At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were frequent wars in eastern Liaodong, the people were displaced, the fields were barren, and the population was sparse. When Shunzhi entered the customs, in order to enable millions of Manchus to "enter the customs from the dragon", the Qing soldiers also destroyed a large number of village and town houses and fields and farm tools. At the same time, it also made the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years, uninterrupted investment of a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources, in the construction of intensive towns in eastern Liaodong, "from Shanhaiguan to Kaiyuan, the formation of five miles of one fort, ten miles of one city, thirty miles of a city building system", all destroyed.

In 1644, Dolgon ordered that Han Chinese should not be allowed to enter Manchuria's "Land of Longxing" for cultivation. The Manchu rulers regarded the Northeast as "the place where their ancestors rejuvenated the kings" and imposed a ban on the Northeast for more than 200 years in history under the pretext of protecting the "benefits of the mountains and pearl rivers".

In order to strictly enforce the "ban on customs", starting from the Shunzhi period, the Qing Dynasty government built more than 1,000 kilometers of fence walls called "wicker side" in Manchuria at any cost -- the Great Wall of Manchuria, also known as the wicker side wall, willow wall, willow city, and tiaozi side. From Shanhaiguan through Kaiyuan, Xinbin to the south of Fengcheng wicker side for the "old side"; From the northeast of Kaiyuan to the north of Jilin City, it is the "new side". Manchuria to the east of the border wall was strictly forbidden to cross the border, and west of the border wall was used as a grazing ground for the Mongol nobles, the allies of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

"The sea on the east and west sides of the Hehe River is viewed, the yellow sand is full of eyes, and it is desolate at a glance...... In addition, those who are worried about ......"

“…… Internally, although there are many castles in Hedong, they are all wasteland...... There are more castles in Hexi, but the people are scarce. Duningyuan, Jinzhou, Quang Ninh, and the people gathered. There is only one assistant leader, and I don't know how to cook in the place. ”

"In the belly of the east and west of the river, the deserted city and the castle are ruined, and the ruins are ruined. Thousands of miles of fertile fields, there is no land and no people, and there is nothing to fear. This internal worry is even worse. ”

For the desolation and desolation of the Liaodong region. Zhang Shangxian, the Fengtianfu Mansion of the Qing court, once played and made all the above descriptions.

In his description, the entire territory of Fengtian is desolate, only Fengtian (Shenyang), Liaoyang, and Haicheng still have a little bit of the appearance of state capital and county governance, but Liaoyang and Haicheng have no city walls. However, in places such as Gaizhou, Phoenix, and Jinzhou, there are only hundreds of people. "Tieling, Fushun. but the wanderers. They cannot be cultivated, and they do not gather. Those who are alone, most of them have fled. Those who have a little family only die here are not beneficial to the place. ”

How desolate! Gaizhou, Fengcheng, and Jinzhou, which now have populations of one million or hundreds of thousands, were only "a few hundred" at that time. At that time, there were only exiled migrants in Tieling and Fushun, and they could not farm, and most of the single people ran away.

It was in such a harsh and empty environment that the Ming army began to attack and plunder in the Liaodong region. The first is on the Yalu River. Fengcheng, Kuandian, Xiuyan, Huanren and other places were recovered one after another, and North Pyongan Province in North Korea was used as a place for troops to rest, thus forming a stable base that could be attacked and retreated to the river. Although the Great War of the Central Plains made it difficult for the Ming army to continue to increase its troops in Liaodong, the recruits recruited in the north were constantly transported and trained in Tieshan, Longchuan, and Yanzhou, and there were as many as 5,000 before and after.

Now that it has abandoned the operational intention of carrying out a large-scale landing near Jinzhou, so as to annihilate the main force of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the Guannai. The Ming army then adopted the strategy of attacking the northeast in history. That is, Liaodong and Liaoxi will be taken as the two strategic offensive directions to form two strategic blocs. Flanking the Qing army in the northeast.

Now, taking advantage of the emptiness of the Qing army, the Liaodong Strategic Group was established first, and after consolidating its foundation, it suddenly came out by land and water by taking advantage of the advantages of the sailors and the opportunity of the Qing army in Liaodong to assemble along the Yalu River one after another. Landed at Sanshan Haikou (now Dalian area). After defeating the few local Qing troops, more than 10,000 Ming troops dug trenches and built fortifications in the narrowest part of the peninsula, thus completely cutting off the Lushun area. The 2,000 marines and the 3,000 main army corps turned south to annihilate the Lushun Qing army due to the leadership of the seven people.

Although Lushun was the focus of the Qing army's defense. However, limited to the number of troops, thousands of miles of vast seas, even if troops cannot be sent to garrison, lookouts and early warning posts must be assigned, and the area to be defended is too wide. Therefore, the garrison strength is only more than 1,000 people, and the total number of family members, clothed slaves, etc., is only about 3,000.

Of course, in the traditional sense of China, Lushun is just a lonely city, thousands of miles behind enemy lines, but relying on the abundant supplies sent from Denglai, it will be full of vitality and become a sharp knife inserted in the belly of the Qing army in Liaodong. And with the logistics capacity of the Ming army now, the embarrassing situation of Dongjiang Town will never be staged.

In fact, many generals of the Ming army were quite surprised by the manpower and material resources currently mobilized by the imperial court. At that time, the Wanli Emperor frantically looted mining taxes, commercial taxes, and porcelain mines, relying on these funds to ensure the combat effectiveness of the border army, but also forced a large number of handicraftsmen to ruin. Therefore, although the Son of Wanli won the great martial arts of the "Three Great Expeditions", he also left a bad reputation of "Wanli Harsh Government" in history.

Like Zhu Yongxing, who can implement the policy of benefiting farmers while also being able to supply all kinds of armies with grain and materials, it is indeed a bit unbelievable for people who do not have an in-depth understanding of the financial operation of the Ming court. There has been such a famous saying since ancient times. But obviously, while Zhu Yongxing was discovering a means to accumulate money and grain, foreign plunder was also a key factor.

Without the occupation zone of Annam, without the ever-expanding provinces of Mekong and Ha Tien, the food supply would not be able to meet the current demand.

"In the past three hundred years, the bones of millions of comrades have been outside the border, but they still make the Tartars bigger and poison the north and south of the country, which is really sad." Yu Qi was riding on a horse, the cold wind blowing on his face at the end of autumn, and he couldn't help but let out a voice of indignation, "Now that we have set foot in the land of Liaodong again, it is really long live and wise." ”

Long live the wise! In feudal society, this should be the most frequently used word for officials. Well, no matter how big or small, as long as you can get along with the emperor, if you don't say "long live the wise", it seems that you are not loyal enough.

Of course, Yu Qi's emotion was not for no reason, nor was it just for compliment, but the imperial court, or the emperor Zhu Yongxing, who was equivalent to the imperial court in the minds of people at that time, did give the army a commendable material supply.

Needless to say, the first batch of cotton clothes had arrived at the front line in late autumn, which was one thing for the Ming soldiers who fought in the cold Liaodong region, thanking Dade was one thing, and enhancing the confidence of victory was even more important.

Although Gao Dejie, who also had the rank of general soldier, only brought out more than 400 cavalry, he did not belong to the Seven Divisions, so Yu Qi spoke very politely. At the same time, Yu Qi was envious of this group of well-equipped cavalry, and even had the urge to switch to cavalry.

Gao Dejie and Yu Qi have the same feeling, there is no civilian constraint, no need to worry about food, no need to worry about weapons and equipment, no need to worry about military supplies, and even military discipline is taken over by the Military Justice Department, and the military generals only need to train soldiers and fight good battles, so that they can be relaxed and more concentrated.

"What General Yu said is extremely true." Gao Dejie pointed to the armor under his hand and said, "This is the armor purchased from Xiyi, which costs a lot of money, and our army currently only has four hundred. However, the General Staff Headquarters has already submitted a letter informing it that 300 units will be paid every month in the future. ”

Before the 14th century, the iron armor of Western Europe, like other regions, was dominated by chain mail, supplemented by scale armor and armor. Plate armor in the true sense appeared at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the great development of forging large-scale curved metal technology and metallurgical technology laid the foundation for later generations of monolithic armor.

Especially after 1400 AD, there was a major breakthrough in materials science, that is, the invention of the blast furnace: the rise in combustion temperature made it possible to cast iron (until then it was all block iron), and the production of steel increased greatly. On the other hand, the advent of the hydraulic forging machine and the development of metallurgical technology under the guidance of Renaissance science laid the foundation for the leap in armor technology in this era, making the fifteenth century an era of great development in plate armor forming.

Moreover, it was quickly discovered that the protective power of plate armor and the flexibility brought to soldiers under the same weight were unmatched by other iron armor, and it also provided more convenient conditions for hot and cold processing. Whether it is chain mail, scale armor, or armor, because its constituent elements (small iron rings, armor plates, etc.) are too small, the processing is extremely cumbersome, which not only consumes manpower, but also makes it difficult to process and strengthen.

By the 16th century, plate armor had entered its heyday, effectively resisting the attacks of hot and cold weapons of the time. Neither early arquebuses, swords, spears, axes, nor ancient bows and crossbows were effective against plate armor. The confrontation between plate armor and the English longbow is considered a typical example of the "shield" surpassing the "spear".

But for now, plate armor has begun to decline in Europe as new arquebuses and flintlock pistols, known as smoothbore guns, are being introduced to soldiers. Because in front of the light and powerful musket, the well-made plate armor can indeed effectively resist the penetration of the bullet in the front, but the huge impact force will often lead to the internal deflatation and damage of the guard plate, and the unobstructed shock wave will also bring severe damage to the human body, which makes the plate armor more and more powerless in actual combat.

It is precisely because of this that Zhu Yongxing was able to import plate armor from Britain and France at a relatively low price, and used the blast furnace and forging press of his own arsenal to carry out imitation processing and manufacturing. Relatively speaking, the cost of manufacturing plate armor is lower than that of manufacturing scale armor and chain mail, and the process is simpler.

Of course, the absorption and introduction is not all, because the horses ridden by the Ming army and the Qing soldiers were Mongolian horses of 2 or 300 kilograms instead of the Arab horses, which were 6 or 700 kilograms of large horses, and the armor protection of the horses could only be covered with a few pieces of light armor. At the same time, after repeated trials, in order to reduce weight and improve mobility, the Ming cavalry was not equipped with full body armor, but only helmets, cuirass, and arm guards with masks.

Even so, the protection of the Ming cavalry was generally higher than that of the Qing soldiers. And even the cavalry, which was not equipped with half-body plate armor for the time being, wore good armor captured in battles in various places. For bows and arrows that need to be protected, such armor can still play a great role.

…………… (To be continued......)