My Apprenticeship to Uncle Jiu: I Was a Warlord in the Republic of China

Chapter 364: Defeat the Hubei Allied Forces Again

But at this moment, this situation that shattered their three views appeared right in front of them, so how could they have the thought of resisting?

Looking at the gradually approaching steel monster and the gradual advancement of the infantry hiding behind and occasionally poking their heads out to fire a few shots, the morale of the coalition forces finally hit the bottom line.

They started fleeing before they even made contact, but this time their leader unexpectedly did not try to stop them. Instead, he fled with them. He even ran much faster than them because they had better food.

As time went on, the rout turned into a major defeat. Just over ten minutes into the battle, the outcome was already clear without a trace of suspense.

The Anmin Army, which was responsible for holding the line in the rear, was filled with emotion when they saw that the Hubei coalition forces of more than 100,000 were crushed by the cavalry division and were defeated without even holding out for a single round.

However, Jiang Li would not miss such a good opportunity. He immediately ordered the entire army to attack and pursue the fleeing enemy.

For a while, a drama of chase and escape was staged on the Jianghan Plain.

This chase lasted for most of the day before it ended, and it took another seven days for the Anmin Army to capture all the fleeing soldiers in Hubei.

But Jiang Li received some news that was not so pleasant.

It turned out that the reason why Hu Duozong, He Chengjun and Xia Douyan dared to rely on hundreds of thousands of defeated troops to confront Jiang Li's army of more than 400,000 head-on was because of this.

That's because they had no intention of defeating the Anmin Army. They just wanted to use these soldiers to hold Jiang Li back so that they could transfer their property in time and escape to other provinces.

So after the battle started, Hu Duozong, He Chengjun and Xia Douyan each found an excuse and fled with their trusted subordinates.

This led to the soldiers' rout and a situation that was out of control.

But they never expected that their army of more than one hundred thousand would collapse completely in just half an hour, so this had a great impact on their escape.

In order to run faster, they had to abandon some of their property and each took with them only a thousand or so personal soldiers and the gold and jade they had collected over the years, and hurriedly fled Hubei.

After learning about this, Jiang Li did not take it too seriously. In his opinion, they were just three defeated generals who had abandoned their homes and careers. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they were like dogs that had lost their homes. They could not cause any trouble at all.

So Jiang Li no longer cared about these people, but started to count the casualties and spoils of war in Hubei.

However, when he saw the report on his own casualties, he immediately frowned.

It turned out that because there were too few soldiers who went ashore in the early stage of crossing the river, they suffered a great loss when facing enemies that were several or even dozens of times their number.

In order to stabilize that small position, he continuously dispatched small units, turning the battle into a tactic of adding fuel to the fire, so the casualties in the entire crossing-the-river campaign were extremely heavy.

The death toll reached 5,000, with 2,000 seriously injured and 12,000 slightly injured. The casualties in this battle reached nearly 20,000, which was the battle with the heaviest casualties since he started the army.

On the contrary, in the battle on the Jianghan Plain, the Hubei coalition forces had already fled after the two sides exchanged fire for only a dozen minutes, so the casualties of the cavalry division were basically negligible, with less than a hundred casualties.

Seeing this data, Jiang Li fell into deep reflection, "The biggest problem in this battle is naturally because of my poor command."

"Besides that, the second biggest problem was my command."

"I shouldn't have relied on luck. There's no rush anyway. I should wait until Han Yong's fleet arrives and the airport is built, and then I can cross the Yangtze River in one go!"

When he thought about how so many soldiers were killed or injured because of his own command error, he was filled with regret and wished he could slap himself hard.

But he also knew that even if he was given a few big bidou, those soldiers would not be able to survive, so he secretly swore in his heart that he would give more pensions to their families as a little compensation.

After reading the report on his own casualties, he looked at the enemy's casualties.

Because the fighting in this crossing-the-river campaign was extremely fierce, the death toll of the Hubei coalition forces reached 23,000, and the number of injured was as high as 80,000.

After one battle, there were as many as 100,000 casualties, which was really difficult for these joint forces.

You know, throughout the dynasties, any army whose casualties ratio could reach 10% without collapsing could be considered an elite force.

And now, the Hubei coalition forces, which Jiang Li considered to be a mob, actually collapsed only when the casualty ratio reached one-eighth. This was really beyond Jiang Li's expectations.

However, what he didn't know was that not all of the casualties among the Hubei coalition soldiers were caused by the Anmin Army, but a considerable number of them were caused by the Supervisory Team.

After talking about the Battle of Crossing the Yangtze River, let’s talk about the Battle of Jianghan Plain. Because this battle lasted for a short time, the casualties were not too great.

However, due to the fierce firepower of the cavalry division, the Hubei coalition forces still suffered more than 2,000 casualties.

As for the spoils, these two battles captured a total of 500,000 intact rifles of various types, 480 intact cannons of various calibers, and 100 wooden warships.

As for the hundreds of cargo ships and more than a thousand fishing boats, they were all returned to the people.

There were also 2,000 war horses, more than 20,000 horses and camels, 3 million dollars, 50 million kilograms of grain, 30 million bullets, 6,000 artillery shells, 100,000 grenades, and some fodder and military uniforms.

In addition, 50,000 damaged guns and 300 damaged cannons were seized.

In addition to the confiscated materials mentioned above, the remaining ones were as many as 650,000 captives and 30,000 pregnant women who were forcibly abducted.

Although some of the forcibly conscripted men were released after identification and counting.

But the remaining soldiers, bandits, wealthy families and servants still totaled 400,000, including 80,000 wounded. This was a huge trouble.

Those wounded should be taken good care of, both for the sake of humanity and morality. It will not be too late to try them after they have recovered from their injuries.

But the remaining 320,000 miscellaneous soldiers cannot be released because most of them are ruffians who are good at eating, drinking, whoring and gambling.

Jiang Li thought that even transferring some of them to the army was not feasible, and he had no other good solution. He could only follow the old rules and send these people to labor reform.

Finally, it is impossible to release the more than 30,000 pregnant women directly.

Otherwise, considering that they were forced into the military camp, toyed with by so many people, and now they are pregnant, their fate after returning home will be death.

Jiang Li didn't have any good ideas about this. After asking for their opinions, he could only set aside a piece of land for them to use as a place to nurture the fetus.

Wait until they give birth to their babies safely, and then it will be up to them to decide whether to stay or go.