"The scenery of the northern country, thousands of miles of ice, thousands of miles of snow. Inside and outside Wang'an Hill, there is only a remnant of recklessness, and the big river ...... Never mind. Under the castle tower of Anqiu County, Mao Desheng, who was wrapped in an earthy yellow military coat, was smoking a pipe, and he was rarely poetic in the snowy wilderness. Let's go downstairs and eat. ”

Several retinues and assistants from down-and-out scholars looked at each other, chewed on the short sentences just now, and then followed Mao Desheng down the tower.

In the small city of Anqiu County, thousands of elite men and horses such as the 103rd Company, 104th Company, Supplementary Company, Yantai Artillery Company, Security Team, and Cavalry Brigade of the East Coast Army were crowded into the city at this time. In addition, about six or seven hundred meters away from the west of the city, there is also a stockade with a mixed structure of civil engineering, where the three infantry battalions and supplementary troops of the Eight Banners New Army of South Africa are stationed under the command of Liu Zhong, the standard commander; There is also a wooden camp in the south of the city, in which more than 4,000 soldiers of Dong Xueli's department are stationed; In the north of the city, a larger village also stood in the wind and snow on the bank of the river, with more than 9,000 soldiers and more than 2,000 soldiers of Qin Shangxing's department huddled together.

Inside and outside Anqiu County, more than 10,000 of the most elite infantry artillery main force soldiers on the east bank were stationed, which attracted the attention of the Qing army like a magnet and relieved considerable pressure on the anti-Qing rebels who were struggling to persist in Dongchang Mansion and Yanzhou Mansion.

In the south, south of Zhucheng County, near the coast, the main force of the advance team commanded by Captain Zhang Xudong, a captain of the army and commander of the 1st Wing, was also stationed in a military camp built of civil engineering. They were responsible for liaison with the navy (two flute-type transports, two armed transports, and nearly 30 medium-sized fishing boats, four warships had gone to the vicinity of Zhoushan, and the remaining 16 sailing ships were to be used to transport migrants). Ensure the smooth flow of all kinds of materials needed for the operation of large troops.

And apart from them. There are also nearly 6,000 soldiers and horses of Chen Zhilong's troops stationed in Zhucheng County. The 3,500 people in Du Chong's department undertook the task of escorting 6,000 soldiers to transport heavy supplies because of the large number of mules and horses, and basically everyone could ride horses. As for Ding Mingwu, Xie Qian and other departments, they have a lot of people, but their combat effectiveness is too weak, so they were sent back to Dengzhou, Ninghaizhou, and Weihaiwei by Mao Desheng to run the old nest, and they are not needed on the front line for the time being.

Because of the existence of the navy on the east coast, the main force of the Qing army did not dare to go deep to the east. What is feared is that the main forces on the east coast will suddenly land in the rear and cut off their supply lines. Therefore, from September to December, for three months, the two sides have been facing each other near the junction of Qingzhou and Laizhou, and from time to time they have engaged in small-scale battles, but there has not been a large-scale main battle. Especially after the arrival of nearly 1,000 recruited Polish veterans on the east coast in November, the cavalry strength increased greatly (2,800 Polish cavalry, about 500 Tatar cavalry. In addition, the highly skilled security team scouted more than 350 people) The East Coast Army even made the small number of Qing troops who monitored them look sideways.

In particular, one of them rode a tall horse (a hybrid horse with a height of more than 145 cm, an obsolete product bred by Ma Zheng). Dressed in iron armor, with short guns hanging from their waists, and holding spears, they were quite imposing when they charged in groups, which impressed the cavalrymen of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners who fought with them.

The two sides did not engage in a main battle, that was because the people on the east coast did not intend to have a main decisive battle with them at all, and the main force of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners did not intend to consume the precious children of the country on the battlefield in Shandong - according to Tan Tai and Le Ke Dehun's estimates, in order to completely defeat the Yellow Cloth Thief, it is likely that thousands of Eight Banners will need to be killed or wounded.

After all, the other side's more than 1,000 "True Yellow Thief" musketeers and gunners, the 4,000-strong Black Domain Ghost Slave Heavy Infantry, and thousands of colored cavalry were not easy to match. In a head-on battle, under the situation of the yellow-clothed thieves firing guns and cannons, the Eight Banners soldiers did not kill or wound five or six thousand people, and I am afraid that they would not be able to take down this enemy. Not to mention that Qin Shangxing, Zhai Congge, Dong Xueli, Chen Zhilong and others on the other side are not muddy, they have made rapid progress under the training of the yellow-clothed thieves, even in the green battalion of the Qing army, they are also relatively good battalions, and their combat power cannot be underestimated.

This is not over, the other party seems to have a battalion of seven or eight thousand "fake yellow thieves" established by himself (most of them are dispatched this time), this is not an easy thing to deal with, and the combat effectiveness may be stronger than the troops of Qin, Zhai, Dong, and Chen, and the "Four King Kongs" is on the front line, and the tactics are quite peculiar, which is somewhat similar to the real yellow thieves. In short, this group of thieves is unexpectedly fierce, let's wait for the main force of the Green Battalion to clear out the Yuyuan Army, Dongping Thieves, Mule Army, Qingshan Thieves, Li Huajing Caozhou Rebels, Ding Weiyue Regiment Training Army and other large and small rebel armed forces. At that time, more than 100,000 troops gathered in Qingzhou, and the yellow thief was pressed back.

As for taking more than 100,000 horses to chase to Dengzhou to beat the yellow-clothed thieves, Tan Tai, Luck Dehun and others had never thought about it, it was impossible, and they didn't dare to take such a big risk. As long as the yellow-clothed thieves carry out the policy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness in Laizhou and Qingzhou, the food supply of the more than 100,000 Qing troops can only be provided completely by the rear, and the supply line will be long, and then the yellow-clothed thieves can rely on their superb mobility to land in the empty rear of the Qing army and cut off their supply lines, then the more than 100,000 Qing troops in front will collapse without a fight.

However, although those Yuyuan troops are weak, they are indeed cunning enough. They knew that the Qing army was pressing the territory and did not dare to toss outside, so they all hid back in their lair, taking advantage of the complex local environment and favorable terrain to resist one by one; Some even played guerrilla warfare, although now that the "I Daqing" have strong troops, they will be able to clean up these guys one by one sooner or later, but the time it takes in the middle is not a score.

Historically, Zhang Cunren once led more than 100,000 Qing troops to encircle and suppress the Shandong Righteous Army led by the Yuyuan Army, but it took more than two years before and after the initial pacification of its main force, and the remnants of the Yuyuan Army had been making trouble for more than ten years before finally disappearing, which shows the complexity of the local environment and the resolute resistance of the Yuyuan Army.

At that time, Zhang Cunren unified the affairs of Zhili, Shandong, and Henan provinces, and held more than 150,000 soldiers, and it took more than two years to pacify most of them. But now the yellow-clothed thieves are on the side, and many places have divided troops to stay behind, and they can't go all out to suppress them; In addition, their green battalion troops were inferior to history in terms of personnel and morale after being attacked repeatedly, so at this time, they had to be assisted by the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, which further reduced their desire to fight with the yellow-clothed thieves as the main force, and also made the entire process of advancing and suppressing more confusing, and it was likely to develop in a direction that was not conducive to the Qing army - after all, in the mountainous dense forest, the difference between a Eight Banners soldier and a green battalion soldier was really not big, and it was not easy to exterminate those geographical ghosts who were familiar with the environment.

The Qing army was concentrating on exterminating the Yuyuan army and relieving its own worries - after all, a lot of the grain and grass needed by the army had to be raised from the relatively rich Dongchang Mansion and Yanzhou Mansion, and if these bandits were not exterminated, the army could only drink the northwest wind - Mao Desheng naturally would not let them get their wish. As a result, skirmishes continued uninterrupted for three months, with both the people on the east bank taking the initiative to attack the Qing army and the Qing army attacking the supply lines on the east bank (from Zhucheng to Anqiu).

The people on the east coast took the initiative to attack without success, because the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners could avoid the battle, unless they were facing the cavalry wing on the east bank (under the jurisdiction of two cavalry brigades, a total of 2,800 cavalry, of which about 600 were Polish heavy cavalry, riding mixed horses), otherwise they were unwilling to engage in a head-on battle with the yellow-clothed thieves; The Qing army's attack on the transport convoy of the people on the east coast did not take advantage of it, because the transport team of the people on the east coast was dominated by heavy freight carriages, which were controlled by strictly trained spear-wielding soldiers, and the first brigade of the elite advance team (spearmen, musketeers and a small number of artillery) and part of the cavalry (donkey and mule cavalry of Du Chong's department) were on the side.

In such a situation, although there were no large-scale battles between the two sides, small-scale battles were often carried out. More than 10,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners and some local regimental training, salt ding, tax ding, and government servants were firmly dragged to Qingzhou Mansion to accompany the various departments on the east coast to conduct rotational battles to temper the troops.

After the time entered mid-to-late November, due to the particularly cold weather this year, heavy snow fell in Shandong, so even the small-scale fighting between the two sides gradually stopped, and began to rest and organize their troops. The same is true of Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion, although the green battalions of the Qing army were strictly ordered by the upper peak, but the inconvenience caused by the bad weather still reduced their efficiency a lot, the soldiers complained a lot, and the morale of the army was also quite sluggish, which made the Yuyuan Army and other righteous soldiers who were beaten to the ground breathe a sigh of relief.

However, just when both sides were staring at each other and waiting for the opportunity, at the beginning of 1649, when the Khalkha Mongols invaded the border, Dolgon convened a meeting of the kings, and felt that it should not be taken lightly, so he transferred some men and horses from the already very tense army to the Datong area, and at the same time ordered Jiang Huang, who was guarding the place, to go out of the city to come to visit, which caused Jiang Huang's doubts. At this time, when Li, Jin, Wang and others in the south were anyway, the Qing court urgently dispatched part of the Manchu, Han and Mongolian Eight Banners to be led by the veteran Jierharang to extinguish the fire.

Jiang Jiu's anyway, like a thunderclap, echoed for a long time in the incomparably empty land of Sanjin. (To be continued......)