In Dengzhou Water City, four subordinate to Xu Haijiedu envoy Gao Jiebu military camp is boarding the ship, these four infantry military camps are the establishment of the Morris array, a battalion is full of more than 500 people, and the four battalions add up to more than 2,000 people. The officers and men of these four battalions were all granted land in Xuzhou, and each of them had a family business. In addition, Haizhou, which Gao Jie occupies, is also very fat, and Princess Yuntai (Xing's) is good at management, and last year she took advantage of the opportunity of the high price of rice in the southeast to make a lot of money.

Gao Jie, who had money in his pocket, did not treat his soldiers badly, not only gave them the full amount of military salaries, but also ordered a batch of guns from Shanghai through the Shachuan Gang, and asked Zhu Cihong to send a group of instructors down to help his army rectify.

Gao Jie's army has many veterans, and he has battlefield experience. However, because of lax military discipline, lax training, and inferior equipment, the combat effectiveness has always been rather poor. In the past, I was able to deal with the rogues, and by the way, I could harm the common people.

However, since Gao Jie and Xing's husband and wife became the masters of Xu Hai, the situation of the troops has improved greatly. With the grant of land and sufficient military salaries, Gao Jie and Xing can really master the army - the grant of land allows the officers and soldiers to have families and jobs, and they are all under the control of the Gao couple! And the full salary made the Gao couple the benefactors of the officers and soldiers. The addition of these two factors, the Gao couple's control of the Gao family army has reached an unprecedented intensity, and it is natural that they can drastically rectify military discipline and strengthen training.

After some rectification, the Gao family army has finally become an army that looks quite capable of fighting, and now it can go to the Liaodong Peninsula cautiously to do something big.

The wharf was full of civil and military officials who came to see them off, including Wu Guoyong, who had just arrived in Dengzhou.

Just a few days before Wu Guoyong arrived in Dengzhou, the Shandong side received the good news of recovering Ziyang County and breaking the Qing army.

That's amazing news!

In the past two or three years, the Ming and Qing armies in the direction of Yanzhou Prefecture in Shandong have been tug-of-war between Ziyang and Qufu. For a while, the Qing army built the Yishui camp to peek into Qufu, and for a while, the Ming army attacked the Yishui camp to relieve the threat of Qufu. Ziyang and Qufu, as the big strongholds of both sides, were rarely attacked.

Unexpectedly, Ziyang, which the Qing army had been defending for two or three years, was actually broken by the Qufu training army sent by Shi Kefa in one fell swoop!

This can make Gao Jie, who is not dealing with Shi Kefa and Huang Degong, a little disgraced. Therefore, as soon as Wu Guoyong arrived in Dengzhou, Gao Jie proposed a strategy to conquer Liao across the sea.

Today is the day when Gao Jie's four battalions board the ship to attack Lushun!

It is only a one-day voyage from Dengzhou to Lushun, and since the islands between Lushun and Dengzhou are under the control of the Beiyang Naval Division, there is no risk in crossing the sea.

"Since the fall of the Jinzhou Zhongzuo City in Lushunkou, it has always been an important coastal defense town in Dongyu, and it is also equipped with Hongyi cannons, but this is difficult for our Beiyang Naval Division to ......"

Now it was Shen Tingyang, the governor of Beiyang, who was accompanied by a strong man with dark skin, a strong physique, large pores on his face, and a beard, wearing a shortened green silk arrow jacket with a pair of cuirass—a simple plate armor made of two pieces of iron and hammer hammered on a special mold, produced by the Portuguese in the López Arsenal in Shanghai.

"Mr. Gao," Shen Tingyang pointed to the strong man wearing a cuirass beside him. "This is Liu Xinyu, the battalion general of the forward battalion of the Beiyang Naval Division, all over the coast of Jinzhouwei, he often comes and goes, and he is very familiar! This time, he led the fleet to send Gao Zongrong's soldiers to Lushun. ”

The establishment of the Beiyang Naval Division imitates that of the land division, and consists of regiment-level units such as the Battleship Regiment, the Merchant Ship Regiment, the Shipbuilding Regiment, and the Shuicheng Regiment. Among them, the main task of the warship regiment was to maintain the sea power of Beiyang and harass the coasts of eastern and western Liaoning.

The warship regiment has five water battalions, namely the forward battalion, the middle army battalion, the left wing battalion, the right wing battalion and the rear guard battalion, which are also five "detachments". Each of the five detachments was armed with two or three large centipede ships and a number of medium-sized sand ships of up to 2,000 materials, the former mainly for water warfare and the latter for transporting troops and munitions.

"The last general has seen Gao Zongrong." The head of the sailor named Liu Xinyu saluted, "Today is the southwest wind in the south, and the sea is calm, so it is a good time to go to sea." The last general also prepared a centipede ship of 3,000 materials for Zongrong, which was very comfortable. ”

Gao Jie picked up Liu Xinyu and said with a smile: "Benjue has heard of the name of Beiyang sand boat Liu, in the past two years, you have come and gone like the wind on the Beiyang sea, and you are invincible, even the coasts of Liaodong and Liaoxi often go there. ”

Shen Tingyang stroked his beard and nodded slightly, feeling a little proud in his heart. Tartar or something, it's really not in the eyes of him, the governor of Beiyang - the civil and military attachés on the land of the Ming Dynasty have a little headache for the Tartar, but he, the governor of the sea, makes the Tartar have nothing to do.

The coastlines of Liaodong, Liaoxi, and North Korea are as good as they want to go, and they can go if they want!

The imperial court is still planning to land in Liaodong and Liaoxi, but Beiyang has long been frequent.

Wu Guoyong also smiled and complimented: "With the sailors of the Shen Army, there is no problem for us to land near Lushunkou, even if the Tartars have two or three Hongyi cannons, it will be in vain." How far can the Hongyi cannon hit? There were so many places around the Jinzhou Central Left in Lushun that they couldn't hold it at all.

As for the city of Jinzhou Zhongzuo, there is no need for Gao Zongrong's people to fight, this city is surrounded by mountains and seas, surrounded by a circle of hills, as long as Gao Zongrong's people can take a few, the official will send artillery with 24-pounder mortars across the sea, and then set up cannons on the mountain, so that he can condescendingly use flowering bullets to drive away the east captives in the Zhongzuo City.

As soon as the city of Zhongzuo is in hand, we will build a lot of construction and build it into our base city in Liaodong......"

The terrain of Arthur Pass is a natural danger for an army with modern firearms!

Surrounded by a ring of hills, a small piece of flat land and a small bay in the middle, and a peninsula called Tiger Tail blocked the entrance to the bay, leaving only a waterway of less than a mile - as long as a fort was built on the hill around the city of Jinzhou Zhongzuo, and twenty-pounder mortars could be placed on a high ground to bombard the enemy who tried to attack with flowering shells. And the shore defense battery built on the tiger's tail can block the enemy at sea.

Even better, the bay at Lushunkou faces the Yellow Sea to the southeast and faces away to the northwest. Therefore, it can avoid the cold in winter, and it is a year-round ice-free port. Moreover, the area of Lushunkou Bay is much larger than that of Dengzhou Water City! For the warship fleet of the Beiyang Naval Division, it is an extremely ideal home port.

Therefore, Shen Tingyang has been planning to seize the city of Jinzhou Zhongzuo since last year, and then transform it into a new Beiyang capital.

But before he could start moving, Dolgon sent a Niu Lu's Green Banner soldier to garrison the city of Jinzhou Zhongzuo!

Therefore, the operation to capture Arthur escalated into a medium-sized campaign.

When dozens of Ming warships and transport ships formed a ship group and took advantage of the rare southwest wind in autumn to Lushunkou, Niu Luzhang Jingcao Charcoal of the Great Qing Dynasty Green Flag was restless in the castle of Zhongzuo in Jinzhou.

Yes, it's uneasy!

Because Cao Charcoal knew that he and his brothers were thrown to the "front line of anti-Ming resistance" in Jinzhou Central Left Institute as cannon fodder.

Otherwise, he was doing well in Shandong, why did he follow Kong Tingxun, the prince of Dingnan, to Liaodong?

According to the order of Emperor Amadorgon, Zhenglu Banner drew a total of 40 oxen and divided them into eight Jiala, which were stationed in Jinzhou, Fuzhou, Gaizhou, Jinzhou, Ningyuan, Yizhou, Quang Ninh, Haizhou and other places.

They didn't leave their families in the customs and go out of the customs alone to resist the Ming, but dragged their families and families together.

Now there is a whole family of Niu Lu living in the city of Jinzhou Zhongzuo, more than 500 households, and 2,000 or 3,000 people!

The prince of Dingnan also gave each family a grange, the least was 300 acres, and Cao Charcoal himself divided 500 acres...... He can be regarded as having a family and a business here in Liaodong, if he lets the Ming army fight, it will be a ruined family!