The support of 30,000 indigenous soldiers to the north came at an opportune time, which made Shang Kexi, who was stationed on the front line, breathe a sigh of relief.

The military requisition of the Qing people in the north made all the officers in the frontline position of Hongtang feel the heavy burden on their shoulders.

The lessons of the past are still being replayed in my mind, the tragedy of the previous war has made the Hongtang army feel the cruelty of the war, and the next Qing people's sworn counterattack will be more tragic and arduous than the previous war.

"It seems that this group of Jurchen barbarians is ready to fight us to the death before winter!"

Wu Jie, who is in Phoenix City, because of his age, a little skin injury in the last battle caused a serious illness, but fortunately, the Hongtang army has its own military doctors, and the herbs have always had a complete supply, so he gradually recovered.

But because of this serious illness, Wu Jie, as the main general, is no longer able to compete with young people for merit, and now he can only stay in the relatively safer Phoenix City and have an overview of the overall situation.

"My subordinates also think that it is true, according to the information sent back by the members of the foreign guard spy report, after the autumn harvest, the Qing people began to scavenge grain and grass, slaughter livestock, and prepare military rations."

Shi Lang, the director of the military department of the Aircraft Department, who had just turned 25 years old and graduated from the Armament Department of the Bengang Academy, followed Wu Jie in the northeast these days, and he also made countless meritorious contributions.

Although he is not very old, it is the vigorous command level of Hongtang that makes Hongtang's army both ambitious and powerful, and at the same time can make countless contributions.

Based on these contributions, Shi Lang's status in the Aircraft Division has been improved again and again, and until today, he is the most valued member of Wu Jie's side, and inherited the previous chief, and served as the director of the Aircraft Division at such a young age.

After the previous war, the Hongtang army is not only seriously lacking soldiers, but also the lack of non-commissioned officers at the middle and grass-roots levels is also extremely serious.

Although they arranged a team of guards to fight with them, the front-line battlefield never knew what would happen in the next moment, and the non-commissioned officers suffered a lot of losses.

The officers above the middle-level battalion have to formulate tactics in the rear, so they are relatively less dangerous, but when the Hongtang army lacked troops before, not to mention the battalion officers, even the commanders like Wu Jie had to rush to the front line to fight in order to act as a reserve army.

Naturally, these battalion and regiment-level officers also suffered a lot of losses on the battlefield because of this, which caused the command system of Hongtang's army to lag to varying degrees.

Grass-roots non-commissioned officers can fill the vacancies by promoting them to become soldiers, because the tactical foundation required by grass-roots non-commissioned officers is relatively weak, and with the knowledge reserve of Hongtang soldiers, as long as they are veterans for two or three years, they can be competent for the functions of grass-roots non-commissioned officers, and even those student soldiers who graduated from Bengang Academy only need to stay at the grass-roots level for three or five months to meet the requirements.

However, these middle-level commanding generals cannot be so sloppy, whether it is tactical requirements or strategic vision, for these middle-level generals, it is a matter that requires talent and talent.

In many cases, in addition to relying on the heroic struggle of officers and men at the grassroots level, the greater influencing factor on the direction of a local war is the command ability and adaptability of a middle-level commander and military attache.

Hongmen has a lot of reserve talents, but to be honest, middle-level generals with extremely high requirements like Hongtang's headquarters are not student soldiers on paper, and there are also things that low-level non-commissioned officers can immediately compete.

The promotion of every middle-level general is carried out step by step after several tempering and inspections among the officers and non-commissioned officers in the aircraft department.

Now there is a shortage of middle-level generals in the Hongtang Army in the northeast, where are there so many talents who can be sent by the headquarters to fill the vacancy, and more can only be filled from the outstanding talents at the grassroots level such as the surviving Hongtang headquarters and the members of the military staff department.

Therefore, Shi Lang's previous director was filled in the vacancy and became a regimental commander who was in charge of thousands of people.

And Shi Lang also benefited from this and became the youngest director of the Participating Division.

Wu Jie and Shi Lang's judgment is very accurate, in fact, according to the current situation of the Jurchens in the Qing Dynasty, they must also have a duel with Hong Tang.

Throughout the spring and summer, the Qing people were busy with internal friction, and when they finally calmed down, they suddenly found that at the end of their life, the major tribes now did not even have much grain and grass hoarding to survive the cold winter, let alone the large number of scattered Jurchen people who had lost their tribes.

Originally, if the grain and grass materials looted by the Qing Dynasty in the south of the Ming Dynasty could be transported back to the Qing Dynasty, not to mention the grain and grass supply of the entire kingdom this winter, I am afraid that even the next year's supply to the Qing subjects would not have to worry.

But who would have thought that the sudden killing of the Hongtang Ming army suddenly disrupted the layout of the entire Qing Dynasty, and wreaked havoc in the Qing Dynasty last year, giving birth to countless displaced tribes, and at the same time cutting off the way home of the Qing army's southward march from behind.

Even if Prince Dolgon raised an army of more than 100,000 people, desperately attacked the garrison army led by Wu Jie on the front line of Shanhaiguan for more than a month, and successfully recaptured Shanhaiguan, Zunhua and other strongholds, but also because of the stubbornness of the Hongtang army, the southward army of the Qing Dynasty became unstable because of the fear of the safety of the clan in the country, and finally had to give up continuing to attack the first-line defense belt of Ningjin and return to the kingdom by detouring to the Mongolian steppe at Xifengkou.

This detour didn't matter, but it also made the supply of materials carried by the army when they returned to help become a drag, and in the end they could only hoard most of the supplies in the capital, and most of them only returned home with a small amount of supplies.

Along the way, the people of the army ate and chewed horses, and the constant power struggle after returning to China, in vain the grain and grass materials brought back by the army were consumed for a long time.

After Dolgon and the others stabilized the situation, seeing that the cold winter was approaching again, the looming food and grass crisis forced Dolgon and them to find a way out.

In previous years, the way for the Qing Dynasty to survive the grain and grass crisis in the cold winter was to harass the Ming Dynasty border pass, and loot a large amount of grain and grass from the Ming Dynasty border pass under the war to return to China, so that the kingdom could tide over the crisis.

However, this year, the situation in the Qing Dynasty is different, the southern coast is occupied by the Hongtang army, and the nearest road to the customs has become the territory of the Hongtang army.

(End of chapter)