"Gather all the officers and officers to the meeting." Now the officers that Deng Ming was able to summon were third-class lieutenants, and soon, in addition to the officers on duty, more than a hundred lieutenants were gathered to participate in the military meeting.

In an army with as many as 8,000 soldiers, the highest rank is only captain, and the total number of officers at the rank of lieutenant is less than 200. These officers turned out to be relatively high-prestige among the coastal volunteers, and they had hardly received any military training, and they learned everything from arranging troops to identifying flags and banners on the way from Nanjing to Fengjie.

During the battle in Hubei, whether it was Huangzhou Mansion or other lesser-known counties, Deng Ming would hold a summary meeting every time he broke through the city; Even earlier in Nanjing, a summary meeting of all officers would be held for such things as camping and marching. Therefore, all the officers were familiar with the form and process of the meeting, and knew that the Chinese military tent did not have such a large territory, and there were not enough chairs, so everyone brought a small maza; Once they entered the canvas-framed meeting place, they automatically arranged their seats according to their rank rather than affinity, and sat on their own mazaars waiting for the meeting to begin.

When Deng Ming appeared, the officers in the venue stood up neatly and greeted the young commander, and when Deng Ming walked to his place and took his seat, these officers also sat down. This reaction made Deng Ming very satisfied, the Zhejiang army, which was originally a volunteer army, not only loved each other, but was also far from being as hierarchical as other Ming troops, and the officers could sit calmly beside the commander.

This kind of post-war summary meeting was part of Deng Ming's military training, and if the training was not conducted, the benefits of actual combat experience to the soldiers would be very limited. A typical example is the superstitious Yangmen Array and Yīn* Gate Formation of Liu Tichun, He Zhen and others, due to the lack of training in the army of this era, the officers and soldiers often attributed the victory to some inexplicable reason in the summary of their own experience, such as the zodiac auspicious rì, which corresponds to their own zodiac signs and Tai Sui, or tied a just right strip of red cloth.

Spontaneous lessons learned are a common phenomenon that is widespread in all armies, and military directors adopt a laissez-faire attitude towards it. First of all, the officer does not think that this is a bad thing, and if the soldier has a strong superstitious mind, it will be more helpful for the officer to control it; Secondly, officers were also influenced by this atmosphere, and after hearing all kinds of rumors, home remedies, and secret tips, they believed them to be true.

However, Deng Ming would not tolerate this, and strictly forbade the spread of such fallacies among the army, and if anyone was found to be preaching such tricks as invulnerability, then all officers and men would be transferred to the auxiliary corps, and there would be no room for accommodating them in the slightest.

In addition to superstition, there are other misguided thoughts, such as under the city of Nanjing, the Zhejiang soldiers thought that the field battle was to wait for the enemy to eat and sleep to fight them, or disguise themselves as enemy soldiers to camp for them, and then burn the joint camp. Once this idea is formed, it will be very stubborn, and Deng Ming and Li Laiheng can't reverse it with great effort - to Deng Ming's rejoicing, thousands of Zhejiang soldiers who believe in this theory have been taken away by Zhang Huangyan, and now it's time for Zhang Shangshu to have a headache about how to change the concept of soldiers.

Imparting experience before the war and summing up lessons after the war, so that officers and men can know why they won and why they lost, and strengthened their understanding through actual combat, this is Deng Ming's plan. Actual combat, especially victory, will make the officers and men more convinced of the theories they have learned, just as the three great victories under the city of Nanjing made the Zhejiang soldiers at that time convinced themselves of the field theories they summed up on their own -- once this first impression is formed and firmly integrated with the first victory, it is almost unshakable.

For the military popularization education carried out in the army, the most supportive person is Ren Tang, because the volunteers in Zhoushan originally lacked military knowledge, and Zhang Huangyan's military experience was not as rich as Li Dingguo and Zheng Chenggong, so there were a large number of superstitious concepts in the Zhejiang Ming army, which were denounced as superstitious by Deng Ming.

Zhou Kaihuang and Zhao Tianba, who were familiar with the inside story of Chuang Ying and Xiying, Li Xinghan, who represented the tradition of the Ming army, and Mu Tan, who had been a pirate, all felt that Deng Ming's training was unprecedented.

Li Xinghan said that he had heard that Qi Jiguang and Qi Shaobao had written some articles and had a military book with training content, but most of the officers in the Ming army were illiterate, and most of the generals had not read that book; The armies of Chuang Ying, Xiying, and Zheng Chenggong did not have any training manuals, nor did they have any methods to help officers grow, and everyone understood the battlefield experience on their own, and then went to the battlefield to test. The more correct ingredients a person realizes, the more chances he has of surviving, and then passing on these military ideas that contain correct ingredients and superstitions to others - even the experience of Li Dingguo and Zheng Chenggong summed up by themselves, and it also contains a large number of wrong theories, but the proportion of errors is relatively low.

This kind of military theory is the personal property of the generals, which they cherish and do not show to others. Deng Ming's large-scale summary and communication among the officer group can be said to be unprecedented and unique in the world. For example, Zhou Kaihuang, who won the trust of Yuan Zongdi, all the knowledge that Yuan Zongdi taught him was just to enable Zhou Kaihuang to properly complete the task of the Yasukuni bus generation, and as for the officers below the general level, there is no need to know how to win, as long as they know how to obey orders.

Deng Ming not only carried out military popularization education among lieutenant officers, but also asked these lieutenants to convey the knowledge they had learned, the training methods, and the reasons why they were conducting various trainings to the sergeants below, and encouraged the sergeants to further pass on this knowledge to the soldiers.

The officers who participated in the military meeting today were all very good, and the battle in the morning was completely one-sided, and the Ming army killed and wounded more than 1,000 Qing soldiers without much effort, and the remaining more than 10,000 people were captured by the Ming army.

Several captains spoke one after another, believing that the key to the victory of the Ming army was the good equipment and hard training, and no one mentioned the fate of heaven, or the imperial court's Hongfu Qitian and other reasons - when the Huangzhou Mansion was attacked, a captain once said at the summary meeting that "relying on Admiral Hongfu" was the primary reason for victory. Perhaps this was not his original intention, but he was accustomed to putting this sentence at the front of his speech, and was transferred to the auxiliary army on the spot by Deng Ming on the grounds of "spreading baseless and unverifiable superstitious remarks".

If this is just an accidental phenomenon, it will be forgotten, because before this, similar remarks have been repeatedly banned, and seeing that the good Zhejiang officers have become more and more fluent in such clichés, and the number of them has become more and more proportional, Deng Ming finally could not bear it anymore, and made up his mind to punish him severely, and no matter who interceded, he would never agree to transfer that officer back to the combat unit.

Since then, there has been a simple style of seeking truth from facts at military meetings, and after observing for a while, everyone found that the possibility of the unlucky guy resuming his original post was very small, so they no longer spoke of flattery.

On the battlefield this morning, there was confusion on both flanks, and the officers all believed that it was due to the lack of relevant training and the lack of experience in adjusting formations in the heat of battle from top to bottom. Several ensigns who were the first to control the unit also introduced their experiences in public.

Shut down

Now everyone knows that at a military meeting, you can say "My army did not have chaos because I did not obey the stupid orders of the admiral", but you cannot say "it is because I burned incense to the Bodhisattva yesterday". While Deng Ming has no objection to someone burning incense to the Bodhisattva – no one can object to it – if anyone dares to use this as a lesson learned, they must come up with a convincing explanation as to why it doesn't work for others to burn incense. Several officers who were questioned repeatedly told Deng Ming the truth that "sincerity leads to spirit", but they could not produce concrete evidence, and as a result, there was only one way to end up, that is, to be transferred to serve in the auxiliary army.

The training method of queue change is ready-made, Deng Ming did not let everyone discuss it, but directly took out the military training method of his previous life, but now he is the only one who can do this well. Deng Ming is not in a hurry about this, the left and right rotation is the same as riding a bicycle, at the beginning it is the brain that directs the body, it is inevitable that the movements are stiff and the reaction speed is slow, but after many exercises, it will be transferred to the cerebellum control, and at that time it is a subconscious reaction. In the admiring eyes of everyone, Deng Ming did a few demonstrations, telling everyone that he would first teach this set of training methods to his own guards, and then pass it on from level to level.

"Rotate left and right, look to the left, look to the right, and now I know why I have to learn this in military training class. But what is the purpose of "one and two" reports? Deng Ming hesitated for a moment, and finally did not teach his subordinates the training method of reporting numbers, of course, this is not special training during the nuclear war, but I still don't understand what it is for, tell it to the officers, they don't know what it is for, let's keep it later.

In addition to formation training, there were also suggestions for the need for more communication training. Now Deng Ming's army has the normal communication ability of the army in this era, but it is difficult to carry out complex communication. For example, today's adjustment of the two wings is chaotic because of this. The army of this era was in a complex terrain, and the Chinese army could not quickly issue complex orders to the two wings, but could only improve it through long-term cooperation between the commander and the general. For example, Zheng Chenggong's right-hand men Gan Hui and Yu Xin, they have served under Zheng Chenggong for more than ten years, and have fought dozens of battles with the king of Yanping County, and they are already quite familiar with each other, so Zheng Chenggong does not need too complicated banners to command them to carry out complex military operations.

On this issue, Deng Ming couldn't come up with any training methods to strengthen, so he could only let everyone discuss, but he didn't discuss a good way. At the end of the meeting, Deng Ming proposed to treat the captives well and strive to convert them all into residents and laborers in western Sichuan. Another content is to inform the whole army of the intention to retreat.

Although he ordered the whole army to retreat, Deng Ming had a feeling that the enemy would not let the Ming army withdraw lightly.

…… At the same time that the Ming army held a military meeting of all the captains, Li Guoying gathered a large number of generals in Ba County to study the next military action of the Qing army.

In addition to the armor cavalry of the standard camp, there were 100 Manchurian Eight Banner soldiers and nearly 8,000 armor soldiers in the city of Chóngqìng. When he first discovered that Deng Ming's baggage was evacuated, Li Guoying considered the problem of pursuing the Ming army. The first target pursued by the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi was Yuan Zongdi, because the number of the Eastern Army was small, and according to Li Guoying's observations, the equipment did not seem to be as good as Deng Ming's direct troops. The most important thing is that Yuan Zongdi is an old opponent that Li Guoying is more familiar with, rather than an enemy like Deng Ming who suddenly appears and is completely confused - if he has a choice, Li Guoying would rather fight a familiar and strong enemy than fight rashly before figuring out the right way.

However, Li Guoying didn't expect that Deng Ming would think the same as himself, as the head of the first army, but stay as a general. By the time Deng Ming showed signs of retreat, Yuan Zongdi was already far away from Chóngqìng, and he couldn't catch up with him anymore.

The battle of Chóngqìng exposed many of Li Guoying's weaknesses, the most terrible of which was the slow long supply line from Guangyuan to Chóngqìng. Previously, the national strategic center of gravity of the Qing court had been in Yunnan and Guizhou, and after the Nanjing War, it was likely that the Qing court would still pay more attention to the southeast. The situation in the Ganxi region had often been ignored by the Qing court before, and Li Guoying estimated that the Ganshan region would become even more insignificant in the imperial court's mind in the future, and there would be no measures to improve the resources or strengthen the many strongholds along the supply line.

The strength of the Qing army in Chóngqìng grew rapidly, which made Deng Ming and Yuan Zongdi worried, and many people in the Ming army were worried that the strength of the Qing army would continue to grow rapidly, and the longer the time dragged on, the less the Ming army would be able to threaten Chóngqìng; Li Guoying, on the other hand, feared that the Qing government would further reduce its support for the Gan-Shaanxi theater because of the tensions between the southeast and Yunnan-Guizhou. Now that the war potential of the Ganxi region has almost been squeezed out by Li Guoying, if the Qing court is unwilling to increase investment, then the current strength of Chóngqìng is the limit that Li Guoying can maintain.

Once the Ming army returning to western Sichuan began to march into a military camp, their strength would continue to increase, and Li Guoying felt that sooner or later Deng Ming would be able to turn his verbal threat to Baoning into a reality, and at that time Chóngqìng would really not be able to hold on any longer.

There is only one chance for Li Guoying to turn the tide of the situation, and that is to launch a pursuit of the retreating Ming army, if he can eliminate Deng Ming's main force, Li Guoying can take advantage of the situation to seize Chengdu and stabilize Sichuan once and for all; If he can't do it, he will also have to deal a heavy blow to Deng Ming's army, so that he needs to spend a lot of time recovering his vitality, so that the Ming army's counteroffensive will come as late as possible, and perhaps by that time the imperial court has solved the problem of southeast and Yungui, and can send more resources to Li Guoying.

Although Li Guoying was aware of this, before receiving news from Zhao Liangdong, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi knew that he had no ability to turn his dream into reality. In order to guard against Yuan Zongdi's return horse pistol, he had to leave at least one or two thousand pre-jǐng troops in Chóngqìng, so that there were only seven or eight thousand armored soldiers who could be used to pursue Deng Ming, and this number was no more than Deng Ming.

After receiving the news of the arrival of Zhao Liangdong's army, Li Guoying immediately felt that this was an opportunity given to him by God, and Sichuan would not be lost again. After rushing to the south bank to meet with Zhao Liangdong, Li Guoying calculated the strength of the Qing army, if there were 1,000 newly arrived troops left to guard Chóngqìng, then in addition to Li Guoying's 1,000 standard battalion cavalry, he also had 10,000 armor soldiers of the Ganshan Green Battalion, while Deng Ming's armor soldiers were estimated to be around seven or eight thousand.

"Most of the thieves' soldiers are Zhejiang soldiers, and there are some new recruits from Huguang, who are not familiar with the people here, and they have only been in the army for a few months, how many catties and taels can they have?" Zhao Liangdong said.

Zhao Liangdong's estimate of Deng Ming's strength was even lower than Li Guoying's, and he pointed out that under normal circumstances, recruits who had just been in the army for a few months would not be able to form combat effectiveness at all, and even if they had armor, it would be useless. Moreover, Zhao Liangdong also expressed doubts about whether Deng Ming could make up thousands of pairs of armor for his subordinates in just a few months - neither Li Guoying nor Zhao Liangdong knew how heavy the losses of the Qing army in Huguang and Nanjing were. They felt that Zhang Changgeng's report did not look very terrible, that Deng Ming's income was limited, and that the spoils of war obtained from Hu Quancai had to be shared with many of the Eastern generals.

As for the battle of Nanjing, Li Guoying and Zhao Liangdong both believed that Deng Ming's capture should be based on military rations, so they could not get in touch with the rebels to seize Nanjing when Guan Xiaozhong had already launched a civil strife and took the city gate; Later, Deng Ming encountered a sāo disturbance from Zhou Juren in Hubei, and Deng Ming was helpless.

No matter how Jiang Guozhu and Zhang Changgeng boasted about Deng Ming's strength and their hard-won draw, in the eyes of others, that is, Deng Ming could not completely defeat the weak enemy army, which can only show that Deng Ming's strength is very limited.

"Now that the Governor has won a new victory, the morale of our army is high, and the soldiers are united and go straight to the Deng Ming camp, which is a good time to annihilate all the thieves." Zhao Liangdong was anxious to launch an attack and wash away his reputation for abandoning the army and absconding.

Because Li Guoying did not panic when he encountered the enemy, and expected the enemy to be like a god, now the Qing army in Chóngqìng was greatly inspired, and Wang Mingde and others were ashamed, and they all worshiped Li Guoying to the ground. Therefore, this time, none of the generals of the Chóngqìng faction opposed the pursuit of Deng Ming, but everyone was gearing up and shouting: "The last general dares to ask the governor to order the Manchurian soldiers to go into battle." Since the emperor set the throne, as long as the Manchurian soldiers went into battle, the thieves were all broken, and our army was brave. ”

"Our army's infantry is about twice as large as the enemy's soldiers, the cavalry is more than the number of thieves, and there are Manchurian soldiers behind to supervise the formation, which will definitely defeat the thieves in one fell swoop and wipe out the entire Sichuan."

"If the Deng thief did not dare to fight, but just retreated in the camp, the governor personally led the army to detour in front of him, and the last general and other commanders of the headquarters attacked the various camps. There is a governor in front of him blocking the way, and there is a night attack on the last general, and if you don't count it, the morale of his army will be in chaos, and a battle can be decided. ”

As two days ago, Zhao Liangdong once again confidently came up with his own attack plan, and then looked at Li Guoying, Wang Mingde, Daniel Zhang, Wang Jinbao and other generals with hope.