Outside the city of Huangzhou Prefecture, Zhang Xianzhong came on a high-headed horse.

It was a good horse, 1.4 meters tall at the shoulders, with a smooth body and a strong physique. Zhang Xianzhong was wearing armor and a red cloak, and he looked majestic on horseback.

In comparison, when Zhao Han entered Nanjing City last year, his dress looked too shabby.

Because of the hot weather, he only wore a linen single coat.

It's summer now, and Zhang Xianzhong is also hot, with armor, helmets, and cloaks.

"Father!"

Sun Kewang lay on the ground and knelt to welcome Zhang Xianzhong into the city.

Zhang Xianzhong didn't bother to look at Yizi, and rode directly into the city. At the same time as the beating, he saved enough face, at least he was not whipped and punished in public.

Seeing Zhang Xianzhong riding away on horseback, Sun Kewang hurriedly got up and caught up to lead the horse for his father-in-law.

When he came to the official residence, Zhang Xianzhong immediately summoned the generals.

"I heard that Guangji County was also lost?" Zhang Xianzhong asked.

Sun Kewang felt very uncomfortable, and replied in a low voice: "It's lost, and all the passages out of the mountain are also occupied." ”

Originally, Zhao Han only needed two and a half counties, but since there was a fight, he simply wanted three counties, occupied some mountainous areas, and completely strangled the passage from Qizhou to Huangmei County.

"The defenders of the three counties have all been swallowed?" Zhang Xianzhong asked again.

Sun Kewang replied: "The generals under the command of the child were all released after surrendering, but the ordinary soldiers were swallowed by the surnamed Zhao. ”

Zhang Xianzhong nodded and said, "Since you are willing to put back your generals, Zhao Han has no intention of really turning his face." You have done a very good job in civil affairs, and this time your vitality is greatly damaged, so you can recover in Huangzhou Mansion. ”

"The child obeys." Sun Kewang could only listen.

Of the 20,000 soldiers and 30,000 men brought out by Sun Kewang, only more than 5,000 people fled back one after another, all of whom had wives and children in Huangzhou Mansion. The rest of those who don't want to come back at all, and can't wait to take refuge in Zhao Tianwang, maybe they can get the land directly.

Sun Kewang is expected to lose not only the land of the three counties, but also tens of thousands of people!

After a moment of silence, Zhang Xianzhong asked, "Is there really only a few thousand enemy troops this time?" How did you lose? ”

"The enemy army is about 5,000, all of them are armor soldiers," Sun Kewang remembered the battle that day, and his face couldn't help but be afraid, "The book of soldiers says 'immobile as a mountain', and 5,000 people standing there are really like mountains." Their firearms were extremely fierce, and their guns could hit long distances, and it took twenty or thirty paces for the guns to fire a volley. Their formation is also powerful, and the infantry of several times the force charges, and they can't rush at all. ”

Zhang Xianzhong asked, "How does it compare with the Tianxiong Army?" ”

Sun Kewang thought about it carefully and said: "The Tianxiong army can't form such a tight big formation, my father can ask Feng Shuangli about the cavalry he brought that day." ”

Feng Shuangli said: "King, Jiangxi soldiers are not afraid of cavalry. At a distance of fifty or sixty paces, facing the cavalry charge, the Jiangxi soldiers did not move. I really didn't move, and I didn't move my feet. The cavalry rushed over to shoot the arrows, but they only raised their shields to block the arrows, and their legs did not move a minute. In fact, if you don't raise a shield, you can't shoot any warring states, and their minions have armor. “

"It is true that they all have armor, not leather armor," the general Guan Youcai interjected, "I took 4,000 men to outflank the flanks that day, and the Jiangxi soldiers in front of me were at most seven or eight hundred." The soldiers wore fine cotton armor, the kind lined with iron sheets, and wore rattan armor helmets with iron sheets. I attacked seven or eight hundred with four thousand men, and I was blocked out by the wolves, and I couldn't stand it. A soldier who can pass the wolf will be stabbed to death if he enters. As far as the armor worn by those small soldiers is worthy of our generals. It wasn't 5,000 soldiers who fought that day, it was 5,000 generals! ”

Hiss!

Zhang Xianzhong gasped, five thousand generals lined up, that kind of scene was terrifying to think about.

Zhang Xianzhong confirmed: "The cavalry rushed to twenty or thirty paces, and the formation on the opposite side was not chaotic?" ”

Feng Shuangli said: "It's not chaotic, it's not moving. The rattan hand held his shield to block the arrows, and the firecrackers hid behind them to fire volleys, and if they came closer, there were spears and wolves. Those wolves were so scary that the horses didn't dare to rush when they encountered them, so they were so frightened that they ran to the side. ”

Sun Kewang added: "The Jiangxi soldiers are all trained according to the generals. ”

Zhang Xianzhong suddenly felt a sense of powerlessness, Zhao Han is really rich!

Zhang Xianzhong's own direct troops, which can reach the level of a family, are only one or two thousand. The other generals and righteous sons can each have a maximum of four or five hundred.

The rest can wear leather armor and be considered elite!

Zhang Xianzhong warned in a deep voice: "Don't provoke Zhao Han again, recruit more homeless people to Tuntian, and recruit more craftsmen to build weapons and armor!" ”

"Remember, child!" Sun Kewang hurriedly responded.

Just when Zhang Xianzhong admonished Sun Kewang, Ai Nengqi had already conquered Xinye, Li Dingguo had conquered Tang County, and Nanyang Basin would soon have the surname Zhang.

Farther north, Li Zicheng swept half of Shanxi, claiming to have an army of 500,000.

Sun Chuanting was appointed as the governor of Xuanda, but in fact, he had almost given up Xuanda, and took Yang Guozhu, Wang Pu and other generals to block the passage from Shanxi to Beijing.

……

After defeating Sun Kewang, Jiangxi officials and peasant associations took over the territory and immediately divided the fields in Susong, Huangmei, and Guangji counties.

Huang Shun and Fei Yinghui occupied Susong and tried to march towards Taihu County.

As a result, Taihu Lake, Qianshan, Tongcheng, and Shucheng all looked at the wind and fell, and they did not encounter resistance until the capital city of Luzhou.

Zhao Han just asked them to cross the river and occupy the cities along the river as a stronghold for the army, but who knew that he almost killed the Jianghuai region...... It's not a killing, because in addition to fighting with Sun Kewang, the next county seat is bloodless.

The resistance of the Luzhou Mansion did not come from the officials and soldiers, but from the Liukou Luo Rucai!

Luo Rucai first fell out with Zhang Xianzhong, and now he has a falling out with Li Zicheng, so he can only choose to do it alone.

He took Gwangju as his base camp and went all the way east to occupy Lu'an Prefecture, and finally got stuck in Luzhou and could not conquer it.

Coincidentally, Huang Shun and Fei Yinghui also came to Luzhou, and the two sides confronted each other a few miles outside the city.

On the side of the Datong Army, they divided their troops all the way to occupy the county seat, and at this moment there were only 3,000 regular soldiers and 5,000 people. And Luo Rucai's army, with crooked melons and cracked dates, totaled sixty or seventy thousand people.

"There is an order in the town, there is not enough food and grass, suspend the march!"

Huang Shunzheng was planning to attack at night, the plan was proposed by Fei Yinghui, and he received a military order from Zhao Han before he could do it.

"Withdraw to Shucheng." Fei Yinghui felt very helpless.

"Alas!"

Huang Shun could only withdraw from the army, and he was also an old man who raised troops in Wuxing Town. To be honest, all abilities are very ordinary, purely relying on seniority and accumulated combat merits (hard work is the majority), this year I was finally able to lead the army alone, but I didn't expect that I couldn't really fight at a critical time.

Not only was this route withdrawn, but all the armies were stopped, and they had to be re-expanded.

In the eastern, western, southern, northern, and central regions, the armies of the five academies were all expanded, and the number of people in each academy increased from 5,000 to 7,500.

In addition, the number of Zhao Han's personal soldiers has been increased from 1000 to 2000.

The Shanghai, Ningbo, and Fuzhou coast guards will each have 500 personnel, and the 1,000 coast guards in Guangzhou will remain unchanged.

Coupled with the 2,000 cavalry being trained on Jeju Island, the number of regular army soldiers in Zhao Han reached 44,000!

Zhao Han can be violent at any time, this time the strength of each academy has directly increased by one-third, and the influx of a large number of "new soldiers" will not reduce the combat effectiveness too much.

The combined number of peasants and soldiers in the provinces has exceeded one million!

Farming when he is busy, training in his spare time, and a real life-and-death battle, Zhao Han can fight millions of soldiers.

This expansion is not only because of the growth of the territory, but also because of the feedback from previous actual battles, and the 5,000 troops are not fully equipped with troops.

Zhao Han, Pang Chunlai, Li Banghua, Mao Yuanyi, Xu Nianzu and others, after repeated discussions and referring to the opinions of front-line generals, finally set the number of 7,500 soldiers in each court.

Of the 7,500 men, 4,000 were melees, 2,000 were musketeers, 500 were grenadiers, 500 were artillerymen, and 500 were civilians, cooks, and doctors combined (archers were eliminated).

The predetermined positive amount is 10,000 people, and the remaining 2,500 shortfalls, which will be left to the cavalry in the future!

With 10,000 people and a full division, Zhao Han felt that with ten divisions, he could unify the whole country.

Anqing.

7,500 recruits and veterans, including civilians, are training.

Lu Xiangsheng looked at those doctors with a strange expression. A group of monks, Taoist priests, nuns, and Taoist aunts, dressed in monk clothes, stood alone in the corner training queue, and this scene was indeed too weird.

There were before, but the number was limited, and this time there are many more expansions.

The training subjects of doctors are very different from those of combat soldiers. Only the queue is the same, and the runners are running on stretchers, and they have to practice pitching tents and so on.

Five hundred grenadiers are also interesting, they used to be only sporadically equipped, but now they are a standard unit.

"Hey!"

In groups of 20 people, practice throwing solid balls repeatedly.

Raise the ball high above your head with both arms, then throw it again, then draw your waist knife and charge and slash.

These grenadiers, specially selected tall and sturdy people, each of them has superior arm strength. Even if they fight in close combat, they are all strong soldiers, and they rush up to cut people when they throw bombs anyway.

As a missionary, Lu Xiangsheng naturally wanted to understand the soldiers, and when he led the Tianxiong Army, he also shared weal and woe with the soldiers.

While the doctor was resting, Lu Xiangsheng found a nun: "What's your name?" ”

"Hui Jing." The nun replied.

"What about the common name?" Lu Xiangsheng asked.

The nun shook her head: "I don't know. When I was a child, my family was poor, and I was sent to the nunnery at a few years, and I have long forgotten my surname. ”

Lu Xiangsheng asked again: "Do you still believe in Buddhism?" ”

The nun took off her hat, showed her hair, and said with a smile: "Now I only believe in Mr. Zhao, in fact, I have long been vulgar, and this dress is only worn in the barracks." I'm still married......" she pointed to the Taoist priest who was carrying things in the distance, "My husband is also vulgar, and he will be discharged from the army when I get pregnant." ”

Lu Xiangsheng looked at the nun in front of him, and then at the Taoist priest in the distance, and didn't know what to say.

"Divide two thousand people, come and carry things!"

The soldiers who were exercising immediately divided two thousand and ran to the gate of the barracks to carry supplies.

The quartermaster shouted, "Doctor of the Army, come and get your clothes and shoes, and the musketeers come and get your new weapons!" ”

Instead of wearing family clothes, doctors will no longer wear uniform canvas uniforms.

As for the new weapons of the firecrackers, Lu Xiangsheng's eyes lit up.

It turned out to be something similar to a dagger, which could be inserted into the front of the barrel, and the musketeers instantly turned into spearmen.

Liu Zhu stood on the general's platform and summoned the firecrackers to speak: "In the future, we will practice bayonet skills, and the general town has sent a few bayonet instructors over." In actual combat, if you understand any tricks, you can also report them to your superiors. If the moves you comprehend are useful, they will be promoted throughout the army! ”

Lu Xiangsheng got a firearm with a bayonet, tried to stab it a few times, and immediately praised it: "This thing is very useful." ”