On March 31, 1649, Gaojiagang Salt Farm, Le'an County, Qingzhou Prefecture. Li Wenchang, commander of the Yantai garrison and captain of the army, was leading a group of people to clean up the goods piled up all over the ground. Fortunately, it is not the rainy season, otherwise the powder kegs, lead bullets, hollow iron eggs, arrows, iron spearheads, leather armor, and gun parts and components all over the ground will be damaged. At this juncture of the big war with the Manchus, even the supreme governor of the Heishui region, Captain Shao Shude, seemed to have the intention of recruiting in person, and Li Wenchang did not dare to let the whole war fall short because of his own reasons, so it would be a big trouble.

This year is already his fifth year in Shandong, and Xiao Xi, commander of the 102nd Company of the Army, and nearly 200 officers and men of his headquarters, who came at about the same time as him, have been transferred back to their homeland. These Qiuba, who had made a lot of money in the Far East, were eager to return with the spoils to share with their families, and then buy ten eight cows and dozens of sheep, dig a well, decorate the family's house, and live a happy life that they never dared to imagine before.

Replacing the 102nd Company is the 103rd Company of the Army Long Xu Department (Chapter 411 of the previous volume, with Shao Shude), this is another reserve company, and the 240 officers and soldiers of the company are almost a group of hungry wolves with green eyes, who are currently fighting under the command of General Mao, ready to make a big deal at any time.

Xiao Xi is gone, and Li Wenchang feels that in another seven or eight months, the deadline for his return to the mainland is almost approaching. Considering that he has not made any name for himself in Yantai for so many years, as a garrison commander and artillery captain, the speed of collecting money is far less than that of those infantry leaders. Therefore, he asked Shao Shude with a shy face the opportunity to go to Jinan Mansion. He was fully prepared to make the Qing army in Jinan Mansion three feet high. By the way, I also mixed up the merits, and when I go back, I can get promoted to an official or awarded a medal, and whether I continue to work in the army or transfer to a local job in the future, I can have a better foundation.

This time, Shao Shude gave Li Wenchang the task of establishing a material transfer station in the Gaojiagang salt field, so as to fully guarantee the strategy of the main force of infantry and artillery led by Mao Desheng against Jinan Mansion. A few days ago, a flotilla of more than a dozen medium-sized fishing boats (150 tons) arrived in the direction of Jeju Island and sent a batch of military supplies and grain to the Gaojiagang salt farm. At this time, most of the salt in the salt field had been wiped out in Qingzhou Mansion, and the remaining few were old, weak, sick and disabled in front of the entire battalion (more than 700 people) of the South African Eight Banners New Army brought by Li Wenchang. He immediately knelt on the ground and asked to surrender, and then was used by Li Wenchang as a master in the military station, specially responsible for unloading all kinds of materials transported back from the barge.

Now the Gaojiagang salt field has been crowded with 700 heavy infantry and about 3,000 soldiers from the east coast, these people on the one hand cut down trees and built a village nearby, stabilize the city defense, and at the same time under the order of Li Wenchang cleaned up the nearby landlords and gentry, and fiercely collected a large number of rice, noodles, pigs and sheep back, of course, at the same time "successfully" let the gentry in several nearby counties endanger themselves, and then began to form a village to protect themselves, and at the same time secretly communicate with the Qing army. If the thief in yellow wins, then it will be. If the defeat is revealed, they will have to respond to the call of "I am clear". Lead the villagers to jump out, pounce on the yellow-clothed thief and bite hard, who let you take my family property like those thieves? I can rob the mud legs, that's natural justice, but you just can't rob me, that's madness!

Of course, Li Wenchang did not pay attention to the thoughts of these Ming Dynasty gentry, he only cared about how much material and food he could raise, and how much of these materials and food he could share according to the proportion of the distribution of the spoils. Although there are still some doubts about whether these gentry are enemies and whether their property is considered spoils of war, Li Wenchang is too lazy to care about this, and I believe that his superiors will not be serious with him on this. What if you force some gentry to rebel in Qingzhou and Jinan, Lao Tzu can also change his name and justifiably seize people's property to replenish military funds.

What's more, the 3,000 newly recruited soldiers who are eating under him at this moment are just that, and the more than 700 black infantry of the Fourth Battalion of the Eighth Banner New Army in South Africa welcome this with both hands. They crossed the ocean from South Africa to Shandong, did they come to Shandong? Although there were factors in this that he was called by the suzerainty to come to serve in the army, he did not have the intention of coming to the Far East to make a fortune in order to improve his living conditions in extreme poverty.

You must know that the Black Eight Banner tribesmen living in the southwest of South Africa today are all people who have seen the "miracles" of the civilization of the suzerainty on the east coast, not like the ordinary uninformed barbarians. Coupled with the economic colonization policy of the East Coast people, the commercialization of their agricultural products is very high, and the commodity economy of the whole society is also relatively developed, so the thirst for high-quality goods from the East Coast is also very high, but this qiē requires money. Therefore, it is a good thing to come to the Far East to fight for the people of the East Coast, and at the same time fulfill the obligation of military service, and at the same time accumulate some spoils for yourself, and then take them home to improve your life.

Unlike many of the Indians of the New World, who preferred to spend all their earned money on their own, regardless of the life or death of their family members, this part of the Xhosa blacks from the Western Cape of South Africa can be said to be too progressive and civilized. In fact, the Indians of South America are still in the Stone Age, while the Xhosa people of South Africa are already able to make iron, copper, pottery, farming (the main crops are sorghum, peanuts, sesame, watermelon), captive livestock, tanning leather, and the folk atmosphere is relatively simple and warlike. Historically, if the arrival of the Dutch had not interrupted the progress of Xhosa civilization, their ethos would not have gradually degenerated into the bear-like nature of the Mandela era.

Therefore, with such a desire to collect money for themselves, it is not surprising that the troops of the Gaojiagang Yanchang Station were very keen on plundering the money and food of the nearby gentry. Especially the more than 700 heavy infantry of the Black Eight Banners, wearing a full set of armor, they easily broke through the blockade of the village brave mud legs who didn't even get a few pieces of leather armor, broke the gentry's stockade, took the money and grain for themselves, and then wrapped the rest of the people and waited for the returning boat to transport back to the Heishui area Tuntian, relaxed and happy.

Of course, going out to "hunt wild food" can only be regarded as their side business, and their main business is to protect the safety of the station. After all, Luck Dehun and the others stationed in Jinan are not fools, maybe they haven't figured out where the logistics base of the people on the east coast is located now, but after a long time, they will always see some clues, and at that time, the Gaojiagang salt field will no longer be absolutely safe. Once the Qing army sent tens of thousands of elites to attack quietly, it was also a question of how long the more than 700 soldiers and 3,000 soldiers in the station could hold out under the escort of a few artillery. Of course, the probability that the Qing army dispatched 10,000 elite troops to sneak into Gaojiagang without being detected is not high, especially when the baggage troops on the east bank were constantly coming and going to and from both sides of the Xiaoqing River (flowing from Jinan and entering the sea through the north side of the Gaojiagang salt field), it is also questionable whether they have the courage to go deep behind enemy lines alone, but this is a hidden danger after all, and Li Wenchang cannot afford not to pay attention to it.

The main force led by Mao Desheng had a total of 40,000 or 50,000 auxiliary soldiers, and the daily material consumption was not a small amount. The grain and grass needed by officers and soldiers or horses and mules can be said to be raised on the spot at critical moments, and the Qing army contracted in such a hurry that it was too late to clear the wilderness, and it was always possible to last some time by beating grass and valleys; But consumables such as gunpowder, arrows, projectiles, barrels, equipment, medicines, etc., could not be collected on the spot, and had to be transported from the rear.

Especially the amount of gunpowder consumed by the troops on the east coast, which relied heavily on artillery, was astronomical. A while ago, the battle of Qingzhou City had already swept away the gunpowder accumulated by the Yantai Yangma Island Workshop in the summer and autumn last year, and now the troops have already transported it from Jeju Island. If the war is delayed for more than half a year, it is still a question whether the supply of gunpowder on the east coast can keep up with the needs of the battle. After all, the scale of the East Coast Army's operations is getting bigger and bigger, and it is no longer comparable to the small fights in the past.

Now the troops under the command of Mao have reached the periphery of Jinan and have had skirmishes with the Qing army, but the main battle has not yet taken place. The Qing army has not yet completed the build-up, and part of the main force of the green battalion is still trapped in Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion, and the troops of the Yuyuan Army were scattered greatly in order to pursue and suppress them. At this time, Jinan's Luck Dehun was not so particular, and the green battalion under the command of the four general soldiers under the command of the Qing army, which was still completed, withdrew a battalion of men and horses to Jinan to gather as many troops as possible before the yellow-clothed thieves began to attack the city, so that the initiative would also be greatly increased.

As for the east coast, the deployment of troops has not yet been completed. It is not a simple matter for the 40,000 or 50,000 troops to divide their defense zones according to their respective combat strengths, to organize their respective troops, and to coordinate communications and liaison at the same time.

In addition, the existing materials (mainly artillery propellants) on hand of the people on the east coast can no longer support them to launch a long-term campaign, and they must wait for new supplies from the rear to be sent in order to regain their previous invincible attack ability, otherwise the materials on hand are only enough for self-protection, and it is slightly insufficient to fight this battle-level battle in Jinan. At present, while they are searching for ships and boatmen in the vicinity (to transport supplies along the Xiaoqing River to Gaojiagang), they are also building fortifications on the spot to prepare for the inevitable big war. (To be continued......)