Perhaps because he was bitten by a snake and was afraid of well ropes for ten years, 3,000 soldiers of the Army's 4th Infantry Division fought into Burma, and only a thousand people fled back in embarrassment, which left a deep impression on the Army.
You must know that few of the casualties of the Fourth Infantry Division were due to fighting. In fact, after the troops of the Fourth Infantry Division entered Myanmar, they never fought any enemies at all.
The more than 2,000 people killed in battle were all non-combat attrition!
This battle example almost made the Imperial Army fearful of the tropical rainforests of Burma and Annan in the future.
Over the past many years, the empire has expanded in multiple directions almost at the same time, even colonizing islands in Southeast Asia, but it has not expanded to Annan, Myanmar and other peninsulas.
I am really disgusted by this broken place on the peninsula.
If it is not really necessary and is fully prepared, the Imperial Army will never easily step into this quagmire again.
However, Li Xuan is still more concerned about the Guangning Coal Mine, which the businessmen hope very much!
The time is not yet ripe for sending troops south on a large scale.
But sometimes, if you want something, you don't necessarily have to carry out a large-scale invasion. There are other ways.
If the army moves south on a large scale, it is easy to fall into a quagmire, but other methods can be used, such as using the navy to land directly along the coastline of Annan, and then directly attack Thang Long, the capital of the Northern Dynasties of Annan, and attack Huanglong directly, and then force
All the local princes have to do is sign a contract with the city to take possession of the Guangning coal mine and surrounding areas.
It doesn't even have to be in the name of ceding land, it just needs to obtain mining rights and the power to garrison and protect. Now the empire is not interested in large-scale immigration to Annan. All the empire needs is coal.
Coal is useless to the natives, and it is troublesome to use it as firewood. The empire can obtain Guangning's coal without a large-scale invasion.
Therefore, it is not necessarily necessary to use an army of tens of thousands to climb out of the quagmire.
After Li Xuan had this idea, he told the army and navy to pay more attention to the direction of Annan and find an opportunity to get Guangning.
In this regard, the Army lacks interest. Does the Army have any special needs for coal? At least in the eyes of Army generals, the demand for this period is not big.
Moreover, the current mission of the Army is also very important. It must guard the Hetao and Fengzhouchuan areas, strengthen the defense of the northwest region, and prepare for the Northeast Campaign. This means that it is difficult for the Army to allocate a lot of energy to go south.
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Therefore, the Army did not make any big promises except that it would deploy no less than one main division and two reserve divisions in the border area and move south to cooperate in the war at the appropriate time.
On the contrary, the Navy is more proactive!
Because the Navy has received news that the research and development of high-pressure steam engines at the Royal Institute of Technology has entered the final stage of research. It is expected to obtain test machines in the next few years, and then formal mass production. By then, the Navy's warships will be able to be equipped with these steam engines.
As for the coal used in steam engines, the higher the quality, the better. If it is high-quality anthracite, even better.
At the same time, he also said that in the entire East Asia, high-quality anthracite has only been found in Guang Ninh. If the navy wants to use anthracite coal in the future, it may only be obtained from this Guang Ninh coal mine.
In order for future steam warships to use the highest quality anthracite, the Navy actually had no need to give orders from above, and had long been determined to acquire the Guangning coal mine.
The Navy has this intention, coupled with the strong promotion of the business community, the dispatch of troops to Annan has almost become a foregone conclusion.
To this end, several large enterprises, especially the Southern Coal Company directly under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, approached the Navy and offered to provide certain help.
As long as the Navy is willing to send troops, Southern Coal Company is willing to sponsor 30,000 yuan in various supplies to the Navy for operational logistics.
The navy naturally knows why the Southern Coal Company is so urgent, because the Southern Coal Company has long been eyeing the Guangning Coal Mine and has already carried out small-scale development in the Guangning Coal Mine.
The Southern Coal Company and the Northern Coal Company are currently the two largest coal companies in the empire. The two sides are engaged in fierce competition around the coal market. The Southern Coal Company relies on the Pingxiang Coal Mine in Jiangxi and other messy coal mines.
It is difficult to compete with Northern Coal Company, which owns Tangshan coal mine and part of Shanxi coal mine.
What's more, the Southern Coal Company has also received news that the empire's top officials are already preparing to hand over the coal resources in the Northeast to the Northern Coal Company for mining.
Although both Southern Coal Company and Northern Coal Company are state-owned enterprises wholly owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, even state-owned enterprises are commercial companies and there is fierce competition between them.
Last year, in order to seize the private coal market in the Jiangnan region with Shanghai as the core, Northern Coal Company cut the price of honeycomb briquettes, directly reducing the price to 50% off, forcing Southern Coal Company to follow suit with price cuts.
In the end, in addition to allowing the people in the Jiangnan area to enjoy a wave of cheap coal, both parties suffered considerable losses. Finally, after interviews with the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, the two parties canceled the price war.
But what is even more interesting is that after the fighting between the two sides ended, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises established the Eastern Coal Company and granted the company mining rights to several coal mines.
As a result, the empire has formed a situation in which the three major coal companies directly under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises compete with each other. Of course, even if the three major coal companies directly under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises combined, their share of the domestic coal market is only six at most.
70%, and the rest was snatched away by almost hundreds of private coal companies, large and small.
Now, in order to develop, Southern Coal Company has set its sights on the Guangning Coal Mine, and this is why it has sponsored the navy to send troops.
The Navy originally wanted to develop this coal mine, but now that the Holy Emperor has given instructions, it is better. As for the support of the Southern Coal Company, it is not important. No matter how poor the Navy is, it cannot be given up just because of a sponsorship of tens of thousands of dollars from a commercial company.
I went to fight for the merchants.
Unless they spend hundreds of thousands of taels of silver!
The Navy has ideas, and the Army has also promised to provide certain cooperation. Although judging from the Army's statement, although the Army will deploy three divisions of troops, don't expect the Army to work harder. Will they take the initiative to cross the border?
It's hard to even cross the border.
After all, as soon as this army moves, it will cost countless military expenditures. And if it moves south on a large scale, it is unknown how much non-combat attrition it will have to endure. The Army will not go south easily if it is not necessary.
Therefore, if we want to send troops to Annan, the main force must be the navy.
We must fight, but there is no unified approach within the navy on how to fight.
There are many reasons why there are so many debates.
First of all, the situation in Annan today is relatively complicated. Today's Annan is in confrontation between the north and the south. There is the Mo Dynasty in the north and the Li Dynasty in the south. Both of these two dynasties have successively expressed their surrender to the empire and accused each other. Then
He wants to gain the support of the empire to destroy the other party and unify Annan.
As for the empire, how can it be interested in the civil strife of the barbarians? The empire believes that the Nanyang Peninsula must be taken down in the future. Before the empire takes over the Nanyang Peninsula, the Nanyang Peninsula will naturally become more chaotic and chaotic, and there must be no major disasters.
power, so the empire recognized Annan's Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Now if the empire wants Guangning, it will have to attack the Northern Dynasty, that is, the Mo Dynasty. This may excessively reduce the strength of the Northern Dynasty, and then let the Southern Dynasty move north to finally unify Annan.
And this is a situation that the empire absolutely does not want to see!
The Empire needs to maintain a balanced state in the Annan region and cannot allow the Southern Dynasties to unify Annan. At the same time, the Empire does not want to fight with the Southern Dynasties personally. The Imperial Army hates fighting in a bad place like the peninsula. The Imperial Army would rather fight with the Tatars on the grassland.
I don't want to fight with monkeys in the jungle.
The former fought openly and honestly, while the latter couldn't even find the enemy, and then he himself died of an inexplicable illness.
If the empire is not willing to end the war personally, then it cannot weaken the Northern Dynasty's power too much.
In addition, the navy is also worried that if the navy directly launches a landing and attacks Thang Long, there is no certainty that it can force Thang Long to quickly sign a contract under the city, which may eventually lead to a protracted war.
If the war prolongs, the trouble will be great, and it may eventually cause changes in the Southern Dynasties, and eventually lead to the complete demise of the army.
Although the Army has stated that it is only cooperating, but the situation has really deteriorated, the Holy Emperor will definitely not remain indifferent and will definitely order the Army to send troops.
When the time comes, the Army will definitely scold the Navy for being a bunch of mentally retarded people who can capsize even a small native. In the end, the Army will have to come to the rescue.
Not to mention, after the army personally withdraws from the war, the navy will lose a lot of face and interests in this war. More importantly, after the army withdraws from the battle personally, it is very likely that it will fall into a long-term war.
Thus destroying the balance between Annan, South and North Dynasties!
It’s not that the army can’t send troops. If the army is determined, it can go south to kill Thang Long in minutes. The key to the problem now is that the army doesn’t think it’s necessary, especially since the empire’s strategy and the army’s internal strategy are to go north.
When advancing westward, the army is unwilling to go south to attack any peninsula.
Unless the Holy Emperor explicitly requests the army to go south, don't expect the army's Qiu Ba to take the initiative to go south to Annan.
Attacking Annan will not do the army any good, and it will also fall into a quagmire.
But if the situation worsens, the Army will definitely send troops. There is nothing we can do if we don’t want to!
Once the Army sends out troops, the Navy will basically have nothing to do next. After the Army moves south, it is not certain that it will have to fight the Northern Dynasties first, and then the Southern Dynasties. Considering the poor place in Annan, I don’t know how long this battle will last.
Go.
Because there are many restrictions, the senior officials of the Navy are also very confused about how to capture Guangning. It is neither a fight nor a fight.
The most critical thing is not whether we can win or not, that is not a problem at all!
The key question is how to fight, which is in the best interest of the empire and the navy!