(New books for collections, recommended votes, please, please!) Your attention is the motivation for my writing, thank you! ）

Zeng Yangxing immediately said: "Hehe, defending the city is the easiest job for our Mawei soldiers, but so far, we haven't experienced a battle to defend the city!" With our weapons and equipment, how many siegers there are, how many will have to die! Each city only needs 1,000 soldiers and horses to ensure that it can withstand the onslaught of more than 10,000 enemy troops! However, if this is to be implemented, more artillery will have to be added! ”

"Of course, when Chief of General Staff Li set off for Jiangxi to take up the town, he took away 200 general cannons and 80 general cannons from the warehouse, and each cannon was equipped with 100 rounds of various shells, which was enough to load 500 boxes and cost 100 carts! With these, whether it is used for siege or defense, it will be invincible! Geng Jingzhong said with a smile, when Li Guangdi left, he personally sent him off, and the mule and horse cart lined up in a long line.

The surrounding generals also nodded incessantly, with these to help defend the city is indeed impregnable, at this moment their minds also flew to the frontline battlefield, where they made meritorious contributions, staying here to watch their families, there was no chance of meritorious service at all, and their hearts were really panicked. "The first division and the second division of the original several battalions left in Fujian have all gone to Jiangxi, and when the soldiers and horses of the two divisions are all reconciled, it will definitely be a matter of course to take the two prefectures in front of them, that is, the degree of this siege must be grasped well, and it is better to force the Qing army to retreat as much as possible! At this point, it is also necessary for the Metropolitan Governor to seal the warrant to Chief of General Staff Li and let Chief of General Staff Li supervise it, so as to prevent the soldiers on the front line from making meritorious contributions. Directly wiped out the more than 10,000 defenders of the two provinces! Yao Qisheng reminded him on the side.

"Hmm. What the gentleman said is right. We are not worried about Ji'an Mansion and Fuzhou Mansion, as soon as the soldiers and horses arrive, it will not take much effort to take it, and in the meantime, we really have to pay attention to the generals, and we can't wipe out all the Qing troops at once! There are not many Qing troops stationed in Nanchang Mansion, and I am afraid that the menacing 30,000 soldiers and horses of the Wu army will not be able to hold on, if the remnants of the Qing army in Ji'an Mansion and the remnants of Fuzhou are expelled to Nanchang, then the Wu army will look good at attacking the city! Hehehe! Zeng Yangxing said with a chuckle.

"That's it. Most of the entire Jiangxi is included in our pocket, and we also have a barrier in Fujian. As for the northwest corner of Linjiang Mansion, Ruizhou Mansion, Nanchang Mansion, Nankang Mansion and Jiujiang Mansion, let the Wu army and the Qing army fight for it, although the total territory is only one-third of the entire territory of Jiangxi, and the front line of the battle with the Wu and Qing armies is very close, our Mawei Army is not cost-effective! Take a look at the map, the Ji'an Mansion, Fuzhou Mansion and Raozhou Mansion will encircle the six prefectures such as Nanchang Mansion in the northwest corner, so after we take Ji'an Mansion and Fuzhou Mansion, we only need to be heavily garrisoned by the cities near the six prefectures on the west and north sides of the three prefectures, and not all cities need to be heavily garrisoned. In this way, we have a lot of pressure! Yao Qisheng continued just now.

"Well, that's all for today. After the meeting, the text was immediately sent to all armies, and every battle must be done with all their might, and there can be no more paralysis and carelessness. In addition, let the troops of the first and second divisions staying in Fujian also go to the front line, and after taking Ji'an and Fuzhou Mansions, they should defend the city on the spot, and be sure to block the Wu army or the Qing army from these three prefectures, and not give them a chance to continue to go deeper. Geng Jingzhong finally said conclusively.

"The Grand Duke!" Seeing that Geng Jingzhong was about to end the meeting, Chen Menglei, who only said a sentence at the beginning, interjected, which was obviously a bit out of line, but he had to continue to say it when he opened his mouth. "The Grand Governor, there is still something for the subordinates to ask the Grand Governor!"

"Oh, Staff Officer Chen has something to say, our Mawei Army likes to listen to more aspects of the advice!" Geng Jingzhong was not angry at all, and opened his mouth to encourage.

Chen Menglei then stood up and said: "Governor Dadu, my subordinates think that under the current situation, the strength of our Mawei Army is still insufficient, so my subordinates will continue to expand the army!" ”

"Expansion?!" Other generals also talked for a while: The new army had just been expanded by 30,000 just three months ago, and there were more than 10,000 in Guangdong, and the Mawei Army had already reached 110,000 troops, not counting the soldiers and horses stationed on the distant island of Luzon, but half of them were the navy, and the army plus the new army was less than 60,000. But the number of 60,000 horsetail troops is already quite a lot in the hearts of all the soldiers. It has only been three months since the last army expansion, and there are still some parts of the new army that are still in training, and if they want to expand the army again, they must not wait for another half a year or a year?

Most people's thoughts are this, even Yao Qisheng did not urge Geng Jingzhong to continue to expand the army. "Tell me what you think!" Geng Jingzhong looked at the tables of the generals below, and then said.

"Yu Dadu, the current situation can be said to be similar to the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, the world is divided into three, and the Qing court and Wu Sangui are powerful, we are weak, Wu and Qing are five to eight times our soldiers and horses, although we take the elite route, the soldiers are with their lives, and the equipment is advanced, but after all, the number is not enough. Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, was also like this back then, but he was ultimately defeated by Liu Bang's many rabble. Therefore, the subordinates feel that the expansion of the army is imperative, and with the territory controlled by our Mawei Army, it is no longer a problem to recruit another 100,000 soldiers and horses, not to mention that with our financial resources, it is not too difficult to diversify 100,000 soldiers and horses. Chen Menglei spoke more and more smoothly, and walked down from his seat to the generals and said loudly.

"On the other hand, if our Mawei Army has more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, it can continue to advance northward, and it will be easy to eat Jiangxi and Zhejiang at one time and then stick to it, at that time, the Yangtze River line in the Jiangnan region will be our back garden, and the Navy Department will also be able to play a huge role! His subordinates have always believed that the Metropolitan Governor should not take Jiangxi first, in fact, it is more beneficial for us to take Zhejiang first, so that the naval warships can sail into the Yangtze River, even if the Qing army is strong, it will not be able to threaten us! But since most of Jiangxi is under our control at this time, and some of Zhejiang has been taken by us, we can only digest it step by step. However, the premise of this qiē is that our soldiers and horses are enough to use, otherwise even if we hold a few key cities, the horsetail soldiers will suffer heavy losses! ”

From this remark. Geng Jingzhong can see the gap between Chen Menglei and Li Guangdi. Scholar! A simple scholar. It's not a star and a half worse than Lee Guangdi. But his construction is not bad, the expansion of the army is necessary, it is just a matter of time in the world. But the overall strategic plan, this Chen Menglei is worse! "Okay, it's good for Staff Officer Chen to say what he thinks, but the strategic plan made by Chief of General Staff Li and Mr. Yao together with the Governor of Pontus also has a reason. Now Zhejiang is not Zheng Jing attacking, the Qing army has mobilized 60,000 troops to recover Zhejiang, and the two armies are fighting hotly. Let's go and join in the fun at this time, okay? ”

"Maybe some people don't quite understand why we didn't take the richer Zhejiang all the way to Jinling at the beginning. Well, let's think about it, even if we sent troops north to directly capture Zhejiang at the beginning, what about Jiangxi in the west? Let the Qing army be here to threaten us at all times? Also, although our Mawei Navy is much stronger than Zheng Jing's sailors on the sea, are we going to directly send troops to destroy Zheng Jing, do we have the strength to fight on the third line? Taiwan's Zheng Jing saw the mainland in turmoil, and he was able to sit still? ”

"If he can't sit still, he will send troops to intervene. However, Guangdong is already in our hands, although Fujian is the closest to Taiwan. But he didn't dare to fight our idea, if we took the whole territory of Zhejiang again, I was afraid that even if Zheng Jing was afraid of our Mawei Army, he would have to choose a direction to start. Then, instead of setting up another enemy at this time, it is better to join forces with Zheng Jing to take Zhejiang. And we won't go to the Jiangnan area for the time being, so let Zheng Jing's soldiers and horses go to fight with the Qing army, no matter who wins or loses, the troops will be greatly damaged, and the Qing army will be even less of a threat to us. Especially Zheng Jing, after his soldiers and horses suffered heavy losses, under the great drop in strength, we will take Zhejiang if we want to take Zhejiang, and attack Taiwan if we want to attack Taiwan, so why not kill two birds with one stone? ”

"Yes! The Governor is right! Zeng Yangxing was the first to applaud.

"Yes, our navy is good at wine and has not fought anymore, two years ago I wanted to go over and take Taiwan, but at that time it occupied Luzon, everyone was busy, and the matter was put on hold, now Zheng Jing has increased his troops in Zhejiang twice in a row, and the number of troops has reached more than 40,000 and nearly 50,000, if Zheng Jing's nearly 50,000 soldiers and horses are folded in Zhejiang, haha, then our navy only needs to defeat Taiwan's naval division at one time, and we can take Taiwan lightly!" Wang Zhenbang said excitedly, and the other admirals in the line with him were even more overjoyed. It turns out that the Metropolitan Governor and Zheng Jing cooperated to take Zhejiang and had such a deep meaning, and the Metropolitan Governor and the two gentlemen were really exhausted!

"As for Jiangxi, this is our Fujian barrier, and we can't help but take it, and the Qing army is inserted between us and Wu Sangui, the purpose is to separate the two of us and deal with them one by one in the future. And if we are connected with Wu Sangui, it is unlikely that we will attack each other. Even if there is a conflict between the two of us this time, Wu Sangui will not be so stupid to point the spearhead of the attack at our Mawei Army. Let's go to these places in Jiangxi, Wu Sangui will be more assured, because our Mawei Army will not take the initiative to attack his territory. Geng Jingzhong paused just now and continued at this time.

"Look, the fight between the Wu army and the Qing army is still early, these battlefields are in the north of us, let's not lean forward, even if the Qing army takes the initiative to attack us, there are only a few cities that can contact us, is it still difficult for our Mawei army to hold a few cities? When the battle comes to this point, it is no longer enough for that side to stop the war, even if Wu Sangui doesn't want to fight, the Qing army will take the initiative to fight him. It's the same on the Jiangnan side, Zheng Jing wants to stick to the Zhejiang territory that he has beaten down, but the Qing court will not give up these territories, after all, the land in Jiangnan with a heavy tax burden cannot be occupied by the rebels they think are, let alone let them threaten Caoyun, otherwise the Qing court will be in big trouble! ”

"By the way, let them fight to the death one by one, let's see the excitement first!" Many generals in the hall echoed loudly, this strategy is really great, let them slowly consume the soldiers, horses, money and food, and then the Mawei army will go up to clean up the mess, which is the best. But people are not stupid, it is impossible to let you sit on the side and watch the tiger fight so lightly, they will definitely send troops to fight you, but it doesn't matter, if you beat me, we will definitely not be able to fight!

"What the Metropolitan Governor said is reasonable, it's his subordinate Meng Lang! However, the subordinates still insisted that our Mawei Army needed to continue to expand the army, and with this vast area under our rule, there were seven or eight million people under its jurisdiction, and the number of troops should not be less than 300,000, so it was imperative to expand the army and build camps! Chen Menglei understood the strategic policy of the Mawei Army and also found the error of his own views, but he still insisted on the expansion of the army.

"Well, in fact, with our millions of people in Fujian, there is no problem in recruiting 200,000 soldiers and horses. But it wasn't considered that this Fujian base camp was not easy to recruit too many soldiers and affect the local area, but at this time, even if so many soldiers were recruited, there were not enough instructors to train, so this matter still had to be delayed. Geng Jingzhong took a sip of water and then said to Chen Menglei.

Chen Menglei had already returned to his seat at this time, and then stood up again and said: "Governor of the Metropolitan Governor, it's not too early to start recruiting at this time, isn't it that the newly trained new army will be sent to several cities in Jiangxi and Zhejiang to garrison and train at the same time, the remaining new army is not much, and the remaining new army can also be officially incorporated into the army in a month, so there will be a lot of instructors vacant." If there are still not enough instructors, you can arrange for the wounded who have retired from the first and second divisions of the first two divisions to serve as reserve instructors, and they are also excellent instructor candidates! ”

"As for the recruitment of the new army, only a small number can be recruited from Fujian, and most of them can be recruited from Guangdong, and it is not difficult to recruit 70,000 or 80,000 people. However, the subordinates are recruiting more from our Fujian, if the subordinates remember correctly, there were a lot of unsuccessful young men who were recruited last time and then trained hard after they went back! Recruiting recruits from our Fujian is much better than in other places, and they have a better physique, just like this first batch of recruits, it will only be half a year at most, and it will be a strong army! At this time, the recruitment begins, and the training starts a month later, ring after ring, and it doesn't delay things! ”

Yao Qisheng and Geng Jingzhong both nodded, feeling that what Chen Menglei said was also good, so far, there are many soldiers who have been injured and discharged from the Mawei Army, plus the soldiers who were injured and retired in the battles of suppressing bandits, clearing pirates, conquest and attacking Luzon in the past few years are not old and young, and they are all afraid of 5,000 people. Except for those who can't walk, there can be 3,000 or even hundreds, and with the current training instructors of more than 1,000 recruits in the new barracks, nearly 5,000 people are trained in several places, and there is no big problem.

"Not to mention it, but it opened up an idea for me. Yes, those soldiers who were wounded and discharged from the army were all good soldiers, they could train their brothers and nephews at home, and they could train new soldiers well in the boot camp. In the last recruitment, many of the top soldiers were the families of these veterans, otherwise how could this batch of new troops initially form combat effectiveness in just three months! Okay, your idea is very good, let's discuss it carefully when we go back, that's all for today, the things that were decided before must be done quickly, Uncle Zeng, Mr. Yao, Zhenbang, Dazhong and Staff Officer Chen will follow me to the study, and the others will dismiss! (To be continued......)