On the 25th of September, Xiao Ruxun led his troops to Pingjiang. At this time, the vanguard army had already taken Tongcheng. On the 28th, when Xiao Ruxun entered Tongcheng, the vanguard army had taken Chongyang.
There was almost no decent resistance.
The obstacles in front of Wuchang Prefecture were removed bit by bit, and the road to Wuchang Prefecture gradually became smooth.
And on the 28th of September, Li Hualong held a military conference in Yangzhou Prefecture.
After more than ten days of emergency deployment and shipbuilding, he had gathered more than a thousand soldiers and modified more than two hundred battle-ready ships. It could be said that the results were remarkable.
Of course, the modification of the battleships was not a problem. The craftsmen of the Daming Dynasty were relatively honest.
But the deployment of the soldiers was worth discussing. The soldiers of the Daming Dynasty were far from honest.
So Li Hualong was so frustrated that he wanted to kill someone.
"Five days! Five days! According to the name list, there should have been at least eight thousand soldiers! But now there are only a thousand! A thousand! And so many old and weak! There are only five to six hundred who can go to the battlefield! How can I go to war like this?! "
Li Hualong had already set his expectations very low. He felt that there would at least be ten to twenty thousand soldiers in these five days, and five to six thousand soldiers who could fight. That way, there might still be a fighting chance. He would wait and see, and perhaps more troops would come.
After all, according to the number of people on the books, there were five thousand to six hundred soldiers in the Yangzhou area. Not to mention other places, there were more than fifty thousand soldiers running every minute.
In the end, only a thousand or so had come here. After five days, only a thousand or so had come.
The rest were all on the way. When he went to ask, they were all on the way. This was still acceptable. Some simply said that the preparations were not complete and needed to be delayed for a few days, as if they did not want to fight at all.
Wave after wave of soldiers were sent to relay orders and inquire, the tone of their orders becoming more and more harsh. But the news that came back was not optimistic.
And in these few days, the Zhennan Army Navy had launched two more attacks, once again destroying the defensive positions he had painstakingly set up along the coast. They had even lost three to four hundred men and horses. Morale had fallen further, and there were even soldiers in the Firearms Battalion who were afraid to fight.
Li Hualong felt that he could not continue to indulge these people no matter what.
"Supervisor, it's been a long time since the Southern Army has been at war. This is something that's hard to suppress. There's a shortage of soldiers everywhere, and the serious situation of military families fleeing and hiding is not something that's been happening for a day or two. This lowly official has repeatedly written to the imperial court, but it hasn't been dealt with properly!"
The magistrate of Yangzhou foresaw Li Hualong's rage, so he quickly extricated himself from the situation.
Following that, a group of bureaucrats from the Yangzhou Prefecture also removed themselves from the picture one after another, eliminating the hidden danger while it was still budding.
How could Li Hualong not know the thoughts of these people? But he also knew that this was indeed not the fault of these people. In other words, the previous officials were at fault. It could not be blamed on this group of people.
But at present, if he did not use some ruthless methods, he was afraid that he would not be able to gather more soldiers. He did not know how long it would take for Xiao Ruxun to attack Wuchang. Whether Wuchang could be defended was still a problem. If he could not eliminate the navy in front of him as soon as possible, Li Hualong really had no other way.
However, it was not an easy task to annihilate the navy. These Ji Zhenbing soldiers could not even control the ships. Li Hualong had the intention to mobilize the Ji Zhenbing soldiers to attack, but these soldiers who vomited the moment they boarded the ships could not be used at all. This was also the reason why Li Hualong was so eager to enlist the Imperial Guards.
Even though these people were weak, at least they knew how to control the boats. They could still be considered a force, right?
If he forcibly used Ji Town soldiers, not to mention using his own weakness to attack the enemy's strong point, just the resentment of the army was not something he could ignore.
"I have decided to personally lead people to urge the soldiers in each of the Imperial Guards. You will also have to spread out to urge the soldiers. I will give you an order. If you encounter any soldiers and officers of the Imperial Guards who do not cooperate and try to escape from battle, you can all be executed together!"
Li Hualong took out his magic weapon.
The officials were instantly shocked.
He was really going to be ruthless. But with such a cruel method, they did not know how much anger and resentment it would cause!
Could Li Hualong really be so ruthless?
From the looks of it, he could.
No one doubted that Li Hualong did not dare to do so. In fact, Li Hualong did so. After the meeting, he brought his people out of the city and went straight to the Imperial Guards closest to Yangzhou. He found the local Imperial Guards Commander and asked him to dispatch the troops.
He did not reveal his true identity at the beginning, but pretended to be a messenger officer. The Imperial Guard Commander saw that his age was not quite right, so he did not believe him. He pretended to be polite to him, saying that the equipment was not enough, and that he needed soldiers to go to the autumn harvest during the busy farming season, so he needed to delay it for a few days.
Li Hualong's face immediately darkened. Without saying anything further, he revealed his identity, scaring the Imperial Guard Commander so much that he fell to the ground and could not get up.
"I, Daming the Imperial Court to this point, a mere general can harm half of the country! It's all because of you vermin! You deceive your superiors and commit all kinds of crimes. Today, I, Li Hualong, will kill you vermin on behalf of the Imperial Court! "
Li Hualong pulled out his sword and stabbed the Imperial Guard Commander to death. Then, he looked at the remaining Imperial Guards with a murderous gaze.
"Do you want to live or die?"
As soon as he said this, the Qianhu immediately left the command center in a panic. They each went to gather their own men. However, when they returned, Li Hualong was shocked to find that not only was there a huge difference in numbers, but two Qianhu and four Baihu had also escaped.
This made Li Hualong so angry that he almost pulled out his sword and killed all of them.
"Supervisor! It's not that we don't want to gather troops! It's just that the situation is like this. Our positions are lowly and cannot change anything. Please, Supervisor, investigate this! Please, Supervisor, investigate this! "
The few officers who stayed behind knelt down and kowtowed.
Li Hualong only felt incomparable sorrow in his heart.
Of the 5,600 Imperial Guards, there were only slightly more than a thousand people in front of him, and they were all old, weak, sick, and disabled. There were very few young men, and more than 70% of them had escaped or had their residences concealed. They basically had no fighting strength.
With such a formation against the Japanese pirates, it was indeed difficult for them not to lose.
He could kill a Imperial Guard Commander and gather a thousand people, but he could not change the situation of the entire Imperial Guard Headquarters. If he was like this, the others were even more so, and they were even more powerless to change it.
Rome wasn't built in a day. It was already too late to try to salvage the situation at the last moment.
A few more days passed, and on the 3rd of October, Li Hualong's scattered troops returned with more than five thousand Imperial Guard Headquarters soldiers and more than thirty heads.
They really did their best, killing so many heads, but in the end, they did not find many people.
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