576 150,000, Chongming Island

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After reporting all the civil affairs in Jiangbei in three days, Qian Guangyuan, Lin Yongnian and other civil officials were all relieved.

Next, there was basically nothing to do with him at the meeting, but they still wouldn't leave, because the next thing was Wei Hong and other generals of the White Dragon Army who reported to Li Zixiao on the current situation of the White Dragon Army.

Of course, Qian Guangyuan and the others also had to stay and observe, after all, the growth and development of the White Dragon Army was actually closely related to their government.

Every time the White Dragon Army goes out, their government has to cooperate, whether it is the preparation of grain and grass, the mobilization of young and strong, etc., all of them need to be carried out by government officials.

Li Zixiao just said before that in the next two years, all the foreign conquests of the White Dragon Army will no longer need their government to pay for them.

But in other aspects, Qian Guangyuan and they still have to continue to cooperate, so they also want to know the specific strength of the Jiangbei White Dragon Army at this time.

"Wei Hong, tell me about the recruitment and training of your Jiangbei after I leave!"

Li Zixiao looked at Wei Hong and spoke.

"Yes, General." After hearing this, Wei Hong got up from his seat and answered.

The situation of the army is much simpler than that of the government, Wei Hong has long put all the things that need to be reported in his head, and he can say it without looking at the documents.

"Returning to the general, in the past half a year, his subordinates have successively poured into Jiangbei from the three prefectures of Jiangbei and the people from all walks of life in Jiangbei, and selected 40,000 young people.

Of course, these 40,000 young men were not recruited at one time, but into five times, and the most recent one was also a month and a half ago.

Among these 40,000 young men, almost 12,000 of them have passed the selection of our White Dragon Army, while the remaining 28,000 can only be trained as city defense troops.

At present, among these 40,000 people, the shortest has undergone nearly half a year of training, and the least has also undergone nearly two months of training, and has fully formed an army.

Just wait for the general to come back and decide whether to fill them into the existing camp or set up a new camp, and our supplementary resources are relatively sufficient. ”

"Forty thousand? It's not bad, it's more than I expected, Wei Hong, you're doing a good job. ”

Li Zixiao nodded slightly, quite satisfied with Wei Hong's recruitment and training progress.

After all, among the more than 30,000 people and horses that Li Zixiao took away this time, after excluding the dead and those who stayed in Jinzhou, Li Zixiao only brought back about 5,000 people.

Originally, the White Dragon soldiers and horses who stayed in Jiangbei were only 5,000 people, plus 20,000 city defense troops, this is the strength of his hometown to guard, and it is basically immovable.

As for Qi Wei's department in the Ruzhou area in the west, it is even more impossible for Li Zixiao to be transferred back in a short period of time.

Therefore, this time after Li Zixiao returned to Jiangbei, if he wanted to get involved in Shandong and Kaifeng, he could only count on the troops that Wei Hong had recruited in the past six months.

Now when Li Zi hears it, there are 40,000 horses for him to call, and the 12,000-strong White Dragon Army is even more elite, enough for Li Zixiao to use.

"Wei Hong, after you go back, immediately transfer these 40,000 horses from the new barracks, and the 12,000-strong White Dragon Army will form four new battle camps.

One of them was an infantry battalion, a musket battalion, an artillery battalion, and a cavalry battalion, and this time I have brought you back quite a few horses, which is enough to form a cavalry battalion.

The remaining 28,000 soldiers of the city defense army formed ten new battle battalions, mainly infantry battalions and musket battalions, and there was no need to form cavalry battalions.

Then, I will give them the latest firearms and equipment to speed up the run-in, and I will find an opportunity to take them out to participate in actual combat.

A soldier who does not experience actual combat can never become a truly elite army. ”

Li Zixiao instructed Wei Hong that he needed to make these 40,000 horses form combat effectiveness as soon as possible, and be ready to call them up at any time next year.

Li Zixiao not only had to guard against Li Zicheng in the west, but also prepared to march into Shandong and Kaifeng.

At this time, Li Zixiao suddenly made a rough calculation in his heart, and now the number of people under his command is close to 150,000.

At this time, the remaining people in Jiangbei, plus the 5,000 soldiers he brought back, and the 40,000 recruits, were nearly 70,000.

On the side of Qi Wei's 'Western Expeditionary Army', after the expansion of the army agreed by Li Zixiao twice, it is estimated that the number of soldiers at this time will be close to more than 30,000.

There are also nearly 20,000 people in Jinzhou Liu Chong's 'Zhenliao Army', plus thousands of left-behind men and horses on Tamna Island, and two Japanese barracks sent to Yoshino and Fujino in the Wa Kingdom.

There are also the four fleets of the White Dragon Army Navy in Lu Yuan, as well as the new recruits of the Navy who are secretly hiding in Hongze Lake at this time, all of which add up to 15,000 people.

"I didn't expect that before I knew it, I already had so many people under my command, no wonder Qian Guangyuan would tell me that I was short of money.

Every month, the food and salary for these 150,000 troops is a huge expense!

It seems that it is imperative to expand the territory and vigorously develop commerce. Li Zixiao thought in his heart.

"Besides, what's the situation on Qi Wei's side now?" 、

After Li Zixiao generally understood that the remaining troops in Jiangbei at this time, as well as the recruits he could mobilize, generally satisfied him, he asked Wei Hong about the situation on his side of Qiwei, Henan.

"Back to the general, we recently got the news from Qi Wei's side, and it was also four days ago.

According to Qi Wei's report at that time, everything was still normal over there.

Qi Wei had already occupied Luoyang at this time, and Li Yan was responsible for refusing to defend Ruzhou City, echoing the north and south, and it should not be a problem to hold the Luoyang area and the northern part of Ruzhou.

In the past half a year, the army of thieves led by Li Zicheng did not return to Luoyang, which gave Qi Wei time to gain a firm foothold in Luoyang.

Now, Li Zicheng wants to return to Luoyang, but he can't do it. ”

Wei Hong paused and continued: "For most of the past six months, the army of more than 100,000 thieves led by Li Zicheng has been wandering in the southern part of Kaifeng, Nanyang Mansion and Runing Mansion.

It has also been killed several times in the northern part of Huguang, and the army of thieves led by Li Zicheng has constantly dragged down and annihilated many Ming troops who came to encircle and suppress them in the continuous flow of battles.

So far, Li Zicheng's men are getting bigger and bigger, and the momentum of the thieves is getting bigger and bigger, which has the meaning of returning to Kaifeng.

Qi Wei also sent men and horses to fight with Li Zicheng's army of thieves several times and rescued a trapped Ming army, otherwise the Ming army would be wiped out more by Li Zicheng at this time. ”

"Hehe, Li Zicheng's guerrilla fighting method has long been used by him, and the Ming army can't play with him, so he led the army back to Kaifeng for the second time, it is estimated that it will be sooner or later."

Li Zixiao nodded slightly, Li Zicheng's development in Henan did not exceed Li Zixiao's expectations.

During this time, it was indeed the time when the army of thieves under Li Zicheng was reborn, and with the continuous encirclement and suppression of the Ming army, Li Zicheng continued to wander.

In the end, the Ming army will be very embarrassed to find that they are fighting less and less, but Li Zicheng's army of thieves is fighting more and more, and the more they fight, the stronger they become.

After capturing Luoyang, Li Zicheng solved the biggest difficulty in the hands of his rebellious army, that is, the problem of lack of weapons and armor.

That was a turning point on the road of Li Zicheng's rebellion, and when Li Zicheng was in Henan, he played a game of 'cat and mouse' with the Ming army for a year.

In fact, this period of time was the time for Li Zicheng to continue to train his troops, and it was also the time to slowly consume the Ming army.

Li Zixiao estimates that by next year, the thief army under Li Zicheng will usher in their most glorious peak.

At that time, Li Zicheng not only had a large number of weapons and equipment in his hands, but also had a force of hundreds of thousands of people, and an elite thief army after a long period of brutal combat screening.

Li Zicheng is qualified to embark on the battle of the Ming Dynasty and completely destroy the ability of the Ming Dynasty.

"Send an order to Qi Wei, let him move during this time, and don't let Li Zicheng's power expand too quickly.

If Li Zicheng dared to attack Kaifeng again, then he would unite with other Ming armies and must not let Li Zicheng succeed. ”

"Yes, my subordinates know."

"Besides, rich!" Li Zixiao looked at Zhang Fugui in the back position and asked.

"The subordinates are here!"

"Your intelligence bureau, in the next period of time, in addition to keeping an eye on the news in Jinzhou and Henan, you will also send me people to continue to infiltrate Jiangnan, understand?"

"Yes, my subordinates obey." Zhang Fugui stood up and responded respectfully.

"Okay, now that everything has been solved, I also told you about your development goals for the next period of time, so let's break up."

For a period of time after the meeting, Li Zixiao did not leave, and has been sitting in Xuzhou, presiding over the overall situation.

In a short period of time, Li Zixiao will not use troops again, after all, his soldiers also need to rest.

At least within the year, Li Zixiao would not use troops against Shandong and Kaifeng, but Hong Sheng led the two naval fleets that returned to Haizhou Port and received Li Zixiao's order.

Let them cooperate with Shi Kefa's order to go south into the mouth of the Yangtze River, and even along the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, to crack down on the maritime smuggling of maritime merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Anyway, Shi Kefa was on Chongzhen's orders, and the White Dragon Army Navy could only be regarded as acting on orders, and things that offended people would be solved by Shi Kefa.

Hong Sheng and the others are only responsible for intercepting and seizing smuggling vessels found at sea.

…………………………………………

In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, in mid-September, Chongming Island, where a huge seaport was built at this time, was one of the main trade ports of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and maritime merchants to the South Seas.

The merchant ships that went to sea from here mainly came from the merchants of Suzhou and Jinling, and further south, to Zhejiang, where the sea water went to sea, mainly from the port of Hangzhou.

During this time, Shi Kefa was suddenly ordered by the emperor to crack down on maritime smuggling, and the news was learned in advance by a group of maritime merchants in Suzhou and Jinling.

Even, in the past half a month, there have been naval ships of the White Dragon Army, which have frequently appeared near the mouth of the Yangtze River, which makes these maritime merchants in Suzhou and Jinling suddenly unable to sit still.

These major maritime merchants from Suzhou and Jinling met in Suzhou, and after some secret discussions with them, these people planned to advance the time of going to sea this year.

Even, they also doubled the cargo that went to sea this time, originally thirteen maritime merchants, a total of five sea ships, but in the end it increased to fourteen sea ships.

These maritime merchants in Jinling and Suzhou were so impatient to go to sea in advance that they wanted to avoid Shi Kefa and avoid a large amount of taxes to be paid.

Although the profits of the maritime trade at this time were amazing, these maritime merchants were still unwilling to take out a small part of the profits to pay taxes.

After all, after so many years, these people have long been accustomed to not having to pay taxes to the imperial court, and now they are suddenly asked to pay a large amount of taxes, of course they are not happy.

Therefore, these maritime merchants from Suzhou and Jinling decided not to obey Chongzhen's order for the time being, not to pay taxes in Yangzhou, but to continue to secretly go to sea.

In September, it is time for coastal maritime merchants to go to sea on a large scale to trade in the South Seas.

Because, at this time, they set off to the south, to Luzon Island in the South Seas, and even further south to the South Sea Islands, and finished trading with the local natives, red-haired ghosts and others.

By the time they returned again, the Ming Dynasty had almost passed the winter and entered the spring.

Therefore, Chongming Island in September became extremely busy, and many maritime merchants from Jinling and Suzhou transported their goods to the island to load their ships and prepare to go to sea.

"Have you loaded all the goods we sent?"

On the wharf of Chongming Island, Zhu Taigu, a maritime merchant from Jinling, urged his subordinates.

"Master, it's almost loaded, now wait for the Li family and the Luo family's goods to be loaded, and our fleet can set off."

A butler responded.

At this time, a Suzhou maritime merchant, who was also a merchant ship owner of the fleet going to sea this time, walked up to Zhu Taigu and looked at the sea ships in front of him that were still loading, with a worried face.

"What's wrong? Zhang Kuo, look at your sad look, who owes you money? Zhu Taigu looked at Zhang Kuo's face and asked out loud.

"Hey, it's not that Shi Kefa who made trouble, but this time I heard that this Shi Kefa got the emperor's will to crack down on the sea smuggling in our Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, which can be described as menacing!

What's more, I got accurate information that Shi Kefa had received strong support from the Jiangbei patrol envoy, that is, the general of Zhenguo.

A few days ago, there were quite a few warships on the eastern sea, and I guess they were the naval ships under the command of the general Zhenguo.

If it's just a mere Shi Kefa, we wouldn't be afraid of anything, but that Zhenguo general is not comparable to Shi Kefa.

Li Zixiao is in Jiangbei at this time, with tens of thousands of soldiers under him, if he is willing to support Shi Kefa, maybe Shi Kefa will really dare to attack us at sea! ”

"Cut, what are you afraid of, don't forget, this time we went to sea in a group, and we went to sea together, not only from Suzhou, Songjiang, and Jiaxing.

Just the sea ships of our four major families in Jinling, as well as the sea ships of the Lu family, if he Shi Kefa wants to dare to move, let him try.

Brother Zhang, this time you put your heart in your stomach, no one dares to intercept us at sea.

As long as our sea ships can go to sea, when they arrive, they will still turn south, and they will enter the Zheng family's maritime sphere of influence.

At that time, don't say it's Shi Kefa, it's the Zhenguo general Li Zixiao, if he wants to move us, he has to ask the Zheng family's warship if it agrees.

You know, we have already paid real money to the Zheng family.

The Zheng family's power in the Southeast China Sea is not something that can be shaken by a mere Zhenguo general.

Don't worry, it's okay, hurry up and urge your subordinates to load the goods onto the ship as soon as possible. ”

(End of chapter)