The commander of the Northern Expedition is still held by Zhou Lang himself, not because he takes power, but because his subordinates really don't have a handsome talent who is in charge.

Xu Da is the kind of person who is second only to Zhu Yuanzhang's prestige, Zhou Lang's army does not have it, Zhao Wen, Chen Xiaoshou, Hong Jiuzhi and others are all generals who are in charge of themselves, after several years of war, the ability to command tens of thousands of people to attack cities and conquer places can make them multifaceted, and looking at the overall situation, it is a little difficult for them.

It's not that they didn't work hard enough, Chen Xiaoshou and others have completed the eradication of illiteracy in the army, and they have never left their books on Japanese soldiers, and the Western military deployment courses taught by Fischer and others have also been studied conscientiously, and they have been practiced many times on the battlefield, and they have long been thoroughly integrated.

But the problem is that the foundation is shallow, and the excavation is too fast, from Zhou Lang to the present, it has only been a few years, which is not enough for a person to grow from illiterate to marshal. Before Xu Da's Northern Expedition, he followed Zhu Yuanzhang to fight in the south and north for 14 years, and after the life-and-death battles with Chen Youliang and Fang Guozhen, he had rich experience that Zhao Wen and others could not match.

Zhou Lang's command and combat experience and ability are not better than these people, but Zhou Lang has always been in the highest position, but his ability to control the overall situation has been getting stronger, coupled with his own proficient modern management ability, he has far surpassed these subordinates in controlling the overall situation.

Therefore, even if he encountered the most fierce opposition, Zhou Lang still insisted on pro-conquest.

The ministers of cultural relics are all opposed, the reason is very simple, Zhou Lang is now the emperor, how can he move to pro-conquest, Wang Fuqian even said that Zhou Lang is a country, and there are no heirs, in case of danger, the situation will show a trend of collapse. He doesn't care about Zhou Lang's personal life and death, but Zhou Lang's life and death are related to everyone's foundation, so he can't care less.

The situation developed to the end, and there was even a situation of the ministers dying to admonish, and Zhou Lang had to take a step back.

He promised not to move lightly, and would take the lead in strategizing in Nanjing, and only after the Northern Expeditionary Army of all roads had gained a firm foothold would he go north.

Such a decision actually set the route of the Northern Expedition, which was also disputed.

On the route of the Northern Expedition, there was the same controversy as in Zhu Yuanzhang's time, and radicals like Chang Yuchun hoped to reach Beijing and attack the enemy's center. Zhu Yuanzhang thought that this plan was too light for the enemy to advance, and believed that "Yuan built the capital for a hundred years, and the city must be fortified.

In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a three-step plan, "Take Shandong first and remove its shield; Rotate Henan, break its wings; Batong Pass and defend it, according to its household threshold, the situation in the world, into my control, and then enter the capital of the army, then he is alone, and he can be overcome without a fight. Both the capital of Keqi, the drum to the west, Yunzhong, Jiuyuan and Guanlong can be swept down. ”

Xu Da perfectly implemented Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy, captured Shandong in three months, rotated Henan, and took Tongguan, blocking the Yuan Dynasty armed forces in the pass, and then attacked Hebei and Dadu from Henan and Shandong.

In the third step, Zhu Yuanzhang set out to deal with the Yuan army in Shanxi and Shaanxi, and basically unified the area north of the Yellow River.

Because Zhu Yuanzhang's plan was completed too smoothly by Xu Da, the vast majority of civil and military officials resolutely supported this plan. There are ready-made successful cases not to refer to, and you have to use Chang Yuchun's plan that has not been practiced, who can rest assured.

But Zhou Lang planned to attack Beijing directly, since his staff members with different cultural backgrounds and knowledge had such a consistent attitude that they should follow Zhu Yuanzhang's Northern Expedition route, then the Qing court must also think so, and their defense would also be carried out according to this plan, but Zhou Lang went to raid Beijing, and he would definitely catch the opponent off guard.

In addition, Zhou Lang's current situation is not the same as Zhu Yuanzhang's back then, Zhu Yuanzhang has swept away all the forces in the Yangtze River Basin, Huguang has been included in the territory, and there are no worries south of the Yangtze River. Zhou Lang did not occupy Huguang completely, and the Manchu Qing heavy troops were deployed in the Jingxiang area, and they were ready to flow down at any time. To the west of Wuchang, the waterway narrows, the big ship of Zhou Lang can not be navigated, it is very difficult to fight for the right to control the river, the enemy occupies the upper reaches and defends to the death, Jingxiang is a famous fortified city in history, and it takes too much time to attack, so it is mainly defensive, first destroy the Qing, and then unify the map.

Because Jingxiang's enemy can't be careless, Zhou Lang can't drive straight into it like Zhu Yuanzhang, and he can't rest assured that he will capture Henan from Shandong, because that means that Jingxiang's Qing army may counterattack from the belly, and Jingxiang is there, even if it occupies Tongguan, it is not of much significance, and it can't stop the Shaanxi-Gansu-Qing army from attacking from Hanshui.

Therefore, Zhou Lang advocated a quick victory, destroyed the Qing Dynasty in one battle, and directly took the Manchu Qing center.

As for Zhu Yuanzhang's concern about the problem of going deep into the lone army, it is not a problem here in Zhou Lang at all, he has a huge fleet of sailors, the sea is like walking on the ground for him, the sea is a thoroughfare, the sea can be used by Zhou Lang, but not for the enemy, through the sea and land, it can even be said that Jiangnan and Beijing and Tianjin are bordered at all.

Zhou Lang went out of the south of the Yangtze River, approached Beijing and Tianjin from the sea and land, and attacked Beijing like last time, the difference is that this time it is no longer an attempt, but an ambition.

Since Zhou Lang could not personally command the front line, he could only choose to fight a quick battle, and if he went north from the land to Shandong, the efficiency of land communication would seriously affect his command.

So under Zhou Lang's strong insistence, the civilian officials of the military department who were born in the staff retreated, and the Northern Expedition plan immediately became a simultaneous advance by land and water.

The naval division escorted the army north to Beijing and Tianjin, occupied Tianjin, and then landed the main force and stormed Beijing; The land route followed the traditional route, marched into the Jianghuai, and from the Jianghuai to the north to attack Shandong. At the same time, it can also contain the Jianghuai and Shandong Qing armies, so that they cannot reinforce Beijing, if they reinforce, Jianghuai and Shandong will be lost, and Zhou Lang's army can still gather in Beijing.

The two armies involved each other's enemy forces, like a tug-of-war, so that they could not take care of the beginning and the end, which may not be worse than Zhu Yuanzhang's Northern Expedition strategy. As for the Qing army in other directions, mainly the Qing army in Huguang and Sichuan-Shaanxi, Huguang side, as long as Zhao Wen can block it and prevent them from going down the river to invade Jiangnan, the Sichuan-Shaanxi Qing army has a long way to go, and when they arrive in Beijing, they will just wait for their work to annihilate them in the field on the plains around Beijing.

All plans are unified and the preparatory work is completed.

In March of the second year of the Great Tuesday (March of the sixth year of Jiaqing, May 1801), Zhou Lang burned the table to sacrifice to the sky, spread the world, and said that the king of the king went on a northern expedition to the Central Plains to save hundreds of millions of Li people from fire and water. On the occasion of the Central Plains in the north, when Kuang helped China, all the heroes of the Han family in the world should raise the banner of righteousness and punish tyranny......

The army was immediately launched, with an army of 400,000 by waterway, and the Northern Expedition to the Manchu Dynasty!