Yangzhou, in contemporary times, is one of the most prosperous cities, the reason why it can be so prosperous, and its location is inseparable, relying on a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, it can gather a lot of money for Yangzhou from all over the world.

Not to mention, the Lianghuai salt industry was quite developed in the Ming Dynasty, and Yangzhou was the distribution center of the Lianghuai salt industry.

And this is just that Yangzhou is brilliant in business, and militarily, Yangzhou also has an important strategic role, why, or because of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Yangzhou guards the entrance of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal into and out of the Yangtze River, and whoever occupies Yangzhou will be able to hold the entrance of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, well, or the exit.

For the current war between the Tang army and the Ming army, the role of Yangzhou is even more important, if the Tang army wants to go north, it must pass through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and to pass through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Yangzhou must be captured.

For the Ming army, if you want to hold Jiangbei, and even hold Shandong and North Zhili, you must hold Yangzhou!

Based on the importance of Yangzhou, whether it is the Tang army or the Ming army, they all invest heavy troops here, and their attention is the highest level.

The main force of the Ming army in Yangzhou will exceed 130,000, and the total strength will reach more than 150,000!

And the Tang Army, the Third Army prepared for Yangzhou, had a total strength of 55,000 people, and in addition to the naval guns sent to the Navy, the total number of artillery pieces of more than five catties in the Third Army alone exceeded 200!

And now, after the successful landing of the Third Army in Tongzhou, the main force is exhausted and heading towards Yangzhou!

The third army is menacing, and the Ming army in Yangzhou City has naturally been aware of it, and began to shrink its strength, and took the initiative to abandon the Ming army in Tongzhou, although it was punished on the surface, but in a blink of an eye, it gave them the opportunity to make meritorious contributions.

Then, even the main force of the defenders on the Taizhou side took the initiative to retreat, leaving only more than 2,000 people to make a symbolic resistance, and then more than 2,000 people also retreated directly.

In the face of the menacing puppet Tang thief army, the Ming army chose to shrink its forces very rationally, intending to hold Yangzhou City, and at the same time redeploy the defensive line in Gaoyou, which was in the rear.

In the face of the Ming army's practice of not resisting, but taking the initiative to shrink its forces and preparing to be a turtle with a shrunken head in Yangzhou, Hao Bonian was not impatient.

Hao Bonian naturally has confidence, this time, he just brought more than 200 artillery, including three battalions of heavy howitzers, although this Yangzhou City is also a big city, but the city defense is not as good as Jinling City, and it is not as easy to defend and difficult to attack as Anqing.

So he was still steady, moving forward slowly, and did not make any risky strategies such as dividing his troops.

On September 15, the troops of the Third Army arrived outside the city of Yangzhou, but Hao Bonian did not take a siege of Yangzhou, but ignored it, but directly led his troops to the Yangzhou Fort.

Yangzhou Fort, this is a Ming army in order to block the Tang Dynasty Navy Yangjiang and go up into the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, but also to block the puppet Tang Dynasty thief army to invade the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and set up a series of battery groups, large and small forts are full of five, artillery with a lot of artillery, and stationed a lot of troops to defend.

However, the Yangtze River defense line built by the Ming army at the beginning was actually based on the Ming army's naval division, and the forts, to be honest, were just cooperating with the operation.

Today's artillery has a limited range, and it is almost impossible to rely solely on artillery to block the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which is several kilometers wide, not only in the Yangzhou Battery, but also in the former Jiangyin Battery.

And the Humen Fort at the mouth of the Pearl River also has this situation!

Today's forts are more likely to cooperate with operations or garrison important ports, and their role is actually limited in the wide section of the river.

Other people's warships can't kill your battery, don't you know how to hide?

Now the Yangzhou Navy Division of the Ming Army has been completely destroyed, and the navy has gathered many main fleets to gradually go up the river, this time, they are not too worried about the ship is too big, resulting in a big risk, ready to directly use the capital ship into the middle of the Yangtze River, and then use the powerful naval artillery fire to cooperate with the army to destroy and seize the Yangzhou battery group.

On 16 September, the Third Army successively launched offensive operations against the Yangzhou battery group along the Yangtze River, and the navy also dispatched its capital ships to carry out artillery bombardment and cooperate with the operation.

During this period, the Ming army in Yangzhou City also tried to take the initiative to attack, but Hao Bonian quickly returned with the main force of the Third Army, and the Third Cavalry Detachment, which gathered the cavalry battalions and cavalry teams of various troops, took the opportunity to attack a Ming army out of the city, resulting in the Ming army out of the city not long after leaving the city, that is, it lost thousands of troops, and finally fled back to Yangzhou City in a hurry.

The Ming army in the city did not dare to come out, and the Third Army calmly cleaned up these batteries one by one.

On 20 September, the Third Army announced that it had occupied the last fort of the Ming army, not only clearing the Yangtze River channel to the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, but also opening the entrance to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Immediately afterwards, the navy directly set up the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal Fleet, and transferred more than 30 inland river gunboats with small tonnage and shallow draft from each fleet into it, and then directly killed the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and went straight to the capital of Yangzhou!

These river gunboats, for the navy, may be just auxiliary warships, the kind that do not feel painful to sink for the capital ship to block the gun, but they are genuinely equipped with artillery.

For example, the second-class inland river gunboat, which is currently the most equipped in the Tang Navy, has a displacement of about 80 to 100 tons, and is equipped with two five-kilogram cannons and three three-kilogram shotguns.

In addition, the 50-ton C-class river gunboats were also generally equipped with a five-pound cannon.

More than 30 river gunboats, whose firepower is comparable to an artillery regiment of the army, will be a powerful artillery supplement for the army.

Although these river gunboats don't even have official ship names, they only have simple numerical numbers, such as gunboat A No. 1, gunboat B No. 2, and gunboat C. C3!

Although the army and navy joined forces to clear the Yangzhou Fort, and the navy also sent the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal Fleet to support the Third Army of the Army, Hao Bonian was not in a hurry to attack Jiangdu.

Now the Ming army in Jiangdu City is conservatively estimated to have 100,000 people, and if they attack without a head, I am afraid that they will suffer great casualties, and now the strategic initiative is on the side of the Tang Army, so Hao Bonian is not in a hurry.

First of all, the artillery positions were built, and then the artillery bombardment was carried out day and night, especially the heavy howitzers, whose shells were fired at the head of Yangzhou without money, and now the ammunition supply of the Third Army was quite abundant.

After opening up the Yangtze River channel, those transport and supply ships can directly reach the outside of Jiangdu City, and then unload ammunition on the spot!

The smoothness of its supply is rare for the Tang Army in so many years of warfare.

Of course, the Third Army fought happily, and the logistics department that supported their logistics supply was also tired and almost out of breath.

In order to supply the Third Army's terrifying ammunition consumption, the logistics department prepared hundreds of large and small transport ships to and from various routes.

Although most of the ammunition used now is the ammunition that was previously hoarded in Wusong Port and Jiangyin Port, the subsequent replenishment of ammunition needs to be transported from the distant Liangguang area.

From the Pearl River waterway, to the coastal route, to the Yangtze River route, these munitions need to be transported long distances to reach the hands of the Third Army.

However, although sea transportation is also quite far away, it is much easier than using manpower to travel all the way over the mountains and mountains by land.

Therefore, although it was difficult, the logistics department was barely able to support the Third Army's method of fighting in a waste of ammunition.

When the Third Army carried out artillery bombardment on Jiangdu, but when it was delayed in launching a general infantry attack, although Li Xuan in Jinling City had already known Hao Bonian's strategy in advance, he couldn't help but be a little anxious.

In order to pry open the turtle shell of Yangzhou, he temporarily withheld the 5,000 Guards who had been going to strengthen the Second Army, and then sent them to Yangzhou to prepare to reinforce the Third Army.

The 5,000 Guards Army, which consisted of three Guards infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, a baggage battalion, and a cavalry team, was personally led by Major General Yoshishi Shirabayashi, one of the three chiefs of staff of the Guards.

The command system of the Guards Army is not the same as that of the Army, and there is no regimental establishment, but only at the battalion level, which are six infantry battalions, three artillery battalions, three baggage battalions, and one cavalry battalion.

In this way, there are naturally no commanders at or above the regimental level, and the daily operations and training of the Guards are all under the responsibility of the chief of staff and the two deputy chiefs of staff of the Guards Military Command Department.

But theoretically speaking, these three people also did not have the power to directly mobilize any of the Guards troops, and only after obtaining Li Xuan's temporary authorization, they had the power to mobilize these Guards.

Major General Bai Linyi Guard, naturally one of them, and this person's identity is somewhat special, he is a member of the Empress Dowager's family, although the relationship is a little distant, he can only be regarded as a side child, but no matter what, he is also surnamed Bai.

And this person's ability is not bad, he served in the army before, and then Li Xuan simply transferred him to the Guards, and then he worked in the Guards for many years, plus this person is also smart, although he is a relative of the Bai family, but unlike Bai Yunqi who does not forget to get benefits for his clansmen every day, he unites with the Empress Dowager Bai when he has nothing to do.

Since this person entered the Guards, he has basically cut off contact with the Bai family, and he has directly refused the summons of the Empress Dowager Bai.

He did this, naturally he did it on purpose for Li Xuan to see!

Everyone knows what kind of troops the Guards are, if you hold an important position in the Guards, if you dare to be involved with other people, even the Queen Mother, it is basically an act of looking for death.

Bai Linyi, who was born in a foreign relative, after entering the Guards, turned himself into a loner, except for Li Xuan's words, no one expected to be able to move him even a word.

After Major General Bai Linyi arrived in Jiangdu with 5,000 guards, although he knew that the guards came to experience and increase combat experience, it was unlikely that they would really fight to the death, but Hao Bonian was still very happy.

In any case, this is a reinforcement of 5,000 troops, and with these 5,000 guards, he will be able to free up the strength of the 5,000 Third Army for other fronts.