Can we set transactional replication between SQL 2014 DB and SQL 2012 DB

We need to set up Transactional replication between two servers A and B: Configs listed below:

Server A (Publisher)

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 - 12.0.2254.0 (X64)

Enterprise Edition (64-bit)

Single database of approx 1.5 TB( this would be the database to be replicated on server B

CPU - 4 Intel Xeon CPU E7-8893 v2 @ 3.4GHZ

Server B (Subscriber & Distributor)

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - 11.0.5058.0 (X64)

Standard Edition (64-bit)

CPU - 1 AMD Operon 6378 processor 64 bit 2.40 GHz (4 Core) ( Better RAM and CPU will be added when moved to better Hyper V server)

I am new to the replication concept so would like you're expertise to confirm:

1. If we can set up the transactional replication between server A of version 2014 and server B of version 2012. Tried to Google out but could not find the exact documents because may be am looking somewhere wrong. Please suggest if it can be set up?
2. We need to implement encryption on server A, but this encrypted data needs not to go on server B as that is SAN encrypted. Is there a way we can do this, if replication can be successfully implemented as asked in point 1?

Thanks in advance