The Battle of Jiangshan, which took place on September 19, 226, the Republic ended with the miserable victory of the Song Dynasty coalition and the desperation of the Zhou army.

According to the comparison of the files of the two parties that were later declassified, the losses of the winning party were actually much greater than that of the defeated Zhou army.

In less than 18 hours of fierce battle, the number of casualties and missing persons of the Song Dynasty coalition forces of the Song Dynasty was as high as more than 15,000! The Zhou army lost less than 10,000 people. This was because they were rushing to retreat in a panic and were chased by the cavalry division of the Western Song Dynasty. Otherwise, the Zhou army would have suffered a maximum of 7,000 people, less than half of the Song Dynasty coalition forces.

The most elite army in the Western Song Dynasty was actually beaten and suffered heavy losses by a group of Zhou soldiers who had been on the battlefield for the first time!

This was really beyond everyone's expectations at that time.

Therefore, after the Jiangshan War, a very interesting situation occurred in the report submitted by the commanders of both sides. On the Song army, General Zhao Liang overestimated the results he had achieved, believing that he had completely defeated the Zhou army that had blocked him, and the number of people killed, wounded and captured exceeded 20,000.

On the Zhou army, the losses of the Song army were underestimated. The number of people they reported was about 10,000, which was equivalent to their own losses.

Therefore, the Battle of Jiangshan was judged as the victory of the Song Dynasty coalition forces at that time.

Zhao Liang, who won the tragic victory in Jiangshan, did not care about the exhausted losses of the troops. On September 21, he led the winning troops to turn to the East. This was later considered a major mistake because it gave Wuyuan Town troops time to recover their vitality.

However, at that time, General Zhao Liang did not dare to ignore the existence of the 19th Infantry Army of the Zhou army that advanced to Beiwu Town. This army drove from the Huaihe River defense line and was transported to Yancheng by wooden boats dragged by steam tugboats along the Rushui, and then advanced westward by land.

When Zhao Liangjiang concentrated his main force to attack the 18th Army of the Zhou army in Wuyuan Town, he sent a division to scare the 19th Army of the Zhou army. On the 19th and 20th, the division had frequent front-line contacts and the 19th Army of the Zhou army and suffered considerable losses.

In this series of front-line contact battles, the cavalry and gun doctors who were proud of the Western Song Dynasty actually suffered a lot of losses. No matter how hard the gun doctors practice target shooting, they could not make up for their equipment disadvantages.

The rifled guns, gunpowder and bullets used by the Republican army's stragglers are products of the machine industry!

The gun doctors use equipment produced in manual factories, which is simply incomparable.

Therefore, the rifled rifles in the hands of the scattered soldiers of the Republican Army were shot farther and more accurately than the rifled rifles of the rifled doctors.

There is also a gap between the cavalry on both sides! It is also Zhou and Song. The horses of Zhou cavalry and the rifled rifles and pistols used are better than Western Song cavalry, and even the breastplate is stronger and thinner.

In this case, General Zhao Liang was reluctant to use his precious cavalry and gun doctor to block the battlefield, and would rather use a dignified formation to defeat the 19th Army of the Zhou army.

However, after learning that the 18th Army of Zhou State was defeated, the 19th Army adopted a conservative tactic of avoiding war. On the one hand, it used the advantages of cavalry and scattered troops to cover itself; on the other hand, it retreated to Yancheng along the Rushui River.

General Zhao led his troops to hurry up all the way, but in the end he did not catch up with the Fifth Army of Zhou. Instead, he was led by the other party for several days. When the Fifth Army of Zhou retreated into the Great Leaf of Yancheng, General Zhao's men were exhausted.

Moreover, this number one general of the Song Dynasty had already studied the battle of Jiangdian Town while pursuing the 19th Army, so he was not sure about the attack on Yancheng and was easy to deal with. There were always firepower dead corners. However, there were many tall buildings in Yancheng's castle, which were all small fortresses...

So after the 19th Army of the Zhou army retreated into Yancheng, General Zhao Liang immediately led his troops back to Jiangdian Town. After resting in Jiangdian Town for two days, waiting for the arrival of the two Eastern Song infantry divisions from Xiangyang Prefecture, they began to advance towards Xiangcheng again.

And at this time, it was September 27, 226 of the Republic.

In other words, General Zhao Liang delayed the battle of Jiangshan for a full seven days before advancing north again.

In order to protect his retreat, Zhao Liangjiang left one division in Jiangshan, Jiangdian Town and Rufen Town (the Seventh Division and the Tenth Division of the Western Song Dynasty) and led a heavy army group of 11 divisions to the north.

Then General Zhao Liang encountered something that surprised him on the north bank of Rushui, south of Xiangcheng. The 18th Army of the Great Zhou Republic Army, which was defeated by him 7 days ago, had recovered its vitality and began to deploy defenses on the north bank of Rushui. Moreover, the number of people seemed to be a little more than before. Could it be that the reinforcements were huge?

A very bad premonition began to appear in Zhao Liangjiang's heart... Once the 180 million people in the Great Zhou Republic were mobilized, they almost had infinite potential for war.

There are only a few million military households, and the Western Song Dynasty, which has a large population of guns, is simply not worth mentioning in front of the Great Zhou Dynasty!

No matter how bad the premonition was, Zhao Liang's general could not give up easily now. So on September 22, he led his troops eastward to Linying County, southeast of Xiangcheng (Ru River is winding in this area, sometimes north-south and sometimes east-west), and then rushed straight to Yingchang Prefecture City.

Of course, the attack on Yingchang Prefecture was a false move, and the purpose was to attract Zhou troops near Xiangcheng to come and fight to the decisive battle.

His strategy of accompaniment and aid was indeed successful, and it was a double success!

What attracted the more than 100,000 Song troops surrounded Yingchang were not only the 18th Army of the Republic of China, which had recovered its vitality, but also the 19th Army of the Republic of China, which was strengthened in Yancheng.

Facing the two enemy troops from the west and south, General Zhao Liang could only repeat the same trick, using the strength of one division to restrain the 19th Army and guarding the Yingchang Prefecture City with the strength of one division. Then the remaining 9 divisions advanced westward to fight the 18th Army.

When Zhao Liangjiang's nine divisions and the 18th Army of the Zhou army encountered in Changshe County, Yingchang Prefecture, Zhao Liangjiang was surprised to find that there were more Zhou troops coming from Xiangcheng than they had encountered in Jiangshan before!

There are more than one army, at least one and a half army or even two armies.

Obviously, the 18th Army of Zhou's army in the direction of Xiangcheng not only recovered its vitality, but also greatly strengthened!

It turned out that the military mobilization of the Great Zhou Republic had achieved considerable results in nearly a month after the outbreak of the war.

The prefectures under Henan Province have completed the first phase of mobilization. Almost all reserve soldiers have reported to the defense envoy departments in various places. Most of the men of 18 to 28 years old have also received notices of enlistment. Most of them have also registered and started to receive training for new recruits.

In the 225-year population census of the Republic, Henan Province had 1.02 million households and more than 8.4 million people. The total number of men of appropriate age and reserve soldiers who met the first phase of mobilization requirements was as high as 450,000. Among them, 360,000 are now under the control of the Defense Envoys of various prefectures in Henan Province.

In other words, in Henan Province alone, the Zhou army had 360,000 reserve troops available.

In addition, in large bastions such as Xiangcheng Dale and Yancheng Dale, there are armories under the jurisdiction of Henan Defense Command.

Therefore, the rifles, artillery, ammunition, clothing and various equipment stored in the armory in Henan Province are enough to equip the army with a total of 600,000!

This is just the first mobilization of a province! If the entire Great Zhou Republic turns to a state of war, tens of millions of troops will be able to be pulled out.

This is the war potential of an industrialized country with a population of 180 million.

The Western Song Dynasty, who could only arm hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers, would soon find that he was an insignificant little character.

Even if they have elite soldiers and generals, it is not worth mentioning.

...

Since the first phase of the mobilization in Henan has been completed, the 18th Army, which retreated from the Jiangshan battlefield to the Great Leaf of Xiangcheng, was soon strengthened. Xiangcheng is not far from the large prefecture (prefecture) of Henan Province. Therefore, when Zhao Liangjiang led his troops to chase the 19th Army, the reserve soldiers of Luoyang and Zhengzhou mobilized troops had arrived in Xiangcheng.

A large number of reserve troops arrived in Xiangcheng were immediately supplemented into the 18th Army, which not only made up for the losses in the Battle of Jiangshan, but also supplemented a stellar division stationed in Xiangcheng. Therefore, the 18th Army now has four full divisions, with a total force of 64,000.

The 19th army from Yancheng north has more numbers, with a total force of more than 70,000.

The two armies added up to a total of 134,000 troops.

In addition, there are two troops that have just completed the reorganization and are heading towards Yingchang Prefecture from Kaifeng Prefecture and Xuzhou.

Although there was no formal Republican army in Yingchang Prefecture, the number of militias exceeded 20,000.

Before he knew it, Zhao Liangjiang, who had fought all the way from Xiangyang Prefecture, was trapped in the vast ocean of the civil army of an industrialized country!

On September 28 and 29, Zhao Liangjiang did not realize that he was in crisis. He also believed that he had a good opportunity to annihilate the 18th Army of the Zhou army.

However, he also tasted the strength of the Zhou army's position in the Battle of Jiangshan and did not want to attack the Zhou army, which was under strict defense.

So he divided his nine divisions into two, and pressed the 18th Army of the Zhou army from the front with the strength of 5 infantry divisions. Then he went south with 3 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division, pretending to face the 19th Army of the Song army heading north, and then marched northward and joined the decisive battle.

In later history books, Wuyuan Town, who was called a famous general, was actually a bit stupid, was indeed foolish. He led the strengthened 18th Army to launch another battle with five infantry divisions commanded by General Zhao Liang in Zhanjian Town, Changshe County.

Unlike the last Jiangshan Battle, in this Changshe Battle, the Zhou army did not defend the dangerous situation, but instead came to a dignified formation with the Song army on the plain.

Wuyuan Town hopes to defeat the arrogant general Zhao Liang, the ever-winning general of the Western Song Dynasty, with the help of fierce shelling.

So at the beginning of the battle, more than 100 cannons of the Zhou army concentrated and violently opened fire. They blasted the center of the Song army's front for an hour and knocked down tens of thousands of shells. The positions of the Third Division of the Western Song Army and the positions of the five artillery battalions of the two Song coalition forces were all turned into a sea of ​​fire.

In terms of artillery firepower, the Western Song army could not be compared with the Great Zhou Republic at all.

After the one-hour artillery battle, Wuyuan Town decisively invested two infantry divisions and launched a series of attacks. General Zhao Liang also invested the forces of the infantry divisions of the two divisions to fight.

More than 30 battalions of infantry on both sides all formed formations of shooting in line and shot each other on the wide battlefield. During this period, a large number of scattered soldiers used rifled rifles to conduct precise snipers.

Of course, so many infantry did not rush up and fire. Instead, they cooperated with the artillery to attack one by one. To put it simply, the cannons were shot on the infantry and the infantry rushed on the cannons.

There is no tricky battle at all, and it will take a daytime battle.

The Zhou army's advantage lies in the artillery, which was accurate and fierce. The main reason was that the artillery had been thrown away many cannons when they retreated from the Jiangshan battlefield last time (all of which were nailed to death). As a result, they were all filled after returning to Xiangcheng.

Cannons were a valuable asset to the Western Song army. However, for the industrialized Great Zhou Republic, it was just a consumable.

On the Western Song Dynasty, there were obvious advantages in the infantry that relied on line to kill and attacked white soldiers.

There was no compulsory military service system in the Western Song Dynasty, and they were all military households. When the gun doctors served in the army, they naturally took the elite military route.

Therefore, their infantry could withstand relatively large casualties, and rushed to a close distance of twenty or thirty steps from the Zhou army's front line before firing a volley.

The rifle volley fired at this distance is extremely powerful and can cause a fatal blow to the opponent! In many cases, two rounds of close-range volleys can destroy the enemy's morale.

However, the power of the Zhou army's artillery also offset the elite Western Song Dynasty's unique skills of close-range gun volleyball.

The battle was in a stalemate, and the losses of both sides were equally good. It was fought until dusk that the three infantry divisions and one cavalry of the two Song dynasties arrived on the battlefield and joined the decisive battle, which forced Wuyuan Town, which was so excited that it ordered the troops to withdraw from the battlefield again under the cover of night.

The coalition forces of the Song Dynasty immediately launched a pursuit battle, forcing the 18th Army in Wuyuan Town to discard a large amount of equipment and supplies, and also threw away eight infantry battalions behind the hall before fleeing back to the Xiangcheng Grand Bastion.

However, a month later, the 18th Army of Wuyuan Town once again recovered its vitality. Not only did it recover its vitality, it also became the 12th Corps, with two infantry troops of 50,000 (18th Army, 30th Army), and returned to the battlefield again.

During this month, Zhao Liang, who wanted to kill Kaifeng Prefecture, was entangled by the 19th Army commanded by Wu Xiu, a famous general of the Zhou army.

The 19th Army took advantage of the opportunity of Zhao Liang's pursuit of Wuyuan Town to defeat the Western Song infantry Division, which was responsible for restraining itself, and then entered Yingchang Prefecture to join forces with the Yingchang militia, and turned the latter into the 8th division to which it belonged.

After Zhao Liangjiang returned, Wu Xiu, who had 8 divisions, once again avoided the battle. In the next month, Wu Xiu's 19th Army adopted a candy-like tail-run tactic. While avoiding a decisive battle, he tightly clenched the invading Song coalition forces.

They did not dare to go north to Kaifeng Prefecture, so they had to wander around Yingchang, Ruzhou, Chenzhou and Caizhou.
Chapter completed!