Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 251 Waiting to quench thirst

"Dang...dang...dang...dang..."

In the twelfth lunar month of winter, when the strong smell of gunpowder wafts over the Hebei Plain, Dengzhou City, located at the end of the Shandong Peninsula, is also extremely lively.

Thousands of ships poured into the port, and the sky was full of flags fluttering in the wind.

On the pier, shouts and commands to enter the port continued, and the sound instantly resounded throughout Dengzhou Bay.

For a time, tens of thousands of sailors and sailors landed at the port. The southern soldiers on the ships disembarked one after another, and their figures filled the entire port.

When the sound of horse hooves sounded, some high-ranking generals began to disembark from the ship on horseback and rushed to Dengzhou City not far away.

The Yamen of the Dengzhou Guard Command Post has been cleared. When the generals arrived, they dismounted one after another. Only military attachés at the command level could enter the Yamen.

When they sat down, the leader was the thirty-five-year-old Yangtze Navy Chief Officer Chen Xuan, followed by the Pingwo Navy Chief Officer Yang Qiu, and the acting commander of Dengzhou Qi Jian.

Wei Fu, the commander of the Denglai Navy, resigned at the beginning of the year because of his old age. Since the incident happened on the eve of the Jingnan Campaign, Zhu Yunwen agreed. Therefore, the local affairs have been handled by Qi Jian, the commander of the Dengzhou Acting Guards.

This Qi Jian is not well-known. Although he is young, his command is quite good.

Before Chen Xuan and others did not go north, it was he who commanded the navy to go to Jiulian City to meet Liu Zhen.

During this period, he also tried to rescue Wu Sheng and Wu Shouan, but he had to suspend the rescue because of the Bohai Navy's field artillery.

Compared with him, Chen Xuan and Yang Qiu's resumes are much more luxurious.

Chen Xuan served in Sichuan during the Hongwu period. He accompanied Fu Youde, Qu Neng, Lan Yu and others in the expedition against Nanfan, Yuexun and Baiyi, and participated in putting down the rebellions of Yuelu Timur and Jiahala.

Although he is only thirty-five years old, his achievements are already higher than those of some of the founding lords and earls of the Hongwu period.

Compared with him, although Yang Qiu was mediocre before being recommended by Zhu Gaoxu, he began to rise to prominence after being recommended.

During the tens of thousands of miles of sea route that he followed Yang Wenping, he never lost a single battle in twenty-seven battles, large or small, and killed more than 13,000 real Japanese.

His contribution in quelling the Japanese pirates along the coast was not small.

The three men together commanded a total of 527 warships and 324 horse ships.

This scale was actually larger than Zheng He's voyages to the West. Even during the First Opium War, as long as they were equipped with corresponding artillery, they could still achieve good results.

"I have read the hydrology of Denglai. The top priority right now is to build forts on the Imperial City Islands, especially Beihuangcheng Island."

Sitting in the main seat, Chen Xuan's first military order was to strengthen the defenses of Beihuang City Island, and explained:

"The bandit army is currently building a city at Lushun Port at the southern end of Jinzhou. Although I don't know whether it is for defense or a springboard for attack, it still poses a certain threat to us."

"If they set out from Lushun Port, the bandit army is only more than a hundred miles away from Beihuangcheng Island. Even a slow horse boat can reach Beihuangcheng Island within five hours with a favorable wind."

"The thieves' artillery is sharp. It weighs only seven or eight hundred kilograms and can shoot two miles away. We must be prepared."

"If Beihuangcheng Island falls, the subsequent eleven islands will fall one after another. Once the rebels capture the Imperial City Islands, it will only take three days to travel back and forth between Liaodong and Dengzhou."

"I don't need to go into details about this situation. Therefore, I have ordered Commander Qi Dai to lead his troops to garrison Beihuangcheng Island. After the beginning of spring, Commander-in-Chief Yang will lead the Japanese navy to go north to harass Hai, Gai, Fu, and Jin. Waiting for the state, I will personally lead the Yangtze River Navy to sit in Dengzhou City."

"General, take your orders!" After hearing Chen Xuan's arrangement, Qi Jian and Yang Qiu stood up, bowed, and then left the command yamen.

The two exchanged pleasantries at the door. Although they had different official positions and different ages, Yang Qiu and Yang Wen had also dealt with Qi Jian when they went north to pacify Japan a few years ago.

Nowadays, more and more brothers have died in battle, and there are fewer and fewer familiar faces, so Yang Qiu only chatted with Qi Jian for a while.

After a while, he returned to the post house to rest.

But not long after he lay down, he heard the guard at the door report that an old friend wanted to see him.

"Old friend?"

Yang Qiu frowned and couldn't help but think of Yang Zhan who was in Liaodong, so he could only bite the bullet and said: "Let him come in."

"Yes!" The guard walked out, and not long after, Yang Qiu saw a sturdy businessman in his thirties walking into his residence.

"Who are you?" Yang Qiu got straight to the point. The man also raised his hand and bowed: "The situation of the grassroots people is in this letter. Please read it."

The man handed over the letter, and Yang Qiu also took it with a heavy heart.

This letter did not meet his expectations. It was indeed written to him by Yang Zhan, and this sturdy businessman was Hu Lun, the subordinate of Zhu Gaoxu. He was the governor of all news and information in the customs.

Yang Zhan's intention in writing this letter was very clear, that is, he wanted to know the movements of the Confederate Navy.

Although this went against Yang Qiu's ideas, for the sake of Yang Zhan's safety, he sighed and wrote out the movements of the Southern Navy and gave the best time to attack.

"Take it. Don't come to see me if you have nothing to do in the future. Dengzhou City is not safe now."

Hu Lun naturally understood Yang Qiu's instructions, so he left with a smile on his face.

After he left, Yang Qiu's mood gradually became serious. He did not think that Zhu Gaoxu could defeat the powerful Southern Navy.

Even if he takes the Pingwa navy to southern Liaoning and does not participate in this naval battle, they may not win.

Yang Qiu's idea was correct, but what he didn't know was that times had changed.

Hu Lun returned to his residence in Dengzhou with the crucial intelligence, and then shortened it according to the content of the intelligence and chose to write it down in a special way.

This special method was specially taught to Xichang by Zhu Gaoxu. No one can crack it in this era, but if it is left to future generations, it can be understood by many people.

To put it more clearly, it is nothing more than the Chinese Pinyin of Mandarin in later generations.

Even if this kind of thing is picked up by someone, it cannot be read at all, because the gap between the Mandarin of the Ming Dynasty and the Mandarin of later generations is not one or two points, let alone requiring a person who has never learned to understand the initials and finals.

Hu Lun wrote down the information with confidence, and finally released more than thirty homing pigeons to fly north with the news.

Time passed little by little, and in just one day and night, the next day, Jinzhou West Factory Hundred Households obtained Hu Lun's information, "decoded" it, wrote it down, and handed it to Yang Zhan, who was currently training the navy.

"Captain Zhu, this is information sent from the south."

In the Jinzhou naval camp, which was filled with shouts of killing, the officials from the West Factory handed over important information to Yang Zhan.

After Yang Zhan took it, he glanced at it, and the frown he had frowned during training quickly relaxed.

"Okay! With this news, we are sure."

"You should quickly send this news to Guangning and give it to His Highness."

Yang Zhan returned the information and urged Baihu officials.

Baihu officials did not hesitate and immediately burned the information, preparing to return to Baihu Station and re-encrypt it before sending it to Guangning.

The intelligence process in the West Factory is very clear. From deciphering to writing, to delivery, and burning, there will be no more than ten people involved in the entire process.

This approach is very cumbersome, but very effective. At least until now, it seems that the Jinyiwei of the Southern Army have not obtained the key information of the Bohai Navy and can only write down some general information.

The re-encrypted information had its format and order changed, and was sent out in a content and format that only Jinzhou West Factory knew.

When Zhu Gaoxu got the information, it was already the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.

White snow covers the entire area outside the customs. Even in Guangning, which is close to the Bohai Sea, you can see two feet of snow.

Zhu Gaoxu read the deciphered information and nodded repeatedly with a smile on his lips.

He didn't say anything, but watched and calculated in his heart.

Among the three naval forces at present, the strongest one is Yang Qiu's Ping-Japanese Navy. Seventy-eight of the 2,000-material warships are used by the Ping-Japanese Navy, and most of the 1,500-material warships are in use. Under the command of Pingwa Navy.

Once they go to attack Hai, Gai, and Fuzhou, the firepower and quality of the warships of the Southern Navy staying in the Imperial City Islands and Dengzhou will decline.

I can let Yang Zhan seize this opportunity and defeat Chen Xuan and Qi Jian in one go.

With Yang Qiu as an internal support, plus Yang Zhan's forty warships with more than 2,000 materials and more than a thousand naval guns, they had no reason to lose.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu's eyes moved from the Denglai naval battle to the back.

How on earth he was going to go all the way south, he thought about this carefully.

It was impossible to go all the way south by boat. Even during the Yongle period, the entire country could only build Zheng He's navy that could carry 20,000 soldiers and horses for a long voyage.

The current Bohai Navy, even including the merchant ships in Jinzhou Bay, can at most transport ten thousand people across the sea to Jinzhou at one time. This is still a sea journey of less than two hundred miles. If we want to take the navy all the way Going south, from Dengzhou to the mouth of the Yangtze River, it is at least two thousand miles by sea.

With the current ship delivery capabilities of the Bohai Sea, if you want to escort a troop of soldiers and horses across the two thousand miles of sea route, the number will never be more than 5,000.

Zheng Chenggong was able to send 20,000 troops straight to the capital because his Zheng family had many ships, but Zhu Gaoxu had too few ships, and even sending 5,000 troops might not be successful.

Therefore, he never thought of using the navy to surprise the capital. What he wanted was to use the navy to transport siege artillery and field artillery. After landing in Dengzhou, the army would pass through the Huai'an Prefecture from southern Shandong and then go all the way south. At the same time, the navy slowly approached the Yangtze River estuary and received a large army from Yangzhou to cross the river.

As long as the cavalry successfully crosses the river and surrounds the twelve east and south gates of the capital, and at the same time the navy enters the Yangtze River and controls the seven west and north gates of the capital, Zhu Yunwen will be unable to fly.

The key is speed, they must surround the capital before Zhu Yunwen flees the capital.

His own interspersed operations south this time were different from Zhu Di's interspersed operations in history. The situation Zhu Di faced was that all the heavy military groups of the Southern Army had been severely damaged or even annihilated by him. Zhu Yunwen could no longer pull out other regiments except Song Sheng and Mu Sheng to fight against Zhu Di. , and then he set himself on fire in despair.

But now, if he wants to fight in and out, Zhu Yunwen actually has many trump cards.

The troops in the southwest have not been dispatched yet, but they can at least pull out 100,000 soldiers.

Li Jinglong in the north may not even have been defeated yet, and still has 300,000 troops at his disposal. Song Sheng from the northwest, Yang Wen from Guangxi, Fang Zhao from Shanxi...

All these armies are still there. If Zhu Yunwen escapes from the capital, he still has a chance to summon hundreds of thousands of troops to confront his father and son.

Therefore, the pursuit of this war is speed, surrounding the capital as quickly as possible and ending the Jingnan Campaign.

As long as the cavalry surrounds the east city, they can use the siege guns carried by the navy to concentrate on one point and launch an attack from the east.

Since the capital city had been threatened by Chen Youliang, Lao Zhu deliberately strengthened the city walls facing the river in the west and north. Although those walls were not as strong as in the late Ming Dynasty or even during World War II, they were not easily captured by naval guns.

On the contrary, there are no places facing the water in the east and south of Nanjing. They are almost all rammed earth walls, and there are wall bricks only near the city gate tower.

What Zhu Gaoxu wanted to do was to concentrate the field artillery to a point east for bombardment, quickly capture the outer city, and control Zhu Yunwen in the inner city without farmland and food.

After making all this clear, Zhu Gaoxu knew what else he needed to arrange.

Although it is said that many places in the Jianghuai area do not have city walls due to the demolition of city walls by the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, tens of thousands of people of their own are moving south, and how to provide food and fodder along the way is a big problem.

Now that the Northern Army is gathering, food prices in Jianghuai, Jiangnan and other places have skyrocketed. Will they be able to collect enough food all the way south?

Therefore, you have to prepare yourself early.

Thinking of this, he raised his head and looked at Xichang Baihuguan: "Encrypt your words to me and ask Hu Lun to help me go to Huai'an."

"The last general takes orders!" Baihuguan picked up his pen and started to write, and Zhu Gaoxu also told him bit by bit what he wanted Hu Lun to do.

While he was explaining everything, Zhu Di in the direction of Peiping was already fully prepared.

"Kill! Kill! Kill..."

The shouts of killing continued outside the city of Peiping. More than 100,000 troops were training in the clean school grounds. Each unit followed the orders from Zhu Di's command station and continuously adjusted their formations and interspersed each unit.

This scene is like commanding a huge number of hundreds of thousands of people to conduct a military parade in an orderly manner.

It may seem like a show-off, but when it comes to fighting, their opponents will be surprised by their coordination.

"Okay! Okay!"

Standing on the 7-8-foot-high commander's platform, Zhu Di could not see the entire army clearly, because the number of 100,000 people was too much.

But even so, he could still have a panoramic view of the movements of each army, but he could not clearly see the movements of the slightly farther corps.

Among them, the leader in mobile combat was actually not the Yanfu cavalry who followed Zhu Di in his southern and northern campaigns, but the Bohai horse infantry commanded by Wang Yi.

They skillfully interspersed among various departments, and their instructions were clear. Every whistle and horn sound represented various combat instructions. They could mount their horses to gallop and dismount their horses to form formations.

"How did Lao Er train them? I didn't realize he had such a talent before."

Zhu Di looked at Wang Yi's 20,000 horse infantry with great enthusiasm, and murmured to himself, leaving Zhang Yu, Meng Shan and others standing on his left and right without any doubt that if he was given a chance, he could defeat all the soldiers and horses under Zhu Gaoxu's command. They all came here.

Zhu Gaoxu is indeed not as experienced as Zhu Di when it comes to the interweaving of many corps and the cooperation between corps and corps.

But if we just talk about military discipline, discipline and execution, let alone the Yan Army, even if they bring over the Sixteenth Guards of Shangzhi, who have been deployed by Zhu Yuanzhang to fight local rebellions all year round, they are not necessarily the opponents of the Bohai Navy.

The literacy rate in Bohai may not be high, but the literacy rate in Bohai Navy is definitely not low.

Even in the past few months when the Shenji Fourth Battalion, which did not have enough health education in Blackwater City, was resting in the customs, Zhu Gaoxu had people continue to supplement them with knowledge.

They may not be able to write any articles, but their ability to understand and learn must be better than that of the feudal army, which was more than 90% illiterate.

When leading soldiers in the same way, ordinary soldiers can only memorize them by rote, and it is useless to beat or scold them. However, for soldiers with basic education, they can quickly understand these things and can use them to their own advantage.

This is where the Bohai Navy is powerful, and the key to why the 40,000-strong army that came out of the Bohai Sea is incompatible with the Liaodong and Daning armies.

Any soldier who comes out of the Bohai Sea has at least a cultural reserve of more than 500 words, and understands the most basic multiplication table.

Both Tangqi and Butang in Bohai can understand the drawings and make basic calculations on the location of the headquarters.

As that person said in later generations: "An army without culture is a stupid army, and a stupid army cannot defeat the enemy."

Zhu Gaoxu started the health school founded in the 28th year of Hongwu's reign and continued to educate soldiers so that they could understand the truth and understand the difference between themselves and the troops in the pass.

The Bohai Navy has strong military discipline and high execution ability, which are all effects brought about by literacy.

It's normal for Zhu Di to be greedy, let alone being greedy. If even Lao Zhu, who was already lying down, knew that Zhu Gaoxu's military training method was so effective, he might not have let him leave Nanjing City, but would have allowed him to train well and reach the top ten. Six guards.

"Dang...dang...dang..."

When among the 100,000 people, Tangqi began to sound the gold ring and deliver military orders, the Bohai Navy stood firm and motionless. On the other hand, many soldiers of the Yan Army still needed some time to adjust.

This scene made Zhu Di heartbroken, but he was not sad that his own soldiers were not as good as his second brother's soldiers, but he regretted not ordering more such soldiers with his second brother.

"Your Highness, it seems that the only ones who can do this are the soldiers and horses who followed His Highness out of the Bohai Sea."

Zhang Yu pointed at the Daning, Liaodong and other troops brought by Wang Yi. Their quality was about the same as that of the Yan army, and the gap between Bohai's 20,000 horse infantry and the Yan army was about the same.

"Zhang Yu, go and ask them how they train. After asking clearly, we will also train according to the second brother's method. We must train our cavalry and horse infantry to be like them."

Zhu Di's eyes were red, and his eyes revealed his desire for the Bohai Navy.

After Zhang Yu heard this, he immediately got off the commander's platform and went to look for Wang Yi on horseback.

Zhu Di asked the entire army to rest, and the soldiers of the Yan army and Daning sat down to rest. Only the Bo army arranged the horses in an orderly manner before sitting on the ground.

Zhu Di looked longingly at Zhang Yu, who had been gone for a quarter of an hour, and finally ordered the entire army to continue training when he saw Zhang Yu returning on horseback.

It's just that his attention is no longer on the training of the entire army, but on Zhang Yu.

"How?"

Zhu Di asked Zhang Yu who walked up to the podium, but Zhang Yu looked embarrassed: "Your Highness, I'm afraid we won't be able to come up with your Highness's method..."

"If there's anything you can't do, please tell me." Zhu Di leaned forward, ready to hear the secret of his second son's military training.

"The secret of His Highness's military training is..." Zhang Yu had no choice but to slowly tell what he heard from Wang Yi.

Zhu Di was still listening attentively at first, but the more he listened, the more he felt something was wrong. In the end, he simply summed it up in one sentence.

“What a waste of dick!”

Zhu Di scolded the sentiments of people of this era, because in the eyes of people of this era, being a soldier is just being a soldier. They might die on the battlefield tomorrow, so why teach them to read and write?

Even if the children of military families continue to occupy the imperial examination seats, the background is that military families often choose a few outstanding children to study and select other children to join the army in place of this outstanding child.

In other words, unless the children of military families who are selected to join the army come from families with a background of more than 100 or 1,000 households, it will be difficult for them to get the opportunity to study.

Under such a social background, the Bohai Navy actually organized literacy activities and made most of its soldiers proficient in the use of more than 500 characters. This is an amazing, but wasteful feat.

If these soldiers study hard for a few more years, they can definitely serve as local subordinates.

The old Bohai Navy had 50,000 people, which could at least control the basic tax revenue of a densely populated province.

In other words, the old Bohai Navy did not have 50,000 soldiers, but 50,000 children and 50,000 subordinate staff.

If a batch of these soldiers died, it would take at least four or five years to train them, and the price would be much higher than ordinary soldiers.

"That's why the general said that we might not be able to get it..."

Zhang Yu sighed with regret after listening to Zhu Di's abuse.

But compared to him, after scolding Zhu Di, he suddenly felt that it made sense for his second son to train like this.

"Actually, the second brother's training makes sense." Zhu Di suddenly agreed, pointing to Wang Yi's 20,000 horse infantry and said:

"If you leave it to me, I can defeat twice as many enemies with 20,000 horse and infantry."

"If we were given 20,000 horse infantry like me in the previous battle of Zhending, maybe the hundreds of thousands of troops on the north bank of the Hutuo River would have become our prisoners."

"The path of elite soldiers that the second brother took can still be used, and have you noticed that Wang Yi's 20,000 people will still go to work for the people near Beiping City, and they say it is relaxing..."

Zhu Di clicked his tongue a few times, obviously shocked by the situation of the Bohai Navy: "I have only read about this kind of thing in storybooks, and it was the Yue Family Army."

"It's just that it seems to me now that the Yue family's army is not as good as the second son's soldiers."

"So if we have the opportunity in the future, we would rather train 100,000 soldiers like this than 300,000 soldiers from Li Jinglong's side."

Li Jinglong had the Sixteenth Guards Army of Shangzhi, which was the most elite regiment left by Zhu Yuanzhang. However, even so, Zhu Di would rather have 100,000 Bohai Navy than 300,000 Southern Army. This shows that the Bohai Navy is facing How attractive he is.

"If you think about it again, these soldiers still belong to His Highness. After the battle, we have to return them..."

Zhang Yu had no choice but to speak, hitting Zhu Di's weak spot.

He opened his mouth and hesitated to speak, but couldn't say anything. Finally, he grabbed his thick beard and said viciously: "Let's talk after the beating. Don't even think about going back until the beating is over."

　I was delayed for a while in a meeting today. The second update will not be updated until 12 o'clock.

　　

　

(End of this chapter)