The north wind is howling, and although it is past February, the weather is still cold.

Yang Jian sneaked into the capital to spy on the news of the 'revolutionary army', while Zhou Qingfeng quietly left the capital and arrived at Shanhaiguan in the northeast.

As the 'first pass in the world', Shanhaiguan is a majestic pass. It is stuck on the road to Gyeonggi in the Liaoxi Corridor, with Liaodong Bay to the east and the Yanshan Mountains to the west, echoing Jiayuguan thousands of miles away, helping the Han people resist the invasion of barbarians in the north.

Zhou Qingfeng stood on the city wall more than ten meters high, holding a telescope and looking at the enemy on the opposite side - about three kilometers away, there was a group of tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, waving a banner more than a foot high, and the word 'high' was written on the flag.

"It was Gao Hongzhong, the deputy general appointed by Jiannu, who was originally a guerrilla in Guanning of the Ming army and was stationed in the area of the Liao River. Last year, Nurhachi swept through Liaoxi, and he surrendered. This guy is very much used by Huang Taiji like Fan Wencheng and belongs to a hardcore traitor. Gao Da Niu stood behind Zhou Qingfeng and introduced the situation of the enemy on the opposite side. He concluded: "We have roughly judged that the enemy has come with 50,000 men. ”

In the telescope, Gao Hongzhong's camp was very tightly packed. There were very few people walking around in the barracks, and the ranks were orderly and quiet. More than a dozen artillery pieces were placed around the camp gate, which was not at all the appearance of the old artillery of the Ming army, and had been changed to the style of Western-style long-barreled heavy artillery.

These new guns had thick walls and gradually thickened from muzzle to tail, allowing the use of more charges. The barrel has cylindrical lugs, which can be easily mounted on a wheeled gun carriage and can be aimed at a high and low firing angle. However, these cannons cost two tons at every turn, and they had to be transported by manpower and animal power on rough roads, and I don't know how many people Jiannu died of exhaustion.

In contrast, the 'revolutionary army' has less than half a ton of artillery of the same power, and there are special four-wheeled heavy-duty artillery trucks for transportation, and it is already tormented by the current dilapidated roads.

"After the opponent set up camp, he fired at our wall from a distance, and its artillery could hit thousands of meters at most, although it did not hit our personnel, but it also hit the wall many times." Gao Daniu pointed to a few white dots outside the wall, "Those were all hit by Gao Hongzhong's artillery." We returned fire with fortress guns, but the results were not good. ”

Even if the machine factory of the 'revolutionary army' has a lot of black technology, it is still impossible for the artillery to accurately hit the enemy artillery thousands of meters away. Zhou Qingfeng observed in the telescope and found that Jiannu's artillery was well trained, they not only built a solid gun emplacement, but also deliberately built a thick chest wall in front of the gun emplacement.

Unless the artillery of the 'Revolutionary Army' can accurately hit the gap in the breastwall of the enemy's gun position, which is only a few meters wide, there is no way to destroy the opponent. When Zhou Qingfeng put down the binoculars, he felt inexplicable - Jiannu's artillery was too professional, and the handling of details was completely standardized, where was this like a technical class that a group of barbarians could train?

"Something is wrong." Zhou Qingfeng muttered to himself. The Ming army had a lot of artillery, and it was not surprising that Gao Hongzhong could still control the artillery after his surrender. But the artillery of the Ming army is very sparse, and if you want to say that they have evolved so fast in a year, no one will believe them.

The trouble at the moment is not just that the enemy suddenly becomes stronger......

The 'revolutionary army' has devoted a great deal of financial and human resources to the development of industry, agriculture and the management of the population, and has been conservative in the building of military strength and has pursued elite soldiers. Up to now, Zhou Qingfeng has only ten brigades and 50,000 regular troops, and even if it is the two infantry brigades that have only recently completed training, the strength is still not enough to occupy all the cities in the area under his control.

This practice was to draw lessons from the Ming court, which was very large, but the quality of the soldiers was extremely poor. Even if the soldiers are poor, they are scattered everywhere like beans. As a result, you can only defend the city and wait for the enemy to break through each one. Zhou Qingfeng would rather have a small number of elite soldiers and the ability to fight in the field with the enemy. The fortification of the city was entrusted to a special militia and garrison.

However, at present, Zhou Qingfeng's troops are still too limited, and he gathered five brigades to capture the capital. It was easy to take the capital, but the five brigades had to be separated from each other to guard in multiple directions, and they had to suppress the surrendered Ming army, which was really too busy. This side of Shanhaiguan is extremely important, but it can only let one brigade of Gao Da Niu come over.

Juniper was originally the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, and seeing that the capital was finished, he simply surrendered. But tens of thousands of rangers under him must be reorganized, screened, and controlled. This puts a lot of pressure on Gao Daniu.

There were 5,000 tall cattle and 5,000 militiamen. This is not enough to defend Shanhaiguan, and it is impossible to let Juniper's tens of thousands of men go unattended. So when Gao Hongzhong, a dog traitor, swaggered and led his troops to kill, he could only watch, and at most sent some cavalry to harass him.

"Gao Hongzhong's tens of thousands of people are very strange. Most of them are the Ming army in the past, but they have changed some firearms and equipment. But the spirit is completely different from the past. Gao Da Niu said: "My cavalry has fought with the enemy many times, and at present they can still control the situation, but the enemy's combat strength has increased rapidly. In particular, the enemy also began to use infantry phalanxes with a combination of hot and cold weapons. ”

According to the early intelligence investigation, the establishment of Gao Hongzhong's army has evolved from the old-fashioned pure cold weapon phalanx to the stage of the Spanish phalanx equipped with a small number of firearms. About a tenth of the troops were armed with muskets, and the spear infantry formed a powerful but clumsy omnidirectional phalanx.

The Wehrmacht, which was reorganized from the Guards, is evolving into an all-firearms phalanx and entering the era of gun-assisted queuing for shooting. But Zhou Qingfeng had to admit that the enemy was also advancing, and it was fast. He pondered on the city wall for a while, and guessed suspiciously in his heart: "Those Portuguese in Macao that the Ming Court collected before are afraid that they will all run to the Jiannu side." ”

Since Nurhachi launched the brainwashing sect, his ability to control the bottom has been greatly improved, and it has become much more difficult for the 'revolutionary army' to infiltrate eastern and western Liaoning. Many intelligence agents have lost contact, or it is difficult to transmit information, and Zhou Qingfeng now can't figure out what happened to the enemy on the other side.

After taking the capital, Zhou Qingfeng blocked Jiannu's way to obtain material assistance from the Han people. Next, he wanted to take a step forward, so that he could complete the fourth phase of the army's expansion and get 100,000 army troops. But Gao Hongzhong's appearance disrupted his thoughts, and when he stood at the head of Shanhaiguan, he knew that Nurhachi was going to fight him.

"Gao Hongzhong is just cannon fodder." Zhou Qingfeng said with certainty: "Nurhachi will not be so stupid, he knows that the city defense of Shanhaiguan is strong, and the western Liaoning corridor is very narrow by the sea. This is suitable for the heavy firepower of our 'revolutionary army', even if he has 50,000 people, how long can he resist? ”

Zhou Qingfeng was thinking in his mind, could this be a suspicious soldier who was deliberately sent to death? Jiannu abandoned these tens of thousands of people, and after attracting the main force of the 'revolutionary army', secretly sent troops to attack from the Haigai region in the east - this was the easiest path, after all, the road from Shenyang to Liaoyang to Haizhou was relatively easy to follow. In war, road conditions are an important factor in determining victory or defeat.

However, Jiannu is not stupid, Haizhou may be easy to fight, but the terrain of Gaizhou is also similar to Shanhaiguan, which also blocks the enemy's ability to attack. If the other party wants to win, he is afraid that he will have to shed all his blood.

Or if Jiannu wants to attack Liaonan from the direction of Dandong, he can also come from the direction of Mongolia to attack Gyeonggi. But neither of these paths is easy to follow. If the defending Ming army is the right one, Jiannu may still succeed. However, now that the morale of the 'revolutionary army' is strong, the degree of organization is high, and it dares to fight to the death in the field, it will not be so easy to succeed.

And now except for Shanhaiguan, there is no movement in other directions.

Nurhachi, what the hell do you want to do?

Zhou Qingfeng held the city wall in his hand, and thought carefully about the arrangement of the enemy and us on one side. He finally decided: "No matter how the enemy fights?" We hit ours. Gao Hongzhong, a traitor, dared to go 400 miles deep into the western Liaoning corridor, and when we came to show off his might, we would let this guy be wiped out. ”

Even if the enemy has 50,000 troops, Zhou Qingfeng is still not afraid. He believed that with his own firepower superiority, he could completely crush the opponent. "Order the transfer of a transport fleet in the direction of Tianjin to ship the newly formed 11th Brigade of the National Defense Force from Tianjin to Shanhaiguan."

It is no problem for a brigade to defend Shanhaiguan, but it is really a bit difficult to defeat the enemy army on the opposite side with ten times the number of people in the field. Especially if this enemy army doesn't know where to learn some skills, it will be even more difficult.

Since the Liaoning West Corridor is close to the sea, Zhou Qingfeng plans to transfer one more brigade to detour by sea to Gao Hongzhong's back. Unless Gao Hongzhong has the ability to be a 'Workers' and Peasants' Red Army' and can still maintain a stubborn fighting spirit and even the ability to attack against the sky in the predicament of backward equipment and flanking attacks in front and rear, he will be dead.

"Nurhachi wanted to mobilize Lao Tzu's troops, so he gave me a piece of fat to eat for nothing." Zhou Qingfeng snorted disdainfully, "This is too underestimate me, no matter if he is poisonous bait or fatty meat, Lao Tzu will give him a bite to eat happily." ”

The order to transfer troops was quickly transmitted to Tianjin by Jia Gang's divine thoughts, and the 11th Brigade, which had just left the boot training camp, immediately boarded more than a dozen 500-ton transport barges and headed for Shanhaiguan with the sudden sound of steam engines.

Due to the complex structure of regular sea vessels, the construction speed is slow. However, the number of old-fashioned 2,000-gauge sail carriers was not enough and the carrying capacity was low, so the Jinzhou Shipyard of the 'Revolutionary Army' has been producing 500-ton self-powered barges.

The barge has a simple structure, large space, fast construction, and can run with a small steam engine of 100 horsepower, which is especially suitable for the Bohai Sea, which is a 'small bathtub' with a close distance between ports and a relatively calm sea. The entire transportation process of this one brigade took only three days, which can be called efficient in the current era.

But when the 11th Brigade arrived at Shanhaiguan and was ready to launch a landing operation behind enemy lines, new information came again - Jiannu sent another army of about 30,000 soldiers and horses from Jinzhou to the south into the western Liaoning corridor, and had just entered Ningyuan City.

This force was only 120 kilometers away from Shanhaiguan, and if it had been quicker, it would probably have joined the central part of Gaohong in three days. This time, it was Mang Gurtai who came to lead the troops.

The situation is delicate.

Zhou Qingfeng couldn't understand what Nurhachi was doing like this? But after he got the information, he only hesitated for two or three seconds, and then shouted viciously: "I held a banquet, and two tables of guests came." But no matter how many of it is, whether it is giving meat for nothing, or extracting teeth from the tiger's mouth, Lao Tzu will clean up Gao Hongzhong, the dog thief, before Mang Gurtai comes. Let Jiannu stare dryly! ”