What is the Qing army going to do?

Yang Chao soon held a military ceremony, and the officers unanimously decided that the Qing army wanted to attract the Ming army to a decisive battle.

After Yang Chao's training, the strategic awareness of these senior officers is now very good.

"Hmph, Wei Wei to save Zhao? Then we'll go to the rescue! ”

Yang Chao's words made the officers very puzzled.

"But my lord, Haizhou is north of Huai'an, and the captives have not attacked Haizhou before, and the attack at this time is obviously to mobilize our army to the north, and the Tartars must have been ready to lay a trap."

Zheng Yongwang said.

Yang Chao said: "That's right, this is to force our army to fight a decisive battle with it!" ”

"My lord, our army has more than enough to defend the city, and there are at least 50,000 soldiers who lack armor."

The biggest loss in the previous capsized supply ship was tens of thousands of armors, worth more than one million taels of silver.

Yang Chao said: "But why don't we have to fight with the Tartars? If they want me to attack, I'll do it. What the enemy wants, I will abandon! ”

When marching and fighting, you must not do what your enemy thinks, but let the enemy do what you think, and mobilization and counter-mobilization are sometimes a matter of success or failure.

Not only to save Haizhou, but also unable to go north to fight the Tartars, Zheng Yongwang didn't know what to do.

There are still limitations in vision, Yang Chao sighed in his heart, but immediately enlightened: "Haizhou! What's in Haizhou? ”

Sun Changfu was puzzled: "There is salt?" ”

Everyone knows that Haizhou is a place where salt is produced, and the first reaction is also to think of salt.

But what is the use of salt at this point?

"There is a sea, there is a sea in Haizhou!"

Li Wuliu suddenly shouted, he was right.

"By sea?"

Zheng Yongwang was surprised.

"How do you do it by sea for three thousand miles?"

Sun Changfu was skeptical.

Yang Chao said: "Why can't you do it? It's also that I didn't tell you that the ship in my hand not only went to Haizhou, but also to Tianjin. It is not difficult to transport 10,000 soldiers with 10 large ships. ”

Yang Chao's subordinates finally cultivated a group of helmsmen, who had to use the Zheng family's sailors to steer the ship before, and followed the study for more than a year. Japan has been there, not to mention Haizhou, and Yang Chao's ship can send one or two grain ships to the grain shop in Tianjin from time to time, and the channel from the Yangtze River to the north is already familiar.

But these cases. These officers didn't know that the insiders were only Zhang Dawei and a few core captains.

"Li Wuliu!"

At this time, Yang Chao ordered.

Li Wuliu immediately stood up, his face full of excitement, obviously he had a chance to make meritorious contributions.

"You throw 10,000 soldiers, and you set off immediately. Go south from Yangzhou into the river, go to Wusong and change to a sea boat to go north. Remember to go to Haizhou, if the Tartars are besieging the city, defeat them immediately, and then go into the city to organize defenses. I may not be able to support you for a long time, and you have to let the craftsmen of Haizhou make gunpowder and bird guns for you. ”

Li Wuliu said: "Don't worry, my lord, I won't disgrace my life!" ”

Yang Chao said: "Also, if the Tartars have already captured Haizhou, I want you to attack immediately and let the Tartars know." We are also capable of attacking cities. You can take half of the gunners in Yangzhou! ”

Li Wuliu responded: "Yes!" ”

He liked this mission, and if the Tartars entered the city and gave up the rescue, he would have to run for nothing.

Then Yang Chao assigned other tasks.

"Zheng Yongwang, you lead 10,000 troops to the north, fight more, and make signs of a large army. When he arrived in Gaoyou, he asked many men to send out cavalry, so that Lu Mo made some noise in Baoying. ”

Zheng Yongwang took the order.

"Do you know why?"

A few people nodded: "Confuse the Tartars." ”

Yang Chao said: "That's right, confuse the Tartars, I want them to know that I plan to rescue Haizhou." Just know that we intend to rescue Haizhou. The Tartars will not immediately take Haizhou. If Li Wuliu arrived in Haizhou, the Tartars were just besieging the city, and the form would be too favorable. ”

One by one, the officers went to action.

Many men and Lu Mo are experienced, so they sent Lu Mo to lead 10,000 elite soldiers to take charge of the front line of Baoying. Many men were sent to take 20,000 people to meet Lü Mo, so the two did not participate in the military meeting, while Song Kun stayed in Xinjiangkou, for Yang Chao, Xinjiangkou was a base camp, and he had to leave a safe person to guard it.

Send Li Wuliu to rescue Haizhou. The first is because he has more combat experience than Zheng Yongwang and Sun Changfu, the two lieutenants, and the second is that the iron wall array under his command is more suitable for field battles.

At this time, Baoying 10,000, Gaoyou 20,000, Zheng Yongwang brought another 10,000, Li Wuliu took 10,000, Wang Pu took 10,000 in Xinjiangkou, plus 10,000 scattered to nearby states and counties, and the troops left in Yangzhou were only 40,000, and Yang Chao felt that the troops were a little nervous.

However, as long as Gaoyou keeps an eye on the direction of Huai'an, the Qing army will not be able to move south, even if they want to take the Sixian road and take the route of Duoduo's last attack on Yangzhou, it will depend on whether Huang Degong agrees.

The Qing army marched into Jianghuai this time, and the paper tiger of the four towns of Jiangbei was punctured at once, and the four towns threatened Zhu Cihong's little emperor, but as soon as he encountered a real strong enemy, he surrendered one by one, although Liu Zeqing did not surrender, but ran to the sea, and at this time he sent a letter of apology to the court, and the courtiers were discussing whether to pardon him.

Liu Zeqing left all the soldiers and the defended city to the Qing army, and ran away alone with the money, and now he has to be pardoned by the imperial court, which is simply unreasonable.

But the movements in the court show that he may really be pardoned, because many courtiers speak for him, not because he is not guilty, but because if he is not pardoned, it is likely that he will surrender to the Manchu Qing, in order not to force Liu Zeqing to the Qing court, the court tends to pardon him.

But Yang Chao is resolutely opposed, if it is defeated, Yang Chao can forgive, and even appease, but this kind of fleeing general must be punished to set an example, the reason why so many courtiers say good things to Liu Zeqing, Yang Chao guesses that it is not only for the sake of appeasement for the overall situation, Liu Zeqing is very rich, this is probably the main reason.

As for forcing the Qing army, a tiger without claws is a sick cat, what harm is there to the imperial court.

So Liu Zeqing, one of the four towns in Jiangbei, is still floating on the sea.

Needless to say, Gao Jie's death on the battlefield is excusable, his soldiers also fought side by side with Yang Chao for a while, and his son is now living the life of a little uncle in Nanjing, but Gao Jie's generals are either killed in battle or surrendered to the Manchu Qing. In the end, they were caught by Yang Chao, although they had the feeling of fighting side by side, but Yang Chao still did not pardon them, and they were all sent to Nanjing as coolies. The moment these people's knives were aimed at the people of Yangzhou, the sins on their bodies could not be washed away.

Liu Liu Liangzuo, the flower horse in the four towns, surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and brought soldiers and horses to attack Yangzhou City, but the soldiers and horses were lost. He himself was fine, and followed Duoduo to Huai'an, but Hua Ma Liu, who did not have a single soldier, was also wasted.

There is only one Huang Degong left in the four towns, he first joined forces with Yang Chao to annihilate the Zuo Liangyu bandits in the Taiping Mansion, and after half of the Zuo Liangyu bandits were annexed, his strength rose sharply, and at this time there were 150,000 mercenaries, and then he crossed the Yangtze River and went north to recover Fengyang and Shouzhou abandoned by Liu Liangzuo. Then he continued to go north to recover Sizhou, and even planned to plot Xuzhou.

This time to hit Duoduo, if you only regain the lost territory, Huang Degong's credit is even greater than Yang Chao's, Yang Chao only recovered one Yangzhou Mansion, while he recovered Fengyang, Shouzhou, Sizhou and other places, three times as much as Yang Chao.

Especially the recovery of Fengyang, so that the imperial court specially issued a decree to reward, and the title went further, from the Marquis of Jingnan to the Duke of Jingnan!

Huang Degong's army is still quite combat-effective. With him to protect the flanks, Yang Chao believed that the Qing army would not easily fight from Henan again, and the main force of the Qing army was obviously in Huai'an, and they were completely incapable of moving south from Henan.

As for Huai'an. Yang Chao has already set his sights on it, and this rescue of Haizhou is only the first step.

Haizhou is directly north of Huai'an, although it is not close to the Grand Canal, so it is not a strategic place, but Haizhou has the Yunyan River to communicate with Huai'an, and Haizhou is in the hands of the Qing army. There was not much threat to Yang Chao, but if Haizhou was in Yang Chao's hands, Huai'an's Duoduo should be restless.

Duoduo resorted to this similar strategy of encircling the point to send reinforcements and encircling Wei to save Zhao, wanting to force Yang Chao to go north to attack the fortified city he guarded, Yang Chao happened to come to a sea route of 3,000 miles, so that Duoduo couldn't eat meat and caused a commotion.

Yang Chao believed that none of the generals under his command could think of fighting by sea, and even more so Duoduo, who was born in a national group.

You must know that there have been several examples of large-scale sea marches in history, and it seems that the purest sea and land march was made by Zheng Chenggong, who fought directly from Fujian to the city of Nanjing, using thousands of warships and transporting 300,000 troops.

Now Zheng Chenggong is still called Zheng Sen, obviously no one has the ability to do this kind of thing, because no one has the ability, so no one wants to get it.

However, they think that no one is capable, but they don't know it, but in fact, there are already people who have the ability, or at least the conditions, to do the thing of marching by sea.

When Zheng Chenggong and hundreds of thousands of people went north by boat, Man Qingming knew that his goal was Jiangnan and Nanjing, but he couldn't make a rescue, the reason was very simple, the transportation capacity and efficiency of the ship on the water were far greater than that of land transportation, and the Qing army knew that it could not do the rescue, at least it was too late to rescue.

War horses can indeed give cavalry an exciting advantage over infantry, but at the level of tens of thousands of people, shipping has more advantages, and the three thousand miles of sea route breakthrough is greater mobility.

"Let this group of horseback riders see what a big maneuver, a big range, and a big depth combat is. Let's hope they don't overreact and transfer Duoduo back to Beijing! ”

Yang Chao thought to himself.

Li Wuliu had already set off, arrived in Guazhou in one day, and then went east.

Guazhou to Wusong River, the waterway is only 500 miles, down the river, with the sailing skills of the current sailors, at most five days, if the wind direction is strong, it can be reached in three days.

Li Wuliu is very lucky, obviously Yang Chao can't always encounter bad luck, and Jiang Feng can't always get along with him.

Li Wuliu arrived at Wusongjiang smoothly on the fourth day.

Here, Yang Chao's order was conveyed, and the ten large sea ships patrolling in this generation were dispatched together to help them carry supplies and men to Haizhou.

The journey from Wusongjiang to Haizhou is farther, close to 1,000 miles.

Riding on the river boat, Li Wuliu is used to it, even his soldiers from Shandong, they have all gone through the big storm on the river last month, and they didn't take the sea boat seriously, and the captain reminded them that they didn't care at all and scoffed.

As a result, out of the Yangtze River estuary, it didn't take long for them to change color one by one.

Li Wuliu's luck is too good, the wind direction on the Yangtze River is good, and the wind direction at sea is good, the wind is blowing due north, and the wind strength is also appropriate.

With such wind direction and wind strength, it is not difficult for a three-masted sailing ship to run thirteen or fourteen knots, and the captain has lowered it to twelve knots, but Li Wuliu and they still vomit in the dark.

Twelve knots is equivalent to a speed of more than 40 miles per hour, and the sea surface is not as smooth as the water surface of the Yangtze River.

Li Wuliu felt as if he had been thrown up directly, and then thrown to the ground, suddenly up and down, he felt a stream of heat on his body, one time up, and a while down, not only did he feel empty under his feet, but he was empty everywhere.

But this speed really didn't say, about noon from Wusongkou, after half a day and a night of turbulence, the next evening, they saw the coastline of Haizhou.

In less than two days and one night, they spanned a thousand miles!

"Get up, get up, all get up!"

When the boat anchored in a small fishing boat outside Haizhou City, all the soldiers lay in the cabin in prostration, enjoying the rare stability, but Li Wuliu shouted and scolded loudly and picked them up one by one, but just pulled this one up, and that one lay down again.

"Dismount! If you don't get off the ship, stay on board. ”

The threat worked, and the group didn't want to be a ship anymore.

But the soldiers were indeed extremely tired, not only because of the hard journey, but also because of the harsh conditions.

These sea ships were all 4,000 quintals sold to Yang Chao by the Dutch, and the largest flagship was 8,000 quintals, that is, 400 tons and 800 tons.

Each of these ships is crammed with a thousand people, and the corresponding supplies must be carried, so you can imagine how crowded it must be.

In a small space, unaccustomed to the journey, many people were not only tired, but also sick, and the health of the army was very bad at this time.

If Yang Chao was here, he would definitely not urge an immediate attack, but Li Wuliu was very anxious, because he had already seen cavalry running towards them, the number was about 3,000, and if he didn't go down immediately to form a formation, he could only wait to be captured.

In this way, the soldiers on the boats were driven off the boats and lined up on a gravel stand in the fishing village.

And the cavalry in the direction of Haizhou was already less than three miles away from them.

However, the boat had already left the fishing village and slowly rowed into the deep water.

Li Wuliu couldn't help but get anxious, his soldiers were staggering one by one, as if they were stepping on a spring.

The formation of strict training is not good at this time.

I can't stand, let alone load the bird gun, this state is beaten by someone, and there is only one way to lose.

Li Wuliu's urging was useless, even he himself felt weak in his legs now, and he was swaying when he stood up.

Li Wuliu was anxious, even a little panicked, and at this time he suddenly felt the earth shake, and there was a rumbling sound behind him.

It turned out that the ship that had just sailed into the offshore sea did not go, but turned its position, and the side of the ship was aimed at the direction of Haizhou, and a salvo came towards the approaching Tartar! (To be continued.) )