After receiving the appointment, Ma Jinliang immediately galloped back to Tianjin, and the Third Guards Army quickly pulled out, boarded the nearest ship, and moved south along the canal in the direction of Dezhou.

As far as the establishment is concerned, the Guards system is undoubtedly much more perfect than that of other local troops; according to the habits that have been inherited in recent years, the "army" in the Han army is divided into large and small units, and the so-called "large" and "small" are determined by the rank of the leading general, such as the Fifth Army of Liu Lusi, a general of Yangwei Zhonglang, although his army is an old unit started by Lin Feng, but because the leading generals have not made outstanding achievements in leading the army, they have repeatedly missed the opportunity to expand the organization, and the establishment and scale have been maintained at about four brigades, and the combat personnel of the whole army are only 8,000 people. In addition, the total number of other non-combatant personnel, such as staff members, langzhong, and civil servants, is only more than 11,000, and the army led by a lieutenant general, such as the Second Army of Pingliao General Wang Dahai, has a complete range of arms and a huge establishment, and the combat personnel have four musket brigades, one cavalry brigade, and one artillery brigade, totaling 12,000 or 3,000 people. In the past, Kou Bei Zhonglang general Zhao Liangdong in the Han and quasi-war alone 'advanced', and annihilated the Western 'Meng' Gudong Road Army, with such outstanding military achievements, and only received a first-class military rank to be satisfied, that is, the difference between a lieutenant general and a major general is not only glory and official position, but also represents the strength of the troops under his command, and the gold content is almost incomparable.

The difference between the Guards and the Outer Towns is here, because it is the personal army of the Han king, ignoring the rank of the leading generals in terms of establishment, and in the Han court, the leading officers of the Guards are generally regarded as officials of the central government, with great temporary 'nature' and mobility' For example, Mu Tianyan, chief of staff of the First Guards Army, was originally a general in the army, but he could also receive an envoy sent by the government to other countries, which is precisely for this reason; If it weren't for very dangerous reasons, the central court would never have made a sudden replacement.

Lin Feng ordered Ma Jinliang to command the Dezhou Campaign, and the benchmark was also due to this. Although Ma Jinliang himself was only a colonel, the troops under his command were not inferior to the large army led by any lieutenant general, and the strength of the Third Guards Army was quite strong, with a total of four musket brigades, one artillery brigade, and one cavalry brigade, in addition to two specially allocated heavy artillery brigades, with more than 16,000 actual combat soldiers. The enemy army in front of him is only about 30,000 people, and once the fight starts, it may not be able to get reinforcements from Jinan, saying that in terms of the battlefield situation, the Han army has an absolute advantage.

At this time, the enemy was facing off on the Texas front with Zhao Yingkui's Second Guards Cavalry Army and Wang Zhongxiao's Fourth Guards Army.

Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao have a very good relationship, from the experience of the two, Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao were both born in the Liaodong horse thief department of the Ma Ying army, and performed very well in the Liaodong War, so they jumped into the Guards system by Lin Feng's special order, served in the Second Guards Cavalry Army, and then led the army to the west to conquer Geerdan, one in Xinzhou 'Meng' ancient camp personally risked the arrow stone to besiege Geerdan, and the other led the iron cavalry to reinforce the cavalry six armies to annihilate the cowardly Xue army, because of the tough style and the courage to work hard, he became famous in this battle and became a famous general in the Han army. Therefore, after returning to the army, Lin Feng immediately transferred the two to the area of Hejian Mansion and Guangping Mansion to guard Wang Chengye and deter Yang Qilong.

With two famous generals guarding the border, the border seems quite calm during this time, and this kind of peace is not all the reason why there are "famous generals" in charge, and now the Han court is aggressive and powerful, and the Shandong army and the Henan peasant army basically have nothing to fight. Since the war in the north has subsided, the displaced people have returned to their hometowns one after another, and the provinces seem to be very peaceful, so for economic reasons, the princes of the three parties have no intention of blocking the border, and the common people and businessmen have not received too much difficulty in the past.

This situation is not a matter of no choice, unlike other national borders, whether it is Zhili, Henan or Shandong, originally the people of the same country, the same culture, there is no reason to exclude each other, in fact, in the area of Quang Binh and Daimyo, many villages are above the military demarcation line, and the common people get up in the morning to pick up dung and carry it. Legs' went to Henan, ploughed the fields in the morning, and immediately went to Shandong, went home for dinner, and returned to the rule of the Han Dynasty, so in this case, forcing the common people to strictly guard the border is undoubtedly a rather ridiculous thing, and in addition, many border villages and towns have a very close relationship with each other, and a little calculation is either the son of the seventh master or the cousin and nephew of the ninth aunt, both blood relatives and in-laws, as far as China's traditional national conditions are concerned, it is also a very shameful thing to prevent the common people from such relatives exchanges, and it is impossible for the common people to refuse to go because His Royal Highness the King of Han does not like Lord Zhao Shenqiao。

Now the most disputes on the border are generally two things, one is the fight between villages because of the problem of irrigation of farmland, and the second is the dispute between the respective governments over the right to tax in some places - this problem is very complicated, as far as the case is concerned, for example, many ordinary people live in the territory of the Han Dynasty, but the land is in Shandong or Henan, so which government has the right to collect taxes has become a problem, but this kind of dispute basically does not lead to large-scale military conflicts, and generally the people on both sides solve it by force, as far as past experience is concernedThe villages on the Han side have received some military training, and at the same time there are militia organizations, so they often have an advantage in fighting, and because of the close relationship between the militia and the military, sometimes they can ask acquaintances in the Han army for help if they suffer losses, although they will not dispatch cavalry and artillery, but with the tacit consent of the officers, it is still possible to send a few soldiers to participate in the battle in civilian clothes, or 'get' two flintlock muskets for strategic deterrence.

Under such circumstances, the relationship between the garrisons of the Han army and the common people is not bad, of course, the so-called autumn is definitely impossible. The organization of the Han army is quite backward, the internal hierarchy is strict, and the life of the soldiers is not easy, the recruits basically enter the camp regardless of whether they are right or wrong, and then they have to be brutally trained, accompanied by a series of corporal punishment and personality insults, compared with the army of previous dynasties, in addition to the food and military pay are fair, the degree of change is not very large, but fortunately, these defects have not eliminated the enthusiasm of the majority of young people to join the army, sometimes this situation is simply difficult for Lin Feng to imagine, You must know that in the 21st century, if any PLA officer dares to move closer to the Han army officer, there is no second rule to go except to go to the court-martial. It took Lin Feng a long time to understand this truth, the reason why the soldiers of the Han army were able to endure this unfairness was because they also had a channel to vent, because the recruits became veterans after working for a year, so they basically had some status in the barracks, and they turned their backs to beat the new rookies, in addition, they could also beat the local regiments by training the militia regiments, and at the same time, they could also go out from time to time to steal 'chickens', 'touch' dogs, and face the big girls and daughters-in-law on the street Women whistle and say obscene things, and the parties generally dare not speak out, because this is part of the privilege of the Chinese military.

In this era, the discipline requirements of the common people are quite relaxed, if an army does not 'mess' killing, does not 'rape' and 'lewdness' robbery, and does not extort property, then it can basically be regarded as the "Yuejia Army", to be fair, the Han army is basically qualified in these aspects, as far as Lin Feng knows, it is a common phenomenon for Han soldiers to steal 'chickens' and 'touch' dogs in the local area, and it is a legitimate behavior to shake the dice and gamble, and what is picking quarrels and provoking troubles, and fighting with local bad teenagers is not uncommon, The officers and gendarmerie also turned a blind eye to this, but the killings, rapes, and extortion were very rare, because they committed an absolute dead end, and there was nothing to talk about.

As far as the discipline of each unit is concerned, the worst internal discipline of the Guards is the Second Cavalry Army, which basically has to carry out a campaign every few months and pull a few unlucky eggs out to appear; In the vicinity of the garrison of the Third Army of the Guards outside Tianjin, every household originally had a dog with a chicken, but after a year of continuous efforts by the Third Army, now the common people have put an end to the bad "hair" of raising dogs, and at the same time they are also accustomed to raising "chickens" and ducks in their own bedrooms, and the only thing worthy of praise is that there are absolutely no idle teenagers around the station to swim around. The vast number of officers and men have always been very cautious about public order issues, and when they find that there are guys who do not like their eyes, they immediately attack them in groups, so as to appease and enforce the law and order for the local government.

However, the two newly formed armies have the best discipline, especially the Fifth Artillery Army, which is led by Ma Zhuang from a martial arts background, which can be described as a model of military-civilian relations, but the only pity is that in the Guards system, the combat effectiveness of these two armies is the worst.

Lin Feng did not fantasize about the discipline of the troops, but later a series of realities were really people's situations, unlike his idealistic 'color', it is not that the better the discipline and the better the relationship with the people, the stronger the combat effectiveness of the troops, or the fact is just the opposite, among all the armed forces of the Han military group, the worst discipline is the Sixth Cavalry Army - if this army is called a "mad dog", there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, in their defense area Nuergan Province, The reputation of this army is worse than that of evil ghosts, it belongs to the good 'medicine' that can cure children's night crying, soldiers in other areas fight and brawl with bricks and wooden sticks, they can fight and fight can be fully armed cavalry charge, if the opponent is a certain tribe and more united, it will even drag out a few 'doors' field cannons, and even after the expedition, the treatment of friendly troops is also fierce, just in the recent Shanxi campaign, this unit even had the phenomenon of beating quartermasters and robbing friendly materials.

Secondly, the second uncle is Zhao Guangyuan's cavalry army, although the reputation of this army is not as loud as the cavalry of the Sixth Army, but it is also considered to be famous in the 'Mongolian' ancient prairie, and at the same time the courage is surprisingly great, on weekdays, go out to patrol the guard is to collect protection fees, all the 'Mongolian' ancient tribes in the defense area must pay cattle and sheep to the military masters on a daily basis, and all the Han caravans that pass through the defense area must also pay some sentry fees, road fees, etc. What is particularly sensational is that in the past, the eastern 'Mongolian' ancient Korqin Khan Buryagma gave gifts to the Han king Lin Feng, a total of 10,000 taels of gold and 5,000 war horses, and when passing through the cavalry defense area, a second lieutenant officer from the 'Mongolian' ancient Chahar tribe insisted on "'pumping' a little", otherwise he would be stopped and not allowed to go, fortunately a certain Han company commander arrived in time that day, otherwise I really don't know what jokes would have happened.

However, what discouraged Lin Feng was that the two poorly disciplined troops were indeed the strongest combat effectiveness in the Han army, with strong bows and crossbows, fierce and abnormal, whether it was fighting the Eight Banners Iron Cavalry, or the Zhun Geer Cowardice Xue, it has always been only offensive and not defending, fighting hard, in the past Xinzhou First Battle, the six cavalry armies fought against the Zhun Geer Cowardly Xue Army, 10,000 iron horses went up, rushed one hundred and thirty miles, and fought all night and a half, Geerdan cowardly Xue Zuo Battalion 11,642 heads from the general to the horse slaves, and they fought to the end of the 4,600 deaths, more than 2,000 were seriously wounded, and no one in the whole army, including Ma Ying, was physically intact, but no one flinched from the battle, not a single deserter, and did not even send any signal for help.

Zhao Guangyuan's cavalry first army pursued the remnants of Geerdan overnight, the whole army of more than 12,000 officers and soldiers, no one dismounted, horses did not loosen the saddle, starting from the Xinzhou battlefield, four days and nights to pursue nearly two thousand miles, crossed the border of the Great Wall, cut the Yikezhao department into two halves, people block killing, Buddha block killing Buddha, iron hooves, there are sixteen 'Mongolian' ancient tribes can not dodge, regardless of men, women, old and young, livestock, cattle and sheep all killed, Ordos, Alxa Erut together with Xi'meng' Guzungar left to garrison, nearly more than 100,000 ' Meng's ancient iron cavalry, no one dared to be its sharp, Geldan was loud, and led 3,000 remnants to flee from Xinzhou to Ulaanbaatar, not daring to stay for a moment. And Zhao Guangyuan commanded the army, all the way to the vicinity of Baotou, camped and rested under the noses of the defenders of Baotou in Zungar, slept a lot, and by the way, he also 'took time' to put a stick of incense on the tomb of Genghis Khan, and then Shi Shiran collected the army and retreated.

Under the prestige, the two armies, whether they are generals or cooks, have always been accustomed to walking with their eyes to the sky, bumping into whoever is unlucky, and the military discipline is corrupted beyond measure.

Compared with them, some well-disciplined troops have unsatisfactory results, such as Sun Sike's Fourth Army, which had excellent discipline when stationed in Zhili, went out to fight but had no bright spots, turned around a few times in Anhui, and fought a few battles with the Jiangxi 'chaos' soldiers left over from the puppet Qing Dynasty, although they repelled the enemy army, but it is difficult to say what they took advantage of.

It is precisely for this reason that Lin Feng doesn't really want to deliberately rectify any military discipline, to be honest, he is a little confused at this level, is it better to have a young master soldier with "three disciplines and eight attentions", or a fierce and vicious bandit soldier? !

The current style of the Guards is the product of this kind of contradictory thinking, the discipline of the troops is not good, but it is not very bad, the battle can be fought, but to fight like Ma Yingbu or Zhao Guangyuan's troops, everyone is not very confident, of course, this mentality is for those people outside the Saiwai, in the Central Plains civil war, Lin Feng is still full of confidence in the combat effectiveness of the Guards.

It is precisely for this reason that Ma Jinliang led an army of 16,000 to attack an enemy army with more than 30,000 people and convenient fortresses and supplies, and no one in the military felt that it was inappropriate.

In fact, as far as the entire battlefield situation is concerned, the troops participating in the Dezhou Campaign include the two armies of Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao, although these two troops did not participate in the attack, but they were stationed in the rear of the siege army, faintly acting as the role of the strategic reserve, so that the enemy troops in Texas did not dare to act rashly.

According to the rules, Ma Jinliang went to visit Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao by the way when he passed through the port city, although at this time he saw Zhao Yingkui still had to salute according to the etiquette of the next rank, but the waist pole was also a lot tougher, in the end, this time the Battle of Texas was the king of Han personally ordered the general, Ma Jinliang can be regarded as half of the "commander of the Qin Dynasty", even if Zhao Yingkui has any temper, it can't be released.

Although he was a little breathless, Zhao Yingkui still gave a face-saving reception, and led a group of officers to greet him by the river in person. Before this, Lin Feng's orders to him were also more detailed, faintly piercing his careful thinking, as a senior general, he still didn't have this overall situation, and dared to play 'flowers' in front of the two armies, you must know that tens of thousands of pairs of eyes are watching this kind of thing, even if there are any 'tricks', they can't play it, and the Jingshi is hundreds of miles behind, if something goes wrong, it is enough to come to the edict to go to prison and behead him.

"Xiaguan Guards Third Army Yongyi School Ma Jinliang, see Lord Zhao!" For a certain reason of thinking, Ma Jinliang refused to call Zhao Yingkui a "general".

"Hey! Lord Ma, please get up, please get up! Zhao Yingkui smiled all over his face, and arched his hand towards Ma Jinliang and said, "My lord has reached the heavens this time, and Jian Ba is handsome, which is really gratifying!" ”

"Hey, hey! …… Don't dare, don't dare, that's also relying on the promotion and love of adults! Ma Jinliang smiled, "Xia Guan will remember it in his heart, and he will never dare to forget it!" ”

The words were so transparent, Zhao Yingkui's face was still a little unbearable, in fact, he was born as a military general, and he was not very used to playing this set of imaginary, and his face sank suddenly.

Ma Jinliang stood on the shore, and did not mean to enter the city, and arched his hand to Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao, "Today, the lower officials are under the order of the King of Han to capture Dezhou, I am afraid that I will not be able to catch it, and I will lose the trust of the king, so I ask the two adults to cooperate more in the future...... " He smiled, arched his hand in the direction of Beijing, and said proudly, "...... This is also a contribution to the court! ”

This time Lin Feng suddenly ordered Ma Jinliang to be a general, Zhao Yingkui did feel sudden, originally he thought that this messenger was either Rick or himself, no matter what, it couldn't fall on the heads of others, so when the news came, it was a little unacceptable, but although he didn't know much about the way of officialdom, but there were still some staff members around him, and he understood the meaning of King Han as soon as he woke up - now there are two generals from the Liaodong Army who serve as the commander of the first army, and it must be very inappropriate for such a party to dominate, And King Han helped Ma Jinliang a little, which was naturally reasonable, after understanding this joint, this tone was much smoother, but at this time, seeing Ma Jinliang pretending to be like this, he couldn't help but feel angry in his heart.

At the moment, he couldn't help sneering, "This is natural, don't worry, Master Ma, Lao Tzu has always been above board, and he will never do anything to stab people in the back." ”

Wang Zhongxiao's face was also ugly, and he said with a straight face, "Master Ma, brother heard that this Wang Chengye is also a famous general, Texas has been run by him for several years, and the city is strong and the soldiers are 'fine' and the food is sufficient, so my brother should do it himself!" ”

Ma Jinliang smiled proudly, bowed his hand slightly to Zhao Yingkui and Wang Zhongxiao, returned his hand and ordered his subordinates to sail, turned his head and said with a smile, "The two adults can put that little bit of thought in their stomachs, just open their eyes and watch the good news!" ”