On March 6, 1645, a northwesterly wind blew up.

As the supreme commander of Yantai Fort, Mo Ming stood in the city tower and looked out, and everywhere he saw was a large group of Qing cavalry wearing foam nail armor and lightning rods. Some scouts from the east coast, dressed in warm sweaters and simple cavalry cuirass, fought with them from time to time, and in groups of five or six of them, they could often beat the Manchu Eight Banners cavalry of more than ten people and flee. However, they soon retreated into the distance under the pursuit of the Manchu cavalry that had gathered in the roar.

Both sides have been playing such a bloody and cruel game in the wild these days. According to statistics, the original 186 scouts of the security team have lost more than 30 people in the fighting over the past few days. Of course, they also lost more than 50 of the veteran Manchu hunters who grew up in the white mountains and black waters. These people are almost all elite white-armored soldiers who have fought in old battles, and their losses have made Haoge, who is the commander of the Qing army and the owner of the Blue Banner, very distressed, and at the same time made him even more angry at this so-called yellow-clothed pirate on the east coast.

He had already decided that after capturing the city of the people on the east coast, he would order the slaughter of the city, leaving no one in the city! He was very confident that he now had more than 60,000 or nearly 70,000 troops on hand, as well as more than a dozen red-coated cannons urgently transported from Jinzhou, and it would not be a problem to break through a city guarded by only a few thousand people. Moreover, he must also break this city, otherwise some people in the court will find an excuse to be against him, and he is even more angry when he thinks of this, that throne was originally mine!

"Has Qin Shangxing's subordinates been settled?" Mo Ming turned his head to Li Wenchang, the captain of the Yantai Fortress garrison who was following him, and said. Li Wenchang was born as an artillery officer, and when Mo Ming led the army to attack in the past, this gentleman has always served as the important task of staying behind in the rear, and this time he was appointed by Mo Ming as the captain of the garrison. At present, he still has a lot of troops in his hands, including 400 gunners, 390 musketeers (including 150 supplementary soldiers), and the second brigade of the forward team (2,000 people), with a total strength of about 2,800 people. At least. The sixteen artillery pieces deployed by the people on the east coast on the front were already unimaginable to many Qing troops, not to mention the four 12-pounder long-barreled cannons and two 18-pounder long-barreled cannons for long-range suppression.

"Qin Shangxing brought 4,000 people, but only half of them were able to fight, and the training staff officers had already sent the eliminated people to Zhifu Island to build lighthouses, coastal defense batteries and other facilities. The remaining 2,000 men are currently undergoing training, and the four transport ships returning from Jeju Island have been maintained, and it is almost time to transport them to the island for combat training. After they went up, the three families combined with 5,500 troops, and the Koreans on the island were only 30,000 or 40,000, so it didn't take much effort to control them. Li Wenchang replied immediately.

"Zhai Congge, who took refuge first, has the closest relationship with us and has the highest loyalty. Let him lead the Jeju Mansion. Wang Jiazhong defeated Jingyi County, and then assisted Zhai Congge to send troops to attack Dajing County, which was also regarded as a high level of hard work, although there were not many troops, but the rich Jingyi County let him lead it. Qin Shangxing is a poor person to vote. Although the attitude is quite respectful, it is not too trusting at the moment. And he didn't do much. If you can get a Dajing County leader, you can steal it and have fun. Mo Ming put down the binoculars hanging on her chest, turned around and walked down the wide staircase.

A young intern staff officer was leading a group of soldiers with swords to the city tower, and when he saw Mo Ming and the others, he immediately leaned on the edge of the escalator and saluted. Mo Ming returned a military salute, and then continued to go downstairs until they went down the stairs. The trainee staff officer and the squadron leader of the advance team continued to take the soldiers to the head of the city to garrison. These people had just been transferred from the land defense fortress and military camp on Zhifu Island to Yantai Fort. So far, there are quite a few soldiers in Yantai Fort, including 1,000 people from 4 squadrons of the 1st Brigade of the Standing Force, 500 people from two companies of the army, and more than 700 people from one battalion of the Eight Banners, plus artillerymen, agency personnel, and soldiers. It is almost close to 3,000 people, filling this military fortress with an area of less than 50,000 square meters.

"The number of gunners is only barely enough to be divided into two shifts, and it is not very sufficient. Then recruit a group of intelligent, studious and pure people among the Ming people in this place, the number is tentatively set at 200, and they will first be assigned to the forts of Zhifu Island and Kongtong Island for training, and then transferred to Yantai Fort to fight in rotation after they are proficient in business. Remember, artillery is our foundation, we are different from the Qing army, we are a 'modern' army that fights on the basis of artillery, and the level of artillery directly determines the level of our combat effectiveness, so train them well. Mo Ming admonished Li Wenchang.

Li Wenchang is a veteran artillery officer, so he naturally understands the importance of the matter, and at the same time, he deeply believes that he is going to take people to the homeless settlement area of Zhifu Island to slowly select personnel later.

There were more and more Qing cavalry outside the city, and the combat space of the scouts of the security team was greatly compressed, and after seeing that they could no longer take advantage of anything, they bypassed the east city of Yantai Fort with the assistance of the cavalry brigade led by Lieutenant Yang Mingyang, and galloped to the dock northeast of Yantai Fort after passing through the wooden gate between the two barbed wire. A small brick and wood mixed structure was built here, which was the station of the cavalry battalion. In the north of the camp is a large area of sand bar meadow, and the people on the east bank have built a low wooden fence here with wood, which is full of cattle, sheep, mules, horses, pigs and other livestock captured in previous battles, and the forage field is also built next to it.

This camp (including livestock pens and forage fields) is built on the shore near Zhifu Bay, and there is an open field about 300 meters wide in front of it. The open land was devoid of anything but a shallow trench and two barbed wire fences erected by the people on the east bank. However, the Qing army did not dare to come over at this time to pick up the bargain, they were not stupid, once their brigade entered this unobstructed open land, they would be attacked from both sides by the city tower on the left and the warships on the sea on the right, and those heavy artillery could blow them up to death.

After the cavalry brigade suffered a lot of losses in the Battle of Anqiu, Mo Ming incorporated all the remaining 103 Polish mercenaries, plus some of the officers and soldiers who returned from injury, and the current strength has recovered to about 500 people. Among them, there are more than 300 Poles and nearly 200 cavalry from the Shun Army, and their strength is even slightly improved compared with before the war. They lined up in neat formations, dressed in silver cavalry cuirasses, saddle bags with various weapons, and a pistol with ammunition hanging from their waists. After confronting the seven or eight hundred Qing troops for a while, they slowly turned their horses' heads, retreated behind the barbed wire, and then dismounted, but still watched the Qing cavalry in the distance vigilantly.

Leaning against a shelter at the corner of the wall, Zamparini took a pipe from his pocket, and carefully took a pinch of tobacco from his pocket, filled and compacted it into the pipe, and took a sharp puff on the brazier next to him, and a look of satisfaction appeared on his face. To his left was the old fellow An Dahai, the Guarani man with a bitter expression on his face, his rifle in his arms, and his military hat unconsciously fiddled with in his hand. Private Lin Xiaohu sat on his right, sharpening his bayonet on a watered green brick. During the Battle of Anqiu, the young man fired two shots at the Qing cavalry outside the array of the Eight Banners New Army, but unfortunately he did not get much, which made him not very satisfied.

Deputy company commander Gao Shan walked over wrapped in a military coat. When Zamparini saw him from afar, he immediately complained, "Vice-President Gorien, there has been no new tobacco for a long time, and even the frequency and quantity of beer have been reduced considerably, and the brothers are very upset. ”

Gao Shan kicked Zamparini's ass hard when he heard this, then snatched the pipe from his mouth, and after taking two puffs, he said angrily: "Everyone is like this, you still complain about a fart!" It's been a long time since I've picked up tobacco, and now I can't help but smell it. ”

Zamparini gave him a blank look, turned his head to look out of the walls from the observation hole next to him, and then shouted excitedly as if he had discovered a new continent: "Hey, look, their troops are coming." The true god is above, why do they have so many cavalry! At least two...... Well, more than three thousand. ”

"No, at least four thousand." Gao Shan, who also glanced out with his head in his head, immediately corrected, "The four thousand people are all light cavalry with armor, and their riding skills look so-so, but the morale should be good, and the organization is also very high. Look at them, thousands of cavalry shuttled outside the city, and they were able to do it without major chaos, and this kind of obedience and organization was not something that any random army could do. At least the gauchos of La Plata could not do this, and of course they had never organized such a large cavalry force. ”

"There shouldn't be all the cavalry of the Qing army here, and it's likely that their main force hasn't appeared yet." An Dahai put on the military hat that he had been fiddling with at hand, and said with a sad face: "So our cavalry brigade has become an ornament in an instant. More than 500 people against thousands or even tens of thousands of cavalry, they will die a miserable death, no matter how much advantage their training, morale and equipment have, the Qing cavalry, which is absolutely superior in numbers, is not something they can provoke. ”

"I haven't seen their artillery units yet. Maybe it's still to come? Zamparini still looked out without blinking, and subconsciously said, "Oh, what is that?" Volunteer civilians on horseback? They don't have uniforms, they should be civilians, right? Oh, they look like they requisitioned a decent number of civilians, who came to dig fortifications and gun emplacements? It looks like this, you see, a lot of them are starting to dig there. ”

"No, you're not familiar with the Qing Kingdom. These were called followers, and were generally filled by prisoners of war or plundered civilian slaves. Hearing Zamparini's words, Gao Shan was stunned at first, and then explained with a sneer. (To be continued......)