The Ming army had hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and there were also batteries and sailors to help, which made it extremely difficult to cross the river on a large scale.

The lack of troops is not of much effect, and it may still be counterattacked by the absolutely superior Ming army, and a large-scale operation to cross the river is also difficult.

After all, the Yangtze River is not a small river, and most of the middle and lower reaches are more than several thousand meters wide, and crossing the river requires an absolutely superior navy to cover it.

And this cover not only refers to the crossing of the river itself, but also represents the subsequent supply channel.

Otherwise, even if there are 100,000 troops crossing the river, but the Ming army and the naval division directly block the Yangtze River channel near the landing site, it is enough to cut off the supply channel for crossing the river for supplies.

For the Datang Army, which relies heavily on logistical supplies, being cut off from supply lines is more serious than facing an enemy that is several times stronger.

This can also be seen from the operations of the Datang Army in the past few years, unless it fights to defend the isolated city, otherwise the Datang Army has always avoided its own supply lines being cut off, and once it is cut off, the front-line combat troops will often fall into a great crisis.

And this is also an important reason why in the past six months, the Tang Army obviously had the opportunity to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Ming Army to cross the Yangtze River in a large-scale northern expedition, but it stopped at the Yangtze River.

Without him, there is no way to guarantee logistics supply lines!

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Tang Dynasty occupies a greater strategic advantage, and the current Tang Dynasty has changed many adventurous strategies in the early stage, but has adopted a steady and steady strategy.

For example, in the attack on Jiangnan, in fact, after taking Nanchang and Fuzhou, it was actually possible to start a large-scale attack on Jiangnan, but the Tang Army took the initiative to stop the large-scale offensive, but has been stabilizing the front in Jiangxi.

A large part of the reason is that logistics cannot keep up, and the army wants to fight steadily.

The same is true now, the Northern Expedition across the river is necessary, but before the Northern Expedition across the Yangtze River, the Tang Dynasty needs to make comprehensive preparations, but once the Tang Dynasty is ready, then the upcoming battle to cross the river will be comprehensive, and its strategic goal is definitely not limited to the capture of Anqing and Yangzhou, but is ready to take the entire Jiangbei and even the Central Plains in one go.

This is to avoid a tug-of-war and completely destroy the northern provinces.

Although the north is still under the control of the Ming Dynasty, the monarchs and ministers of the Tang Dynasty have already regarded the entire land of China as a bag, just like the Jiangnan before it.

At that time, the opinion was that Jiangnan should be fought, but it should be fought quickly, and the battle should be decided quickly, so as to avoid repeated tug-of-war and ruin the prosperous Jiangnan.

Now for the northern provinces, the Tang monarchs and ministers have generally maintained a considerable attitude.

The Northern Expedition is necessary, but it is best to settle the situation as much as possible through one or more strategic decisive battles, so as to avoid too much damage to the northern provinces.

Therefore, the Tang Dynasty was not in a hurry for the Northern Expedition to cross the river, but prepared at its own pace, and the navy continued to strengthen the strength of the Yangtze River Fleet to ensure the safety of crossing the river.

And there are more preparations on the part of the army!

At the regular imperial meeting, Zeng Ziwen was reporting to Li Xuan on the recent army preparations: "At present, we have transferred the elite engineers from the First Army, the Second Army and the Third Army to form the Zhouqiao Battalion, and are studying and training the technology of quickly building a bridge pontoon bridge and temporary wharf. ”

The army is recently mobilizing a large number of elite engineering units, looking for a way to quickly build pontoon bridges and temporary wharves on the Yangtze River, you must know that the army units have a lot of heavy equipment and countless materials, ammunition and food and other materials are okay, just bulk ferry, but a lot of heavy field artillery, horse-drawn carts and other things, if transported by boat, it is not impossible, but the loading and unloading operation must be very troublesome.

In order for a large number of troops to be able to quickly cross the Yangtze River in a short period of time, and to carry heavy artillery and a large amount of ammunition to cross the river together, whether it is a temporary pier or a pontoon bridge, it is necessary.

At the same time, the army is also continuing to replenish and strengthen the strength of various units.

I only heard Zeng Ziwen continue: "Last month, the Third Infantry Division has also completed the reorganization, and before July this year, all the existing units will complete the reorganization task, and at the same time, except for the Fourth Infantry Division, the rest of the units will be fully reloaded. ”

The reason why the Fourth Infantry Division is listed separately is because the Fourth Infantry Division has always been fighting in Yunnan, and it is extremely difficult to replenish both materials and soldiers, and the war in the direction of Yunnan is not very important, so the Tang Dynasty's replenishment of the Fourth Infantry Division is not strong.

In this reorganization, although the Fourth Infantry Division also hitched a ride, it only completed the reorganization, but it was still difficult to replenish equipment and personnel, so although the reorganization was completed, there was still a large lack of equipment and personnel.

In the past two years, the Fourth Infantry Division has had the title of infantry division, but its actual strength has never exceeded 10,000 people, far less than the 14,500 men of other infantry divisions.

Moreover, many of these 10,000 troops, many of which are scattered all over Yunnan to suppress those Tusi, will not exceed 5,000 troops who are really used to fight the Ming army.

And this is also the reason why the Fourth Infantry Division was unable to take Dali and control the whole of Yunnan.

However, the Tang Dynasty is not in a hurry about this, Yunnan is very remote, and it has never been the main strategic direction of the Tang Dynasty, and even Sichuan is not the main strategic direction of the Tang Dynasty at present.

The Tang Dynasty's requirements for war in the southwest were simple, as long as the situation could be maintained.

After all, in the entire southwest direction, only one infantry division and one mixed regiment were invested, and these two units were not satisfied, and now the total strength is at most about 13,000 people.

If the situation in the huge southwest region can be maintained, then the army side is already very satisfied.

On the army side, the main forces are concentrated on the south bank of the Yangtze River, in the areas south of the Yangtze River, in northern Jiangxi, and in northern Hunan.

Coincidentally, the Ming army did the same, and the main forces were concentrated on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

"In addition to the reorganization and replenishment of the existing troops, we are also expanding the scale of howitzers on a large scale, in addition to the original howitzer battalion, we have also expanded four howitzer battalions, and it is expected that by July, the equipment will be in place, when we will have eight howitzer battalions!"

Zeng Ziwen continued, and Li Xuan did not interrupt him, but listened to him quietly, and in fact, what Zeng Ziwen said, he himself had already known, because the plan to expand the howitzer battalion was approved by him personally.

However, although Li Xuan also knows about many of the army's plans, they are all relatively fragmentary, and today's Zeng Ziwen's report is more comprehensive.

"This year, our army's key expansion plan, the preparation for the construction of the Eighth Infantry Division has come to an end, officers and non-commissioned officers at all levels and even recruits are already in place, and they are currently undergoing intensive training in Songjiang, while waiting for the arrival of heavy equipment, and all kinds of equipment of the division will be fully equipped by September!"

"If everything goes well, by September, our army will have eight infantry divisions, ten mixed regiments, eight independent howitzer battalions and other front-line combat units, of which the troops that can be used for the northern expedition across the river will be no less than 100,000 troops!"

Li Xuan listened to Zeng Ziwen's words, and also calculated the current family background of the Tang Dynasty, thanks to the occupation of Jiangnan, the financial situation of the Tang Dynasty this year has been greatly improved, and the military expenditure has also been appropriately increased.

According to the plan made at the beginning of the year, in Xuanping's five-year fiscal revenue budget, the revenue from regular taxes is expected to be 25 million taels of silver, and Xuanping's total military expenditure in the five years will reach 18 million, of which 16 million will be occupied by the army and 2 million by the navy.

However, it is worth noting that the above-mentioned positive tax budget revenue does not include the profit income of the factories under the Ministry of Industry handed over to the state treasury, does not include the profit income handed over by the Datang Salt Company, and also does not include the income of the Mint Bureau of the Ministry of Taxation, and as for the income from national bonds, it is even more not included.

Because these revenues are not taxes, they are unstable, they may be more or less, so these messy incomes are directly included in the treasury like the income from the seizure.

And the income in this area is also quite large, conservatively estimated at 6 million taels of silver, and Datang Salt Company alone can pay at least 3 million taels of silver.

As the only legal salt merchant in the Tang Dynasty, Datang Salt Company is so awesome!

Then the minting income is hundreds of thousands a year, and there are many state-owned factories with more and some less, adding up to millions of dollars, and it is difficult to say what is confiscated, because many real estate, treasures and the like are difficult to realize, but even if it is cash and assets that are easy to realize, there will be at least one million.

In a year, six million miscellaneous income is the least!

And these six million taels of silver are not included in the fiscal revenue budget and expenditure budget, but are used as temporary expenditures, such as temporary war expenses and disaster relief.

To put it simply, this six million is a flexible budget, depending on the situation.

However, even if the 6 million flexible income is put aside, the Tang Dynasty's regular tax revenue has reached 25 million, of which 18 million have been booked by the military before they arrive, but there are also 7 million left!

With these seven million, the cabinet officials are all straightening their waists!

Why? Because I finally have money to pay my salary this year!