As early as the end of the Northern Expedition and Shi Qingxuan's Sixth Army had not yet marched into Zhili, the Chinese army had already begun to prepare for the Jiangxi Raid, and the capture of Jiangxi was the first step of the Chinese Army's westward expedition.

In order to let the imperial side launch the western expedition in advance, Shi Langyi at that time even personally returned to Nanjing to lobby the commanders of the headquarters and the emperor Lin Zhe.

At that time, Shi Langyi also received limited support from the high command, and from December, the Chinese army began to successively transfer troops into northern Jiangxi, southern Anhui and other regions, and in January formally formed a Jiangxi strategy unit with the Fourth Army as the core, the Second Army and the First Mixed Brigade as the auxiliary.

The Fourth Army then began to advance westward and successfully captured the mouth of the lake.

However, the Zhenhu army had already captured Jiujiang from the Taiping army, repaired and strengthened the riverside forts along Jiujiang, and at the same time blocked the entrance of the Yangtze River into Panyang Lake by blocking the sunken ships.

As a result, the strategy of the Chinese army's follow-up attack on Jiujiang was hindered!

For this reason, the Chinese army had to temporarily stop its attack on Jiujiang, on the one hand, because the navy needed time to clear the entrance to Panyang Lake, and on the other hand, it also needed to send more warships to support the artillery bombardment of the Jiujiang Battery, so as to create favorable conditions for the subsequent cover of the army's landing on Jiujiang from the Yangtze River.

Under these circumstances, the Fourth Army suspended the Jiujiang offensive and began to send troops from the east bank of Panyang Lake south to the hinterland of Jiangxi, and on the other hand, it sent troops to attack along the north bank of the Yangtze River.

During this time, affected by the fall of Jiujiang, the Taiping army on the Wuchang side could not hold on, and then the Hunan army completely captured Wuchang and other Hubei regions in mid-January.

At this time, although there were still some Taiping troops in the northern, eastern, and western parts of Hubei, on the whole, the Taiping army had been completely defeated. The scope of the Taiping Army's power has begun to shrink, and it is currently staying in the area west of Jingzhou and Yichang in Hubei. The eastern part of Hubei, including all of Wuchang, Hanyang, Huangzhou, and De'an, was regained by the Hunan army, while other parts of Hubei, such as Anlufu and other prefectures that had not been affected by the war, remained loyal to the Qing court.

It is worth noting that in fact, the Chinese army's troops entered the eastern part of Hubei last year. It is mainly in the southeastern part of Huangzhou Prefecture, such as Huangmei and Guangji, two areas on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and Luotian County near central Anhui, and Wushengguan near Xinyang, Henan, which is controlled by the Chinese army.

After the Hunan army captured Wuchang, Hanyang and other places, it did not say that it would wave its army westward to continue to conquer the Taiping army, but only sent a small number of troops to the west, but the main force continued to garrison troops in the eastern part of Hubei.

The implication revealed in it is very obvious, that is, to try to resist the westward advance of the Chinese army.

Compared with the Taiping army, which has fled to Sichuan to survive, the Chinese army is the mortal enemy of the Zhenhu army and the Hunan army.

It is a pity that the Qing court was completely destroyed at this time. The news of Xianfeng's death has not yet spread to the southwest region, and at present, the five provinces and regions of Huguang, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi are still loyal to the Manchu Qing and support the Hunan army to continue fighting.

I just don't know how the Manchu officials in the above-mentioned areas and the commander of the Hunan army, Zeng Guofan, will feel when the news reaches these areas after the fall of the Qing court.

"The overall situation in the southwest is quite calm now, although there have been some changes in Jiujiang and Wuchang in the past few months, but these changes are still controllable!" At another strategic meeting in front of the Imperial Palace, Chen Yuntao, the chief of the Joint Staff, explained the strategic situation to everyone and Lin Zhe as usual.

"According to the information we have received in the past, the Zhenhu army in the west of Jiangxi is about 60,000 to 70,000 people. Among them, the new army is about 25,000 to 30,000 people, and the rest are all auxiliary defense forces equipped with cold weapons! ”

"Huguang and Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi. According to our intelligence reality, the Hunan army system belonging to the commander of Zeng Guofan has a total of four towns, although the military system of the Hunan army is slightly different from the new army under the command of Duxing A, but on the whole it is very similar, and the official name adopted is: Xiangyong First Town, Xiangyong Second Town, Xiangyong Third Town, and Xiangyong Fourth Town. Three of the above four towns are deployed in the Hubei area. Another town is deployed in the border areas of Guangxi, Hunan and Guangdong.

In addition, our intelligence officers have also collected other intelligence, such as the Yunnan and Guizhou side also has a training army, the number is unknown, the number is estimated to be about 2,000 people, and the Guangxi side has a training army. The number is unknown, and the number is about 1,000 people.

At the same time, we found some units of the new army in the Hunan army in Hubei that were different from those of the Hunan army, and it is predicted that they may be trained by Hubei or Hunan on their own, and the number of troops is initially estimated to be 2,000.

Due to the limited information available to us, we are unable to determine their training and weaponry for the time being, but based on our speculation on the production of the Hunan Machinery Bureau, a considerable number of the new army should not be equipped with flintlock pistols.

It is also worth noting that in addition to the new army such as Xiangyong, the Qing army in this area still has a large number of local regimental training, green battalions, eight banners and other old armies, and it is predicted that the total strength in this area will not be less than 100,000! ”

For Chen Yuntao's data, everyone did not express any surprise, this is the five provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Huguang, and Guangxi, and Sichuan was also under the control of the Qing court before, these places originally had more frequent rebellions, and there were more Qing troops stationed in various green battalions.

Although Zeng Guofan's ability to personally lead troops to fight is not good, and his ability to make money is not as good as Hu Linyi's, his ability to train troops is first-class.

In addition, in order to encircle Zeng Guofan and encourage him to lead Hunan Yong to fight, the Qing court not only gave him the title of Minister of Hutuan Training, but even gave him the title of supervising Huguang military affairs, making him the real commander of the Qing army in the southwest region.

Based on the above, it is normal for the number of Qing troops in the region to be large, of course, a large number does not mean that the combat effectiveness is strong!

"According to the plan for the western expedition that we have drawn up at present, the primary goal is to capture Jiangxi, connect Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Anhui together, and expand the strategic depth of our army.

After completing the Wuchang attack, the troops continued to attack along Jiangxi to occupy Yuezhouyang. Later, one continued along the Yangtze River into the Jingzhou region, and the other went south to Dongting Lake to capture Changsha.

After occupying the areas on both sides of the Yangtze River and the surrounding areas of Dongting Lake, the troops will enter a period of recuperation, and will continue to send troops to southern Hunan, Yunnan-Guizhou, Sichuan and other regions in the later stage, and at the same time, the Third Army on the Guangdong side will also re-launch the Guangxi Campaign, striving to control Yunnan-Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan and other provinces in the shortest possible time! ”

All these strategies mentioned by Chen Yuntao were formulated by the Chinese military long ago. Many senior military generals don't need to listen to him to say this, but since today's meeting is about the Western Expedition, they naturally have to listen to Chen Yuntao repeat it completely.

"In order to effectively carry out the strategy of the Western Expedition, all departments of the General Headquarters should give priority to providing support to all units of the Western Expedition, including the support of food, clothing, ordnance and ammunition, the support of logistics and transportation forces, and the support of surface forces."

This is a strategy meeting, not a meeting of a certain battle, so everyone is discussing some general directions. He did not say how a certain battle should be fought in detail, and he did not even say much about the upcoming Battle of Jiujiang.

They discussed more about how to make the troops better complete the westward expedition, for example, how to adjust the logistics department, how to ensure the supply of military supplies for the troops that are about to march westward, especially when the troops leave the two banks of the Yangtze River and go deep into the interior to fight, and how the logistics department should ensure the supply of military supplies for the troops.

There is also the Ministry of Ordnance, which provides more advanced ordnance in this way. In particular, rear-loading rifles and front-loading rifled guns further enhanced the combat effectiveness of the troops on the Western Expedition. At the same time, how to ensure the replacement of firearms in the process of combat of the troops.

Even the Quartermaster Department is also discussing how to purchase more military supplies to ensure the supply of troops, for example, in terms of food, Huguang was originally a grain-producing area, and how to use the advantages of the local production area to carry out local procurement after entering Huguang. to reduce the pressure on logistics and transportation.

The discussion of these issues may have little to do with a specific battle, and in the eyes of many people, it may not matter, but in fact, these problems are the foundation for the smooth development of the Chinese army's westward expedition.

The Chinese army can fight, but it also has to have a full stomach and have guns available.

Both ancient and present. The launching of a war, especially this kind of large-scale operation in which the area of operation is expected to reach several provinces and the distance of the march may reach thousands of kilometers, does not mean that a certain military general can just say that he can take his troops to fight, but it still requires countless people to work hard for it.

War is a machine, and it needs the perfect operation of every component to be launched.

This imperial strategic meeting fundamentally decided the official launch of the Western Expedition, and the subsequent departments of the General Headquarters will provide all kinds of support for the Western Expedition troops, and this kind of support is definitely not comparable to the previous support for the Fourth Army.

Its support will definitely not be inferior to the support for the Sixth Army and the First Army during the Northern Expedition!

Now that the Northern Expedition has preliminarily ended, although the Sixth Army will continue to fight in various parts of the north, and Shi Qingxuan will also take the main force of the Sixth Army into Shanxi, but from the strategic level of the entire empire, the Northern Expedition has ended, and although the remaining battles will continue to break out, there is no need for the empire to invest all its strength for this.

And now, most of the power of the empire will be invested in the westward expedition.

The most obvious manifestation of this is that the various ordnance materials produced by the Linde Machinery Factory and the Jinling Arsenal, whether they are guns or artillery, or shells, bullets and other ammunition, are no longer loaded on sea ships and then transported north to Tianjin Port, etc., but are loaded onto many small and medium-sized inland river vessels, and then go up the river to Anqing, Hukou and other areas.

The navy also began to send more warships into the middle reaches of the Yangtze River to prepare for a large-scale artillery bombardment of the Jiujiang Battery.

On 10 February, the eighth day of the first month of the third year of Xuanwu, not long after the Spring Festival ended, the Imperial Chinese Navy dispatched a huge fleet of up to 28 steam warships from the Anqing Temporary Naval Base, and then went straight to Jiujiang, where it carried more than 100 medium and large-caliber naval guns to intensively bombard the three riverside batteries along Jiujiang.

More than 100 medium and large-caliber naval guns and more than 60 shore defense guns of the Jiujiang Fort carried out a large-scale and intensive artillery battle, which lasted from the 11th to the morning of the 13th, and when the shells of the Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire were almost used, the Jiujiang Fort on the south bank of the Yangtze River was also completely in ruins!

In the afternoon of the same day, more than 3,000 soldiers of the Chinese Army launched a landing operation from the Yangtze River under the cover of the navy! (To be continued.) )