The inefficiency of the Qing government gave Zhou Lang enough time, and throughout October and November, Zhou Lang did not even wait for a large-scale attack by the Qing army.

The Qing troops in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Guangdong only carried out a small range of local troop movements, and their combat strength and strength were not enough to attack Fujian.

Zhou Lang's army advanced northward to the water pass on the border with Zhejiang, occupying this place where the official road from Zhejiang to Fujian must pass, basically cutting off the passage for a large-scale Qing army to counterattack Fujian from Zhejiang.

Along the Minjiang River and Jianjiang River, it advanced to Chong'an, Nanpu and other counties in the Wuyi Mountain Tea District in northwest Fujian, cutting off the passage from southwest Zhejiang and northeast Jiangxi to Fujian; Along the Minjiang River and Jinxi, it entered Jianning, Taining and other counties, cutting off the passage from central Jiangxi to Fujian. In this way, the first line of defense relying on the Wuyi Mountains was established; Along the Jinjiang River to Yunshan and along the Jiulong River to Tortoiseshell Mountain, a second line of defense was established.

As for the Tingzhou area in the upper reaches of the Tingjiang River, it was temporarily abandoned because it was unable to control the entire river basin through the estuary of the Haihai River, but a defensive base was established in the Yunxiao area bordering the Chaoshan region. Once the local army in Guangdong launched an attack, it attacked according to the situation, seized the Chaoshan area, obtained the Tingjiang (Hanjiang) estuary, traced back to Tingzhou, and controlled the entire territory of Fujian. If the Guangdong army waits and sees, Zhou Lang doesn't mind maintaining a tacit understanding with them to live in peace.

In more than two months, Zhou Lang established two defense lines inside and outside, controlled more than a dozen checkpoints, and arranged more than 500 cannons.

At the same time, along the river, establish a communication line to these levels.

The external defense system was basically completed, but Fujian was still in chaos, Zhou Lang could only control the communication lines and the prefectures and counties near the communication lines, and most of the Fujian prefectures and counties were still controlled by the Qing army, not to mention the vast rural areas, which did not have any control at all, which was a huge hidden danger, but he just did not have the extra troops to strengthen control.

However, the Northern Expedition of his ally Chen Zhouquan, with the help of Zhou Lang, finally began.

Chen Zhouquan is no longer what it used to be, after seizing the capital city of Taiwan and suppressing the armed resistance of the landlords in Chiayi and other counties, Chen Zhouquan carried out large-scale purge activities in Chiayi County and Taiwan County, and the old landlord class was almost completely wiped out by him, but a new landlord class appeared again, because Chen Zhouquan attacked the landlords, mainly out of revenge, he hated these landlords for standing on the side of the Qing army against him, so after he killed the landlords, he did not distribute the landlords' land to the tenant farmers, and his understanding has not yet reached this height. He distributed these lands to the meritorious officials who followed him, and cronies like Chen Guanghui were all allocated tens of thousands of acres or even tens of thousands of acres of fertile land.

In addition, Chen Zhouquan also suppressed the two major ethnic groups that opposed him, Zhangzhou and Cantonese, and carried out a purge of the forces opposing him from the grassroots level in the countryside. Although there are many murders, they will never be troubled. After he drove the Qing army out of Taiwan, his control over the grassroots of society was greatly strengthened, and as a result, when the Qing army counterattacked Taiwan for the second time, it did not get the cooperation of a large number of landlord armed forces as before.

However, the scale of the purge was too large, and it also caused chaos in social order, so that the rich areas of central Taiwan lost a large number of people, and most of them fled to Fengshan County, but this chaos, not only did not weaken Chen Zhouquan, but strengthened his strength, because the imbalance of order led to an increase in the number of displaced people, making it easy for him to expand his troops.

The reason why Chen Zhouquan was able to retreat the Qing army presided over by Changlin was because he already had a large number of troops in his hands. Moreover, this army is no longer a rabble, but has established a relatively tight organization and has carried out a certain degree of training.

Chen Zhouquan is a smart man, he makes a living from business, can go back and forth between the two sides of the strait, and organizes the forces of the Heaven and Earth Society in Fujian and Taiwan, and his personal organizational ability is still very strong, and the experience of a businessman makes him more knowledgeable than his contemporaries, so he still understands some basic military knowledge.

Through the experience of blood, his army gained experience and also learned to fight. The waves washed the sand, and a group of elite veterans crawled out of the pile of dead. Moreover, Chen Zhouquan recruited a large number of prisoners of the Qing army, and these professional officers of the Qing army helped him improve the military structure, so that Chen Zhouquan's army not only had an elite composed of veterans with rich combat experience, but also had a second-line army with basic organizational skills.

The number of troops under Chen Zhouquan's command is as high as 300,000, of which 100,000 are experienced veterans and 200,000 are recruited recruits.

As for why Chen Zhouquan chose Zhejiang for the Northern Expedition, it was mainly because Zhou Lang occupied the coastal areas of Fujian, and even Chen Zhouquan's hometown Tong'an was controlled by Zhou Lang, Chen Zhouquan had no intention of merging with Zhou Lang at this time, because he did not have a sailor in his hand, and he could not compete with Zhou Lang at all, but it was better to use the help of the sailor in Zhou Lang's hand so that he could enter the mainland and carry out the Northern Expedition.

And it was precisely because Zhou Lang easily occupied Fujian that Chen Zhouquan, who was forced to decisively choose to cooperate with Zhou Lang and make a northern expedition to Zhejiang. Because Chen Zhouquan saw the weakness of the Qing army, if he didn't go to Zhejiang and let Zhou Lang gain a firm foothold in Fujian, Zhou Lang's strength would completely suppress Chen Zhouquan, so Chen Zhouquan chose to rush ahead of Zhou Lang and march into Zhejiang.

After the capture of Penghu, Zhou Lang's fleet had no opponents in the waters of Fujian and Zhejiang, and was fully dispatched to help Chen Zhouquan on his northern expedition.

first helped Chen Zhouquan establish a foothold in Wenzhou Bay, then helped Chen Zhouquan's troops land, and then handed it all over to Chen Zhouquan.

Chen Zhouquan soon captured Wenzhou along the Oujiang River as a base for advance, and then continued to advance along the west and south along the coast, and by December, he had already attacked Lishui in the upper reaches of the Oujiang River to the west, and to Lingxi in the south, where he joined Zhou Lang's army at the Dividing Water Pass.

After that, Chen Zhouquan continued to go north along the coastal plain, and after entering the waters of Zhejiang, Chen Zhouquan recruited the Fujian pirate group, the Fengwei Gang and the Shuiao Gang that were squeezed into the waters of Zhejiang by Zhou Lang, as well as a large number of pirate gangs called Zhejiang Tukou by the Qing court, with more than 200 warships and more than 10,000 sailors.

In the case of advancing troops on both land and water, Chen Zhouquan successfully took Taizhou Mansion, and then occupied the seaport of Ningbo, and half of the coastal wall of Zhejiang has fallen into Chen Zhouquan's hands.

At this time, the Qing court was already in a panic, and they were still discussing the strategy of exterminating the Zhou Lang Haikou group, when suddenly the flames of war ignited in Zhejiang, which caught them off guard.

I really can't understand why Fujian and Zhejiang, which are located in the southeast, suddenly collapsed.

Moreover, the Qing court believed that Chen Zhouquan, who regarded himself as the emperor of the Great Tomorrow, was more dangerous than the Zhou Lang Haikou group no matter how he looked at it.

As expected, the Qing court began to take Chen Zhouquan as the first target, and recovered all the Zhejiang soldiers who had been mobilized to the border of Fujian and Zhejiang and were ready to enter Fujian, first exterminating Chen Zhouquan, and then clearing Zhou Lang.

At the same time, the Jiangning Eight Banners and the Jiangsu Army were mobilized to enter Zhejiang, and together with the Zhejiang Eight Banners and the Green Battalion, they encircled and suppressed Chen Zhouquan's rebels.

For the Zhou Lang group, the Qing court did not relax, and ordered Guangdong and Jiangxi to cooperate with each other and suppress Zhou Lang.

This result was also what Zhou Lang expected, the Qing court really chose a full-scale attack and attacked Zhou Lang and Chen Zhouquan at the same time, which actually means that Chen Zhouquan helped Zhou Lang bear half of the striking force of the Qing court, and he helped Zhou Lang block the gun.