Beginning in October, on the waterway of the Yangtze River in the eastward direction of Sichuan, ships carrying war horses and soldiers came to Wuchang from time to time.

The ship leaned on the edge of the dock, the horses were pulled out, and the Sichuan Ming army, which was full of seats on the deck, stood up, packed their bags, and walked down the ship with a crowd of people, and then gathered on the dock.

These soldiers wore only saucer helmets, carried a roll of blankets, and carried no weapons, and when they arrived at the barracks, new equipment would be issued by the military headquarters.

In addition to these Ming soldiers, groups of Tibetans and Mongols wearing robes, felt hats, and horses with scimitars at their waists are also very eye-catching.

These are all He Tengjiao, recruited from Tibet and Qinghai. The so-called "righteous servant" has existed since ancient times, and in the Han and Wei dynasties, it was called "righteous obedience" for the young people such as Hu and Qiang who were attached to the imperial court, and the meaning of returning to righteousness and obeying fate was adopted, and there were a large number of righteous servants in Cao Cao's army.

The most elite cavalry of the Ming Dynasty only had 30,000 horse troops, and in addition, there were about 10,000 horse troops in the various theaters of Sichuan, Huguang, and Huainan, totaling 40,000 cavalry.

Now with the addition of more than 10,000 righteous servants, the cavalry that Wang Yan used for the Northern Expedition will barely reach 50,000, giving him the confidence to go north.

After discussing the strategy of the Northern Expedition in Nanjing, the Ming Dynasty formulated a plan to first Manchu and then Jin, first Shandong and then Heluo, frontal containment, flank outflanking, and annihilation of the enemy's main force in the Central Plains.

This plan is currently only the goal of the first stage of the Northern Expedition, first to take Shandong and Henan, and after completion, there is also the goal of the second stage, which is to rescue Shanxi and Hebei, take the Guanwai, and the third stage, encircle the Qing army and recover Shenjing.

Although the plan is formulated, no one can guarantee that there will be any variables, so it is not necessary to implement the plan.

The key to the first stage of the entire Northern Expedition was to attract the main force of the Qing army to Henan, and then the Ming army of Lianghuai could first pull out Ma Guanghui in Xuzhou, outflank Heluo, cut off their way back to the north, and encircle and annihilate the main force of the Qing army in the land of Heluo.

In order to achieve this goal, Wang Yanling Dai Zhifan, who had fought in Xuzhou once, was the commander of the Eastern Front, Liu Shun was the deputy marshal, Zhang Huangyan was the supervising army, and led 120,000 people in the four towns of Zhongwu, Wuwei Left Army, Wuwei Right Army, and Zhenwu Right Army, as well as 30,000 people in the East China Sea Division, Mandazhuang, as a partial division, and prepared to attack Shandong.

In order to let the Qing army misjudge the Ming army's main attack on Henan, Wang Yan left Nanjing again in early December and went to Wuchang with great fanfare, telling the Qing army that he would personally lead the army to settle the Central Plains.

On the edge of the wharf in Wuchang, Wang Yan led a group of generals and stationed their horses on the cold riverside.

"Your Highness, this is the last batch, Zhongyi Town and 10,000 righteous servants, all of whom have rushed to Wuchang!" Li Dingguo, who left Sichuan at the end of November, was in charge of the transfer and resettlement of Sichuan people, and he immediately reported to Wang Yanyu.

Wang Yan looked at the soldiers who went ashore, and many of them were shivering from the cold, "Very good, in this way, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, Shence right army, rampaging horse army, plus 10,000 righteous servants, a total of 160,000 people, will be assembled, but it is already approaching the New Year, it should be the time of family reunion, but the court is going to send troops to fight, and the soldiers will inevitably have resistance, in addition to appeasing the soldiers, the supplies of the court must also be done, and the soldiers cannot be frozen and hungry!" ”

Several generals nodded their heads and said yes, the Ming army rarely fought in winter, although there was no war this time, but the various departments gathered to prepare for war, which still made people dissatisfied. After all, all year round, people always look forward to resting and relaxing for a while, but now that it has suddenly been canceled, there will be resentment.

"Your Highness, Huguang's backlog of cotton cloth and cotton this year has all been driven into winter clothes, and when the soldiers enter the camp, they will be sent down immediately." Li Suiqiu, the head of the household department who was in charge of the logistics of the Huguang army, hurriedly replied: "There is no need to worry about food, and the meat household department is also trying to mobilize from all over the country and entrust the business to buy it." ”

"Don't be afraid to spend money, let the soldiers have a good year in the army!" Wang Yan nodded, then pulled the reins of the horse and clamped the horse's belly, "Let's go, go to the camp and have a look!" ”

In the early days of Wang Yan's administration, he owed money, and he always wanted to pay it back, otherwise he would be uneasy, but in the past four years, he has not owed debts for a year, and now he owes more and more, but he is not in a hurry.

He found that sometimes the court owes money, which is actually not a bad thing, of course, this money cannot be owed casually, it is spent indiscriminately, and every sum must be used on ideas.

Wang Yan dares to owe money now, in fact, there is a big reason, because as long as his Northern Expedition is successful, not to mention other land recovered, his hole can be filled, so Wang Yan is not very worried about the problem of repayment.

The north bank of the Han River has been abandoned for seven or eight years and has become the horse farm of the Ming army.

Relatively speaking, it is a pity that such a good place is used as a horse farm, so there are many wealthy gentry who want to buy a piece of land, and even the officers of the Wuzhong Army want to get this piece of land in their hands, but they are all firmly vetoed by Wang Yan.

Now the Ming army has set up a large camp here, countless white bags are all over the field, and large flags are hunting in the wind in the camp.

Wang Yan and his entourage rushed to a large camp, in which were stationed the soldiers of Zhongyong Town, they were besieged by the Qing army in Nanyang for more than a month, after the Qing army retreated, they were transferred back to Wuchang to recuperate, and supplemented some soldiers and low-level officers who had died in the martial arts.

In December, not only is it cold in the north, but it is also freezing in the south, and ordinary people nest at home and will not come out at all, but the camp is in full swing.

As soon as Wang Yan and his entourage came to the camp, more than 100 horse troops rushed at a gallop, and the first person was the general Liu Fangliang.

"Your Highness!" Liu Fangliang turned over and dismounted, walked forward quickly and saluted: "Humble welcome Your Highness!" ”

Wang Yan first looked at the soldiers who dismounted in unison behind him, the equipment of these soldiers was completely different from the standard equipment of the Ming army's horse army, one did not have a cuirass, and the other did not have a riding spear, a saber, and a three-eyed gun, they were all dressed as infantry soldiers.

The soldiers wore saucer helmets and cotton armor, and wore a strap with various medicine bottles hanging from them, a water bottle hanging on the left side of their waists, a leather box with projectiles and a spur on their right, and a self-fire gun and a rolled-up quilt on their backs.

In the first half of the year, Wang Yan came to Huguang, and Zhang Cunren and Tan Tai once gave him advice to equip the infantry with war horses to increase the mobility of the infantry army, and Wang Yan adopted their opinions.

Wang Yan heard that the Manchurians also liked to ride horses before Chongbu, and when they were facing the enemy, they dismounted and fought in close combat.

Wang Kan also turned over and dismounted, helped Liu Fangliang up, glanced behind him, and asked with a smile, "How are you practicing?" ”

Liu Fangliang naturally knew what Wang Yan said, he was busy patting his chest and said, "I was about to ask His Highness to proofread!" ”

"Okay, let's go into the camp and have a look!" Wang Yan handed over the horses to his subordinates, and immediately stepped on the snow and entered the camp on foot.

The camp of the 30,000-strong army covers a vast area, and the tents are neat and orderly. In the middle of the tent, there is a huge school field, on which a team of horses is being drilled.

They crossed the trench at one time, rushed the steep slope at the other, dismounted one after another, and quickly formed a tight infantry formation.

These horses are naturally not for riding and shooting, Wang Yan has very low requirements for them, they can ride horses, just don't fall off.

Wang Yan only planned to leave 30,000 rampage horses in Huguang, and Yi Cong decided to send them to Lianghuai to strengthen the power of Dai Zhifan.

In order to annihilate the main force of the Qing army in Heluo, Dai Zhifan's actions must be fast, quickly take Xuzhou, and then outflank and cut off the way for the Qing army to retreat to Hebei.

Give him 10,000 righteous followers, plus 5,000 cavalry from the four towns in the hands of Dai Zhifan, then the strength of the eastern front will be greatly strengthened, and there will be no problem in fighting horses.

It's just that in this way, when Wang Yan and the main force of the Qing army faced each other, he was a little weak-hearted, so he hoped to train tens of thousands of cavalry infantry troops to gallop in the Central Plains.

Wang Yan stood outside the school yard, and saw thousands of soldiers riding on horses, galloping vertically and horizontally, and did not fall off the horse, so he nodded with satisfaction.

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(End of chapter)