Princess Huichen is fifteen years old this year, and her appearance is already very different from when their family fled to Huangzhu Mountain five years ago.

The biggest obvious change is that he has grown taller, his face is rounder, his waist is rounder, and his weight has successfully climbed to the standard of the White Queen Mother.

This time has passed fast enough, five years, Huichen has grown up, and Li Xuan himself has changed from a sixteen-year-old boy to a twenty-one-year-old youth, touching his loose beard, which makes Li Xuan sigh a little: The years urge people to grow old!

After eating lunch, Li Xuan just drove the people away, first took a nap, and then started the afternoon work.

When Li Xuan appeared in the conference room, the people in the navy were already waiting in advance, and when they saw Li Xuan coming in, they naturally stood up one by one, and then began to salute, Li Xuan bowed slightly, that is, he sat on his own exclusive dragon chair, and then nodded slightly, Bao Yifen and other admirals under him were the beginning.

The main purpose of today's naval meeting is to report on the achievements of the Datang Navy in suppressing bandits in the past two months, and at the same time, it is also to discuss some problems that have been exposed in the course of suppressing bandits.

"In the past month or so, the navy has dispatched four cruisers, 13 frigates, and 56 auxiliary vessels of various types, such as armed merchant ships, transport ships, and supply ships, for a total of 69 ships of various types to participate in the anti-bandit operation."

"During the operation, 16 pirate strongholds were destroyed, more than 40 pirate ships were sunk and burned, more than 100 large and small ships were captured, more than 3,000 pirates were killed, and more than 5,000 pirates were captured!"

"The captured pirates have been dealt with in the same way as before, and after the trial, all of them were dried in the major coastal ports to warn future generations!"

"In addition, in addition to ships and other ordnance, we have also seized a part of the booty, mainly gold and silver, all kinds of goods, the total value of which is preliminarily judged to be no less than two million taels of silver, which has been handed over to the Ministry of Taxation for disposal!"

"After the thunderous strike of our navy, there are still no large-scale pirates along the coasts of Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces, and there are only sporadic pirates in their activities.

"In the future, our navy will normalize patrols along the coast, and continue to maintain the fleet escort system to ensure the safety of passing merchant ships!"

Listening to what the navy said about suppressing bandits, Li Xuan nodded slightly, this time the navy has worked hard in the operation to exterminate pirates, this scale is larger than when it attacked the Ming army and naval division in South Australia, and the effect is very obvious.

This is the navy that has not been built in vain at a great expense!

This navy spends more money than the army, a cruiser is more than 100,000 taels of silver, even a frigate has 50,000 or 60,000 taels of silver, if such an expensive warship can't play a role in protecting the Datang Sea Frontier, then it will be a waste.

After the naval officer pirate's affairs were reported, Li Xuan also asked about the navy's current preparations by the way.

What preparations, naturally, are for the preparation of the Northern Expedition.

The navy said that at present, the major capital ships have begun to return to the major ports for maintenance and replenishment, and the preparatory work will be preliminarily completed in about half a month, and the Northern Expedition will definitely not be delayed.

Li Xuan also nodded after hearing this, and didn't say anything more.

After all, the time and even the strategy of the Northern Expedition have not yet been determined, and a group of high-ranking generals of the army and even those middle and senior staff officers in the War Department are arguing every day, and they have not yet decided on a complete plan.

There are many contradictions within the army, and Li Xuan does not plan to intervene, anyway, the Northern Expedition is certain, and the general route of the Northern Expedition is basically determined, it is nothing more than to take Anqing and Yangzhou, and then fight all the way to the north.

The general direction is determined, and the specific tactical details that the army is now debating are specific to where a certain division will fight, when it will fight, and so on.

These are already matters involving tactics, and Li Xuan has always ignored them, leaving them to the debate within the army.

After all, the Northern Expedition is a huge military operation, and the army will send at least 100,000 main forces to cross the river and the Northern Expedition, and the navy will basically come out to cooperate with the army.

This kind of large-scale operation is the largest since the establishment of the Tang Dynasty!

Although it is said that in the Tang Dynasty in the past, when there were still garrisons, there were also battles in which tens of thousands of people participated in the war, but the garrison at that time was not good, and the real main force was generally only tens of thousands.

Even in the original Huguang Campaign, Li Chunjing and Hao Bonian joined forces, and the total number of troops participating in the First Army and the Second Army was only 60,000 or 70,000.

By the time of the Jiangnan Campaign, the Second Army was actually 40,000 people, and the Third Army was only 20,000 people, and it was still a scattered battle.

But now, at least 100,000 troops crossed the river to the north to expedition, which is a very severe test for the military command system and logistics supply of the Tang Dynasty, and the command system is okay to say, Li Chunjing and Hao Bonian are both veterans who have fought for several years and experienced many major battles, and there are a large number of generals to cooperate, so there should not be any big problems in command.

The really big problem is logistical replenishment!

Not to mention the huge problem of how to transport supplies to the front line, it is a difficult task to supply 100,000 troops to sustain the battle.

Rao is now the major arsenals under the Tang Dynasty are working overtime every day to produce all kinds of ordnance and ammunition, but now they have not been able to make the Tang Dynasty's naval and land armies get enough supplies.

According to the estimation of the logistics department of the Privy Council, at least before the campaign was launched, at the various supply transit stations on the south bank of the Yangtze River, at least enough ammunition and various types of food and grass to support the troops for three months.

In this way, after the Northern Expedition of the Great Army, there will be enough materials to continue to transport to the north, otherwise, if it is directly transported from the southern hinterland such as Liangguang, it will not be able to catch up.

At that time, it is even possible that there will be a lot of ammunition and supplies in the rear, but they are all on the way, but the front-line troops are seriously short of ammunition!

In addition to stockpiling a large amount of ammunition, grain and grass in advance, the logistics department is also worried about how to send a large amount of ammunition, grain and grass to the front line in advance, relying on the military's own baggage troops, which cannot carry too many materials, and must rely on a large number of people organized by the logistics department to transport them.

But how many people do you have to do?

The logistics department made a simple estimate: If it is impossible to seize the canal and simply rely on land transportation to maintain the operation of the troops, it will be basically able to meet the needs of the troops by hitting the front line of Fengyang Mansion and Huai'an Mansion, relying on the army's own baggage troops, and then mobilizing 50,000 people.

However, if we want to kill in Shandong and Henan, the number of people needed will increase exponentially, and 100,000 people will definitely not be enough, at least 150,000 people.

If you want to kill all the way to Beizhili, the total number of people required will exceed 300,000!

And this, this does not include the section from the Liangguang area to the Yangtze River, because this section of the road will all take the sea route, and there will not be too many people.

Therefore, the logistics department has already put forward a very important opinion: the logistics supply route must not be all by land, otherwise, the number of people used is too large.

Even if these people are temporarily recruited, they don't have to be paid, but you have to give people a bite to eat, hundreds of thousands of people just eat a few months of food is a huge number.

Therefore, the army leaders of the Privy Council have preliminarily formulated an opinion, that is, the troops should divide the route and advance at the same time.

At the same time, in the early stage, the Yangtze River was blocked by the Ming Army's naval division, and it was difficult for Datang to transport supplies to the troops in the direction of Wuchang through the Yangtze River.

Therefore, in the early stage, the supply in this direction mainly relied on the ammunition produced and hoarded by Jiangxi and Hunan provinces themselves, and Guangxi supplemented a part of the ammunition, and the quantity was not much.

The lack of ammunition naturally led to the fact that the northward plan in this area would be secondary, and it was not the main offensive route of the Tang Army's Northern Expedition.

So where is the main line of attack?

The north of the Yangtze River in the south is the Huai River basin to be precise.

At this time, the Yellow River entered the sea from the Huai River, which also means that if the mouth of the Huai River and the section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal from Huai'an to the Yangtze River can be controlled, then the inland river fleet of the Tang Dynasty can reach Huai'an.

However, with the Huai River as the transit, it advanced to Henan in the northwest and Shandong in the north through the Yellow River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

In this way, the difficulty of logistics supply is greatly reduced.

However, the Ming army is also good, naturally they also know the importance of this area, otherwise why would they set up Jiangbei General Army in Yangzhou and Huai'an, the total number of Ming troops in this area is at least more than 150,000, and the main force of 100,000 goes up.

Yangzhou is built like a bridgehead, with strong troops and many artillery, and it is not easy to gnaw it down.

The hoarding of materials is slow, logistics and supply are difficult, and many troops are also being reorganized and trained.

At the same time, there are many disagreements within the army, so this Northern Expedition is from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year, but it is said that it is autumn, and at present, Li Xuan estimates that there is still no perfect plan in a short time.

So the Northern Expedition is still preparing, at least when it will be ready to be completed, this is an unknown.

The Tang Dynasty was preparing for the Northern Expedition, and the Ming Dynasty was not idle, and Emperor Zhengde had already taken care of the balance between the imperial power and the cabinet, let alone the risk of the front-line generals taking the opportunity to sit big, and he had exhausted all means to increase the defensive strength of the Jiangbei and Huguang fronts.

In this context, Zhang Yue's power is also getting heavier and heavier, following the crown prince Shaobao, Emperor Zhengde promoted him to the crown prince Taibao, and this is not over, Emperor Zhengde in the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, officially named Zhang Yue as Pingnanbo, which is directly past the marquis, directly named the earl, this kind of thing is extremely rare.

What's even more interesting is that when Emperor Zhengde gave Zhang Yue the title of uncle, he was still receiving excerpts to impeach Zhang Yue.

In the past few years, all the excerpts of the impeachment of Zhang Yue have been taken out, and I am afraid that there will be either 1,000 or 800, but Emperor Zhengde has not issued all of them, and he has also degraded many officials who impeached Zhang Yue.

For a while, Pingnanbo Zhang Yue's limelight has surpassed many cabinet bigwigs of the Ming Dynasty, no way, who let the family have soldiers in their hands, and they are also hundreds of thousands of elite main forces!