At dawn the next day, the Quang Nam battalion of Suifeng was busy, each battalion made food one after another, and then lined up according to the selection, team, odd, and battalion to which it belonged, with the Wufang Flag, the Vermilion Bird Flag, and the Qiangua Flag at the front of the team, followed by the banners were the elephant soldiers and musketeers of the brigade, and then the soldiers who went all the way to the south, and the scouts who ran in front had already arrived ten miles away, and the Portuguese artillery team was still far behind the brigade.

In the land of Annam, anyone who looks at such a person will shudder.

Over the years, the masters of Quang Nam have relied on these armies to gradually encroach on the Cham and Gao Barbarians in the south, and Nguyen Phuc Yuan is also confident that the elite level of this army will not be inferior to the Sanfu soldiers in Tokyo (Note: The most elite 'excellent soldiers' of the Zheng lord of the Later Li Dynasty, the main sources of troops are from the three places of Shaotian, Hazhong, and Jingjia in Thanh Hoa Province and the surrounding twelve counties of Nghe An, collectively referred to as the Sanfu soldiers. ）。

The team had only walked more than ten miles before the scouts in front came to report that the thieves' men and horses had formed a formation outside the forward fortress.

Nguyen Phuc Lan, the head of the camp on the edge of the town, couldn't help frowning when he heard the news, with his caution and the knowledge of the thieves these days, he would not think that the Australians would take the initiative to meet the battle because of the rain and the fire, which also made the storm on the fortress that had been prepared from the beginning have to face a rearrangement.

As the second son of the Buddha, this southern expedition was equally important to him, or he felt very important to him.

The young Nguyen Phuc Lan considered himself to have inherited his military prowess from his maternal grandfather, Mo Jingdian, the second son of Mo Dengying, the emperor of the Mo dynasty, and the most outstanding military general in the entire Mo dynasty.

After Mo Jingdian died of illness, the eldest daughter Mo Shijia crossed the sea with her uncle Mo Jingzhen's family and moved south, and then Mo Jingzhen became an important minister around Ruan Huang, and Mo Shijia relied on the sister of her uncle and Ciliang Guang Shuyi Concubine (note: Ruan Huang Zhengfei, Ruan Fuyuan's biological mother, Mo Jingzhen's wife and sister) to marry Ruan Fuyuan, the sixth son who had not yet become an heir at that time, and stabilized his position early

Before this use of troops, the errand of contacting the Mo Dynasty in the north was secretly sent by the mother concubine, and if the southern expedition was completed again, the position of Nguyen Phuc Lan and his family within the Quang Nam group would be more stable. At that time, Nguyen Phuc Ki, the eldest brother in Hue, will be able to become more and more secure, and the position of a duke is indispensable. Inside, there are several of their compatriots and younger brothers, and there are Gao Ping Mo Shi outside, thinking that as long as the south is pacified and recuperated, when the elder brother becomes the lord of Guangnan, he will have the strength to fight back to Tokyo in one fell swoop.

And at the moment, the most important thing is how not to let his half-brother Ruan Phuc Lan take more credit, this one is now the newly incorporated Shun Cheng Battalion in charge, maybe the father still has his own ideas among the brothers, but this will never be what Ruan Phuc Lan wants to see, and I believe it will not be what the elder brother wants.

In this battle, winning the credit is the icing on the cake for the elder brother, but if this credit is taken by Ruan Fuyu, there will be a lot of variables, after all, his father is not the eldest son.

It is because he needs to defeat the thief, which is not only a generous gift for his brother, but also to celebrate the second child about to be born in his family, and there is also one, but also for the second sister Nguyen Phuc Ngoc Wan, who is still in the hands of the thief.

Just as he was thinking about it, a pro-soldier Zhonghou hurriedly stepped forward to report: "Childe, the third brother's people have attacked." ”

…………

Before the outbreak of this war, Li Wenxiao was just an ordinary peasant in Changyi County, his hometown of Guangyi, although he had the identity of a township soldier, and he also hung the second (note: the main military system of the Later Li Dynasty and Nguyen, each battalion was divided into three times, one standing and two shifts), but he never went into battle, and it has been more than two months since he was drafted, and he has experienced the process from depression to excitement and then depression again in the two months since the start of the war.

The Annan area has always been based on the village community, and although the military system of Quang Nam has been drawn from the Li Dynasty to three dings, the more numerous military quotas are directly assigned to the elders in the village community, and there are not enough people, so as to give the big clans in the village some 'turn' space, Li Wenxiao was directly pointed out by the big clans in the village because of the identity of outsiders, and he himself was absolutely unwilling to come out to fight.

As a result, I thought that I would have to suffer some hardships in the rainy season, but I didn't expect the march to be so smooth, and he also got a lot of military merit rewards for his meritorious service, although the reward was also sent to the village, and he must not really get much, but in this way, his status in the village will rise, and the real spoils of war are not less robbed in the hands of those Cham people, and the poles that are inserted all the way south along the simple official road to the south are full of poles used to show the public, which undoubtedly makes his originally depressed mood become cheerful.

But the increase in military merit came to an abrupt end after reaching the defensive line in the southern mountain pass, and the Qi where he was also involved in a strong attack on the thief fortress in the rainy season, but in the end only one and a half casualties were left, and had to retreat back in disgrace, and until now he did not dare to try again, so he became depressed again, and only hoped to end the expedition early, and quickly received the military merit and went home to get married.

However, this time it seems that it is different from usual, and today the elite of the army is exhausted, and even the frame of the Buddha and the guards on his left and right can be seen in the distance. Those Zhonghou and Neibu were all majestic and majestic, and their clothes and armor were bright, coupled with the war elephants and artillery that accompanied the army, which made him feel a lot more relieved, so he should be able to capture it, he thought to himself.

After all, although the thieves fought sharply, but in the past few months, they have figured out the bottom of the other party, there are only hundreds of people on that defense line, and there are only more than a thousand thieves in the entire Jiulong River estuary.

Thinking like this, he walked forward, and soon walked out more than ten miles, but fortunately it was the dry season at this time, and the mud on the road had long since disappeared.

However, when Li Van Xiao's team finally came to the front of the fort's defensive line, they were very surprised.

Across them from the fortress was the Thief Land Division, who had already lined up in formation.

The number of opponents was small, it seemed that there were only one or two thousand people, but they stood in an extremely regular manner, especially the hundreds of people in the middle of the team, all wearing red battle suits, and they were extremely energetic. These people were all holding a black iron rod in their hands, and Le Van Hyo recognized it as an Australian firecracker, similar to the weapons in the hands of the Franc machine mercenaries from Hoi An, and he looked at the bamboo gun in his hand, and suddenly felt dwarfed. These days, the Australians rely on these firearms to resist the attack of the Quang Nam official army, their firearms range is not much farther than the bow and arrow, but the power is great, and it can be fired in the rain, which undoubtedly makes the Quang Nam army extremely uncomfortable, fortunately, the rainy season has finally passed, and this advantage is no longer exclusive to the thieves.

As soon as the news came that Quang Nam was going to use troops at the mouth of the Kowloon River, a newly enlisted Beiwei army was transferred from Borneo to Saigon to garrison, but the additional force was only 500 men, and the local periphery still relied more on reliable naturalized militias.

Teenagers selected from the Khmer, Cham, Han and even Annamite have formed a militia of more than 2,000 people after education and training. They have experienced the bandits in the northern mountains and the training in the southern plains, spring plowing and autumn harvest, all of them are these people, and the school farm is the cradle of their growth.

In the most critical period of growth in the lives of these young people, their three views were shaped by the school, and they relied on and revered the Senate because of the security of life, which was undoubtedly the best source of soldiers.

The militia were the lowliest in their original homeland, including the Shudras from the homeland of the Chams, the Khmer people from the Tonle Sap Lake, the Han refugees from Liangguang and Fujian, and the immigrants from northern Annam. The people who moved here with their families were initially nothing more than a livelihood, but the Senate opened a new door for them. It's a world of hope, where hard work is not a luxury, and the first farm workers are close to paying off their mortgages to buy a house.

The houses built by the Senate for the naturalized people were not simple shacks, but bricks and tiles, and all kinds of facilities were available. Such a 'community', the houses range from 60 to 140 Australian square meters, with a garden of the same size, there is a fence around the perimeter of the community, and there are housekeepers inside the wall, and the price given to the naturalized people is three times and one flat.

Those who work on the farm are paid three and a half times their monthly salary, and the students and militia have a consistent allowance, and if they can enter the Beiwei army, the monthly allowance will be increased by seven or eight times. The total price of this largest naturalized house is more than 400 yuan, and the five-year installment is only seven yuan per month, and there is no interest, which is not a big burden for a family with a large population.

The Senate retained the hearts and minds of the people and consolidated the power through various benefits, but in the eyes of the senators, the most important thing was the young men of these militias.

After a long period of indoctrination in the school, all of these people are now able to write and communicate in simple Chinese, and some of them are even quite good, and their way of thinking is surprisingly consistent, which undoubtedly represents loyalty.

In addition to the difference between the military uniform and the Beiwei Army, the militia training time is shorter, and the armament of muskets is only two or three months before the end of the rainy season, and the muskets equipped by the militia are not much different from the Beiwei Army except that they are not rifled, and the morale of these people is not low at all, and there are many of them with great potential, I believe that after this war, they will be able to enter the regular army.

Li Wenxiao was also stunned when he saw such a team blocking in front of him, a sparse wall of people, in front of the wall was a trench only half a person deep, and even water was not irrigated, what is this?

The Australians want to use these crude arrangements to fight against the Buddha's army? This thin line of defense even if he is a peasant village soldier can see that there are 'flaws' everywhere, there is no need to charge the main camp, the war elephants will be broken as soon as they are on it, you need to know that the war elephants in Quang Nam are trained in the guns of the Franco machine people, and the elephant army of the Cham people is completely different, and it is absolutely impossible to startle them by the sound of firearms, it seems that it is really because of the rainy season that it cannot be used before, and the thieves are really overconfident.

Perhaps having the same idea as Li Wenxiao, the front team of war elephants rushed directly towards the thin array of thieves without waiting for the whole team, because the leader of the team, Li Zhuya, was condescending on the elephant saddle, and it was clear that there was really no artillery behind the thin array. He felt that perhaps because of the rainy season that had just passed, the thieves' artillery had not yet been transported to the front line, and this was undoubtedly an opportunity, and his lord Nguyen Phuc Nguyen needed more credit, and so did he.

He didn't care about the Australians' sharp firearms, and listened to the soldiers who came down from the front line to say that the musket guns of the thieves had a similar range to the Franc man, but the rate of fire was faster and more powerful. Li Zhuya did not doubt this news, this is in line with his military common sense, for the long-term battle generals, imagination has long been smoothed out by reality, he really does not think that this kind of combat power with a small number of elites can drag the army here in the entire rainy season will have any 'clumsy' possibility.

This team of elephant soldiers is an elite who was transferred from Hoi An not long ago, and it is the elite directly under Nguyen Phuc Wei, who once had a good record in the Western Plains. These elephants had been trained with the musket team, and there were as many as twenty-four of them, which were much stronger in all respects than the one in the hands of the submissive Cham king, and the firearms in the hands of the thieves in front of them alone would not really be frightened as long as they did not hurt the elephants. And around each war elephant, there are many sword players to protect the surroundings, with this kind of oppression, the opponents encountered in the past will often be out of range and will not be able to suppress the fear of wasting a round of shooting, and this time Li Zhuya also intends to concoct the same.

With two musketeers and two pikemen on each saddle, the elephant saddle was condescending and threatening even from a distance.

The war elephants rushed to a distance of about two hundred paces from the thief line, and gradually slowed down, until they reached about a hundred paces, and all stopped, according to the previous situation of fighting with the thief, this distance plus the cover of the knife player was definitely safe. And at this distance, his musketeers have muskets that have been modified by the Francobots, and they are condescending to threaten the thieves in range.

As long as the first person is captured, the past victory can be replicated, and the current queue of thieves will be dispersed, and the pro-army of the third prince will be able to kill the opponent's fortress in one go, even if it is a pile of people, it can also be piled up to make a first contribution. As for the breakthrough of this line of defense, the Jiulongjiang Plain is not still galloping.

Thinking of this, he was happy in his heart, and a smile hung on the corner of his mouth.

He raised his right arm lightly, opened his mouth full of black teeth and shouted, "Aim—ignition—"

"Put-"

The smoke and dust rose up, and the decisive battle of the Southern Expedition finally began.

[References]

1, "The History of Da Yue"

2, "Da Nan Record"

3, "History of Annantong" Iwamura Chengyun

4, "Three kinds of historical materials such as Lingnan monsters" Zheng Huaide

5, "Jiading Tongzhi"

6, "The Territory of Vietnam in the Past Dynasties" Tao Weiying

7. "Vietnam's Control and Plunder of Cambodia in History" Chen Yulong

8. "Outline of the History of Vietnam" Zhen Wei

9, "The First Collection of Da Nan Zheng's Biography"

10. History of Southeast Asia, D.G.E.Hall

11. "Three Kinds of Vietnamese Chinese Historical Materials on Cambodia" Yang Baojun and Marco Puen

12, "Zhufan Zhi School Note" Feng Chengjun

13. "History of Champa" Georges Maspero (Georges Maspero)

14. "New Historical Materials of Guangnan in the Seventeenth Century" by Chen Jinghe

15, "Lingwai Answer" Zhou Qufei

16. "Vietnam's Diplomacy, Tradition and Development" Liu Van Li

17. "The Foreign Relations of the Nguyen Regime in Vietnam (1600-1802)" Xu Puya

18, "Fubian Miscellaneous Records" Li Guidun

19, "Nanhe Jielu" Li Yan

20. "The Evolution and Characteristics of Vietnam's Ancient Military System" by Zuo Rongquan and Yu Zaizhao