Compared with the short-term confrontation on the frontal battlefield, the Liaodong battlefield is constantly on the offensive. The Ming army continued to transport new troops and supplies from Shandong, while the Jeju Island cavalry took turns to fight, and after recovering the Lushun and Dalian areas, they relied on trench fortifications to defeat the Qing army that rushed to reinforcements, and then continued to expand northward.

Relying on Lushun to carry out military operations in southern Liaoning, effectively containing the Qing army in eastern Liaodong, Shengjing's general Ang Bangzhang Jingda suffered from insufficient troops, and was slumped left and right in the east and south directions, so he had to repeatedly rush to the Qing court and ask for more troops to help the war. At the same time, the Ming offensive in southern Liaoning also stabilized the base in Korea in the east, making it impossible for the Qing army to draw sufficient troops. When the weather is cold and the river is sealed, if the Qing army wants to attack again, I am afraid it will not be so easy.

Moreover, the North Korean side beheaded the envoys sent by the Qing court, officially announced that it would "help the Ming Dynasty to defeat the Qing Dynasty" and abolish the "Jiangdu Peace Treaty", not only providing grain and grass materials for the Ming army, but also placing tens of thousands of troops on the Yalu River, clamoring to gather 100,000 troops for the "Northern Expedition".

The position of North Korea was important, and Zhu Yongxing used it as the basis for counterattacking Liaodong, but he did not count on North Korea's generals. Let's not talk about whether the 100,000 troops of the DPRK are all together, even if there are 100,000 troops, with the historical record of "40,000 defenders being defeated by the 300 Qing troops" in North Korea, it is nothing more than a rabble.

Therefore, Zhu Yongxing was very polite to the envoy of North Korea, and praised the words in the book of Xianzong, "If the righteousness is clear, then the destruction is not ashamed", "If the army is raised to cross the Liao, go straight to the nest, the king will attack the south, and our troops will attack the west, then the filth can be swept away", and he called it righteous and awe-inspiring, and gave many gifts. However, in terms of military deployment, Zhu Yongxing did not let North Korea send troops, but put forward requirements in terms of materials, and sent craftsmen and transport planes to North Korea to set up an arsenal.

And the establishment of the first theater of operations in the Northeast. It marked the independence of the Northeast Operation, and was also the first step in the military region system envisioned by Zhu Yongxing.

"Hooray, hooray, hooray!"

After the mountain call long lived, Pi Xiong, who had been promoted to the king of Qianyang, got up and respectfully accepted the holy decree and arranged the envoy. Just then sat down with the generals to talk.

"The old man fought hard to get the Holy Lord's permission to serve as the commander-in-chief of this war zone." Pi Xiong smiled and pointed to the big box in the hall, and said gratefully: "The saint is benevolent, I am afraid that my old bones will not be able to withstand the wind and cold, and I will reward the mink fur blanket." The old man can only repay him with death, so as to live up to the grace of God! ”

It's not just the bear that is rewarded, it's just a little different. The least of the general ranks were leather scarves, leather gloves, and high-waisted leather boots. It basically includes the middle and senior generals in the current First War Zone.

Therefore, as soon as Pi Xiong said this, the generals also hurriedly stood up and arched their hands to the south: "Long live the Holy Ming, the grace of heaven is mighty." ”

After the performance, the bear sat down, groaned for a while, and said: "The first war zone in the Northeast is independent. The Holy One wants us to let go of our hands and feet and do a great job! Lushun's port facilities are getting better and better. The fort will become stronger day by day, and the logistics will reach Lushun or Korea in the future. In other words, our base will be transferred directly from Denglai to Liaodi, which can be described as a big step forward. Now that the main force of the Tartars is contained in the area between the Zhili River, Liaodong is empty, and it is the time for us to show our strength! ”

The emptiness of troops is good. However, it is also true that the land is vast and sparsely populated, and due to the lack of mobile troops, the infantry is not too afraid of the Qing army to attack in a group, but the food and grass materials required must all rely on themselves. In this way, the time for the attack is shortened. The distance traveled will not be too deep.

However, the independence of the First Theater of Operations is not only the army, but also more than 500 large and small ships and 2,000 marines. In this way, relying on the maneuver and transportation by sea, the Ming army was still able to attack and occupy the coastal areas first.

"Judging from the intelligence, the population of Yaozhou is relatively large, and looting may also be valuable." Liaodi is barren and withered, and it is difficult to find densely populated and relatively wealthy ones, so it can only be relatively speaking.

Yaozhou is equivalent to the Yingkou area of later generations, Haicheng County in the north, Gaiping County in the south, the Manchu Dynasty implemented Han and Manchu separate governance, and Gaiping County is mainly inhabited by Han people. During the period when the ban policy was in place, the Qing court occasionally made exceptions by special edicts. In the eighth year of Shunzhi, in order to make "the land of Longxing not too barren", the Qing court recruited some people from Zhaoyuan and other places in Shandong to move to Gaiping.

The idea of Pi Xiong's operation was to rely on the naval division, either to land and fight in the enemy's weak defenses, or to replenish supplies nearby, while the main force of the army would launch an offensive from the Liaonan Peninsula or Liaoxi, or make a feint to attract the Qing army, or attack and advance directly. Therefore, he was not very interested in this somewhat stealthy operation, and he wanted to have something bigger, more successful, and more advantageous military operations.

Liaodong, to be precise, should be the area east of the Liaohe River, that is, the eastern and southern parts of present-day Liaoning Province and the southeastern region of Jilin Province. The reason why it is called the Northeast Theater is because Zhu Yongxing believes that this title is not comprehensive enough, too general, and often easy to confuse. Of course, this also has a lot to do with Zhu Yongxing's territorial standards.

For the establishment of the First Theater in Northeast China, Zhu Yongxing transferred Hu Guozhu and others from the Dangshuo Army, and nearly 100 middle- and low-level officers from other armies. In this way, it is also logical to break some signs of mountaineering that may appear in various armies.

As a general who was more familiar with Liaodong, Hu Guozhu thought that this might be an opportunity for him to continue to be promoted. Because, as long as he is in the Dangshuo army, his highest position is not higher than that of command, and to overwhelm or exclude Xia Guoxiang is obviously not what he wants. Most of the Dangshuo army was Wu Sangui's old department, and Zhu Yongxing was repeatedly transferred, first, some people were indeed familiar with Liaodong, and second, they disrupted the original system, installed Wutang officers, and cultivated a new chain of loyalty.

As the deputy commander-in-chief, there is only one leather bear who is over 80 years old, and Hu Guozhu feels that the future is very open. Of course, he also had to establish merit so that he could take over the authority of commander-in-chief in the future.

After weighing the strength of the Ming and Qing armies in Liaodong, Hu Guozhu put forward a relatively positive and relatively stable battle plan, "Our army has 13,000 infantry, 500 hussars, and 1,400 dragoons in Lushun and Jinzhou, not counting the recruits of the Shangshui Division and Korea. According to intelligence analysis, the Qing army in eastern Liaodong only had less than 8,000 soldiers under the command of General Shengjing, and it also had to garrison Shengjing, Xingjing, Phoenix, Yizhou, Niuzhuang, Jinzhou, Jinzhou, Liaoyang, Xiongyue, Fuzhou, Ningyuan, Guangning, Tieling, Kaiyuan, and other places. Even if only the minimum number of garrisons remains, excluding the more than 2,000 people who have been wiped out by our army one after another, the total number of Qing troops is now only more than 5,000 people. ”

After a pause, Hu Guozhu looked around the generals, and noticed Pi Xiong's appreciative gaze, so he continued: "It's better for you to read the article in the forty-third issue of the Lecture Martial Arts Hall, which talks about strategic mobility, tactical mobility, and battlefield mobility. ”

"The last general has seen it." After Yu Qi became a senior general, he knew that he had little qualifications and a short time, and that if he wanted to catch up, he would have to study hard and fight bravely, so he paid special attention to the periodicals of the lecture martial arts, collected them widely, and read them diligently, "It said: If we talk about tactical maneuver and battlefield maneuver, our army lacks cavalry on land, and it is definitely not as good as the Tartars; But in terms of strategic maneuver, the naval divisions of our army are strong, and if it were not for the deep inland and the lack of rivers, the Tartars could not be compared. ”

"General Yu is really strong." Hu Guozhu praised it, swiped his finger on the map, and said: "Everyone, please see, if Lushun dispatches a naval division, the vast coastline of Liaoxi and Liaodong can be obtained anywhere, and it is faster than the cavalry of the Qing army. If we take the attack on Yaozhou as a containment, and then make the troops of Fengcheng and Kuandian feint, the Qing army faced by our headquarters will be reduced. Then our army will be dispatched, conquer Fuzhou, attack Gaizhou, and form a line with Xiuyan, Fengcheng, and Kuandian, and the situation in Liaodong will be very favorable. ”

"Since our army is stronger than the Qing army in long-distance maneuvers, that is, strategic maneuvers, the general thinks that he can carry out several more landing operations, which will make the Qing army even more exhausted." Yang Yanfeng had been thinking about it, and at this time he had some understanding, so he said: "For example, Liaoxi, like the Jinzhou region, anyway, we call it the Northeast Theater, so there is no need to divide Liaodong and Liaoxi, right?" ”

"Yes, the Northeast Theater is not divided into eastern and western Liaoning." Pi Xiong smiled and nodded, and said, "This is the wisdom of the saint, so that we have no scruples." According to the old man's view, he could first occupy Juehua Island, then garrison troops, and then attack Ningyuan (now Xingcheng area), which was not only to attack and harass, but also to deal with the overall situation. ”

Juehua Island is located in the sea of more than 10 kilometers southeast of Ningyuan and 9 kilometers away from the seashore, with a long gourd shape, an area of 13 square kilometers, the terrain is high in the south and low in the north, and it is the largest island in Liaodong Bay. Relying on the water division, coupled with the fact that there were few Qing troops on Juehua Island, the Ming army was completely able to capture it in one fell swoop. Once Juehua Island is captured, it can attack Ningyuan as far as possible, and as far as Guangning Qiantunwei (now Suizhong County), Jinzhou, and even Shanhaiguan.

In other words, the Ming army based on Juehua Island could directly threaten the military points in the western Liaoning corridor, resulting in a situation of cutting off the Manchu Qing retreat. This is very helpful for the current frontal battlefield operations.

Zhu Yongxing's independent establishment of the First Theater in Northeast China did not set up very specific combat tasks, mainly in order to give the front-line generals more room to play. However, the shape of the entire war will be conveyed on time in the form of a circular as the basis for the generals' direction of operations.

Pi Xiong came out of the General Staff Headquarters and has a good understanding of Zhu Yongxing's thinking and acting characteristics. Therefore, he has to see more broadly and think more deeply than the generals present, and he can better understand the intentions of Zhu Yongxing and the General Staff.

"Commander-in-chief-" Yu Qi and Yang Yanfeng's eyes met, and they both had the same question, but Yang Yanfeng, as a subordinate, was obviously more suitable to ask some inappropriate questions, "If the face of our army is too large, if the Tartars urgently transfer reinforcements, our pressure-"

Hu Guozhu shook his head secretly, this is the result of not knowing the emperor, this kind of problem seems to be safeguarding the interests of this war zone, but in fact it is the opposite.

"We?" Pi Xiong glanced at Yang Yanfeng meaningfully, and said lightly: "One eliminates the other, the whole country is a game of chess, we are all Ming Army, there is a lot of pressure here, will the Holy Lord care?" ”

"The last general is speechless, please punish the commander-in-chief." Yang Yanfeng was shocked and hurriedly left his seat to apologize.

"Vice General Yang, it doesn't have to be like this." Pi Xiong waved his hand and said earnestly: "Look at the newspaper and think more about what the Holy Lord said, you will know what the Holy One hates the most, and you will also understand the hard work and wisdom of the Holy One." ”

………… (To be continued......)