"Call the people from the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Households, and the Ministry of Rites to come to the meeting!"

As soon as Li Shimin gave the order, the chamberlain hurried to call someone.

At this time, it was still office hours, and all the yamen were working in the "big Internet café" in the palace, and the chamberlain went in and shouted, and the people in all departments stopped what they were doing.

Cheng Zhijie, who was talking to someone SOLO, also took off his headphones and looked at the waiter.

"Your Majesty has called all the high-ranking officials of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Households, and the Ministry of Rites to a meeting?"

"Called the military department, is this going to war?"

"Definitely, the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household are called, either they want military reform or war. But if you call someone from the Ministry of Rites, then you will definitely have to fight. ”

The reason why he made such a judgment was because he called the Ministry of Rites, which meant that this was a foreign war, or he learned that the Tang Army of the subject country was going to cross the border, and it was possible that they would send some people to form a coalition or something.

"Lao Li, if you have any news, I'll come back later!" Cheng Zhijie is not serving in these three departments now, and at this time, SOLO is no longer playing, and said directly to Li Jing, the secretary of the Ministry of War.

Li Jing nodded, and with a large number of officials from these three departments, he walked out of the "big Internet café" and turned around and entered the Xiande Palace.

A topographic map of Tianzhu at this time has been projected on one wall in the Xiande Hall.

Seeing people coming in, Li Shimin didn't talk nonsense: "The Arab Empire's attack on Tianzhu originally had nothing to do with our Datang, but now about 3,000 Datang Chamber of Commerce personnel have lost contact in Tianzhu, among which a whole caravan of 500 people from the Tang Clan Commercial Bank was slaughtered by them, so these Datang subjects are likely to have been killed." ”

Many people here only know that there was a big war in Tianzhu, Tang Ping rushed over to pick up people, but the specific situation is still unclear, and now I heard that there are almost 3,000 Tang subjects who may have died in Tianzhu, and the Xiande Hall has become a vegetable market.

"Fight, you have to fight back!" Wang Qingluan, the head of the household department, glanced at Tang Ping, and was the first to say sharply: "Our household department can now take out 300 million Datang coins as the first batch of war funds, and this year we can add more than 1 billion Datang coins as war funds." ”

This war fund is not a daily military expense, but an additional cost for starting a war and other additional expenses.

And because it was sudden

It will take about two or three months to make preliminary preparations for the expedition and the gathering of troops, so the follow-up funds can completely keep up with the ground.

"Actually, in terms of funding, I also have some ideas, but this can be talked about later, as long as His Majesty authorizes it, I think I can solve a large part of the military expenses or supplies." Tang Ping interjected at this time.

Li Shimin nodded: "I can rest assured that you can make money, and this matter will be handed over to you little couple." ”

The originally tense atmosphere in the hall was eased a little because of Li Shimin's joke.

"It really has to be fought, but I don't know the deployment of the Arab Empire's forces in Tianzhu now!" Li Jing said: "We need more detailed intelligence to make a battle plan. ”

Tang Ping listened to Li Jing's words and hurriedly said: "When we evacuated, there were almost more than 400 scouts who stayed in Tianzhu with the people of Raja Sri, and their main task was to find out the deployment of the Arab Empire's forces in Tianzhu and their possible future movements. ”

Li Jing nodded: "Then I'll wait for the information of Ping Guogong." ”

Lu Kuan, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, asked: "I don't know if I plan to go by land or sea to Tianzhu this time?" ”

If you take the land route, the subject countries on the way south must be notified first, otherwise if hundreds of thousands of elite Tang troops enter the country, they will not be scared to death?

Li Shimin and Li Jing discussed it for a while and said: "If we only take the land route, the road situation is not good, the increase of troops is too slow and the supply line is too long, so this time, our advance route will be by sea and land." ”

Li Shimin took a laser pointer and pointed at the wall: "The land route is borrowed from Nanzhao, and the first thing is to go straight to the city of Latan in the north of Tianzhu, which is now the location of Amr, the commander of the Arab Imperial Army, and there are about 200,000 troops gathered here. ”

This is also the only news that Tang Ping and they know about the Arab forces now.

"So before that, our navy will send people to Tianzhu from here, here and here, these seaports, and before the Arab Empire concentrates its forces, it will break through the various Tianzhu cities they occupy and weaken their military power."

"At the same time, the main army of the Arab Empire Amre will be attracted to support in these directions, and the land expeditionary force can wait for an opportunity to attack after its division."

Li Jing said at this time: "Your Majesty,

I propose to send a naval gunboat into the Mediterranean at the same time to harass the occupied territories of the Arab Empire on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, to approach Damascus so that their native military forces have no time to advance eastward for reinforcements, and at the same time to harass their caravans at sea and attack the other side's economy. ”

The current generals of the Tang Dynasty are no longer like in the past, they only know how to conquer cities, they also understand that fighting a war is fighting the economy, and a country that cannot be dragged down economically, no matter how strong the military strength is, it may collapse.

"No problem!" Li Shimin nodded, anyway, when the time comes, the ships that transport troops will not conflict with the gunboats, and they can even borrow a sea ship of a large caravan like the Tang Clan Commercial House to transport troops.

After all, it is not easy for the current Datang to put hundreds of thousands of troops on the distant Tianzhu Continent.

"The enemy forces are mainly heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, do you want to transfer the tank corps back?" Tang Ping asked.

Li Shimin thought for a while and said: "Now that the tank corps has gone north, and ten tanks do not have much tactical advantage, it is more practical to use steam locomotives to pull some light artillery." ”

Tang Ping knew that he was still a rookie in the matter of fighting, so when he heard Li Shimin say this, he stopped talking.

Li Jing said: "But you can bring all the hot air balloon battalions over, whether it is reconnaissance, harassment or night raids, it will have a great effect." ”

Today's hot air balloons have begun to develop in a direction similar to airships, and they can control their own altitude, speed and direction, which is completely a battlefield weapon in this era.

"Your Majesty, please give some more signs to the alliance of the subject states." Dou Lu blinked his small eyes and said: "Even if we can pay for the military, at least one-third of the military strength of the subject countries must go out with my Tang Dynasty!" ”

Here are all thousand-year-old foxes, as soon as Dou Lukuan said it, everyone understood, bring them, not to let them be cannon fodder, but because Datang mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to go out to fight, brought these coalition forces with them, and weakened their domestic military strength, don't come out to find it at this time.

Although the military strength of Datang now makes them dare not touch the tiger's beard easily, it is indispensable to defend against people.

"Okay!" Li Shimin clapped his hands: "Then after everyone goes back, let their respective departments move, this is the first large-scale overseas operation since the establishment of Datang, this battle can only be won and not lost!" ”