Therefore, the current high-level officials of the Datang Army are actually not interested in fighting South Africa or anything like that. That is the navy's business and none of their business. They are now obsessed with conquering cities and territories in India and expanding their territory.
I am especially interested in northern India.
Why, because next to the Mughal Dynasty in northern India are the Tatars. Since last year, the Tatars have carried out a large-scale expansion into Central Asia and started a medium-sized war with the Mughal Dynasty.
Of course, the Tatars are now in the process of rapid expansion and have many enemies, so they do not put much energy in northern India. Instead, they put their main forces in the east and west.
The east side is naturally to fight against the Tang Empire, while the west side is to fight against the Safavid dynasty in Persia.
The strategy of the Tatars has always been very clear, that is, to carry out strategic defense in the east and not to take the initiative to attack, but to guard the Tubo area and prevent the Tang Empire from advancing westward.
At the same time, they carried out large-scale expansion in the western region. Many countries and tribes were destroyed along the way. Now they are eyeing the Persian region. At the same time, they have not forgotten to continue to expand westward. This will actually affect the Tatars.
It has already included all the areas east of the Caspian Sea.
Therefore, there are three main expansion directions for the Tatars this year. One is to the south, that is, they want to enter India. However, this direction is not optimistic among the Tatar high-level people. Why? Because it is too close to the Tang Dynasty.
Well, why did the Tatars expand westward? To put it bluntly, they expanded westward to avoid the Tang Empire. If they stayed in Central Asia or even India, and were so close to the Tang Dynasty, they would die sooner or later.
Character.
Therefore, their main expansion directions are the other two. One is to expand to West Asia, that is, to conquer the Safavid Dynasty, and then continue to attack the Ottoman Empire, all the way to the Mediterranean.
Another main expansion direction is to continue to expand westward from the northern part of the Caspian Sea, imitating the Mongolian army of the year, and fight all the way to the Danube River, even further than their predecessors, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
In recent years, the Tatars were hostile to the Tang Dynasty. Naturally, they did not forget to collect information about the Tang Empire and learned many things through the Tang Empire. Why did they decide to conquer the West?
They did it not because they thought their ancestors had done it hundreds of years ago, but because they knew about the Eastern European plains and even the Western European plains from the world map they obtained from the Tang Empire. These plains were located in their Tartars.
From the perspective of the Tatar people, it is simply tailor-made for them. What is the most suitable place for a large plain?
One is naturally to develop agriculture, but at the same time, it is also extremely suitable for grazing!
The Tatars now regard the whole of Europe as their future pasture. How can they bother to go to India? Fighting the Mughals is just hunting rabbits in the grass house. If they have something to do, they can go south and grab a handful.
As much as you can grab.
Even the Safavid and Ottoman dynasties, the Tatars had a mentality of fighting if they could, and forgetting if they couldn't. Their core goal was to reach Europe.
The last step is to seize the Eastern European plains and serve as the base of the Tatars.
However, how could outsiders know the Tatars' thoughts? The Tang Army only knew that the Tatars were expanding everywhere, and their strength was expanding very quickly. At the same time, they were also expanding southward. In order to prevent the Tatars from seizing India, especially
After crossing the northwest region of India and then going deep into the hinterland of India, the Tang Dynasty even stopped supporting the Mughal Dynasty and sent a lot of ordnance and even artillery to the Mughal Dynasty.
This allowed the Mughal Dynasty to rely on mountains and cities for defense, otherwise the Tatars would have broken through.
But the Tang Army, which had dealt with the Tatars for so many years, knew that it was impossible for the natives of the Mughal Dynasty to stop the Tatars, even if it was just a partial army of the Tatars.
So I wanted to prepare to personally go into battle to seize the northwestern region of India, and then block the Tatars here and cut off their attempts to invade the Indian Peninsula.
Of course, the Tatars are only one factor. The most important thing is that the army wants to make contributions and is not willing to serve as scraps for the navy.
As a result, there will be a conflict between the two navies!
This is also an important reason why in the Indian Ocean battlefield over the past six months, the army and navy, and even the company fleet, have not been able to cooperate smoothly. Everyone has their own little calculations, and it is only if they can work together that they can work together.
Li Xuan knew these things, but he didn't take them seriously!
Conflicts between the military services are normal. The absence of conflicts is something to be wary of.
And this kind of contradiction is also under Li Xuan's control. Even if he encounters trouble in India, this kind of trouble is still controllable. To say the least, even if the stalemate continues on the Indian battlefield, as long as this
If the fight continues, the Portuguese will be driven out sooner or later, but it will only take longer. It is impossible within three to five years, and it will take at least ten or eight years.
However, since this time the navy has come up with a plan that Li Xuan feels is feasible, he will not continue to allow the army and navy to have conflicts.
How should I put it? Li Xuan usually doesn't bother to deal with conflicts between the two parties, but now, the situation is somewhat special and requires the cooperation of both parties.
This is why today’s imperial strategy meeting took place!
After the generals below had finished arguing, Li Xuan looked at the time and saw that it was almost lunch time, so the matter was settled.
So now Li Xuan spoke!
After casually saying a few nonsense words as a foreshadowing, Li Xuan said: "Even if the Indian Ocean decisive battle plan has some flaws, it is a once and for all solution. The Joint Operations Department will come up with a detailed charter later!"
In a simple sentence, it means that the Holy Emperor Li Xuan has officially approved this decisive battle plan. Of course, this plan was only proposed by the Navy alone. The Army must have opinions, so it asked the Joint Operations Department to come up with a detailed charter
, that is, let the generals of the Navy and Army discuss a combat plan that is acceptable to both parties.
Regardless of whether it is a compromise or a threat, Li Xuan is too lazy to care about how the army and navy communicate. Anyway, he only needs to see the final result.
In fact, no one was surprised by this result. A royal strategy meeting was held for this matter. It was basically a sure thing. Now everyone is only paying attention to the details of the plan.
Don't think that the details are not important. This matter is very important and relates to the actual interests of the army and navy.
For example, how to mobilize these 10,000 troops? The Army is not willing to send a single person. They want to invest more troops in the battlefield on the Indian Peninsula. But as for the Navy, they do not have enough Marines. If they take the opportunity to expand the Marines,
If so, let’s not talk about how the Army will react. All the money has been used to build the Marine Corps. How can the steam steel battleship plan be carried out?
And this war, of course, is meritorious, but it also costs military expenses. For example, if you use army troops in ground operations, the navy will not subsidize your combat expenses. Every artillery shell used by the army has to be paid for by yourself.
purchase!
In addition to troop strength and cost, there is also the leader of the campaign. The Navy said this is a Navy plan, and of course it must be led by the Navy. But the Army immediately showed you its face, since it is the Navy's battle plan, so good, your Navy is planning
Go ahead, we in the army don’t know.
He also said that in the previous Nanyang Campaign, it was your navy who were in charge and took the biggest limelight. This time, we can let our army contribute, but the candidate for the commander must be someone from their army.
Don't talk about this, they can quarrel even over trivial matters, such as how to distribute the various supplies transported, not to mention strategic materials such as artillery shells, even the distribution quota of small candies, they
They can all cause a quarrel.
The empire's homeland is so far away from the Indian Ocean, and the transportation of logistical materials is difficult and costly. Every cannonball and every candy shipped to India are extremely important strategic materials, and no one in the army or navy will give in.
Of course, Li Xuan naturally doesn't know about these and doesn't care!
What he cares about is that five days later, the Joint Operations Department finally handed over a detailed plan for the decisive battle in the Indian Ocean. Of course, it was said to be a detailed plan, but in fact it was only a rough strategic plan. It was impossible to make it at this time.
Formulating a specific combat plan to conquer a certain port or city is a matter for the frontline troops, and it is not the turn of the big guys in Gyeonggi Province to plan it.
Their plans are more focused on how to mobilize troops, form combat units, maintain logistics, etc.
In the plan they formulated, for the early stage of the battle, they planned to deploy an army mixed brigade and a marine regiment for ground combat, with a total strength of 11,000 people.
Of course, when the time comes, the Navy may also send sailors to accompany the marines to fight ashore, but these are not considered ground combat forces.
This Army mixed brigade will be deployed directly from the mainland instead of being deployed in Nanyang or India, because the Army believes that the combat tasks on the Indian Peninsula are still very heavy, and the 19th Division is dispersed to many places, which means there is insufficient strength. If
If you directly transfer the general troops, there will be no need to fight.
A regiment of the Marine Corps can be directly transferred from the Indian battlefield. The 5th Marine Regiment has always fought in the Indian Ocean battlefield.
In terms of logistics, as usual, it is still arranged by the Joint Operations Department. Following the example of the joint landing fleet during the Malacca Battle last year, a large number of civilian merchant ships were re-recruited, plus the transport ships of the army and navy, to form a large-scale joint force.
The landing fleet, to distinguish it from the previous combined landing fleet during the Malacca Campaign and to avoid confusion in official documents, is specifically called the Second Combined Landing Fleet.