In the Forbidden City of Beijing, although it is already spring and the temperature is beginning to warm up, Emperor Zhengde is still covered with a thick quilt, and there are several charcoal basins in the corner of the house that continue to emit heat.

Let the whole house be idle and sultry limitedly.

"Now the Tang thieves are menacing, not only besieging Hengyang and threatening Changsha on the Huguang side, but now they are going north to Jiangxi to plot Ganzhou, what do you think about this?" When Emperor Zhengde spoke, his voice was subtle, and after saying a few more words in a row, he began to cough constantly.

But the group of important ministers of the Ming Dynasty below did not have any idea of daring to despise Emperor Zhengde, and all the people and others lowered their heads in unison, and they didn't dare to say a word.

Emperor Zhengde has controlled the court for more than 40 years, and since he ascended the throne, he has not welcomed these ministers, and even bypassed the cabinet when necessary, and even bypassed the six ministries.

Now that the Tang thieves are in rebellion, they have even taken down the three provinces, and they are also launching a fierce offensive in the direction of Huguang and Jiangxi, and the court is naturally disgusted with round after round of storms!

On the front line, there are not many civil and military officials who have been beheaded because of ineffective bandits, and seven or eight people have been beheaded and their homes have been confiscated, and even more have been imprisoned.

Nowadays, anything related to the puppet Tang thief army is not a good thing.

Seeing that a group of ministers did not speak, Zhengde immediately snorted softly, although the voice was soft, but the courtiers below heard Emperor Zhengde's dissatisfaction.

Immediately, a few cabinet bigwigs had to bite the bullet, but what they said was trivial.

Then as he spoke, he withdrew the matter to Zhang Yue's head again.

However, there is a bold imperial history that says that Zhang Yue has been supervising the southern provinces for nearly a year, but he has not achieved an inch, and he has lost many cities one after another, and several people have impeached Zhang Yue for his incompetence, and advocated that Zhang Yue be arrested and taken back to Beijing for accountability.

Immediately, there was a commotion, and they all agreed with this person's words, and this imperial history said: "Zhang Yuekong has hundreds of thousands of troops, but he has not been able to exterminate the Tang thief for a long time, and he is suspected of being a thief with self-respect!" ”

After listening to this, Emperor Zhengde stared at the right attendant of the Ministry of Industry and said: "Between Aiqing, how should this Tang thief be suppressed?" ”

After hearing this, a hint of surprise appeared on his face: "The minister thought that taking advantage of the unstable foothold of the Tang thief, he directly sent troops south to attack, first capture Shaozhou, and then attack Zhaoqing, hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers went south, which was enough to sweep away all the resistance of the puppet Tang thief army, and then capture Zhaoqing and capture the puppet emperor alive ......!" ”

At this time, Emperor Zhengde propped up his half-lying body, and then directly interrupted him: "Shut up!" ”

Then Emperor Zhengde turned his attention to several cabinet ministers, but these people were even more afraid to speak at this time, and after a while, Emperor Zhengde said: "I want to send the border army south to quell the rebellion, what do you think Aiqing?" ”

Emperor Zhengde said that he was asking, but who dared to oppose him, and they were not all ignorant middle-level officials, they were all real ministers, and they still knew a lot about the situation in the south.

Is Zhang Yue incompetent? It is indeed incompetent enough, almost a year, not only failed to counterattack Liangguang, but also lost troops and many cities, even Shaoyang.

However, if a different person goes to the south, can he do better than Zhang Yue?

Not necessarily!

Zhang Yue presided over the suppression of bandits in the south, and basically sent the war back to Beijing at two ends in three days, and the strategy adopted by Zhang Yue in the southern provinces was agreed by the cabinet and Emperor Zhengde, and its core strategy was: while defending the fortified city to offset the benefits of the thieves' firearms to gain time, while making firearms to train the new army.

At this stage, we will strive to stabilize the situation, and after two or three years, we will build enough guns and artillery, and train enough new troops, so we will go south to destroy the Tang thieves in one fell swoop.

This will be a huge overall plan with a time span of more than three years, or even more than five years, without the support of the cabinet ministers, the nod of Emperor Zhengde, how can Zhang Yue be able to implement it.

The imperial history just now said that Zhang Yue was incompetent and ineffective in suppressing bandits, isn't this a clear plan to slap Emperor Zhengde and the cabinet ministers in the face!

At the same time, according to this overall strategy, Zhang Yue also had an effect, at least not like last year, when the puppet Tang thief army continuously attacked the city and landed, and then seized one province after another.

The only thing that is more troublesome is that they still underestimate the combat effectiveness of the puppet Tang thief army, which is less than 100,000 puppet Tang thief army, is actually fighting in several directions at the same time, and it can also overwhelm hundreds of thousands of local officers and soldiers.

Now, the top priority is not to hold anyone responsible, but to stop the ferocious momentum of the puppet Tang thief army moving north, not only from Huguang, but also from Jiangxi.

Otherwise, Huguang will be defended, but if Jiangxi is captured, it will also cause great trouble.

Once Ganzhou and Nanchang are lost, it basically means that the puppet Tang thief army already has the ability to enter the Yangtze River at any time.

When Emperor Zhengde of the Jingshi and the bigwigs of the Ming Dynasty were worried about the situation in the south, Zhang Yue was also uncomfortable, and when he learned that the puppet Tang thief army was about to arrive in Ganzhou, he immediately passed the book on Pegasus, so that the Ming army in the central and northern regions of Jiangxi quickly went south, and at the same time dispatched 3,000 people who had just been recruited in Wuchang to rush to Jiangxi for reinforcements.

However, Zhang Yue also knew that even if he sent reinforcements, but the distance was so far, when the Ming officers and soldiers in Wuchang and even northern Jiangxi went south to reinforce Ganzhou, it would be too late anyway, and if they wanted to hold Ganzhou, they had to rely on the efforts of local officials and soldiers.

But can it be held? But he didn't have much hope for it.

Well, not only a few prefectures in southern Jiangxi, but also Shaozhou Mansion, Nanxiong Mansion, Chaozhou Mansion in Guangdong, Tingzhou Mansion and Zhangzhou Mansion in Fujian Province are all defense areas belonging to the governor of Southern Jiangxi.

At present, the battle between the Ming Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty is mainly composed of the northern front, the eastern front, and the western front.

The western front, that is, Yunnan and Sichuan, where the mountains are difficult to travel, there are many toasts, and it is not the main direction of attack of the Tang Army, and the defense force of the Ming army is not strong.

The northern line includes the southern part of Huguang and the northeastern part of Guizhou, which belong to the defense area of the governor of Huguang and the defense area of the governor of Biyuan, of which the defense area of the governor of Huguang is also the main fierce battle zone between the two sides, and the main forces of both sides are gathered here.

On the eastern front, it is Jiangxi and Fujian, and the defense areas in this area all belong to the governor of Southern Jiangxi.

Strictly speaking, Shaozhou Mansion in Guangdong Province and Chenzhou in Huguang City, where the two sides fought fiercely before, also belonged to the defense area of the Southern Jiangxi Governor, but they were adjusted to a certain extent by Zhang Yue and directly belonged to the defense area of the Huguang Governor.

Zhang Yue supervised six provinces, and the number of troops under his command was 800,000, but in fact there were only 300,000 or 400,000 at most, half of which were more than 200,000 concentrated in Huguang and the northeastern region of Guizhou.

His 20,000-strong superintendent is a firearms unit modeled after the puppet Tang thief army.

As for the Nanjiang Governor's area, there are about 100,000 troops, but this does not include the tens of thousands of musket troops under the command of Yu Dayou, the commander of the Fujian Metropolitan Command, which is currently stationed in Quanzhou and Fuzhou for reorganization and training.

The more than 100,000 troops of the governor of Southern Jiangxi were scattered to Ganzhou Mansion, Zhangzhou Mansion, Tingzhou Mansion, Nan'an Mansion and other places, and even a part of the troops had to be assigned to assist in the defense of Nanchang.

As soon as this force is distributed, in fact, there are not many troops in various places!

In addition, this time the thief army came north to Jiangxi too quickly, so that the local Ming army had not yet reacted, and many small and medium-sized cities had already been broken, and although the Ming army stationed in these cities was not many in each place, there were also 10,000 or 20,000 people in total.

In other words, the puppet Tang thief army has not yet attacked the capital city of Ganzhou, and the Ming army under the command of the governor of Southern Jiangxi has already lost 20,000 people.

The total number of troops of the governor of Southern Jiangxi in the south of Jiangxi is only 50,000, and these 50,000 troops, now there are no less than 20,000, and there are more than 20,000 scattered garrisons, and they did not have time to rush to the capital of Ganzhou, that is to say, the Ming army in the capital of Ganzhou is only more than 10,000 people at most.

And one thing to note is that these Ming troops are all local guards, and many of them are actually young and strong people who were temporarily recruited, as for the elites like the Governor, the Border Army, and the Musket Army, I'm sorry, there are not many, at most, there are only two or three thousand recruits recruited by the governor of Nanjiang himself.

The thief army also rushed to Ganzhou with lightning speed, and did not give the Ming army in Jiangxi much time to react, while they had not yet retracted back to Ganzhou, Wang Danxu had already led the Fifth Infantry Division to Ganzhou, and on the way also killed a 3,000 Ming army that fled back to Ganzhou from Nan'an Mansion.

In such a situation, it is impossible to make the local civil and military officials in Jiangxi nervous, and even panic.

Zhang Yue also had no choice but to send troops south from north-central Jiangxi and Wuchang to reinforce him, but God knows if he could arrive in time.

And Zhang Yue's worries are not unreasonable, the Fifth Infantry Division rushed north all the way, just not to gather the Ming troops scattered all over the place, so that Ganzhou will also become a turtle shell like Hengyang, what they want is a quick victory.

However, this quick battle is not to quickly take Ganzhou, but specifically to annihilate the living force of the Ming army!

So when they arrived at the city of Ganzhou, they were not in a hurry to attack the city, but were ready to encircle the point and send reinforcements!