Regarding this northern expedition, the General Staff Headquarters, under the leadership of Liu Huangchang, had carried out three or four years of consultation and detailed strategic planning.
Based on the intelligence collected by the Black Water spies, they drew detailed maps and sorted out the veins of the entire northern grassland. Geography, hydrology, mountains, where to march to, where to station the Northern Barbarians, and where not to station and so on, they had figured it out in the past few years.
Then, there were detailed countermeasures on how to allocate troops, how to distribute provisions and transportation, how to ensure that the army had enough supplies, how to advance, how to prevent the whole war situation from getting out of control, how to control the speed of the army's advance, how to communicate with each other, and so on.
For this reason, the General Staff Headquarters had already ordered the participating troops to conduct many drills. They had also issued a new set of instructions and communication methods for the various armies to learn and understand. Then, they would assign the tasks in detail and assign the various tasks of each army at different stages.
As for whether it could be achieved smoothly or not, it was not something that could be predicted by human beings. However, according to the specific intelligence that could be grasped at present, the first stage of the Qin Army's attack mission was not difficult.
The first stage was to clean up a group of traditional Northern Barbarians closest to Daqin. Those guys were all old opponents. Judging from the battles in the fourth and fifth years of Longwu, they were not difficult to deal with.
The second stage would be difficult at the beginning. The second stage was a stage of in-depth search. They would go deep into the hinterland of the grassland that the Ming Army had not gone deep into since Xuande. The original Ming Army had left detailed information about the geographical situation near the Great Wall, but further north, they needed to rely on the information of the Black Water spies.
At that time, there would be a large area of no man's land, and they might even encounter a situation where they would not meet any Northern Barbarians for more than half a month. At that time, they had to pay attention to the problem of direction.
Although each army would be equipped with Black Water spies who were familiar with the direction, to ensure safety, Xiao Ruxun equipped the combat team with a compass. The whole army was equipped with tens of thousands of compasses.
In the military operational meeting, Xiao Ruxun clearly requested that all the officers at the basic level of the army should master the method of using a compass and learn to identify directions so that they would not be unable to find the army or return to Daqin in the event of an accident.
After all the preparations were completed, in April of the sixth year of Longwu, Xiao Ruxun officially signed and approved the battle plan of the General Staff Headquarters. He then distributed it to the commanders of the Northwest Corps, Guanzhong Corps and Liaodong Corps, who were participating in the battle, so that they could understand it first.
The Capital Region Army and the Imperial Guards were personally arranged by Xiao Ruxun, as he would be personally leading the troops into battle, and the Capital Region Army and Imperial Guards were under his direct control, thus he could mobilize them and personally hold a meeting to give orders to the troops.
By the fifth month of the sixth year of Long Wu, all the high-ranking generals of the army were aware of the strategic plan.
Since there were no traditional enemies in this battle, they were completely taking the initiative to attack. Their goal was to annihilate the enemy on a large scale, so Xiao Ruxun didn't care about military law in this battle.
"It's still the same request. It doesn't matter what you do to the enemy, but if there is any behavior that hurts your comrades for the credit or the head, I will never let it go. This is the most abominable behavior."
Before the battle, Xiao Ruxun once again reiterated his request to fight abroad.
Apart from that, there was no other request. The soldiers of Daqin had no obligation to maintain a benevolent attitude toward outsiders, especially a group of Northern Barbarians.
As the date of the northern expedition approached, Xiao Ruxun's requirements for Black Water became higher. He asked them to eliminate foreign spies. Although the speed of news spread was very slow these days, the scale of the operation was also larger, and it was more difficult to keep it secret. All kinds of information were mixed together, and it was difficult to distinguish the authenticity of some information.
For example, before Japan invaded Korea, the whole battle plan had been known by the Ming government, but it was still difficult for the Ming government to confirm the authenticity of the information. Japan had already destroyed Korea, but the Ming government still suspected that Korea was conspiring with Japan against China.
This was due to the lack of information, the lack of understanding of the outside world, and the inability to know oneself and the enemy, which led to doubts. Of course, there was also the cautiousness of the military affairs of the country.
In short, in that era, it was a very difficult thing to confirm a real piece of information. Even if you knew it, it would take a long time to verify it.
With this understanding, Xiao Ruxun paid more attention to intelligence work. He began to build his own intelligence team during the Myanmar period.
Since the establishment of the Daqin, Black Water had spies all over the world. Every province in the country was filled with spies, spying on those who were dissatisfied with the Daqin and destroying them.
Not only that, but Black Water's spies were also all over Southeast Asia. In the Mughal Empire, in the Eastern Chagatai Khaganate, and in the Yarkand Khaganate, and even as far away as Europe, there were many Daqin spies. All of them were in the Imperial Plantation, making money for the Daqin while collecting intelligence, killing two birds with one stone.
The Imperial Plantation system under Xiao Ruxun had actually become a rather large organization that combined intelligence, military, economic, and political power.
Xiao Ruxun took over a large amount of the private property of the Ming royal family and the royal family. While arranging for the eunuchs and maids to be in charge of management and production, he also formed a large number of royal merchant caravans to do business in foreign countries. They were stationed there to earn money and collect intelligence, which was very popular.
This was an intelligence route that was different from the Black Water troops. Black Water did not belong to the Imperial Plantation system.
Instead, Xiao Ruxun used the remnants of the former Ming Imperial Bodyguard and the Eastern Faction Guards that the Black Poison had taken in to form an intelligence group. Some of them were given to the Black Poison to use, and some were incorporated into the Imperial Plantation system.
These people who were incorporated into the Imperial Plantation system naturally became the first choice for foreign trade. They were good at doing business and collecting intelligence. They were multi-talented people, and Xiao Ruxun relied heavily on them. Over the years, with the confirmation of the relationship between the Daqin and the neighboring suzerainty and vassal states, they were spread all over the world.
It was all thanks to their contributions that the preparations for this northern expedition were so thorough.
The Eastern Chagatai Khaganate and the Yarkand Khaganate in the west both had central governments. Although they did not have much power, they were still countries, and they also had trade relations with the Daqin.
The Yarkand Khaganate also had a vassal relationship with the Daqin, while the Eastern Chagatai Khaganate did not. However, both were targets of Xiao Ruxun. If he wanted to make a move against them, he would need a reason. The reason was very easy to find. As long as there were Daqin merchants in their territory, it would be easy.
The political and military situation in their country had also been thoroughly understood by the Daqin intelligence agencies in the past few years, so it was not difficult to deal with them at all.
They were the second batch of targets to be dealt with. The first target of the Northwest Corps was the Tumers, who lived in the Hetao area.
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