The nineteenth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, the end of October, Shandong Province, Qufu.

The hometown of Sage Kong was much colder than when Duoduo came to attack last time. The nine round forts on the periphery of the Great Ridge Fort in Qufu are now empty and have no inhabitants. Only some regimental troops in red jackets were training troops, and under the command of the officers, they were dismantling the fortress with little energy.

These forts were demolished to avoid being used by the enemy in the next siege - there were no more manpower for Shi Kefa and Kong Yinzhi to use in the next battle. Because of the grain shortage that swept the southeast, Shandong was also not spared.

There were many refugees in Shandong, and they were on the front line of the struggle against the Qing army, and a large area of flat land suitable for cultivation was occupied by the Qing army, and it became the grange of the green flag of the Qing Dynasty.

Although Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, and Zuo Mao tried hard to introduce sweet potatoes, they were still unable to solve the increasingly serious food shortage.

So since this summer, the refugees gathered around Qufu have begun to pour into Huaibei, Xuzhou, Haizhou, and then to the south of the Huai River.

However, while the number of regimental training troops has decreased, their equipment level has been significantly improved. Not only did he get a lot of bird guns from Japan, but he also cast many "one-catty" and "three-catty" general cannons by himself.

When Zheng Sen was in Nagasaki, he seemed to disdain the less powerful Japanese guns, but when he arrived in Edo and was received by Tokugawa Iemitsu, he reluctantly purchased 10,000 Japanese birds for the sake of balancing Sino-Japanese trade and promoting Sino-Japanese friendship.

Zheng Sen has not yet returned, but the 10,000 Japanese bird guns he ordered have been hurriedly shipped back.

At the same time, the Generalissimo's Palace received a Spanish light arquebus from the Dutch, and when the two were compared, it was natural to make a judgment - the Spanish light arquebus was not light at all, it was very powerful, and it was no problem to penetrate the shield car at a distance of thirty paces. It is even possible to eliminate the turtledove's foot, thereby reducing the logistical pressure on the new army.

Therefore, the Generalissimo's Office did not look down on this batch of Japanese birds, and did not receive the goods (the funds are also tight!). ）。 The Zheng family resold them to Shen Tingyang, who in turn sold some of them to the richer Shi Kefa, who occupied the vaults of the Confucian family in Qufu, and of course had the money to buy arms.

The Qufu regiment, which had received three or four thousand Japanese firearms, began to copy the tactics of the model army infantry regiment and formed a phalanx infantry with spears and firearms. He also imported a batch of improved artillery mounts from Shen Tingyang's Dengzhou Artillery Factory, including "one catty" and "three catties", and also built a batch of tiger squat guns by himself.

While getting a lot of guns and artillery, Shi Kefa did not forget to strengthen the training of the army. However, he disdained Zhu Cihong to plagiarize the Western line, but found out the "New Book of Discipline and Effectiveness", "Actual Record of Military Training" and "Miscellaneous Notes on Military Training" to study carefully, and used Qi Jiguang's method to form a chariot and cavalry battalion.

With the training of more than 10,000 troops equipped with guns and artillery and the official position of "Governor of the Seven Provinces Military Gate", Shi Kefa turned into the head of the "Liujie Town" (Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Gao Jie, Huang Degong, and Zhu Yihai).

However, unlike Qufu's training army, which took the route of elite soldiers, the army of Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Zhu Yihai, Gao Jie, and Huang Degong was not reduced because of food shortage. Because the armies of the four warlords were all linked to the land - Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, and Zhu Yihai were all local land snakes in Shandong, and the territory they occupied was also large, and a group of large and small landlords below all opposed the Qing Dynasty's land enclosure and Jikou Juntian. Naturally, we must go all out to maintain the scale of the regimental training army!

Even if there is not enough food, drive away a few refugees to beg for food, you have to feed the regiment to defend your own land!

However, the armies of Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, and Zhu Yihai were all set up to protect the land of the landlord class, so naturally they had no way to meet the land needs of ordinary regiments for military training...... Therefore, under the dual pressure of the land grant in the Great Qing Dynasty, the land grant in Jikou, and the implementation of land grant by the Gao and Huang armies, their military morale fluctuated a little.

In addition, it needs to be mentioned that although the equipment of the armies of Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, and Zhu Yihai is not as good as that of Shi Kefa (among them, Zhu Yihai's army is better equipped), the methods of training and establishment adopted by Qi Jiguang are all learned from Qi Jiguang, and they take the road of mixing vehicles, artillery, infantry and cavalry.

The two warlords, Gao Jie and Huang Degong, were half transformed by Zhu Cihong - from mercenaries to feudal land armies, but the nature of the warlords has not fundamentally changed.

After the transformation, the two warlords had a much smaller number of soldiers (they didn't exist in the first place), but they could still maintain the scale of 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers (households), and they were also awarded to the Grange, and they were also adjusted according to the establishment of the model army, forming a regiment of Luogan. The tactics, of course, were all "Morris", only the number of guns and artillery was insufficient.

Of course, the land soldiers with the Grange would not be forced to death by famine, so the food shortage that swept Huaibei and Xuhai did not hit them hard, and in some cases even strengthened the strength of these land soldiers - many of the northerner refugees who had been displaced became tenants of the landlord soldiers of the Gao and Huang armies.

However, the Gao and Huang armies also have their own scriptures that are difficult to read.

The difficulty of Gao Jiajun is that there is a bit too much money! Gao Jie and the torture lady took refuge in Zhu Cihong relatively early, and they and their husband and wife were the big horns of the Beifu Group's rogue faction, and Prince Zhu intended to support them to balance the Liaozhen faction (that is, Wu Xiang, Wu Sanfu, and Wu Guoyong's gang), so they were given a good piece of land Haizhou - this is a newly established Zhili Prefecture, including the original Haizhou (subordinate prefecture), Suqian, Pizhou, Shuyang area, along the coast along the canal, the water network is vertical and horizontal, and the land is fertile. It can be regarded as "Huaibei Jiangnan".

After acquiring this territory, Gao Jie and the criminal lady spent a lot of effort to take care of it. They did not toss any official fields or military tuns, but carefully sorted out the land, and then collected grain per mu, one bucket of dry land, and two buckets of paddy fields, and there was no tax exemption concession...... Don't underestimate Haizhou, if you carefully check it, there are no less than 7 million mu, and with an average of one and a half buckets, the field endowment alone is not less than one million stones.

In the process of Zhu Cihong's "transformation" of Gao's army, the ruling power of Haizhou Mansion was not deprived, nor did he touch Haizhou's taxes and land, but took the land of Xuzhou (Xuzhou was greatly reduced in population and wasteland because it was broken and occupied by the Qing army) and distributed it to the soldiers of Gao's army.

Therefore, the 20,000 or so people of Gao's army have both the land of Xuzhou and the taxes of Haizhou, all of which are generous...... It's wide, but it's a pity that the courage has also become smaller, and he is reluctant to fight with the Qing army to the death.

They have everything, but they lack combat effectiveness, where do they still have the courage to fight a decisive battle with the powerful Qing army?

And the difficulty of Huang Jiajun is that the money is a little less!

Because Huang Degong took refuge in Zhu Cihong a little late, and he was born in Chongzhen's descendant Yongwei Battalion, he has not been treated by Zhu Cihong, and he has no good land to fish, and the Huaibei assigned to him is already poor, and it has been ravaged by the Qing army, so he can only divide the land, and there is no place to collect taxes.

Moreover, Huang Degong's part of the land arrived relatively late, which missed last year's agricultural time, resulting in a poor harvest in Huaibei. This year, there was a drought in Huaibei, and the area of spring sowing was small (the land had just been divided), so there was a grain shortage before the autumn harvest.

Huang Degong had no choice but to borrow food from Gao Jie, a big guy, but Gao Jie refused to borrow it, so the two had a twist.

And Huang Degong made a fuss in Suining and Taoyuan, which were disputed by the two sides (both counties are west of the Yellow River flowing in the south), and directly sent troops to occupy them.

Gao Jie didn't know where he heard the news that Huang Degong was sheltering Zhu Cihuan, and he was denounced with a secret twist!

And Shi Kefa didn't know about this (Zhu Cihuan's entrustment of Gao Jie), and he thought that he was the leader of the armies, so at the same time that Ji Kunji's secret agent came to the north, he summoned Gao Jie, Huang Degong, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi and others in Qufu to welcome Zhu Yihai, who had returned from the Hajj, and wanted to unify his position on the two issues of Zhu Cihong's progress and the Northern Expedition of the Great Tomorrow Army.

But now Huang Degong, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, and Zhu Yihai have all arrived in Qufu, but there is no trace of Gao Jie...... And a large number of warlords holding this kind of gathering before the arrival of the imperial court, no matter how you look at it, they are all plotting!