At dusk, a team braved the aftermath of the sun to walk on the official road. Even though the sweat turned into water vapor along the hat by the afterglow of the sun, let the sweat soak through the clothes on the body, and the back basket on the back was also soaked and slippery, but the pace of the feet never stopped.

This mobilized force, which is more than several hundred people, will report from the township where their home is located to the county seat, complete the assembly, and form a battalion with personnel drawn from the county's watchman team, Zhuangding team, and other standing military organizations. Then they went to the prefecture to gather and collect weapons (mainly all kinds of firearms and related ammunition, cold weapons such as knives and guns, which had long been stored at the township level. Then, assemble at the designated port and board the ship.

Therefore, on the national highways and provincial highways everywhere, you will often see such a scene: the heavy baggage car will become a huge mountain, fortunately the baggage truck is four-wheeled, and equipped with vulcanized rubber tires, otherwise, the traditional iron wheel or wooden wheel car may not be able to withstand such a large weight. Rumbling vehicles run over the burnt ash paved road.

The wagons were often at the back of the marching procession, just in front of the rearguard. In front of the baggage vehicle, there is an artillery team that follows the Chinese army, a gate team of artillery, which emits a lovely light of metal in the sun, making people forget that it is a killing weapon, and regard it as a piece of porcelain or fine metal, such as a tripod.

The ranks of the Chinese army seem to be ordinary, except for the flag of the chief officer and the military flag of the headquarters, there seems to be nothing special. If there is one, it is that in the Chinese army, there are quite a few people who look like scholars, or have the temperament of scholars. They are the staff officers of the ministries, quartermasters, and the like. Of course, there are also military judges who enforce military law. Like the quartermaster, he belongs to the role assigned to the ministry by his superiors, and is not under the command of the generals at his own level, so that law enforcement is not interfered with and the military finances are independent, so as not to become the private wallet of generals at all levels.

In front of and behind the ranks of the Chinese army, the momentum was a different scene. The guards of each brigade and regiment marched in front and behind the ranks of the Chinese army, acting as escorts. The core combat strength and general reserve of these units are composed of the most elite units of each unit. In addition to acting as a guard for the unit at this level, the biggest combat mission is to devote itself to the most critical direction at the most critical moment. For example, with bayonets and firebolts under enemy fire, tearing a breakthrough for the whole army.

And in the entire sequence of marching troops, the only one that can go back and forth and run back and forth is the cavalry signal team of each department. Because the number of war horses in the Nanyue army was always insufficient, it could not be organized into separate cavalry teams for each department. In addition to passing orders and letters from the commander-in-chief, their other duties were to act as scouts on the march and to scout the whole army at the front of the spearhead. Of course, the left and right wings and the defenders also have their robes and brothers. However, at this time, the march was in his own territory, so naturally he didn't need to be as good as Lin Da's enemy. In addition to these, another task of the cavalry signal team is to use the sabers and firearms in their hands at critical moments to fight with the enemy with their sabers and firearms in their hands and their silent comrades under their crotch.

Along the way, at post stations set up every forty or fifty miles on the national highway, passing troops would eat here, take a short rest, and feed the mules and horses some fodder beans. This kind of eating and feeding the horses is called a big rest, and the kind of walking twenty or thirty miles and stopping at the well along the way for a short time, boiling some boiling water for the brothers to drink, is called a small rest.

On the march, try not to enter the villages along the way. First, it will affect the speed of the march, second, it will also disturb the people, and third, it is possible that the life of the villagers will affect the morale and mood of the soldiers, and in serious cases, it will cause the soldiers to be depressed, and even deserters.

Unbelief? A team of soldiers of the same age drove into a certain village, looking at young people of the same age as themselves carrying farm tools to work in the fields and harvesting crops, accompanied by their wives and children, a happy and warm family life. Look at yourself again, there are only the Pao Ze brothers around, and what they are holding in their hands is not a farm tool, but a firecracker, a gun pusher, and a wool brush, and the huge contrast will definitely affect the mood.

The temptation of the wife and children on the hot kang is sometimes more heart-wrenching than the blood boiling brought by military merit awards. Marshal Liu Bocheng also once said that one of the conditions for evaluating whether a unit has the potential of the main force is to see whether it can continue to maintain a satisfactory structure and combat effectiveness after leaving the soldiers' hometowns. Many troops, when they are in their hometowns, are very combative, but when they leave their hometowns, there are cases of desertion and demoralization, and the farther away from home, the more serious this situation becomes. Therefore, this kind of force cannot be called the main force. It can only be said that he is armed with the nature of a domestic tiger and cannot leave his own one-third of an acre.

Just as a trickle of water merges into a river and flows into the sea, small units are organized into armies and quickly maneuver through the dotted road traffic network, speeding north from Guangxi and Guangdong.

"Hundreds of thousands of troops have been formed overnight, and there are enough food, grass, and military salaries and equipment to support millions of troops for several years, so why worry about it?"

On the land, there are constantly walking brigades of men, the forward has reached Shaoguan, but the rear guard is still in Hue, and the brigade passes there every day. It's as if you'll never see the end. On the water, the trees and oars are connected to the sails, and countless ships are rushing to carry grain, grass, equipment, gunpowder, cannons and other materials, heading north. Jiang Yihong and Huang Xigon in Guangzhou City looked at this never-before-seen scene and were very excited.

"Just one point, these hundreds of thousands of troops were requisitioned and left, and hundreds of thousands of laborers were vacated. I can't see anything in the short term, if the big war is continuous and protracted, I'm afraid that there will be some contradictions everywhere in our Nanyue army! Jiang Yihong is more mature in the end, and compared with Huang Xigon's easy excitement, he thinks about the production difficulties that may arise from the shortage of labor during the war.

"Adults are far-sighted, diligent and love the people, which is beyond the reach of students. You may wish to mention this matter in front of the lord. It is also good to let the lord know that we are not corpse vegetarians, mediocre every day. In addition to doing our best, we also think a lot for the lord. ”

These words were quietly mentioned by Huang Xigon to his commander when he saw off Jiang Yihong at the Pearl River Wharf. Jiang Yihong, as the local administrator of Liangguang, took a boat to Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture to meet Li Shouhan, the Duke of Liang. This time, nominally, it was a meeting of the governors of the Ming Dynasty convened by Li Shouhan to participate in the ceremony of the Tang Dynasty. In fact, it was to unify the ideology of the local governors and achieve the goal of unified command in fighting against the Qing army.

In fact, in the eyes of Li Huamei and others, this meeting is almost the same whether it can be held or not. Nowadays, half of the remnants of the Ming Dynasty are under the control of the Nanyue Army, except for the Mujia of the Duke of Qianguo in Kunming, Yunnan, and the white pole soldiers of the Ma family in Shizhu, Sichuan, which can be regarded as having some climate and scale. It can be said that if there was no Nanyue Army, the southwestern provinces (Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Gannan, and Pianyuan) would have been swept away by the Qing army long ago.

However, Li Shouhan told the generals of the Nanyue Army that this meeting was not only to support the Tang Dynasty and take him as a call, but also to provide sufficient legitimacy for future actions. When they saw him say this, they had no choice but to give up.

However, this meeting is indeed a bit out of place.

First of all, the Mu family, the Duke of Qianguo, who claimed to be the grace of the country and the country to rest together, did not come, but ordered someone to send a congratulatory gift and a seal, went to Hejing through the Red River, and then sent it to Shanghai. The reason why the Mu family didn't come was nothing more than the mountains and rivers blocking it, and they couldn't catch up for a while. At the same time, he complained loudly, saying that Zhang Xianzhong's four sons and several subordinate generals, leading the remnants of the Great Western Army, were harassing Yunnan day and night. There is a constant war in Yunnan, and it is indeed a lack of skills and so on.

And Qin Liangyu, the governor of Zuodu and the general of Zhendong, who commanded the white pole soldiers of the Shizhu Ma family, also sent his sons to meet His Royal Highness the King of Tang after learning that he was crowned as the Taibao and the crown prince and the prince by Zhu Yujian, the king of Tang, and was named the Marquis of Loyalty. Of course, by the way, he wanted to continue to apply for some arms support from Liang Guogong. In particular, the horsetail grenade, a sharp weapon, is simply tailor-made for the terrain of eastern Sichuan. When the white pole soldiers fought against the Qing army, every few horsetail grenades were thrown over, and they exploded in the columns of the Qing army, and then, the white pole soldiers formed by hundreds of mourning guns and spearheads could squeeze thousands of Qing troops down the hillside and kill them.

Therefore, this meeting was basically a gathering of officials from various places under the jurisdiction of the Nanyue Army. In order to clarify the legal status of the Tang Dynasty, and then determine the legitimacy of Li Shouhan. In addition to Jiang Yihong, the governor of Liangguang, He Tengjiao, who was in charge of the Huguang governor's office, did not come in person, but he also sent his henchmen as representatives, carrying handwritten letters and his wife and children to Shanghai to attend the meeting. In addition to the two of them, they are officials from various places directly under the jurisdiction of the Nanyue Army. However, places like Shizhou, Fusang, Mugudushu, Lijiapo, etc., because they are separated by thousands of miles of sea, they can't come even if they want to. But fortunately, at present, there are envoys from the Governor of Fusang, Xu Huanshan, and if the chief of the water channel and Yin Lei are there, they can also serve as representatives. Of course, there were also some people who didn't seem so harmonious. For example, Fan. Mr. Basten, His Royal Highness Matsudaira Old Nakashin Tsunabe of the Wakoku Shogunate, representative of the Grand Vizier Koplulu of the Ottoman Empire, etc. As for the representatives of the Kingdom of England, because they were like black-eyed chickens, accusing each other of being "traitors" and "tyrants", in order to avoid unnecessary trouble at the venue, the officers and men of the Guards Brigade who were in charge of the security duties politely placed them outside the venue.

Outside the venue, the two delegations of the Kingdom of England watched dejectedly as a group of delegates walked into the venue with their heads held high and triumphant, and their hearts were like knocking over the condiment shelves in the kitchen, and they couldn't tell what it was like.

"The Tianzhuans, the Saxons, the Ottomans, the Dutch, the French, the Italians, the Burmese, the Pungalas, they can all go in, and they can all show their friendship and loyalty to this ruler of great power and wealth, but here we can only bask in the sun and drink tea, and watch with awe as they carry away their wealth and fine weapons in a boat."

Not to mention that the two groups of them lamented their bad luck outside, the meeting inside was already in full swing.

The initial process, supporting the Tang King Zhu Yujian as the Ming Dynasty, was approved by the officials and generals attending the meeting. Moreover, as envoys of foreign vassals, such as Tianzhu, Tianfang, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of France, and many other kingdoms on the Italian peninsula, they all unanimously recognized that His Royal Highness the Tang King was the sole legitimate ruler of the East Asian continent.

Soon, the seal supporting the Tang Dynasty was written by a master here who was familiar with this kind of writing format, and after transcribing it clearly, it was polished again, and it was immediately read to the officials present. In all fairness, in addition to bureaucrats like Jiang Yihong, who received traditional education, the officials and generals of the Southern Guangdong military system were not much different from a group of illiterate people in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty's civilian system. What can you hear? Immediately said yes, ready to go tomorrow to meet the Empress Dowager Zou, if this old lady has no objections, then, Tang King Zhu Yujian is the new legitimate ruler of the Ming Dynasty.

That's where the meeting got into the real thing. Discuss how the war should be conducted. People consciously did not add titles such as ZTE and the Northern Expedition to characterize the war. In the eyes of the participants, war is war, and who can say what it will be like when the war can be ended? Let's just fight every battle in front of us.

Some people advocate that the forces should be reduced, Shanghai County, an area with a dense network of ports and rivers, should be abandoned, and the whole army should retreat to the rear of Fujian and Guangdong, with southern Jiangxi and Pianyuan as outposts, and wait for the Qing army to go south and not adapt to the geographical environment and climatic conditions in the south, and then march north after the troops are exhausted.

This point was vetoed by the generals of the land and water armies. Are you kidding?! With a dense water network and a wide range of ports, isn't that an excellent home for my Nanyue Army? What we lack is cavalry, but our firearms are all first-class. The rivers are dense, and it happens that the Qing army's horse team can't show it, but it is the best stage for our infantry.

These military deployments, according to common sense, should be regarded as a model for observing or acting as envoys of foreign vassals. Basten, these people, please get out. However, the Nanyue Army did not do this, first, this is just a retreat, and there are still 108,000 miles away from the real military deployment! Second, the Nanyue Army also has this self-confidence, these guys from thousands of miles away, came here to seek wealth. They are close to our Nanyue Army, and we can sell him all kinds of things that can make him rich and be promoted. They leaked our situation here to the Qing army, what benefits can the Qing army give them?

However, like Fan. His Royal Highness the Count of Basten, His Royal Highness Matsudaira Nakashuna, and His Majesty the Sultan's envoy who came from the Ottoman Empire, and Ibrahim, the confidant of His Excellency Koplulu the Grand Vizier, are all thousand-year-old foxes who have been cultivated to perfection, and they have long ordered the attachés and generals to keep their ears pricked up, listen carefully, and not miss a word. Because, often a casual detail, they can get more benefits than the ocean.

Sure enough, some people were worried that after the war began, in the Shandong and Denglai areas that were isolated behind the enemy, the eldest young lady Lu Mahong's department would inevitably face the siege of the Qing army's heavy army group. "Together with the war, the cotton and wheat in Denglai and Qingdao, as well as the cotton and wheat in the estuary of the Yellow River and other places, not to mention the southward sea, I am afraid that there is still not enough to ensure the military and civilian food on the ground in Shandong."

So, the problem arises, wheat, as a food crop, is certainly very important for the army's rations and staple food, as well as mobility, etc., but it is far less strategic than cotton. The problem of eating is not a big deal here in the Nanyue Army, but the problem of dressing solved by cotton is different. Not to mention, in Guangdong, Fujian, and all over the country, there are hundreds of large-scale textile factories with hundreds of thousands of various models and levels of Guoxiama textile machines. These machines devour countless cottons every day, spin boatloads of cotton cloth, and send them to the nearby printing and dyeing yard to become dyed cloth and beautiful flower cloth. In exchange for countless immeasurable silver and materials for the Nanyue army.

However, if the cotton production area in Shandong is lost, or if the output is affected by the war, then one of the pillar industries of the Nanyue Army will be affected accordingly. This will create a shortfall in the supply of at least 200,000 bales of cotton every year.

These words did not cause any big reaction among the officers and generals of Nanyue, but they were quietly interpreted by several generals. The attention of Basten, Ibrahim, and several great princes of Tianzhu, sultans, emissaries of the Mughal emperor.

"Good! Here's your chance to make a fortune! Several thousand-year-old foxes coincidentally flashed this thought through their minds.

At the moment, I don't care about the number of courtesies, Fan. Basten got up and stood up from his seat, and before he could speak, a voice from the seat next to him grabbed his line: "Your Highness the Lord's most powerful friend of the Ottoman Sultan, the most trusted partner of the East, Your Royal Highness the Duke of Liang, on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan and His Highness the Grand Vizier Koplulu, I would like to tell you and your army, factory owners, and merchants how much cotton is lacking in your country's textile factories, and I, the Ottoman Empire, will provide your country with ten times as much cotton!" Ten times as much wheat as there is shortage! Even if you want to turn Upper and Lower Egypt into your cotton plantations and wheat fields! We are willing to show our friendship to our friends! ”

"Damn bald asses! actually robbed the teacher with the poor road! "Fan. Basten's teeth creaked, and he cursed a word he had learned in Minami.