Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 359
The third day of July in the fifth year of Chongzhen.

Laizhou City has been besieged for six months. Food has been exhausted. The city walls have collapsed in many places under the bombardment of rebel artillery. The crisis has reached an extreme. However, the Ming Dynasty cabinet is still arguing over whether to recruit or appease, and no one can convince anyone. .In the morning court on this day, Chongzhen proposed to mobilize the Heluo New Army to Shandong to suppress the rebellion. Sun Chengzong, the Minister of the Ministry of War, who came to attend the morning court despite being ill, immediately agreed. However, Zhou Yanru, Wen Tiren and others unanimously opposed it, claiming that the Heluo New Army had not been in town for a long time, so they rashly Let them march thousands of miles away, there is no guarantee that Wuqiao mutiny will not happen again, so it is better to appease them.A fierce quarrel broke out between the main war faction and the appeasement faction, and the two sides were in a stalemate.At this time, Liu Chongqing, a famous calligrapher from Laiyang and the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue, launched a death remonstrance and crashed his head on the vermilion pillar of Jinyi Hall.His death shocked the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers. Chongzhen finally made up his mind to adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards the rebels. He mobilized the best soldiers and generals of the Ming Dynasty to put down the Denglai rebellion in the shortest possible time!

Historically, the main force to put down the Denglai Rebellion was the Guan Ning Army, but because Yang Menglong disrupted the situation, the losses of the Guan Ning Army on the Dalinghe battlefield were much heavier than in history, and they have not been able to recover until now. The method is the main force.Shanhaiguan general Wu Xiang and his eldest son Wu Sangui led 500 cavalry from Guanning to the south by boat, and the arrows pointed directly at the Jiaodong Peninsula.

The Tianxiong Army that Chongzhen admired the most was still licking his wounds. Considering that more than half of the Tianxiong Army had been killed or injured in the battle of Dalinghe, Chongzhen was embarrassed to adjust the main force of the Tianxiong Army again, but let the Tianxiong Army dispatch a thousand muskets Go forward to cooperate with the various armies to counter the rebellion.This thousand musketeers will scare the rebels.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty only had a few capable troops. Neither the Tianxiong Army nor the Guan Ning Army could fight as the main force. This main force could only be played by the energetic Heluo New Army.The Ministry of War's order to the Heluo New Army was to dispatch 4000 infantry and cavalry troops to the Jiaodong Peninsula within two months to join the Ming army's combat ranks.Among the three main forces, the Heluo New Army has the longest journey. It must travel all the way from the hinterland of the Central Plains to the Jiaodong Peninsula within two months, a distance of more than 2000 miles. For the Ming Army, which generally marches at a speed of only five kilometers a day, Yan said that this kind of march of thousands of miles is incredible. If they were allowed to walk from Nanyang to Yantai, they could walk for a year!However, the powerful marching ability displayed by the Heluo New Army when rushing to support the battlefield in western Liaoning made Chongzhen full of confidence in them. He firmly believed that this iron army would not let him down.

Regarding Yang Menglong's violent ability to take matters into his own hands, Fang Yizhi found that he could do nothing but roll his eyes.He really wanted to strangle that bastard to death, but he didn't have the strength to restrain the chicken...

In the Wuyang camp, Xu Gong, Han Peng, Qi Hu, Xue Siming, Wang Tiehammer, Xu Meng, Zhong Ning, Cao Jun... a row of fierce generals gathered together, Qi Polu, a little boy, was also wearing iron armor, with a straight face, like He looked decent, but the childishness on his face betrayed him.Yang Menglong looked at the generals who were born and died with him, and said in a deep voice: "The orders from the Ministry of War have been issued to you, and you all know what to do, right?"

All the generals shouted in unison: "It's clear!"

Yang Menglong gestured on the map with his hands, and said: "From Nanyang to Denglai, it's more than two thousand miles. Thinking about such a thousand-mile expedition makes one's scalp tingle. I never doubt that we will be able to overwhelm those damned The rebel army was torn to pieces, and my biggest headache was how to get to Denglei in the shortest possible time... Everyone helped out with ideas, what should I do to get to Denglei in the shortest possible time?"

All eyes were on Qi Hu.The old man pondered for a while, tapped his fingers on the table, and said, "It's really a headache...Last year when we rushed to the aid of Liaoxi, the imperial court strictly ordered the state capitals along the way to cooperate vigorously. We were able to travel hundreds of miles a day and rushed to Jinzhou. There will be no such good luck. If we only walk on two feet, counting forty miles a day, we can reach Denglei in two months, but we are exhausted by then. It is impossible to walk forty miles a day for dozens of days, the farther you go, the more difficult the food supply will be, you can't let the soldiers walk hungry?"

Xu Meng said naively: "The local officials along the way will prepare food for us!"

Qi Hu sneered: "They will indeed prepare food for us, but unfortunately, we have to stay in their territory for two days, and they will take care of the food for one day!"

Xu Meng snorted, thinking that he would have to starve all day before he could eat, he shivered involuntarily.Civil officials in the Ming Dynasty never distributed food to military generals easily, and they kept it in their own hands, and directly made food for the army, saying that in this way, military generals would not be able to embezzle—but it would be more convenient for them to embezzle.During the expedition of the army, the local officials along the way naturally have to take care of the food, but in order to prevent the soldiers from getting too full, they only take care of two meals a day, and they must stay in a county for more than one day before the local officials provide food for the army. If you're a scud and crossed two counties in one day, sorry, go hungry, no one cares about your food.This scientific and rigorous system that makes generals want to cry without tears minimizes the possibility of generals rebelling. Think about it, you have to spend your own money to buy equipment from the Ministry of War to arm your troops, and you have to beg for nothing to follow Local officials can only let their soldiers eat two meals every other day, and weapons, food, and military pay are not in their hands. How can you rebel?If you want to die, choose a better way to die.Yang Menglong's evaluation of this wonderful system is: self-defeating martial arts!It deprived the generals of the Ming Dynasty of the ability to travel thousands of miles, and it also made the soldiers of the Ming army lose their fighting spirit. They were never willing to leave the garrison unless they had to, because leaving the garrison meant that they would starve—of course, even if Staying in the resident will inevitably lead to starvation, but at least you don't have to travel every day, right?It is more realistic to expect such an army to open up territories than to expect sows to climb trees.

It must be pointed out that this was after the middle of the Ming Dynasty.In the early Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty as a whole maintained the momentum of pioneering and enterprising. It fought all the way to the shore of Lake Baikal and destroyed the Beiyuan Dynasty. On the sea, Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, allowing the Ming Dynasty to spread its power across the ocean. .But after this wonderful system was put into practice, the situation took a turn for the worse. The border defense line of the Ming Dynasty has been retreating towards the hinterland. Beijing Changping has become the front line of the Ming Dynasty against Mongolia. If Changping is designated as a district of Beijing like today , the emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty will definitely exclaim: "Tarzi soldiers are coming to the city!"

Yang Menglong tapped the table with his finger and said: "The same sentence, don't count on the local officials to supply food, count on them, it is better to count on the sow to climb the tree! We bring the grain ourselves, if it is not enough, we will spend money from the people along the way." In a word, bring more weapons, more silver, and less food, so that the speed of marching will be greatly improved."

Han Peng said: "I'm afraid that the people along the way will not have any food in their homes, and even if they have money, they will not be able to buy food."

Yang Menglong said: "People don't have it in their homes, do those landlords' homes? Money can make ghosts turn the mill! My plan is to collect 3000 four-wheeled carriages, [-] to carry food and weapons, and [-] to carry people. A four-wheeled carriage can carry ten soldiers, and three hundred vehicles is more than enough to carry [-] people. The camel-drawn cart can travel sixty to seventy miles a day. If we count less, we can travel fifty miles a day, and we can reach Denglai within forty days !"

Qi Hu asked: "There are still 1000 people?"

Yang Menglong said: "The other 1000 people are naturally cavalry. Pull all our Lancers up, even if they haven't fought a battle, this kind of marching thousands of miles is also a good exercise for them!"

Everyone was excited. It seemed that Yang Menglong was going to repeat last year's blitzkrieg and lead them to create an unprecedented marching record!Qi Hu deliberated for a long time, and finally nodded: "It is feasible! We can collect four hundred four-wheeled carriages, and there are enough mules, horses, and camels. Calculated at two thousand catties per cart, seventy carts of grain are enough. We have eaten in Denglai." Speaking of this, he sighed: "It's a pity that the canals are so silted up that they can't be used by large ships. Otherwise, taking a large ship to go east along the canal will consume much less than land transportation. Much, much faster!"

Yang Menglong was also helpless about this.Since ancient times, water transportation has been the most convenient and cost-effective mode of transportation. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, emperors of all dynasties have dug great canals, connecting the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Huaihe River and other water systems. These great canals are the blood vessels of ancient China, and they continue to flow continuously. The continuous flow of blood to the center of the empire has contributed to the prosperity of the north for thousands of years.However, as the Yellow River overflowed, the river sand silted up, and the canals were ineffectively dredged. Since the Song Dynasty, these ancient canals have been silted up one after another, losing their water transport capacity.The Ming Dynasty established its capital in Beijing, and water transport moved eastward. The canals in the Central Plains and Guanzhong completely lost their strategic significance. The Ming Dynasty never made great efforts to improve these inland canals.If the inland canal is still unimpeded, the Heluo New Army can board the ship in Luoyang and go straight to Shandong along the canal, which is extremely convenient.It's a pity that these canals are now so clogged that it's just a joke to send thousands of soldiers eastward by boat.

(End of this chapter)