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Chapter 1161 Persuading Surrender
"I have said before that the commander here is a smart man. Now I have to add the evaluation of decisiveness and courage. Facing failure requires greater courage and responsibility. I still underestimated the enemy."

Hong Tao also regretted this sudden change. If he had not been hindered by the Ottoman fortifications, he should have sent troops up the river to cut off the retreat as soon as the war broke out.

Unexpectedly, it is not an excuse. Didn't the ancients say that if you don't plan well, you will be poor. As the commander-in-chief of this battle, any carelessness may change the situation of the battle, so we must take it as a warning.

"Your Majesty, the enemy can't run far. According to the intelligence of the Army General Staff, Muhammadra, 70 kilometers upstream on the north bank, is a market town without even a city wall. It is not suitable for defense and we have to cross the river. The only place we can stay is Basra.

If the intelligence is correct, and the water along the way is deep enough, a distance of 100 kilometers can be reached by boat in one day and one night. We can't dig too many trenches in this short time. We should take down Basra while the enemy is still unstable!"

The emperor began to criticize himself, and the officers present did not dare to make excuses. Ding Shun was strategic, not mentioning the previous mistakes, but talking about what to do now.

"What do you think?" Hong Tao looked around and didn't say whether it was possible or not.

"…The Army General Staff thinks it's feasible! Without trenches, the Ottoman army's strength will be greatly reduced. Since they are good at digging and hiding, we won't give them time to dig, and we will use our speed to defeat their slowness and force them to fight the army in the field."

The officers did not answer the emperor's question immediately, but communicated in a low voice first, and finally Ding Shun made a summary.

"What about the navy?" Hong Tao still hadn't made a decision and looked at the Navy's Deputy Chief of Staff Bai Fan.

"...The inland wind is not as strong as the sea, it is weak and uncertain. If the wind is less than a day and a night, it will be difficult to reach. Fortunately, Basra is not far from the sea, and warships and armed cargo ships should be able to reach it... within three days."

Bai Fan did not dare to jump to conclusions. He talked with several naval staff officers and generally agreed with the army's plan, but he needed two days' grace period.

"Then let's do it. Let's act immediately. Leave two thousand men in the army to wipe out the remaining enemies and take over the port of Fao. If we can find enough camels, we will send some cavalry to follow the fleet along the river bank.

The Navy will leave all the supply ships behind and send a communication ship back to Hormuz to inform the astronauts that they can transport the main force and supplies over."

After the army and navy had expressed their opinions, Hong Tao made a decision. In four words, he followed the advice. Except for a few details, there were basically no changes.

It's not that he has run out of tricks, but there are simply not that many strange ideas and conspiracies in war. Most of the time, both sides are open chess players, and even if they are unfamiliar at first, they will become familiar with each other after playing once or twice.

The army generals concluded correctly that the Ottoman army was very experienced in positional warfare and could use pre-set fortifications to fully exert the power of their weapons. However, if the pace was accelerated and they were not given time to build fortifications on a large scale, they might not be so difficult to defeat in field battles.

In the past, when the Ming army encountered nomadic cavalry that were good at large-scale mobile field battles, they had to find ways to drag the enemy into the rhythm of positional warfare and defeat the fast with the slow.

Now that they were facing the Ottoman infantry who were good at positional warfare, they could no longer use the old ideas. They had to speed up the pace and force the other side to engage in field battles, giving full play to the firepower advantage of the Ming army. What is this called? This is called adapting to local conditions and different people. Since the officers have already thought of it, why should they act like a big wolf and have to satisfy Zhuge Liang's addiction? If they can be so flexible every time, there may be no more emperors leading the army in person in the future.

"Jin Gui, take the Arab guide to the front line and find a way to tell the defenders that they have been abandoned and the only way out is to surrender. If they are willing, they can be treated as prisoners of war. It would be best if you can find out the whereabouts of Wang Datou and the approximate deployment of the Ottoman army."

However, some things still had to be arranged by themselves. The generals were very professional in fighting wars, but they were not used to proactively thinking about how to collect intelligence and how to govern the local area.

This is also the sequelae of specialization. In the Ming Dynasty military system, not interfering in local government affairs is a red line, and few generals would think about these easy-to-violate ways. And the civilian officials who are good at this did not come with the army, so they had to do it themselves.

This time the army came not only to punish the Ottoman Sultan, that was just an external excuse so that it could stand the test of reason, that is, it had a legitimate reason.

Under the guise of justice, the real purpose was rather dirty. The first was power, to strike at the Ottoman Empire's influence in the Mesopotamian region and weaken its control; the second was to cultivate agents, in this way expanding and protecting the interests of the Ming Empire in this area.

In fact, it all comes down to two words: power and profit. What is justice or injustice? Without the motivation of profit, who would travel thousands of miles to play hard on someone else's territory?

But how to gain a foothold and who to support as the agent of the Ming Empire is a very complicated issue, which may be more troublesome to deal with than fighting. If played well, it can achieve twice the result with half the effort; if played badly, it may very well become a disaster.

There is only one person who can take on this important task, Wang Datou. He has been working quietly in the West Asia region for several years, and he can even instigate rebellion among the Egyptian Mamluk nobles. His network of contacts is indeed extensive.

I just don't know where he is now or whether he is still alive. Murad IV killed even his brothers and meritorious officials at will, so he would not be too polite to a foreigner who instigated rebellion.

There are only two possibilities to rescue him, one is soft and the other is hard. The soft method is diplomatic means, and the Ministry of Rites has already started to implement it. On the one hand, contact the Ottoman court through the Persians to see if they can persuade them with reason and emotion. On the other hand, ask the British to come forward and lure them with benefits.

The hard part was the hostage exchange. As long as they could capture a high-ranking Ottoman general, they could negotiate with Murad IV. Although he was tyrannical, he was not stupid and knew what was important.

"Your Majesty, I'm afraid the Arabic interpreter we found can't serve as a lobbyist. It's very difficult for an outsider to persuade the defenders to surrender at this time. We must find someone who can be trusted by the generals of the defenders, or at least someone they are familiar with.

The student thought that the Portuguese might be able to take on this important task, but they would need His Majesty's approval to give them some sweet treats, such as granting them special leniency and allowing people and ships to leave here to escape the war."

Jin Gui was silent most of the time, looked depressed, and had a low sense of presence. But his ability to understand was not weak at all. He accurately grasped the emperor's intentions and proposed specific ways to achieve them.

(End of this chapter)