With a team of personal soldiers, Ren Siqi set foot on the south bank of the Yangtze River. The pen "fun" pavilion www.biquge.info and Tongling County is just three miles away from the riverbank, which is a small city with a history of thousands of years, famous for copper production.

Tongling is located in the largest copper mine in the Ming Dynasty, and the earliest history of copper mining can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. Two thousand years of continuous mining have also made the hills near Tongling full of potholes, and there are traces left by mining everywhere. Standing on the bank of the river, as far as the eye can see, the surface is full of scars left by mining. Some of the older pits have trees and vegetation on the surface, forming small lakes that are also beautiful sights.

The newly opened pit is bare, and the vicinity is full of maroon rocks, which looks so ugly.

After 2,000 years of continuous mining, the open-pit ore deposits have long been exhausted, and the technology of deep well mining is very backward, resulting in the decline of copper parameters year after year. Although there is a large amount of copper ore underground, it cannot be mined due to technical reasons.

The nearby terrain lacks arable flat land, and the current Tongling is only a backward small county town. The population of the city is less than 10,000, and the total number of people in the countryside is estimated to be 20,000 or 30,000, most of whom make a living by mining and smelting copper ore.

After Ren Siqi led people to carefully inspect the terrain, he found that the county seat was too narrow and the city walls were low, so there was no need to send troops to garrison it. And the rugged terrain nearby, with mines everywhere, also doomed the left army to attack only along the riverbank. So you just need to set up a formation on the riverbank.

After some inspection, Ren Siqi sent someone to call Song Liben and Anthony to his side.

"General!" Knowing that Ren Siqi had a task assigned to him, both of them were very excited.

"Director Song, you send people into the city and go around to investigate, see the output of this Tongling copper mine, and see if you can purchase some ore to transport back to Daishan." Ren Siqi first said to Song Liben.

Since he came to Tongling, Ren Siqi naturally will not let go of the opportunity to purchase copper. Daishan now has the ability to cast cannons on its own, but because there is no copper mine, relying on the copper purchased from the Wa State, the output of Daishan artillery is very low, and 100,000 catties of copper can only cast twenty or thirty red-coated cannons. Of course, the copper purchased last year did not cast cannons, but made more than 400 small cannons of 500 catties.

Now this batch of small cannons is half placed on the position on the river bank according to the name of the Ming Dynasty, and the other half is installed on the warship. Most ships can't fit the huge cardinal cannons, but they're suitable.

If a large amount of copper ore can be obtained, then Daishan's workshop will continue to cast a large number of artillery, which is of great significance to improve the combat effectiveness of the Daishan army.

"Yes, my subordinates will do it!" Song Li bowed his hand and turned around to leave.

"Wait, let's see if you can recruit some craftsmen who know how to smelt, and then see if you can recruit a group of miners." Copper ore needs to be smelted before it can finally cast the refined copper of the cannon, and the craftsmen who know how to smelt are also the talents that Daishan continues to do now. And miners are proficient in mining and even explosive technology, making them the best candidates for engineering troops.

Song Liben agreed to go. Ren Siqi looked at Anthony again. Anthony is the head of the Enemy Intelligence Division, responsible for sending detailed workers to various places to find out information. The current situation is extremely complex, and if you want to deal with it easily, you will naturally need the support of intelligence.

"Anthony, you have to send more people to Jiujiang, Yangzhou, Nanjing, and other places. Why Jiujiang's Zuo Liangyu army wanted to go east along the river, whether it really wanted to rebel or there was another reason, we must find out. Ren Siqi suddenly thought that this year, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, was also driven to the Yangtze River by the Qing soldiers, and then died in Jiugong Mountain, Hubei. In this way, it seems that Zuo Liangyu's army must have another reason for going down the river, not as simple as rebellion

The situation here may be much more complicated than imagined, Zuo Liangyu, Li Zicheng, Qing soldiers and the Ming army, from Wuchang to Wuhu this section of the Yangtze River is actually distributed with four forces, the situation is extremely complicated. And he faced not only Zuo Liangyu's army of more than 200,000 troops, but also the Shun army and the more powerful Qing soldiers behind Zuo Liangyu's army.

In such a complicated situation, if you want to turn the tide and eliminate the Left Army and the Qing Army at the same time, it will be difficult for you to use the tens of thousands of troops under your command, even if you add more than 40,000 people from Huang Degong, and it would be good to preserve your strength.

First give Zuo Liangyu's army a head-on blow and force the left army to stop advancing. Then quickly descend the river and rush back to Nanjing, so that perhaps it may be too late to participate in the battle of Yangzhou and prevent the Qing army from seizing Yangzhou. And Zuo Liangyu's army stopped at Anqing, and it was also able to contain the Shun army and the Qing army. You can give yourself a certain amount of time to defend Nanjing.

On the 10th of Yangzhou, hundreds of thousands of people died in the massacre of the Qing soldiers, which is the pain of the Chinese nation. Of course, Ren Siqi was not arrogant enough to think that he would defeat the Qing soldiers with these tens of thousands of troops. But the worst of them had to deal a heavy blow to the Manchu soldiers, and even a small victory could be achieved.

The reason why the Qing soldiers were able to sweep through the south of the Yangtze River was not how powerful. In fact, as far as the Qing troops are concerned, the Duoduo Department that attacked Yangzhou and the Azig Department that followed behind Li Zicheng's army added up to more than 100,000 people. The strength of the Ming Dynasty in the four towns of Jiangbei and Zuo Liangyu's army combined was four or five hundred thousand, which was several times the number of Qing soldiers. If the Ming army is united in fighting the Qing soldiers, let alone sweeping the south of the Yangtze River, it is impossible for the whole army to retreat to the north.

But the problem is that there are many contradictions between the top and bottom of the Ming army, and the combat effectiveness is underground. The most important thing is that for more than 20 years, the Ming army has never won a big victory in the face of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and there is already a fear of the Qing soldiers from the bone marrow, and in the eyes of most Ming troops, the Qing soldiers are invincible and invincible. Therefore, when the Qing troops attacked, the Ming troops everywhere rushed to surrender.

If the myth of the invincibility of the Qing army can be defeated, even if it is only a small victory, it will inevitably boost the morale of all the Ming troops, so that they will not be so afraid when facing the Qing soldiers again.

If you can do this, it will be worth it even if you wipe out all the Daishan Army.

"In addition, more people should be sent in the direction of Yangzhou, and always pay attention to the movement of the Qing troops. Be sure to find out the exact date of the arrival of the soldiers in Yangzhou. After pondering for a long time, Ren Siqi commanded.

"Also, we must send a group of people to Nanjing, in addition to investigating the movements of the Nanjing Imperial Court, we must also search for and recruit a large number of craftsmen in Nanjing, and if the situation is unfavorable, we must think of plundering as many craftsmen in Nanjing as possible." Nanjing's artisan households can be said to be the largest in the country, blacksmiths, carpenters, lacquer craftsmen, shipwrights, all kinds of craftsmen, it can be said that the best craftsmen of the whole Ming Dynasty are gathered here. Others don't know the value of craftsmen, and it is impossible for Ren Siqi, who has the memory of later generations, not to know. (To be continued.) )