"Jiangnan is good, and the scenery is old. The sunrise river flowers are red, and the spring river is as green as blue. Can you not remember Jiangnan? In the Shizhongshan Zen Temple, Guo Puxia, who couldn't sleep at night, got up in his clothes, and wrote Bai Juyi's poem "Remembering Jiangnan" in the bright moonlight in front of the window, which seemed to be pinning on something.

Yes, he must be reminiscing about the good scenery of the original Jiangnan! Guo, who had already patrolled many places along the Yangtze River in a gunboat, was somewhat worried about the recent intensification of the war. After living in Jiangxi for so many years, he also has some feelings for this land, and he doesn't want to see many people who get along day and night being involved in the war. It's just that how can this kind of thing be influenced by a plenipotentiary envoy like him in Shunguo?

The people of Chinese mainland have always been firm believers in great unification, and that is, they must fight to the death until the world is finally unified. Even in the historical era of the division of the northern and southern dynasties or feudal towns, what each local power thought about in their hearts was how to accumulate strength, start a war, and then pancake to unify each other. That is to say, even in the period of division, the Chinese are always preparing to launch a war of unification, and this obsession with great unification is indeed terrifying, and it is also the main reason why this country has been able to maintain its basic territory in the long river of the next 2,000 years, and even expanded in the last 300 years.

If such a country is not ready for a full-scale invasion on the east coast, it is indeed better to stay away, otherwise I am afraid that it will suffer a big loss. For this point, Guo Puxia, who has lived in Jiangxi and Huguang for many years, feels that there is no big problem, taking Dashun, a local secession regime that is only three provinces, for example, their emperor Li Laiheng has never completely given up his dream of unifying the country and establishing the Central Plains after he ascended the throne, and for this reason he has been trying his best for many years to improve the comprehensive strength of the country under his rule, which has rapidly transformed into a spokesman for the landlord class.

Dashun is like this, hasn't the small court in Kunming that is still under the banner of Daming have not thought about it? No, they have even been openly declaring that they want to expel the Tartars (not to mention the elimination of the rebel remnants now) and restore the Ming Dynasty, even though they were beaten by Wu Sangui a few years ago, but this politically correct slogan has never stopped.

In addition, didn't the Lu Wang regime in Zhejiang have a trace of reverie in his heart? How can it be! They are all from the former Ming clan, and they are all the same to fight with the Tartars, is everyone willing to succumb to others? Even if King Lu was willing to do this, would the generals and civil officials who had followed him for many years agree? Obviously, the answer is also no.

Of course, such separatist forces as the Zheng clan in Fujian, the Li clan in Guangdong, and the Wu clan in Sichuan at the end of the Qing State should have the greatest desire to be the emperor of the territory. As for winning the world, they shouldn't have thought about it this way, and there is still an essential difference between them and Dashun's gang.

This time, the Qingshun War, which was caused by tens of thousands of horses and horses of Liu Zhonggui's troops of the Left Battalion, has now become more and more a full-scale war. More than 100,000 people on both sides fought a series of battles between Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Sichuan and other provinces and regions, and the scene was unprecedentedly spectacular, and it was not inferior to the great wars in Europe at the same time - in that war, the main battlefield composed of the French, Dutch, Spanish, Austrian and German princes, the total number of troops invested by all sides reached almost 600,000 people, and the armies of the secondary Swedes, Prussia, Italy, Denmark and North Germany princes added up to more than 100,000 people, just as Zhejiang, Guizhou, and the Chinese land The more than 100,000 soldiers from all sides on the battlefield in Gansu.

The whole world went crazy almost at the same moment! Guo Puxia originally lived a good life in Madang Fortress (now there are many ships moored in this fortress, and the defenders have been replaced by an east coast garrison of about 500 people), but it is a pity that the Shun army and the Qing army fought in Jiangxi and southern Anhui repeatedly, and Shen Rui (Shen Yongzhong's son), the general of the Qing army and the third successor of Shun, repeatedly led his troops to break into the northeast of Jiangxi, and Guo Shi'an, the envoy of the Jiangxi Jiedu of Dashun Jiangxi (he can only manage the northwest half of the river now, and cannot be compared with the Guo Sheng period), fought endlessly, and won and lost each other.

In this case, the people on the east bank stationed in the Madang fortress were also a little unstable. Although this fortress has been in operation for many years and is exceptionally strong, in the final analysis, there are only more than 500 soldiers, and even if the guard is temporarily strengthened and the troops are increased, it can only be expanded to 1,000 people. If there is more, the fortress will not be able to hold it!

The garrison of 1,000 people, plus strong walls and numerous artillery, is estimated to be indestructible to the soldiers of some countries with lower levels of civilization, such as the strange battle loss ratio played by the Portuguese who built fortifications on the coast of India when they faced the siege of soldiers and horses from the Indian princely states. However, the Qing court was obviously not the mentally retarded regime of the princely states in southern India, and the Qing soldiers were not those ignorant and backward, poorly equipped, and poorly organized princely states, so if they transferred enough artillery and besieged it at the cost of their lives, the people on the east bank would not be able to hold it, and they could only break through the river and escape in despair.

Therefore, after taking into account the above circumstances, the people on the east coast took the initiative to contact the Dashun side, and when it was calculated to change the location of the trade between the two sides to Hukou County further west, the medicinal materials, grain, porcelain, bamboo, silk, pig bristles and other special commodities in Dashun were all transported here, and the war horses, muskets, armor, knives, cannon barrels, heavy carriages, ammunition packs, tents, sapper shovels and even a few luxury goods sold by the people on the east coast to Dashun were also transported to the wharf of Hukou County, and everyone carried out delivery and settlement together. The reason for this is mainly to prevent being attacked by the Qing army, causing heavy losses.

This time, Guo Puxia took a fleet of 8 72-ton small steamers and 4 inland shallow water gunboats all the way to the dock in Hukou County. During the trade between the two sides, he had nothing to do, so at the invitation of his master, he wandered around the surrounding scenery, and stayed in the Zen temple here in Shizhong Mountain, which had not been built many years ago.

This Zen temple is said to have been built a few years before Guo Sheng's death, in order to repay his wishes. Now the Si people have gone, but the incense of Shizhongshan Zen Temple is becoming more and more vigorous, and from time to time also get the gifts of the nearby officials and gentry, businessmen, this Daxiong Treasure Hall is to repair magnificently. However, the solemn jungle, in the face of distinguished guests such as Guo Puxia, still had to put down their shelves, busy to greet up, the abbot even vacated the best room in the Zen temple, for Guo someone to rest, but also accompanied the whole process, talking about poetry and painting, boiling tea and games, good service.

However, it was because he slept until the sun sank during the day, and Guo Puxia had no sleepiness at this moment, so he simply pushed open the door, signaled the adjutant who slept next door and the sentry outside the door to get up in a hurry not to make a loud noise, and then walked outside the Zen temple and looked at the night scene.

"At this time, the prairie on the east coast is probably the time of spring sowing, a season full of hope. At this time, farmers were concocting seeds in the countryside, cooperatives were probably renting agricultural machinery all over the world, and foreign merchant fleets were almost beginning to arrive at the ports for the annual commodity fair. Sniffing the slightly humid air and listening to the sound of the waves on the lake, Guo Puxia said in an extremely melancholy tone.

"Sir, this is homesickness, isn't it?" The adjutant who hastily put on an overcoat ignored the frost and dew on the ground, and sat directly beside Guo Puxia, and said: "After completing the task in front of you, Chief Guo, you can go back to Madang to pack your luggage comfortably and wait for the ship to return home, which is the envy of people who have been away from home for a long time." ”

In fact, Guo Puxia's whereabouts have basically been decided, that is, to return to China to serve as one of the several deputy commanders of the military police command, which is a relatively noble position. Originally, he expected to serve as the commander of the military police in the Far East, and to take over the squad of Deputy Commander Wei Boqiuwei, who was said to have been seriously ill and bedridden for a long time, but unfortunately this beautiful mission was taken away by others, and he had no choice but to take his luggage back to his homeland to take up his post, which was more or less unwilling.

But what's the use of being unwilling? This world is like this, compared to the Yangtze River Basin, where life and death are now fought and people are as cheap as dogs in the troubled world, his life is envied by many people, even those warlords and generals who are majestic at the moment, they don't know what their fate will be in the next moment, and I don't know how many people want to ask him for Guo Puxia's comfortable life but can't, so it's better to be content.

"After completing this mission, hehe, how can this task be so easy to do......" General Guo Puxia took off his hat and put it in his hand, looked at the Poyang Lake with a little fishing fire, and said with a wry smile: "We were originally soldiers and intelligence officers, and the local government let us work part-time as businessmen and diplomats, and now we are actually let us work part-time as human traffickers, this job is really getting more and more difficult." You just returned from the Huguang area in the west yesterday, and tell me how you have done in collecting the population. ”

"Not very well! The Qing and Shun armies were engaged in a tug-of-war, and the local people were not good enough to stay, so they all ran into the mountains or hid in the rear. We searched everywhere in that area through the connections of business partners accumulated over the years, and some Shunjun officers also opened the door for us to make it easier, but after a month, we still only collected less than 3,000 people, and basically all of them were ordinary people who really couldn't get along. Of course, there were a few routs and even deserters from the Qing and Shun armies, who did not dare to return to the barracks, nor did they want to stay in that beacon land, so they defected to us. All in all, if it weren't really difficult, no one would have followed us, alas, it's a really difficult job. When the adjutant heard Guo Puxia ask this, he also replied with a wry smile, and there were a lot of complaints in his words.

"If you can't find it, it's not a mandatory task anyway. The scale and intensity of the war on the Huguang front line are not large enough, don't look at the three or four hundred thousand troops on both sides pressing here, but there are not too many real confrontations, there are many fortresses, rivers and lakes are crisscrossed, and it is not an ideal place to engage troops. It's a pity that we can't go deep into Sichuan now, as soon as Wu Sangui died, it was already a mess there. Sichuan Province has always been rich and has a large population, so no one on all sides will give up, and I estimate that Sichuan will have to fight for a few more years until one side is completely exhausted. It's a pity, it's a pity, it's a pity that we can't take advantage of such a good opportunity to collect people during the war. Guo Puxia said in a slightly regretful tone.

He once followed the left camp of the Shun army into Sichuan to investigate. During that operation, he realized how rich the "Land of Abundance" really was through his own on-the-ground observations and the accounts of those around him. This province that was not seriously damaged in the change of dynasties at the end of the Ming Dynasty - it was only occupied by Zhang Xianzhong for a while in the early years, and it was also operated as a foundation, and the killing was not heavy, and then Wu Sangui led the army into Sichuan, because of the idea of using it as a fief, and also restrained his subordinates, and did not do much evil - after the recent decades of peace, the recovery was relatively fast, although it was not comparable with the peak of the peak of the Wanli period of the former Ming Dynasty, but it was also quite good, at this time the land of China was definitely a big province, a rich province, If it is captured by the Shun army, then there is no doubt that its strength will increase suddenly, so the Qing court will fight with them for its life.

At present, CD's Wu Sangui is dead, although his son Wu Yinglin has succeeded to the throne, but the Wu group as a whole has irretrievably collapsed, and only a small part of its core ministers and generals are loyal to Wu Yinglin, helping him to barely defend the CD Mansion, and most of the other officials and generals have surrendered to the Qing Dynasty - in fact, it cannot be said that the Qing Dynasty has surrendered, because strictly speaking Sichuan is also a province of the Qing State - a small number of officers or out of nationalist sentiments, or for other considerations, led troops to surrender Liu Zhonggui and Zhang Neng on the Dashun side, The civil officials and some local gentry still remembered the former Ming and surrendered to the Southern Ming.

Therefore, now in the huge Sichuan, except for the CD Prefecture, which is still barely under the control of the descendants of the Wu family, the other prefectures and counties have basically been divided, forming a situation in which the Qing and Shun armies are facing each other and fighting, and the Nan Ming are hiding on the side and preparing to steal the plane - of course, their main job now is to persuade the remnants of the Wu army stationed in northern Guizhou to surrender and recover the whole province as a barrier to Yunnan.

The people on the east coast predicted that Guizhou would soon fall into the hands of Sun Kewang and others, and that some prefectures and counties in southern Sichuan would most likely fall into the hands of Li Dingguo, the general of the Southern Ming Dynasty who came out of Qujing Mansion. There is no doubt about Dongchuan at present, Zhang Neng is already sitting in Chongqing, Liu Zhonggui has just broken Daniel Zhang, the situation is very good, it is good that the Qing court can keep the northern Sichuan region, it is really unrealistic to expect them to counterattack into Dongchuan. As for the ownership of the most elite CD plain in Sichuan, it is necessary to see the result of the final decisive battle between the two sides, and there is no doubt that whoever wins Wu Yinglin will surrender to whom.

"The situation in Sichuan will gradually become clear in the next year or two, and the situation in China will also change dramatically. Don't lament the population anymore, but gradually shift your focus to this. Well, I have recently put together a good report, and the reports on all aspects of the Qing and Shun countries, including the military, political system, commerce, agriculture, industry, diplomacy, etc., must be written, which will have great reference significance for the higher authorities to judge the next step. Guo Puxia finally said: "Hurry up and write, try to show me before I go." ”