At present, Shi Qingxuan can use the strength of the Sixth Army, that is, the First Division, the Eighth Division, the Ninth Division, the Ninth Auxiliary Defense Division, and the Second Cavalry Regiment, and there are also six auxiliary defense divisions that cooperate with operations and are mainly responsible for auxiliary tasks such as maintaining logistics lines and following up and controlling the areas already occupied.

The main force of the four divisions and one regiment was 24,000 people, and the six auxiliary defense divisions were about 25,000 people, and the total strength of the two was about 50,000 under the command of Shi Qingxuan.

The troops were stronger than in the original Battle of Jinan.

And Shi Qingxuan wanted to go north, and the main enemy he faced was the Qing army under the command of Duxing'a.

After the defeat in the Battle of Jinan, Duxing'a, who fled back to Zhili, was severely punished by Emperor Xianfeng, and was punished by a dismissal and retention. However, his role as a pillar in the northern region of the Qing court was not shaken.

No way, Du Xing'a is different from Monk Greenqin, the troops led by Monk Greenqin are all troops controlled by the central government of the Qing court, Xianfeng uses it if he wants, and kills him if he wants to, but Du Xing'a is different, this new army of the Qing court is trained by him, if Emperor Xianfeng completely dismisses Du Xing'a or kills him, it is estimated that the Qing army itself will have to mess up first.

From the time of the Gyeonggi training army and the Zhili coalition army, Du Xing'a was firmly in control of the Qing court's new army, and after these training troops were reorganized into the Qing Army, this new army was still under his command, and he was also appointed by the Qing court as the minister of military affairs in the north and south of the Yangtze River.

In 1858, Du Xing'a's power in the Qing court far exceeded that of Yuan Shikai in the late Qing Dynasty.

It's just that although the power is not reduced, the new army under his command is getting less and less, and he himself is defeated from Shandong, and his general Nade is defeated from Henan. This not only lost Shandong and Henan, but also made the Qing Army. Well, that is, more than half of the new army under the command of Duxing A.

And the third and sixth towns under Nader's command can be said to be completely annihilated. Nader finally had to retreat into Shanxi with the remnants of a thousand soldiers.

Duxing'a had ordered Nader to retreat to Shanxi, and at the same time used the existing remnants and the training troops in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu to reorganize the third and sixth towns.

Taking advantage of Shi Qingxuan's period of rest and recuperation in Dezhou, he added some recruits who had been trained in Zhili, Northeast and other places for a short time, as well as the training troops in Zhili and Northeast China, Rehe and other regions, to the new army under his command, and carried out emergency training.

Finally made a preliminary recovery.

However, although its number has recovered to nearly 30,000, the quality of soldiers, the level of equipment, and morale have dropped greatly compared with before.

Under such circumstances, Du Xing'a did not have much confidence in his heart to stop Shi Qingxuan's northward movement.

Zhili Tianjin.

Wearing a New Army uniform. Du Xing'a, dressed in a tweed coat, stood alone in the study, watching the snowflakes flutter outside the window.

This is not the first snow in Tianjin, as early as the beginning of December, there was already a light snow in Tianjin, and now the second snow seems to be even bigger.

Although the snowflakes in the north may delay the northward march of the Chinese army in the south, it has also caused a lot of trouble to the Qing army under the command of Duxing A.

For example, the winter clothes of the Qing army under the command of Duxing Ah are not very sufficient, and now the snow is fluttering and the temperature is plummeting, which has a greater impact on the troops!

It's snowing heavily. However, the Qing court only raised less than half of the winter clothes for Du Xing'a's army, and Du Xing'a wanted to curse people angrily, but the military department said that there was a lack of funds and could not provide more winter cotton clothes.

This makes Du Xing'a quite unhappy? Although the court is already poor, jingle sounds. But is there really no money? Can't even get the money for winter clothes? No way.

It is true that in the past few years, the vast majority of the Qing court's income has been consumed to train the new army, and the treasury on the Hubu side is already empty enough to starve rats to death. However, many princes and nobles in the capital are still living this drunken life, and last month Xianfeng supported the war in Duxing'a in order to raise military funds. I tried to get the court officials and princes and nobles to donate.

But in the end, the money donated was only 150,000 taels of silver, and 100,000 taels of it was taken out of the inner treasury by Xianfeng. There are countless officials and princes in the huge capital who have a fortune of one million, but they only donated 50,000 taels of silver.

This figure is not even one-tenth of what Du Xing'a got by looting the place on his own when he was stationed in Shandong.

Thinking of this, Du Xing'a couldn't help but sigh softly, this Qing army said that it was the army of the imperial court, but it was up to him to raise the army.

The Qing Army, which was organized and trained by Duxing'a, also needed a lot of military expenses every year, and only a part of it was given by the household department, and the bulk had to rely on Duxing'a to raise it locally, mainly in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Zhili provinces, as the main support.

But even this is not enough, so part of the military expenditure is obtained by apportionment to the locality, for example, when garrisoning a certain place, directly to the local rich merchants and gentry, asking for money and food.

Of course, you can't say that Duxing'a makes money to fill his own pockets, persecute the local government and the like, but do it as a last resort, if he doesn't stretch out his hand to the locality, Duxing'a can't afford to raise an army of more than 100,000 or 200,000 at all.

Well, Lin Zhe had done this kind of thing before, especially in 1853 and 1854, when Yu Shengjun had just risen, and basically used various means to apportionment everywhere he went.

No, the imperial court doesn't give Du Xing'a winter clothes, and there is no money to give them, but it is impossible for the soldiers to wear autumn clothes to fight all the time, so Du Xing'a can only pay for it himself from the small treasury in the new army, and then use it to purchase winter clothes.

Now it is snowing on a large scale in the Zhili area, but this snow cannot fall all the time, and when the heavy snow stops, I am afraid that the Chinese rebel army in Texas will go north!

Du Xing'a did not think that Shi Qingxuan of Texas would sit back for several months and wait until the beginning of spring next year before heading north, because this would certainly allow the weather to improve, but it would also give the Qing army more time to prepare for the buffer.

Du Xing'a thought so, but he didn't expect Shi Qingxuan to really do this.

So even if it was snowing heavily, he still asked his army to strengthen the construction of various fortifications, especially in Cangzhou, which has been carrying out large-scale engineering construction in the past nearly a month, just to build a defensive fortress to block the Chinese army from going north.

As for why the fortifications were built in Cangzhou, this is because Cangzhou happens to be the next important city along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and it is also the next important city along the canal after Dezhou.

After Cangzhou, there is Tianjin, and after Tianjin is Beiping.

A careful study of the many offensive lines of the Chinese army will show that they strictly followed a principle, that is, they basically followed the main waterway, which used to advance westward along the Yangtze River, now along the canal north, and then along the Yellow River to the east to Jinan, and then along the Yellow River to the west to Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, and so on in Henan.

Even in Guangdong, when the Third Army marched into Guangxi, it marched along the Xijiang River in the Pearl River system!

The reason why the large-scale military operations of the Chinese army are carried out along the main rivers is because of the restrictions on transportation and supplies.

The logistics materials consumed by the Chinese army every day are nothing to the army of later generations, and it is estimated that it is the level of light infantry, but for the middle of the nineteenth century, the consumption level of its materials is quite high, because the Chinese army not only has more people and more artillery, but also the number of mules and horses used in service is also very large, and the troops need a large number of shells and gunpowder for combat, and more is grain and forage.

At the same time, although it is possible to collect some supplies on the spot in the occupied areas, often the Chinese army's march is either thousands of miles away from the bare land or the people are struggling to make a living.

At the beginning of 1857, the Chinese army marched westward for the first time, conquered Nanjing, and continued to march into southern Anhui, where the local people were either taken away or ran away by themselves, and the rest were killed by the rebels or simply starved to death. In such a place, you can hardly expect to be able to collect enough food supplies on the spot, and sometimes you have to use military rations to help the local people.

When I went north to Shandong, Henan and other places, although these places did not make a living for the people, these places were not big grain-producing provinces, and these two places were areas with many people and little land, and the local people did not grow enough grain to eat.

The reason why the twisted army in northern Anhui can become popular is that the local people can't eat enough.

Under such circumstances, if more than 100,000 Chinese troops went to these places to collect food, then they would snatch rations from the local people.

Today's Chinese army is no longer the Yu Sheng army of the early days, nor is it the Taiping army that likes to steal everything, including the population, nor is it the old Qing army that is no different from the bandits, and it is impossible to loot the rations of the local people on a large scale when they get to a place.

The Chinese army can't do this kind of thing!

So far, basically the Chinese army fighting in various places rarely directly fights for grain on the spot to meet military needs, and even if it does collect grain on the spot, it is generally the Quartermaster Department that directly purchases grain from the locality, rather than directly grabbing it.

Most of the daily necessities such as grain and bean feed are still transported from the rear.

Therefore, it can be seen that when the Sixth Army went north to fight, it was followed by a large fleet of ships, and without the material support provided by the rear fleet at any time, the Sixth Army could not support it for half a month.

In this way, it can be judged that the Chinese army is relatively dependent on large-scale transportation, and before the emergence and large-scale use of railways, the Chinese army must rely on shipping if it wants to maintain large-scale transportation and supply to the front-line troops.

In this way, it can be judged that the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a veritable lifeline for the Chinese army of the Northern Expedition, mainly to stop the Chinese army on the Beijing-Hanzhou Grand Canal, so there is basically no need to worry that the Chinese army will bypass the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and attack Beiping from other directions.

Therefore, the main task of guarding the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is still Duxing'a, and to hold the canal, then it is necessary to fortify along the canal.

And Cangzhou is a place!

In the next step, Shi Qingxuan wants to implement the northbound strategy, and Cangzhou is a place that cannot be bypassed, and it must be taken down in order to continue to go north. (To be continued......)