With a long whistle, the shallow water gunboat of the "Amur River" slowly sailed into the Chongmingsha wharf, and then lowered the iron anchor. A group of dock laborers who were captured by the Qing army on the shore came slowly with shackles, and under the supervision of the overseers, they laboriously unloaded some supplies from the gunboats—mainly gunpowder, wrought iron shells, and a batch of repaired armor, knives and guns.

It is said that since Liu Haiyang ordered the end of the battle of the Yangtze River in September last year (1652), it has been five months. In the past five months, most of the troops and horses of Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng's troops have been withdrawn, leaving only a small number of men stationed on the front line of Chongmingsha (mainly the water division), and the people on the east bank jointly guard the bridgehead position at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

The soldiers and horses under the command of Liu Guochang of Dashun were already living under the eaves of the east bank, so naturally there was no saying that they could not be withdrawn, and they have now returned to Yinxian Tunshu. However, when the people on the east coast attacked the front line of Chizhou Mansion and Ningguo Mansion last year, they sent several naval gunboats upstream, carrying more than 1,000 elite troops of Liu Guochang's troops to the territory of the Shun army in Hubei.

In addition, Hao Shangjiu, the new Taihou of the Southern Ming Dynasty, was not in a hurry to withdraw, after they annexed some anti-Qing rebel forces in Ningguofu, the number had skyrocketed to more than 4,000 people (of which only four percent were originally those who followed Hao Shangjiu from Chaozhou to the north), but their combat effectiveness declined. Fortunately, there have been no major battles recently, and they were able to settle in Chongmingsha. While pressing the place, he trained the soldiers. Strive to increase the combat effectiveness a little.

So. In the case that the main force of the army and navy on the east coast has been withdrawn, the current defense of Chongming Sha is all supported by Hao Shangjiu's department, they are the most important armed force in Chongming to defend the city of Qianhu, once the Qing army attacks, they must ensure that they can hold out for 15-30 days, and wait for the army on the east coast to come to the rescue.

Oh, by the way, there are more than 4,000 soldiers on the island except for Hao Shangjiu. There are also hundreds of troops under the command of two generals of "My Great Qing", namely more than 340 people led by Chang Chun, the former Chongming Shouyu Qianhu and more than 270 soldiers led by General Hua Bende. These two surrendered before the Allied army came last year, and later had a better attitude, so they were exempted from the errand of reporting to the hard labor camp, and were trained by Liu Haiyang into two divisions of the Tianyou Army and the Tianzhu Army (this name was purely to disgust the Qing court), and used as security forces.

After the battle, Shao Shude, Liu Haiyang, Wei Boqiu, and others had an exchange on the issue of the departure and stay of the Tianyou Army and the Tianzhu Army, and finally considered that the Japanese company under the name of Deputy Commander Wei Boqiu operated Ezo and could not do without a little armed force at hand. Therefore, he handed over this army of more than 600 men to him, and he took it to the north. Guarding the safety of Kushiro Port, Atsugi Port, and other places - although their combat effectiveness is suspicious, at least they are stronger than mud legs.

A few days ago, Lieutenant Júnior, a staff officer of the first class, arrived at Chongmingsha on a naval gunboat, accompanied by Li Cardo, a former backbone of the Mei organ and a second lieutenant of the current gendarmerie, and read out to Chang Chun and Hua Bende the order of the Heishui Security Command.

Chang Chun and Hua Bende are generals, and their soldiers are also soldiers, coupled with the glorious record of the Yellow Clothes Army in crisscrossing the Yangtze River for half a year last year, killing and wounding more than 16,000 Qing troops, these two people couldn't afford to resist at all, and obediently accepted the order of the security headquarters, and then went to a place where they knew nothing about being soldiers.

To tell the truth, Chang Chun and Hua Bende may not know the situation, but Júnior and Ricardo were a little surprised by their "treatment": because these two troops—oh, by the way, they will be merged into one in the future, and the number is won by Deputy Commander Wei himself, called the First Independent Garrison Brigade, Captain Chang Chun, and Deputy Captain Hua Bende—will not only change into the earthy yellow military uniform of the East Coast standard in Dinghai Harbor, but also throw away the rotten weapons they hold at hand, and uniformly replace them with three-meter spears. armor (a few were also issued muskets); Moreover, it is rumored that in the future, their treatment will be on par with that of the advancing troops, that is, the spearmen will be paid two yuan per month and the musketeers will be paid three yuan per month, including food and lodging.

This kind of treatment is not attainable by most of the servant troops. Let's just say that the servant army of more than 30,000 people in these ten divisions under the control of the people on the east coast, Chen Zhilong, Du Chong, and Dong Xueli, who are the best-paid, generally only has a monthly salary of 1.5-2 taels of silver (the standard of the border army in the late Ming Dynasty), and a small number of horsemen have a monthly salary of only 6 taels of silver (but they have to be responsible for the forage money themselves), and this money does not include miscellaneous expenses such as food and clothing, and the money actually obtained in hand has to be discounted by seven on this basis.

However, fortunately, these servant officers and soldiers can purchase a certain amount of food (including rice noodles, salt, oil, sauce and vinegar, meat, tobacco, liquor, etc.) from the Yantai Military Quartermaster Department at a "subsidized price" (equivalent to half of the market price) every month, which is sold by Sun Chunyangnan's goods store in the army station, which is also a means for the East Coast people to indirectly influence the servant army), which is a great help to many soldiers with family burdens; Coupled with the spoils of war from time to time, the cloth, fish, and miscellaneous grains given by the people on the east coast during the New Year's holidays, the life of the servants and soldiers was still significantly beyond that of the people in the garrison.

But their treatment is not enough compared with the standing team, and the monthly salary of an ordinary infantry is 2.5 yuan, which is really in hand, without a little discount. After all, it is their own division commander who pays the servant army, and the military salary is also raised in the garrison (the garrison is generally a county), while it is the Blackwater Security Command that pays the forward team, and the financial capacity of the two is different.

It was not easy for more than 610 people in the 1st Independent Garrison Brigade to obtain this treatment (the Japanese company would subsidize about one-third of the military salary), which showed the superb means of Deputy Commander Wei. Although Li Cardo is Wei Boqiu's student and confidant, to be honest, he doesn't know why the teacher is so good to these "rotten troops" who he thinks are a mess of military skills.

Of course, these people don't have any special skills, they are actually very bad troops - they all belong to the second and third lines in the green battalion of the Qing army - but Deputy Commander Wei Boqiu Wei is already crazy about mastering an armed force, so this time he cheekily asked Shao Shude to hand over this army to his commander. Perhaps Shao Shude didn't care much about such a security force, maybe he had a decent impression of Wei Boqiu, so he finally agreed to reorganize this force and hand it over to Wei Boqiu for use - mainly to maintain the security of the Japanese company's pioneer areas, and to put it bluntly, to guard against Matsumae's family.

Naturally, their sparse combat strength could not match the Matsumae family, which had overcome obstacles and pioneered the Ezo land, so improving their combat effectiveness and morale had become a top priority. For this reason, Wei Boqiu did not hesitate to order the Japanese company to pay a considerable part of their military salaries in order to win an official title, and at the same time tried to change their clothes, and then recruited some veterans from Sakhalin Island, Miaojie and other places to come and train these people, in short, to use a qiē method to improve their combat effectiveness, because maybe Deputy Commander Wei would soon use them.

As for where Deputy Commander Wei will use them, if he says this, it will be enough to scare many people: the place where Deputy Commander Wei made up his mind was not elsewhere, but Japan! Yes, it is Japan, and Deputy Commander Wei, based on the knowledge he has and the intelligence and rumors he has continuously collected over the past few years, has now determined that the defense strength of some areas along the coast of Japan is extremely weak, and it is suitable for the people on the east coast to carry out a rapid and rapid surprise attack.

For example, Deputy Commander Wei learned that Tanegashima off the coast of Japan was very easy to attack. This small island has less than 4,000 Japanese inhabitants, divided into two counties, Kuma-ge, and Kazu-gun (the smaller one, with only about 500 people), and the handicraft industry is extremely well developed - most of the local people are engaged in handicraft manufacturing in addition to farming, as in the countryside of England, so the industrial base is very good. In addition to these amateur craftsmen who are half-farming and half-working, there are about 500-1000 professional craftsmen on the island, mainly engaged in arquebus manufacturing and related industries, which can be regarded as a high-tech "heavy industry" in this era, because they inevitably involve metal smelting, casting, forging, processing, heat treatment and other processes in the manufacturing process, using a lot of machines or tools, and processing a lot of parts, and the technical, organizational and disciplinary requirements are still quite high. And this is what makes Wei Boqiu extremely coveted.

As a person who privately aspires to develop the industry of the Far East, Wei Boqiu dreamed of having a group of skilled skilled workers, and this group of Japanese arquebus makers on Tanegashima has been coveted by him for a long time, and he does not want to take them to make guns, but wants to transform these craftsmen who are very familiar with machining and manufacturing into industrial workers in other industries - this is not a matter of much effort - this is an extremely large wealth for the Heishui region, which can be called poor and white in industrial base, if it is cultivated by himself, It's impossible to take more than ten years, so it's better to grab it directly.

It's just that such an action that may destroy the diplomatic relations between the two countries, it is still very difficult to convince Shao Shude, and this is the main reason why Deputy Commander Wei wants to master a force that he can command - of course, if you want to go to Japan to rob people, it will definitely not be possible to rely on Chang Chun and Hua Bende's crooked melons and cracked dates in a short period of time, and he still needs to find a way to persuade Shao Shude now, otherwise this matter can only be done. (To be continued......)