After the sacrifice was completed, Zhu Youzhen ordered to convene a military meeting of generals above the rank of deputy general, of course, Wu Xiang and other defeated generals who were reorganizing the troops did not participate in this meeting, and several wounded generals such as Man Gui were also excluded from the meeting.

For this arrangement of the emperor, whether it was Zu Dashou and others, or Zhang Chun and others, they were all relieved. Judging from the attendees, the emperor did not make any obvious move to take sides, which made both sides less resistant.

Zu Dashou did not dare to make a decision to oppose the emperor's counterattack on the Houjin army in front of the army, but when he followed the generals back to the Chinese army yamen in Malanzhuang, he finally recovered some of his spirits and began to think about how to delay the counterattack order that the emperor had just made.

And Wang Zaijin, Wang Zhichen and other civil officials were a little distracted, their eyes drifted to the emperor's head from time to time, and before they could react, the emperor cut off his hair, which was really an extremely bad thing.

The body is skinned, and the parents who receive it dare not destroy it, and the beginning of filial piety is also. This is a sentence in the "Book of Filial Piety, the Opening of the Sect", and the emperor ruled the world with benevolence and filial piety, although the emperor cut off his hair to replace the calf to sacrifice the heroic spirit, but there is still a suspicion of unfilial piety. Most importantly, according to Confucian ethical standards, it is natural for a soldier to be loyal to the king, and the king can reward the meritorious soldiers with high-ranking officials, but not in a way that damages his own body.

To put it simply, the subordinate must be loyal to the superior, but the superior does not have to be responsible for the inferior, otherwise it is against the norms of human ethics. One or two failures like the Santun camp were not enough to shake the rule of the Ming Dynasty, but if the Code of Ethics was destroyed, it was possible that the ruling order of the Ming Dynasty would collapse completely.

If it was a clear stream like Wen Zhenmeng, he would have directly admonished Chongzhen regardless of it, but Wang Zaijin and Wang Zhichen were civil officials who could do some practical things after all, and of course they knew that it was impossible to stop the emperor's actions on such occasions, and the exhortation would instead hit the emperor's image in the hearts of the army, so they didn't say anything after all.

However, when Wang Zaijin and the others returned to the hall of the meeting, they suddenly realized that if the Eastern Route Army could not improve in the next battle, then Chongzhen's move of cutting his hair to encourage the soldiers would become an absurd move of the emperor after the war.

And these civil officials, who were present and did not admonish, would obviously become the villains who lured the emperor into making absurd acts. At this point, Wang Zaijin and other officials found themselves unwittingly sitting in the same boat as the emperor, and if they could not achieve a victory as soon as possible, their reputation and the emperor's reputation could be slandered.

After Zhu Youzhen sat down on the main seat in the hall, he glanced at everyone in the hall with his eyes, and then said: "I just swore in front of all the soldiers that I would collect the bodies of the martyrs so that they can return to their hometowns.

Since we want to collect the remains of the martyrs, we naturally have to drive the Tartars out of the pass first, and now you all have to discuss, how do we counterattack the Tartar army in front of us next, a few general soldiers will talk about it first, and start with the ancestral general soldiers. ”

Zu Dashou was obviously a little unexpected, and he had been thinking about how to explain to the emperor that the defeat of the Santun camp had demoralized the army, and now was obviously not a good time to counterattack.

Unexpectedly, what the emperor asked was not whether to counterattack, but how to counterattack, which made all his calculations just now fall short, and he had to reply hesitantly: "Your Majesty asked to counterattack the Tartars in front of you, which is naturally excellent." However, the last general thought that the defeat and retreat of the Manshuai in the Santun camp before would be a great blow to the morale of our army, and now if the order is given to let them fight, I am afraid that the sergeants will not fight with their hearts..."

Zhu Youzhen listened for a while and then interrupted him and said, "What I want you to discuss is not whether it is appropriate to send troops now, but whether you have any plans to send troops.

Now that you are the commander of the garrison of Malanzhuang, don't you even have a plan to fight back against the Tartars? All things are foreseen, and those who are not prepared are wasted. You don't even have a plan to send troops, how can you mobilize an army when the Tartars show their flaws? Could it be that you are going to sit here and wait for the Tartars to rob enough, and then automatically retreat?

If that's the case, what do I want you to do as a soldier? The imperial court collects millions of salaries from the people of the world every year, is it just to raise an army that sits and watches the Tartars to plunder their own people? ”

Chongzhen's dissatisfied tone suddenly made Zu Dashou hurriedly kneel down on one knee, and said to himself: "The minister didn't mean this, it's just that the morale of the army has been low these days, and the minister has tried his best to maintain the defense of Malanzhuang and resist the daily attacks of the Tartars.

As long as His Majesty gives the order, the minister is willing to take the lead and fight to the death with the Tartars, and will never dare to fail His Majesty. ”

Zhu Youzhen glanced at him, and then said in a slightly softened tone: "General Soldier Zu is still concerned about Ma Lanzhuang's defensive measures, and I also see it in my eyes. However, as the commander of the first army, if there is no offensive **, it is an unqualified performance, I hope that the ancestor will keep it in mind. Then let Mr. Zhu talk about it. ”

There was an example of Zu Dashou being beaten by the emperor, and the generals in the camp suddenly understood what the emperor's intentions were. Regardless of whether or not there was a plan to send troops, Zhu Mei, Ma Dengyun and other generals first expressed their approval of the position of sending troops.

After several generals finished speaking their opinions, it was the turn of the deputy commanders and lieutenants to express their opinions, and after seeing the speeches of the previous generals, they were treated, even Zu Dashou's younger brother Zu Dabi and cousin Zu Dale did not dare to speak out to support their brothers.

When it was the turn of Adjutant General He Kegang to speak, he was different from the general remarks of the previous generals, but after expressing his support for sending troops, he also described a counterattack plan in detail.

“… Our army and Tatar are now facing each other across the Luan River, and there is an unnamed hill directly north of Malanzhuang, and after the Luan River bypasses this hill, it turns to the southeast, and finally flows due south from the gap between the two mountains to the east of Malanzhuang.

With this hill as the dividing line, the Luan River above it has a large drop, and most of the two sides are canyons, which are difficult to cross. After crossing the hill, the drop in the riverbed narrows and the flow of the river eases. In the upper valley area, the width of the river is about 100 meters during the flat water period, but it expands to more than 200 meters after passing the hill.

Because of the slow flow of the river, there are many sandbars in the middle of the river on the Luan River from the hill to the mouth of the West Gorge. Therefore, although the river is wide, it is easy to cross. From the hill to the north of Malanzhuang to the mouth of the West Gorge to the east of Malanzhuang, the length of this section of the river is about 3,000 meters long.

Originally, there were four bridges on this section of the river, three wooden bridges and one stone arch bridge, but the Tartars demolished three wooden bridges, leaving only the stone arch bridge to the northeast. Our troops occupied the west side of the bridge, while the Tartars occupied the east side of the bridge, and built a barracks on the other side of the bridge, where about five hundred men were stationed.

The 3,000-meter river beachhead near our army is basically flat and there is no danger to defend. On the other side of the river, there are three hills from west to southeast, and the terrain on the opposite side is cut into two openings of different widths.

Less than 500 meters north of the east side of the stone bridge is an isolated hill in the middle, which is called Jinshan by the locals, and the west side of Jinqiao is a mouth less than 2 miles long, and the east side is a mouth more than 3 miles long.

The open space in front of the eastern entrance was not large, making it difficult to deploy troops, and the Tartars placed a small number of troops here. Although the area in front of the western mouth is larger, the Tartars have built a large camp here, and our army needs to cross the river under the noses of the Tartars and seize this large camp before they can launch a direct attack on the western mouth.

Judging from the observations of the past few days, the total number of garrisons of the opposite Tartars will not exceed 8,000, the mouth of the east will be about 500 people, the Jinshan will be about 1,500 people, the small battalion east of the bridge will be stationed about 500 people, the west camp will be stationed no less than 5,000 people, and the total number of small stockades erected along the river in front of the large camp will not exceed 1,000.

Therefore, if our army wants to cross the river, it must first take the stone bridge, and if we want to repel the Tartars and seize a passage for attack, we must occupy the gold mountain north of the stone bridge.

As long as they captured Jinshan, they could divide the Tartars' army in two, and then seize the eastern pass with a condescending position, and even if the Tartars kept the western pass, they would have to retreat to Goean in the north.

However, before we take the eastern pass, whether we take control of the stone bridge or Jinshan, we will be in the middle of a three-sided attack by the Tartars, and our casualties may exceed expectations. ”

He Kegang's battle plan was decent, but the generals present immediately realized that this was a battle plan without tricks, and this plan was a tough battle after battle from the beginning, which was simply fighting for the lives of Houjin.

Although the number of Ming troops in Malanzhuang is more than that of the Tartars on the opposite side, when it comes to the loss of human lives, they may not be able to reach the Tartars on the opposite side. Although the Liaodong Ming Army is the army with the most rich combat experience in the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty, it has been fighting for almost ten years since Nurhachi raised his army.

After so many years of fighting, the proportion of veterans in the Liaodong Army is far greater than that of the border armies, but the number of soldiers and gangsters in it also exceeds that of other border armies.

According to the city defense, these sergeants can probably obey military orders, but if they are asked to fight such a desperate field battle, these generals are a little worried about whether their subordinates will mutiny.

So after He Kegang finished talking about his battle plan, voices questioning him began to appear. For example, some generals believed that there must be more than 8,000 Tartars on the opposite side, because the soldiers who had retreated from the Santun camp had said that they had encountered an ambush by tens of thousands of cavalry, and at least five banners appeared in the Jurchen Eight Banners.

Therefore, now the Tartars are just showing weakness to the enemy, and perhaps the main force is lying in ambush somewhere, and is planning to ambush them again. Just in case, it is better to send more sentinels to find out the surrounding situation and then attack with all your might.

And some people have proposed that Sun Tzu's art of war has clouds, and it is right to match and win by wonder. It is better to divide the troops into two routes, one to contain the Tartars on the other side of the river, and the other to cross the river from the south of the West Gorge, and then go through the mountains and forests to the back of the Tartars to raid. However, this person did not consider how to solve the logistical supply problem of crossing the mountains and forests in this season, and how the lightly armed Ming army would attack the Tartar cavalry relying on the camp.

However, although some generals questioned He Kegang's plan, nearly one-third of the generals chose to support He Kegang's battle plan, and even Zu Dashou was unexpected.

And the other two-thirds of the generals, most of them are also waiting for Chongzhen's decision, as for Zu Dashou, who has always been the representative of the Liaoxi Generals, he became a loner at this meeting.