Major General Chen Keqiao was distressed because he was held back by the Ming army and could not move north quickly, and Fang Xitong was also worried about the fate of the thousands of defenders besieged in Xingquanfu after the defeat of Liping Mansion.

Although Li Xuan had already instructed the Second Army that if the situation was not good, it could choose to abandon Xingquan Mansion or even Liping Mansion or even the entire Guizhou, and finally retreat to Liuzhou, Guangxi.

But by now, it was actually difficult for the Second Army to retreat in its entirety.

If the Huguang Ming army had sent sixty or seventy thousand people into Xingquan Mansion at once, the defenders of Xingquan Mansion would definitely have run away without saying a word, after all, the Tang Dynasty did not have a tradition of not giving up an inch of land.

If we really want to talk about tradition, it should also be 'victory to advance'.

However, the Ming army of Nahu Guangming used the tactic of adding oil, and only 30,000 people came to Xingquan Mansion at the beginning, and these 30,000 people actually dispersed in, and the Ming army that arrived under the city of Xingquanfu at the beginning was only more than 10,000 people, and the other Ming troops were scattered in other parts of Xingquan Mansion, such as Zhengtai County.

This made the defenders of Xingquan Province see the hope of holding Xingquan Province, so they adopted the tactics of resolute blockade, and hoped to force the Ming army to retreat by inflicting heavy casualties on the Ming army.

However, there are more and more Ming troops, at first there were only more than 10,000 people in Xingquanfu City, but soon it became more than 20,000 or even more than 30,000.

By now, a heavy army group of nearly 50,000 Ming troops has gathered under the city of Xingquanfu and the surrounding areas.

By the time they found out that the situation was not good, it would be too late for the defenders in Xingquan Mansion to break through the siege.

This also led to an extremely passive situation, that is: even if the Tang Dynasty could give up Xingquanfu and even the whole of Guizhou, and even give up two garrison brigades, it would definitely not easily give up half of the main force of the Second Army: the Fourth Infantry Regiment.

The huge Tang Dynasty has a total of four infantry brigades, and among these four infantry brigades, the fourth infantry brigade is now in vain, the whole brigade has more than 2,000 people, no more than three battalion guns, no more than 100 muskets, even the third infantry brigade is only the fifth infantry regiment is a fully equipped unit, and the sixth infantry regiment is still waiting in Wuzhou to replenish troops and weapons.

That is to say, only two and a half of the four infantry brigades are actually fully armed, and one of them is the second infantry brigade.

Among the above-mentioned infantry brigades, there are only five infantry regiments that have formed combat effectiveness, and one of them is the fourth infantry regiment.

The loss of a Fourth Infantry Regiment may not be said to have hurt the Tang Dynasty, but it is also a major loss that cannot be ignored, and more importantly, Fang Xitong's Second Army will be halved in an instant.

The 4th Infantry Regiment will never give up

What's more, if the Fourth Infantry Regiment is lost in Xingquan Mansion, even if Fang Xitong retreats to other parts of Guizhou with other troops of the Second Army, or even retreats to Liuzhou, how can the Second Army, which has suffered a great loss in strength, resist the Hu Guangming Army.

That's an army of 50,000 or 60,000, and these 50,000 or 60,000 troops are not the kind of young and strong troops filled with a large number of temporary conscriptions, they are all guards and recruits.

Because in several battles with the Tang Dynasty, the young men temporarily recruited by the Ming army did not play even a little role except for wasting food, and after referring to the previous battles with the puppet Tang thief army, and also after listening to Song Zhiwen's advice, Zhang Yue, the governor of the four provinces, adopted a different combat strategy.

That is, all the young and strong people who were temporarily recruited were eliminated from the front-line combat units, and the front-line combat troops only needed regular troops, and as for these young and strong people, they were selected to continue training and paid silver, and this model was actually the mode of recruitment, and those who were not selected were all charged into the civilian army and transported the baggage in the rear.

In this way, although the number of Ming combat units fighting on the front line has decreased, the combat effectiveness has been correspondingly improved, and the logistical support has also become more sufficient.

Fang Xitong was aware of this situation and reported it to the Privy Council.

The regular army of 50,000 or 60,000 Ming troops is not a force that can be peeped at, you must know that the previous Tang Dynasty Wang Division went through the Battle of the Bronze Drum Acropolis and the Battle of Liping Fucheng, and the Ming army in Guizhou was defeated, although it was also claimed to have 60,000 troops, but in fact, the regular army was only half at most.

After going south to Guangxi, although the Ming army they encountered was also numerous, the regular army was actually only 20,000 or 30,000 people.

Moreover, when they went south to Guangxi and fought with the troops of Liangguang, the troops of the Tang Dynasty were quite a lot, and they even occupied the advantage of troops for a time.

Now on the side of the Second Army, if the troops on the side of Xingquan Mansion are lost, the Second Army will only have one Third Infantry Regiment and one garrison regiment left, with less than 4,000 troops.

It was extremely difficult to resist the attack of 50,000 or 60,000 Ming troops.

In the face of such a predicament, on the one hand, the front-line generals racked their brains to find a way, and Li Xuan of Zhaoqing also thought of a way, the simplest, most effective, and most direct way was naturally to send reinforcements.

In order to understand the siege of Xingquan, Li Xuan sent a fast horse of 500 miles to the Third Army, and asked Li Chunjing to send a part of the main force of the Third Army north to Liping Mansion, which was used to prepare for the unexpected, because the strength of the Third Army itself was not very good, and no matter how much the main force was drawn, it would not be able to draw many main forces.

In addition, the tasks of the Third Army were also quite arduous; with the First Army marching eastward into Guangdong and the Fourth Army heading north to Guilin, the Third Army's defense area had expanded to most of Guangxi, not only to continue fighting in the western part of Guangxi, and even to threaten Yunnan, but also to maintain the defense of most areas of Guangxi, including Liuzhou, Xunzhou, and Lianzhoufu.

After careful consideration, Li Chunjing decided to transfer the defense center of the entire Third Army to Liuzhou, and a garrison regiment originally stationed in Liuzhou rushed north to Liping Province, and also dispatched most of the main force of the Fourth Infantry Brigade to Liuzhou to prepare to continue northward in the future.

And this kind of deployment also reduces the strength of the Third Army to suppress most of Guangxi, let alone hope to continue to advance westward into Yunnan, which is good if it can maintain the rule of the existing areas of Guangxi.

Don't think that the Tang Dynasty can sit back and relax after laying down these places, there has never been a shortage of all kinds of rebellions in all dynasties, this is true for the Ming Dynasty, and the same is true for the Tang Dynasty.

Some of these rebellions were caused by careerists who thought they saw an opportunity and raised troops under various names, some were composed of the Ming army's rout, and some were simply the private armies of the gentry and landlords, because the unified agricultural tax policy implemented by the Tang Dynasty, especially the policy of apportioning the land into the mu and paying taxes as a whole for the gentry, can be said to have greatly damaged the interests of these landlords.

Why?

Because they used to cover thousands of acres, but they never had to pay taxes, and now you make them have to pay a lot of taxes every year, how uncomfortable it is.

Therefore, under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, the armed resistance of the landlords, especially the big landlords, has always emerged in an endless stream, otherwise, the Tang Dynasty would not have maintained a robbery camp in each county.

Even sometimes these poaching camps do not work, and can only be suppressed by the garrison.

Because the big landlords in the countryside, their armed forces are actually not weak, and they can organize an army of as little as dozens or as many as hundreds of Zhuang Ding at any time, and a few big landlords can pull out an army of hundreds or even thousands of people in tandem, and there is no army to garrison the bullet pressure, but they can't suppress these big landlords, let alone implement agricultural taxes.

Therefore, the reinforcements of the Third Army can only be used as a precaution, and don't expect them to quickly go north to Guizhou to play much of a role.

The real reinforcements that Li Xuan prepared for Xingquanfu were not the Third Army, let alone the First Army, and the First Army still had to fight in Guangdong, for the Tang Dynasty, if it lost Guizhou or even Guangxi, it could not lose Guangdong.

Therefore, the First Army will never move, on the contrary, it will continue to strengthen the strength of the First Army, and all weapons and ammunition will still be given priority to the supply of the First Army.

However, in addition to the First Army, Li Xuan also had some troops under his command that only belonged to the Privy Council and his command, including the Guards, the Liuzhou Independent Regiment, the Third Garrison Brigade, the Sixth Garrison Brigade, the Seventh Garrison Brigade, and the Fifth Infantry Brigade, which had not yet been officially named.

And the reinforcements that Li Xuan is going to send can't be the Guards, this is his life-saving force, unless he leads the army to fight in person, otherwise don't expect the Guards to be able to go to the battlefield out of his sight.

It is also impossible to think that the Fifth Infantry Brigade is just a paper plan brigade, and its soldiers are still in the recruit barracks, Li Xuan has not even selected the main officers of the brigade, and he has not even sent out a shadow to fight!

The Third Garrison Brigade is now in Zhaoqing to cooperate with the Guards to defend Gyeonggi, and it cannot be easily mobilized, not to mention that the brigade has suffered a great injury in the Wuzhou Offensive and has not recovered yet.

If it is calculated in this way, it can only be the Liuzhou Independent Regiment and two newly formed garrison brigades: the Sixth Garrison Brigade and the Seventh Garrison Brigade, and it just so happens that these three troops are still in Wuzhou.

Soon, Li Xuan's order was issued, and the Sixth Garrison Brigade, which had just completed its reorganization and preliminary training, immediately joined the Fourth Army's combat sequence, and another battalion was transferred from the Liuzhou Independent Regiment to temporarily support the Fourth Army's operations.

At the same time, he ordered the Fourth Army's own Sixth Infantry Regiment to immediately end its rest and go north, and accept equipment while fighting, for which Li Xuan also personally ordered the Ordnance Department to withhold a batch of ordnance originally supplied to the First Army and the Guards, and give priority to the Sixth Infantry Regiment, so that the Sixth Infantry Regiment has initial combat effectiveness.

After Li Xuan's order was issued, Chen Keqiao, who was in Guilin, finally breathed a sigh of relief, and it was much easier to do it with reinforcements.