In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, Zuo Liangyu, who already had tens of thousands of troops, participated in the Battle of Zhuxian Town. Seeing an unlucky opportunity, he ran away, but was intercepted by Li Zicheng with his elite troops. In the first battle, the elite troops were almost wiped out.

Later, under the attack of Li Zicheng, Zuo Liangyu retreated first to Xiangyang and then to Wuchang.

He once asked the King of Chu for soldiers, money and food, but failed to get supplies, so he sent troops to plunder Caoliangyanbo and other treasurers of Wuchang Prefecture, and robbed the young people of the people to serve as soldiers.

Later, he continued to retreat to Jiujiang and already had 200,000 troops.

After defeating Zhang Xianzhong who marched eastward to Jiangxi, he took the opportunity to conquer Wuchang and other Huguangzhou prefectures, and his power was greatly enhanced. The remaining armies and military leaders of all parties in the Ming Dynasty rushed to join him, and his military strength increased sharply again, so he claimed to have 800,000 troops!

Therefore, most of Zuo Liangyu's troops were accumulated in the past two or three years, especially after defeating Zhang Xianzhong.

According to the information that Lady Hong received from Zuo Liangyu, Zuo Liangyu always regarded himself as a Ming army, so the army still adopted the camp system.

Prior to this, he successively commanded various large and small camp heads as Pingtei General, Ningnan Bo, and Ningnan Marquis.

The leader of the large camp under his command will be the general or deputy general (deputy general), and the leader of the small camp will be the general or guerrilla.

At present, there are mainly personal barracks, five directly under the battalion, eight affiliated battalions and several small battalions.

The personal barracks was commanded by deputy general Hao Xiaozhong, who previously had more than 10,000 elite soldiers.

However, in the eyes of Red Lady, Yang Zhan and others, the elite soldiers under Zuo Liangyu's command are only at the level of the elite soldiers of the official army ten years after Chongzhen.

There's no comparison at all.

Because at that time, the generals' servants were all elite veterans who had been raised for several years, or even more than ten years. Among other things, their personal combat qualities could even be compared with those of the elite Donglu soldiers.

Zuo Liangyu's so-called elites today are probably similar to the officers and soldiers of Chongzhen ten years ago.

As for the general soldiers of the five battalions directly under him, they are Lu Guangzu, Li Guoying, Chang Deng, Zhang Yingxiang, and Xu Ensheng.

These five people were all veteran generals who had followed Zuo Liangyu in Liaodong and were quite trusted by Zuo Liangyu. Now each of them commands between 30,000 and 50,000 people.

But as mentioned before, the number of elite soldiers in each camp cannot exceed three thousand at most, and the rest are only at the level of soldiers who dare to fight.

The total number of soldiers and horses of the five battalions directly under Zuo Liangyu is nearly 200,000.

The chief generals of the eight attached battalions are from the army, such as Xu Yong, Wu Xueli, Zhang Yingyuan, and Xu Yuxian.

There are also those who surrendered from the bandits, such as Jin Shenghuan, Hui Dengxiang, Ma Jinzhong, and Wang Yuncheng.

As for the other commanders of the small camp, they are all unknown at this time, so I won’t say anything about them.

The eight affiliated battalions each command between 30,000 and 50,000 soldiers and horses. Including the soldiers and horses at the head of the small battalions, the total number is about 300,000.

However, there are even fewer elite soldiers among these people. Few of them can have a thousand elite soldiers under the general command of the attached battalion head. Most of them only have a few hundred elite soldiers and are supported by servants.

It is estimated that the remaining soldiers are not even at the level of soldiers who dare to fight. A considerable part of them are young men who have been recruited in the past year. They have not undergone much training and have not been baptized by the war.

Looking at it this way, including those who can barely be called "soldiers" in the Zuo army, the actual number of soldiers and horses is more than 500,000.

The rest are relatives of the soldiers, or common people who have been coerced to act as husbands.

···

After Zhu Yuluo, Hong Niangzi and others had a more detailed understanding of Zuo Liangyu's soldiers and horses, the reorganization progress was faster.

Two days later, Zuo Liangyu's health improved a bit and he was able to get up. Under Zhu Yurao's instruction, he wrote a letter to his subordinate generals stationed elsewhere, and was sent out together with Zhu Yurao's handwriting.

Lu Guangzu, who lived on the north bank of the Yangtze River, received the substantial threat from the Yangtze River Navy and the Supervisory Army after learning about Zuo Liangyu's surrender to Zhu Yuluo. He voluntarily surrendered on the third day after Jiangxia City was captured.

Li Guoying, who was stationed in Huanggang, also chose to surrender after receiving Zuo Liangyu's letter and Zhu Yu'a's handwriting.

At this point, Zuo Liangyu's personal barracks and the five major battalions directly under him have been captured by Zhu Yu'ao, and even the attached commander-in-chief Wu Xueli surrendered during the capture of Jiangxia.

The rest, such as Jin Shenghuan, Xu Yong, Ma Jinzhong and others, were stationed relatively far away from Jiangxia, and it would take some time for Zuo Liangyu's letters and Zhu Yu'ao's handwriting to be received.

···

"Xu Yong was stationed in Huangpi, Jin Shenghuan was stationed in Hanchuan, Ma Jinzhong was in Qianjiang, Wang Yuncheng was in Mianyang Prefecture, Zhang Yingyuan was in Qizhou, and Xu Yuxian was in Huangmei.

As for Prime Minister Hui Deng, he was originally stationed in Chongyang, Wuchang Prefecture.

But Zuo Liangyu said that this man was more seriously ill than him and had recently resigned from the position of commander-in-chief, leaving all his affairs to the deputy general.

He himself is preparing for his funeral, and now I don’t know if he is still alive.”

On the intercom, Lady Red and Zhu Aona were talking about the details of the various units of the Left Army.

Zhu Ya'ao pondered for a while and then said: "We don't need to worry about Hui Deng in advance. What we need to pay attention to are Xu Yong, Jin Shenghuan, Ma Jinzhong and Wang Yuncheng.

The places where they were stationed bordered on the areas occupied by the Shun Army. Now that Li Zicheng has led the Shun Army on the East Route into the Jingxiang area, it must have put pressure on these four people.

If they have no intention of joining me, they may not surrender to Li Zicheng."

Zeng Ying said: "It shouldn't be possible, right? Li Zicheng has become a mourning dog now, are they going to surrender and be buried with him?"

Zhu Ailao smiled and said: "I also know that this possibility is unlikely, but we must always be on guard."

At this time, Hao Guangming said through the Bluetooth headset: "Historically, Zuo Liangyu should have retreated from Wuchang at this time.

Now Zuo Liangyu and we are both in Wuchang. Li Zicheng has not come, but the Qing army will not stop pursuing him. Maybe he is dealing with the Qing army now.

After all, your intelligence work is still too poor, and you cannot even know the situation in Xiangyang, which is just across the country, in a timely manner."

Zhu Yu'ao said: "What can be done about this? After all, the new Beizhen Fusi was established less than a year ago. As I led the army eastward, they sent more spies to various places in Huguang.

In addition, these people do not have instant communication means, so even if they get any news, it is very troublesome to pass it on."

After Zhu Ainao finished speaking, a member of the Royal Forest Army, General Qian, came under the imperial boat and shouted: "Reporting to the Supervisor, Governor Du Yinxi of Huguang has arrived!"

"Let him come to the imperial ship to see you."

The maids accompanying the ship passed on Zhu Yuluo's words, and not long after, Du Yinxi arrived.

Zhu Yuluo was not surprised by Du Yinxi's arrival.

When he decided to start a fight with Zuo Liangyu, Zhu Yuyao was confident that he could win, so he sent a telegram to Du Yinxi and asked him to come to Wuchang Mansion with two battalions of Fubiao.

It is now March 12th. Calculating the time, it has been six or seven days since the telegram was sent. There is a downstream waterway from Changsha to Jiangxia. Even if Du Yinxi brings two battalions of troops, he should be there.

After the meeting, Zhu Yushuo immediately explained his plan to let Du Yinxi sit in Wuchang Mansion in the future to guard against the Shun army and the Qing army crossing the Yangtze River south.

Du Yinxi said there was no problem.

Subsequently, the monarch and his ministers discussed how they should defend Jiangnan and parts of Hubei in Huguang based on Wuchang Prefecture.

During this process, Red Lady and Zeng Ying also participated in the discussion through the intercom.

Walkie-talkies have been equipped at the battalion level in the Royal Guards, Imperial Guards, and Border Guards, so Du Yinxi had already seen them in the Yifubiao Battalion from the Border Guards, so he was not too surprised.

However, using a walkie-talkie to communicate about national affairs with two other people who are no longer around is still a quite novel experience for Du Yinxi.

After roughly discussing how to prepare for the Qing army to cross the river based on Wuchang Prefecture's defense against the Shun army, Du Yinxi bowed to Zhu Aina and handed over his hands, saying: "I am here this time and I have brought someone with me who I would like to recommend to the prison."

When Zhu Ainao heard this, she was interested and said with a smile: "Oh, I wonder who he is?"

Du Yinxi said: "This man's name is Zhang Kuang, a native of Songjiang. In the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign, he answered the Tianfu Township Examination to solve the Yuan Dynasty. He has a lot of military plans. Why is the Superintendent Trustworthy now appointed as the Supervisor of the Military Road in Changsha?"

Zhang Kuang?

On the other side, Hao Guangming was slightly stunned when he heard the name.

As a lover of late Ming Dynasty history, he knew this name, but his impression was that it was a staff member and subordinate official of He Tengjiao, who had also opposed Du Yinxi's full acceptance of the Zhongzhen camp.

Therefore, Hao Guangming subconsciously regarded him as a minor character who was not very good before, and did not check his information.

Unexpectedly, Du Yinxi would recommend this person.

Is this Zhang Kuang really good at military strategy?
Chapter completed!