It was the darkest time before dawn, but the main hall of Yanjing Zhaoming Palace was still brightly lit. This harem hall of the Jurchens is still the place where the Northern Ming Army held a military meeting. Several large tables were moved to form a long table, on which were laid a map, which was a map of the entire Han land. The important generals of the Western Expeditionary Army of the Northern Ming Army and Zhao Fu, the Wenchen who accompanied the expedition, all gathered around the long table, each with a solemn face, and exchanged opinions in a low voice from time to time.

Chen Dexing, the king of Ming, sat on the throne in the main hall, and a chair was placed next to him, and on the chair was Li Cuixian, who was full of anxiety.

Li Pu's urgent document was sent to Yanjing yesterday afternoon, and the military discussion began at that time. The news sent by Li Pu was very worrying-in fact, Li Cuixian was really worried, and everyone else was pretending to be worried-The Mongols broke through Xinkou and killed under the city of Taiyuan, taking Li Pu by surprise.

When the Mongols first went south, Li Pu thought it was a partial division - because Kublai Khan sent a large number of horse rangers to blockade the battlefield, it was a little difficult for Li Pu to obtain accurate battlefield information, and Li Tangjun decided that the Mongols were going to fight with Chen Dexing, so there was a miscalculation - he didn't pay too much attention to it, and only took a small number of troops to blockade Xinkou, but the result was that the Mongols poured into Taiyuan City. This scared Li Pu half to death, guarding the city on the one hand, and Chen Dexing on the other.

And Chen Dexing and his generals and important ministers discussed from the afternoon to the early morning of the next day, but they couldn't come up with any conclusion.

For the generation of people who founded the country in the Ming Dynasty. Later history books touted the wisdom and martial arts, all of them were military strategists, politicians, thinkers, explorers, inventors, and scientists. But Chen Dexing himself knows that the current Beiming regime is actually a grass platform. Relying on the Shijue system, the Eight Banners system, H medicine weapons and the blessing of steel. The military combat effectiveness is not weak, and the tactics are also very good. If the two armies are in a showdown on the battlefield. Kublai Khan probably couldn't beat Chen Dexing. But something strategic, what a strategy. What is the decisive victory, then Chen Dexing is far worse than Kublai Khan. At some point, the strategic deployment of the Booming Group was even very arbitrary.

Yes, just casually! For example, in this westward expedition, the original plan was to seize the Jinlianchuan grassland, cut off the communication between Yanyun and Mongolia, and then use the elite Eight Banners to attack Eastern Mongolia and the grasslands of central and northern Liaoning.

That's the original strategy. Take the strategic advantage first, and then collect Yanyun from the north to the south, it is a big Khitan.

However, Chen Dexing and the top brass of the Northern Ming army gave up the capture of Kaiping because of the attempt of the four Mongolian hosts to enter Yanyun. turned to attack Yanjing to rob the population, and as a result, he put himself in a situation where it was not easy to advance or retreat.

On the other hand, Kublai Khan made a few clever moves according to the situation. used Yanjing and grain and grass problems to trap Chen Dexing, and used Chen Dexing's threat to integrate the four Ulus in the Mongolian host province, and also let Brother Mo command 60,000 troops to occupy Yanshan and Shanhou Prefecture to occupy Xingsheng, and then unexpectedly used the main force to borrow the mountain to go southwest! In one fell swoop, the Northern Ming Army, which had the strongest combat effectiveness, broke into the hinterland of the Eastern Tang Dynasty.

And in addition to the powerful Northern Ming army, where does Kublai Khan's 200,000 Mongolian iron cavalry have opponents? When you get to the south, you don't want to hit wherever you want? In fact, it was the 60,000 Western Expeditionary Army of the Northern Ming Dynasty against Kublai Khan's 200,000 army, which was just a crushing victory. This is also another reason why the important generals and ministers of the Northern Ming Army are reluctant to save Li Pu.

If you stay in Yanyun. You can first set the states in front of the mountain, and then seize the Yanshan Pass, and then go north to Kaiping and recover the north of the mountain. It's all a good job. Steadily and steadily enhance national strength. If the sixteen states of Yanyun are restored, the population of Beiming is very likely to exceed 2 million, as long as the newly acquired land population is sorted out. Up to two years. Beiming will be able to pull out 200,000 soldiers and Eight Banners. At that time, it is safest to fight Kublai Khan to the death...... If Li Pu had been destroyed by Kublai Khan at that time, then he had just collected the remnants of Li Pu. That's ideal!

But today, Li Cuixian also appeared on the military discussion, and the big guy is not stupid. Of course, such things will not be singled out, so the meeting will drag on and on. And Li Cuixian's face is getting more and more ugly.

Chen Dexing kept looking at his wife from the corner of his eye, and saw her biting her lips, with tears flashing in her bright eyes, but she couldn't speak. Nodding with satisfaction, although this woman likes to be clever and has a strong interest in politics, she is still quite emotional and knows the general situation. Even for her sake, she should save Li Pu! What is this, it always looks like you have to do it, and when Li Pu sacrifices bravely, you have to go to Jinan and cry with Li Yanguo......

"No more talking!" Chen Dexing suddenly spoke, interrupting everyone's whispered discussion, "Prepare to send troops south!" ”

Li Cuixian let out a long breath and looked at Chen Dexing gratefully, and the tears that were originally rolling in his eyes flowed down all of a sudden.

Chen Dexing glanced at her and smiled: "Kublai Khan must be beaten, if you don't beat him, our Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures will not be peaceful!" The reason why Liaodong is peaceful is not because Tachar is afraid of us? He said in a deep tone, "Now Kublai Khan doesn't know how to be afraid, so you have to hit him to be afraid!" ”

Zhang Shijie couldn't help but interject: "King, but our troops are not enough!" What if the number goes south and the Mongols come down from Yanshan again? Moreover, the grain ship in Liaodong has already arrived in Tanggu, and there are 300,000 stone rice grains to be transported, and it will not be possible without 20,000 elite soldiers to cover it......"

Chen Dexing said with a smile: "Yanjing's soldiers and horses don't have to sweep south, Guwang's guard division, Guo Qing's silver-armored soldiers, plus a division of infantry, a division of cavalry, a black flag horse team, and half an artillery brigade." ”

Li Cuixian silently calculated that the Guards Division was only 3,000 people, Guo Kan's first brigade was also 3,000 people, the first division had 4,000 infantry, the cavalry division was only 1,500 people, the Zhenghei Flag Horse Team had 2,000 people, and the half artillery brigade had only 600 people. Together, these troops were only 14,100 men, and Kublai Khan's main force was likely to be as many as 200,000!

The demon girl suddenly looked at Chen Dexing nervously. Chen Dexing smiled at her, and then said to Monk Liu and Zhang Shijie: "Monk, you are in charge of the matter of transporting grain into Yanjing, and it is enough for the Chinese army to leave a division to guard Yanjing."

Strategist, you can now recruit troops in Yanjing. The people of Yanyun are not as good as the people of Jiangnan, they practice martial arts more and are longer than swords and bows. Ding Zhuang can be recruited in Yanyun first, and the people who are willing to enlist in the army are also allowed. They were first allowed 150 acres of military merit land and meritorious service knights, and when they joined the army, they were given ten yuan to settle down and at the same time paid a consistent monthly salary according to the standard of ordinary soldiers. If he had his own weapon, he was again given thirty pieces of money for his weapon, and was required to bring a sword, a bow, a spear, and forty arrows. If the person carrying the horse is to pay the money according to the rate of 20 taels per horse. As for the armor, all of them should be discounted, and thirty pieces of money should be given for them to buy for themselves. Yanjing was originally an important production area for Mongolian military weapons, and there were many craftsmen in the city, and they were also given some business to do. ”

Ten pieces of money for settling in, thirty pieces of money for weapons, thirty pieces of armor money, plus 150 acres of land, are the basic expenses for recruiting troops in the Northern Ming Army! It's definitely not cheap, but without these expenses, it will be difficult for the recruited army to go into battle. The productivity of the cold weapon era determines the high price of weapons and equipment, and an elite army that can fight tough battles and win battles cannot do without corresponding weapons and equipment.

Since the collapse of the Tang Dynasty's military system, the Central Plains Dynasty has always been a big problem in terms of weaponry - the corrupt feudal bureaucracy is simply not capable of providing high-quality weapons for hundreds of thousands of recruits. The military households of the Ming Dynasty were in a state of bankruptcy for a long time, and they could not afford the expensive weapons and equipment.

Therefore, Chen Dexing adopted a military aristocracy system that encouraged the purchase of weapons and equipment, and turned the weapons and equipment of individual soldiers into the private property of officers and soldiers - since it is private property, of course, it will be maintained with the most meticulous care, and the quality of the armor is of course very guaranteed.

Of course, Beiming can implement this system, also because Beiming's bureaucratic system is relatively weak. Otherwise, who would give up such a fat gap as purchasing weapons and armor?

And this time, the more than 14,000 generals who followed Chen Dexing south were the most well-equipped troops in the Northern Ming Army.

Chen Dexing's guards were all equipped with simple plate armor - not the plate armor worn by European knights in history from head to toe, but a pair of cuirasses, a helmet, plus leg and arm protectors, with a total weight of less than 30 catties, more than half of the Song Dynasty's infantry armor.

Guo Kan's mercenary brigade has 1,200 people equipped with plate armor, the rest of the archers are wearing leather armor, and the sword and shield soldiers and pikemen are wearing cold-forged armor similar to the Qingtang Qizi armor - Guo Kan's infantry has fought the Western Expedition, and everyone has robbed a lot of money, this kind of professional mercenaries will naturally buy equipment if they have money, and their armor, knives and guns are also private. So the weapons and equipment are also very sophisticated.

The heavy cavalry of the first division commanded by Wang Lufei were also all in plate armor, in fact, they were the first Ming army troops to be equipped with plate armor. This heavy cavalry can be said to be Chen Dexing's treasure, all of them are sergeants, every family has a grange serf, and the salary is also fifty percent higher than that of the generals of other sergeant troops. Of course, there will be no more money saved on equipment.

Yang Axi's Black Flag Horse Team is slightly poorly equipped, because it is a light cavalry, so it is only equipped with leather armor, but it is a large piece of black, and it is quite bluffing to look at.

The Fourth Division of the Central Army of the Northern Ming Army is a large road cargo unit, and the weapons have been replaced with steel-inlaid and steel-clamped guys, but no one has purchased plate armor, all of which are infantry armor brought from the Southern Song Dynasty, and they are not draped on their bodies, but are carried by pack horses. From a distance, it looked like an unarmored cavalry infantry holding back the march of horses, but the 18 bronze cannons of the three artillery batteries of the Chinese artillery brigade marching with them were the most terrifying weapons of this era!

14,000 elites, just like this, on the first day of October in the second year of the Great Song Dynasty, they left Yanjing Xiongcheng in a mighty way. (To be continued......)