Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 380 New Year Development Plan

Upon learning that the Yuan army facing him was bombing their camps and fighting, Zhu Liangzu made a prompt decision to send troops to seize the key points. Gao Yao also supported this. Although he was not good at military affairs, he also knew the principle of taking advantage of the enemy's weakness to kill him.

Moreover, there are more than 100,000 troops on the opposite side. If we let them scatter all over Huaibei, they will either become bandits or capture cities and claim to be kings. Not only will they harm the people around them, but it will also be more troublesome to eliminate them in the future. It is better to take advantage of the civil strife in the Yuan army and kill or capture them rather than let them run away.

However, Gao Yao was still a little worried. There were so many Yuan troops on the opposite side. Although they were destroying the camp, the number of troops was there after all. And they only had 30,000 to 40,000 troops in Huai'an. Could they win?

Zhu Liangzu comforted him in return.

"You are worrying unnecessarily. With the current state of fighting among the Yuan army, those soldiers who were forcibly disbanded must be resentful and it is impossible for them to continue to work for the Yuan court. As long as we raise the banner of the Shengwu Army, we can recruit most of them to surrender.

"At most, there are still some ambitious people who want to command their own troops, but there are not many left. If those people refuse to obey, they can be killed directly.

“As for the Qiexue Army, the most powerful army in the Yuan army, they just experienced their leader being falsely accused and demoted, and they had not won the battle in Xuzhou before. Now, not only did they not receive any rewards during the New Year, but the army also suffered a drastic change. After such a series of blows, it is doubtful whether they still have morale. This kind of threat can scare them away.

"In short, don't worry, just stay in Huai'an and provide us with food and fodder."

Gao Yao was finally convinced by him, and then he stayed in Huai'an to mobilize food and military supplies to the Sanlu army in front.

Because they were connected by water and the distance was not far, on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, Liao Yongzhong of Qinghe and Zhao Zhongzhong of Andong received orders to send troops respectively, which were jointly signed by Zhu Liangzu and Gao Yao. When they learned about the Yuan army's operations, the Prime Minister Tuotuo was demoted, and the Yuan court ordered the Yuan army to disband on the spot, they were stunned.

However, they soon remembered the prophecy that Lu Jin had said when they were besieging and subduing Zhu Liangzu. It said that the Tartar emperor and the prime minister did not trust each other. If Tuotuo dared to lead the army in person, the Tartar emperor might send twelve golden medals.
At first they thought that it was Lu Jin who fooled Zhu Liangzu, but now, could it be that Lu Jin really has the destiny and can predict the future?

The two men did not dare to delay, and knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so they began to prepare for the expedition that day, sending a small number of forwards to explore the way ahead, and the main force could set off at the latest the next day.

On the other side in Huai'an, the Yuan army was just opposite. Zhu Liangzu did not need to run far. He gathered his main forces that day and pressed towards the Yuan army camp that was blown up on the opposite side.

The infantry formed a formation and pressed forward, and Zheng Yong's cavalry regiment was sent out to patrol around and lead those Yuan army soldiers who were forced to disband and had nowhere to go. While moving forward, he gathered the defeated Yuan army soldiers. By the time Zhu Liangzu led the main force to the front of the Yuan army camp, he had already gathered more than 40,000 Yuan troops.

When the Qiexue army led by Xuexue saw that Zhu Liangzu had come to take advantage of the situation and that his army was well-organized and had no flaws, and that Dadu was in the midst of a chaotic transition of power in the Yuan court, they no longer wanted to earn any military merits, and directly retreated northward with more than 10,000 cavalry and thousands of elite infantry, leaving the tens of thousands of civilians and 100,000 chaotic troops to Zhu Liangzu.
The Yuan army was defeated terribly in this battle. They really sent their lives thousands of miles away. They came all the way from Dadu to Huai'an just to send troops to Lu Jin.
In fact, the original history was similar. In 1354, after the "million-strong coalition army" that besieged Gaoyou was disbanded on the spot, almost all of them joined Liu Futong and Zhang Shicheng. If it weren't for the wave of troops sent by the Yuan army to the Red Turban Army, Liu Futong would have to accumulate strength for several years if he wanted to launch the Longfeng Northern Expedition. It was the Yuan court's outrageous operations that accelerated their own demise.

On the Huai'an front, Gao Yao, who was stationed in the rear, also sent out several newly formed troops during the Jiangbei Campaign to take over the defense zones originally located by Liao Yongzhong and Zhao Zhongzhong. Du He'er, who voluntarily joined the army in Xinghua County, was sent to guard Qinghe. Gong Xiangrong, a surrendered general of the Yuan court in Yancheng, led his troops to take over Andong. Gao Yao himself was stationed in Huai'an City with Gu Shi's supplementary Eighth Regiment.

The three regiments under Zhang Shicheng, with more than 10,000 people, were taken away by Zhu Liangzu.

Zhang Shicheng's gang has not been reorganized yet. Gao Yao and Zhu Liangzu are not at ease with such a large family force left in the rear. It would be better to take him directly to the front line. With Zhu Liangzu watching over him and Gao Yao in charge of their food and supplies in the rear, Zhang Shicheng would not be able to cause any trouble.

At the same time, an urgent military intelligence letter signed by Gao Yao and Zhu Liangzu was sent to Jiankang day and night. At midnight on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, Lu Jin was sleeping at home. The scout who delivered the letter was lowered into the city in a bamboo basket and then urgently delivered to the Marshal's Mansion. Bao Yu happened to be on duty in the Marshal's Mansion today. After receiving the report, he hurriedly sent someone to call Lu Jin, Feng Guoyong, Li Shanchang, and Xia Yu.

It was the middle of the night, the streets were pitch black and the ground was covered with a thin layer of snow. Two clerks from the Marshal's Mansion ran to the palace with lanterns in hand. As soon as they reached the intersection, they were stopped by the guards on duty.

"Who? Stop or I'll shoot!"

"I'm a clerk from the Martial Academy of the Marshal's Mansion. Go and wake up the Marshal. There is urgent military information in Huai'an. Bao Zhangsi has already asked several gentlemen to go to the Marshal's Mansion. Please hurry, Marshal." The clerk spoke quickly, taking out his badge while introducing the situation.

The company commander on duty took a look and then ordered someone to gather the guard company. He asked the clerk to wait and went back to the palace to pass the message.

Not long after, Lu Jin was awakened by Li Dingbang. He came out of the mansion wearing a cotton jacket and asked the clerk who came to report the news, "What is the urgent military information from Huai'an? Is it good or bad?"

The clerk hurriedly said, "Reporting to the commander, I don't know, the report of the Baozhangsi does not seem to be a bad thing, but it seems to be very urgent."

Lu Jin suddenly became curious. What could happen during the Chinese New Year? Could it be that Tuotuo took advantage of the holiday to attack Huai'an?
When he arrived at the Marshal's residence, he found that Li Shanchang, Feng Guoyong and Xia Yu were also called up in disheveled clothes and sleepy eyes. Together with Bao Yu, the four of them were sitting around the brazier sighing, as if it was not a big deal.

"The Marshal is here."

"Commander!"

"Yeah." Lu Jin nodded. "What's going on? You woke us up in the middle of the night and you sit here and chat? It doesn't look like anything urgent."

Feng Guoyong did not keep the secret and said bluntly, "On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, the Yuan court sent an imperial edict, dismissing Tuotuo from his post and demoting him. On the 29th day, the Yuan court issued another decree, ordering the Yuan army in Huaibei to disband their troops immediately. Any general who did not disband his troops would be executed!

"So at noon on the 29th, there was a camp explosion and a fire broke out in the Yuan army camp. The disbanded soldiers and the Qiexue army started fighting. After Zhu Liangzu found out about the situation, he discussed with Gao Yao and decided to send troops immediately to gather the defeated Yuan army soldiers and march north in three groups to seize the important areas in Huaibei.

"They sent out troops right after they issued this Fengtang report, and they should have already marched into Huaibei by now."

Lu Jin was stunned when he heard this. After digesting the content of this passage, he immediately asked, "Zhu Liangzu wants to seize the key areas in Huaibei. Where are they going to seize? Do they have enough troops?
"The troops left by Tuotuo must be at least hundreds of thousands, right? How will he place them after gathering them? Does he have enough military rations to feed these hundreds of thousands of people?"

Bao Yu immediately handed over the military report and said, "This is Zhu Liangzu's military report. It contains a rough battle plan, the cities to be captured and the allocation of troops. As for military rations, they are definitely not enough, so he also asked the Marshal to allocate more military rations."

Lu Jin immediately took it and read it carefully, then went to the map and compared it with the map.

Feng Guoyong immediately came over with a lantern in hand, lighting up Lu Jin and asking curiously, "The Marshal doesn't seem shocked at all. Could it be that he already knew about this?"

Lu Jin immediately explained, "As for Toghan Timur's experience, he drove away Bayan before he finally took power. Would he tolerate a second powerful official around him who would threaten his authority?

"Tuotuo was appointed prime minister twice, and he became more and more domineering. He was surrounded by a group of civil and military confidants, and his authority grew day by day. However, the country was getting worse and worse. He opened the river and changed the currency to cause thousands of red turbans. Before, when he fought against Liu Futong, his brothers were defeated but he was not punished. Now he is leading the army himself, but he has not taken Xuzhou. Instead, we have seized the Huaiyang Salt Field in the north of the Yangtze River and the grain from Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The money and grain taxes of the Yuan court have been almost cut off by us, and the country can hardly continue to exist.

"Who should be held responsible in this situation? It would be strange if Tuotuo did not resign.

"Not to mention, there are treacherous people in the Yuan court trying to seize power from him. Add to that the divisive and heartbreaking words in our previous letter, and it's only natural for this situation to occur."

Several people nodded when they heard this, thinking that Lu Jin's analysis made sense, but they still felt that this matter was outrageous.

"And I actually predicted that Tuotuo would end up like this more than a year ago," Lu Jin said pretentiously.

Sure enough, after these words came out, several people looked at Lu Jin with surprise. Lu Jin deliberately pretended to be powerful and said, "You all joined the army later, you don't know, in fact, last September, I just defeated Zuo Junbi, and I didn't even take Luzhou, so I surrounded the reinforcements and went to Lu'an to fight Zhu Liangzu. After I captured him alive that day, I wanted to surrender him, but he was still unconvinced, saying that the rebel army only had a few people, and it was nothing to defeat a righteous army marshal like him. As long as the Yuan court sent a large army to suppress them, the rebel army would die sooner or later. He advised me to give up the plan of surrendering him.

"I told him at that time that ever since Yan Temur appeared, the Yuan rulers of later generations were afraid of another powerful minister appearing, not to mention the current Yuan ruler, who has lived in the control of Bayan since he was a child. He finally drove Bayan away, would he allow another powerful minister to seize power from him?
"If Emperor Yuan wants to send a large army to attack the rebels, who should be sent as the general? If the army of hundreds of thousands is too light, it will not be able to suppress the generals. If it is too heavy, will Toghan Timur be able to rest assured if the prime minister leads the army himself? Then the incident of Yue Wumu's twelve golden medals will probably reappear. All the generals present at the time knew about this. Look, it has come true."

After hearing this, several people sighed even more. My goodness, their lord’s vision is really unique.

Xia Yu asked curiously again, "Then how did the lord subdue General Zhu?"

Lu Jin said immediately, "I forced him to come here. I kidnapped his family and asked General Yu of the 38th Army to take him to Lu'an City. After taking the city, I released him and posted notices everywhere saying that he helped me take Lu'an. In this way, the Yuan court will never use him again. They will only regard him as my accomplice. He can either stay at home and do nothing, or he can only surrender to me."

Xia Yu was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect Lu Jin to be so wicked. However, he still praised, "My lord, this is a great plan!"

Lu Jin waved his hand and said, "Let's not talk about this. Let's talk about Huaibei. Zhu Liangzu's plan is good. The western line only needs to take three cities, Fengxian, Peixian, and Dangshan. They are also located along the canal, which is convenient for the supply of food and grass. Only three regiments are needed to take them.

"The central line is to take Taoyuan (Siyang), Suqian, Shuyang, Xiapi, and Yizhou, a total of five cities. With his main force plus the three newly recruited regiments of Zhang Shicheng, it will not be difficult to take these places.

"The detachment on the eastern front only took the two cities of Haining and Ganyu. The troops are sufficient, but the distances between these three places are a bit far, making it difficult for them to support each other. It would be better if there were more cavalry."

Lu Jin immediately sighed, "The population in the north is not prosperous, there are few cities, and the land is vast and sparsely populated. This kind of place is most suitable for cavalry to gallop. It seems that the further north we go in the future, the more cavalry we will need."

Several people nodded, and Feng Guoyong also said, "The north is vast and sparsely populated, and is also suitable for raising horses. We should choose another place in Huaibei to open a horse farm in the future."

Lu Jin nodded, "We'll talk about it after we open the horse farm. For now, we'll focus on buying horses. Raising horses takes too much time. Let's talk about the war in Huaibei. Zhu Liangzu wants to surrender this group of Yuan troops. It is estimated that there will be more than 100,000 people. We must handle them well. We can't give them all these 100,000 people. The further north we go, the harder it is to transport food and grass. Besides, they don't need so many soldiers, so they must be distributed to other directions."

Upon hearing this, Xia Yu said, "A division has 13500 people. If there are or people, that would be the strength of ten divisions. The Ningguo Road on the southern front is short of troops and is now weak in attack. We must strengthen our forces.

"Luzhou and Anqing are too empty and need to be strengthened. However, the specific areas of reinforcement will depend on where the Marshal wants to conquer next year. Only in this way can we strengthen the troops in a targeted manner."

Lu Jin looked at the map and thought for a moment, then complained.

"The provinces of the Yuan court were too large, and the counties and prefectures under them were too fragmented. It's dizzying just looking at them.

"For example, the Secretariat obviously cannot manage everything on its own, and it has two Xuanweisi under it, one is the 'Hedong Shanxi Road Xuanweisi', and the other is the 'Shandong East-West Road Xuanweisi'. It would be better to divide the Secretariat into three parts. The west of Taihang Mountain is called Shanxi Province, the Shandong East-West Road Xuanweisi is directly renamed Shandong Province, and the rest of the Secretariat is called Hebei Province.

“Next year, we must conquer at least the entire Shandong Peninsula to the north, and push the front line to the Daming Road, Dongchang Road, Jinan Road, Zibo-Lai, and Yidu Road, that is, the south bank of the old Yellow River. We will use the old Yellow River as a defense line and temporarily confront Dadu.

"To the south, we must at least occupy Jiangzhou (Jiujiang), the Poyang Lake Plain, and the area east of the Ganjiang River. It would be even better if we can capture Ganzhou and Nanxiong. Then we can go south along the Zhenshui River, along Shaoguan and Yingde, and directly into Guangzhou!
"To the west, we must at least capture Nanyang and Xiangyang north of the Dabie Mountains. If we can capture the Jianghan Plain and Jingzhou, that would be even better. However, Jingzhou is now in the hands of Xu Song. We will see whether we should fight for it when the time comes. Anyway, we must at least block the passage between Jingzhou and Xiangyang and block Xu Song in Huguang.

"South of the Dabie Mountains, it would be best to take Wuchang, Xingguo Road, and Ezhou Road to the west."

Feng Guoyong looked at the places that Lu Jin pointed out on the map and frowned, "But this will inevitably lead to a conflict with Xu Song. That is where Xu Song started. Xu Shouhui usurped the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. Wuchang was still his capital, but the capital was taken away by the Marshal. He will definitely not let this go."

Lu Jin immediately sneered, "I have always avoided actively attacking him because Xu Song and I are both in the righteous army, and I cannot bear the stigma of actively attacking the righteous army.

“However, Wuchang and Xingguo Road were lost by Xu Song themselves, and I snatched them from the Yuan court. You can’t say that I snatched Xu Song’s territory. It’s true that their capital is in my hands, but they lost it to the Yuan court first.

"Anyway, we will never shoot the first arrow. Of course, if they dare to attack us, we will have nothing to say. I am worried that I have no reason to deal with them. If they dare to attack me first, I will grab Huguang as well.

"I once said that if I take over the three lakes, I will conquer the world. Now Taihu Lake is in my hands. If I can successfully take over Poyang Lake next year, the three lakes will have already taken over two lakes. Then why should I be afraid of Xu Song? If he dares to attack me, I will dare to destroy him!"

Everyone nodded immediately. Now the Shengwu Army had money, food, and soldiers, at least hundreds of thousands of troops. The Yuan court in Huaibei also sent more than 100,000 troops. Lu Jin did have the confidence to say this. Once they took over the Poyang Lake Plain, they would not be afraid of Xu Shouhui in a decisive battle.

Lu Jin added, "Next year's war will be divided into three directions, first south, then north, and then west."

Xia Yu immediately said, "Then of the ten divisions' new recruits, at least four should be sent to the south, three to the west, and only three to the north."

Lu Jin also nodded, "Then let's arrange it this way for the time being. Mr. Feng, please go and see how many prisoners we have captured, and then conduct a preliminary reorganization, and then divide them into three directions for placement. On the west side, you can put a division in Chuzhou, a division in Haozhou, and a division in Luzhou to fill the gaps, and the remaining four divisions can be sent to Jiankang for training.

"There are still three divisions left for them. One in Huai'an, one in Gaoyou, and one in Yangzhou. They will be deployed separately along the canal to prevent them from connecting to each other and to facilitate logistics supply."

Feng Guoyong nodded immediately and said, "That's a good idea, let's do it."

Lu Jin immediately held his hand and said, "Tomorrow is the New Year's Day, and you still have to go, sir. It's really hard for you, sir."

Feng Guoyong said immediately, "I don't really feel tired. It's just that after I followed my lord across the river this year, the results of the battle were gratifying. According to the current development momentum of our army, I'm afraid that in five years at most, my lord will be able to drive away the Tartars and conquer the world. I get very excited when I think of this.

"Besides, my brother is also in Huaibei. It is said that people miss their relatives more during festivals. Although I cannot see him by going to Huai'an, I can be closer to him."

"Five years? I hope so." Lu Jin nodded and said, "Then I'll trouble you, sir. When you go there, in addition to incorporating these Yuan troops, you should also find out how many troops Zhu Liangzu has expanded. You can write a reorganization charter and give it to me. After the Marshal's Office approves it, you can preside over the reorganization in Huaibei and come back after the reorganization is completed.

"I will transfer another battalion of imperial guards to serve as guards for you, sir."

Feng Guoyong immediately said solemnly, "Okay, I will do my best."

After arranging Feng Guoyong, Lu Jin looked at Li Shanchang again, "Now that we have an additional 100,000 troops, can Mr. Baishi still supply them with food and grass?"

Li Shanchang said immediately, "I didn't dare to say it before, but now we have taken over the big granary of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. If we only supply food to the army, then there is no problem."

Lu Jin nodded, "Well, then please prepare food as soon as possible. Whether the newly recruited troops can be stabilized and used by us depends on whether you can provide food."

Li Shanchang also agreed after hearing this, "I will definitely do my best!"

(End of this chapter)