The news coming back from the direction of Guangxi and Guizhou was not good news, and Liu Zhaoji's first army and Li Chengdong's second army were not going well.

After Liu Zhaoji led an army into Hunan, he encountered the continuous resistance of the Qing army, and it took Liu Zhaoji more than half a month to attack Yongzhou City.

This was after the first army surrounded Yongzhou City, and more than 10,000 Qing soldiers in the city chose to break through after running out of ammunition and food, and they were completely annihilated by the first army.

Although an army of more than 30,000 horses has approached Hengyang City, the Qing soldiers have gathered nearly 100,000 horses in the Hengyang area, and Hong Chengchou personally sat in Hengyang.

As the battle with the Wehrmacht became more and more fought, the Qing soldiers gradually discovered that the artillery of the National Defense was not as powerful as they imagined, as long as they did not fight in the field, once there was a little fortification, the lethality of the shells using black fire was extremely limited, and the damage to the fortifications was almost none.

The Qing soldiers have now also learned to use black huo medicine to make zha medicine bags to defend the city, this thing is thrown down from the city wall, which will not damage the city wall, but can also cause great damage to the infantry besieging the city, and the first army suffered a lot of losses under the city of Yongzhou.

For this reason, Hong Chengchou also wrote a long memo to Dolgon, describing in detail his combat experience in Hunan, and he also hoped that the Qing soldiers could learn all these experiences.

Liu Zhaoji, who had been on the battlefield for a long time, carefully analyzed the situation and felt that it was not at all certain that he could forcibly attack Hengyang City, so he simply stopped in Qidong County, made a detailed report to Nanjing on the situation encountered by the First Army, and waited for Nanjing's latest instructions before making plans.

The Second Army, which marched towards Guizhou, did not encounter a large number of Qing soldiers, but the enemy they encountered made Li Chengdong more uncomfortable than the Qing soldiers. What stopped Li Chengdong was the extremely complex mountainous terrain of Guizhou.

After traveling from Guilin to Guizhou for more than half a month. Li Chengdong felt that it was a mistake for the Metropolitan Governor to let the Second Army march from Guangxi to Guizhou. After the artillery was again stopped by a big mountain, Li Chengdong decisively ordered the Second Army to stop advancing.

The three divisions that launched an attack along the Yangtze River to the Jiujiang area were also blocked under Jiujiang City, although Li Benshen wanted to capture Jiujiang City and prove that the third division was also the main division, but the walls of Jiujiang City made the three divisions helpless, and after reporting to the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion, Li Benshen was extremely depressed and led the third division back to Anqing.

Luo Jian and the General Staff Headquarters received the reports of Liu Zhaoji and Li Chengdong respectively only a few days ago, although the reports of Liu Zhaoji and Li Chengdong were relatively tactful. But Luo Jian still saw that the two were dissatisfied with their decision-making.

"The main responsibility for this result lies with me, I take it for granted, overestimate our strength, and still don't know enough about the Qing soldiers, what should I do about the current situation? Brother Xian, have you thought about it? ”

Luo Jian said with some self-reproach. Since he basically straightened out the management of the former Nanming territory, Luo Jian felt that he was a little impatient, and he always wanted to solve the national problems in the shortest possible time.

This victory in Shandong was a bit of a fluke, and if it weren't for Wang Qiang's great penetration and full mobilization of Qing troops, it is estimated that it would not have been possible to achieve such a big result.

"Xinghua. I think you're a little impatient, after all, it's not been a long time since we took over the Nanming Territory. Although the speed of development is very fast, but the development results have not been transformed into military superiority, this battle of Shandong has fully exposed the problem of insufficient troops, I think we must now consolidate the achievements that have been made, can not rush to fight another big war. ”

Listening to Shi Kefa's words, Luo Jian nodded, he basically had this idea in the past two days.

"Chief, Inspector, I think I am also responsible, our technological progress is still too slow, if the new equipment can equip more troops, it may be much easier to fight." Liu Weimin saw that Luo Jian was very self-blaming, and quickly took the initiative to take responsibility.

"Xiao Liu, it's not your fault, you've done your best, the progress of technology is not achieved overnight, we still have to pay attention to laying a good foundation. In the past two days, I have also thought about it, even if the chemical plant completes the technical transformation, the production capacity is not enough to support a nationwide offensive. Luo Jian said as he thought.

Luo Jian noticed the street fighting in Yizhou City mentioned in Huang Degong's report, and there were more than 2,000 casualties in Yizhou City alone, and if such a large number of casualties were to be paid for attacking every city with a wall, the National Defense Army would definitely not be able to afford it.

Seeing that Luo Jian and Liu Weimin were blaming themselves, Shi Kefa laughed.

"Why do I think you both feel like you've lost a battle? We have to think about things the other way around, think about it, now the Manchus dare to launch an active attack on us? Now that the Qing soldiers are basically cowering in a fortified city, we have grasped all the initiative, and when we calm down and develop for a while, we will solve the national problem in one go. ”

After unifying his thoughts with Shi Kefa, the Metropolitan Governor's Office issued a new order to all armies in the afternoon of the same day.

The current task of the three divisions of Huang Dequan is to consolidate the various parts of Shandong that have been occupied and clear the scattered Qing troops in the east of Shandong.

Liu Zhaoji led the First Army to retreat to Yongzhou to defend and temporarily stop the attack on Hunan, and the Second Army would also withdraw from Guizhou and gradually move closer to the First Army.

With the strategic adjustment of the Wehrmacht, the tension has eased for the time being.

Tan Tai led the remnants of the army to flee to Dezhou, and the Qing soldiers who rushed from Henan also rushed in the direction of Dezhou under the leadership of Tulai, apparently to strengthen the defense of Hebei.

Dolgon was so shocked by the first battle in Jinan that he didn't sleep well for seven or eight days, and Dolgon, who is only in his early 35s this year, has recently grown gray hair on his forehead.

Tan Tai and Shi Tingzhu were both summoned to the city of Beijing, and in the regent's palace, Dolgon took Fan Wencheng and Sonny and others for a few days to inquire in detail about the entire Shandong campaign, especially the offensive and defensive battles in Jinan, and Dolgon did not even want to miss every detail.

The brand-new firearms used by the Seventh Division and the First Regiment in Jinan kept Dolgon awake at night, and he really couldn't figure out why Nanjing was able to develop new weapons one after another.

Now it seems that the number of such new weapons in Nanjing is not very large, otherwise they will not stop the pace of attack, if the whole army of the Wehrmacht is like seven divisions and one regiment, Dolgon estimates that the Qing Dynasty will not be able to hold out for even a month.

Mao Yushi, the workshop director who defected from the Nanjing Military Factory, had already arrived in Beijing. It wasn't just Dolgon who met in person. Even the Empress Dowager Bulbutai, who rarely intervened in state affairs, took the little emperor of Shunzhi to meet him in the Qianqing Palace. Dorgon also gave the Rainstone a large mansion next to the Regent's Palace, along with a dozen beauties.

Rainstone became Fan Wencheng's deputy, and in order to ensure his safety, Dolgon even arranged for 500 battle-hardened Manchu warriors to serve as Rainstone's guard.

Although his hair had been cut short in Nanjing, he still found a shaving master to shave the hair on his forehead, leaving only a small handful at the back of his head.

Then Dolgon didn't care what kind of hair the rain stone cut, he cared if the rain stone could help him make the same ordnance as the Nanjing Defense Army.

Despite the rain, Shi was salivating over the dozen or so beauties in the mansion. But he didn't dare to stay in the mansion for a night. After the emperor received him, Fan Wencheng took him directly to the general prison and arranged a small courtyard for him in the general prison.

The city of Nanjing has only been quiet for a while, and there seem to be a lot of undercurrents surging recently.

Shi Kefa hurriedly came to Luo Jian's office with a folder, with an angry look on his face and a look of helplessness.

"Xinghua, have you seen this?" Shi Kefa handed the folder in his hand to Luo Jian.

"Hehe, I've seen it." Luo Jian said with a smile.

The folder in Shi Kefa's hand is a public opinion report in Nanjing sent by Lai Fu's security department in the recent period, and Luo Jian has already read it yesterday.

In fact, during this period of time, public opinion in Nanjing was relatively peaceful, except for some people who complained about the sudden stop of the National Defense Force after the victory in Shandong, the people of Nanjing did not pay more attention to the topic.

Shi Kefa was referring to some of the uproar caused by the upcoming bank.

With the development of industry and commerce. There have been a lot of big money banks in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and these money banks actually have some functions of banks. Hangzhou's former Lu King Zhu Changshu opened such a one.

In the past, the silver was stored in the bank, and the bank had to charge a certain percentage of fees, but with the development of industry and commerce, it gradually became a certain interest on the silver. Of course, you can also borrow money from the bank, and the interest rate is much higher than that of depositing silver.

"Compete with the people! It's a competition with the people again! Who does this 'people' refer to in their eyes? The reason for Shi Kefa's anger is that there are already rumors that the Nanjing government is "competing with the people for profit" in opening the bank.

"Brother Xian, please don't be impatient, you can come and see this." Luo Jian beckoned Shi Kefa to sit down, took out a few banknote samples with the word "pattern coin" printed on them from the drawer and handed them to him.

"Not bad! It's not much like the banknotes you brought with you. Shi Kefa took the pattern coin in Luo Jian's hand, looked at it over and over for a long time, and shook it with his hand.

"You take it and look at the window." Luo Jian asked Shi Kefa to take a good look at the anti-counterfeiting function of banknotes.

"There's a dark mark in it, and with this thing, it's not easy to imitate it." Scofa was very pleased with the pattern.

"Do you think it's okay? Let's find more people to see, and if it is suitable, we will take advantage of the fact that the Ministry of Finance still has a lot of deposits, and quickly set up the bank. "Luo Jian has been thinking about this matter these days, and when the war resumes in the future, I am afraid that I will not have the energy to deal with this matter in a short time.

"We have to blow the wind and do some publicity first, right? Just run the bank directly? Shi Kefa asked suspiciously.

"That's for sure, now let everyone exchange the real money in their hands for these banknotes, there were treasures without credit in the Ming Dynasty before, and our workload is not small." Luo Jian nodded and said.

"Xinghua, are you prepared?" Shi Kefa asked.

"What can I prepare? Didn't we both keep an eye on the war some time ago? It's only been the past two days that I've started to think about this, maybe these people have calculated the time and think we should do this, so they let the wind out, right? ”

Luo Jian doesn't care too much, the government's establishment of a bank will definitely rob these businessmen of the money bank, and it is normal to encounter some resistance, and then these businessmen will definitely have some means to deal with the government's bank, Luo Jian feels that with the government's current strength, it will not be too difficult to deal with it.

"Xinghua, you can't underestimate these people, they will do anything for money." Shi Kefa said with some concern. (To be continued.) )