In the face of the People's Army, a group of thieves who had already occupied two counties and defeated Jieshiwei, a part of the Ming army in Guangdong quickly moved into action, and as soon as the logistics were ready, they could be dispatched to exterminate the People's Army.

At this time, outside the south gate of Haifeng County, Fang Nan, Zhou Yi, and He Yan's People's Army gathered here, and Hu Zhuang continued to garrison Haifeng Qianhu all the way, but Hu Zhuang had already come to Haifeng County.

At present, the People's Army is deployed, and the First Mixed Brigade of the People's Army is stationed in Yongan County, and the brigade commander is Wang Shengrong.

The 1st Mixed Brigade consisted of a battalion of firearms units (plus a company of reserves), two regiments of cold weapons troops, a company of the Xiandeng battalion, and a company of the women's battalion.

In addition to the First Mixed Brigade, the People's Army in Yongan County has also recruited a group of new recruits who have just begun training, and the number has exceeded 2,000 and is still growing rapidly.

The recruits are very weak in combat effectiveness, and they need to be trained for at least a month, and they can also be used as cannon fodder in emergencies.

The People's Army in Yong'an County has a lot of troops and is not weak, but the First Mixed Brigade will face the enemy from the north, and the only three Qianhu offices of Huizhou Wei, Longchuan Qianhusuo, Changle Qianhusuo, and Heyuan Qianhu are all in the north of Yong'an County, and only the headquarters of Huizhou Wei is in the area of Huizhou Fucheng, that is, the west of Yong'an County and Haifeng County.

Three thousand households, at least 3,000 Ming troops, and there may be other Ming troops to join, with the strength of the first mixed brigade, they can confidently resist the enemy in field/battle and city defense battles.

Under the rule of the People's Army, only Yong'an County and Haifeng County, Yong'an County is the first mixed brigade, and the rest of the troops are in Haifeng County, Pinghai Qianhusuo, Jiesheng Qianhusuo, Jieshiwei Headquarters, and Jiazimen Qianhusuo are each stationed in a battalion of cold weapons troops, and the People's Army led by Hu Zhuang is still stationed in Haifeng Qianhusuo, and other troops are currently gathered in Haifeng County.

At present, there are six companies of firearms units (including an artillery company), two companies of the reserve unit, two regiments and another battalion of the cold weapons unit, in addition to nearly one battalion of the Xiandeng battalion and a number of female soldiers in the battalion.

The Xiandeng battalion was the most changed unit, and many of the Ming army captives who were ideologically educated joined the People's Army, some entered the Xiandeng battalion, some entered the ordinary cold weapon unit, and a small part joined the firearms unit and became an artilleryman.

Previously, the People's Army's firearms units were equipped with tiger head guns, tiger head guns are light artillery, the firing range is relatively short, after capturing the Jieshiwei headquarters and several thousand households, the People's Army captured many firearms used by the Ming army, including bird guns, Franc machine guns, etc.

Compared with the tiger head gun, the performance gap is too large, and the People's Army will definitely not be equipped with the bird gun, and even the second-line cold weapon troops will not be equipped, and among the firearms captured by the Ming army, the most important thing is the imitation model of the Franc cannon and the Franc cannon.

As the most advanced artillery in this era, it was just because of the limited steel production of Hutouzhai and the limited gunpowder reserves of the People's Army, so it did not build the Franc cannon.

The Franc cannon was of great use to the People's Army, and Fang Nan directly asked the artillery company of the firearms unit to replace it with 12 Franc machine guns of similar caliber, and the effective firing range was about 1,000 meters, which was several hundred meters more than the maximum range of the Tiger Head Cannon.

There are several heavy Franc cannons with a maximum firing range of more than 2,000 meters, the firing range is long, but it is inconvenient to transport, and it was abandoned by Fang Nan, which is suitable for use on the city wall.

It was also because of the large amount of gunpowder captured from the Ming army, and the People's Army's gunpowder reserves were quite sufficient, which could support artillery fire.

In fact, in addition to creating the tiger head gun and the tiger head cannon, Hutou Zhai also created a grenade, compared with the small grenade in Fang Nan's impression, the grenade created by Hutou Zhai is large in size and relatively large in weight, and the use is to manually ignite, and it can only be thrown more than ten meters if it is thrown hard.

This kind of grenade is not very useful when it is used when the People's Army is attacking, but it is used when the People's Army is defending the city, and when the enemy rushes to the city, the grenade is directly thrown on the city wall, and a large area is exploded, which is still relatively easy to use.

Helplessly, a lot of gunpowder is required to make grenades, and even tiger cannons are reluctant to make much, let alone grenades.

Fortunately, the current situation of the People's Army has improved, and with a population of 200,000, more saltpeter can be obtained, and the output of gunpowder will also be greatly increased.

Because of the addition of the Ming prisoners, the People's Army is not counted as recruits, and the total strength will exceed some before the war, and the number of recruits recruited in Yongan County and Haifeng County will exceed 4,000, and the maximum number is expected to exceed 10,000, but there is not much combat effectiveness for the time being, and a certain amount of training time is required.

Now the most lacking thing for the People's Army is time, Yongan County and Haifeng County have been built into bases by the People's Army, so that the Ming Army can hit the door, and the People's Army will be passive defense, and in the end it will only be worn to death little by little, which is what Fang Nan does not want to see.

"Next, we have to take the initiative to attack, drag the enemy army, buy time for training new soldiers, and buy time for building tiger head guns and tiger head guns." Fang Nan said to Hu Zhuang, Zhou Yi, He Yan and others, and when they heard the words of the leader (teacher), several of them nodded in agreement.

Although the territory of the People's Army is already near the sea, it still needs to face enemies in four directions, the three thousand households of Huizhou Wei in the north of Yongan County, the Chaozhou Wei stationed in the territory of Chaozhou Prefecture in the east of Yongan County and Haifeng County, the enemy who may come by ship from the sea in the south of Haifeng County, and the places where the Ming army is most concentrated in Yongan County and Haifeng County in the west.

In the absence of necessity, it is unlikely that the Ming army will attack from the direction of the sea, and it can be said that the main enemy of the People's Army is from the west, the secondary enemy is from the east, and the north and south sides are relatively easy.

In this way, Fang Nan set the next plan of action for the People's Army:

The main force of Wang Shengrong's 1st Mixed Brigade left Yong'an County and marched north, looking for an opportunity to eliminate the three thousand households of Huizhou Wei, as well as to capture the city as much as possible and exterminate the large landlords.

Hu Zhuang's People's Army left Haifeng Qianhu and entered the territory of Chaozhou Mansion, mainly to contain the Ming army in Chaozhou Prefecture, if there is an opportunity, it can capture the city and clear the landlords;

If the enemy is attacking from the direction of the sea, quickly retreat, gather in Haifeng County, and arrive at the enemy in Haifeng County, Haifeng County will stay in Haifeng County to guard a battalion of cold weapons troops and a company of firearms troops, plus a company of reserves, and the main task is to be responsible for the use of the hypothetical artillery on the city wall;

Fang Nan personally led six companies of the firearms unit (including an artillery company), two regiments of the cold weapons unit, a first-arrival battalion, a women's battalion, and a number of medical team personnel, totaling nearly 4,000 people, to march into Guishan County in the west of Haifeng County.

Although the strength of the People's Army on the 1st Road of Fangnan is far inferior to the Wanming Army that is gathering, there are six companies of firearms troops, and Fangnan has the confidence to face the Wanming Army.