Rao has gone through the baptism of blood and fire in the battle of Hecai Town, and Xu Chen, the commander of the first brigade of the two Huai Army, still has a pain like a knife when he sees the scene in front of him. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

One by one, corpses were piled up in the field outside Linqing City, blood trickled, watering the grass nearby, and even the farthest blood had slid down the river embankment, moistening the canal bed that had dried up most of the canal, and the cracked ground was filled with blood, which looked a little weird and terrifying.

The strong smell of blood in the air made everyone who came here feel cold to the bone.

The old people in Linqing City basically fell here, and Linqing City, which was once a pearl on the canal, has been reduced to nothing in the flames. The Ming cavalry of the brigade had already rushed forward to chase and kill the Mongols who had just left not far away, although the Ming army was tired from afar, but when everyone saw the sight in front of them, there was no need for encouragement.

Every soldier of the Ming army knows very well that after killing these Mongolian Tatars, he will have the face to return here and hold a handful of loess for these innocent fathers and villagers.

Xu Chen's face was gloomy, and the soldiers around him carefully cleaned up the corpses in the grass. A cavalryman rushed to Xu Chen's side with a horseback and said loudly: "Brigade Commander Qiqi, the people of the Jinyi Guard have already brought over." It was found from the tunnel that Jinyiwei had dug before, and the identity of the token was verified. ”

Xu Chen said softly: "In this fire, if it weren't for the people of Jinyiwei, how could they survive." These ······ It's just some defenseless women and children, old and weak, even if they don't even have the last chance to resist. ”

Several generals standing beside Xu Chen silently raised their heads to look at Xu Chen, and the expressions on their faces became more and more solemn. It can be said that the Mongol Tatars must have had a plan before, and in the case of the large-scale assembly of the Ming army and the vanguard troops crossing the border line without declaring war, they have already reacted according to the original plan.

The Mongols want to leave Daming with a North China that has been burned down, no danger to defend, and no food to obtain, and a North China where Daming is full of corpses!

"It's miserable." One of the heads muttered.

Xu Chen glanced sideways at him suddenly, his lips trembled slightly, and finally he didn't say anything.

At this time, even if there are thousands of excitement and resentment in the heart, in the end, it can only turn into a low sigh and deep chagrin. If I had arrived a little earlier, if I had been on the road a little faster, maybe this tragedy would not have happened.

But it was too late.

"Jinyi Wei belongs to Qingcheng, see Brigade Commander Xu." The two men strode over, their clothes still bearing the traces of burning after being stained with sparks, and their faces were even blackened, which was extremely embarrassing, but the two eyes that were exposed were still straight towards Xu Chen.

The middle-aged man stepped forward, took out a thick notebook from his coat, handed it to Xu Chen, and said in a deep voice: "Brigade Commander Xu, this is all the information collected by Jinyiwei in Linqing City, including the population of Linqing City before, as well as the layout of the streets in the city, and the number of Mongolian Tartar garrisons. ”

Xu Chen exhaled softly, jumped off the horse and stretched out his hand to carefully take the thick book, I don't know if this booklet was already heavy, or the content on it was too heavy, Xu Chen's arm involuntarily sank slightly.

The soldiers around them held their breath, and on that booklet, every name once represented fresh life, and every street once symbolized joy and prosperity. It's just that now it's all in vain. Xu Chen pursed his lips and didn't say anything from beginning to end.

The thickness and heaviness of this booklet were not much different from the thickness of the roster of the First Brigade that he had given to Wang Yizhou in Hecai Town a few months earlier.

What's more, Xu Chen didn't know how many more of these brochures he would receive if he went all the way.

Behind each book, there are the blood and tears of the Han people.

A cavalryman rushed over at this moment, and said loudly: "Brigade Commander Qiqi, our vanguard has bitten into the rear of the Mongol Tartars. The Mongol Tatars did not love war, and left all the women and children who had been taken captive to the north, and quickly escaped. Our strikers were afraid of deception and did not dare to pursue. ”

Xu Chen nodded.

Now he cares more about not how many Mongol Tatars he killed, but how many civilians he saved at the hands of Mongol Tatars, at least this can also show that Da Ming was right to take the lead in dispatching a small group of elite troops before the full-scale Northern Expedition.

If Xu Chen got an empty and burned Linqing City, and all the women and children were killed or taken away, even if he knew that Wang Anjie would not blame him for this, he would feel a sense of guilt from the bottom of his heart.

Soldiers who have no way to protect the safety of their own people are incompetent!

"The brothers have worked a long journey, so let's make a fire and cook." Xu Chen commanded softly, "There are still more people to protect those women and children back, in case there is a change, our Ming Dynasty can't afford more pain and loss now." ”

"No!" Several generals agreed at the same time.

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Ye Yingwu silently put down the battle report that had just come from the north.

Obviously, the entire Ming dynasty and the opposition still underestimated Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan obviously realized that the Mongols, with fewer and fewer cavalry and forcibly pulled foot soldiers, had no way to hold on to the open plains in northern China, so Kublai Khan simply adopted the strategy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness, and directly ceded all these places that had no way to be held to the Ming Dynasty, so as to ensure the stability of the entire front, especially Mongolia in the west is still facing the threat of the Haidu Department and the Ba Ra Department, and retreating to Yanyun and the grassland is naturally the best and most reasonable choice that Kublai Khan can make.

If defending the city is a shortcoming for the Mongols, then looting everything and then burning it down is the strength of the Mongols, and it is also the strength of the northern nomads faced by successive dynasties. The looted city, it is impossible to recover without three years and five years, especially the Mongols will also rob or kill women and children, the old and weak, which means that the Ming can get an empty city without gold and silver wealth and without any population, or perhaps it is more appropriate to say that it is a blank land.

This also means that the Ministry of Household and the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty must invest a lot of financial and material resources to make these cities, which are about to be erased from the flat ground, regain their previous scale.

Thinking of this, Ye Yingwu had nothing to do even if he gritted his teeth with hatred.

After all, in the history of the world's massacre, Kublai Khan's name is also impressively listed. And the Mongols also left a great reputation for slaughtering cities in the history of world wars. It can be said that the slaughter of the city was a good way for the Mongols to weaken their opponents.

It's brutal, but it's effective.

Especially for Mongolia now, it is not land that needs more, because last year's snowstorm has made many places sparsely populated due to serious disasters, and now is the time when there is no green and yellow, and a large area of land cannot provide enough military food for Mongolia, so the Mongolians don't mind giving up the land to others at all, after all, what they really need is the last blood and sweat savings of the people on these lands and those women and children who can be used as the basis for the continuation of the entire race.

Perhaps now Ye Yingwu can be fortunate that before the Ming Dynasty went on a full-scale Northern Expedition, the vanguard team had actually set off.

The purpose of the Ming Dynasty sending the vanguard troops to fight undeclared is naturally very simple. Previously, there was an obvious buffer zone between Mongolia and the Ming Dynasty, especially in Bozhou and Daimyo on the north side of Shandong Province, and Mongolia adopted a free-range policy for these places, that is, they regarded them as places that could be plundered, and when they needed military rations, they went south to plunder, and even sent officials to manage them when they were not needed. However, because the Ming army never crossed the defense line of Jeju and Yangsanluo, these prefectures were still nominally Mongol dependencies.

The task of the vanguard of the Northern Expedition was naturally to quickly occupy these state capitals and directly push the battle line to the vicinity of the actual control area of the Mongols, so as to force the main force of the Mongolian defense to fight, so that the various departments of the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty could also find the target more accurately. After all, with the strength of the main army of the Ming Dynasty, especially after the strengthening of a large number of firearms, it is already very simple to deal with the Mongolian infantry cavalry.

But in the final analysis, the Ming army is still dominated by foot soldiers, especially the Ming army, which is equipped with artillery and flying thunder cannons and new tigers rushing arrows, and it is difficult to compare with the main cavalry of the Mongolian Tatars in terms of mobility, so it is very important for the Ming to induce the Mongols to take the initiative to meet the battle. Because according to the daily offensive method of the Mongols, they must have been constantly harassed from both sides during the advance of the Ming army, and finally launched a fatal blow when the Ming army was exhausted, so now the Ming army is rapidly advancing outside the Mongolian front, and what it is doing is naturally to directly cancel the strategic buffer of the Mongol Tatars, so as to avoid the possibility of engaging the Mongols on the way to the greatest extent possible. Bringing the armies of both sides together for a battle is what the Ming army needs.

The Ming army came directly to the door, and Mongolia naturally had no reason to give way, because it would be directly related to the prestige of Mongolian rule.

In order to achieve this goal, the main forces also sent the most elite troops to take on the task of interspersing and advancing forward, for example, the two Huai armies sent the reorganized first brigade to the battlefield, and Xu Chen, who emerged in the battle of Hecai Town, led the new first brigade composed of the backbone of each brigade of the two Huai armies, and was the first to set foot on the battlefield.

It's just that now it seems that the Mongols have obviously anticipated what measures the Ming will take, so they have no intention of defending the line at all. Judging from the battle reports on the front line, Linqing City, which was supposed to be the first line of defense because of its reliance on the canal, was burned down by the Mongol Tatars, and the plans of the Mongols were already obvious.

The walls were cleared, and the whole line retreated to Youyan, so that a large number of cavalry could be left free to continue the harassment strategy. The entire North China Plain will naturally become the best battlefield for cavalry, and it will also become a nightmare for the Ming army. Especially before the Ming army took the Great Wall and controlled the entire Youyan, although the Ming army had a large number of troops, it was still at a disadvantage.

Ye Yingwu frowned and looked at the intricate battles between the enemy and the enemy on the map.

On the northeast side of the mountain, which is the main direction of the entire Northern Expedition, the vertical and horizontal lines silently indicate what is happening there. Whether it was the tragic massacre of the city, or the raging fire, or the few small but equally tragic confrontations between the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols, all the blood and fire turned into cold lines on this map.

Hui Niang walked over lightly with a bowl of soup. Since Ye Yingwu gave the order for the Northern Expedition vanguard to be dispatched, he has never stepped into the harem, and he has been eating and living in the imperial study for the past few days, and the staff that Ye Yingwu has cultivated in the past few years are also laying on the floor outside the imperial study. The main task of these staff members on a daily basis is to compile the information gathered from all over the place, and at the same time make judgments on the general direction according to their ideas.

After all, even if it is to transmit information at an expedited speed of eight hundred miles, it will take a day and a half to get here from the Shandong front, so in some of the rapidly changing details of the battlefield, these staff members have no way to make accurate judgments, but in the main offensive direction of the Ming Dynasty, their judgment can still provide Ye Yingwu with a lot of help, after all, sometimes looking at the problem from a different angle can get more ways to solve it.

Because of the information sent by the two Huai armies, these staff members have already quarreled. They are all young and vigorous young men, their voices are loud, and they are so noisy that they even roll up their sleeves directly.

Standing in the inner compartment of the imperial study, even through a door, you can hear the sound over there.

Hui Niang smiled helplessly, the maid next to her brought a basin of water, Hui Niang personally took a towel into the water and twisted it, and handed it to Ye Yingwu: "Husband hasn't rested for five or six hours, let's wipe my face first." ”

Ye Yingwu casually took the towel and wiped his face, but his eyes were staring straight at the map.

Now he has a dead end in front of him.

The main armies of the Ming Dynasty that can be dispatched at any time will face the northern lands that have been forcibly cleaned and slaughtered into wasteland by the Mongol Tatars, and they will also face the attacks that may occur at any time from the Mongol Tatars. It is conceivable that no matter how conceited the Mongolian cavalry is, it is impossible to go directly to the main force of the Ming army, so the most likely target is the Ming army's transport grain fleet.

After all, it is impossible for the Ming army to allocate enough troops to protect the transport team, as long as the Mongols concentrate their forces, it is very likely to cause great trouble to the Ming army. Once the army runs out of food, even if the main forces of the Ming Dynasty are strong-willed, it is inevitable that the morale of the army will fluctuate. Ye Yingwu can also be regarded as a handsome man for many years, so he naturally understands what the fluctuating military spirit means for an army that is on an expedition and has a strong enemy in front and harassment in the rear.

Ye Yingwu didn't want to see the collapse of the main forces of the Ming Dynasty on all fronts, even if it was just a possibility. The Song Dynasty has traveled south for a hundred years, and until today, Huaxia finally has a chance to make a comprehensive comeback, so what Ye Yingwu wants to do is to be decent and foolproof. At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, when Duanping entered Luo, because of the shortage of military rations, the originally high-spirited army quickly lost its fighting spirit and collapsed in front of the rolling Mongolian cavalry.

Ye Yingwu didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, and he didn't want to let himself become "Yuanjia Caocao and win the Canghuang Beigu".

Hui Niang brought the soup pot to the table and looked at the picture with interest. Although Ye Yingwu jokingly said "the harem is not allowed to interfere in politics" every time, in fact, the military and political affairs of the Ming Dynasty did not hide anything from the harem. After all, even Ye Yingwu himself has to admit that Hui Niang and Zhao Yunshu are all smart girls in ice and snow, and sometimes they do have their own ideas.

Hui Niang has seen a lot of maps in Ye Yingwu's imperial study, especially these days Ye Yingwu is busy with the Northern Expedition, and the sisters in the harem will mention it more or less, Hui Niang naturally thinks about it often.

After being silent for a moment, Hui Niang suddenly looked sideways at Ye Yingwu: "Husband, don't you think that with the current direction of the Ming Dynasty's main army, the whole of North China is like an open pocket?" ”

Ye Yingwu was stunned, and a look of surprise suddenly appeared on his face. The two Huai armies from Shandong to Hebei, the Tianwu army from Heluo to Shanxi, plus the Jinghu Army, Xuanwu Army, and Shenwei Army that advanced one after another from behind, the route of the entire Ming Northern Expedition was indeed like a pocket in the pocket, but before this, Ye Yingwu had been thinking about how to hit Youyan, and the Waqiao Pass and Baigou River on the south side of Youyan could not stop the Mongolian Tartars who wanted to retreat, so Ye Yingwu never thought about this problem.

But if you look further, in fact, even if you bring Youyan, this is still a pocket, but the scale and shape are larger than before. And the north of Youyan is the Great Wall, as long as you can take the Xifengkou (author's note: also known as Lu Longsai, now Xifengkou), Songting Pass, Gubeikou line, you can completely tie this open pocket! (To be continued.) )