I want to be emperor

Chapter 374 Stability is the King's Way

The warships built by the Great Chu Empire Navy were specially designed for maritime warfare.

The professional warships specially designed by the Admiralty Department of the Navy are not the traditional warships under Zheng Zhilong's command while transporting cargo and fighting at the same time.

Even for these traditional warships, Zheng Zhilong actually didn't have many under his command. Many of the ships under his command that were used for combat were actually ordinary merchant ships equipped with a small amount of artillery.

In front of professional warships, these lightly armed merchant ships are at a disadvantage in an all-round way, and they belong to the type that cannot run but cannot hold.

As long as the Great Chu Empire improves its personnel training in the past few years, first train a group of sailors and officers, then after two or three years, after these skilled sailors get a large number of new warships, Zheng Zhilong's fleet will be nothing...

Even if you can't fight one-on-one, the Great Chu Empire Navy can kill you with a ratio of two to one or even three to one.

Whether it was Luo Zhixue or the generals of the Admiralty, they never put their hope of defeating the enemy navy on how powerful their single-ship combat power was. Their thinking was very simple and clear.

Use more and better warships, more and better naval guns to pile up enemies alive!
Even if you are a famous general alive, if you can play tricks to the fullest, I will blast you with hundreds of thousands of cannons all the way, and I will still blow you to scum!
The Great Chu Empire has never competed with the enemy in terms of tactics and the like, it is all about national strength!

Well, although the tactical ability of many Ming army generals is not as good as that of the Chu army generals... Even if they really play tactics, the Chu army generals can now kill a group of half-baked civilian generals in the Ming army!

However, the upper echelons of the Great Chu Empire are still unswervingly walking on the road of winning by national power, and absolutely not making surprise attacks if they can be flattened.

Just for stability!

Zheng Zhilong's fleet, in the eyes of the princes and ministers of Great Chu, is just like that. It can't be beaten now, but it can definitely overwhelm him in two years or five years.

how to do itIf a hundred battleships are not enough, let him go out with a thousand ships and directly pile up Zheng Zhilong's fleet to death.

As for the past few years, even if Zheng Zhilong's fleet is still alive and kicking, it will not affect the actions of the Chu army on the ground!

After all, no matter how powerful Zheng Zhilong's fleet is, he will not be able to go ashore. As long as their fleet cannot go ashore, it is impossible to stop the advance of the Chu army's ground troops in southern Zhejiang and Fujian by relying on ground troops to fight.

It is only a matter of time before we win Southern Zhejiang and Fujian.

And this time does not depend on the ability of the Ming army or Zheng Zhilong's troops to fight, but depends on the Chu army's own marching speed and supply speed.

If the weather is good, the supply is smooth, and the troops are kept replenished, no other troops are needed, and the sixth division alone can fight all the way from southern Zhejiang to Fuzhou.

Looking at the whole of southern Zhejiang and Fujian, no Ming army can stop the main force of the Chu army like the Sixth Division.

The ground battle is stable, the only difference is that Fujian was taken a few months earlier or a few months later, and the kings and ministers of the Great Chu Empire don't really care about this.

Anyway, southern Zhejiang and Fujian are mountainous areas with complex terrain. This kind of place is not a land of fish and rice, nor is it a strategic place.

Therefore, the high-level officials of the Chu State actually lack interest in Fujian, and they definitely want to win it, but there is no problem a few months earlier or later...

The battle plan for capturing Fujian is not as high priority as capturing Ganzhou.

After taking Ganzhou, the Great Chu Empire can continue to go all the way south, then capture Nanxiong, then capture Shaoguan, and finally enter the Pearl River Delta Plain, capture Guangzhou, an important southern coastal port, and control the grain-producing area of ​​the Pearl River Delta Plain.

Looking at the strategy of the Great Chu Empire, and looking at the terrain, production, and location of the provinces in southern China, you will find that the Great Chu Empire has already controlled more than [-]% of the essence of southern China, and the rest are leftovers. It is said that the follow-up will also be played, but it is not very important to be earlier or later.

To put it to the extreme, even if the Great Chu Empire does not attack these places for the time being, and waits ten years to attack these places, it will not have any fatal impact.

For the contemporary state of Chu, the most important thing is not to win Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other areas, but to accumulate strength to prepare for the Northern Expedition to capture the Xuhuai area, and then merge with the North Route Army stationed in Nanyang Mansion. Advance, and finally seize the entire area south of the Yellow River.

Pushing the front line to the Yellow River area is an important strategic goal of the Great Chu Empire in the next stage, and it is also for the purpose of further entering Beizhili, capturing Youzhou, and completely destroying the Ming court.

However, before this can be achieved, it is necessary to capture Yangzhou, and then seize a series of important cities on the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal such as Huai'an and Xuzhou, so as to finally control the entire Beijing-Hangzhou Canal south of the Yellow River.

If there is no canal for convenient supplementary supplies, then based on the huge consumption of ammunition and supplies by the army of the Great Chu Empire, and considering the severe food shortage in the northern region due to natural and man-made disasters, if the army goes north without transporting a large amount of food in time, then the army will At that time, it may be difficult to eat the enemy if you want to...

After all, the rations of the soldiers of the Chu army were treated very well. Basically, the rations of one soldier were equivalent to the rations of three ordinary soldiers in the Ming army.

At the same time, the main force of the Chu army also has a large number of mules and horses. The mules and horses do not only refer to cavalry units. In fact, there are not many cavalry units in the Chu army. Artillery units and supply units, in order to maintain mobility, have a very large number of mules and horses.

The artillery regiment of a main division alone has more than 1000 mules and horses used to transport artillery and ammunition.

And the food and grass consumed by these more than 1000 mules and horses is equivalent to thousands of infantry.

The consumption of food and grass for the Chu army to supply a main division is basically equivalent to the consumption of food and grass for the Ming army of more than [-].

If several main divisions went north during the Northern Expedition, plus a few garrison divisions to cooperate in the battle, it would be equivalent to the consumption of food and grass for the Ming army of 30 to [-] troops.

Such a huge amount of food and grass consumption, if the logistics are not smooth, can still be eaten by the enemy in grain-producing areas such as Jiangnan. Much more.

The consumption of food and grass is high, as is the consumption of ammunition and the replacement of weapons. After all, the Chu army is fighting, and the Ming army knows that when fighting, the guns will not stop, especially when they attack the city, the artillery will continue to bombard for several days. .

There is not enough ammunition supply, but the Chu army's firepower crushing tactics can't be played well.

Therefore, in the eyes of the top generals of the Chu army, if the logistics cannot be guaranteed, the Northern Expedition would rather not be fought.

For the Northern Expedition, we must first solve the logistics supply problem.

It is quite unreliable to rely solely on land transportation!

Relying on horse-drawn carts, wheelbarrows, or even directly transporting such a huge amount of supplies to the north, the number of people who need to be mobilized is not tens of thousands, but tens of thousands.

And these civilian husbands also have to eat and drink.

In the end, the Great Chu Empire sent out one hundred catties of grain, and the grain that arrived at the front line may only be ten or twenty catties...

The consumption is too high and the cost is too high. Even if the Great Chu Empire has already occupied a large area of ​​grain production in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, even if the Great Chu Empire has collected a large amount of money through confiscation and other methods, it cannot withstand such consumption.

If there is no other way, then you can only grit your teeth and do this, but now there is another way before the Great Chu Empire.

That is to seize the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, fight north along the canal and the Yellow River, and use the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to transport logistics materials in large quantities.

Based on these reasons, on March 26, at the imperial military meeting held by Luo Zhixue in Jinling City, Xu Zhixian, the head of the staff department, formally submitted the Northern Expedition plan to Luo Zhixue.

The first step in this combat plan is to launch the Jiangbei Campaign first.

The core of the Jiangbei Campaign was to capture Yangzhou, then Huai'an, and finally Xuzhou.

From the perspective of the art of war, this battle plan for the Jiangbei campaign was mediocre, even dull.

Because the whole combat plan has no artistry at all, just entangle the superior force and firepower, and then fight north along the canal from Yangzhou and it's over.

However, Luo Zhixue attached great importance to this battle plan. At the imperial military meeting, he asked Xu Zhixian and other senior generals in detail.

And the angle of inquiry is not about tactics or not, but about logistics, supply and transportation, artillery preparations, etc.

Regarding these problems, the Army said that everything is not a big problem.

"We expect to use the Fourth Division, Eighth Division, First Guards Division, First Cavalry Brigade, First Mortar Regiment, and Fourth Mortar Regiment as the main force for this battle. No.13 Garrison Division, No.14 The defenders are cooperating in combat.”

"In addition, according to His Majesty's will, the Second Guards Division will also send a reinforced regiment to the north to participate in the battle to test the actual combat effectiveness of the sudden-fire rifle and new tactics."

"The total number of troops participating in the entire Jiangbei campaign is estimated to be 6 from the above-mentioned ministries!"

"In addition, in the direction of Chubei and Nanyang, Henan, the second and third divisions, the first garrison division, and the fifth garrison division will follow the plan, and will also carry out a feint attack on the troops on the front line of Ruzhou and Runing Mansion to contain them. Enemy forces in that direction."

"After our army wins the front lines of Fengyang and Xuzhou in the future, the North Route Army will carry out a pincer attack with the various ministries in the Jiangbei direction, trying to annihilate the main force of the enemy forces in the above direction, especially Zuo Liangyu's troops, and capture the troops south of the Yellow River. Guide, Kaifeng, Henan Prefecture and other places."
Xu Zhixian pointed at the large Huaxia map on the wall with his baton while talking: "At this time, we can separate out a main division to block Tongguan and prevent Sun Chuanting from Shaanxi and other Ming troops from going east." , while the main force of the other ministries sent troops to Shandong, and after capturing Shandong, they went all the way to Youzhou along the canal!"

"This is the second phase of the Northern Expedition, the Battle of Hebei."

"It is worth noting that when we launch a large-scale Northern Expedition, it is very likely that the Eastern captives will take advantage of the chaos. In order to avoid follow-up troubles, our second phase of operations must be fast. Even before we take Youzhou, we must first send troops to seal Blocking the front line of Shanhaiguan, it would be best if the area can be taken, even if it cannot be taken, we must build on the spot to block the Liaodong Ming army and the Dongbao soldiers."

"Of course, even if we can't control the Shanhai Pass in time, it won't have too much impact on our final Northern Expedition strategy. If the Eastern Captives dare to enter the pass, we will directly look for opportunities to annihilate them in the area around Youzhou."

"No matter what, the entire Northern Expedition plan will be formulated smoothly and achieve the predetermined strategic goals. I have full confidence in this."

"If everything goes well, next spring, we will be able to discuss how to command Liaodong and put down the captives!"

When Xu Zhixian said this, he looked very confident!

And his self-confidence comes from the national power of the Great Chu Empire and the combat effectiveness of the Chu army.

He firmly believes that as long as his own logistics does not stretch, the army will not encounter any practical difficulties after going north, and it will only take a year and a half to capture Beizhili.

Even if the captives enter the customs, they can be crushed directly!
(End of this chapter)