The Far Eastern Army easily defeated Li Zicheng's displaced armed forces, and also caused the collapse of hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

These scattered displaced people will definitely bring certain troubles to the Far Eastern Company in the future. After all, they are scattered into small groups of thieves, which will cause considerable harm to public security in various places.

In the face of such a situation, the Far Eastern Army has no choice, and the main task now is to quickly control the area south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, and then gradually solve the bandit armies in various places in the future.

The landing force of the Southern Corps successfully landed in the southern part of Shandong and along the coast of Nanzhili, and rapidly advanced deep into the territory of Daming. The inland river assault force took the river engine sailboat and the river steam deck barge into the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and attacked and advanced all the way to the west, controlling the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in the shortest possible time.

In this era, inland waterway shipping was the golden waterway, and the canal, the Yangtze River, the Ganjiang River, and the Pearl River were the lifelines of the country's material transportation, especially the Yangtze River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which occupied an extremely important position in the Ming Dynasty.

If the Yellow River and the Yangtze River are the mother rivers of China and the origin of Chinese culture, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal plays a role in inheritance and connection.

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the only transportation line between Beijing and Jiangnan. From an economic point of view, Cao Yun played a role in the lifeblood of the Ming Dynasty's state finances.

Caoyun is also the only transportation line between the capital and Jiangnan, through which all supplies of goods must pass. These materials are mainly grain from the south, and other fruits, poultry, textiles, wood, stationery, porcelain, etc., almost all of China's products are transported through the Grand Canal.

The inland river assault force of the Southern Corps is divided into three major fleets, namely the Yangtze River Fleet, the Yellow River Fleet, and the Canal Fleet, with a total of more than 2,000 inland river steam deck barges and inland river engine sailing ships.

The main combat mission of the three fleets was to completely sweep away the inland river military forces in the north of the Ming Dynasty, control the water transportation of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and cut off the water transportation links between the north and the south of the Ming Dynasty.

Another task of the Yangtze River Fleet is to quickly raid the Huguang area of the Ming Dynasty, penetrate deep into the Jiangnan region, and loot grain and other materials in the coastal areas of the Yangtze River and its tributaries, so as to alleviate the current tense situation of the company.

Now the Northern Corps and the Eastern Corps have successfully joined forces under the city of the Ming Dynasty and completely controlled the Tongzhou area. Tongzhou was the northern end of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in the Ming Dynasty, and it was also the place where the grain was stored.

In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy in the Ming Dynasty, the Mongols also invaded first, when the imperial court ordered the military and civilians to quickly move the grain from Tongzhou into the Beijing warehouse, and they could move as much as they could, but countless soldiers and civilians moved for a few days and still couldn't finish moving, and the remaining grain could only be burned in one fire.

Every year, almost all the grain transported by Daming Cao to Daming Jingshi comes from the Jiangnan region, and most of it comes from Huguang. Of course, the Far Eastern Army will take advantage of this opportunity to make the Yangtze River Fleet raid the Huguang area as quickly as possible, and quickly sweep the grain shops and official warehouses along the Yangtze River and its tributaries.

In order for the three major river fleets of the Southern Corps to smoothly accomplish their combat missions, several large shipyards, such as the Vladivostok Shipyard and the Lushun Shipyard of the Far Eastern Corporation, started at full capacity two years ago and intensified their efforts to produce inland river steam deck barges and river engine sailboats.

After years of development, the inland warships of the Far East Navy have also been continuously upgraded, and their performance has been greatly improved.

The new generation of steam deck barges adopts more powerful steam power units, with a very low failure rate, and the speed, range and acceleration have been greatly enhanced, cruising speeds can reach 18 kilometers per hour, and the range of half-loaded coal water combat state can reach more than 1,000 kilometers.

Moreover, the type division of inland steam deck barges is more refined, which is divided into three types: large, medium and small. Although the volume of the three ship types is very different, more than 65 percent of the modular components of the three ship types can be used with each other, which greatly improves the versatility of equipment and logistics maintenance performance.

Among them, large deck barges can carry out a variety of coastal combat missions along the coast and in the waters of the archipelago, such as material transportation, beach landing, and coastal patrol.

Small deck barges can also navigate rivers with poor hydrological conditions, and can even penetrate into some of the most complex waterways upstream of some rivers.

Although the performance of the steam deck barge has been greatly improved, the main function of the future inland river steam deck barge of the Far Eastern Army is still based on inland river transportation. Depending on the waters, up to 20 unpowered deck barges can be towed to carry out tasks such as transporting supplies and personnel.

Because in the future, steam deck barges will be the main force for the transportation of inland waterway materials, so the main functions of the river engine sailing ships of the Far Eastern Army are mainly combat patrols, fire support and vigilance along the river.

The river engine sailing ships equipped by the Far Eastern Army do not have to be camouflaged in order to hide people's eyes, so they are no longer the original appearance of the Daming river boats.

Today's Far Eastern river engine sailing ships are more modern, with the characteristics of small tonnage, high speed, flexible maneuverability, shallow draft, flexible steering, and can go deep into various waters with complex hydrological conditions and harsh environment to perform tasks.

According to the hydrological characteristics of inland rivers in different regions, it is equipped with 2-4 high-horsepower diesel engines that can be flexibly disassembled, and the maximum speed can reach 25 knots.

In order to save energy and increase the cruising range, each river engine sailboat is also equipped with a triangular sail, which adopts a canvas soft sail, which can be flexibly rotated and use different wind directions to drive the boat forward.

Even if the tanks run out of diesel fuel, the boat can still sail freely in any river with the help of a spin-nail, and the maximum speed can reach eight knots in good wind and direction conditions.

The weapons equipped with river engine sailboats can also be arbitrarily swapped according to the combat mission and different environments. It includes light and heavy weapons such as twin water-cooled heavy machine guns, navy-type long-barreled 70-mm naval guns, and large-caliber mortar guns.

Each sub-fleet of the river fleet is equipped with a number of river engine sailing ships to provide the fleet with assault support, fire support, patrol vigilance, reconnaissance and search, and other combat missions. Provide escort support for a large number of inland steam deck barges and non-powered deck barges performing transportation tasks. (To be continued.) )