"Xinchang County, an important southern town in Shaoxing Prefecture, is also a nail wedged into the back of the Qing army's controlled area. This place is controlled by us, but it can shake Shaoxing in the north and Jinhua in the south, which is really a favored place for military strategists." On the newly renovated city wall of Xinchang County, the county magistrate Min Honggui held a 12-pound cannon on the top of the city, shaking his head and said: "This is the hub of the entire Zhejiang from north to south. If the Qing army fought hard, it would definitely gather heavy troops here and launch a fierce attack with the sea of ​​people. If we don't pull out our nail, they will not be able to go south with confidence."

"Don't be scared by the enemy's arrogance." Bogdan, the commander of the Second Division of the Zhejiang New Army, held a large blue brick in his hand, looked at the misty sky in the distance, and said, "With our Second Division here, there, there is no big problem. And you can see the information summarized in the past few days. The Qing army's troops heading south are real and real, and their real strength is very suspicious. And I haven't seen how many artillery they have with them, I always feel that they are a little guilty, not playing the real thing."

Min Honggui stroked his beard and fell into thought after hearing this. As a cadre from the Ming Dynasty with a new idea, Min Honggui had no idea about the war model that was being radically changed on the land of China. At least, he knew clearly that the organization of guns and cannons in the army sequence has increased significantly, although it is not like the people on the East Coast who cannot fight or walk without artillery, it is an indisputable fact that they are also extremely dependent on artillery combat. Therefore, it is an indisputable fact that the Qing army is really moving south in large numbers, just look at whether they have enough cannons and gunpowder to know that they will go south without artillery. Are you kidding!

But there are many things that are not afraid of ten thousand, but just afraid of what to do. After all, a few scouts on the east coast dare to make sure to find out every ditch in the mountain? What if the Qing army's artillery troops did not take the main road, but took the small road, although there are indeed certain difficulties in transportation in this way.

Therefore, Min Honggui did not dare to gamble, and he did not dare to joke about the lives of tens of thousands of people in Xinchang County. Of course, Bogdan would not place his hopes on it. Although he was arrogant, his war experience was real. He fought with the Ottoman Turks in his early years, and later fought with the Indians in the eastern land. After he arrived in the Far East, he fought with the Shandans, the Russians, and the Eight Banners. This resume was simply shameful to the generals of all parties on the Chinese battlefield at this time, so Liao Xiaoyao could also hand over the seven or eight thousand people of the 2nd Division of the New Army to him with confidence.

It is worth mentioning that the second division had only three infantry regiments when it last fought with the Qing army. After almost two years of construction, the second division has been basically complete. Among them, the most important cavalry regiment (Second Cavalry Regiment) has also been formed. One thousand Gao Qiao people from the American continent were collectively shipped to the Far East after training on the local area for a period of time and were organized into the Second Cavalry Regiment.

The Gauchos were described by the Spanish colonists as "never seen a person who looks more like a centaur than them", which shows that their riding skills are superb, and there is no need to doubt the basic skills of cavalry. But at the same time, the shortcomings of these people are also very obvious, that is, their discipline is very poor and their cooperative combat capabilities are weak, that is, they are all good players when fighting alone, and once they form a formation and fight, they will be in a mess.

However, considering that the scale of cavalry combat in a mountainous area like Zhejiang cannot be very large, the shortcomings of insufficient discipline of the "Centaur Cavalry Regiment" (the Second Cavalry Regiment, which is the discriminatory term for the regiment by some East Coast soldiers) can be greatly weakened. On the contrary, the advantages of being good at fighting alone and fighting on a small scale can be greatly amplified, so the local people unified the number of these people to the New Army Second Division to strengthen their strength.

In addition, the thousand Gao Qiao people sent by the local government were one-time, that is, it is difficult to replenish the system like this in the future. The superiors have already stated that there are only one thousand places. In the future, one person will be added to the local area if one person dies, and ten people will be added to the local area if ten people die. The local government will not send supplementary troops again. It is a bit similar to the French battalion during the Korean War. After suffering casualties with the Chinese army, it was supplemented at the beginning, but later it simply captured the Koreans to serve in the army, which was also drunk.

With three infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and technical corpses of division artillery, engineering, baggage and other technical corpses, the second division of Zhejiang New Army was almost officially formed. The total division has more than 7,700 troops, well-equipped and rich combat experience, and can be regarded as a powerful brigade on the land of Southern China.

The commander of the Second Division, Bogdan, has always been extremely ruthless in training. Anyone who is cheating or cheating will be served by a military stick and whip. Therefore, the quality of training in this division is also very high. Officers and soldiers are also fierce in daily life. It is the sharpest sword in the hand of Jiang Zhiqing, the captain of the Southern Development Team. Although this sword can sometimes hurt his own new army's second division often makes the garrison mess. People complain and complain about injustice almost piled up the desks of the Southern Command office, but it was basically suppressed by Jiang Zhiqing because he wanted a tiger and wolf army.

After several months of this time, the Qing army started to work with the people of the East Coast in the north, it suddenly moved south in the south. The vanguard had even fought with the troops of the Second Division in Shengxian and Xinchang. Both of these were battles of a thousand-man level, one was the Fifth Infantry Regiment. At that time, they made an orthodox Spanish squad and used artillery bombardment tactics to defeat a tentative attack by the Qing army; the second was the performance of the famous "Centaur Cavalry Regiment". More than 300 Gao Qiao cavalry fought against a Mongolian horse team on the north bank of Dongxi (now Xinchang River) and won the battle, forcing the opponent to leave nearly a hundred bodies, and their own casualties were only a few dozen people. This battle was considered to have become the famous of the Second Cavalry Regiment. It was the first time that the Mongolians realized that some people were comparable to them in riding, and they felt like they had seen ghosts.

After the failure of two small-scale confrontations, the morale of the Qing army's vanguard was frustrated and temporarily retracted into Sheng County, as if waiting for the main army to arrive before making plans. The East Coast people also took advantage of this gap and began to gather the troops stationed in various places in the New Army's Second Division, and concentrated them around Xinchang County, posing as if they were fighting at any time.

As for the local defense issues after the Second Division left, one was the responsibility of the militia security regiments of various counties in the local county. In addition, Jiang Zhiqing also started to form the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army with the permission of Liao Xiaoyao, as a strategic reserve for the entire southern war zone. However, it is difficult to find troops at present, and there is no reason to successfully prepare for construction in the short term. Therefore, we can only find a way slowly. If we fail, we will first put up the shelf and then slowly fill in the people and supplies.

"It's May 8th today. What's the matter with Tong Guogang? Is his 100,000 troops all the wine bags? Why haven't the assembly been completed yet? Have you all gone to Zhuji to attack the western half of Jinhua Prefecture?" Bogdan walked around the city wall, frowned and said, "If this is the case, can Zhang Huangyan and others stop it! To be honest, although their army has completed some modernization reforms in recent years, they are still the same as the previous dynasty in their bones. I think the level of those generals, generals, etc. is very limited. Zhang Huangyan is willing to learn, but the dynasty waits for veterans first, but they are not easy to adapt. Their army is still the same as before!"

"No, I have to strengthen the sentry and try to understand the situation ahead. Now the Qing army does not know that my entire division has arrived in Xinchang County, but we don't know how many troops the Qing army has gathered in Sheng County. The situation on the battlefield is not clear at all, so how can we make decisions." Bogdan turned to the end, slapped the palm of his right hand on the city wall bricks with his right palm fan, and said gritting his teeth: "Damn, we are going to have another bloody scout battle with the Qing army."

"If you have anything to do, I, Min, will definitely fight for you. There is a militia security regiment in Xinchang County (but its combat effectiveness seems to be extremely suspicious), and the general situation is enough to deal with it. As long as the strong brigade of the Second Division of the New Army is still there, Xinchang County will be safe, and I am very sure of this." Min Honggui also said at this time.

Since he made up his mind, Bogdan divided the thousand people of the Second Cavalry into dozens of groups, and continued to conduct sentry explorations in the Xinsheng Basin and even further away Kuaiji Mountain and Siming Mountain. During this period, he fought with the small scouts and cavalry teams of the Qing army countless encounters. The losses of both sides were extremely heavy. But overall, due to riding, equipment and training, the losses on the east coast were smaller. The Qing army's cavalry often had to pay a double price to cause a certain degree of injury to the people of the east coast.

After more than half a month of such a bloody scout war, the Qing army felt a little distressed and couldn't stand it (after all, the people who died were all the children of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners of the National People's Republic of China). They began to actively shrink their range of sentry and give the wider field to the scouts on the east coast. This made the fog of war on the map in front of Bogdan slightly smaller, and there were more speculations about the Qing army's troop configuration.

It happened that at this time, news from the King of Lu came again: at the end of April and early May, the Qing army launched a large-scale offensive in the Pujiang and Yiwu areas in the northwest of Jinhua Prefecture, with a force of "ten thousand people". Wang Chao, a veteran general of the King of Lu's regime, led his troops to fight with the Qing army on the border of Huanjiang River, and returned unintentionally. He is currently gathering defeated troops to defend Pujiang County. The Qing army was anxiously unable to capture it, but the situation is not good, but it is an indisputable fact.

Bogdan was extremely interested in the war that took place in western Jinhua Prefecture, and repeatedly asked the envoys about the specific number of Qing troops, how many field artillery were there, how many siege cannons were, who were the generals of command, and whether they were divided into multiple groups. Unfortunately, the army of King Lu was indeed rotten to a certain extent. They could not tell the concept of "ten thousand" of the Qing army's specific number of people was too vague. In fact, the difference between 30,000 and 60,000 people was very big. The former means that the Qing army could deploy many more people in Sheng County. The statistics on the number of artillery numbers of Qing troops were also inconsistent, and even the generals of command were not clear, which was speechless.

When things came to this point, Bogdan no longer had hope for the 30,000 to 40,000 people under the jurisdiction of King Lu. He felt that instead of being disturbed by his teammates, it would be better to take the initiative to test the Qing army and see what the situation was. His plan was soon approved by Jiang Zhiqing. Of course, after receiving the chaotic information of King Lu's troops, Jiang Zhiqing immediately selected some capable personnel from the military police headquarters and quickly went to the King Lu army in Jinhua Prefecture, intending to collect first-hand information independently.

On May 12, Bogdan personally led the main force of the Second Division of the New Army to flow down the Dongxi River and headed straight to Shengxian. When they set out, they were a little nervous, thinking that although the seven or eight thousand soldiers were all elite soldiers who were good at fighting, they would still be unable to take advantage of the situation if they encountered the siege of tens of thousands of soldiers of the Qing army. However, when they walked forward for a long time and did not encounter substantial resistance, Bogdan suddenly knew that the main force of the Qing army was indeed not on the way, but went to Zhuji in the west to fight the King of Lu. The dynasty had no idea of ​​life or death, and the wild battle was defeated without any unjust.

Bogdan thought, the Qing army probably felt that it was not sure to take down Xinchang County, which was a powerful gun, so it turned to attack Jinhua Prefecture from the west. After all, if Xinchang County was not taken down, the Qing army's logistics line would always be exposed to the soldiers of the East Coast people, which was a factor that no wise military general could ignore. Therefore, they were afraid and decided to squeeze soft persimmons first, and then turn around to treat the East Coast people.

After thinking through this festival, how could the people of the East Coast make the Qing army better? On May 13, 1673, the main force of the Second Division of the Zhejiang New Army gathered at the city of Sheng County. More than 10,000 Qing troops did not dare to fight in the field, and they all hurried in the city to defend. This greatly boosted the morale of more than 7,000 officers and soldiers from the Second Division. The Qing Tartars arranged this way in Sheng County, which was indeed a false move, trying to paralyze our army!

So, Bogdan first sent people to closely monitor the Qing army in the county, and at the same time dispersed the Second Cavalry Regiment far away and alerted within dozens of kilometers of the periphery. Then, he led the main forces of the three infantry regiments and the troops directly under the division headquarters to remove the existence of the forts set up by the Qing army on the periphery. In the past, it greatly restricted the infiltration of small troops on the east coast. Now, once it was cleared, Sheng County almost became a toothless tiger, and in the future, the wild became a smooth road for the people on the east coast.
Chapter completed!