803 Winter Offensive

Since arriving in Nanjing, it has been half a year, and in the past six months, Chen Yue has been busy rectifying the Nanjing camp and arranging the recruitment and training of the Jiangxi army. And his army, except for Jin Shenghuan who led his troops to encircle and suppress Zhang Nengqi, who was hiding in the mountains of eastern Jiangxi, Jin Xin led his troops into Huguang, and cooperated with Huguang Governor to block Yinxi to pursue Zhang Dingguo's department, the other troops did not move. Jiangxi's more than 200,000 troops have been training except for Tuntian.

Now that it is winter, it belongs to the slack season, and Chen Yue thinks it is necessary to move.

You can't train elite soldiers only by training, you have to put them on the battlefield to experience real battles, so that you can grow up and get real elite soldiers.

After several months of peace and another autumn harvest, although it cannot be said that the soldiers are well fed, there is still the capital to mobilize 100,000 troops to launch a war on a large scale.

This year, the wind and rain are quite smooth, and the Qing soldiers were dragged in the north, and the Jianghuai region has obtained a rare harvest, and the harvest in Jiangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang is not bad. After Chen Yue made it clear to the imperial court, the three prefectures of Fengyang, Yangzhou and Huai'an confiscated the silver this year, and the grain collected was used as a tax, and now a large amount of grain is stored in the two cities of Huai'an and Yangzhou, and Chen Yue took out the silver and entrusted the Sihai Commercial Bank to buy grain in the east of Jiangjiang.

Now the granaries in various places have stored as much as one million stones, which is more than enough to start a war. And Kun Xing's position as a prisoner is not very reliable, and there are many people in the local area who are not convinced by the secret plots, after all, there are still vassal kings in various places, and how can they be willing to let a princess who is not qualified at all sit in the position of the prison country, and now they are just afraid of Chen Yue's force and dare not come forward.

Therefore, Chen Yueyou must fight another battle to deter these people with evil intentions.

As for the direction of the troops, it needs to be carefully considered. Because now the Ming Dynasty is really in a lot of trouble.

Internally, Sichuan is still entrenched by thieves in the west, and a province has fallen into the hands of thieves. And Zhang Nengqi, one of the western thieves, is wandering in the complex mountainous area at the junction of Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Fujian provinces, and it has not been able to be eradicated for a long time. After Xiao Bing entered Huguang with 50,000 troops, Zhang Dingguo finally led his troops out of Huguang and entered Guizhou, as if he was going around to Sichuan.

These three western thieves wandered through several provinces, which involved a lot of attention from the Ming Dynasty, and what made Chen Yue uneasy was Zheng Zhilong from Fujian.

Zheng Zhilong sent people to kill the three princes and participated in the conspiracy to support the Tang Dynasty, although the matter of the three princes was planted on the heads of the Manchurians, and the captured Zheng Zhibao was also released, but who knows if Zheng Zhilong will make other moves or even take risks to raise troops to rebel.

It is best to eliminate the power of the Zheng family for the sake of a safe period, but after all, the Zheng family has been entrenched in Fujian for more than ten years, and it is not easy to uproot it. So as a last resort, Chen Yue didn't want to move Zheng Zhilong.

In addition to these, what concerns Chen Yue the most is the battle situation in Shandong. Wu Ping and his army have been holding out in Shandong for nearly a year, fighting continuously with the Qing soldiers, and are currently defending Dengzhou.

Of course, Wu Ping did a good job in Shandong, with the assistance of Li Yanzhi, taking advantage of the opportunity of Zhao Yingyuan to withstand the Qing soldiers in Qingzhou, the strength of his subordinates developed rapidly, and now he has an army of 70,000 or 80,000 people, all of whom have been trained for several months. This is also the main reason why after the defeat of Zhao Yingyuan in Qingzhou, Wu Ping was able to withstand the fierce attack of the Qing soldiers in Dengzhou.

But after all, most of Wu Ping's men are newly recruited soldiers for a few months, and Hong Chengchou's hundreds of thousands of battle-hardened green battalion soldiers cannot be compared, and the combat experience is a cut behind.

So after careful consideration, Chen Yue decided to take advantage of the winter to send troops to the Northern Expedition to attack Shandong!

Unite with Wu Pingbu and defeat the green battalion soldiers commanded by the traitor Hong Chengchou.

If Hong Chengchou can be defeated and occupy Shandong, he can send troops to the Central Plains to attack Henan in the southwest, and he can send troops to Hebei to threaten Beijing in the north.

And as long as he wins this battle, his prestige will be in full swing, and no one in Daming will dare to think otherwise. A young person like Zheng Zhilong didn't dare to move.

Of course, if he fails, the consequences will be serious, but there is still no problem in holding the south, because Chen Yue did not plan to take all the troops under his command out.

Therefore, in order to be able to win and avoid defeat, this battle needs to be carefully considered.

"The internal problems of Daming don't need to be thought about too much. Zhang Dingguo has left Huguang and entered Guizhou, Guizhou Governor Wang Yingxiong, Huguang Governor Block Yinxi, and Xiao Bingbu, Zhang Dingguo can only flee north to Sichuan under several interceptions. And Zheng Sen occupied Yiling, and the Sichuan generals Zeng Ying, Li Zhanchun, Gu Jincheng and others were attacking Kuizhou and Chongqing, and it was impossible for Zhang Kewang to think of Sichuan. ”

Gu Junen analyzed the situation to Chen Yue, "As for Zheng Zhilong, since you don't want to touch him now, and you are afraid that he will make trouble, you can simply put some pressure on him and let him take care of himself."

Jiangxi's army has been assembled, Wang Ye, you can order Jin Shenghuan and Yan Yingyuan to cooperate, lead several armies to storm Zhang Nengqi, and at the same time order Linhuai Marquis Chang Yanling to take the Beijing camp from Nanjing to the south into Zhejiang, the Beijing camp after several months of reorganization The combat power has been greatly improved, Chang Yanling is also a general, whether it is loyalty to the Ming Dynasty or ability, there is no problem, and there is no problem in blocking Zhang Nengqi from entering Zhejiang.

In this way, under the attack of Zhejiang and Jiangxi on both sides, Zhang Nengqi can only lead his troops into Fujian, and as long as we hold Xianxia Pass, we can block Zhang Nengqi and prevent Fujian from coming out. And with Zhang Nengqi's thief army in Fujian, Zheng Zhilong is too late to exterminate the thieves, where is the time to make trouble with you, the prince! ”

After Chen Yue thought about it carefully, he couldn't help but praise a good idea, which could not only drive away Zhang Nengqi, who was making trouble in Jiangxi, but also make Zheng Zhilong take care of himself.

Now that the internal worries have been resolved, the only thing to consider is how to defeat the Qing army and occupy Shandong. Shandong Hong Chengchou has green battalion soldiers Li Chengdong, Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, Xu Yong, Zhao Liangdong, and the number of troops is as many as 100,000. And Beijing is the nest of the Eight Banners, although the Eight Banners have been defeated, at least there are more than 100,000 troops, and the only thing to worry about now is that when we attack Shandong, Beijing's Eight Banners will go south to support.

So we must find a way to contain this Eight Banners. Chen Yue said, and Gu Junen also thought about it.

After thinking about it for a long time, Chen Yue's eyes lit up, and he suddenly got along with an idea in his heart, "Yes, as long as you do this, you will definitely be able to make Manchu have no time to support Shandong!" ”