The day after the promotion ceremony, everyone solved their doubts, that is, the newly promoted Lieutenant General Lei Wan, who succeeded Zeng Ziwen as the second head of the Privy Council Operations Department of the Tang Dynasty.

To be honest, this appointment was beyond the expectations of many people.

Zeng Ziwen, the former Ming general who first surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, had already become the de facto chief of staff of the Tang Dynasty during the Huangzhushan period, although he had never led troops to the battlefield, but in the many battles of the rise of the Tang Dynasty, it was inseparable from his planning behind the scenes.

Although such Zeng Ziwen is not as famous as Li Chunjing and Hao Bonian in terms of fame, his status in the Tang Dynasty is very large, and he is a serious role in the army.

However, today, this person has stepped down from the post of head of the war department!

Lei Wan, who succeeded him, also has a lot of background qualifications, he himself is the earliest batch of martial arts and imperial school students in the Tang Dynasty, and he belongs to the protégé of the Son of Heaven.

When he went south to Liangguang, he had already served as the deputy director of the Operations Department at that time, and later became the actual chief of general staff in the Guangzhou Campaign.

He remained in this position until last year, and then became the newly created head of the Strategy Department.

At the end of last year, Lei Wan stepped down from the head of the strategy department, and others also guessed where he would go next, but they did not expect that he would take over from Zeng Ziwen as the head of the war department.

Could it be that Zeng Ziwen annoyed His Majesty?

Everyone talked about it, but Li Xuan was still unmoved, the appointment of senior military generals was basically appointed by him personally, whether it was other senior generals or the cabinet, no one dared to interfere.

Li Xuan asked Lei Wan to serve as the chief of staff of the War Department, not that Li Xuan was on guard against Zeng Ziwen to prevent him from holding power for too long and causing any trouble, but purely because Zeng Ziwen's ability was no longer enough to serve as the head of the War Department, which was the most core position in the Tang Dynasty.

The head of the War Department of the Privy Council of the Tang Dynasty is the head of the ministers of the Privy Council, responsible for the training and combat of the troops.

Although Zeng Ziwen is full of qualifications and has been diligent and hardworking in the past many years, his own ability shortcomings have made it difficult for him to keep up with the pace of development of the Tang Army.

In the early years, the main force of the Tang Army was only tens of thousands, but with the increasing number of troops, by now, the total strength has exceeded 200,000, and these 200,000 people are all the main force of the field, not including the recruits in the supplementary brigade and new barracks, and also excluding the larger number of militia organizations.

There are also a lot of things that the war department needs to worry about, in a Jiangbei campaign last year, Li Xuan could see that Zeng Ziwen was obviously unable to keep up with the growth pace of the Tang Army, and when formulating the battle plan for the Northern Expedition across the river, even if he was assisted by many senior combat staff officers, it was still difficult for him to come up with a suitable combat plan.

It can be said that the final battle plan for crossing the river and the Northern Expedition has little to do with Zeng Ziwen.

Now that the Tang Dynasty is in a critical period and reunification is in sight, Li Xuan naturally will not watch Zeng Ziwen, who is already incapacitated, continue to sit in the position of Minister of War.

So after some selection, he finally promoted Lei Wan, who had rich experience and better ability!

A few days ago, Li Xuan had already talked privately with Zeng Ziwen, and clearly talked about this issue, and asked Zeng Ziwen to nominate a successor, although Zeng Ziwen was unwilling, he was more helpless.

In the past two years, he has long felt powerless, but he has been forcibly supporting, and now he finally can't hold on, not because he is unwilling to continue to hold on, but because His Majesty does not let him continue to hold on.

In desperation, Zeng Ziwen could only be appointed, but the final recommended candidate was also Lei Wan.

After Lei Wan took over from Zeng Ziwen and became the second Minister of War of the Tang Dynasty, Zeng Ziwen was an old hero, and Li Xuan naturally would not treat him badly, even if it was to show others, Zeng Ziwen would hold him high.

The title of Minister on Duty in the Imperial Study also retained, and Li Xuan also conferred on him the title of Deputy Privy Councillor, which was almost the highest position that an army general could achieve.

The Privy Council does not have a privy envoy, only a deputy envoy, but since the establishment of this position, it has not been granted, and Zeng Ziwen is the first general to obtain this position.

At the same time, Zeng Ziwen's title was also further enhanced, from earl to marquis.

But despite this series of compensation, it is a fact that Zeng Ziwen has lost power, and Lei Wan quickly became the upstart general of the Tang Army.

After serving as the head of the War Department, Lei Wan obtained the power to enter the imperial study after half a month, and he was also the minister on duty.

And this also means that the generals of the army, two of them have become the minister on duty in the imperial study, and this situation cannot last long in the Tang Dynasty, although the minister on duty in the imperial study room does not have a quota, theoretically the emperor wants to arrange as many people as he wants, but in recent years, it has been seven people, and the army and navy, has always been one person, plus one inspector, four cabinets, has formed a relatively stable structure, the increase or decrease of the number of people, It is easy to cause violent shocks in the political arena.

Therefore, everyone speculated that it would not be long before Zeng Ziwen's title of Minister on Duty in the Imperial Study would be stripped away.

And everyone's speculation is not wrong, three months later, Zeng Ziwen resigned from the title of Minister on Duty in the Imperial Study, Li Xuan was not allowed according to the usual practice, but it was approved after three resignations, but Zeng Ziwen still retained the title of Minister of the Imperial Study, and at the same time, Li Xuan added another title to him: Prince Military Training.

It's just that the current princes are still little children, and they can't walk, and this military training is just an honorary title.

Let's not talk about it for the time being, but after Lei Wan became the head of the War Department, on the one hand, he led many staff officers of the War Department to formulate the spring offensive, and on the other hand, he set off a reform within the War Department.

First of all, he said that the War Department was busy with affairs, and although he had the help of a deputy minister, he still lacked the skills to do so, and asked that an additional deputy minister be added, and that after the addition, the War Department would have two deputy ministers, one of whom would be in charge of operations and be called the deputy director of operations, and the other would be in charge of other affairs and would be called the executive deputy director.

In addition, he also integrated the many chaotic divisions and sections under the War Department.

And these reforms were all discussed with Li Xuan before Lieutenant General Lei Wan took office, and they were supported.

With Li Xuan's support, Lei Wan's reform of the War Department was quite smooth.

However, the internal reform, for Lei Wan, this is not a standard for judging his ability, Lei Wanhe is not qualified, there is only one standard, that is, whether he can arrange and command the 200,000 troops of the Tang Dynasty in a qualified manner.

And the next spring offensive is the best time for Rewan to prove himself.

After taking up the post of head of the War Department, Colonel Lei Wan has already frequently visited many senior generals and organized a number of sand table exercises, which were not only attended by the staff officers of the War Department, but also invited the chief officers of many field units, and at the same time selected personnel from the many Ming generals who surrendered to Cheng and let them serve as the generals of the Ming army.

In order to better simulate the actual battle, in order to get more data to prepare for the follow-up battle plan.

In February, Lei Wan, who had just taken office, personally led a large number of staff officers to the Jiangbei front line and arrived in Xuzhou to inspect it, and he needed to see and understand the actual situation of the frontline troops with his own eyes.

In March, Lieutenant General Rewan officially submitted an operational plan for the spring offensive!

The entire plan will involve the Third Army, the Second Army, part of the Fourth Army, the Guards, and the Navy.

In the Jiangbei region, it is expected that more than 100,000 main troops will be invested in front-line operations, and no less than 30,000 troops will be prepared to be stationed in the rear to serve as a strategic reserve, and the battlefield is expected to affect Shandong and Henan provinces.

At the same time, in order to cooperate with the spring offensive, Huguang will also launch a medium-sized offensive to contain Zhang Yue's troops.

If Huguang is also counted, then the troops participating in the battle will be a full four armies plus the Guards, with a total strength of more than 200,000 troops, which will be the largest operation since the establishment of the Tang Dynasty.

Of course, although there were many people who participated in the war, they were relatively scattered, with the First Army mainly responsible for Huguang, the Second Army mainly responsible for northern Anhui and Henan, and the Third Army mainly responsible for Shandong.

The Fourth Army was prepared to act as a strategic reserve.

As in the past, the Guards will transfer troops to form a mixed force, the tentative scale is above the last time, with three infantry battalions as the core, plus auxiliary units such as baggage, artillery, and cavalry, about 5,000 people, to form a temporary brigade of the Guards Army to actually participate in front-line operations.

At the Imperial Army Strategic Meeting, Lieutenant General Lei Wan personally explained his strategic concept to Li Xuan and the senior generals of the army.

Dressed in the uniform of an army general and wearing the rank of lieutenant general, Lei Wan stood in front of a huge map, holding a baton and pointing at the map, while saying aloud:

"The troops going north to Shandong should continue to move north along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, quickly and forcefully break through the interception of the Ming army along the way, and capture the cities along the way, and make a posture of attacking Tianjin and threatening Youzhou!"