The arrival of Yang Zhan greatly increased the operability of Zhu Gaoxu's plan to cross the sea.
The information of the Southern Navy Navy has been completely exposed. No matter how many ships were built before the war, it would be difficult to overwhelm the Bohai Navy with numbers.
For this reason, Zhu Gaoxu stayed in Jinzhou for half a month.
All the clay molds Wang Yuan brought were used to forge cannons, and he was also working hard to make clay molds for naval guns, siege guns, and coastal defense guns.
The time has been completely finalized. As long as Li Jinglong moves his troops northward around the beginning of next year, Zhu Gaoxu will immediately mobilize the Jurchen Eighth Guards and the Shenji Battalion to arrive in Jinzhou and wait for the Denglai Sea Battle to be completely over to cross the sea.
Including the cavalry, he only needs two months to cross the sea. This is the specific time Zhu Gaoxu calculated based on the ships and time used by Lao Zhu to send Ma Yun and Ye Wang to land in Jinzhou. As long as there is no storm, 39,000 people can cross the sea. Able to successfully cross the sea within two months.
After being busy with matters in Jinzhou, he led the cavalry back to Guangning before the heavy snowfall, ready to support Beiping and Liaonan at any time.
While he was busy, Zhu Di, who was in Peiping, began to reorganize Peiping's 160,000 troops after Wang Yi arrived in Peiping with 50,000 troops.
He established five armies: center, left, right, front and rear. The center army was headed by Zhang Yu, with Zheng Heng and He Shou as deputy generals.
The left army was led by Zhu Neng, with Zhu Rong and Li Jun as deputy generals.
The right army is led by Li Bin, with Xu Li and Meng Shan as deputy generals.
The former army was headed by Xu Zhong, with Chen Wen and Wu Da as deputy generals.
The rear army was led by Wang Yi, with Fang Kuan and Chen Chang as deputy generals.
Among them, Wang Yi, Fang Kuan, and Chen Chang, the commanders of the rear army, were the Bohai generals.
Obviously, this regularly organized army, with the Yan army generals as the main body and Bohai as the supplement, can be said to be greatly strengthened compared with the Yan army before and after the Zhending raid.
This kind of strengthening not only exists in the Yan Army, but Zhu Gaoxu in the Bohai Navy is also not idle.
The Jurchen Eight Guards were replenished and restored to 24,000 men, the Shenji Battalion also returned to 9,000 men, the cavalry was reorganized to 6,200 men, and Jinzhou's Bohai Navy was under Yang Zhan's control. During the training, the number gradually increased to 5,000 people.
In addition, there are 37,000 garrison defenders in Daning, Liaodong, and Bohai.
Not counting Wang Yi's 50,000 men, Zhu Gaoxu still had 81,200 troops at his disposal.
The number of mobile troops and horses is 44,200, of which 5,000 are navy, and the number that can go south and cross the sea to fight is 39,200.
The force of the Bohai Navy inevitably expanded to 130,000, which was far from the 100,000 that Zhu Gaoxu originally thought, and the expenditure was even greater.
However, as long as Den and Lai are taken down, most of the problems will be solved.
Zhu Di and Zhu Gaoxu were waiting for the opportunity, while the Southern Army, under the training of Li Jinglong, began to regain its high spirits little by little before the defeat of Zhending. At the same time, troops from various southern capitals also began to gather.
Before it snowed, Li Jinglong initially completed the southern defenses.
He built the first layer of defenses based on Juma River, Baiyangdian, Wugongdian, Sanjiaodian and Weihe River.
Under this layer of fortifications, all the Yan army's roads from north to south were restricted. If they wanted to attack by force, they could only attack at Baigouhe and Xiongxian.
Zhu Di took the people of Xiongxian and Mozhou northward, leaving only two low empty cities for the Confederate army. Because of the problems with the city walls, Zhu Di was not prepared to defend these two places, but gave them to Li Jinglong.
Li Jinglong was also aware of Zhu Di's intentions, but he still took over these two places, strengthened the local city walls, and rebuilt important bridges such as the Yueyang Bridge so that these bridges could handle hundreds of thousands of troops heading north.
Time is dragging on a little bit, but no one is paying attention to the Ming Dynasty right now, because almost all the countries around the Ming Dynasty are experiencing turmoil.
North Korea fell into civil strife among the princes, Annan was faced with the struggle for the throne by powerful ministers, Uszang remained uncontested, and the Beiyuan Khanship changed hands. He finally returned to the Khanship of Kublai Khan's line, but was once again taken away by Ali Buge's lineage. Kun Timur was established as the Mongolian Khan.
In order to stabilize the political power, Kun Timur also specially asked someone to go south to Suzhou from Hangai Mountain and write a letter to Zhu Yunwen to make friends.
Zhu Yunwen naturally wanted it, and accepted Kun Timur's overtures without thinking.
In the west, the black Erhuozhan Khan who had lost eight miles died in the battle. His son Samizhagan succeeded to the throne, but the state affairs were in the hands of Dugrat Emir Hudda. Samichakan was an enterprising man. Very dissatisfied with Oara in the north and Timur in the west.
Therefore, after taking office, he immediately wrote a letter of credence to Ming Dynasty. The content was nothing more than expressing the Eastern Chagatai Khanate's respect for Ming Dynasty, but his intention was to hope that Ming Dynasty could help him regain the lost territory in Central Asia and defeat Timur in the future.
The rise of Shami Chagan allowed the Ming Dynasty to finally move on from Timur's eastward invasion as mentioned by Zhu Gaoxu, and more Ganliang troops were transferred to Peiping.
In this situation, only Luchuan in the southwest is still jumping over the edge, and the reason why it cannot be killed is simply because some people are blocking it.
"snort!"
When cold snorts sounded in Longchuan City, Muchun, who was sitting here, was reading the letter in his hand. Gu Cheng, He Fu and others on the side were waiting for him to speak.
"Same as before, Fu Zheng and others used heavy rain to delay the transportation of military rations."
Muchun's face was not good-looking. After all, in his opinion, Dao Ganmeng was just a clown who could be calmed down in a few months.
But now, this war has been dragging on for almost a year and a half. Although there is a reason why Dao Ganmeng rebelled again after surrendering, the more reason is that the food and grass transportation in the rear is not good enough, and the soldiers and horses in the front are not enough to attack.
Muchun had a good relationship with Fu Youde, but he also knew that now was a critical time for the court. The longer the southwest war was delayed, the more detrimental it would be to the court.
If he hadn't been concerned about the old subordinates of the three Fu Zheng brothers at the various military command posts in Yunnan, he might have executed the three brothers long ago.
"Don't you have any letters from Duke Wei Guo?"
He Fu asked Muchun, but he shook his head: "There is no news, maybe Fu Mao is under house arrest."
Although Xu Huizu was the Duke of Wei, he did not have any direct descendants in Yunnan. The only ones who could be considered direct descendants were probably the father and son Wang Zhao, Wang Xuan, and Wang Kui of Yongchang and Jin Teeth.
It's just that these three people are currently dealing with the rebellion of the Golden-Toothed Guards and are unable to escape.
"The rebellion of the Golden-Toothed Guards has been going on for three months, why hasn't it ended yet?"
Muchun openly questioned Wang Zhao and his son's speed in countering the rebellion, but this was completely normal.
When they fought against Meng, the father and son were very brave. The Southwest Corps was able to quickly capture Nandian, Jinghan, and Longchuan thanks to the father and son. Now that they were transferred back to Jinjiao to put down the rebellion, they were Started to cringe.
Others didn't know, so how could Muchun not know.
The three Wangs, father and son, had all been favored by Zhu Gaoxu, and of course they were the same, but this was not the reason for them to delay.
Muchun admired Zhu Gaoxu very much, but that didn't mean that he would sit back and ignore his rebellion just for the sake of this appreciation.
If Wang Xuan hadn't saved his life, he...
Muchun thought about how Wang Xuan treated her after she was infected with the miasma, but in the end she chose to ignore him.
He is qualified to be soft-hearted, but Xu Huizu of Kunming City is not feeling well.
Kunming, as a place known as the Spring City in later generations, was not like a city during this period, but more like a fortress.
Its city-building blueprint can be found in the "General Military Scriptures" and "City Defense Record", and incorporates the experiences and lessons gained by the Ming army at the cost of their lives.
In the context of an era when there were no cities in many places in the Central Plains, the Kunming City built by Mu Ying could be described as an iron wall.
Mu Ying moved the southern part of Zhongqing City outside the city in the Yuan Dynasty, forming a residential area in the south of the city, and built commercial areas for trade in Dongguan and Nanguan outside the city.
All government offices, yamen and some health offices and temples are enclosed within the city, and Luoshan Mountain and Cuihu Lake are also enclosed, forming a fully enclosed political and military area of "nine miles and three quarters" with an area of more than 2,000 acres.
There are very few residents in the city, and only a few generals' relatives can live in it. Troops are stationed at all city gates, and the city is opened at a scheduled time in the morning and closed at a scheduled time at night.
The city is divided into "squares", and wooden fences are set up between the squares, which are guarded by soldiers. They are opened in the morning to check passers-by, and closed at night to prohibit entry and exit to prevent accidents.
Therefore, regardless of whether the princes, nobles or military officers and generals, all activities related to administration, leisure, worshiping Buddha, praying to gods, etc. can be solved in Kunming City without leaving the city, which is very safe.
This kind of security is good on weekdays, but it won't work at certain times, such as right now...
"Wei Guogong, it's time to eat."
The dark-skinned soldier opened the tall courtyard door of a courtyard and spoke in a dialect different from the official dialect.
He was walking in an alley that was only five feet wide. The walls of the surrounding alleys were very high, as much as one foot, five or six feet, like watchtowers.
On the roofs and walls, from time to time some soldiers would stick out their heads to look at people. After seeing that the people were familiar, they would withdraw their heads again.
Compared with Zhaozhou City in the Bohai Sea, the new Kunming City built by Mu Ying is more like a large 'prison'.
Mu Ying did not strictly control people's livelihood and commerce outside the city, but he implemented completely militarized and politicized surveillance of the generals and their relatives inside the city.
After Muchun took over, he continued his father's views and made the entire Yunnan Dusi highly militarized. This is also the reason why Yunnan Dusi's combat effectiveness has been maintained.
In the city, even Mu Chun's younger brother Mu Sheng had to honestly accept the interrogation by the soldiers with wooden fences set up in every street and alley, and took the trouble to take out his tooth tag to explain his identity.
But now, the entire Kunming city has been taken over by Fu Mao as the commander. The relatives of He Fu, Mu Sheng, Muchun and others are under supervision, and Xu Huizu naturally cannot escape.
"Wei Guogong, you are so reckless!"
Suohei's soldiers walked into a courtyard with extremely wide windows. This was the iconic window regulation in Kunming during this period, to prevent some chieftains who came to report on their duties from conspiring to cause rebellion.
But at this time, these windows became a fatal design that exposed Xu Huizu's words and deeds to the sun.
"Sinaimo, from now on, just deliver food when you deliver it, don't go around shouting..."
In the study room, Xu Huizu couldn't help but complain when he looked at the eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy in front of him.
"How can that be done? When I was at the top of the mountain, my family would call me reckless."
"Alas..." Xu Huizu had a headache listening to Xinaimo's Mandarin mixed with Shaomin language.
"Wei Guogong, do you have a headache?"
"Don't talk..."
"Then you need some water."
"Shut up and go out. I'll call you after I finish eating."
Xu Huizu drove away the complicated Sinaimo, and then put the food on the table and started eating.
Although Fu Mao imprisoned him, he was not treated harshly in terms of food. He was given two meat and three vegetables every day, and the food was so rich that those who guarded him could swallow their saliva.
"I don't know what's going on with the war in the north..."
While eating, Xu Huizu's thoughts were all in the north. He thought of his nephews, especially Zhu Gaoxu.
Not to mention my brother-in-law, my nephew is not an easy person to deal with.
At present, the forces in the southwest are being restrained and cannot be mobilized to support the Central Plains. They don't know what the world will be like when they are liberated.
Xu Huizu shook his head and ate. Fortunately, the food was made by Han people who migrated from Nanjing, so he was quite used to it.
But when he finished eating and looked out the window, all he could see besides the big, white clouds were the high walls.
Facing these prison-like walls, he could only sigh: "Brother Wenying, your city is well built, but it's all being used against your own people..."
He called Mu Ying's cousin, shook his head and walked back to the bedroom.
Not long after, Sinaimo came in and started chatting in weird mandarin. Xu Huizu had a splitting headache and felt like crying.
I wonder how Xu Huizu, the dignified Duke of Wei, has ever suffered such grievances.
If he was imprisoned, it would be better to kill him with a knife directly on the battlefield.
"well……"
A long sigh came from the bedroom, and was blown north by the warm winter wind in Yunnan.
Compared with the complicated situation in Yunnan, the situation in the north seems very clear.
As time passed, the mobilized soldiers began to gradually arrive at the front line. Gradually, the number of soldiers on the front line slowly increased from one hundred thousand, and Li Jinglong's step-by-step defenses also began to extend northward.
Zhu Di abandoned low-lying cities such as Zhuozhou, Gu'an, and Yongqing, and moved the people to Yongping east of Peiping.
Zhu Gaoxu also accepted more than 30,000 people and settled in Ningyuan. Although the war had not started, the smell of gunpowder was already spreading over Peiping.
Zhu Di did not worry or panic, but continued to train his troops, especially the more than 10,000 cavalry and 30,000 horse infantry under his command, as well as the 20,000 horse infantry brought by Wang Yi.
These 60,000 mobile troops are the key to his victory.
But at such a critical moment, Zhu Di received a letter from Zhu Gaoxu.
"What do you want to do?"
"Even the general doesn't know..."
In the Chengyun Hall of Prince Yan's Mansion, listening to the crackling sound of wood burning in the stove, Zhu Di held the letter in his hand and looked at Chen Mao who was responsible for delivering the letter doubtfully.
Chen Mao also had a sad look on his face. In the past few months, he had been manipulated by Zhu Gaoxu. He was often asked to lead dozens of people to travel hundreds of miles to deliver messages, and his temper was worn away.
Now that he heard Zhu Gaoxu's arrangement, he didn't even bother to think about it and just followed it.
He had been tortured by Zhu Gaoxu to the point of being transformed into a human being, and Zhu Di could visibly see how haggard he had been in these past few months.
"Chen Mao, why don't you just do it with me? That kid, the second child, is a waste of your talents."
Zhu Di started poaching, but Chen Mao's mouth twitched after hearing this.
He remembered what Zhu Gaoxu said when he took him as a sparring partner to practice martial arts.
"If someone wants to leave, don't worry. To be fair, just ask him to defeat me."
Shortly after Zhu Gaoxu finished these words, Chen Mao himself was lifted in the air by Zhu Gaoxu with one hand.
"His Highness said, if someone else wants us to follow, just ask them to do a few moves in His Highness's hands, and we will win. Prince Yan's Palace..."
"Let's get down to business first."
Before Chen Mao finished speaking, Zhu Di changed the topic. It was obvious that even he, a father, did not dare to teach Zhu Gaoxu a lesson easily.
"The second brother told me to drag Li Jinglong until mid-March. What does this mean?"
There was no one else in the hall, even Zhu Gaochi had been pushed away by Zhu Di, so Zhu Di asked Chen Mao with confidence and boldness. In order to prevent Chen Mao from not answering, he also said specifically: "You must know, and tell me that I will not cooperate with you." Others say."
"This..." Chen Mao hesitated for a moment, and finally shook his head firmly: "I don't know, general. Anyway, just listen to His Highness."
"Confusing words." Zhu Di blew his beard and glared: "How can a father listen to his son?"
"..." Chen Mao looked at Zhu Di with a suspicious look, and Zhu Di suddenly remembered that he just didn't listen to Lao Er's words, which led to the passive revolt at the moment.
If he had raised an army from the beginning, he might have already drowned the Yangtze River.
"Alas..." Sighing in his heart, Zhu Di could only wave his hand: "Go and rest."
"The general has to go to Daning to deliver a message to King Ning."
Chen Mao left with a look of despair, and Zhu Di also clicked his tongue, seeming to lament Chen Mao's experience.
Before he could sit down, he saw the old monk Yao Guangxiao appearing at the door of the hall.
"Old monk, you came just in time..."
Zhu Di told Yao Guangxiao the news about Zhu Gaoxu. Yao Guangxiao said shortly after hearing this: "Could it be that His Highness wants to take the sea route?"
"It shouldn't be possible..." Zhu Di was unsure, because he knew that there were no big warships in Jinzhou, and the Southern Army had gathered more than 20,000 sailors and more than 500 warships were heading north. How many soldiers and horses would Zhu Gaoxu have to pull out? Defeat the Confederate navy.
"By the way, old monk, what are you doing here?"
Zhu Di couldn't figure it out, but it was not difficult for him to confront Li Jinglong for one more month, so he didn't take it to heart.
"We have found out all the news about the Southern Army." Yao Guangxiao said the crucial news in a calm tone and took out a letter from his sleeve.
Zhu Di quickly grabbed the letter and opened it, unable to hide the smile on his face:
"Twenty thousand cavalry, thirty thousand horse infantry and two hundred and forty thousand infantry..."
"This Li Jiujiang can actually coordinate the march and camp of so many people. It seems that my father did not choose the wrong person, but he chose the wrong opponent."
Zhu Di is very confident, and it all stems from the cards in his hand.
With 10,000 cavalry and 50,000 horse infantry, he is definitely stronger than most of the Confederate Army in terms of marching speed. As long as he can seize the opportunity to completely wipe out the 20,000 cavalry in the hands of Chen Hui, Teng Ju and Ping An, the Confederate Army will be able to defeat Yan in this Yan State. The Land of Clouds was completely passive.
"It's already October 16th, and there are still two and a half months until spring starts in Peking."
Zhu Di murmured to himself, and finally turned his attention to Yao Guangxiao: "Old monk, I need your monk to find out some information for me."
"Your Highness, it's okay to say so."
"I want detailed information about Baigouhe!"
Zhu Di's eyes flashed, and when Yao Guangxiao saw this, he knew that his Highness might have a way to defeat the 300,000 Confederate Army.
Not long after the conversation between the two, Yao Guangxiao sent out his monks, and Chen Mao, who was responsible for delivering the message, also returned to Guangning after a few days of travel.
It started to snow outside the pass, but Zhu Gaoxu stood at the top of Guangning City, looking at the Bohai Sea in the south.
"Your Highness, the news has been delivered."
Exhausted, Chen Mao walked onto the city wall horse trail and respectfully handed the tooth plaque in his hand to Zhu Gaoxu.
Zhu Gaoxu took the dental plaque and said, "Thank you for your hard work. You can take a good rest for half a month."
"Yes!" Chen Mao finally breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that he could rest.
But after he breathed a sigh of relief, he asked anxiously: "Your Highness, are we really no longer going south to help His Highness King Yan?"
"I want to help, but not in western Liaoning." Zhu Gaoxu did not shy away from Chen Mao. After all, Chen Mao was the person he wanted to entrust with important responsibilities in the future.
Naturally, Chen Mao also knew that the "torture" he suffered during this period was all tempered by his Highness. His spirit was indeed smoothed a lot and he became calmer.
After he calmed down, he analyzed the matter more comprehensively. Therefore, after Zhu Gaoxu said that he would not leave Liaoxi, he looked around and made sure that no one was around before speaking carefully: "You mean...Jinzhou?"
"Well..." Zhu Gaoxu nodded, but Chen Mao was surprised after hearing his confirmation:
"But we have tens of thousands of troops and tens of thousands of horses. Can we transport so many things to Dengzhou?"
"Besides, once Li Jinglong knows that Dengzhou has fallen, he will definitely send troops back to defend. What will our army do then?"
"What I want is for him to mobilize his troops and return to defense." Zhu Gaoxu said unhurriedly:
"Where do you think he'll fall back?"
"Of course it's Dezhou and Dongchang!" Chen Mao said without thinking about the two important cities on the canal road, because these two important cities had water warehouses built to protect the canal.
Chen Mao thought he was right, so Zhu Gaoxu would praise him, but Zhu Gaoxu said calmly:
"You are right, Li Jinglong will definitely leave no mistakes."
Zhu Gaoxu knew very well that although Li Jinglong did not have the spirituality of a famous general and could not produce surprise victories, his style was steady and stable. Because of this, Zhu Di had always had difficulty breaking through the defense line and heading south.
The prerequisite for Zhu Dini to go south was that he completely destroyed Li Jinglong's arrangements in the canal cities of Hebei and Dezhou in several battles at Zhengcunba, Baigouhe, and Dezhou, and then he was able to go south.
But even so, Zhu Di was still blocked in Dongchang by He Fu and Sheng Yong, so he could only continue to fight, all the way south, destroying the southern army's establishment along the way.
Later, when even an expert in military training like Sheng Yong could not pull out combatable soldiers, Chen Xuan finally decided to surrender to Zhu Di and help him cross the Yangtze River.
Facing a stable person like Li Jinglong, Zhu Gaoxu also had ways to defeat him, but he didn't have that necessity.
What he wants is to end the Jingdian Rebellion as quickly as possible and reduce the trauma caused by the civil war to the Ming Dynasty's national strength. Therefore, what he wants to do now is to take advantage of the opportunity of the Southern Army soldiers in the north to quickly cross the Yangtze River and go south. Break the yellow dragon!
Thinking of this, he did not continue to explain to Chen Mao, but just stretched out his hand to catch a lot of snowflakes:
"Auspicious snow heralds a good harvest. This war cannot be delayed for too long..."
(End of chapter)
