Pei Qin picked up the towel wrapped around his neck and wiped his sweat. Today is the end of July (lunar calendar), which is the hottest time of the year. Even during the relatively low temperature of the Xiaoice River, the temperature at noon was twenty or thirty degrees, so after half a day of busy work in the fields, he unconsciously wiped his sweat.

Gao Cuihuan held a nail rake and kept turning around in the ground. From time to time, he turned out a piece of sweet potato, picked it up and threw it into the wooden box next to him. With the advent of the grain harvest season, all the members of Yantai Fort threw themselves into the intense grain harvesting work, not only the troops who had just been transferred back from Sakhalin, but also the New Army of the Eight Banners, which was the main force, also took turns to work to ensure that the grain harvest of the 4,500 mu of land was completed as quickly as possible. Because, the enemy won't come to you after you've finished harvesting your food.

According to the latest information, more than 30,000 Qing troops (including the surrendered Ming army, Baoyi, follow-up, and Han army banners) have occupied Dezhou, Jinan, Linqing and other areas, and even Qingzhou has gone down without a fight. The shameful Zhao Yingyuan and others were reluctant to take refuge in the people on the east coast, but they confessed in front of the tens of thousands of Qing troops, and were easily appeased by the people sent by Wang Aoyong. Qingzhou was peaceful, and Laizhou was exposed to the Qing court. According to unreliable sources, the local gentry in Laizhou soon surrendered to the Qing court after hearing about the preferential conditions offered by the Qing court, such as allowing everyone to stay in their original positions, not shaving their hair and changing clothes, and exempting them from money and food. As a result, the only area in Shandong that has not been surrendered is Dengzhou, which is located in the Jiaodong region.

The situation in Dengzhou has also changed dramatically in the past month. First of all, in June, Zeng Hualong, the governor of Denglai, was rarely tough, and sent Teng Yinyu, the general of Dengzhou, to lead hundreds of troops to "defeat" the "more than 100,000" bandits who were rampant for a while. Relieve the siege of Jiaozhou. Zhang Haoxian, one of the leaders of the Tukou, surrendered to the interior. Capture and kill the other two leaders, Zhang Daya and Zhang Qianchu. Most of the people who had been brought in were scattered. However, just when the Dengzhou squire had some confidence in Zeng Futai, this Zeng Master quietly fled across the Hainan with the Jiaozhou Zhizhou, leaving a group of Dengzhou officials and generals to stare at each other.

Without the Ming Dynasty, there is also the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, after Zeng Hualong fled south and received the news that the Qing army was approaching, the squire of Dengzhou was slightly depressed at first, and then turned a little excited. Although the absence of the Ming Dynasty has made everyone sad for so many days, it is quite a new dynasty to see the methods of the Qing Dynasty. It's not like the rebellious pseudo-obedient, who actually wants the fields of the gentry to give mud legs, which is really unreasonable! Moreover, in May, the regent of the Qing Dynasty had already ordered to stop forcing the Han people to shave their hair, and now Wang Aoyong and Fang Dayou, the governors of Shandong, have repeatedly emphasized that the Han officials should take their original positions, and even allowed them to wear the official uniforms of the original Ming Dynasty, as long as they do things for the Qing Dynasty.

The new governor of Shandong in the Ming Dynasty has been hovering in Huaishang and does not dare to come to Shandong. Since Da Ming is not coming, then everyone is from the Qing Dynasty. Now it seems that everything should be business as usual, and they should have nothing to lose in this change of dynasty. You can even take this opportunity to occupy some fields and increase your wealth. It's wonderful. Of course, they hoped that the newly arrived Qing court would be able to expel the shadow that had hung over them for more than a year, and return the world to a "bright and prosperous world".

However, no matter how the situation in Shandong changes, the people on the east coast are too lazy to take care of it at present, and their only task at this stage is to collect food, train soldiers, and contain the displaced people, and then observe the situation in Shandong in order to make a plan for the next step.

After raking for a while, Gao Cuihuan threw the nail rake to the ground and shouted, "I'm tired to death." After so many years of fighting, killing and killing, this farming work can't be done at all, and after working for a while, I can't get tired, so it's better to go and practice that big formation with those black domain soldiers. Hey, Lao Pei, don't say it, although those black feudal soldiers look dumbfounded, this big array is extremely good. I have also seen the elite old battalion of Ruhou (Liu Zongmin), Bohou (Li Guo), and Cihou (Liu Fangliang), and the battle against this black feudal soldier may not be defeated, but if you want to win, it will take some effort, you have to rely on the red-clothed cannon to bombard, and the cavalry must rush, otherwise it will be difficult to win. ”

Pei Qin took out the cowhide water bladder from his waist, shook it, and then drank two large sips of cold white water. wiped his mouth, looked at the new officers and soldiers of the Eight Banners who were wearing more than 30 pounds of full armor, shook his head, and said, "You have cannons, don't people have cannons?" I see that the artillery of the East Coast Army is very elite, what 12-pounder iron cannon dragged away by a few horses, and the artillery in the front and rear is far farther than the red-coated artillery, how can the gunners of the old battalion defeat the East Coast artillery, it would be good not to be blasted out of the formation by them. As for the cavalry, you see those black domain soldiers, dressed in iron armor, even their faces are covered by helmets, not to mention the soft riding bow, even the step bow, I'm afraid it can't be pierced. It's not that you haven't worn that iron armor, and you can't penetrate the musket more than eighty paces away, which is better than wearing our original two layers of iron armor. Otherwise, you think Guo Shuai... Well, why does Guo Sheng love this iron armor? ”

"This iron armor is so good!" Gao Cuihuan also praised at this time. He was a brave man, tall and strong, and when he put on that iron armor, he was like a humanoid bulldozer, which was perfect for breaking the blade.

"It's not heavy, I don't walk without panting after putting it on, if we had an iron army like Qian'er Eight Hundred, I'm afraid we would have entered the capital a long time ago." Gao Cuihuan said again, "What you said makes sense, Lao Pei. I don't think these black soldiers look like young children who have just entered the battle formation, they are all tall and big. Wearing this iron armor and holding this zhangyu (3.5 meter standard infantry spear) spear, he is not afraid of cavalry charging into battle; Tsk, they all say that the Tartars are powerful, I want to see what the Tartars can do to break this formation! ”

"The Tartars may not be able to break this formation." Pei Qin said very simply, "To deal with such a strict infantry formation, the Tartars can only harass with light horses, but the range of their infantry bows is not as good as this firebolt, and this trick is mostly useless." Then it can only lure the army on the east coast to leave the city for an expedition, and then think of cutting off its food routes, waiting for it to collapse without a fight. Or lie in ambush on the road and make a surprise attack on the march of the army on the east coast, so as to have a slight chance of victory. ”

"It's easier said than done to storm and sneak attack!" Gao Cuihuan was a little disapproving, "You see that the security team at the hands of Master Mo is almost all from Sakhalin fish skin tartars, with superb riding skills, perseverance and endurance, and with a handful of soybeans in his pocket, he can go out and investigate for two days without eating or drinking." Everyone also has a hand of throwing axes, magic arrows, sets and other unique skills, these scouts, I don't know if the Tartars are compared, but most of the scouts in our old camp are inferior. With such elite scouts, it is really not easy for the Tartars to ambush, and it is difficult to say who will find out who will be the first when the time comes. ”

"It's just that there are fewer people." Pei Qin said with some regret, "There are only more than 1,000 soldiers in the Black Domain, only about 500 firecrackers, and more than 200 artillery troops, I'm afraid this field battle out of the city is not enough to see." and they will be able to defend the city, and at most they will fight against the city. It's a pity that the training time of our team is still short, and the equipment is also a little messy, and I am afraid that it will not be good to go into battle now. However, it is not a problem to fight those Ming troops, and I am afraid that if you deal with the real Tartars, you will suffer. ”

Pei Qin was born in cavalry, and history records that he was "good at cavalry shooting". At present, there is a cavalry squadron in the 1st Brigade of the Advance Team, and he often goes to conduct "operational guidance", and he has also seen the training of the East Coast Army and the Eight Banners New Army, so he has a rough understanding of the combat strength of various units in Yantai today. In his opinion, the army of the people on the East Coast was very elite, and according to them, it was "very professional". Everyone knows what they should do, especially the junior officers, who have a strong tactical understanding and execution ability, and they are also very good at reading the battlefield situation to make reasonable judgments and responses. It seems to have something to do with the military academy that is often opened, and he wonders when he will apply to go to class and improve it, but he always feels that his original experience in fighting is a little outdated.

With a whistle of "shh There, more and more soldiers of the Stand Up Team are already lining up, and this afternoon, when all eight squadrons of the First Brigade of the Front Team are facing each other in groups, the two of them, as the deputy captain and the squadron leader, must be on the scene.

As the situation in Shandong became clearer and clearer, and the situation in Heishui, Dabo, and Yuanbo became more and more stable, Mo Ming, who felt that there was no need to spend the army over there, began to gradually transfer back several teams that were training in the Heishui area.

The soldiers of these eight squadrons did not have any other equipment except for a set of military uniforms and some spears for each of them, because the transportation capacity of the people on the east coast was limited, and the more machinery and equipment, machine parts, building materials, fishing nets, farm tools, and consumer goods they transported, naturally could not transport too many weapons. Of course, there are also reasons why the people of the East Coast do not trust them very much at the moment, and some things, such as armor, cannot be distributed indiscriminately. Therefore, the weapons used by these people were either brought by themselves, or they were stolen from the former Ming army or the landlords and squires, and of course, some of them were some garbage found in the arsenals of various Weisuo prefectures and counties in the Dengzhou area. All in all, they have a wide variety of weapons, and the quality is not good.

But even a garbage weapon is better than a stick. And as these people are well fed, their nutritional intake is more balanced, and they are paid on time, their morale is gradually recovering, and their training level is also getting higher day by day. More than half of them are veterans with combat experience, and the rest are not very new to combat, so the people on the east coast have reason to believe that these people can be trained through scientific and rational training, continuous ideological education, and normal logistical support. (To be continued......)