Although the Ministry of War is theoretically equivalent to the Ministry of Defense of later generations, the military department of the Ming Dynasty lacks a professional "General Staff", and its "staff officer" function is not strong.

As for the specific item of "requisition", its duties are only to "ask for orders to send generals, reward and punishment, transfer troops and food, discipline and meritorious deeds, and depose them." In other words, although the staff department is in charge of the recruitment, it does not really care much about "how to fight".

Therefore, to answer Zhu Yijun's question, we can only let the big Sima Liang Menglong play freely.

Liang Menglong had an exchange with Gao Pragmatic, who went to the Ministry of War to hand over the helm, although the situation was sudden at that time, and Gao Pragmatic went to handle the transfer of power, and the two of them did not talk deeply, but fortunately, the emperor listened to the plan at most and listened to the strategy, so as not to ask for details, Liang Menglong could still deal with it.

"Back to the emperor, the Ministry of War thought that the army and brigade in charge of Cao Yan, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaoyang, were sufficient, and he could be ordered to consider the details of the battle at his own discretion." Liang Menglong paused for a moment, and added: "What I am worried about today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the winter in Liaodong has always been earlier than elsewhere, and Cao Yan is well prepared, I am afraid that Liaodong is already cold, and it is not easy to send troops." ”

Zhu Yijun was a little surprised: "If you spread the word to Cao Yan today, you won't be able to prepare before the winter in Liaodong?" ”

Liang Menglong said: "However, unless Cao Yan mobilizes an army within half a month, it may be slow." ”

As the Great Sima, he was not talking nonsense, because the Chinese winter was advancing from the north to the south.

In later generations, the northernmost Mohe area was in winter as early as early September. At the beginning of October, it enters Jilin from Heilongjiang Province in winter and arrives in the Beijing-Tianjin area at the end of October. In mid-November, winter comes to both sides of the Huai River and the Han River, and crosses the Yangtze River in the second half of the year. At the beginning of December, winter approached the Wuyi Mountains and the northern slope of the Nanling Mountains. At the beginning of January, it crossed the Wuyi Mountains and Nanling to reach its southernmost position. Roughly to Fuzhou, Fujian, Shaoguan, Guangdong, Hechi, Guangxi, Yunnan Lincang and the whole province of Taiwan, all belong to China's winterless area.

Specifically, Liaodong, especially Kaiyuan, the location of this operation, is actually the first line of Jilin in later generations, that is, the beginning of October and winter. But this "October" is talking about the Gregorian calendar of later generations, and of course the Ming Dynasty does not promote this, so in fact, there is only about 20 days, and the opening of the original is about to enter winter.

Liang Menglong said that unless Cao Yan mobilizes the army in half a month, this time can be considered to be very accurate.

Although Zhu Yijun has never been to Liaodong, he is still very clear about the severe cold in Liaodong. It's funny to say, one of the things that impressed him the most about "Liaodong Leng" was that after Gao Pragmatic was promoted to the governor of Liaodong, he paid for the governor's yamen to install a ground dragon.

The reason why he is deeply impressed is because Gao Shipra's set of earth dragons is not simply digging some fire channels underground, he uses the large copper pipe produced by Jinghua as the fire channel, and puts it into a fine pattern like a greedy snake underground, which costs more than ten times more than ordinary earth dragons.

At that time, Zhu Yijun asked Gao Shishi why he was so extravagant, and Gao Shishi told him that the batch of copper pipes was an unqualified product when a certain type of artillery was trial-produced, and it actually belonged to waste utilization, but the cost of this batch of "waste" was a bit high.

At the same time, Gao also told Zhu Yijun that this batch of "waste products" is only a small part of the trial production process, and manufacturing any new weapons will cost a lot of money on research and development. This is also one of the main reasons why Jinghua's firearms are much more expensive than the original Yamen products such as the Ordnance Bureau.

Zhu Yijun was of course deeply impressed by the fact that a small part of the scrap products of a new artillery were produced at such a huge cost. Not only did he understand that firearms research and development was not easy, but he also remembered that Liaodong was indeed cold.

Now that the Liaodong Army is going to fight a war that is at least in early winter, Zhu Yijun can't help but hesitate. He looked around at the elders, and felt that he could only ask Zhang Xueyan and Wu Dui in the military affairs of Liaodong - Zhang Xueyan was the governor of Liaodong during the Gaogong period, and Li Chengliang's first big defeat of Wang Gao was carried out under Zhang Xueyan's decision and command; And Wu Dui has been a great Sima and is still in charge of the work of the military department, and he is far more familiar with military affairs than Shen Shixing, Xu Guo, Wang Jiaping and Wang Xijue.

"Zhang Qing, Wu Qing, do you two think this battle can be fought?" Because neither Zhang Xueyan nor Wu Dui had ever been a Japanese lecturer, including in Jiajing and Longqing dynasties, Zhu Yijun was not called Mr.

Zhang Xueyan has a higher status and has done Liaofu, so after glancing at Wu Dui, he replied: "Most of the soldiers in Liaodong are from the local guards, even if no, they are also the elite of Xuanda, and they can keep out the cold." Therefore, the minister thought that it was okay to send troops in winter, but as Da Sima Fang said, the key to this matter was whether Cao Yan could be prepared properly. If so, it would be okay to send troops; If not, it is a great disadvantage or a hidden danger. ”

Zhu Yijun nodded slightly, and looked at Wu Dui again.

Wu Dui said: "As far as the minister knows, there are things in Liaodong to keep out the cold, and they are generally enough to use, but most of them are prepared for the future. ”

Good guy, sure enough, as soon as the cannon went off, the gold was ten thousand taels, and the account had to be settled before the fight started.

But this is a helpless thing, especially when it involves the reserve of the decisive battle against Chahar in the future, Zhu Yijun had no choice but to look at Gao Shishi, and said with a somewhat embarrassed face: "Truth-seeking......"

It is not difficult to understand his attitude, the root cause of such a big trouble in the northwest this year is money, and everything is to prepare for the destruction of the remnant yuan. Now because of the changes in Liaodong, these reserves have to be spent, and the household department needs to make up for them, and the burden of these tasks is all on Gao Pragmatic, Zhu Yijun is naturally a little embarrassed.

However, Gao pragmatic's expression was normal, and he said calmly: "If you have money, you will have something." Just as the minister said, 'the tax collector takes from the people and uses it for the people', the purpose of border military warfare and warfare is to protect the family and defend the country, and to fight for the people, and this money should also be spent. ”

Then he paused and said: "However, of course, money should be spent, but how to spend it, the minister is a household official, and he has to make suggestions." ”

Zhu Yijun immediately said: "This is natural, what do you want, just say it." ”

Gao Shishi pretended not to see Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue's appearance of slightly changing color when he heard the emperor's words, and said solemnly: "I just said that the war situation in Liaodong has not yet been discussed, and the minister should add it slightly. As he spoke, he bowed slightly to Zhang Xueyan, Wu Dui and Liang Menglong.

Of course, these three will not blame Gao Pragmatic for "not giving face", they just nodded with a smile in return, and Zhu Yijun let Gao Pragmatic speak bluntly.

Gao pragmatically said: "What the public has only said about the disadvantages of our winter operations, but in fact, winter operations are not only unfavorable to our army. The emperor, the princes, and Nurhachi's subordinates all have local Yi people, and when the snow closes the mountains, they often go into the mountains to hunt and dig, and winter has little impact on them, so I won't say much.

Fortunately, there are few soldiers in Jianzhou, and the number of troops sent this time will not exceed 5,000 at most. And because of the small number of soldiers, the ministers expect that they will not dare to fight to the death with our army, so as not to offend the Celestial Empire, which will lead to the spring of the next year, and the heavenly soldiers will come to attack with thunder, and they will follow the mistakes of Wang Gao and Wang Tai. In this way, the minister thought that as long as our army could defeat or repel the Tumen, and then take advantage of the situation, Nurhachi would definitely retreat. ”

Zhu Yijun was overjoyed when he heard this, and said in his heart: It is best to listen to the truth and discuss the soldiers! Although Nurhachi should be beaten, it is not cost-effective to fight him in winter, not to mention that beating him now may delay major events, which is honestly not beautiful. If you can scare this guy away, it's the best way. As for the Jianzhou Left Guard...... Hmph, Xiaobang Puer, it's not too late to deal with Chahar slowly when I solve it.

"Seeking truth is very much in line with my intentions." Zhu Yijun finally laughed today, and said openly: "What about the Tumen?" ”

Because the emperor had praise, Gao pragmatic had to bow slightly to show his humility, and then said: "The Tumen department is different from Jianzhou, although the northern captives are also very good at keeping out the cold, but they have a lot of livestock under their command, and this attack is Yehe, which is not as good as attacking the territory of my Ming Dynasty, and can be looted and maintained......"

Zhu Yijun interjected and asked, "Wait, although Ye He must not be as rich as my Daming, he will not have nothing to grab at all, right?" Why can't the Tumen survive by looting? ”

Gao pragmatic explained: "The emperor may not know that the Jurchens outside Liaodong, with Yehe being the closest Mongolia, have the most cavalry, so they are most familiar with fighting with cavalry. Judging from the military report, Yehe's attack on Tumen should have been prepared......"

Zhu Yijun couldn't help but ask, "How can you see this?" ”

This is really a bit of a layman, but Gao Pragmatic still has to explain: "The military newspaper said, 'Tumen besieged the two cities of Yehe and the east and west and could not be conquered for a long time'. The emperor, the 20,000 cavalry under Tumen, wanted to take Ye He, so he naturally chose to attack suddenly. At this time, if Ye He was unprepared, the east and west cities had already been conquered in one fell swoop. Since he has been able to hold on to this day, he is obviously well prepared. ”

Zhu Yijun suddenly realized, "oh", and nodded: "Then what?" ”

"Since Yeh was well prepared, and they knew how to deal with the cavalry, they were bound to collect the grain and fodder for the horses in the city, so that the Tumen would not get it. Now that winter is about to begin, if even forage cannot be guaranteed, how can the supplies of the Tumen army be sufficient? ”

Zhu Yijun was a little surprised and asked, "Aren't horses also able to eat grass?" Oh, I know it's winter, but you can still get some hay, right? ”

Gao Shishi smiled bitterly: "If the number of horses is smaller, it is not impossible to eat grass or hay, but there are still some particularities here." First, the so-called hay is actually green storage forage, which can only be made after some processing means, and there are requirements for the variety of grass, not those wild grasses that naturally wither and yellow in the wild. Even if Mongolian horses have low requirements and can eat some natural withered grass, it is not possible to eat all of them.

Second, even if it is green storage forage, its calories are ...... Oh, and the retainer is needed to fill the stomach, and it takes more than concentrate feed, and it takes much longer to feed, and on the whole it is very detrimental to wartime. Therefore, once the Tumen are short of feed, they have only one way to retreat, otherwise their weaknesses will be magnified, creating an opportunity for our heavenly soldiers to defeat the enemy. ”

Zhu Yijun nodded again and again, stroked his palm and praised: "Seeking truth and winning a hundred battles is really not lucky, such trivial and detailed matters can be like a few treasures, which is my luck." "I don't dare to be pragmatic.

In fact, these "trivial and detailed matters" are more carefully mastered by lower-level officers, and it is indeed very common for top-level decision-makers like Gao Pragmatic to not know enough or ignore them at will. Of course, if a famous general like Qi Jiguang is at this moment, they will definitely not ignore it. It's just that even if they say it, the emperor probably won't be so amazed - after all, leading soldiers is their profession, and the highly pragmatic "professional" is to study and govern.

Zhu Yijun finally felt that his own side was not at a disadvantage, and his opponent had a lot of disadvantages, so he turned the topic back and asked, "Since this is the case, what is the plan for seeking truth?" ”

Gao pragmatically said: "Considering that the cost should be controlled as much as possible, this time the troops are expensive but not expensive, and the combat is expensive but not expensive. The minister thought that he could edict Cao Yan and order him to select and transfer the elite, with no more than 20,000 soldiers as the limit, out of the town of Beiguan, and slowly approached the east and west cities of Yehe. ”

"Now that it's winter, why do you have to slow down when you go out of the customs to fight?" Wang Xijue suddenly couldn't help but interject and asked: "Although the Tumen department has hidden worries about grain and fodder, it is a barbarian, and the cold tolerance is always not under our army. If we don't take it for a long time, our army will be left alone, and won't this cost also go up? Moreover, in field warfare, the Mongols have always been superior......"

Gao Pragmatic still maintained the demeanor of a Wenchen and did not speak, and planned to wait for Wang Xijue to finish speaking before answering, but Zhu Yijun couldn't help it and interrupted: "Mr. Wang, didn't you read the newspaper when you were worried?" In the three battles of Monan, Liaonan, and Northwest, Qiuzhen had defeated the Mongolian cavalry in the field, how can it be said that the Mongols have always had the advantage in field warfare? ”

Only then did Wang Xijue remember that in the article of "the Mongols prevailed in the field war", Gao Pragmatism had always been an exception, and he couldn't help but blush. However, he reacted quickly, and immediately said: "The emperor blames it, but the minister reads the newspaper, and what the minister just said is that he took into account the three wars of Monan, Liaonan and Northwest. ”

Zhu Yijun frowned and said, "How do you say this?" ”

Wang Xijue replied: "Back to the emperor, these three battles were all commanded by Gao Situ, and even had a great victory for our army. But how many high-ranking Situ Ye are there in the world? How much ability does Cao Yan have with Gao Situ? ”

This is somewhat sophistry, but Zhu Yijun was shocked in his heart, and said secretly: Yes, seeking truth does not mean that anyone can win, in addition to seeking truth, there are few people who can win against the Mongols in the field.

Insert a sentence,[\Mi\Mi\Reading\app\\] It's really good, it's worth pretending, and Android and Apple phones support it!

After thinking about it, he hesitated even more, because he remembered that Cao Yan was convicted because he was ambushed in the process of pursuing the Mongols, which led to heavy losses.

At this time, the emperor couldn't help but feel a little uneasy, moved his buttocks, and asked Gao pragmatically: "Uh, truth-seeking, look at Cao Yan...... Can you take on this important task? ”

Gao Pragmatic thought for a moment and said: "The root cause of Cao Yan's ambush in Chang'an Fort last time ago is that although Cao Yan's own command was improper, it was also one of the reasons why the superintendent urged him to break the enemy within a time limit. According to what the minister saw when he was in Liaodong, Cao Yan dared to fight and could be called a brave general, and as for the potential shortcomings of wisdom, it was not incomprehensible. ”

Zhu Yijun said: "How to solve it? ”

Gao pragmatic hesitated slightly, and finally spoke: "The minister has the grace to save him, and if he wants to come to Ruochen to send a letter and tell him about the important tasks of using troops, he should not turn a blind eye." ”

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