After Kang Gaozhi received the imperial edict, although he felt uneasy, he quickly prepared his troops and sent a reconnaissance troop to the Yalu River to find a suitable place to cross the river.
Although it was mentioned above that when crossing the river, a squadron of the navy would come over to provide escort, but the navy was only responsible for the escort. At that time, they did not care how the army crossed the river.
The navy is also very busy now. The warships and transport ships in the Bohai Sea are basically used for landing operations and logistical supplies. There are not many ships available to help the army.
Of course, Kang Gaozhi didn't think so. He just concluded that the navy's gangsters must have deliberately made excuses and refused to arrange a large number of ships to let him cross the river.
But dissatisfaction is dissatisfaction, and we still have to cross the river.
So he sent out scouts to investigate the situation, but within a few days the scouts reported back. It was said that there were quite a few places to cross the river, but they searched several villages along the way and didn't find a single boat. When asked,
Later, I learned that basically all the ships on both sides of the Yalu River were taken to the other side by the puppet King Minghui when he crossed the river.
This means that it is impossible to find a boat to cross the river on the spot.
It is not very reliable to dispatch ships from other places. Once the ships arrive, it will probably be July.
In the end, he had no choice but to use the old method. If he didn't have a large number of ships, he would just build a pontoon bridge.
Anyway, there is a navy escort, so he is not afraid of the pontoon bridge being destroyed, and he doesn't have to worry about the navy not working hard. If something goes wrong because of the lack of care in escort, it will be the navy's fault. He will not need to join the navy at that time. The army above him will do it.
Guys will stick up for him.
However, erecting pontoon bridges is a bit troublesome. Although his 15th Infantry Division is also the main infantry division, it has not been established for a long time. Although it has an internal engineering unit, it is still not very professional in erecting pontoon bridges.
But even though he was unprofessional, he had no choice but to bite the bullet. He personally went to the division's engineering camp and discussed with several chief officers of the engineering camp how to build a pontoon bridge.
Fortunately, the military headquarters probably also knew that the strength of the engineer battalion of the 15th Infantry Division was somewhat poor, so after a few days, they took the initiative to reinforce it with a pontoon battalion.
This kind of Zhouqiao camp is not an ordinary division-affiliated engineering battalion. An ordinary division-affiliated engineering battalion does a variety of things, such as digging fortifications and building barracks.
It's not professional at all.
There is no way around this. Whoever makes the division-affiliated engineering battalion have a heavy task cannot allow the soldiers of the engineering battalion to master everything. Moreover, due to tight military expenditures, it is impossible for the Army to upgrade the division-affiliated engineering battalion to an engineering battalion.
Corps, to reduce the pressure on engineers and soldiers, so that they can master more professional skills.
The Army only adopted a compromise method. They directly established these highly professional technical units under the military headquarters of each army. The Aunt Qiao Battalion directly under each army is a typical example.
The Sixth Army Headquarters sent the Zhouqiao Battalion over. Although the Zhouqiao Battalion had just been established a few months ago and was not full of personnel. There were only more than 300 people in total, most of whom were newbies, but it was a great relief.
pressure from the 15th Infantry Division.
With the pontoon bridge battalion taking action, the plan for erecting a pontoon bridge was finally drawn up and the actual preparation stage was carried out.
With the plan to cross the river, Kang Gaozhi was still not idle. He was busy making direct inspections with a large number of officers every day, supervising the troops' adaptive training, including river crossing exercises and subsequent combat training, etc.
In addition, he and his chief of staff, deputy division commander and several regiment commanders and battalion commanders were thinking about how to formulate detailed attack plans every day.
Although his 15th Infantry Division also participated in the Liaodong Campaign, it had previously fought large-scale battles with friendly forces. It has not tried to fight alone since it was formed. This is not true for the 15th Infantry Division.
It is also a huge challenge for a new army.
Therefore, it is reasonable for Kang Gaozhi and his team of officers to be cautious.
Compared with Kang Gaozhi who was cautious and encountered a lot of troubles and difficulties in the preparations, the preparations by the Navy were much smoother.
The Navy prepared two squadrons for the Battle of the Koryo Peninsula, the Second Squadron and the Third Squadron, which were directly affiliated with the First Fleet.
At present, the Tang Empire has a total of four fleets, namely the Yangtze River Fleet, the Pearl River Fleet, the First Fleet, and the Second Fleet. The first two fleets are inland river fleets. In the unification wars of the past few years, the status of the Yangtze River Fleet was still
Not bad, but since the pacification of the Southwest, even the Yangtze River Fleet has been reduced to an auxiliary fleet, and a large number of its establishments have been abolished.
Therefore, the presence of the Yangtze River Fleet and the Pearl River Fleet in today's navy is very low, and there are even calls to downsize the establishment of these two inland river fleets from the large fleet to the size of a squadron.
At present, the real large fleets in the Datang Navy are the two ocean-going fleets, the First Fleet and the Second Fleet. However, the structure of the Datang Navy is somewhat special. Whether it is the Yangtze River Fleet, the Pearl River Fleet or the First Fleet, the Second Fleet
Fleets, these four fleets are actually administrative establishments, not combat establishments.
The real combat organization is that these four fleets have various squadrons, such as the 1st to 6th Squadrons in the Ocean Fleet, the Ryukyu Squadron, the Luzon Squadron, the Yangtze River Squadron in the Yangtze River Fleet, and the Huaihe Squadron.
Fleet, Dongting Lake Squadron, Poyang Lake Squadron, Xijiang Squadron and Dongjiang Squadron in the Pearl River Fleet.
Each squadron has different types of ships and ships under its jurisdiction depending on the deployment area and the tasks it is responsible for. Its home port is Wusong Port, which is used to control sea rights in the East China Sea. The First Squadron, which controls the entrance of the Yangtze River, is the most powerful, with
Four cruisers and more than ten frigates. However, the Second Squadron, which also belongs to the Second Fleet and is homeported in Weihaiwei, Shandong Province, does not have a single cruiser. It is only supported by three frigates. The main force of the battle relies on those
A guard patrol ship of more than 100 tons.
However, although the strength is different, each squadron is the main body of naval operations. Except for the first squadron, which is special and its commander is a vice admiral, the commander of each other squadron is
The rank of rear admiral has the power to actually command operations.
At the same time, it is not the headquarters of the four fleets that has the power to issue combat orders to them, but the Naval Command Department!
The headquarters of the four major fleets is actually a military and political organization, not a military order organization, and it is also not a staff organization!
Those participating in the combat mission on the Koryo Peninsula were the Second Squadron and the Third Squadron, which were directly affiliated with the First Fleet.
Among them, the Third Squadron is stronger and has a cruiser. Its previous mission was to blockade the coast of the Koryo Peninsula. Now their main mission is to cover the landing operations of more than 3,000 landing troops and conduct landing operations against them.
Provide escort for subsequent material supply transportation.
As for the Second Squadron, it is weaker. Their main task is to enter the Yalu River and cover the 15th Infantry Division's crossing of the river. At the same time, they also undertake part of the supply and escort mission.
However, Kang Gaozhi was quite satisfied with the Second Squadron sent by the Navy, because he knew that there were not many large ships in the Second Squadron, and the main combat forces were some small-tonnage offshore patrol ships.
However, Kang Gaozhi wanted to cross the Yalu River, not land on the coast. If the navy came to support and sent those large ships of several hundred tons, he would probably not be able to get out after entering the Yalu River.
The army of the fake King Minghui is not stupid. When they see your big ship stupidly running into the Yalu River, they can easily get dozens of fire ships to go down the river, and they can burn these giants on the sea to nothing!
Therefore, Kang Gaozhi would rather the navy dispatch some offshore patrol ships and inland river warships, so that they can be flexible enough and provide sufficient cover for themselves.
After discussing with a colonel and staff officer sent by the Navy's Second Squadron, the two sides finally formally determined the scheduled date for crossing the river: June 18th, which is about the same time as the imperial edict requires, and will not be too late or too late.
It would be too early.
At the same time, it can also cooperate with the landing operation of the Third Squadron of the Navy, because the Third Squadron of the Navy has already decided to carry out the landing on June 23.
The landing site is at the mouth of the Han River. From this landing site, it can be seen that the frontline of the landing troops is directed towards Seoul!
Logically speaking, Seoul is the capital of the Goryeo Dynasty and should be heavily fortified, but in fact, according to the report of the Military Intelligence Department, this is not the case!
Because the main opponent of the Tang Dynasty was not the native people of Goryeo, but the pseudo-King Myeonghue. In fact, the native people of Korea had been defeated by the troops of the pseudo-King Myeonghue before. In the past two years, the troops of the pseudo-King Myeonghye have entered the peninsula three times.
The first time was plundering, and the second time he directly killed most of the main troops of the Goryeo natives, and then forced the Goryeo Lee Dynasty to be loyal to him, and sent troops to Liaodong to help the Liaodong Ming Army in the war. Well, they were used as cannon fodder!
The third time, of course, was when the fake King Myeonghye escaped a few months ago.
But for the Tang Dynasty, the fake King Minghui escaped, but for the local indigenous people, it was not a good thing.
After the pseudo-King Myeonghye entered the Koryo Peninsula, he fought his way to Seoul without encountering any obstacles. He then captured all the royal family and ministers of the Lee family and then headed north, returning to his base camp in the Koryo Peninsula and the capital of Pyongyang Province, Ryugyong.
They are not stupid. They know that Seoul can easily be attacked by enemies from the sea. Moreover, it was attacked once by the pseudo-King Myeonghye two years ago. The city walls were completely damaged and have not been repaired until now. This broken place is very dangerous.
Relatively speaking, Ryugyong on the Ping An Road was much safer. When the puppet King Myeonghye's troops first went south to the Korean Peninsula, although they also attacked the city, they did not cause much damage to the city. Later, they simply attacked the city directly.
Thousands of troops were left here to monitor every move of the Goryeo Dynasty. At the same time, they did not forget to recruit local indigenous people to build city defense facilities.
So in the past two years, Pyongyang Road Ryugyong has become an important city under the control of the pseudo-King Myeonghye!
The pseudo King Myeonghye regarded Ryugyong as his base camp, and even directly brought the royal family and ministers of the Goryeo Dynasty to Ryugyong, which meant that the current Seoul was actually abandoned.
Although landing here may be intercepted by local indigenous people, it will not encounter too many difficulties, which will help ensure safety in the early stage of landing.
The navy is preparing to land at the mouth of the Han River and attack Seoul, while the army is preparing to fight all the way across the Yalu River and head straight to Ryugyong!
As for other places, they don't have much interest. At least in the early battle plan, they have no plans to attack other places on the Koryo Peninsula. They only have two targets, one is Seoul and the other is Ryugyong!
As for other places, it won’t be too late to take care of them after they kill the fake King Myeonghye, the royal family of Goryeo and others!
Anyway, it is said that those high-ranking officials in the imperial cabinet with bad stomachs and pus are already thinking about how to deal with the local indigenous people. And based on the military's consistent understanding of the hypocrites in the cabinet, the military is more than 80% sure.
To be sure, those hypocrites in the cabinet must not have peace of mind with the natives.
By then, there will definitely be countless riots, rebellions, etc. The military has seen too many such things!
And they also know that in this situation, the civilian officials will just talk, but the military has to fight to the death, so now the army simply saves a little energy and waits until later to come together.
You can't just do it now and then do it again from beginning to end in a few months. That would be too much trouble. It's better to just do it together.
The military really didn't know. The big bosses in the cabinet really didn't plan to go to war this time. They considered that the Chinese language on the Korean Peninsula was already very ideal, even though there was some messy indigenous writing and language.
But the local indigenous people are useless. Whether they are scholars or ordinary people, they all write in Hanzi, and most scholars can speak in Chinese.
To be honest, this degree of Sinicization is much better than the Sinicization in today's southwestern provinces, those areas still controlled by chieftains, as well as the northwest, Tibetan areas, and northern grasslands!
Therefore, they did not plan to engage in an extermination policy, but planned to use an integration policy. Anyway, there were not many people on the peninsula, only two to three million people. In recent years, they have been tortured by the puppet King Myeonghye.
Several times, in addition to killing tens of thousands of Goryeo troops, the puppet King Myeonghye also forcibly recruited nearly a hundred thousand young men to go to Liaodong. Tens of thousands of them were used as cannon fodder, and the rest were used as coolies.
.
What's more important is that the pseudo-King Minghui's troops entered the peninsula three times, and each time they looted a large amount of food. There was not much food in this poor place, but so much food was robbed by the pseudo-King Minghui's troops.
, the famine caused by this is quite serious. In recent years, the number of people who have starved to death is estimated to be 20 to 300,000, if not one million.
So the big guys in the cabinet are thinking that there are only a million people left on this peninsula, and among them there are not many young people, they are all old, weak, women and children.
In this way, things will be easier to handle!
The Tang Dynasty soldiers who entered the dynasty would marry one, two or three, and it didn't matter whether they were married as wives or concubines. Anyway, they only needed to marry. In this way, at least the number of local indigenous women of childbearing age could be directly reduced.
By walking more than half way, you can also solve the problem of local women of suitable age having difficulty getting married due to the large loss of young adults.
And then encourage the people in the country, if you can't get a wife, go to the Korean Peninsula to get one. The official encourages intermarriage!
If this is not enough, in addition to organizing normal immigration, we can organize more than 100,000 or 200,000 singles from China to immigrate there. We can definitely marry all the local women of childbearing age. Anyway, there are many singles in China who cannot marry wives. Listen.
It is said that you can get a wife by going to the Koryo Peninsula. It is estimated that those who sign up will have to queue up from Jinling City to the Pacific Ocean!
After doing some calculations with an abacus, the bosses came to a conclusion: as long as immigration and intermarriage are strong enough, in just twenty years, the new generation on the Korean Peninsula will all be people of the Tang Dynasty!
To completely conquer a region, marrying off all their women is the only way to go. In comparison, other methods such as cultural destruction and massacre are weak!
Of course, the men of the Tang Dynasty also had their own style, and not all women from anywhere married. For example, the women of the Nanyang barbarians were not favored by the men of the Tang Dynasty!