"What the hell is the idea of the Tartars?" Liu Haiyang sat behind his desk and asked casually.

Their army has been nesting on the riverside for half a month, and with the Qing army's green battalion opening one after another, now their activity space is getting smaller and smaller. At the beginning, the morale of the various departments was not bad, and they dared to compare with the Qing army, especially Zhang Huangyan, who had recently risen sharply, fought with the Qing army in the nearby wilderness, but the result was a disastrous defeat for his 3,000 troops.

If Liu Haiyang hadn't sent 5,000 people from Chen Zhilong's division of the Fourth Division of the New Army to fight against defeat and victory, Zhang Huangyan would have been lucky to have half of these 3,000 people left. And this battle also made Liu Haiyang further see the qualities of these "allies", and at the same time made him give up some unrealistic ideas and concentrate on squatting near the camp to play and fight in the city.

Of course, Zhang Huang's speech was poor, which was a common problem of the Ming army, and the lack of training, supplies, and a lack of a professional officer team were the main reasons. When he came to Dinghai, these 3,000 people were basically a group of Ding Zhuang, and their combat effectiveness was so bad that they had a little appearance after a little training for more than three months, but they were still 108,000 miles worse than the green battalion of the Qing army. The gap can be said to be all-round, but the biggest problem is the shortage of professional officers, that is, when they started out, there were few military talents at all, and their inheritance was very poor, and it was impossible to change it without a long period of combat and training.

For this, Liu Haiyang and others can also understand it. If you look at history, a crushing defeat in a crucial battle at the end of a dynasty was enough to lead to the loss of a large number of experienced military talents, which were often invaluable. After the Battle of Fuping in the Southern Song Dynasty, Qu Duan and other veteran generals died. For a period of time, no one was able to organize a battle of more than 50,000 troops; And in the last years of the Ming Dynasty. A series of fiascos led to the loss of Nanming's military talents. The rest are literati who don't understand military affairs, and they rose up to resist the Qing Dynasty with enthusiasm, and the outcome can be imagined.

And if you compare the records of the rest of the divisions in skirmishes with the Qing army during this period, you must see it more clearly. The two generals Yuan Bao and Cai Huaze under Liu Guochang of Dashun had a high chance of winning when they fought with the green battalion of the Qing army, especially the 2,500 people led by Cai Huaze himself, who once repelled more than 3,000 green battalions in a battle near Yangshe Town, and killed one member of the enemy's thousand generals and wounded one guerrilla. It's really. The reason why the department is so good at fighting is mainly because the military inheritance of the army is relatively good, for example, many officers in the department can even be traced back to the era of Luo Rucai's peasant army, and the experience is absolutely rich enough; In addition, as Guo Sheng's cronies, the unit has a high firearms range and is also very familiar with this kind of tactics, so it is not uncommon for the unit to defeat the Green Battalion with similar strength in the field battle, but it is just a normal performance level.

The same is true of Hao Shangjiu, the new Taihou of the Southern Ming Dynasty, which is Li Chengdong's army. The earliest can be traced back to the Gaojie Peasant Army. After many years of conquest and the absorption of many border officers and soldiers, Gao Jie's department also has a certain combat effectiveness, although Li Chengdong has only obtained part of the inheritance of this department. But his own ability to govern the army is not weak, and he is effective in the later period, and the opponent Southern Ming Army is too scum, so he has been allowed to fight from Jiangbei to Guangdong. Many of Hao Shangjiu's troops were the sons of the generals in Li Chengdong's army, who were obviously peasant armies or Ming Dynasty border troops who had joined the army since Gao Jie's time. Therefore, the unit's performance in the tug-of-war with the Qing army on the periphery a while ago was also remarkable, at least during the confrontation with the green battalion, it was a mutual victory and defeat, and it would not be a big defeat.

But then again, no matter how strong these two units are, they add up to less than 7,000 people, and counting the 4th and 5th battalions of the Black Eighth Banner Heavy Infantry of the East Coast System (1,530 people), the supplementary company (less than 230 people), the artillery (more than 200 people), and the guards, staff officers and miscellaneous personnel of Liu Haiyang's headquarters, the total number of people who can fight is only more than 9,000 people.

Oh, by the way, Chen Zhilong's newly built Fourth Army Division has 5,000 men, although the unit once lost more than half of its troops in Shandong, and expanded its army by more than 40% in Zhejiang, and its combat effectiveness has declined rapidly, but the old foundation is still there, the ordnance is relatively sophisticated, the self-confidence of officers and non-commissioned officers is also very high, and the battalion school is also constantly training low-level officers, all of which have effectively ensured that the combat effectiveness of the department is maintained above the horizontal line.

Therefore, after calculation, there should be about 14,000 people in the army on the east coast, and these people can fight head-on against the Qing army's green battalion of less than 20,000, and if the luck is not bad, it is no problem to win the battle, and even against the 30,000 Qing army's green battalion, and the odds of victory are not low - of course, this is under the condition that the Qing army's thousands of horses do not participate in the battle.

In fact, Liu Haiyang's most taboo is the five or six thousand Manchurian Eight Banners horse team led by Zhao Butai himself, these people have rich experience and strong combat effectiveness, and when they drive the green battalion cannon fodder to fight with the people on the east coast, once they see the taboo, they will enter from the weak point of the battlefield, which is extremely threatening. Therefore, after the troops scattered nearby to collect grain, grass and people continued to send back the news of the arrival of the Qing army, Liu Haiyang decisively ordered all units to withdraw to the camp by the river, where they could advance or retreat, and there was no danger of the supply line being cut off, and the danger of the army being broken was close to nothing, which was a safe place.

"Commander Liu, according to the recent intelligence summary, a large number of Qing troops are gathering here, and it is conservatively estimated that it is more than 30,000. According to previous intelligence analysis, most of the mobile forces of the five prefectures in the Jiangnan region have already been here, and half of the strategic objectives have been accomplished. Lieutenant Júnior, who was dressed in a crumpled dark blue military uniform, analyzed, and said, "The reason why the Qing army has not launched a large-scale offensive at present, I guess is that the number of troops is insufficient, and it is not enough to suppress the total strength of our army of up to 40,000 -- although the rotten troops of Zhang Mingzhen and Hong Xishan cannot fight in the field, they are still so-so in defending the city -- and second, the Qing army feels that it is difficult to capture our army's well-defended camps in the absence of artillery, although these camps are temporary. However, after the continuous reinforcement of our army for more than half a month, it is not something that the Qing army can easily rebuild, and if they want to attack, they will inevitably face the small twenty artillery pieces we have set up on a high place, which is another big obstacle......"

Junior's words were not exhausted, but Liu Haiyang already understood what he meant, probably because the Qing army was not strong enough to attack the fortification; But if the field battle is released, the people on the east coast have no bottom, and there are too many pig teammates, and the frontal battle with the tens of thousands of green battalions will be very variable. It is not easy for the East Bank to gather some strength in the Far East, but it cannot be thrown lightly, not to mention why should they fight such a large-scale battle that the enemy wants to see?

"Your words reminded me of Li Shimin, a famous general in the history of our country, this person is deeply rooted in the essence of his own strengths and weaknesses in attacking the enemy, giving full play to his advantages of having more soldiers, more money, more food, and more contacts, never fighting uncertain battles, relying on absolute strength to crush you, this is the style of the ancient famous generals." Liu Haiyang said.

Although his level is average, it is also a great advantage to fall from the admonition. Júnior pointed out that we should give full play to the advantages of mobility to mobilize the Qing army, and then look for fighters to fight more and less, and attack the weak with strength, and Liu Haiyang also deeply agreed. The battle is like this, it can't be said that it's a bad thing, at least they didn't suffer a big loss, right, and they successfully mobilized tens of thousands of Qing troops, the campaign goal has been partially completed, and then it's time to look for an opportunity to withdraw.

However, it is not easy to complete the retreat in front of the enemy with a group of rabble. But fortunately, they have a camp as a barrier, and they still retreat by water, and the Qing army can't pursue it, so in general, although there is some trouble, but the problem is not big, as long as the plan is made in advance, and the various departments strictly abide by the order, it is difficult to fall into chaos.

Once the idea is settled, then the next thing will be in order. The Qing army is still converging here, looking at their banners, uniforms, and even miscellaneous cards such as local salt ding, tax ding, and regimental training in Songjiang Prefecture, which undoubtedly shows a signal, the Qing army can not tolerate the people on the east coast like psoriasis in Changshu and Jiangyin, and it is difficult to launch a general attack next.

Therefore, starting from 5 June, the various units accelerated the speed of evacuation, and Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan, Hong Xishan, and others, who were sparse in combat strength, withdrew first, followed closely by Hao Shangjiu's troops with average combat strength, while the main force of the East Coast Army and Liu Guochang's troops in Dashun still held their camps during this period, and the artillery positions set up on a small hillside also bombarded the Qing army's camp every day, causing the Qing army to constantly retreat and set up camp, so as not to suffer from artillery every day and damage their morale.

Beginning on June 7, the Qing army seemed to have discovered something and began to mobilize troops to launch a tentative attack on the east bank camp, but they retreated in disgrace under the sound of guns and artillery from the skilled east bank troops.

On June 9, Liu Guochang, the Marquis of Dashun Huai, and others burned down most of the camp, and then patted their butts and got on the boat. After Liu Haiyang picked them up on the boat, he immediately ordered the whole army to go up the river and follow the southeast wind blowing in summer towards Zhenjiang Mansion. At this time, he still had time to laugh at the Qing army: "The Qing army was too passive to deal with it." They should quietly gather a large army here, and then eat our army with lightning speed, this is the right way. ”

Liu Haiyang, who said this, seemed to have forgotten that the Qing army did not come with much fanfare this time, if it weren't for the fact that there were many gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, so that Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan and even Lu Ruoteng, the corrupt representative of the Zheng family, got the whereabouts of the Qing army in time, and they would have been bitten off this time.

But in any case, a large number of Qing troops have indeed been transferred to Suzhou Mansion, Zhenjiang Mansion should be empty, and the Qing army should have a headache at this time. On June 13, with the fierce bombardment of several gunboats acting as the vanguard, the huge "Allied fleet" arrived on the river outside Zhenjiang Prefecture, and the planned battle of Zhenjiang would officially begin. (To be continued......)