At the wharf in the south of Guangzhou, Chen Kai stood at the bow of the ship, and behind him was a group of soldiers of the Guangdong Governor's Standard Battalion who stepped on the trestle and squeaked into the cabin. A moment later, the battleship pulled anchor and set sail, slowly tracing the river and sailing along the waterway of the Beijiang River.

The scenery on both sides of the strait flows by, familiar and unfamiliar, all in sight. On the ship, Lin Dezhong stood on the side as always, and the other towns planned to participate in the war had already been deployed in Shaozhou Prefecture and Qingyuan County in the north of Guangzhou, and Fubiao was the only accompanying force.

"Fu Jun, this time the opponent is very strong, isn't it?"

After being silent for a long time, Lin Dezhong suddenly came out with these words, Chen Kaidang turned around, and his surprise flashed, and he immediately understood why Lin Dezhong said this.

"What do you think?"

"The last general has followed the Fu army since the first year of Yongli, and he has never seen the Fu army so depressed. Even if he rushed to Xinhui last year, the last general remembered that Fu Jun was confident on the ship. ”

In the meantime, there were only the two of them, Lin Dezhong bluntly said his thoughts, Chen Kai looked carefully at the first living person he saw after coming to this era, and he was also the general who had followed him for the longest time, and he recalled endlessly that in that hut, even in the face of two steel forks and an unintelligible dialect, he was still able to calmly get the information he needed from the words of the two brothers.

It was many years ago, so long that he couldn't remember the details very much, and if it weren't for Lin Dezhong's words, those old things would have been hidden in the depths of his memory, gradually covered with dust, just like those who came to this era before the past.

"Maybe, yes."

Lin Dezhong's words made Chen Kai fall into deep thought, but after a long time, Chen Kai suddenly discovered that in fact, what made him feel great pressure was not only Hong Chengchou's ability, or in that pressure, Hong Chengchou's personal ability was only a part, and more was his lack of strength to borrow.

Outwitted Chaozhou, the combat effectiveness of Che Renzhong's department had already been exposed by Wu Liuqi, and there was no face left; Saving Guangzhou, it was a gamble with mental calculations or unintentionalities, in addition to having a general understanding of that period of history, he also had the fleet of the Zheng Group as a support; Guarding the left of the center, he knew that the Qing army would not stay for long; Zhen Lufeng, he believed that the perverted defense of the fortress was not something that the feudal army could shake at all; Leaving aside the expedition to Qiongzhou Mansion, it was a game of bullying; Even in last year's series of wars in Guangzhou, he has allies he can trust.

No, without the help of Chen Kai, he will not do things. On the contrary, the reason why he has been able to win successive battles and succeed in many dangerous ventures over the years is because he has done relevant research and planning in advance for what he is going to do. Among them, there are never fewer variables, such as the opponent's impromptu intentions, such as the sudden disruption of a forgotten opponent, such as the overbearing constraints of pig teammates, and then such as unfavorable conditions such as shipping, wind and waves, fog, etc., he is trying to improvise, even fight to the death, without exception.

This time, he has been preparing for a long time, even if it is far from enough, but his opponent is facing similar problems. Maybe it's not just Lin Dezhong who saw it, but Zheng Xiyuan's mood was also affected. The reason why there is today's depression is more due to the fact that he has not yet had enough confidence in the power he can use this time.

"Once born, twice ripe."

The belief was re-strengthened, and Chen Kai soon returned to his usual state. The fleet slowly moved westward to Sanshui, and did not continue westward to Wuzhou Prefecture to assist in the defense, but turned north.

After the three waters, it was Qingyuan, and the left commander Ke Chenshu led the troops and horses of his headquarters to sit there. When Chen Kai's fleet arrived in Qingyuan, Ke Chenshu's headquarters had already set off, and the indirect defense was Zhou Quanbin's Qianchong Town and Ma Bao's headquarters soldiers and horses, and in Sanshui, there was also Chen Yaoce, who guarded Zhongzhen, and they formed the Ming army's defense line in the northwest of Guangzhou Prefecture.

At this point, Fubiao continued to go north, and Chen Kai got off the ship to fight Zhou Quanbin and Ma Bao. Ma Bao aside, speaking of which, Zhou Quanbin, a general, should have developed into one of the five tigers of the Zheng family and became the most important mastermind of Zheng Chenggong after Shi Lang. However, in recent years, Zhou Quanbin has served on the battlefield in Guangdong, and has occasionally made achievements in making suggestions, but he has never been able to achieve greater achievements, so that Chen Kai always feels as if he has wasted the talent of this famous general.

Seeing each other for a while is nothing more than ordering something. Zhou Quanbin has been under Chen Kai all the year round, and has a deep understanding of his temperament and habits of using soldiers. This time, it is more in Ma Bao, who has just been put into service.

Fortunately, Ma Bao didn't let him have too much nonsense, this military general has been in service for nearly half a year, and he has always been closest to Li Jianjie and Hao Shangjiu, and his will to follow Chen Kai like Li Jianjie is also very tight, and he completely treats Chen Kai as his old boss Li Chengdong.

Guangzhou, for the Guangdong Ming army, especially the troops of the Zheng group, is really a nerve center. Chen Kai is in Guangzhou, military orders, government orders spread in all directions, and now Chen Kai is on the expedition, there is the existence of a logistics base, and Sanshui and Qingyuan have inevitably become the gateway to Guangzhou and the link with the army. There are seven thousand soldiers in three towns in these two counties, which is not much, but this is already the maximum strength that Chen Kai can show for the time being.

After the order, the ship continued north. After Yingde, they arrived at the capital of Shaozhou, where Ke Chenshu, the commander of the left who had arrived in advance, had replaced Xiao Gongchen, the commander-in-chief of the Shaozhou Mansion, in charge of the command of the former enemy. Even, under the leadership of Ke Chenshu, this army has already left the capital city of Shaozhou and rushed straight to Shixing County in Nanxiong Mansion.

Nanxiong Mansion is the northernmost province of Guangdong, but it has always belonged to the Yamen moderation of the governor of Southern Jiangxi, and it is known as "pillow Chu across Guangdong, for the north and south". This prefecture is located in the south of Meiling, covering an extremely small area, only Baochang County, which is attached to the prefecture, and Shixing County in the southwest, which are about the size of a state, and not even necessarily a state under the jurisdiction of the province, but under the jurisdiction of the government, but in Guangdong, she is higher than the administrative level of Luoding Prefecture, not to mention, the Southern Jiangxi Qing Army is under the military pressure of the Ming army of Shaozhou Prefecture, and there are also heavy troops here.

"According to the detailed investigation, the entire Southern Jiangxi region has a Southern Jiangxi standard, Ganzhou town standard, Nan'an town standard, South Jiangxi Fu standard, Tingzhou town standard, Chenzhou green camp, Nanxiong town standard, Shaozhou town standard and Yiying city guard camp and town guard. The foundation of these troops is basically the green battalion in the southern Jiangxi region, and the geography is not as vague as the green battalion directly transferred from the north, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. And in terms of scale, it is no longer as strong as it was back then, and its strength is not unstrong. ”

The information was sent to the yamen of the governor of Guangdong one after another, and Chen Kai was already familiar with the scale of these Qing troops. Since the fall of Shang Geng's two feudal domains, the Qing court has been expanding the army to Southern Jiangxi step by step, and with Chen Kai's recovery of Shaozhou Mansion, the strength of the army expansion has become even greater due to Hong Chengchou's advice.

Among them, the three departments of Nangan Standard, Ganzhou Town Standard and Nan'an Town Standard were expanded with the original Nangan Town Standard with 5,000 soldiers. Among them, Hu Yousheng, the governor of Southern Jiangxi, was the original commander of the Southern Jiangxi Army, and now he is still in charge of 5,000 soldiers, but his official position has been promoted. The other two towns are both the size of 3,000 soldiers, and the chief officers are all Hu Yousheng's former generals, so there will be no constraints in command.

The other departments, which were originally a 1,000-soldier association or a town with 2,000 soldiers, have now all been upgraded to a town, three battalions and 3,000 soldiers, stationed at various key points, and the role of Nanjiang as a node connecting Jiangxi, Huguang, Guangdong, and Fujian provinces has been highlighted very obviously.

Not counting the troops guarding the county seats, just these troops, there are as many as 26,000 soldiers. This number is actually not too huge. However, the troops led by Chen Kai this time only had an obvious military advantage in terms of the 16,000 troops led by Chen Kai, including the Left Admiral, Houchong Town, Houjin Town, Hustang Town, Guarding the Right Town, Tieqi Town, Hussar Town, and the Guangdong Governor Biaobiao Battalion.

However, for such a disadvantage, the Ming army in the north did not have any pressure on this. The reason for this is that although the Qing court has a large number of troops in Southern Jiangxi, it is on the defensive, and it is necessary to take care of all places. What really stood in the way of the Ming army's northward march was nothing more than the Nanxiong Town Mark, which guarded and assisted in guarding Nanxiong Mansion respectively, and the Nan'an Town Mark in the north of Shaozhou Mansion.

"Ganzhou General Soldier Xian Qiyu, Nan'an General Soldier Guo Hu, Nanxiong General Soldier Su Yangzhi...... Look, these ones seem to be old acquaintances. ”

In the rescue of Guangzhou, the troops of Guo Hu, Gao Jinku and Xian Qiyu competed with Chen Kai in the south of the city. In this, Gao Jinku and Guo Hu had already surrendered the Ming army in Gao Lianlei last year. The difference is that Gao Jinku really surrendered, while Guo Hu surrendered fraudulently, and then found an opportunity to return to the Qing army, and once assisted in guarding Gaoming County, but when Gaoming County was recovered by the Ming army, he fled all the way north to Southern Jiangxi. And Nasu Yangzhi participated in the Battle of Jiangmen and was dispatched to assist Xu Degong to intercept Chen Kai, but naturally suffered a shameful defeat, and the result was that Chen Kai was in a hurry to go south to join Li Dingguo before he got out.

Xian Qiyu has always been stationed in the Southern Jiangxi region, and Chen Kai also saw names such as Jia Xiong and Kong Guozhi from the list of officers. These guys were all murderers who resisted the army of Jin Shenghuan and Li Chengdong for the Qing court, which led to the suppression of the two provinces anyway, and they were the murderers of the Ganzhou massacre. Even in recent years, they have frequently been in and out of Guangdong, and compared with the local green battalions in Guangdong, Shang Geng Erfan also believes in the combat effectiveness of these Southern Jiangxi Green Battalions.

"The artillery team is still on the way, there is no need to rush to storm the city."

In this way, the generals have a tacit understanding, and Ke Chenshu also nodded, expressing his agreement with this. It seems to feel the unhurried outside the city of Shixing County, outside the capital city of Tingzhou, Fujian, east of Southern Jiangxi, more than 13,000 troops such as the general Xingyuan Right Admiral Huang Shan personally unified the aid to suppress Hao Wenxing in the middle town, Huang Dazhen in the former town, Huang Chang in the left town, Hong Chengpet in the right town, and Wang Jin in Xiaoqi Town, once again approached the city.

The reason why it is used to annotate again is that since last year, Huangshan has launched several attacks against the capital city of Tingzhou. The local Qing army tried its best to expand, and the green battalion soldiers from Southern Jiangxi rushed to reinforce again and again, so they barely held the city under the strong attack of Huangshan again and again. However, the Qing army's control area was limited to this isolated island city and the road leading to Ruijin County.

Tingzhou Fucheng is backed by the southern foot of Wuyi Mountain, with the advantage of geographical advantages, coupled with the all-out efforts of the Qing army to maintain the smooth flow of this lifeline. This time, when the soldiers of Huangshan came to the city, they never cut off the road, and they did not even make a symbolic effort.

Huangshan is once again under the city, and Tingzhou Mansion is naturally strictly guarded, and Ruijin County, which is close to here, is also inevitably a rumor.

Successive Ming troops attacked the capital city of Tingzhou, during which they had to provide food to support the front line. This is not limited to the decree of the governor of Southern Jiangxi and the authority of the Qing court, in fact, if there is no Tingzhou Mansion, there is only one southern foot of Wuyi Mountain left between Ganzhou Mansion and their Ruijin County and the Ming army. The lips are dead and the teeth are cold, that's what I'm talking about.

As always, at the same time that the fiery military information was quickly sent to the Yamen of the Southern Jiangxi Governor, the Ruijin County Yamen also issued a government order as usual to recruit people from various villages and towns. Whether it is to help defend the war, or to transport grain and grass baggage, it is indispensable to have people. They have done this in previous battles, and this time will naturally be no exception.

The magistrate of the county issued a decree, and the officials and officials in the county government immediately took action. Carrying the decree, the officials and officials rushed to various warehouses to allocate warehouses, and at the same time went to various towns and towns to inform the village elders and lizheng, and visited the squires from all over the country.

This is not the first time, of course, the officials and officials are familiar with it, which one to go where, which one to find, they are all tacit understanding with each other, and without too much detail, they each ran in their own directions.

At the city gate, the gatekeeper saw that the officials and officials were dispatched one after another, and hurriedly instructed the people to make way so as not to delay the matter. In the east of the city, there is a family that they dare not easily provoke when they go out of the city, because the head of that family is a master, and the son-in-law is also a master, which is a fame that can go to the capital to participate in the examination, and can even be directly awarded an official.

The son-in-law of the old man has always lived in an old house in the countryside, but he has always lived in the county seat. This time, the old man took a large family out of the county. A clerk passed by, and he also stepped forward to greet him respectfully, and he heard that he was reading in a clean place, but the clerk did not believe it in his heart.

"There is a way to enter the city in a small chaos and go to the countryside in a big chaos. This old fox probably smelled something. ”

Thinking like this, the official did not dare to stay for a while, official business was important, so he hurriedly left the city and went straight to the town. The first squire he was going to visit there was a showman, and he had an excellent relationship with this man's son-in-law.

Hurried out to the town, the mansion he could find with his eyes closed. When he arrived at the door, he tidied up his appearance and motioned for his attendants to knock on the door.

The door knocked for a long time, but there was no movement inside. This family is not a small family, there is a lot of fertile land in the family, and there is also a mutual aid association, which has a lot of energy. On weekdays, when I knocked on the door, it was the doorman who opened the door, politely invited it in, and informed the owner. As for the decree of the county lord he transmitted, the owner of this house has never had a second word. Of course, the county government is also indispensable to take care of the mutual aid association, after all, now anyone with a discerning eye can see that compared with those people, the mutual aid association is more stable no matter how you look at it.

However, this time, not only was the door closed, but there seemed to be no movement inside, not even a dog barking. This situation is really abnormal, but he didn't dare to break in, so he had to change to the next one to visit.

In this way, after visiting several families in a row, the ordinary squires all looked embarrassed, and the squires who were in charge of the mutual aid associations in various villages and towns simply disappeared without a single family. Such a situation is really incredible, even chilling. Seeing this, the officials did not dare to hesitate, and hurriedly led people to a small village run by a mutual aid association in the countryside. What I saw was that the village was empty, and even the livestock and rice had already been cleaned.