Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

The Chinese military tent.

Chen Gu sat in the main seat and looked around at everyone present. He smiled and said, "Everyone, what do you think of how to fight the three towns of Wuhan?"

Wuhan is composed of three cities in total, namely Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang, which support each other.

"That's easy!" Lao Piao said with a big grin, "Just bombard the city with rockets first, and then attack the city directly. That's what I did when I attacked Shashi Town. I found that rockets are very useful. As long as there are enough of them, it's easy to make the enemy flee in panic."

Everyone else couldn't help but smile, but they didn't agree with Lao Piao's idea in their hearts.

Rockets are indeed useful, but their consumption of explosives is extremely horrible. A shell of a cluster gun uses less than half a pound of explosives, and a bomb and detonator only have two taels of explosives. However, a rocket plus propellant weighs at least three pounds.

When Lao Piao attacked Shashi Town, more than a thousand rockets were used at once before the two armies engaged in battle. Together with the subsequent use, several thousand kilograms of gunpowder were used. The effect must have been great, but the money was also well spent.

Moreover, Shaxi Town is full of enemy troops, and their numbers are large, so they can naturally use rockets to wipe out the area. Anyway, it doesn't matter where the rockets fly, they will explode.

But the three towns of Wuhan are three cities. In addition to the enemy troops, there are also a large number of civilians. Given Chen Gu's character, he would definitely not agree to use rockets. After all, current rockets can only explode and fly out, and where they land depends entirely on luck.

Moreover, the Huaxia tribe is already a regular army, not bandits. Their attack on Wuhan is to occupy it, not to loot a few things and leave.

If you use rockets indiscriminately, will you care about the damaged buildings and civilian casualties?
Chen Gu ignored Lao Piao and looked at Zheng Ming and asked, "What is the operational plan of the General Staff?"

Zheng Ming handed Chen Gu a booklet and said, "Among the three towns in Wuhan, the imperial court is mainly defending Hankou. Our staff has proposed two plans. One is to attack Hankou by force. We will mainly build strong walls and clear the fields outside, surround the point and attack the reinforcements, and then dig tunnels and blast the city walls. As long as we take Hankou, the other two towns will not be a concern.

However, the General Staff did not recommend a forced attack on Hanyang. At that time, there were not only 80,000 troops in Hanyang, but also Qing Gui and three generals from the General's Office. These people were all experienced warriors. Even if the city wall was breached, the subsequent street fighting would inevitably be very difficult.

Compared to Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang only have 10,000 soldiers each, so it will be much easier to fight.”

"Isn't it the same whether it's easy first and difficult later, or difficult first and easy later?" Lao Piao asked with a frown.

Zheng Ming smiled and said, "It's not a question of difficulty or order. The General Staff's intention is to attack Wuchang first. Once Wuchang is taken, our Chinese army will have a fulcrum and at the same time, we will open up the Yangtze River.

In this way, it doesn’t matter whether we fight in Hanyang and Hankou or not, as it will not affect our army’s attack on the downstream provinces.

The General Staff believed that instead of wasting manpower and time in a head-on battle with the imperial army in Hanyang, it would be better to capture more cities. In fact, even if we did not attack from the Yangtze River, we could first attack Hunan and Jiangxi, and then Zhejiang.

With the current administrative capacity of our Huaxia Department, taking over Hunan, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang is already the limit. We can’t even do it too fast, otherwise the officials of the Huaxia Department won’t be able to keep up.”

After all, the Huaxia tribe still lacked foundation. Even though Chen Gui took a one-year break to develop internal affairs and held an imperial examination, the results were not very good.

The equal distribution of land and property tax completely offended the gentry and the rich, and without their support, the proportion of poor scholars was too low. After all, poor scholars were not really that poor, and most of them had land at home. The so-called poor scholars were only poor relative to the big landlords and gentry.

After all, it costs a lot to train a full-time scholar, and a truly poor scholar cannot afford to read books.

Chen Gu smiled bitterly and said, "Okay, let's attack Wuchang first."

Lao Piao frowned and thought for a while, then said, "Then you stay and attack Wuchang, and I will go directly to Poyang Lake downstream."

"Are you going to attack Jiangxi?" Chen Gu asked with a frown.

"Jiangxi is short of military forces now, and it is a good time to capture Jiangxi. Otherwise, once you capture Wuchang first, the imperial court will probably react and deploy defenses along the river. It will be difficult for you to go downstream!" said Lao Piao.

"Does the imperial court have enough troops to deploy defenses along the river?" Chen Gu said with a smile.

Even though the imperial court has an army of 100,000, if they really dare to disperse their forces and deploy defenses along the river, it will only speed up the process of being devoured by Chen Gu.

Gathering together can also make Chen Gu feel a little intimidated.

Zheng Ming smiled and said, "It really doesn't take that many troops to attack Wuchang. If Yuanfeng really wants to stir up trouble in Poyang Lake, that's fine, but I can only give you 10,000 main battle troops. No, I can only give you 10,000 joint defense teams to defend the captured areas. And your attack speed can't be too fast, otherwise the armaments won't be able to keep up!"

"How could it be possible that the armaments cannot keep up? You are just fighting against a small city like Wuchang, how much armaments can you use up?" Lao Piao immediately became a little anxious. It didn't matter if the troops were few, but the armaments, especially ammunition, must be supplied in sufficient quantities. As for food and fodder, they could be raised by themselves.

"Since you are going to attack Jiangxi, Yunhua naturally needs to go to Dongting Lake to attack Hunan. The leader needs sufficient ammunition reserves to deal with various emergencies, so your armaments will naturally not be able to keep up!" Zheng Ming explained cheerfully.

Lao Piao rolled his eyes and thought for a while, then asked, "If I go to attack Hunan, can the military equipment keep up?"

"It's not a question of where to attack!" Lao Nian smiled bitterly and explained, "It's that you don't know how to save money. If you are allowed to squander, all three parties will be in a tight spot. If you are restricted, everyone will have enough. So, it's just that your armaments can't keep up. You can't keep up wherever you go. Even if you stay in Wuhan, you can't be allowed to use it recklessly."

Lao Piao was completely speechless and said dissatisfiedly: "Zhang Haomin is not good enough. There is so much money in the bank. Doesn't he know to expand the production of armaments?"

Even Chen Gu didn't know what to say about these. Armaments production was the issue that he cared about most. After all, he came from the army of later generations and had the same fear of lack of energy as his ancestors. Therefore, every time the army went out, there was actually enough armaments.

As long as you don't abuse it, armaments can definitely achieve strategic goals and you will still be rich.

For someone like Yunhua, if it wasn't necessary, he wouldn't even order his soldiers to fire in unison, and he would use every bullet economically. But Lao Piao would even use rockets indiscriminately, how could that be possible?
(End of this chapter)