Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 669 What the Heroes See

Wu Sangui spent half an hour looking at the sand table, and he was not just appreciating it, but studying it carefully with his own eyes and experience. While studying, Wu Sangui also raised objections to several places on the sand table, saying that the terrain of these places was slightly different from the actual one. Although he had been in Liaodong for a long time, he was not unfamiliar with the terrain in Jizhou. During the Jisi Rebellion, Wu Sangui led his troops to fight Huang Taiji in Jizhou, and even led a part of the Guanning Army out of the Great Wall to pursue Huang Taiji to the north when he withdrew his troops.

So he found that there were errors in the terrain in several places on the sand table and pointed them out to Wang Jinwu immediately. Wang Jinwu frowned slightly and quickly called his subordinates and the people who made the sand table to ask them whether the questions raised by Wu Sangui were true, what the actual situation was in these places, etc.

The military officer told Wang Jinwu that due to the urgency of the situation, the entire sand table was made based on the information available and after asking the local Jizhou town soldiers and civilians. There may be slight discrepancies, but the general situation is not wrong. Moreover, the problem pointed out by Wu Sangui is located north of the Great Wall, which is no longer part of the Ming Dynasty. Now that the war is imminent, it is inconvenient to cross the Great Wall to explore northward.

After hearing this answer, Wang Jinwu did not blame them, after all, what they said was true. Wang Jinwu waved his hand and asked everyone to come forward, pointing out several places and asking them to revise and improve them as soon as possible. If there were any unclear points, they could directly ask Wu Sangui. In addition, he told Wu Sangui that it was thanks to Changbo that he saw the problem, otherwise it would be too late to find the problem after the war.

Wu Sangui did not expect Wang Jinwu to take his questions so seriously. He just said those things because he was fascinated by the sand table study and subconsciously said them when he found a few places that were slightly different from his memory. But Wang Jinwu's cautious and serious attitude not only made him take it seriously immediately, but also called the military officer and others to adjust the sand table on the spot. Just for this reason, Wu Sangui had a good impression of Wang Jinwu.

After a while, the sand table was adjusted. After confirming with Wu Sangui that there were no more errors in the sand table, Wang Jinwu couldn't help but express his gratitude to Wu Sangui.

"Thanks to Uncle Chang, otherwise I would have missed the big event."

"It is I who was reckless, General Wang..." Wu Sangui was about to say something modest, but before he could finish, he saw Wang Jinwu waving his hand and saying, "War is a major issue for a country, a matter of life and death, a matter of survival and destruction, and it must be carefully considered! The beginning of the Art of War by Sun Tzu clearly states that you and I are both warriors, and once the war starts, the slightest carelessness will result in defeat and death. We must be cautious in employing troops, but decisive in battle. It would be fine if a general was defeated and killed, but how innocent are the soldiers? Moreover, the Ming Dynasty can no longer afford to suffer another heavy blow. What Chang Bo mentioned just now is a small matter, but it is a big deal in wartime!"

"I appreciate your advice. I was wrong." Wu Sangui replied with a bow, and at the same time he was very impressed.

You must know that most of the military generals in the Ming Dynasty were rough people, many of whom could not even read a single word. They either became generals by hereditary titles, or fought their way through the ranks of the soldiers.

Many generals were brave in battle, but they had little strategy. Otherwise, why would they be called soldiers by scholars? Not counting the generals who founded the Ming Dynasty, in the past two hundred years, there were very few generals in the entire Ming Dynasty who were both civil and military, including Wu Xiang and Zu Dashou.

Wu Sangui became famous at a young age and participated in the military examination. He was considered to be both civil and military among the younger generation of generals in the Ming Dynasty. However, even so, Wu Sangui still mostly relied on his father's teachings and his own bravery and experience to lead his troops in battle. It was the first time that he had seen a general like Wang Jinwu who collected information before the battle to make judgments and repeatedly deduced to ensure the success of the plan.

Wu Sangui had to admire Wang Jinwu very much, and he was impressed by him. When he first met Wang Jinwu outside the city, Wu Sangui thought that Wang Jinwu was just a brave general who could fight. After all, his appearance and temperament were too familiar to Wu Sangui, who had been in the army for a long time. But it was such a straightforward general who had such delicate arrangements and caution, which was something Wu Sangui had not expected at first.

In fact, this is not surprising. The reason why Wang Jinwu pays attention to these things is not innate, but is what Zhu Shenzui taught him over the years.

Wang Jinwu was a strong warrior, brave in combat, and an expert at charging into battle, but how to fight and how to command were all taught to him by Zhu Shenzhui.

After all, when Zhu Shenzhui started out, he didn't have many people with him. There were only dozens of military households from Wangjia Village around him. He relied on the sale and smuggling of illegal salt to accumulate his wealth. This was a risky business. If he made a mistake accidentally, he would be doomed.

Because of this, Zhu Shenzhui considered many issues carefully every time he went on business trips, and prepared various response plans in advance to ensure that nothing could go wrong. At that time, Wang Jinwu followed Zhu Shenzhui to trade, and was naturally influenced by what he saw and heard. With Zhu Shenzhui's guidance and instruction, Wang Jinwu gradually developed the same habit.

After that, the business grew bigger and bigger, especially after the establishment of Hengtong Trading Company. Zhu Shenzhui's caravan gradually extended from Daming to the grassland. The initial caravan was divided into two parts: the trading company and the guard. Wang Jinwu was in charge of the guard at that time. In order to ensure that there were no accidents in each trade, he made plans and contingency plans in advance according to the rules before trading. This almost became a default rule. Even though Zhu Shenzhui and Tana got married later and obtained the trade rights of the Ashi Timur tribe at that time, the strength was still not strong at that time. The caravan was almost destroyed by surprise attack on the grassland because of someone's calculation. It is precisely because of these reasons that not only Wang Jinwu, but all of Zhu Shenzhui's subordinates have different combat habits from the current Daming generals. These habits completely corrected the practice of the Daming generals who only knew how to rely on martial arts to lead the troops to charge and fight fiercely, but did not know how to collect and use information and make perfect plans according to different situations.

In other words, Zhu Shenzhu paid special attention to these things from the beginning, and cultivated the people around him more carefully. These practices are very natural in modern armies in later generations, but they are very rare in this era, and the effect of doing so is very good. This is also an important reason why Zhu Shenzhu pacified the tribe after the civil strife of the Ashi Timur tribe, controlled the tribe to fight on the grassland, and finally gradually unified the Tumed tribes and established the current status of the Tenger tribe.

Although Wang Jinwu was born into a military family, he never held a real position in the Ming army, let alone joined the border troops in combat. He did not know how the generals of the Ming Dynasty fought, but he knew that the method established by Zhu Shenzhu was extremely effective, and the glorious military exploits in recent years also proved this.

Wu Sangui was not aware of this, but that did not mean he did not know the benefits of Wang Jinwu's actions. As a rising star among Liaodong military generals, Wu Sangui had a strong military talent, and he was not Wu Xiang or Zu Dashou. Wu Sangui, who was not even thirty years old, was still a young man with a strong acceptance of new things. He understood the benefits of Wang Jinwu's actions, especially the words Wang Jinwu mentioned at the beginning of Sun Tzu's Art of War. Wu Sangui admired him very much and had the intention of asking for advice.

For this reason, Wu Sangui could not help but point to the terrain on the sand table and discuss with Wang Jinwu about the upcoming war. Wang Jinwu was not shy about Wu Sangui's attitude. He had a good impression of Wu Sangui when he first met him. Moreover, the two were of similar age and personality. He was especially happy that Wu Sangui, as a general of Liaodong Army, could lead a thousand Guanning Army to come to support him at this time. So they started chatting, and the more they talked, the more they got along. It felt like they had met too late.

"General Wang, seeing that you have made such arrangements, are you planning to fight north of the Great Wall at Xifengkou?" Wu Sangui raised his hand and pointed at the location of Xifengkou and asked.

"Uncle Chang has a good vision. I do have this idea."

"Sangui would like to ask Marshal Wang why and how to make such arrangements?" Wu Sangui asked.

Wang Jinwu said frankly: "Changbo is familiar with the terrain of Jizhou and should know the situation of various places in Jizhou. Although Xifengkou is easy to defend and difficult to attack, the north of Xifengkou is a plain, which is very conducive to the deployment of the enemy's large forces. The last time the Jiannu entered the Great Wall to attack the capital, they took Xifengkou. Changbo should know this."

Wu Sangui nodded. Of course he knew about this. During the Ji Si Rebellion, Huang Taiji bypassed the Liaoxi Corridor from Liaodong and entered Mongolia. Then he went all the way south from Mongolia to Chahar and finally broke through the Great Wall from Xifengkou and entered the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, the defense of the Ming Dynasty's Jizhou Town was weak. There were not many troops stationed at a strategic pass like Xifengkou, with only one team of 100 people. Moreover, the team was seriously short of troops, and most of them were old and weak, with extremely poor combat effectiveness.

Huang Taiji suddenly launched a massive attack on Xifengkou. The Ming army, relying on the strategic advantage of the defense line, could not resist at all and lost Xifengkou in less than half a day. After losing Xifengkou, Huang Taiji's army rushed directly into the Great Wall from Xifengkou. Before the main forces of Jizhou Town in Zunhua and Jizhou could react, the enemy troops were at the gates of the city.

Everyone knows what happened afterwards. After taking Zunhua and Jizhou, Huang Taiji sent troops to guard the rear, while his main force continued to move southward towards the capital. Then a great war broke out in the capital. Huang Taiji plundered the area around the capital for several months, but found that he could not take the capital. In addition, more and more troops from all over the Ming Dynasty came to support the king. Sun Chengzong was reinstated and mobilized troops to attack Zunhua and Jizhou, intending to cut off his retreat. Huang Taiji then led his troops to retreat, leaving the Ming Dynasty in a mess.

Wang Jinwu told Wu Sangui that according to the information currently received, this time Huang Taiji invaded the Ming Dynasty again, and Xifengkou was Huang Taiji's main target of attack. On the one hand, it was because of the terrain outside Xifengkou, and on the other hand, Xifengkou had been broken through by Huang Taiji before. The last time Huang Taiji left, he directly damaged Xifengkou extremely badly. In the past two years, the Ming Dynasty has not rebuilt this section of the Great Wall at Xifengkou, resulting in an unstable defense line at Xifengkou.

If Wang Jinwu was Huang Taiji, he would make the same choice. After the army arrived near Baimachuan and assembled, he would launch an attack on Xifengkou. Relying on the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners, he would once again capture Xifengkou. As long as Xifengkou was in his hands, Huang Taiji could attack or defend and easily enter the capital.

(End of this chapter)