Luo Jian and Shi Kefa are not very clear about the current situation of Li Chengdong's Second Army, and they only make some analysis based on the report of the Second Army, but both of them know that even if the Second Army is facing many difficulties, Li Chengdong will not reflect too much to the headquarters.

When Luo Jian returned to the mansion, Liu Zhaoji was already holding Xiao Luo Ting and chatting with Liu Lan. Since Liu Zhaoji left Nanjing with his troops, Luo Jian has not seen him for nearly two years, Liu Zhaoji seems to be in good spirits, and is talking to Liu Lan while teasing Xiao Luo Ting.

"Brother Liu, are you here?" Luo Jian greeted Liu Zhaoji, Luo Jian has a natural affinity for Liu Zhaoji, since he met in Yangzhou, Liu Zhaoji has been unconditionally and silently supporting himself, but he has never made any requests.

"Xinghua, are you back?" Liu Zhaoji happily stood up with Xiao Luo Ting in his arms.

"Brother Liu, go home and watch it, right? Are you doing at home? I'm so busy that I don't have time to see my sister-in-law. Luo Jian asked with concern.

"Go back and see, your sister-in-law is very busy in the factory, and Liu Jun's kid is now reviewing his homework at home and preparing to take the Nanjing National University exam." Liu Zhaoji said happily that Mrs. Liu is now in charge of Liulan's perfume factory, and she is even busier than Liu Zhaoji.

Liu Lan beckoned Yahuan to come over and hugged Luo Ting to the back, and the three of them sat down.

"Xinghua, the changes in Nanjing City in the past two years are really great! I haven't had time to go back to Yangzhou yet, so there must be a big change, right? ”

"Yes! Brother Liu, is the current situation of the First Army okay? Listening to Luo Jian's words, Liu Lan glanced at him with some dissatisfaction, and said in her heart Luo Jian is really, I haven't seen him for two years, and I started to ask about the situation of the troops when we met.

"Okay, I heard I'm going to change my outfit when I come back. These boys are all very happy, we have heard about several beautiful battles fought by the Seventh Division, and these boys are holding their breath, saying that they can't be compared to the Seventh Division. Liu Zhaoji said with a smile.

"Hehe, the troops must have this spirit of not admitting defeat. Brother Liu, today I went to the General Staff Headquarters with the Inspector to carefully study the current situation. I think the time is coming for us to launch a full-scale attack, and we are ready to put your first army in Xuzhou, what do you think? Can Li Chengdong deal with Hong Chengchou in Hunan? Luo Jian told Liu Zhaoji his thoughts.

"Xinghua, I'll tell you the truth, Li Chengdong, this kid is indeed a little difficult to deal with, but this kid is afraid of losing face, so he has been holding on, but Xinghua, don't worry, Qing Bing wants to eat him. That can't be done either. Liu Zhaoji said with a frown.

"Oh? And this is the case? Luo Jian was a little surprised, it is said that with the strength of the second army, it seems that it is insufficient to attack the fortified city guarded by the Qing soldiers, but it should not be a big problem to defend.

"Xinghua, Hong Chengchou, this old boy is not easy to deal with! This old guy also set up an arsenal in Hunan, and the rifles he made were not much worse than our Yangzhou style. I heard that the Manchu Qing Dynasty's arsenal in Hubei also used our steam engine, Xinghua, why did you sell the steam engine to the Tartars? ”

Liu Zhaoji's words startled Luo Jian. With the steam engine, the speed of producing rifle barrels was unknown how many times stronger than that of a human being. Once the Manchus were equipped with a large number of mini guns, it would be really difficult to fight this battle in the future.

It's just that how this steam engine fell into the hands of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Luo Jian is not surprised when he thinks about it carefully, the steam engine factory has sold so many units in the past two years, and it is entirely possible that some merchants will sell it to the Manchus for silver. However, Luo Jian cannot tolerate this kind of obvious enemy behavior in order to make money, and he has already made up his mind that this matter must be strictly investigated.

"Brother Liu, how many Qing soldiers in Hunan are equipped with this rifle?" Luo Jian asked.

"There were probably more than 20,000 people before we retreated. Now that such a long time has passed, it will definitely increase a lot, and when we come back, I will leave all the artillery to Li Chengdong's kid, so that he can still have a lot of advantages in artillery, otherwise our army will not be able to retreat with peace of mind. ”

Hearing Liu Zhaoji's words, Luo Jian was relieved, with nearly 100 artillery pieces, it should not be a problem for Li Chengdong to hold the front line in Yongzhou, Hunan.

"Brother Liu, the time is too tight, and the production capacity of the military factory can't keep up, I'm afraid that your first army can't all change its outfit this time, if not, first change the first division and cavalry division first, and the artillery will be replenished for you, I'm afraid you will have to rush to Xuzhou after the New Year."

Luo Jian reminded Liu Zhaoji that there are still more than ten days to go before the New Year, and the troops have to carry out adaptive training after changing clothes, because of traffic problems, the pace of war in this era is still very slow, and a few months is nothing.

"That's okay, anyway, the boys are used to the Yangzhou style, but the Yangzhou type one rifle damages quickly, you can prepare more parts for us." Liu Zhaoji has no opinion.

"Okay, I said Xinghua, Brother Liu, don't always talk about business, I've already asked someone to invite my sister-in-law over, let's get together in the evening." Liu Lan saw that the two of them were talking endlessly, and interrupted their words.

"Okay, okay, let's not talk about it, I'll accompany Brother Liu to have two drinks tonight." Luo Jian said with a smile, he is indeed a little tired after running around these days.

Saying that, Luo Jian simply invited Shi Kefa's family over, and everyone hadn't been together for a long time.

After a while, Shi Kefa's family arrived, and the old lady was in excellent spirits, and as soon as she arrived at the house, she went directly to the backyard to find her little grandson, ignoring Luo Jian and Liu Zhaoji and others, and Mrs. Shi and Mrs. Liu had to go to the backyard with the old lady.

"Brother Xian, just now Brother Liu told me all about the situation of the Second Army, it seems that Li Chengdong is having some trouble coping with it in Hunan, and the Second Division must hurry up to launch an offensive operation in the direction of Hubei, so as to relieve Li Chengdong's pressure."

Luo Jian briefly introduced the situation to Shi Kefa, which once again emphasized the importance of the second division seizing the time to go south.

Shi Kefa heard that Li Chengdong's second division was a little tight in Hunan, and felt a little incredible, but Liu Zhaoji has always been steady, and he would not say anything if there was no basis, because of this, Luo Kefa and Shi Kefa both felt that the problem was a bit serious.

Luo Jian felt more obvious, since the advent of the Yangzhou one-type rifle (Mini gun), Luo Jian always felt that this rifle could be at least a few decades ahead of this era, but he didn't expect that it was only a little more than three years, and the Manchu court imitated it.

In fact, Luo Jian also knows that there is no fundamental breakthrough in the technology of the Mini gun, and the key lies in the change of concept. In the end, it is a technique, and it is not surprising that this technique was copied by the Manchus.

The combat formation used for this kind of front-loading rifle is basically a phalanx, and the purpose is to concentrate firepower, but it is just a phalanx of different sizes according to the level of training.

"The training of Tartar is slightly worse than ours, but I have to say that Hong Chengchou, this old boy, still has some ability, and he has been in Hunan for more than a year. Not only has the army been trained in a decent manner, but even the lives of the common people have been much better than in previous years. Liu Zhaoji saw that both of them had paid attention to the Hunan issue, and added on the side.

Luo Jian's impression of Hong Chengchou is not too bad, it should be said that this person is considered to be both civil and military among the ministers of the Chongzhen Dynasty, and he has also made great contributions in suppressing the peasant army uprising, and later in the Songjin area, due to the extreme corruption of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the constraints of Chen Xinjia, who was the secretary of the military department at the time, it led to the defeat of the Songjin battle, and he was also defeated and captured.

Now Hong Chengchou has Dorgon's full trust. Hong Chengchou is in power in the two lakes and has managed the two lakes well, which is also reasonable.

Luo Jian also sent someone to do Hong Chengchou's work, but he refused, on the grounds that he had betrayed the Ming Dynasty and did not want to betray the Qing Dynasty again, but the former Ming Dynasty minister who was sent to do the work came back safely.

reminds me of some legends I saw on the Internet before, saying that Hong Chengchou was because the Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty personally "did the work". even made a personal promise to make Hong Chengchou surrender to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. But Luo Jian felt that this was just nonsense, his mind was not strong, and he was afraid of death and regretted his body.

According to Liu Zhaoji's introduction, the Mini guns of the Qing army in Hunan have only grown rapidly in the past six months, which shows that Hong Chengchou has built a considerable arsenal in Hunan, which makes Luo Jian and Shi Kefa vigilant. If Hunan can do this, the Manchu court in Beijing will definitely be able to do better with more resources at its disposal.

Fortunately for Luo Jian, the Manchus did not steal the techniques of the new type of zha medicine, so they mastered these techniques. I don't know how long this war will last.

The old-fashioned artillery in Nanjing's military factory is still being produced, because it is the use of black medicine, this kind of artillery has much lower requirements for steel than the new artillery, this kind of artillery can be manufactured quickly with the current technical capabilities of the military factory, Luo Jian and Shi Kefa both decided to supplement an artillery regiment to the second division to strengthen the firepower of the second division.

Nanjing felt that what he heard was not optimistic news, and Kong Youde, who was in the training camp of the New Army in Beijing at this time, also frowned and looked at the detailed battle report of the Battle of Dezhou.

Kong Youde was shocked by the new equipment used by the Seventh Division, and he had a personal experience of the power of the new zha medicine, when he was outside Yangzhou City, if he hadn't run fast, he was almost killed by Wang Qiang with a machine gun, and later in Liuhe County, he was also careful to avoid the bullets of the machine gun. Now that he heard that the entire division of the Wehrmacht was equipped with similar rifles and artillery, Kong Youde's heart was half cold.

The only thing that remains to be expected is that the general prison in Beijing has also been transformed into a military factory similar to Nanjing, and after the transformation, the production capacity of the general prison has been greatly increased, and now the new army has expanded to more than 40,000 people, and the new type of rifle has been used.

Kong Youde went to the "military factory" in Beijing to see, where the steam engine produced in Nanjing was also used, which made Kong Youde feel a little unreasonable, and wondered how such an important thing fell from Nanjing to the imperial court.

Dolgon regarded the New Army as the last straw for the Manchu court, and since Kong Youde took over the New Army, Dolgon had personally visited the New Army seven or eight times, which was unthinkable before.

Kong Youde knew that Dolgon did not come to the New Army because he did not trust him, but because he really had too high expectations for the New Army. It was precisely because of the high expectations that Dolgon also attached great importance to the source of the new army, and changed the previous practice of selecting people from the Han army, and the soldiers who joined later were almost all the sons of Manchu children and Manchu slaves.

The training of the new army was extremely tight, and the Manchu court did not hesitate to provide local protection, and Kong Youde did not dare to slack off in the slightest; after more than half a year, Kong Youde himself felt that the combat effectiveness of the new army was on a par with that of the previous Yangzhou army.

What made Kong Youde feel helpless was the artillery, no matter how hard the foreigners from the prison and Europa tried to find a way, they could not make artillery that exploded on the ground like the Wehrmacht, and the range of the artillery could not always catch up with the Wehrmacht. Looking at the long "braids" dragged on each shell, Kong Youde felt that it was probably impossible for such an artillery to fight against the artillery of the Wehrmacht.

The war report said that the Wehrmacht was marching towards Cangzhou, and Kong Youde felt that time was running out for himself and the New Army. (To be continued.) )