Chapter 141: Li Dingguo's January Offensive

Shu Road is difficult, it is difficult to go to the sky.

In Shudi in June, it was already very hot, and the only way to march in the mountains was to march in the mountains, although it was extremely difficult, but it was still a little cool. The continuous spring rains in March and April have just passed, and before the continuous autumn rains in autumn have arrived, the roads are difficult to walk, but they are not muddy.

The road here is said to be a five-foot road split in the Qin period, and it is only five feet wide.

Whether it was opened up by the Qin period is no longer reliable, but this five-foot-wide road did make Li Dingguo's troops suffer enough, in order to march, Li Dingguo's troops almost built roads while marching, and the marching army that stretched for several miles, and the soldiers who built the road on the side of the road were already accustomed to it.

The army, with the battalion as the organization, marched in turn, and there was no time for unified pull-out, because of the unified pull-out, and also limited by the traffic capacity of the road, they could only wait on the side, so Li Dingguo set up many camps on the road, and there was a camping area more than ten miles away.

There are many horses in the army, but unfortunately they are Yunnan horses.

In addition to the Dian horse, there are also many elephants.

These elephants were not used as war elephants, especially since the widespread use of firearms. Li Dingguo keenly felt that because of the inherent defects of war elephants, they were no longer competent for battlefield use, but it was appropriate to use elephants for transportation.

And what the elephant transports, it is the cannon.

Of course, something like the Hongyi cannon that weighs thousands of catties, even an elephant may not be able to bear it. Therefore, the artillery towed is much smaller than the Hongyi cannon, at most no more than 1,000 catties. However, hundreds of war elephants, each of which can resist one door, with gunpowder projectiles or something, a lot of grain and baggage can be transported by elephants, so as to greatly reduce the trouble of the army's baggage.

Starting from Qixing Pass, to the bottom of the Luzhou Acropolis. It is necessary to pass through Chishuiwei and then to Puningsuo. After passing the Puning Institute, they entered the flat land.

Of course, the flatlands here cannot be compared with the Great Plains of North China. But it's not a mountain.

With Luzhouwei as the center, a small basin is connected to the Sichuan Basin. And this flat land, to the east, is also connected to Chóng Qìng. For Wu Sangui, he can guard against the attack of the two lines of defense, and it can also be seen that Wu Sangui's passive response is to defend in the attack.

In the previous plan, Chóng Qìng also sent troops to join forces with Li Dingguo.

But now it's not happening.

After several days of arduous marching, the army came to Puning.

Puning is a guard built by the Ming Dynasty, and there are not many garrisons, and it is not a one-man pass, so it is not open. But it will also block the main road from Guizhou to Sichuan. There is no way to avoid it. There is only one way to attack.

In such a place, Wu Sangui is naturally also

will not let it go, so Wu Sangui also sent people. He led 3,000 troops to defend this place.

It's not that you can't send more people, but the terrain is limited, and you can only put 3,000 people, and the attacking people, even if there are more, you can't put them away, 3,000 people are enough.

Before Puning, Li Dingguo called all the generals at all levels over and said, "The matter has come to this point, I won't hide it from you." ”

"Chóng Qìng will not send troops, and the imperial court will not transport grain and grass to us, and the grain and grass in the army are only enough for three months."

As soon as Li Dingguo's words came out, all the people below were frightened.

Anyone who can be called in front of Li Dingguo is an old man who doesn't know how many battles he has fought, and he knows the situation in the army best. The more materials in the army, the better, especially after Zhang Xuan ascended the throne, he never restricted the adventures of the front-line generals, but when Zhang Xuan prepared supplies for the front, he was always lenient to the enemy.

No matter how tight the central government's finances are, it is generally not felt at the front.

Such a situation is the first time they have discovered. What makes them even more uncertain is that such a thing should not be kept secret, and saying it in front of so many people doesn't make people in the army panic?

Li Dingguo's gaze swept over all the generals and said, "Your Majesty actually gave me a secret order to withdraw my troops. ”

"But I won't."

"Wu Sangui is just a villain, just a slave with three surnames, this battle let him show off his might, I swept away the majesty, I am a general in Great Xia, what face do I have to see Your Majesty. Therefore, I must fight this battle. ”

"Isn't it just three months of grain and grass?"

"When we followed Emperor Taizu and our father-in-law, when did we have three months of grain and grass in the army, how could we get used to a good life, and we wouldn't live a hard life."

"And will it take three months to beat the thief?"

"A month."

Li Dingguo's face was extremely serious, and he said: "Within a month, I will stand on Luzhou City." ”

The reason why Li Dingguo wants Luzhou City so much is to improve the logistics environment.

In this place, the grain transportation line is the grain collected from Huguang, and then from Xiangxi to Guiyang, from Guiyang to the front line, all the way to the car, tired, miserable, the food consumed on the road, much more than the grain transported to the front line.

And when it comes to Luzhou, it's different.

Luzhou is on the edge of the Yangtze River, once it occupies Luzhou, the south bank of the Yangtze River, between Luzhou and Chóng Qìng, Wu Sangui will not dare to wait.

In this way, the grain can swim upstream, along the Yangtze River by water, to the army.

In this way, I don't know how much less it will cost. In this way, it can be supported on the front line for a longer time, and Luzhou is also local

You can raise an army.

This is Li Dingguo's experience.

In war, anything can be resolved with victory, if it can't be solved, then it is not enough to win, not to win hard enough.

"This Puning Institute, I only expect that within three days, it will be conquered, who wants to be the vanguard." Li Dingguo said.

"The last general is willing." One of the generals said loudly.

Li Dingguo turned his head and found that it was none other than Yang Zhan's son, Yang Jingxin.

After Yang Jingxin's ups and downs, he was bent on avenging his father, and he had been in the Xia army for several years, more than a thousand days, and never slackened for a day, either training soldiers or studying the art of war. To be honest, Li Dingguo is still very optimistic about him, but he is also a little worried about Yang Jingxin.

Yang Jingxin can't let go of his father's hatred, and trains hard every day, although it is a good thing, his posture is enough for a junior officer, but if he can't let go of his mind, he will never be able to stand alone in the future. Become a general.

However, the battle of Puning was handed over to Yang Jingxin, and Li Dingguo was also relieved. said, "Okay." The battle was handed over to General Yang. ”

Yang Jingxin said: "The last general will definitely live up to the expectations of the prince, no need, three days, if one day is not restrained, the last general will come to see him." ”

Li Dingguo knew that his anger could not be vented, and said: "Okay, I'll wait for the general here." ”

Yang Jingxin said: "Yes." He then went down with the guards, but half an hour later, Yang Jingxin came to the Puning Institute with his headquarters.

However, although Puning is expanded compared to the beginning, it is still a small city, but there are high mountains on both sides, and when Puning chose the site, this valley was stuck, and the place where Puning is located is the highest part of this valley.

That is to say, whether it is from south to north or from north to south, attacking Puning must be attacked from the back.

Yang Jianxin came to a place one or two hundred meters in front of Puning, and watched carefully, but saw that Puning was not strange from the general Qianhu, among which there were not too many firearms, at least there were no cannons, and the city wall was not high, only two zhang up and down, and there was no moat. There was only one trench.

Although with the spread of the iron mold casting cannon method, the number of artillery in the two countries climbed sharply. However, the artillery in Wu Sangui's army was still cast by himself, not transported from Beijing, first, because the distance was long, second, Sichuan was not the key theater of attention of the Qing court, and third, it was also the delicate relationship between Wu Sangui and the Qing court.

Therefore, the specific number of artillery in Wu Sangui's army is not too much, even if there are some cannons, they can't be divided here, after all, Chengdu needs to use it, blockade the Yangtze River needs to be used, and the Chinese army also needs to use it. So when it was Puning's turn to garrison, most of them were small artillery. The cannon did not see a single one at all.

Yang Jingxin immediately made up his mind. I know how this place was changed.