On the Huguang Yichang front, in the front headquarters of the First Army, Hao Bonian and a group of officers of the First Army were discussing on the large military map around the table.

On the wall of the headquarters, there is also a larger military map, which covers the entire southern part of Huguang, as well as Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou, and marks in detail the locations of major cities and even small towns, as well as mountains and rivers.

However, in this map, the area under the control of the Tang Army is very detailed, but the map of the area controlled by the Ming Army is not so detailed.

In order to draw this detailed military map, the middle and low-level officers of the troops deployed close to the front line of the Tang Dynasty Division and the staff officers of the division headquarters traveled almost everywhere and personally drew these maps.

In addition, the staff officers of the Mapping Section under the Operations Department of the Privy Council also hid their identities and personally visited the areas controlled by the Ming army, spending nearly half a year drawing maps of the areas controlled by the Ming Army, especially the maps of the southern area of Huguang.

Through many channels, after a lot of efforts, it is a summary of such a detailed map of the four provinces, and this map is also the most detailed military map in the Tang Dynasty and even the world, although limited by the lack of manpower, many of these areas are still relatively wrong, but compared with the previous kind of abstraction, only the map that seems to have no shape is naturally 10,000 times better.

In addition to this super-large military map on the wall, there is also a smaller, but more detailed, map of the southern part of Huguang on the table surrounded by everyone.

It is mainly based on Chenzhou, Hengzhou and Yongzhou, supplemented by a small number of areas in northern Guangdong and northeast Guangxi.

This area is marked in detail with the location of the existing towns, as well as the deployment of its own troops and the deployment of the Ming army known from the intelligence.

Now, Lei Wan, the former deputy director of the Operations Department, who had accompanied him to Guangzhou and was in fact the chief of the general staff of the various units in the Guangzhou Campaign, was pointing and explaining on the map with the command list.

Lei Wan, because of his meritorious work in planning the Battle of Guangzhou, when the army and navy were separated, when the departments of the Privy Council were upgraded to ministries, he also served as the deputy minister of operations, and later the army was reorganized, and the first army was also reformed accordingly, and he served as the chief of staff of the first army after the reform, and was promoted to the rank of major general at the same time.

Nowadays, all the armies in the Datang Army, except for the first army, have been revoked one after another, so the status of this first army in the Datang Army is still quite high, the army commander is Hao Bonian, and the chief of staff is Lei Wan.

Most of the staff members of the First Army were drawn from the Privy Council, and the senior operational staff officers were all graduates of the Imperial Academy.

At this time, Major General Lei Wan was standing in front of the map and said: "After the past two days of surprise operations, all units of our army have successively occupied many peripheral positions in Yizhang, and now nearly 10,000 enemy troops in Yizhang can only stick to Yizhang County, but it is worth noting that the first cavalry battalion also found a large number of Ming troops galloping in the direction of Chenzhou, obviously, they have received the news of our army's surprise attack, reinforcements from Chenzhou City, this part of the enemy army is afraid of no less than 10,000 people!" ”

"Isn't this just right, we can bypass Yizhang, and then attack Chenzhou directly, cutting off the logistics supply line in Yizhang!" Someone immediately said: "Or, let's just come to a siege point to send reinforcements, one by one to defeat the enemy's reinforcements, as long as the enemy reinforcements are solved, then taking Yizhang is just around the corner!" ”

"I'm afraid it's not realistic to encircle the point to send reinforcements, these Ming troops from Chenzhou are very cautious, although the speed is slow, but steady and steady, if the main force of our army bypasses Yizhang and goes north, I'm afraid they will retract back to Chenzhou!"

"If they don't come, we'll continue to attack Yizhang!"

"However, this takes too much time, Yizhang has been operated by the puppet enemy army for several months, there are many fortifications, and the advantages of our muskets and artillery have been reinforced, and some critical locations are even more difficult to open, and the gains of attacking Yizhang outweigh the losses!"

"We attacked Yizhang, it can be said that we are in the hands of the enemy, and now these puppet thieves are already smart, and they will not fight with us in the field at all, they are all retracted into the city, and they will hoard a large amount of food and ordnance in the city, and in the case of stubborn defense, even if our army is sharp in guns, but I am afraid that it will not be able to take Yizhang in a short time, not to mention that it will cause a lot of casualties."

"And Yizhang wants to attack, will Chenzhou be attacked in the future? There is also a follow-up Hengzhou, do you want to attack it? There are so many cities in the south of Huguang, if we gnaw through them one by one, let alone take Changsha before the arrival of the spring and summer rainy season, I am afraid that we will not even be able to take Hengzhou, we must use a more flexible combat method to drive these pseudo-Ming thief troops out of the turtle shell, and strive to defeat them in a frontal battle in the field! ”

"But how is this possible, although these puppet thieves are a little worse in combat power, but they are not stupid, how can they stupidly run out and fight us in the wild!"

"It's not impossible to lure them out, but if they attack the enemy and save them, they can't do it if they don't come out!"

"Yes, this is feasible, we can ignore Yizhang, or even Chenzhou, and go straight to Hengzhou in the north, I don't believe that these Ming troops are unmoved, if they still don't come out, it's a big deal that we attack Hengzhou first and take Hengzhou down!"

According to our previous estimates, there are no less than 50,000 puppet thieves in Chenzhou's state capital, Yizhang and other counties and passes, and the puppet Ming thief army has deployed heavy troops in Linwu and Guiyang in the south of Hengzhou Prefecture, Ningyuan and Yongzhou Prefecture in the vicinity of Yongzhou Prefecture.

Rough estimates, in this part of the southernmost part of Huguang, the total number of puppet Ming thief armies is not less than 100,000, which also means that their rear is empty, if we can successfully bypass Yizhang and Chenzhou, it is expected that we will not encounter many enemy troops in Hengzhou City, once we conquer Hengzhou City, the Ming army south of Hengzhou will have to be trapped by us sooner or later, they will not see such a crisis, so if we attack Hengzhou, they are very likely to come back! ”

"As long as they come back to help, then things will be much easier, we can completely surround the point and send reinforcements, and choose one or two of them to defeat them!"

"But what if they draw reinforcements from Changsha and Baoqing, and cooperate with the Ming army south of Hengzhou, I am afraid that more than 100,000 or even more Ming troops will be gathered.

Listening to the discussion of a group of officers under his hands, at this time Major General Lei Wan said: "If we attack Hengzhou, I am afraid that before we enter Hengzhou, the Ming army of all departments in Hengzhou will move, but they should not rush in batches to carry out refueling tactics, I estimate that they are very likely to concentrate the various departments, and then intercept the operation on the way of our army into Hengzhou, once such a situation occurs, the enemy's strength must be quite large, and it is estimated that there will be at least more than 50,000 troops!" ”

"In addition, everyone must note that once the main force of our army bypasses Yizhang and Chenzhou and continues to move north, then the enemy forces in these two directions can directly take the initiative to attack and cut off the logistics supply line of our army, so that the main force will not be able to get continuous supply, and can only rely on the supplies carried by the army to fight, and the supply of the army, with the current carrying capacity of our army, can only last 15 days of rations and ammunition for two large-scale battles."

"In other words, half a month later, or after two large-scale battles, my main force going north will run out of ammunition and food!"

Hearing Major General Lei Wan say this, the group of people below who were shouting to bypass Chenzhou and attack Hengzhou Mansion directly shut up!

The Ming army is not stupid, they are now shrinking in Yizhang and Chenzhou and not coming out, it is because their main force is there, and they will shrink their heads into turtle shells if they can't fight. But once your main force goes north, believe it or not, they will be killed in minutes.

If you can't defeat the main force of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty, it will be difficult for people to defeat your logistics and transportation troops, and the transportation troops of the Tang Army are actually a group of ordinary people, and there is no essential difference between them and the logistics and transportation of the Ming Army.

Moreover, to attack Hengzhou, this section of the supply line is so long, people don't need more Ming troops, and they can cut off this supply line by sending 10,000 people at will.

The Datang Army, especially the reorganized infantry division units, has strong firepower and combat effectiveness, but it is also more dependent on logistics, and there is no stable logistics supply line.

Around the logistics supply line, the attack on Hengzhou, etc., everyone discussed again, and in the end, the dozen or so officers present had already reached two relatively consistent plans.

The first plan is the simplest, steady and steady, first hit Yizhang and then Chenzhou, and then go north to Hengzhou after taking Chenzhou, but the shortcomings of this plan are also very obvious, and it takes a lot of time, not to mention taking Changsha before the spring and summer rainy season next year, whether you can take Hengzhou is a problem, and the casualties will be very large.

The second plan is more radical, the main force of the First Infantry Division directly bypasses Yizhang and Chenzhou, and the main force rushes to Hengzhou, but a temporary regiment will be left behind to maintain the supply line.

However, Hao Bonian didn't want to use these two plans, the advantages and disadvantages were too obvious combat plans, and he Hao Bonian didn't like them!