On March 4, 1649, outside the city of Yidu County. Mao Desheng crossed his waist with his left hand, held a pipe in his right hand, looked at the road in front of him that had just snowed, and was silent.

On the official road 100 meters away, the soldiers of the East Coast dressed in cotton clothes were walking in the muddy snow, pushing the cart forward with difficulty. The cart was loaded with heavy powder kegs, filled with stocks of gunpowder made in the gunpowder workshops on Yangma Island and Jeju Island, and the horses pulling the cart were driven forward by the whip, and with the help of more than 20 soldiers, the carriage was pulled out of a mud pit.

And behind them, a heavy 12-pounder cannon. This long-barreled heavy cannon is extremely heavy, and it is a high-ratio gun designed and forged for the Far Eastern theater of the country, and it has a long range, but it is its great siege ability that it can boast of the most. At this time, this terrifying siege weapon was also struggling in the muddy ground, and the four Mongolian horses were neighed loudly by the reins, and dozens of soldiers pushed and dragged the cannon, which made the cannon move slowly.

The men were exhausted by this time, but the officer who led the team still did not let the next rotation go into battle, but he wore muddy leather boots and encouraged them in thick Chinese, asking them to hold out for the last five minutes and transport the gun to the gun emplacement.

Rumbling artillery was still being heard ahead, as field artillery (mostly light small-caliber artillery) arrived earlier was shelling enemy positions. The Qing army also built several fortified camps on the hills outside the county seat of Yidu (i.e., Qingzhou City), which housed green battalions transferred from Dongchang Province, as well as some Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners to supervise the war, so they were more resistant to the attacks launched by the people on the east coast.

And with these walled cities. Outside the city, the army on the east bank was like a thorn in the back. Unable to storm the city with all its might. Especially at a time when artillery units were lagging behind due to the poor condition of the roads. The army on the east coast could only rely on its own flesh and blood to attack the established positions of the Qing army. However, these soldiers of the green battalion of the Qing army did not know whether they had taken the wrong medicine or what, and their resistance was quite resolute, which surprised the people on the east coast.

Although the East Coast people guessed not very accurately, they were not very far from the truth. After Jiang Huang's rebellion in January, the Qing court lost its square inch for a while, and Dolgon, who actually held the power of the Qing court, judged at the first time: this rebel army must be exterminated as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the impact will be extremely bad. But the extermination of Jiang Jiu and the various Shanxi rebels who responded to his uprising needed troops, but now what the Qing court lacked in the north was troops!

The yellow-clothed thieves killed by heaven made too much trouble in Shandong, and then the Yuyuan Army, the Qingshan Thieves, the Mule Army, the Tuan Lian Army, the Dongping Thieves, and the Li Huajing Righteous Army also responded, so that the Qing court transferred almost all the mobile forces in the north to Shandong, with a total of 150,000 soldiers in the Seven Majors and more than 30,000 in the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners. A total of 180,000 troops were trapped in Shandong, but their opponents, the yellow-clothed thieves, were only 50,000 or 60,000 (most of them were still rabble), and the embarrassment of this made the Qing generals in Shandong speechless.

Since Shandong has attracted so many troops, how many more troops can I use in the Qing Dynasty? Dolgon did the math, and there were no more than 40,000 Manchurians in Manchu and Manchu - almost all of them were Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners stationed in Beijing. Oh, maybe there aren't 40,000 anymore. Because the veteran Jierharang has led more than 10,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners to the south, to Jiujiang, Jiangxi. The campaign to suppress the "rebellion" of Jin Shenghuan and Wang Deren was organized in an all-round way, so the number of Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners in Beijing is now less than 30,000.

The world of the Ming Dynasty is too big! All the strong men over the age of 14 and under the age of 60 in Manchuria were conscripted, and with the addition of the Eight Mongol Banners, the total number was only 140,000, and even with the addition of 20,000 or 30,000 Han Army Banners (the number at the time of entering the customs has now increased, and most of them are fighting in the south), this force is still not enough. Now, these more than 100,000 people have been sprinkled out like pepper noodles in the past two years, which makes the northern land extremely empty.

There are only 30,000 soldiers in Beijing, and there are more than 10,000 people who can be dispatched. In addition, the 15,000 Manchurian and Mongolian cavalry guarding Tianjin and the thousands of Eight Banners guarding Jinzhou (the military industrial base) were also unable to move, and these were all important armed forces defending Beijing.

Some of the 10,000 Eight Banners in Nanjing are now traveling south with Chen Tai to conquer Zhejiang and Fujian, some are heading west to the Jiujiang area to respond to Jierharang's Nanchang offensive, and the rest are guarding Nanjing, a city of great political significance, and there is no time to get out. And the several Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners that are fighting in Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan have a total of 20,000 or 30,000 people, and it seems that among these people they can send 10,000 people to Shanxi, but for the time being, they may be cheaper than He Zhen and Zhang Xianzhong. In addition, thousands of Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners stationed in Xi'an, Yan'an, and Yulin can also be transferred eastward to the north, and by the way, the road for Jiang Jiu to flee north to the desert can be cut off as quickly as possible.

After such calculations, the Qing court was able to draw out not many troops, probably only 25,000 people from the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners (10,000 from Beijing, 10,000 from the western front, and 5,000 from the east to northern Shaanxi), and they were stationed in various places, so it was not easy to assemble for a while. Under such circumstances, Dolgon decisively decided to transfer another 20,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners from the Shandong battlefield to the north, and quickly entered Shanxi through the north and west to calm the local chaos.

In this way, the total number of Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners who went to Shanxi to quell the chaos will reach about 45,000, which should be able to make up for the dilemma of insufficient cannon fodder in the lower green battalion. It's just that now the yellow-clothed thieves in Shandong are "very rampant", and they have been fighting with the Qing army at the junction of Qingzhou Mansion and Laizhou Mansion for several months, and a large number of Qing troops have been dragged here and cannot move. Now, if you want to transfer more than 20,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners from Shandong, which is intricately shaped, to go north—if possible, and then send tens of thousands of Kanzhan Green Battalions to Shanxi together, it is necessary to stabilize the yellow-clothed thieves.

Therefore, in early February, Dolgon appointed Le Kedehun, the commander-in-chief of Jinan, to lead the military affairs of the three provinces of Beizhili, Shandong, and Henan, and hoped that the armies of Shandong would "cooperate sincerely and concentrate on suppression, so as not to cause the thieves to rise back and cause chaos in the youth and economy."

In mid-February, as Mao Desheng received news of the withdrawal of the Qing army, which was almost impossible to conceal from such a large-scale troop movement, the army on the east bank began to move frequently to advance westward, at which point Dolgon gave a second order to Shandong: "The thieves are cunning and skillful. If they are unable to resist, they should be deeply ditched and fortified to resist the thief army. The soldiers and generals of Shandong Province will give them colorful satin gold, first give the March military salary, make meritorious service on the other day, and seal the wife and shadow son, and hope that the army will be reluctant."

At the same time, on February 15, the Qing court also sent someone to Mao Desheng, who was urging people to march westward, to send a letter of surrender, which was conclusive: "The Qing Dynasty should carry Longxing, and Haojie responded." In the past, Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui and others knew the location of the destiny of heaven, changed their hearts and faces, and they were rewarded; When you judge the situation, abandon the darkness and turn to the light, enjoy wealth and wealth, and make achievements in the world; Otherwise, such as Li Chuang and others, their bodies are shattered, their wives are humiliated, Dafu is no more, and Yin Jian is not far away......"

Mao Desheng of course ignored this kind of nonsense-ridden surrender letter, and after sending people to send away the Qing court envoys, he repeatedly urged all departments to speed up the march, and resolutely could not let the Qing army retreat smoothly.

Before Jiang Xuan's rebellion, the Qing army had less than 20,000 men confronting the East Coast army at the junction of Qingzhou and Laizhou, while the rest of the main force of the Qing army (including nearly 20,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners) exterminated the Yuyuan Army and other bandits who had threatened the rule of the Qing court in Jinan, Dongchang and Yanzhou. After the news of the drastic change in Datong came, the Qing court quickly made the decision to withdraw the army, so Tan Tai first took 15,000 Eight Banner soldiers to leave the battle immediately, and immediately went north from Yanzhou Mansion after assembling.

After these elite troops were withdrawn, the Qing army on the front line also withdrew with lightning speed before the people on the east bank reacted, and then stationed in the existing positions that had already been renovated in the rear, intending to make every effort to block the westward advance of the yellow-clothed thieves, so as to buy enough time for Luck Dehun in Jinan Prefecture to adjust his deployment. And Yidu County is the first line of their resistance, and it is also the most powerful line of defense, and the people on the east bank only need to break the Qing army blocking here, and then they can rush all the way to Jinan Province, and there is no strong obstruction along the way. Therefore, this is also destined to be a fierce battle for Qingzhou City.

Since the beginning of late February, the cloudy and snowy weather has hindered the pace of the army on the east coast. In particular, the logistics baggage and artillery units spent a lot of time in the muddy snow. In addition, before the Qing army withdrew, it deliberately destroyed the official road, which added countless difficulties to the march of the army on the east coast. Therefore, it was not until today (March 4) that the siege artillery arrived belatedly outside Qingzhou under the shouting of hundreds of soldiers and a large number of mules and horses.

The army's light field artillery arrived two days ahead of them. Before the arrival of the field artillery, the army on the east bank had already launched several rounds of attacks on the camp outside the city held by the Qing army. It's just that I didn't expect these Qing troops to be extremely stubborn, and there seemed to be eight banners supervising the battle, so the East Coast army has never been able to completely solve these thorns behind them. At that time, a servant battalion who participated in the attack on the Qing army camp (more than 400 people from Ding Ming's army, almost all of whom were rabble), was defeated and lost under the counterattack of those Eight Banner soldiers, and only 126 people remained after the defeat of the entire battalion that was attacked, which can be described as extremely tragic.

Mao Desheng has no mercy for these motley troops. After seeing these troops being slaughtered and scattered by the Qing army, he changed a group of servant troops into battle with an expressionless face and continued to consume the strength of the Qing army. After a few days of this, the army's field light artillery finally reached the front.

After the artillery arrived at the front, Mao Desheng did not rush to order an attack on all fronts. Instead, the artillery was first allowed to use limited ammunition to carry out directional strikes at some strong strongholds of the Qing army, so as to continue to destroy the opponent's resistance and will. After two days of bombardment, Mao Desheng saw that the time was ripe and finally decided to launch a general attack on the Qing army camp outside the city.

At twelve o'clock at noon on 4 March, thousands of well-fed servants finished their formation under the command of the officer. Then Mao Desheng waved his hand, and in the whistling sound of artillery shells, these soldiers rushed towards the Qing army camp with a shout.

The offensive and defensive battle of Qingzhou is officially in full swing! (To be continued......)