Hao Shangjiu wiped his sweat and loudly announced the end of today's drill. The soldiers on the school field were suddenly amnesty, and some even cheered on the spot, which made Hao Shangjiu's face a little stiff: they are all a bunch of rabbit cubs who can't be drilled! There are too many comfortable days, and this ability to endure hardships is far less than it was back then.

I think back then, when King Chuang first arrived in Henan, Hao Shangjiu and a group of old brothers defected one after another, and the army at that time had a high spirit and strong combat power, and they were also ruthless in their spare time. Later, King Chuang established the official system and the five-battalion military system in Xiangyang, and the training of each battalion head gradually became formalized.

But the practice is ruthless, and the effect is not said. Especially those well-supplied old camps of the King Breaker, that spirit is not comparable to a third-rate motley card like them at all. It's just that...... In the past, since Gao Zongbing was fought by Xu Dingguo, their army fell into fragmentation, and this training was naturally not guaranteed, and then followed the benefactor Li Chengdong to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and moved to Jiangnan, Fujian and Guangdong.

Later, Li Chengdong returned to the Ming Dynasty anyway, and they were repeatedly defeated in confrontations with Qing generals such as Chen Tai and Zhao Guozuo, and their morale was extremely low. In addition, the soldiers in the army, mainly from Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Jiangbei, have lived in southern Guangdong for many years, and the water and soil are not adapted, and epidemics are rampant in the army, and many old brothers are sick and die, which further reduces the morale of everyone.

It can be said that in the past two or three years, the army of 70,000 or 80,000 tigers and wolves that had penetrated the entire southern China from Jiangbei all the way had already degenerated to the point of being vulnerable. If it weren't for the fact that everyone still had a little thought in their hearts. If it weren't for Li Chengdong, he would still have a little wrist. If it weren't for them, they would still be able to fish and meat, and ordinary people in Guangdong would vent their grievances. I am afraid that the remaining 50,000 or 60,000 people have long since dispersed.

It's just that now they are not far away, the ministers of the Southern Ming Dynasty are pointing fingers at them one by one, the ordinary people of Guangdong regard them as enemies, and the Qing army is also chasing and beating them, and the life of people who are not here is too sad. I believe that at this moment, if a certain Manchu minister suddenly promised Li Chengdong's gang that they could return home with their belongings, it is estimated that it will shake the fighting spirit of most of Li officers and soldiers, which is definitely not a joke.

Hao Shangjiu still remembers that a while ago, he was named by his benefactor to take 2,500 Chaozhou garrisons to the north on the Dongchaolou ship. I don't know how many people I envied at the time. And the quota of the 2,500 officers and soldiers under his command was also fiercely contested at that time, in addition to some of his own personal soldiers, there were also a large number of cronies under the command of other generals, and even many generals even forced their own sons and nephews in, and they didn't know what their idea was.

"The two thousand five hundred people under his hands, according to the people of the Eastern Dynasty, are they not just soldiers. Well, Lao Zhang's youngest son, Qi One-eyed's nephew, Wang Qianzong's second son, and Sun Jiangzong's younger brother, these people who are stationed everywhere on weekdays have gathered. Fortunately, it was my old Hao who led the troops. If you change someone, you can't stop these bunnies! Hao Shangjiu was quite complacent for a while, and then suddenly heard a whistle outside the dock. Hao Shangjiu, who already knew that this was the voice of the giant boat of the Eastern Dynasty, immediately turned his head and looked out.

I saw a huge ship on the deck slowly lower its anchor chain and anchored in the bay, and then a large group of sailors began to transport heavy boxes of supplies down with the help of dock mechanics, using a kind of delicate pulley. Some of the supplies were not even packaged, but were simply tied together with ropes, such as the bundles of spears every fifty, such as the bundles of arrows, such as a pair of archers' leather armor worn with wire......

"What are you doing here, come and get supplies!" Hao Shangjiu was looking at the "Western View", and a person in front of him beckoned to him: "Each battalion has it, measured by people, and receive it for half a month at a time, your five battalions have a total of 2,518 people, first take 25 barrels back and then talk about it, and then ask the logistics staff officer Sun to collect it separately." ”

"Ah, Liu Junmen has returned from Guangzhou!" Hao Shangjiu was shocked when he heard this, and subconsciously wanted to kneel, but fortunately, he quickly reacted and realized that he was not Liu Haiyang's subordinate, so he wiped the sweat on his forehead and said in disguise: "I'll find someone to move things!" Chen Ergou, take someone to grab food, hurry up! ”

Liu Haiyang approached Hao Shangjiu surrounded by a group of guards, saw him sweating profusely, and said with a smile: "I'm afraid that the body of the new Taihou has been abandoned for several years, and he will go on the expedition in more than a month, so he should practice well, don't even pant for breath when he rides a horse, this will make the Tartars laugh." ”

"Yes, yes, lowly office...... I must practice and practice well! Hao Shangjiu wiped his sweat again and said with a little stammer.

"This time, I returned from Nanyue and met Hui Guogong (Li Chengdong) once in Guangzhou Bay." Liu Haiyang took Hao Shangjiu's hand and said warmly: "Shi Huiguo occasionally contracted the cold, but he still traveled with illness, and I was quite moved by boating on the sea with me, talking about the past and the present...... Oh, by the way, Hui Guogong also has a lot of worries about the new Taihou, and asked me to carry a letter before leaving, oh, this is it, take it. ”

Hao Shangjiu respectfully took a sealed letter from Liu Haiyang's hand, then stuffed it into the inner pocket of his clothes, and continued to accompany Liu Haiyang to talk nonsense.

Liu Haiyang's trip to Guangzhou this time was actually just incidental, and his main purpose was to go to Fujian to persuade Zheng Chenggong to come to Ningbo to participate in his alliance. It's just that things are obviously not very smooth, Zheng Chenggong only perfunctorily sent thousands of old and weak people to drive some dilapidated fishing boats north, saying that it was to help everyone transfer supplies, which made Liu Haiyang angry, and when he returned to the boat, he scolded Zheng Chenggong for being a turtle, and his eyes were only staring at the one-third of an acre of land in his hometown in Fujian, which was destined to be impossible in the future.

After bidding farewell to Zheng in a fit of anger, Liu Haiyang arrived at Guangzhou Bay on the heavy frigate "Cadiz Rock" (40 guns), which could brighten the eyes of blind people in the Far East Ocean, and finally connected with Li Chengdong after many contacts. Li Chengdong, an unscrupulous warlord, was full of praise for the ordnance he had obtained from the people on the east coast last time, so he reminded him that he would buy another batch of ordnance to replenish the troops. Anyway, he, Li Chengdong, has already made people angry in Guangdong, and selling piglets is no psychological pressure on them at all.

Liu Haiyang gave a limited amount of approval to Li Chengdong's construction, and then the retinues of the two sides sat down together and discussed with each other the price, delivery method, and delivery time. After talking about this qiē, Liu Haiyang tried to ask Li Chengdong to ask Guangdong to completely ban the export of raw silk, porcelain, tea and other goods to the Dutch, Portuguese and British, but this was unsurprisingly rejected by Li Chengdong, and the qiē was the same as when Liu Haiyang made this request to Zheng Chenggong. It can also be seen from this that although the two Guangxi and Fujian have experienced wars in recent years, their maritime strength is still very strong. Although they are no longer able to go to sea, the channel of organizing the supply of goods to sell to foreigners is still retained, which is undoubtedly a big blow to the efforts of the people on the east coast to dominate the foreign trade of the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty.

While the two were talking, the soldiers sent out by Hao Shangjiu had already begun to carry the barrels in the carriage. The barrels were filled with salted fish, including saury, Pacific softfish, salmon, etc., according to the regulations, each soldier could get three to four taels of salted fish per day for protein supplementation; As for the fat that also needs to be replenished, to be honest, this is more difficult, after all, this is not the east coast, there are not many large livestock such as cattle, and they are also valuable means of production, so they cannot be slaughtered on a large scale, so the soldiers can only drink a little boiled broth every day to replenish the body nutrients lost due to frequent training.

It is said that in the past two or three months, all the armed forces that promised to meet the alliance have successively assembled at the Dinghai port in Ningbo, and then began intensive training to familiarize themselves with the method of coordinated operations. Zhang Mingzhen's more than 10,000 troops, Hao Shangjiu's 2,500 troops, Dashun's 4,000 troops, and some troops of the East Coast Army had to gather for drills almost every few days to train their ability to cooperate with each other. On days when there were no drills, various units were also conducting some targeted training according to their own conditions, so as to enhance their combat effectiveness to the greatest extent.

More than 20,000 people were concentrated in Dinghai for training, which was not a small amount of money every day, thanks to the navy and a small number of transport ships non-stop to transport supplies back and forth, so that the fish from Heishui and livestock from Shandong could be continuously transported to Dinghai for the training and consumption of various troops. As for the staple food for the army, the Southern Theater Command also used real money to purchase it in Yinxian, Cixi, Fenghua, Xiangshan, Ninghai, and other places, and did everything it could to supply the various units -- if there was any shortage, I am afraid that a large amount of potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and other miscellaneous grains would have to be transferred south from Shandong.

On April 1, 1652, as the last of the hundreds of mixed-breed war horses (the mixed horses eliminated by the horse administration system of the Hanasan Ranch) were sent ashore, the supplies on the wharf of Ningbo Fuding Harbor had been piled up, and tens of thousands of soldiers and horses had been trained for four months -- during which they were also assigned to Siming Mountain, Cixi County, and the western front to experience the atmosphere of the battlefield -- both in terms of combat effectiveness and mental outlook, which had been greatly improved, and it could be said that they were ready to attack.

On April 11, a large number of ships carrying a large number of supplies after simple maintenance in Shandong gathered at Dinghai Port. The six professional warships headed by the "Cadiz Rock" had already begun to go to sea for cruising before this, and often sank some small boats of the Qing army.

On 13 April, with six professional warships as the forerunner, eight "Amur" class shallow-water gunboats escorted more than 1,000 small boats supported by Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong. On either side of them were twenty or thirty large transports on the east coast, laden with men, livestock, and some baggage, keeping a distance from the central group, and cleaving the waves.

Their first target is Chongming Island, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River! (To be continued......) R1292