This place of Annam has been the territory of China since the Qin Dynasty. x. It first appeared in China as a region-political district name, in the early Tang Dynasty, under the jurisdiction of the Protectorate of Annam.

During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, wars broke out in the Central Plains, and Annam took the opportunity to rebel and split from the territory of China.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di sent the famous general Zhang Fu to lead the army deep into Annam, won a complete victory, and eliminated the Hu regime in Annam, with 48 prefectures and 3.2 million households. Zhu Di changed the Annan Kingdom to the Jiaozhi Political Envoy, and since then the Annan Kingdom has officially become an administrative region of the Ming Dynasty.

By the time of Ming Xuanzong, Ming Xuanzong was tired of the years of war, and decided to withdraw the army, and handed over the political envoy, and Annan was once again separated from the Chinese territory as a vassal state.

Now the Houli Kingdom in the south of Annan wants to attack the northern Mozambican State, giving Li Guo a chance. Although Li Guo now has a total of 60,000 people, and most of them are newly trained recruits, it is a bit loud to say that the pacification of Annan is a bit loud, but Li Guo will fight a dozen no matter what.

Li Guo told his generals about sending troops to Annan, everyone's morale was very high, and most people had only one word in their mouths, fight!

Nie Xin and Liu Tichun are worried about military salaries, although they can be in the military tun, but whether the combat effectiveness of the soldiers in the military tun will be reduced in the future, they are a little worried. Now that they heard that the Mo Dynasty provided military salaries, the two of them completely agreed to fight.

Of course, there are also some generals who want to go back to their hometown for the Northern Expedition.

Li Guo explained, now to the north. The strength is not enough at all, and if this place in Annan is not pacified, it is not possible to make trouble in the future. And. Li Guo wants to turn this place into the rear, and when the Northern Expedition is in the future, he will be able to have a stable supply of money and grain. It's not that there is no Northern Expedition, but that the timing is not enough.

As a result, the whole army began to mobilize.

Li Guo's instructions were passed through guò to his big and small chieftains, reaching the ears of every soldier. Li Guo's instructions are very important, and the three major disciplines and eight points of attention put forward in the past must still be strictly enforced, and we must not act recklessly just because we arrived in Annan.

Why did the Ming army withdraw its troops in Annam before. In fact, it is directly related to the expropriation and extortion of the eunuch Ma Qi and others who stayed behind at that time.

Therefore, Li Guo emphasized the discipline of the army because he did not want to cause disgust to the local people. And rise up and resist. Li Guo wanted resources and land, so under the banner of helping Mo Zhengkuan, the king of the Mo Dynasty. swept Annam in one go.

As early as when passing through Nanjing. Li Guo already had a very close relationship with various yamen in Nanjing. After arriving in Guangxi, Tong Guò made a huge amount of dots, and in the name of Tu Shaoxuan, received a large number of firearms from the Nanjing Military Bureau. Firearms must be developed on their own in the future, but the conditions are not ripe for a while, so I first got a batch from the War Bureau.

Li Guo led the men to the border of Annam, and Tu Shaoxuan insisted on going with him, they were in a hurry. Because the Mo Dynasty is now in a mess.

Ruan Zhengping directly came to greet him with 100,000 taels of silver and promised. The annual military expenditure is 300,000 taels, which can be paid on a monthly basis. If Li Guo can help pacify Annan, Li Guo will retire from the army in the future, and he can also pay an annual tribute of 500,000 taels of silver. Although it stands to reason that the tribute is to pay tribute to the imperial court, the imperial court does not pay military salaries, so Tu Shaoxuan did not raise any objection to giving the silver to Li Guo as a military salary.

Okay, Li Guo agreed at that time. Li Guo didn't think about retiring from the army, but the military salary of nearly 30,000 taels of silver per month attracted him.

There were 50,000 people who went out to Annan, and 10,000 remained in Guangxi. Five thousand were given to Ma Shiyao, and Ma Shiyao and Haiyong trained the navy in the Beihai area. The other 5,000 people were left to Huang Xiu and Li Qiang to take care of logistics and other matters. The rest of the men all went on the march.

Most of the 50,000 men on the expedition were infantry, and there were 40,000 people, and although 40,000 people were a lot of people, it seemed that the number of people was not enough to pacify the whole of Annam. But Li Guo still has confidence, and his confidence comes from Qi Laohan's training

Qi Laohan practiced Qi Jiguang's Mandarin Duck Formation with 40,000 infantry in a few months. It was very fruitful to see the situation, and of course it was all devilish training.

The Mandarin Duck Array is Qi Jiguang's originality, and it has been unrivaled in the past hundred years.

The basic formation of the Mandarin Duck Formation is based on a team of twelve people, which is equivalent to an infantry squad.

At the front was the captain, who carried a spear, a sword, and a bow and thirty arrows behind him. The direction that the captain's flag gun is pointing at is the direction of the team's impact.

To the left and right of the captain are two card soldiers. One holds a long card and also carries a waist knife, and the long card hand holds a long shield to block the enemy's arrows and spears. The other holds a rattan sign, which holds a light rattan shield and carries a javelin, a waist knife, and a bow and arrows. Long and rattan players mainly cover the rear team's advance, and in addition to covering, they can also engage in close combat with the enemy.

Immediately following the pawns were two wolf players. The wolf whisk is the use of the southern growth of the bamboo, choose its old and solid, the end of the bamboo obliquely cut into a pointed shape, and leave sharp branches around it, each wolf whisk is about 3 meters long, the wolf whisk hand uses the sharp blade at the front end of the wolf whisk to assassinate the enemy to cover the advance of the shield hand and the attack of the spearman behind. They also carried bows and arrows on their backs.

Behind them were four pikemen with spears, two on each side, to the right and to the right, to take care of the shield-bearers and wolf-bearers on the left and right in front of them. He also carried bows and arrows on his back.

Followed by two soldiers armed with "boring palladium" to serve as guards, supporters, and other work. Boring palladium is a weapon evolved from agricultural tools, of which palladium is 7 feet 6 inches long, weighs 5 catties, and the center is like a spearhead. Grow two strands of 2 inches. On each side there is a transverse strand with a quadrangular blade. This kind of weapon is 'attackable, resistant, and contradictory'. Thirty rockets for every two palladium boring hands. When the enemy is far away, the two strands can be used as rocket mounts to launch rocket enemies; When approaching, persist in killing the enemy; When engaging in a slash with an enemy. He can hold the enemy's weapons and is known as 'the best man in the army'.

The last one was the Bird Bearer, who carried twenty rockets in addition to his own ammunition, which was prepared for the Palladium Boring Hands.

Such a number of squads form a large array of mandarin ducks, whether it is a large-scale assault or a squad fighting alone, it is quite powerful. If the enemy attacks in a roundabout way, the short soldier will rush forward with a short knife to slash the enemy. The division of labor of various weapons is clear, and as long as each person is proficient in his own kind of operation, the key to effective killing of the enemy lies in overall cooperation and prohibition.

The "Mandarin Duck Array" not only closely combines the spear and the shield, the long and the short, giving full play to the effectiveness of various weapons, but also changing the formation flexibly.

According to the situation and operational needs, the mandarin duck formation can be changed into a horizontal formation, and a formation can be changed into two small formations on the left and right, or three small formations on the left, center, and right. When it becomes two small formations, it is called the "Two Talent Formation", and the left and right shield players are accompanied by the left and right wolf players, spearmen and short soldiers respectively to guard their attacks; When it becomes a three-small formation, it is called the "three-talent array", and at this time, the wolf hand, the pikeman and the short soldier are in the center. Shield-bearers are guarded on the left and right sides. This changed formation is also known as the "Mandarin Duck Formation".

In the military at that time, it was the individual's martial arts that were valued, and the soldiers who could wield their weapons like flying were heroes in the eyes of the public.

The Mandarin Duck Formation, on the other hand, only requires the soldiers to be proficient in their own skills, and fully pays attention to the coordination of various weapons in the small unit. When the enemy is farther away, he shoots with bows and arrows, boring palladium and bird guns. If you get closer, you will block it with wolf cage hands, and the rest of the soldiers will greet the enemy with swords and guns. Such a squad is called a killer team.

But it is not enough to have a killer team alone, and it is also equipped with a firearms team. The firearms team also has 12 people, one captain and one fireman. What is a firefighter, that is, the soldier who carries gunpowder, supplies the gunpowder for the firearms of the whole squad, and the flat pole they carry is two pointed iron poles, so that there is a danger for a while, and they can fight the enemy with the flat pole. The rest of the men, including the captain, each carried a bird gun and a waist knife on his waist, so that he could use the knife to fight the enemy in case he ran out of ammunition.

The killer team and the firearms team work in tandem with each other, and each firearm team must be protected by a killer team. Before engaging the enemy, there was a burst of bird guns from the firearms team, and then the killer team came forward to fight, and after the firearms team loaded the ammunition in the back, there was another burst of bird guns.

This method was Qi Jiguang's infantry combat method in the later period, and the application of the firearms team was also added in the later period. It's just that Qi Jiguang is too violent, and no one dares to provoke him, so later, this tactic was not widely used. These were all promoted and trained by Qi Laohan in Li Guo's army.

Li Guo thinks this tactic is very good. (To be continued......)