Li Kui carried a wooden bucket filled with warm boiled water, stood on the side of the road with a few neighbors, and presented warm boiled water to Qingzhou soldiers passing by.

When the soldiers of the new army pass by, Li Kui will also salute them - this military salute is also Xu Shiyang's direct plagiarism of the PLA of later generations, and in this era, only the Qingzhou New Army in the world may have this type of military salute.

Therefore, the soldiers of the New Army who saw Li Kui saluting also knew that the strong man like the black iron tower in front of him must be a comrade-in-arms who was on vacation, and they would also return the salute to Li Kui.

The soldiers carried their weapons and could not raise their hands to salute, but under the leadership of the captain, they tilted their heads slightly and saluted Li Kui.

No one spoke at the scene, and there was no need to yell among comrades, everyone could only hear the slightly shocking roar of hundreds of pairs of big feet on the ground.

This silent tacit understanding made the ordinary castle citizens who consciously came to the army on the side of the road feel some indescribable solemnity.

Many young people looked at Li Kui and the new army in a neat formation with envious eyes, striding forward with their heads held high, and at this moment, they realized that this army was completely different from the militia in their previous impressions and the thieves and soldiers mentioned by the old people in the family earlier.

There are also some forbidden army columns that are caught in the middle who see this scene, and many people suddenly feel that they are a little envious of these "Jiangbei militia" who they actually don't look up to.

That's right, these people's equipment is very rudimentary - there is very little armor, and most of the armored soldiers are just a piece of iron that just protects their chests, and they can't even have a talisman waist knife, and the so-called cavalry actually has a large group of mules.

The military salary is also very small - how long has the military salary system been formulated, and the soldiers who have been in the army for the longest time have only received two months' military salary, and there is no promotion fee, and all kinds of treatment add up to a far difference from the Jiangnan Forbidden Army.

But......

However, the Qingzhou New Army is a vigorous team, and at this time, all kinds of bad habits in the army in later generations have not been contagious, let alone the disgusting problems of the feudal army.

There are no empty salaries in the troops, and all the units are full, and some are even overstaffed.

The treatment between officers and soldiers has only just widened, and it is far from being undesirable.

The class movement in the new army is very fast, such as Gongsun Sheng, Li Jinghuai, Feng Sanhu and others at the level of battalion commanders now, they were all small people a few years ago, and among the non-commissioned officers at the grassroots level, there are even more people from the bottom of the society and even directly displaced people.

This last one is very important, which means that every soldier of the Forces nouvelles has the possibility to cross that threshold that cannot be crossed elsewhere, become an officer class, and improve his social status through his own efforts.

That's right, social status.

In Jiangnan, unless it is a high-ranking official who has turned from a civil to a military force, other people in the army, and a guy who goes down to the miscellaneous box army and the high-ranking officer who does this to the commander of the palace front division does not have a good reputation among the people.

Thieves with soldiers, traitors and the like are tailor-made, and occasionally you can hear more sad names.

On the Qingzhou side, it is a different scene.

One is that Xu Shiyang unceremoniously incorporated all men, women, and children under his rule into the army, and everyone was a soldier, and the extremely unfriendly title of "thief with army" naturally disappeared.

In addition, the Qingzhou Army has indeed brought a long-lost peaceful life to the core territory.

Juzhou and Rizhao counties have not experienced war for almost two years since the last Tartar invasion, and those newly conquered prefectures and counties in the north of Qingzhou have also had a few months of peaceful days - this peaceful day not only means not to worry about the Tartars and a large number of thieves and displaced people, but also to not worry about the raids and attacks of hostile dock forts, which can be regarded as the minimum social security.

With these circumstances, the local people of Qingzhou will regard the Qingzhou Army as their real own people (although they are not children), and when the army passes by, someone will send some warm water to the army along the way.

Although it is not worth anything, this kind of heartfelt relationship between the military and the people still makes many soldiers of the forbidden army who are scolded by the people in Jiangnan feel a little envious.

'Perhaps, we should also stay in Qingzhou and not go back to Jiangnan? ’

More than one person in the forbidden army thought so, and even those soldiers who had families and families thought that maybe they could move their families to Jiangbei.

As long as Qingzhou can really resist the attack of the Tartars, then the level of respect for the soldiers here can indeed be regarded as a happy land for them, the "thieves with the army".

……

In October of the thirteenth year of Jianxing, the Qingzhou Army launched a war aimed at expansion against Laizhou and Yanzhou at the same time.

Due to the experience of the previous alliance of dock forts in northern Qingzhou, in the early days of the attack, there were many dock fort lords in the two prefectures who surrendered without a fight...... uh, no, according to them, these dock fort lords took the initiative to join.

On October 15, the Qingzhou Army led by Xu Shisong entered the old Gaomi County and entered Pingdu Prefecture on the 18th.

On the 25th, the Qingzhou army met its first opponent: the Laishan bandits.

In fact, these bandits also wanted to go down the mountain and surrender, but the surrounding dock castle owners all encouraged Xu Shisong to refuse their surrender - the relationship between the dock fort owners and the bandits was always difficult to get along.

In the idea of winning over the owner of Wubao, Xu Shisong carried out a crusade against Laishan, and in addition to the Qingzhou army, there were tens of thousands of strong men from all over Laizhou who had taken refuge in the battle.

Before the battle began, Xu Shisong surrounded Laishan, but allowed the bandits to surrender in the name of individuals, the bandits saw that the Qingzhou army was strong, and they went down the mountain one after another, and within five days, Xu Shisong obtained nearly 10,000 men, women and children - this practice is the same as Xu Shiyang's original Wulian Mountain bandits, and it is also very effective.

On the second day of the first day of November, the Qingzhou army launched a general attack on Laishan, and on the same day it conquered all the cottages of the bandits, and then carried out a three-day sweeping operation, capturing more than 2,000 hidden bandits and their dependents.

Laishan Pingding.

On the eighth day of November, the Qingzhou army entered the old Laizhou Mansion without bloodshed, and the entire territory of Laizhou Mansion was included in the control of Qingzhou.

In the other direction, Li Jinghuai's march in Yanzhou Mansion was also very smooth.

In other words, it was much smoother than Xu Shisong's journey, because the route he took was the old route when Xu Shiyang attacked Zhujiazhuang a few months ago.

Along the way, neither the owner of the dock fort nor the bandits had the confidence to arm against the Qingzhou army, so they came to vote one after another.

Li Jinghuai did not adopt Xu Shisong's practice of treating the dock fort owner and the bandits differently, but treated everyone equally, no matter who it was, all were allowed to take the initiative to take refuge.

In addition, among the soldiers who had just been replenished by the new army, there were already many Yanzhou people, so Li Jinghuai's journey was purely a process of armed marching, not only did he not fight a battle, but he even consciously followed a lot of peripheral servants.

On October 30, Li Jinghuai entered Yanzhou Mansion, and when he arrived at Jining County, which was occupied by the Qingzhou Army, he was followed by more than 10,000 militiamen, and there were nearly 6,000 bandits leaning over!

。 m.