Liu Yong's death can be regarded as a turning point in the battle of northern Jiangsu. Prior to this, the Qing army was violent, all the way south, bold and fearless; The Fu Han army retreated step by step, although there was no lack of effect of avoiding the enemy's soldiers, but the army lost its sharpness. Moreover, the morale of the Fu Han army was not high, and the news of the lack of fighting spirit was even heard by the Qing army.

No matter how you look at it, the Qing army has the advantage, and the Fu Han army is at a disadvantage.

However, with the assassination of Liu Yong, as nearly 10,000 Shandong Lian Yong were discouraged by the rumors spread by the Fu Han army, the forces on both sides of the army were weakened by one another, and although the Fu Han army did not dare to say that it was absolutely superior, it had turned from a relatively obvious disadvantage at the beginning to an advantage. At least two sides can also be done five or five!

In order to rectify the morale of the army, the Qing army temporarily stopped in Yancheng. The more than 100,000 refugees who gathered in Yancheng at the beginning, including tens of thousands of people in the city, fled one by one. ruthlessly contributed to the spread of the bad reputation of the Qing army in the south.

The Fu Han army stopped troops in Taizhou, with the original city of Taizhou as the center, Chen Ming gathered all the troops he could gather, mobilized all the cannons he could mobilize, and a boatload of ammunition and grain was constantly transported to Taizhou, and there were barracks within a radius of dozens of miles.

-- All for the service of the battle of Northern Jiangsu!

In the Fu Han Army, Chen Ming's will is the highest will, although there are many large and small mountains in the Fu Han Army, these mountains are absolutely obedient when facing Chen Ming. Who let the Fu Han Army be a very traditional Chinese centralized force, all power is attributed to the 'center', and if something is wrong, Chen Ming can be slapped to death with a wave of his hand. Therefore, although the situation in Jiangnan is not very good, a large number of military firearms and armaments are still being transported to Taizhou in an endless stream. The Fu Han Army, which has been entrenched in this land for half a year, has not set up an official government or anything in the local area, and it is very appropriate to use the word 'military management' to describe the rule in the jurisdiction of the Fu Han Army in the south of the Yangtze River. This method is not suitable for long-term rule, but it is absolutely powerful when it works.

Chen Ming is not the Taizu of the Red Dynasty, although there were many factions in the party when the Taizu of the Red Dynasty was in power, there were already many outstanding people such as Zhou Gong. Chen Ming's backer, the Lushan Chen family, is just a small squire, where is there one after another world-winning elite for him to use.

He once also expected that his hometown Tumenji could become the second 'Pei County' or 'Fengyang', didn't Liu San'er rely on his own group of wine and meat brothers to achieve great things? The same is true for Zhu Baba, just relying on a Fengyang, only relying on his childhood playmates, how many talents have gathered around him?

Such an example makes people feel that the times create heroes, and even think too much that their relatives and partners around them just haven't encountered good opportunities and current situations, otherwise they will be the second Xiao He, Cao Shen, Zhou Bo, Xu Da, Li Wenzhong, Tang He, and so on. And he is the second Liu Bang, the second Zhu Yuanzhang.

Since the Chen family started the army, the children of Chen Huang Gao's third surname threw their heads and spilled their blood, and they were indeed born and died for the Fu Han Army, and there were not a few children of the side branches and close branches who died on the battlefield, and they did have a group of talents, but if you want to say who can stand out from the crowd and stand out in the team, it is really not.

As one of the two leaders of the Fu Han Army and the chief general of the expeditionary force, Chen Ming has a lot of responsibilities to shoulder. The operation of the army in the local area, countless internal problems, many external problems, and the wars that he has to face from time to time, Chen Ming is very doubtful that he has more time to rest, or whether he still has time to rest.

This should be a challenge that the 'ambitious' traversers must face.

Chen Ming had thought about this question for a long time. His success is not based solely on his personal talent, but on his vision of the times higher and longer-term. He doesn't have the "spirit of the king", not to mention the talents outside, even the talents in southwest Henan are rarely attached to the Han army, such as Pang Zhenkun, I heard that he has gone to work. Chen Ming didn't think there was any domineering. He led the army all the way south, and the team continued to expand and expand, and countless outsiders became his own people, and it can only be said that Chen Ming can come up with an effective solution -- win the battle, so that countless people can live better, and the army can develop better.

The Taizu of the Red Dynasty in the original time and space relied on his unparalleled talent, and Chen Ming relied on the knowledge accumulated in history. In the era of the Red Party, people at the bottom could let go of their work, and if you did a good job, you could be promoted or dismissed at any time. If the problem is bad, it will kill the head immediately. Chen Ming is also learning this method now, whether it is the expansion of the dark camp, or the governance of local territory, those masters and officials who have taken refuge, many people have secured their positions, and many people have been cut off by the Fu Han army themselves.

In this situation, Chen Ming firmly grasped all the strength of the expeditionary force. Therefore, Jiangnan is urgent, and under an order, Nanjing, Zhenjiang and other places dare not obey.

The army stayed in Taizhou, and there were 40,000 soldiers alone, plus the logistics of men and horses, 50,000 people, and the number of people eating horses and chewing every day was an astronomical number. The boats that travel between Jiangdu [Yangzhou City] and Taizhou shuttle every day, and there is an endless stream.

Now that the morale of the army has risen, and the Qing army has suffered a heavy setback, Chen Ming has some confidence in his heart.

But his eyes were still looking at Yancheng. Today, when he was thinking about how to stumble on the Qing army in Yancheng, Liu Wu walked in with the confidential staff of the attendant room. The confidential officer held a very thick bag of documents, "Governor, this is the latest information from the secret camp. ”

Chen Ming just had a bad heart, and now that the business was here, he had to give up the theoretical framework of the 'stumbling block', he took the document tape, and after letting the confidential officer go out, he began to read the thick bundle of information handed over by the secret camp.

The first is Liu Yong's death. The Manchu Qing response was a little slow, and it is not known how long Liu Yong's death could drag the southward Qing army in Yancheng.

At present, there are two major sources of information, one of which is the basic information collected by the secret camp, such as the basic situation of the Manchu and Han soldiers inside and outside Yancheng and the Lian Yong in Shandong; Some of them were bought with money from the secret camps, and many of them were provided by the low-level military attachés of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The information provided by the officials is also divided into two categories: one is their internal officialdom struggle, the struggle for power and profit, and the Shandong regimental training was chaotic so quickly, not only because of Liu Yong's death and rumors released from the secret camp, but also because of their internal dumping and the many dissatisfaction of the leaders of Lian Yong with Zhou Peixun. Who made Zhou Peixun's sense of existence in Lian Yong in the past too low? In the past, he was a money and grain official, and all the power of Lian Yong was in the hands of Liu Yong alone, and he didn't even control the militia groups in Dengzhou Mansion and Laizhou Mansion, let alone the entire Lian Yong team.

Moreover, Zhang Gu has already resigned his position as a pro-barracks officer, and is ready to take a group of Zhucheng soldiers to help Liu Yong return to his hometown in Shandong. This made the pro-military camp immediately chaotic, and then the Qingzhou battalion was also chaotic.

Zhou Peixun's foundation in practicing courage is very thin, and now he has been suddenly corrected, and he can be 'right' there. Feng Sheng's forehead is a good general of the army, but he is not the emperor of Chrysostom and Yuyan. What's more, the emperor can't speak on some things. No ability, no strength, no one can hold it.

Don't think that in addition to Liu Yong, he is the only one in this army of Lian Yong who is an official. How many officials in Shandong Province who have been dismissed from their posts or who have not recovered after Ding Wei are staring at this team of practicing bravery? Among the figures who accompanied the army, there were six who had official status. Although they are not as good as Zhou Peixun, the fourth-grade Taoist, in terms of grade, but two from the fourth-grade prefect and one from the six-grade Lang of the fifth grade, Zhou Peixun also trembled in his heart. What's more, there was a Yan Shenggong standing behind this Lian Yong, and Liu Yong relied on his father's strength to block the Kong family back, but the Kong family couldn't get in, but the hand that stretched out was something that the gods and Buddhas couldn't extinguish.

In a word, the background of Shandong Lian Yong is very complicated. As soon as Liu Yong died, Zhou Peixun could not convince the public regardless of his rank, personal ability, and prestige, and nearly 10,000 people in Shandong Lianyong, who were originally twisted into a rope, are now like a hydra. This is the biggest reason for the chaos of Shandong Lianyong. The rumors of the dark camp only fueled the aggravation of the contradictions.

Around the issue of the command of this Lian Yong force, large-scale 'infighting' broke out within Lian Yong and within the Qing army. The Qing army in the Shandong battlefield wanted to rely on the 'geographical advantage' to win over this force, although many of them themselves were the Zhili Green Battalion; the Zhili armed forces represented by Fengsheng's own army, especially the soldiers and horses of the Eight Banners, hoped that this training force would be used as cannon fodder. The artillery of the Fu Han army was very sharp; Wang Jintai himself has not spoken, but faintly reveals that he does not agree with Feng Sheng's amount. After all, he is a Han Chinese.

Chen Ming actually didn't believe the intelligence of those so-called officials, he compared the information collected by the secret camp with the information provided by the officials, and found that the Qing army was indeed not very peaceful. Chen Ming believes that those news are true.

Anyway, the intelligence shows that the morale of the Qing army has dropped a lot in the past few days, in addition to the death of Liu Yong and the influence of the rumors spread by the secret camp, it is their internal strife that has caused chaos in the army's mind.

Regardless of whether this Lianyong army can 'regroup' at the beginning of the decisive battle, they have already helped the Fu Han army a lot.

The momentum and fighting spirit of the Fu Han army are rising day by day, and if the Qing army stops in Yancheng for a month, Chen Ming is afraid that he will take the initiative to launch a counterattack on Yancheng.

"Kill—"

"Kill—"

In the barracks of the Fu Han army, the shouts of the soldiers of the Fu Han army who had been trained shook the sky. Whether it is the main battalion in iron armor, or the musket battalion with muskets in hand, or the recruit battalion, the improved morale, the condensed military spirit, and the little bit of inspiring fighting spirit can all be expressed in this shouting and killing.

In addition to dealing with the army, Chen Ming had to take people to inspect the barracks every day to check the morale and fighting spirit of the soldiers. And as the Grand Governor, he appeared in the army, in the midst of the soldiers, which in itself inspired the soldiers.

It has been a year since the army left Henan, and at least two or three percent of the more than 10,000 veterans who went south from Xiangyang were killed or disabled in battle, and they withdrew from the ranks anyway. While manufacturing guns, the gun bureaus in Nanjing and Jiujiang did not forget to create armor, whether it was iron armor, or rattan armor made of pure rattan, or rattan iron armor with leather and iron sheets, but compared with the speed of expansion of the Fu Han army, the number of battle armor grew too slowly and too slowly.

What Chen Ming could believe was the old battalion leader in armor, and the total number of these people was only 20,000 - counting the soldiers wearing the captured Eight Banners cotton armor, and those musket battalions. Six or seven of the latter's soldiers took off their iron armor and replaced it with rudimentary rattan armor. These people also had to divide a piece and scatter it in Jiangnan, Anqing and Jiujiang, and there were only twenty-four main battalions in Chen Ming's palm. Even if the Right Guards Battalion and the Cavalry Battalion were both overstaffed large battalion heads, the main force did not exceed 15,000 people.

"As long as the credit is received, the equipment will be replaced immediately and upgraded to the main battalion."

"Number too late?"

"If you play well, the number will naturally come first. Don't care what the main force is or not, if you fight well, you will be the main force. If you don't play well, no matter how high the number is, no matter how good the equipment is, it's also a cowardice. ”

"The Fu Han army wants a good man, don't coward......"

Chen Ming said this in front of the leaders of the non-main battalions. But in reality? The new battalion of more than 20,000 people was still only a vassal force in his plan, a cheerleader waving flags and beating side drums. (To be continued.) )