By mid-August, the construction of the barracks and the artillery foundry in Yongchun County had been successfully completed, and the two groups of militiamen recruited had also completed their training, and they had carried their muskets out of the barracks to take over the defense of the county.

The small arms arsenal in Dehua also mass-produced bayonets that could be inserted into the muzzle of smoothbore guns, which was the primary military technology that Su Yan had acquired, the plug-in bayonet.

When the bayonet is screwed and the muzzle is fixed, the soldier has a short gun in his hand that can defend against cavalry and engage in white-knuckle combat. However, the disadvantages of such a combination were also very obvious: after a melee fight, the riflemen could not reload if they wanted to shoot again, and it was often difficult to unscrew the bayonet from the muzzle.

And even more - only a fool would shoot with a muzzle jam!

After the militia training, Su Yan did not recruit falcon artillery, but invested in recruiting a cavalry regiment and two spearmen, a cavalry regiment of the system only had 45 people, and the two teams rewarded by the system added up to less than 100 people, which was still far from enough.

It is worth mentioning that Su Yan originally planned to recruit a total of 90 cavalry from two cavalry regiments, but after recruiting one team, a prompt popped up in the system, telling him that the war horse resources were insufficient and he could not be recruited.

He also learned that recruiting cavalry not only requires people, but also needs to have surplus war horse resources, and Su Yan has just enough war horses to recruit a company of 45 people, and if he wants more, he can't do it.

This news also accelerated Su Yan's idea of wanting to take Quanzhou Fucheng - for no other reason, Quanzhou Fucheng, to be precise, Jinjiang area, has been raising horses since the end of the Tang Dynasty, this kind of horse was first called "Southern Fujian Coastal Horse" in later generations, and then renamed "Jinjiang Horse", which is a special horse breed that is resistant to high temperature and humidity, and adapts to the natural environment of spring and summer rain, autumn and winter drought, and summer heat.

If the Jinjiang horse is compared with the horses in the north, it will definitely be easily crushed, but if it is placed in the warm and humid climate of Fujian, the "strong dragon" of the northern war horse is not able to suppress the "head snake" of the Jinjiang horse.

……

At the same time, Zhang Xuesheng, the governor of Fujian, finally received a reply from the imperial court, and the military report he wrote was personally sent to the regent Dolgon after being sent to Beijing.

Therefore, Dolgon was furious after reading the military report, and the high march of the Qing army when it went south made him full of contempt for the Southern Ming army, and he did not think that an unknown rebel army would have a sharp firearm that could easily penetrate the armor within 200 steps, but only regarded it as a lie made up by Ma Degong in order to get away with it.

It's no wonder that Dolgon doesn't believe it, the farthest and most poisonous firebolt he knows is the Lumi gun imitated by Zhao Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty, and the farthest range is only one hundred and fifty meters, but look at what Zhang Xuesheng said? It is impossible to shoot through armor in 200 steps!

As a nobleman of the Eight Banners who had been fighting against the Ming army all his life, Dolgon's understanding of the Ming army could be said to be deeper than that of the Ming army itself, if there were really such sharp firearms, they would not have heard of it, and the Ming army would have taken it out to deal with them a long time ago.

The most important thing is that Ma Degong only has a confession, but no physical evidence, if he can bring one to prove his innocence, it will be fine, but he can't take anything.

According to various inferences, Dolgon decided that Ma Degong was lying to cover up his incompetence, and hated Zhang Xuesheng actually helped him deceive the court, so under Dolgon's order, Ma Degong and Zhang Xuesheng were dismissed and investigated together and escorted to Beijing.

The post of governor of Fujian was temporarily vacant, and Dolgon transferred Tong Guoqi, who had captured the rebel generals Ma Shiying and Zhu Dading, from Fujian to the post of governor of Fujian, and urged Tong Guoqi to quell the rebels as soon as possible and recover the lost territory.

At the same time that Zhang Xuesheng received the reply from the imperial court, the new governor of Fujian, Tong Guoqi, had already led the soldiers who escorted him back to Beijing to find the door, and watched his colleagues transform into replace him, Zhang Xuesheng couldn't help but look up to the sky and sigh, regretting that he had listened to Ma Degong's confession, and sent this confession to Beijing, but instead put himself in.

As soon as Tong Guoqi took office, he investigated the Su Yan Righteous Army occupying Dehua and Yongchun, and sent a large number of spies to infiltrate the two places to spy on the military situation of the Righteous Army, but most of them were stopped outside the key passes, and a few who sneaked in over the mountains and mountains were also sent to the government by the people who supported Su Yan because of their suspicious deeds, and they were beheaded to show the public.

Although the frequent Qing army did not obtain specific military information, it also fed back some useful information, and the price paid was to make Su Yan startled, and he also learned the news of the replacement of the governor of Fujian.

And that's exactly what happened.

Soon after Tong Guoqi took office, he began to mobilize the surrounding soldiers and horses, and ordered Han Shangliang, the general soldier of Quanzhou, to lead 5,000 green battalion soldiers from Quanzhou Prefecture, and more than 2,000 soldiers and horses from Anxi, Nan'an, and Xianyou to make a parallel journey and set off to quell the rebellion first.

Naturally, it was impossible to conceal such a large-scale military mobilization, and almost at the same time as the Qing army was mobilized, the anti-Qing forces in Xiamen and Yongchun received relevant reports.

Zheng Chenggong and Su Yan, who occupied Xiamen, both began to get nervous, but although the former was worried about the mobilization of troops and horses in Quanzhou, the target might be himself, but he was not too anxious, his Zheng Jiajun was best at water warfare, as long as the main force of his naval division was still there, the Qing army would not be able to fight.

On the contrary, Su Yan derived his speculation that the goal of the Qing army was his own from the information on the mobilization of troops and horses in An, Nan, and Xian, and his mood suddenly became Spartan, but he didn't expect the Qing army to make such a big move in order to deal with himself, and the soldiers and horses in the three counties gathered, plus the five thousand green battalions in Quanzhou, there was an army of more than 7,000 people!

Looking at himself again, plus the thousand recruits who are still training, there are only more than 3,800 people in total, and if you add the reward troops that have not yet been summoned in the system space, it is only just over 4,000.

Half of the Qing army.

If these 4,000 soldiers and horses were all regular troops recruited through the system, Su Yan would not be too anxious, but there are 1,000 recruits who have never been on the battlefield, and the entire Yiwu battalion is also lacking armor - in terms of weapons, Su Yan can still solve it, but in terms of armor, the light weapons arsenal does not have this option to produce armor.