Lin Chengfei's statement was agreed by many people, and many people nodded and said: "Yes, it is irrational to rashly break the pattern between the Zhenhu Army, the Taiping Army and the Hunan Army now. ”

"Now Lin Chengting, Shi Dakai and Zeng Guofan are dog-eat-dog, entangled with each other like the war of the Three Kingdoms, it is very difficult to determine what impact it will have if the situation of these three is broken rashly!"

Hearing the opposition of these people, Chen Yuntao retorted: "This westward expansion must be carried out, and to advance westward, we must first take down Jiangxi, so that our Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong can get rid of the fragility of the current line, and take Jiangxi, which can not only allow us to obtain a bridgehead for westward expansion, but also directly control the strategic security of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places!"

And the strategic equilibrium between the Taiping army and the Zhenhu army and the Hunan army has been broken, according to the current situation, the Taiping army is impossible to hold Jiujiang and Wuchang, two months later, one month shorter, the Taiping army in Jiujiang will be defeated, and the Taiping army on the Wuchang side can not hold out for too long, everyone, we have received accurate news, in September, Shi Dakai and Hong Xiuquan and other high-level Taiping army leaders have left Wuchang one after another, and we also believe that it is the departure of Shi Dakai and others that led to Zeng Guofan's large-scale attack on Wuchang. ”

If Shi Dakai didn't leave, the Taiping army around Wuchang would have at least two or three hundred thousand, and it would not be so easy for Zeng Guofan to fight Wuchang even if he wanted to, but as soon as Shi Dakai left, he directly took away more than 150,000 main forces, and most of them were still the main force of the Taiping army, although the number of more than 100,000 people left behind was still quite a lot, but in the face of the Hunan army and the Zhenhu army, which were almost all equipped with flintlock pistols or other foreign guns. Hell if you can stop it.

Although Chen Yuntao said so, Lin Chengfei and the others still insisted that the empire's energy was limited now. Whether it is in terms of troops, ammunition and other logistical materials, these are limited. It is impossible to say that a large-scale war on two fronts will be supported at the same time.

Just as the Northern Expedition had to be temporarily suspended in order to deal with the Anglo-French forces, now for the sake of the Northern Expedition, the fighting on other fronts should also be suspended.

Lin Zhe listened to the quarrels of many generals above, and he also looked at the national map.

On the map, the Chinese Empire is undoubtedly the largest power in the country, with Zhejiang and Jiangsu and the eastern part of southern Anhui as the core of domination, and then controls Fujian, Guangdong, Anhui, Shandong, Henan and other provinces and regions, in addition to the two islands of Taiwan and Qiongzhou are also under the control of the Chinese army.

However, these two islands were not the core of the Qing court's rule in the first place, and the Chinese army did not spend much energy. When they landed in Taiwan last year, they had the cover of the navy, and the army just sent an infantry battalion at random, and the local defenders surrendered after a period of symbolic resistance, and the Qiongzhou side was even more simply, and the Chinese army had not yet landed, and they took the initiative to declare their allegiance to the Chinese empire anyway.

At present, the area under the military control of the Chinese Empire already occupies nearly half of China, and it is worth noting that although the area controlled by the Chinese Empire has not reached half, the population in the area under its control accounts for more than 70 percent of the whole of China. In terms of economic scale, it accounts for more than 90 percent of contemporary China.

There is no doubt that the Chinese Empire already controls most of the essence of contemporary China, and it is not difficult to unify China on this basis.

The crux of the matter now is the question of priority. It will only take as much time as it will take to achieve complete unification.

According to the strategic plan formulated by the Chinese Empire in the second half of 1857, the pace of unification of the Chinese Empire was divided into three periods.

The first stage was to carry out the Northern Expedition and seize Anhui and northern Jiangsu. Follow-up marched into Shandong, Henan, and finally conquered Beiping. Completely put an end to the Manchu regime.

During this phase, maintain a strategic defensive posture on the Western Front. That is, the troops in southern Anhui and northern Jiangxi did not take the initiative to attack the powder keg of Jiujiang, and let the Taiping army, the Zhenhu army, and the Hunan army eat their own dogs.

At the same time, on the southern front, it continued to launch small-scale offensives and gradually occupy Guangdong.

The second stage is the westward advance, after the capture of Beiping, the main force of the Northern Expedition is part of the northeast, part of the north to Mongolia, part of the west into Shanxi, and although there is a certain amount of remnants of the Qing army in the above-mentioned places, but there is no need to fear. Therefore, at this stage, the main energy of the Chinese Empire will be on the westward expansion, with the initial goal of capturing Jiujiang and Nanchang in Jiangxi, Wuchang in Hubei in the middle period, and Changsha in Hunan in the later period.

It is necessary to continuously sweep Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army, Shi Dakai's Taiping army, and Zeng Guofan's Hunan army in one go, and seize Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan provinces.

The third stage is to enter the final closing stage, that is, after smashing the main forces of the Zhenhu army, the Taiping army, and the Hunan army in the above three provinces, the troops continued to advance westward, capturing Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and even Tibet. At the same time, the troops in the north will continue to move westward into Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang.

The core objectives of the above three stages were to smash the core of the Manchu regime, sweep away the Zhenhu army, the Taiping army, and the Hunan army, and finally complete the reunification.

This strategic plan was formulated as early as last year, and except for the Anglo-French coalition in the middle, the Chinese army has actually been following this strategic plan all along.

However, Shi Dakai led the Taiping army into Sichuan in a big way, which almost directly abandoned Hubei and northern Jiangxi, but the strategic situation of Jiangxi and Huguang provinces was broken, causing Lin Chengting and Zeng Guofan to directly attack northern Jiangxi and Hubei.

After this balance of power was broken, it was not only the three of them that were affected, but also the Chinese army that was eyeing the side, and this is why Chen Yuntao suggested that the Jiangxi strategy be launched in advance.

It is hoped that before the Taiping army is completely defeated in Jiujiang and Wuchang, and before the main force of the Zhenhu army is pinned down by the Taiping army, a preemptive strike can be made to directly attack Jiangxi and avoid all kinds of troubles in the future.

However, the attack on Jiangxi mentioned by Chen Yuntao now also has quite a big problem, and launching the Jiangxi campaign without conquering Beiping means that the strategic plan of the second stage should be implemented in advance when the strategic objectives of the first stage have not yet been completed, which is very likely to lead to confusion in the entire strategic plan.

In addition, at present, there are not many troops that can be used to fight in the Jiangxi direction, and ammunition and other logistical materials are not very sufficient.

In terms of troops, at present, the Chinese Army can be used as the main force of the Jiangxi strategy, that is, the Royal Army has the 2nd Division, the 11th Division, and the 10th Division of the Third Army of the Second Army in the direction of Guangdong, the 1st Mixed Brigade in the Fujian direction, and the 4th Division of the 4th Division in the direction of southern Anhui and northern Jiangxi.

Although the total strength of the above-mentioned four divisions and one mixed brigade is already 40,000, it is actually impossible to transfer all the above-mentioned troops to attack Jiangxi.

For example, in the direction of Guangdong, we have to guard against the Qing army in the direction of Guangxi, and in the case that the auxiliary defense army is unreliable, we must at least garrison an infantry regiment of the Royal Army in Wuzhou, and then Guangzhou cannot be ignored, and a regiment must be needed, and then if the army goes north, a regiment must also be placed in this Shaoguan and other areas, so as to ensure the smooth flow of logistics routes and not be cut off from being cut off.

In this way, at least one infantry division will be scored, and the Third Army is only one royal infantry division in total, that is to say, if you want to attack Jiangxi, the Third Army will not be counted on, and only one Second Army can attack Jiangxi.

In addition, the First Mixed Brigade in the direction of Fujian, their main task is to garrison Fujian and control the whole province of Fujian, even if they are barely transferred, it is not bad to be able to dispatch 2,000 people from Shaowu to march into Jiangxi.

The direction of northern Anhui and northern Jiangxi is not much better, why?

Because there is only one Fourth Army in this direction, and the Fourth Army also has only one Royal Infantry Division, the Fourth Division, otherwise why do you think the Fourth Army has been on the strategic defense for the past year? It's not that the front-line generals don't want to attack, but the strength is really limited.

If you want to attack Jiangxi, you have to guard against whether the Hunan army will kill from the south bank of the Yangtze River, to which Hubei belongs, and even more so from the remnants of the Taiping army from the north bank of the Yangtze River.

In this way, it is impossible for the Fourth Division to draw too many troops to participate in the attack on the hinterland of Jiangxi, especially Nanchang and other places.

In addition to the insufficient troops, it is impossible for the Chinese Empire to mobilize too many war materials for this direction at present, and most of the war materials supply of the Chinese Empire is currently used for the Northern Expedition.

In the north, there are four royal infantry divisions, two cavalry regiments, and the main forces such as the 9th and 19th Auxiliary Divisions, which are used as the main forces, and these main forces consume a considerable amount of various combat materials every day.

In addition, there are nearly 20 auxiliary defense divisions in Henan, Shandong, and northern Anhui, and although these auxiliary defense divisions do not need to pay military salaries, they still have to eat and weapons to fight.

In order to supply 50,000 or 60,000 main forces and 80,000 or 90,000 auxiliary defense forces, and this supply line is still far away, this is a very severe test for the Chinese army's logistical supply capability.

It will be extremely difficult to supply the Northern Expeditionary troops for operations, and if more than 30,000 or 40,000 troops are mobilized to attack the Jiangxi strategy at this time, it will still be a new army like the Zhenhu Army, and the pressure on the military's logistical supply will be even greater.

The lack of troops and the inadequacy of logistics supply are also the reasons why Lin Chengfei and other generals oppose the current Jiangxi strategy.

As for Chen Yuntao's statement that if the Zhenhu army and the Hunan army were allowed to take northern Jiangxi and Hubei, it would be more difficult to fight in the future, Lin Chengfei and other generals of the field army disdained it.

"It's just a group of rabble, and when our Northern Expeditionary Army sweeps away the puppet Qing Dynasty and then deploys troops to the west, is it possible that Chief of Staff Chen thinks they can still stop our westward advance? Could it be that Chief of Staff Chen thought that the Zhenhu Army and the Hunan Army were stronger than the Anglo-French coalition forces? ”

Through an upright battle in Shanghai, the Chinese army wiped out 30,000 British and French troops.

This is the self-confidence of most generals such as Lin Chengfei.

Even Lin Zhe, who was above, nodded slightly when he heard Lin Chengfei's words.

Seeing this, Chen Yuntao couldn't help but sigh in his heart, the continuous victory was already a crisis that many colleagues could not see, and his self-confidence had become a blind enemy. (To be continued......)