"In this battle, we must give the Sui army a color, and take a look!"

Wang Ze, dressed in military uniform, stood in the hall of the tiger's den, and he held his baton and said to many generals: "This battle is a joint attack by the Sui army and the Turks, although the enemy we face is unprecedentedly strong, but we must defeat them!"

If they can't hurt both of them this time, even if they let the other side retreat, it will already be a big failure, once they taste the sweetness of this joint attack on us, they will inevitably attack again in the future, so this time the big battle must be cautious! ”

"Your Majesty!" The white-faced and bearded Xu Ning got up and said to Wang Ze, "Although Yang Shuang, the commander of the Sui army, is the younger brother of Emperor Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty, his own strength cannot be underestimated.

In the first half of this year, he led the army to the west to seize Yanqi, Yiwu, Shanshan, and Mo from the Western Turks, and set up counties there, and finally forced the Western Turks to lose their land and had to sue for peace, and now he is coming to attack us again, 300,000 Sui troops plus 300,000 Turkic cavalry, this time we are afraid that it will be difficult to deal with! ”

"General Xu is too worried, and now the Turks are no longer afraid!" Wang Ze looked at Xu Ning with a smile and said, "Since Datou and Daluo established themselves as Khan, the entire Turkic has been divided into two, just looking at this time Dulan only mobilized 300,000 cavalry, I know that the Turks are already much weaker!" ”

Although the Turkic tribes under the command of Dulan Khan did not lose much, because of the repeated battles between Daluo, Datou and Dulan, and the intervention of the Xia State in the situation around Beihai, the Tiele people and other original dependent tribes rebelled one after another, resulting in a lot fewer vassal armies under the command of the Turks, and it was also a decline in overall strength.

After Wang Ze finished speaking to Xu Ning, he pointed to the huge map hanging on the wall and said to the generals: "This time, Dulan Khan personally led an army of 300,000 to the southeast Liaoshui to attack Xiping County, but we can let Han Zigao, Li Hongyu, Miao Jun and other generals go from Gonglushui and Nanshui to threaten the safety of the Turkic tent!" ”

"I don't believe that Dulan Khan dares to pour his nest to help the Sui army attack Xiping County?" Wang Ze smiled disdainfully, "If he dares to attack Xiping County with all his might, I will temporarily abandon the entire Xiping County, and then let General Han lead the army to capture his Turkic tent!" ”

Xiping County is only a bridgehead deep into the steppe relative to the Xia State, even if it is temporarily abandoned this time, it can be recaptured at any time in the future, and although the Turkic tooth tent does not have much military value, but once it is captured by the Xia army, it means that the Turks are at a disadvantage in the competition for the steppe, and the political significance is great.

The small tribes on the steppe were originally attached to the strong, and in the past few decades, they have been oppressed by the Turks.

At this moment, Wang Ze is full of spirit, anyone who has hundreds of thousands or even nearly a million troops under his command will have such self-confidence, even if the enemy he faces is the former overlord of the grassland, and the unified Central Plains Dynasty, Wang Ze is still fearless in his heart.

"If the Turks are really pinned down by General Han along the way, then the 300,000 Sui troops from Zhuojun will be much easier to deal with," Jiang Chuan, who had become Wang Ze's chief general, frowned and said, "But how should we deal with it?" Is it a quick battle or is it to drag this Sui army down as much as possible?

After all, after the Sui Dynasty unified the Central Plains, it now has a population of more than 30 million, even if we easily clean up the 300,000 army this time, they can still form an army of millions of people again and continue to attack us! Pestering us! ”

Han also agreed: "Yes! Although our Xia country now has a population of nearly 20 million, at least 8 million of them are children under the age of 12, and most of the other 10 million or so people are women.

In this way, if the old, weak, sick and disabled among the adult men are removed, the number of chengding that can be used is about three or four million, but the Sui Dynasty has nearly ten million chengding, which is nearly three times that of ours, and we really can't afford to consume it with the Sui Dynasty! ”

Wang Ze himself understands this problem in Han Wen, which is also a big flaw in the overall strength of Xia Guo at present, that is, the number of adult men is still a low proportion in the total population.

Since Wang Zedong crossed Jeju Island, the "Fertility Encouragement Law" was promulgated there, and any family will be encouraged to have children, and the more children they have, there will be corresponding standard subsidies such as food, meat, and money, so the birth rate of newborns in Xia will hit a new high every year.

Up to now, there are more than 2 million newborns under the age of five in Xia alone, which is equivalent to more than 10% of the entire population of Xia Kingdom, and the proportion of this newborn is still increasing further over time, and children under the age of 12 account for almost half of the country's population.

With the huge population growth rate, if it weren't for Wang Ze's current control of the sea trade between the East and the West, just a welfare policy such as birth subsidies, school subsidies, medical care, and sick and disabled soldiers would have been able to collapse the finances of the entire Xia Kingdom. 33 Listen to the book

However, so many children are not a bad thing, Wang Ze has never regretted the original promulgation of the law to encourage childbirth, children are the hope of the country, only with a large number of underage children, the country will have infinite development momentum, the country will have a future.

If you give Xia Guo another fifteen years or more, and wait until all these children grow up, then Xia Guo's strength will be at least three or even more than five times higher, instead of the current somewhat embarrassing appearance, just with empty population data, but in fact, it is not too powerful.

And Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, also saw this, so he actively promoted to send troops to attack Liao with the Turks, because he knew that if it dragged on, the population of Xia would continue to skyrocket, and the enemies he would face in the future would be even stronger.

Wang Ze looked at every general present, although their faces were solemn, they were not panicked, obviously they were still confident in the strength of Xia Guo, they may not have been outstanding when they first defected to Wang Ze's men in the past, but the countless battles over the years have made them the best generals.

Wang Ze said to them: "It is precisely because our Xia Kingdom still needs time to grow further, so we need to gain more time, this time we must know our strength in the Sui Empire, even if we are still not many Chengding, but it is still not something they can defeat!" Therefore, we must defeat the joint offensive of the Sui army and the Turks in the shortest possible time! ”

"If that's the case, I think it's best to let these 300,000 Sui troops go through the Liao River first!" Among the generals present, the eldest Zhang Hang spoke.

General Zhang Hang, who was in the prime of life at the time, has now turned most of his hair gray, but his command of operations has become more and more steady, and he has always been outstanding for supporting troops steadily and never making big mistakes.

Seeing that even Zhang Hang, who has always advocated the use of troops in a righteous manner, put forward such a suggestion, Wang Ze couldn't help but be surprised: "I don't know what General Zhang's specific approach is, please explain it in detail!" ”

Originally, Wang Ze was going to learn from the original historical practice of Goguryeo resisting the attack of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and sent 200,000 troops to defend the Liaohe defense line, so that with the vast Liaoshui defense line, even if the Goguryeo army died here, it would inevitably be unable to attack the Liaoshui, so that the Sui army would have no choice but to retreat after a long time.

Then he concentrated hundreds of thousands of cavalry to contain the Dulan Khan who came to attack, and then attacked the Turkic tent with Han Zigao's troops.

Although this method took a long time and was not enough to deter the Sui Dynasty, it could reduce the losses of the Xia army as much as possible, the cost of war was also the lowest, and it could break the enemy individually.

"Your Majesty," Zhang Hang said with a smile, "It's the middle of summer when the water is soaring, even if the Sui army wants to attack it, let them come!" In this way, after they cross the Liaoshui, we only need to send the navy into the Liaoshui to block the river, the logistics of the Sui army are cut off, and it only takes a few days for them to run out of food and demoralize, and then we can wipe out all the 300,000 Sui troops who crossed the Liaohe! ”

"Okay, that's a great idea indeed!" Wang Ze patted his head, he couldn't even think of such a simple attention, since ancient times, the most feared thing in warfare is the cut off of logistics, compared to the previous practice, this idea can not only end quickly, but even give the Sui army the biggest blow.

It seems that in the original history, Yang Er's second attack on Goguryeo was that the logistics were cut off by Yang Xuangan's rebellion, which caused him to have to retreat, and it is indeed a good idea to think about it carefully.

"But Your Majesty!" Zhang Hang thought of other things, so he said cautiously, "This Sui army also has a lot of black powder weapons like us, so we need to be vigilant that they use these gunpowder weapons to attack the cities of Liaodong!" ”

"It's a must!" Wang Ze nodded and said, "But our Xia army is not easy to mess with, the new explosives invented by Chen Daochang can already be manufactured on a large scale, and the thunderbolt alone can increase the power several times, and the Sui army will not make any contributions." ”

Soon after the battle meeting, the 200,000 Xia troops originally arranged on the east bank of Liaoshui to defend against the Sui army quickly retreated, and they quickly retreated to a mountain col dozens of miles away from Liaoshui to hide.

At the same time as they hid in, the 200,000 Xia troops mobilized by Wang Ze from other places were also quickly concentrated in several relatively hidden places on the east bank of Liaoshui, where Wang Ze concentrated more than 400,000 troops, just waiting for the arrival of the 300,000 Sui troops led by Yang Shuang.

Wang Ze attached great importance to this battle, after all, it was the first time to contact the Central Plains Imperial Army that had completed the unification, and he even came to Liaodong City in person to sit in the town, and even his original staff headquarters in the tiger's den was relocated.

However, the first and second class did not wait for the army led by Yang Shuang to arrive, and the Sui army, which was supposed to appear on the west bank of the Liao River almost at the end of July, did not appear in front of the Xia army until August.