The original 200,000 people of the Ming army were distributed in Qujing and Zhanyi in Yunnan, Guiyang and Anshun in Guizhou, Zunyi and Yongning in Sichuan. Now Zhang Jing'an and Zhao Shujiao have brought 60,000 people, plus 10,000 people from Huguang and Guangxi, and there is no problem in defending Guiyang, Zunyi, Yongning and their routes. The latest free chapters of the book can be found here.

Zhu Xieyuan and others did not have such a bold idea at first, and the reason for this idea was that one day Zhu Xieyuan visited Zhang Jing'an's troops, and on this day Governor Zhu came to Zhang Jing'an's barracks to watch the training process with great interest, because he was not very relieved about these people from the north. He believed that if Liaodong's army was really as powerful as the legend said, it would not have lost cities and land one after another, and on the other hand, if it was proved that Zhang Jing'an's troops were only imaginary, then their own soldiers would not be suitable for them to be trained, and there were many people who were actually difficult to match their names.

At the beginning, Zhang Jing'an told Zhu Xieyuan about his daily car training process, and the defense troops in the city and the patrol and reconnaissance troops outside the city only needed to run and practice for half an hour every day, but the troops who took turns to train in the barracks were training all day, and in the morning it was training in running, weightlifting, standing still, and lining up in formation, and in the afternoon it was training in skills such as spear stabbing, knife splitting, and empty-handed combat. Listening to Zhang Jing'an say that in the morning, people who run and lift weights practice for a while, rest for a while, and practice alternately, and those who stand quietly and in formation stand still for an hour, Zhu Xieyuan listened and nodded secretly.

In the afternoon, Zhu Xieyuan looked at the skill training again, and saw that thousands of people were dancing with guns, and when they were dancing with guns, the knives were shining like snowflakes when they were dancing, and the shouts were like thunder when they were fighting with their empty hands, and Zhu Xieyuan was very satisfied. However, when he saw Zhang Jing'an let the new soldiers who came to participate in the training to fire the tiger squat cannon, Zhu Xieyuan saw that the power and range of the cannon had been greatly improved, so he asked if there were many such cannons, Zhang Jing'an told Zhu Xieyuan that although the cannon was not large, it was a large number, and a total of 1,000 guns were brought, and Zhu Xieyuan had the idea of reconfiguring the troops at that time.

After Zhu Xieyuan went back, he immediately discussed with Gao Di and Cai Fuyi, wanting Zhang Jingan to take out a thousand tiger squat cannons and use them. When Zhu Xieyuan came to the camp, Gao Di was writing a note, and everything had changed for two months since he came to Guiyang, but he didn't know if these changes were needed by the imperial court. Although the Military Affairs Yuan asked Zhang Jing'an and Zhao Shujiao to make specific arrangements before leaving, he should also have an attitude towards the five provinces and could not ignore it, otherwise he would likely be pulled out of the black pot if something happened.

Seeing that Zhu Xieyuan was in trouble, Gao Di stopped writing and asked, "Is there something wrong with Lord Zhu?" ”

Zhu Xieyuan said: "Xiaguan still wants to implement the plan to encircle the rebels, a while ago he said that the conditions are not ripe, but today Xiaguan found that the conditions are ripe now, and the opportunity will not be lost and will not come again!" ”

Gao Di nodded and asked people to ask Cai Fuyi to come over, and after Cai Fuyi came over, Gao Di said: "Lord Zhu said that the encirclement of the rebels is now mature, and Lord Cai will listen to it and give me his opinion." ”

Zhu Xieyuan said: "That's the case, today I went to see General Zhang's training, and found that they were training how to do it, and the artillery was accurate and far from it, not to mention that it is said that they have thousands of small cannons." After consideration, I thought that the line from Guiyang to Zunyi could be defended by General Zhang's troops, and Guiyang City and Zunyi City were each equipped with 200 tiger squatting guns, and more than a dozen military stations and fortresses were each equipped with about 10 guns, plus the joint patrols on both sides should ensure that nothing went wrong. In this way, the original soldiers can be drawn to Anshun and Yongning, and the opportunity to be stationed in Wusa and Zhenxiong to complete the encirclement of An Bangyan and the rebels of Hao Chongming. ”

Cai Fuyi thought for a while and said: "The tiger squat cannon is small and easy to carry, it is originally used for offense on the move, and defense is not its forte. However, the idea of using this dense artillery array to defend is very wonderful, but I don't know what the effect is. If we can really defend with a dense artillery array, we can indeed draw more than 40,000 men to occupy Zhenxiong and Wusa, so that the destruction of An Bangyan and Hao Chongming is just around the corner. ”

Gao Di saw that both of them looked at him, knowing that they were all the same idea and now he wanted to express his position, Gao Di thought for a while and said: "Yesterday I just received a document from the imperial court asking about the progress of the past two months, which asked how the road from Guiyang to Huguang was repaired, and the emperor meant that the original mountain road was difficult to travel, and the road should be repaired to facilitate the transportation of cannons, it is said that this is a newly developed cannon, and the power is greater than the original red-clothed cannon." Now there are two choices, one is to safely let Zhao rate the road to build the road until Huguang is good to pull the cannon, and the other is to write to the court and say that we don't want the cannon to solve it by ourselves with a small cannon, what do you think? ”

Seeing that Gao Di threw the problem here, Zhu Xieyuan smiled bitterly and said: "Since the imperial court has a new idea, as long as the current official does not say it, what to do is still let Zhang and Zhao choose the two general soldiers, whether it is to build roads and other artillery or defend with small cannons, it is up to them to decide." ”

After Zhang Jing'an and Zhao Shujiao received Gao Di's letter, the two discussed for a while and came up with their own plan, that is, there was no problem with them defending Guiyang to Zunyi, not to mention anything else, just saying that the thousand tiger squatting cannons and the strong fortresses along the way would make the enemy suffer as many casualties as possible, but they had an opinion on the 40,000 people they had saved, v Jing'an and Zhao Shujiao thought that they could bring 40,000 people to continue training, and the 5,000 people who had been trained under Zhang Jing'an could be pulled to Yongning to increase the offensive force, and choose the opportunity to occupy Zhenxiong with the Sichuan army. The 15,000 people trained at the Zhao Sect told them to build roads all the way to the east, through Tongren to Baojing, and finally to Changde, Chenzhou.

After Gao Di and others received the plan from Zhang Jing'an and Zhao Shujiao, they discussed for a while and found that there were still some details that they needed to explain in person, so they asked them to come to Guiyang in person, saying that they would give a reply to the court after discussing with them.

It was already early May, and Zhao Shujiao knew that those who had come for training might be leaving, so before leaving, he asked those 15,000 people to train them for another two days, and focused on asking them if there was anything they didn't understand, so that they would not regret it when they returned. When he came to Guizhou Xingying, Gao Di and several others were already waiting for him, Zhang Jing'an was originally in Guiyang, and he had already said some of his views on this plan, and now Zhu Xieyuan and others were mainly asking questions about Zhao Shujiao.

Zhu Xieyuan first asked, "Why do you always let the trained people go to build roads?" Is building roads more important than encircling the rebels? ”

Zhao Shujiao thought for a while and said: "With all due respect, Lord Zhu and Lord Cai have been encircling and suppressing the rebels here since the second year of the Apocalypse, and five years have passed in the blink of an eye, and there have been countless losses in the advance and retreat, why is this happening?" Mencius said: 'Heaven is not as good as the place, and the place is not as good as the people.' 'My Ming army came here to judge with great righteousness, and it cannot be said that it does not occupy the time, but the reason for the five years of no success is nothing more than the geographical advantage and the people. Now whether it is transporting troops or transporting supplies, they have to trek muddy and rugged roads, and after building roads, not only can they quickly transport materials, but also build more new villages to reassure the people, and once the people are safe, they will naturally lose their foundation. ”

Zhu Xieyuan asked: "What you said is just an assumption, even if the imperial court has some surplus materials that can be transported, it will take time, our more than 200,000 people here every day consumption is a very large number≡ after the general army and Zhang general army jointly guard the line of Guiyang and Zunyi, we can save 40,000 people, if we use this extra 40,000 people to complete the encirclement of the rebels, we can gradually oppress and quickly achieve victory." When the time comes, if the imperial court wants to stabilize the border, it can be done slowly, just like a person, you have to bandage your wounds before working, why bother bleeding and exerting force at the same time? ”

Zhao Shujiao said: "Lord Zhu means a quick battle, but the order received in the last tense is to prepare for a long-term siege of the enemy, of course, if you all think that a quick battle is better, the last general will definitely obey the order." ”

Zhu Xieyuan saw that Zhao Shujiao no longer insisted, and asked Zhang Jing'an happily: "General Zhao no longer insists on building roads, Zhang Zongbing, do you see if you can return the 5,000 trained people?" The 15,000 people trained by General Zhao can carefully organize the several villages that have been built, and then we will build new villages one after another, to be honest, the official is very interested in the layout of your new villages and the high-yield crops planted. ”

Zhang Jing'an smiled and said: "Those 5,000 people were originally local soldiers in Guizhou and Yunnan, and Lord Zhu can take the general away at any time without any opinion." But can Lord Zhu really be sure that more than 40,000 people can put down the rebellion? At that time, the former governor Wang Sanshan brought 60,000 people to go, but the result was still defeated and died, and the place where Lord Zhu was going was Wusa, Dongchuan and other hinterlands. The imperial court originally let us besiege the main and camp step by step, if we do what Lord Zhu said, we will first disobey the order, and then force the rebellion to return to the Tusi and lose the soldiers, who will bear this crime? ”

As soon as Zhu Xieyuan heard that Zhang Jing'an even disobeyed the order and took responsibility, he was also a little uneasy in his heart, and it was not good to talk about it for a while, at this time Cai Fuyi said: "Wang Sanshan's failure was because he took the risk of advancing lightly, and when he was short of food and wanted to retreat, he exposed the news too early, causing his soldiers to rush to escape and be chased and killed by the enemy. If we are more cautious, when the time comes, we can really attack with one blow, and the court will only reward and will not hold us accountable for disobedience. ”

Cai Fuyi's words seem to be correct, but now it is a nonsense, if it can really be done to put down the rebellion steadily, the Ming army will garrison more than 200,000 people in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces, and some will transport supplies on the road from Guangxi and Huguang, so there will be no need to work so hard and lose money for five years.

Seeing that Zhu Xieyuan, Zhang Jing'an and the others did not speak, Cai Fuyi explained with some embarrassment: "Of course, no one is sure of victory. ”