Dong Hu stayed in Longzhou for three days, and after dealing with relevant matters, he led the army to Mianzhou, and the defense was handed over to Shi Zhongshu. The training intensity of the mountain brigade in Shizhongshu is extremely high, and the proportion of soldiers from the mountain tribes such as Yifanqiang is high, which is extremely suitable for the alpine and valley terrain of Longzhou. The full strength of the special battalion left in Longzhou with him was 600 people, and there were 500 people after experiencing life and death, plus the local native soldiers, it was not difficult to hold the fortified city of Longzhou City. After the next heavy fortress artillery was transported, it was no longer possible for the Mongol army to enter the Sichuan basin from this direction.

When Dong Hu went to Longzhou from the Shiquan Army, the Thunderbolt Army had already captured Mianzhou without blood. Although Mianzhou is an important place in the northwest of Sichuan, it is not the key direction of the Mongolian army's strategy, so there are not many garrisons. Hearing that the Thunderbolt army was coming to attack, the officials in the city and the new annexed army scattered in a hurry and fled to Zitong County in the northeast. When Huang Dagen led the army to Mianzhou, the old and weak soldiers left behind in the city had already opened the city gate to welcome the arrival of the army.

Although the new annex army took a lot of silk and money with them when they fled, there were still a lot of food, linen and other materials in the treasury, and more importantly, the Thunderbolt army got an intact city. Ouyang Xuan told Huang Dagen not to cause damage to Mianzhou as much as possible, because in the next step it will become the core city of the Thunderbolt Army in northern Sichuan.

Huang Dagen personally led the division brigade and an infantry brigade to Mianzhou, while only another infantry brigade of the 2nd Division attacked Tongchuan Province. The city of Tongchuan Prefecture is taller and stronger than Mianzhou, and the garrison number is as high as more than 2,000 people, as well as a small number of Mongolian cavalry and Mongolian Han army, and the strength should not be underestimated. Such a deployment of troops was not deliberately supported by Huang Dagen, but was carefully considered. On the one hand, he has received information that Wang Weizheng of Lizhou has gathered troops and horses near Jianmen Pass, preparing to go to Zitong County, and the next step may be approaching Mianzhou; On the other hand, although the infantry brigade of the Perak Army is only 1,500 people, it will be equipped with basic militia in a ratio of one to one, and the overall strength is still far superior to the defenders of Tongchuan Province.

Huang Dagen sent an infantry brigade to seize Tongchuan Province, and his confidence also came from the incoming artillery warships. According to the general staff's battle plan, after the completion of the combat mission in Shenjian City, a naval brigade will reach Tongchuan Prefecture and Mianzhou by November. When the infantry brigade of the 2nd Division marched towards Tongchuan Province, the defenders of the city did not flee when they heard the news, but sent cavalry to harass them.

It is true that cavalry is the nemesis of infantry, but only if there are certain numbers. Just as "talking about toxicity aside from dosage is playing hooliganism", talking about threats without quantity is just as much as playing hooliganism. The Mongol army in Tongchuan Province only had more than 100 horsemen, and they did not dare to attack the marching array of the Thunderbolt army, not to mention the power of firearms, just those spears that were five meters long would turn them into meat skewers.

In the eyes of the defenders, although the number of cavalry on the other side is insufficient, it is difficult to pose a threat to the Thunderbolt army in the field battle, but it is also easy to defend the Tongchuan Mansion with thick walls, after all, the defenders plus the people are strong, there are thousands of people, and the amount of food is enough. The Mongolian army has figured out the pattern and knows that although the Thunderbolt army has sharp firearms, it relies heavily on logistics. Gunpowder was enough, and the bullets and shells were either lead or iron, and they were extremely heavy.

In order to weaken the power of firearms, the defenders of Tongchuan Province dug a large number of civil fortifications in the city, and only needed to exhaust the ammunition of the Thunderbolt army, so that the city could be held for a long time, and the situation could be reversed as soon as reinforcements arrived. Of course, in order to prevent the war from being unfavorable, the defenders also built a pontoon bridge over the Fujiang River outside the city, and many ships were left on the wharf.

After the infantry brigade had set up camp at the West Gate, it began to bombard. Although the shelling was heavy and destroyed a large number of fortifications, it gradually thinned out after the collapse of a section of the wall, and no large groups of soldiers swarmed through the gap. As the defenders expected, the Thunderbolts attacked Tongchuan Province by land and did not carry sufficient ammunition. Although it was equipped with hundreds of mules and horses and a large number of wheelbarrows, they were all used to pull field artillery, followed by carrying food, musket bullets, grenades, mines, triangular nails and other rigid supplies. Although the city wall was blown open, and the Mongol army quickly blocked the opening with debris, of course, a forced charge could break into the city, but the soldiers were bound to suffer heavy casualties.

The commander of the Perak Army, who was attacking Tongchuan Province, was waiting, because news had come from the direction of the Arrow Beach Ferry that the naval gunboats of the Navy, which had been approaching. Sure enough, five days later, a large number of Thunderbolt warships appeared on the water outside the city of Tongchuan Prefecture, which caused the defenders in the city to be in chaos. Although Chongqing Mansion is only a few hundred miles away from Tongchuan Mansion, the waterway can only meet in Chongqing Mansion, and the Mongolian army did not expect that the Thunderbolt Army's naval army would appear in Tongchuan Mansion after a detour of more than 2,000 miles. It's just that now there is no way to escape, and Mianzhou in the north has been occupied by the Thunderbolt army; The direction of the east gate was blocked by warships, and the pontoon bridge was destroyed; Puzhou in the south is also rumored, and after Niu Ling led the army to flee into Puzhou, Cao Ergou is leading the army to come slowly.

Due to the need to take into account mobility, the caliber of the infantry's field artillery is much smaller than that of the guns of the warship, and the weight of the shells is also much lighter, so the power is naturally much smaller. Only one volley of artillery warships in the river let the Mongolian army in the city know what a landslide and ground cracked in, and the city defense that was originally thought to be impregnable also collapsed. After a few volleys, the gate tower at the east gate was reduced to ruins.

What made the defenders even more desperate was that after several rounds of concentrated fire salvos, the warships did not stop shelling, but continued to shell the collapsed part of the city wall in batches, blowing up the Mongolian troops who were trying to plug the gap, and the corpses were all over the place. With the transport capacity of naval vessels, the amount of ammunition carried was several bases more than that of infantry. The biggest reason that limits its firepower output, in addition to the reddish barrel, is that the ammunition is too expensive.

You can't escape, you can't fight. Half an hour later, the Mongol army in the city surrendered. After taking over the city and clearing the remnants of the Mongol army, the soldiers of the infantry brigade escorted the prisoners to the city of Mianzhou by land. The task of defending the city was left to the naval brigade, half of which was to be exact, and the other half of the warships escorted the transports north to Mianzhou.

Huang Dagen has ordered that Tongchuan Prefecture and Mianzhou will be guarded by the special battalion and reconnaissance battalion of the 2nd Divisional Brigade respectively. Although each battalion had only 500 men, with the strong people in the city and the fire support of warships, the safety of the city defense was safe. As for Huang Dagen himself, he will lead the main force of the Second Division, two infantry brigades, a cavalry brigade, and a battalion of the divisional brigade, to the direction of Zitong County.

Zitong is under the jurisdiction of Longqing Mansion, more than 100 miles away from Mianzhou, and is located on the only way to Jianmen Pass in Mianzhou. In addition to Jianmen Pass, Zitong is not far from Changning Mountain, Jiameng Pass, and Dahoucheng, which are important strongholds of the Mongolian army in northern Sichuan. Controlling Zitong would allow it to become a barrier to Mianzhou, preventing the Mongol army from attacking Mianzhou from northern Sichuan through the above-mentioned strongholds.

As the next key city for the Perak Army, Mianzhou will build a large number of factories, mines, and even arsenals, and a large number of cantonment points. This is also the reason why Zitong has a small population and cannot carry out large-scale water transportation, but the joint meeting still decided to attack Zitong.

Lizhou Wang Weizheng naturally knows this truth. At present, he is gathering nearly 10,000 elite troops to go to Zitong, including 1,000 cavalry, 3,000 infantry and 5,000 new annexed troops, and thousands of people accompanying him. As one of the Han military princes most relied on by the Mongols, Wang was not only the reason for his early defection to the Mongols, but also because of his strong military strength.

Take the cavalry under the Wang clan as an example, although the bow horse is not as good as the Mongolian cavalry, its combat power exceeds that of the ordinary color cavalry, and is only slightly inferior to the elite Asu cavalry, which belongs to the leader of the Mongolian army; The infantry combines the advantages of Song, Western Xia, and Jin, and is not only tall, well-armed, and equipped with long-range shots and close attacks, and is a first-class strong army; As for the combat power of its new annex army, it is mixed, mainly for logistics purposes.