Shou Orderly rode an inland river official ship with a displacement of more than 30 tons, with a flat bottom and an upturned tail. In autumn and winter, the water depth of some shallows of the Nanliu River is only more than 1 meter. The draft of the official ship is 4 feet, and the rudder has been optimized to adapt to the shallow water of inland rivers. The plunge plates on both sides of the hull have been lowered to control the ship's side drift.

The chapel was located in the center of the hull, with a large bedroom at the rear and a living room at the front, which had also been converted into a living cabin to accommodate the orderly guards. The order took 60 people with him, scattered on 2 ships.

In addition to the four official ships with similar shapes, most of the rest are grain and salt ships on the Nanliu River. Since the Song Dynasty, Lianzhou has been a distribution port for salt transportation, and most of Guangxi's salt has to be supplied by salt ships from the Nanliu River. The salt ship carries 35,000 catties, and there are about 100 salt ships with similar shapes in Lianzhou.

Zhou Jin, the prefect of Lianzhou, sealed the mobilization of civilian ships, and also made some modifications. A layer of black pong was added to the grain ships and salt ships, and in a light rain like today, at least the soldiers would be spared the suffering of the rain.

Both sides of the fleet are flat Nanliu River Delta, from northeast to southwest to the mouth of Nanliu River, about 50 kilometers long, an area of more than 60 million acres, here is the second largest plain in Guangxi. The ground is flat, farmland is everywhere, and rivers and canals are crisscrossed. There are five or six tributaries that flow into the Nanliu River in the delta, and counting the Bobai County Basin and the Yulinzhou Basin in front, there are more than 20 navigable tributaries of the Nanliu River.

In front of it was a shoal called the Locust Beach by local boatmen, and the fleet docked and anchored.

Although the boat has sails, due to the winding waterway of the Nanliu River, the river surface is narrow, and the boat often cannot be carried by sails. So the slender man became indispensable, and the fleet divided and cooperated, leaving one person at the helm of the boat, the other two on the boat with long bamboo poles to support the boat, and the rest of the people on the river bank with the back fiber to pull the boat. Except for the cold winter, at other times, they ** go up, wear only a pair of shorts, barefoot, step on the shore with dirt, gravel, pebbles, hunched waist to pull fiber.

If it is a salt carrier, it is usually five or six ships to form a boat gang, and everyone works together at the beach mouth to pull the boats over one by one.

Naturally, the army's transport ships do not need to be so troublesome, and the manpower is sufficient. The soldier laid down his weapon, disembarked empty-handed, took off his jacket and, together with the boatman, pulled up the rope and carried it on his back.

The shouts of "ouch ouch" floated high into the blue sky one after another. In the binoculars, the soldier's clothes were quickly soaked with sweat and wet. In some shoals, where the water is not deep enough, the sand is dug up with a shovel to allow the boat to float, and then the boat is pulled across the shallows with a back fiber.

The place where the water system of the Nanliu River is relatively narrow, people call it the beach mouth. There are more than a dozen beach mouths in the Nanliu River, because there are often small stone mountains exposed on the river surface at the beach mouths, so one end of the fiber rope must be tied to a position 5 meters high on the mast of the ship to pull the fiber. The most difficult beach mouth to pull fiber is even the leech beach in front. Not only is the mouth narrow, but the water depth difference is nearly one metre high.

Orderly returns to the bedroom and opens the map.

He came to Nanliujiang for two purposes, one was for the silver buried in Beiliu County, and the other was to investigate the hydrology of Nanliujiang. In the upper reaches of the mouth of the Nanliu River, it is best for the fleet to travel only during the day, and at night to bring the ships close to the river bank and anchor for rest.

The Nanliu River is the most important inland river in the western Guangdong control area, and its strategic significance is very important. It's not reliable to make decisions just on the map, and keeping order requires a more intuitive impression.

In the territory of Lianzhou Prefecture, the water surface difference of the Nanliu River is very small, and the flow rate is gentle. The advantage is that it is convenient for boating, but the disadvantage is the silt accumulated in the estuary. Before the Ming Dynasty, Hepu Port was one of the main ports for China's communication with the South Seas, and before the Song Dynasty, it was used for military purposes to suppress Annam. In the past, dynasties attached great importance to the navigation of the Nanliu River, built dikes on both sides of the river, and often dredged the estuary into the sea. After the explosive growth of maritime technology in the Ming Dynasty and the rise of better ports such as Guangzhou, Hepu's status declined rapidly. The imperial court gradually did not pay attention to the construction of the port in Hepu, and the sediment accumulation not only made the port of Hepu useless, but also had a greater negative impact on the poor drainage of the river.

Therefore, although the Nanliujiang Delta Plain has fertile land and excellent hydrothermal conditions, agricultural production here is very backward. It has 600,000 acres of paddy fields and very few harvests. If you want to develop Lianzhou Mansion in depth, the first thing to do is to dredge the sea and dredge the river water into the sea.

Qiongzhou assessed the costs and potential benefits of defending Lianzhou, which was an important town that controlled the estuaries of the most important mainland rivers, but kept it outside the defensive circle.

Being outside the defensive circle of Qiongzhou does not mean giving up. Qiongzhou has many allies in the Liangguang region, and the outlying strongholds can be handed over to the allies to defend.

In the orderly planning, Shangxiachuan Island will belong to Li Chengdong's general army to control Humen, Linghai General Chen Qice, which is now also his territory.

Wang Xing occupied several castles on the mainland in Enping County, Zhaoqing Prefecture, and Guanghaiwei, Guangzhou Prefecture, echoing Chen Qice.

Hailing Island in Yangjiang County also needs an ally, and the coastal defense forces of Hailang and Pisces in the north to guard the Thousand Households.

Dianbaicheng Shen Dianwei belongs to Lu Zhan.

Jianjiangkou Wuchuan Shouyu Thousand Households belonged to Li Mingzhong.

In the Guangzhou Bay of the Leizhou Peninsula, there is another garrison on the East China Sea Island, the South Three Islands, and the Jinzhou Island.

In this way, from Qinzhou Bay to the mouth of the Pearl River, all the important islands and estuaries along the coastline of Guangdong were fortified, and a great wall of the sea across the coast of Guangdong was established. This can not only cover Haikou, but also threaten from the flanks the fragile supply lines of the enemy from Guangzhou to the Leizhou Peninsula.

Order has always been on the senate-tolerated border, and at least so far, the Confederation has not invested much military force on the mainland, and that will not change for many years to come. Whether it's Hainan Island or Guangdong's other allies, China needs to rely more on its own strength.

The Guangdong's allies chosen by the orderly have common characteristics. They have a firm will to fight, and people like Wang Xing, Deng Yao, Li Mingzhong, Chen Qice, and others have maritime forces that cannot be ignored. They are the local natives of Guangdong, and they have inextricable connections on the mainland, and they have many channels to open up the smuggling network on the mainland.

The federal investment is not much, such as when there is no large convoy, disperse the merchant ships that run the coastal route to enter the port to replenish, and pay commercial taxes to the allies. Acquire smuggled goods acquired by allies on the mainland, get more immigrants through them, and so on. These investments are necessary and will undoubtedly be a win-win situation.

In its original history, Liangguang was the province with the fiercest resistance to the Tatars, and the organized Ming army held out until the 80s of the 17th century. Not to mention the subsequent history, the Heaven and Earth Society, the Taiping Army, the League Society, and the Liangguang have always led the Chinese resistance movement. In terms of the foundation of popular support, there is no better base for resistance in China than Liangguang.

In fact, the hardware facilities along the coast of Guangdong are relatively good, and in the original history, the Chinese resistance forces used these hardware, but did not play all the roles. With a little bit of effort, Orderly can pry up a piece and make the allies do better. War is a zero-sum game, with one power going down and the other growing, and the Ming army has more strength, and the Tatars have less strength.

The Great Wall of the Sea plays a role, and the effect of bloodletting the enemy is a slow and long-term mechanism. The planned Leizhou Peninsula defense line is strong, but that doesn't mean it's foolproof. The safest line of defense is certainly the one that the enemy will never be able to reach. Qiongzhou still needs stronger allies to directly assume the ground defense of the periphery.

To the north of Leizhou are Lianzhou and Gaozhou, and Shou Xuan circled two areas on the map.

Find an ally to defend Lianzhou and establish a front defense against Guangxi to the north.

Then find allies to hold part of the western part of Gaozhou and establish a defensive front against Guangdong.

It is obvious that the strength of the enemy forces from the direction of Guangdong will be stronger than that of Guangxi. Therefore, although there is also an inland river supply of the Jianjiang River, Gaozhou Prefecture Zhimaoming County is not in the order plan. If this ally can hold the area of Shicheng County (now Lianjiang) and Huazhou, Shou Xian will not mind sending Suixi and Haikang counties south of Leizhou to raise their army.

The Ming army in Qiongzhou came to defend Lianzhou at a loss, but for some allies, the cost may not be worth the benefit. If we want to feed their army with local production in Lianzhou, we must dredge the sea, build river embankments, and turn the Nanliu River Delta, which has excellent natural conditions, into a granary. This meant keeping the enemy's offensive forces out of the delta.

The hydrological conditions of the shallow shoals of the Nanliu River determined that in the middle and upper reaches of the river, the fleet could only be used as a transportation force to reduce costs, and not as a combat force that was decisive for the battle.

To defend the delta, it is necessary to hold the passes and cities upstream, from north to south, which are Tianmen Pass, Yulinzhou City, and Bobai County.

On this map of Order, Tianmen Pass has another, more resounding name, Ghost Gate Pass.

The best result is to keep the enemy army out of the Ghost Gate Pass, followed by holding on to Yulinzhou City, and last to hold on to Bobai County.

The Guardian is doing deductions on the map, and if the enemy forces have an advantage, these strongholds will definitely be surrounded. Defenders can blunt enemy arrows with defense, holding the city to consume the enemy's accumulated strength for transporting food and grass for land. But in the end, a strong field force was still needed to relieve the siege of the city. It is not enough to be beaten, there is no army that must be saved, and there is no city that must be defended. The existing allies can defend the islands and coastal forts well, but the defense of the inland areas is based on field capabilities, and their strength is not enough.

It is rare to train such a field force from scratch in the south, and there are too many fronts to consider in Qiongzhou, and too many forces cannot be invested in Lianzhou and Gaozhou. If you can have a strong field force with high talent that can be restored without training and just replenishment, guarding the perimeter will be a job with a positive income.

The orderly gaze looked at the Huguang battlefield, there are not many troops with this kind of strength in China, and the loyal battalion is definitely one of them. They were able to defeat the main force of the Eight Banners led by Azig for a month at Wayao Fort, and their strength should be very strong.

According to the latest battle report, the loyal battalion under the command of Li Guo and Gao Yigong has marched into Changde, an important town west of Dongting Lake.