"Boom! Rumble! Two cannons rang out, and two puffs of smoke rose one after another from the port side of the "Amur River" traveling at low speed, and two solid iron eggs hit a Qing army patrol ship at close range.

This ship came from the upstream, the tonnage is not large, and the style is also an old-fashioned Chinese-style hard sailing ship, but it is extremely arrogant on the river, it seems that the Dashun army is all from Shaanxi, Gansu and Henan, and is not accustomed to water, and more than ten other ships have been showing off their might on the river. While they were far away from the soldiers of the Dashun Army on the border of Yuezhou on the south bank, they were shouting insults proudly, as if they were invincible.

However, they apparently forgot to look at the yellow calendar when they went out today. I saw two "huge" ships spitting black smoke from the downstream quickly upstream, and the splash of water from the bow made them stunned, this boat is really fast! However, their surprise soon turned to fear, because as the two clippers approached a distance of several tens of meters, the two eight-pounder guns on the side began to fire one after another.

The ballistic almost straight shell penetrated the sentry ship's thin hull in an instant and created two huge holes near its port side waterline. The river rushed into the frenzy, and more than a dozen Qing army sailors on the boat looked at each other, and then shouted, and jumped into the river with wooden planks and other floating objects, and then tried to stay away from the sinking place of the ship.

The two steam gunboats, which were obviously more arrogant than the Qing patrol ships, did not delay, and they fired at full speed, and the bow easily split the water waves, and pursued the remaining Qing patrol ships on the river.

"Lightning-fast, good ship! What a boat! Guo Sheng, who was standing on the bank of the river, put his hand on the pergola and looked at the "fierce battle" on the river, slapped his thigh with joy, and said happily: "Zheng Siwei is here." I don't have anything else. A tortoise shell is perfectly practiced. I shrank in the city of Jingzhou all day long, not daring to go out of the city to fight with us, but I sent some patrol ships to disgust people. Now, I've finally sunk these bird boats and fed the fish! ”

Guo Sheng had reason to be happy, last month (April) they had repeatedly attacked Jingzhou City, but the Dashun army, which lacked heavy weapons to attack the city, was never able to conquer it, so they had no choice but to give up. In fact, they didn't stop there, but who let them (Li Guo, Gao Yigong and other departments) lose a lot of baggage and heavy weapons when they broke through from Ningxia and northern Shaanxi to Hubei through Sichuan. The artillery that had played an important role in the Battle of Huaiqing was also lost, and now there are only two or three small-caliber 4-pounder short-barreled howitzers left on hand that can barely be used, but the tragedy is that the shells have long been exhausted and have become a pile of broken copper and iron. At the beginning, the flintlock pistols handed over to them by the East Coast were also damaged, some of which were caused by improper maintenance, but more of them were due to overuse, which shows the hardships and dangers of Guo Sheng's troops all the way to the war.

The Northern Shaanxi Army under Li Guo and Gao Yigong first fought with the Qing army of the Azig Department for several months, and then fought with the local militia groups, the Hui people's horse team, the Qing Shun army, and the Mongolian troops of the Eight Banners. Confluence with Li Zicheng. When the army broke through from northern Shaanxi and reached more than 100,000 troops, there were only more than 40,000 capable soldiers when they arrived in Jingzhou Prefecture, and the losses were extremely heavy. However, the more than 40,000 people who arrived in Hubei were all elites who survived a hundred battles. The combat power is not trivial, and with them as the foundation, it is easy to pull up an army of more than 100,000 or 200,000 people again.

And they did. Although they failed to successfully conquer Jingzhou City, most of the other prefectures and counties in Jingzhou Prefecture were taken by Dashun, during which they collected tens of thousands of Ding Zhuang and slightly recovered some momentum. Of course, the size of their more than 100,000 people (including a large number of family members of the army) once again attracted the attention of the Qing troops stationed in Wuchang and other places. The Qing army began to frequently dispatch troops, and the Sanshun King, the Eight Banner Soldiers, the Mongol Domain Soldiers, the Xinzhu Shun Army, and the Ming Army began to march to Jingzhou and Yuezhou, trying to exterminate Li Guo and Gao Yigong's troops. At the same time, Li Zicheng, who was originally besieging Changsha, also suspended the offensive after hearing the news, and sent Liu Fangliang to supervise a detachment of tens of thousands of people to the north to the front line of Pingjiang and Baling to reinforce Li Guo. As for the front line of Changsha and Changde, which were fighting fiercely, they were commanded by Yuan Zongdi, Tian Jianxiu and others, and Li Ziben himself temporarily avoided the rear to recuperate due to his injuries.

The above is what Li Zhengang learned about the current situation in Huguang through acquaintances after he went ashore yesterday. In general, the situation was very unfavorable for Dashun. Although a large number of Eight Banner soldiers were transferred east to Jiangxi and South Zhili, the strength of the Qing army stranded in Hubei was still extremely strong, and it was not comparable to the Shun army. Moreover, with the loss of a large number of elite veterans in successive battles, the combat effectiveness of the Shun army declined rapidly, coupled with the shortage of materials and the treacherous situation of the enemy on all sides, the morale of the Shun army was not very high, and many non-core troops surrendered to the enemy, which made them unable to exert their due strength in the face of the superior Qing army, so that they suffered repeated defeats.

Although the arrival of Li Guo and Gao Yigong's headquarters added more than 40,000 valuable elite veterans to the Shun army, they also added a heavy burden to Dashun, which had no stable base area, with a large number of family members, not to mention that the "grand occasion" of more than 200,000 soldiers and horses from the two roads would also make the Qing court turn its attention here again, and then transfer heavy troops to encircle and suppress.

Li Zhengang is also a general of the Shun Army, and he is Guo Sheng's old department, although he is now serving in the East Coast Advance Team system, he has always been extremely worried about the fate and future of Dashun in his heart. Therefore, after taking a boat to Baling County (that is, Yuezhou City) yesterday to get in touch with the Shun army, he immediately said that he had brought a large amount of military aid, which made the second lieutenant of the army who accompanied Li Zhengang Zamparini very dissatisfied.

Guo Sheng, who was resting on the outskirts of Baling County, immediately rushed to meet with his old subordinates after hearing the news, and talked for a long time all night, which made Zamparini's dissatisfaction rise to a new level again, does Nima still regard himself as an officer on the east coast? When I go back, I have to report back to the top.

"Although these Tartar patrol ships are unbearable, they are also equipped with guns, and the sergeants who operate the boats are also more skilled, and they are indeed much better than my Dashun generals. Most of our troops are northerners, and they are indeed inferior to them on this boat. Li Zhengang watched the gunboat under the command of Second Lieutenant Juan gradually move away, and then turned his head to Guo Sheng and whispered: "Guo Shuai, can you let me wait to meet King Chuang?" There is something important to discuss! ”

"Erlang (that is, Li Zhengang), you and I have been friends for many years, and I don't want to hide some things from you. Now that Your Majesty is not in good health, I'm afraid I won't be able to see you. I also just learned about the road in the past two days, and His Majesty was unfortunately injured when he was fighting near Jingzhou, and he has not been able to properly manage his injuries due to the urgency of the military situation. Later, General Quan (Liu Zongmin), military advisor (Song Xiance) and other old people passed away one after another, His Majesty was depressed all day, and the injury was getting worse and worse, and he was currently recuperating in the camp outside Changsha City, except for a few cronies and generals, it was difficult for others to see. Guo Sheng looked left and right, and then whispered to Li Zhengang.

Li Zhengang was silent when he heard this. He and Guo Sheng are both Luo Rucai's old subordinates, to be honest, they don't care too much about King Chuang's life and death, what they care about is how to clean up the situation in case King Chuang has three longs and two shorts. Now this army, to be honest, is really screwed together by King Chuang, if King Chuang is unexpected, God knows how many people in the road will be cleared, and a few people will be cleared, and the 200,000 people in front of me are afraid that half of them will be dispersed, so everything will be over.

"It's a shame not to see King Chuang. East...... My Mo Dashuai intends to join forces with King Chuang to fight against the Tartars, and the goods unloaded yesterday are a welcome gift. Guo Shuai, don't make such a strange expression, everyone understands what is going on with the title of Dashun Ninghai Defense Envoy you gave at the beginning, but it is just to win people's hearts. To put it mildly, Mo Dashuai will wear this title if he is willing to wear it, and when he is unwilling to wear it, he will not lose half a point if he throws it away. Over the years, he has collected a lot of our old brothers, to be honest, it doesn't have much to do with Dashun, even Guo Shuai, you may not be able to pull people away if you run over to pull people. Li Zhengang quickly broke the silence again and said: "Now the head of the battalion under the command of Mo Dashuai is called a team leader, there are more than 6,000 people, who practice hard every day, and their combat strength has improved rapidly. In addition, there are also a thousand and a half colored cavalry, which is also a rare elite, not to mention those black feudal ghost slave soldiers and East Coast firecrackers, and their strength should not be underestimated. ”

"What could I think?" Guo Sheng said with a wry smile, "The old brothers who were sent away at the beginning can now have a good place, it's too late for me to be happy, how can I go to indiscriminately pull people and ruin people's future?" Although Mo Dashuai and I are close to each other, I also know that he is a great character. In Shandong, even the Tartars were defeated, and even many people in my battalion praised him as a hero. He is now willing to wear the hat of Dashun, that is a kind of affection, we have to receive this affection. And now I have sent 800 guns, 16 large and small artillery, 200 armor collars, 500 sabers, and 2,000 spears. There are so many good things, there are so many people with red eyes, especially those yellow-clothed cannons, with this cannon, are you afraid that you won't be able to capture Jingzhou City? This time, it must be called Zheng Siwei good-looking! It's a pity that when we retreated from Gansu, a lot of artillery was not taken away, most of it was destroyed on the spot, and a small part fell into the hands of those Huihui, otherwise how could it have been under the city of Jingzhou for so long! ”

"Well, you sent so many things, and I can't let you run for nothing." Guo Sheng suddenly said, "I'll take you to meet the Marquis of Bo and the Marquis of Ci (Liu Fangliang), discuss with everyone, and then strive to meet the king of Xia Chuang." This is a good thing, we are now cramped in a corner of Huguang, and there is a shortage of food and equipment, so it is best to be able to join forces with Mo Dashuai. At present, the generation of Yuezhou is Li (Guo), Gao (Yigong), Liu (Fangliang) three generals in charge, everyone talked about it and went to Changsha to meet King Chuang, King Chuang should be very happy after hearing it. By the way, there are still some martyrs' orphans, old and weak women and children, or wounded and sick in our camp, and it will be painful for them to let them follow us to fight, so let's see if we can take them away and take refuge under the command of Marshal Mo......"

Guo Sheng and Li Zhengang chatted while walking to a few horses behind them, turned over and went south, this is to go back to the camp to discuss. In the distance, on the river, two steam gunboats had also turned back, and it seemed that the Qing patrol ships had been sunk. (To be continued......)