The news of the main force of the southeast Ming army attacking Xuzhou did not take too long to reach Xiao Xuan, who was dividing his troops and sweeping all over Shaanxi and Gansu after solving the main force of the enemy army in Shanxi.

"Although the left-behind forces in Xuzhou are only one army of the Ninth Army of the Revolutionary Army, there are more than 100,000 people selected from the whole of Xuzhou and people who perform very well, plus the ammunition and other materials left behind to defend the city are not too small, and the scope of defense is not too bad. According to estimates, even if the main force of Luwangfu does not save Henan, but will attack Xuzhou together with the main force of the southeastern Ming army. That's just a relatively big test, if you have such a good public base in the defense of one enemy ten and finally defeat into victory or at least get out of trouble can not do, then it also means that the forces around Xuzhou can not become the second revolutionary force as they expected, at best it is just a mediocre modern armed force without a fish leaping dragon gate. Before finally saying these words at the military meeting, Xiao Xuan certainly thought about it for a long time. At least most of the officers and generals from the volunteer units and the members of the Datong Society also agreed with the decision not to return for the time being.

At the same time, Xiao Xuan did not order Zhou Dayong's troops on the south road to return to the south, but after sweeping away the resistance in Henan, he entered Shaanxi, preparing to seize the Qinling area and even open the door to Sichuan.

After a lot of fighting, Xiao Xuan of course realized the importance of the source of saltpeter, of course, the nitrate mine in the area of Laojun Mountain could not be abandoned, not to mention that after controlling Sichuan, it was of great significance to deter Jiangnan or the enemy army from the northwest.

At this time, Zhu Zhihong, the king of Su in Lanzhou, Zhu Zhuoyan, the king of Qing in Gansu, and the remnants of Sun Chuanting, You Shigong, You Shiwei and others, including 50,000 auxiliary soldiers and even 40,000 or 50,000 troops of decent scale gathered in Lanzhou to prepare to flee westward. Eliminating this decent fighting force, then it may be possible for the core team in one of their strategic directions to be able to deal with the main force of Houjin returning from the west. Therefore, when the time is not too abundant, Xiao Xuan can only choose to divide his troops under the condition of taking a certain amount of risk and danger.

In the case of a much colder climate than the Han Dynasty, the northwest region is more barren and poor, especially after experiencing a great drought from the seventh year of the Apocalypse to the second year of Chongzhen. However, as many strategic places in the border formation, there are still reserves of food that can cope with at least a few months, which is also the reason why Zhu Zhihong, Zhu Zhuoyan, and even Sun Chuanting and others did not completely lose confidence at this time.

Especially when more and more scouts reported that the elite of the Ming army, which originally seemed to be very powerful, actually launched an attack in three directions, Yulin, Yinchuan, and Lanzhou, which were far away from each other. Because it was obvious that this was not only to solve the opponents in the Han land, but even the Mongols in the Hetao area did not give much face. Such an arrogant and arrogant approach made Sun Chuanting look down at Xiao Xuan a few times.

"Could this be a strong enemy? Lure our army to take the initiative? Although Zhu Zhuoyan, the king of Qing, supported Sun Chuanting's practice of concentrating superior forces to eat the incoming enemy first, at least he was dissatisfied with Wanyi Road, but Zhu Zhihong, the king of Lanzhou, still had a lot of concerns. I felt that I shouldn't take the initiative too much, and it was obvious that since the enemy soldiers were so rampant, it was the right choice to teach them a lesson outside Lanzhou City.

Of course, Sun Chuanting did not intend to advance excessively: "If the enemy army really dares to go deep alone, with less than 10,000 troops and at most the elite of a volunteer regiment to attack Xuzhou, our army should take the initiative to attack and resolutely eliminate this opponent... ”

At this time, Sun Chuanting consulted and learned a lot from many generals and even strategists who had actual combat experience in the border army, and combined with the previous battle examples, he was still very sure that he would eat the enemy with only one or two thousand core elites at most with about 20 times the core strength and nearly 20 times the total strength.

In a situation where the combat effectiveness is clearly inferior to that of the opponent, it is often more difficult to win more in the field than to win more in the field than to win more in the field. However, if you have enough reserves in an area with insufficient logistics to fight the invading enemy, then your own side will have too much cheapness. What's more, a force of tens of thousands of people is completely different from a larger-scale "more than a few thousand" against a few thousand, including one or two thousand elites.

In this way, when the 1st Division and 1st Regiment of the Volunteer Army led by Xiao Xuan, the 1st Regiment and the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Division of the Revolutionary Army, and the main force of the Guards Battalion, a total of about 6,000 or 7,000 troops, approached the city of Lanzhou and launched a fierce siege, the huge Ming army, which had long been ambushed in the trenches and fortifications dug in the north and south of the city, suddenly came out from the north and south directions, and launched a Jedi counterattack with more than ten times the total strength and more than 20 times the core strength. Heavy artillery fire and bullets also attacked from all directions with great power. Although the main force led by Xiao Xuan reacted quickly and switched to the defensive formation in time, it still fell into complete passivity and siege in a short period of time. A fierce battle also unfolded fiercely in the afternoon outside Lanzhou.

Through many previous encounters, Sun Chuanting was very aware of the combat effectiveness of the core elite led by Xiao Xuan, so he was only besieged and projected through superior firepower, and he still defended more in local tactical battles, and did not easily fall into melee combat with the opponent.

However, even so, the teams of the First Regiment of the Volunteer Army and even the First Division of the Revolutionary Army were able to fire calmly and accurately as if they were on the shooting range under the suppression of fierce bullets, and they were not in a state of obvious suppression in terms of attrition, which still shocked many Ming troops. I didn't expect that such a team would not only be unusually calm and fierce in the attack battle, but also fight against the opponent under the city with such a large advantage in troops, as if it didn't have much upper hand.

Sun Chuanting also understood at this time that he was likely to have made a huge mistake, but at this time, it was already difficult to recover, so he could only let the army hold on to the end.

(End of chapter)