Among the many senior officials in Guizhou at the beginning, there was no second one who could be as lucky as Song Zhiwen, since the puppet Tang thief army swept through Guizhou, the senior officials of the Ming Dynasty in Guizhou basically did not end well.

Governor Zhu Zhihai died, the political envoy committed suicide after being captured, and other red-robed officials with more than four votes were captured, and there were also those who were forced or took the initiative to surrender to thieves, many of whom committed suicide in the city, and many of whom were killed by the thief army, and even more who were questioned by the court after fleeing for fear of death.

From last year to now, the imperial court has killed at least 20 red-robed officials, both in Guizhou and Guangzhou, among which Guizhou is the most.

The original high-ranking officials in Guizhou were almost swept away, and only Song Zhiwen was the only senior official who was still alive and could be reused!

Song Zhiwen's good fortune comes from his own ability, even if he is appreciated by Zhang Yue, but also because he has a master as a cabinet minister and a large number of classmates.

When Song Zhiwen was in prison, many people were running for him!

This is the energy of a civil official who is on the right path to the imperial examination, and he is also from Hanlin, as long as he doesn't look for death, it's really not easy to die!

Song Zhiwen made firearms and recruited troops to train in the rear of Wuchang, while Xu Xinchang and Tan Rong and others led troops to fight on the front line!

Then the battle situation in the south of Huguang is getting worse and worse day by day, how can this not make Xu Xinchang, the governor of Huguang, anxious and even angry!

He can't control the war in the western part of Huguang and the northeast of Guizhou, which is the business of Tan Rong, a remote general soldier, but the war in the south of Huguang, especially the Hengzhou Mansion as the core, is the responsibility of him, the governor of Huguang.

The 100,000 or 200,000 soldiers and horses under his command couldn't stop the 20,000 or 30,000 people in the puppet Tang Thief Military Region!

Well, like Zhang Yue, Xu Xinchang doesn't know how many soldiers and horses he has under his hands, but there must be 100,000, and 200,000 may not, but the data reported by the people under his command is like this, and it is not good for him to deny it directly.

But it's not important, the important thing is that he has between 100,000 and 200,000 soldiers and horses under his hands, well, don't ask how many people there are, he doesn't know if he asks.

However, he didn't know how many soldiers and horses the puppet Tang thief army had to go north to Huguang, but when he sent a detective cavalry from his lineage to personally investigate and find out the news. Although it was still not possible to accurately find out how many people there were in the puppet Tang thief army, it was the number of several main forces of the puppet Tang thief army that found the north to Huguang.

Then Xu Xinchang deduced the puppet Tang thief army fighting in Chenzhou and Hengzhou according to the number of the puppet Tang thief army, and there were only 20,000 people killed, and there could be no more!

Although the current Pseudo-Tang Thief Army still does not understand what the infantry division of the Pseudo-Tang Thief Army is, it knows that a battalion of the Pseudo-Tang Thief Army is about 500 people, and a regiment is about 3,000 people, and the Pseudo-Tang Thief Legion number that has been known can be determined to be three, and there are two uncertain ones, even if the uncertain ones are added, it is only five regiment-level numbers, even if it is to add auxiliary troops such as artillery and cavalry of the Pseudo-Tang Thief Army.

The puppet Tang thief army that went north to Huguang will definitely not exceed 20,000 people.

And they also found a very important piece of information, that is, in the pseudo-Tang thief army fighting in Huguang, there are no more fake thieves like before, but all real thieves.

Xu Xinchang didn't think about why the puppet Tang thief army had no fake thieves, and only the real thieves remained, but what made him worried and even angry was that in the face of this mere 20,000 people, the army between 100,000 and 200,000 under his command was actually defeated and retreated!

I didn't know it before, but after the news was collected one after another in the last few days, he found that the loss was extremely heavy!

The Yizhang garrison was completely annihilated, and by the way, the 6,000 army that was reinforced by Linwu was also taken, Yizhang was finished, and the matter of cutting off the supply line of the puppet Tang thief army naturally came to naught.

Although the Ming army in the direction of Chenzhou was still guarding Chenzhou City, when they went out of the city to meet the battle, they also lost thousands of people!

In addition, the 15,000 Ming troops who attacked from Guiyang Prefecture were raided by the main force of the puppet Tang thief army, although they were not wiped out like the defenders of Yizhang, but they were also lost soldiers, and less than half of the Ming troops who fled back to Guiyang Prefecture were killed, that is, after an ambush battle, they lost 8,000 Ming troops.

In this way, the army that set out from the three roads not only failed to cut off the supply line of the puppet Tang thief army and cut off their back route, but also lost nearly 20,000 troops one after another.

This is a real 20,000 soldiers, not paper data!

lost 20,000 soldiers and horses, and lost Yizhang, which completely disrupted his plan, and even more disrupted the plan of the Governor!

He and Zhang Yue's plan was very simple and simple, that is, to take advantage of the opportunity of the puppet Tang thief army to go north alone, and directly use the total number of about 50,000 troops in Yizhang, Chenzhou, Guiyang Prefecture and other places to cut off the supply line and even the retreat route of the puppet Tang thief army.

Then he, Xu Xinchang, will lead the defenders in the direction of Hengyang City to take the initiative to go south, and first entangle the tens of thousands of main forces of the puppet Tang thief army that is deep in the lone army.

Of course, even at this time, their Ming army already had an absolute superiority in strength, but neither he Xu Xinchang nor Zhang Yue at the back could expect the guards in these places to be able to surround and annihilate the main force of this pseudo-Tang thief army.

What they really rely on is the thousands of governors in Hengyang City, and then the governors and border troops who are rushing from Changsha, the total number of more than 20,000 supervisors and border troops is the blade used to finally launch a fatal blow to the main force of the puppet Tang thief army!

Although it seems a bit of a fuss to use more than 100,000 troops just to surround and annihilate the more than 10,000 soldiers and horses of the puppet Tang thief army, all the generals of the Ming army who have fought with the puppet Tang thief army think that such a plan is not a big fuss, but really needs so many troops to do it.

Although Wei Yan, the governor of Guangxi, had already been escorted back to Beijing by Jinyi Wei because of the loss of Guangxi and the loss of his troops, and was ready to be put into the prison for trial, the phrase 'Tang thieves are invincible' that he once said has been widely circulated.

Many people scolded Wei Yan for fearing the enemy like a tiger on his face, saying that this sentence was ill-intentioned, but in his heart, he quite agreed with Wei Yan's words.

Tang thieves, especially those real thieves, are really hard to fight!

The Ming army and the Tang army fought many times, almost every time they were defeated by the Tang thieves with less, and thousands of pseudo-Tang real thieves dared to chase after tens of thousands of Ming military guards!

This time or twice, it may be thought that it is due to luck, but there are many times, and many generals of the Ming army and even the high-ranking people in the Beijing division know that this Tang thief is not easy to fight.

Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty's high-level officials in Beijing would not have vigorously imitated arquebuses and artillery, and supported local officials such as Zhang Yue and Yu Dayou in preparing for large-scale recruitment of firearms.

But even if he didn't expect the local guards, Xu Xinchang still didn't expect that tens of thousands of guards were actually beaten by several partial divisions of the puppet Tang thief army.

In this way, the follow-up plan will not work at all, and the key thing is that the Ming army reinforced from the Changsha direction is about to arrive in Hengyang, how should the follow-up war be carried out?

In this regard, Xu Xinchang is also a little clueless!

When Xu Xinchang was furious in Hengyang, scolding the circles and generals under his hands for being a bunch of waste, in Leiyang City, dozens of miles south of Hengyang City, Chen Keqiao was inspecting the city's fortifications.

His troops just conquered this county today!

A few days ago, the main force of the Third Infantry Division led by Major General Chen Keqiao had already entered Hengzhou Mansion and made contact with the headquarters of the First Army.

However, when they attacked Leiyang City, they found that there were not many Ming troops in the city, and they did not know that in order to preserve the strength of the Ming army, most of the main forces had withdrawn to Hengyang City in advance, so the attack on Leiyang did not encounter much resistance, and after three days of onslaught, the Third Infantry Division successfully captured Leiyang County.

At this time, the Third Infantry Division of the First Army was only dozens of miles away from Hengyang City, the most important strategic town in southern Hunan.

And the rest of the First Army is also rapidly moving north!

As for Chenzhou and Guiyang, they are still stopped but not fought!

The provisional Fourth Regiment continued to be stationed outside Chenzhou City, and in Guiyang City, Hao Bonian also left behind the Third Infantry Regiment, this infantry regiment and even the pure cold weapon spear regiment were originally integrated from other garrison brigades under the First Army before, and their combat effectiveness was limited.

But the Ming army in Guiyang Prefecture was already scared, and the remaining troops were only more than 10,000, if they really wanted to kill it, they might not be the opponent of the Third Infantry Regiment.

The combined strength of the Fourth Regiment and the Third Infantry Regiment will continue to maintain vigilance and defense against the Ming forces in these two places, and at the same time undertake the heavy responsibility of maintaining long supply lines.

And the other main forces of the First Army are rapidly moving north!

They are going to Hengyang City and fight a decisive battle with Ming!

In the face of the attack of the main force of the puppet Tang thief army, Xu Xinchang was also extremely cautious, he immediately transferred back the troops that had gone south, and even took the initiative to give up Leiyang, and all the 30,000 troops under his command were hoarded in Hengyang City, and at the same time, he continued to send people to urge Changsha reinforcements to arrive quickly!

For a time, Hengyang City and the surrounding areas seemed to be under dark clouds, and a big war was about to break out, and many people and gentry began to flee in embarrassment, trying to escape from this war-torn place.

Hao Bonian led the army to continue north, and when he led the soldiers and horses of the First Army Headquarters to Leiyang, tens of thousands of reinforcements from the Ming army from Changsha also successfully arrived in Hengyang!

Soon, Hao Bonian, who had taken a brief rest, led the main force of the First Army to continue north!

Three days later, Xu Xinchang sent an urgent letter to Zhang Yue, and the content of the letter was very simple: Tang thieves are about to come to Hengyang City!