Time flies by, and in the blink of an eye, three years have passed since the Ming Dynasty's 500,000-strong army marched south.
These three years have had a profound impact on the situation in Ming Dynasty and brought about huge changes.
First, the 500,000-strong army marched south. The morale of the army was high. They attacked cities and territories along the way without any obstruction, and quickly recovered the two provinces. And gradually invaded the enemy's capital, causing turmoil in the enemy's country, allowing countless oppressed righteous men to rise up against the enemy's tyranny and respond to the imperial court's crusade.
Rebellions in various places soon disrupted the imperial kingdom's originally barely settled rule, causing turmoil in the originally stable rear. There were loopholes in the collection of taxes and the maintenance of the situation, and the integrity of the defense appeared.
The Ming Dynasty's army took this opportunity to attack and achieved great results. They regained some lost ground and gained momentum.
Things are going very smoothly, and it seems that if it continues to this extent, the Ming Dynasty's army will be able to recapture all the lost land in the south in less than a year and completely drive out the rebellious forces.
But everyone soon discovered that their predictions were wrong.
Although a lot of territory was lost, the territory that Zhong Yu could control suddenly shrank on a large scale, and the strategic space became narrow and difficult to move.
But from another aspect, it also represents the Central Region. There are many fewer places that need to be defended. It can concentrate the already limited troops to defend in more critical places, and has more powerful power to resist the enemy's attack and let the defense line Becoming thicker.
This change made the attacking army more powerful and difficult to make an effective breakthrough in the subsequent attack.
However, although the defense became more stable, the Ming army relied on its numerical advantage to slowly capture some fortresses regardless of losses, and slowly moved towards the center of Jiangdu City.
Since the Ming Dynasty captured more and more provinces, its strength has also become stronger.
Whether it was conducting a search in the newly recovered provinces or slowly providing some help from the rear, the strength of the Ming Crusade Army was slowly increasing.
A year after the war began, four of the six southern provinces had been lost. The Ming army completely surrounded Zhong Yu's territory and began a large-scale general attack. The number of the Ming army has reached an astonishing 1.2 million, while the opposite imperial country still only has 400,000.
The reason for this is mainly because Zhong Yu has the resources of the small world and can continuously draw troops from all walks of life to make up for the consumption on the battlefield.
Zhong Yu couldn't trust the locals from all over the south. They all had their hearts set on the Ming Dynasty and regarded Zhong Yu as an intruder and a rebel, and they could not get their sincere support at all.
Recruiting them to serve as the army is just to send troops and equipment to the opposite Ming Dynasty. It is of no use at all. On the contrary, it will increase the enemy's strength.
Therefore, Zhong Yu could only recruit people from his own small world.
However, the resources of the small world are limited after all. Although it has the support of all the worlds, it still requires strength to maintain its rule in all worlds. Moreover, it is necessary to ensure that a steady stream of new worlds can be carried out for greater plunder, and a large invasion army needs to be maintained.
In this way, although Zhong Yu has many troops, many of them have to be assigned to various worlds to suppress and rule, or to capture new worlds, bringing Zhong Yu greater income and resources.
There are really not many forces that can be mobilized to support Zhong Yu's campaign in the world of Liaozhai.
In fact, because Zhong Yu has been constantly deploying troops and horses and consuming luck and energy over the years, the operation of the small world has been slightly overloaded, making it difficult to maintain.
Even the territories that have been conquered by various circles are gradually experiencing small-scale hope and unrest due to insufficient guarding power.
If Zhong Yu hadn't been able to quickly mobilize the power of other worlds to quell the rebellions in those turbulent worlds and stabilize the situation, it might have been possible for these worlds to escape Zhong Yu's control again.
Because there was so much territory to maintain and such a big situation to control, Zhong Yu had very little power to mobilize. Now it can only maintain 400,000 troops on the battlefield to resist the attack of the Ming army that is three times its size.
Fortunately, we are now in a defensive position. We don't have to fight the Ming army on the frontal battlefield. We can use the advantages of the city wall to defend, which greatly reduces Zhong Yu's losses. It is rare that the battlefield can be maintained.
Now, because there are fewer places to defend and more troops can be concentrated, the defenses of Zhong Yu's various defensive cities are also much stronger. If the enemy wants to capture it without paying several times the casualties, there is no need to even think about it.
However, the situation was ultimately tilted in the direction of the Ming Dynasty. No matter how Zhong Yu persisted in resisting, it was still difficult to stop the Ming Dynasty's increasing number of troops and continuous supplies.
After persisting in resistance for half a year, only one province was left in the land of two provinces. Even if the 400,000-strong army underwent some replenishment, only 300,000 were left.
Zhong Yu was trapped in Jiangdong Province, trapped in Jiangdu City, making his final struggle here.
Ming Dynasty wanted to recover the south faster. In order to quickly eliminate the remaining enemies in the south, more troops were mobilized to besiege the remnants of the Imperial Kingdom in Jiangdong Province.
Zhong Yu's remaining troops resisted to the death, because they knew that they had no way out, they were surrounded by enemies, and they had no place to escape if they wanted to.
As for surrendering, when the enemy on the opposite side is jealous, it is not certain whether he will accept it or not. And no one knows whether he will regret it after accepting it.
After fighting for another half a year, when the imperial army was completely dead and wounded and was no longer able to resist at all.
Zhong Yu decisively led the domestic high-level officials to withdraw to the eastern territory, where he led the army to carry out the subsequent resistance.
The previous wars were conducted in the six southern provinces, and the four eastern provinces of Yuguo were not greatly affected, not only because the Ming army did not have more troops to attack separately, but also because the capital of Yuguo was in the south.
According to the common thinking at the time, if the capital fell, then most of the country would be basically destroyed, and the remaining land could be plowed down in one fell swoop.
So as long as the capital city, which gathers most of a country's power, is captured, how can the remaining remaining power withstand the powerful enemy who can capture the capital city
Therefore, after the six southern provinces were completely captured, the daimyo's crusade army still had about one million people left. They immediately turned their guns and attacked the remaining four eastern provinces.
There were still 200,000 remnants of the Yu Kingdom entrenched there. After wiping them out, the Ming Dynasty truly regained the territory lost to the rebels.
Except for the five provinces in the north that were taken away by the Jin Dynasty, all the territory can be restored. This is an exciting event.
(End of chapter)