Chapter 551: This Lu Xiangsheng Is Too Cautious

The army marched north, and the first city to be taken was Fushun.

In the seventeenth year of Hongwu, the Ming dynasty built Fushun City at the foot of Gao'er Mountain. Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di bestowed the imperial inscription "Pacify the frontier, guide the barbarians," from which the name "Fushun" was derived.

Once past Fushun, the Great Ming could strike directly at Hetu Ala. That city of Hetu Ala was newly built by Nurhaci himself.

As long as Fushun fell, the Great Ming's path of advance would be completely opened. Once the war reached such a point, there was basically no suspense—the Jianzhou barbarians could be said to have no retreat left.

Rather, on the eastern battle line, Lu Xiangsheng was also seated on horseback.

In recent years, the Great Ming had been very active in Liaodong, and all sorts of commercial and espionage activities had long since been launched. Whether it was the Imperial Household Department or the Embroidered Uniform Guard, their tentacles reached everywhere—at the very least, maps had been drawn up.

Under the rules set by the Imperial Academy, the new-style maps were completed and delivered to the Imperial Guard Corps for use.

Now, within the Imperial Guard Corps, the first thing required to become a commander was knowing how to read maps. If one couldn't read maps, one basically couldn't become a commander.

Lu Xiangsheng held a map in his hands, with a telescope hanging from his chest. The terrain of this land had long been committed to his memory, yet he still took out the map from time to time to verify things, truly afraid that something might go wrong somewhere.

This time, what Lu Xiangsheng had to do was advance along the Yalu River line, strike directly toward Hetu Ala, and at the same time attack the Fei Ala mountain city beneath Hulan Hada.

These two places were extremely important to the Jianzhou barbarians, and also extremely important to the Great Ming.

Hetu Ala was where Nurhaci proclaimed himself Khan, while Fei Ala mountain city was where Nurhaci had rebelled. The Great Ming absolutely had to take both places.

To the Great Ming, Nurhaci was a capricious petty man, and a traitor to boot. Back in the day, he had been Li Chengliang's personal guard. Though he had a pile of messy family affairs, some things simply couldn't be explained clearly.

But it didn't matter—from the Great Ming's standpoint, he deserved to be beaten. Lu Xiangsheng wanted to take both places, and he felt there was no difficulty in it.

As a new generation figure in the military, Lu Xiangsheng had quite a few people from the Imperial Academy supporting him from behind.

For the people of the Imperial Academy, this was an opportunity to display their strength to the outside world. People like Sun Chuanting felt they were falling behind the times. As for the other commanders, they were even less worth a glance.

So this time, they wanted to prove to the world that they were the most talented, that they were the best, and that everyone else was nothing but mud chickens and clay dogs.

As Lu Xiangsheng's good friend and also his subordinate, Cao Wenzhao rode his horse alongside him.

The two advanced together.

Cao Wenzhao turned his head to look at Lu Xiangsheng and said with a smile: "Why are you looking at the map again? Aren't you being a bit too nervous? We've sent out this many troops this time—there definitely won't be any major problems."

Zhu Youxiao now had two Imperial Guard Corps, each with fifty thousand men. In recent years, a large portion of his money had been sunk into military horses, and all sorts of new-style weapons had been lavished upon them. They ate the best food and trained under the best conditions.

This time, fifty thousand were deployed, with twenty-five thousand drawn from each side—this was already a rare majority of forces.

In the words of Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng, this was somewhat of an overkill. The Jianzhou barbarians' strength had been severely weakened in recent years.

Even if they hadn't been weakened, Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng still felt that too many troops were being used—ten thousand would have been sufficient.

The current Great Ming Imperial Guard Corps was undefeatable beyond ten thousand men. These two commanders had unparalleled confidence—there would absolutely be no problems.

Lu Xiangsheng glanced at Cao Wenzhao and said with a grave face: "We must not be arrogant. An arrogant army is doomed to defeat—we need to be more cautious."

Upon hearing this, Cao Wenzhao nodded and said: "Indeed, we must not be arrogant, but you're being far too cautious. How many attack plans did you say you've worked out?"

"The day before yesterday you told me it was fourteen plans, with all kinds of preparations made. And during our war-game simulations before, how many times did we run through them? Forty-six times, right? And we've drilled every kind of scenario—what could possibly go wrong?"

In Cao Wenzhao's view, Lu Xiangsheng was simply too cautious, and this caution seemed somewhat baffling.

Lu Xiangsheng bore the Emperor's hopes on his shoulders, carried the reputation of the Imperial Academy, and the pressure was too great. This was his first time leading troops in such a major battle, and he could only win—he could not lose.

But even so, this caution was excessive. Cao Wenzhao was afraid that Lu Xiangsheng would snap that taut string, so he wanted to loosen it for him.

Being this tense was truly not good.

Lu Xiangsheng glanced at Cao Wenzhao, put away the map in his hands, and sighed: "You should also understand what this means this time. Even if we don't seek merit, we still need to fight this battle beautifully."

Cao Wenzhao said dismissively: "What's so impressive about them? Do they even dare to come out?"

As he said this, Cao Wenzhao was filled with pride, his chest puffing out.

In previous battles, the Great Ming rarely was willing to fight field engagements with the enemy. Because field battles were easy to lose—the Ming cavalry wasn't strong enough, and when facing the enemy's charges, discipline wasn't strict enough, and combat effectiveness was too poor. To put it bluntly, the army just wasn't good enough.

Back when Emperor Chengzu swept the north, he also relied mainly on infantry square formations, but he was able to win. Facing cavalry charges, his men feared not death and could surround and trample the cavalry.

But the current Ming soldiers had long since declined. However, Cao Wenzhao believed that the Son of Heaven's Imperial Guard Corps could stand unmoved as a mountain.

But the Imperial Guard Corps wouldn't even give the enemy's cavalry a chance to charge their formations. They had their own cavalry—and it was lance-cavalry, cavalry equipped with new-style cavalry rifles.

In Cao Wenzhao's view, lance-cavalry was an invincible existence on the battlefield.

One bullet takes out one enemy; sitting on horseback, working the bolt and firing—that was the romance of modern cavalry.

No matter how many men the enemy sent, it would be useless. If they wanted to charge the infantry square formations, plenty of lance-cavalry would teach them a lesson.

Whether it was riflemen, machine gunners, mortar crews, or mountain artillery crews, all of them would make those savage Jianzhou barbarians know what it meant to come and never return!

All the equipment this time was designated the Tianqi Type-8, which, as the name implied, meant it was formally standardized in the eighth year of Tianqi.

Everything the Son of Heaven's Imperial Guard Corps had brought this time was the Tianqi Type-8, which in Cao Wenzhao's view was excessively powerful.

Lu Xiangsheng glanced at Cao Wenzhao and said: "You also know from our war-games that if they don't come out of the city and only stay inside, then they can only sit and wait for death."

This matter had been discussed countless times and simulated countless times.

If Hong Taiji didn't send out his troops and instead chose to hold firm within the city, then he would suffer the most miserable defeat. No other way of collapsing could compare to the misery of collapsing that way.

Because within the Imperial Guard Corps, siege warfare had become a mandatory training subject. Whether it was artillery or riflemen, there were no problems in that regard.

Under normal circumstances, facing such a city, one simply went up and unleashed a barrage of cannon fire, then did other things. And cities like these in Liaodong, built of rammed earth, simply couldn't withstand cannon fire.

Although many people said rammed-earth walls were sturdy, when facing firearms, they weren't so sturdy after all.

"So you think they'll definitely come out of the city?" Cao Wenzhao looked at Lu Xiangsheng and asked.

"Definitely." Lu Xiangsheng nodded and said: "You should know that the court has gathered no small amount of intelligence these past few years. Hong Taiji is a man with some boldness—not the kind of cowardly, death-fearing sort. He will definitely gamble on a fight."

"With the Sarhu of that year, there was also hope. This time, if they could win like at Sarhu, then they could turn things around immediately. Under such circumstances, do you think they wouldn't gamble? Besides, in recent years they've bought no small amount of our weapons and equipment."

Cao Wenzhao furrowed his brow, his expression somewhat displeased as he said: "What? There are people selling our weapons and equipment out there? Isn't the north controlled by the Imperial Household Department? They would actually let people sell things out too?"

Ever since the great Zhangjiakou case back then, there weren't many people left on the frontier who dared to engage in smuggling.

Daning City had an open trading post, and even Zhangjiakou had opened trade ports. Under such circumstances, everyone could do business peacefully and pay taxes peacefully, and everyone would be safe. If someone smuggled for profit, it would likely mean execution of the entire household.

Under such circumstances, few people remained willing to take risks. Aside from some hardened bandits, very few would do such things.

But even if they did, there were people around to investigate and punish them—those soldiers didn't care about such things. Smuggling military equipment was basically impossible.

Upon hearing Cao Wenzhao's words, Lu Xiangsheng said helplessly: "It was those people from the Imperial Household Department who did it. They openly sell weapons in the capital, and they're basically all the obsolete stuff our Imperial Guard Corps has phased out."

"The armor we phased out, along with the blades and spears—we sold them all to the Mongols. Except for bows and arrows, over these past few years the Imperial Household Department has nearly emptied the storehouses in the capital, and all that scrap was sold off to the Mongols."

"Whether it's the Khorchin or the Inner Khalkha, they've been busy with this for years. And once Mongol merchants leave Daning city, who out on the steppe can control where they go?"

"Many people delivered this equipment straight into the hands of the Jianzhou barbarians. By now, they've swapped out a whole batch of their gear too."

"You didn't sell them bows and arrows?" Cao Wenzhao asked.

Lu Xiangsheng shook his head and said with a smile: "Selling those isn't allowed. Most of those bows and arrows were sent elsewhere—the largest shipments went to Sichuan and Yunnan—but selling them on the northern frontier is forbidden."

"What's there to fear without bows and arrows?" Cao Wenzhao said with a look of indifference.

They had tested it themselves—this new type of rifle punched through armor like it was nothing, and a single shot could kill a man outright.

What's more, they could now hit exactly where they aimed, with extremely high accuracy. The men in the army had even started shooting birds in the eye with their rifles, just out of sheer boredom.

Under these circumstances, even if you shielded the man, you couldn't shield the horse.