In 1846, the battle for the South Seas between the Huaxia Army and the British Navy finally came to an end, and the strategic focus could be shifted from the south to the north.

In March 1846, the Huaxia Army held a large-scale military parade in Guangzhou and pledged to join the Northern Expedition.

“... In today's world, the European powers are eyeing each other, the Qing court is dumb and incompetent, and the Chinese nation has reached the most critical moment... At this critical juncture, all ethnic groups in China, regardless of whether they are north or south, whether young or old, all have the responsibility of strengthening the country and resisting the Qing Dynasty..."

At the swearing-in meeting, Li Xian, as the commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army, gave an impassioned speech, which resonated with the military and civilians present, and the crowd was enthusiastic and morale was high for a while.

After that, Li Xian led tens of thousands of troops to board naval ships and sailed north from the sea to attack the northern regions ruled by the Qing Dynasty.

After the news of the Northern Expedition of the Huaxia Army reached the Qing court's ruling area, the world shook, and the Qing Dynasty officials were in panic.

At this time, after years of development, the comparison of combat power between the Qing army and the Huaxia army has undergone a fundamental contrast.

The main force of the Huaxia Army was in the hands of the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Guan, including 60,000 regular troops and 60,000 auxiliary soldiers, and more than 100,000 militiamen could be temporarily recruited in Guangdong and Hainan Island when the war was urgent.

In comparison, the total number of registered troops of the Qing army is more than 1 million, and the actual strength is about 900,000, which is far above the Huaxia army in terms of numbers alone, but unfortunately the account is not calculated in this way.

The regular army and auxiliary troops of the Huaxia Army are all pure firearms units, of which the auxiliary troops are mainly equipped with smoothbore guns, supplemented by a small number of rifled guns; while the regular army is even more powerful, and the backward smoothbore guns have long been eliminated, and almost all of them are equipped with rifled guns.

Europe in this era was at a critical juncture from smoothbore guns to rifled guns, and from this point of view, the infantry equipment level of the Huaxia Army was quite advanced even in Europe.

In addition, the Huaxia Army was equipped with a large number of high-quality artillery and rocket artillery, and its range, hit rate, and rate of fire and other parameters far exceeded those of the Qing army.

What's more, the Huaxia Army has been fighting with European powerhouses such as the British Army since its birth, and in these years of the Nanyang War, it has withstood the test of war, and its actual combat effectiveness has increased several steps compared with the Opium War.

In comparison, the Qing court's backward military system, poor command ability and weapon level were almost incomparable to the Shangxia army.

If the two sides pulled out all their armies and fought head-on, Li Xian was confident that he would lead 100,000 regular troops and auxiliaries in his headquarters to defeat the Qing court's million-dollar army.

However, a real war does not only depend on the combat effectiveness of the armed forces themselves, but also involves many factors such as politics, economy, culture, and religion.

In terms of naval strength, the improvement of the industrial level of the Huaxia Army is even more significant than the development of the army, and at this time it has the ability to imitate the 1,000-ton ocean-going sailing ships and 600-ton steam engines in Europe, so that the Huaxia Army has more than 50 1,000-ton ships and more than 20 steam engines of 200 to 600 tons.

It is a pity that after all, the Huaxia Army has a relatively short time to develop its industry, and it is not yet capable of building large sailing ships of more than 2,000 tons, nor is it capable of building steam ships of more than 1,000 tons.

Considering the rapid development of the shipbuilding industry in Europe in this era, and even France has the ability to build steam engine warships of more than 4,000 tons, the technological gap between the two sides is still very huge.

If it weren't for the fact that China was too far away from Europe, and the Suez Canal was not navigable, it would be difficult for European navies to reach Chinese waters or the South Seas, and it would have become several times more difficult for the Chinese army to confront the British forces in the South Seas, let alone free up their hands to carry out the Northern Expedition.

However, according to the rapid development of European shipbuilding technology, Britain or other European powers will only be able to invest more and more military power in Asian waters, which also forced the top brass of the Chinese military to decide that the reunification of China must be completed within a few years, and then gather the material resources of the whole country to resist the invasion of European powers.

Against this background, the vigorous Northern Expedition began.

The Qing court still ruled most of China at this time, or the rest of Guangdong and Hainan Island was largely in the hands of the Qing court.

It's just that in this way, the tens of thousands of miles of coastline are full of loopholes, and the top brass of the Qing court desperately found that they couldn't guess which city or port the first step of the Huaxia army's attack would fall on, and what was even more worrying was that even if they guessed where the Chinese Xia army would attack, they would not be able to deploy enough troops in that place to resist the invasion of the Huaxia army.

While the Qing army was trying its best to strengthen the defense of coastal cities of unimportant strategic significance, such as Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin, the first wave of attacks by the Huaxia army fell to a place that everyone did not expect, that is, Putian in Fujian.

"We should have thought a long time ago that this attack by the southern bandits would definitely start in Putian. After receiving the information, Mu Zhang'a, the Minister of Military Aircraft, suddenly understood, slapped his thigh, and said through gritted teeth.

"Putian is located in the south of Fuzhou and north of Chaoshan Prefecture, which can block the connection between Yang Fang's department and the defenders of Fuzhou, so that they can be easily defeated.

However, relying on this advantage alone to choose Putian for the first attack, I'm afraid it's a bit far-fetched, right?

I originally thought that the southern bandits would choose to attack Hangzhou or Shanghai County in Songjiang Prefecture, so that should be more advantageous, right?" Su Shun, another minister of military aircraft, said uncertainly, feeling that the Huaxia army's attack on Putian was a little incomprehensible.

"You have been the Minister of War and Aircraft for a short time, you don't have enough qualifications, and you still don't know much about some secrets.

Don't forget, Putian was the base of Southern Shaolin back then, and the original Southern Shaolin Temple was located in Jiulian Mountain in West Tianwei Town. Mu Zhang'a shook his head and said.

"Hmm, are you saying that the Southern Bandit is going to take back the Southern Shaolin Ruins of Jiulian Mountain? However, I haven't heard that Li Xian or Xuan Zheng have too deep ties with Southern Shaolin, as for it?" Su Shun understood a little, and felt even more confused.

"You don't understand. At that time, Southern Shaolin was one of the top ten factions in the world, relying not only on strong martial arts and exquisite inheritance, but also because it occupied a blessed land.

Jiulian Mountain is connected to a very important blessed land, which is the real reason why Southern Shaolin has stood tall for thousands of years.

Things related to the blessed land are not trivial, we can't do it ourselves, we still have to contact the Inhuman Palace, hoping that a few ancestors can help. Mu Zhang'a shook his head and said tiredly.

The Northern Expeditionary Army led by Li Xian claimed to be 100,000, but in fact there were only 20,000 troops and 5,000 navies.

However, considering its equipment level and combat effectiveness, it would be difficult for the Qing court to win even if it gathered more than 200,000 troops.

The only thing to worry about is that the Huaxia Army will inevitably be a guest army fighting in the north, and it will be extremely difficult to supply all kinds of materials and logistics transportation, which will seriously affect the Huaxia Army's due combat effectiveness.

However, Putian City is not far from the coastline, and the sea transportation distance from Guangzhou to Putian is actually not long, so there is no problem with the current transportation capacity of the Huaxia Army.

Li Xian has been fighting with the British army in Nanyang for the past few years, and I don't know how many times he has done the things of sea ship transportation and then landing operations, and most of them have fought against European armies with quite high combat effectiveness, and the little resistance of the Putian defenders is not taken to heart at all.