Chapter 24 Foundation

"Go to the south." Zhu Chongjiu glanced at Tang Zihao and frowned slightly.

"Grandmaster General" Tang Zihao quickly stood up and whispered, "It's not that the Xiaguan intends to eavesdrop on military aircraft, but the Xiaguan and General Wu fought too much just now, and did not find Xiaguan present. The Xiaguan wanted to dodge, but it was too late."

"It's okay." Zhu Chongjiu waved his hand and responded with a smile, "Zihao is not an outsider at first, but how could Zihao guess that our army is about to move south."

"The chief general is a trustworthy person." Tang Zihao took action again, and his words were filled with some emotion. "Since he had made a promise with the Hongshuang generals in Gaoyou's appointment that he would not attack each other within five years, he would definitely not break his oath. The east side of the Huai'an army was the sea, and the west side was the only one Zhu Chongba left besides General Mao Gui and I, Yingzhou Hongshuang, was the only place where the chief general could attack the next step, is north of the Yellow River and south of the Yangtze River."

"The Mongol Yuan court north of the Yellow River is a centipede." Zhu Chongjiu took Tang Zihao's words and spoke almost in unison with the other party.

"Which in the south of the Yangtze River, since Dong Tuanxiao's death, who can stop the general's general's army?" Tang Zihao's voice suddenly increased, and he was eager to add, "So, the subordinates thought that the general's general would definitely lead the army to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to raise the people of Huaiyang with rice and grain from both Zhejiang, and no longer sit idly by and hold the root of his life in the hands of others."

"This is true, but where is the foundation of the emperor you just mentioned?" Zhu Chongjiu looked at Tang Zihao deeply, suppressing his surprise and responded. Before this, he had always regarded Tang Zihao as a charlatan or a qualified propaganda and agitator, but now he suddenly realized that this person's knowledge was absolutely extraordinary.

"Here." Tang Zihao's next performance made Zhu Chongjiu look at him with admiration. He dipped his fingers a little tea, quickly outlined an extremely simple map on the stone table in front of him, and then pointed to several places close to the Yangtze River and added loudly: "This is Zhenjiang, which has been taken into account by the Grand Chief Manager, so I won't talk much about it. This is Changzhou, south to the east, and now it has been all in the hands of the fake King of Wu Zhang Shicheng. The Grand Chief Manager does not want to be as knowledgeable as him. The officials did not go to be the evil one, but the four routes of Zhenjiang, Jiqing, Taiping, Ningguo and Guangde are now unparalleled. Kang Maocai, the commander of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, was a short-lived man. He only knew to rely on danger to defend Jiqing to prevent General Wang Kerou from attacking the west, but ignored the Taiping Road behind him. Near the Taiping Road, Dangtu, the Taiping Road, there was a Majiang and the Yangtze River, intersecting across the Yangtze River. At its intersection, it was a natural deep-water port, and a huge ship of ten thousand stones could drive straight into the Yangtze River."

"You are talking about Caishiji," Before he finished speaking, Zhu Chongjiu's voice had changed. He stood up and ordered Wu Liangmou, "Go and find someone to carry the map over and let Tang Zuojun point it out."

He was indeed planning to send troops to cross the river to fight and attack Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but his previous strategic idea was to first send Hu Dahai's Second Legion across the river and exchange Wang Kerou's team back to Yangzhou for training, and then use Hu Dahai as the vanguard, Xu Dada as the head coach, and Wu Liangmou as the support, and concentrate the strength of the three legions from Zhenjiang to the west, defeat Kang Maocai, and seize Jiqing, which is Jiangsu Nanjing in another world.

This method must be very safe. With three main legions and more than 60,000 combat soldiers, as long as you don’t make any irreparable mistakes, it will only be a matter of time to win Jiqing.

However, this strategic concept has a huge flaw, which is that it is spent time. Kang Maocai has been operating the Zhongshan defense line for more than a year or two, and has been extremely prepared. Jiangning, the capital of Jiqing Road, is also famous for its easy defense and difficult attack. If the Mongols are frightened and are dispatched from the north to attack Xuzhou, the Huai'an army will face the risk of fighting on both sides again.

The strategy offered by Tang Zihao today made up for this weakness, avoided the enemy's heavy defenses, leveraged the advantages of the Huai'an Navy, and rushed straight from the Yangtze River to Caishiji. As long as three to five thousand troops successfully landed and built a stable defensive position, the large troops could be transported continuously. At that time, Kang Maocai would face the situation of being attacked from both sides, and the Zhongshan defense line he had worked hard to manage would be useless.

"I should have thought of crossing the river from here." The more I thought about it, the more I felt that Tang Zihao's proposal made sense. I put my hands together in front of my chest and kept rubbing it. "Caishiji, I heard that the enemy was standing on the shore and arrows were like rain." (Note 1)

'Chang Yuchun has long since defected to Zhu Yuanzhang,' suddenly thought of the destination of this peerless general, Zhu Chongjiu's voice stopped abruptly. Chang Yuchun took the initiative to defect to Zhu Yuanzhang like the history recorded in another time and space. Judging from the path chosen by both sides, there will probably be a battle between him and Zhu Yuanzhang sooner or later, until then

"The chief executive is worried. Caishiji is easy to defend but difficult to attack." Seeing that Zhu Chongji's mood turned sharply, Tang Zihao quickly whispered, "It's better, the officials there have been many times and know more than one landing point. As long as Kang Mao is not here, the defenders may not resist too seriously."

"Then I'll be the Lord Zuo." When Zhu Chongjiu heard this, he had to hide the regret in his heart for the time being and bowed gently to Tang Zihao. "Please make sure to mark the map more clearly, so that our army will lose less brothers when landing."

"That's natural." Tang Zihao opened his face and returned the greeting with a smile, "Tang will tell you everything."

While speaking, Wu Liangmou had already brought a group of civilian staff to take the map and spread it flat on the stone table in the pavilion, and prepared pens and inks for Tang Zihao.

Tang Zihao was not very polite. He walked forward, grabbed a sharpened charcoal strip, and marked the terrain of Caishiji area seven or eight places, and marked the nearby hydrologic landforms one by one in the blank space at the bottom of the map.

After completing all the work, he put down his charcoal pen and bowed to Zhu Chongji for the third time. "With the power of the Huai'an Navy, Caishiji will definitely go down in one go, but what Tang mentioned earlier in the imperial foundation is not only to seize Taiping, Jiqing and other roads, but what Tang mentioned is here."

He quickly bowed down again, grabbed the charcoal pen and drew a circle not far from Caishiji. "There are many hills here, including Dakhashan, Changlong Mountain, Jinshidun, etc., and someone picked up black stones in the open air. If he forged them, he could get several pounds of fine iron. Therefore, Tang speculated that there should be a huge iron ore hidden here. If the general manager sent a capable official to mine it, the Huai'an army would no longer have any worries about iron deficiency within ten years." (Note 2)

Note 1: The Battle of Caishiji was Chang Yuchun's famous battle. After this battle, he made Zhu Yuanzhang completely recognize his courage, and then gained value and grew into the first military general of the founding country of the Ming Dynasty.

Note 2: Ma'anshan iron ore has excellent quality and is not very burial depth, but it was discovered very late. It was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that someone accidentally discovered iron ore, some ores, with an iron content of more than half.
Chapter completed!