Ming Empire

Chapter 181
Cao Yue and Sun Chuanting haven't discussed this issue any more since the two said some unnatural things that day.

Cao Yue was busy training troops and supervised the manufacture of more firearms, while Sun Chuanting also surrendered his status to manage military affairs for Cao Yue.With Sun Chuanting, Cao Yue also saved a lot of worry. He handed over all the complicated affairs of his generals to old man Sun, and let him go about it, while he took care of the general direction.

Cao Yue knew that what he had to do now was to train the recruited more than [-] new troops as soon as possible, and to forge more and better weapons.Whether this new army can be trained well and whether more firearms can be produced may affect the direction of history.

The current Cao Yue has firmly believed that he, a time traveler, has begun to influence the direction of history.

Today's Nanjing New Army already has about 11 soldiers, but the recruitment has not stopped now, and the recruitment operation continues. Of course, the follow-up recruitment is still under the banner of the imperial court.

The Yanziji camp could no longer accommodate so many soldiers, and now a military camp was built on the opposite bank of the Yangtze River, and the first about [-] troops recruited were placed on the north bank of the Yangtze River.Of course, there is a deep meaning in doing so now. Being stationed across the river can attract less attention. At least the officials in Nanjing don't know how many troops there are in the Nanjing New Army.Also, if there is an action, the Nanjing New Army can start from Jiangbei, saving the time of crossing the river.

In addition to these, the garrison in Jiangbei can also play a role in defending Nanjing. If foreign enemies attack Nanjing from the north, the new army in the Jiangbei camp can quickly go into battle.

Cao Yue's recruiting plan still includes naval divisions.

The Nanjing Town Army originally had a navy and a lot of warships, but the combat effectiveness of the navy was negligible. The reasons for this need not be elaborated, and they were all due to the corruption of military discipline.Taking advantage of this time to recruit new troops, Cao Yue will of course reorganize the navy, and he knows the role of the navy in the war.

Cao Yue selected those soldiers who knew water skills and enriched them in the navy.In the end, the Nanjing Navy also had a scale of more than [-] people, and Cao Yue planned to continue to expand.

There are many sergeants who know how to swim, so there is no need to worry too much about the source of the navy sergeants, but the candidates for the navy warriors are quite a headache for Cao Yue, because the trusted people who followed Cao Yue to Datong are all northerners and are not familiar with water. The way the division fights.In the end, Cao Yue had to serve as the commander of the navy himself, and let Cao Neng, his confidant general who followed him to Datong, be in charge of the daily training of the navy.

Cao Yue knew that Zheng Zhilong in Fujian was the strongest in the Daming Navy, and he deliberately poached people from Zheng Zhilong.But this cannot be achieved immediately, and even if people can be poached, they cannot be reused immediately, unless there is no problem with loyalty.Among Zheng Zhilong's subordinates, Cao Yue took a fancy to his son Zheng Sen, the famous Zheng Chenggong in history, and Shi Lang who later surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

These two men were formerly famous naval commanders. Now that Zheng Sen is still young and Shi Lang has not surrendered, Cao Yue is going to recruit them into his command, but it will take time.
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The situation also deteriorated as Cao Yue expected, even worse than he expected.

In May of the 16th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng's peasant army finally captured Xi'an after defeating Fan Jingwen. After the defeat, Fan Jingwen was captured by the peasant army, and was finally brutally killed by Li Zicheng because he was unwilling to surrender.Most of the nearly [-] Ming officials guarding Xi'an were wiped out.After the fall of Xi'an, Li Zicheng divided his troops to attack Pingliang, Qingyang, and Gongchang, and soon most of Shaanxi was captured by Li Zicheng. The Ming army was either defeated or surrendered.

When Sun Chuanting was the governor of the three sides, there were more than 10,000 troops under his command. After the defeat of Zhuyuan, the loss of troops was actually not many. If all the troops under the command of the governor of the three sides were willing to obey, at least Two 10,000+.Some of these [-]+ troops are still capable of fighting, at least not inferior to Li Zicheng's peasant army.

But Zuo Liangyu, Liu Zeqing, Kong Zhenhui, Zhu Dadian and other generals, in order to preserve their own strength, obeyed Sun Chuanting's orders and violated Sun Chuanting's orders. After the commander-in-chief was replaced by Hong Chengchou, they treated them in the same way.Now it is replaced by Fan Jingwen, who is not as prestigious and capable as Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, and they are even more unwilling to follow orders.In the end, there were only tens of thousands of troops fighting the bandits, and Fan Jingwen was completely incomparable with Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting in terms of strategy. It was the most natural thing to lose the army.

It is a pity that most of the [-] Datong troops trained by Cao Yue died in the battle against the bandits.

After the fall of Xi'an, there were only more than [-] people left in the Datong Army. The remnants of the more than [-] people, led by Datong General Soldier Zhao Liang and Deputy General Soldier Zhao Tai, retreated to the direction of Datong and prepared to return to Datong.The combat effectiveness of the Datong Army is still quite strong, even after they ran out of ammunition, Li Zicheng failed to wipe out the remnants in the end.Li Zicheng's peasant army paid a heavy price in the battles of Tongguan and Xi'an, and they were unable to continue to pursue the remnants of the Datong army.Moreover, after Li Zicheng captured Xi'an, he had to do other major things.

In June of the 16th year of Chongzhen, after Li Zicheng captured Xi'an, he became king in this thousand-year-old capital.

At the end of July, Li Zicheng vowed to march eastward in Xi'an. General Liu Zongmin led 12 elite troops out of Tongguan and marched in the direction of Pingyang Mansion and Lu'an Mansion.Prepare to attack Beijing.He then ordered his nephew Li Guo, who was guarding Henan, to lead a hundred thousand elite soldiers to march from Henan to the north, and the soldiers were directed at Beijing.Li Zicheng led 40 troops north to Yan'an, which had been renamed Tianbaofu, and planned to attack Datong first, and then attack Beijing from the direction of Datong.

In this way, Li Zicheng's peasant army pointed to Beijing in the form of a three-way northern expedition.

About half of the tens of thousands of Li Yan in the peasant army in the Central Plains left the peasant army under the leadership of Li Yan's younger brother Li Qing.After Hong Niangzi returned, with Li Qing's support, Hong Niangzi used her influence to successfully control this army of more than [-] people.In front of the entire army, the red lady reprimanded Li Zicheng for being despicable and shameless. She vowed to avenge Li Yan.

It's just that after Hong Niangzi took control of the army, she was afraid of being wiped out by Li Zicheng's army, so she immediately left Henan and moved to Nanjing, with the purpose of gaining Cao Yue's support.

After Li Zicheng led the army to capture Xi'an, Zhang Xianzhong, another rogue bandit, also became king after capturing Chengdu. The country's name was Daxi, and Chengdu was changed to Xijing.

After Zhang Xianzhong became queen in Chengdu, he continued to attack everywhere and prepared to expand his power outside Sichuan.

It's almost time for the Ming dynasty to fall apart!
(End of this chapter)