"The last time our army received the news of Li Zicheng's army was in October last year, and this news itself has a certain lag, so strictly speaking, our intelligence is likely to be very inaccurate." Second Lieutenant Júnior first came to such an opening remark, and then continued: "At that time, we got the news that Li Zicheng was in Hubei against the Qing army of the Azig Division, and he was defeated in successive battles, and there were many losses of soldiers and horses. Liu Zongmin, a general who had not recovered from his wounds, and others were captured and killed, and he himself was even more wounded, and then he led his army to flee in the direction of Hunan, and there were many conflicts with He Tengjiao's troops in the Southern Ming Dynasty. ”

"Get in touch and get in touch to get a full picture of how they're doing." Júnior first said a somewhat vague situation of the Shun army, and then said categorically: "The summer heat in Hunan is hot, and the Eight Banners are quite impatient. Therefore, at least half of the soldiers of the Manchu Eight Banners who are the most warlike in the Azig division of the Qing army have been transferred to the east to attack Jiangxi and Nanzhili, and in response to the Qing army of Duoduo, more than 100,000 people have been incorporated into the Ming army, such as Zuomengeng and Yuan Jixian. Now those who remain in Hubei are only part of the troops mainly recruited by the Ming army and the Shun army, supplemented by some soldiers and horses of the Sanshun king and the Mongolian domain, and the pressure on the Shun army has been greatly reduced. I think we should take the opportunity to get in touch with them and try to fund them with some equipment to try to restore their vitality. ”

"How do you get in touch with them? What if they have already been destroyed or have taken refuge in Nanming? Zhang Xudong, an army officer of the Shaozhuang faction, who was newly appointed as the commander of the first wing, suddenly asked.

Zhang Xudong is 35 years old this year, and he was a college student studying in Italy before the crossing, and his English is very good and his Italian is okay. I also barely speak some Spanish. A student who was originally ignorant. After two years of studying abroad, he became a self-reliant and strong nationalist. After the crossing, he has been fighting in the War Department, and he is also a veteran of the army construction period. After many activities, he was transferred to the Far East and served as the captain of the first wing of the Standing Force, with the rank of captain, and he was also a high-ranking army officer on the ground in the Far East.

"Back to Chief Zhang, if Li Zicheng hadn't died, then they would definitely not have taken refuge in Nanming, and it would be difficult to even be peaceful; If Li Zicheng unfortunately dies. Then many of their subordinates will split, and when the time comes, we will analyze the specific situation on a case-by-case basis, and in short, we must try to get in touch with them first. Júnior replied with a straight look, "As for how to get in touch with them, after repeated consultations, considering that the Qing army has mastered a considerable number of inland river boats and has a certain ability to intercept inland rivers, we have decided to send two 'Amur' class inland river steam gunboats to go up the Yangtze River, and then try to find Shunjun troops in the vicinity of Yueyang, Jingzhou, and Changde in order to get in touch with them." ”

The "Amur" class river steam gunboats are fully steam-powered. High horsepower (140 hp), shallow draft (0.8 m) and extremely fast speed (design speed of 10 knots, maximum speed of 12.5 knots). Even on inland waterways such as the Yangtze River and the Xiangjiang River. It also has a strong penetration ability. It can be imagined that when two steam gunboats sailed on the Yangtze River at a standard speed of 10 knots, even if they were encountered by the Qing army, their small boats with extremely slow speed and slow maneuvering could not do anything with such speedboats on the east coast, and they did not have time to organize a fleet to round up the two ships of the people on the east coast. Even the speed at which they could deliver the news in an expedited manner of 600 miles could not catch up with the speed of the two ships on the east coast, so when they found traces of the "Amur" class steam gunboats on the river, they could basically only see them.

A river gunboat of the "Amur" class has a standard displacement of 250 tons, and since it is not a professional transport vessel, its full load displacement is only a meagre 330 tons. That is, after removing the standard spare artillery, machine parts, coal, water, ammunition and other sundries, the ship can only carry about 80 tons of cargo, and the two ships together can only carry 160 tons. However, this important rational use is almost enough, at least it can transport a considerable amount of armor, muskets, cannons, and ammunition for Li Chuang's troops, which can greatly improve their situation. Li Chuang's troops are not the scum troops of the Nanming Dynasty, they still have considerable combat effectiveness, at least they will not easily become the captain of the transport brigade and give the firearms and equipment sponsored by the people on the east coast to the Manchus for nothing.

Hearing Júnior say this, Zhang Xudong didn't say anything, but still frowned. Maybe he thinks it's more dangerous to send these two speedboats upriver alone, and it's not very reliable, but he doesn't have any good solutions, plus Mo Ming himself is estimated to be involved in the formulation of this plan, so it's not convenient to say anything at this time, so he simply shut up.

"It's not difficult for us to get in touch with Li Zicheng, after all, we still have the title of Dashun Ninghai Defense Envoy. There are also a considerable number of officers or soldiers from the Shun army in our forward team system, and they must have many acquaintances in the Shun army of Li Zicheng's army, and it is easy to get in touch. "Either way, we'll have to try." The Dashun army was one of the few armies in the south that could pose a threat to the Manchu forces, and to fund them was to help ourselves, which was extremely helpful to our strategy of maintaining the balance of power on the mainland. After all, the number of their troops is in the tens of thousands, and our own strength is still quite limited. ”

It is said that in mid-October last year, the mainland again transferred several additional ships to the Far East, in addition to the two steam engine sailboats that could not be shaken, there was also a fast cruiser and two inland river steam gunboats -- the "Amur River" and the "Liao River." The flotilla was accompanied by about 300 Polish veterans and more than 300 Tatar riders; 100 reinforcements from home; and a battalion of South African Eight Banners Infantry, the last of the South African reinforcements.

After the arrival of these officers and soldiers, the strength of the East Bank Republic in the Far East has become even stronger, with more than 940 people in 4 companies (including supplementary companies) of the army, about 160 artillery personnel, more than 60 staff guards and miscellaneous personnel of the headquarters, 200 scouts of the security team (supplemented), 3,400 battalions of the New Army of the Eight Banners of South Africa (including supplementary troops), 230 black soldiers stationed in Blackwater Port, 50 water troops stationed on Rishiri Island, 50 military police, and more than 80 patrol police, totaling nearly 5,200 people. It can be regarded as a measure of armed power that the people of the East Coast themselves can fully trust.

At present, there are more than 6,100 officers and soldiers in the forward force system, more than 1,200 cavalry brigades (plus newcomers), and more than 400 artillery members from various batteries in the Yantai fortress area (plus newly recruited), a total of 7,700 people.

At the end, there are also vassal forces attached to the people on the east coast, that is, 5,500 people from Zhai Congge, Wang Jiazhong, and Qin Shangxing who occupy Jeju Island, and about 500 people from Dingzhuang, the two places of Henggon Village and Temple Street, totaling about 6,000 people. Except for the 2,000 people in Zhai Cong's department, who were more loyal, the rest were not trustworthy and could only be used.

The total number of various divisions is also 10,000 or 20,000, which seems to be a lot, but there are not many who can really pull out the Lu to go to the field, about 2,400 black soldiers, 900 East Coast Army, cavalry brigade and 1,400 scouts, about 4,700 people. If these four or five thousand people practice well and cooperate with tacit understanding, Mo Ming is still confident that he will lead them to a field battle with the same number of Eight Banners soldiers and win.

As for the various brigades of the standing up team, their combat effectiveness is uneven, and those that were established early can fight head-on with the green battalion of the Qing army, which is relatively strong, and although the brigade that was established late has already followed the East Coast Army out of the army to fight in turns several times, and is not considered a rookie, its combat effectiveness is still worrisome, and it can only fight with the green battalion that is not very effective in combat, which is embarrassing and useful. Those vassal forces can't even be said, in addition to the savages in the Amur River Basin who are more capable of fighting, those former Qingzhou anti-Qing rebels can only bully the North Koreans, and even the Koreans on Jeju Island were taken by surprise at the beginning.

In general, with the current scale of the army on the east coast, if the whole army is dispatched and faces the green battalions of Shandong, Beizhili and Jiangbei in the last 20,000 or 30,000 Shandong, Beizhili and Jiangbei, it will basically be able to win, but it will be a little troublesome if it is too much more, after all, it is difficult to defeat four hands with two fists. And the Manchu army is now terrifying, not counting the more than 100,000 people cobbled together by the Manchu, Mongolian, and Han Eight Banners, and the Ming and Shun surrender armies alone are 670,000, and this number is also piled up to kill you. Therefore, you still have to find a helper, although Li Chuang's subordinates have been hit repeatedly, it is not a problem to gather more than 100,000 people who can fight. These more than 100,000 people, plus the people of La, it is no problem to get together two or three hundred thousand people, and they can also carry the green battalion arms head-on, and they are definitely potential helpers that cannot be ignored by the people on the east coast.

"To sum up, the nodes in the north are composed of the armed forces under our own direct jurisdiction, the nodes in the southwest are composed of the Dashun Army of Li Zicheng's army - perhaps the Great Western Army that may appear in the future, and the nodes in the southeast are composed of the Southern Ming regime and the Zheng family, which exert force on three sides and resist step by step, and do their best to delay the pace of the Manchu Qing Dynasty's unification of the whole country." Second Lieutenant Júnior closed the document in hand, then looked up at the people under the podium and concluded: "The southern heat is hot, and the soldiers of the Eight Banners are extremely unadaptable, so many battles in the south will still rely on the Green Battalion to fight in the future. If we fund these helpers, we may really have a chance to weave this big net against the Manchu court. If the Manchus were unable to unify the country quickly, with their radical and oppressive policies today, I think that the war situation on this ancient Oriental continent might take some new turn—a new change in our favor. (To be continued......)