People are not as good as heaven.

Grandpa Wei did a lot of calculations, but he didn't calculate that there would be a thunderstorm in March.

This heavy rain can be said to have completely disrupted the deployment plan of the father-in-law, and directly caused the coalition forces to be unable to arrive in Hetuara on time.

The current situation is that in the face of muddy roads, it is not easy to say that the large and small artillery carried by the army cannot easily pass, and even the carts that haul grain and grass also take ten steps and stop five steps, and sometimes the soldiers need to unload the grain bags and carry them purely by manpower, otherwise the carts and horses will not be able to climb at all.

In some areas close to the mountains, there are rockfalls and landslides, and although the engineering units are rushing to repair, they also need a lot of materials to repair. Due to the restrictions of the road, it was difficult to receive supplies from the rear in time, which made the advance of the army even slower.

The vanguard of the army was the Fifth Infantry Wing, which was subordinate to the Guards Division of the First Army, and the best thing this wing was at the long-distance rapid march, and it once marched 84 miles in one day, creating the fastest in the whole army. However, in the face of the complex terrain of the state, it was also difficult for the 5th Infantry Wing to perform miracles.

Ding Xiaogong, the captain of the wing and the former Gaoyou guard, is sending people to find other paths.

However, according to the people of the returning regiment, there are several roads leading from Jierling to Heituala, but except for this road that was widened on the basis of the former Ming army post road in Jianzhou, the rest are small roads over the mountains and mountains, and the army cannot go at all!

This forced the whole army to continue to stagger through the mud.

The chief of staff for this operation was Li Yanzhao, the former commander of the 6th Infantry Wing of the Guards Division.

In the Battle of Edo, the 6th Infantry Wing made great contributions, and after the war, Li Yanzhao was promoted to the commander of the 1st Brigade of the Guards Division. The 6th Infantry Wing and the 5th and 4th Infantry Wings were transferred back to China to quell the rebellion and were the main force of the slave-fighting coalition.

In addition to these three infantry wings, there were also a cavalry wing, an engineer wing, an artillery wing, two brigades of the first mixed brigade of the Imperial Allied Army, one brigade of the second mixed brigade, and the general affairs brigade of the Imperial Allied Army of New Japan to participate in the Battle of Jianshu, with a total strength of more than 21,000 troops.

In addition, more than 20,000 captured shogunate soldiers were escorted back to China, some of them were used as husband laborers, and some of them were added to various wings as death squads after training.

Together with the 13,000 North Korean soldiers led by Jiang Hongli on the North Korean side, the two brigades of the Uiju Counselor General He Shiyi, the two brigades of the Qinming Chung-cheng Division, and the North Korean Special Detachment, the strength of the entire coalition army reached nearly 70,000.

It can be said that this coalition army formed by Wei Gonggong and returned to China through Korea to quell the chaos is not weaker than the four-way soldiers and horses formed by Yang Hao in terms of actual combatants. In terms of weapons and equipment and combat experience, it is even stronger than the imperial court soldiers and horses.

However, just as Yang Hao was limited by the terrain of Jianzhou and had to divide his soldiers and horses into four routes to march to Heituala, Gonggong Wei also faced the big problem of unfavorable terrain and inconvenient transportation.

The base camp suggested that the troops should also be divided and march north, all the way north from Uiju, and all the way west from the Gyeongan Capital Protectorate in North Korea.

However, Wei Gonggong insisted on the "barrel operation" plan, requiring the army to concentrate in one place and attack Jianzhou in turn like a barrel.

In this way, the base camp can only modify the plan according to the requirements of Gonggong Wei.

In the final battle plan drawn up by the base camp in February, the issue of roads was actually discussed as an important issue. Because if this problem is not solved, the army will not be able to talk about rolling the barrel.

In the plan, the engineering wing of the Ankokuji Division, which was transferred back to China, was mainly responsible for solving the road problem.

At the same time, in order to better transport the heavy grain and grass, the Emperor's Army Liaison Office set up in Seoul asked the Korean government to provide a large number of cattle and horses for the use of the Imperial Army, and the Xiean District was also mobilized to provide transportation capacity for the Imperial Army.

More than 20,000 head (horses) of cattle and horses were requisitioned, and the cattle and horses used to pull carts alone reached nearly 50 miles long at the peak of the march.

In order to alleviate the inconvenience of transportation, the artillery brought back by the imperial army this time was mainly concentrated in medium and light artillery, and the heaviest was no more than 500 catties.

Although the range of the Imperial Army's artillery was insufficient, the number was as high as 400. Half of the artillery used by the Tokugawa shogunate army to defend the castle was pulled back.

Gonggong Wei hoped that in the battle of Jianzhou, all units of the imperial army could cooperate closely and give full play to the infantry coordination tactics practiced before in actual combat.

Therefore, the father-in-law repeatedly emphasized that the number of artillery pieces could only be increased, not decreased.

The base camp coordinated with various departments, and with great effort, it finally ensured that the army could set off on schedule.

However, no one expected a sudden heavy rainfall.

A heavy rain completely destroyed the original battle plan - it was impossible for the army to reach Hetuara on time before 25 March.

In the end, the problem fell on the head of Grandpa Wei.

My father-in-law, who had walked three miles with a crutch in the muddy water, sat on a stone on the side of the road and lit a Chinese stick.

He knew very well that this would not work. At this rate, the date of the army's arrival in Hetuara would be at least half a month later, when the daylilies were cold.

Earlier, when he was in Yiju, Wang Tiqian had told his father-in-law that the Juniper Department had already marched towards Fushun, so from the perspective of time, the Juniper Department had either crossed the river and advanced towards Sarhu, or had been crucified by Nurhachi.

And Liu Ling's troops set out from Qingyuan Fort earlier, according to Nurhachi's strategy of going all the way, Liu Ling's troops will not encounter large-scale interception by the Jin army in the process of penetration, then they should be almost to Abu Darigang by now.

There, it is also the place where Liu Ling's soldiers were defeated.

In his father-in-law's previous life, Nurhachi first solved Juniper, then Malin, and then returned to the east to intercept Liu Wei in Abu Darigan.

This time, Nurhachi did the same.

If it weren't for this heavy rain, the imperial army would have had every chance to take advantage of the premise that Nurhachi was attracted by Liu Wei, go straight to Hetuala, kill his lair in one fell swoop, and then use Hetuala as a basis to turn around and deal with Nurhachi, who was tired of the division.

Eight Banners, which gnawed on Juniper, Marin, and Liu Wei one after another, also suffered heavy losses. (If it weren't for Li Rubai's frightened escape, his soldiers and horses would continue to carry out the original plan, and his father-in-law highly doubted that the seriously attritioned Eight Banners would be able to fight again.) ）

But this heavy rain made this plan completely empty.

Where to go, whether to continue the original plan head-on, or to change the direction to support Liu Wei, the father-in-law is faced with a dilemma.

Continuing the original plan, the Ming army may not be able to do anything in three ways, Nurhachi successfully returned to Hetuala, and the imperial army, which was tired from the heavy rain, faced the already prepared Hetuala, and if it didn't work, it would be another big defeat for Salhu.

Turning the direction to support Liu Ling, can you save Liu Ling, and after the war, the imperial army is afraid that it will be impossible to go deeper into Heituala.

This time, for the slave war, the father-in-law almost went bankrupt, even though most of the military funds and grain and grass were provided by the North Korean side.

If Nurhachi is not solved this time, the imperial army will not be able to launch an offensive of this magnitude again for at least three years.

One, two, three...

When more than a dozen cigarette butts were scattered on the muddy floor, the father-in-law finally got up, he patted his buttocks, rolled up his trouser legs full of muddy water, and said to Lao Jiu beside him: "Go and talk to Chief Li, don't go to fight Heituala." ”

"Don't fight Black Tuala?"

Wei Laojiu was stunned, "Where are you going?" ”

"To Abu Darigan."

After the father-in-law finished speaking, he continued to walk forward in the muddy water with his stick. Ahead, hundreds of soldiers were struggling to push the artillery cart forward.

"Let's go, let's help."

The father-in-law threw down his crutch and joined the group pushing the gun cart. His arrival lifted the spirits of the soldiers, and everyone shouted and worked together to finally push a dozen guns out of the mud.

The father-in-law was also tired and panting, standing on the side of the road and looking at the soldiers passing by, these are the good soldiers of the emperor's pro-army that he single-handedly established, but I don't know how many people will be buried in this white mountain and black soil this time.

Looking at the north in the distance, my father-in-law's eyes were complicated.

Now it depends on whether the Juniper Department can delay Nurhachi for a few more days, the longer Juniper drags on, the later the time for Liu Lingbu and Nurhachi's victorious main force to encounter, then, give the imperial army time to arrive in time.

If Juniper was defeated too quickly, he Wei Liangchen could only retreat to Yizhou in disgrace.

Say a thousand, say 10,000, everything depends on Master Du.