Datong Mansion, Shanxi.

In the pre-Ming period, this place has always been an important border town, and the same was true in the era of the Tang Empire.

The Ninth Army, one of the sixteen armies of the Tang Empire, had its headquarters here.

In the headquarters of the Ninth Army, the commander of the army, Lieutenant General Deng Xide, was thinking about the huge sand table, as the second commander of the Ninth Army and the new generation of generals in the army, he experienced fierce competition last year, which was the important task of His Majesty to serve as the commander of the Ninth Army.

And his Ninth Army, like the other sixteen armies of the Tang Empire, was not a simple field army, but a kind of theater command, and its defense line included the border line of Datong Province, as well as the defense line in northeastern Shaanxi.

Because this place is facing the main direction of the Tatars, the pressure on weekdays is not small, so the troops under its jurisdiction are not small.

Its main forces were only the 6th Division and the 5th Cavalry Division, as well as the 18th and 19th Reserve Divisions.

However, as the empire prepared to carry out the Hetao campaign at the beginning of the year, the troops under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Army underwent great changes, first of all, the nearby Third Infantry Division and the Third Cuirassier Regiment were transferred to Datong Province and placed under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Army.

Immediately afterwards, the First Cavalry Division, which was originally stationed in Youzhou City, was also transferred, and after May, the Eighth Light Cavalry Regiment stationed in Taiyuan was also transferred.

Later, the 13th Infantry Division and some other units also joined the corps one after another.

By the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the troops under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Army already had two main infantry divisions, five reserve divisions, two cavalry divisions, a cuirassier regiment, six light cavalry regiments, and the Seventh Artillery Brigade.

All of the above are combat units, not counting the more than 10 transport regiments that are temporarily recruited and formed under the management of the Logistics Department.

Of course, it is impossible for all of them to go out to fight, and it is necessary to leave some troops to garrison the Great Wall defense line, so as not to be beaten behind, and what remains is three reserve divisions and artillery units, as well as a temporary brigade supported by the Third Army.

The determined strength to fight in the north was two main infantry divisions, two reserve divisions, two cavalry divisions, one cuirassier regiment, and six light cavalry regiments.

The total number of troops is about 60,000!

The 60,000 troops are currently in Datong Province and the northern part of Taiyuan Province, but most of the troops preparing to participate in the war have already completed the assembly in advance and have undergone relevant pre-war adaptation training.

Deng Xide received a 300-li urgent secret decree from Jinling City yesterday, and the Holy Son of Heaven had officially approved the Hetao Campaign, ordering Deng Xide to lead his troops to send troops to Hetao, inflict heavy losses on the Tatars, and strive for the strategic initiative for the empire's subsequent northern strategy.

This secret decree is written by the Son of Heaven himself, and there is no nonsense in the traditional decree on it, a simple letter of several hundred words, which says one thing, let him find an opportunity to inflict heavy damage on the Tatars, annihilate the enemy's living force, do not care about the gains and losses of the land, do not care about victory or defeat, and be decisive and annihilate a large number of the enemy's living forces.

As for the seizure of the Hetao, the Son of Heaven didn't even mention a word!

As a senior general of the military, Zheng Xide's political sensitivity is naturally quite high, relying only on military talent, in the system of the Tang Empire, it is no problem to be a regiment commander, brigade commander, or even a division commander, but if you want to be a military commander, in addition to excellent military talent, you must also have extraordinary political talent.

Otherwise, you won't be able to climb up at all!

Deng Xide, naturally, is not a person who can only fight, although he is still good at fighting, but to be honest, there are many people in the Tang Army who are more talented than him in military talent, but it is certainly not a few.

In this way, as soon as he saw the secret decree of the Son of Heaven, he guessed a little, and he could generally guess the meaning behind the words of the Son of Heaven, which was nothing more than seizing the Hetao, but the Tatars fled, so it was useless, because people could fight back when they turned around.

Moreover, the defense of the Hetao area is very difficult, this place is easy to attack and difficult to defend, whether it is the Tang Army, or the current Tatars, it is actually difficult to defend here for a long time.

But if you can inflict heavy damage on the Tatars and kill their army directly, then they will not be able to fight back if they want to.

But it is not easy to destroy a large number of the enemy's living forces.

People and Tatars all grow on horseback, this is not good, people run away in minutes, how can they stand here stupidly and fight with you.

It is a bit difficult to destroy the enemy's living forces in large numbers, and the only hope is to control the banks of the Yellow River with a thunderous force in winter, before the Yellow River freezes, and then lock the enemy in the loop, and then force them to fight a decisive battle.

Let's not mention whether this can be successful.

If it doesn't work, when the Yellow River freezes in winter, basically don't expect to be able to leave the Tatars, and people can run anytime and anywhere.

Deng Xide pondered on the sand table, thinking about the chips in his hand, and then thinking about how to use his chips.

The biggest bargaining chip he has on hand now is nothing more than 15,000 cavalry, and if he uses it well, there is still a great possibility of winning this battle, but if he doesn't use it well, then the result is difficult to say.

After pondering for a while, he summoned the senior staff officers of the army staff and the senior generals in the army to prepare for a meeting, the main purpose of which was naturally to pass on the battle orders from the Privy Council.

There is also a holy decree that can be made public in the army, after all, many words in the secret decree cannot be published, which is not good and easy to bring negative impacts.

For the imminent launch of the Hetao Campaign, the generals present here are mentally prepared, otherwise, the Privy Council will transfer them from other places for the purpose of fighting.

But how to fight, this is what needs to be planned in detail.

The Privy Council's War Department did not give a detailed battle plan, they only gave operational requirements, requiring the Ninth Army to inflict heavy losses on the Tatars and seize the Hetao area.

The operations department of the Privy Council is not strong enough to cross thousands of kilometers to remotely command the Ninth Army in combat.

That is to say, when the combat order is sent to the side of the Ninth Army, when and how to fight is already the Ninth Army's own business.

Next, the generals of this group of Ninth Army discussed for most of the day, wanting to formulate a detailed battle plan, but although there were many plans before, when it came to the end, many things were still uncertain.

Although the overall battle plan has not yet been determined, Deng Xide knows that no matter what, he can't delay it for too long, he must end the battle before the winter comes, and then wait until the winter comes, he can choose to continue the battle or choose to retreat.

Therefore, when many generals of the Ninth Army began to formulate detailed battle plans, he had already ordered the troops to begin to assemble and prepare, and at the same time, he also asked the troops to speed up the construction of castles and prepare food and ammunition.

No matter how you fight, the front exit channel definitely needs to be done first.

Previously, they had built several forts along the Yellow River, stretching 50 kilometers away, and now they needed to rely on these small fortresses and the Yellow River to establish an effective and safe logistical supply line.

At the same time, it is also necessary to transfer a large amount of food and materials hoarded in the rear to the front line in advance, and for the sake of safety on weekdays, large-scale food and materials will not be stored too close to the front line, but will be placed in some large cities in the rear, such as Datong, Taiyuan, Youzhou and other strategic cities.

Only in times of war will they be deployed to the front in large quantities.

As the saying goes, the army has not moved, the grain and grass go first, and now that a large-scale war is about to be fought, these large quantities of grain, ammunition and other materials hoarded in the rear naturally need to be transported to the front line.

The generals and staff officers under Deng Xide did not delay for too long, because they also knew that time was tight, and they spent three days making a detailed plan for this advance on the basis of many plans made before.

This plan is not too complicated, in fact, the Tang Army has always disliked to engage in too complicated combat plans, especially large-scale battles.

If it is a battle at the battalion and regiment level, you can still see the commanders of the Datang Army who are later in some complex and difficult tactics, but when it comes to the battle at the division level, it is relatively rare.

When it comes to the military level, if anyone dares to come up with any messy tactics that make people feel dizzy when they see it, they will definitely be removed from their posts directly.

Because when the scale of the force is large to a certain extent, and the battle line spreads for dozens of miles or even longer, the command will become very complicated, and the communication delay will be very long.

At this time, the coordinated operations between the troops and the troops will become very unreliable, and more rely on the strength of the troops themselves to fight.

Therefore, large-scale operations, in fact, are as simple as possible in terms of strategy!

This time is the same, the battle plan drawn up by the headquarters of the Ninth Army seems to be as thick as dozens of pages, but in fact the core idea is very simple, that is, the cavalry will attack the main and the infantry will defend the main defense.

The reason why it is so detailed is because much of the content in it is not military at all, but involves building castles and maintaining supply lines.

After all, if you want to fight in the north, the logistics line is the lifeline of the Ninth Army, and it cannot be overemphasized no matter how much attention is paid to it.

Most of these contents of building castles and maintaining supply lines are talking about Dongsheng City!

It was a city that had been abandoned by the former Ming years ago!