On the ancient battlefield, according to the actual situation of the enemy and us, we analyzed, understood the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy, recognized the advantages and disadvantages of our own side, avoided the enemy's advantages in actual tactical planning, and attacked the weak parts of the enemy with our advantages, which often had the effect of doubling the results with half the effort, and this is exactly what the military commanders sought.
In the war to quell the Rebellion in San Francisco, Kangxi was sitting in Beijing from afar, and although he was far away from guanshan, he commanded Ruoding, tried to save the situation, and finally won a decisive victory thousands of miles away, all on the basis of an objective analysis of seeking truth from facts against the enemy and us.
At the beginning of Wu Sangui's rebellion, he once won half of the country, and although the situation was dangerous, Kangxi was not afraid, he made a meticulous analysis of the rebel enemy, and had firm confidence in the final victory over the enemy.
At the beginning of the thirteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, after Wu Sangui attacked Hunan all the way, he was worried that if he crossed the river north with another blow, his son Wu Yingxiong and several grandsons who were hostages in Beijing would not be able to save their lives.
Therefore, he decided not to enter the army for the time being, mobilized the Dalai Lama of Tibet, who was close to him, to mediate and put forward the request of "splitting the land and striking the army"; and released the two Chincha ministers sent by the emperor and brought letters to Kangxi.
But Kangxi had already recognized Wu Sangui's true face, was determined not to compromise, and immediately convened a meeting to decide to execute his son Wu Yingxiong and his grandson Wu Shilin—and wu Sangui was worried about this.
On this day, Wu Sangui was drinking and eating, when suddenly news came, saying that Wu Yingxiong and Wu Shilin's father and son had been executed by Kangxi, and he couldn't help but change his face, push the case up, and shouted: "Can the young man be Ye? It's a matter of decision! Wu Sangui did not expect that an emperor who was only twenty-one years old would have such determination and determination.
The thirteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty was the first year of Wu Sangui's rebellion. In June of that year, Kangxi looked at the overall situation and deeply felt that the current strength of the various battlefields was still very thin, and it was difficult to make progress in confrontation with the enemy; except for the general Le Erjin in Jingzhou, who led the troops to defend the town, the other generals in various places did not belong to each other, could not coordinate their actions, and could easily miss the fighters; and Wu Sangui's heavy troops gathered in Yuezhou could move north or east at any time.
Realizing the seriousness of the problem, Kangxi dispatched troops from June to September, sending more generals in Yuezhou, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Jiangnan, and Guangzhou. On June 13, he made Dorobel Shangshan the great general of Anyuan Jingkou, together with Tuanshan Beizi Zhangtai and Zhenguo Gong lanbu to lead an army to attack Yuezhou, and also had the generals Niyahan, Dutong Zhuman, Balbu, and the protector commander Ersitai counselor to serve in the military affairs; at the same time, he ordered Gushan Beizi Zhunta to lead the army to Jingzhou to reinforce Leerjin.
On June 25, Kangxi conferred on Jie Shu the Prince of Heshuokang the post of Grand General, together with Tuanshan Beizi Fulata to lead the army to Zhejiang, and had the generals Laita, the deputy governor Laha, and Jiertabu counsellor to serve in military affairs; Kangxi also granted Dorobel Dong'er the title of General of Dingxi, together with Gushan Beizi Du TongWenqi and Fuguo GongQutuo to lead the army to attack Sichuan, and let the generals Heye, Valka, and huribu, the commander of the guards, Mu Zhan, and the deputy governor of Fonile, command the military affairs of The Deputy Governor.
In September, Kangxi sent two more generals to Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong, namely the Yangwei general Prince Jian Labu and the Dingyuan Pingkou general Yue Le the Prince of An. In this way, the Qing court had already sent six great generals, of which three sent to Jiangsu and Zhejiang were all princes.
The appointment and expedition of various generals greatly changed the lineup of Wu Sangui's army. The great general not only carried the Eight Banners Forward Escort Army, Xiao Horse and other powerful brigades, but also included the King, Beizi, Belle, and the Gongxia clothed and armored soldiers, as well as all their subordinates and armored officers and soldiers, so that they could unify the command and "camera mobilization" of the Manchurian, Mongol, Han, and Green Battalion soldiers under their jurisdiction.
To this end, Kangxi also made a special statement: "The fact that the princes were specially sent as great generals of various armies was not that they did not believe in the ability of the generals to fight with troops, but that the kings of Bei Zi Belle were all close relatives of the emperors, and there was no restraint in the command and dispatch of the army, whether it was defending or attacking, it could enhance the prestige of the army." ”
After such arrangements by Kangxi, the ability to stabilize the war situation and cope with unexpected events was greatly improved, and favorable conditions were created for taking the initiative to attack and recover the lost land.
Through the analysis of the situation between the enemy and ourselves, Kangxi believed that Hunan was the main battlefield for engagement with Wu Sangui's army, so he drew up a new battle plan, changing the previous frontal attack on the enemy to a roundabout encirclement.
He judged that Wu Sangui had occupied Yuezhou and Liling for a long time, and that his main military food came from Changsha and Hengzhou, so in order to eliminate the Wu army in Yue and Li, he must attack Changsha and cut off their feeding routes.
To this end, he analyzed the significance of the capture of Changsha in his edict to Yue Le, the Prince of An, and pointed out: Our attack on Changsha can have the effect of attacking Changsha in one attack, on the one hand, we can cut off the salaries of the thieves; on the other hand, we can disperse the enemy's troops; on the other hand, we can hold the throat to Guangxi from then on; on the other hand, we can hold the gateway to Jiangxi.
At the same time, a rebellion had already occurred in Shaanxi, and the thieves in Sichuan were bound to spy on our Yuncheng and Xiangyang areas through Yang Laijia and Hong Fu, further disrupting Nanzhao and Dengzhou, and invading our Jingzhou back roads. Therefore, judging from the overall situation, it is urgent to enter Hunan.
It can be seen that Kangxi was well aware of the situation on the front line and had a sober strategic thinking.
Sure enough, as Kangxi expected, Wu Sangui was trying to take advantage of Wang Fuchen's rebellion to invade Jingzhou and Xiangyang and expand north. He left 70,000 troops in Changsha, Liling, and Pingxiang to resist the Qing court Yuele's attack on Jiangxi; he also divided 70,000 troops to garrison yuezhou and Lizhou zhushuikou, thus holding the throat leading to Yueyang in Jingzhou, in order to achieve the purpose of resisting the Qing army in northern Jiangsu; at the same time, he secretly divided his troops to garrison Zhenjingshan in the northeast of Yiling (that is, Yichang, Hubei), and entangled Wang Hui, Yang Laijia, and Hongfu to invade Weigucheng, Yuncheng, Junzhou, and Nanzhang, in order to achieve the purpose of approaching Xiangyang and connecting the rebels in the northwest.
In order to fulfill this strategic intention, Wu Sangui personally rushed to Songzi in the upper reaches of Jingzhou and dispatched the army in the middle.
Kangxi dispatched troops from many sides to hold on to Jingzhou and Xiangyang, and at the same time ordered Prince Jian Labu to lead troops into Jiangxi and urge Yue Le to enter Hunan. In February of the fifteenth year, after Yue Le captured Yuan Prefecture (宜春, Jiangxi), he recaptured Pingxiang County and then marched into Hunan. By this point, Kangxi had thrown three of the six generals into the Hunan battlefield.
Wu Sangui learned of this situation and hurriedly mobilized eighteen generals and more than 100,000 troops with him, dug trenches, erected wooden stakes, and went all out to defend Changsha. Kangxi had already anticipated Wu Sangui's move, and knew that the enemy's troops in Yuezhou, Liling, and other places would definitely weaken, so he ordered the great generals stationed near Jingzhou and Yuezhou, the kings belle, and others to strengthen their detectives, accumulate strength, and "take the opportunity to attack."
However, during this period, Shang Shan and Le Erjin had made very slow progress since crossing the river on March 9 and March 18, respectively. Leerjin also lost the battle when he recaptured Taiping Street on the 29th, and retreated to Jingzhou, losing a great opportunity to attack.
As a result, Kangxi's plan of attack around the siege did not work immediately.
Therefore, he once said with regret: If several large armies advance in tandem according to the plan of Yuan, the Wu Sangui rebels will absolutely not have the opportunity to dig trenches and pile fences everywhere to resist our army, and their demise will be enough.
In other wars, Kangxi always put the knowledge of the enemy first, never acted blindly, and carried out military operations on the basis of repeatedly finding out the enemy's situation and having a certainty of victory over the enemy. In the course of his rebellion against Kaldan, he also fought many battles.
In 29 years, the Battle of Ulaanbutong was fought with Kaldan, which dealt a heavy blow to Kaldan and greatly weakened his strength, but did not achieve the expected total annihilation of Kaldan. It is precisely because of this that after the Battle of UlanButong, Kangxi conscientiously summed up the differences in strategic and tactical and military qualities between the enemy and us in order to seek knowledge of oneself and the other.
He once said: I have always heard that the Mongols are fighting in battle, and in the beginning Xiao Yong was very brave, and once he lost the battle, he would run around and ignore the end, showing a very cowardly appearance. But later on actually seeing Kaldan's army on the battlefield was not what it had been heard of. After the defeat, the Western Mongol soldiers not only did not run wildly, but immediately and systematically ran to the top of the mountain, hiding in a dangerous place, so that they calmly shifted their positions.
This realization reversed Kangxi's original idea of a light enemy that kaldan's army was vulnerable. At the same time, in the Battle of Ulan Butong, the deficiencies of the Qing army were also exposed, not only the army was too densely arranged, causing heavy casualties, but also the commander's command was ineffective, and the army's advance and retreat failed to send the due signal in time.
In the second year after the Battle of Brandon, that is, thirty years later, Kangxi ordered the establishment of a firearms battalion, sent a princely minister to manage the camp and train officers and men with strong combat ability; he also ordered the resumption of the school shooting and hunting activities in the spring and autumn seasons that had been stopped, and ordered the officers and men of the Eight Banners to "gather in the land of the wide plains, arrange the position, and sound the gong to advance and retreat, so as to familiarize themselves with the exercises."
In December 1932, Kangxi inspected the officers and men after the training, and when he saw that the army's training was quite effective, he was naturally very pleased and gave special commendations.
This made him recall the situation when he fought against Kaldan, and said to the generals: In the past, when he fought against Kaldan of the Mongolian Dzungar department of Erut, he did not annihilate the enemy according to the instructions of the Emperor and missed the opportunity in vain, because our army did not train hard enough in peacetime, so we must improve our methods of warfare according to our own shortcomings.
In view of the invasion of Tsarist Russia, Kangxi also strove to know the enemy; he constantly learned about the enemy's situation from all sides; after analyzing and summing up, he held that the invading army had come from afar, and although the weapons and equipment were advanced, their numbers were always small, and in terms of combat methods, they only used isolated cities as a stronghold to harass the Chinese people everywhere.
Kangxi knew very well that with the greedy nature of the other side, it was impossible for the Russian army to withdraw from Chinese territory on its own initiative, and that if they retreated today, they would take the opportunity to attack tomorrow.
Therefore, while exerting military pressure on the Russian side, he also sent a mission to negotiate peace negotiations with the Russian government in his capacity as the victor of Yaksa in order to solve the northeast border problem forever.
In the twenty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Russian army trapped in the city of Yaksa in northeast China was like a candle in the wind, and a large number of soldiers were frozen and starved to death, which forced the Tsarist government to start taking the initiative to contact the Qing government and ask for peace negotiations. At this time, Kangxi saw that the fire had arrived and took the initiative to withdraw his troops.
The Russian army's demand for peace talks was forced by the strength of the Qing military, and its original intention was not sincere in peace talks, and Kangxi was of course very clear about this, and it was precisely because he had clearly recognized the aggressive nature of Tsarist Russia that he did not relax in military operations at all.
In October of the 26th year of Kangxi, Kangxi once again stressed the significance of the vast accumulation of grain and the Yongcheng Heilongjiang, and said to Shangshu Ordo and others: Russia has repeatedly invaded China, occupied the territory of China's Daur, Solun and other nationalities, and plagued the northeast border for more than forty years, and has never had the intention of withdrawing. Later, our army stored grain extensively, defended Heilongjiang for a long time, and besieged them helplessly before they came to seek peace.
Before the arrival of the Russian emissaries, if we take it lightly and run out of grain reserves, the Russians will inevitably make a comeback and stay in the strongholds, and then Russia will become the main soldier, and we will become the guest soldiers. For this reason, he demanded that, in light of the actual conditions of the enemy and us, we should firmly grasp the center of the vast accumulation of grain and the long-term defense without wavering.
Due to the habits and inferiority of the enemy, the Yongshu measures implemented by Kangxi played a major role, and eventually led to the signing of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nebuchu, which guaranteed the stability of the northeast frontier for nearly two hundred years.