The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

After letting Fan Ao go back and rest, Chen Wan stared at the military map on the table, his graying brows furrowed.

"If the bandits take over Yangfu, this battle will become even more difficult."

He sighed inwardly.

There is no other city serving as a barrier between Yangfu and Ruyang.

There was only one Mengjiazhuang as a place to transport food and supplies, but it was just a large military camp. Yangfu couldn't stop the Lai army, so Mengjiazhuang was naturally even less likely to stop the Lai army.

Mengjiazhuang is forty or fifty miles away from Ruyang City. It is difficult for Ruyang City to provide timely support. Chen Wan thinks it would be better to let the soldiers and officials there withdraw with the supplies.

Several staff members in the tent also realized that the battle had become more difficult, and they were discussing and making plans.

"I originally thought that the pirates of the Hai army were no more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, and that the imperial court would be able to defeat them in one battle by gathering an army of 100,000 or 200,000. But I never expected that not only did the number of soldiers and horses of the Hai bandits swell to more than 100,000, but the sharpness of their artillery was also far beyond the imperial court's expectations. What can we do?"

"In fact, the imperial court should have expected the pirates' artillery to be powerful. Previously, the pirates' dozens of warships were able to defeat the three navies of Jingjiang, Zhenjiang, and Nanjing, and bombard Nanjing for more than ten days. Wasn't it because of the advantage of artillery that they relied on?"

"The pirate navy has such powerful artillery, so they can naturally rely on the advantages of artillery in land battles!"

"According to what Fan Ao said, the bandits not only have powerful cannons, but also extremely fierce tiger squat cannons. They also have a small trumpet that can be thrown by soldiers on the battlefield to explode and injure the enemy. It's really powerful!"

"Perhaps we should ask the craftsmen of Great Chu to study how to make the Ten Thousand Enemies smaller so that they can be thrown out."

"The power of our Great Chu's Ten Thousand Enemies is already unsatisfactory. If it is made smaller, it will probably become a large cannon stick."

"Then try to increase its power!"

"If we want to improve the power of our Great Chu's firearms, we must first get rid of the termites in the relevant departments, especially the military equipment bureau, before we can succeed..."

The discussion stopped here.

Because further discussion would involve corruption in various departments of the Great Chu Dynasty. And the backer behind some of these people was none other than their Dongweng, Grand Marshal Chen Wan.

They also knew that the corruption problems in these departments were by no means caused by Chen Wan himself, nor were they easily solved by Chen Wan - Chen Wan was forced to get involved and was eventually pushed to the position of boss.

Just like Chen Wan, who is now the Grand Marshal of the Great Chu, the Prince's Grand Tutor, and a pillar of the imperial court, even though he sees that the Great Chu is about to perish, he cannot get off this broken ship.

Chen Wan had already boarded the ship of corruption in the relevant departments of the Ministry of War and could not get off.

After a moment of silence, an aide said, "General, our army has suffered repeated defeats and lost many soldiers and generals. On the other hand, the bandits have not only captured several cities in succession, but also received many surrendered soldiers."

"Especially in the Battle of Yangfu, the number of border troops who surrendered to the bandits with Feng Yi and those who were captured by the bandits probably totaled nearly 10,000!"

"If these border troops are used by the bandits, they will immediately have nearly 10,000 more elite soldiers, and our previous military advantage will be gone!"

"For now, if we want to hold on to Ruyang, we must ask the court to send reinforcements."

Chen Wan showed a bitter expression after hearing this, and said: "I know that our army no longer has the advantage in manpower. But how many troops does the court have now? Whether it is the southwest border army or the northern border army, it will take time to transfer them to Ruyang."

The aide said: "Your Majesty, please send the imperial guards from Xiangjing to support us." Imperial guards?

If the imperial guards were really capable of fighting, why didn't he bring them here before?
Even if there are still some capable fighters among the imperial guards, they are now firmly held in the hands of Emperor Jiahua, who treats them as his life-saving capital. How could he be willing to transfer them to Runing Prefecture to fight against the bandits?
The staff member seemed to see Chen Wan's dilemma, so he said, "Whether it succeeds or not, why not give it a try?"

Chen Wan thought: Yes, even though I know that His Majesty will not dispatch the imperial guards to help, as long as I ask His Majesty for help, if Runing Mansion really falls into the hands of thieves in the future, I will have something to say.

So he said, "Well, I will write a letter asking for help and send a fast horse back to Xiangjing to ask Your Majesty to dispatch the imperial army to support us."

Afterwards, Chen Wan discussed with several aides how to write this memorial.

In the eyes of Chen Wan and several of his staff, writing memorials was much easier than fighting against the Hui army, and they were very good at it...

Ruyang is not too far from Xiangyang, and with the help of express horses, Chen Wan's memorial was delivered to Emperor Jiahua in less than two days.

Xiangjing Imperial City, Chengtian Palace.

After reading Chen Wan's memorial, Emperor Jiahua slammed it on the table and said angrily, "This Chen Wan actually has the nerve to ask me to dispatch the imperial guards as reinforcements! Not only did we lose Xincai, Shenqiu, and Gucheng, but we also lost Zhugao and Gushi, and now even Yangfu has been lost!"

"What role does he, the Grand Marshal, play on the front line? If I had known this, I might as well have appointed Gao Sheng as the Left Inspector General!"

At this time, there was no one else in Chengtian Hall except guards and eunuchs, so when Emperor Jiahua became angry, he spoke without any scruples.

After scolding, Emperor Jiahua began to worry.

Ru'ning Prefecture is the birthplace of the Great Chu. If it is lost, how can he explain to his ancestors?
Not to mention, the Tianmu Mountain also hides the great secret of the Xiong Chu royal family - although in his opinion, the secret has now become useless, but it can still give people some thoughts. If it is lost like this, it is really a pity.

In addition, if the rebels captured Runing Prefecture, they would most likely attack Nanyang Prefecture next, or even go straight down to Hubei through the three passes of Yiyang.

Then Xiangjing would be in real danger.

In short, no matter from which aspect, Emperor Jiahua hoped that Chen Wan could defend Runing Prefecture and even defeat the Hui army.

Within his ability, he would also try his best to provide Chen Wan with the troops, horses, and food he needed.

According to his understanding, of the 100,000 imperial guards registered in Xiangjing, there are actually less than 70,000. Among them, there are less than 30,000 imperial guards capable of fighting, and those who can be called elite are estimated to be less than 10,000, about 8,000 people.

There was absolutely no way he would transfer the eight thousand elite imperial guards to Runing - if the bandits attacked in the future, he would still need these eight thousand elite imperial guards to escort them to the southeast or Shuzhong for refuge.

After thinking for a while, Emperor Jiahua's eyes suddenly gleamed, and he thought to himself: The problem of the Imperial Guards has been around for a long time. In addition to those who draw the salary without doing anything, there are also many sons of nobles who occupy the positions in the Imperial Guards, but on weekdays they are too lazy to even go to training, and they just want to eat the salary of the Imperial Guards.

It would be better to take this opportunity to transfer those useless members of the imperial guards to the Ru'Ning battlefield and let the bandits teach them a lesson.

If they can come back alive, they will surely have some fighting power. If they die on the battlefield, the vacant quota can be used to recruit soldiers who can fight!
Thinking of this, Emperor Jiahua felt that this matter could only be accomplished with the cooperation of the cabinet, and he believed that Wu Mian and Goldman Sachs would also be willing to trick those children of nobles.

So he said, "Go to the cabinet and pass on my order. Let Wu Mian and Gao Sheng come to discuss the matter."

"As you command!" (End of this chapter)