The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 407: War Intuition

"You must remember that our Imperial Army does not have an overwhelming advantage over the Marathas and other Indian princely states in terms of weapons and equipment. The only advantage we have over them is our professional military qualities and strict military system! Therefore, I am very disappointed with your recent performance."

In a military camp on the outskirts of Siping (now Thane, India), Li Yanliang, the new deputy chief training officer of the Indian Garrison Army and commander of the Shanghai Pacification Garrison, was giving a speech to a group of officers, expressing his extreme dissatisfaction with their recent training level and combat readiness.

More than two months ago, after more than 4,000 soldiers were deployed to the Mediterranean and Caribbean to participate in the war against France, another 5,000 soldiers were urgently transported to Rajput and Punjab in the north last month to deal with the tense situation there.

A few years ago, the Sikh Kingdom located in the northeastern region of Punjab showed an aggressive stance as soon as it was born.

Five years ago, before Qi could respond, they destroyed the Nawab Kingdom and the Panjinad Kingdom in a crushing manner, occupying the entire rich Punjab and the middle reaches of the Indus River. Three years ago, they defeated the 50,000-strong Mughal army in Lahore, and then captured the important northern city of Amritsar, heading straight for Delhi.

After intimidating the Mughal Empire, the Sikh Kingdom quickly turned its attack towards the Rajput Kingdom in order to eliminate the military threat from the southwest and, by the way, bring this vast desert area under the rule of the kingdom, thereby obtaining a large number of brave and warlike Rajput cavalry.

As a troublemaker in India, oh no, it should be the defender of Indian order, Qi State naturally could not allow the Sikh Kingdom to swallow up the Rajput Kingdom that they had supported and gradually grow stronger.

Therefore, Qi Zhaohui, the Colonial Affairs Commissioner in India and Governor-General of Morocco, immediately ordered the garrison troops to intervene in the war between the Sikh Kingdom and the Rajput Kingdom. At the same time, he also mobilized more than 6,000 cavalry from the Karat Khanate to launch an attack from the northwest flank of Sindh.

Because the Guangwei Governorate was close to the north, it was the first to receive a transfer order from the garrison headquarters, requesting the dispatch of two regiments of troops to Haining Port (now Bhavnagar City, India) and Jinmen Port (now Karachi).

After two withdrawals, the Guangwei garrison was left with just over 10,000 troops. They had to guard the vast colonial territory extending from Nanxu (now Daman, India) in the north to Rongyang (now Panaji, the capital of Goa, India) in the south, and to the Western Ghats in the east. They were suddenly stretched to their limits.

In order to gain military merit in the upcoming war with the Sikh Kingdom, local garrison commander Xu Chaowu and other senior generals led their troops north and handed the heavy responsibility of defending the Guangwei Governor's District directly to the newly appointed deputy chief instructor of the garrison army, Li Yanliang, ordering him to guard the defense zone carefully to ensure local security while training the army.

When Li Yanliang came to report for his post, Xu Chaowu was very dissatisfied with his late arrival and immediately gave him a few warnings. Not only did he severely reprimand him for his "passivity and laziness" in front of many officers, he also threw the most thankless task of training new recruits to him.

In order to make things difficult for him, the garrison headquarters even asked him to make two sets of military emergency plans within a month in the name of preventing invasion by the Maratha Empire, and they also had to mark out detailed troop deployment and military force allocation.

In order to complete this defense emergency plan, it is necessary to conduct on-site inspections of various military strongholds within the jurisdiction, study and explore the specific terrain and landforms, and count the existing troop deployments and weapons and equipment of the garrison troops.

To be honest, this job should be done by the garrison army's staff, not by him, the newly arrived deputy chief training officer and commander of the Shanghai Pacification Garrison.

However, in the Imperial Army, there is an extremely strict concept of hierarchy and the military code of unconditional obedience to orders. Since the orders were given by the superiors, Li Yanliang, as a subordinate, could only obey them.

After settling down a little, he took more than a dozen direct officers to travel around Guangwei and began to work hard to prepare a full-area emergency defense plan.

In one month, Li Yanliang ran through nearly half of the garrison strongholds and key passes in Guangwei. His thighs were rubbed several times due to long-term riding, which made it impossible for him to close his legs for a long time.

Just as he nervously handed the two emergency defense plans he had worked so hard to prepare to Xu Chaowu, preparing to accept his questioning and reprimand again, he was surprised to find that the other party's attitude suddenly became gentle and friendly. He not only highly praised his work performance over the past month, but also gave positive affirmation and praise to the two combat plans he submitted.

Just when he was puzzled by this, the logistics department of the garrison army handed him two telegrams from the royal family.

One was a royal decree regarding promotion of title, which upgraded his original title of Baron Qingchuan to Earl of Yongxing, directly skipping the title of Viscount.

This imperial decree immediately caused an uproar in the entire Guangwei Garrison Army Command, and then gave rise to endless envy.

Under normal circumstances, it is very difficult to be conferred a title by the empire, especially titles above earl, which are extremely difficult to obtain. Only those who have made outstanding military merits or outstanding contributions to the country and society can easily be conferred a title by the royal family.

When Emperor Taizu ascended the throne, he conferred titles on more than 200 former Dengzhou elders, with the highest being dukes and the lowest being earls, thus establishing the imperial noble group. During the Shaoning period, the imperial title system became increasingly strict. Not only could ordinary people no longer obtain titles on a large scale like during the Taizu period, but even the royal family itself was extremely "stingy", and many royal children were only granted low-level titles throughout their lives.

In addition to the regulations on hereditary nobility and demotion, by the late Taiping period, there were only more than 180 nobles with titles above earl. A large number of viscounts and barons were conferred in recognition of their contributions or for honorary considerations, and their titles were basically lifelong. When a person died, his or her title would disappear and could not be passed on to the next generation.

In the entire Indian region, there are only a dozen or so nobles who have obtained the title of earl or above. All of them are local governors who hold great power, commanders of garrison troops, or royal children who come here for training.

If the royal decree of promotion made the generals of the Guangwei garrison jealous, then the other telegram sent privately by the Emperor to Li Yanliang was even more shocking.

This legendary "lucky person" actually has such a close relationship with Your Majesty that they even exchange telegrams!
Did he report to Your Majesty the many issues he encountered after arriving in the Guangwei Governorate?
When Xu Chaowu listened to Li Yanliang's plan report, he couldn't help feeling embarrassed and worried.

Although his promotion and assignment of powers were determined by the Privy Council and the Army General Staff, His Majesty the Emperor had far-reaching influence and control over the military.

If His Majesty knew that I had deliberately made things difficult for this trusted officer, I would be kicking myself into the tip of a knife.

However, after the two sides spent more than ten days together, they discovered that Li Yanliang did not seem to be the kind of mediocre officer who spread rumors and was uneducated.

He had been to the battlefield, killed people, planned regional conflicts, established a civil defense training system, and promoted the eastward expansion of Yinzhou's colonial territory.

All in all, this person is quite capable and is not just a lucky person who came to the Indian garrison to gain experience, military merits, or seek personal gain.

In this case, whether it is to try hard to cultivate Li Yanliang's experience in military management to please His Majesty, or to work hard to rectify local military affairs, Xu Chaowu entrusted many important military affairs in the jurisdiction to him and gave him the greatest support.

A month ago, the Indian Garrison Headquarters sent a transfer order, requiring the Guangwei area to dispatch two regiments to the north to curb the expansion war of the Sikh Kingdom. Xu Chaowu immediately led his troops north and entrusted the entire Guangwei Garrison Army defense affairs to Li Yanliang, and appointed him as the acting commander.

Li Yanliang suddenly gained great power. Although he was in high spirits, he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.

If it had been before, with nearly 20,000 troops stationed in Guangwei fully equipped, no one would dare to challenge them, take the initiative to provoke or launch a sneak attack, and it would even make the surrounding local kingdoms feel endless pressure, worrying that they would be invaded by Qi at any time.

But now, after a series of withdrawals, the Guangwei garrison has only about 10,000 troops left, and they have to be deployed to guard various places, which seems a bit overwhelmed.

In this situation, if some local force (Maratha Empire: Are you talking about me?) wanted to take advantage of the situation and launch an attack on the Guangwei Governorate, it would be quite dangerous.

It is reported that the Cochin Kingdom in the south is planning a war against the Mysore Kingdom to curb the other side's continued expansion to the south.

In Bengal, the situation was equally grim. The Governor-General of Bengal, Khawaja, had died, and his sons and trusted generals began to fight for the right to rule the province of Bengal. They each had their own troops and attacked each other, trying their best to eliminate the other and seize the position of Governor-General of Bengal.

This made the Bengal garrison on edge. On the one hand, they cooperated with the Governor-General of Bengal of the Colonial Affairs Department and various ambitious people to select suitable agents, and on the other hand, they mobilized militarily and were ready to interfere with local regime changes at any time.

Therefore, if anything major happened in the Guangwei Governor's District, it might not get support from all parties for a while, and it would be necessary to mobilize all its strength to handle it on its own.

To this end, Li Yanliang withdrew all the small garrison troops scattered in the outer strongholds and concentrated them in several important towns and railway hubs such as Yunyang, Nanxu, Linfen (now Silvassa), Guangjin (now Kalyan), and Pingshan (now Khopoli town southeast of Mumbai) to prevent them from being taken advantage of by the enemy and being defeated one by one.

At the same time, in order to strengthen the defense, he also ordered the training officers to intensify the training of the 2,000 newly recruited indigenous soldiers so that they could become familiar with various combat skills such as firearms drills, drum signals, and formation changes as soon as possible.

"Sir, do you think the Marathas will definitely launch an attack on us? Do you have any direct evidence?" Huang Yi, commander of the Fifth Mixed Brigade of the Garrison Army and Lieutenant Colonel of Linghui, felt embarrassed when he was scolded by his superior who was a few years younger than him, so he questioned loudly.

According to news from various channels, the Marathas are gathering their main forces to engage in a military confrontation with the Hyderabad Kingdom in the southeast. The situation is extremely tense and a war is imminent.

Under such circumstances, how could they spare the time to attack us?
At this time, we should take the initiative to assist the Kingdom of Hyderabad to support its continued confrontation with the Marathas, instead of making the entire Guangwei Governorate nervous and ridiculously worried about an attack from the Marathas, as we are doing now.

Do they dare?

"There is no evidence." Li Yanliang shook his head.

"No evidence?" Huang Yi was amused by this answer. "Sir, since there is no direct evidence that the Marathas will attack us, then we are always on alert and in a three-level alert state. It is easy to cause fatigue to the troops, and the soldiers are also complaining."

"Soldiers should obey orders as the highest principle. How dare the soldiers complain? Besides, this is only the third-level alert status. No leave is allowed. How can the troops be in a state of fatigue?"

"The problem is that there is no sign that the Marathas will attack us. Why are all the officers and soldiers so nervous? Sir, based on what intelligence information do you think the Marathas will make a feint to the east and attack in the west and suddenly attack us?"

"intuition."

"...Intuition?" Upon hearing this, all the officers present looked at each other in surprise.

Sun Tzu said, "In war, the art of deception is the art of warfare."

But no one has ever said that the art of war is based on intuition!
How could this officer say such unreliable things?
"Captain Cui, tell me about the military situation of the Marathas." Li Yanliang turned and said to Captain Cui Youlan, the head of the Black Guard stationed in Guangwei and the captain of Linghui.

"Yes, sir." Cui Youlan saluted him, then spread out the folder in his hand and read it to everyone.

"…the Maratha Empire had a population of between 20 and 24 million people, on the basis of which the Marathas established a large standing army."

"…The Maratha army is mainly divided into garrison troops, cavalry, infantry and new firearms troops, with a total strength of about 180,000 to 200,000. Among them, the Maratha cavalry has five legions with a strength of about 20,000, equipped with lances and sabers, as well as traditional bows and arrows; the infantry has twelve legions with a strength of about 80,000, mainly equipped with cold weapons such as swords and spears, and a small number of muskets, but the performance is relatively backward, and there are even old matchlock guns."

"The most important military force of the Maratha people is the new firearms force that has been gradually expanded over the past twenty years. It is modeled after the army of our Great Qi and the European army. It has a total size of 14 regiments, with a strength of about 30,000. It is equipped with a large number of muskets, cannons and ammunition produced by itself. It is said that the performance of the weapons is not much different from that of our army. The training of the troops is also guided and exercised by European mercenaries from beginning to end. Some middle and senior officers are even Europeans."

"As for the remaining local garrison troops, they should be regarded as local militias and their combat effectiveness is not worth mentioning and can be ignored." Cui Youlan closed the folder, nodded slightly to everyone, and said: "The military armed forces of the Maratha people are basically like this. In terms of numbers, they exceed all the local forces in the surrounding areas in the entire Deccan region, and can even be said to be crushing. If our Qi State was not here, they would easily unify the Deccan, or further unify southern India and the entire subcontinent."

"So, they dare to challenge our Great Qi?" Huo Baichuan, commander of the 12th Mixed Brigade of the Qi-Indian Army, asked disapprovingly.

"What else?" Li Yanliang asked back indifferently.

"Sir, I think the Marathas are overestimating their capabilities..."

"Indians are born with a strong sense of self-confidence. They never think that they are overestimating themselves in front of us." Li Yanliang said in a deep voice: "With a force of 200,000, the Marathas have no real threat to the Kingdom of Hyderabad, the Kingdom of Mysore, or the Mughal Empire. Moreover, they have also formed the largest new firearms unit in India. So, who will be their opponent?"

"Of course, with the strength of Da Qi, we will not take the Maratha's strength seriously. But what is the current situation? Our Guangwei has no troops, and we need to intervene in the war of the Sikh Kingdom in the north. Bengal also wants to interfere in the change of local regimes. We will be isolated and helpless in a short period of time. If the Maratha emperor still has a little ambition, do you think he will take the risk of attacking Da Qi and gain the upper hand?"

(End of this chapter)