"Second Lieutenant Juan is back!" A report woke Liu Haiyang, who was in reverie, only to see him straighten out his military uniform that had been stained with some dust from the continuous war, and then turned to look at an inland river gunboat on the east bank that was moored on the bank of Cixi. At this time, a short and stocky naval officer on the deck of the gunboat was jumping onto the shore and then walking towards Liu Haiyang.

"Get straight to the point." After Liu Haiyang and Second Lieutenant Juan exchanged military salutes, he stopped his possible routine report and said bluntly: "What did Li Guo say over there? ”

The generals of Shun unanimously agreed to launch a counterattack against the Qing state, and they have now gathered more than 100,000 men, and their troops are divided into two routes to attack Jingzhou. The left route is led by Liu Fangliang, the general of the left battalion, and the right route is led by Yuan Zongdi, the general of the right battalion, both of which are the main elites, with enough grain and grass, in addition to some Spanish arquebuses and bronze artillery that we support, it should not be a problem to capture Jingzhou. In addition, more than 40,000 former battalion generals such as Baron Gao Yi, Tian Hu, and Yang Mingqi of Linqu went out of the Hunan and Chu borders, ready to respond at any time. Speaking of this, Second Lieutenant Juan also shook his head, obviously dissatisfied with the strategy of dividing troops in the Shun army: "They have lost more than they won in the past year or two, and they are a little unconfident in the Shangqing army, so they always like to divide their troops into multiple ways, for fear of being served in a pot." ”

"Is there any movement over there in Nanming?" Liu Haiyang continued to ask. To tell the truth, Nanming's group of monarchs and ministers are really a mess in terms of grand strategy, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are extremely stupid, and they basically do things that are happy for relatives and enemies. He was really afraid that He Tengjiao, who was entrenched in southern Hunan, would make some moths, which was difficult to say.

"I spent more than three months in Baling and Changsha, during which there were only a few small border clashes between the Ming and Shun kingdoms. Shunguo was in a hurry to go on the Northern Expedition. Gave two counties to the Ming Kingdom. Only then did the two sides stop. But two days before I came back, I heard that the Ming Kingdom in the south was engaged in friction again, and they wanted the Shun army to give up Changsha, which caused dissatisfaction among the whole Shun Kingdom. At present, their supreme commander, General Li Guo Li (Li Guo did not claim the title of emperor), has led Ma Chongxi, Zhang Neng, Li Shiwei, Wu Pingxiao, Wang Youjin, Helan and other generals of the middle and rear battalions back to Changsha, and he returned with more than 70,000 soldiers and horses, all of whom could have been used in the Northern Expedition to the Qing State. But the reality is that they can't concentrate on it, and it's a shame. ”

"Also. I heard that the generals of the Shun army, Hao Shaoqi, Liu Tichun, Wang Jincai, and others who defected to the Ming State, also had a very difficult time, and they were transferred to Guangxi and Guizhou by the Ming State to suppress the local rebellious Tusi, and at the same time fought against the Qing State and Zhang Xianzhong's Western Army, and the losses were not small. In addition, most of their subordinates were soldiers from Shaanxi and Henan, and many of them died of illness in Guizhou and Guangxi due to unaccustomed water and soil. Moreover, the local Ming officials and local gentlemen also hated them, and deliberately did not give them grain and grass; And once they are forced to raise their own food and grass, these people will scold them for arson and plunder, and then mobilize an army to destroy them. In a word. Ming Guo didn't seem to have any intention of really accepting these people, and was completely deliberately playing with and consuming them. Therefore. These generals all wanted to return to Shun again, and it is said that their envoys had already contacted Li Guo's people many times. ”

"Hmph, there are more than enough failures, and a group of sour Confucian literati is at this level, not surprising." Liu Haiyang smiled coldly, and then said meanly: "I think King Lu's subordinates are much more sober than them, at least they know that it is useless to play false farts in a precarious situation, and it is the king to save themselves first." For this reason, they can do everything, and their bodies are much softer than those of Yongli's gang. Nanming's stupid pigs will only continue to create enemies, and their destruction will only be a matter of day. If it weren't for Li Guo's unwillingness to kill each other, and we didn't approve of it, Shun Jun might have already exterminated He Tengjiao, a fool who supported the army and had different ambitions. ”

"Guo Sheng has now been promoted to General Youguoyi of the Zhongying Battalion, and he is Li Guo's confidant general, and he often says good things about us in front of Li, Liu, Yuan, and other generals, and he also admires the tactics of our army. Therefore, this time, Shunguo sent a group of people to come here on our speedboat, hoping that we could help them train the troops. If possible, they also want to re-equip the troops, and of course they say they will pay for it. Second Lieutenant Juan pointed to the group of people who were disembarking on the bank of Cixi in turn, and said.

At this time, there were eight river gunboats lined up on the bank of Cixi, each gunboat carried about 100 people, their uniforms were very messy, but the discipline was very good.

The Shun army sent less than 1,000 people this time, but the proportion of old peasant troops from the three provinces of Shaanxi, Henan, and Chu was not low, and their combat effectiveness was quite unambiguous. Sent to Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, where the Qing army ruled weakly, should be able to play a significant role.

Their leading general was named Liu Guochang, formerly known as Liu Xiyao, and was the deputy general of the Dashun Left Battalion. He was very old, very radical, and resolutely opposed the decision of Li Guo and others to work together with Nanming, and often made a lot of nonsense in the army, wanting to completely eliminate Nanming and sweep away the Tartars, and belonged to the radical faction. Therefore, this time, he was kicked to the East Coast by Li Guo, Gao Yigong and his old superior, Liu Fangliang, so as to save the noise in their ears.

He was accompanied by Liu Shijun, the Marquis of Dashun Yue, whose daughter Liu was the empress of Li Zicheng in Xi'an in the first year of Yongchang, so she has been pursued by the Qing court. This person has a good relationship with Liu Guochang, in history they opposed to the Southern Ming, so they were besieged by the Southern Ming army in Guangxi, and then the two led their troops out of Guangdong, in the face of the Qing army's surrender was unmoved, resolutely resisted, and then either defeated, or died of illness on the ground of the stuffy and humid Guangdong, and one or two thousand troops perished.

In addition to these two people, Yuan Zongdi's sons Yuan Bao and Lin Yangcheng (formerly known as Lin Yangyang, Li Zicheng changed his name after ascending the throne to avoid secrecy, and the city of Jingzhou died in the raid of the Qing army's Zhengbai Banner) Zhang Guangcui and Zhang Jingchun, two young generals from the department, also came to the east coast together. By sending these new-generation generals to study advanced organizational management and military technology, it can be seen that the Shunjun army has the intention of cultivating successors.

"Call Okukanhai over." After exchanging a few words with the generals of the Shun army, Liu Haiyang said to his adjutant.

Okukanhai soon came. This is a black Xhosa, formerly known as Oran, who is a Krar in the supplementary battalion (second only to the officer in the battalion management band). Because he was the first to attack the city when he attacked Guanhaiwei, he was given the name Guanhai by Liu Haiyang.

"Take these people down to eat. Then give them weapons. Prepare for the next battle. Liu Haiyang commanded. And with his order, these thousand Mingshun troops were soon arranged to live next to Cai Huaze's department and began to have lunch. Lunch is standard on the East Coast, with corn rice and marinated saury, and a bowl of vegetable soup per person, which is pretty good.

And while they were eating, the imperial ancestors who were surrounding Yin County, the capital of Ningbo, were still continuing to attack. The city wall of Yinxian County has been bombarded by the artillery on the east bank to open a gap several zhang long, and the Qing army in the city is frantically blocking it at this time. The Imperial Advance outside the city, with the assistance of the artillery on the east bank, attacked inside, and both sides fought hard and froze there for a while. However, the resistance of the Qing army was only in vain, with their situation of having no food and grass inside and no reinforcements outside, Liu Haiyang estimated that the city would be broken if it didn't last tonight.

In fact, Liu Haiyang overestimated these Qing troops a little, and in the evening, Liu Guochang and others, who had watched the play for a long time on the side, selected 300 elites to select the elite, and took advantage of the Qing army's attention to be attracted to the gap, and successfully landed in the city in one fell swoop. Then he scattered a few Qing troops guarding the city gate and opened the city gate. The resistance of the Qing army collapsed. As soon as the Shun army appeared, it showed impressive combat effectiveness and its commander's excellent battlefield reading ability (knowing how many troops to throw when, where, and where).

Yinxian is the capital city of Ningbo Prefecture, which is extremely wealthy, and the rich families in the city do not know how many. After Wang Chaoxian and Liu Guochang's troops entered the city, what they did was also very interesting. Among them, in addition to plundering the official assets of the Qing generals, the subordinates of the first dynasty did not dare to offend the gentry and eunuchs in the city, and they mainly raised salaries for ordinary people; After Liu Guochang and Liu Shijun led their troops into the city, they basically did not intrude on the people, but wantonly apportioned military salaries and grain to the rich merchants and gentry in the city, which almost clashed with the emperor's ancestors.

However, no matter how noisy they were, Liu Haiyang still received a total of 150,000 taels of silver, as well as a large number of priceless books, antiques, jade and jewelry, as well as raw silk, porcelain, tea and so on.

After fighting Yinxian, Liu Haiyang convened a meeting, unified his thinking, and then led the army to set off quickly to the east, accompanied by naval gunboats, and conquered Dinghai County with lightning speed. After raising a little rations, he boarded the naval transport ship moored outside, and crossed the sea to conquer Jinshanwei in Songjiang Prefecture, Nanzhili, and shook the two provinces. So far, from July 30 to August 31, the east coast army commanded by Liu Haiyang, Wang Chaoxian, Liu Guochang and other two friendly troops have successively conquered Guanhaiwei, Yuyao County, Yin County, Cixi County, Dinghai County and Jinshanwei near Hangzhou Bay, wiped out more than 7,000 Qing troops, seized countless materials, and also collected a large number of craftsmen.

With their continuous raids along the coastal areas of Zhejiang, the local emergency documents of the Qing court flew to Hangzhou like snowflakes, which upset Zhang Cunren, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang. What's more, some local gentry who suffered damage to their family business in the process even wrote letters to their relatives and friends who were officials in Beijing, impeaching Zhang Cunren for standing still and watching the local erosion, causing the famous cities of Dayi to fall one after another, damaging the prestige of the Qing Dynasty and should be severely punished.

But Zhang Cunren is a hardcore traitor (born in the Han military banner), how can these newly attached traitors be shaken lightly? However, being messed up like this by them, Lao Zhang's pressure was not small for a while. Therefore, after thinking about it, he gritted his teeth and squeezed out 5,000 green battalions stationed in Hangzhou, and handed them over to Ke Yongsheng, the former general soldier of Jiaozhou Town, who had just returned from Fujian, and ordered him to lead the more than 7,000 troops (Ke Yongsheng still had more than 2,000 people in his headquarters) into Jiaxing Mansion, and together with some reinforcements sent from Nanjing, they would kill Songjiang Mansion, and work together to suppress the yellow-clothed thieves.

But there are unforeseen circumstances, when Ke Yongsheng took the small number of mobile troops in Zhejiang (more than 40,000 soldiers under Zhang Cunren had to guard various key roads and garrison major cities, which were extremely scattered) to Pinghu County, he suddenly encountered the army under Liu Haiyang. At this time, the army on the east coast was mainly composed of three parts, namely, more than 3,000 people in the east bank headquarters, more than 4,500 people under the troops of Liu Guochang and Cai Huaze of the Shun army (Liu Guochang expanded the army by 2,000 in Ningbo), and more than 16,000 people in the first division of the general dynasty of King Lu, totaling nearly 25,000 people.

The result of the encounter was obvious, the more than 7,000 people under Ke Yongsheng's command were not three-headed and six-armed, except for the more than 2,000 Jiaozhou soldiers in his headquarters who were still capable of fighting. The remaining 5,000 people were all ordinary. After holding out for more than two hours, the whole line was defeated. After losing more than half of the soldiers and horses, they retreated to Jiaxing County in a hurry.

On September 13, the army on the east coast broke through the capital city of Jiaxing County, Ke Yongsheng was defeated and committed suicide, and the remaining more than 1,000 remnants of the army also surrendered. Many officers and soldiers of the early dynasty deeply hated the slaughter of their comrades-in-arms by these Jiaozhou soldiers in Fujian, and vented their anger and killed more than 300 prisoners of Ke Yongsheng's headquarters who surrendered.

After conquering Jiaxing, the east coast army boarded the ship again, and then approached the empty city of Hangzhou, which made the people of Hangzhou panic for a while. Zhang Cunren summoned the gentry and wealthy households in the city to donate. Recruit warriors to defend the city, but still don't give people any sense of security. However, they were lucky, when reinforcements from Nanjing arrived, Liu Haiyang felt that his troops were insufficient, so he ordered the withdrawal of the army.

However, just when Zhang Cunren was relieved, news suddenly came from the south that Ruan Jin, Zhang Mingzhen and others, subordinates of King Lu, captured the Jianqiao Station, and then attacked the city nearby, and laid a good foundation for a while.

After Liu Haiyang heard the news, he dissuaded Wang Chaoxian, who wanted to go to the convergence. Then, on September 25, he led his troops to land again in Songjiang Prefecture, and after capturing and mobilizing the Qing army (reinforcements sent from Nanjing). He boarded the ship again and left, and suddenly appeared along the Yangtze River in early October, and the troops came to Zhenjiang Mansion, making the Qing army have a lot of chickens and dogs, and they lost the other.

At this time, Nanjing's troops were already quite empty, not to mention Zhenjiang, which was close here. Some of the troops originally stationed here were transferred to Jiangxi to support Jierharang, and some of them went south to support Hangzhou, and the remaining troops were more than capable of self-preservation and lack of progress, so they could only sit back and watch the army on the east coast show off their might in the nearby countryside to collect grain and grass.

On October 10, the army on the east coast conquered the Jingkoudu, which was guarded by the Qing army, and the Qing army did not have time to burn the huge amount of grain and tax silver stored here before the Qing army retreated, so it all fell into the hands of Liu Haiyang, Liu Guochang, and Wang Chaoxian. These more than 200,000 stone rice grains, as well as as as 450,000 taels of tax silver, were enough to fill more than a dozen 1,200-ton sailing ships, and the people on the east coast also transported them here for more than ten days. During this period, Nanjing sent some troops to try to recapture Jingkoudu, but they did not curry favor in front of the east coast army, which was supported by naval guns, and the wolf retreated.

On 24 October, after burning down the Jingkou crossing, the East Coast army returned to Hangzhou Bay by boat at the end of the month, and the outnumbered Qing army was exhausted. The shape of the southeastern coastal area, which was originally quite good and could provide food and salary for the Qing court, actually showed a trend of gradual disintegration.

However, at this time, the good fortune of the Qing army gradually came. As the northeast wind blows in the nearby sea, as many as 18 1,200-ton sailing ships have gathered here at the most, they have begun to sail to Yantai, Jeju, Daber and other places in batches - the annual migrant transportation season has begun again. After all, the most important task of the people on the East Coast in the Far East was to emigrate, and the war with the Qing army was the second.

After the departure of these ships, the troops on the east coast, who had been greatly reduced in mobility, could no longer launch a counterattack with ease, because they had only four ships (naval gunboats and a coal carrier teamed up to the Jiujiang area to attack the small ships of the Qing army that were transporting supplies for the Zilharang army, and dragged them back) that could be used to transport supplies and personnel. And this obviously also made the originally tired Zhejiang Qing army temporarily breathe a sigh of relief and was able to calmly adjust the layout.

After seeing the yellow-clothed thief sailor's ship heading north, Wang Chao first felt that there was nothing to do below, so after informing Liu Haiyang, he began to lead the army to retreat to Zhoushan. The more than 20,000 troops of the department (which have been expanded) will go to the Jian Jumping Center in the south after a short rest and recuperation, and join Zhang Mingzhen and Ruan Jin. I heard that Lu Jianguo, who was stationed in Shacheng Port, also intends to return to eastern Zhejiang, so it will be better, everyone will join forces together, and there will be no shortage of food and salary for the time being (there was a lot of seizures a while ago), so you can just try to make a great cause.

Liu Guochang, Liu Shijun, Cai Huaze and others from Dashun retreated to the area of Ningbo Mansion in eastern Zhejiang under the construction of the East Coast people. It is rich in things and people, the terrain is excellent, and it is close to the Zhoushan Islands, which can be used as a base place. Liu Haiyang built a fortress in the mountains leading from Yuyao County to Yin County, where the terrain was narrow, and after the fort was repaired, the cannon could control the overall situation. If the Qing army does not remove this nail, a large force will no longer be able to easily enter the hinterland of Ningbo Prefecture, so that the Shun army may be able to take advantage of the opportunity to entrench here. Of course, if things are not harmonious, they can also return to the sea with the assistance of the navy on the east coast, which is very convenient.

At the beginning of November 1649, when Liu Haiyang in the south was racking his brains to make trouble for the Qing army, in the Shandong battlefield in the north, the Qing army vanguard returning from Shanxi also appeared in the territory of Guide Mansion in Henan Province and Hejian Mansion in Zhili Province in the north, and the war clouds once again shrouded the sky over Shandong. Of course, the people on the east coast also quickly discovered the movements of the Qing army, after all, the movements of tens of thousands of troops are difficult to hide, and the people on the east coast began to pack up and prepare to evacuate Jinan City according to the plan made in advance. (To be continued......)