Section 57 Guiding Principles of War

The room finally fell silent. Xiao Zishan first read out the full text of the telegram from Guangzhou. Subsequently, the plenary was requested to discuss the issue.

Of course, the convening of the congress is not a question of whether or not to fight a war, nor is it a question of how to win a war. With Liliang who crosses the group, it is not a problem to win the 120,000 crusading army. The main purpose of the meeting was to decide the scale of the war and the question of what to do after the victory in the campaign.

Of course, the determination of the patriarchs is unanimous, that is, if they do not fight, they will cripple the Ming army and break their courage if they fight. As a result, it can no longer covet the heart of the high regime and achieve the goal of coercing peace by force.

However, on the question of how far to stop the fight, there was again a great debate at the meeting.

Zuihou has formed three mainstream propositions:

The first is to maintain the existing situation of no fighting, no leaving, and no appeasement, and in the future, the complete defeat and elimination of the Ming army will be over, and it will continue to entrench itself in Lingao.

Supporters believe that such an advantage is that it will not completely tear the skin with Daming, and it can still ensure the smooth maritime trade channels with Daming, and it is also conducive to ensuring the safety of Guangzhou and Leizhou. As long as the Guangdong officials do not lose the prefectures and counties, they can still be defeated and victorious after the fiasco. In other words, keep the bottoms for the Guangdong government.

The second is to pursue the Ming army to Qiongshan, destroy the Ming army in Baisha Water Village, completely eliminate the main force of the Ming army in Hainan, and then attack the prefectures and counties in Hainan to quickly occupy the whole island. So that the manpower and material resources of the entire Hainan Island can be used by the crossing group. A situation of separating Hainan has been formed.

The third is an upgraded version of the second, which advocates not only the occupation of all of Hainan, but also a punitive expedition against Canton. It was proposed to use holy ships to bombard the city of Canton with heavy artillery on the deck, so as to create panic throughout Guangzhou; Some people also proposed that a special investigation team be dispatched to behead officials in Guangzhou who advocated the use of force against Lingao -- and many people suggested that Wang Zunde's entire family should be wiped out.

Each of the three proposals has a group of supporters, and at the conference, they are at loggerheads and do not give in to each other.

In general, the second and third are actually the difference between fifty and one hundred steps. The third was actively supported by Skead, who proposed a complete strategic plan:

1. Seize the whole of Hainan, anyway, the Ming government has torn its face, and we must take the opportunity to seize the whole of Hainan. Otherwise, the crossing country cannot develop.

2. Strive to annihilate the Ming army on land, not just at sea, so that the Ming will not be able to attack in three or four years. And there will be a large number of captives to use as labor and bargaining chips

3. Moderately counterattack the mainland, strive to seize the surrounding areas of Guangzhou, and even temporarily surround the city of Guangzhou, fully deterring the Ming Dynasty, but it is not suitable to capture Guangzhou, and the crossing country is not ready to chase the mainland for the time being.

4. Pay attention to public opinion propaganda and protect private property. Our policy is to oppose the unprovoked intrusion and suppression by the Guangdong government, and to oppose corrupt officials using the pretext of expulsion to plunder the people's wealth and kill the good and make meritorious deeds. But it is not anti-court (anti-internal, not external), leaving room for peace talks. The protection of private property can win the hearts and minds of the people.

5. To force peace by war, Lingao is not afraid of the Ming Dynasty, but he does not want to cut off the trade with the Ming Dynasty for several years. Therefore, after the war, peace talks were the main policy for the Ming Dynasty for the time being, and it was really impossible to talk about it and then fight.

In addition to these five points, Skader explicitly demanded to create panic in Guangzhou: he proposed to follow the model of the British burning Copenhagen and launch Congreve rockets on a large scale, or to occupy Baiyun Mountain and set up artillery on it to bombard the Canton government office.

Ma Qianzhu offered to speak.

He stepped up to the podium: "Elder states. Whether or not to occupy the whole of Hainan after defeating the Ming army and whether or not to bombard Guangzhou must first be subordinated to our political needs -- the so-called military is a continuation of politics. He coughed, "Before we discuss how big the war should be, I propose that you first sort out the political and economic demands of the group in recent years. ”

There is a direct correlation between the so-called political demands and the economic demands of the crossing group.

"For now, we are still heavily dependent on resources, population, and sales markets in areas controlled by the Ming government." Ma Qianzhuo said, "If we adopt too fierce means of war, not only will we not make the Ming obey our will out of fear, but it will cause the Ming to impose a comprehensive political and economic blockade on us, and it will inevitably be accompanied by continuous military attacks." Even if such a military offensive is completely ineffective, the Ming government will continue to carry out such offensives to maintain the face of the pursuit. ”

"The Governor is touting his tortoise stream tech tree theory again." Someone whispered in their seats.

He's right. Of course, it's cool to fight, but you always have to wipe your ass after fighting. ”

Skade immediately rose up and objected: "When we put the cannon on Baiyun Mountain, I see that Wang Zunde is still hard enough to put 10,000 Congreve rockets from the Pearl River and burn Guangzhou."

Lin Shenhe frowned below: Ten thousand. These guys really just opened their mouths to come. The first weapon design team of the rocket has long been out of it, and it was used to let off fireworks at the beginning. Up to now, although the Congreve rocket has not been used, it has been included in his list of weapons ready to be eliminated, and the first group has tried several Hale rockets of different calibers. This rocket is much more advanced than Congreve and does not require a long stabilizer bar.

"The Ming Dynasty is not the Qing Dynasty, and there is no person like Qi Shan who understands the overall situation." Ji Huisi snorted, "If we want to mess around like this, just wait for the imperial court to levy a salary and start a war with us every year." ”

"Are we still afraid that the Ming army will not succeed, and then show that the court is not asking for a dead end and accelerating the collapse process?" Skade said.

"That's right, but Daming's economy and population are 100 times that of us. If the other party wants to be serious and send a cabinet scholar or something like a scholar to supervise the teacher, fighting a war all day long is very detrimental to industrial upgrading. Ma Qianzhu continued to insist on his opinion.

"What does it matter if you fight, the army is going to fight." When Wei Aiwen heard that there was going to be a war, he was already overjoyed and made a plan to expand the army. He speculated that the Ming army's naval division would not work, and it would inevitably use the land division as the main force, and this was a good time for the army to shine. Moreover, the Ming army came with tens of thousands, and the army company and auxiliary forces together were less than 4,000 people. After deliberation, the young officers' club decided that this was a good opportunity to ask the Senate to pass a resolution on a major military expansion.

The foreign enemy is at the head, and the army is coming, who will expand the army if it is not expanded? Wei Aiwen and Zhang Bolin fought this abacus.

"Fighting a war costs money and consumes materials, and it is a pure consumption. Our mode of warfare is different from that of the armies of this time and space, and it is a typical high-consumption war. If you can't occupy territory and population, this kind of battle will be more than worth the loss. Ma Qianzhu was not enthusiastic about the suggestion of fighting.

"I think it's better to simply take this opportunity to occupy Guangzhou, and then control the entire Pearl River Delta, with this territory, you need people to have people, and you need materials and materials."

"Occupy the entire Pearl River Delta with 4,000 troops? Defending Hainan had naval support, which could neutralize the enemy's numerical superiority. On the mainland, this little force is not enough. ”

"That's why we have to expand the size of the Army." Wei Aiwen waited for this sentence.

"I firmly oppose putting too many resources into military projects at this critical moment of industrial upgrading." Wu De immediately objected, "The occupation of the Pearl River Delta region will inevitably involve us in a long-term large-scale military conflict and excessively consume our limited strength." ”

Qian Shuiting also objected: "The size of the army is enough to meet the existing tasks. Even in this operation, an appropriate temporary replenishment of troops supplemented by militia would suffice. There is no need to blindly expand the number of standing armies. And with our situation, we don't need much army ......"

"What did you say?" Wei Aiwen jumped up -- this statement seemed to him to be a public humiliation of the Army, "You are slandering the Army"

"I don't think it's slander." Qian Shuiting did not back down, "The size of the army must be in line with the existing economic scale, and I oppose all blind expansion of military operations." ”

"You're short-sighted......"

Xiao Zishan slammed the mallet: "Pay attention to your words, please don't make personal attacks"

The motion to occupy the PRD was quickly rejected, and most of the senators believed that it was beyond the existing strength of the Crossing Group. The premature occupation of densely populated areas in the absence of military and administrative personnel necessitated the massive use of the old ruling personnel and institutions. Moreover, Guangdong is an important source of fiscal revenue for the Ming government, and the Ming government will never sit idly by.

Once caught in a series of military operations, it will seriously drag down industrial upgrading. This in turn affects the subsequent development. This is unacceptable, especially for people in the industrial mouth. Although the personnel of the industrial sector very much want to see the guns and weapons they manufacture on the battlefield, they also hope to see the establishment of a modern large-scale industrial system in their own hands.

As for the agricultural sector headed by Wu Nanhai, they are all the more vigorously opposed to the expansion of the scale of the war -- the agricultural sector is more worried than the industrial sector about its own pots and jars -- the pots and jars of the industrial sector are at all fortified and cannot be defended at all, and the agricultural land and irrigation system and other farmland infrastructure cannot be defended at all, and they are also worried that the peasant workers they have cultivated with great difficulty will be dragged to fight.

Therefore, the agricultural mouth was the most conservative in his position at the conference. It would be nice to be able to repel the attack of the Ming army. Of course, Wu Nanhai also demanded the total annihilation of the enemy army in order to convert the captives into agricultural workers.

However, most people believe that the time has come to occupy all of Hainan. Confined to Lingao, the future development space is very limited. And it also left a big aftermath. It is always possible for the imperial court to use the local political institutions and resources to launch encirclement and suppression. And the orthodox status of the imperial court has always been on the side of the Ming Dynasty. The people of Lingao will feel like "thieves", and once the situation is slightly unstable, it is very likely that the people's will will collapse. Surveys conducted by the General Directorate of Political Protection show that many people who "got rich first" have a sense of anxiety about their future.

Seeing that the atmosphere in the venue was obviously not in favor of the plan of only keeping the high ground, Ma Qianzhu decided to abandon the A plan that only kept the high altitude and replaced it with plan B.

"First of all, do we need to maintain a semblance of peace with Daming?" "From a strategic point of view, this is very necessary

"If we want to maintain economic and trade relations with the mainland, and if we want to continue to import people and materials from the mainland, it is very important for the Ming government to maintain a state of apparent peace." Ma Qianzhu said, "So I oppose all attempts to expand the war to the mainland." Once the war spreads to the mainland, the Ming Dynasty will inevitably cut off trade and population flows with us. ”

Of course, judging from the administrative execution power of the Ming Dynasty and the limited ability to operate at sea, this blockade is certainly incomplete. Moreover, the crossing group does not have to worry about finding enough agents to serve itself, and the business-intelligence system of the mountains and seas under construction can also play a complementary role. But such "smuggling" activities far exceed normal trade in terms of scale and cost.

"The methods we use must be somewhat strategic -- we must let the Guangdong government leave a fig leaf so that Wang Zunde, Li Fengjie and others can continue to fool and blame."

In order to achieve this goal, the Crossing Group must not use excessively drastic means -- it cannot carry out large-scale decapitation operations, nor can it bombard Guangzhou, nor can it even openly occupy the administrative offices of various prefectures and counties in Hainan. In short, it is necessary to give the local government of Guangdong a reason to save face and blame.

"Secondly, should we occupy the whole territory of Hainan?" Ma Qianzhuo said eloquently, "I think this is necessary. ”

Someone below was muttering, "Isn't this the same as the attitude of the Governor a few days ago?" ”

It is too slow to increase the population by simply collecting displaced people from the mainland. The occupation of the whole of Hainan would enable the Crossing Group to have at its disposal at least 200,000 or more Han Chinese and an unknown number of Li and Miao, the latter of which numbered at least 50,000 or 60,000. This is much faster than the rate at which mainland immigrants from a few hundred to a few thousand people per month move in. Moreover, the number of displaced people in Guangdong is unstable and cannot be supplied stably for a long time. Local population development is a good way to save time before opening up other sources of population.

By occupying the whole of Hainan, we will be able to popularize the "Lingao experience" on a larger scale and carry out the reform of the civil affairs system. This is also a kind of shiyan, but the scale has expanded from a mere Lingao county to the entire Hainan Island, which is a test for the indigenous staff that the Crossing Group has cultivated over the years. The Crossing Group also needed to learn lessons from the training of indigenous personnel and local administration, and to prepare for the later rule of the wider region.

"It is too difficult to occupy the whole of Hainan, but also to maintain a superficial peace with the Ming government." Some people questioned, "The loss of a county is about to report the major events of the imperial court, not to mention that the king of the lost mansion, Li Fengjie, may not be able to pretend to be deaf and dumb to this point." ”

"So I propose to maintain the Lingao model in the whole of Hainan, that is, to sweep away the local bureaucratic class, and let our indigenous administrators take over, and overthrow the local officials, and establish our de facto rule over Hainan. The taxes and grains required by the imperial court were paid according to the regulations. ”

Qiongzhou Mansion is located in a remote area, the ruling foundation of the Ming Dynasty is extremely weak, in addition to Danzhou, Lingao, Qiongshan, Wenchang these counties are still a little climate, Changhua, Yazhou and other places The sense of existence of local political power is very weak, basically the government decree does not go out of the city gate. In several counties, there were no county officials for a long time, and it was quite easy for the county officials to take over the political power by overthrowing the county officials.

Jiang Shan did not speak at the meeting, and he felt that this plan was a bit wishful thinking. Lingao County is okay, but it is very difficult for Qiongzhou to be so troubled. There are several yamen in Qiongzhou Mansion: Qiongzhou Mansion, Qiongshan County, Hainan Province, and the Political Division, and the Haiphong General......

There are so many officials, it is not as simple as being in Lingao, in case there is a stunned young man who is unwilling to live a chaotic life with the encounter, and if he has to work hard to make things happen, it will be difficult to do as perfect as Lingao.

And there is also a garrison in Qiongshan County. If the existence of the apparent Ming regime is to be maintained, will the more than 2,000-strong ships of the Qiongya coastal defense generals still be allowed to continue to be stationed? This is the master of the imperial court, not a guard that has long been decadent. Even if it is destroyed in battle, it will definitely be rebuilt. On the side of the couch, is it allowed for such a group of people to exist?

Jiang Shan thought that the most difficult thing was that once the army and navy soldiers of the counteroffensive came to the city of Qiongzhou and broke the Baisha Water Village, the officials of Qiongzhou Mansion and Qiongshan County would either surrender or commit suicide. No matter which way it is done, the news of the fall of the capital city of Qiongzhou will inevitably spread, and Wang Zunde and others definitely do not have the courage to lie that the capital city has not been lost.

But he was not going to question these issues in person - there would be a special meeting to discuss the matter when it came time to implement it. In any case, whether it is maintaining "superficial peace" or completely tearing his face, he is in favor of occupying the whole of Hainan.

Although some people questioned whether this "maintenance of the semblance of peace" could be achieved, most of the patriarchs were still very enthusiastic about the occupation of Hainan - Lingao was still too small after all. Many people have a vague hope that once the political power is extended to the whole of Hainan, everyone will be able to stand alone -- even if they are not good, they will be able to take up a position such as being the chief executive of another county.

The Zuihou Senate adopted three guiding principles for this war:

1. Annihilate the Ming army and other enemies from all walks of life, and at the same time destroy the living Liliang of the Ming army in Hainan.

2. Occupy the whole of Hainan under favorable conditions.

3. The war shall be confined to Hainan Island and the surrounding seas, and shall not be extended to the mainland and other seas except with the approval of the Senate.

The operation was named the "Second Anti-Encirclement and Suppression Operation."

Skade continued to advocate a post-war plan for peace talks with the local government of Guangdong.

The specific plan was to quickly release several high-ranking prisoners back to Guangzhou after the war, and try to contact the leading figures of the Cantonese government and ask for peace talks with them. Later, a special person will be sent to negotiate.

The venue for the peace talks could be set up in Macao, and the Portuguese would guarantee the security of both sides. If the Portuguese can't be relied upon, they can also choose to be in other remote locations.