“…… To sum up, more than 30,000 people in the middle battalion of the Shun army led by Guo Sheng made rapid progress after entering Yuanzhou Mansion in Jiangxi Province in the east, because the number of Qing troops in front of them was scarce. In the Yanai County Mansion, Lieutenant Junior, the first-class staff officer of the forward team who rushed to the Southern Theater of Assistance with a group of staff officers from Jiaozhou Fort in Shandong, was pointing to a hand-drawn map of the central region of the Ming Dynasty and said: "The remaining troops of the Shun army have reached a settlement with the local Tusi in Chenzhou Mansion, and the two sides are bounded by the current actual control line. ”

It is said that in order to cope with the anti-Qing formation in the southern battlefield, in the second half of last year, the east bank sent inland river gunboats to Huguang, and while sending a batch of weapons and military funds to the Shun army, they also built yì They should no longer be entangled with those bitter Tusi in Xiangxi, but turn to the east, and go out from the eastern fortified area (the mountainous area east of Changsha) into the relatively wealthy Jiangxi Province, so as to expand the living space, and at the same time, they can also deal with the more than 100,000 people of Wang Deren's troops who have been struggling to hold on in southern Jiangxi (their people have annexed the remnants of Jin Shenghuan who have fled).

Li Guo may have seen the unremitting assistance of the people on the east coast all the year round, and perhaps he did think that it was a good move to go east into Jiangxi, so he gathered his men and horses and resolutely attacked some of the armed forces in Chenzhou Mansion that had surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

In the Jiangxi battlefield of the Qing court, after the transfer of more than 10,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners led by the veteran general Jierharang, it relied entirely on the 40,000 or 50,000 Qing troops led by Geng Zhongming and Shen Zhixiang -- of which only 6,000 or 7,000 soldiers of the Han Army Banner were the core. The rest are either local units that have been co-opted. Either the surrendered Jin Shenghuan troops surrendered, or the newly recruited battalion leader. The combat effectiveness is not very strong. It's just that their opponent Wang Deren is also very scummy, and his headquarters is more than 10,000 thieves who have come all the way from Shaanxi, and now they have expanded to more than 100,000 bandits, but their morale is very low, the armament is not uniform, and the military system is also very chaotic, so they can't effectively play their numerical advantage at all.

On the other hand, although the Qing army of the two traitors was at a disadvantage in numbers, it was well armoured, the military discipline was also very neat, and the material supply was sufficient. Therefore, on the contrary, Wang Deren's troops were pressurized, and some of Wang Deren's men and horses were constantly attracted to surrender, and the balance of power between the two sides has been changing in favor of the Qing court.

And the Qing court also had a great help in Jiangxi, that is, the support of the gentry. As we all know, Wang Deren's bandit name "Wang Zamao" was one of the armed bandits of the late Ming Dynasty, although he had taken refuge in the Southern Ming Dynasty, he was still deeply despised and feared by the local gentry. In addition, the complex origin of its ministry and the poor military discipline further increased the resentment of the local gentry, so it operated in southern Gannan for several years. But it has never been able to establish a foundation. In addition, he annexed the remnants of tens of thousands of Jin Shenghuan, and these people slaughtered cities in many places in Jiangxi back then. The people of Jiangxi hated it deeply, so they couldn't get the hearts of the people in Jiangxi.

In this way, such a situation appeared on the battlefield in Jiangxi, that is, the pigtailed army with relatively good discipline actually won the support of the local traditional gentry and scholars, and the "Ming army" with inferior numbers pressed the superior forces to retreat one after another, which can be regarded as a rare spectacle. In fact, at this time, if the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty coped with it effectively, sent a highly respected minister to Jiangxi, endorsed Wang Deren, washed the ground, and at the same time contacted the local gentry and played the card of national feelings, it may not be impossible to recover some disadvantages. It's a pity that this rotten imperial court is currently in constant political strife and stupid tricks, and the ministers who are gathered around the Yongli Emperor do not look like they are capable of doing big things, and most of them are flies and dogs, so they can only sit and watch the Jiangxi battlefield continue to sink.

Therefore, this time the Shun army entered the Yuanzhou Mansion in the east, which was a relief to Wang Deren's subordinates, who were at a disadvantage, and they no longer had resentment against the Dashun people who came up and down to "grab the territory", but on the contrary, they were grateful and thanked the other party for their help - it was all at this time, and it would be meaningless to mention the view of the portal.

Guo Sheng's subordinates soon captured Yichun and other four counties under the jurisdiction of Yuanzhou Prefecture. It is worth noting that this time the Shun army marched into Jiangxi, did not torture the local gentry again, nor did they all share their fields, on the contrary, they did not commit any offense against the autumn, and the two sides tacitly agreed that the well water would not interfere with the river water, and even some gentry secretly sent some money and grain to buy peace. And when the news reached Yantai, Shao Shude rarely laughed and scolded, "Dashun is also engaged in revisionism now, and it will no longer be the slogan of free grain in the past."

In fact, this is Shao Shude's joke, as early as a few years ago, the Shun army stopped the behavior of torturing the gentry in Hunan to obtain money and food. Of course, they did not return the landlords' land confiscated in the early stage, but drove the auxiliaries and their families to start military cantonments on these lands in order to obtain the grain and grass needed for the army's long-term campaign. Hunan land is fertile, the climate is suitable, and the development has been for a long time, Dashun up and down the tuntian for several years, but also gained a lot, although not enough to meet the needs of the whole army, but can also offset a large part of the consumption, compared to the Qing army chased the dilemma of running around and can only plunder everywhere is too strong.

"However, with the defeat of the main force of the left battalion of the Shun army in Dengzhou, it is estimated that the more than 30,000 people led by Guo Sheng will not receive any more reinforcements, so they are currently at the junction of Yuanzhou Mansion and Linjiang Mansion, while sending people to contact Wang Deren's headquarters in the south, while closely monitoring the movements of the Qing army." Lieutenant Júnior paused at this point, and then made some additional explanations: "The five thousand men under the direct jurisdiction of Guo Sheng are proficient in firearms and combat, and their morale is relatively high; The remaining 20,000 people under his command are mostly veterans who have been in battle and have seen battles, so they will not be so vulnerable, so they are not too scared on the battlefield in Jiangxi, and the tens of thousands of Qing troops led by Shen and Shen. If you cooperate well with Wang Deren, it will not be a problem to reverse the situation on the battlefield in Jiangxi. The only thing to worry about now is that with the Qing army's Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners entering Henan in a big way, and will soon go south to Huguang, will Li Guo transfer such a relatively warlike army to Hubei to plug the holes......"

It is already confirmed that the main force of the Qing army began to enter Henan one after another, and its number is about 70,000 or 80,000 people, of which more than 30,000 are elite Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners. The others are the northern green battalions. Also quite combative. Other than that. Wu Sangui's troops, which had been clearing up the remnants in Shanxi's Fugu area, have also begun to enter Shaanxi in batches, preparing to join forces with Li Guohan, Meng Qiaofang, and others to calm down the boiling situation in the locality, and then wait for an opportunity to enter Sichuan through the Hanzhong region in southern Shaanxi in an effort to seize Zhang Xianzhong's complete control of northern Sichuan -- at present, Zhang Xianzhong has led the main force to personally conquer Sichuan because of the slow progress of Li Dingguo and others in northern Sichuan, so as to seek a good foothold and be conducive to the next action to pacify Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guizhou provinces.

That is, after the suppression of the rebellion in the province of Shanxi. Dolgon was tired of the repeated situation in the world, so he did not intend to withdraw the precious Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners at hand, but sent a considerable part of them south via Henan and Jiangbei, in order to quickly calm the situation in the south. Among them, one of them went south through Henan was the main force, and its forward thousands of people had already fought a small battle with Liu Fangliang's division of the left battalion of the Shun army in Dengzhou in January, and the result was a crushing defeat for the Shun army, with more than 2,000 corpses on the battlefield.

After the fiasco, Liu Fangliang realized the gap between his troops and the Manchurian Eight Banners, although the army that lost troops in Dengzhou was not the main force of the lineage, but he was defeated by the Qing army so neatly, which really shocked him. The plan of the day. I'm afraid that I can only fight and retreat, exchanging space for time, as for Xiangyang Mansion, which has not been occupied for a long time. I'm afraid it's hard to keep.

The Dashun Left Battalion set out with 100,000 people, and now after a period of expansion, it has reached a huge scale of more than 140,000 people. Now it is still withdrawn to Jingzhou City, which had been operated and rebuilt before, relying on the strong city there and convenient transportation conditions for defense, and by the way, you can also communicate with each other in the front camp and Yuan Zongdi in the right camp, so that the chances of victory will also be greatly increased.

"We can't manage so much of Dashun's, let's discuss the mess at hand." Liu Haiyang sat next to him for a long time, listening to Júnior's introduction to the current anti-Qing situation in Huguang and Jiangxi, and he was depressed about the not very optimistic future, so he changed the topic and said: "Jierharang arrived in Hangzhou last month and took over the military affairs of Fujian and Zhejiang. Now Hangzhou is full of troops, more than 13,000 people in Jierharang are full of Mongolian Eight Banners, Tian Xiong, Jin Li, Zhang Cunren originally had more than 40,000 green battalions, and more than 20,000 were broken by our army a while ago, and now there are 20,000 left; In addition, tens of thousands of green battalions have also been reinforced in the direction of Nanjing, and they have now been pressed to Shaoxing Mansion, and the 10,000 people led by Chen Tai in the south have also gone north, of which about half of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners are very good. In the face of this situation, it will be inconvenient to go out to fight grass valley in the future. ”

"If it's inconvenient to go out, then don't go out." Wei Boqiu, who had not spoken at the meeting, spat out a smoke ring, and Shi Shiran said: "It's better to clean up the place in Ningbo." Now we haven't completely digested Yinxian yet, not to mention Dinghai, Cixi, Fenghua and Ninghai and Xiangshan in the south. Ladies and gentlemen, the land of the Qing generals and the gentry of the Litong Tartars that we have confiscated has almost been divided, and now we are in dire need of a new source of land. Some time ago, I conducted research in the three counties of Yinxian, Dinghai, and Fenghua, and found that even the most desolate and barren land is now owned by his mother, and the title deeds are generally newly created in recent years, and many of them are still unclear whether they are true or false -- the appearance of the gentry like Nima is too ugly. ”

"That is to say, if we want to gain a firm foothold in these counties of Ningbo Prefecture, and we don't want to be overshadowed by these gentry who have a bad stomach, then we have to speed up the action of dividing the land! Only when a group of vested interests endorsed by us are created in these places can we continue to sing this drama in the south. Immigration, land division, cracking down on the gentry and the strong, and developing the industrial and commercial economy, only by doing these four things well, can we say that we have really gained a firm foothold in Ningbo, otherwise we will always be rootless, and perhaps a defeat on the battlefield will cause chaos in the rear. ”

"We must have a group of local leaders and supporters who share our interests, otherwise how will the local government implement our policies? How could the fine work sent by the Qing army be discovered? How to mobilize relatively abundant local human resources? Ladies and gentlemen, what we want to establish in Ningbo is a system that we can control and trust ourselves, instead of continuing to compromise with the gentry and preying on the common people together, so that we will finish the game sooner or later. ”

Wei Boqiu fired a few shots on his face, and everyone was a little silent for a while. In the end, Liu Haiyang slapped the table, stood up and said: "We don't engage in Dashun's revisionism, and the next key work is to re-measure the land in the three important counties of Yinxian, Fenghua, and Dinghai." Some suspicious and untimely title deeds should not be recognized, and a sum of money was taken out of the treasury to forcibly buy part of the land from some landlords who were obedient to us, and distribute it to the immigrants who had come from Shaoxing. In addition, local production cannot be left behind, grain, sericulture, cotton, and tea planting cannot be left behind, and the affairs of Dinghai Salt Farm, Yinxian Silk Reeling Factory, and Fenghua Tea Farm cannot be relaxed, and these are related to future development and cannot be ignored. ”

"By the way, civil affairs are like this, and martial affairs cannot be stopped. The Standing Force, the New Army of the Eight Banners of South Africa, and the Army on the East Coast must be on standby at any time, and the two maritime forces of King Lu and Zheng must also strengthen their contacts, and if necessary, they will not hesitate to support them in attacking cities and territories, in short, they must not let the Qing court get their way. Now that the main force of the Qing court in Fujian has been transferred to northern Zhejiang, there are some green battalions with extremely poor combat effectiveness in the local area, and if the Zheng family has no ideas, they will simply die; King Lu's progress in the Wentai area is also a little slow, and then we will send someone over to ask, what are the difficulties, why is the progress so slow? If you can't put enough pressure on the Qing court, isn't that just paddling in the middle of the day? This is absolutely not allowed! Liu Haiyang finally commanded.

Now the Qing court is heavily armed in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, which are known as the important places of wealth, so it is inevitable to relax the control of southern Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi. When necessary, the people on the east coast would also brave the threat of typhoons to send ships to help Zheng and King Lu transfer troops and horses, in short, to resolutely drag the Qing court back and make it unable to calmly arrange. (To be continued......)