As soon as Huang Degong arrived, Chongzhen's waist pole finally hardened.

Because this is a true loyal servant, and he listens to greetings.

What's more important is that Huang Degong still has a relatively capable army under his command.

This army will definitely not be able to defeat the Dashun army and Jiannu, but the rebels are in hand, and Zuo Liangyu's 100,000 rebels in history were defeated by Huang Degong's army.

So don't worry about Li Chengdong and their moths.

Before Huang Degong came, Chongzhen didn't even dare to let the border army of the Eighteen Towns repair the barracks, because he was afraid that they would not be able to endure this hardship, and if they were instigated by the general soldiers with ulterior motives, there would be a mass incident.

The incident has not been completely resolved, and we dare not have any more accidents.

So these days, Chongzhen just let the border army of the eighteen towns conduct queue training, and implement the plan of drawing salaries from the bottom of the kettle, fundamentally cutting off the foundation of the chief military officers of the eighteen towns.

Only the 20,000 township warriors and the guards have been strengthening the city defense of Xuzhou.

But now, it's time for the border army of the eighteen towns to also participate in the construction of the fortifications, no, the border army of the twenty-eight towns must participate in the construction of the fortifications.

After lunch, Chongzhen asked Ma Huabao to beat the drum and gather the generals.

The drum sounded three links, and the other 17 town commanders rushed to Ma Huabao's camp one after another.

After the ceremony, Chongzhen said to the chief soldier of the twenty-eight towns: "You must be very curious, why did I transfer all the border troops of your twenty-eight towns to Xuzhou?" What am I going to do? ”

As soon as the words fell, Han Zanzhou, who came with Huang Degong, said eagerly: "Long live the lord, the old slave knows, the old slave knows why the twenty-eighth town was transferred to Xuzhou." ”

"Oh yes?" Chongzhen snorted, "Then you can talk about it." ”

Han Zan Zhou said: "Long live the Lord of course this move is for the Northern Expedition and the recovery of the Beijing Division. ”

Hearing this, the general soldiers of the ten towns who had just rushed to Xuzhou with Huang Degong were fine, but Li Chengdong and the other general soldiers of the eighteen towns changed their faces all of a sudden.

Northern expedition? Liberating the Jingshi?

What about playing? You want to die, and we want to live a few more days.

These days in Xuzhou, bad news is constantly coming down from the Daimyo's mansion.

Wu Sangui, a traitor, has completely taken refuge in Jiannu, and Guan Ningjun has also become Jiannu's lackey.

Those high-ranking officials and nobles in Beijing first surrendered to the thieves, and then surrendered to Jiannu after the thieves were beaten away.

But now, the life of these traitors is not very easy, because Jiannu is forcing them to shave their hair, and now the officials and gentry in many prefectures and counties in Beizhi are making trouble.

What's more, following the defeat of a stone, the thieves suffered an unprecedented defeat in Qingdu, and the general Gu Kecheng and the 20,000 thieves after the break were all wiped out.

From this, it can be concluded that Jiannu is more ferocious than a rogue.

The Ming border army can't even defeat the thieves, and they still want to fight Jiannu?

There is no need for Jiannu to make a move, Wu Sangui can clean them up.

Therefore, it is impossible for the Northern Expedition to go on the Northern Expedition, that is, to be able to survive in Xuzhou.

But fortunately, Chongzhen shook his head and said: "The Northern Expedition is definitely going to be the Northern Expedition, but not now, I don't want to deceive myself, and I won't force everyone to do what can't be done." ”

"At this stage, my Ming Dynasty is not capable of the Northern Expedition."

"Li Zicheng's hundreds of thousands of thieves were all defeated by Jiannu,"

"Our 120,000 border troops are even less likely to be Jiannu's opponents."

"The only thing we can do now is to defend and defend the Huanghuai defense line."

"I don't want to say these words to make others want to destroy their own prestige, but facts speak louder than words, and if you don't want to face the reality, you have to pay the price of blood, and the Ming Dynasty can no longer withstand too much wind and waves."

Hearing this, Huang Degong bowed his head lightly, and said in his heart that the saint was indeed a soldier.

Li Chengdong and the other commanders of the 28th town breathed a sigh of relief, as long as it was not the Northern Expedition.

Chongzhen said again: "I just talked about the Huanghuai defense line, I will show you something." ”

Saying this, Chongzhen motioned to Wu to bring the war horse over, and then turned over and got on the horse, and Huang Degong and Li Chengdong and other 28 town commanders also followed the horse.

The group went straight into Xuzhou City and came to the state government.

As soon as I entered the front yard, I saw Gao Qiqian and Lu Jiude leading more than a dozen eunuchs in and out, cleaning.

Seeing Chongzhen, Lu Jiude immediately stepped forward and said with a flattering face: "Long live the lord, the map you ordered has been built." ”

"Got it." Chongzhen went straight in.

Huang Degong and the general soldiers of the 28th town also followed into the lobby.

I saw that the long case in the lobby and the chairs of the two shifts had been removed and replaced by a long case.

Huang Degong and Ding Qing, the chief soldier of the 28th town, looked at it, and saw that the display on the long case turned out to be a map of the Yellow River, which stretched for more than 1,500 miles from Kaifeng Mansion to Huai'an Mansion.

The center of the map is Xuzhou, where they are now.

There are also Guide Mansion and Fengyang Mansion in the south, and Daimyo Mansion and Yanzhou Mansion in the north are also presented.

What surprised Huang Degong and Li Chengdong even more was that this map was three-dimensional, and the mountains, rivers and even cities were all made beautiful and realistic.

Lu Jiude still has Gao Qiqian, and this time he really has a heart.

Lu Jiude said flatteringly: "Long live the lord, and the general towns, this map of the Yellow River was made by our family and Gao Gonggong and people who spent seven days and seven nights, especially these cities and camps, which were specially carved by carpenters in the state city, by the way, and this is a model of the camp, which was specially ordered to be built by the Lord of Long Live." ”

After Lu Jiude finished speaking, the two little eunuchs carried out a model of a wooden camp from the side.

The model is about three feet square, about a foot high, and has a concave polygon.

"Western Guntai?" Huang Degong, Hu Guozhu and several other general soldiers from Liaodong said in a lost voice.

"That's right, the Western Stage." Chongzhen is familiar with the history of the late Ming Dynasty and knows that the Western fortress has long been introduced to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ningyuan City repaired by Sun Chengzong is a large fortress.

The bastion has evolved to the extreme in Europe.

But in China it has long been eliminated.

The reason for this is that it does not match the scale of the war with China.

Due to its architectural characteristics, the scale of the fortress is not large, and it can only be used to garrison the army and cannot provide protection for the people, which is very suitable for the war of thousands or even hundreds of people in the ancient West.

But the war against ancient China, which often cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, was useless.

Because the attacker only needs to leave a small number of troops to contain the defenders in the fortress, it can send a large number of mobile troops deep into the hinterland of the defender to carry out large-scale destruction and weaken the war potential.

Therefore, most of the ancient Chinese would build large cities.

It provides protection not only for the army, but also for the people.

Because the common people mean the population, and the population means the war potential.

It is precisely because of this that the fortress has not been taken seriously in China.

But Chongzhen, as a traverser, knows that the fortress is actually still useful, and it is very useful, the key depends on how you use it.

One bastion is of little use, but what about ten? What about a hundred? Even thousands of fortresses along the Yellow River, what kind of scene would it be?

And these bastions are not distributed in a linear pattern.

Chongzhen's vision of the Huanghuai defense line is a large-scale composite fortification composed of thousands of fortresses spanning the north and south banks of the Yellow River with a depth of more than 20 kilometers.

Jiannu can easily break through one fortress, or even ten fortresses.

But what if it's twenty? Fifty or even hundreds?

Even if Jiannu can eat physically, he will be mentally exhausted.

Because they would despair to find that the bastions on this line of defense seemed to be endless.

And what the Ming border army of the 28th town has to do is to guard these thousands of fortresses.

This is the Huanghuai defense line conceived by Chongzhen, which strategically draws on Zeng's shaved head to "harden the village and fight a dumb battle", and tactically draws on the Western fortress technology.

The combination of the two is terrifying to think about.

I don't say what the character of the person who has shaved his head is, and I will not comment on whether he is a half-saint or a half-saint.

However, the strategy of "hardening the village and fighting a dumb battle" summed up on the basis of his predecessors is the only great strategy that can help the weak brigade defeat the strong army.

At that time, the Hunan army was newly recruited, and there was no battle formation, and the weapons and equipment did not occupy an advantage, and the number of troops was at an absolute disadvantage compared with the Taiping army.

The Taiping army was all veterans of a hundred battles all the way from Guangxi, with a large number of people and a large group of senior generals with rich experience in commanding battle arrays.

However, the final result slapped everyone's face, the Hunan army relied on Zeng Guofan's strategy of "hardening the village and fighting a dumb war", and fought back and forth with the Taiping army, and when the Hunan army's combat experience came later, the weapons and equipment were also updated, and it often chased and fought with thousands of Taiping troops with thousands of people.

In the Battle of Tianjing, 50,000 Hunan troops actually surrounded 200,000 Tianjing garrisoned in the Pacific Ocean.

During the agrarian revolution, the Kuomintang army also relied on this tactic to inflict heavy losses on the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and as a result, it forced a 25,000-mile long march and tempered the strongest army that had never been seen in human history.

There is no doubt that Zeng Guofan's strategy is the most suitable strategy for the current Ming army.

Because the Ming army is not only far inferior to Jiannu in terms of combat effectiveness, but also does not occupy an advantage in terms of the number of troops, and is already at a disadvantage in terms of weapons and equipment.

And the fortress and Zeng Guofan's strategy of "hardening the village and fighting in a stupid battle" is simply a perfect match.

In short, this is not the Great Wall, the amount of engineering and engineering difficulty are far less than the Great Wall, but the defensive function is a hundred times better than the Great Wall, Jiannu to break through this Huanghuai defense line, it is not easy!

And the longer it drags on, the stronger this line of defense will be!

"Please look at the map of the Yellow River again." Chongzhen lightly high-fived, diverted everyone's attention back to the sand table, and said, "The so-called army has not moved the grain and grass first, if Jiannu goes south, it will inevitably march along the canal, because with the convenience of canal transportation, it can greatly save material loss and improve Jiannu's continuous combat ability." ”

Huang Degong and the general soldiers of the 28th Town nodded in unison.

Chongzhen said: "So our defense is also the canal first. ”