As soon as Huang Degong arrived, Chongzhen's back was finally hardened.
Because this is a true loyal minister and he listens to you.
What's more important is that Huang Degong also has a relatively capable army under his command.
This army will definitely not be able to defeat the Dashun Army and Jiannu, but it can defeat the rebels with ease. Historically, Zuo Liangyu's 100,000 rebels were defeated by Huang Degong's army.
So there is no need to worry about anything happening to Li Chengdong and the others.
Before Huang Degong came, Chongzhen did not even dare to let the border troops of Shiba Town build forts, because he was afraid that they would not be able to endure the hardship, and if they were incited by the general soldiers with ulterior motives, there would be another mass incident.
The pay dispute has not been completely resolved, so we don't dare to let it happen again.
So these days, Chongzhen just asked the Eighteen Towns' frontier troops to conduct formation training, and implemented a plan to cut off the foundation of the Eighteen Towns' general officers.
Only the 20,000 Xiangyong and Guard troops have been reinforcing Xuzhou's city defense.
But now, it is time for the frontier troops in the eighteen towns to participate in the construction of fortifications. No, it is the frontier troops in the twenty-eight towns who must participate in the construction of fortifications.
After lunch, Chongzhen asked Ma Huabao to play drums to gather the generals.
When the drum sounded and the three links were sounded, the general soldiers of the other seventeen towns rushed to Ma Huabao's camp.
After the ceremony, Chongzhen said to the commander-in-chief of the 28th Town: "You must be curious, why should I transfer all your 28th Town border troops to Xuzhou? What should I do?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Han Zanzhou, who came with Huang Degong, said eagerly: "Long live Lord, I know, I know why Long live Lord transferred the 28 towns to Xuzhou."
"Oh, really?" Chongzhen said, "Then you can tell me."
Han Zanzhou said: "Of course Long live this move is for the Northern Expedition and the restoration of the capital."
After hearing this, the commander-in-chief of the ten towns who had just followed Huang Degong to Xuzhou was fine, but the expressions of the commander-in-chief of the eighteen towns such as Li Chengdong suddenly changed.
Northern Expedition? Restoration of the Capital?
How about playing? You want to die, but we still want to live for a few more days.
During these days in Xuzhou, bad news kept coming from Daming Mansion.
Wu Sangui, a traitor, had completely surrendered to Jiannu, and Guan Ningjun had become Jiannu's lackey.
The dignitaries in Beijing first surrendered to the bandits, and then after the bandits were beaten away, they surrendered and became slaves.
But now, the life of these traitors is not easy, because Jiannu is forcing them to shave their heads, and now the officials, gentry and common people in many states and counties in the North are making trouble.
Also, following the defeat of Yiyishi, the bandits suffered another unprecedented defeat in Qingdu. General Gu Kecheng and the entire army of 20,000 bandits were wiped out.
From this we can conclude that the slaves were more ferocious than the bandits.
The border troops of the Ming Dynasty couldn't even defeat rogue bandits, so they still wanted to fight slaves?
Wu Sangui could take care of them without Jiannu taking action.
Therefore, the Northern Expedition was impossible, and the only way to survive was to stay in Xuzhou.
But fortunately, Chongzhen shook his head and said: "The Northern Expedition must be carried out, but not now. I don't want to deceive myself and others, nor will I force everyone to do things they can't do."
"At this stage, my Ming Dynasty is not capable of the Northern Expedition."
"Li Zicheng's hundreds of thousands of bandits were defeated by Jiannu,"
"Our 120,000 frontier troops are even less likely to be the opponents of Jiannu."
"The only thing we can do now is to defend and defend the Huanghuai defense line."
"I don't want to say these words to make other people's ambitions destroy their own prestige, but facts speak louder than words. If you refuse to face reality, you will have to pay a bloody price. The Ming Dynasty can no longer withstand too big a storm."
Hearing this, Huang Degong nodded lightly and said to himself that the Holy One really knows how to fight.
Li Chengdong and other commander-in-chiefs of the 28th Town breathed a sigh of relief, as long as it was not the Northern Expedition.
Chongzhen said again: "I just talked about the Huanghuai Defense Line. I will show you something."
After saying this, Chongzhen signaled Wu Baotan to bring the war horse over, and then got on the horse. Huang Degong, Li Chengdong and other twenty-eight town generals also followed suit.
The group of people went straight into Xuzhou City and arrived in front of the state government office.
As soon as I entered the front yard, I saw Lu Jiude and a dozen eunuchs coming in and out, cleaning.
Seeing Chongzhen, Lu Jiude immediately stepped forward to greet him and said with a flattering face: "Long live Lord, the map you ordered has been built."
"I know." Chongzhen went straight in.
Huang Degong and the commander-in-chief of the 28th Town also walked into the lobby one after another.
I saw that the long desk in the lobby and the chairs in both classes had been removed and replaced by a long desk.
Huang Degong and the commander-in-chief of the 28th Town, Ding Qing, looked at it and saw that the map of the Yellow River displayed on the long desk stretched for more than 1,500 miles from Kaifeng Prefecture to Huai'an Prefecture.
The center of the map is Xuzhou, where they are now.
There are also Guide Prefecture and Fengyang Prefecture in the south, and Daming Prefecture and Yanzhou Prefecture in the north.
What surprised Huang Degong, Li Chengdong and the others even more was that this map was actually three-dimensional, with mountains, rivers and even cities all so lifelike and lifelike.
Lu Jiude and Gao Qiqian were really thoughtful this time.
Lu Jiude said flatteringly: "Long live my lord, and all the chief townsmen, our family and Eunuch Gao led people to make this map of the Yellow River for seven days and seven nights. Especially these cities and fortresses were specially found.
It was carved by carpenters in the city. By the way, this is a model of the fortress, which was specially ordered to be built by Lord Long Live."
After Lu Jiude finished speaking, two young eunuchs carried out a wooden fortress model from the side.
This model is about three feet square, about a foot tall, and is in the shape of a concave polygon.
"Western musket?" Huang Degong, Hu Guozhu and several other general soldiers from Liaodong said in silence.
"Yes, a Western musket." Chongzhen was familiar with the history of the late Ming Dynasty and knew that Western bastions had long been introduced to the Ming Dynasty. The Ningyuan City built by Sun Chengzong was a large bastion.
The bastion evolved to its extreme in Europe.
But it has long been eliminated in China.
The reason is that the scale of the war with China does not match.
Due to its architectural characteristics, the bastion is not large in scale and can only be used to garrison troops but cannot provide protection to the people. This is very suitable for wars involving thousands or even hundreds of people in the ancient West.
But against ancient China, wars involving tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people were useless.
Because the attacker only needs to leave a small number of troops to contain the defenders in the bastion, it can send a large number of mobile troops deep into the defender's hinterland to carry out large-scale destruction and weaken the war potential.
Therefore, ancient China mostly built very large cities.
Not only provides protection to the military, but also provides protection to the people.
Because the people mean population, and population means war potential.
It is precisely because of this that bastions have never been taken seriously in China.
But as a time traveler, Chongzhen knew that the bastion was actually useful and of great use. The key depends on how you use it.
One bastion is of little use, but what about ten? What about a hundred? Even thousands of bastions scattered along the Yellow River. What would that look like?
Moreover, these bastions are not distributed linearly.
The Huanghuai Defense Line envisioned by Chongzhen was a large-scale complex fortification composed of thousands of bastions, spanning the north and south banks of the Yellow River and more than 20 kilometers in depth.
Jiannu can easily defeat one bastion, or even ten bastions.
But what if there are twenty? What about fifty or even hundreds?
Even if Jian Nu can tolerate it physically, he will be exhausted mentally.
Because they will find in despair that the bastions on this line of defense seem to be endless.
What the Ming Dynasty's frontier troops had to do in the 28th Town was to guard these thousands of fortresses.
This is the Huanghuai defense line envisioned by Chongzhen. Strategically, it draws on Zeng Shatou's "Strengthen the stronghold and fight stupidly", while tactically, it draws on Western bastion technology.
The combination of the two is terrifying just thinking about it.
I won’t say what his character is like, and I won’t comment on whether he is a half-saint or not.
However, the strategy of "building a strong base and fighting a dull war" that he summarized on the basis of his predecessors is the only great strategy that can help a weak brigade defeat a strong army.
At that time, the Hunan Army was newly recruited, had no battle formations, and had no advantage in weapons and equipment. Compared with the Taiping Army, the number of troops was at an absolute disadvantage.
However, the Taiping Army were all veterans who had fought all the way from Guangxi. They had a large number of people and a large group of senior generals with rich experience in commanding battle formations. No matter how you looked at it at the time, the Taiping Army could crush Hunan with overwhelming force.
military.
However, the final result was a slap in everyone's face. The Hunan Army relied on Zeng Guofan's strategy of "strengthening the stronghold and fighting a dull war", and fought back and forth with the Taiping Army. Later, the Hunan Army's combat experience provided the weapons.
The equipment has also been updated, and thousands of Taiping troops often pursue and attack with tens of thousands of Taiping troops.
In the Battle of Tianjing, 50,000 Hunan troops actually surrounded Tianjing, which was garrisoned by 200,000 Pacific troops.
During the Agrarian Revolution, the Kuomintang army relied on this tactic to severely inflict heavy losses on the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. As a result, they forced a 25,000-mile Long March and forged the strongest army ever seen in human history.
There is no doubt that Zeng Guofan's strategy is a good strategy that is most suitable for the current Ming army.
Because the Ming army is not only far inferior to Jiannu in combat effectiveness, but also does not have an advantage in terms of number of troops. It is also at a disadvantage in terms of weapons and equipment. Without Zeng Guofan's strategy, the Ming army would not be able to withstand Jiannu's charge.
This strategy of "building a stronghold and fighting stupid wars" can barely keep the Ming Dynasty alive.
The bastion is a perfect match for Zeng Guofan's strategy of "strengthening the stronghold and fighting the war".
In short, this is not the Great Wall. The amount of construction and engineering difficulty are far less than that of the Great Wall, but its defensive function is a hundred times better than the Great Wall. It is not easy for Jiannu to break through this Huanghuai defense line!
And the longer it takes, the stronger this line of defense will be!
"Please look at the map of the Yellow River again." Chongzhen clapped his hands lightly, turned everyone's attention back to the sand table, and said, "As the saying goes, the army goes ahead without moving the food and grass. If Jiannu goes south, he will inevitably march along the canal, because the canal is convenient for water transportation.
It can greatly save material losses and enhance the continuous combat capability of Jiannu."
Huang Degong and the commander-in-chief of the 28th Town nodded in unison.
Chongzhen added: "So our defense is also primarily about the canal."
