Chapter 420: Time for the Central Army to Show Its Worth

Wu Xiang reminded him in a low voice, "Thousand Years, Gao Hongtu never submitted a memorial urging Your Highness to take the throne."

Whether or not one has submitted a memorial urging accession is a matter of where one sits! For those petty officials without troops, it makes no difference, but officers of the New Army at company and banner level and above (including company and banner level), the officials serving among the people in South Zhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and other places, and civil officials of the court above the rank of bureau vice director must all declare their position on this question! If an officer of the New Army at company and banner level or above fails to submit a memorial urging accession, then he can pack up and go home at once — loyalty to the Crown Prince Zhu is the first iron rule that everyone in the New Army, high and low, must obey!

If one is a civil official, one will not be dismissed from office, but one will become a key target of investigation by the Censorate. Investigate thoroughly, and problems can always be found.

But a frontier warlord like Gao Hongtu was not someone Zhu Cilang could handle as he pleased!

Although the old man had been beaten by Dodo so badly that he nearly jumped into the Tu River, in the end he still led fifteen thousand men off the battlefield.

He had fought Dodo's main force in open battle for three days and still managed to get half his men out alive — and Dodo had not dared to pursue. From the Tu River front back to the city of Jinan Prefecture was nearly two hundred li!

Dodo's Eight Banners troops were all cavalry. The fact that he did not pursue could only mean one thing: his own losses had been considerable too. It must have been a costly victory, a narrow victory! His heart was uneasy, and he did not dare fight again — that was why Gao Hongtu had been able to withdraw safely.

Not even the old Guanning Army could have produced such a result, yet Gao Hongtu's Shandong militia had actually done it.

This at least proved two things. First, the fighting power of the Shandong militia was not weak — and this was only its beginning! If Gao Hongtu jumped into the water a few more times, and Zhu Cilang supplemented him with pay and arms, sooner or later the force would be tempered into something formidable!

Second, Gao Hongtu's control over the Shandong militia was already complete.

Management and control are also a kind of fighting power! Only when control is in place can orders be enforced and prohibitions observed, and only when orders are enforced and prohibitions observed can an army of tens of thousands fight with one heart and one purpose.

If one judged the Guanning Army by individual fighting ability, it was absolutely superior to the Shandong militia, and they too were Liaodong men defending Liaodong soil, much like the Shandong militia — yet they had no ability to fight the Manchu troops in the field.

The reason, in the end, was that no one could control the Guanning Army the way Gao Hongtu controlled the "Qi Braves" — the Guanning Army, to put it bluntly, was a force cobbled together from a pack of petty warlords leading their own household retainers. Its internal cohesion was far inferior to that of the "Qi Braves," and it also lacked a "founding leader" like Gao Hongtu to sit on the factions below. So of ten parts of fighting strength, at most three or four could be brought to bear, and at the critical moment no one was willing to fight to the death.

And such a "Qi Braves" force, able to fight and willing to bleed, was not now firmly under Zhu Cilang's control. And such armies in the present Great Ming were surely not limited to the Qi Braves alone!

To make free use of the regional militias was, without question, a double-edged sword!

"No matter," Zhu Cilang merely smiled, seemingly not at all concerned. "We do not need his memorial to become emperor."

That remark was somewhat improper, and the ministers present all frowned slightly.

Seeing their expressions, Zhu Cilang realized it too, and added, "We are a filial son. That We should sooner or later take Our Imperial Father's place is also out of filial piety. For Our Imperial Father has long had the intention of retiring and roaming at leisure, and We, as his son, how could We not bear more of his burdens? For the subjects below to submit memorials urging accession was from the start an unnecessary act. When the time is ripe, Our Imperial Father will naturally issue an edict of inner abdication. So long as We can deal the Tartar caitiffs one severe blow, so that they no longer dare covet the southeast, who would still refuse to submit?"

Since Gao Hongtu's Qi Braves had performed well, and Shi Kefa's Qufu Kong Braves could also fight, then Zhu Cilang's "central army" could not be too weak — it too had to put on a good performance. Otherwise, with this Brave and that Brave, they would not be convinced!

The job of emperor still depended on a hard gun barrel to hold, and at present defeating the Tartar caitiffs was the sole standard by which gun barrels were tested!

However formidable Gao Hongtu might be, he had still jumped into the Tu River! If the Crown Prince Zhu's central army could defeat a large Tartar force, who would dare not submit?

If Zhu Cilang's "central army" could not deal the Tartar caitiffs a severe blow, then even if he usurped the throne, he would not sit easy. To avoid internal upheaval, it would be better to wait a while.

"Thousand Years, the Tartar caitiffs are not easy to strike hard!" Wu Xiang was still somewhat worried. "Although Your Highness's fifteen-regiment Model Army is very capable in battle, the Model Army is mainly infantry, while the Tartar caitiffs' main force is cavalry. If fighting in watery country or mountains, the Model Army could still find opportunities to strike the Tartars hard, but the terrain of Yanzhou and the Eastern Depot Prefectures in Shandong is mostly flat. The Tartar cavalry comes and goes like the wind; whether to fight or not lies with the enemy, not with us — how can we strike them hard?"

Now that the Great Ming had lost the northern half of the realm, it had already become the Southern Ming. Although after Zhu Cilang's strenuous reorganization its military strength was greater than before the fall of Beijing, the strength of the Great Ming's New Army of Overcoming Hardship now lay in infantry and naval forces, while its cavalry was considerably weaker than before the north fell. After all, the southeastern half of the Great Ming produced no warhorses, and without warhorses, where would cavalry come from?

So the New Army of Overcoming Hardship now had very few cavalry, only a few thousand in total, and its main force consisted of two model cavalry regiments.

With this little cavalry, it might suffice in Jiangnan and Huainan, where waterways were dense, but if it went to the Central Plains, to say nothing of large-scale cavalry mobile operations, even night patrols could not be sent out.

Without sufficient reconnaissance cavalry, once a large army entered the plains of Henan and western Shandong controlled by the Great Qing, it would easily become deaf and blind, unable to find the enemy's main force, and without enough mobile troops to protect its supply lines.

Under such circumstances, no matter how strong the infantry, it would have no chance to fight a decisive battle and thus could not bring its strength to bear.

Moreover, even if one won a decisive battle, without cavalry to pursue, the fruits of victory could not be enlarged. This would easily produce the situation of routing the enemy without annihilating him — and then striking the Tartar caitiffs hard would be out of the question.

"Why not go north by water and land directly in Northern Zhili or western Liaodong!" Huang Binqing, the Guard Commander of the Naval Guard, actually proposed a ruthless move to Zhu Cilang. He said, "If we advance along the Wei River toward Beijing, Dorgon will likely have no choice but to fight a decisive battle with us. Beijing is now the old nest of the Manchus!"

"No, no, that won't do." Wu Sanfu shook his head repeatedly. "At present the Model Army has only eight of the so-called 12-pounder Hongyi cannons. Never mind the city of Beijing — they couldn't even batter down the fort the Tartars have built at Dagu."

"Then buy more Hongyi cannons!" Huang Binqing said. "The Nanjing Cannon Bureau can produce them, that Luo fellow has opened a cannon foundry in Shanghai, there is a Portuguese cannon foundry over in Macao, and the Zhengs have a foundry at Anping too. All of these can produce Hongyi cannons! Buy a few dozen or a hundred of them, and that settles it, doesn't it?"

At present, on the territory the "Southern Ming" court could control or influence, there were altogether four cannon foundries capable of producing Hongyi cannons: the Nanjing Cannon Bureau, the Shanghai Luo Foundry, the Anping Foundry, and the Bocarro Foundry in Macao. Producing thirty or forty a month was no problem. If that were still not enough, they could simply purchase from the Dutch East India Company — then they could have as many as they wanted.

In this age, the artillery reserves of the European powers were counted in the thousands! A single third-rate ship of the line could carry dozens of cannon, and a 12-pounder Hongyi cannon counted only as a "little brother" among naval guns.

"Cannon are plentiful, and as for artillerymen, we can have Westerners teach them, or if that fails, hire Western barbarians." Wu Xiang shook his head. "But there are no horses to haul them. One 12-pounder Hongyi cannon cannot be moved without thirty draft horses. And draft horses cannot be worked to death — they must be rotated. So one 12-pounder Hongyi cannon requires at least thirty horses! And hauling the cannon alone is not enough; one must also haul the shot, the powder, the blacksmith's forge, and so on. At present the Ministry of War cannot produce many draft horses."

"Moreover, if the Model Army goes north to Northern Zhili or Liaodong or western Liaodong, it will not be back for months or even a year."

"My honored father-in-law is right. This is not yet the time for an expedition across the sea." Zhu Cilang frowned. "Nor can we go to Shandong to fight Dodo. That fellow has just had a bitter taste and will surely be more cautious. Better to fight Hooge!"

(End of Chapter)