongting Lake and even drink the Yangtze River, these two cities will not be able to take it!

Could it be that you really have to besiege it for a year and a half?

Hao Bonian went north this time, and the more he fought, the more uncomfortable it became, so that he was a little irritable.

It is now the middle of February, and it will be the rainy season in two months, when the movement of our own army will not be in order, and the use of muskets and artillery will be greatly restricted, and then we will have to suspend the large-scale offensive as we did last year.

In this way, the army will not be able to achieve the strategic plan formulated last year: to conquer Changsha before the arrival of the rainy season in the third year of Xuanping, and to advance the troops to the Yangtze River valley!

This northward offensive was delayed for too long, and the Ming Dynasty was able to draw more forces south, and now the Tang Dynasty is fighting against the Ming Dynasty with three provinces, which is already very difficult.

The land of the three provinces of Italy raises an army of 100,000 people, and tens of millions of military expenses every year, but there is no way to maintain it for too long!

If the Ming Dynasty continues to draw troops to fill it in a steady stream, even if the Tang Army is brave and good at fighting, I am afraid it will be consumed by the Ming Army!

Quick victory, this is the core strategy of the Tang Dynasty, quickly defeat the Ming army in a region, and then occupy the place, expand their own population and wealth, and then expand the army, and continue to grow in a snowballing way, this is the previous development model of the Tang Dynasty, and it is also the established strategy of the Tang Dynasty in the next year or two.

But now, this strategy seems to have failed, and most of the main force of the Tang Army has been dragged on the Huguang front, although there have been small victories, but it has been unable to open the situation for a long time, which makes Hao Bonian quite worried!

Hao Bonian on the Huguang front line is annoyed, and Zhang Yue is also uncomfortable!

After receiving the report of Shaoyang's fall, although he had long known that Shaoyang couldn't hold Zhang Yue, he couldn't help but sigh!

The battle situation in Huguang is becoming more and more difficult to maintain, originally he didn't want to give up Shaoyang, but the thief army is strong, and the strength he can fight in his hands is also limited, now most of the troops are stationed in Hengyang, and the strength of Changsha is less, in order to prevent the puppet Tang thief army from bypassing Hengyang and attacking Changsha, so he took the initiative to give up Shaoyang, and transferred thousands of governors and thousands of guards in Shaoyang to return to Changsha!

Now Changsha has sufficient troops, safety is guaranteed, and Hengyang will be safe for a while, but he is a little confused about how to fight next!

Passive defense is definitely not good, although such tactics can slow down the offensive speed of the puppet Tang thief army, but it only slows down the pace of the puppet Tang thief army's northward march, this passively defended city, will eventually fall.

Whether it is Hengyang or Changsha, this is the case!

Even according to Zhang Yue's optimistic estimate, it would be very good for Hengyang to hold for half a year, and Changsha would be almost at this time, and what does this mean?

This means that maybe a year later, the puppet Tang thief army will be able to enter Dongting Lake and then drink the Yangtze River!

He could almost guess what the puppet Tang thief army did after entering the Yangtze River Valley, marching directly east along the river, killing Yingtianfu in the south and seizing Nanjing, a city with important political and commercial status.

Once Ying Tianfu is lost, then it can basically be declared that the entire Jiangnan is finished!

And this is absolutely unacceptable to the imperial court, not to mention that the loss of Jiangnan will make the imperial court lose the tax of Jiangnan, and more importantly, after losing Jiangnan, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal will be finished, and Caoyun will also be finished.

Without Caoyun, the people of the northern provinces, especially the Jingshi, would starve to death!

Zhang Yue shuddered at the thought of this happening, that situation was so terrifying that he didn't dare to think about it.

At the same time, this is also the reason why he asked Song Zhiwen to recruit and train troops in Wuchang Mansion, he just thought, in case Changsha is lost, he will retreat to Yuezhou, Wuchang can still provide soldiers and supplies after this generosity, once even Yuezhou can't be defended, then he will defend Wuchang.

But even so, there is a possibility that the puppet Tang thief army will bypass Yuezhou and even Wuchang, and then directly enter Jiujiang Mansion!

So now Zhang Yue feels that the current situation is extremely difficult!

It's hard!

Hao Bonian and Zhang Yue, each representing the front-line generals of both sides, are full of worries about the existing battle situation, and they are a pair of difficult brothers and sisters.

At the same time, Li Xuan also learned about the predicament faced by Hao Bonian through the battle reports that continued to be transmitted from the front line!

Now it seems that some of the core tactics of the current Datang Army must be changed, for example, in addition to frontal large-scale decisive battles and siege battles, some small-scale battles also need to be added.

Since the Ming army is defending the city, the Tang Army will have to change the corresponding strategy and adopt the siege of the city and the attack on the vast rural areas.

Immediately, Li Xuan gave the relevant attention to the Privy Council, exploring the possibility of giving up attacking large cities and attacking some small and medium-sized cities and rural areas.

In the decree issued by the Privy Council, Li Xuan clearly stated that the war with the puppet Ming Dynasty was not a battle for one city and one place, but a battle for strategic resources, including population, various materials, etc.

And this era is still the agricultural era, the main population is concentrated in a wide range of rural areas, the population in the city is very limited, and the city in this year is a pure consumption city, once they control the rural area, and surround their city, then their city even if there is a large amount of grain, but it is impossible to support it for long.

After receiving Li Xuan's will, the army generals and many staff officers in the Privy Council also began to discuss a new mode of war.

Because in the current situation, unless the Tang Dynasty can come up with a large number of heavy siege artillery, otherwise, it is still relatively difficult to conquer a fortified city like Hengyang City, either it takes a long time, or it costs heavy casualties, and both of these are unacceptable to the Tang Dynasty.

The Huguang front encountered difficulties, and Li Xuan also began to no longer insist on pursuing the strategy of capturing Changsha in a short period of time, and then entering the Yangtze River from Dongting Lake, but was ready to change direction.

In this huge north, there is not only one place in the south of Huguang that can be used as the main attack site, in addition to the south of Huguang, there is also Jiangxi!

However, because the strategic resources of the Tang Dynasty were limited, they were previously limited to the southern part of Huguang, so although there was also a Fifth Infantry Division in Jiangxi, the Fifth Infantry Division lacked food and ammunition, so it has not been able to launch a large-scale offensive.

With the current military production and logistics system of the Tang Dynasty, it still does not have the ability to maintain a large-scale campaign in both directions at the same time!

But now, he is preparing to adjust the supply limit of military supplies, and since Huguang is deadlocked, he will free up resources to supply to the Fifth Infantry Division first, so that the Fifth Infantry Division can attack north.

If you can't capture Changsha, it's okay to take Nanchang!

Even if you can't take Nanchang, it's not a big problem, at least you can mobilize the strength of the Ming army, and don't let the Ming army concentrate all its forces in the south of Huguang, so that it can also reduce the pressure on Hao Bonian's first army in the south of Huguang.

Li Xuan's order was soon passed on to the Fifth Infantry Division, and along with Li Xuan's order, there was also a batch of supplementary guns and a large amount of ammunition!

In late February, the Fifth Infantry Division swore to march, and the commander of the Fifth Infantry Division, Major General Wang Danxu, personally led the troops to rush to the front, and the forward troops conquered Longnan the next day.

The 5th Infantry Division's northward advance was from the northern part of Huizhou Province and Nanxiong Province at the same time, and the troops attacking from Nanxiong Province also captured Xinfeng in just three days.

Immediately, the troops of the Fifth Infantry Division pointed directly at the capital city of Ganzhou.

The puppet Tang thief army suddenly launched a fierce attack in the south of Jiangxi, and Ganzhou was threatened by the thief army, which immediately shocked the local people in Jiangxi, and the documents requesting rescue flew to Zhang Yue's place and even Jingshi like snowflakes!