Chapter 1493 Useless Information
Even if Azig's interference was temporarily dealt with, Geng Zhongming's mood did not become any easier. He knew very well that the purpose of his coming to Jinzhou was not to watch the show, but that Huang Taiji needed to come here to put down the trouble caused by the Haihan people. But after the battle just now, Geng Zhongming realized that the Haihan people might not only be a problem for Azige, but they might also cause him trouble in Jinzhou.
The thing that Geng Zhongming couldn't figure out the most was not that Azig was stumbling upon him, but what was the purpose of the Haihan people's series of actions in Liaodong. The area ruled by the Later Jin Dynasty was thousands of miles away from the Haihan Kingdom. Haihan sent troops to fight in Liaodong, which was as incredible as the Later Jin Dynasty bypassing the entire Ming Dynasty to attack Annan. But the Haihan people are famous for their shrewdness and will never engage in useless business at a loss. So what are the benefits to them of opening a battlefield thousands of miles away from the local area?
This kind of combat operation, which requires long-term planning and preparation before it can be implemented, obviously will not be the whim of Haihan's senior management. Geng Zhongming subconsciously felt that if he could find the cause of the outbreak of the war, he might have a chance to find a way to end the war. He did not believe that the troops deployed by Haihan in Liaodong could fight a war of national annihilation that would have left Hou Jin hamstrung, but the continuous fighting with Azige's troops must have some kind of influence that had not yet been understood by his own side. The purpose of true awareness.
Geng Zhongming didn't bother to eat or rest at the moment, so he quickly ordered people to send intelligence records about Haihan as soon as possible. He also summoned several military advisers under his command, hoping to find some clues.
Hou Jin's intelligence agency has been focusing on the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia in the past few years, and the collection and compilation of information has also focused on these two countries. As for the Haihan Kingdom, which has only emerged in the South China Sea in recent years, because it is very far away from Liaodong, Hou Jin did not pay much attention to this target that seemed to be out of reach with eight poles.
However, the situation changed much faster than imagined. Haihan quietly reached the north and without any warning, he regarded Houjin, who had never interacted with him, as his enemy. Houjin's intelligence agency has been working intensively in the southwest for several years, but it knows very little about this opponent emerging from the south. It can only accept the challenge while collecting information about Haihan through the Ming Dynasty's intelligence channels in a roundabout way. .
Of course, what you get on paper is ultimately shallow. This information, which has been passed on countless times, can provide very limited reference value to the Houjin military. It is not even as good as the feelings of frontline troops who have suffered successive defeats on the battlefield. It comes true. However, it now appears that there are many deficiencies and inaccuracies in the information provided to him by Azig. For example, the range of the weapons used by the Haihan Army was obviously longer than the data in the intelligence. This directly led to Geng Zhongming's judgment on the enemy's tactics and the deployment of his own defense measures when formulating the battle strategy before the war. Obvious mistake. The direct consequence of this is that the Han army flag was restrained everywhere on the battlefield, and was passively beaten from beginning to end, unable to fight back.
What Geng Zhongming has to do now is to summarize and analyze the existing intelligence data again to see if he can find some important information that has been ignored before. Although this possibility is slim, for Geng Zhongming, who is now in a passive position, this is undoubtedly a life-saving straw worth reaching out for.
The several dog-headed military strategists under Geng Zhongming were all his old subordinates who had followed him in Shandong. Although they did not have much talent, they understood the thoughts of their boss very well. After being summoned by him, they gave a few words and everyone began to sort out the situation separately. Existing profile information.
Later Jin's understanding of Haihan can be roughly divided into two fields: military and non-military. The non-military field mainly refers to the current national conditions of Haihan, including customs, foreign trade, etc. This information is generally open to the public. It's not hard to collect as long as you put a little more thought into it. It is relatively difficult to collect military information. Hou Jin never expected to confront Haihan on the battlefield, so the country's military intelligence collection work only started with Haihan's performance in the Bohai Sea. The hostility was followed by action, and it is still not clear how many troops Haihan originally stationed in the Shandong-controlled area, and when he started planning to attack Liaodong.
There is no exact intelligence information on how many troops Haihan currently has stationed in Liaodong. According to Hou Jin's estimate, there will be no more than 5,000 combatants. However, Houjin did not have relevant information on the composition and deployment of infantry, cavalry, sailors, artillery and other arms, and it is difficult to infer Haihan's military planning and combat plans in the Liaodong region from this. Most of the information currently obtained through months of continuous fighting is at the tactical level, which is not comprehensive due to Azig's deliberate concealment, and the Haihan Army may not have used their special skills. Therefore, the most important military intelligence provided the least reference for Geng Zhongming's command and operations.
But Geng Zhongming is not a simple martial artist like Azig. He views these issues from a higher perspective. He believes that war is just a means for the Haihan people to achieve their goals, and finding out the reasons why they launched the war may solve the current dilemma. This relevant information may not be directly related to the deployment status of the Haihan Army on the Isthmus Defense Line. Instead, it is likely to be hidden in information that is already public.
After Geng Zhongming put forward this idea, his military advisers could be more targeted when sorting out information. In particular, the changes in Haihan's territory in recent years quickly attracted attention when this group of people searched for information.
According to data, since 1628 in the Haihan era, which was the first year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty and the second year of Jin Tiancong, Haihan began to expand outward from Qiongzhou Island in the south. Since then, Haihan has never stopped expanding its territory to the north. From Guangdong and Guangxi to Fujian and then to Zhejiang, it has marched northward in successive years. It arrived in Shandong the year before last and finally set foot in Liaodong at the end of last year.
Considering that Haihan used force almost every year to open up the situation, and continued to develop the control area northward for eight years, it was equivalent to fighting on overseas battlefields for eight consecutive years. The military expenditures and resources consumed during this period may have been difficult to bear. count. Such a move is obviously not a whim decision made by Haihan's top management, but must be achieved through the concerted efforts of the whole country. How terrifying a victorious army that has been fighting for eight consecutive years and has never suffered a defeat so far seems to have been fully demonstrated on the battlefield in Liaodong.
Judging from Haihan's history of external expansion in the past few years, setting foot in Liaodong is probably just a step in its established plan. When Geng Zhongming got the information delivered by his subordinates and looked at it, he even thought that even if Liaodong was not currently occupied by Houjin, Haihan would probably still take it by force. After all, they had done this kind of thing in Shandong and Zhejiang. , and the local government and garrison did not seem to have taken any effective expulsion measures against their intrusion - at least judging from the intelligence on hand.
The more Geng Zhongming thought about it, the more he felt that his idea was right. During the Haihan people's journey north from Qiongzhou Island, they fought against pirates, Ming troops, Westerners, armed merchants, and local militia on the battlefield. They almost fought and blocked whoever they saw. Those who pass by die. For the Haihan people, there seemed to be no clear hostile camp. They just kicked off every stumbling block that appeared on the way forward step by step. And Houjin is probably just a new stumbling block in their eyes? If this were not the case, Geng Zhongming could not think of any other reason for Haihan State to send troops across thousands of miles to start a war with Hou Jin, who had no grievances in the past.
According to Haihan's past practice, he used force to open the way, and then quickly followed up with commercial means. In the end, he would choose peaceful coexistence to end the war. But as for the situation in Liaodong, it is obvious that the Haihan people do not intend to end the battle with Hou Jin, and have never expressed any intention or intention to cease war and negotiate. Geng Zhongming had previously judged from Haihan's deployment of troops in Liaodong that the other side was unlikely to fight a war to destroy the country, so the current battle would eventually come to an end, but the way it would end was not yet known.
"Should we send someone to Haihan's place to check the situation?" A very bold idea flashed through Geng Zhongming's mind. But this is just a thought and cannot be implemented immediately. Although he has the authority to command operations, he does not have the qualifications to decide whether to negotiate peace with the enemy. Azig may have such qualifications, but this reckless man with a violent personality will not look back even if he hits the iron plate. He will definitely regard fighting as the only solution. Geng Zhongming does not expect him to change his attitude.
Geng Zhongming did not dare to make the decision without authorization, but he did not want to give up the idea that he had finally sorted out. At the moment, he could only write his thoughts in a secret letter, and then send someone back to Shengjing and hand it over directly to Huang Taiji for review. . Whether or not Haihan should try another solution can only be decided by Huang Taiji himself.
I have to say that Geng Zhongming's ideas are indeed very close to the facts, and the intelligence analysis work he does may be much better than those bureaucrats in Shengjing who sit in small dark rooms and calculate and calculate. If Hao Wanqing, who is still in charge of intelligence work in Shandong, knows his thoughts, the Ministry of Security will definitely ask the military to kill him as soon as possible at all costs to avoid unpredictable effects on Haihan's future operations in Liaodong.
Whether Geng Zhongming's memorial can be adopted by Huang Taiji will be affected to a certain extent by the changes in the Jinzhou war situation. If the war situation in Jinzhou continues to show a decline, then Geng Zhongming's opinion is likely to be regarded as a means of shirking responsibility. So he knew that before Shengjing City reacted to his suggestion, he had to try his best to stabilize the situation in Jinzhou, at least not to repeat the daily routine of defeat endlessly.
To achieve this goal, Geng Zhongming must not only learn more about and summarize the tactics of the Haihan Army, but also change the current combat methods of the Post-Jin Army. In particular, the tactics of rushing and fighting advocated by the Manchu generals, Geng Zhongming believed that this was one of the main reasons for the continuous defeat of the Jinzhou garrison.
As for the gap in weapons and equipment, Geng Zhongming felt that it was not impossible to make up. Thinking that Nurhachi started his career with thirteen suits of armor, the gap in strength with the Ming army at that time must be much larger than the gap between Hou Jin and Haihan now. No, we have come step by step to where we are today, relying on the Houjin Iron Cavalry to beat the Ming Dynasty to the point where they could not get out of the nine-sided city. As long as he finds the right strategy, Geng Zhongming believes that he will be able to continue to deal with the Haihan people, instead of just passively being beaten.
But to do this, he must show a convincing record before Azig can accept this change in tactics. Dozens of large and small defeats in the past few months have repeatedly proven that if one takes the initiative to take the offensive on the battlefield, it will only be the Houjin side that suffers the biggest losses. What Haihan is best at is to use various means to induce Hou Jin's offensive, and then retreat to the already deployed positions to fight defensive battles, relying on the firepower advantage of weapons to defeat the Hou Jin army.
So how can we restrain Haihan's tactics? Geng Zhongming discussed with his military advisers for a long time, and finally came to the conclusion that there should be as little contact with the Haihan Army as possible, especially when the Haihan Army has formed a military formation or relied on defensive positions. Then avoid and try not to give the Haihan Army room to play.
In addition to the obvious advantages in military strength, the favorable conditions that the Jin Army could take advantage of were the depth of the battlefield that could be exploited. The Haihan Army forcibly captured the isthmus defense line because its troops were limited and could only rely on such fortifications to resist a possible large-scale counterattack by the Jin Army. However, the Haihan Army did not dare to attack too far north easily, because its supply lines would be difficult to maintain for too long in the Houjin occupied area. This is an obvious fact. Therefore, Geng Zhongming believes that one's own defense should be extended in depth. If the Haihan people want to attack, they should take the initiative to shrink, lure them into their own controlled areas, and then try to cut off their retreat to complete the encirclement.
Of course, this strategy also has a very obvious shortcoming, that is, it can no longer recapture the isthmus defense line and the areas south of it from Haihan's control, and it will leave Haihan more time to consolidate the defense of these areas. However, Geng Zhongming believes that since the existing garrison in Jinzhou cannot defeat the Haihan Army and regain the lost area on the frontal battlefield, they should try to preserve their strength to prevent the Haihan Army from continuing to expand northward, or cause greater damage to one's own army. It is the most reasonable way to respond, rather than sending troops to Haihan people to die in vain.
But what Geng Zhongming expected was that when his suggestion was sent to Jinzhou City, the messenger was yelled at by Azig, and then rewarded with twenty army sticks as a warning.
(End of chapter)