May 1, 1680, moderate rain.

Dong Dalang, who was wearing a rubber raincoat, jumped off the deck and landed on the stone-built pier trestle in Dinghai Harbor. As the nominal "landlord", Ding Ji, commander of the 10th Division of the Servant Army, accompanied by Ma Ben, stepped forward to greet him.

Ding Ji is more than Chinese New Year's Eve years old today, not tall, but very stocky. After his father died of old age, he naturally took over the position of commander of the 10th Division of the Servant Army - the commander of the Servant Army succeeded his father and son, and the brother died and the brother died.

But this man was more unlucky, or rather a little unlucky since his father's generation. It is said that it was a fortunate thing to be assigned to Dinghai County, a prosperous place in the south of the Yangtze River, by the heavenly soldiers on the east coast, where there was a lot of money, and their Ding family only needed to accumulate ten or twenty years to become a wealthy family. However, the problem is that although the people on the east coast gave Dinghai County to their 10th Division, they did not give them the right to govern or give them financial rights, and only allocated a lot of wasteland in the suburbs to the 10th Division as "military land", and at the same time returned a certain percentage of the annual financial revenue to them as a military salary allowance.

Of course, the weapons and ammunition, military equipment, food and clothing, and some other subsidies that the divisions of the other servant armies receive every quarter also have them, and they are in full. However, compared with other "soil emperors" horizontally, the Ding family father and son always felt that they had too little wealth and power in hand, and they had no living money, so it was impossible to make a fortune by collecting taxes from the local government.

As a result, the father and son of the Ding family, who had no way to surrender to the enemy and had no courage to commit treason, could only honestly accept the reality in the end, correct their mentality, and continue to carry guns and work hard for the people on the east coast. In order to make a fortune, the Ding family father and son had no choice but to find a way to invest in some industries in Dinghai County and Fucheng Yin County, relying on their own connections in Ningbo and the convenience of the military system, they started a business, and for a time they also earned a huge family business.

Up to now, although Ding Ji, the second-generation military leader of the Ding family, is still a small warlord and a small feudal town with no territory, his family's property may not be as good as Dong Dalang, the commander of the Fifth Division, who has Dengzhou City (that is, Penglai County) as a fief, but it is definitely not much worse than Xie Zhen, the commander of the Sixth Division (the fief is Weihai County), not to mention Hu Xingbang, the commander of the Twelfth Division (Changguo County), whose fief is even poorer.

In this situation of the 10th Division, it is no wonder that there have been repeated rumors in Yinxian County recently that the number of the 10th Division will be abolished and its units will be selected and added to the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army, which is still not fully recruited. Although Ding Ji is not very reluctant in this matter, he should not be very resistant, because the people on the east coast also promised to give them greater benefits to the Ding family in terms of business, which can be regarded as an exchange of interests.

Of course, even if Ding Ji is not happy, this matter is actually beyond him, first, the east coast is very powerful, and he can't twist his arms and thighs, and secondly, isn't this a good thing for the officers and soldiers of the 10th Division of the Servant Army? Are you willing to continue to be the head soldier of a small local warlord under Ding Ji, with that pitiful treatment, or are you willing to be reorganized by the Fifth Division of the New Army and become a full-fledged reserve force on the east coast? How to choose, in fact, it is clear at a glance, this is the general trend, and it is not something that his Ding family can stop.

Although Dong Dalang is far away in Shandong, he is not ignorant of these things that happened in the south. The current situation of the Ding family's father and son, to be honest, he was both envious and worried, don't look at him when Liao Xiaoyao was the first to express his support when he wanted to eliminate the servant army, but that was just political speculation forced by the situation, and it did not represent his true thoughts. What's more, people's minds will change, after taking over the position of his uncle Dong Xueli to take over the Fifth Division and Dengzhou City, he found it difficult to give up the name, power and wealth in his current hands, so after Liao Xiaoyao gave up the idea of reorganizing the servant division, he stopped talking and continued to be the emperor of Dengzhou City.

"Master Ding is doing a lot of business now, brother, I am in Penglai, and I have heard that the subordinate officers talk about the silk of the Ding family's workshop, which is really exported to all provinces. This is the only one, I'm afraid that I will earn a lot of money in a year, so that my brother and I are so envious, I want to follow suit, but I don't know where to start, it's really sad. As soon as they met, Dong Dalang talked about business as if he was familiar with it.

"The donkey skin business run by Master Dong, I am also thunderous in Dinghai, where in the ten counties of Ningbo Prefecture do not buy Ejiao? With this one, the chairman is also making money every day, admire, admire! Ding Ji also said with a smile.

The two of them were touting each other here, which made Xie Zhen, the commander of the Sixth Division, who got off the boat after him Dong Dalang, feel a little resentful in his heart. He was the son of Xie Qian, the leader of the rebel army who rebelled against the Qing Dynasty in Qingzhou, and he held the throne of the commander of the Sixth Division for only a few years. Because the defense area is in the area of Weihai County in the northeast of the Jiaodong Peninsula, the population is sparse, the property is poor, and the number of subordinates is large (there are 5,000 people), so life has always been tight, and it cannot be said that it is poor, but it must be in the lower reaches of the nine servant army commanders, so there has always been a faint feeling in my heart that I am not used to seeing businessmen like Ding Ji who are more qualified than soldiers.

However, although Weihai is poor, it also has the advantage of being poor, that is, the Xie family father and son have always regarded the army as their greatest capital, and their military exploits as the most important means for them to obtain dividends and even official positions. Therefore, over the years, the army has been strictly administered, and Shengsheng has gradually brought the 6th Division, a rebellious army that was originally ranked last among the top 10 servant divisions (the 1st and 2nd divisions, which were the most effective 20 years ago, and the 11th and 12th divisions have not yet been established), into a first-class strong army that has performed well in several exercises, which is slightly better than Dong Dalang's department and far superior to Ding Ji's department, which can be seen from this.

Of course, the slight dissatisfaction and contempt in his heart will naturally not be visible, and Xie Zhen still has this point. Therefore, he quickly joined the conversation between Dong Dalang and Ding Ji, and then instructed the adjutant to take people to organize the vanguard to land, and the three of them went to the city to eat and drink.

And after they left, the last heavyweight to disembark was Niu Gui, the commander of the Ninth Division of the Servant Army (the division was defended in Huangxian). Because of some filthy disputes between his parents (during the Ding Revolution of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Niu Chenghu, who was then the general of Ningxia, learned that Dong Xueli, the former Ming general, led his troops to rebel and surrender to the Qing Dynasty, so he killed the whole family he left in Ningxia), and the relationship with Dong Xueli's uncle and nephew has always been not harmonious, and it can even be said that it is bad, so he has always gone his own way with him.

The 9th Division had 6,000 soldiers, the largest number of troops among the servant divisions. The reason for this is that the division has always dared to fight and fought and has repeatedly made meritorious achievements, and against the background of the fact that the divisions of the servant army have either reduced their numbers or simply reduced their numbers, the division has been allowed to increase the number of troops by 2,000, which is also an outlier.

Although the fiefdom of the division is in Huang County, because of the needs of the war, the Ninth Division has been fighting in Laizhou Mansion and Qingzhou Mansion for most of the time over the years (for example, it was the department that took advantage of the Tancheng earthquake in Shandong Province to attack Changyi County), and the time spent in the old nest was not very long, so the combat effectiveness was maintained quite well, and it was faintly still above the Sixth Division under the command of Xie Zhen, and it was not an exaggeration to say that it ranked first among the nine servant divisions, so Niu Guiao also had proud capital.

The fifth, sixth, and ninth divisions of the servant army that came to the aid from the north added up to about 16,000 people, plus the 3,000 people of the Ding Ji Division of the 10th Division, which was already stationed in the south, this is a small 20,000 soldiers and horses. Counting the headquarters of Lieutenant Colonel Júnior, the leading 7th Mixed Battalion, this is properly broken 20,000, considering that their long-term food and military salary supply is sufficient, and their morale is good, then in this southern land, it can also be regarded as a strong army, once it is put into a certain battlefield, it will definitely be able to cause a series of reactions, and even completely change the situation on the battlefield.

As the commander-in-chief of the military operation to collect immigrants, Lieutenant Colonel Junio, commander of the 7th Mixed Battalion, is still waiting for ships in Jiaozhou Port - because the migration season has just ended, and many ships are in urgent need of repair and maintenance, otherwise they will not be able to sail, so the large force going south this time is still stranded in Shandong, and only some of the pioneers have arrived in Ningbo - he is already close to the age of sixteen this year, and has received an order from the War Department to return to China with the 7th Mixed Battalion in October this year (the 1st Mixed Battalion will be stationed in the Far East), Unexpectedly, he caught up with this operation, which was the last chance to gain honor and military exploits before returning to China, so he himself attached great importance to it and decided that this battle must be fought beautifully. For this reason, even though he was in Jiaozhou, Colonel Júneo had already studied the situation in the south with great concentration, and had gathered many of his subordinates to consult and discuss it together, so as to prepare accordingly for the offensive that would be launched around June and July in the summer.

On May 22, 1680, Major Júneo arrived in Dinghai County with the 7th Mixed Battalion and most of the lower Jiangnan. At this time, the entire Ningbo Prefecture had also been mobilized, and the counties began to collect grain, grass, materials, and draft animals on a large scale, and at the same time, a large number of people were also mobilized to provide logistics services for the army.

On May 23, Ma Wenqiang, the captain of the Southern Pioneer Team and the commander of the Southern Security Department, convened a meeting of Junio, the commanders of the servant divisions, and the heads of the logistics and intelligence departments in the Yinxian County Government Office to discuss the next move. At this meeting, Ma Wenqiang proposed to put his troops into the vicinity of the neighboring Shaoxing Prefecture, reverse the extremely passive situation of the people on the east coast here, and quickly advance northward, strive to annihilate the living forces of the Qing court, occupy the rich areas in the western part of the Ningshao Plain, including Shangyu, Yuyao, Shanyin, etc., and plunder more people, materials, gold and silver, and all kinds of treasures, so as to undermine the morale of the Qing army and shake its will to resist.

To be honest, this proposal was far from the proposal discussed at the beginning to land in southern Anhui at the right time and win several battles with the Jiangxi clique of the Shun army, and the result was not surprisingly very controversial. However, Ma Wenqiang's reason is also ready-made, that is, in recent years, the Qing army's Hangzhou battalion has frequently used troops in the area of Shaoxing Prefecture, and the pressure on the people on the east bank is very great.

The reason why the situation in Shaoxing Mansion is like this is actually a lot related to the sluggishness of the Luwang regime in southern Zhejiang. This local separatist regime, which has a close relationship with the east bank, has suffered several defeats in the south of Shaoxing Mansion in recent years, and the loss of troops has reached 20,000 people, not only lost the nail Zhuji County that was wedged into Shaoxing Prefecture, but even the Yanzhou Mansion that was once in hand was also lost under the attack of the Qing army in southern Anhui (under the command of the Nanjing battalion) and the Qing army in Hangzhou, and even Pujiang County in Jinhua Mansion was taken away by the Qing army again.

In this way, the Qing army in Shaoxing Province once again had the upper hand, so that the people on the east bank had to abandon the plan to go north along the eastern edge of Huiji Mountain and the valley of the Cao'e River, and instead defend Xinchang County, an important military town and transportation node, and maintain contact with the Lu Wangsuo. That is to say, limited by the dilemma of insufficient troops - counting the servant division of Ningbo Prefecture, the east coast people are only more than 20,000 troops, counting the guards of local prefectures and counties, there are very few mobile troops, and they are a little powerless in the face of the 100,000 horses of the Manchu Hangzhou battalion - the east coast people are keenly aware of the danger, give up the plan to go north, turn to the position defense, and keep the existing territory.

However, after the arrival in Ningbo of the more than 17,000 people who had been sent south from the north to help, Ma Wenqiang, the captain of the southern development team, insisted that the balance of forces between the enemy and us had changed, and although the strength of the troops was still not comparable to that of the Qing army, the number of artillery, the number of war horses, the number of muskets, and the number of armor were no longer inferior, and even had an advantage, so the time was completely ripe for restarting the plan to go north along the Cao'e River. In particular, they can now contact King Lu again, encourage him not to be discouraged, pack up his troops and horses and continue to go north, contain some of the soldiers and horses of the Hangzhou battalion, and create conditions for the people on the east coast to break through to the north.

This plan, to be honest, doesn't think it's too bad, and it's even worth a try. He always felt that compared to the unpredictable risk of the labor expedition to land in southern Anhui - the people on the east coast vaguely detected that the Qing State took advantage of the unpreparedness of the people on the east bank and nailed a lot of wooden stakes under the surface of the Yangtze River. Although this news has not been confirmed so far, it is more feasible to believe it or not, than to risk the loss of many large ships and countless supplies to fight in southern Anhui, and attack Shaoxing Mansion at close range? Lieutenant Colonel Júneo felt that this was the right thing, so he finally supported Ma Wenqiang's proposal at the meeting.

And the commander-in-chief of this battle, Junio, has expressed his position like this, and the commanders of the servant army are naturally indispensable, so the plan was set: the army on the east coast will not go to southern Anhui, and improve the attack on Shaoxing Mansion! To this end, the ministries immediately began to assemble in the areas of Fenghua and Xinchang through the national highway system that had been built over the years to prepare for the big war.