When Emperor Zhengde was sitting in Shandong and trying to save the situation through a last stand, in Jinling City, Li Xuan held a new round of promotion ceremonies.

With the conquest of Anqing, the Jiangbei campaign can be said to have come to an end, and the Huguang side, according to the strategic concept formulated by the Privy Council, should be delayed for a while.

Zhang Yue's troops in the direction of Huguang and Sichuan are too strong, and the main force of more than 100,000 troops, even if it is the self-confident Tang Army, has to act carefully, according to the inference of the Privy Council, if you want to take the northern part of Huguang and defeat Zhang Yue's main force in Hanyang and other places, at least 100,000 troops must be raised.

Moreover, this could not ensure the complete annihilation of Zhang Yue's subordinates, because Zhang Yue's subordinates could retreat into Sichuan, Shaanxi and other places at any time.

It is very difficult to encircle and annihilate Zhang Yue's army of more than 100,000 in the north of Huguang.

Therefore, after considering it, the Privy Council decided to slow down the offensive in the northern part of Huguang, anyway, as long as Anqing was taken, and then Jiujiang and Wuchang cooperated, it was completely enough to contain and curb the eastward advance of Huguang and Zhang Yue's troops, and the troops used in this way did not need to be too large.

Of course, there is also a very important problem that if you want to march into the north of Huguang, you must continue to go north to Henan and Shaanxi in the future, and this will not be able to use river transportation, and now the cavalry strength of the Tang Army is lacking, and in the face of cavalry attacks, it is impossible to guarantee logistics, and the four-wheeled carriage planned by the logistics department has just begun to be implemented, and it takes a certain amount of time to prepare and improve.

At the same time, in the Yellow River, Huai River, and Canal River basins, the Tang Army can use river transportation to solve the long-standing and difficult problem of logistics.

In addition to logistical problems, there are also political problems! At the same time, the news of Zhengde's personal expedition has spread all over the world, the Ming army has gathered heavy troops in Shandong and Henan, and the news that Altan Khan sent troops south has attracted the attention of the Privy Council.

Therefore, in the latest strategic planning of the Privy Council, the western front is still based on confrontation and strategic defense, with Wuchang, Jiujiang, and Anqing as important strategic support points, and the Huguang and Zhang Yue departments are locked in the cage of Huguang and Sichuan, while the main force of the Tang Army is to free up their hands and prepare to go north to Shandong, to defeat the last stubborn resistance of the Ming army in the north, and it is best to capture or kill the Zhengde Emperor and completely send the Ming Dynasty into the historical garbage heap.

As the saying goes, the world was decided by a war!

Under such a strategic concept, starting in late January of the sixth year of Xuanping, the Tang Army has stopped its all-round strategic offensive and started a new round of reorganization of troops, hoarding supplies, and preparing to wait for the severe cold weather in the north to pass, in the season when the spring has just begun, but the rainy season has not yet arrived, it is generally between March and April to launch a round of fierce attacks, the target is all parts of Shandong along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, in addition to all parts of Henan in the Huai River and Yellow River basins.

In short, continue the onslaught along the river!

After the rainy season in the north begins in July and August, it is a period of rest, and then launch a round of onslaught in autumn and winter, but before the arrival of severe cold weather, and strive to attack the Forbidden City this year.

Of course, this is just the ideal plan made by the Privy Council staff on the map, but in fact, after the war starts, there will always be many accidents, and then the situation of the war will become completely different from what the Privy Council staff expected.

Last year, the Privy Council's plan was to take Yangzhou and Huai'an first, then Anqing, and then Hanyang, but there would be thought that Zhengde would personally conquer and Altan Khan would go south.

Before launching a new round of the Northern Offensive, Li Xuan prepared a promotion ceremony to boost the morale of the military.

And in this promotion ceremony, Li Xuan will also award medals to meritorious soldiers.

Military Merit Medal, this is a rare affair for many soldiers of the Tang Dynasty, because although the Tang Dynasty formulated the Dragon Sword Medal very early, and when it was first issued, it issued 300 pieces, and then about 200 pieces were issued one after another.

However, the total number of medals is only 500, which is already very rare for the Tang Navy and Army with a total strength of more than 200,000 people, not to mention those ordinary soldiers, even if they are officers, it is difficult to get a Dragon Sword Medal.

In order not to reduce the medal system to an ornamental object, Li Xuan began to formulate a more detailed medal scheme and began to classify them.

The Dragon Sword Medal is divided, and the basic pattern is still a dragon holding a sword, but it is divided into three classes, the third class is the red dragon, the second class is the green dragon, and the third class is the black dragon.

Roughly speaking, it is the Red Dragon Sword Medal, the Green Dragon Sword Medal, and the Black Dragon Sword Medal.

In addition, a royal medal of honor was set up, which was depicted as a yellow dragon holding a sword.

The above-mentioned Centralized Sword Medal, although divided into several ranks, is still a high-level medal, and it is almost difficult for ordinary officers and soldiers to obtain.

In order to allow ordinary officers and soldiers to also get medals and stimulate their sense of honor, under the sword medal, Li Xuan set up the Double Sword Medal, which is patterned as a double sword cross, and the award standard of this Double Sword Medal is greatly reduced, and meritorious officers and personnel can obtain it relatively easily.

Of course, the medals awarded at the promotion ceremony will be all high-level sword-bearing medals, and the ordinary double-sword medals will begin to be awarded on a large scale throughout the army, and the preliminary estimate is that there are 3,000 medals, and they are specifically aimed at ordinary soldiers and officers of the rank of lieutenant.

The awarding of medals is only a small color on the promotion ceremony, and people pay more attention to the main body of the promotion ceremony.

Because the news has been circulated, this promotion ceremony will be the largest promotion ceremony since the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, at least more than 20 major generals will be promoted, and it is rumored that there will be several.

In the main hall of the royal annex on this day, a large number of military generals wearing standard military uniforms and ceremonies appeared here, and many civil servants also appeared and watched the ceremony.

Emperor Li Xuan was also wearing a military uniform and sitting on the dragon chair, the previous award ceremony had officially ended, and now, it was the highlight of the day, and the attendants of the Hanlin Academy on the side had begun to read out a new round of promotion.

At the beginning, it is naturally the same Fengtian carrier, the emperor pardons, and then there are various stacked words with gorgeous rhetoric, and then the main point, that is, the names of the twenty-six generals who have obtained the rank of major general this time.

Every time a person's name is called, a general will stand out in the crowd of generals standing below, most of these people are brigadier generals, and a few are still colonels.

Some of them were commanders of the main regiment, some were commanders of mixed regiments, some were deputy division commanders and chiefs of staff, and some served in the Privy Council.

After today, they will get a new start and will take on higher positions.

In today's Tang Dynasty, the major general is already a veritable senior general, and in the field army, he is usually the division commander and the chief of staff of the first army. And in the Privy Council, it is usually the deputy ministers of the ministries.

However, the promotion of major generals still cannot attract people's attention, and the focus of their attention is on lieutenant generals!

Because in today's Tang Dynasty, lieutenant general is a veritable top military rank, as for generals, don't count on it for the time being, Li Xuan personally said that if China is not unified, this general will be suspended.

Lieutenant General, in the Tang Army, is usually the rank of military commander or minister of the Privy Council.

And today's promotion ceremony also means that there will be several new generals in the Tang Dynasty who have entered the top ranks.

With the announcement of the holy decree, the candidates for vice admiral also began to appear, and there was only one person in the navy, that is, Luo Bingyi, director of the Naval Operations Department, who became the fourth vice admiral of the navy.

However, there are four in the army, namely Fang Xitong, the new commander of the Fourth Army, Fang Xitong is also a senior general with old qualifications in the Tang Army, although his reputation is not very big, but he has always prided himself on being a loyal minister.

He was one of the three major generals who were as famous as Hao Bonian and Li Chunjing in the early days, and had previously served as the commander of the Second Infantry Brigade, the commander of the Second Army before the reform of the military system, and the commander of the Second Infantry Division after the restructuring.

Although the Fourth Army has not yet been officially formed, he should be given the rank of lieutenant general, otherwise the name will not be justified.

The second lieutenant general of the army is Chen Keqiao, who can be promoted to lieutenant general, so naturally he is also not bad in terms of combat merits and qualifications; he previously served as the commander of the Third Infantry Brigade, the commander of the Fourth Army before the reform of the military system, the commander of the Third Infantry Division after the restructuring, the commander of the Fifth Infantry Division during the Jiangnan Campaign, and the Jiangbei Campaign at the end of last year.

After the Jiangbei Campaign, Zeng Ziwen, who had been the Minister of Operations for a long time, became the head of the Operations Department of the Privy Council, and he was promoted to lieutenant general.

The third lieutenant general is Xie Ziwei, who was born in artillery, who was the earliest artillery officer in the Tang Dynasty, and served as the battalion commander and regiment commander of the artillery unit for a long time in the early days, the artillery commander and artillery director of the First Army, and later for career development, he was transferred to the infantry, serving as the commander of the infantry regiment, and later as the division commander of the Sixth Infantry Division.

During the Northern Expedition, he returned to his old profession and became the new artillery director in the Privy Council, and now the Privy Council artillery director is completely different from the past, but has become a real artillery commander-in-chief, and was promoted to lieutenant general at this time, although it is somewhat surprising, but thinking of the many artillery in the Tang Army, and the importance of artillery today, it is not too much to give him a lieutenant general.

But if the above three people are justified, then the fourth lieutenant general is out of many people's expectations.

This person is Lei Wan, the former deputy head of the Privy Council Operations Department and the current head of the Strategy Department!

The Strategy Department of the Privy Council, this is a new institution established by Li Xuan Xuan in the fourth year of Xuanping, mainly responsible for the strategic affairs of the Tang Army, but this institution is mostly a research institution, and it is not considered a weight in the Privy Council.

But I didn't expect that he would be among the four places for promotion to lieutenant general today!

When everyone was puzzled, only Zeng Ziwen sighed secretly!