On December 22, the artillery on the east bank arrived at the city of Jining Prefecture, and at this time, Gao Di and Kong Xigui had already suppressed the bandits in Guide Mansion -- of course, they also ruined a lot of places by the way, and then began to contact Mel Zhangjing, who was leading a small group of troops and horses to suppress bandits in the area of Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Prefecture, and prepared to raise troops to march eastward.

In the north, Tong Yangliang, the new commander-in-chief of Dengzhou, and Yi Yonggui, the commander-in-chief of Linqing, also led 50,000 troops into the front line of Dezhou and Linqingzhou -- an army of more than 50,000 troops was mobilized only a month after the Qing court issued an edict, and then marched to the north of Shandong, which was also a rare high efficiency among the ancient armies. As for Lu Guonan, the chief soldier of Baoding, he has now raised grain, grass and ordnance, and has begun to travel south, preparing to join the rest of the Qing army in Jinan Prefecture.

As soon as the Qing army came, the people on the east coast who were rushing to transport supplies in the Binzhou area also retreated in a hurry. Cai Huaze, the commander from Dashun, with a few hundred people on hand and five hundred soldiers on the east coast, drove a large group of people from the left side of Binzhou, escorted the harvested grain, and slowly retreated in the direction of Qingzhou. The Qing forces along the way have been swept away, and even if they are lucky enough not to be extinguished, they are frightened, so they are still safe on the way.

The Qing army moved frequently, and Mo Ming didn't know about it yet, because at this time he was personally commanding the siege battle under the city of Jining Prefecture. More than a dozen cannons lined up around the city wall at one time, and the fierce artillery fire was fierce and the bricks and stones on the wall were flying horizontally, and a large part of the city wall exposed the yellow rammed earth inside. The Qing army Zhizhou, who defended the city, beheaded all his wives and concubines and children, and then called on the gentry in the city to give food and people to fight to the death against the yellow-clothed pirates. At the same time, they also spread rumors in the city, saying that the yellow-clothed pirates kill people without blinking, eat people's hearts, and eat their stomachs and lungs. It was very tempting to induce some people who did not know the truth to go to the city to help defend it. And when a few people pointed out that the yellow-clothed thieves distributed the fields of the landlords and gentry to the poor people who had no land to stand on in Dengzhou. These people were soon labeled as pirates, and they were punished on the spot.

Fierce fighting continued. The Qing army at the head of the city shouted loudly to embolden himself, but Mo Ming turned a blind eye. His own troops are not paper-mâché, and he is afraid that he will not be able to defeat Ding Yong, a miscellaneous place that the Qing army has temporarily gathered? Moreover, most of these villagers who were bewitched for a moment and whose blood was on the verge of death would most likely dissipate and disappear after facing the metal storm emitted by the yellow-clothed cannon. After playing in Shandong for so many years, Mo Ming has seen a lot of these situations.

On December 25, the east city wall of Jining collapsed in a large area. Du Chong's subordinates, who were sent by Ren Fuxing, took the initiative to ask for Ying, asking to attack the city and take the state government directly. Mo Ming gave his troops an attack after giving him encouragement. It's just that I don't know if the Qing army bravely defended his hometown with a tenacious fighting spirit, or if Du Chong's department was too vegetable, and after attacking the city at the beginning, it was pushed back, killing and wounding three or four hundred people, and morale was also greatly damaged.

Du Chong's troops retreated in defeat, Mo Ming was not in a hurry, he immediately took Xie Qian out and ordered an immediate attack. Xie Qian and the Qing army had long been incompatible, and at this time, he had nothing to say, and took more than 4,000 brothers to kill them in batches. His troops have undergone a little training. Some of the old and weak and the soldiers have been eliminated, and the combat effectiveness has been improved. Therefore, this time it was finally not pushed back, but relied on the strength of the crowd to kill it step by step.

And at this time, Ding Mingwu, who had already been sent out by Mo Ming, also led his tens of thousands of subordinates to attack from Beicheng with the ant attachment siege method. The Qing army in Jining Prefecture was weak, and most of them were attracted to Dongcheng, and at this moment, they were suddenly defeated with a single blow, and even let hundreds of Feng Feng carefully selected by Ding Mingwu occupy a city.

After Ding Mingwu occupied the head of the city, he immediately relied on an endless stream of reinforcements to defeat the few Qing soldiers who had come over to capture fast and serve the government, and then opened the north gate of the city and let his main force in. At this point, the general trend of the Qing army has gone.

The "rebel army" that rushed into the city immediately began to plunder, and even Du Chong's subordinates fought with some of Ding Mingwu's subordinates for the spoils of war. However, soon the East Coast team entered the city, arrested some soldiers from Du and Ding who had gone too far, and killed them on the spot, which quickly stopped the chaotic situation, and Jining Prefecture finally avoided the bad luck of becoming the second Ziyang County.

After capturing Jining Prefecture, Mo Ming first ordered the black heavy infantry to take control of the treasury. Jining Prefecture is an important node on the Grand Canal, and it is also a prosperous commercial port, with many money and grain in the city's official warehouses and treasury, and even some military funds. In addition, there were many gentry merchants in the city, and there was a lot of money and grain in each family's house. Mo Ming asked the Qing army prisoners to identify one by one, and all the gentry and merchants who had financed the defense of the city in Qing Zhizhou who had died of self-immolation were locked up, and they were sentenced on the spot, and their family property was also confiscated.

When dealing with these trivial matters, the scouts who inquired about the military intelligence also attacked everywhere. There were as many as 350 horsemen under the command of Kurhan, and these hunters from the White Mountains and Black Waters were skilled and well-armed, and they looked more real than real Tartars after wearing the captured Qing army cotton armor and lightning rods. They ran around Yanzhou Prefecture, inquiring about various sources of information and taking the opportunity to draw maps. And with their efforts, news from all sides has also come one after another.

On December 20, Gao Di, the general army of Qing Henan (the part south of the Yellow River in Henan Province), led his troops into Cao County, the capital of Yanzhou, and broke through thousands of soldiers and horses under the command of Zhang Qi of the Yuyuan Army who were besieging the county seat in one fell swoop.

Gao Di's troops with the Liao soldiers of Shanhaiguan as the old foundation won two battles and two victories as soon as they entered Yanzhou Mansion, and such a dazzling record suddenly silenced a group of Yuyuan Army units that had been grabbing a while ago, and also made these rabble realize that they might be able to compete with the local townsmen of the Qing army, but they were also scum against the green battalion of the Qing army, which was experienced on the battlefield.

A few years ago, when Li Zicheng took 60,000 old battalions to attack Shanhaiguan, the opponents of Dashun at that time were Gao Di, the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, and Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan, at that time, Wu Sangui had more than 30,000 soldiers from Ningyuan, and more than 10,000 soldiers from Gaodi, adding up to about 50,000 people. In Li Zicheng's attack on Shanhaiguan, more than half of Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses were killed and wounded (only more than 10,000 people remained after the end of the Battle of Yishi), and Gao Di's soldiers and horses were also heavily killed and wounded, and there were less than 10,000 after the war.

The fate of the two was not very good later, Wu Sangui was thrown into idleness, and Gao Di was only named a Henan general soldier, and his status was even inferior to some of the former Ming local troops who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in Guannei. After recuperating for a period of time in Kaifeng and Guide, Gaodi's soldiers and horses have also expanded to more than 20,000 people, and its combat effectiveness is quite okay because of the large number of veterans. This time he marched into Yanzhou Mansion and took a few small bands of thieves to open the knife, and naturally he was captured.

After learning that Gao Di's department had entered the area of Cao County and Shanxian County, Mo Ming was suddenly a little moved. He himself now has more than 33,000 soldiers and horses, although there are many rabble, but there are also quite a few East Coast Army, South Africa's Eight Banners New Army, and Cavalry Brigade with strong combat effectiveness. In this way, even if the soldiers and horses of Gaodi's department are more durable, it is not impossible to eat the other party. If this aggressive Qing army is eaten, Kong Xigui, the Hebei general soldier who is still suppressing bandits in Guide Mansion, will be frightened, so that two of the seven general soldiers will be removed, and the room for maneuvering behind the people on the east coast will be much larger.

But the dangers are self-evident. Kong Xigui's more than 20,000 soldiers and horses are in Guide Mansion, only two or three days away from Cao County and Shan County. At this time, if the Qing army in Jinan went south again, the people on the east coast would be dumplings. Even if the soldiers on the east bank were well-trained and skillful in battle, and the Qing army could not break through for a while, they only had to surround but not fight, and constantly launched small-scale attacks, and once the army on the east bank was cut off from ammunition and food, there was a danger of annihilation.

After thinking about it all night, Mo Ming finally didn't dare to take the risk. However, he did not retreat immediately, but let the soldiers and horses of Ding Mingwu, Du Chong, Xie Qian and other troops who could not bear the battle carry a large number of captured materials to Zou County and Teng County in advance. And he himself personally sat in Jining Prefecture, sent a large number of envoys to the front line of Yutai, Jiaxiang, Juye, and Yuncheng, contacted the head of the Yuyuan Army, and invited them to Qingzhou for temporary refuge.

It's a pity that most of the Yuyuan army are local bandits, and it is difficult for them to leave their hometown and travel to other places. Moreover, they still have the illusion that the Qing court may have nothing to do with them, because the Qing army has also repeatedly conquered them in the past few years, but they have all returned in vain. Therefore, they thought that this time was the same, and only a few Qu Tou with a keen sense of smell felt that the situation was serious, so they rushed to Jining Prefecture overnight with the looted goods and Dingkou to prepare for joint action with Mo Dashuai of Weizhen Shandong.

On December 29, after the vanguard baggage troops reported to occupy Zou County, Mo Ming was unwilling to wait any longer. He ordered the whole army to retreat eastward, taking with him the last batch of supplies captured in the city of Jining Prefecture, as well as a large number of skilled craftsmen, boatmen, and langs. Even, some of the popular kiln sisters in Jining City were ordered by Chen Zhilong, who was very good at sycophancy, to be put into a sedan chair and brought back to Dengzhou.

On January 1, 1648, Mo Ming led his troops to march slowly to Zou County, at which time the vanguard Xie Qian's troops had reported that they had captured Teng County, which was abandoned by the Qing army; And the Qing Hebei army Kong Xigui has finally exterminated the bandits in the territory of Guide Mansion, and its vanguard has already marched to Cao County, as for the Gaodi department, I don't know whether it is stupid and bold or confident, and even ignored the many bandits around him, and led the main force to the line of Jinxiang and Yutai, which seemed to want to go north to recover Jining Prefecture, and seemed to want to cross the river east to cut off the yellow-clothed thief's return route to the south.

Just when Mo Ming was thinking about whether to fight with Gao Di, a scout came from the direction of Qingzhou Mansion to report that Li Wenchang, the commander of the Yantai garrison, led more than 4,500 foot cavalry and a large number of baggage to help, and has now marched to Yidu County, Qingzhou Prefecture. (To be continued......)