I want to be emperor

Chapter 141 Breaking the Palace and Seizing Millions

King Xiang of the Ming Dynasty has been passed down for more than 200 years since he was conferred in the Yongle period. There are eleven generations in total. The current king of Xiang, Zhu Yiming, is nothing special.

He is not shrewd, let alone sage, just an ordinary vassal king.

Even in the final death, there is no trace left.

After Xu Zhixian led the army to conquer the Prince Xiang's Mansion, this person did not encourage the guards in the Palace to resist desperately, nor did he leave a few famous sayings handed down from generation to generation to commit suicide or die in battle.

When the soldiers of the [-]th Infantry Battalion under Xu Zhixian's command attacked the palace, this man was inspecting the situation in the front yard, just in time for the [-]-jin artillery from the [-]th Infantry Battalion to fire, and the shells fired by the artillery penetrated the thick wooden door. hit the person directly.

Die simply and neatly!

Once this person died, everyone in the palace lost their backbone. More importantly, they also knew that Xiangyang City had completely fallen, and even if they wanted to resist, it would basically be meaningless.

As a result, everyone in the palace dispersed in a hurry.

The eldest son, Zhu Changcheng, absconded with makeup. This man was quite lucky. With the help of several loyal men, he first hid in a private house, and then escaped from Xiangyang City and went south to Wuchang.

The second son, Zhu Changfa, was not so lucky. He was shot and died shortly after his father died.

The third son, Zhu Changgan, disappeared after the palace was breached. Most likely, he died quietly somewhere and was unknown to outsiders.

Other members of the royal family either died or were captured, and a few people took advantage of the chaos to flee for their lives and hide.

As for those who absconded, the Township Protection Army actually didn't spend much effort to hunt them down. Even the people in Prince Xiang's mansion, even Zhu Changcheng, the son of Prince Xiang, all ran away, but in fact the Township Protection Army didn't specifically search for them. Otherwise, whether Zhu Changcheng can successfully get out of Xiangyang City is still unknown.

For the rural protection army, whether to kill or capture a group of people in the Prince Xiang's Mansion is not important. Luo Zhixue is not as fond of killing feudal princes as Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng and others.

For Luo Zhixue and the Army of Protecting the Township, those so-called vassal kings are not important at all, what is important is the wealth these vassals possess, especially those materials, money and grains that can be used directly, or soft curios that are easy to cash out Wait.

With these wealth, the Rural Protection Army can continue to expand its army, recruit and train more recruits, and build more guns, armor and weapons.

And the Xiangwang Mansion, which has been passed down for more than 200 years, did not disappoint the rural protection army. Before Xu Zhixian had time to carefully check the many properties of the palace, he only seized gold, silver and copper coins worth at least 80 taels of silver from the treasury and warehouse. cash
In addition to the gold and silver cash confiscated from the officialdom and the mansions of many recalcitrant officials before, this time the attack on Xiangyang City, the cash harvest alone exceeded one million.

Not to mention that a large amount of food, cloth and other materials that can be used directly have been seized.

And there are countless rare curios and soft goods, ordinary goods, and even real estate, land and other fixed assets that need to be realized.

But at this time, Xu Zhixian didn't have the time to continue to carefully search the other remaining properties of the palace. He just sent troops to completely block the palace.

Not long after, Huang Dingquan also led the [-]st Infantry Battalion to join the sequence of clearing and suppressing the defeated soldiers.

The two battalions joined forces to carry out a dragnet-like campaign to wipe out all the stubborn enemies who dared to resist in an organized manner.

When Huang Dingquan and Xu Zhixian led troops to continue to wipe out the remaining enemies in the city, Wang Xiazi also led his cavalry to the south of the city.

He led the cavalry out of the city to pursue more than 1000 enemy troops retreating from the south gate and east gate.

The Ming army in these two city gates did not fight to the end, and the Ming army in the east gate ran away without even fighting.

Naturally, the Township Protection Army would not allow the more than 1000 Ming troops to withdraw safely. If they let them run away today, then these Ming troops might garrison somewhere in the future and resist the attack of the Township Protection Army. In a few days, the Ming army from other places will gather to counterattack Xiangyang.

After taking Xiangyang City, it has become an important task for the current township protection army to annihilate or capture the escaped enemy troops as much as possible.

To be precise, it was the task of the cavalry under Wang Xiazi's troops. After all, the first infantry battalion was all infantry, and they couldn't catch up with the running enemy troops.

Blind Wang led his cavalry in pursuit for a while, and first caught up with the three or four hundred people who had fled from the south gate.

After catching up with them, the next thing is very simple. Facing a group of enemy troops with no more than 400 people, who have no morale and lost their weapons and equipment, the cavalry like Wang Xiazi are even useless Tactics such as riding and shooting, array charge.

Just catch up and kill him.

It didn't take a while for these people to kill or injure 30 to [-] people, and the rest surrendered.

Immediately afterwards, Wang Xiazi left a few people to guard the prisoners of war, and asked the first infantry battalion in the city to send people to accept the prisoners of war, while he himself led the remaining 100 cavalrymen to continue chasing the enemy troops who fled from the east gate.

It's just that this time the luck is not very good, maybe the direction is wrong, or the opponent is running too fast, but Wang Xiazi and the others were delayed in chasing the enemy at the South City Gate before, and they failed to catch up with the rest of them. Hundreds of enemies.

Although blind Wang was disappointed, he did not pursue too much, but led the cavalry to withdraw at about ten o'clock in the morning.

And at about eleven o'clock that morning, Luo Zhixue finally learned from the messenger at the crossing of the river dozens of miles northwest of Xiangyang that the army had completely captured Xiangyang City.

Although the messengers set off in the morning, the fierce battle in the city was still going on.

However, Wang Xiazi, Huang Dingquan and others were very confident about this. They said in the letter that there were not many stubborn enemies in the city and there was no systematic resistance. They were absolutely sure that they would be able to completely end the fighting in the city within a day.

After hearing the news, Luo Zhixue was also greatly relieved.

What really made him breathe a sigh of relief was not just taking Xiangyang itself, but in the battle plan of this surprise attack, not only Xiangyang was taken, but the cavalry brigade and the first infantry brigade did not suffer too much loss.

According to the front battle report, because Li Dongshao's personal battalion heavy armored soldiers sneaked into Xiangyang City, and raided the city gate at dawn, opened the city gate and put down the drawbridge, so the army's losses during the siege were negligible.

There was no large-scale organized resistance in the follow-up campaign to clear the city, so the overall losses were very limited.

Such a result will not affect the follow-up battle plan of the rural protection army.

After putting down the battle report, Luo Zhixue looked at the crude map on the simple desktop, and finally set his sights on Fancheng.

Now that Xiangyang City has been taken by surprise attack, it is time to take down Fancheng, which is across the water.

Fancheng and Xiangyang City are only separated by the Han River. Strictly speaking, the straight-line distance between the two is only more than 1000 meters, which cannot be closer.

So many times, when talking about Xiangyang, the two are often directly referred to as one, but in fact they are two cities!
Xiangyang and Fancheng are bounded by the Han River, one south and one north, and they are built along the river.

With the cooperation of the two cities, it is enough to block the Han River in the middle and become the most important strategic city in the southwestern part of the Central Plains.

The strategic position of the Xiangyang area composed of Xiangyang and Fancheng is extremely important, not because this place is a natural pass, just like Tongguan and Yiyang three passes.

Rather, this place is the confluence of the Han River and the Bai River, and the Han River is a tributary of the Yangtze River. You can go all the way south along the Han River to enter the Yangtze River.

Building a city here can directly block the waterway that passes through the Han River and enters the Yangtze River.

In fact, this is also the biggest strategic role of the two cities: to block the Han River waterway.

The importance of Xiangyang can be seen from the southward routes of many northern armies in ancient times.

It is too far away to talk about it, and let’s talk about the battle between the Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty against the Song Dynasty. After the Mongols and Yuans relied on their cavalry to capture the Central Plains, there were only two ways to continue going south. One was to take the Xuhuai area, and the other was to take the Nanyang Basin, and then arrived at the Yangtze River after passing through Xiangyang. Then go east.

If you go to the Xuhuai area, the water network is densely covered here, and there are many cities. If the Northern Army goes south, it will have to gnaw at these cities all the way, and the requirements for infantry and logistics supplies are relatively high.

If you rely on the advantages of cavalry, you can directly bypass these cities and go south to drink horses on the Yangtze River, but there are logistical routes at any time, and the risk of retreating is cut off, and it is not suitable for cavalry to fight after going south all the way to the edge of the Yangtze River, even if you go around all the way. Passing through many cities, and finally reaching the Yangtze River is also at the end of the battle, and it is difficult to cross the river calmly.

However, if you walk along the Nanyang Basin, the flat road is very suitable for cavalry, and you can also rely on the Baihe and Hanshui to transport supplies, and you can even build ships in this place calmly, hoarding enough boats all the way down the river to the east, and directly push the south of the Yangtze River .

The only obstacle is Xiangyang!
At the beginning of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, they had the advantage of cavalry, so they took the front line of the Nanyang Basin and spent many years smashing Xiangyang. After they took Xiangyang, the Southern Song Dynasty would be over in a few years!

It can also be seen that Xiangyang's most important strategic role is to block the Han River waterway.

According to common sense, the enemies going from the north to the south will generally attack Fancheng first. After all, Fancheng is paper, and Xiangyang is iron.

Because Fancheng on the north bank of the Han River is located on a flat terrain, it is a city that is not dangerous to defend, and the city defense facilities are not good. It is much easier to attack than Xiangyang.

But, for the sake of suddenness, the rural protection army chose to bypass Fancheng, but sneaked across the river dozens of miles away from Xiangyang, and finally killed all the way to the city of Xiangyang, and took Xiangyang almost without injury by relying on the internal response city.

This also led to a very embarrassing situation.

Xiangyang, which is more difficult to attack and has a more important strategic position, has been taken by the rural protection army, but Fancheng is still in the hands of the Ming army.

(End of this chapter)