The Ming Navy is searching for the French Navy, and the French Navy is also searching for the Ming Navy, this is not a knight's battle, so it is impossible to really wait for each other in a certain place, they all want to find each other in advance, and then occupy a favorable position and arrange a favorable formation in advance, which is crucial for naval warfare, the British Navy has defeated the French Navy many times in history, and not always because the British Navy is stronger, many times it is the British Army that is better at taking advantage of this advantageous factor, and even examples of winning more with less because of this are not uncommon. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

And the scope of the search battle between the two sides is basically between Da Nang and Haiphong, because the French army knows that the Ming army must be based in Haiphong, and the Ming army knows that the French army must be in Da Nang, and neither side will stay away from the base until the main force of the other side is captured.

The sea is vast, the waves are choppy, and although it is likely to pass by, you may not be able to find each other. Therefore, this kind of secret war of searching and testing each other is going on intensely.

The pressure on the Ming Navy is very great, once they are defeated, it means that the Ming Wanli Maritime Frontier will be exposed to the French army, in fact, the French Navy may be more nervous, they crossed thousands of miles of ocean to fight in the East, once the naval battle is lost, hundreds of thousands of French Army will become a lone army, cut off from the mainland.

The Ming Navy is just a shield to defend the sea, while the French Navy is the link between the colony and the mainland.

Both sides were very cautious, and they only sent a small number of cruisers to constantly patrol back and forth, in order to seize the weakness of the other side, deal a fatal blow, and completely control the sea power. But so far, both sides do not dare to easily let the main fleet away from the base, the cruiser has found each other many times, the small fleet has exchanged fire several times, either the Ming intercepted the French lone ship, or the French besieged the Ming lone ship, so far the two sides have no sinking record, have let the other party's small team or lone ship escape.

But this situation cannot last forever, everyone knows that with the Ming Army moving south, once approaching Da Nang, the Ming Navy cannot be unmoved, with the army, with the help of the army's firepower, it will definitely attack Da Nang together, and then the French Navy can only passively fight a decisive battle.

Historically, the situation during the Russo-Japanese War was roughly the elements of the sea and land cooperation to attack Russia and control Arthur, the Japanese Navy was stronger than the Russian Pacific Fleet, the Russian Navy has been avoiding the war, the Japanese Navy avoided them in Arthur, and then combined with the Army to capture Arthur, and it can even be said that the main thing is that the Army eliminated the Russian Fleet, and the role of the Navy is only to blockade the Russian fleet in the harbor.

The difference is that the Ming Navy does not have an advantage over the French Navy, and is even at a disadvantage, so it is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to blockade the French Navy like the Japanese Navy, so it will depend on the Army.

The navy may not think so, but the general trend is like this, they can only be cautious, just looking for an opportunity to eat the opponent's small fleet, but the other party has never given a chance, so that they have empty ambitions, but useless. The Ministry of War also demanded that the navy not take risks, and asked them not to fight a decisive battle with the French navy for the time being, and to wait for the army to move south.

However, during this period of time, the army has been resting, and it is already difficult to storm coastal defense in June and July, because November to April is the rainy season in Vietnam, and most of it is rainy days.

Fighting in such a situation, not to mention the difficulty of the battle itself, the disease is even more fatal. So the army asked for a break and waited for the dry season to come.

The navy had different opinions, they believed that since the Ming army was not adapted to the rainy season in Vietnam, the French army must be even more unsuitable, and it would be beneficial for the Ming to attack at this time. The Army says it does if the traffic situation is equal. However, the French army had railway support, but the Ming could only rely on Vietnamese people to carry arms, and the Ming army was at an absolute disadvantage in the rainy season. Unless the navy can seize sea supremacy and transport supplies by sea, the people will not be able to fight the railway.

Obviously, the two sides disagreed, and there was a suspicion of passing the buck to each other.

The civilian officers of the military department advocated the postponement of the offensive, and they were in the same position as the army. In particular, Mei Qizhao, the secretary of the military department, according to the traditional saying, is a strategist who is familiar with military books, but he can only be a strategist, because from military books he can only read "slightly" and read general ideas and concepts, but it is impossible to master the "technique" of actual combat experience, but what he said is not unreasonable.

Mei Qizhao believes that it is because the northern part of Vietnam is close to the Ming Dynasty, and it is still shallow to penetrate into the borders of Vietnam.

Therefore, at the time of the coastal defense campaign, the military department advocated a quick victory. The army officers, on the other hand, had other ideas, the simplest of which was that they had just declared war on France and needed to win a war, which was a state of mind that they were in a hurry to fight.

After the Battle of Haiphong, the entire central and northern part of Vietnam, until Hue, was under the control of the Ming army and the Vietnamese imperial court, and had penetrated deep into the territory of Vietnam.

However, the Vietnamese imperial court institutions in the central and northern parts of the country have been preserved, whether it is the past France or the current Ming Dynasty, they can use the Vietnamese government to organize and raise grain and grass, so they don't need to plunder at all to fight for a long time.

Sun Tzu believed in the Art of War that the deeper we go into the hinterland of the enemy's country, the stronger our army's military spirit will be, and it will be difficult for the enemy to defeat us. Plundering grain and grass in the fertile areas of the enemy country will ensure the supply of the troops. It is necessary to pay attention to resting and recuperating the troops, not to make them too tired, to maintain their rustic spirit, and to recharge their strength.

Therefore, when the issue of food and grass is guaranteed, but the supply of arms cannot be guaranteed, the military headquarters believes that it should wait for a favorable opportunity and not rush to war.

Therefore, after the coastal defense campaign, the army has been resting for more than three months, and it was not until November that the operation began. But at this time, it was only the Ming army in the north of Vietnam moving south, and the Ming army in the south was still confronting the French army in Hue and did not attack. Because the rainy season in South Vietnam lasts for two months, November and December, which are still rainy seasons.

The best time to fight in the south is after December.

Even if you rest, you can't be idle, and the hundreds of thousands of troops are prone to problems once they are idle. People still have to move, and once they don't move, no matter what their psychological state is, their bodies are also prone to illness.

Therefore, during the period of recuperation, in addition to simple regular training, the Ming Emperor instructed the army to fully cooperate with the Vietnamese government to stabilize the place, and if it is necessary to suppress bandits, they should actively cooperate with the suppression of bandits. The French army entered the central region of Vietnam to suppress the gentry uprising, and although it could not be said that there was not an inch of grass left behind, it also killed many people, and caused considerable disruption to the local order. As soon as they withdrew, there was no order, and there were bandits and homeless people everywhere. If these displaced people and bandit forces cannot be suppressed as soon as possible, it will be impossible for the local area to be stable, and it will be impossible for the Ming army to have a stable strategic rear.

He also asked the troops, as far as they could, to help the Vietnamese people do some farm work to alleviate their hard work, and also explained that the army's grain and grass supply depends entirely on the Vietnamese people, and helping the Vietnamese people do farm work is also to ensure the army's rations.

Under this guiding ideology, the Daming army took turns to help the Vietnamese in the garrison area, showing the Vietnamese what a real royal teacher, or the style of a soldier, was.

Obviously, this is Zhu Jinglun's attempt to improve the relationship between the military and the people, and the effect is not bad; the Daming army is a regular army, military discipline has always been good, and the Chinese are relatively obedient; as long as military discipline is not corrupted and military law is consistently enforced, the bandit habit of the Xiang army, which is maintained by power and strategy, generally does not appear.

From this point of view, the highly obedient Eastern Army can actually do better than the Western Army, and historically, when the Eight-Nation Coalition entered Beijiacheng, it was precisely the Japanese Army that had the best military discipline.

Of course, this is not because the Japanese are friendly to the Chinese, otherwise the Lushun Massacre a few years ago would not have happened, but the Japanese want to behave well in front of the great powers, so they pay special attention to the image.

But other armies also want to be embarrassed, they can't restrain their behavior, even in the 21st century, the U.S. military bases in Japan have to tease Japanese female students from time to time, it's not that the U.S. military doesn't have a strict military law system, it's really the nature of cowboys.

When the Daming army intends to show its image in front of the Vietnamese army and civilians, it is really able to do the behavior of a soldier, and there is nothing to do such a thing as picking up water for a widow, it is rushing to do it. Planting seedlings and harvesting for the local people was not a problem at all for the Ming army, most of whom were born as children of peasants.

When the Ming army went south to Hue, it was March and April, which happened to be a harvest season, but at that time, they fought against the French army and did not catch up with the help, and when they planted rice, they could already help. At that time, they were still acting as Vietnamese kings, and by the time this stubble was harvested, they had already become Ming troops.

With the local harvest of two seasons of grain in Vietnam, the food supply of the Ming army has greatly improved, and the Ming army has also promoted the model of raising ducks in rice fields in Vietnam, and also harvested a batch of meat. The army bought it with real money, which not only improved its own supply, but also made the local people have a better opinion of the Ming army.

After the grain harvest, South Vietnam has also entered the dry season, although the continuous sunny days are very hot, but it is the coolest time in Vietnam, which is equivalent to the winter in Vietnam, which is a good season for high horses and fertile horses. Reinforcements from the south after the Battle of Haiphong also arrived from northern Vietnam, and the strength of the Ming army in the Hue area reached 300,000.

Everything was ready, the emperor gave an order, and the battle of Hue began.