Chapter 1045: Isn't This Sarhu? (Please Subscribe)

That same night, the main office of the Grand Marshal's headquarters in Tangquan Town was ablaze with lights.

Including Military Advisor Wu Sanfu, all the bureau chiefs under the Grand Marshal's Office, as well as the lower-ranking staff officers, were working overtime tonight to prepare the draft of the northern expedition plan!

After the news of the coup in Joseon arrived, the middle and upper ranks of the Grand Marshal's Office all knew that the northern expedition war would have to be moved up!

And that especially money-making lord of the Ming restoration up in the Old Mountain Palace might well ask about the northern expedition strategy at tomorrow's court session — they could not show up without any preparation!

In the central hall of the Grand Marshal's Office, a very rich aroma of tea was drifting through the air. Wu Sanfu sat high in the seat of honor, while Yan Yingyuan, Xu Ermo, Qi Yuanbi, Sun Fugui, Zheng Jiangong, Zhu Chunjie, and the other bureau and guard commanders each took their seats, all holding tea bowls, sipping the strong, invigorating tea as they discussed the grand strategy for the northern expedition.

"In my view, this campaign to pacify Liaodong cannot be decided quickly. Winning within three years would already be good enough. Pacifying Liao will have to be fought as a protracted war, draining wealth and resources. As long as we can exhaust the Manchu treasury, the Liao campaign will be a complete victory. And to exhaust the Manchu treasury, the key lies in two things. First, a naval blockade! We must not let them export furs and eastern pearls to New Spain. Second, sustained contact — best if there is fighting every single day, without a moment's pause, so that the eastern barbarians' farmers cannot till their fields, the land lies waste, every trade withers, and after two or three years of this, they will naturally collapse."

The one speaking now was Wu Sanfu. He was a man of Liao, born and bred in the Liao garrison, and moreover thoroughly familiar with military farming and the ways of war and agriculture — the Liao garrison had also once run military colonies, but those colonies had fundamentally been unable to feed a large army, and the court had still had to pour in several million in cash and grain every year to keep it alive.

Since the Liao garrison could not survive on military colonies, then the eastern barbarians likewise could not possibly maintain a large army by farming. Therefore, as long as we cut off their trade and then carry out continuous attacks, forcing the eastern barbarians' people to toil on the battlefield for long periods without rest and without the chance to farm, then after two or three years, the people will naturally be exhausted and the treasury emptied.

By then, Duoni's Manchu soldiers will be reduced to the same state as the Ming's starving guard-station troops, and they will naturally be destroyed!

"Furs and eastern pearls cannot be completely blockaded," Zheng Jiangong immediately raised an objection. "The demand for furs and pearls in the southeast and in Europe is enormous. If we blockade the furs and eastern pearls from beyond the passes, then Russia will reap the benefit. Russia has no small conflicts with us in the regions of Mongolia and Moghulistan, and they hold the advantage in communications, making them very difficult to defeat thoroughly. If we let the Russians grow their financial strength through the fur and pearl trade, the problems in the northwest and the north will become hard to solve."

What he said was of course not one hundred percent the truth — the reason he opposed blockading the fur and eastern pearl trade was that Zhu Cilang had already begun to treat furs and eastern pearls as a growth point in the Sino-European maritime trade.

With tea unable to break open the market for the time being, and silk and porcelain monopolized by the Dutch, anyone wanting a share of the Sino-European ocean trade had to find another path and new trade goods. Furs and eastern pearls, these two luxury goods, were undoubtedly important commodities capable of sustaining a sea route.

And possessing long-distance maritime trade routes would in turn greatly promote the development of the navy!

Zhu Chunjie knew that Zheng Jiangong's meaning was Zhu Cilang's meaning, so he quickly spoke up: "The Duke of Xingguo (Zheng Jiangong was promoted in rank after the great naval battle of Kagoshima) is absolutely right. There is no need to completely blockade the silk and porcelain trade, and it is not really possible either. How many warships does the navy have? Right now it has to transport people to the New World, pursue and suppress the Spanish pirates, and ship troops to Siam — how could it possibly manage all that?"

Yan Yingyuan, the Chief of the Staff Bureau, said: "Then we must take Liaodong and Liaoxi quickly. Although the eastern barbarians spent many years developing Manchuria, the true granary beyond the passes is still the Liao River basin. As long as we can quickly seize the fertile lands on both banks of the Liao River, Duoni's position will collapse."

"How do we take it quickly?" Wu Sanfu asked.

"We can land at the mouth of the Liao River!" Zheng Jiangong said. "The navy cannot spare many of its ocean-going ships, but there are still plenty of sand ships. Transporting one division at a time to land at the Liao River mouth is no problem. A few round trips will put tens of thousands of men ashore."

"Coming ashore by sea is one way. Fighting all the way from Shanhai Pass would not be fast." Wu Sanfu waved his hand. "But transporting infantry alone will not do. The banks of the Liao River are very open — a battlefield where cavalry roams freely. We must plan this carefully, think it through thoroughly, and produce a workable strategy."

Qi Yuanbi, Chief of the Infantry Bureau of the Grand Marshal's Office, said: "Shanhai Pass must also be attacked! And Jinzhou Pass should be hit too — otherwise how will we draw out the eastern barbarians' main force?"

"Shanhai Pass, Jinzhou Pass, and the Liao River mouth — that makes three routes already," said Sun Fugui, Chief of the Cavalry Bureau. "Why not add two more? One along the Daling River, one along the Xiaoling River!"

"Splitting the army into five routes?" Xu Ermo, Chief of the Artillery Bureau, frowned slightly. "Isn't this the deployment from Sarhu? At Sarhu they advanced in four routes, but because the armies of Liu Ting and Du Song were too far apart, it was effectively five routes. Five routes could not support one another, and so they were smashed one by one by the eastern barbarians' tens of thousands of elite Eight Banners troops. Now we are splitting into five routes again — could it be..."

"No, no," Yan Yingyuan waved his hand and laughed. "How could that happen? The government troops at the time of Sarhu cannot compare with today's New Army. Although we are divided into five routes, each route has the ability to defeat the eastern barbarians' main force on its own.

Moreover, a five-route advance will surely leave the eastern barbarians at a loss, exhausted from responding. Either they abandon Liaodong and Liaoxi and flee far away, or they hold their cities to drag things out. Whatever their response, our army holds certain victory!

If the eastern barbarians stake everything on one throw and try to imitate Nurhaci's method — heh, they will only lose more disastrously!"

Sun Fugui added: "If we concentrate our forces on a single route, we can only advance through Shanhai Pass and the Liaoxi Corridor. The eastern barbarians have been preparing there for years. The more than three hundred li between Shanhai Pass and Jinzhou has long been stripped bare — the land along the route has all been abandoned, the villages and towns are all empty, the forts without garrisons have all been destroyed, and the ports and bridges have all been dismantled. Only a few fortified towns remain with heavy garrisons: Shanhai Pass, Ningyuan, Jinzhou, and Songshan. Among them, Ningyuan, Jinzhou, and Songshan have all been rebuilt into bastion forts.

If we advance through the Liaoxi Corridor, we may find ourselves blocked beneath the bastions of Jinzhou and Songshan when winter arrives."

While Dodo was alive, he had known that Zhu Cilang would not let go of the lands beyond the passes. The temporary halt in fighting was only because Hebei, Henan, Shandong (the western part), Shanxi, and other regions had just been recovered and needed time to rebuild — and Zhu Cilang's rebuilding was not merely building bridges, roads, and houses, but also included the firm control of population and land!

This in turn involved many conflicts of interest, and for the local powerholders in the aforementioned regions it was not exactly good news. So Emperor Zhu's army had to be ready at all times to suppress the resistance of the northern local powerholders!

Taking advantage of this breathing spell, the Andong Army was pushing full force to migrate people eastward, while at the same time abandoning Liaoxi to fallow — in the area around present-day Xingkai Lake, apart from the old Eight Banners from within the Second Ring Road of Beijing, the people there were all migrants from the Liaoxi Corridor.

So the Liaoxi Corridor is now basically a wasteland, and an advancing Ming army would be essentially unable to supply itself locally.

But what Dodo and Duoni could move was only the people of the Liaoxi Corridor. The Liao River plain east of Jinzhou could not be moved.

The Liao River plain, especially the eastern part of the Liao River plain, is a place so rich it drips with oil — the economic center and most densely populated region of the Andong Protectorate's jurisdiction, and at the same time the granary of the Andong Protectorate. This was a prosperous land built up over more than two hundred years of Ming development, and it simply cannot be abandoned — otherwise the Andong Protectorate would be finished!

Wu Sanfu was far too familiar with the terrain of Liaoxi; he knew it with his eyes closed. He nodded and said: "Advancing on a single route will not work. We must divide our forces. Then let it be five routes! The Staff Bureau must push harder and produce the draft first. After tomorrow's noon court session it is to be submitted to His Majesty for review."

(End of Chapter)