decisive battle?
Li Banghua looked at Fan Jingwen, and Fan Jingwen looked at other people with a little panic, and finally his gaze fell on Wang Yongji.
Wang Yongji was also a little panicked.
It seems that the emperor has put all his eggs in his basket.
It was not that he was unwilling to come to the capital to defend the emperor, but the Guanning Army was in Wu Sangui's hands and he had no say. Wu Sangui had given him 6,000 troops to go to the capital to defend the emperor so that he could gain credit, not to lose his life.
How to fight against Li Zicheng's army of more than 100,000 troops who besieged the city? What to use?
Even if it was just 100,000 steamed buns, it would take Wang Yongji and the 6,000 Guanning troops several days to eat them!
"Your Majesty, don't be hasty!" Fan Jingwen, who was also the governor of the Beijing camp, advised earnestly.
"The capital has been defending for six or seven days, and today more than 5,000 Guanning troops have entered the defense. If Your Majesty wants to fight a decisive battle with the bandits, it is better to wait for the troops of Wu Sangui, the general of Liaodong, to arrive. Then the troops will unite and defeat them! Victory is a sure thing!"
Li Banghua also advised: "Your Majesty! War is a major matter of state, a place of life and death, a way of survival and destruction, and you must not be careless! I understand your majesty's thoughts. The capital is the foundation of the Ming Dynasty. Your Majesty wants to lift the siege of the capital as soon as possible and let the Ming Dynasty return to the right track. But the bandits are strong and our army is weak. Defending the city is the best strategy. Fighting outside the city is the worst strategy!"
Seeing that Chongzhen was going to have a decisive battle with the bandits, Fang Yuegong and Qiu Yu also began to persuade him.
Although the Guanning Army arrived, their numbers were too small.
Even if they have the ability to fight one against two or one against three, these five or six thousand Guanning troops can only hold back fifteen thousand bandits.
The total number of bandits attacking the capital exceeded 100,000. Although tens of thousands of them died in the past few days, most of them were civilians. Li Zicheng's strength was not damaged.
It's unrealistic to want a decisive battle.
But Chongzhen didn't think so.
First, after Li Zicheng left Ningwu Pass, he won many battles. Although he was blocked outside the city wall of Beijing, he still held a contemptuous attitude towards the Ming army.
As the saying goes, an arrogant army will be defeated. Li Zicheng's killing was too smooth along the way, and everyone surrendered wherever he passed.
He has reason to be proud.
Secondly, Li Zicheng had too many people.
Fifty to sixty thousand soldiers, plus seventy to eighty thousand or even a hundred thousand peasants. Such a large number of people seemed to strengthen the army, but in fact they were a hidden danger.
The quality of soldiers is more important than quantity, and the wisdom of a general is more important than courage. If the side with more people would definitely win, then the Battle of Guandu, the Battle of Chibi, the Battle of Feishui and other famous battles would not have happened.
Looking at the people who kept trying to persuade him, Chongzhen smiled faintly, "Everyone, how about listening to my thoughts first?"
"Your Majesty, please speak!" Li Banghua wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
He was afraid that Chongzhen Zhu Qizhen would possess him and ruin the future of the Ming Dynasty.
"I have said that war is all about deception! If you were Li Zicheng, would you have thought that I would have a decisive battle with him tomorrow?"
The four people in the cabinet, plus Wang Yongji, looked at each other and shook their heads at the same time.
Not to mention Li Zicheng, even they could not have imagined that the emperor would want to fight a decisive battle!
"Since you are using deceit in your troops, does that mean I have a 10% chance of winning?"
Li Banghua thought about it and felt that this 10% chance of winning was reasonable, so he nodded.
"Secondly, I do not intend to confront Li Zicheng head-on, but to divide my troops into two groups. The infantry will attract Li Zicheng's main force in the front, and the cavalry will harass his rear, especially the camps of the peasants. If we rush in and kill them, the peasants will become chaotic without a fight. As long as those people become chaotic, Li Zicheng's army of more than 100,000 will be in chaos."
"When the time comes, our army will seize the opportunity to attack the bandits, and they will be defeated."
After Chongzhen finished speaking, the others remained silent.
The emperor's words are fine in theory, but how sure are he when it comes to actual combat?
It would be fine if the bandits were causing chaos, but what if they weren’t?
Thinking of this, Li Banghua asked, "Your Majesty, how can you ensure that the bandits will cause chaos? If they don't, where will our army go?"
"Well said! I've said that warfare is all about deception! If you want to make them panic, you must use tactics! Even if they don't panic, our army can still retreat unscathed!"
Then, Chongzhen expressed all his thoughts in the Huangji Hall.
Two hours later, Li Banghua, Fan Jingwen, Fang Yuegong, Qiu Yu and Wang Yongji left Huangji Hall.
The battle plan has been finalized, and the next step is personnel arrangements.
In order to prevent the news from being leaked, the troops were deployed in the name of rotation of guard.
After walking out of the Huangji Palace, Fan Jingwen was the first to leave.
As the governor of the Beijing camp, he was responsible for mobilizing troops. There were so many troops mobilized for this decisive battle that most of the defense of the entire capital was handed over to the temporary recruits.
Twenty-five thousand men were drawn from the three major camps, four thousand men from the Five Cities Military Department, two thousand five hundred men from the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot, all seven thousand men under Tang Tong, the Earl of Dingxi, were drawn, all one thousand men from the Yongwei Camp were drawn, two thousand men from the eunuchs in the inner court were drawn, and there were also five thousand six hundred Guanning troops.
The total number of people is nearly 50,000!
The emperor wanted to achieve his goal in one decisive battle and have a decisive fight with the bandits.
If we lose, the capital will have no soldiers left!
Although those people could defend the city, they could not operate firearms.
It is only a matter of time before the city falls.
After Fan Jingwen left, the Minister of Revenue Fang Yuegong asked, "Governor Wang, have you brought the payroll for the 6,000 Guanning troops?"
"I brought it!" Wang Yongji thought Fang Yuegong wanted to check the Liaodong accounts, so he reached out and took out the payroll from his arms.
In order to prevent the problem of empty salaries, in August of the third year of Chongzhen, the emperor required the frontier military payroll offices to implement "monthly reports" and establish a rebuttal system, sending specialists to verify the monthly report amounts, so that changes in the frontier military payroll offices could be monitored at any time.
Fang Yuegong turned directly to the last page and glanced at it. "The 6,014 soldiers under the command of Wang Yongji, the governor of Ji and Liao, the previously arrears of salary, plus the five taels of silver issued by the emperor for defending the city, the total is 138,322 taels, right?"
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