Although Sun Xiangbing formulated a plan to concentrate all his efforts, find the enemy's weak points, and then break through each one, and the troops did make preparations according to this plan, who knew that the plan could not catch up with the changes, and before Li Yongji could lead his troops to attack others, they would attack themselves first.

The army that attacked himself was not weak, it was the strongest corps of the Grant Army, that is, the famous Sherman Corps, although the number of this corps was not the largest, but the equipment and morale were the best, and in terms of combat effectiveness, it was also the strongest corps in the Grant Corps.

The reason why this force came to attack Li Yongji was related to the deployment of Grant's army in the Vicksburg area.

Vicksburg is a fortress built near the river, its west and north are bordered by the river, and it is 200 feet above the water, that is, about 60 meters, and this section of the river is very narrow, so it is wishful thinking to attack directly from the water.

In addition, to the right of Vicksburg, that is, to the east, is the densely forested, waterlogged valley of the Yazu River, which is crisscrossed with countless backflows and swamps, and it would be a nightmare for any army to advance here, so it is not feasible to attack Vicksburg from here.

To the left of Vicksburg, that is, to the west, is the Mississippi River, and further west of the Mississippi River is the mountains, but fortunately, the part near Vicksburg has a relatively dry flat land, which is convenient for marching, but it is within the range of Vicksburg's artillery.

At the beginning, Grant used the cover of the artillery fire of the powerful ironclad fleet to lead the main force by boat, and crossed the west of the Mississippi River by force at night, and entered a dry plain, and then forced south with 20,000 men without stopping, without waiting for reinforcements to come. In the south, it re-crossed the east of the Mississippi River and moved to the back of Vicksburg, that is, the plains southeast of Vicksburg, where a defensive base was established and served as the main offensive position.

After that, Grant based on the defensive base southeast of Vicksburg, repelled the attacks of the defenders of Vicksburg several times by means of defensive counterattacks, and at the same time strengthened the artillery bombardment of surface ships, and constantly sent troops from the old road.

By the time Grant's legion south of Vicksburg had a total of 40,000 men. In addition, it has an absolute advantage on the water, the upstream and downstream are guarded by the fleet of the United States, and the city of Jackson in the east has also been taken, which can be regarded as completely closing the external communication of Vicksburg.

In other words, although the terrain of Vickersburg is dangerous, there are very few passages to the outside itself, in fact, there are only two.

One of them is the channel that leads to the Guò Mississippi River, but this method of replenishment is very inconvenient and can only be a supplement. After all, Vicksburg was too high above the water, and during this period, it was all through guò ropes to pull supplies up, this way of supply. You can imagine how slow it is.

The other, and therefore the main supply route, is the land transport to the south, usually by guò train. Connected to the outside, Jackson City is the main supply center of Vicksburg.

Therefore, Grant played Jackson City first. Cutting off the supply center of Vicksburg first, and then attacking Vicksburg is indeed a clever move.

Therefore, when Vicksburg was completely besieged, Grant's main army force was actually only deployed in two places, one of which was the original west, that is, the left side of Vicksburg, which was an important transportation colleague, so Grant stationed 10,000 people here.

The other is the southern end of Vicksburg, which is also the main location of Grant, because it is the only place where a large army can be deployed, and it is also the main area where Vicksburg is connected to the outside world. In this place, Grant now placed an army of 50,000 troops, which can be said to be the absolute main force of the Tennessee Front.

Finally, there were 10,000 people in the swampy area east of Vicksburg, although most of them were swampy jungles, but there was a road to Jackson City, and it was also the only passage, and these 10,000 people, on this communication road, cut off the possibility of the defenders of Vicksburg fleeing eastward.

In fact, in the early days, Grant had thought of digging a canal from the eastern marshes and using the canal directly to the south, but it didn't work, so he thought of a way to force the west and then from the west end of Vicksburg to the south end.

Originally, this roundabout attack method of going west and bypassing the south was also dangerous, but the ironclad fleet provided support to Grant, plus Grant was bold and careful, and used the night to smuggle in, and also took Jackson City before, so that the defenders of Vicksburg lacked supplies, and even used the sound to attack the west, deliberately let a unit try to attack in the east to attract the attention of the other party, so that he led the troops to break through in one fell swoop.

Of course, although Grant made so many small moves, the main reason for the success of his roundabout tactics was that the United States had an absolute number of artillery, especially those modified ironclads, which kept bombarding the upper river, attracting the attention of Vicksburg's artillery, which allowed Grant's troop carrier to successfully smuggle in, and arrived at the small flat southwest of Vicksburg, and created conditions for him to lead his troops into the southern zone.

In short, the reason why Grant was able to successfully besiege Vicksburg was because he first cut off the supplies east of Vicksburg, that is, Jackson City, so that Vicksburg could not obtain supplies from Jackson City, especially cannonballs and food.

Later, he led his troops on troop carriers, smuggled across the Mississippi River, forced a landing at the southwest end of Vicksburg, and then turned from southwest to southeast, completely cutting off the passage between Vicksburg and the periphery.

In other words, Grant's main army, mainly southeast of Vicksburg, and southeast and northwest of Vicksburg, also had a force, but among them, the southwest part of Vicksburg was the place where Grant paid the most attention.

Because this is an important passage for Grant's army to receive supplies, the supplies transported through the Guò Mississippi River are all through the southwest of Guò Vicksburg, transported to the southeast of Grant's army, once the southwest of Vicksburg is cut off, then Grant's army will lose supplies, and can only go south to east, spare a large circle back to Jackson City, this section of the road is much farther.

Because the riverside to the southwest of Vicksburg is quite important, Grant let his most trusted General Sherman lead his troops here, and Sherman's troops are also the most effective in the Tennessee Front.

And. When he heard that New Orleans had been taken away, Grant also strengthened Sherman's forces, and the number of troops here had reached 30,000, and with the help of the local terrain, he strengthened the fortifications and built many temporary forts, so to speak, and the entire southwest was overwhelmed.

Now, the place where the Dream Division landed is, from the general direction, in the southern part of Vicksburg. If you go along the Mississippi River, you will inevitably encounter Sherman's troops, and if you continue east, you will be Grant's main army.

From the place where the Dream Division landed to the Sherman's garrison, it was basically a dry plain, and even if there were some hills during the period, the terrain was not high, and it was an excellent place to start a decisive battle with a large army.

And because of that. That's why I chose to land here in the first place, and it wasn't entirely because of the rapid assault of the ironclad fleet, which blocked the channel, but it was really according to the original plan. At most, a little further on, they will have to go ashore and land.

In short, the army in front of the Dream Division is actually only one Sherman's corps. There are about 30,000 people in total, and there are no other troops in addition, so the Dream Division will not fight unless they abandon this corps. He insisted on taking a long detour to attack Grant's main force 30 kilometers to the southeast, otherwise he had only one target for attack, and had no other choice.

In fact, since Li Yongji led his troops to land, Sherman's troops have been assembled and on standby, and Sherman's troops are only fifteen kilometers away from the location of Li Yongji's Dream Army, that is, about thirty miles, which can be said to be quite close.

Li Yongji is also a big person, relying on his own strength, always thinking about fighting people by himself, never thinking that he would be attacked, so after the troops landed, he has been busy resting, and at the same time equipping the troops with new weapons and new equipment, especially leisurely playing with a change of clothes, not only built a guards armored battalion, but also split the original armored battalion, with a company as a unit, and sent it to every regiment below.

After doing this, Li Yongji began to let the troops rest before the war and prepare supplies, which took two days at once.

Two days is not a long time, but it gave Sherman enough time to react.

Speaking of which, due to the attack of the ironclad fleet, the river in front of the guide was blocked, making it impossible for the task force to continue to move forward, plus Li Yongji led his troops to land, such an obvious goal, to say that others can't see it, it would be self-deception.

During this period, if someone else is changed, he may hold the position and ask for help from others, but Sherman is different, he is a very offensive general, after discovering that the ironclad fleet was completely destroyed, but the other party was also blocked in the southern river, he decisively gathered the main force and launched an attack on Li Yongji's dream division.

The distance of thirty miles is not far away, even if it is a large army, if it is purely walking, it will only take half a day's work.

During this period, Li Yongji was also careless, only busy with the landing and equipment of the troops, and kept thinking about how to fight others, so he didn't send many scouts out, and as a result, when the opponent's forward touched only 5 kilometers away from his own barracks, the conscientious sentry in the outpost discovered the whereabouts of the other party.

And when the sentry found out the whereabouts of the other party and confirmed that it was a large army attacking, most of the soldiers in Li Yongji's barracks were still eating, and they were about to set off to attack the other people after breakfast, who knew that they were caught off guard.

Fortunately, the guards found out in time, and although they were in a bit of a hurry when they landed, the barracks were a little sloppy, and they didn't build any earthen walls or anything like that, all for convenience, so they directly set up tents.

However, outside these tents, they still pulled two barbed wire fences as defense, but the original intention was not to defend against enemy attacks, but to defend against wild animals, after all, this was the American wild in the sixties of the nineteenth century, and wild animals were everywhere.

As for the sentry post, it was a foldable folding ladder, and the sentry in the sentry post was routine, because according to the code, even the simplest military camp had to be placed on the periphery.

Now, thanks to the sentinel's timely warning, and the fact that there are two barbed wire fences on the perimeter, this gives the Dream Master a precious time to react, so that they will not be caught off guard by the opponent's sneak attack.

In this way, in the midst of the chickens and dogs, when the forward troops of the Sherman Corps had arrived 2.5 kilometers outside the camp of the Dream Division, the troops of the Dream Division had already reacted and sent enough guards on the periphery of their respective barracks to wait for the arrival of the other party.

At the same time, Li Yongji quickly released his own line-guided reconnaissance balloon and passed the guòline-guided reconnaissance balloon. to spy on the enemy in front of you.

The reconnaissance balloon released by Li Yongji is no longer the original civilian version that was used in China at the beginning, but the military version that Zhang Xinda later found someone to specially make Zuò, using South African military technology, and the quality is quite excellent.

The most critical point is that the inside of this reconnaissance balloon has an alloy skeleton, which has changed from the original soft balloon to a hard balloon, which has stronger wind resistance and is naturally more stable during floating.

In addition to adding an alloy skeleton. In addition to strengthening the stability of the balloon, the detection equipment of the balloon has also been replaced with military products, the detection distance and clarity of the guide have been greatly enhanced, and the optical detection distance has changed from eight times to 32 times, plus a powerful digital zoom, as well as a dynamic stabilization device, infrared detection equipment. Laser rangefinder, etc., so that this detection balloon has a substantial leap compared with the original balloon, even if the balloon sways in the air, it will not affect the stability of the balloon's own detection instrument.

Detection of balloons through guò lines. Li Yongji quickly found out from the screen that although there were many enemies on the opposite side that were closest to his camp, they were all light cavalry, and the total number was about 3,000 people. But the gaps between them were quite large, the dispersion was wide, and there were no artillery pieces with them. I think it's just a scout.

Of course, 3,000 cavalry is not a small number, according to the standards of this era, if 3,000 cavalry sees the gap, it is possible to launch a surprise attack without authorization, but the other party does this, I am afraid that the possibility of a surprise attack is very small, it should just come to investigate, as for why so many cavalry came to investigate, it may be for caution.

However, since a large area of reconnaissance cavalry has appeared, it is probably not far off for a large force to attack.

This is also a characteristic of this era, because of the progress of rifles and artillery, although there are no machine guns, but the status of cavalry has been reduced to a secondary position, so cavalry is generally only responsible for reconnaissance and pursuit, and rarely use cavalry to attack the enemy camp at the beginning.

Then, once the enemy's cavalry appears in front of your team in a large-scale skirmish, it means that the enemy is quickly scouting the terrain in order to gather enough information for their own attack.

In other words, this kind of reconnaissance with more than 3,000 cavalry basically means that the opponent's attack is imminent, and he must defend himself as much as possible.

Of course, this also means that the other party doesn't bother to sneak attack at all, that is, it is clear that I am going to beat you, Lao Tzu is going to beat you, you should prepare early, so as not to say that I will catch you off guard.

This kind of fierce atmosphere is quite in line with Sherman's style.

As for the opponent's cavalry, they dared to run to the 2.5 km range in front of their position to reconnoitre, which was naturally fearless, because the attack distance of the land artillery in this period was within 1,000 meters, and this was still an indiscriminate attack, and if it was effective in shooting, it would be within 500 meters.

After discovering the cavalry, Li Yongji raised the balloon a little more, and after reaching a height of 60 meters above the ground, he launched a reconnaissance again.

This time, Li Yongji found that about 5.3 kilometers behind the 3,000 cavalry, a large number of infantry formations were coming on foot, and these troops were in square formations in front and back, left and right, clearly showing an attack formation advancing.

It is said that so many people are coming, and the dust alone will make people realize that something is wrong, but because there are a lot of weeds and bushes on the ground nearby, and it may have rained nearby in the past few days, the ground is relatively wet, and a large amount of dust was not raised when the large army marched, and the ground was soft, and it was not easy to make a sound, which led to the fact that his own people did not realize that something was wrong in advance.

2.3 kilometers, for a reconnaissance balloon with 32x optical zoom and 32x digital zoom, it is no different from being close at hand, but at this glance, Li Yongji concluded that looking at this scale, there must be at least 30,000 people, and then comparing the previous intelligence, the other party is pouring out.

"It's kind of interesting." After seeing this, the corners of Li Yongji's mouth curved, "I haven't gone to look for you yet, you came to me first, it's indeed commendable courage, it's just a little stupid." ”

Li Yongji said that the other party was stupid, but he was not talking nonsense, because the other party's initiative to attack was quite unwise. After all, even if they didn't know the advanced nature of Li Yongji's troops and had so many modern weapons, Li Yongji's troops were all camped near the river after they landed, and the warships of those fleets were just staying on the Mississippi River on the side.

So, the right way. It should be to lead the troops out of the riverside area, avoid the range of their own naval guns, and then confront themselves, rather than taking the initiative to attack the landing force escorted by warships, as is the case.

But after thinking about it, the other party probably doesn't know much about the blockage of the river, and doesn't know that the battleship is still here, and even if they know that their battleship is here, I'm afraid they will rush over, after all, according to normal thinking. His troops had just landed, they were unstable in all respects, and they were still in a state of confusion, so they rushed over to attack in time and just caught themselves off guard. It's like yourself, isn't it actually a state of surprise now?

It's just that that Sherman thinks in terms of the general army of this era, because in this era of the army, the landing process is quite complicated.

Generally speaking. In the landing warfare of this era, the combat effectiveness of the landing force was still very strong because it was covered by warships when it first landed, and the troops at the head were all the main combat troops. Once you log in for more than one day. The follow-up non-main forces also landed ashore, especially after all kinds of military supplies were also brought ashore, and the landing force would inevitably have a short period of confusion, at which time it would attack. You can do more with less.

Moreover, a day after the landing, the main forces were all ashore. If you are not on the boat, there will be no situation where you can't fight and retreat, which is a taboo for soldiers who are deployed along the river, and it is the best time to attack from behind at this time.

Therefore, Sherman's initiative this time was quite well timed, and he came out of the nest, in terms of this era, he can indeed be called a bold and careful celebrity.

It's a pity that no matter how much he calculates, the strength of the two sides is not equal, so that any of his strategies and tactics are useless, because no matter how he calculates, the soldiers on both sides have to fight face to face, as long as they can't stop themselves at all during the battle, that qiē is the moon in the water.

"Sun Xiangbing!" Li Yongji suddenly turned his head to look at the chief of staff who had just finished making a phone call, and said lightly, "How is the situation of our troops?" Is it still in the chaos? ”

"Report to the Commander." Sun Xiangbing saluted, and then said, "I have just confirmed with the three regiment commanders below that they have all urgently deployed a battalion of troops in their respective regimental headquarters defense areas for defense, and the other troops are assembling one after another, and they will be able to complete the assembly in ten minutes at most." ”

Ten minutes is not slow, because this is a motorized infantry battalion, and if you want to complete the assembly, you must not simply get dressed and pick up weapons, and then go out to line up, but also have to run to the vehicles of your respective troops, check the vehicles, and start the vehicles, and you can't be sloppy at all during this period.

In particular, the vehicle inspection is a necessary process before the attack, otherwise you will get on the car in a hurry, in case there is a failure in the middle, such as forgetting to add fuel, and lying on the nest halfway when attacking, it is not just a joke.

After all, this is a master of 30,000 people, all of which are very complicated, and these soldiers are all people from the sixties of the nineteenth century, even if they have good communication skills, it is not easy to change from the state of eating to the state of the whole division in such a short period of time, and to make comprehensive preparations for attack.

On the contrary, they were able to send a battalion out for defense as soon as they discovered the enemy, to buy themselves time to prepare, and to ensure that the whole army was fully assembled within ten minutes, which was already quite good.

"Too slow, too slow." Li Yongji shook his head, "If we are facing a surprise attack of a mechanized army, the army is like this, we have collapsed." ”

Hearing what Li Yongji said, Sun Xiangbing immediately stood aside in a proper manner, closed his mouth and did not speak, because he knew that Li Yongji was just talking to himself, and any explanation at this time would only make the other party unhappy.

After all, Sun Xiangbing and Li Yongji have been together for more than half a year, and Sun Xiangbing is one of the very few people who know Li Yongji's true identity, so when he is usually in front of Li Yongji, he is very careful, carefully observing each other's words and deeds, and trying to please the other party, for fear of doing something wrong and making the other party unhappy, thus bringing disaster to himself and his family.

Of course, on the other hand, if this micro-service private visit is not right, it is the emperor who hides his identity as a general who is satisfied, then Feihuang Tengda is also a blink of an eye, such as his status as a colonel, isn't it because he was promoted quickly because he won the favor of Li Yongji?

It is precisely because he has been staying with Li Yongji for a long time and has been thinking about it carefully, so if nothing else, he is still clear about Li Yongji's habits.

"How's my Guards Panzer Battalion?" Li Yongji suddenly asked.

"Report to the commander, the Guards Armored Battalion has always been ready to attack at any time."

"Good." Li Yongji stood up and moved his wrist, "It's just right, I've been in a hurry lately, let's get some hors d'oeuvres before the big dishes." ”

Speaking of this, Li Yongji raised his voice: "Pass my order, and the Guards Armored Battalion will immediately follow me to attack, and first break the cavalry in front of me." As for the rest of our troops, let them not act rashly, continue to hurry up and gather their troops, and wait for orders! ”

"Yes, Commander." Sun Xiangbing saluted again, "But the commander of the troops during your sortie ......"

"Don't worry." Li Yongji waved his hand and interrupted him, "I can still contact the troops at any time on the command vehicle, and in case I am not available for the time being, you can also give orders on my behalf...... Alright, that's it! (To be continued......)