Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

July 13th, Liao River, Liaobang Tower Town.

Tens of thousands of guards were stationed along the banks of the Liao River, stretching for several miles.

For more than twenty days, except for the initial one-day resistance of Yizhou City, the Guards were unstoppable. Wherever they passed, the county towns with few defenders all surrendered.

The time the army spent on the journey actually exceeded the time it took to attack the city. In addition, there was the issue of resettlement. Every time a city was recaptured, they had to understand the local situation and appoint personnel to serve as temporary county magistrates.

Fortunately, the Jinyiwei did a good job of investigation, which saved Zhang Shikang a lot of trouble. Basically, as soon as they entered the city, Liu Wenbing would select people who were famous and could command the support of the local people for Zhang Shikang to choose.

Zhang Shikang usually only stayed in a city for one night and would rush to recapture other cities the next day.

Even so, the Guards still divided into four groups and managed to recapture 36 cities including states, prefectures and counties in more than 20 days.

As planned, the entire army arrived at Liaobang Tower Town on the Liao River yesterday afternoon, and faced the Jiannu garrison on the other side of the river across the river.

Inside the central army tent, Zhang Shikang was lost in thought as he stared at the simple map drawn by the Embroidered Uniform Guards. Sun Weifan sat beside him, eating horse meat like chewing wax. Huang Degong would occasionally pick up the water bag to drink, but his face turned red from drinking.

"General, Commander Lu has already conquered several tribes in the southern part of the desert and is now advancing northward. His supply lines are extremely tight.

We are now nearly a thousand miles deep into the heart of the Jiannu territory, which has put a lot of pressure on our supply.

The summer grain urgently dispatched by the Ministry of Revenue will take at least five days to arrive here." Although he knew that telling the truth would upset those present, Fan Chengren, the lieutenant general of the Imperial Guards' Quartermaster Battalion, did not shy away from it.

Sure enough, as soon as these words were spoken, Sun Weifan glared at Fan Chengren and said:

"Old Fan, do you dare to shake the morale of the army?"

Since ancient times, food and fodder have been the lifeblood of the army. Zhuge Liang's several northern expeditions were forced to fail in the northwest due to insufficient food and fodder supply.

If the news of food shortages spread, the morale of even the disciplined Guards would certainly be greatly affected.

This is what generals like Sun Weifan least want to see. Now the war is going very smoothly. The Jiannu surrender wherever they go. Every city they recapture represents a military achievement.

The Liaobang Tower is less than 300 miles away from the Jiannu capital Shenyang. If the river crossing goes smoothly, they can reach Huanglong in a few days.

It has been too long since the Ming Dynasty lost the city of Shenyang, and no one wants to wait any longer.

Fan Chengren lowered his head and dared not respond, but Huang Degong smacked his lips and said:

"Old Fan isn't someone who can be frightened. Even if you kill him, it will remain the same."

In the Imperial Guards, apart from Zhang Shikang, only Huang Degong dared to speak to Sun Weifan like this. Both of them were the second-in-command of the Imperial Guards. They had many fights before, which were physical fights. It can be said that they became friends through fighting.

In recent years, Fan Chengren has been serving as the commander of the Guards' quartermaster battalion, and his expertise in material allocation is obvious to all.

Whenever there was a truck of supplies in the army, Fan Chengren would find a way to use it as two trucks. Even Zhang Shikang praised Old Fan as a man who knew how to live.

Zhang Shikang finally gave up on the map because he couldn't understand it at all. As soon as he sat down, Liu Wenbing reported:

"Sir, I have mobilized almost 80% of the Jinyiwei outside the Great Wall, more than 1,200 men, to requisition boats for crossing the Liao River.

But the Jiannu seemed to have prepared for this. All the fishing boats along the river were either robbed by the Jiannu or destroyed on the spot.

I am incompetent."

After saying this, Liu Wenbing knelt on the ground.

If the lack of food and fodder made those present angry, the lack of a boat to cross the river was enough to make them furious.

It's like a skilled cook who went to great lengths to find rice, only to discover there was no pot.

Sun Weifan threw the horse meat onto the table and was about to lose his temper.

"Okay! Deputy Marshal Sun, can you be more steady?" Zhang Shikang frowned and glared at Sun Weifan.

Sun Weifan was not convinced by anyone except Zhang Shikang. Seeing this, he sat back quietly and felt very uncomfortable. He also picked up the horse meat he had just thrown away.

"The supply problem was anticipated when we set out on the expedition. We had discussed this before, and this expedition would last a maximum of three months.

However, we ourselves did not expect that after the Battle of Guanshan, the Jiannu army would collapse so much. In more than 20 days, we rushed 800 miles in the heart of the Jiannu army and recovered many lost territories.

Although the brothers below are very motivated for this expedition, you should understand that our Ming Dynasty has just caught its breath and is not yet strong enough to support a massive war.

Now we have divided our troops into two groups, one to conquer the Mongolian desert south of the desert, and the other to conquer the Jiannu's lair. Hai Zhongqi of the Ministry of Revenue has written to me many times to complain about me, saying that I am not trustworthy and that I have used up three months' worth of supplies in just two months.

Actually, this can’t be blamed on Mr. Hai from the Ministry of Revenue, and even less on Old Fan.”

What Zhang Shikang said was all true, but when it comes to military affairs, military generals always like to ignore the objective situation and put all the blame on logistics.

"As for the issue of crossing the river, it was my negligence. I should have informed Admiral Ma in advance." Zhang Shikang said again.

Although the Ming navy was not very strong at the moment, it could still mobilize a number of troop transport ships. However, the coastal defense situation at that time was under great pressure because of Zheng Zhilong.

It was already very difficult for Ma Tong to deal with Zheng Zhilong, and Zhang Shikang did not expect the advance to be so fast, so he made almost no preparations in advance.

"How many ships have been requisitioned so far?"

"Reporting to the Marshal, there are only more than a hundred, and most of them are small fishing boats. At most, they can carry less than 1,500 people at a time." Liu Wenbing said ashamedly.

This was only because he managed to capture two old warships that the Jiannu had not had time to destroy. Otherwise, a fishing boat, including the rowers, could only carry seven or eight people at most.

Although the Jiannu army had not many people on the other side of the river responsible for monitoring them, there were still about four or five thousand of them.

This group of people may not be the elite of the Jiannu, but it is obvious that the Jiannu will definitely use this group of people to stop them from crossing the river at all costs.

Whether it's titles or money, in short, a regime that can be called a country has many ways to inspire the fighting spirit of a small number of soldiers.

A round trip across the Liao River takes at least three quarters of an hour to half an hour.

A thousand men landing on the beach, facing an enemy three times their number, was a huge risk even for the Guards.

Zhang Shikang was a little troubled by this.

There is more to the problem than just this. The army is running low on ammunition.

The biggest reason why Sun Weifan and others were eager to cross the river was to recapture the city of Shenyang. For this reason, they specially chose the crossing site as the closest to Shenyang.

But Shenyang is the capital of the Jiannu after all. Based on Zhang Shikang's understanding of Dorgon, this guy will definitely not give up easily.

The walls of Shenyang are high and the moats are deep. If you want to use artillery to blast open the city walls, you will need at least five times more ammunition than Yizhou City.

During this expedition, Zhang Shikang realized more than just this one problem. He often reviewed the battle of Guanshan.

After all, firearms had just begun to take effect, and the threat to city walls was still limited, requiring massive amounts of artillery shells and gunpowder to fill the gap.

While he was thinking about countermeasures, a man dressed in the uniform of a Jinyiwei Qianhu official came in and reported:

"Commander-in-Chief, spies on the other side of the river report that Dorgon is leading a large army towards the Liao River."

Huang Degong was delighted when he heard it.

"A large army? Where do they even have a large army?"

……