I want to be emperor

Chapter 376 Prelude to the Northern Expedition
The reason why Wu Sangui decisively surrendered to the Eastern Captives in the original time and space, willing to be the pioneer of the Eastern Captives, has nothing to do with whether he loves the country or not.

The more important thing is that Liaodong has long been turned into a feudal town, and Ming court generals like Wu Sangui have become local feudal towns.

The starting point of their actions is not for the country, but for the interests of their own group.

Once the Chu army goes north to take Youzhou and destroy the Ming court, people like Wu Sangui will lose their direct allegiance.

At that time, it will depend on whoever Chu Jun and Dongyao offer a high price to win them over.

And the price of the Great Chu Empire is absolutely impossible to be as high as that of Dongyao.

Because it is impossible for the Great Chu Empire to crown people like Wu Sangui as kings, and it is even more impossible for them to continue to retain their military power and territory.

The most that the Great Chu Empire can offer is to give them a real position as a senior general, and let them keep some of their private property.

Don't expect anything else.

The Great Chu Empire only offered the price of a rear admiral to buy Zheng Zhilong. It is impossible for Wu Sangui and the others to become kings.

To put it seriously, it will destroy the unity of the internal interest groups of the Great Chu Empire and shake the foundation of the Great Chu Empire.

The Great Chu Empire only said that if you are not a prince, you can’t be a king, but you have a king with a different surname on your back, isn’t that nonsense.

However, there will definitely not be any scruples on Dongyao's side. Let alone being crowned king, it is a matter of one sentence to directly assign most of China to Wu Sangui.

At the extreme moment, I am afraid that I will promise to support Wu Sangui as the new emperor...

As long as Wu Sangui takes them into customs, then everything will be fine.

Promising something from someone else's house does not put the slightest pressure on Dongyao.

Due to the particularity and complexity of Northern Zhili and Liaodong, Luo Zhixue did not plan to spend too much time in the Northern Expedition.

It is necessary to concentrate as many main forces as possible, concentrate more strategic materials, and fight directly to Shanhaiguan in one go, so as to prevent the possibility of the East captives entering the customs through Shanhaiguan.

As long as the Shanhaiguan Pass is blocked, it will be fine for the Dong captives to detour through Mongolia and break through the Great Wall to fight in. The Chu army is not the Ming army.

If Dongyao dared to bypass Mongolia to enter the customs, the Chu army would let them know what it means to close the door and beat a dog, and keep Dongyao coming back or not.

And if you want to complete the Northern Expedition in one go, and try to block Shanhaiguan in the shortest time, and don't give Dongyao time to react, this is also a very high requirement for the entire Chu army.

It is not only a requirement for combat power itself, but also a requirement for logistical supplies.

The army is rushing all the way in front, and the supply fleet and convoy behind will also be rushing all the way to replenish various strategic materials in time.

And this difficulty will become bigger and bigger as the Northern Expedition continues and the army moves northward.

The difficulty of resupply will double with the distance of resupply.

If you just fight in the Jiangbei area, you can supply about [-] to [-] Chu troops to fight, and [-] civilians are almost enough.

If it is to cross the Yellow River and go deep into Beizhili to fight, the logistics force used will increase exponentially.

If it is to go to Shanhaiguan in one go, this number will increase several times.

It can be seen that the difficulty of logistics is great.

In order to ensure the logistics supply of the Northern Expedition smoothly, the army has begun to build a large-scale new four-wheeled cargo carriage.

Many loads can reach one ton. Four-wheeled carriages for ordinary roads have begun to be manufactured in batches, and some heavy-duty four-wheeled carriages specially used for good roads have also been built one after another. The load capacity of this heavy four-wheeled carriage can be Reached [-] tons.

There are also a large number of two-wheeled carriages that are better adaptable to roads and can barely maneuver even in the wild, which is the top priority of mass production.

According to the Army's plan, it is expected that all the troops participating in the Northern Expedition will have their supplies equipped with mules and horses, equipped with different types of four-wheeled and two-wheeled carriages. months' rations and ammunition for a major campaign.

This is just preparations for land transportation. In fact, for the logistics transportation of this Northern Expedition, land transportation is only responsible for front-line transportation and non-canal transportation.

The real lifeline of supplies for the Northern Expedition is the Yangtze River-Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal-Yellow River-Huaihe River and many other rivers.

The use of these rivers and lakes to form a river transport network will be the lifeline of the entire Northern Expedition of the Great Chu Empire.

In order to successfully complete the huge river transportation plan, the logistics department of the Great Chu Empire has entrusted the Naval Ship Administration Department to design a variety of standardized inland river transport ships.

There are large inland river transport ships used for transportation on the main line of the Yangtze River, and these ships have a relatively large load capacity.

In addition, there are medium and small transport ships that will be used in large quantities on small and medium rivers.

And among these ships, in order to facilitate the transportation of materials, they will also be classified into categories. For example, the cabins of ships specialized in transporting grain are very different from those of ships specialized in transporting artillery.

There are three categories and more than ten types of ships, which are used to transport different materials under different hydrological conditions.

According to the plan, the Great Chu Empire will build at least [-] inland river transport ships of various types for the entire Northern Expedition.

And this is only a part of the required ships, because the Great Chu Empire has successively seized a large number of water transport ships from the Ming court before this, and in the subsequent process of going north, there is a high probability that they will be able to seize a large number of ships on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal of such ships.

Although the water transportation was cut off last year, the ships used for water transportation are still there.

At that time, these water transport ships will be more or less captured.

It is conservatively estimated that at least [-] inland river transport ships will be needed to maintain the needs of the entire Northern Expedition.

Well, this demand is actually not only the food and ammunition needs of the Chu army itself, but also a part of the rations for the people in the captured control area.

Now the northern provinces are seriously short of food. If the Great Chu Empire does not transport food in time to supplement the local food market, then it is inevitable that there will be starvation everywhere, and a group of refugees will appear every two days.

Luo Zhixue naturally did not allow such a situation to occur.

Therefore, the food supply in the logistics supply of the entire Northern Expedition also included the amount of rations to support the people in the northern provinces.

According to estimates, during the entire Northern Expedition, the Great Chu Empire conservatively estimated that it would need to transfer at least 500 million shi of grain to the north.

It is worth noting that the 500 million shi of grain is not all transported to Youzhou City, but the total consumption from south to north, from Jiangbei to Shanhaiguan.

Even so, the total amount of transportation is very large, which will put a very heavy transportation pressure on today's Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal system.

After all, the navigable capacity of the canal is limited, especially in many sections of which the river gates still need to be raised or lowered to travel together, which basically limits the highest navigable capacity.

In addition, these material supplies of the Great Chu Empire are not only food, but also a large amount of weapons and ammunition and other messy strategic materials.

And the destinations are all Youzhou City, but after arriving at each place, they will be distributed, and then distributed through other rivers or lakes, or simply by land transportation.

The entire logistics transportation system is very complicated. What weapons are sent out from the arsenal at the rear, where these things arrive, and the large army on the front line needs such materials. These seem simple, but the actual operation is very troublesome.

There must be a complete and huge transportation plan.

For the logistics and transportation plan, hundreds of people in the logistics department are so busy that their hair turns gray. According to them, it will take at least a month to complete the plan...

Just looking at the logistics and transportation plan that the Great Chu Empire planned to prepare tens of thousands of various horse-drawn carriages and ships for the Northern Expedition, you will know that such a large-scale battle is definitely not something that a senior general can launch with a slap on the head. of.

It is an overall battle that requires the mobilization of a large amount of manpower and material resources!
However, the entire Northern Expedition plan will not be rolled out all at once, but will be divided into several stages. For example, the first stage of the Jiangbei Campaign is expected to start in the spring.

After all, if they wanted a large-scale Northern Expedition, the Chu army still needed to win several important cities first, laying the foundation for the subsequent large-scale Northern Expedition.

At least to get a starting position is not.

Where is this starting point?
Without a doubt, Yangzhou!
This large city, which has become extremely prosperous due to salt merchants and water transportation, is a starting position that the Great Chu Empire must take down if it wants to launch the Northern Expedition.

Because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flows into the Yangtze River from outside the city of Yangzhou!
If Yangzhou is not captured, there will be no follow-up Northern Expedition.

After entering April, it has been rested for more than a month. The Fourth Division, which received a batch of recruits and a large number of weapons supplements, set off from Liuhe and went straight to Yangzhou with the cooperation of the No.14 Garrison Division.

Except for the Chu army in this direction, the First Guards Division that had already crossed the river was divided into two, and the First Guards mixed brigade set out from Liuhe to attack Changshui.

The Second Guards Mixed Brigade headed north from Jiangpu and went straight to Chuzhou.

The garrison in the Jiangpu area was handed over to the No.15 Garrison Division.

As a result, the prelude to the Jiangbei Battle officially opened.

Coincidentally, when the Jiangbei Campaign officially started, in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, the Seventh Division and the No.11 Garrison Division, which had been besieging Ganzhou for several months, received a batch of ammunition and replenishment of soldiers in the early stage. After receiving reinforcements from the newly-organized Eighth Cannon Regiment, they finally launched a general attack on Ganzhou City.

Under the wild bombardment of dozens of field artillery and dozens of large-caliber mortars, Ganzhou City, which had blocked the Chu army for more than half a year, was finally broken by the Chu army on April [-].

During the fierce battle, the Ming army suffered no less than 2000 casualties, more than [-] were captured, and only [-] escaped.

From then on, the Chu army completely opened the door to Chunan, and marched to Guangdong!
(End of this chapter)