Ever since Zhong Yu made up his mind to hold on and the Ming court made up its mind to attack fiercely, a protracted war was inevitable.
Jiangdu City is located in the center of the six southern provinces and is surrounded by five other provinces. It is the center of the entire six southern provinces and the hub for controlling the south.
If the Ming Dynasty wanted to take back the entire south, it must first take back Jiangdong Province, where Jiangdu City is located.
Only by controlling Jiangdong Province can we use it as the center to attack the other five isolated provinces around it, thereby achieving the role of quickly regaining lost territory.
Similarly, if Jiangdong Province is not captured, no matter how much territory the Ming Dynasty seizes by attacking any province in the south. Other regions can take Jiangdong Province as the center and concentrate all their forces to attack the Ming Dynasty's army, making the army difficult every step.
The battleground for military strategists is Jiangdong Province. Its status is roughly equivalent to Jingzhou during the Three Kingdoms period. If the Ming Dynasty wanted to unify the south, it had to capture Jiangdong Province.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty's goal from the beginning was to capture Shang'an Province in the north of Jiangdong Province.
As the border between Jiangdong Province and the Ming Dynasty, Shang'an Province was naturally heavily fortified, with strong military strength. There were many cities along the way, and dangerous checkpoints could be seen everywhere, making them extremely difficult to attack.
And because he knew the purpose of the Ming Dynasty very well, Zhong Yu deployed 400,000 troops here from the beginning, including 200,000 trustworthy elites, which was enough to defend the Ming Dynasty's attack.
As for other provinces, except for some places that are so-called closed to the outside world, they have deployed troops ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 in twos, threes, and threes, establishing a not-so-strong defense line to resist the Ming Dynasty's invasion.
Zhong Yu saw clearly that as long as Jiangdong Province was not lost, some other surrounding provinces would be occupied by the Ming Dynasty. Then he can also use the central location of Jiangdong Province and the convenience of developed transportation to quickly mobilize enough elite troops to attack and regain the lost land.
Therefore, there is no need to deploy so many defenses in other places to disperse the already reluctant troops.
The defense line has been deployed, and after the failure of a tentative decisive battle on the front line, Zhong Yu has given up on the plan of a head-on confrontation. Now these defensive facilities, which were originally deployed just in case, have finally come into use.
As long as the Ming Dynasty does not retreat, or sends the eighth-level Taizu to take action, then Zhong Yu will have the confidence to drag it on, knowing that it will drag the Ming Dynasty to collapse and its destruction.
Even if this world is a mythical world filled with gods and Buddhas, the marching armies of major dynasties still have requirements and pressures on baggage.
The Ming Dynasty now dispatched 500,000 troops, and after a round of annexation and recruitment, it reached 700,000.
For such a huge army, just to supply him with food and military supplies and the assistance of cultivation methods, he also needs more than 3 million cooks and civilians to help transport supplies.
Three million civilians, and they must be strong men, is not a small number. Most of the population of a province in the Ming Dynasty was only one or two million.
If the Ming Dynasty wanted to raise 3 million civilians, it would require at least 3 to 4 provinces to fully support it without affecting the province's most basic agricultural production.
And the Ming Dynasty now has a few provinces left, only 12. The strong men who want to leave three-quarters of his territory at once, how long can the Ming Dynasty last with the national power that is now on the verge of collapse.
I dare not say anything else. As long as he is delayed for two or three more years, the people at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty will starve to death everywhere, and he will starve to death first.
Therefore, it is impossible to fight for a long period of four or five years.
This is also one of the reasons why the Ming Dynasty is attacking fiercely now.
The Ming Dynasty's attack was very fierce. Among the 700,000 attacking troops, 200,000 were assigned to the four sides to serve as partial monarchs and cannon fodder, and the main force of 500,000 attacked the central part in person.
Just after the war began, the situation on the battlefield in Upper Ontario became unfavorable.
Although Zhong Yu is not worthy of the defense of 400,000 troops, there are many young men and five-year-olds among them, as well as those who are constantly swinging on the wall. With only 200,000 garrison troops, they had to guard against the betrayal of their companions and the ferocious enemy attack. After all, this was somewhat insufficient.
So at the beginning of the battle, under the fierce attack of the enemy, relying on their own numerical advantage and attacking fiercely regardless of losses, Shang'an Province lost three of its seven prefectures and one state, leaving only half of the territory. In holding on.
The reason why they were defeated so quickly despite a strong city defense was not only because of their own insufficient numbers, but also because of the rebellion of some internal personnel.
Countless Ming Dynasty's original surrendered troops, as well as newly recruited troops, saw the Ming Dynasty's military commanders approaching, and immediately surrendered one after another, or even directly defected, which led to a sudden change in the situation of the war.
In just such a confrontation, 100,000 of the 200,000 miscellaneous troops defected, and the remaining 100,000 were also uncertain and might continue to defect at any time.
Two consecutive defections finally made Zhong Yu realize clearly that if he could not completely eliminate the Ming Dynasty, he would defeat this nominal orthodoxy.
So no matter how much territory he occupies in the Ming Dynasty, the people at the bottom will not really surrender to him.
Even if they take refuge, it will be a false promise. When the Ming Dynasty's army arrives, they will all turn against each other.
In this case, no matter how many soldiers and horses you train, you are just spending money to prepare an army for the Ming Dynasty.
After waking up, Zhong Yu no longer dared to trust the remaining troops, so he transferred them away one after another and no longer assigned them to the front line.
These nefarious troops will have a job perfectly suited to them.
That is to go to the east of Dongjiang Province, that is, within the thousands of miles of mountains and forests, to open up the territory and expand the territory for the imperial kingdom, and to turn the forests into fields.
To put it bluntly, let these people use their lives to carve out countless fertile fields for Zhong Yu in thousands of miles of mountains and forests, and in disguise, increase the land area and enrich the cultural heritage of the Yu country.
You can also gain luck by opening up the living area for the human race, compressing the living space of the monster race, and turning the wild forests into fertile farmland. And the luck obtained is not cheap, much faster than slowly compressing and extracting the luck of the people at the bottom.
Looking at past history, any dynasty that can open up the living space for the human race is at its peak, with great ancestors and good ministers emerging one after another, and the country's military strength is extremely strong. To put it another way, it means that fate is overwhelming and destiny ends.
Why is this so? It is because they opened up the hidden value of that land and were able to utilize it that they were rewarded by humanity.
After all, not having enough open living space is tantamount to enhancing the power of humanity in disguise.
Then Humanity has obtained some resources from it, and a little bit of it is enough to make a dynasty strong for decades.
(End of chapter)