Guangzhou Mansion, Zhang Qiang met He Jin, He Jin, as a commander, of course he couldn't go to the front line casually, he sat in Guangzhou Mansion and commanded the operation.

Out of Guangzhou Mansion is Nanming's territory, and as an important border town, he can't leave casually.

One field brigade was stationed in Guangzhou Prefecture, one field brigade was stationed in the county seat on the Xiangshan side, another field brigade was stationed in the northern prefecture and county, and then above was Xuanyuan Longfei's Fifth Field Brigade, which was guarding against Kong Youde in Guangxi.

In ancient times, Guangdong and Guangxi Prefecture were not as distinct as in modern times, and Kong Youde occupied most of Guangxi, as well as part of Guangdong, forming a de facto separatist force, and everyone named that area after the actual territory he occupied, so it is said that Kong Youde occupied Guangxi, in fact, he also occupied a part of Guangdong in later generations.

Although Longwu Nanming occupies a province in Guangdong, in fact, this situation is changing every day, depending on the territory actually occupied.

But this is not important, the important thing is that now Kong Youde has no obvious intention of going to war with Longwu Nanming, both sides are heavily guarding the border, and Longwu Nanming can use limited troops, because most of the troops have been sent to the border area, only a part of the defense of the seaside, a very small part of the troops, because the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty has not treated the Portuguese of several hundred people as a big force.

Now only a part of the armed regular army can be mobilized to cooperate with the village bravery, regimental training, and the official service in the yamen, and they are caught to deal with it, but they have to increase their troops, 20,000 soldiers and horses, plus more than 3,000 soldiers and horses collected from the landlords and gentry, as well as the regular army, and more than 2,000 people of the forbidden army are in a group with the Portuguese who suddenly recruited several thousand soldiers.

"What's the situation?" Zhang Qiang asked as soon as he saw He Jin.

He Jin was very serious, "The Grand Duke, in fact, the Portuguese recruited mercenaries, they paid for it, recruited thousands of Tessie mercenaries from Batavia, there were Spaniards, there were British, and the Dutch, among them, the Dutch cooperated the most actively, they not only paid to recruit people, but also recruited Indians from the Dutch territory East Indies, some of them looked similar to us, the style was barbaric and hearty, good at using scimitars, brave in battle, not many people, but very powerful. ”

Zhang Qiang couldn't think of how powerful these people could be, so he just asked, "How much more have their current troops than before?" ”

He Jindao: "The Portuguese are said to have 1,200 people, 45 warships, the Dutch, the real Dutch army of 1,600 people, 31 warships, more than 100 Spanish mercenary merchant ships, 11 British warships, 2,100 troops, and other trading merchant ships outside the harbor have been hired by them, about 1,000 ships, these merchants' sailors and family members, a total of 3,000 troops, but none of them participated in the battle with the Southern Ming Kingdom, they are all waiting. ”

"Oh, who are those people who fought and died with Nan Mingguo before?"

"How can you fight so fiercely with Nanming's army, and it's still half a catty?"

Zhang Qiang asked strangely.

He Jindao: "According to the results of the investigation by the Ministry of Military Intelligence, those people are the people mentioned above by Weichen, mercenaries, Malays, Brunei, and Manilans, as well as the Ming pirates, officers and soldiers who have defected to Portugal and other Taixi people, and even heard that these previous battles were commanded by some officers and soldiers of the Qing army, and those officers and soldiers were all deserters and generals who had fought with our army before and fled in the past, as well as these Indian gray ghosts, who were not slippery, and the tribal warriors of the Tusi Tou people who did not know which mountain they came out of,"

"Are there a lot of these people?" Zhang Qiang asked without changing his face.

"Many, quite a lot, especially the Indians with gray cattle, and the monkey-like Vietnamese, oh, by the way, there are also the Japanese ronin, the Japanese ronin are as powerful as those savage scimitar mercenaries, and they don't want to kill them, and the Ming army is always on the verge of victory when these people suddenly rush out from the side for a while, and then collapse, and then the gray cattle artillery commanded by the Portuguese add a few more cannons, and the Ming army is even more panicked.

Several battles are like this, the Ming army now has no way, can only continue to increase troops, continue to recruit troops, pull strong Ding, gather troops, anyway, in terms of troops, the foreign is not as strong as the Southern Ming Kingdom, they pull a lot. ”

"Do you think the Ming army of the Southern Ming Kingdom can defeat the Portuguese?" Zhang Qiang asked worriedly.

"Difficult, if it goes on like this, even if it is defeated, it will be a heavy loss, most of the governors know that although they have practiced the tactics of our army, but they still use the previous tactics in essence, many generals still have the previous bad habits, eat empty salaries, and the family is the main combat force, although there are many soldiers, fighting a tailwind war can increase the effect, once defeated, it is an uncontrollable situation.

And from the beginning to the present, the Portuguese, the British, and the Dutch have only attacked once, and hundreds of dead and wounded people will no longer attack, but use these cannon fodder-like mercenaries to consume the strength of the Ming army, wait for the opportunity, and at the same time train the musket skills of the gray Indians, I am afraid that the situation will change at that time. ”

"What are they waiting for?" Zhang Qiang asked.

He Jin shook his head, "Wechen doesn't know what they're waiting for, but Wechen knows that if they add another fire and a little pressure, they will definitely send troops, otherwise, Xiangshan will be recovered by our army, and the materials on their territory won't be supported for long, although there are ships that can be transported from outside, but they, the Taixi people, are profit-seeking, and they will definitely lose money after a long time, so they will not wait too long, they will fight back, and then they will know what they want." ”

"No matter what they want, it has nothing to do with us anyway, where is the territory of the Southern Ming Kingdom, our main opponent now is the Qing army, you just need to be vigilant, I'll take people to the battlefield to see, you guard here, don't let them fight over." If they dare to hit me, hit me hard. Zhang Qiang said.

"Yes, Metropolitan Governor, Wechen will definitely not let them take advantage." He Jindao.

"Have a good relationship with Nan Mingguo, we can't start a war in several directions now, we knocked the Portuguese with a stick, we can't let them pick up Nan Mingguo to fight us, you can't completely trust Nan Mingguo, let the people below guard against it."

Zhang Qiang reminded He Jin.

"Metropolitan Governor, Weichen understands that I Lao He will have a heart for the Ming Dynasty at any time." Zhang Qiang smiled, he remembered that He Jin was originally a slippery peasant rebel army, the leader of the rogue, and this human temperament could not be changed, and he had been fighting against the Ming Dynasty for half his life.

"Metropolitan Governor, you go to the territory of Nanming Kingdom, do you want to bring more troops, although the number of guards around you is also quite large, and there are also a lot of troops, but after all, you are walking on the territory of other countries, you are now equivalent to the king of a country, don't be hasty."

"In this case, the militia brigade, one should be enough, five thousand men and horses. Guangzhou Mansion is so close to the Trench Gate, you can also bring troops to help if you have a problem. ”

"There is no artillery in your team, bring another artillery brigade, anyway, after a while, the new newly formed artillery brigade will come from Tingzhou Mansion."

"Well, well, I'm not a pretentious person, I can't let you worry too much, just bring it, and transfer another baggage regiment to keep up, so that the total strength reaches fifteen thousand, and no one dares to hit my attention."

(End of chapter)