The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

All the generals in the big tent knew that Liu Sheng held a military meeting not because he had no ideas about the war, but to understand everyone's thoughts, cultivate the generals' strategic vision, tactical thinking, etc., and make a unified plan before the war. War thinking to avoid the situation of fighting independently.

Although there is a popular saying in the Yi army that "it is the bounden duty of soldiers to obey orders", in the previous armies such as the Ming army, middle and low-level generals, and even senior generals, acted directly according to orders, with little understanding, unification, and communication. These are the steps of combat thinking.

But after all, people are not machines. They all have their own thoughts. If they cannot fully understand the main ideas in military orders, they are likely to lose their way when commanding battles. They may even be blinded by temporary gains and ignore military orders and act on their own.

At this time, the generals looked at the map hanging in the big tent and raised their hands one after another to express their thoughts.

Liu Sheng spent a long time listening and found that the generals' thoughts could be roughly divided into two types.

The first is to attack cities and seize territory as soon as possible before encountering the Qing rebels, to expand the depth of one's strategy, and at the same time to prevent the resources in these places from being plundered by the Qing rebels.

The second method is to stabilize the territory previously occupied by the Second Division, divide the troops and hold on to it, waiting for the Qing captives to attack on their own.

Doing this is equivalent to stopping quietly and waiting for work. It can also lengthen the supply lines and communication lines of the Qing captives. Although the supplies of the Qing captives basically rely on looting after entering the customs, there are always some things that require rear support.

Not to mention the impact of the extension of communication lines on the Qinglu. After all, the Qinglu did not have telegraphs or walkie-talkies, so they could only rely on fast horses to convey messages.

The first of these two ideas seems radical, but its actual cognitive basis is conservative.

Why expand strategic depth?

Isn't it just that they are worried that the Qinglu are too strong and the Yi army will not be their opponents for a while, so that they can have enough room to replace them?

On the other hand, the second idea seems conservative, but it is actually based on the fact that the Yi army will definitely be able to defeat the Qing invaders in a long-term defensive battle.

After Liu Sheng discussed with the generals, and then taking into account his own military strength and logistics situation, he decided to adopt a moderate strategy.

He still used Peng Youyi as the vanguard general, and asked the Second Division of the Standing Army, two brigades of Shengjie Guards, and one brigade of Xiaoqi Guards to attack the main cities of Dongchang and Jinan as soon as possible to expand his strategic depth.

At the same time, he led two brigades of the Huben Guards and a division of the Nanjing Garrison Army to establish defense lines around the Daqing River, Tuhe River, and Shang River relying on large and small cities.

If Peng Youyi and other vanguard troops succeed in the battle after encountering the Qing captives, Liu Sheng will mobilize soldiers from the defensive line to support them and maximize the results of the battle.

If the vanguard unit encounters trouble in the war after encountering Qing captives, Liu Sheng can also dispatch troops to support according to the situation.

If that doesn't work, you can also let the vanguard troops withdraw first, and then rely on the established defense lines in the rear to fight against the Qing captives.

However, Liu Sheng did not think that the Qing army was very strong.

It is definitely stronger than the Ming army or even the Shun army.

But the main strength is morale, followed by soldiers, armor and equipment, and thirdly discipline, organization and scheduling.

The high morale of the Qing army was accumulated through victory after victory in more than twenty years of fighting, especially the great victories against the Ming army in recent years.

Therefore, most of the Ming troops were afraid when they saw the Qing captives before. There were even scenes of more than a dozen horsemen chasing thousands of Ming troops to flee in panic when the Qing captives invaded.

As for the Shun army, they should not have been much afraid of the Qing captives originally, but after a huge defeat and Li Zicheng's repeated retreats to the west, their relative morale probably fell to the bottom.

In history, the Shun army was finally chased by the Qing army and had no way to escape. There was also the Ming army in the south. In addition, a small number of generals had a slight awakening of national consciousness, and their combat effectiveness changed and became stronger than before.

However, because the Qing captives entered the Central Plains and absorbed too many Ming troops and other troops, their combat effectiveness was reduced. Therefore, the Shun Army and the Daxi Army in history had a chance to defeat the Qing Army.

Now should be the period when the Qing army's combat effectiveness is strongest.

First of all, most of the Yuancong generals who had followed Nurhachi in raising troops and fighting for ten or twenty years were still alive and not many died.

Secondly, the Manchu, Mongolian and Han Eight Banners system became more complete in the hands of Huang Taiji, and the internal affairs were also handled quite well.

Finally, the troops of King Sanshun who fled to the Manchu Qing Dynasty with guns, cannons and boats were also at the peak of their combat power.

Therefore, although Liu Sheng did not think that the Qing army's combat effectiveness was much stronger than that of the Yi army, he still chose a safer strategy to fight the battle.

···

Late November.

Because of the addition of the three brigades of the Guards, the strength of the Yi Army's vanguard force was doubled, and the actual combat effectiveness increased by at least two and a half, or even three times.

In the past six months, most of the guards had stayed with Liu Sheng in Nanjing City, rarely getting combat missions. Now that they are participating in the Northern Expedition, every one of them behaves as fiercely as a tiger.

As a result, the Yi army captured cities one after another in Dongchang and Jinan at a faster speed than before. In the two mansions, whether it was the generals of the Shun army who were still holding on, or the former Ming officials and local gentry who had taken advantage of the withdrawal of the Shun army to seize power, they learned that hundreds of thousands more troops had arrived (exaggerated military strength in external propaganda was mostly to intimidate opponents). The will to resist is getting weaker each time.

Most of the cities and towns controlled by the former Ming Dynasty officials and local Jin gentry immediately changed their flags and surrendered after seeing the Wei army. Some even changed their flags and surrendered without even seeing the Wei army, and took the initiative to send people to express their surrender.

Many of the cities controlled by the generals of the Shun army, after a little resistance, found that the gap in strength was too great, so they stopped resisting and surrendered the city.

Of course, a considerable number of Shunjun generals ran away in advance after hearing the news.

There were also a few generals of the Shun army who were stabbed in the back and killed by the former Ming officials and Jin gentry in the city when they were defending the city.

On November 29, after taking Dezhou, the 5th Brigade affiliated to the 2nd Division of the Standing Army wanted to march into Hejian Prefecture in North Zhili, but they encountered Qing Qing cavalry near Sangyuan (later Wuqiao)...

At this time, Sangyuan was just a town. Because it was located next to the Grand Canal and at the junction of Beizhili and Shandong, business was quite prosperous.

Since the Shun Army moved north, natural disasters and military disasters have caused this town to rapidly decline, and now it appears to be deserted.

More than ten miles north of Mulberry Town, Bolo led more than 300 horsemen to gallop southward at a leisurely pace. Even if their marching speed was not too slow, they could also ensure that they would have sufficient horsepower when encountering the enemy, so they could pursue them. escape.

Of course, Bolo didn't think there was any army in the Ming Dynasty that dared to fight them, because when they went south, most of the Shun troops they encountered or local troops who didn't know whether they were Ming or Shun fled, and they dared to hold the city in front of them. Yes, that is considered brave.

For example, Li Huaxi, the former governor of Hejian in the Ming Dynasty, who guarded the city in Hejian, and Zhang Fuzhen, the former governor of Baoding in the Ming Dynasty, guarded Qingyuan, Ansu, Anzhou, Gaoyang, Mancheng and other places in Baoding Prefecture.

He followed Ama (Abatai) and Turg south from Beijing, taking the route of the Grand Canal. So far, he has not encountered an army that dared to fight them in the wild.

But Bolo was not careless.

This time he led half of Niulu's Eight Banners Manchurian soldiers and one Niulu's Eight Banners Mongolian soldiers (more than 270 people) to explore the road. One was to understand the situation in the south as soon as possible, and the other was to eliminate ambushes for the army.

He joined the army at the age of twelve and is now twenty-nine. He is well aware of the dangers of military warfare and must act with caution, otherwise even a veteran general may capsize in the gutter.

Therefore, he had already separated several sentry teams from the team and sent them to explore the surrounding area.

Glancing at the deserted and dilapidated village on the roadside, Bolo's somewhat long horse had no expression on his face, but he was thinking in his heart: This pass is too dilapidated now, no wonder Prince Rui and the others fought all the way to Shandong last time. If we want to grab enough things this time, it seems we have to go to Shandong, or even further south.

Da da da!

The sound of horse hoofbeats came from ahead, bringing Bolo back to his senses.

Looking at the flag, it turns out that the sentry team sent to the south has returned.

Several white-armored soldiers came forward to meet them, and once again identified the sentinel team, they were brought to Bolo.

Bolo's face darkened when he noticed that the team was missing one person.

The leader of the team turned around and fell off his horse, knelt down quickly on one knee, clasped his fists and said, "I'm reporting to Mr. Bei Zi, we encountered a small group of detective horses of unknown origin near Sangyuan Town in front of us."

When Bolo heard this, he frowned and became even more dissatisfied, "What do you mean by unknown origin? Haven't you ever fought against them?"

The team leader became nervous and said: "We have fought. Those people's riding and archery skills are not as good as ours. As soon as we met, someone was hit by an arrow from the slave."

Unfortunately, the man was well-armored and the servant missed his vital point, so they hurriedly hid in Mulberry Town.

The slave wanted to catch his tongue, so he chased after him. Unexpectedly, he was suddenly attacked by several cannons. Unfortunately, Adaman was shot in the face and fell off his horse.

The servant was worried that there were more people ambushing in the town, so he could only withdraw with the remaining few people. "

Snapped!

After hearing this, Bolo whipped the squad leader on the face.

Then he kicked him over and cursed angrily: "You idiot, how dare you chase him into a town that you haven't explored before? Also, after you chased him in and took a round of bullets, why did you run away in fear?

Don’t you know that the musket needs to be reloaded as soon as it is fired? The time in between is enough for you to kill the enemy five or six times? "

The team leader got up and couldn't help but explain: "The slave is worried that there will be more people ambushing in the town."

"What an ambush!" Bolo gave the squad leader another whip, "If they had an ambush, how could they let you go?

Now that you have failed to detect the enemy's roots, you have allowed Adaman to fall into the enemy's hands, which will most likely expose our situation. Tell me, what crime should I convict you of? ! "(End of chapter)