prosperous age

Chapter 984: 1073 Ming Army Hidden Rules

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty."

Just when he was no longer anxiously pacing back and forth in the palace, someone came in from outside.

The man was one of his men. After paying his respects, he reported, "Your Majesty, the spies have already found out that the border prefectures and counties of Yunnan in the Ming Dynasty are the same as usual. Nothing seems to have happened, and there is no news that the Ming Dynasty is going to resort to war."

"really?"

Mang Yinglong stopped and looked at the subordinate who reported the news.

"It is indeed true as reported. How about I bring the messenger here so you can ask him in person?"

The subordinate was also afraid of taking responsibility. His king had a hot temper and if he offended him, his life would be in danger.

"Bring the person up here, and I'll ask him myself."

Mang Yinglong was still somewhat worried and gave the order immediately.

After less than half an hour, Mang Yinglong's unbridled laughter was finally heard from the Toungoo Palace.

After everyone left, Mang Yinglong whispered in the palace: "I thought the Ming Kingdom really wanted to crack down on Myanmar, but it turns out it was just a show. It frightened me. Damn it.

It seems that we should consider an expedition to the east to teach the Ming people a lesson."

After knowing that the Ming Dynasty did not seem to have any intention of intervening in Myanmar, Mang Yinglong somehow became bolder and his previous worried look disappeared.

At this moment, he was still feeling ashamed for the irritability and timidity caused by the news from the Ming Dynasty in the past few days.

But who is he?

He is the king of the Toungoo Dynasty and the king of Myanmar. How can he be afraid and cowardly?

Therefore, the more worried they were before, the more hatred they have towards the Ming Dynasty now.

Only by invading the Ming Dynasty and using the blood of the Ming people can he wash away the shame in his heart. Otherwise, he will probably live in the shadow for the rest of his life.

The Ming Empire is very vast and cannot be compared to the tiny country of Myanmar.

The Ming Dynasty, as prosperous as it was, could not be compared to the wealth of Myanmar.

The Ming Empire had a large population, and if they could enslave them, they would seem to have the strength to move westward and attack the Mughal Empire, which also had vast tracts of land, vast amounts of wealth, and countless slaves.

At this time, Mang Yinglong had already formulated a simple strategy plan in his mind, which was to conquer the Ming Dynasty first and then attack the Mughal Empire.

We have to say that Mang Yinglong was very courageous, but we also have to say that the Ming Dynasty's policy in the southwest for nearly a hundred years was a complete failure.

The Ming Dynasty adopted a hands-off approach towards the Xuanweisi surrounding Myanmar, which only made them believe that the Ming court was weak and could be bullied and anyone could step on it.

Therefore, compared to the Mughal Kingdom, with which he had more contact, Mang Yinglong was less afraid of the Ming Kingdom.

After all, the power of the Ming Dynasty was something their fathers had always talked about, but they had never seen it with their own eyes.

I do know that many chieftains in Yunnan seem to be restless and are about to rebel.

However, judging from the Ming army's suppression of the chieftains, the military force was not as strong as the legend said.

But since he had already made up his mind, Mang Yinglong would not waste time in vain. He quickly made a decision in his mind, which was to summon his subordinates who were on the eastern expedition to Laos again and let them prepare to attack the next target - Mengyang.

As long as he occupied Mengyang, his troops could pass through there to Yongchang Prefecture in Yunnan of the Ming Dynasty, and then they could spy on Kunming and control the entire Yunnan.

Yes, although Mang Yinglong was full of desire for the land, wealth and population of the Ming Dynasty, he also knew that one must eat one bite at a time. The Ming Dynasty was too big and he could not rush for success.

Mang Yinglong would certainly not come up with such an idiotic idea as leading troops directly into Yunnan and attacking the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

However, what he didn't know was that the Ming Dynasty had already mobilized the three garrisons in the southwest region, including Sichuan, Guangxi, and Guizhou, and began to draw elite troops.

In fact, the situation in the four southwestern provinces is generally similar. They are roughly divided into two areas, Han and Tu. Areas close to prefectures and counties are dotted with garrisons, while places without garrisons are mostly Tusi areas. One or two garrisons are set up only at long intervals, and most of them are guarding thousands of households with few troops. Their main responsibility is to monitor the surrounding areas.

At this time, Li Rusong arrived in Guangxi first. Except for the three guards of King Jingjiang guarding Guilin, all the elite troops including the Guangxi Guard, Liuzhou Guard, Nanning Guard and several surrounding guarding thousand households had been mobilized to Guilin for training.

While training the soldiers, they waited for firearms to be shipped from Nanjing.

Although the western part of Guangxi borders Yunnan, it is the territory of chieftains, so Li Rusong did not really plan to take the western route directly to Yunnan.

To be safe, he chose to station his troops in Guilin. Once the order to enter Yunnan came, he would lead his troops into Guizhou first, and then join forces with his second brother to go through Yongning Prefecture and enter Qujing Prefecture, Yunnan.

His father, Li Chengliang, would probably lead the Sichuan troops directly along this route and avoid the territories of those chieftains.

This time when Li Rusong went to Guangxi, he spent a lot of effort to reorganize the garrisons and select soldiers, but even so, he could only barely select more than 10,000 people.

As for Guizhou, I'm afraid the number of troops will be even smaller, but Sichuan may be able to mobilize more troops.

Li Rusong was used to fighting in Liaodong. When he saw the firearms equipped by the garrisons here, he was very dissatisfied. They were all antiques cast in the early Ming Dynasty. The only few falconets were of small and medium sizes, which naturally could not meet his needs.

So the first thing he did after selecting soldiers was to ask Nanjing for firearms, the latest large and medium-sized Portuguese cannons, and a batch of bird guns, which were all left over from the Ming army in Liaodong. He was also familiar with such firearms.

In fact, Li Rusong's favorite was artillery, and he was not interested in the extremely slow-firing bird guns.

However, when the bird guns were fired, the dense gunfire was very impressive and could give a great psychological shock to the charging enemy. It was much more frightening than the silent arrows.

Unfortunately, the Han people in the southwest are generally shorter than those in the north, so they cannot pull longbows, but instead use shorter whistle bows, and the range of their arrows is limited.

In this situation, in addition to intensifying the training of soldiers, it would be easier to equip a group of musketeers as soon as possible.

After all, archer training is not easy and is very time-consuming.

In fact, when they were in Liaodong, although the family servants also paid more attention to recruiting archers, these so-called archers were not truly trained by relying on the skills they practiced at home or in the garrisons.

It was only after he came to the Li family that he practiced it at great cost.

The number of archers in the Ming army was limited, and those who could barely be considered archers were even rarer, so most of the people in the Li family's servants carried bird guns or three-barreled guns as long-range weapons to make up for the shortage of archers.

This was also the main shortcoming of the Ming army when fighting against Mongolian cavalry or Jurchen tribes.

After all, the Han people, who mainly rely on farming, are indeed much inferior to these tribes who rely on fishing and hunting for their livelihood all year round.

Many military families in the Ming Dynasty failed to pass down even the most basic fighting skills. They were still a group of farmers who put down their hoes and took up swords and guns.

Although the Ming Dynasty's garrisons in the southwest often participated in wars to quell rebellions, their military preparations were actually still lax, and they mostly relied on a small number of elite troops to complete the wars.

After all, it doesn't matter how many troops a chieftain has. As long as the connection between the rebellious chieftain and other chieftains around him is cut off and they are prevented from inciting the mountain people to rebel, the government can respond quickly and mobilize troops, and it will be relatively easy to put down the rebellion.

This was also the main reason why the Ming Dynasty lavishly rewarded local chieftains of all sizes in order to stabilize the border, and it was also intended to divide their strength.

As long as the chieftains are not allowed to become too powerful and annex the surrounding weak chieftain tribes, and the size of the tribe is limited, generally no chieftain would dare to cause chaos.

At this time, Li Rusong was outside the parade ground, watching the training of nearly 10,000 soldiers.

But the more he looked at it, the more he shook his head.

Given his hot temper in Liaodong, he almost wanted to kick someone.

The soldiers wielded and stabbed their weapons weakly, not looking like elite soldiers at all. There was a huge difference between them and the Liaodong Army.

"What a bunch of trash! No wonder they were chased by a group of Japanese pirates and had to flee everywhere. I would have killed such cowardly soldiers in Liaodong." Cursing under his breath, Li Rusong was too lazy to join the queue with a stick and beat people as he did before.

"Major General, calm down. It's not worth ruining your health because of these bad soldiers.

I've heard that the southern soldiers are like this. As soon as the Japanese pirates charge, their own ranks collapse.

So after so many years of suppressing the Japanese, in the end, nothing was accomplished.”

The captain of the personal guards beside him said with a smile.

At the beginning, they strictly followed the training requirements of the Liaodong Army, but even if they beat people up, they would still do the same training the next day.

After a few days, they had no better way to deal with these soldiers.

"If they were dragged onto the battlefield, they would just turn around and run away as soon as the enemy attacked them. There would be no point in fighting this war."

Li Rusong replied unhappily.

Before leaving Beijing this time, Li Chengliang took them to visit the cabinet minister Wei Guangde, who attached great importance to the Ming-Myanmar War.

During the meeting, he even hinted that as long as the battle was fought well, he would recommend Li family to be granted the title of Earl after the war.

Of course, such an earl is different from the hereditary nobles at the beginning of the country. There can only be Li Chengliang.

If one wants to obtain inheritance for three generations, or even hereditary succession, one must exchange it for military merits.

No matter what, there was no question of the Ming Dynasty being defeated in the war with the Toungoo Dynasty of Burma.

The Ming Dynasty could not afford a failed war.

When Annan was defeated, officials withdrew their troops on the grounds that the loss of troops was huge and it was disadvantageous to the country. They did not admit the loss of troops and chose to give up.

Of course, the actual situation was that the few garrisons that the Ming Dynasty had in Annan were no longer able to undertake the task of suppressing the rebellion alone, and even the reinforcements mobilized from the country suffered defeat on the battlefield.

If they wanted to win against Annan again, they would have to mobilize a large army from the country to the south.

It is somewhat plausible to say that the method was abandoned because the computing cost was not worthwhile.

Because there had been previous lessons, Wei Guangde required the Li father and son not only to win the war, but also to win it beautifully.

Not to mention overwhelming force or unstoppable force, a similar situation is needed.

As for the most critical resources for war, Lord Wei has already solved them.

The money and grain from the four southwestern provinces, plus the 100,000 taels of silver allocated by the capital as an initial investment, and the subsequent rewards, Lord Wei will also do his best to fight for them. What else can they say with such generous conditions.

To put it bluntly, fighting a war means spending money to buy the lives of soldiers.

If they are paid enough, they will dare to fight and fight.

If they are paid too little, they will flee.

Without benefits, who would risk their lives?

Just like Qi Jiguang, Qi Lao Hu, victory was not so much a tactical victory as it was won by the bounty.

Those old soldiers who followed Qi Jiguang to fight could easily save up a fortune of one hundred taels of silver by selling their lives for a few years. After all, the heads of Japanese pirates were really valuable at that time.

"Major General, I have already inquired about it. When these bad soldiers left home, the garrison only gave them two coins of silver each as a departure fee."

The captain of the personal guards said in a low voice.

"what?"

When Li Rusong heard the words of the captain of his personal guards, his eyes immediately widened.

You have to know that the silver he approved was five cents per person as resettlement allowance.

If leaving Guangxi, each person will be given an additional five cents of silver for the journey.

According to the Ming army's practice of raising salaries, double pay was given when the troops went to war, and rewards were also given after the battle. If the rewards were really given, the amount of silver was not small.

But there is one thing, that is, the silver for the march cannot be deducted, because it is the soldiers' life-saving money.

"Did they really deduct so much?"

Li Rusong asked with his eyes wide open.

The captain of the guards nodded and said, "That's exactly what I heard. No wonder the southerners didn't fight hard. Their money has been withheld. Who would be willing to fight for them?"

Seeing that his young master was about to go berserk, the captain of the personal guards hurriedly said, "Major General, this is Guangxi after all. We should follow the local customs to avoid getting into trouble with the local tyrants."

After hearing the words of the captain of the personal guards, Li Rusong immediately calmed down and knew that he should not provoke the local tyrants easily.

If they do something bad, they could just give a warning during a war and ask their subordinates to work without putting in any effort, or even sell out their own father and son.

If that happens, the Li family will be really finished.

"Then what do you think we should do?"

Li Rusong suppressed his dissatisfaction and asked in a low voice.

“We really can’t solve this problem.”

The captain of the guards also said helplessly: "I heard that the Qi family army distributes silver directly to the officers and soldiers, without passing through the generals. But we are not from this side. If we don't let them pass through the silver next time, we don't know what will happen. I'm afraid it will be disadvantageous to the general."

Li Rusong glanced at the tents in the distance behind him. At this time, the soldiers here were training, but their commanding officers were hiding in the tents and did not come out. He roughly got an idea of ​​the faces of these people.

"We have to find a way to get rid of them and use our people to take charge of the team."

Li Rusong quickly made a decision in his mind. He decided to replace the commanding officers with his own servants as he had done in Liaodong, so that he could use them with confidence.

"What can you do?"

Li Rusong asked directly.

As for how to fight a war, both Li Rusong and the captain of the retainers beside him knew very well that they absolutely could not keep this bunch of trash around them.

Not only did nothing get done, but it also ruined the Li family's good fortune.

“When we go out to fight, let them take their own people to each prefecture to escort the grain, and replace the officers of each team with our personal soldiers. Then they will issue silver and promise a large sum of money.

I think at least on the battlefield, they won't be like this now.

As for the remaining generals, I think they would rather stay behind to escort the grain."

The captain of the guards whispered his thoughts.

"That makes sense. Separate them from the soldiers. I will write a letter to inform my two brothers later. I will also write a letter to remind my father about this matter."

Li Rusong also felt that this seemed to be the only way, so he nodded in agreement.