When Li Xuan left Jinling City, he also announced the official start of the Southwest Campaign, which had been preparing for several months!

Li Xuan had not yet arrived in Jiujiang, and when he had just arrived in Dangtu County and inspected the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant and other state-owned enterprises in the Dangtu Industrial Zone, several units of the Tang Army had already launched an offensive, and the main battles at present were concentrated on the border between Henan and Hubei, that is, the area around the three passes of Yiyang, in addition to the Huguang Qizhou area.

The troops responsible for the offensive from north to south were not originally planned for this campaign, but an infantry regiment of the 9th Infantry Division, which belonged to the 4th Army, and the 16th Reserve Division stationed in Xinyang Prefecture. The department began to launch a fierce attack from the front line of Xinyang Prefecture in southern Henan, and the place in front of it was the first part of the right army of the governor stationed at the three passes of Yiyang, about 10,000 people

However, in this direction, in fact, the troops invested by both sides are not considered the main force, because there is Dabie Mountain as a natural barrier, in the southern part of Henan and northern Anhui, the Tang Army is unable to invest heavy troops before seizing the Yiyang Sanguan and other passes.

If you want to enter Huguang, the best way, or even the only way, is to seize the three passes of Yiyang first.

But in such an important military town, Zhang Yue naturally deployed heavy troops to station, and took advantage of the pass to garrison tens of thousands of people, which was enough to block the pace of the Tang Army from Henan to Hubei.

If the Datang Army really sent tens of thousands of troops to attack, Zhang Yue would be able to wake up with a smile in his dreams, because he could send more troops to reinforce him at any time, and then fight to the death with the Datang Army at the Sanguan of Yiyang, and maybe he would be able to break the teeth of the Datang Army at that time, which is much better than going head-to-head with the Datang Army in other regions.

But the Datang Army is not stupid, although it boasts of its strong ability to attack fortifications, but it is not so stupid that it has to fight Zhang Yue in Yiyang Sanguan!

They can go through the other passages entirely!

Therefore, although the three passes of Yiyang seem to be important, in fact, no one has invested heavy troops there, and it belongs to the secondary front.

In the early stage of the Southwest Campaign, the really important front was actually the area around Qizhou in Hubei Province, or more precisely, the plain area on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the main cities included Susong County in North Anhui Province, Huangmei County in Qizhou, Guangji County and Qizhou Prefecture.

The above four cities are the most important defense line deployed by Zhang Yue's governor in the southeast of Hubei, holding a narrow strip of land from the southern part of the Dabie Mountains to the Yangtze River.

If the Tang Army wants to directly attack Hubei from northern Anhui and Henan, and does not want to cross the mountains, then it can only take two roads, one is the three passes of Yiyang, and the other is through Qizhou.

Relatively speaking, although there are more Ming troops in Qizhou, it is easier for heavy firepower troops like the Tang Army.

First of all, on the Yangtze River, they can get the support of the navy, and they can get a large amount of supplies, especially ammunition, at any time through river transportation, and secondly, the troops can be supported by the gunfire of the Yangtze River Fleet when they are fighting along the river.

Now the Yangtze River Fleet has completely suppressed Zhang Yue's Supervising Naval Division, and the Yangtze River Fleet has fought several battles before the campaign was launched, annihilating many ships of the Supervising Naval Division, and its ships can even sail all the way to Wuchang, and it would be stupid not to take advantage of it after occupying the advantage of the Yangtze River.

The two divisions of the main force of the Second Army, plus two mixed regiments and a number of heavy artillery units, cavalry units, that is, the Third Infantry Division, the Seventh Infantry Division, the Fourth Mixed Regiment, the Fifth Mixed Regiment, the First Heavy Artillery Battalion, the Second Heavy Artillery Battalion, the Third Heavy Artillery Battalion, the Second Cavalry Detachment, and even a temporarily reinforced independent baggage regiment and other troops, a total of more than 50,000 people slaughtered from the front line of Taihu Lake in northern Anhui to Susong!

Although Susong is a small place, it is the bridgehead of Zhang Yue's defense line in the southeast of Hubei, and its strength is not weak, deploying at least 15,000 people, and since the governor has used this as a bridgehead, he has not planned to go out of the city to fight with the Tang Army, but has been concentrating on building various fortifications and deploying artillery.

As a result, although the strength of this place is only 15,000 people, the artillery inside is far more than the configuration of 15,000 people, and the ordinary standard of supervision, if there are 15,000 people, it is not bad to be equipped with twenty or thirty field guns, but here, there are at least fifty or more field guns.

As for the bowl mouth cannon, the Franc cannon and other shotguns, there are even hundreds!

The artillery here is densely packed, arming the small place of Susong like a hedgehog, so that in the past two years or so, the Tang Army has tried to attack this place many times, but in the end it was all in vain.

Governor Biao's plan, everyone knows, they don't expect a counteroffensive or anything like that, he just wants to plant a nail in Susong, so that the Tang Army will not dare to attack Qizhou along the plain on the north bank of the Yangtze River unscrupulously.

The Tang Army can also choose to bypass this place, but to bypass this place, at least nearly 10,000 troops must be left to contain the Ming army in the city, which is difficult to accept for the Tang Army, which is short of troops.

But if you don't leave enough troops to contain it, you will bypass it, and people will kill Taihu Lake on their hind feet, and end Taihu Lake, an important supply base of the Second Army of the Tang Army.

It was also possible to attack the 2nd Army from behind.

In this way, the strategic situation will be extremely unfavorable for the Second Army.

In order to avoid accidents, the Second Army intends to solve the big nail of Susong once and for all!

In the face of this hedgehog-like fortified city, there is nothing to say, it must be stormed, bombarded with artillery, dug tunnels for blasting, in short, it is ready to crush the defenders of the city with absolute superior firepower.

For this reason, the Second Army has concentrated three heavy artillery battalions, two field artillery regiments, and two field artillery regiments with large battalions, and the Second Army itself alone has concentrated more than 50 heavy howitzers and more than 150 field guns of five and nine catties.

And in order to attack the city, this time Wang Chaohong still pulled down his face, asked the navy for help, and brought four fourteen-pound ship-borne heavy guns from the navy!

It was a fourteen-pound shipborne cannon, which was the main force of the leading battleship of the Tang Dynasty and the main gun of the Lianzhou-class cruiser, and the power was not to be said!

The navy's request for the army was not postponed, after all, the army also hoped to be equipped with 14 catties of cannons as siege artillery, but because of the limited production of 14 catties of artillery, the navy also asked the army for help in order to ensure the number of 14 catties of artillery needed by the cruisers, saying that it was to meet the needs of the navy first, otherwise the cruiser would be built without artillery.

At that time, it was also promised that if the army needed it, the navy would send heavy artillery units to help.

In order to fulfill this promise, the navy directly temporarily transferred the main guns that were to be installed on a newly commissioned cruiser, and even the gunners were directly transferred from this cruiser to form a navy's heavy artillery team.

Of course, the navy only provides artillery and gunners, and the horses and other supplies needed to pull artillery onto the battlefield still have to be solved by the army.

From this, it can be seen that Wang Chaohong attaches great importance to attacking Susong!

It's a hard battle, there's nothing to say, it's just a hard fight, whether it's to see if your shield is strong, or if my spear is more powerful!

The puppet Tang thief army was killed from Taihu Lake, and this news was quickly known by the supervising standard defenders in Susong City, and it was quickly judged that the puppet Tang thief army was about to launch a general attack!

It is no secret that the puppet Tang thief army wants to launch a general attack on the southwest, and the Tang Dynasty newspaper will say such a thing every once in a while, even Zhang Yue has seen it and knows that the Tang Dynasty is preparing for a general attack on the southwest.

But when they came, they launched an attack there, and there was their main offensive area, but these were military top secrets, and it was naturally impossible for Zhang Yue and them to know.

However, now, when the Ming army saw more than 50,000 troops killing Susong, they immediately knew that the puppet Tang thief army was going to use Qizhou as a breakthrough to enter Hubei.

As a result, it didn't take long for the Ming army in the direction of Huangmei, Guangji, and Qizhou behind Susong to quickly reinforce.

However, it's not that they entered the city, the defenders of several places converged, and the strength reached more than 50,000 people, and the place in Susong was too small, and it was almost enough to accommodate the original 15,000 people to fight to the death, and although more troops could be put in, the increase would not be too great.

Therefore, they are preparing to assemble in Huangmei, and then cooperate with the defenders in the direction of Susong to fight a coordinated defensive operation.

Don't think that their reinforcements are only more than 50,000, plus the 15,000 defenders of Susong, it is only more than 65,000, and it is not more than the strength of the Second Army, but Zhang Yue's supervision is different from other Ming troops.

Since Zhang Yue established the superintendent, this army is the most powerful enemy of the Tang Dynasty, before the Ming army in various names, equipped with guns and artillery of the new army, such as the thief army, the Jiangnan new army, the Jiangbei new army, the northern provinces training army, the new Beijing battalion, the new border army, all of which are not as good as Zhang Yue's supervision.

The thief army in it was still on a par with the governor in the early days, but the number was too small, and it fled all the way to Zhejiang in Fujian, and then fled to Anqing, basically the combat effectiveness disappeared by half!

On the other hand, Zhang Yue's supervision standard is getting stronger the older he gets!

That's right, although in the process of fighting with the Tang Dynasty King's Division, even if the governor did not win a large-scale battle, it became stronger the older it gets!

Not only has the strength of the army swelled from tens of thousands of people in the past to more than 100,000 now, but it is also the only new army unit with complete guns and artillery in all the Ming armies, and sometimes it can win in some small and medium-sized battles.

The new army of more than 100,000 supervising standards gave Zhang Yue and other supervising generals, and even King Jing their confidence to fight against the Tang Dynasty!

And now, what the Tang Dynasty King has to do is to defeat the Du Biao, crush all their confidence, and let them know that there is only one way to die against the Tang Dynasty!

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