Episode 37 Loss Moves to Loss Moves

It is obvious that the Zhengzhou Corps has now transformed into a force that "fights for itself." From the highest commander Chen Wangwu, to the officers below, to the lowest soldiers, they are all fighting for the rest of their lives. Especially those small soldiers who can't read big characters, the tanks and soldiers of the Ming army on the opposite side seem to them to be piles of money that can walk, as long as they are defeated, they are their own.

The Ming army command finally figured out the reason why this battle was so difficult to fight. But the old men were cautious and ordered the troops at the front to interrogate the prisoners of war extensively, drawing conclusions from as many prisoners of war as possible.

As a result, the answer was the same as reported to Xiaoqiang. This shows that the prisoners of war who were interrogated for the first time were not talking nonsense, and indeed the entire army of the Zhengzhou Army fell into the eyes of money.

Once you know the reason, you need to think about countermeasures.

Li Guoliang gritted his teeth and said:

"Lord Zhang, Lord Tang, the last general suggests that the 'Red Child Plan' originally prepared for Hangu Pass be used here in the Beiru River Corridor tonight, so that those Qing soldiers can understand that they have a life to earn that money, but not necessarily a life to spend!"

The North Ru River Corridor is a narrow plain between the mountains where the Ming army attacked Luoyang from the south and was advancing with difficulty. Because in the middle of this long and narrow plain, there is a small river running through it, called the North Ru River, so it is called the "North Ru River Corridor".

Several generals looked at each other.

Zhang Zhao looked at the map first, shook his head and said:

"No, I can't. The North Ru River Corridor is no bigger than the Hanguguan Valley, a plain with many villages and towns along the way, including Ruzhou Town and Ruyang County. The Red Kids Project is so destructive that it cannot be used in places where there are residents. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled:

"Commander Li, those incendiary bombs from the army were looted by the whole army, and it may not be enough to deal with the Hangu Pass fortifications together, and it is even more insufficient to use them separately here. In addition, it is the late autumn season, the weather in Henan is dry, and the North Ru River corridor is not like the Hanguguan Valley, which is two small mountains in a lonely place. Several large mountain ranges here are connected, and it is impossible for the fire to spread to the entire Qinling Mountains...... It's no joke. ”

Li Guoliang sighed and stopped talking. But the eyes are on a few bosses, meaning to see what good ideas you can have.

Zhang Zhao was first the chief of the general staff of the General Headquarters, and he wanted to control the overall situation of the war, so he did not plan to get too involved in this matter. He handed over this issue to Tang Yunsheng, chief of the army's general staff, and stipulated that Tang Yunsheng should solve it within 36 hours, and after 36 hours, he must attack the Luoyang Plain.

Tang Yunsheng immediately convened a meeting, which was attended by the General Staff Officer of the Army and the principal high-ranking generals of the People's Guard Corps to study countermeasures.

At the end of the hour-long meeting, everyone focused on two plans.

The first is political means. This is the idea of a stomachache. He said that since the morale of the Qing army was now bought with money, it would be easy to do. Because they can buy it, we can buy it. But of course, it's not a fight with them, because Chen Wangwu is a blank check at all, which is supported by the bank wealth reserves of these two cities and the blackmail of the Ming Dynasty later. It is impossible for Nanming to be able to afford a higher bounty than him. However, Da Ming can open a bounty in another way.

"We can kill Chen Wangwu," the stomachache sinisterly laughed, "we can spend money on Chen Wangwu's head." For this human head, we can prescribe ...... For example, a reward of 1,000 taels of gold. If anyone kills Chen Wangwu, Daming will give him 1,000 taels of gold. These 1,000 taels of gold are not much in general, only more than 80,000 yuan, but for someone around Chen Wangwu, such as guards, staff officers, drivers, cooks, and orderlies, it is a huge amount of money. That person would be happy to kill Chen Wangwu. Chen Wangwu is still unable to guard against it. He can't isolate himself. ”

There was a pause in the conference room, and Tang Yunsheng asked:

"And then?"

"What?"

"What happened after Chen Wangwu died?"

Stomachache says:

"That'...... Naturally, the Zhengzhou Corps has no leader, and our army is like a bamboo. The 'King of Guanzhong' himself is dead, who will give money to those Qing soldiers. ”

Li Guoliang stared at him and asked:

"Commander Du, I dare to say that Chen Wangwu is dead, and in the next second, other officers will take over the command and replace Chen Wangwu as the 'king of the quasi-pass'." The situation of the dragons without a leader' is unlikely to occur. Even if we kill ten commanders in a row, there will be people in this position who will continue to rise to this position. The attraction is too great to be worth risking your life. ”

The stomachache retorted:

"Commander Li, you only see one of them, but you don't see the second. It is precisely because everyone wants to do this position that after Chen Wangwu's death, there will definitely be a burst of chaos, and everyone will come to grab it. So, who still has the heart to command a good war? ”

Li Guoliang also immediately said:

"Although the 13th Group Army of the Northern Qing Dynasty is a Qing prisoner, it is not a bandit or a regular army anyway, and it has strict procedures for superiors and subordinates. If the superior cannot perform his or her duties, there is a clear sequential process for who will take over from him. Moreover, Chen Wangwu was now the focus of attention of the Manchu emperor, and his death would be immediately known to the puppet emperor, who might even personally intervene to determine a successor. In any case, there will be no leaderless. ”

The stomach hurt and his brain was very fast, and he rolled his eyes, and immediately "upgraded" his idea, and said:

"In this case, we won't kill him directly, we will notify Chen Wangwu first, tell him that we are interested in spending money on his head, and let him be careful. We have as long as he has to surrender, and when the time comes, we will scatter leaflets offering a bounty for the purchase of heads into the city of Zhengzhou. We just told him that he absolutely had to weigh it. ”

Li Guoliang immediately took it and said:

"How long does that take? Can it be done within 36 hours? ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang spoke slowly:

"Ahem...... Two, do you know how high the price Emperor Qingyu paid in order to buy my head to Xiang Xiaoqiang? ”

Everyone in the conference room was stunned, not knowing what Xiang Xiaoqiang wanted to say.

The stomach hurt and immediately replied:

"Back to my lord, it's 5,000 taels of gold."

"5,000 taels of gold." Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said, "The high price of gold of 5,000 taels has been opened for a month and a half, and I am still alive and well." Even if I did a better job of security. So how long can the security of the commander of the Zhengzhou Army last without being killed? I thought, it's more realistic to last a week with less, right? ”

Stomach ache and Li Guoliang stopped talking. They are all looking at each other.

Xiang Xiaoqiang continued:

"The two of them fought for a long time, and they both forgot the most important factor: time. If we don't have any other goal, just to kill him Chen Wangwu, then it's very easy to do, open a reward, just sit and wait for someone to send it over. It doesn't matter how long it takes. But now General Staff Zhang has limited us to enter Luoyang within 36 hours, and it will take at least a few days to complete the full operation of 'buying heads'. Even if we don't buy his head first, we send a letter to intimidate him into surrendering...... If I were him, I would first use the negotiations to delay time, while blocking the Ming army, and at the same time taking advantage of the night to transport the army to Guanzhong on the Qinqi railway, and at the same time strengthen my own security......

"He doesn't even need to withdraw the entire corps into Hangu Pass, half or one-third of it, just enough to guard Hangu Pass. In that way, the day after tomorrow, he will probably already be in Guanzhong. What do we do next? Continue to threaten him with buying other people's heads to hand over the letter Guguan? That would be even more unrealistic. As long as he does a good job of security, he can spend time with us. Now we have to seize the main force of the Qing army and quickly occupy Shanxi before they return to help, and we can't afford to spend one more day. It makes sense that General Staff Officer Zhang limited us to 36 hours. ”

Discussion went on and on, and the idea of a stomachache turned out to be a bad idea.

……

Next, let's focus on the second method.

This is a military method, proposed by a staff officer of the General Staff of the Army. This staff officer suggested that while attacking Luoyang and Zhengzhou, a lightly armed force should be sent north from Nanyang to Qinling, taking the same road that Liu Bang had entered the Guanzhong in those years. This is Wuguandao.

Since ancient times, Guanzhong has been known as the "Land of Four Stops" because its geography is surrounded by mountains, and generally only four gaps can be entered. There is Hangu Pass in the east, Wuguan in the southeast, Dasan Pass in the southwest, and Xiao Pass in the northwest. Traditionally, there is only one that is most meaningful to the Central Plains hegemony, and that is Hangu Pass. Hangu Pass is the closest to the main battlefield of the Central Plains, and the mountain road is also the shortest and best walked, so it is also the most important. In the past dynasties, according to the relevant Chinese regimes, they were heavily fortified at Hangu Pass. Hangu Pass has always been the most difficult of the four passes.

However, once a certain regime first occupies Bashu and Hanzhong, it can consider attacking Guanzhong from Dasanguan in the southwest. If you first occupy the Xiangfan and Nanyang basins (that is, the northern part of the legendary "Jingzhou"), you can also consider attacking Guanzhong from Wuguan in the southeast. When Liu Bang entered the customs that year, he first laid down Nanyang, and in order to bypass the heavy troops of Hangu Pass of the Qin Dynasty, he chose to take the Wuguan in the south.

But whether it is Dasanguan or Wuguan, it means that it is necessary to cross the entire Qinling Mountains. The mountain roads of these two passes are ten times more rugged than Hangu Pass, and the distance is a hundred times longer. Along the way, there are steep mountains and cliffs, and many places can only be passed by relying on the "plank road" built on the cliff. Counting the twists and turns of the trails, the total length of the trail is more than 200 kilometers. As for the mountain road of Hangu Pass, it goes straight and straight, with a total length of only 15 kilometers. And now there is also a railway.

In Chinese history, there was no way to choose Wuguan Road and Dasanguan Road to enter the customs several times. Because Hangu Pass was too tightly guarded, the Guanzhong regime must have put its most elite troops there. As for Wuguan and Dasanguan, because the mountain roads are long and difficult to walk, the Guanzhong regime often only dispatches a small number of troops with weak combat effectiveness, so choosing these two passes in the south can often avoid the main force of the defender, but can attack Guanzhong at a relatively small cost.

What this staff officer meant was that since the Ming army had now occupied the Xiangfan Basin and occupied Nanyang, why not repeat the route that Liu Bang had taken to enter the customs and take the Wuguan Road?

He added: This is not necessarily to enter the pass from Wuguan, but to use this action to put pressure on the Zhengzhou Corps, telling Chen Wangwu to weigh and weigh, don't think that if you hold Hangu Pass, the world will be peaceful. The Ming army will not be at your mercy, and the Ming army is very determined to enter the pass, even from Wuguan and Dasanguan.

……

This suggestion was hotly debated at the meeting. One faction thinks it's a bad idea. Because of the "road conditions" of Wuguan Road, don't think about mechanized marching, you can definitely only use two legs. Even if the Qing army in Wuguan Province is weakly defended, but with more than 200 kilometers of mountain paths, how long will it take to march alone? Even if you forcibly march and even take the road away from the battle, ten days is considered fast. For ten days, the daylilies were cold.

Moreover, if the Wuguan Province forcibly marched, it would definitely not be able to carry heavy weapons, and could only mainly use light weapons, and at most carry some small-caliber light artillery. Surely you can't bring a heavy vehicle. So even if this army breaks through the Wuguan Pass and appears in the Guanzhong Plain, how much effect can it play? With only light weapons and two-legged exhaustion of troops, and limited ammunition (no baggage supply vehicles), it was a problem to protect itself in the face of the Zhengzhou Corps, which was more than 100,000 people and was ready for battle.

However, the other school of thought believes that it is still feasible to force the army on the Wuguan Mountain Road, but it cannot be taken seriously, and it cannot be expected that this army will really spend ten days entering the pass. They believed that this move was only to put pressure on the Zhengzhou Corps and show an attitude that Chen Wangwu should not think too much. If it goes well, maybe in two or three days, the negotiations in Luoyang or Hanguguan will have a result.

……

Xiang Xiaoqiang didn't interject too much. However, he was very irritated when he heard it, his butt moved around in the chair, and he raised his eyes from time to time to glance at Tang Yunsheng. He felt that Old Man Tang was just like him, and he was also disappointed. Anyway, Xiang Xiaoqiang felt that these two plans were bad ideas, and it was estimated that Old Man Tang felt similar.

He unintentionally glanced at Xiuxiu beside him, his heart moved, tilted his head and whispered:

"Do you have any good ideas?"

Xiuxiu was a little surprised, but still shook her head. She also leaned into Xiang Xiaoqiang's ear and said softly:

"Gotta think about it."

Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and sighed. He leaned back in his chair and listened to the arguments of the generals in his ears, and his heart became more and more irritated.

Alas...... I Xiang Xiaoqiang's wives and prospective wives, except for Qiu Yu and Rong Rong, are all like human spirits. It's a pity that if you don't understand military affairs, you can't come up with an idea...... Even if he is a little fox like Xiuxiu, the army's basic skills are not solid, and he can't come up with any good ideas......

Suddenly, a light flashed in Xiang Xiaoqiang's brain-

Oops, how forgot about her! With a good brain and solid army knowledge, who else is there besides her?

……

beckoned to Xiaoqiang, let Xiuxiu's ears come over, and whispered:

"Xiuxiu...... You go to the telephone room outside, call back to the headquarters, and find Princess Liaoyang...... You learn from her about this situation, and ask her for advice on my behalf, and see if she has any good ideas? She has the most bad moves. To deal with people like Chen Wangwu, you have to use Princess Liaoyang. ”