"Your Majesty, do you think you can withdraw some soldiers and horses from Hexi and Qinghai first?" Du Ruhui as a Pingzhang Shi and Shangshu Zuo Servant now feel a huge logistical pressure, this war has been fought for less than half a year, and the court has been almost squeezed dry.

Since the two battlefields of Hexi and Qinghai have already decided the outcome of the battle, he suggested that there is no need to keep so many troops on the front line, especially in the two places, so that the county soldiers and village warriors who were originally conscripted and in a state of first-class readiness can be disbanded and go home, and the people of the two provinces can also return to their hometowns.

The general won the victory on the battlefield, but it was also inseparable from the support of the temple.

And to support hundreds of thousands of people to fight, and to fight on a front, thousands of miles from east to west, at the same time, the logistical pressure is enormous. As the saying goes, if the front line has food for one minute, the rear has to be conscripted to transport food for twenty minutes.

When a soldier fights on the front line, there must be several or more people in the rear.

The Yulin Lang in the Emperor's Yulin Palace had all learned military logistics, and the generals taught these Yulin Lang that under normal circumstances, a citizen could carry six buckets of rice, and the soldiers themselves could bring five days of dry food, and a citizen could supply a soldier, and that one could last for eighteen days at a time.

If you want to count the return trip, you can only move forward in nine days.

On the other hand, if two men feed one soldier, it can last twenty-six days at a time, because the food rations consumed by the three men also increase. Eight days later, one of the men had already eaten up the rice he was carrying, and he was given six days' rations and told him to return first.

If you count the return trip, you can only move forward in thirteen days.

Three people can only last thirty-one days at a time to supply one soldier, and if you want to count the return journey, you can only advance for sixteen days.

Sun Tzu said at the beginning of the Art of War that war is first and foremost about calculation.

A general, if he doesn't know how to calculate, can't fight well. You have to calculate all aspects well, and come up with a high enough victory before you can use troops.

This is the correct way to use soldiers, only blindly want to fight recklessly, so as to use tricks and tricks, this is a very dangerous gambling behavior, and the use of soldiers to fight a war should not rely on gambling, but should rely on calculation.

Theoretically, three civilians supply one soldier, and the limit is reached.

If 100,000 troops are dispatched, one-third of the baggage will be imported, and only 70,000 soldiers will be able to go into battle, and 300,000 people will be supported by transporting grain.

It's very difficult to scale up again.

It is precisely for this reason that troops are generally sent all the way, and the scale is 100,000 at most.

Daqin counterattacked this time and mobilized more than 400,000 government soldiers, but it was also distributed on multiple battlefields on the front of thousands of miles, 150,000 horses on the Hexi battlefield, 150,000 horses on the Tuyuhun battlefield, 50,000 troops on the Jiannan battlefield, and more than 100,000 troops on the second line of defense.

Of the 24,000 men in each army, 16,000 were soldiers from the Sanya, and 8,000 were conscripted county soldiers as auxiliaries. In the rear of each army, 72,000 men are assigned to support the supply of logistical grain and grass, and more than 10,000 militiamen are responsible for protecting these people.

Of course, the mobility of the Qin army was high.

Not only did the cavalry in the army have a high proportion, but the infantry also had many mobile mounts, and even had plenty of pack horses for transporting tents, armor, weapons, etc., and there were nine pack mules and donkeys for one fire.

However, having a large number of war horses, mounts, and pack horses made the Qin army highly mobile, but also brought a problem, that is, the demand for grain and grass was greater, and the consumption was more, and at the same time, such a high-intensity war, the livestock casualty rate in the army was very high.

A man can only carry six buckets, but a camel can carry three stones, a horse or mule can carry one and a half stones, and a donkey can carry one stone, and compared with people, the transportation capacity has increased. However, if the battle is long and the task is urgent, and the cattle cannot be grazed and fed in time, the livestock will be emaciated and die.

On the transportation route, once the animal dies, it often has to be discarded along with the food it carried.

Not to mention, the cost of each horse and mule is very high, and if one dies, the imperial court will also lose a lot.

In this war, hundreds of miles of raids and thousands of miles of travel were carried out at every turn, and the demand for logistics and transportation was extremely high, and the losses of war horses and mules were also huge.

Du Ruhui could predict that after such a battle, the cavalry horses would have to lose at least two to thirty percent, the infantry would also have to lose more than two percent, and the pack mules and horses would lose more than thirty percent.

The loss of horses and mules in the army alone can bankrupt the Great Qin military.

An army of 100,000 people, with 70,000 soldiers, 30,000 auxiliary soldiers, and 300,000 people, marches 80 miles a day, and the logistical supply can only support its combat radius of 1,200 miles.

Starting from Chang'an City to Jincheng County (Lanzhou), it has exceeded this combat radius, which is already more than 1,400 miles.

If you go from Chang'an to Gaochang, this army of 100,000 will take at least two months.

Of course, in the actual course of the battle, there are also local supplies along the way, or capture and plunder, to support the war, but the more soldiers and horses dispatched, the more difficult it is to rely on the war to support the war.

Of course, Du Ruhui also knew that the war was not over at the front line, but whether it was 50,000 garrisons left in Qinghai or 50,000 garrisons left in Hexi, it would bring huge logistical supply pressure.

Every time a stone of grain is transported from Guanzhong, the people consume ten times as much grain on the way.

"The war is not over yet, and we can't withdraw our troops now." Hou Mochen had always been the emperor's marching commander before, and he didn't know about the logistical difficulties, but if these two armies were withdrawn early, then the two 100,000 armies that went deep into the Western Regions or Tuyuhun to fight a decisive battle would have no follow-up support, and once they needed to respond, it would be too late to temporarily recruit and gather troops and horses.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that if the soldiers and horses of Dunhuang Zhangye in Hexi are disbanded, then the grain and grass in Hexi can be stored for the use of the Western Expeditionary Army, so that there is no need to travel thousands of miles from Guanzhong to the Western Regions to transport grain. Your Majesty, from Chang'an to Gaochang, it is a distance of 5,000 miles! Du Ruhui said.

Two soldiers had to recruit a county soldier as an auxiliary, six civilians had to be recruited to provide logistical support, and even a militia had to protect the militia and the grain road.

It also has to use a lot of cows, horses, and mules, and the cost of eating and chewing horses is indeed amazing.

Luo Cheng had to think about this.

The Qin army was not prepared for this war, and it was not long before the land of Helong returned to Qin, and the Qin Dynasty did not have any foundation here, let alone many reserves, and in the past few months, Helong had already been emptied.

Such a war had not been fought by the Qin army before.

"What Du Fuzhu said does make sense, the river is depleted, and the guanzhong is empty, and it has indeed reached the limit. Then Gaochang and Yiwu garrisons have 4,000 troops, Dunhuang also garrisons 4,000, Cheng Yanjin and Pei Xingyan have 48,000 troops, in addition to these 60,000 troops, and the other 90,000 troops of the 150,000 troops on the North Road, they are all ordered to return to the military government, disarmed and returned to the field. ”

"And in the land west of the North Road and Hexi, the recruited county soldiers, villagers, and more than 300,000 people were all ordered to return home."

Sometimes, the collapse of logistics can be more terrible than the defeat at the front.

The occasional gains and losses of one city and one pool on the front line are not the worst, and what I am most afraid of is the collapse of organization and logistics, which will be the most fatal.

Qin Jun's strings were too tight before, and now it's time to relax a little, or it will break.

However, for Qinghai, the emperor considered it more carefully, after all, Hexi was originally Qin, but Qinghai was Tuyuhun's territory.

The emperor cut half of the 50,000 troops left behind in Qinghai, leaving behind 24,000 men, retaining the strength of one army.

However, the emperor only left 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers from Longyou County, Xiangyong, and Minfu in Guanzhong to supply Qinghai, and the rest all ordered them to return to their hometowns.