Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 158 War Planning
Lu Jin was generally satisfied with Xu Da's analysis. A young man who had just started out, had read military books, practiced martial arts, and had a certain understanding of the army's organization, and already possessed the thinking that a junior general should have.

But he is still a little immature now. Maybe he can fight a war, but he is not good at leading troops.

So Lu Jin said, "Although your organization and military management are not entirely satisfactory, you have some unique insights, which shows that you have really read military books. However, in terms of military management, you are still immature, a rough diamond that needs to be polished. Are you willing to be a trial commander? I will let you lead a few hundred people to hone your skills first, how about that?"

Xu Da was stunned when he heard this. He didn't expect that the commander-in-chief was so straightforward. He gave him a trial position of a thousand households right after they met and tested each other. Although it was not a regular position, at least he had nearly a thousand soldiers under his command. He would be willing to accept it even if it was just a new recruit.

So Xu Da immediately knelt on one knee and bowed, saying, "Thank you for your trust, Marshal. I will do whatever you want and will never let you down."

"Okay, step out of the line and wait aside." Lu Jin personally helped Xu Da up. He was very satisfied with accepting Xu Da. It would be even better if he was trained by himself.

"Yes." Xu Da immediately agreed and stood aside.

Lu Jin continued his inspection and did not find any special talents. Moreover, the generals of each regiment were almost complete, so he said to the generals who followed him.

"Start dividing the troops. There are more than 7,000 people here, just enough for your several regiments to divide. Zheng Yong, go ahead and select them. First, complete the establishment of your cavalry regiment."

"Yes, thank you, Marshal."

Zheng Yong was overjoyed when he heard this, and he immediately took Zhou Dexing and his captains to select people. He selected all those who knew how to shoot arrows, ride horses, and even those who knew how to raise horses. After they had gathered a combat battalion of 850 people, they stopped.

Then Lu Jin asked Yu Tongyuan and Tang He from the Seventh Regiment to go and choose. This guy kept looking for some fellow townsmen from Haozhou, and soon picked out a combat battalion, which just filled the vacancy left by Feng Sheng.

Finally, it was Feng Sheng's turn to select soldiers. He took Hua Yun, Zhang He and Fei Ju with him to select them carefully again. The people selected this time would be the foundation of their 14th Regiment, so they had no choice but to be serious.

When Feng Sheng's 14th Regiment was fully staffed, there were less than 3,000 old and weak soldiers left on the scene. The generals of their main regiments looked down on them, but Lu Jin did not despise them. He wanted to train artillery, a technical branch of the army that was best trained starting from young people.

Young people have strong learning abilities, and they can use their skills for a few more years after training. With a little polishing, when they grow up in a few years, they can be assigned to different armies. They will be around 20 years old, which is enough to become a general.

Lu Jin looked at the several promising generals he had just picked out behind him, and randomly picked the three oldest ones, 22-year-old Guo Xing, 20-year-old Zheng Yulin, and Xu Da.

"Zheng Yulin, Guo Xing, Xu Da, the three of you will be trial commanders for the time being. Go divide the remaining troops and form a battalion each. You will all take orders from me directly."

"Yes."

The three men had mixed feelings when they heard this. They were happy that they could become officers right away, but they were worried that their subordinates were all old, weak, sick and disabled people who were left over by others. They didn't know what the Marshal wanted from the perspective of having such soldiers. Could it be that all the guards were like this?

The three did not dare to ask more questions and immediately set out to reorganize the troops. Xu Da was already very clear about the organization of the Shengwu Army, and he was able to reorganize the troops with ease. He was the fastest of the three to complete the reorganization, which made Lu Jin even more satisfied.

After the three men had completely divided up the remaining soldiers, with each of them receiving nearly 900 soldiers, they came back to report to Lu Jin, and Lu Jin said again.

"Leave the three of you to Shen Yun for now. When you return to Luzhou with me, I will give you weapons and training."

"Yes." The three men responded and looked at the young general next to Lu Jin who was wearing a white cloth armor.

After sending Shen Yunxian to take them with him, Lu Jin led a group of commanders into Haozhou city. He also asked people to call Ji Guozhang, the magistrate of Haozhou, together with the three regiment commanders Zheng Yong, Yu Tongyuan, and Feng Sheng, as well as several chief officers from the civil and military classes, and the five of them held a closed-door combat meeting.

When they were selecting soldiers outside just now, Lu Jin revealed that he wanted to replenish equipment for Zheng Yong's cavalry regiment first, which obviously meant that they were preparing for war. Therefore, when several people saw Lu Jin's posture of holding a meeting, they immediately became serious.

In the second hall of the Haozhou County Government Office, Lu Jin sat in the upper seat.

"Let me first talk about the deployment of troops in Haozhou. In the next six months, the 102nd Division on the northern front will no longer continue to expand outward, but will implement the defense plan.

"Tongyuan's Seventh Regiment will stay in Haozhou, and Feng Sheng's Fourteenth Regiment will be stationed in Dingyuan after it is reorganized. You will be stationed there and trained at the same time. The Marshal's Office will replenish your weapons and armor as soon as possible.

"When Feng Sheng returns to Dingyuan, I will transfer Zhu Liangzu's 5th Regiment to serve as the commander of Haozhou. Zheng Yong, your 2nd Cavalry Regiment will also be stationed in Haozhou temporarily to undertake the defense mission together."

Several people nodded when they heard this. By this calculation, Haozhou had three main regiments, Zhu Liangzu's fifth regiment, Yu Tongyuan's seventh regiment, and Zheng Yong's second cavalry regiment. With two infantry and one cavalry, there were nearly 15,000 troops in a place like Haozhou. It was hard to imagine who could break through.

Thinking of what Lu Jin had said before about replenishing the cavalry's equipment first, and there were no outsiders present, Zheng Yong asked directly.

"Marshal, please reinforce our cavalry regiment first. Are the enemy's cavalry coming? In this defensive battle, our second regiment will play the main role?"

"clever."

Lu Jin nodded and did not continue to hide it from them. He immediately told them again the military intelligence he had told Zhu Liangzu that day.

"I have received intelligence that the Yuan court began to gather troops in early January. The first batch was led by Prime Minister Toghto's brother Yesen. They were going to fight Liu Futong and had little to do with us. The main general of the Yuan army against us in Haozhou was the former Deputy Marshal of East Zhejiang, Dong Tuanxiao.

"This man seems to be from the Imperial Academy of Baoyuan. He was previously the deputy marshal of Zhejiang East and fought with Fang Guozhen of Donghai for several years. He was defeated by Fang Guozhen and became a marshal without troops. His navy was completely wiped out. This man is not good at naval battles, but you must not underestimate the enemy. He is good at land battles. Otherwise, the Yuan court would not have reused him, a defeated general."

Everyone nodded when they heard this. They knew without thinking that this information must have been hard-won. Now that the enemy has not arrived yet, Lu Jin has figured out the identity and resume of the enemy's main general, so that everyone can plan ahead here. How can they not win?
Seeing that everyone nodded to show that they heard it, Lu Jin continued speaking.

"Dong Tuanxiao has been temporarily transferred to be the governor of Jining Road. He is currently recruiting a large army and will arrive in March or April at the latest. However, there is a vanguard army ahead of him. Although it is not clear who is leading the troops, it is certain that he is a Mongolian Tartar. There will be about 3,000 cavalrymen who will arrive in Haozhou first."

Zheng Yong sat up straight immediately after hearing this. These 3,000 cavalry vanguards were the focus of this meeting for him.

Sure enough, I heard Lu Jin continue to speak.

"Three thousand cavalrymen, if they don't dismount, they will definitely not be able to attack the city. But even if they don't attack the city, as long as they plunder the countryside outside the city, it's disgusting." Ji Guozhang, who had been silent all this time, suddenly realized, "That's why the Marshal ordered us to fortify the city and clear the countryside in advance. So this is the reason."

"Yes, we must fortify the city walls and clear the fields. These 3,000 cavalrymen are only the vanguard, to spy on the enemy and capture civilians. If they succeed, not only will the people of Haozhou suffer, but when Dong Tuanxiao's army arrives, he can use the captured people of Haozhou to fill ditches and climb the city walls. Rather than letting the people die tragically under the city walls, it is better to move them away in advance or move them into the city, so that when Dong Tuanxiao arrives, there will be no civilians to use and they will not be able to feed on the enemy."

Everyone nodded when they heard this. No wonder Lu Jin asked them to prepare for defense immediately after they captured Haozhou. It was already mid-January and the enemy could arrive as early as March, so they only had one or two months to prepare.

However, if we didn't know about it in advance, we would have to wait here and defend ourselves. But since Lu Jin has obtained such detailed information and there are still one or two months left, we can make some preparations in advance.

The main force of 15,000 will probably not end well in a head-on fight with Dong Tuanxiao's army, but these 3,000 vanguard troops may not be able to defeat them.

Three thousand cavalrymen, even if each man has one horse, that would be three thousand war horses. For the Shengwu Army, which is in short supply of horses, this is a great temptation!

Zheng rolled his eyes and said, "General, since we know that the enemy's vanguard is 3,000 cavalry, and we are short of war horses, should we think of a way to kill them?"

Lu Jin laughed when he heard that, and even gave him a thumbs up. If anyone didn't know, they would have thought it was a bandit meeting in the mountain stronghold.

"How do you want to fight?"

Zheng Yong immediately analyzed, "Three thousand foreign troops have come from afar, and they have traveled a long distance, but our army can wait for them to tire themselves out. My cavalry regiment now has 2,500 cavalry available, not counting the newly recruited soldiers. 2500 against 3,000, and with the support of the main infantry, we may not be unable to fight them. If we can defeat this enemy force, we can not only dampen their morale, but also capture some war horses."

Lu Jin nodded, but still reminded, "With the deployment of Haozhou's troops, two regiments of infantry and one regiment of cavalry, it is not difficult to completely wipe out this group of 3,000 cavalry. The difficult part is that you want to seize the horses, which is not easy. How confident are you?"

"Let me think about it again." Zheng Yong frowned and began to think.

It is not easy to fight against cavalry, especially cavalry against cavalry, and Zheng Yong had no experience with them.

Of course, in history, the spear infantry in the early Ming Dynasty could also fight against cavalry, but that was different and could only be considered an individual battle example and could not be regarded as a general situation.

During the Song Dynasty, the Song army always adopted a passive defensive approach, and they liked to use heavy armor, chariots, and bows and crossbows the most. I would surround the chariots, put on heavy armor, and use long-range soldiers to shoot. Or they would just defend the city. Active attacks or hand-to-hand combat in the field were rare.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the situation was just the opposite. The Ming army was never afraid of hand-to-hand combat, but also liked hand-to-hand combat the most.

What people talked about most was probably the battle in which Feng Sheng led two thousand spear infantrymen to fight against Wang Baobao's four thousand cavalrymen. The most important thing was that they won the battle, which shocked Wang Baobao greatly.

But how was the battle fought? It was based on the terrain.

If the infantry wants to fight the cavalry head-on, first you have to understand that on the great plains, no matter how powerful and skilled your infantry is, it will be useless if they cannot catch up with the cavalry.

You want to fight, but the enemy can keep hiding from you, waiting for your infantry to become tired and exhausted, lengthening your supply lines. The cavalry can then use high-speed maneuvers to go around behind you and cut off your food supply, and then surround your infantry regiment to starve for a few days, and then use the cavalry to bully the weak.

No matter how powerful your infantry is, if you run out of food and supplies, you will all be lambs to be slaughtered.

At that time, Feng Sheng was stationed in Xuzhou, and Zhu Yuanzhang's main force was fighting a decisive battle with Zhang Shicheng, and could not spare any troops to deal with Wang Baobao.

So Zhu Yuanzhang wrote several letters to Wang Baobao, saying, "Don't come over, or I will deal with you."

Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang was threatening Wang Baobao, but Wang Baobao saw through Zhu Yuanzhang's letter what it meant to be strong on the outside but weak on the inside. He also knew that Zhu Yuanzhang's main force was in a decisive battle with Zhang Shicheng at that time and he could not spare too many troops. So what's the point of bluffing here? The louder you shout, the more afraid you are of being beaten.

So Wang Baobao sent 4,000 cavalry to attack Xuzhou.

Xuzhou is surrounded by vast plains, but there are rivers. After Tuotuo massacred the people in Xuzhou, there were not many people left in the area. The ground was covered with half-human-high wormwood and piles of bones.

The generals on Wang Baobao's side did not take Feng Sheng seriously and advanced their troops very quickly. Seeing that the other general was arrogant, Feng Sheng secretly left the city with two thousand spearmen, sneaked behind the enemy by boat, hid in the grass, and waited until the enemy was lured to the river. Then he led the two thousand spearmen to charge against the enemy's four thousand cavalry!
As a result of that battle, Wang Baobao's 4,000 cavalrymen were pushed into the river by Feng Sheng's 2,000 spear infantrymen, and countless soldiers and horses were drowned.

Whether the infantry dares to charge the cavalry is one thing, but you have to choose a suitable terrain. Limiting the cavalry's mobility is even more critical. Having the courage to fight is one thing, and whether you can succeed is another.

Therefore, it is not that infantry cannot fight cavalry. The key is to choose a terrain that makes it impossible for the enemy to maneuver!
Once the cavalry can no longer run and loses their speed, they will be surrounded and beaten to death by the infantry.

Seeing that everyone was in deep thought, Lu Jin spoke.

"It's not impossible to capture as many war horses as possible. The best way is to set an ambush."

When several people heard that Lu Jin was planning to ambush the enemy, they immediately laughed sinisterly. The soldiers all said that the Marshal was the best at strategizing. How could the enemies who were tricked by Lu Jin ever get away with anything good?
Upon hearing this, Zheng Yong immediately asked, "What's your plan, Marshal?"

Lu Jin expressed his thoughts.

"Cavalry is the most difficult to capture. The key lies in their mobility and their ability to run fast. Therefore, if we want to annihilate this group of cavalry, the most important thing is to stop them from running."

Everyone was thoughtful after hearing the words.

Lu Jin continued, "It's best to find a place, either a village, a forest, or a place with dense river networks and swamps. You must make good use of the terrain, focus on both infantry and cavalry, set up an ambush, and then send troops to lure the enemy into the encirclement. I guarantee that no one will escape."

Upon hearing this, Zheng Yong immediately recalled the time when Lu Jin lured Zuo Junbi to send troops and surrounded and annihilated him in the valley.

The method is very old-fashioned, but very useful, isn’t it? The reason why a routine becomes a routine is because it is useful!
(End of this chapter)