Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 92: War Damage and Expansion! (Subscribe)

Ding~ding~ding~ding~ding~
At the foot of Chao County, Zhu Liangzu and Chang Yuchun each held a spear and dueled. The two fought fiercely and it was difficult to tell who was the better winner for a while.

Lu Jin was on the city wall, lying on the parapet, watching the battle while writing and drawing with a notebook and pen, recording the personnel lists of the generals of the various divisions of the Shengwu Army to see what adjustments needed to be made.

The fountain pen was in his schoolbag, but the ink had long been used up, so he was now using his homemade iron gall ink.

Use the Chinese medicinal herb Schisandra chinensis to smash it and boil water, then filter it to get the medicinal soup. Then soak the iron nails in vinegar to rust them and get iron salt (ferric acetate). Then mix the ferric acetate with the Schisandra chinensis medicinal soup to get iron gall ink. The color depth can be adjusted by yourself.

You can also boil it for sterilization, then seal it in a jar for aging. The longer the aging time, the darker the ink will be.

Seeing Lu Jin writing something quickly, Zhu Shou, Zhang Wen, and Ye Sheng who was escorting Chen Hong also came over. The three of them stood there without saying anything. Lu Jin glanced at them before speaking.

"Just tell me if you have anything to say."

"My lord, this is Chen Hong, the commander of Kang Maocai's rear army, who was captured. He said he is willing to surrender."

After hearing this, Lu Jin put down his pen and looked at him. Chen Hong immediately knelt on the ground with a plop.

"I was blind and rashly confronted the Marshal before, and I really deserve to die. Now I have come to my senses and am willing to surrender. As long as the Marshal spares my life, I will follow the Marshal until death and fight against the tyrannical Yuan for him, even at the cost of my life."

When Lu Jin heard this, he immediately frowned. What kind of person is this? You are the fastest when it comes to running away and the most efficient when surrendering. Lu Jin hates people like this who have no bottom line the most.

If Lu Jin loses again, I'm afraid he will be the first to defect and run away. He has no loyalty at all.
He immediately sneered and said sarcastically, "Are you the fastest runner, Chen Hong?"

Chen Hong was not a fool. He immediately understood what Lu Jin meant and said hesitantly, "It's not that I'm afraid of death. It's because the commander-in-chief's military power is so strong that I can't bear to resist. Besides, I'm a Han Chinese. Why should I die for the Tartar?

"Kang Maocai could not distinguish between good and evil, and was willing to be a lackey of the Tartars, going against the will of Heaven. That was why he was defeated miserably by the Marshal and died in defeat.

"You, the Marshal, have raised an army of righteousness to put an end to the chaos and punish the tyrannical Yuan. This is in accordance with the will of heaven. You have won battle after battle without a single defeat. This is destiny. How dare I go against destiny? That is why I want to remain useful and follow you, the Marshal."

Lu Jin automatically filtered out those flatteries. He really was short of people now. Besides, who wouldn't have a few fence-sitters under his command? He had to use them when necessary, he said immediately.

"Get up, I hate cowards who run away from the battlefield. This time, I will spare you because you still know that you are a man. I will forgive you for following Kang Maocai in the past, but if you dare to live in disgrace again under my command, I will kill you without mercy!"

"Yes, thank you for your help, Marshal. I will be loyal to you from now on and sacrifice my life to repay you for saving my life." Chen Hong kowtowed again to express his gratitude.

"Get up! Go and select 850 young and strong men from the captives. Organize a temporary battalion and wait for dispatch."

"Yes."

As soon as Chen Hong retreated, Lu Jin immediately wrote him down in the notebook, and noted that he could only defend the city in the rear and could not be transferred to the front line to fight the enemy.

In this way, if we guard the city from the rear, he won't have the chance to betray us, and we can also replace other people from the rear for the attack.

It is necessary to use it, but we must also be on guard.

After writing in the notebook, Lu Jin looked at Ye Sheng again and asked him gently, "Ye Sheng, you and Zheng Yong have both made great contributions this time. I have ordered your cavalry battalion to be expanded into a cavalry regiment. You will be the regiment commander and Zheng Yong will be the deputy commander. Do you know?"

Ye Sheng immediately clasped his fists and said, "Thank you for your support, Marshal. Zheng Yong has just informed me of this matter."

Lu Jin nodded, "That's good. In addition to the horses seized this time, you two should go to Heyang to recruit soldiers and horses, buy some war horses from the people, and expand the cavalry regiment as soon as possible.

"There are also Zhang Huzi and Xi Guobao. They have also made many contributions. I have promoted them to battalion commanders. However, Xi Guobao is going to be transferred. Your cavalry regiment is temporarily short of a battalion. Please keep this in mind. If I find a suitable candidate, I will fill the position for you."

"Yes."

After Ye Sheng also took the order and left, Zhu Shou came over, handed over an account and said, "Brother Lu, this is the damage and prisoners captured this time, as well as those from other directions, put them all together."

"Okay, let me take a look first."

Lu Jin took it and opened it to have a look. In this decisive battle with Kang Maocai, plus two battles outside the field, a total of more than 2670 people were killed. Among them, 1784 people were killed in the main battlefield of Chao County, and hundreds of people were killed in the naval battle in Wuwei.

Five enemy generals, Kang Maocai, Lu Changyi, Ding Zhongrui, Wang Ruheng and Wu Xiangrong, were killed in battle.

Li Jun, Chen Hong and Bai Guangtai were captured, surrendered and incorporated into the army.

More than 3000 Wuwei navy soldiers were captured. Some of them were harmed by the poison gas and some may have to retire.

2000 defenders of Heyang City, 1000 navy soldiers of Hezhou Port, and more than 2200 shipbuilding craftsmen were captured. This was the battle report sent by Yang Jing and compiled by Zhu Shou.

On the main battlefield of Chao County, 5000 civilians were captured. These civilians were initially in the central army formation, but after the collapse, they fled to the left wing. Therefore, there were no casualties and they all surrendered directly.

Another 8671 soldiers were captured. They were the main force brought by Kang Maocai. Now, Li Jun and Chen Hong have each taken away 850 people, leaving 6971 people.

We also need to pick out a part of them for Chang Yuchun, and if we expand another regiment, we can absorb all these prisoners.

Of course, this does not include Heyang and Wuwei. The 6000 captured government navy soldiers will also be expanded into the navy.

In terms of seized materials, all 3260 sets of armor from Chao County were seized, including sets of iron armor and the remaining more than sets of leather armor. In addition, hundreds of sets of leather armor were seized from the Wuwei Navy, but only dozens of sets of iron armor.

There were a lot of captured weapons. After all, there were 10,000 soldiers and thousands of spears. Lu Jin could now produce them by himself. He only needed to remove the spear heads and replace them with standard uniform poles.

However, some weapons can also be directly issued to the auxiliary battalion, since they basically will not use them in hand-to-hand combat anyway.

The slightly good stuff included 850 bows, 240 crossbows, and arrows.

Don't think that there are too many arrows. According to the normal configuration for going out, each archer carries 30 arrows per battle. There are a total of 1090 crossbows here. If 60 arrows are evenly distributed, each bow can only carry less than 300 arrows. This is still a short-distance battle. If it is a long-distance expedition, such as the expedition to Mobei, each bow must be equipped with 60 arrows. The archer carries about arrows himself, and the rest are handed over to the logistics for unified transportation.

In addition, there were living creatures, including 536 war horses, including those of Kang Maocai's cavalry, some generals and messengers, and more than 900 horses, donkeys, mules, etc. used by civilians to pull carts. Some of these were forcibly requisitioned by Kang Maocai from the people and had to be returned to the people.

As for the navy, the captured ships included 560 small boats less than 76 feet long (Hezhou) + 280 (Wuwei), and 43 large ships more than feet long (Hezhou) + (Wuwei).

Lu Jin had first served in the Chaohu Navy for a period of time and had some understanding of the ships of that era.

According to a rough classification, ships can be divided into three categories according to their size. Those below three zhang (ten meters) are basically ultra-small fishing boats, or the kind of black-sailed boats that carry passengers. These are consumables, especially when used in a fire attack, and can be burned directly. They can also be carried by people on the shore.

The larger ones are between three and six zhang in length, more than ten meters and less than twenty meters. They are the main force for ferrying, fishing, and hauling goods. They are also the main force of warships, and are even the "home" of many boat fishermen. They are suitable for fighting in rivers and lakes.

As for those that are over sixty meters long and more than twenty meters long, they are the most suitable for long-distance transportation. They are also the most stable ship type in the Yangtze River and are considered large ships.

In addition, Yang Jing also reported that there were 7 large ships ten feet long, more than 30 meters in length, with towers at Hezhou Port!

However, it is also a flat-bottomed river boat, not a seagoing ship.

In total, nearly a thousand ships were seized, which almost doubled the strength of the Chaohu Navy. Moreover, many of the seized ships were large. Although the Chaohu Navy also had thousands of ships in the past, most of them were small boats.

The navy can be expanded by double the size to form two regiments.

In terms of our own casualties, there were 372 casualties in total, including 78 killed in action. Among them, half of the auxiliary soldiers in a regiment pushing the carts were killed, 32 of whom were sacrificed. 21 were shot to death by bows and arrows, and a dozen were killed by muskets.

More than a dozen cavalrymen were killed, and the rest were killed in hand-to-hand combat while pursuing the enemy.

There were more than 200 wounded soldiers, mostly gathered in a group. Nearly a hundred of them were injured by the arrows, but most of them were slightly injured.

Liao Yongan's Third Regiment also suffered nearly a hundred casualties, but the armor coverage rate of the Third Regiment was even lower. More than forty people were seriously injured, with damaged internal organs, broken bones, or missing limbs. It was unknown how many of them could survive.

In general, the loss came at the cost of more than one hundred people being seriously injured and sacrificed, and nearly 1800 were killed in battle, which is a casualty ratio of about 1 to 13, which is still acceptable.

After reading the battle damage and captured reports, Lu Jin immediately gave instructions to Zhu Shou.

"Give the 5,000 civilians in Heyang a meal of dry food and let them all go home. As for the hundreds of donkeys, horses and mules seized, keep the horses that pulled the carts and return the donkeys and mules to the people."

"Yes."

Anyway, those who can afford to raise horses are not ordinary people, so Lu Jin has no psychological burden to rob them. Besides, these were all seized from Kang Maocai by him. If someone really comes to ask for them, he can send him to Kang Maocai to ask for them!
"Also send a message to Yang Jing, asking him to send the more than 2,000 shipbuilding craftsmen in Hezhou, along with their families, to Luzhou. There are plenty of empty houses in Luzhou, and we will arrange accommodation and jobs for them when they arrive.

"Forget about the 6,000 captured naval officers. We'll redistribute them after we defeat Wuwei.

"The seriously injured soldiers of each unit will stay in Chao County for treatment, and the lightly injured soldiers will go back with the team to recover."

Lu Jin planned to expand the navy into two regiments. Liao Yongjian was in the first regiment of the navy. Hua Gao had made great contributions this time, so he was made the commander of the second regiment of the navy.

But Lu Jin was not at ease with this man and wanted to weaken his power.

It just so happened that Li Wang, the young spearman under Hua Gao, had also made great contributions this time, so he was promoted to the rank of battalion commander and transferred to the 1st regiment under Zhu Shou as a battalion commander. Yu Tongyuan from the 1st regiment was transferred to Hua Gao's side, using Lu Jin's confidant to sabotage him.

In this way, Hua Gao and his men were promoted, and they had nothing to say.

When Zhu Shou left with the new task, Zhang Wen came over again. Lu Jin asked in surprise, "Why haven't you gone back yet? Didn't I tell you to return to Liang County for training after the team was organized?"

Zhang Wen immediately said, "That's what I'm talking about. Brother Lu, you sent Zhang Liang to do something a while ago, and he hasn't come back yet. I'm still short of a battalion commander."

"Oh, that's true." Lu Jin immediately remembered that he sent Zhang Liang to escort Li Shanchang back to Dingyuan, and he didn't know whether he came back.

Lu Jin then said, "It's nothing. I sent him to take Mr. Li back to Dingyuan. He should be back soon after a while. You lead the troops back to Liang County first, and then wait for him."

"Okay, then I'll go back and wait." Zhang Wen agreed immediately.

However, before they could wait any longer, Lu Pojun came running over with a man holding a letter, "Dad, there's a letter from Uncle Yu in Luzhou."

Lu Jin took the letter and read it, and immediately smiled and said, "It's just what you said. Mr. Li has returned from Dingyuan and brought two generals with him. I have to go back to meet them. Zhang Liang has also returned to Luzhou.

"You go back first. After I tell him about his affairs, I will ask Zhang Liang to go to Liang County to find you."

"Yes." Zhang Wen immediately clasped his fists and accepted the order.

Lu Jin took the letter and looked at the two familiar names on it, Feng Guoyong and Feng Sheng. They had already convinced Guo Zixing that as long as the commander-in-chief promised him an official position, he would recruit him immediately.

So Lu Jin opened the notebook again and wrote down a few names.

Feng Guoyong is a man who is both civil and military. Lu Jin does not intend to make him a military general. He is suitable to be a military adviser. He has too few civil servants under him, so it would be a waste of his talent to make him a military general.

Needless to say, Feng Sheng was also a rare general, but he was a little jealous. In history, because he was jealous of Xu Da, he fell into Zhang Shicheng's trap of sowing discord and false surrender, and sacrificed thousands of soldiers in vain. He was called back to Nanjing by Zhu Yuanzhang, beaten with 50 military sticks, and then asked to go back to make up for his crime.

Guo Zixing's family also has quite a few people, including Guo Zixing, Guo Tianyou, Guo Tianxu, Guo Tianjue, and his brother-in-law Zhang Tianyou.

With these people, Lu Jin can expand two more regiments. With the addition of Chang Yuchun, he wants to double the strength this time!
One chapter in the evening

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(End of this chapter)