"Bring me a bowl of stone snails, don't give money if it tastes bad." Beside the official road outside Tengxian County, a platoon leader on the east bank wearing a dark blue army uniform raised his hand and shouted to the owner of a small village shop in front of him.

The worried-faced boss shook when he heard this, and his face showed a little embarrassed. In the years of war and chaos, the master with knives and guns in his hand is the most difficult to provoke, it is common to eat without money, robbery and murder are not a few, the boss's family has been running this small shop for several generations, and he is used to seeing the changes on this road, so at first glance when he sees these "thieves" in blue clothes, he is even more depressed after hearing "not good to eat, don't give money", because in his opinion, this is simply a code word for not giving money to eat rice.

With a "clank", a round silver coin rolled down on the table in front of the boss, and he looked up in surprise, greeted by the disdainful gaze of the East Coast officer.

"It actually looks like Lao Tzu. Am I the kind of person who can't afford to eat? The platoon commander sat down on the table, wiped the table with his sleeve, and then said impatiently: "Hurry up and go to the whole dish, I'm still in a hurry for dinner, damn." ”

The owner of the small shop immediately ran back to the back kitchen in a hurry and cleaned up the stone snail with his mother-in-law. He felt that this time he was really lucky, he actually met such a stupid big soldier, he looked like he was still a small officer, he actually gave money for dinner, and he was generous, and he gave a silver dollar, it was really the ancestral tomb with green smoke, and he hit the luck.

Of course, the boss knew what the silver dollar that the master had thrown at him was. Although Tengxian County is located in a remote inland area, it is not without the inflow of silver dollars from the east coast. In fact, the number of silver coins brought back from Guangdong by local merchants is quite large, and they are deeply loved by most people, and their fineness is sufficient, the appearance is beautiful, and there is no shortage of catties or less than two catties (the pattern on the side may be rejected if the pattern is worn off), which is convenient for trading and exchange, so although the weight of the one-dollar denomination of the East Coast silver coin is slightly less than one tael of silver, many people are still willing to use it as one tael of silver, which is the reputation premium.

This time, the army on the east coast entered (invaded) Lian, Wu and other prefectures, and also brought a large number of silver dollars. They always have to buy grain, grass, livestock, medicinal herbs, and other materials in the local area, and these cannot all be transported from the rear, and there is no need, so objectively the local economy has also prospered. In this regard, the people on the east coast are indeed much better than the Dashun army that has requisitioned (plundered) military rations in Quanzhou, Guilin and other places in northern Guangxi, at least they took out real money to procure, although the forcible seizure of people's property is not completely unexpected, but the overall is much better than the Shunguo army, which makes some local gentry in Guangxi quite complicated - they don't like the people on the east coast, but the performance of the east coast army is closer to the standard of "Wang Shi", which is really in vain.

Needless to say, the East Coast Army was not born with such strict military discipline. Taking the Far Eastern domains as an example, their military discipline was actually very poor a few decades ago, and looting and killing were commonplace, and they were limited in strength compared to the various people of this era. However, after several decades of persistent army building, the discipline of the army on the east bank has been greatly improved, and the style of work has also been greatly improved, which is much better than that of the Qing State, Shun State, and Ming State of the same era.

Of course, this will pass by the regular army of the East Coast in blue. They have higher salaries, better treatment, and often receive honor education, so naturally they will not do something too spicy. Although there were some incidents of robbery of Dutch city treasury, rape of people's daughters, and robbery and extortion when they went to the United Province to fight against the French army, the overall complaint rate was even lower than that of the Dutch own army fighting on the mainland, which shows the strictness of the overall military discipline.

The stone snail was quickly served. The platoon commander carefully took out a small glass bottle from the bag, uncorked it, and sprinkled some spice powder inside. This kind of high-value military supplies can only be received for free if you are at least a non-commissioned officer or above, and ordinary big-headed soldiers have no chance of it.

The taste of the stone snail is delicious. The people of Guangxi have the tradition of eating stone snails and snails since ancient times, so they are familiar with various cooking methods, and they are also very delicious, so that the platoon commander on the east coast who was born in Ping'an County, his hometown, liked it as soon as he came, and he did not eat such a small bowl every day. Today, he took his platoon (21 people in total) and more than 100 newly formed bandit and bandit troops to the outside of Tengxian County to clear a village that intercepted and killed messengers on the east coast. Now that the weather is so hot, it's a chore to fight and run around outside, and you have to rest enough.

When it comes to leading troops to the countryside to clear out villages that do not know whether they are alive or dead, we cannot but talk about the complicated situation that the people on the east coast are facing in Guangxi today. Taking Wuzhou Mansion as an example, now their control over Wuzhou City can basically be called firm, but due to the serious shortage of troops and the extremely large territory that needs to be occupied, their control over places outside Wuzhou is much worse, most of the places are actually herding sheep, and a few important counties will send some soldiers and horses to garrison, but the force is also extremely weak. Just like the county seat of Tengxian County in front of you, located at the confluence of the Beiliu River and the Xunjiang River, the geographical location is more critical, so the commander of the Third Mixed Battalion, Major Tang Moyu, had to reluctantly allocate two infantry platoons to garrison here, supplemented by a large number of local miscellaneous troops, called the Tengxian Security Regiment.

Similarly, Yulim Prefecture in the south is a transportation hub with developed commerce and trade. After the people on the east bank captured it, they sent a whole infantry company here, supplemented by more than 1,000 people of the hastily established Yulin Security Regiment, which barely controlled the situation. But there is no doubt that this mode of control is actually relatively weak, and it is also very dangerous, the elite main force is sprinkled over a wide area like pepper noodles, once the matter is urgent, it is difficult to gather the troops.

And, even with the peppercorns, their control over these lands is still not very strong. Strictly speaking, they control only one point at a time, and the middle is connected by rivers that can be navigated by boats or official roads with good road conditions, and they are far from controlling one aspect. This can be seen from the fact that there are still many forces active in the area against the invaders on the east coast (mostly the remnants of the Ming army that have been scattered), and the people on the east coast still have a long way to go before they can really control every state and county. The reason why they dare to deploy their troops so much now is that the main force of the Ming army has been defeated, and the remaining scattered small forces can be slowly cleaned up, and the second reason is that they are confident that even if they disperse their forces like this, they have completely controlled the Dashun army of Gui and Liu, and then rapidly expanded to the neighboring areas, and they dare not do anything against them!

"The Shun army launched another large-scale battle in Liuzhou Mansion, annihilating more than 20,000 Ming troops, and the overall situation of Liuzhou has been decided. And this seems to have been the news a month ago, and the pace of these people entering the army is really fast enough. Ming Ting lost troops in Guilin and Liuzhou continuously, and most of the soldiers and horses that could fight in Guangxi have gone, and the next difficult bone seems to be left in Nanning Mansion. The situation of Shunguo's control of Guangxi seems to be inevitable. "The deputy platoon commander is an old non-commissioned officer who has been in the army for many years, and he has a very high status in the platoon, so he also sat next to the platoon commander and asked for a bowl of rice noodles to eat.

"Isn't it? Once the main force is lost, what resistance will be left to rely on? In my opinion, the rest of the Ming army can only retreat around Nanning to make a last stand, and the meaning of resignation is very strong. The platoon commander said with a smile while eating the stone snail: "No, the battalion commander has taken the main force west to Xunzhou Mansion." Wu Jingzhou had just been defeated, and Xia Junbo, the incompetent man, was driven out by the counterattacking Ming army before the chair with his ass lowered was hot, and even the more than 1,000 soldiers of the security regiment with the new recruit were scattered. Battalion Commander Tang had a headache, so he had to transfer an infantry company and two artillery platoons to collect the rout, and Xu Tu counterattacked. However, in this way, the siege of Guiping County, the state capital, will be postponed again, and it will be a headache. ”

"I heard that the Ming army troops that counterattacked Wujingzhou this time have actually been absorbed by Shunguo?" The deputy platoon commander put down his chopsticks and said, "I think it's very likely." These Ming troops, who could fight, were all transferred to Guilin and Liuzhou to die, and the rest of the people were confused and did not have much will to fight. This time, he actually dared to counterattack desperately, maybe he received some promise from Shunguo, otherwise how could he be so fierce. Those barbarians, I'm sorry, I really don't know whether to live or die, wait for us to free up our hands and clean them up one by one. ”

"What are you doing with those people? Eat and eat. The platoon commander pulled some stone snails for his old man, then lit a cigarette, and said while comfortably swallowing clouds and spitting out fog: "A few days ago, a messenger from the south took the road to Wuzhou, and I chatted casually with that person, and learned that the Southern Route Army has basically controlled the entire province of Lianzhou. The Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army had already reached half of the people, and it scared back the cowardice of General Lian Gao at once. They have a large number of troops there, and it is said that they have cobbled together a force to go north, and they should be besieging the city of Hengzhou in Nanning Province at present. Once it breaks here, it is not far from Xunzhou Capital, and there are rivers along the way, and the transportation of materials is relatively aspect, and the pace of marching should not be slow. I guess that in the end, maybe we haven't solved this mess in the north of Xunzhou, and they will kill themselves to join the division. ”

"That's a good thing!" The deputy platoon commander snorted fiercely, and said vaguely: "Hurry up and level these birdmen in the place, and then we have time to rectify the security regiments in each county, they are too bad to fight at all, I just don't know if the Shun army will give us this time, but I am still relatively optimistic about this, it should be no problem." ”

The platoon commander also nodded when he heard this, at the current speed, it should be about the same, unless the Shun army suddenly releases the spirit of Wang Ba, so that the local Ming army will surrender in a short time, and then help them deal with the people on the east coast in turn. It's just that the Shun army really dares to do something to the people on the east coast?