Although the production of mini rifles and artillery in the Chinese Empire was limited, there was really no shortage of swords, such as swords that were in great demand, which could be made by any blacksmith shop, and the command knives and sabers of the Chinese army in the past few years were basically made from various handicraft workshops.

In addition to the simplicity of this construction, what is more important is that the Chinese army has been fighting for many years, and has captured all kinds of messy cold weapons and arquebuses, and those auxiliary defense forces are actually enough to use these captured weapons.

However, after the reorganization of the Auxiliary Defense Force, the original messy cold weapons could no longer be used, and the unified waist knives and spears were used, and other messy eighteen kinds of weapons were directly returned to the furnace.

After straightening out the weapons and equipment, the top brass of the Chinese army is also trying to strengthen the training of these auxiliary defense forces, so that they can become a weakened version of the Royal Army, not pursuing the same elite as the Royal Army, but at least stronger than before.

However, the food supply has gone up, and the amount of training has also gone up, but the combat effectiveness of the auxiliary defense force transformed by these prisoners still makes the top brass of the Chinese army quite dissatisfied.

During a confrontation exercise, the soldiers of the Auxiliary Defense Force, armed with cold weapons and arquebuses, faced the charge of the 1st Cavalry Regiment, but before the 1st Cavalry Regiment rushed to 100 meters, these Auxiliary Defense Forces turned and fled in unison.

This is still a drill, if it is a real battle, they will not collapse when the enemy's cavalry has just launched a charge!

In the face of this situation, the senior generals of the Chinese army were extremely helpless, and there was no way for anyone to let these soldiers turn out to be the Qing army and the Taiping army, many things have been ingrained, and the harsh training cannot easily change the mentality of these soldiers.

So after this attempt, the generals of the Chinese army found that the co-defense army was really muddy and couldn't support the wall, and no matter how much they tossed, they couldn't turn them into a modern army, so they could only let them continue to serve as cannon fodder.

To conquer the world, you have to rely on the Royal Army, which only has tens of thousands of people!

Throughout late April, May, and early June, the Chinese army was in a state of rest for the entire two months, but this kind of rest and recuperation could not continue forever.

In early June, many of the main forces of the Chinese Army gathered in the vicinity of Nanjing. The wooden boats they built can be seen everywhere, just from the surface, then it can already be seen that the next large-scale military operation of the Chinese army is about to begin.

June 8th. Nanjing Temporary Palace.

Lin Zhe once again convened a high-level military meeting to deploy the next large-scale military operation of the Chinese army!

"After a two-month-long break, the Royal Army units have basically been restored and replenished, and the reorganization of the 15 auxiliary defense divisions has also been basically completed.

Ammunition, food, horse feed, and other combat materials needed for the operation have been prepared. It is enough to support our operational needs for the next three months, so the Joint Staff believes that the time is ripe to launch the next round of large-scale operations! Shi Langyi, who is the chief of the Joint Staff, wore a major general's dress and continued to say with a large map on the wall:

"According to the current internal and external environment of the empire, we believe that our biggest threat in a short period of time is the Jiangbei camp of the Qing army on the north bank of the Yangtze River, where there are not only various old armies such as the green battalion where the Qing army gathers more than 40,000 people, but also more than 10,000 new Jianghuai troops trained by Li Hongzhang.

Yangzhou is on the north bank of the Zhenjiang River, and they can pose a serious threat to Zhenjiang at any time, and we also know that the Qing army has mobilized a large number of large-caliber artillery from all over the country to transport and deploy in Yangzhou.

Once the Qing army was allowed to deploy a large number of large-caliber artillery on the north bank of the Yangtze River. Then it will pose a serious threat to our Yangtze River shipping.

Therefore, we must do our best to pull out the nail of the camp in the north of the Yangtze River and eliminate the military presence of the Qing army in the coastal areas of the north of the Yangtze River, so as to ensure the navigation safety of the Yangtze River basin, and also completely solve the military threats faced by Zhenjiang, Suzhou, Shanghai and other places! ”

It is reported that the Western Expeditionary Army led by Shi Dakai himself has inflicted heavy losses on the Hunan army of Zeng Guo Fan in the direction of Jiujiang at the end of last month, and began to march into Wuchang, Hubei, and the Taiping Thief Army marching into Wuchang is as high as 200,000, and the colleagues in the General Staff Department have not thought that Zeng Guofan's Hunan army is difficult to resist the momentum of the Taiping Thief Army's westward expedition.

At the same time, another tens of thousands of people sent by Shi Dakai have already gone south to Nanchang. It is reported that Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army faced the Taiping thief army in De'an, and because the strength was far from the Taiping thief army, he was defeated and fled back to Nanchang.

It is estimated that it will not be long before the Taiping thief army will be able to attack the city of Nanchang!

In the direction of northern Anhui. The Taiping thief army led by Chen Yucheng has developed rapidly, and it is reported that more than 100,000 people have conquered Hefei, Lu'an and other important towns in northern Anhui, plus Anqing and other places in the hands of the Taiping army thief army before, most of the northwest of the Yangtze River in northern Anhui has been occupied by the Taiping thief army.

The Taiping Thief Army in the above three directions is developing rapidly, and it is very likely that it will become our great enemy in the future, so it is necessary for us to further curb the development of the Taiping Thief Army. To this end, it is imperative to strengthen the offensive in southern and northern Anhui! ”

Shi Langyi continued: "In addition, it is worth noting that after Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army suffered successive defeats in northern Jiangxi, its development direction seems to have been adjusted, and it is reported that it has sent troops south to Guangdong and east to Fujian, and once Lin Chengting is allowed to control these two places, especially Guangdong, then it will form a heavy threat to our future southern strategy!" ”

Shi Langyi said that today's national shape shì, and Lin Zhe above was also contemplative!

Now the domestic war is already chaotic, and all forces are singing on stage, not only the Chinese Empire, the Manchu court, the Han landlords, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Lin Chengting, the separatist force of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

The situation was extremely complicated by the intertwining of various forces, and more importantly, for the Chinese Empire, the Manchus, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Lin Chengting, Zeng Guofan, and Li Hongzhang were all enemies.

Therefore, the battle plan of the Chinese army is definitely not just aimed at the enemy in a certain direction, but the kind that fights all of them at once.

"In view of the above-mentioned threats to our army, the Joint Staff, in accordance with the oracle, has drawn up a plan for this summer's offensive, according to which our army will conduct large-scale battles in three directions in the next three months.

First of all, in the direction of Fujian, at present our army has only one 10 th Infantry Division in Fujian that has not yet been fully established, and it is difficult to meet the Fujian strategy with too few troops; for this reason, we will transfer an auxiliary defense division from the direction of Zhejiang, that is, the Eighth Auxiliary Defense Division, to Fujian to reinforce the 10 th Infantry Division. Considering that Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army had also entered Fujian from Jiangxi to the east, it was required that the troops going south to Fujian must take Fuzhou before the Zhenhu army, and then march west to Nanping, blocking the eastward advance of the Zhenhu army.

At the same time. The southbound troops also need to continue to move south, and strive to rush to Guangdong as soon as possible; at present, there are very few Qing troops in Guangdong, and as long as our troops enter Guangdong, then we will be sure to take them. ”

This plan for southward operations. In fact, the core is one point, that is, to grab territory with Lin Chengting, if Lin Chengting did not go south on a large scale, he would not let the Chinese army be anxious, and then reinforce the 10th Infantry Division to speed up the pace of southward operations.

After all, Fujian is easy to say, but Guangdong is also a province with large wealth, if it is robbed by Lin Chengting, it will allow Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army to expand rapidly, which is not good news for the Chinese Empire.

According to various sources, although the Zhenhu army and the Taiping army suffered heavy defeats in many battles. But the combat effectiveness of the Zhenhu army must not be underestimated, when the Taiping army was in De'an, in order to defeat the 5,000 people of the Zhenhu army, but 40,000 or 50,000 people were transferred before and after, and it took nearly 10,000 casualties to repel the 5,000 people of the Zhenhu army, and this is only to repel it, the Zhenhu army was only one or two thousand casualties, most of them were returned to Nanchang.

Although Lin Chengting is so-so in the use of soldiers, his ability to train soldiers is not bad at all, and it is interesting. Lin Chengting greatly imitated the Chinese army when he was training the army, and implemented the policy of elite soldiers.

Although the elite army policy has greatly improved the combat effectiveness of the Zhenhu army, with half of Jiangxi as the support, it is destined to be unable to allow Lin Chengting to train too many troops. He had less than 20,000 men in total, and he had to fight in dispersion, resisting the Hunan army in the west and the Taiping army in the north, and at the same time dividing his troops south to Guangdong and west to Fujian.

This army is only 20,000 people, it is so strong, if he is allowed to occupy Guangdong and Fujian. Relying on the land of the three provinces, it can easily raise an army of 100,000 people, and then it will become a strong rival of the Chinese Empire.

Therefore, Lin Chengting must be contained, and the best way to curb him is to take down Fujian and Guangdong before him!

After talking about the southbound troops, Shi Langyi continued:

"In the direction of southern Anhui, the Fourth Division will be the main force, and the Third Assistant Defense Division and the Eleventh Assistant Defense Division will be sent west together, and their task will be to take Chizhou Mansion and Weizhou Mansion, and after entering northern Jiangxi, they will threaten Jiujiang!

In this direction, due to the multi-faceted storage of the Taiping thief army, the sporadic Qing army, and the Zhenhu army, the shape is complex, so in this direction, the strategy is mainly to advance steadily, and take one city to consolidate one city! ”

After talking about the battle plan for Fujian and southern Anhui, Shi Langyi stopped, and at this time the others also increased their attention, because they knew that what they were going to talk about next was the battle plan of Jiangbei, and for the summer offensive of 1857, the Jiangbei plan was the most important.

Just listen to Shi Langyi continue:

"In the direction of Jiangbei, considering that there is Chen Yucheng's Taiping thief army in the direction of northern Anhui, and there is the Jiangbei camp of the Qing army in northern Jiangsu, and although our army is strong, it will suffer unnecessary losses in order to avoid attacking at the same time, so the plan we formulated is to attack all the way and defend all the way.

In the future, our main direction of attack is in northern Jiangsu, and in northern Anhui, it is mainly strategic defense! ”

"The strategic defensive task in the northern direction of Anhui will be undertaken by the Second Division of the Royal Army, and will be accompanied by the First Auxiliary Defense Division and the Thirteenth Division to defend the strategic security from Wuhu to Chaohu and then to Chuzhou.

In the direction of northern Jiangsu, we will send the 1st and 3rd Divisions to cross the river from Nanjing, together with the 2nd, 9th, and 14th Auxiliary Defense Divisions, and then directly penetrate the Jiangbei Battalion of the Qing Army in Yangzhou, and then receive the 5th and 10th Auxiliary Divisions of Zhenjiang to pass through Guazhou, and then launch a general attack on the enemy's Jiangbei Battalion, and complete the battle!

As long as we break the Jiangbei camp of the Qing army, then there will be no enemy in the Jianghuai area to stop our army.

At this time, the main force was transferred west to Hefei, with four main divisions of the Royal Army, and a number of auxiliary defense divisions to cooperate, which was enough to crush any resistance of Chen Yucheng and take northern Anhui into his pocket.

Once the above-mentioned battle plan is a complete success, then most of the East China region will fall into our hands, and the foundation of the empire will be completely laid. (To be continued.) )