The New Year of Yongchang was not a very pleasant holiday for the Shun army on the front, but the Huguang defense envoy still tried his best to provide supplies to the front line so that the front-line soldiers could have a good New Year. Huguang can be taxed since last year, but all of a sudden it was lost half of Huguang, Huguang defense envoy is very sad about this, before the king of Qin and the king of Shu looted in the vast lake, and now it is finally able to tax the tight finances to loosen up, but it is into a war, and it is a war that seems to be extremely hard.

As a senior general of Xu Ping's family, he was rewarded by the earl before he took office in Huguang, and his authority was not under the defense of Huguang after he had this noble status, at least on an equal footing. Compared with the defensive envoy, Yu Shenhe does not have many things to consider, and now his main job is still to keep the Yangtze River defense line intact. The battle situation on the front line in Zhejiang did not sound very smooth, although the imperial court newspaper did not say it explicitly, but Yu Shenhe estimated that the Shun army suffered great losses in Zhejiang: at first, the Zhejiang Shun army did not take the initiative to shrink to Yu Shenhe, and then quickly abandoned the whole of Zhejiang and retreated to the front line of Nanjing—this strange action does not mean a good thing no matter how you look at it.

So far, Yu Shenhe has not received reinforcements from the imperial court, and it is conceivable that the main force of the imperial court must be sent to the Nanjing area, since the situation in Nanjing has not improved so far, Yu Shenhe estimates that he will not get support for a while.

So when Yu Shenhe saw Li Dingguo appear in front of him, he was surprised: "His Royal Highness the King of Jin, how could the imperial court let you come to Huguang?" ”

"Huguang is the heart of China, how can it be lost?" Shun Ting sent Li Dingguo to Huguang this time There is another intention, the core of the troops stationed in Huguang is mostly from Xiying, Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang each brought a part of the Sanxi Battalion to the domain, and the rest stayed in Huguang to serve, without these nearly 4,000 veterans of the former Sanxi Battalion as the backbone, Yu Shenhe would not have defended so tightly.

"His Royal Highness King Jin will definitely not come alone, right?" Yu Shenhe asked hopefully.

And Li Dingguo did not disappoint him, this time he did bring tens of thousands of Jin troops to the south, and the more than 2,000 soldiers of the Sanxi Battalion who followed Li Dingguo to serve in the Jin Domain were the backbone of this army, and some of the rest had participated in the crusade against the Northern Alliance: "But I don't have enough weapons, I don't know if my brother has more guns here?" ”

This question made Yu Shenhe smile bitterly, Huguang has not developed very well in recent years, and the gunpowder factory has only barely built one or two, and the output of the gun factory is not an exaggeration to describe it as negligible. At present, half of the 40,000 troops under Yu Shenhe are armed with cold weapons, and the hot weapons used also include a large number of arquebuses, and only the most elite more than 10,000 soldiers can be equipped with flintlock muskets, and not everyone has bayonets.

"The situation in Nanjing is so sinister," Yu Shenhe has never been able to get any weapons from Beijing, and he has only received some gunpowder reinforcements from Sichuan and Shaanxi after begging for a few times. Li Chengdong once said that if Yu Shenhe could solve the weapon problem, then he could provide thousands of elite soldiers, but Yu Shenhe could not solve the weapon problem, and he also doubted that the army that didn't even have weapons could be elite, so he rejected the kindness of the King of Shu. Although Li Dingguo of Shanxi had never given it before, but now that he has brought troops, Yu Shenhe plans to let the Huguang defense envoy go to the King of Qin and the King of Shu to ask for some more.

Yu Shenhe's problem made Li Dingguo also a little distressed, the Jin army he brought with him this time were all elite, and naturally everyone was equipped with equipment, but if the loss was very large, Li Dingguo would not be able to fill this hole. Prime Minister Niu Jinxing said that he could not provide the Jin army with military expenses and food, especially considering that the King of Jin has unswervingly refused to pay the tribute to Dashun for several years, so Niu Jinxing hopes that the King of Jin can bear part of the military expenses by himself - as the vassal king of Dashun, this is indeed one of the obligations that should be fulfilled, for example, the King of Shu did not send troops in time, but he has been paying tribute in the past few years: "Taishi said that he can only get some food and salary after the autumn harvest, in the opinion of the elder brother, does the Huguang defense envoy still have spare strength over there?" ”

"Eating is probably not a problem," Yu Shenhe said that it is still not a problem for Huguang to supply tens of thousands of troops, but the rationing of beans and meat will definitely decline, and Xu Ping can use half of the strength of Henan Province to raise thousands of soldiers, but now it is definitely not possible: "I dare not say gunpowder, if the war is too fierce, then we still have to let Sichuan and Shaanxi help us." ”

"Can you take some from the Ming army?" Li Dingguo had considerable expectations for this, and when he fought in Henan, Xu Ping was able to maintain the army by relying on the local strength of Henan, but he relied on the capture of officers and soldiers to make the military strength swell dramatically.

"No," Yu Shenhe shook his head and said, "Presumably King Jin also remembers that when he was fighting in Henan, fighting with the new army was always a loss-making deal. ”

"Later, there was still some money," Li Dingguo referred to the fact that since Yang Zhiyuan's death, the new army began to have large-scale, organized surrenders, before that Li Dingguo knew that fighting with the new army was not worth the loss, even if he won, every time he finished fighting Xuzhou's warehouse, it was like being burned by fire, forcing Xu Ping to always have to fight continuously to find trouble with other officers and soldiers: "Could it be that the Ming army is as hard as the new army in Chongzhen's 22nd year?" ”

"It's tougher than the new army at that time," although the current situation is good, and the Huguang Shun army has not suffered any failures worth mentioning, Yu Shenhe is not very optimistic about the prospects: "When I fought with the Ming army for the first time, the last general felt that they were a group of guys who couldn't do anything, which was inferior to the new army in 22 years, but the second battle was impressive." ”

In the following days, Li Dingguo, who was not staying on the road to celebrate the New Year with the comfortable Jin Palace, in Taiyuan, had a deeper understanding of the war in Huguang for most of the past six months with the help of Yu Shenhe.

Yu Shenhe and the officers of all levels of the Shun army noticed that the losses of the Ming army in the first battle were extremely huge, and this loss was so large that all the Shun officers who fought the Ming army for the first time were full of confidence, even if they were repulsed by the absolute superiority of the enemy army, they still fully believed that the Ming army would run out of strength under the firm resistance and fierce counterattack of the Shun army.

"But after just one battle, their losses were greatly reduced," Yu Shenhe pointed out to Li Dingguo the general law they had discovered, that the loss rate of the Ming army in the second battle would drop to a quarter or even less of the first battle, and then continue to decline and always maintain a fairly low level.

"How did they do it?" Li Dingguo was very surprised when he first heard about this phenomenon.

The last general felt that they had simulated all the mistakes they would make in the first battle during their training, but when they first went to the battlefield, due to nervousness, the Ming officers and soldiers were negligent and forgot their training, and made all kinds of mistakes. But they were not unaware of what they were doing wrong, on the contrary, they immediately remembered their training after the war, and knew exactly why they had suffered losses and what they should do to avoid them, so they quickly grew into a strong force. In the battle with the Ming army, Yu Shenhe of course also captured some prisoners, and their confessions confirmed Yu Shenhe's judgment: "Among the Ming troops who fought with our army, the most ordinary soldiers at the beginning also received at least eighteen months of training, and the soldiers who were added later, so far I have not found that the training time is less than fifteen months." ”

"It's really rich." Li Dingguo couldn't help but sigh that many years of fighting in Henan had brought him and Xu Ping a very important experience, no matter how many battles an army without systematic training was a fish belly army, it might be a little stronger than an army that had never seen the battlefield at all, but the strength was also limited. The vast majority of the officers and men of the fish belly unit died in battle before they could figure out the law by themselves by relying on actual combat, and even veterans who had been on the battlefield many times summed up what they had summed up were not necessarily correct -- it was very likely that they attributed the victory to a wrong cause.

Specifically in the Henan Chuang Battalion, needless to say, there are many veterans in the Sanxi Battalion who have fought more battles than the soldiers in the Guards Battalion, but their correct response on the battlefield is much lower, and after Li Dingguo has spare strength to complete the tactical training for the base troops, the combat effectiveness has been reborn immediately.

"When we were in Henan, we generally only had three months of training," Li Dingguo has had more new experiences and experiences over the years, and the troops have summed up more lessons, but he does not have enough time to pass on all the knowledge to the troops through training, and the other side's training time exceeding his own at least five times means that the opponent's combat effectiveness has improved much faster than his own, and the ceiling and bottleneck are also much higher: "We need to defeat them as soon as possible." ”

"Yes, the last general is not a person who likes to say frustrating words, but in time, the combat strength of our army will definitely be caught up by the Ming army, and even if the strength is equal, it will not have any upper hand." Moreover, Yu Shenhe felt that with the speed of the south's troop increase, the Shun army did not seem to have the upper hand in terms of numbers: "If the south is willing, they can completely shorten the training time of recruits to half a year or a year, so that their strength will increase exponentially." ”

"Then the South may not be able to provide enough guns." Li Dingguo is not as worried as Yu Shenhe, after all, the Shun army still controls most of the country, and the prime minister has repeatedly talked about this problem: the rainstorm does not end, and the wind does not end. Nan Ming is so reckless, it won't take a year to have no storage, the people have vegetables, and even thieves are swarming: "An army of more than 100,000 flintlock riflemen, and it is possible that the same number of recruits will consume more ammunition every day for training, how can this be?" Li Dingguo felt that no matter how deep the pockets of the Duke of Qi in Quanzhou were, they would be emptied.

"But Your Highness, we still have to go up for a year and a half," Yu Shenhanai didn't quite agree with Niu Jinxing's Nanming in his heart that he was a suicidal dying fight, there are more small countries whose history has been destroyed, and even if he is desperate and dying in his own capital, who has ever heard that a dying fight can go to a province? But Yu Shenhe was reluctant to openly refute the judgment of the head of the hundred officials and the king of Jin, especially one that he was also willing to believe to be true: "We can't let the Ming army die and wreak havoc on the people of Huguang and Nanjing, can we?" ”

"yes." Although Li Dingguo brought few people, and he is now a foreign vassal and Yu Shenhe is the commander of the officers and soldiers of Dashun, he still said bluntly: "The division is weak, and my brother will be wronged in Huguang these days, listen to my moderation." ”

"It should be so," Yu Shenhe immediately agreed happily: "Your Highness is a dignified prince, and of course the last general is only His Highness." ”

"How is the defense of the Ming army in the south?" After Li Dingguo took over, he immediately showed a desire to fight back.

"It's much more organized than at the beginning," Yu Shenhe said with regret: "I knew that I wouldn't be greedy for cheap and rob the camp at the beginning, I was simply helping them train their troops." ”

"Brother doesn't have to be like this, how can you know their combat power if you don't rob the camp at the beginning? How to know yourself and your opponent? Li Dingguo felt that Yu Shenhe was a little too nervous, mainly because the pressure from the south was getting stronger and stronger, and Yu Shenhe thought hard for a long time and there was no good way: "What do you think is the shortcomings of the Ming army?" ”

"Coordination is not good," Yu Shenhe pointed out that the main force of more than 30,000 Ming troops on the other side of the river was relatively clumsy when it was a large-scale operation, and according to intelligence, the Fifth Army of the Ming Army was opposite, under the jurisdiction of the Ninth and Tenth Divisions, and after entering Huguang, they formed some militia groups to assist in the operation: "The last general has no experience in commanding a large army to fight, and this time he is also a little in a hurry, but the generals of the Ming army are obviously even more clumsy." ”

"This really can't be exercised in a while," Li Dingguo thought that this was a big advantage for him, and the number of troops he commanded in the camp was not small, and he always took charge alone: "I plan to counterattack." ”

"Our attrition ......" Yu Shenhe was still worried about whether Beijing could provide supplies to Huguang after the autumn harvest as promised, and just before the war, he heard from the Huguang defense envoy that Beijing hoped that Huguang would become a major tax payer for the imperial court after the resumption of taxation.

"Nanjing is also very important to Qi Guogong, Qi Guogong must also send the main force at hand to the direction of Nanjing, the enemy on the other side of the river is in a general situation with us." Li Dingguo felt that since it was unlikely that Shunting would send a new force to Huguang in a short period of time, then on the other hand, when the Jin army arrived, the comparison of forces might be the most beneficial to Li Dingguo in a short period of time: "Moreover, we must also cooperate with the imperial court's counterattack in Nanjing. ”

"Is the imperial court planning to fight back in Nanjing?" Yu Shenhe has not yet received such a briefing.

"Yes." Li Dingguo had no intention of hiding it from a general of Yu Shenhe's status: "The Guards Battalion has already gone south. ”

Yu Shenhe was slightly stunned: "The last general hasn't heard of it." ”

"It's a secret march, and the king also ordered them to take off the black feathers to hide people's eyes and ears, this day, it's almost Shandong, right?"

[Remember the URL . 三五Chinese网]