Li Feihu and Li Feihuang stayed in Qi Province for a while.

On the fifth day of the fifth month of the 14th year of Jianxing, they took Xu Shisong, Princess Renfu and 2,000 forbidden soldiers who had gone home with an iron heart to embark on a journey back to Jiangnan.

Since the main commanders of the forbidden army stayed in Jiangbei, and the forbidden army participated in the war to unify Qi Province as mercenaries, they were under the command of Xu Shisong at that time, so Xu Shiyang easily reformed the structure of this group of forbidden troops - he appointed Xu Shisong as the commander-in-chief of this forbidden army, and in fact, he also included them under the command of the main battle faction and became a support army for the Jiangnan main battle faction.

After doing these tasks, when Xu Shiyang was still thinking about how to intercept the fleet of New Year's coins, a group of displaced people arrived at the periphery of the Qingzhou Army's defense line, bringing a crucial piece of information: the Tartars outside the Guanhai are assembling and are expected to be dispatched around June!

When all the high-level officials in Qingzhou heard the news, they personally questioned these displaced people.

After that, they figured out the truth of the matter:

These displaced people were the peasants of the Yanyun generation who had defected to the Jurchen Han Bo Jilie's territory, because the Jurchens had to go on an expedition and lacked food and grass supplies, so they could only increase the squeeze of the Han Bo Jilie.

All the grain in the homes of these homeless people was looted, and they really couldn't survive, so they had to flee, because they heard that there was food in Qingzhou, so they ran to Qi Province to find a way to survive.

By the way, he brought Xu Shiyang the information that the Tartars would be dispatched in advance.

According to the previous rules, the Tartars should wait until this autumn harvest and have some savings before setting off.

I really didn't expect that they would choose to go out a few months in advance and choose to go out when the farm was busy.

Maybe it's because at this time, Qingzhou's mobilization capacity will be much weaker than after the autumn harvest? Maybe it's thinking of defeating the Qingzhou army as soon as possible and grabbing the grain in Qingzhou?

Whatever the reason, Xu Shiyang now has to temporarily abandon the plan to intercept the Li family's fleet and concentrate on dealing with the upcoming big battle first.

Fortunately, the fleet of years of coins is divided into ten batches, and he can only intercept one of them, as for whether it is the front batch or the back batch, there is not much difference.

On the eighth day of the first month of May, Xu Shiyang rushed to Quancheng again to supervise the progress of the defense line on the front line.

At this time, more displaced people arrived in Qingzhou.

In the beginning, the displaced people were mainly young men and women in the Yanyun area, but later, the elderly and children began to appear in Qingzhou, although the number is not large, but this proves that the current situation in the Yanyun area is indeed not very good - even the families who could afford to support the old and weak in the past have now become homeless people fleeing the famine.

In mid-May, more and more displaced people fled to Qi Province, and in addition to civilians in the Yanyun area, there were also many Wubao residents in Ji Province.

These people, who had previously survived the Jurchens' raiding route through bribery and high walls, also smelled bad this time, and realized that the Tartars were more bad this time than ever, and had to abandon their homes and embark on a journey of escape with an uncertain future.

Even the bandits from Ji Province came in a lot.

By early June, Qingzhou had accepted 7 to 8,000 displaced people within a month, and the situation is getting worse.

Xu Shiyang was worried that there would be Tartar spies among them, so he ordered these people to be evacuated, and all of them were scattered and placed in the three prefectures of Qing, Lai, and Deng, which were far away from the front line.

They should not be needed in this war, but after the war, these manpower are also a valuable supplement to the Qingzhou army.

On the third day of the sixth month, Xu Muhe, as the envoy of Qingzhou Jiedu, issued a first-class combat readiness order to all the territories in the control area.

In addition to the new army, those who have completed the organization of households and people will draw one out of two. The dock fort, which has not completed the organization of households, varies in size, and has 30 to 50 people.

A large number of militia began to gather in the Quancheng Mansion, and after being reorganized by Xu Shiyang, they were deployed to the front-line fortifications.

In order to enhance the confidence of the militia and avoid the situation that the militia is too afraid of the Tartars and is broken through the defense line in one fell swoop, Xu Shiyang plans to send a new army with more combat effectiveness in the first line of defense, as long as the first line of defense can repel several enemy attacks, let the militia know that the Tartars are not the legendary invulnerable monsters, and the militia in the later lines of defense can play a certain role.

In mid-June, the influx of displaced people into Qi Province reached a peak, and at the same time brought news that the Tartars had been dispatched.

However, Xu Shiyang still did not know the number of troops dispatched by the Tartars, and there were rumors among the displaced people that there were 7 or 8 hundred thousand Tartar soldiers, and there were also rumors that there were only 2 or 30,000 Tartar soldiers.

Fortunately, although Xu Shiyang can't know the other, there is really no big problem with knowing his confidant.

As the core of the new army, there are a total of 7,000 people, of which Feng Sanhu acts as Xu Shisong's battalion commander, Xu Shiyang personally takes over the 2,000 recruits of the new barracks, and the Dingyuan battalion forms the general reserve of the whole army.

More than 33,000 men have been assembled on the militia side, and 100,000 young men and women are still building fortifications, which can be thrown into defensive battles if necessary.

The Qingzhou army has a total of 140,000 people, more than 1,600 muskets of various types, 12 4-pound general bronze cannons, and more than 60 2-kilogram iron cannons.

A dozen experimental iron cannons of various types, plus hundreds of wooden cannons, were equipped to the militia and prepared for defensive operations.

In order to supply the front line, the military factory prepared a total of more than 6,000 catties of gunpowder, and also collected sulfur saltpeter and other raw materials for making gunpowder everywhere, preparing to make it while fighting.

Many veterans have already fired 50 or 60 rounds of fire, and there are even more non-projectile shooting trainings, and the intensity of this training has even reached the level of the wartime period.

The militia's intensive training is also underway, Xu Shiyang's requirements for them are not high, as long as they are not collapsed at the first touch, the four rear lines of defense on the west bank can be held for an average of five days, a total of 20 days, and then the militia has the right to abandon their positions and retreat to the east bank on their own initiative.

As for how much damage it can bring to the Tartars, ...... let it be, and you can't put too high demands on the militia.

At the end of June, Xu Shiyang's request for the long-wall defense line had been completed, except for two lines of defense in the southern section of the canal that had not been completed for the time being.

Xu Shiyang built more than a dozen pontoon bridges over the Yellow River and canals, and led his troops into the first line of defense, while the migrant workers retreated to the east bank of the river and began to build new lines there.

On June 27, Xu Muhe couldn't help but go around the front line, giving some rewards to the soldiers to boost morale, and at the same time announcing that he would say his daughter-in-law to the soldiers who made meritorious contributions this time.

This caused bursts of cheers from the officers and soldiers on the front line - even if there is a shortage of soldiers, passing on the family line is a necessity of life.

On the third day of the seventh month, the herald reported to Xu Shiyang that a Tartar sentry had been found in the direction of Binzhou.

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