172 Change and Strength (2)

The "boom" of cannon fire continued for several hours before it slowly subsided. When the smoke cleared, everyone could see that the outer wall of this brick and wood mixed structure of the stockade had been broken through a large gap, and the soldiers and horses of the Shun army, a total of five cities on the periphery, had made all preparations before the attack, and they would kill the generals after waiting for an order. They had already experienced this kind of battle many times before this, and they were familiar with it.

"The one who broke the city wall is the ten generals Sun Jie!" A red horse galloped out with a knight and shouted to the surrounding monarchs, which immediately mobilized the whole atmosphere, and some of the rear sergeants who did not participate in the attack also cheered loudly under the leadership of the officer, and the morale of the whole army was greatly boosted for a while.

Chen Ming smiled when he saw this, the level of the Shunjun artillery team has really increased a lot over the years. I still remember that when it was first built, not only was the number of artillery seriously insufficient, but also the number of talents was also very lacking, so that at that time, the people on the east coast had to send some gunners from the navy and army to Hunan to teach the Shun army to fight artillery, which was regarded as helping them initially establish a modern artillery force.

Later, the people on the east coast even half-sold and half-sent some old cannon casting equipment (China has completely switched to hydraulic forging barrels) to the Changsha Gun Factory in Dashun to help them further increase their production capacity. Although it cannot be compared with several major military production bases such as Shenyang, Jinzhou, Beijing, and Kaifeng in the Qing Dynasty, it is already quite good, and may even be slightly ahead in technology, but the scale is not as good.

Modern firearms are bound to be the weapon of choice for every nation's military in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous. If anyone can't use it well, then they will be eliminated by the times. Advances in industrial technology and increased productivity have profoundly changed the organization of many societies, and the combination of cheap infantry and low-cost, mass-produced firearms has produced a force that makes barbarians tremble, as evidenced by the battle to clear the Tusi in southwestern China.

In the past, this kind of local toast can be a very difficult enemy. If it is better to say in the early establishment period of the dynasty, the elite of the hundred battles at that time may be able to completely eliminate this kind of separatist forces that are free from the central dynasty, but it also costs a lot of money, food and materials, and many soldiers and civilians are killed and injured, so many times the strategy of appeasement is adopted for them, and more is better than less. Otherwise, don't you think that the Yang family in Banzhou wants to cut off the separatist forces? It is really a bit remote there, and at the same time, it will cost a lot of manpower and material resources to clean up, exhaust the efforts of several provinces, protracted, and suffer heavy casualties, and the wise will not take it.

However, in the case of the Central Plains Dynasty's greater progress in productivity, the fate of these Tusi is more tragic, such as the village in front of him that has just been blasted through the city wall by as many as 20 artillery pieces of various types - although it is a "village", but this does not mean that the people live in the mountains, in fact, the Tusi and the head people are still building cities on the plains or in the slower mountains - and then they are swarmed in by the wolf-like soldiers of the left battalion, and the fate is basically decided.

Chen Ming and several of his men climbed onto a small dirt bag, which allowed them to have a wider view and a better view of the battlefield ahead. Some Shun officers and soldiers scattered around from afar, carefully guarding, for fear that someone would suddenly rise up from the grass and kill the life of this Dongguo official, so that the commander would not be able to spare them.

"How? How does the level compare to those new troops in Ningshao? After all, Chen Ming was not a professional officer, and although his vision was not bad, he still humbly consulted several intelligence officers affiliated with the military police headquarters who followed him.

"It's definitely not as good as it." When an officer heard this, he temporarily put down the pen in his hand, looked at Chen Ming, and replied seriously: "The food standard of the new army is very high, although it is the worst class in our country's reserve system (including militia, garrison, colonial army and other miscellaneous armed forces), but it is still much stronger than the Shunguo army, because these people are not even as high as the food standard of the Qing army opposite. ”

In fact, the people on the east coast also knew about the intelligence of the Qing army. In the years after the outbreak of the Battle of Zuoying into Sichuan, the intelligence officers on the east bank took advantage of many conveniences and also participated in the interrogation of some Qing prisoners, and obtained a large amount of valuable first-hand information, including food. Compared with the territory of only three provinces, but pulled up hundreds of thousands of armed Dashun regime, the Qing court covered most of China, rich in products, the jurisdiction of the population is large, plus the north since 1644 basically no major war, the economy, population and handicraft production have recovered quickly, so the national strength is still very strong, supporting a large army of hundreds of thousands is not effortless, at least than the Shun country is much easier, so it is not surprising that its ordinary soldiers have better food.

And a soldier's good food naturally means that his physical fitness is better and his training frequency is higher, and his combat effectiveness is naturally stronger. From this point of view, it was really shit luck for Zuoying to enter Sichuan at the beginning, if it weren't for the rapid collapse of Wu Sangui's forces, and the Shaanxi, Gansu and Qing armies didn't have time to come to the aid in a big way, I'm afraid there would be a hard battle. In fact, it can be seen from the current situation of the two sides in northern Sichuan that the Shun army has a great advantage in strength, and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Gansu Green Battalion under the command of Zhao Liangdong of the Qing army can still support it without being expelled, which is already very illustrative. In the future, if there is no major chaos in the northwest border of the Qing State, if the Shun side wants to send a northern expedition from Sichuan, I am afraid that it will have to wait for its own army construction to slowly catch up - at least for the time being, it seems that their national strength is growing much faster than that of the Qing State, and time is still on their side.

"But they seem to have a good grasp of the new tactics, at least they are quite skilled in the use of artillery tactics. I think we have to be wary of that, are we teaching them too much? Seriously, in terms of their performance, if the logistics supplies, equipment, food, and money supplies are sufficient and good, their performance can be even better. Another officer replied, "We may be able to write a report to the pioneer team later, highlighting the problems here." It is also believed that Shunguo has a small territory and is not very strong in economic strength, so it is impossible to rise for the time being, but we should pay attention to this kind of signs, in case they expand rapidly? Whether it will pose a major threat to us has to be guarded against. ”

"Do you think that if there is a change in the north in the future, the Shun Congress will take action?" Chen Ming also put his hands behind his back, looked at the Shun officers and soldiers who were swarming into the city in front of him, and asked.

"We have really deduced this, and the conclusion is that Shunguo is very likely to take action. If the Qing state fell into a major crisis or collapsed, they might wave their troops north, and if the Qing state was in trouble but could hold on, then the Shun state was very likely to invade the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, and Guangxi in order to strengthen the thickness of their territory. After all, it is impossible for us to really start a war against Shunguo, and if they insist on going south, it will be very difficult for us to stop it. They will carefully assess the risks and benefits, and if they decide that the benefits of seizing a few provinces outweigh the risks of losing our aid (which is inevitable), then they will certainly do it. With the increasingly unsuccessful situation of the Southern Ming Imperial Court, I am afraid it is difficult to resist, Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang are in this current situation, it is difficult to join forces, and they are not united or even turn against each other, then the Southern Ming Imperial Court is really gone and irretrievable. The officer who was the first to answer said: "Actually, this time Zhang Guangcui took these people to the south, didn't he have the intention of testing our strategic bottom line?" Who will believe it! ”

Chen Ming nodded lightly when he heard this. In fact, he also knew that this was because Shunguo saw that the pressure from the north had decreased slightly, and Changsha and Beijing had reached a temporary peace agreement, so he had some ideas about the south. Regardless of whether this is Li Laiheng's instruction or Liu Zhonggui's own loneliness, this intention is clearly there: among the Tusi armed forces cleaned up along the way, which one is not the so-called "court official" appointed by the Southern Ming Dynasty? But now Shunguo has given face to this piece of paper? Apparently not! This is a naked land grab, there is nothing to say. This time, they are cutting off your Nanming's outer wings, and the next step may be to smash the Yellow Dragon directly, and the battle will be decided!

And once the Shun State is allowed to unify the south, if they insist on continuing the current policy and are not disturbed by the traditional gentry, then the rapid growth of their national power can undoubtedly be expected. Such a Dashun, even if it is only half of China, is a large country with a population of tens of millions, and it is no longer something that can be easily shaken on the east coast. By that time, it would have been impossible for the people of the East Coast to acquire a large number of people by means of military raids. Or even if it becomes very difficult to acquire population, because neither the Southern nor the Northern Dynasties can allow such a thing to happen that would shake the foundation and legitimacy of their rule.

That's going to be hard! Although the need for immigrants in the country is no longer so urgent, and some members of the recent Founders' Assembly are also debating whether it is necessary to continue this epic migration operation unprecedented in human history, after all, the country has not abolished this policy, and immigration still needs to continue after all, so the situation at hand is a bit tricky.

"Whatever he does, let's report the information back first." After thinking about it for a long time, Chen Ming finally said: "In fact, if that's the case, it may not be a bad thing for Ning Shao and Denglai, and more policies will be loosened locally." At the same time, this also shows that if we want to rely on our country's size and interfere in the situation on the mainland across the ocean, it is a little powerless after all. With a population of hundreds of millions, how can a continent be so easy to get along with? We've been interfering for 40 years, and we've been extraordinary, so let's talk about what happens in the future! ”