Chapter 1015 Bottom Line
"What about the second one?"
"Second, to win a decisive battle, we must first assemble heavy troops. The elites of Ji Liao and Xuanda must work together with the soldiers and horses of Jin Hai and Deng Lai to fight against the enemy. If there are 200,000 troops advancing from the east and west, it will be a coincidence.
, then it is not difficult to wipe out the Qing captives in one fell swoop. However, the mobilization and command authority of the two armies for the east-west joint battle must be unified. To ensure safety, it should be under the unified command of this governor."
When talking about this, Yang Zhen realized that rashly asking for military power might offend Hong Chengchou, Zu Dashou and other generals in western Liaoning. After all, those people had many conflicts with him before.
It may even arouse the suspicion of the court. After all, if the control and command of the 200,000-strong army is really entrusted to Yang Zhen, Emperor Chongzhen or other ministers in the cabinet may not be relieved.
However, when Yang Zhen thought about the situation that the Qing Dynasty might face in the Northern Expedition, he had to make this request first.
After all, no matter how much money and food the imperial court mobilizes, if there is no effective integration and unified command, it will not be able to coordinate well on the battlefield. In the end, it will still become a piece of scattered sand that will be defeated by others one by one.
After Yang Zhen made this request now, if he could not win the command of the entire army, at the very least, he could settle for the next best thing and gain the autonomy of his own subordinate Jin Haidenlai to carry out the Northern Expedition.
Of course, this is also Yang Zhen's bottom line.
In the Northern Expedition to the Qing Dynasty, Yang Zhen would never be willing to play a supporting role.
Moreover, he has made up his mind that even if he does not get the full cooperation of the Liaoxi soldiers and horses, he will still take up the important task of clearing out the Qing captives.
His only expectation for the soldiers and horses in western Liaoning is that once the war begins, they will not huddle in the fortified city in western Liaoning.
Even if they did what they did at the end of the last Zhenjiang Fort attack and defense battle, sending troops to attack Guangning and other places to help them contain half of the Qing forces, it would still make sense.
This is also the reason why Yang Zhen mentioned Xuan Da's troops and horses in the article about mobilizing troops and assembling heavy troops.
Yang Zhen originally did not want his uncle Yang Guozhu to lead the Xuanzhen troops to the front line of the decisive battle in Liaodong, as happened in history.
Because in the original history, Yang Guozhu was used as the vanguard of the army after he led his troops to the battlefield. He was the first general officer to be killed in battle in the Songjin Decisive Battle in the original time and space.
Although Yang Guozhu took the initiative to serve as the vanguard of the army, the other Ji Liao generals were all cowed and afraid of fighting at that time. Yang Guozhu couldn't stand it anymore and was angry, so he took the initiative to ask for it.
When Zhong was surrounded and surrounded, but no one came to rescue him, other soldiers and horses did not dare to send troops, and finally sat back and watched him die in battle.
It is not an exaggeration to say that he was tricked to death by his pig teammates.
Thinking of these and the big pit in western Liaoning, Yang Zhen was originally unwilling to drag his uncle into this pit again.
However, after much thought, he felt that once the war really started, he would not be able to do it without enough trustworthy helpers in western Liaoning.
Although Xia Chengde, the commander-in-chief of Songshan, was one of his own, and the Songshan regiment and camp under his command also had trustworthy soldiers and horses deployed by him, Yang Zhen could not be completely reassured when he thought of Xia Chengde's performance in the original time and space.
In Yang Zhen's view, once his side wins and the Northern Expedition goes smoothly, then Xia Chengde's side will definitely be fine.
However, once his side suffered a heavy setback, fell into a crisis, and faced a serious risk of failure in the Northern Expedition, it would be hard to say whether Xia Chengde was reliable.
Of course, what Yang Zhen was worried about was not reliable. It did not mean that Xia Chengde would surrender to the Qing captives like in history, act as an internal agent, and sell Hong Chengchou, Cao Bianjiao and other troops in Songshan City to the Qing captives.
Looking at it now, this is basically impossible.
Therefore, what Yang Zhen was worried about was that when he needed Xia Chengde to attack the Qing captives from the western front, contain the Qing captives, and relieve himself of the pressure, Xia Chengde would hesitate, not send troops on time, or send troops with insufficient force, or even not send troops at all.
Therefore, Yang Zhen needs someone who is completely on the same page as him and someone who is completely reliable.
As the saying goes, in fighting tigers, brothers are brothers, and father and son go into battle. For Yang Zhen, the most trustworthy one at the moment is the Xuanzhen soldiers and horses personally commanded by his uncle Yang Guozhu.
That army has the same roots as the main army in Jinhai Town. Many of the generals not only have good personal relationships with each other, but are also related to each other.
After the war begins, if the soldiers and horses of Jinhai Town are in danger or need support, they may be the only ones who can send troops to respond at all costs.
This is Yang Zhen's bottom line thinking. Think about defeat before thinking about winning. To prevent your teammates from cheating you, you must first arrange your backhand.
"Captain Yang's advice is very pertinent. Shen will definitely forward it to his troops and report it to the imperial court. In fact, including the gold sea received by the governor, the soldiers and horses from the two towns, and the border troops from Xuanda and other places, all his contributions were completed in one battle.
, it is possible to recruit 200,000 troops."
After hearing Yang Zhen's second suggestion, Shen Xun silently calculated in his mind for a while, and finally responded to Yang Zhen, and affirmed Yang Zhen's statement as soon as he opened his mouth.
At present, the Liaoxi camp under the command of uncle Jinyi Dashou can fight with nearly 50,000 troops.
The number of soldiers and horses brought by Hong Chengchou to Jiliao, including soldiers and horses along Jizhou, Zunhua, Yutian, and Shanhaiguan, as well as the troops who had followed Hong Chengchou out of the customs, totaled about 40,000.
Coupled with the border troops from Xuanda and other places, it is not a problem to raise a total of 120,000 to 30,000.
Originally, there were not many soldiers and horses in Xuan Town. After deducting the troops that had to guard the Great Wall pass and could not be mobilized, there were not many troops that could go to the battlefield outside the pass.
During the decisive battle of Song Jin in the original time and space, Yang Guozhu only brought more than 10,000 elite and capable soldiers to the battlefield outside the Pass.
But things are different now. In the past two years, Yang Guozhu accepted his nephew's advice and recruited people to open up wasteland and farm fields to raise troops in Xuanzhen. The number of soldiers available to young and middle-aged people was far greater than before, and he could do it even with thirty or forty thousand soldiers.
Not only Yang Zhen knew this, but also the discerning people above the imperial court.
And this was the reason why the people in the Ministry of War dared to propose that they join forces with all the troops and fight the Qing Dynasty in a decisive battle against Liaoshen and Liaoshen.
In their view, the major military leaders used the pretext of preparing for captivity or restoring Liao Dynasty to ask for a large amount of money and food, and finally raised a large number of soldiers and horses, and their strength continued to grow.
However, the court could not mobilize these soldiers and horses. They could not use them to suppress the bandits, and they were unwilling to rise up to destroy the captives and restore the Liao Dynasty. In this way, they not only cost the court a large amount of food and salary, but also became a serious problem for the court over time.
Rather than doing this, it would be better to put them into the Liaodong battlefield.
If you win the battle, everything will be easy to talk about.
Because after the big problem of Donglu was gone, the soldiers and horses in western Liaoning, the Liaodong Peninsula, and Xuanda would have no excuse for not going south to suppress the bandits.
That is to say, all the armies under Zu Dashou, Hong Chengchou, Yang Zhen, and Yang Guozhu can no longer just take money and food without doing anything in the name of preparing for and preventing captives.
As for what to do once the battle is lost, whether it is Emperor Chongzhen himself or the civil servants in the cabinet and the Ministry of War, their real thoughts are much more complicated.
In the original history, after Songshan City fell due to Xia Chengde's rebellion during the decisive battle of Songjin, almost all the Ming Dynasty's troops outside the Pass were wiped out, leaving only about 10,000 to 20,000 people who retreated to Ningyuan City.
The city of Ningyuan is strong and solid, and there are plenty of weapons and supplies, so it is enough to hold on.
However, the imperial court's decree was to destroy the city, abandon the defense, and retreat directly to Shanhaiguan.
Wu Sangui was reluctant to destroy and burn Ningyuan City, so he just abandoned the defense and left, giving up the land outside the pass, and then withdrew his troops into Shanhaiguan.
This fact is consistent with the views of the other side when many court ministers debated the Liaodong strategy in the early years of Chongzhen and even in the Tianqi period.
That is to say, directly abandon the defense of hundreds of miles outside the pass, and retreat the entire army to Shanhaiguan, first to shorten one's own supply line, and second to lengthen the enemy's supply line, and then talk about war and peace.
Yang Zhen was not sure whether Emperor Chongzhen himself had begun to agree with this point of view, or whether he was simply blindly confident to the extent that he could mobilize a large army to complete the battle.
It was not appropriate for him to speculate or discuss this.
But for the civil servants in the cabinet, even Chen Xinjia, the Minister of War, and Shen Xun in front of him, Yang Zhen was very sure that these people did not care about the life and death of the soldiers and horses outside the pass, and they might not even care much about the outcome of the defeat.
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Some people may even still be looking forward to this result.
After all, if they really lose the battle, those arrogant soldiers outside the pass will no longer have any room to bargain with the imperial court.
For the civil servants of the Cabinet and the Ministry of War, by that time, it cannot be said that there are no disadvantages, but the "benefits" are also obvious.
The first one is that it can save a huge amount of salary expenses.
Nowadays, the imperial court's finances are in dire straits. Even Jiangnan is experiencing disasters and beggars are everywhere. Under such circumstances, even if the rebellion in Shandong is quelled and the Grand Canal is no longer artificially blocked by rogue bandits, how many more years can the imperial finances be able to support the outside world?
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Under such circumstances, long-term pain is indeed worse than short-term pain.
Even if the battle is really lost, the government and the public will stop thinking about it and abandon the defense outside the pass, and things will go smoothly.
Secondly, there are relatively elite troops to suppress bandits within the pass.
Once the battle was lost, no matter how good Zu Dashou's troops were, at least Hong Chengchou's troops could safely withdraw to the battlefield of suppressing bandits in the pass.
At the same time, if Yang Zhen's Jinhai Town troops and horses cannot continue to gain a foothold behind enemy lines after their defeat, then they can retreat across the sea and board.
In this way, the troops and horses within the pass to suppress thieves will be available, and the deteriorating situation in the pass can be reversed.
Furthermore, after the decisive battle fails or is defeated, those warlords who have been strengthening their own forces to prevent and prepare for the captives will also be severely hit, and will no longer be able to form a powerful force that can not be defeated by relying on troops and relying on itself.
Based on such rough calculations, even if the decisive battle fails, it will have the benefit of "killing three birds with one stone" for the imperial court. If this is the case, then troops and horses from Jinyi, Jiliao, Jinhai, Xuanda and other places will be mobilized to fight against the Qing captives.
The decisive battle is inevitable.
Yang Zhen also gradually understood the original time and space and the thoughts of Emperor Chongzhen and the civil servants in the court.
While Yang Zhen was speculating on the various considerations behind the court's decision, the imperial envoy Shen Xun pondered for a moment, looked at Yang Zhen again and said:
"But the overall command of the 200,000-strong army still needs to be discussed and decided by the Holy Emperor and the court. After all, there is Commander Hong in Ningyuan and Commander Jin Yibo in Jinzhou. In the future, they will be recruited from Xuanda and Jiliao
After the soldiers and horses leave the border, there will only be more generals and commanders.
"Captain Yang, you have made great achievements by establishing Jinhai, commanding and attacking behind enemy lines, and there is no doubt about it. But Marshal Jinyi, the great uncle, has been stationed in Liaodong for a long time, and has a high status and prestige——"
Having said this, Shen Xun paused, looked at Yang Zhen, and said no more.
But Yang Zhen also knew what he meant, and knew that he wanted to say that Uncle Jinyi Dashou and his generals would not be willing to live under Yang Zhen and obey Yang Zhen's orders.
Yang Zhen naturally knew this very well, so when he heard what Shen Xun said, he nodded slowly.
Yang Zhen's nod obviously gave Shen Xun great confidence. His expression was obviously changed, and he continued:
"Furthermore, according to the advice of the governor, in addition to Commander Zu, Marshal Yang, the commander-in-chief of Xuanzhen and Zhenshuo, must not stay out of the matter. When the time comes, there will be more such commanders-in-chief. If the governor is the commander-in-chief,
Does the governor think it’s appropriate?”
Faced with Shen Xun's rhetorical question, Yang Zhen did not refute or even speak. He just nodded slowly again.
Seeing this, Shen Xun continued: "Just when Mr. Shen left the capital, Zhang Langzhong, the official of the Ministry of War, also rushed to Guanning according to the order. At that time, although Chen Benbing did not say it explicitly, he stepped forward to send troops to pacify the captives and fight with the captives.
There is a difference between the leader and the master in the decisive battle, but its intention is not difficult to understand."
"Oh? How does Chen Benbing feel?"
Chapter completed!