In the early morning, a small army walked low-key on the small roads in the countryside of Laizhou. There was some mist outside, so the officers had to hold their troops together. At the forefront was a troop of all dressed in khaki khaki uniforms, divided into five columns, walking in the middle of the road.

The weather was already a little cold, and the fields on both sides of the road that were supposed to be planted with overwintering wheat were empty and overgrown with large patches of wild grass, which made some of the soldiers walking on the road very uncomfortable. Farmland is abandoned in large areas, robbers are rampant in the countryside, and people have fled.

The soldiers wore khaki uniforms with brass buttons on their tops, and also khaki trousers with red seam trim on their bottoms, white leggings on their calves, and heavy fleece shoes on their feet. If you look at it from this alone, the military appearance of this army is quite neat, and it seems to be a strong army; But if you add to that the mess of weapons they hold (spears, broadswords, katanas, harpoons, birds, bows and arrows, etc.) and the messy military hats they wear on their heads (straw hats, caps, fur hats, hats, helmets), you will find that they are no different from those local regimental training armies.

The only difference is that the spirit of these people is much better than that of those regimental training arms, and it can be seen from their ruddy faces that they can at least eat well, and maybe from time to time they can eat some meat. And every once in a while, they collectively shouted slogans in the voice of the officers' commands, which made people feel that their morale was much stronger than those village warriors and even the Ming army. If the Ming army, which had not even eaten enough for a long time and had no way to talk about the salary, faced them, I am afraid that it would not take a moment or three to be defeated. Isn't it morale to fight in these wars!

This force was followed by a convoy of donkey carts or mule carts. These vehicles were loaded with a large amount of arrows, lead, gunpowder barrels, tents, barbed wire, bandages, disinfectant alcohol, coal stove briquettes, kitchen utensils, dry rations, and other logistical baggage. A cavalry force of about 500 men scattered on both sides of the baggage troops, riding Mongolian horses with great endurance, slowly walked in the open and flat wheat fields on both sides of the road. Judging from their faces, half of these people are Semu faces, the other half are Ming faces, and they are all wearing khaki military uniforms, each of them wearing a large black-brimmed cap on his head, and a slender saber hanging from his waist. And those who are in the saddle of the cavalry horses. There seems to be a very long riding spear resting on it. That's not a rarity these days!

Behind the convoy were twenty artillery sports carts towed by horses, including long-barreled cannons and short-barreled howitzers, of various calibers. Available from 4 pounds to 12 pounds. Inside the gun carriage were artillery shells, weighed propellant packs, cannon brushes, tongs, weighing instruments, and other equipment. About a hundred gunners sat on top of the last ten carts. Boredom staring at the misty fields in the distance.

Behind the artillery unit were more than a dozen well-dressed mid- and high-ranking officers on war horses, who appeared to be the commanders of the unit. Behind the officers were hundreds of soldiers in khaki uniforms, large caps, bayonets and rifles on their shoulders, with strong steps and determined eyes. There was no noise during the walk, and it looked very elite.

At the back of the pack were a large group of spear-carrying soldiers, tall, dark-skinned, and neatly lined up, looking like they had been trained for a long time. It is worth mentioning that the length of the spears in their hands is very long, and the shaft of the spear is also very thick, once it is raised horizontally, it can almost be used as a horse rejection, if it were not for the tall figure of the people who carry them, they also look quite strong, I am afraid that they would not be able to use such a heavy weapon.

Some of the landlords in the countryside of Laizhou stood on the wall of their Zhuangzi, watching the troops pass by with trepidation, and could hardly raise the slightest thought of resisting. This is the thief in yellow, the East Coast pirate! Look at the cannons they are pulling, God, this is a Huangyi cannon that is even more powerful than the Hongyi cannon! Half an hour has passed since the soldiers outside, and God knows which one these yellow-clothed pirates are going to fight, this time it is estimated that thousands of people have been dispatched, and this force is afraid that even Laizhou City can be defeated, right?

Forget it, let's take care of ourselves, it's not my family that is unlucky anyway. This east-coast Haikou yellow-clothed thief is out of control, and he dared to run rampant in the countryside when there were hundreds of people before, but now he sees that this momentum is getting stronger and stronger, and it seems that the arrival of the king of the non-Qing Dynasty cannot be solved. It's hateful that Yang Wei, the deputy chief soldier of Dengzhou City, turned out to be the same as Zeng Hualong, who had once appeased him, and dared to send troops to Ninghai Prefecture last month, but after being warned by this yellow-clothed thief army, he only dared to shrink into the city this month and didn't dare to come out again. I don't know how the army under the command of Ke Zongzhen in Jiaozhou is, I heard that the old foundation of this army can be traced back to the Tianyou Army and Tianzhu Army of the Qing Dynasty. It seems that only Mr. Ke can fight a dozen yellow-clothed pirates on the east coast, but it is a pity that Yang Wei has repeatedly refused the surrender of Chen Jin, the governor of Denglai in the Qing Dynasty, according to a famous city like Dengzhou, and Lord Ke is also leading the army to Qingzhou to suppress thieves, and I am afraid that he will not be able to return to Laizhou in a short time. It's a pity, it's a pity.

Kurhan galloped back from the fog with several cavalrymen from Sakhalin origin, and after exchanging orders with the cavalry guarding them from a distance, they were allowed to approach the Chinese army.

"Zhai Xiaoshan came forward, and he has already contacted Monk Zhai Wu, and they took less than 2,000 people to Qingzhou, and they are probably in the Le'an area at present. Zhao Yingyuan took thousands of men and horses to Yidu (i.e., Qingzhou City) a few days ago, saying that it was because the families of his subordinates were in Qingzhou City, so he took people to ask Wang Aoyong to surrender. However, according to Monk Zhai Wu's private statement, this Zhao Yingyuan was afraid that it was a fake surrender, and Yang Wangxiu, the special envoy sent by Li Zicheng in his army, should have played a key role in this process. The intelligence staff officer who set off with Kurhan reported to Mo Ming, the top commander of the operation.

"This Zhai Wu monk is interesting, such a confidential matter can be revealed to us, this Zhao Yingyuan is really entrusted to work with these people, sooner or later he will be killed for acting secretly." Mo Ming briefly commented on Zhao Yingyuan, Monk Zhai Wu and others, and then turned his head to Mao Desheng, the commander of the 104th Company of the Army, Li Renjun, the commander of the 105th Company, and Yang Mingyang, the captain of the newly established cavalry brigade, and said: "Our purpose this time is to go to Qingzhou to muddy the waters. It would be best to cooperate with Zhao Yingyuan to take Qingzhou down, if you can't take it down, you will make a big noise nearby, and the bigger the trouble, the better. Shandong is only far from Beijing, and the slightest disturbance here will make the Manchus nervous, not to mention that now their main forces are heading to Shanxi one after another, preparing to start a general battle with Li Zicheng. At this time, we give them eye medicine to share the pressure of Li Zicheng, so that he will not lose quickly. But there is also a principle, that is, not to fight a tough battle, not to fight a war of attrition, soft persimmons can be pinched, if the enemy resistance is resolute, then bypass. In short, we are responding, not for Zhao Yingyuan, not for Dashun, for ourselves, the more chaotic the situation in Shandong, the better. ”

This was the tone set before the departure, and several commanders with troops naturally had no opinion. Everyone had already discussed it before, this time Zhao Yingyuan attacked Qingzhou City, and the people on the east coast went to the countryside of other states and counties in Qingzhou, collecting grain and grass while fighting the local potential of Qingqing. The armed forces and morale of the gentry in those places were very weak, and in the eyes of the people on the east coast, they were really vulnerable, and they were not even as good as the soldiers of the standing team. In fact, this is also good, you can let the team practice and practice, and accumulate some self-confidence through abuse, which is good for the improvement of combat power in the future.

The same goes for the new cavalry. This time, Mo Ming reorganized the more than 350 new Polish mercenaries, these people are basically cavalry, Mo Ming transferred 250 of them with more combat experience, and formed a cavalry brigade together with 250 cavalry brought by Li Zhengang. The captain of the group is Yang Mingyang, an officer of the crossing group, and the deputy captain is a Polish veteran and Pei Qin, who was transferred from the 1st Brigade of the Standing Team.

Since it took more than two years for the people of the east coast to successfully transfer a total of more than ten horses from the military horse farms in the mainland, Falklands, and South Africa, these horses are currently left in the rear to breed in order to improve the breeds of local Mongolian horses and Korean dwarf horses, so these cavalrymen can still only ride Mongolian horses traded from the Shandan people. This made the Polish cavalry, known for their heavy cavalry and extremely powerful impact, suddenly useless, so they have now been converted into light cavalry, mainly using sabers and pistols to engage the enemy in close combat, and occasionally using mounted spears to impact enemy infantry formations on the verge of collapse. Fortunately, they are all veterans of old battles, and their skills in close-quarters combat are also quite strong, and their morale is okay, so this cavalry unit is far more effective than those foot soldiers who stand up.

Li Chuang's situation is not optimistic now, the continuous war in Qinghai and Gansu has restrained a large part of his main force, and Zhang Xianzhong in the south is also currently fighting hard and pointing at Hanzhong, preparing to stab the old Li Juhua. Under the control of Dashun, the situation in western Henan and southern Henan is not very good, the Southern Ming army began to attack the prefectures and counties under the control of Dashun under the strict urging of Shi Kefa, and the local small force of Dashun local soldiers and horses could not resist the enemy, and began to fight and retreat. In the Shanxi battlefield, where the main forces of both sides gathered, with the arrival of the Eight Banners and the local armed forces, the Qing army, which had reached more than 150,000 troops, constituted a huge numerical advantage over the Dashun army of Li Guo, Chen Yongfu and others. The combat power is not as good as the Eight Banners Army, and now even the number is less than half of the others, plus they have also transferred a large number of red-coated cannons over, and the firepower is also inferior, and this battle is already very dangerous.

Therefore, the people on the east coast, who did not want to see Li Zicheng's quick defeat and the Qing army's rapid unification of the north, decided to make trouble in Shandong and stir up some fame, so as to distract the attention of the Qing army, and it would be better if they could distract their forces. (To be continued......)