Li Xuan, both before and now, did not have much confidence in how far the Tang Dynasty could go in the future. Although he often dreamed of drinking horses from the Qinhuai River and marching into the Forbidden City, in fact he never had much confidence.
Faith can make it this far.
According to his own inference, it was possible for his Tang Dynasty to occupy several prefectures and counties in a short period of time, or even expand its scope of activities to several provinces within a few years.
But he felt that this kind of expansion would be short-lived. Before the Ming Dynasty paid attention to it and gathered the power of the whole country to encircle and suppress it, his Tang Dynasty would have a relatively small space for activities, but it would only be able to do big things during this period of time.
After the Ming Dynasty really pays attention to it, the activity space of the Tang Dynasty will be severely compressed. By then, it will be impossible for the Tang Dynasty to become a bandit like Li Zicheng.
Because the New Army of the Tang Dynasty relied heavily on firearms in combat, without firearms, the truth is that although the New Army of the Tang Dynasty still has a certain advantage in the quality of its soldiers, this advantage can be resolved.
In order to maintain the use of firearms, the Tang Dynasty must have a rear area that could stably provide soldiers, weapons and ammunition. This meant that the new army of the Tang Dynasty could not move around like Li Zicheng or Hong Xiuquan.
You can't even play with coercion, because the premise of coercion is that during the famine years, the ruled class is extremely disappointed with the ruling class and can't survive, so it sometimes sweeps the country. But at this time, the Ming Dynasty was still in a dynasty.
In the middle period of the Ming Dynasty, although many problems had been exposed, it was still far from the situation in the late Ming Dynasty where the people had no means of livelihood and had to exchange children for food.
Chinese farmers are the most honest. As long as they are a little bold, they will not rebel and will avoid such things.
Furthermore, although the Tang Dynasty was small, it was still a political power established according to a standard dynasty. It had already planned to conduct imperial examinations. If it still imitated bandits like Li Zicheng, how could it recruit a large number of scholars to serve?
The current national conditions and the particularity of the new army of the Tang Dynasty determine that the bandit path is not suitable for the Tang Dynasty.
Since you don't play banditry, you can only play the base area mode. To keep the base area and even develop and grow, the Tang Dynasty's new army needs to defeat the Ming army, and it needs to continuously defeat the Ming army, and this requires maintaining the advantages in weapons and personnel.
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As for the advantage of firearms, Li Xuan doesn't know how long he can maintain it.
Everyone is not stupid. The new army of the Tang Dynasty can use firearms, and the Ming army can also use them. Even if they can't react in the early stage, they will definitely use firearms on a large scale in the later stage.
To be honest, the muskets of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty are not high-tech products. Craftsmen in the mountains and valleys can make them, and craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty can also make them. In fact, probably during this period, the Ming Dynasty will imitate them.
Bird gun, and bird gun is also a very typical matchlock gun.
As for artillery, the Ming Dynasty was not short of it. Today, the Ming Dynasty has been equipped with a large number of Folang machine cannons, and there are also many general cannons weighing hundreds of kilograms or even thousands of kilograms.
Even if there were no muskets and artillery before the Ming Dynasty, people would not imitate them?
Therefore, the technical advantage in firearms cannot be maintained for a long time in theory. How long it can be maintained depends on how much the Ming Dynasty attaches importance to the Tang Dynasty.
Maybe it was one or two years, maybe it was five or six years. If the emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty were collectively stupid, it might be possible to maintain it for more than ten or twenty years.
How long the advantage of firearms can be maintained is unknown.
Once the advantage of firearms is gone, the quality and tactics of soldiers will have little effect.
Even if the Ming army is worse than yours and can't beat you one on one, why won't they beat one out of ten?
For these reasons, Li Xuan has always been relatively pessimistic about the future of his Tang Dynasty. It is possible to be able to travel across several provinces and jump around for a few years, but it would be too difficult to overthrow the Ming Dynasty. In his heart,
Although Li Xuan would not tell everyone about this idea, it did not mean that he would not think about it and make some preparations for it.
What preparation?
Of course it was an escape. For more than a year, Li Xuan had been ready to escape at all times.
And these days, what could be safer than escaping to the sea.
If the Ming Dynasty cannot be defeated by then, he will take the remnants of the Tang Dynasty to the sea. Well, not the kind of sea that goes to Qingse Xiaolou, that is what women do, but to Nanyang or other places. If it is to
In places like Nanyang, it is relatively easy to kill all the natives anywhere and continue to be his emperor.
Even if he can't take the army away, it will be easier for him to take his family and run away. He can't wait for the Ming army to come and kill him.
That's right, even though he had thousands of troops under his command and was already planning to conquer the city and overthrow the Ming Dynasty, Li Xuan still did not forget to leave himself a way out.
Because he really has no confidence!
Choosing to go south to the beach, in addition to leaving a way out for myself, there are of course other more important reasons. After all, you don't have to go to the beach to escape. Going deep into the mountains and wild forests has the same effect.
Going to the south is also of great significance to the strategic development of the Tang Dynasty. First of all, if you go to the south, you can stay away from the core of the Ming Dynasty's rule, especially the Yangtze River Basin, and the military pressure it will bear will be less.
Can have more development time.
In addition, foreigners can also exchange ideas about science and technology.
Although Westerners these days are not very good in science and technology, there are still some things that are very good. For example, their artillery is very good. Let's see if we can get the artillery manufacturing technology from foreigners.
In addition, it is very important to make money from sea trade business to support the family, oh, no, to support the army.
The combination of these many reasons prompted Li Xuan to make the choice to go south.
So at the imperial strategy meeting the next day, Bai Yunqi, who had been hinted by Li Xuan, once again proposed a plan to go south, and he also came up with a very detailed strategic plan for going south.
A discerning person will know from one look at Bai Yunqi's actions that this is a decision made by His Majesty himself.
Because everyone in the upper echelons of the Tang Dynasty knew that Bai Yunqi was the emperor's spokesperson, and in every imperial strategic meeting, he rarely took the initiative to say anything, let alone put forward any constructive suggestions.
Once he comes up with a very detailed plan, then nine times out of ten it is what the emperor means.
And this time, the same is true. Bai Yunqi's plan for going south is more detailed than the plan proposed by Li Chunjing and others yesterday.
In this southward plan, not only military strategic issues were taken into consideration, but also political and economic issues.
Even ten Bai Yunqi couldn't come up with such a detailed plan.
Only Your Majesty can come up with such a detailed plan!