On October 8th, after a day of hasty rest, the people on the east coast, who had thoroughly figured out the movements of the Qing army, did not delay, and they knew the reason for the speed of the soldiers, and after packing the materials in the city and loading them into carts, they quickly raised their troops to the west, chasing and killing Luckedhun's buttocks.

After the departure of the main force, a force of 500 soldiers escorted a group of more than 3,000 Qing prisoners (mostly a rabble such as Xiangyong, Catcher, and Taxman) to the north to the sea. The East Coast Army has been in intermittent contact with the navy anchored in Laizhou Bay, and after determining their respective positions last night, Mo Ming sent people to the coast early this morning to collect supplies, and at the same time sent some of the few recruited immigrants and booty who volunteered to go to sea to the ship.

This style of play by the East Bank Army is extremely logistical. It's better to say that it's autumn, and you can raise it on the spot, but there is no way to replenish ammunition, arrows, and damaged weapons, so you can only rely on the back. The people on the east coast now have nitrate fields on Yantai Yangma Island to configure gunpowder, and also set up workshops for making cannonballs and lead bullets; In addition, there are also workshops for making arrows, bows and arrows, and leather armor on Jeju Island - this is based on the Korean legacy, and after the East Coast people took over the inheritance of these Koreans, they carried it forward, and recruited a group of craftsmen from Daming to start making some equipment here, and at the same time repaired some cold weapons sent from the front.

In all fairness, these two logistics bases have played a significant role, effectively supplementing the front-line attrition. However, the replenishment of guns, artillery, clothing, and medicines damaged in the battle can be carried out on the mainland, plus the output of these two logistics bases. It basically constitutes the logistics system of today's East Coast Army.

The number of ships berthed in Laizhou Bay has now increased to ten. Large quantities of supplies were transported to the coast by guò boats. Then the spear-wielding soldiers of the military team drove the Qing prisoners forward to sort out the supplies, and then loaded them into carts or pack animals and transported them to the front line. They don't have to worry about safety, the cavalry brigade that went to chase down the Qing rout should be back soon, and according to the plan, they will escort this transport team back to the front line all the way.

Earlier today, a thousand soldiers who had gone to Dengzhou a while ago also returned. They soon received the latest orders from Mo Dashuai, and prepared to take advantage of the Qing army's flight and the local power vacuum. A group of local people were forcibly recruited and began to harvest grain from nearby farmlands one after another. The collected grain is dried on the spot and then transported back to Yantai for storage by guò transport ship. In addition, Dengzhou also sent 500 soldiers to the Zhaoyuan gold mine, and the gentry forces in that area had already been bloodbathed twice, and there was basically no way to threaten the survival of the people on the east coast. The mined gold was also shipped back to Yantai, and then transported back to China at an opportunity. It will be used as a reserve for future local financial reform (gold standard).

On October 11, more than 4,000 people from Chen Zhilong's army, who served as the vanguard, took the lead (supplemented by 1,000 troops) and arrived in Zichuan County. Dong Xueli, who was ordered by Luck Dehun and Li Shutai to stay behind, after defeating Chen Zhilong's troops. Before he had time to rejoice, he was soon bitten by Qin Shangxing's department and the 1st Battalion of the Eight Banners New Army, which came one after another. At the same time, Zhai Congge, Xie Qian and other subordinates, who had been fighting with them intermittently for a few days, also clung to it. After a siege, Dong Xueli, who had lost more than 1,000 troops, and his nephew Dong Dalang and the remaining 2,000 soldiers surrendered very simply.

Mo Ming still attaches great importance to Dong Xueli, who can fight and fight, this guy took more than 3,000 people to kill more than 1,500 people in Xie Qian's department and more than 500 people in Zhai Cong's department, and then defeated more than 1,000 people in Chen Zhilong's department (this guy also took the troops as the vanguard), which is simply a small and strong general storage zài. Among them, his 2,000 old brothers brought from Gansu played a crucial role.

However, no matter how much Mo Dashuai appreciates him, everything has to be done according to the rules, and after the whole army of Dong Xueli's department cut off his braids and killed a group of captured Qing court officials, he was initially accepted. Well, there are also black materials about Nurhachi and Huang Taiji, Dolgon, Azig, Abatai and others, and the widows of the old slaves, as well as the yellow novels of Shunzhi's mother, which will be added in the future, otherwise they will never be counted as their own people. Of course, before that, Dong Xueli's only nephew Dong Dalang (Dong Xueli's younger brother's only son, in 1644, when Dong Xueli wrote a letter to surrender Chen Zhilong, the secret letter was intercepted by Niu Chenghu, Dong Xueli's younger brother and only son were killed, so Dong Dalang is actually the only descendant of Dong Xueli's two brothers) will go to Yantai to rest first, and by the way, he will study politics.

Xie Qian, the so-called leader of the righteous army who gave Sun Zhiqi "planting", also came to meet Mo Dashuai of the three provinces of Shandong, Zhili and Henan at this time. Under his orders, a batch of Jeju Island-made bows, crossbows, arrows, and leather armor were sent to his army, and he also rewarded Xie Qian himself with a high-grade armor, a beautiful command knife, ten catties of tobacco, and a box of valuable canned pickled whale meat.

After Xie Qian experienced a tug-of-war with Dong Xueli's Ministry (in fact, he was abused most of the time), most of his arrogance was also defeated, and when he saw the famous Mo Dashuai, he directly expressed his willingness to take refuge. Mo Ming didn't take Qiao at this time, and after agreeing, he sent a group of officers and non-commissioned officers into Xie Qian's army to help him eliminate the old and weak and retrain the troops.

After entering and occupying Zichuan County, the next move of the army on the east bank was placed in front of everyone. This kind of thing was generally Mo Ming's arbitrariness in the past, and this time was no exception, I saw him ask the staff officer to hang out a hand-drawn map, and then directly scratched his finger on it, and said: "According to the reconnaissance of the past two days, the department of Luck Dehun has gone west, and it is estimated that it has returned to Jinan." This kid is also dizzy, and the rabble of more than 20,000 people at hand dare to come face to face with me, which is eating leopard gall. Now when we go back, we should be determined to exterminate the Yuyuan army and the bandits swarming in various places, we can't let him be so wishy-washy, so we need to continue to contain and attack the Qing army, so that it will be difficult to take care of and exhausted. According to this line of thinking, we should have gone west to Jinan, which is only six or seven days' journey, but we can't do that now. ”

"Why can't you do that?" Mo Ming asked and replied to himself. "It's simple. The supply of ammunition we are carrying now does not allow us to fight several large-scale battles under the city of Jinan. Ladies and gentlemen. Jinan is the heart of Shandong, and God knows how many Qing troops we will encounter and how many battles we will have to fight after rushing there. The problem of food is easy to solve, it is autumn, it is not difficult to obtain, but it is difficult to obtain other supplies. Therefore, I decided to clear the flank threat and contact a part of the Yuyuan Army first, and then continue to advance westward depending on the situation. So. Our next goal is Binzhou! Defeat the remnants of the Qing army's Binzhou coastal defense commander Li Shuotai's troops, clear this flank threat, and then talk about the rest! ”

A few days ago, Li Shutai, the commander-in-chief of Binzhou Town, had led 15,000 people to Qingzhou to join up with Luckdehun. This guy is still a strict army, when he left Qingzhou, he brought 10,000 demoralized green battalions, and there were more than 8,000 people when he set off to Jinan overnight, and the equipment was roughly complete, which can be called a "famous general".

After Li Shutai led the main force to Jinan to assist in the defense (Jinan only had more than 1,000 Fubiao plus 2,000 Eight Banner soldiers), there were still nearly 10,000 town troops under the general army of coastal defense in Binzhou. The combat effectiveness of these people is naturally inferior to the more than 10,000 people that Li Shutai brought to Qingzhou, otherwise they would not have been left at home to defend the city. But it's also 10,000 troops. Staying on the flanks was still a great threat, so Mo Ming decided to pull out the nail first.

On October 20, the East Bank Army, carrying a large amount of baggage, finally arrived at the city of Binzhou after ten days. The Changshan, Xincheng, and Gaoyuan along the way were all cities that had been broken by Xie Qian before, and the gentry of Putai County, the only one who had not been attacked by Xie Qian, even scraped together 50,000 taels of silver to buy people on the east coast to go around the city, which was basically a march all the way, so the march was extremely fast.

Binzhou City is the garrison of the coastal defense army, excluding the capable warriors who were taken away by Li Shutai, there are still nearly 5,000 people in the city at this time. In the face of these enemies, Mo Ming didn't say a word, and immediately ordered the artillery to set up positions, and then let the servant army Chen Zhilong, Dong Xueli, Zhai Congge, Qin Shangxing, Xie Qian and other troops attack in turn.

After three days of bombardment, on the 23rd, a large section of the city wall on the south side of Binzhou City was blown down, and various servant armies swarmed in, and Mo Ming even sent the second brigade of the Standing Team into the city to fight to increase combat experience. After the city wall collapsed, the soldiers and horses of the various units that entered the city in turn had a total of about 17,000 people, which was naturally not something that thousands of Binzhou Haiphong town troops could resist. What's more, the people on the east coast also had artillery to help, so after resisting for half a day, the Qing army in the city suffered two thousand casualties, and the remaining two or three thousand people were finally surrendered by Dong Xueli, and Binzhou was defeated.

In this battle, the servant armies of various departments were still the most seriously killed and injured by Chen Zhilong and Xie Qian's department, and Dong Xueli's department was also okay. Among them, Xie Qian's department, although the combat strength is not good, but it is also quite brave when fighting a smooth battle, killing and wounding more than 700 Qing troops before and after, and more than 400 casualties of their own, which is commendable.

On the 28th, the army on the east bank entered Zhanhua County, and Dong Xueli came forward to say that the Qing army defending the city would surrender to guerrilla, and the 2,000 Qing troops would surrender; On the 31st, the army arrived in Haifeng County, and Dong Xueli, who was the general of the Haifeng battalion, directly pulled out the 1,000 old brothers who stayed at home and lined up to shave their hair, and Haifeng County once again took it bloodlessly. At this point, in addition to the 2,000 Qing troops in Lijin County who fled, the 8,000 soldiers and horses left behind in the entire Binzhou Town disappeared.

The Qing army surrendered in Binzhou Town had increased to more than 5,000 at this moment, of which 2,000 (including 1,000 of his old troops) were assigned to Dong Xueli to reward his merits, and the remaining 3,000 were assigned to Xie Qian, Zhai Congge, Qin Shangxing and other departments. In this way, the number of servant troops on the east coast hit a record high at this time, with 5,000 people from Chen Zhilong's department, 4,000 people from Dong Xueli's department, 3,000 people from Xie Qian's department, 4,000 people from Zhai Congge's department, and 4,000 people from Qin Shangxing's department, totaling 20,000 people. If these people are added to the soldiers and horses of the East Coast system at this time, the total strength has swelled to an astonishing 36,000 people (including military men).

On November 9, a large number of troops from the east coast marched south from Haifeng to Qingcheng County, and made contact with more than 10,000 volunteers of Ding Mingwu's army who rushed from the west to face Yi. Ding Mingwu saw that the army on the east coast was strong and strong, so he took the initiative to join forces and prepare to attack Jinan Mansion together. Mo Ming naturally had no objection to this, on the contrary, he asked Ding Mingwu to contact some local anti-Qing forces such as the Yuyuan Army and make an appointment to attack Jinan City together.

The new governor of the Heishui region may have arrived at Yantai Port at this moment, and Mo Ming, who was about to leave office, decided to take advantage of the empty strength of the Qing army to see if he could have a chance to take Jinan, as a New Year's gift to the newly appointed captain of the Heishui Pioneer Team. It's just that things in the world can't be so satisfactory, on the 11th, Mo Ming, who was halfway through, got the news of the scout, and Niu Chenghu, the general soldier of Qingyizhou Town, had led an army of 20,000 to the north and went straight to Jinan. In addition, Le Ke Dehun and Li Shuitai, who were suppressing bandits in Dongchang and Yanzhou, also led their troops back to Jinan, vowing not to let the yellow-clothed thieves take this famous city that bears the great prestige of the whole country.

In the farther provinces of Henan and Beizhili, the Qing court, which had received an urgent report, was also mobilizing troops again and again. The Qing court, which was in dire straits, ordered seven or eight general troops from all over Henan and Hebei to expand their troops by absorbing local bandit forces and forcibly pulling strong men, and at the same time rushed to Dongchang and Yanzhou to quell the rebellion, and waited for an opportunity to support Jinan. In such a situation, Mo Ming's so-called gift seems to be gradually becoming a bubble with the rapid expansion of the Qing army's strength. (To be continued......)