Shao Shude has been sitting in Yantai Port for several months. The situation in Shandong is quite delicate now, but it seems that there is no possibility of a major war in the short term.

In the more than four months after the conquest of Jinan, the army on the east bank took advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Qing army gathered in Shanxi to quell the rebellion of Jiang Ping, Wang Yongqiang, Gao Youcai, Han Zhao and others in the area, and quickly cleared the remnants of the Qing army in Shandong. In late June, the main force of infantry and cavalry led by Mao Desheng attacked Dezhou in the north, and the Qing army retreated into the territory of Hejian Province after receiving the order.

On June 30, Shao Shude led part of the victorious army southward to attack Gaodi, who had moved north from Huai'an Province, and the remnants of Kong Xigui's army, which had retreated to this place. On July 10, the two sides fought in Yizhou, and the Qing army was defeated, losing more than 2,000 soldiers, and the rest retreated to Xuzhou; In mid-July, the army on the east coast and more than 20,000 peasant troops brought by Du Chong entered Xuzhou together, and after a great battle, the Qing army was defeated again. In early August, after plundering the northern part of Huai'an Prefecture, Shao Shude ordered the troops to return to Jinan.

After returning to Jinan, while nervously organizing the material handling work, he vigorously searched for all kinds of craftsmen needed on the east coast; In the autumn, the people were requisitioned to harvest the grain in the fields, and then all of them were loaded and transported back to Dengzhou. In addition to reserving a small amount of rations for the local people, Shao Shude was unwilling to leave a grain of grain to the Qing army.

By the end of October, the grain harvest in the fields of Jinan, Dongchang, Yanzhou, and Qingzhou was over, and the savings of Jinan City in recent years (Jinan had been slaughtered and looted by the Qing army in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen) had also been emptied by the people on the east coast. Even its walls were torn down. It's no longer the same old look. At this time, the main force of Mao Desheng's army in the northern expedition to Texas. He has just returned from the prefectures and counties of Hejian Province, and at the same time he is driving a large number of people and cattle and sheep. Both the common people and the cattle and sheep will be sent to Dengzhou to be on standby, either to the mainland on the east coast, or to Sakhalin Island in the rear after the beginning of spring.

At the beginning of November, the vanguard of the Qing army, composed of thousands of Mongolian horse teams, successively broke through the Yuyuan Army in the area of Hejian Fu and Guide Mansion, which was the first time that the Eight Banners appeared near the left side of Shandong for more than half a year; November 10th. More news came from the Yuyuan army, which was retreating one after another: the Qing army had conquered Datong one after another, and Jiang Pai was defeated; Due to the tense situation in Shandong, after Dolgon broke through Datong, he immediately ordered the king of Jingjin County, Nikan, to lead thousands of people from the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners to attack the provinces of Henan and Beizhili on the border with Shandong, so as to quickly stabilize the situation and prevent the war from completely spreading to the northern provinces. Therefore, the situation in Shanxi has not been completely calmed down at that time, except for Jiang Pai and Wang Yongqiang, there are many "rebels" who are guarding the city in the rest of the country, so the main force of the Eight Banners led by Tan Tai, Man Dahai, Boluo and others is still "pacifying the thieves" with Wu Sangui, Li Guohan, Shi Tingzhu, Zuo Mengeng and other Han army generals.

Of course, the above news was not brought by the Yuyuan Army. Rather, it was deduced by Mao Desheng, Shao Shude, Zhang Xudong, Yang Mingyang and other major military and political officials on the east coast through various sources and historical trajectory judgments. In fact, their judgment is very accurate and basically in line with the facts.

Although it was determined that the main force of the Qing army was still difficult to assemble to attack Shandong for a while, Shao Shude did not plan to continue to stay in the area of Jinan Prefecture. After a long year of fighting, the soldiers on the east coast were a little tired, so it was better to return to Dengzhou as soon as possible. It is also a good time to take this opportunity to discuss meritorious deeds and reward, and completely reorganize the servant armies of various departments.

At the beginning of December, as more and more Qing troops appeared in the areas of Beizhili and Henan, Shao Shude finally led the army to leave Jinan City and go straight to Dengzhou Mansion. This time, because the ships had been requisitioned to transport the immigrants, the army could only walk back on two feet. After Shao Shude withdrew, the main force of the East Coast Army led by Mao Desheng also began to slowly converge and evacuated Jinan Mansion in turn. Before they left, they also sent a large number of messengers to the anti-Qing rebel camps from all walks of life, and told them bitterly, hoping that they would not make unnecessary sacrifices, and withdraw to Denglai Erfu with the people on the east coast, so as to "take care of each other".

It's a pity that the local thieves such as the Yuyuan Army are reluctant to go east to Dengzhou, and they plan to return to the old camp in Dongchang Mansion to hold on, just like they have done for more than ten years. The other people from all walks of life had more or less the same meaning, only Ding Weiyue's regimental training army, the remnants of Caozhou's Li Huajing anti-Qing rebel army, and a small number of mule troops following Du Chong were willing to go east to Dengzhou to have a look.

Mao Desheng was very sorry for this. He felt that although these people were not very effective in combat, their will to resist the Qing Dynasty was generally very tenacious, at least much stronger than speculators such as Jiang Ting, Jin Shenghuan, and Li Chengdong. As the Qing army calmed down the situation in Shanxi, which was more or less the case in the next few months, the elite main force of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners and a large number of green battalions would also be able to move eastward to Shandong, which would be almost fatal to the anti-Qing rebels in the eastern and western provinces of Shandong. It's a pity that they are all "sitting cowards", not "thieves", and the local consciousness is strong, it is almost difficult to persuade them to give up their nest and go to a place where they are not familiar with life, and most of the final results are exterminated by the Qing court one by one.

After the main force on the east bank withdrew, at the end of December, Tan Tai and Bo Luo also led their troops to arrive in Hejian Province in Beizhili, Wakda, Mandahai, Wu Sangui and others continued to clear in Shanxi, Gushan Ezhen Li Guohan, Shaanxi Governor Meng Qiaofang and others led the army back to Xi'an, because it is reported that He Zhen's house has followed the old road of Li Zicheng's retreat to Hubei, from the mountains of western Huxi and southern Shaanxi, all the way back, and has now approached the left of Xi'an, and the shape is extremely critical, so the two of them cannot help but come back.

Shaanxi is so critical, and Sichuan, which has just been captured by the Qing army a while ago, is even more unbearable. In June, Zhang Xianzhong's army besieged Chengdu for 100 days, and finally conquered this famous city in Sichuan. Subsequently, Zhang Xianzhong's descendants are expected to lead tens of thousands of troops to the east, capture the eastern Sichuan region, and then go all the way south, recovering Chongqing with lightning speed, and the power is shocking. At the same time, Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi also led part of their troops south to monitor the Ming army of Yang Zhansuo, which was in civil strife, and waited for an opportunity to forge ahead. As for Zhang Xianzhong himself, he and his son Li Dingguo attacked the prefectures and counties near Chengdu, and under the persuasion of Li, they prepared to deepen their roots, learn from Li Chuang's military system in Xiangyang, and planned to use Sichuan as a fundamental business. In the end, he also sent a small number of cavalry into northern Sichuan, recruiting the local Qing army on the one hand, and inquiring about the news in Hanzhong on the other, as if he had the intention of advancing north.

In addition to these two roads, the largest scale on the entire anti-Qing battlefield was the battle of Jingzhou with more than 100,000 people from the left and right battalions sent by Dashun. This army, commanded by Liu Fangliang and Yuan Zong, used superior forces and superior firepower (bronze artillery) to conquer Jingzhou, which had changed hands several times, in one fell swoop, and then consolidated some surrounding prefectures and counties, completely controlling western Hubei in its own hands.

After conquering Jingzhou, they built a fortress with a fortress style on the one hand on the site of the Jingzhou city wall, which had been almost completely destroyed (Jingzhou had been fiercely attacked and defended since the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the city wall was damaged strictly), and on the other hand, they raised troops to march east and threaten Hanyang. In mid-August, the front battalion of the Dashun Army, Gao Yigong, attacked Wuchang City on the south bank of the Yangtze River, but the main force of the left and right second battalions led by Liu Fangliang and Yuan Zong suffered a major defeat under Hanyang City, and was pursued and killed by Kong Youde and Shang Kexi (Geng Zhongming and Shen Zhixiang had been transferred east due to the slow progress of the Jiangxi battlefield), and the loss of troops amounted to more than 20,000 people. Under this unfavorable general trend, Gao Yigong was also forced to abandon Wuchang, which had been occupied, and retreated to the Jiugong Mountain area in the southwest of Wuchang Mansion again.

After the 100,000 troops of Dashun suffered a rare defeat in Hanyang in recent years, in late September, the regrouped Shun army's left battalion Liu Fangliang went north to attack Xiangyang, but because of the previous defeat in Hanyang, it lost too much artillery, so it was repeatedly unable to overcome, so it could only return in a huff, and Yuan Zong was the first to run Yunyang Mansion, ready to digest the western part of Hubei first. As for their great enemy, Kong Youde and others, because of the strict orders of Jiangxi Jierharang, they are still stationed around Hanyang and do not dare to attack without authorization, so the two sides have also settled down for a while.

It can be seen from this that after the Shanxi Jiang set anyway, what earth-shaking changes have taken place on the battlefields of Sichuan and Huguang, which were temporarily abandoned by the Qing army. Judging from the current situation, it is a high probability that the Qing court will lose the entire territory of Sichuan and the vast part of Hu, and as for when it will be recaptured, it will depend on how well Shandong and Jiangxi, the two battlefields of the south and the north, are fought.

Jiangxi will not talk about him first, even if the number of troops under Zierharang is pitifully smaller than that of the same period in history (without the reinforcements from Wuhan to the east and Nanjing to the west, the number of Eight Banners has also decreased sharply), even if the naval gunboats on the east coast harass the Qing army's ships transporting supplies from time to time, and even if the yellow-clothed thieves make a fuss that the Qing army in western Zhejiang cannot advance westward, Jin Shenghuan, who is defending Nanchang, was still defeated in September 49. After the defeat of Jin, the remnants of his army withdrew to the south-central region of Jiangxi and merged with Wang Deren's department in Ganzhou. The tens of thousands of Qing troops under the command of Jierharang have only carried out a symbolic pursuit of the remnants of the Jin Department because of considerable losses and insufficient food, and the main force is still resting in the Nanchang area.

The Jiangxi battlefield cannot be extricated for the time being, so can the Qing army on the Shandong battlefield make a breakthrough? As it stands, it's hard and hard! The yellow-clothed thieves killed by heaven made Jinan Mansion, Dongchang Mansion, Yanzhou Mansion, and Qingzhou Prefecture almost three feet high, and the Qing troops who had been marching into Shandong since December were even difficult to raise grain and grass, not to mention the city walls that had been demolished everywhere and the official roads that were destroyed in a bad way.

In desperation, the Qing army began to transfer grain from Beizhili, Henan and Jiangbei, but the distant water could not save the near fire, and how could it be raised in a short time. In this way, from the end of December to the middle of March, the more than 100,000 Qing troops who marched into Shandong one after another successively purchased a large amount of grain, grass, and military materials needed for the war, and were in a state of being ready for war at any time. At this time, the Jiaozhou Fort built by the people on the east coast on the north shore of Jiaozhou Bay had also been planted, and the 2,000 soldiers of the Fourth Brigade of the Advance Team had also driven here, and they were all ready. (To be continued......)