Winter temperatures on Hainan Island are pleasant, and even if it's cool tonight, a coat is enough.

The candlelight is dim.

The most striking thing in the room is the large map hanging on the wall. The map is very imprecise and far from military standards, and it is basically impossible to use it as a campaign command. But until there is no better replacement, Shou Xiang can only use this map of the Ming Dynasty to increase the intuitive impression of the war zone.

The key points of the two Guangxi are all in water transportation. The south is mountainous and watery, with very few heavily loaded bridges and stone paved roads. The volume of land transportation and water transportation are not at the same level at all, and inland water transportation is the railway line at this time, the main lifeline of the army's operations. The army was fighting in the south and must not be too far away from the water crossing.

Among the various water ferries, the intersection of the water system is the most important. Capturing these crossroads meant that the army could use water transport to bring back and forth maneuvers in the valleys separated by high mountains, controlling more territory with a small number of troops. And when attacking, holding the crossroads and grasping the initiative to choose the direction of attack.

Maps don't help Guard Plan Battle, but they do show these key points clearly.

Guangzhou is the center of water system convergence, reaching the river and the sea.

The Dongjiang River is relatively non-critical, so don't worry about it for now.

The Beijiang River originates from Jiangxi, passes through Nanxiong, Shaozhou, Yingde and Qingyuan, and converges in Sanshui and Xijiang. The key points on this main axis are Nanxiong, Sanshui and Erdi. Nanxiong faces each other across the Great Yuling and Ganzhou, Jiangxi, and the enemy can trace the Ganjiang River up to Ganzhou to abandon the ship, cross the Dayuling along the land route, and re-board the ship in the Beijiang River to go south. Sanshui County is the important place where the Beijiang River and the Xijiang River meet, and the first major crossroads between the two Guangzhous.

According to the battle reports collected by Qiongzhou, long before Li Chengdong marched into Guangdong, the Tatars occupying Ganzhou sent troops to try to move south along the Beijiang River, but the momentum of the tentative attack was too weak, and it was defeated at Sanshui by Lin Jiading, the governor of Liangguang of the Yongli court.

The Xijiang River is the most important inland river in Liangguang, and large boats can be passed below the Zhaoqing Antelope Gorge. Due to the turbulent water flow of the canyon, boats need to pull fiber to cross Antelope Gorge. From Antelope Gorge up to Wuzhou, the navigation pressure of 100-ton sailboats during the high water period is not great.

The He River, which flows through northeastern Guangxi, flows into the Xijiang River in Fengchuan County, which is very close to Wuzhou, and Fengchuan County is a secondary crossroads. The Hejiang River has a mediocre volume, and there is no main road to communicate with Hunan, which is further north, which is not too important in the past history. But at this time in the late Ming Dynasty, the Tatars occupied the main railway, ah, no, it was the inland river trunk. Their forces were insufficient, and the Ming army still had many secondary arteries. Hejiang is one of them, although the traffic conditions are far from being compared with the Xiangjiang River-Lingqu-Lijiang River water transport, but after all, in Hexian County, Zhuling is Xiangnan, and it can barely play the role of communicating the two war zones.

After passing through Fengchuan, Wuzhou is the second largest crossroads and the core crossroads of Guangzhou. The occupation of Wuzhou is equivalent to having the freedom of action to open fire on the Quartet.

From Wuzhou to the north is the Guijiang-Lijiang River system, which meets the main stream of the Xijiang River in Wuzhou. Along the Li River system to the north, the Ling Canal connects the Xiang River and even the Yangtze River, which was the main transportation route for the Chinese nation to conquer South China 2,000 years ago. The main reason why the southern provinces remain in the territory is this artery of life. The key points of the Li River are in Guilin and Quanzhou. Quanzhou is the gateway to Guangzhou, and Guilin is the capital of Guangxi, and it is also the capital of the current Nanming regime. Quanzhou crosses the Ling Canal to the north, and the main landmarks are Yongzhou and Hengyang in turn. They are all famous locations in the Battle of Yuxianggui.

From Wuzhou to the west, the first crossroads is Teng County. Shou order skipped the vine county, there is something special here, and I will take a closer look at it later.

The next strategically important crossroads in Teng County is the Xunzhou Prefecture, where the Xijiang River is divided into two branches.

The tributary of the Xijiang River in the south of Xunzhou is the Yujiang River, which flows through Hengzhou through the ancient Yongzhou, which is now Nanning Prefecture, and then divides into the left and right rivers, and enters the lofty mountains and mountains where the Miao Mantusi and the Han people are mixed. The terrain of the left river and the right river is dangerous, there are many Miao tribes, and a large number of military castles were built in the Ming Dynasty. In the mountain valleys, there are many fertile fields cultivated between the basin dams, and if they are fully utilized, it will be a headache for the rulers. Continue up along the unnavigable river valley of the left and right rivers, enter Yunnan Province through Guangnan Province, and then pass through Yunnan and Mengzi and other Yunnan relatively flat terrain and more developed agricultural areas can all the way to Kunming. And in Youjiang, from Tianzhou and Baise along a mountain path to the northwest, you will encounter an interesting place name, Anlong Shouyu Thousand Households.

Move your eyes back to Xunzhou, the north is the main road of the Xijiang River, the Qianjiang River, and continue to move forward and be divided into the Liujiang River to the north and the Hongshui River to the west. Liujiang contacted Liuzhou Mansion, and Hongshuihe contacted Sien and other places. Liuzhou and Sien are actually the hinterland of Guangxi, and they don't have to worry about being invaded before Guilin, Xunzhou and other places are lost. The importance of the Liujiang River was very prominent at this time, and during the high water period, 5-10 ton wooden boats or bamboo rafts could be traced along the Liujiang River and the Duliujiang River all the way to Dushan Town, Guizhou, another famous location in the later stage of the Henan-Xianggui Campaign. Dushan is not far from Guiyang, and it is also an important road connecting the two major war zones.

Because the direction of the traffic arteries is generally the same, the battle situation in 1647 is very similar to that of Henan, Hunan and Guizhou in 1944.

Li Chengdong, the governor of Jianzhou and Guangdong, fought up along the Xijiang River and conquered Wuzhou, and had the right of freedom of action to attack the entire territory of Guangxi.

Li Chengdong is like the 23rd Army of Kuichi Tanaka in 1944.

Kong Youde, the general of Jianzhou Pingnan, led nearly 10,000 officers and soldiers of the headquarters of King Sanshun and Xushun Gong, and nearly 10,000 soldiers of the Eight Banners of Manchu and Han Dynasty to Yueyang. This was the first time that Jianzhou appointed Han people as generals to go on expeditions, and their veterans were obviously not enough to support a two-front war, and their dependence on the Han army was deeper. There will be a delay in the transmission of military information from Changsha to Hainan, and it may be that the Battle of Changheng has broken out at this time.

Kong Youde is like the 11th Army of Isamu Yokoyama in 1944.

Changsha He Tengjiao is about Xue Yue's 9th war zone, and Guilin Qu Shiyun is about Zhang Fakui's 4th war zone.

As in 1944, the strength of the Ming army (national army) was no match for the enemy army, and it was a great rout to see.

Like Yu Xianggui, how miserable this battle will be lost is not mainly due to the resistance of the Ming army, but more to the consumption of the kinetic energy of the enemy's attack by weather and distance.

Shou ordered a long sigh.

Hainan now has a relatively weak combat effectiveness and is incapable of interfering in the situation on the mainland, so it can only focus on itself for the time being.

The gaze flows down from the beginning of the river, and finally converges on the Guangzhou Mansion. This is the geography of the soldiers that the order will face in the future, and the focus of the two regions is on these place names.

Orderliness gives a rough categorization of these strategic locations.

First-class important places, Guangzhou Mansion, Wuzhou Mansion, Guilin Mansion.

Second-class important places, Sanshui County, Xunzhou Mansion, Zhaoqing Mansion.

Third-class important places, Nanxiong, Quanzhou, Liuzhou.

Fourth-class important places, Hengzhou, Teng County, Fengchuan County, Xinyi County and Xinhui County.

Depending on the objectives of the campaign, the level of the key place will change. The common feature of the first three important places is that they are located on the main roads of the Xijiang River and the Beijiang River, and have the ability to carry out far-reaching radiation layer by layer in depth. As long as you occupy these eight important places, you can control the core area of Liangguang.

The fourth class was not originally an important place, but it could play some interesting role in the current situation.

In addition to the Pearl River system, there are also some inland rivers that enter the sea independently. From west to east, they are Qinjiang River in Qinzhou, Nanliu River in Lianzhou, Jiuzhou River in Shicheng County, Gaozhou, Maoming Jianjiang River in Gaozhou, Moyang River in Zhaoqing, and Xinhui Tan River.

In the Qinjiang River, a 20-ton wooden sailing boat can go up 120 kilometers to Lingshan County, and Hengzhou is Hengzhou after crossing a watershed that is not too steep.

The Nanliu River is more important, and Hepu County, the mouth of the Nanliu River, was the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road as early as the Han Dynasty. At that time, Hepu Port was one of the most important commercial ports in the world. In the Ming Dynasty, most of the Hepu port was silted up, and most of the sea ships docked at the Beihai port in the south. But Hepu can still pass dozens of tons of wooden boats, all the way back to Yulin Prefecture, Guangxi. Crossing the Tianmen Pass, you can enter the Beiliu River-Rongjiang River, and inject into the Xijiang River in Teng County.

Entering the Tanjiang River from Xinning, Xinhui County is only more than ten miles away from the main channel of the Pearl River, and there is no danger to block it, and you can even dig a canal here to avoid the Lingding Ocean and directly enter the Pearl River channel. In the future, a hero will set his sights on the small county town of Xinhui.

The ends of the Jiuzhou River and the Jianjiang River can also be connected to Guangxi, but compared with the Qinjiang River, the Nanliu River and the Tan River, the land route is too long, and the capacity is much worse.

From the Beibu Gulf from the sea to the land, the Qinjiang River and the Nanliu River are the best choices. In particular, although the main channel of the Nanliu River has lost most of its functions, as long as the local hydrology can be understood, the Nanliu River is still a thoroughfare that can carry the army.

It will take time to train the army from the sea to the land, and the most urgent thing at present is to deal with Li Chengdong.

After the reinforcements of the Ming army of Zhang, Yang, and Jin in the southeast arrived, and with the fortress line built by Zeng Ying in northern Qiongbei, the strength was sufficient.

Li Chengdong's troops must have strong combat effectiveness, but they set out from Guangzhou to western Guangdong, and there was no inland water transportation to support logistics. The rivers that flow into the sea independently of the two provinces basically run north-south, and the enemy forces advance in an east-west direction, and the rivers will only become obstacles. For Li Chengdong, sea transportation is definitely unreliable, there are no inland rivers, only by land, and the forces he has gathered in Haibei Province do not have a lasting offensive ability.

The enemy forces in Haibei, Yan Keyi, Zhang Yue, Zhang Daoying and others are all veteran generals with rich combat experience, and Yan Keyi can even be called a rare good general. But their strength is not enough.

Guarding the order does not know exactly how many men, how many guns and how many ships the enemy army has, and this is not the most important thing. Logistics access is limited, and the greater the number of enemy troops, perhaps the shorter the time to hold out. Zeng Ying retreated the army and civilians in the second mansion of Haibei, and the walls were cleared.

The nearest supply point for the enemy troops in Xuwen and other places on the other side of Haikou was far away in Gaozhoufu. The cost of transporting goods along the land route alone is very large, and it is impossible for the enemy to mobilize enough people in depth not long after the enemy army arrives. What's more, it is very doubtful how much resources the Gaozhou Mansion can have, and Yan Keyi will probably need to get supplies from Guangzhou to maintain his presence in Haibei Province.

Just make sure that it is difficult for enemy forces to get support by sea. Even if Yan Keyi launched an attack with the help of veteran soldiers and the resources he had brought him, it would be a one-time offensive with no lasting ability.

Yan Keyi's subordinates now have the Zheng family's fleet of the three Tan people and the four surnamed pirates. These locals know the islands, the waterways and the waterways. In Qiongzhou Prefecture, the local sailors who also know hydrology are very weak. Although the naval division from the southeast is strong in combat, it takes time to familiarize itself with the theater of operations.

Based on the current comparison of the combat effectiveness of the two armies, a decisive battle will definitely not work. Even if it is a one-time offensive, the kinetic energy accumulated by the enemy army is not something that the Ming army on the island can compete with when it breaks away from the fortress line. It's not a way to sit and wait, no one knows to what extent Yan Keyi has accumulated strength, and it's always unsafe to wait and be beaten.

Write down the above derivation process in a book.

The enemy forces were far away from the river supply points.

Sea transport is unreliable, but it is the only way for the enemy to maintain a sustained attack.

The enemy forces are more combat-ready.

The enemy is accumulating a fierce offensive, and its kinetic energy threatens to destroy the unfortified Qionghai barrier.

A decisive battle is not feasible, and the only way to do that is to consume the enemy's kinetic energy. Let them accumulate more speed than the attrition of battle.

Defend the order decided to attack on all fronts with small forces and defeat the battle.

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Author: Many years ago, there was a brain hole in the Republic of China and the Anti-Japanese War. I didn't expect that the inland waterway shipping materials prepared in Guangxi, Guizhou and other places at that time could be used in this book.