The Battle of Jiangshan, which took place on September 19 and 20, 226 in the Republic of China, ended with a crushing victory for the two Song and Song coalition forces and a regrettable defeat for the Zhou army.

According to the comparison of the archives of the two sides that were later declassified, the losses of the winning side were actually much greater than those of the defeated and fleeing Zhou army.

In less than 18 hours of fierce fighting, the casualties and missing number of the two Song Dynasty coalition forces reached more than 15,000! And the losses of the Zhou army were less than 10,000 people. This is still because the panicked retreat was pursued by the cavalry division of the Western Song Dynasty, otherwise the losses of the Zhou army would be 7,000 people at most, not even half of the two Song Dynasty coalition forces.

The most elite army of the Western Song Dynasty was actually defeated by a group of Zhou soldiers who went to the battlefield for the first time and suffered heavy losses!

This was beyond the expectations of all the people at the time.

Therefore, after the Battle of Jiangshan, a very interesting situation appeared in the reports submitted by the commanders of both sides. On the Song army's side, General Zhao Liang overestimated the results he had achieved, believing that he had completely defeated about 50,000 Zhou troops blocking him, and killed and captured more than 20,000 people.

The Zhou army, on the other hand, underestimated the losses of the Song army. They reported about 10,000 killed and taken prisoner, which was comparable to their own losses.

Therefore, the Battle of Jiangshan was judged to be the victory of the two Song Dynasty coalition forces at that time.

General Zhao Liang, who had won the crushing victory at Jiangshan, ignored the exhausting losses of his troops and turned to the east on 21 September with his victorious troops, which was later considered a major mistake because it gave Wu Yuanzhen's troops time to recover.

However, at that time, General Zhao Liang did not dare to ignore the existence of the 19th Infantry Corps of the Zhou Army, which had advanced to Beiwu Town, which had been driven from the Huai River defense line and transported along Rushui in wooden boats towed by steam tugboats to Yuncheng, and then westward by land.

When Zhao Liang concentrated his main forces on attacking the 18th Army of the Zhou Army in Wuyuan Town, he sent a division to scare the 19th Army of the Zhou Army. On the 19th and 20th, this division and the 19th Army of the Zhou Army had frequent front-line contact battles, and also suffered considerable losses.

And in this series of front-line contact battles, the cavalry and spear doctors of the Western Song Dynasty actually suffered a lot of losses. No matter how hard the gun doctor tries to practice target shooting, he can't make up for the disadvantage in equipment.

The rifled guns, gunpowder and bullets used by the GOA skirmishers are the products of the machine industry!

And the gun doctors use equipment produced in manual workshops, which can't be compared at all.

Therefore, the rifled guns in the hands of the stragglers of the Republican Army are farther and more accurate than the rifled guns of the gun doctors.

There is also a gap in the cavalry of the two sides! It is also Zhou Qiang and Song Weak. The horses and rifled guns and pistols used by the cavalry of the Zhou army were better than those of the Western Song cavalry, and even the cuirass was stronger and lighter.

In this case, General Zhao Liang was reluctant to shield the battlefield with valuable cavalry and gun doctors, and would rather defeat the 19th Army of the Zhou army with a dignified battle.

However, after learning of the defeat of the 18th Army, the 19th Army of the Zhou State adopted conservative tactics to avoid the battle. On the one hand, they use the advantages of cavalry and skirmishers to cover themselves; On the one hand, they retreated along Rushui to Yuncheng.

General Zhao Liang led his troops to hurry up all the way, and in the end, he did not catch up with the Fifth Army of the Zhou Army, but was led by the nose by the other party for several days. When the Fifth Army of the Zhou Army retreated into the Yuncheng Daleng Fort, General Zhao Liang's men and horses were exhausted.

Moreover, the number one general of the Great Song Dynasty had already studied the battle of Jiangdian Town on the way to pursue the 19th Army, so he was not sure about the attack on Yuncheng - the fortress of Yuncheng was easy to deal with, and there would always be a dead end in firepower. However, there are still many tall buildings in the fortress of Yuncheng, and these are all small fortresses......

Therefore, after the 19th Army of the Zhou Army retreated into Yuncheng, General Zhao Liang immediately led his troops back to Jiangdian Town. After resting in Jiangdian Town for two days, waiting for the arrival of the two Eastern Song Infantry Divisions from Xiangyang Mansion, he began to advance towards Xiangcheng again.

At this time, it was already September 27, 226 republic.

In other words, General Zhao Liang was delayed for 7 days after the Battle of Jiangshan before advancing north again.

In order to protect his own back road, General Zhao Liang left one division each in Jiangshan, Jiangdian Town, and Rufen Town (the Seventh and Tenth Divisions of the Western Song Dynasty) before leading a heavy army group of 11 divisions to the north.

Then Zhao Liangjiang encountered something that surprised him on the north bank of Rushui, south of Xiangcheng. The 18th Army of the Great Zhou Republican Army, which had just been defeated by him 7 days ago, had actually recovered its vitality and began to deploy defenses on the north bank of Rushui. And the number of people seems to be a little more than before, could it be that the reinforcements are so large?

A very bad premonition began to appear in Zhao Liangjiang's heart...... Once mobilized, the 180 million people of the Great Zhou Republic have almost unlimited war potential.

The Western Song Dynasty, which has a population of only a few million military households and gun doctors, is simply not worth mentioning in front of the Great Zhou!

No matter how bad the premonition is, Zhao Liangjiang can't give up easily now. So on September 22, he led his troops eastward and crossed Rushui in Linying County, southeast of Xiangcheng (Rushui is zigzag in this area, one will go north-south, and the other will go east-west), and then go straight to Yingchangfu City.

Of course, the attack on Yingchang Mansion was a false move, and the purpose was only to attract the Zhou army near Xiangcheng to come to the decisive battle.

His strategy of encircling the point to help was indeed a success, and it was a double success!

The hundreds of thousands of Song troops that surrounded Yingchang attracted not only the 18th Army of the Republican Army, which had recovered its vitality, but also the 19th Army of the Republican Army, which had been strengthened in Yuncheng.

In the face of the two enemy forces coming from the west and south, General Zhao Liang could only repeat the old trick, with the strength of one division to contain the 19th Army, and the strength of one division to guard the city of Yingchangfu. Then the remaining 9 divisions marched west to meet the 18th Army.

And when General Zhao Liang's 9 divisions and the 18th Army of the Zhou Army encountered in Changshe County, Yingchang Prefecture, General Zhao Liang was surprised to find that the number of Zhou troops coming from the direction of Xiangcheng was more than the previous encounter in Jiangshan!

More than one corps, at least one and a half armies or even two corps.

It is clear that the 18th Army of the Zhou Army in the direction of Xiangcheng has not only regained its vitality, but has also been greatly strengthened!

It turned out that the military mobilization of the Great Zhou Republic had already achieved considerable results in the nearly a month after the outbreak of the war.

The provincial government of Henan Province has completed the first phase of mobilization. Almost all reservists have reported to the local defense missions, and most of the men between the ages of 18 and 28 have also received enlistment notices. Most of them have already reported and started their recruit training.

In the census of the 225th year of the Republic, Henan Province has 1.02 million households and more than 840 million people. The total number of men and reservists of appropriate age who meet the requirements of the first phase of mobilization is as high as 450,000. Of these, 360,000 are now in the hands of the defense envoys of the provincial capitals of Henan Province.

In other words, in Henan Province alone, the Zhou army has 360,000 reserve troops to use.

In addition, in large forts such as Xiangcheng Daleng Fort and Yuncheng Daleng Fort, there are armories under the supervision of the Henan Defense Mission.

Therefore, the rifles, artillery, ammunition, clothing, and various equipment stored in the armory in Henan Province are enough to equip 600,000 troops!

And that's just the first mobilization of a province! If the entire Great Zhou Republic turns to a state of war, it is possible to pull out tens of millions of troops.

Such is the war potential of an industrialized country with a population of 180 million.

The Western Song Dynasty, which could only arm hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers, would soon find itself an insignificant small character.

Even if they have good soldiers, it's not worth mentioning.

……

Since the first phase of mobilization in Henan had been completed, the 18th Army, which had withdrawn from the Jiangshan battlefield to Xiangcheng Daleng Fort, was quickly strengthened - Xiangcheng was not far from Luoyang, Zhengzhou, the populous state (capital) of Henan Province, so when General Zhao Liang led his troops to chase the 19th Army, the reservists in the mobilized troops in Luoyang and Zhengzhou had already arrived in Xiangcheng.

A large number of reservists who arrived in Xiangcheng were immediately replenished into the 18th Army, not only making up for the losses in the Battle of Shangjiangshan. Moreover, a shelf division stationed in Xiangcheng was replenished, so that the 18th Army now has 4 fully equipped divisions, with a total strength of 64,000 men.

The 19th Army, which went north from Yuncheng, was even more numerous, with a total strength of more than 70,000.

Taken together, the total strength of the two armies has reached 134,000.

In addition, there are two armies that have just completed the reorganization, which are marching from the direction of Kaifeng and Xuzhou to Yingchang Mansion.

Although there was no regular republican army in the city of Yingchangfu, the number of militia exceeded 20,000.

Unconsciously, General Zhao Liang, who fought all the way from Xiangyang Mansion, was caught in the vast sea of citizen armies of industrialized countries!

And on September 28 and 29, Zhao Liangjiang did not realize that he had fallen into a crisis. And he also thought that he had a good opportunity to annihilate the 18th Army of the Zhou army.

However, he also tasted enough of the Zhou army's position in the Battle of Jiangshan, and did not want to attack the Zhou army in a tight defense.

Therefore, he divided his 9 divisions into two and pressed the 18th Army of the Zhou Army from the front with the strength of 5 infantry divisions. Then 3 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division went south first, pretending to meet the 19th Army of the Song Army going north, and then marched north to join the decisive battle.

was touted as a world-famous general in later history books, but Wu Yuanzhen, who was actually a little clumsy, was really fooled. He led the reinforced 18th Army in the area of Zhanjian Town in Changshe County, and engaged in another battle with five infantry divisions commanded by General Zhao Liang.

Unlike the last Battle of Jiangshan, in this Battle of Changshe, the Zhou army did not defend the danger, but fought with the Song army on the Great Plains.

Wu Yuanzhen hoped that with the help of heavy artillery bombardment, he could defeat the invincible general Zhao Liang of the Western Song Dynasty.

So at the beginning of the engagement, more than a hundred cannons of the Zhou army opened fire intensively and fiercely. The center of the Song army's battle line was bombarded for a full hour, knocking out tens of thousands of shells. The positions of the 3rd Division of the Western Song Army and the positions of the 5 artillery battalions of the two Song Dynasty coalition armies were all turned into a sea of fire.

In terms of artillery firepower, the Western Song army could not be compared with the Great Zhou Republic at all.

After an hour-long artillery battle, Wu Yuanzhen decisively committed two infantry divisions and launched a round of attacks. General Zhao Liang also invested the strength of two infantry divisions to meet the battle.

More than 30 battalions of infantry on both sides, all in formation, lined up to shoot and shoot at each other on the wide battlefield. There are also a large number of skirmishers who use rifled guns to snipe accurately.

Of course, so many infantry didn't rush up and open fire. Instead, they attacked in turn in conjunction with artillery, and to put it simply, the artillery hit the infantry, and the infantry rushed the artillery.

There is no trickery at all in hard-shouldered combat, and a dozen is a day.

The advantage of the Zhou army is in the artillery, the accuracy of the shot, the fight is fierce, and the most important artillery is still more - when retreating from the Jiangshan battlefield last time, a lot of cannons have been thrown (all of them have been nailed to the fire gate), but they were made up after returning to Xiangcheng.

Cannons are such a thing as a valuable asset to the Western Song Army. And for the industrialized Great Zhou Republic, it was just a consumable.

On the Western Song side, there was a clear advantage in relying on the infantry who lined up to shoot and fight with the white soldiers.

There was no compulsory military service system in the Western Song Dynasty, and they were all military households and gun doctors as soldiers, so they naturally took the route of elite soldiers.

Therefore, their infantry could bear relatively large casualties, and rushed to a close distance of twenty or thirty paces from the Zhou army's battle line against the Zhou army's platoon guns before firing a salvo.

A rifle salvo at this distance is extremely powerful and can inflict a fatal blow on your opponent! In many cases, two salvos at close range can destroy the enemy's morale.

However, the power of the Zhou army's artillery offset the unique skill of the elite of the Western Song Dynasty in close range of guns.

The battle fell into a stalemate, and the losses on both sides were comparable, until dusk, when 3 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry of the two Song Dynasty coalition forces arrived on the battlefield and joined the decisive battle, forcing Wu Yuanzhen, who had been killed, to order the troops to withdraw from the battlefield under the cover of night.

The two Song Dynasty coalition forces immediately launched a chase battle, forcing the 18th Army of Wuyuan Town to abandon a large amount of equipment, baggage, and eight infantry battalions behind the palace before fleeing back to Xiangcheng Daleng in embarrassment.

However, a month later, Wuyuanzhen's 18th Army was once again rejuvenated. Not only was it rejuvenated, but it also became the 12th Corps, with two infantry corps of 50,000 men (18th Army and 30th Army), and once again returned to the battlefield.

In this month, General Zhao Liang, who wanted to kill Kaifeng Mansion, was entangled by the 19th Army commanded by Wu Xiu, a famous general of the Zhou army.

The 19th Army took advantage of General Zhao Liang's pursuit of Wuyuan Town to defeat the Western Song Infantry Division, which was responsible for containing itself, and then entered Yingchang Mansion and the Yingchang Militia Division, and turned the latter into its 8th Division.

And after General Zhao Liang returned, Wu Xiu, who had 8 divisions, avoided the battle again. In the following month, Wu Xiu's 19th Army adopted a kraft candy-style tail line tactic, while avoiding a decisive battle, tightly biting the invading Song and Song coalition forces.

So they did not dare to go north to Kaifeng Prefecture, so they had to wander around Yingchang, Ruzhou, Chenzhou, and Caizhou.

Although he won many battles and also pulled the Huai River defense line of the Zhou army, he lost the opportunity to go north to Kaifeng Mansion...... The war on land in the Central Plains still fell into a protracted situation.