In the sixth year of Hongxing, the winter of the land of Qilu came a little earlier, at the end of September, the banks of the Daqing River and the Grand Canal have been shrouded in a layer of early winter yellow, and the heaven and earth are slaughtered, which seems to indicate the arrival of the day of the soldier's conquest!

On the road from Jinan to Dezhou, dozens of "black gun and mule soldiers" were surrounding Li Chengdong's adopted son Li Yuanyin and rushed back to the place where Shi Kefa was stationed. Prepare to participate in the grand military meeting of the Shandong generals and the deployment of the Texas battle strategy!

Although Li Yuanyin is Li Chengdong's adopted son, after graduating from the "Confucian Cram School", he did not return to Liaodong with his father (father and son were in the same class), but was transferred to the "Central Army". His situation became very common after the emergence of the "Confucian cram school", not only did the officers of the Fanzhen Army enter the Central Army after the tutoring, but also the officers of the Central Army were transferred to the Fanzhen Army.

The independence of the feudal army is gradually being lost......

However, for a fierce general like Li Yuanyin, it is actually a good thing to be able to enter the Central Army - this means that he has been favored by the great tomorrow, and he has a great future in the future!

After entering the Central Army, he first served as the commander of a "musket cavalry battalion", and later promoted to the cavalry deputy general of the Yamen, the governor of Shandong and Liaodong. Now he is the deputy general of the 20th Division of the four model new army divisions (Central Army) in Shandong, and has become a senior officer of the Ming Model New Army.

At this moment, Li Yuanyin only had high spirits in his heart.

And the land that the war horse under his crotch stepped on was still the world of the Qing Dynasty ten days ago. And now, they have all been recovered by the 20th Division of the Model New Army where he belongs!

Contrary to the situation that in the Northern Expedition more than five years ago, the Qing army's sentry horses and light horsemen lurked and snooped around, while the Ming cavalry had no choice but to do so. Now that the Daqing River is to the north, all the way to the ground of Beizhili, there is almost no room for the Qing cavalry to move.

The cavalry of both sides had frequent skirmishes at the end of September!

The side of the fierce battle, of course, is the freshly baked "black gun and mule soldiers", strictly speaking, they cannot be regarded as cavalry, but a composite force of horse (mule) action in platoon (40 horsemen) as a unit. There were shock cavalry, archers, and musketeers who dismounted (of course, they could also fight on horseback).

They are very powerful in firepower and mobility, and they are extremely flexible in tactics, and are very good at ambushes and night raids.

And the ability to ride the shock is not weak - if necessary, they can launch a group charge with 10 lancers in the vanguard!

Lacking in the skills of archery on horseback, they all had a light and sturdy cuirass and iron helmets to protect their bodies from critical positions, and were not easily injured by arrowheads.

Therefore, in the frequent cavalry battles at the end of September, the Qing cavalry was at a very terrible disadvantage. The casualties were extremely heavy, and more than 100 cavalrymen were killed or captured by the Ming cavalry every day, and from time to time there were hundreds of horse teams killed or wounded by dozens of "mule soldiers...... It's not an opponent at all!

If you are not an opponent, you can only retreat back to a few fortresses.

Therefore, north of the Daqing River to the border of Beizhili, except for a few Qing army strongholds, other places are already the world of the Ming army. Li Yuanyin and others traveled all the way, and what they saw were the Ming army convoys that rushed to the city of Dezhou in an endless stream, in addition to the teams that transported military rations and military materials, there were also infantry and artillery of the Ming army, and one team after another marched to Dezhou.

The Ming Dynasty's Yamen, the Governor of Shandong, Liaodong, and the Yamen of Shandong, as well as the Shandong Tuntian Envoy, had made full preparations for another Northern Expedition in the past five years.

The city of Jinan on the banks of the Daqing River was built as the base camp of the Northern Expedition, and not only was the city fortified and upgraded, but also many warehouses were built for stockpiling grain, storing large quantities of grain from the Yanzhou Tun district (between the canal and the Taiyi mountains) - mainly a mixture of flour and potato flour, but also some flour from Huaibei and Xuhai. About 20 million stones were saved! In addition, countless materials such as forage, cotton clothes, vehicles, tents, blankets, quilts, medicines, cloth, gunpowder, muskets, armor, cured meat, grease and so on were also stored, which were enough to support a large-scale Northern Expedition.

In addition to various materials that could be stored for a long time, the Yamen, the governor of Shandong, began to hire large-scale labor in the name of digging canals and repairing official roads from the end of autumn.

Under the auspices of Zheng Zhilong, who is probably the best household secretary in the history of the Ming Dynasty, in the jurisdiction of the Ming court, the two reforms of "apportioning the land into the mu" and "the official gentry paying grain in one" have been completed.

Moreover, one of them, "apportionment into the mu" is not only "apportionment", but also the conscription into the acres of land.

Therefore, the Ming government can not levy military servants outside the war zone now, and can only use white silver and yellow Chengcheng copper coins to hire military servants, and there are many mules and horses and carts that are hired with them.

This war is really like a lot of money!

However, the current Ming court not only has money, but also spends money even more - money is not spent indiscriminately, but spent for a penny, and it must have the effect of a penny.

Not long after the start of the war, from Jinan to the north to the side of the official road in Dezhou, you can already see people expanding and strengthening the new road.

And on every river that stood in the way of the army's advance, you could also see pontoon bridges being built and bridgehead forts piled up with sandbags.

Every 50 miles or so, a large construction site has been spread out - this is the construction of a grain station fortress!

There are more than 200 miles from Jinan to Dezhou, and from the north bank of the Daqing River, every 50 miles to build a "grain station fort", which is used to carry out the fortress of "relay transfer".

In addition to the hired Shandong people who came from the Ming Dynasty, the farmers of Jibei Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty were also forcibly recruited and became part of the Ming war machine.

Of course, the silver rations that should be given will also be given at the same time, and they are exactly the same price as the hired servants in the Ming Dynasty.

But they were all forcibly recruited...... The people in the war zone are different from the people in the rear after all, according to the law now implemented in the Ming Dynasty, where the war zone is, the military law must be enforced, and both the army and the people must obey the order!

In addition, the people of these "clear-occupied areas" must now also show their positions!

Shi Kefa's Chinese army has now been placed in the plain county seat, which is only more than 60 miles away from Dezhou City.

When Li Yuanyin arrived, Shi Kefa had just finished inspecting a grain city construction site south of Pingyuan County, and returned to his own Chinese army under the escort of his staff and personal soldiers.

There are already quite a few officers from various departments who have arrived one after another, waiting in the gate of the Chinese army to meet the governor!

Governor Shi, who has been leading troops since the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, finally has a little bit of the feeling of being a great military strategist - he is actually a great military strategist, with his current experience in leading troops to fight and the Chinese and Western war examples and tactics he has mastered, if he travels back to Chongzhen for 14 years, he can replace Hong Chengchou to fight the Battle of Songjin, and he will definitely be stronger than Hong Chengchou!

For the upcoming battle of Texas, Shi Da military strategist is also confident, whether it is to storm the fortress or encircle the point to send reinforcements, he is sure of victory.

Even if the brave Wang Duoduo killed him personally, Shi Kefa was not afraid, and even looked forward to it!

Li Yuanyin was the first senior general to be received by Shi Kefa before the start of the formal military conference, because his 20th Division was the vanguard of the whole army, and he advanced outside Dezhou City the night before yesterday, and also engaged in a series of forward battles with the Qing army, and uprooted seven or eight Qing army strongholds and branch forts placed outside Dezhou City.

"Dashuai," Li Yuanyin said to Shi Kefa, "Although Dezhou is in the north, it is a water city, sandwiched by the canal and the Yujin River, and Dezhou itself has also been rebuilt into a fortress, and a number of forts have been built along the canal and the Yujin River. In addition, there is a long trench in the northeast of Texas, which connects the canal and the Yujin River. ”

Shi Kefa laughed when he heard this: "This Fan Wencheng is very interesting, didn't he dig the long trench of the siege for us?" ”