After the Battle of Xiangyang, although Xu Zhixian still had the title of deputy minister, he had actually vaguely replaced Huang Guangmao and became the de facto minister of the General Staff.

At least, the core powers of the three staff departments, namely operations, training, and intelligence, have all been under the jurisdiction of Xu Zhixian. Huang Guangmao is left to handle the internal affairs of the staff department, and incidentally participate in various high-level military meetings and serve as the host of the meetings.
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Huang Guangmao naturally doesn't want this, and he also understands that he can't compete with Xu Zhixian.

Xu Zhixian was able to control most of the power of the General Staff in the name of deputy minister. It was not because he was so awesome that he could snatch it from Huang Guangmao, but because Luo Zhixue directly ordered Xu Zhixian to take charge of it as well.

To put it bluntly, if Huang Guangmao had not been difficult to transfer soon after he became the Chief of Staff, Luo Zhixue would have transferred Huang Guangmao directly to make room for Xu Zhixian.

Everyone knows this, and Huang Guangmao himself knows it.

Huang Guangmao was hesitant a few days ago and wanted to delay for a while, but in the past few days when he went north to fight, Xu Zhixian's performance became more and more outstanding, and his desire to leave the staff and lead troops became stronger and stronger.

When Huang Guangmao was thinking about this, he didn't really listen to Xu Zhixian's description of the battle plan. Anyway, he had read the battle plan in advance and knew what he was talking about even if he didn't listen.

After Xu Zhixian finished describing the detailed battle plan for tomorrow, Huang Guangmao stood up again and said: "Brother Xu has just introduced the battle plan of our staff. Do you have any opinions?"

Wang Xiazi and Huang Dingquan naturally have no objections. You can ask them to lead the troops forward, but they really have no ability to understand the series of combat plans formulated by Xu Zhixian and find loopholes in them.
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The general system of the Baoxiang Army is still too primitive, and many of them are small officers, soldiers, and refugees from the border army.

There are also some generals who surrendered.

To be honest, the military quality of these people is just that, and they cannot do anything too complicated.

Those who can really make suggestions on combat plans are the staff officers in the Operations Department of the General Staff Headquarters.

Nowadays, the staff officers in the Operations Department of the General Staff Headquarters are all literate and literate people selected from the officers in the entire army. Well, if they don’t have enough education, they can’t even read intelligence documents or various plans. It’s impossible to read them at all.

Unable to formulate a battle plan...

These literate people are also the group of officers currently being trained by Luo Zhixue, and Xu Zhixian is just one of the more prominent ones.

For these literate officers, Luo Zhi learned to let them rotate through multiple positions, constantly accumulate experience in leading troops, and accumulate experience as a staff officer. At the same time, they also let them enter the military school with the battalion to study.

The Baoxiang Army's military school with the battalion has been officially prepared. The first phase is currently open, and the academic duration is expected to be three months.

It can be seen from the academic system that this is purely a crash course for officers.

There are more than 80 students in it, divided into four departments: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and logistics, which directly correspond to each branch of the military. The temporary purpose is to train existing officers in a short period of time, especially to let them master how to command a group of troops.

The ability of an army that makes heavy use of guns.

Because many officers in the Baoxiang Army are leading troops in other places, most of the officers who can enroll are officers from the Staff Department, the Military and Political Department, the Ordnance Department, and the Logistics Department, as well as the Guards Battalion and the First Infantry Department.

Brigade, cavalry brigade, artillery brigade, officers in the first baggage battalion.

After the subsequent situation is initially stabilized, Luo Zhixue will also select Dongwen-literate officers from the Second Mixed Brigade, the Third Infantry Brigade, and the Fourth Mixed Brigade that are fighting in various places in Nanyang Prefecture to enroll in the battalion school.

The Suiying Military Academy is expected to provide a large number of qualified grassroots officers for the Baoxiang Army, but this will also take time. In a short period of time, the Baoxiang Army will still have to use these officers with various grassroots backgrounds and without professional military training.<

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It doesn't matter if there is no professional school training. The Baoxiang Army's solution to this problem is to learn while fighting.

There is such a thing as war. If a new soldier survives three to five battles and is still alive, or if he has been in the army for one and a half years, he is basically considered a veteran.

The same is true for military officers. As long as they are not too stupid when leading troops to fight a few more battles, they will be able to lead troops to fight in a decent manner.

Luo Zhixue is very clear about this, so he is generally not too demanding on his generals, and does not make too difficult demands. He always fights with greater advantages as much as possible.

After all, growth takes time and will cost you, and what Luo Zhixue has to do is to control the cost of learning within a certain range.

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After a night of combat meetings, the Baoxiang Army had thoroughly formulated a combat plan, and Luo Zhixue had already issued corresponding orders to each unit at the end of the meeting.

This also means that the Baoxiang Army, which has been attacking tigers for dozens of kilometers and fighting all the way, is ready and waiting for a decisive battle with Lu Xiangsheng's troops tomorrow.

The next day, the sky was not bright yet, but the soldiers of the Home Guard Army in Dulin Town had already had breakfast in advance and were packing up their personal equipment, tents and other belongings to make final preparations for departure.

It was just dawn. As the vanguard of the army and shouldering the important tactical mission, the cavalry brigade, led by Wang Xiazi, took the lead in leaving the camp and heading north.

About a quarter of an hour later, the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade, as the infantry vanguard of the entire army, began to leave the camp and embarked on the road north.

Followed by the 1st Infantry Battalion, 4th Infantry Battalion and other units of the 1st Infantry Brigade.

Following closely behind were the two artillery posts of the 1st Artillery Brigade, with a total of twelve 600-pound long guns.

After the above two brigades left, Luo Zhixue personally led a thousand-man private camp to set off, accompanied by a large number of logistics supplies. As for the first baggage battalion, it fell at the back as a break-up force.

Because of the lack of troops and the need for troops everywhere, Luo Zhixue often used the baggage troops directly on the spot as infantry troops, so that the current first baggage battalion has gradually evolved and is now about to become a pure combat infantry battalion...

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The task of transporting a large number of baggage supplies is now directly handed over to the two transportation battalions organized by the Logistics Department. The baggage battalions often only dispatch a few officers and soldiers for management, and the main force of the baggage battalions is used as escort troops on a daily basis.

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When necessary, they basically go directly to the battlefield and are used as ordinary infantry.

The Baoxiang Army came out of camp one after another, because it was expected that a large-scale encounter would break out today, because when the Baoxiang Army marched, they did not maintain a high-speed march like the previous two days, but used a slightly slower speed than usual.

Go north at a slower pace.

It's just that they set off early, and even though their marching speed was much slower than usual, they successfully arrived near Sanyuan Village at about ten o'clock in the morning.

After the army arrived near Sanyuan Village, they did not go directly to Sanyuan Village. Instead, they rested temporarily in a forest about two kilometers away to the south.

The soldiers sat directly on the ground to drink water and eat dry food. In order to avoid the smoke rising from cooking and being discovered by the enemy's scouts in advance, they could only eat dry food directly.

While the soldiers were eating themselves, they also did not forget to feed the many mules and horses.

Whether they are humans or mules, they all need to recover their physical fitness as soon as possible so that they can have sufficient physical fitness to fight in subsequent battles.

While the soldiers were resting, Luo Zhixue continued to pay attention to the trends on the battlefield.

The reconnaissance cavalry reported one after another that Lu Xiangsheng's troops were heading towards Sanyuan Village. The reconnaissance cavalry dispatched by the Ming army had even arrived at Sanyuan Village and searched both sides of the road.

However, the Baoxiang Army did not approach Sanyuan Village at all, but stopped to rest in the woods two kilometers away.

The opponent's reconnaissance cavalry did not detect them in a short period of time.

However, it is estimated that it cannot be hidden for long, because the search of the reconnaissance cavalry is often sector-wide. In addition to a detailed search of the front of the road, it often also searches the left and right sides of the road.

In this kind of open area, the search area of ​​​​the reconnaissance cavalry can even reach several kilometers.

However, Luo Zhixue and the others never thought of hiding!

There is no way to ambush in a place like Sanyuan Village, and it is precisely because it is impossible to be ambushed that Lu Xiangsheng can boldly take this path.

From the beginning to the end, neither Luo Zhixue nor the staff members of the General Staff Department thought about any ambush.

What they have to do is to encounter the enemy head-on and defeat them!

Of course, if after encountering an enemy, it would be better if the enemy runs away without resisting. It would be easier to catch up and kill them.

For any army and any general, organizing a retreat is always more difficult than organizing an attack.

Standing on the low hill, Luo Zhixue looked to the northwest. Although there was nothing in his sight, he knew very well that the main force of the Ming army under Lu Xiangsheng was there, and the straight-line distance between the two sides was about five kilometers.

With such a long distance and the low mountains blocking his view, it was naturally impossible for him to see any Ming soldiers.

After looking at the empty northwest direction, Luo Zhixue finally withdrew his gaze and looked at Blind Man Wang:

"Blind man, I won't say any more. You also know the importance of today's battle. I have only one request: If the enemy infantry wants to escape from the battlefield, contain them and wait for us to come!"

Blind Wang said: "General, don't worry. There are not many cavalry on the opposite side, only about a hundred people. I saw them from a distance just now. They are all a bunch of half-hearted people. They can't stop me."

Luo Zhixue nodded: "Well, go ahead!"

Then he turned to look at Xu Zhixian and said: "Let the soldiers pack their things, make final preparations and set off for Sanyuan Village!"

When Luo Zhixue led the army to Sanyuanzhuang, Lu Xiangsheng, who had just led his army into the edge of Sanyuanzhuang, also learned about the reconnaissance cavalry. About ten miles away in the southeast, he discovered a large group of bandits moving from south to north.

Coming, looking at its marching route, it seems that it is going to Dengzhou.

Many of them wore gray robes and had their heads shaved.

When Lu Xiangsheng heard the news, he knew that the bandit discovered by the scout cavalry was the Baoxiang Army without even asking.

Looking around the world, everyone in the army has shaved their heads. Only the bandit family has shaved their heads. Even when they were kidnapped, they still had a rat tail...

The question is, how did these rural protection army thieves appear in the area south of Dengzhou? Was it the protection thieves from Xinye City who came out?

Or have the security thieves from Xiangyang City gone north?

There is also a question that Lu Xiangsheng cares more about: Why do they appear here? How many troops do they have?

With these doubts, Lu Xiangsheng immediately said: "Send more sentries there to find out how many soldiers and horses the bandits have."
Chapter completed!