kingnovel Chapter 158 The war is coming
Chapter 158 The war is coming
While Lu Cheng was concentrating on managing the four guards in southern Liaoning, other parts of Liaodong were not peaceful. The reason was simple: the imperial court had no money to pay the soldiers in Liaodong.
Xiong Tingbi repeatedly applied to the court for food and money, but the ministers in the court kept making excuses and were unwilling to continue providing food and money to Liaodong.
At the same time, some officials in the court also believed that Xiong Tingbi only knew how to defend and not attack, wasting money and food, and was unworthy of the trust of the court.
At this time, Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong, wrote to the court, suggesting that the Mongols be treated with hospitality and that they be joined together to attack the Later Jin. As long as the Later Jin could be completely eliminated, there would be no need to support the hundreds of thousands of troops in Liaodong for a long time.
Many ministers in the court were opposing Xiong Tingbi, but now they all stood up to support Wang Huazhen's strategy.
Therefore, the imperial court scraped together hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and sent envoys to the grassland to meet with Ligdan Khan on the grassland.
Lin Danhan was short of money at the time. When he saw the silver sent by the Ming Dynasty, he immediately accepted it and promised to send 40 troops to help the Ming Dynasty attack the Later Jin.
When the news reached Kyoto, it immediately caused a stir in the court. Many officials became excited and shouted that they wanted to defeat Liaodong in one battle.
In order to ensure victory, many officials in the court also suggested that troops should be drawn from all over the country again and concentrated in Liaodong to join the Mongolian army on the grassland to pacify the Jianzhou Jurchens in one fell swoop.
When the news reached Liaodong, Xiong Tingbi also let out a long sigh. He knew very well that now was not the time for a decisive battle with the Jurchens, but the court had reached a consensus. Even if Xiong Tingbi did not want to go to war, he could not stop it.
For a period of time afterwards, Emperor Tianqi ordered the garrisons across the country to mobilize troops and march north, under the unified command and dispatch by Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong.
At this time, the strength of the Later Jin Dynasty had been further enhanced after half a year of recuperation and development.
After a series of setbacks in Liaodong last year, Nurhaci changed his development strategy. On the one hand, he continued to oppress Joseon and plundered all kinds of food and supplies from Joseon. On the other hand, Nurhaci further strengthened his exchanges with the Khorchin tribe on the grassland and recently formally formed an alliance.
At the same time, taking advantage of last year's natural disaster on the grassland, the Later Jin also gathered a large number of grassland cavalry who had fled there.
With sufficient troops and food supplies, the Later Jin was also brewing a new war.
However, this time the target of the Later Jin was not Liaodong, but the Chahar tribe of Ligdan Khan.
If the Later Jin could annex the Chahar tribe, it would be able to encircle Liaodong from the east, north and west, and could even cut off the connection between Liaodong and the interior from outside the Great Wall.
After Lu Cheng learned of this information, he felt helpless. With the troops and weapons and equipment Lu Cheng currently had, he was still unable to fight against the Later Jin army in a field battle.
If it was a city defense war, the Later Jin would not be able to capture any of the cities in the four guards of southern Liaoning.
But when it comes to field battles, Lu Cheng's men are basically infantrymen and cannot gain the initiative in the war.
Thinking of this, Lu Cheng asked the logistics department to step up the production of new firearms while also preparing for the worst.
If the Later Jin attacked Ligdan Khan, he would definitely be defeated. If the Ming army went north to the grasslands and fought against the Later Jin, it would definitely be gradually destroyed by the Later Jin cavalry.
If the worst happens and Liaodong loses most of its troops and the Later Jin annexes the Khorchin and Chahar tribes, Lu Cheng's supply lines with the interior may be threatened.
In order to deal with this situation, Lu Cheng sent more men to the south of the Yangtze River, purchased as many ships as possible, opened up a sea transportation line, and strengthened the connection between Jinzhou Wei and Dengzhou Prefecture through Bohai Sea.
Of course, these are just the worst-case plans. Lu Cheng will also try his best to create some trouble for the Later Jin so that they cannot attack the Chahar tribe with all their strength.
When necessary, Lu Cheng would also send special forces with new rifles to wait for opportunities to assassinate some senior generals of the Later Jin Dynasty, or even kill Nurhaci directly, to buy time for his own development.
As time went by, the troops dispatched from all over the country to Liaodong were gradually gathering outside the Great Wall.
However, at this time, the military garrisons across the Ming Dynasty had already become dilapidated, and more than half of the migrant households in various places had already been receiving empty salaries, so not many troops could be dispatched.
After a period of assembly, a total of more than 4 troops were gathered from the two lakes, two Guangdongs, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas and dispatched to the outside of the Great Wall.
As for the troops from the Central Plains, Southwest China, and Northwest China, they are still arriving one after another.
A great war is about to begin, and Lu Cheng's firearms workshop is also working at full capacity to produce new rifles.
After several months of running-in, the firearms workshop has trained a group of skilled craftsmen. Coupled with the optimization of the production process, it can now produce 100 rifles and 160 lances every month.
Of course, those lances just have shorter barrels and a shorter range, and can be used as rifles.
At the same time, Lu Cheng also sent a group of people to occupy some islands along the coast and formed a pirate group. They often entered the occupied areas of the Later Jin and the Joseon Dynasty to carry out looting and harassment.
Jinzhou Wei in southern Liaoning has also established a stable route between it and Penglai in Dengzhou Prefecture, which can transport various materials from Dengzhou Prefecture to Jinzhou Wei to provide supplies for southern Liaoning.
Of course, these are all fallbacks.
In August of the first year of the Tianqi reign, the Later Jin assembled 50,000 Eight Banners troops, plus more than 30,000 Mongolian cavalry, claiming to be an army of 150,000, and marched southwest from the Khorchin tribe in northeastern Liaodong.
Lin Danhan of the Chahar tribe immediately summoned troops from various tribes on the grassland, preparing for a decisive battle with the Later Jin on the grassland.
However, at this time, the various tribes on the grassland no longer wanted to obey Ligdan Khan's command and were unwilling to actively cooperate.
In the end, Ligdan Khan mobilized all the troops of the Chahar tribe, plus part of the troops of the Khalkha tribe and the Tumed tribe, but the total number was only more than 40,000 troops.
Faced with the aggressive Later Jin army, Lin Danhan had to ask for help from the Ming Dynasty.
Wang Huazhen, who was receiving troops from various places in Liaoxi, immediately submitted a petition to the court, requesting troops to assist Ligdan Khan.
The imperial court immediately agreed to Wang Huazhen's request to send troops, and asked Xiong Tingbi to mobilize troops from various parts of Liaodong to cooperate with Wang Huazhen in a decisive battle with the Later Jin army.
I have to say that the Ming Dynasty court's actions were one after another. Before I could fully recover, I was already thinking about a decisive battle with the enemy.
After Lu Cheng received the transfer order from Xiong Tingbi, he had no choice but to draw troops from the four guards in southern Liaoning and prepare to march north.
However, Lu Cheng was not prepared to let his troops participate in a head-on battle.
After this period of accumulation, the firearms workshop produced another 300 rifles, 400 lances, and eight simple mortars.
Lu Cheng is not ready to expose the mortar, a powerful weapon, for the time being. He just keeps it in the warehouse of Haizhouwei and keeps it strictly confidential.
As for the new rifles and lances, except for a part that was equipped to the special forces and the reconnaissance brigade, the rest were all used to equip the infantry to form a 500-man musket team.
The original special operations team of 100 people was further expanded after it formed mature combat effectiveness. The number of people has reached , and it is divided into two levels of special operations teams, A and B, to respond to different mission requirements.
Before the emergence of pistols, semi-automatic or even fully automatic rifles, no matter how excellent the special forces were, they needed a certain number of people to complete various extremely difficult tasks.
For example, if you are sniping a target at a long distance, one or two people can complete the sniping mission if they have a high-precision sniper rifle.
However, due to the limitations of rifles, even if you want to snipe a target from 300 meters away, you need several or even a dozen accurate shooters to shoot at the same time to ensure a high success rate.
In close combat, the Land Rifle's firing rate of two or three rounds per minute greatly limited the power of the musket.
Therefore, although the special forces under Lu Cheng are equipped with rifles, bows and crossbows are still very important weapons.
Nowadays, the 200-member special forces team has also been assigned to perform various tasks. Some go to assist the intelligence department, some go to assist the development of pirate groups, some perform reconnaissance and sabotage tasks in the grasslands and Later Jin, and some are responsible for assisting in defense work in the four guards of southern Liaoning, etc.
This time, Lu Cheng only brought 50 special forces, 500 cavalry, and 4,000 infantry drawn from the four guards in southern Liaoning, a total of less than 5,000 soldiers to participate in this major battle...