"Boom! Rumble! Four "Amur" class river shallow water gunboats lined up one by one, and one by one they came forward to bombard a water village set up by the Qing army in Jiangyin. In the farther distance, on the central channel of the Yangtze River, the majestic "Cadiz Rock" opened its majestic gun window, and the 24-pounder, 18-pounder, 12-pounder, and 8-pounder guns were all available, and a full forty long and short guns allowed it to easily control this section of the river.

At this moment, the heavy frigate "Cadiz Rock" is like a lion patrolling its territory, so proud, so invincible - it has reason to be so proud, because the new single-cylinder 150-horsepower steam unit and a large number of sail lines give it the ability to move freely in relatively narrow and cramped rivers, and the small boats and fireships of the Qing army down the river can not threaten its existence at all. Coupled with the lightning-fast river gunboats that surrounded the surroundings at any time, the Qing army's Yangtze River naval division was completely gone, and it was probably hidden in the inland harbor to avoid the attack of the navy on the east coast.

However, the monk could not run the temple, the Qing army Yangtze River water division avoided the battle, and the navy on the east coast was no longer polite, they began to use Chongmingsha as a base, and frequently traced back to Zhenjiang and Nanjing.

The Qing troops in Jiangnan and Jiangbei had hundreds of thousands of troops, but they could not turn into fish and turtles to fight with the navy on the east coast. The Qing Army's Yangtze River Naval Division was not without resistance, but after they were defeated back in a battle on the Zhenjiang River on May 24 -- in this battle, the Qing Army's naval division lost more than 30 large and small boats and hundreds of officers and men killed and wounded under the siege of the navy on the east coast -- their Yangtze River Naval Division became an ornament, and now its only role is probably to escort those ships laden with silver and grain to smuggle across the Jiangbei at night.

Although the number of today's Chinese population has declined sharply after the Ding Revolution of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, although most of the green battalions of the Manchu Qing Dynasty are now fighting in the south (which means that they eat locally), although the order of agricultural production in the north has been restored a year or two before Li broke into Beijing, and although the imperial court in the north has not yet developed a great dependence on the grain and silver in the south, the Grand Canal has been manipulated by people on the east bank, the normal navigation of a large number of ships has been affected, and the flow of goods and money between the north and the south has been greatly reduced. But it also made the Manchu court in Beijing a lot uncomfortable.

At least, a lot of the money they paid to the Manchu civilians, nobles, and hardcore crops depended on the south, right? Moreover, the Hui and the Mongols in the northwest are not very peaceful now, and the hometown in the northeast has heard that there are also yellow-clothed thieves, and it is true that the use of troops to raise grain, rice, vegetables, and vegetables can be raised on the spot from the north -- at that time, the drought in the north had been alleviated for nearly ten years, and the population and social order had been greatly restored, and it was not a problem to raise two or three hundred thousand troops to supply military rations -- but the problem was that fighting a war not only required grain and grass, but also had to be paid!

Now is not the early years of the dynasty that just entered the customs, at that time, the Manchurian soldiers entered the customs, and the surrenderers were like clouds. Whether it is the surrendered officials or the hundreds of thousands of troops that have been recruited, it is difficult to say that the treatment requirements are very low, as long as they do not kill people indiscriminately, and they are fed. But now that the "I Qing Dynasty" has formally established a system, the emperor, the era name, the official system, and the military system are all in place, and even the imperial examination has been held for seven or eight years. What is the first step according to the rules, of course, is to give money and food to officials and generals, how can you stabilize the situation in the world without them?

After all, the Green Battalion, the Han Army, the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners and some local garrisons under the rule of the Qing court now add up to 8.9 million, and there are a lot of officials at all levels, and it costs money to pacify the Mongolian tribes and raise iron-core crops, which is not a small amount of annual expenditure. Some people may say that most of the green battalions are now in the south, and the local government can pay them on the spot, but the problem is that if the military salaries and rations are supplied by the local government, this favor is not from above, then what prestige does the Beijing court have at all?

The army eats in the localities, the military salaries are raised by the localities, and the ordnance is supplied by the localities, and this can only be used as an emergency means in extraordinary times, but it cannot be normalized, otherwise the army will inevitably not listen to the call after a long time, and the local governments may also be separated from the central government, which is not what the central court is willing to see.

Now Jiangnan Chengxuan's political envoy department (i.e., Jiangnan Province) accounts for 30% of the country's wealth, not to mention that since the end of the Ming Dynasty, the local production of cotton, silk, tea, and other important commodities related to the national economy and people's livelihood has been in large quantities; if the grain, cloth, and silver in Jiangnan cannot be transported to the north along the Grand Canal, then it will be more or less a big trouble for "my Great Qing Dynasty" after a long time -- if there is a shortage of silver and salaries, is it possible to engage in rationing and follow the route of a planned economy?

So, to put it mildly, the ships of the people on the east coast were frequently active in the area from Nanjing to Chongmingsha, and although they could not completely restrict the traffic between the north and south of the Qing court, it was true that Yan zhòng hindered the flow of goods and money between the two places. It is estimated that there will be nothing to see in a short period of time, at most it will make the Qing court uncomfortable for a while, but after a long time, I am afraid that the Qing court will also jump to the feet. If they could not concentrate their sailors to drive the ships on the east coast out of the Yangtze River, then they would have to find another way to transport them from other places, but this would undoubtedly greatly increase the cost and reduce the prestige of the Qing court, and it is difficult to say what the consequences were.

"My lord, the gunboat of the yellow-clothed thief is very fierce, and there have been cannons here, please move down the mountain quickly, it is safer there." The leader of the personal horse ben walked to Zhou Guozuo's side worriedly, and hurriedly persuaded him. Oh my God, isn't the deck giant ship of the yellow-clothed thieves floating on the river, obediently, a ship is equipped with dozens of cannons, which is more than the entire Jiangnan, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places combined, I really don't know how these yellow-clothed thieves cast their cannons! The gang of uncles in the Ministry of War, it took a lot of effort to cast a cannon, and they did their best to fuck a small cannon, compared with the yellow-clothed thief, they didn't even deserve to lift their shoes!

"In today's Jiangnan Political Envoy Division, where is the safe place?" Zhou Guozuo smiled bitterly twice, and finally couldn't bear to brush the mind of Ma Ben, who had followed him for many years, and turned around and went down the mountain: "Tens of thousands of yellow-clothed thieves are wreaking havoc thirty miles away, but our army can't attack it for a long time, and Prince Zheng, who is in charge of military affairs in Jiangnan, is extremely angry." If you don't catch up with the yellow-clothed thieves who don't leave there, I don't know how many people in the entire Jiangnan will be dismissed from office, and I, the governor of Jiangning, who spent a lot of money to do so, will be beaten with chickens and eggs, which is really unlucky, unlucky! ”

Zhou Guozuo was born in Liaodong, an old traitor. In the years after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, a group of people who surrendered outside the customs and were incorporated into the Han army banner made a rapid progress, and the governors, governors, admirals and even the general soldiers of important places in the provinces inside the customs basically fell into the hands of these people. And these veteran traitors are indeed very hard-working, and they spared no effort to fight for the Qing court and sweep away the place, so that a group of new generation traitors who surrendered after entering the customs were jealous and hateful, hating that they had not become traitors earlier, and hating that they had no way to betray the country back then.

Zhou Guozuo is in the prime of life, and he is currently the left squire of the military department, the right deputy capital Yushi, and the deputy commander of the Han army in the Zhenghuang Banner, which is one of the high-level leaders in the Han Army Banner. After entering the customs, he spent money to give gifts and hugged his thighs to get the governor of Jiangning (the predecessor of the later governor of Jiangsu), the fat and oily messenger, who wanted to show his strength in the south of the Yangtze River, and made a three-foot-high sky, but the yellow-clothed thief who didn't want to kill was killed all the way from the Yangtze River, which made Zhou Guozuo, who had just accepted a concubine, cold from head to foot like pouring a basin of ice water.

Zhou Guozuo, who learned the news, immediately lay down in the concubine's bed and wrote a report on it, saying, "The yellow-clothed thief army is 400,000, and the soldiers are divided into three routes, and their momentum is very sharp." The ministers gathered troops and fought fiercely with thieves, three in and three out, and dozens of wounds, but the soldiers were few and outnumbered, and their strength was not enough...... I hope that the imperial court will quickly send 10,000 Manchurian officers and soldiers and 30 cannons, and the ministers should shake their spirits and defeat the yellow-clothed pirates in a war......"

Naturally, he would not be confused by Zhou Guozuo's trick of fooling people -- let alone those people in the Beijing court, who had all seen the strange thing of Wang Jingshang, the general soldier of Zhenshun, who had played Li Zicheng's "800,000 thieves" -- he strictly ordered Zhou Guozuo, Tong Tulai, Liu Zhiyuan, and others to work together to transfer the Nanjing garrison troops and 30,000 green battalions in various places, and "quickly go to the thieves' nest to suppress them, and not to delay them." At the same time, he also ordered Zhao Butai to lead 6,000 Manchurian officers and soldiers to set out from Nanjing and fight in concert all the way. At the same time, he also served as a supervisor and supervised the death battle of the green battalion.

To be honest, the movement of more than 30,000 troops to raise ordnance, grain and grass, and draft animals was quite fast -- at least countless times more efficient than that of the Ming Dynasty -- and within a few days, they were drawn from their respective stations, and then contacted and converged with each other to Changshu County, where the yellow-clothed thieves were rampant, which could be called a rapid reaction force in the 17th century.

And when they just arrived at the junction of Changshu and Jiangyin counties and held the main force of the yellow-clothed thieves, they were still trembling at first, because the great prestige of the yellow-clothed thieves in Shandong was not fake. However, after several vanguard battles, they found that many so-called yellow-clothed thieves were not able to fight at all, especially some troops knew at a glance that the training time was not long, and the weapons were not stable (Zhang Huangyan's department), and they were defeated by the loyal and brave green battalion of "my Great Qing Dynasty", which is really incomprehensible.

But after interrogating the captives, they finally understood that these were fucking fake yellow thieves! The real yellow-clothed thief is actually very fierce, and Qian Zong, a member of Zhou Guozuo, was abused when attacking the black feudal ghost slave soldiers, and lost hundreds of people like chopping melons and vegetables, so that the officers and soldiers of the green battalion who had just become arrogant were concerned.

"Help me get on the horse, I'm going to see Lord Zhao." Zhou Guozuo, who went down to the bottom of the mountain, said to Ma Ben, his personal body, "The yellow-clothed thief is setting up a village by the river, and he doesn't fight with me, and he can't go anywhere, and I can guess a thing or two of the reasons." Let's go to Lord Zhao, he was sent by Prince Zheng to supervise the war, and I, the governor of Raushzi, am a fart in front of him. Now that these 40,000 or 50,000 troops (bringing together some miscellaneous armies and regimental training arms) are in Jiangyin, it is not a way, and they have to think of a way to get rid of this yellow-clothed thief. ”R1152