A gunshot rang out, and the commander Chen Feng was shot on the spot; A military order, the commander Jiang Sheng was dismissed and handed over to the Military Justice Department of the Governor's Office for punishment; With an imperial decree, the rank of Pan Nian was downgraded by one level, and he temporarily retained his post before serving the army. Immediately after His Majesty signed the order, Sima Qifu of the First Division of the Sixth Army was appointed as the commander of the division, and Li An, the commander of the three regiments and one battalion, was appointed as the commander of the first division and the commander of the three regiments. At the same time, the command system of the Sixth Army was reorganized, and a number of staff members were replaced.

After all, Zhao Yu is a person with modern thoughts, he did not pass on Chen Fengxiao's head to various ministries to show the public, and rewarded him with a coffin, and did not expose his corpse to the wilderness. What made him feel a little ridiculous was that he didn't understand what he was wrong until he died, and he was still crying out for injustice before his execution, insisting that he should not take responsibility for the defeat, at least not to die.

The disposition was quickly reported to the Jingxiang Ministries in the form of an imperial order. Although this imperial decree was simple, it still caused quite a stir in all departments, and no one could have imagined that the failure of a battalion-level battle would actually cause a division to be purged from top to bottom, the division commander to be convicted, the regiment commander to be executed, and the army command system to be seriously adjusted.

Some people are glad that they saw the opportunity early, reined in time and were not treated as the chicken of the hacking monkey; There are also people who are lucky not to be affected and save their lives; Others thought it was because he didn't have long eyes, and he hit the muzzle of the gun himself. Anyway, no matter what they were thinking, they also understood that the emperor's sword had been revealed, but they didn't know who was the next ghost.

However, the effect is also obvious, not to mention that the morale of the whole army has been greatly boosted, and it can take on a new look, and no longer dare to ignore military orders and military discipline as child's play. As the starting point of the incident, the 1st Division of the Sixth Army has also changed very significantly. At the beginning of their tenure, the two newly appointed officers led their troops to personally survey the terrain, draw detailed maps, make sand tables, and report the battle plans they had drawn up after many deductions.

After getting the emperor's approval, Pan Nian issued an order to fight. The combat mission was still carried out by the three regiments, which were back in battle three days after their last defeat. Zhao Yu personally mobilized before the war and stayed in Qingping to command. Pan Nian didn't dare to hold on any longer, and advanced with the command post of the 1st Division to a location less than five miles away from the battlefield to coordinate the various units and supervise the battle.

In this battle, the deployment of attacking Bazhang Mountain first and then attacking Fengling was changed, and many adjustments were made to the battle plan. It was only at the time of the hour that the main attacking force set out from the assembly area, took advantage of the darkness of the night to go up the mountain, and approached the front line of the enemy village in concealment. The assault team cleared the outposts and approached a position less than ten feet from the enemy wall before lurking. After the order to attack was given, the assault team took out the sentries with accurate fire, while the Demoman blasted a two-foot gap in the wall with explosives packs.

Taking advantage of the fact that the smoke had not cleared and the enemy had not yet reacted from the explosion, the assault team rushed into the enemy village and rushed straight to the enemy's approach to launch a sudden attack with grenades. The rain of grenades instantly routed the oncoming enemy patrol, and the enemy troops, who had just been awakened by the sound of explosions, were killed and wounded by waves of thrown grenades before they could prepare for battle, and the losses were extremely heavy.

While the assault team stirred up a bloody storm in the enemy village and created chaos, the follow-up troops also launched a charge, rushed into the enemy camp and attacked the enemy troops who tried to assemble with bayonets, and then attacked the core of the cottage. With the continuous addition of reinforcements, the enemy has never been able to organize an effective counterattack, but the casualties have already exceeded half, and the remnants of the enemy fled to the back mountain, opened the back door and fled down the mountain.

The fleeing enemy troops were intercepted by the second battalion, which had already been ambushed here, halfway up the mountain, and the enemy troops, who had no intention of fighting again, were either killed or surrendered, and were quickly annihilated. Even if a few fish escaped into the mountains and escaped temporarily, the roads down the mountain were cut off, and it was only a matter of time before they were caught. At this time, it was only more than half an hour before the attack was launched, and before dawn, Laifengling had been captured.

In the course of the battle, the enemy troops on the opposite side of Bazhang Mountain never sent reinforcements, they may not have expected the battle to end so quickly, or they may be worried about being ambushed on the way, so they can only sit back and watch Laifengling be breached. At this point, the two penetrated into the Song military defense area, and one of the access strongholds that controlled the choke from the east into Yicheng was pulled out, and it was difficult to deal with each other, and self-protection became a problem.

After the capture of Laifengling, the attacking troops took a short rest and redeployed after dawn. The two cottages were not far from each other, and Laifengling was condescending, within the firing range of most of the artillery equipped by the Song army. The artillery battalion of the division carried several medium guns up the hill and cooperated with the artillery team of the third regiment to launch an artillery bombardment on the enemy village at Bazhang Mountain.

The artillery of the Song army occupied the commanding heights and had a wide field of vision, and the sight was good after dawn, and the enemy village of Bazhang Mountain was unobstructed. Under the bombardment of large and small artillery, the houses collapsed, the walls of the fortress were crushed, the defensive facilities were completely destroyed, the soldiers of the garrison were killed and wounded everywhere, and the stronghold that had been painstakingly operated for a long time became a pile of rocks in an instant. Seeing that there was no hope, the enemy army began to break through to the bottom of the mountain, and again got into the ambush circle arranged by the Song army, and after a fierce battle, all of them were annihilated, and the troops participating in the attack did not even delay lunch.

In one day, at the cost of three killed and twelve wounded, the Song army uprooted two enemy forts, beheaded more than 300 people, captured more than 100 enemies, and won a complete victory. The morale of the 1st Division was greatly boosted, not only sweeping away the haze of the failure of the mountain attack a few days ago, but also avenging the fallen officers and men. At the same time, Pan Nian was also relieved, if he lost this battle again, he would not have the face to see His Majesty, and he could only apologize with death......

For this victory, Zhao Yu felt like chewing wax, and it was difficult to swallow. Such a small-scale battle exposed too many problems, such as senior officers who did not have a sense of the overall situation, had short-sighted strategic vision, were passive in combat, and had the idea of protecting themselves wisely; Middle-level officers have poor military qualities, are not good at planning, lack subjective initiative, and are rigid in the use of tactics.

This is the case with the Eighth Army at present, the Sixth Army is still the same, and although the Seventh Army has not yet made direct contact, it does not seem to be much higher. This made Zhao Hao very worried, expecting the army in this state to attack Xiangyang quickly, but he really didn't dare. He couldn't imagine that after the defeat of the siege, Meng Yuan launched a counterattack, whether they could stop it, and if they didn't do it, they would be crushed for thousands of miles and lose all the results of the Northern Expedition.

However, in order to change this negative state of Jingxiang's various armies, Zhao Yu knew that it could not be reversed in a short period of time by shooting and replacing a few incompetent generals and punishing a group of officers who were unfavorable in battle. Rather, it is necessary to change the thinking of senior officers and the habit of slackness among officers and men, improve the tactical quality of officers at all levels, and boost the morale of soldiers.

At present, the chiefs of the various ministries scattered around have arrived in Yicheng one after another, but Zhao Yu has not yet come up with a proper solution, which makes him a little anxious. The longer the time drags on, not only does the logistical pressure increase dramatically. And now that his whereabouts have been exposed, Meng Yuan will find that he is delaying time to cover up the 'fake peace talks and real preparations for war', with the intention of capturing Xiangyang, then Meng Yuan will mobilize heavy troops to Jingxiang, which will cause greater difficulties to capture Xiangyang.

On the other hand, everyone has arrived, and they have not yet figured out a way to break the situation. You can't just let them wait until they come up with a way to discuss it. And what is lacking now is time, and it is impossible for him to stay in Jingxiang and give up the mess in the capital. At the moment, it is still necessary to conquer Xiangyang, but the current state of the troops makes him hesitate.

"Your Majesty, the prime minister and several directors of the Imperial Front Office have returned, asking for an audience!" When Wang De saw that His Majesty had returned from Qingping Town, he stayed in the house and walked around, knowing that the emperor was in trouble, and he did not dare to disturb. But I can't share my worries for Your Majesty, so I can only be anxious. At this time, when Wang Xiang and others came to ask for a meeting, they broke the previous practice and came in to pray.

"Well, let them in!" Zhao Yu stopped, thought about it, and said that it was not a way to do it behind closed doors like this, listen to what they found at the grassroots level, and then make a decision.

"Your Majesty, the ministers and the ministers of the former marching governor's mansion met separately and learned some information!" Everyone knows that His Majesty does not like to be courteous, and after giving the ceremony, he goes straight to the topic.

"Oh, tell me how it is?" Zhao Yu gave a seat and let people serve tea.

"Your Majesty, the ministers still have a lot of complaints about some of Jiang Shuai's practices, they hope that His Majesty will be able to make changes when he arrives, and they have great hopes for changing the current situation!" Wang Yinglin said, "They thought that the battle of Xiangxiang had dragged on for a long time, and not only would the soldiers be passive and sluggish, but the wasted food and salary would also be dissatisfied with the imperial court, so they should be resolved quickly." However, Jiang Shuai had too many worries and hesitated in the face of problems, which weakened his prestige in the army. However, the generals under his command became more and more domineering, disobeying military orders, and the government orders were not implemented. ”

"Well, so they don't have much resistance to Jiang Shuai's resignation?" Zhao Yu nodded and asked.

"Exactly!" Wang Yinglin said, "Several principals think that it is wise for His Majesty to cut off Zhang Ba's military power and transfer him from the Eighth Army, and he is also very supportive of the execution of generals who are ineffective in combat. They all expressed their heartfelt support for His Majesty to rectify military discipline, remove those *****, and change the situation in Jingxiang. ”

"Okay, with the support of everyone in the Governor's Mansion, our work will be much easier." Zhao Hao was very relieved to hear this, and looked at Ni Liang again, "How are you going on over there?" ”

"In accordance with His Majesty's instructions, the subordinates let the soldiers of the capital division and the pro-guard brigade contact many old troops in the name of visiting friends, and they expressed pessimism about the Jingxiang battle situation, and they were also very disgusted with the behavior of several commanders, and they were also quite disappointed that they came here to take up their posts. Many people want to be transferred back to Jiangdong, and even have the idea of retiring and returning to their hometowns. Ni Liang replied.

"Well, what about the soldiers?" Zhao Hao asked after a moment of silence.

"According to what they said, the non-commissioned officers in our army are all assigned to various departments after training, and they still have basic tactical literacy. Grass-roots officers have also undergone training in martial arts, and their technical and tactical skills are all good, and as long as they undergo a short period of intensive training, they can undertake combat missions. Ni Liang said......