Mao Desheng's request was finally approved by Shao Shude. However, Shao Shude asked Mao Desheng to regularly report on his previous military operations, and agreed with him not to engage in large-scale battles with the main force of the Qing army, and as for what is the main force of the Qing army, this is up to Mao Desheng to judge himself. All in all, Mao Desheng's degree of freedom is actually quite large.

On March 2, Mao Desheng led his army back to Tengxian County, defeated the more than 1,000 green battalion soldiers left here by Kong Xigui, the general soldier of Hebei, and then stationed here again, waiting for the logistics troops while reconnoitring the enemy. As for the artillery captain Li Wenchang, who came to reinforce him, he had already led part of his troops and trophies to retreat from Dengzhou by land.

At this time, Mao Desheng still had three companies of the East Coast Army, a reinforced artillery company (16 guns), three infantry battalions of the Eight Banners New Army, a security team, and a cavalry brigade -- all of which were relatively elite troops, totaling more than 6,000 soldiers; In addition, there are more than 6,000 people in the first wing of the standing force (7,500 people in full number), and the rabble of servant soldiers Zhai Congge, Qin Shangxing, Xie Qian, Dong Xueli, Chen Zhilong, Du Chong, Ding Mingwu and other subordinates totaling more than 24,000 people, if you add the number of nearly 15,000 soldiers on the east coast, the total number of the east coast army has exceeded 50,000.

Although more than half of the troops were worrisome in combat effectiveness, and they might even be more difficult to fight the green battalion of the Shangqing army, this number also sounded scary enough, at least some of the soldiers and horses of the Qing army Kong Xigui, who had already pursued the Yuyuan army into the canal, immediately shrank back in fright, and turned into the siege of Cao County in the name of beauty.

It is said that after Li Huajing set off a major uprising to besiege Caozhou, the southwest of Yanzhou Mansion fell into chaos. Bandits from all over the country have sprung up, Caoxian, Dingtao, Chengwu, Shanxian and other places have fallen or been besieged, in short, there is no peaceful place. Seeing that almost the entire Yanzhou Mansion had fallen, Luck Dehun, who was sitting in Jinan, was also anxious at this time, and began to urge Tong Yangliang, Niu Chenghu and other troops to go south to recover Yanzhou, and repeatedly strictly ordered several departments to keep their distance and advance in unison, and not to be greedy for merit, so as not to break each other.

At the same time, Lu Guonan, the chief soldier of Baoding, was also ordered to turn around and go straight to Dongchang Mansion. They will be together with Yi Yonggui, the general soldier of Linqing. Let's pacify the Yuyuan army bandits there first. Unexpectedly, the Yuyuan army there was extremely slippery, and they used the local elm forests, caves, and tunnels to deal with the Qing army, and the Qing army had no choice but to set fire to the forest, and at the same time dig tunnels to irrigate water and smoke. And then he blocked up many of the caves, as Hauge had done. This can be able to restrain the elusive Yuyuan Army. But that's it. Precious time has also passed, and the situation in Yanzhou Prefecture in the south is becoming more and more chaotic, and the three major general soldiers sent by the Qing court in the past are almost exhausted there. There are tens of thousands of yellow-clothed thieves on the front line of Zou County and Jining Prefecture next to it, and the Qing army is not very good at suppressing bandits, and always has to use the main force to defend against the yellow-clothed thieves, but the remaining soldiers and horses are more difficult to engage in those anti-Qing forces, and the situation is so stalemate for a while.

The more than 100,000 troops of the Seven Congresses, who were unable to quickly settle the situation in Shandong, made Jinan's Luck Luck anxious, and at the same time shocked the Manchu nobles who were far away in Beijing. Is this Luck Dehun still okay?

However, no matter what the Manchu nobles thought, the situation in Shandong was indeed so deadlocked, Mao Desheng on the one hand closely reconnoitred the movements of the Qing army in the direction of Jinan in the north, and on the other hand, he maintained uninterrupted harassing attacks on Kong Xigui and other troops along the canal, so that he could not concentrate on dealing with the Yuyuan army, the Qing mountain bandits, the mule army, the Li Huajing rebel army and other forces, and at the same time let the rabble under his command gain some valuable battlefield experience to improve their combat effectiveness.

In this way, it was not until mid to late March that Li Huajing's troops finally conquered Caozhou City, and Huang Dengxiao, the Qing Caozhou garrison who had promoted Li Huajing, was forced to cut off his braids and surrender, and a large amount of heavy food and salary in Caozhou City was obtained by Li Huahua's department. At the same time, Niu Chenghu and Tong Yangliang finally broke through the heavy interception of the army on the east coast and entered Juye County in the west of Yanzhou Prefecture, but at this time the situation was out of control.

Li Huajing, Yuyuan Army and other anti-Qing forces still staying in Yanzhou Mansion added up to almost 200,000 people, plus there were more than 50,000 yellow-clothed thieves who had been threatening them. In this way, you can not only contact Yi Yonggui and Lu Guonan, who are suppressing bandits in Dongchang Mansion, but also ensure that the grain route from Jinan to Yanzhou will not be cut off.

However, in this way, the Yanzhou Mansion was bound to be completely abandoned by them, and not surprisingly, at the end of March, as the pressure of the Qing army was reduced, the Eastern Ming Tukou, who had allied with Li Huajing, began to return to the Daimyo Mansion of Beizhili in batches to conquer the city; The Qing mountain bandits, mule troops and other mobile anti-Qing rebels began to enter the empty Guide Mansion in Henan, and the remnants of the Guide Bandits who had just been suppressed by Kong Xigui immediately responded in groups.

You must know that in order to completely solve the Shandong form, the Qing court transferred all the field mobile forces in Shandong, Beizhili, and Henan provinces. But the more than 100,000 field troops actually failed to completely solve the problem, but instead let the "banditry" spread to the neighboring provinces, what kind of system is this! At the beginning, the cultural relics officials of the Manchu Dynasty all made suggestions to Dolgon to extinguish the bandits in Shandong as soon as possible, otherwise there would be changes later, and after Dolgon's analysis, he also believed that if the Shandong problem was solved, then half of the national problem would be solved. Therefore, he mobilized a large number of mobile troops from the north and changed an all-out attack to a key offensive, in an effort to solve the Shandong problem in World War I.

But many times the direction of things is not transferred by personal will, the leader of the bandit named Mo Ming of the yellow-clothed thief, in front of more than 100,000 Qing troops, he dared not to withdraw, not only that, but he even seized the opportunity to encircle and annihilate more than 15,000 elite soldiers of the ace army and Henan General Soldier Gao Di in the battle of Hugging Calf, which made Kong Xigui completely frightened, and at the same time made Niu Chenghu and Tong Yangliang who went south full of doubts, and the Qing army on the southern road seemed to have lost that kind of brave and enterprising momentum in an instant.

After seeing that the Green Camp could no longer completely solve the problem, Dolgon, who was far away in Beijing, had already begun to consider whether to let Wu Sangui, who had just arrived in Shaanxi, lead his troops back. Wu Sangui had been suspicious of the Qing court for several years, and had just been transferred back from outside the border to Shaanxi -- although the rebel army there had been extinguished, the sporadic resistance of the remnants had not stopped, and a general was urgently needed to lead a battle-worthy army to defend it. However, after thinking about it, Dolgon decided not to recruit Wu Sangui to return, and he was ready to mobilize the elite Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners to go south, and strike an all-out blow with the strength of a lion fighting a rabbit, in order to completely solve the Shandong problem.

Dolgon even had the commander in mind that it was his henchman Tan Tai. At that time, Tan Tai will lead the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, with no less than 20,000 people, to the south and take over the military affairs of Shandong. Although Luck Dehun's ability is acceptable, he is inexperienced after all, and he is completely passive against the old and cunning yellow-clothed thief Mo Ming, and at this time he must be replaced. As for the arrangement after Luckedhun's return to Beijing, Dolgon meant to refrigerate it for a while, and then find an opportunity to send it to the south to gild it, and then it could be used for a long time.

In April, the Qing court officially ordered Tan Tai to be the general of Pingdong, and led more than 25,000 people from the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia to the south of Shandong, striving to completely solve the Shandong problem. So far, the total number of soldiers and horses of the Eight Banners sent by the Qing court to Jiangnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Shandong has reached about 70,000. At this time, there were only more than 140,000 people over the age of 14 and under the age of 60 in the entire Manchu, Han and Mongolian Eight Banners, and the Qing court was indeed quite desperate in order to quickly pacify the world.

Tan Tai's army wanted to raise grain, grass, ordnance, and silver, and it would not be able to reach Shandong for a while and a half, so the situation in the three prefectures of Shandong, east and west was still in a state of confusion. The western three mansions are in flames, while the eastern three mansions are indeed a scene of peace and tranquility.

After the beginning of spring in April, Shao Shude ordered to start tuntian on the periphery of Yantai, Dengzhou, Ninghaizhou, and Weihaiwei to carry out a vigorous spring sowing operation. At the same time, after more than half a year of reconstruction and repair, the city wall of Dengzhou City has changed greatly, not only has a large number of broken line areas (to reduce the nest area) added to the city wall, but also several salient points, and all have placed artillery - artillery artillery is trained by the people on the east bank.

Although the city wall of Weihaiwei did not have time to be rebuilt, the city near the sea could be effectively supported by naval guns from the sea, so the area was actually not large. Moreover, many of the original damages and gaps in the wall have also been repaired and reinforced, and if a few more small cannons are installed, it is quite easy to defend.

As for Ninghai Prefecture City, this one is more painful. You must know that the city was demolished by the people on the east bank and only a foundation remained, and later when Haoge besieged Yantai, he once rebuilt the city, but the amount of work was huge, and the Qing army that blocked Yantai was broken and fled before it was completed. After the people on the east coast subsequently took over the city of Ninghaizhou, although they still continued to build the city wall, they had no choice but to have enough time and manpower, and the city wall of Ninghai Prefecture had not been repaired yet, and it seemed that it would take at least several months to complete it.

In addition to these construction work, Shao Shude also had the whimsical idea to set up an anti-Qing military and political academy on Zhifu Island in Yantai, which was specially responsible for training officers and management personnel at all levels of the servant army. He was even considering asking the officers of the various units of the servant army to take turns to attend classes at the Anti-Qing Military and Political Academy, and the people on the east coast would teach them some extremely simple and basic skills in governing the place.

For this reason, Shao Shude even prepared to teach in person to teach these Qiu Ba people who could not read a few big characters in as simple and straightforward language as possible. In the future, if these people are not allowed to walk shit and get lucky in the world or become a member of the ruling class, then teaching them some simple political theories will only do them good, not harm. (To be continued......)