The peace treaty between Xia and Chu was destined to be just a piece of waste paper from the beginning. The grain promised by Nan Chu was delayed for a long time under various excuses, and Yang Zhi's promised retreat was naturally gone.

Zhang Bohu's scheming and acting skills are all first-class in the world, just because he and Yang Zhi know each other's roots, the two of them go straight to the bottom, and it is not too difficult to fool Emperor Chu and Tan Chongyuan.

Even Zhang Bohu may not know the specific amount of gold smuggled out of Chu by the Qin clan, let alone Emperor Chu and Tan Chongyuan. These two benevolent brothers only knew that Nan Chu really didn't spend a son, and it was true that he had lived a good life for a year. The lame man neither fought for merit nor sought office, but volunteered to stay in Jiangxia and help Wen Huanzhang reorganize his armament. There are really not many sensible disabled people like him these days, so he can do whatever he likes!

Yang Zhi also did not pay attention to the peace treaty signed between the two countries, nor did he have any scruples about not keeping his word. Zhao Qi can be said to have a close relationship with him, and the reason why Yang Zhi is not in a hurry to start a war is precisely to consider the basic livelihood that many people in Southern Chu rely on to survive after the war.

Yang Zhi has never forgotten his original intention, and he has worked hard all these years to let the whole family live a stable and comfortable life. If he rises to the height of caring for the people of the world, even he himself will feel that it is too nonsense. He just felt that just because he wanted to live a good life, he couldn't cut off the lives of tens of millions of people and take countless innocent lives.

Compassion is not in charge of soldiers, and righteousness is not in charge of wealth. As long as there is a war, there will always be a price. Yang Zhi is not ignorant of these truths, he will definitely not be pedantic enough to be a good person, but he will not blindly be cold-blooded and completely ignorant. The world is complicated, how can it be as good as it should be? But please be worthy of your heart!

In fact, since the beginning of the new year. He secretly ordered all departments to send a wide range of meticulous crops to the hinterland of Southern Chu, and tried their best to collect the situation of spring plowing and sowing in various places. Regularly reported as a top military aircraft.

Since entering the fourth year of Longchang in Xiali, Yang Zhi has begun to deploy the next stage of the war.

The 6th day of the first month of March. Orders were given to all the units of the army and the whole army was assembled.

On March 28, he urgently conveyed the battle commander orders to the generals of all departments of the army with an expedited period of 600 li: First, he ordered Shen Chong's troops to leave Jingzhou, and Zhang Desheng's naval division cooperated and coordinated to capture Jiangling. Put on an offensive posture towards Baling, the gateway to Changsha, the capital of Chu, in order to contain the heavy army group stationed in Baling, and have no time to take care of it.

Second, he ordered the main force of Wei Feiyang's department to move forward and join forces with the vanguard troops under the command of Qian Fang. Capture Jiangzhou.

Third, Ye Chuangqin led the main force of his subordinates to garrison Fuzhou, and sent another 20,000 heavy generals to attack and advance to Nanchang. However, it is only allowed to attack a hundred miles southwest of Nanchang City, and it is not allowed to attack the city.

Fourth, a total of 100,000 horses from the headquarters of the Chinese army and Chen Zhun's headquarters were ordered to capture Jiangxia, an important town in Southern Chu, at any cost!

Reasons for war, as long as you want. It will have. The reason is ready-made, it is you who take the initiative to ask for peace, and it is also you who does not keep your word to fulfill the peace agreement, aren't you just undergoing a beating? So it's no question of beating you up as a matter of course.

Jiangxia is the barrier to the hinterland of Southern Chu. The strategic position is very important, and it has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times. Southern Chu not only stationed heavy troops in Jiangxia to defend, but also hoarded a large amount of grain and ordnance. Jiangxia was lost. The capital of the confrontation between Nanchu and Great Xia has lost most of it, and there is no possibility of turning the tables! This is also the reason why Yang Zhi ordered at any cost.

Since the Xia army captured Xiaogan. Wen Huanzhang retreated the Chinese army to Jiangxia. In other words, Wen Huanzhang and Zhang Bohu set up the front-line headquarters of Southern Chu here. On the basis of the original, Jiangxia has been operated into an incomparably hard iron bone.

This is the first real vicious battle between Xia and Chu in history!

The Jiangxia waterway is accessible, and the combat power of the Southern Chu Water Division is fully superior. Because of this, Yang Zhi not only gathered 100,000 heavy troops, but also mobilized 500 artillery pieces, 3,000 heavy crossbows, and 60,000 catties of gunpowder.

From the beginning of the attack of the Xia army on the third day of the first month of April, the battle lasted for a full 58 days, and it was not until the first day of the first month of June that Jiangxia was captured.

In the battle for Jiangxia, both sides suffered heavy losses. The city of Jiangxia was almost razed to the ground, and the grain and munitions that had been hoarded before the Chu army was defeated and retreated, it had been doused with fire oil and burned. The Xia army suffered nearly 40,000 casualties, and the main force of the Chu army lost more than half, with more than 100,000 people killed in battle.

Because the war lasted from mid-spring to Mengxia, the weather was getting hotter, and in order to avoid causing a large-scale epidemic, it took 5,000 soldiers to bury the corpses of the soldiers of the two countries, and it took half a month's work to consume nearly 200,000 catties of lime. The tragedy of this battle can be seen from this.

The emperor got the report and stayed alone in the imperial study for half a day without saying a word. The Empress Dowager Luan personally went to the Da Ci'en Temple in Chang'an and held a grand ceremony to pray for the blessing of the souls of the dead and the soldiers of the Xia army. This is just a Jiangxia, what if the Chu capital Changsha is captured in the future?

After the Chu army lost in Jiangxia, it divided its troops into three routes. Wen Huanzhang's Chinese army retreated to Baling to defend the Chu capital of Changsha. Zhang Bohu led 30,000 soldiers to retreat to Xianning, and sent another general to lead 20,000 troops to reinforce Nanchang.

In contrast, except for Wei Feiyang's department, the rest of the armies and departments are progressing quite smoothly.

On the 8th day of the first month of April, Shen Chong's troops captured Gangneung, with fewer than 10,000 casualties.

On 12 April, 20,000 sergeants under Ye Chuang's command attacked to a designated place outside Nanchang City according to the order, and the casualties were less than 3,000.

Wei Feiyang's troops did not conquer Jiangzhou until 29 April, at the cost of more than 30,000 casualties.

When Yang Zhi and Chen Zhun were fighting in Jiangxia, they received battle reports from various ministries one after another, but the commander's orders issued were exactly the same: rest on the spot and stand by, and begin to recruit soldiers on the spot and replenish them by themselves.

On the 10th day of the first month of July, Yang Zhizhong's army moved to Ezhou, and ordered Chen Zhun's troops to stay in Jiangxia to wait for the grain and ordnance to be replenished.

The second phase of the battle to destroy Chu planned by Yang Zhi has come to an end.

As early as more than a month ago, on the fifth day of the sixth month, the emperor once again received an 800-mile urgent military report from Yang Zhi: Southern Chu sent an envoy to sue for peace again.

If you can't beat it, if it hurts, you come to ask for peace, should you be a child? Did you go early? Zhao Qi's reply this time was very simple: No.

It is said that the iron should be struck while it is hot, and Yang Zhi only ordered all the troops to rest for three months this time. Chen Zhun's department was not included in this list because of the special reasons for the replenishment of firearms, and the fact that the First World War in Jiangxia took too long and the battle losses were too large.

The day after the Chinese army moved to Ezhou, Yang Zhi issued the third phase of the operational commander order: Shen Zhong and Zhang Desheng coordinated by land and water, marched from Jiangling to capture Huarong, and then stuck to standby and were not allowed to continue to attack Baling.

Ordered Wei Feiyang's headquarters to march south from Jiangzhou to Nanchang, and joined Ye Chuang's 20,000 horses who arrived outside Nanchang in advance, and then Wei Feiyang served as the main general to capture Nanchang.

The main force of Ye Chuang's department was ordered to go out of Fuzhou, along the line of Le'an and Jishui, and capture Jizhou. After resting according to the battle damage, he then moved westward, and must capture Hengzhou before October.

On 19 August, he ordered Chen Zhun's department to take Xianning directly from Jiangxia.

After arriving outside the city of Xianning on September 12, Chen Zhun learned the bitter lesson of Jiangxia and built more than 300 wooden platforms that were flush with the city wall of Xianning. Because the guns were too heavy to be hoisted and not easy to fix, the recoil would cause the platforms to be damaged, so only one heavy crossbow was erected on each platform, and a corresponding number of gunpowder packs mixed with gravel were installed.

I'm afraid that even Chen Zhun himself didn't expect that although Xianning is a small city whose city defense is not too strong, but the 10,000 Chu troops stationed before, plus the 30,000 Chu troops led by Zhang Bohu, there are a total of 40,000 troops in the outer and inner cities to defend, and he has created a miracle in the history of the Great Xia War.

From September 14 to September 18, Chen Zhun used only 10,000 standard attack corps to basically wipe out the Chu army on the periphery of Xianning, and after strangling most of them, he forced the remaining Chu army into the city. On the 19th of September, the siege began on three sides. Ground artillery bombarded the city walls and gates, and high crossbows with gunpowder packs fired at the inner city. When the sun was shining, the city was broken. Zhang Bohu led more than 10,000 remnants to abandon the city and retreat to Baling.

As the saying goes, if you kill a thousand enemies, you will lose eight hundred. Since ancient times, whenever a city is attacked, there are often heavy casualties. However, Chen Zhun presented the battle report from Ezhou from Xianning, but Yang Zhi was unbelievable, and even ridiculous.

In this battle, the Xia army lost a total of 516 people. In the battle to clear the Chu army on the periphery of Xianning, 479 people were killed. Among them, 403 people died from the heavy crossbows and arrows of the Chu army, and the remaining 76 died from the explosion of their own artillery and the early detonation of the gunpowder pack attached to the heavy crossbow.

Only 36 people were killed or wounded during the siege, and 21 of them were also killed by the premature detonation of the gunpowder pack attached to the heavy crossbow. The remaining fifteen unlucky children died a little unjustly, and they actually fell to their deaths because they accidentally fell off the high platform! In other words, the battle damage caused by the Chu army at the time of the siege was ...... Zero casualties!

Not only that, Chen Zhun also summed up a set of tactics close to all-weather offensive operations in the Battle of Xianning.

First, when the war is urgent, artillery and its accessories can be postponed, and only a sufficient number of heavy crossbows and gunpowder can be carried, so that the speed of mobile combat can be greatly improved. Second, it can not only build a high platform, but also build a roof to protect from the wind and rain on the spot. It doesn't matter if it's rain or shine, the heavy crossbow can come in handy.

These problems were not a problem at all in previous lives, but in the era of more than a thousand years apart, they were already extremely forward-looking.

In addition to being proficient in the use of firearms, Chen Zhun is also good at field warfare, and of course he has also seen the drawbacks. The protection of gunpowder from water and moisture was always a key issue, but artillery was still not conducive to rapid maneuvering and still could not be used in rainy days. What's more, if the enemy general is also familiar with the use of firearms, even if he is on the defensive, he will do his best to prevent you from successfully building a position.

Science and technology are the primary productive forces. Such a view, even in previous lives, was not widely accepted until modern times. In this era, it is often regarded as a "strange trick" and is not given the attention it deserves.

Yang Zhi's feelings in his heart were quite complicated. With the strong guidance and support of his subordinates, these are not problems. But what about the Great Xia in the future?

The Wei Feiyang group's attack on Nanchang had a total of 80,000 troops. After more than two months and nearly 30,000 casualties, Nanchang was captured on 24 September.

Although the distance between Fuzhou and Hengzhou was thousands of miles, the Ye Chuang group encountered relatively little resistance and captured Hengzhou on 27 September.

The golden autumn of October is the season of the fragrance of osmanthus in the south of the Yangtze River.

On the second day of the first month of October, Yang Zhi once again passed down the commander's order: ordered Shen Zhong and Zhang Desheng to attack from Huarong to the southeast, and ordered Chen Zhun to attack from Xianning to the southwest, and the two heavy army groups will attack Baling at the same time after the 10th! (To be continued.) )