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The person in charge of defending Quzhou is Han Gang, who was a member of the first batch of training camps trained by Qin Mu in Huichang. Currently, there are 3,000 troops stationed in Quzhou.
Han Gang originally thought that it would not be his turn to take part in this battle. However, Bolo, the Qing prince in Hangzhou, allocated 7,000 infantry and cavalry, led by Fei Yanggu, and attacked all the way from Fuyang, Tonglu and Jiande in western Zhejiang, making Quzhou the key node that affected the entire battle.
At present, the entire western Zhejiang is in chaos. Many counties are temporarily controlled by landlord armed forces. Some have nominally surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, while others have remotely followed the Longwu of Fujian as their leader, such as Zhu Datian of Jinhua.
Although Zhu Datian served Longwu as his master, it was difficult for him to communicate with Fujian due to the mountains, let alone get support, so he could only hope for the best.
During the Chongzhen period, Zhu Datian served as the Governor of Shandong. When Hongguang crossed the river to the south, he was recruited as the Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, and later promoted to the Minister of War. After Hongguang was captured, he fled to Zhejiang with Ma Shiying and others to support the enthronement of Prince Lu. Prince Lu surrendered to the Qing Dynasty. Zhu Datian ran back to his hometown Jinhua, organized local soldiers to defend the city, and refused the Qing Dynasty's surrender.
Some time ago, the Ming general Fang Guoan led his troops to flee south, and Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng were also in Fang Guoan's army. Fang Guoan had a feud with Zhu Dadian, and Ruan Dacheng sent people to ask Dadian for 40,000 taels of military pay, but failed, so he besieged Jinhua. Later, the regent Prince Lu sent an order to lift the siege.
The King of Lu appointed Zhu Dadian as the Grand Secretary of Wenhua Palace and the Supervisor of Military Affairs of Jianxingtai, which governed the four counties of Jinhua, Lanxi, Tangxi and Pujiang. Soon after, the King of Tang ascended the throne in Fujian and appointed Dadian as the Grand Secretary of Dongge and the Supervisor of Military Affairs as before.
The problem was that the geographical location of western Zhejiang was special. Neither the Prince of Lu in eastern Zhejiang nor Longwu in Fujian could help Grand Commander Zhu. Fei Yanggu's 7,000 Qing troops came from Hangzhou with great momentum. The landlords' armed forces in Tongcheng, Jiande and other cities surrendered one after another and marched south from Jiande. The first to bear the brunt was Lanxi, which was controlled by Grand Commander Zhu.
Lanxi County was vulnerable and was quickly captured. Fei Yanggu did not want his retreat to be cut off, so he continued to move south to remove Jinhua and then advance west to Quzhou.
After Zhu Dadian was surrounded in Jinhua, he looked around and found that the only army that could come to Jinhua's aid was the Qin army in Quzhou. With no other choice, he had to send people to Quzhou for help.
A major problem was placed before Han Gang, the defender of Quzhou: to rescue him or not
He only has 3,000 troops. What if Fei Yanggu besieges the city and attacks the reinforcements, or perhaps makes a feint to the east and attacks the west, and attacks Quzhou while he is rushing to Jinhua for reinforcements
What's more, this involves political issues. Zhu Datian is loyal to Longwu in Fujian and has repeatedly refused to submit to the newly established Qin State. Is it worth risking Quzhou being attacked to rescue him
Li Qiwen, the governor of Quzhou, said to Han Gang: "General Han, although Zhu Dadian is loyal to Fujian, he is still a man who persists in resisting the Qing Dynasty. Our king is concerned about the whole world. How can we ignore the millions of people in Jinhua just because Zhu Dadian did not surrender? This will definitely make the people in western Zhejiang feel disheartened."
Han Gang replied: "I know all this. But we must do everything within our capabilities. Our army is already small in number. If we go to rescue Jinhua, what if Quzhou is lost? The consequences will be disastrous."
Li Qiwen then advised: "General Han can send a thousand troops to attack Lanxi. Fei Yanggu's retreat is cut off, and he must be worried about the shortage of food and grass. The only way is to lift the siege of Jinhua, and I will organize more young and strong people in the city to defend the city to prevent sudden attacks by the Qing army, so there will be no worries; if Fei Yanggu returns to Lanxi, the general can quickly retreat to Quzhou and not confront Fei Yanggu's army head-on;
As long as we succeed in lifting the siege of Jinhua, the people of western Zhejiang will be grateful, which will pave the way for pacifying western Zhejiang in the future. Moreover, Zhu Dadian may change his attitude and turn to our Qin State. He has a high prestige in western Zhejiang. If he turns to our Qin State, others will definitely follow suit. "
After listening to Li Qiwen's analysis, Han Gang no longer hesitated. He ordered his deputy general Jiang Shaoqing to be responsible for defending the city. He personally led a thousand elite soldiers, using ponies from the south to carry food and grass, and set out overnight to attack Lanxi.
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Qin Mu received a report from the front in Taihu County that Hu Shouliang had taken Qianshan County under Tianzhu Mountain in just one afternoon. All the county towns southwest of Anqing had been taken and the obstacles to the advance had been cleared. So Qin Mu decided not to go to Qianshan. The army turned east and headed straight for Anqing via Shibei Town.
In this case, they needed to send another vanguard. Lady Hong had nothing else to do, so she pestered them and said, "Let me be the vanguard this time. Give me three thousand men and I guarantee that I can take down Shibei Town for you within an hour."
Qin Mu said disapprovingly: "How big is Shibei Town? You can piss three times, how many enemies are there in Shibei Town? There are 500 Green Camps now, and there will probably be none left by the time the army arrives. How can you still have 3,000 troops?"
Sima An and the others were so suffocated that they rode their horses away.
Hongniang's face turned red, not because Qin Mu said something about peeing in public, she didn't care about it at all. In her opinion, eating, drinking, defecating and urinating are normal human behaviors, so what's wrong with that
The reason for her blushing was that Qin Mu had seen through her thoughts again. The attack on Shibei Town was fake, and the real intention was to take thousands of troops out for fun.
"What do you mean? Since we are the vanguard, we are naturally not limited to attacking a stone tablet town."
"There's only one Shibei Town left from here to Anqing. Are you planning to help me take Anqing first?"
"Why not?"
Qin Mu suddenly turned around and shouted, "Li Shi!"
"Please give your orders, King Qin."
"Send a message to the Right Camp Lieutenant General Shi Qing, order him to lead 3,000 troops as the vanguard and capture Shibei Town as soon as possible. Also, have Liu Meng speed up the march and advance to the city of Anqing as soon as possible."
“Yes!”
Looking at Li Shi's back as he turned away, Hongniang was furious.
Seeing that the rouge horse was still wild and about to go berserk again, Qin Mu said with a smile, "In fact, the boring marching often takes up most of the time in a war. If you were to be the vanguard and leave me alone, wouldn't it be even more boring? Come on, don't be angry, I'll recite a poem for you..."
Hongniang's majestic breasts rose and fell sharply, showing how painful it was for her to endure her anger. His Royal Highness the Prince of Qin was clearly aware of this, and he would never be naive enough to mistake Hongniang's anger for lust.
"You're so stupid! If you look down on me, Lady Hong, just say so. In that case, I'm sorry I won't keep you company..."
"Shut up! You are now a general of my Great Qin. Do you think you can do it if you want and quit if you don't want to? Do you think you can just become a bandit and disband if you are not satisfied?" His Royal Highness the Prince of Qin spoke righteously and intimidatingly without being angry. Niu Wanshan and other guards beside him were all terrified.
Unfortunately, if Rouge Horse was so easy to tame, she would not be Rouge Horse.
The red cloak fluttered, and a whip flower popped in front of Qin Mu. "Go!" With a delicate shout, the red shadow flew away. Soon, her shouts could be heard from afar: "Xing Laoqi, Gui Santiao, let the brothers follow, let's go and attack the stone tablet... Go!"
Niu Wanshan and his guards quietly retreated several feet away, fearing that they would be burned by the King of Qin's nameless fire.
Qin Mu couldn't help but smile bitterly as he watched two or three hundred cavalrymen pass through the central army formation and go away in a cloud of dust.
Sima An and others sat in the carriage, and based on the battle reports collected from all parties, they promptly coordinated the 200,000 troops on the hundreds of miles long front, as well as the huge supply of food and fodder, and weapons.
In this huge battle, the only ones who are really facing the enemy are Huo Sheng's troops in Huizhou and the navy on the river. Meng Ke and Jin Shenghuan's 60,000 troops will reach Huangshiji on the south bank of Anqing tomorrow, and Hui Dengxiang's 40,000 troops will follow the navy.
Once the navy breaks through the blockade of the Anqing River, Hui Dengxiang's 40,000 troops will board black-flagged ships and go straight to Caishiji to fight for this important strategic stronghold.
This was the adjustment Qin Mu made just yesterday. He named this tactic the "leapfrog tactic."
There are cities such as Chizhou, Tongling, and Wuweizhou between Anqing and Caishiji. Qin Mu will ignore them all and directly send Hui Dengxiang's 40,000 troops to Caishiji. To implement this leapfrog tactic, he must first seize absolute control of the Yangtze River waterway.
In this way, although the cities on both sides of the river were still in the hands of the Qing army, the food and weapons needed at the front could be continuously transported through the Yangtze River waterway under the escort of the navy, and there was no need to worry about the army collapsing due to a lack of food and fodder.
The benefits of this leapfrog tactic are self-evident. One can choose any point on the bank of the Yangtze River as an attack target, making it difficult for the enemy to defend and quickly disrupting the enemy's overall deployment.
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.(To be continued..)
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