TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY, I CULTIVATE USING QI LUCK

Chapter 968: Chapter 402 Preparation for the Northern Expedition_3 Chapter 968: Chapter 402 Preparation for the Northern Expedition_3 He looked at Sun Siwen.

Then he nodded slightly, confidently saying, “Eight months is enough.”

Lu Yuan clapped his hands, “Good, then it’s settled.

The eighth month is good, in the second month of the forty-first year of Shenwu, Great Chu will officially mobilize troops for the Northern Expedition.”

Sun Siwen saluted, “Your servant obeys the order.”

…

After communicating with the Cabinet, Lu Yuan then found Zhou Qing and discussed military matters with him.

Zhou Qing was the foremost military officer in the country, holding the rank of the first Grand General and also serving as the Privy Council’s military affairs commissioner.

For Chu State’s military expedition to the North, there was no way to avoid involving him.

Therefore, when Lu Yuan brought his chief disciple and presented the full plan he had discussed with Sun Siwen, Zhou Qing fell into deep thought.

“Eighteen million troops…”

Just hearing the number made Zhou Qing’s head ache.

Waging war wasn’t like clicking a keyboard where video game troops move without regard for problems.

Real wars require consideration of many issues, such as food and fodder logistics, marching routes, weather conditions, acclimatization, soldiers’ morale, clear rewards and punishments, and a series of other issues.

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If even one aspect is off, the army could collapse without fighting or even descend into mutiny.

Even if all issues are addressed, that only means you have managed these troops.

Going out to war with these troops is still a long shot away.

Leading an expedition and managing troops are indeed two different levels of difficulty.

In the past, the greatest war Chu had experienced — the decisive battle with Ning Country — mobilized a force of merely seven or eight hundred thousand.

Even counting the civilian workers transporting food who took part in the war, the number barely reached one and a half million.

This was the peak of Chu’s troop mobilization.

But even this peak was just a tenth of the forces Lu Yuan planned to mobilize now.

Increasing the number of soldiers tenfold all at once, to mobilize and make them effective — it was not just ten times more difficult.

The difficulty of moving troops increases exponentially with the number of soldiers.

Now with ten times more troops, Chu’s mobilization challenges would be at least twenty or thirty times greater, and that’s a conservative estimate.

‘Master speaks so lightly, with just a thought he’s ready to deploy eighteen million.

The scale is grand, but mobilizing such forces is far from a simple stroke of the pen.’

Zhou Qing couldn’t help but grumble inwardly; however, he still endeavored to find and fix any oversights in his master’s plan.

There was no choice; when the master has tasks, the disciple must endure toil.

As a filial disciple, even if he thought his master’s plan was unreliable, he could only try his best to make it work.

“Your Majesty, eighteen million troops is an enormous number.

Just for marching, they could stretch from Lingnan to Hebei, spanning thousands of miles end to end,” Zhou Qing said, carefully phrasing his point as he explained the fact to his master, “With so many people and such a wide range of troop mobilization, it’s impossible to gather eighteen million people in one place to act in unison.

Therefore, to manage these forces effectively, it’s inevitable to split the troops and appoint commanders for different regions to lead their forces.

Thus, separation of forces is absolutely essential.”

Lu Yuan nodded at these words, “That’s the reasoning.”

As a renowned general of his time, he obviously understood, mobilizing eighteen million in one breath was an unimaginable concept.

To say it bluntly,

In the current world, there is no one who could mobilize so many troops; no one has the capacity to command such a large army.

The nations of the North such as Liang, Wei, Zhao, and Xu, which frequently utilize armies of a million, don’t have it that a single person commands everything.

Instead, they divide a million troops into several routes.

Just as when Lu Yuan faced Ning Country, Lingnan divided into two routes, Jiangnan into four routes, and Jiangbei into one route; different commanders led the forces, and he did not directly command them.

Thus, an army of over eight hundred thousand was divided across seven routes, averaging about a hundred thousand per route.

It was with this method that Chu managed to command an army of over eight hundred thousand.

The countries of the North usually employ the same strategy.

Therefore, dividing eighteen million into several, no, actually dozens of forces is essential.

Otherwise, you simply cannot command so many troops.

The issue now is the division into dozens offorces; who will lead them, how they will coordinate and support one another, and how the routes and plans for deploying each force will be arranged.

What Zhou Qing must do is to draft a plan to mobilize these dozens of forces.

“In my opinion, among the eighteen million troops, only about six million are the elite standing forces, the rest being civilian workers transporting supplies.

Beyond transport, they can at best hold recently taken enemy towns in the rear.

So when distributing the forces, the primary focus should be on leveraging these six million regular troops.”

Zhou Qing set the tone and then shared his plan, “Nowadays, the Northern Lands utilize troops ever more frequently, and their scale is increasing dramatically, often mobilizing by the millions.

In the face of such gigantic army groups, each force that Great Chu splits off cannot be small, as they won’t be able to handle the various fronts otherwise.

Therefore, each troop division should be no less than a hundred thousand, preferably two hundred thousand.

Also, a chief military expedition commander should be appointed for each group, to establish a camp and manage the overall situation.”

At this point, Zhou Qing glanced discreetly at his own master and suggested, “For the chief commanders of the camps, it would be best to appoint national True Persons.”

Yes, although Lu Yuan never made a declaration, the fact that the blue and yellow faction True Persons serve as avatars of the Chu Emperor is commonly acknowledged by the world.

The forces Zhou Qing was proposing could range from fifty to sixty thousand and even exceed a million for each campaign.

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With so many troops, besides Lu Yuan himself, who else could take charge directly?

Aside from him, who beneath him would be satisfied?

Even Zhou Qing, as the Grand General, would find this position hard to fill.

It wasn’t that Lu Yuan didn’t trust him, but that he didn’t have sufficient prestige;

After all, in others’ eyes, Zhou Qing’s rise to the position of Grand General was due to his status as Lu Yuan’s chief disciple, rather than his personal ability.

The fact of the matter was indeed that way.

His rise to this position was truly founded on Lu Yuan’s support.

After all, if it wasn’t for favoring his own chief disciple, would he support a person with no close ties to him?

Therefore, many officers held grievances against Zhou Qing in private.

So for the role of chief troop manager, aside from Lu Yuan himself and his avatars, there was truly no one else who could sit in that seat securely.

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