Major Junio ​​had just been woken up from his sleep by the orderly soldiers. The orderly soldiers told him that the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army had just defeated a Qing army in the night battle and was currently advancing towards Tongzhou and expected to arrive before dawn.

"The Fifth Division has improved its abilities and can fight well in the night battle, isn't it?" Junio ​​wiped his dry eyes, stretched comfortably, and said teasingly: "Okay, let's march forward and see what will happen."

This is Tongzhou on the north bank of the Yangtze River. The army on the east bank has landed here for two days. Due to the frequent activities of warships on the east bank in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the banks of Yangzhou, Songjiang, Suzhou, Changzhou and Zhenjiang prefectures have basically become overgrown wild places, and they are often unable to see a figure for a long time.

The reason for this is that I am afraid that the people under their rule will be robbed by the East Coast army, so I have to make this worst decision. You should know that every citizen is the source of finance and taxation. If you have one less Qing Dynasty, one more will be one more on the East Coast. Your strength will increase and the other will decrease. If you are an official of the Qing Dynasty, you would have to do this. You even want to retreat thirty miles away, but this is the Yangtze River, not the southeast coast, so you cannot operate this way.

Generally speaking, there are basically no people living on both sides of the Yangtze River within a range of five to ten miles near the river bank. Even though there are many fertile land here and fishing, the people are reluctant to leave, but they are forced by the government and have to move away. Then there are different numbers of fireworks troughs, with more than ten people stationed inside, which can not only monitor whether the people are secretly coming here to reclaim the land, but also use them to observe the enemy situation and see if there are yellow-clad thief warships or soldiers attacking.

For example, this time, when Major Junio, the commander of the 7th Mixed Battalion, led more than 1,200 officers and soldiers of the battalion (some wounded and sick left behind, and the war loss was not fully supplemented) and the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army, which had increased to about 3,500, landed in Tongzhou, Yangzhou Prefecture, some fire road troughs located on the riverside immediately ignited wolf smoke and sent a signal to the rear. Then, these people closed the gate of the pier and waited for the verdict of fate inside tremblingly. They didn't want to escape, but the military order was really strict. When the reason had not completely collapsed, they dared not let their families in the rear be implicated because of their cowardice.

Of course, their luck was pretty good. After the army on the east coast easily knocked on the broken wooden door of Huoludun, they did not make things difficult for these poor people, but instead put them all in jail and sent them to the rear. In the future, they either served labor in Ningbo or immigrated to the east coast. In short, the situation would not be too bad. The only consequence is probably that they will never be able to meet their families again in this life. This may be the real bad news for them.

The army on the east bank did not stay on the riverside for too long. Although the Qing army in Yangzhou Prefecture was reported to have been transferred to Shaoxing in large numbers to the south and reinforcements in the Songjiang area (the people on the east bank learned through interrogation of prisoners), the territory may be relatively empty, but in the end, there were only a few thousand soldiers on the east bank, which was far from the scale of organizing 40,000 to 50,000 so-called Allied troops to fight in the Yangtze River Basin. Therefore, once a large number of Qing troops were encountered, although they were not very afraid, they were always a troublesome. Therefore, when Junio ​​had just settled the headquarters, he immediately ordered the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army to march overnight with torches and kill the closest city of Tongzhou.

Junio ​​was not suitable for marching because he was occasionally infected with the wind and cold, so he stayed overnight in the temporary command center Langshan Guangjiao Temple, and handed over all matters to the deputy battalion commander of the 7th Mixed Battalion, combat staff and others. It was not until five or six o'clock in the morning that the orders came to wake him up and briefly told him that the battle last night had passed by the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army did not dare to neglect after receiving the order. He captured several guides and rushed to Tongzhou City overnight, trying to capture the empty city before the enemy could react. As a result, he encountered a unit walking towards them halfway.

At that time, the two armies each took torches and rushed on both sides of the river. After discovering each other, they immediately launched a firefight. At this time, the advantage of the high degree of firearming in the east coast army was revealed. The officers organized wave after wave of volleyball fire, and carried out intensive strikes on the other side of the river, which was only more than 20 meters away, causing considerable casualties.

The Qing army was suddenly hit by a blow. The officers shouted at the top of their lungs to fight back, but many people ran around in the dark, drowned them all in the chaotic crowd. In the end, the officers had to give up this plan and instead shouted to retreat, intending to take advantage of their familiar geography to run to other places to clean up the remaining troops and rectify the troops.

The people of the Fifth Division of the New Army were originally very nervous, but when they saw that the enemy was so cowardly, they immediately became bolder. They even organized some relatively capable personnel to cross the river and pursue the enemy with a limited degree, and achieved some results. And until the two infantry companies of the Seventh Mixed Battalion caught up with them when they heard the news, they maintained high morale, which made people quite happy to see.

However, the Fifth Division also exposed many shortcomings in this battle. For example, there are many new recruits and insufficient training, such as some ineffective command in the dark (but much lighter than the Qing army), such as slow reaction caused by the lack of officers, etc. In short, they are not sure if they don’t fight, and they are startled to be shocked. They usually look very good at practicing. Once they are shot, there are always many problems. This can only be expected to correct them in the future.

After finding a contact staff officer and asking them to inform the Fifth Division to continue to march towards Tongzhou City, Junio ​​took two staff officers into an eastern carriage, catching up with the main force in front while discussing the information at hand.

There was a lot of information at hand, and it was basically about the mobilization of troops from various Qing governments in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Most of them were interrogated from prisoners, and there were also deductions and assumptions by intelligence staff and others. Everyone was idle and took out the information and carefully sorted it out. They had a rough understanding of the deployment of the Qing army and the direction of mobilization. Therefore, they decided to break one or two prefectures and counties in Yangzhou Prefecture and try to collect as much population as possible to avoid insufficient population to immigrate in the next few years.

After talking about these, Junio ​​and others easily talked about the current situation on the mainland. According to the news just obtained from Shunguo, when Wu Sangui, a generation of heroes led his army to personally conquer Kuizhou Prefecture in the middle of this year (1675), his body suddenly collapsed due to long-term efforts and recurrence of old injuries, and almost reached the point where he could not take the matter.

Wu Sangui's illness naturally made his subordinates feel moved. His confidant Xia Guoqiao, Hu Guozhu and others guarded Wu Sangui who was lying on the hospital bed overnight to stabilize the overall situation. After discovering the strangeness of the Wu army, the Shunjun inquired and spyed from many sources, and finally came to the conclusion that Wu Sangui might be in good health. The overjoyed Shunjun's left camp immediately dispatched the entire army, set out from the respective garrisons of Kuizhou Prefecture, attacked westward, and successfully entered Shunqing Prefecture and Chongqing Prefecture.

The Qing army stationed in Guangyuan, the northern part of Baoning Prefecture, had to dispatch urgently to assist Wu Sangui. However, their troops were only 20,000 (there had been severely damaged in the battle of Kuizhou Prefecture, and a considerable number of them had to be left behind in Guangyuan). For the Zuoying of the Shun Army, which had a total of 50,000 or 60,000 people (after capturing most of the Kuizhou Prefecture, Liu Zhonggui expanded his army extensively. Currently, there are more than 50,000 people entering Sichuan, and 20,000 to 30,000 people staying in Yunyang Prefecture) it was like a drop in the bucket. Therefore, they could only join the local Wu army and local troops, use the terrain and cities to fight hard, and try to slow down the pace of the Zuoying of the Shun Army. Faced with such a dangerous situation in Sichuan, the Qing court had to send an order to dispatch 15,000 new troops from Zhao Liangdong's troops to train in Hanzhong to move south to reinforce Sichuan, although I don't know if it will be effective.

Li Laiheng, the Emperor of Dashun in Changsha, was caught off guard by the mutation in Sichuan, as if happiness came too suddenly. The day before yesterday, Wu Sangui was arrogant and led tens of thousands of elite troops to fight against the Shun Army in Kuizhou Prefecture, but in a few days he was seriously ill and bedridden and could not be managed. Tens of thousands of elite troops retreated in a hurry like wind and clouds. He also panicked the Wu soldiers in Kuizhou and other places, and was swept away by the Shun Army, and surrendered or fled. The defense line that had been operated for many years collapsed instantly.

Li Laiheng, who reacted, tried his best to gather an elite force of more than 10,000 people from Hunan. Under the leadership of his general Zhang Neng, he advanced west along the Yangtze River and planned to support the military operations in Sichuan. As for why Li Laiheng didn't send more people into Sichuan to grab territory, it was not that he didn't want it, but that he couldn't! The Qing court was not a fool, so they naturally understood that the situation in Sichuan had reached a critical period, so they tried their best to mobilize local people in Xiangyang and launch a different offensive against the Shun Army controlled area. It was not that much territory could be occupied. The main purpose was to restrain the forces of the four main forces of the Shun Army's front camp, middle camp, back camp, and right camp, so that it could not reinforce the tens of thousands of troops in the Zuoying camp that had entered Sichuan, reducing the pressure on Wu Sangui.

The East Coast people who had an office in Madang Fortress also received requests for material assistance from Shunguo. They did not dare to neglect and reported directly to Ningbo. After carefully weighing the situation, Ma Wenqiang, the new captain of the Southern Development Team, ordered the opening of the warehouse and sold a large number of military funds and equipment to the Shunguo at a preferential price to help them stabilize the situation in the possible war in the future and prevent the Qing Dynasty from easily defeating it.

Of course, making this decision is not without the reasons why the Qing army has been increasing its combat effectiveness in recent years. They have been deploying new troops all over the country and learning new tactics, and they are no longer an armed force that can be ignored at will. Therefore, it is inevitable to further arm the Shun Army and enhance their combat effectiveness. At this time, it is no longer appropriate to adopt a binding policy against Shun Country. It is time to relax the iron chains on the Shun Army's neck, otherwise the situation may develop in a direction that the East Coast people cannot predict.

This time, because Wu Sangui was seriously ill and the series of changes in the situation brought about by the large-scale invasion of the left camp of the Shun Army (actually, it was still the subsequent incident caused by Wu Sangui's conquest of the Southern Ming Dynasty), there were already signs of stirring up the situation in mainland China. The Shun, Qing and Ming sides, which had been peaceful for many years, had the possibility of a nationwide war breaking out again, which made the East Coast people a little scared because they could not see clearly how the situation would develop later. This was what they hated the most.

"I think that boy Liu Zhonggui is very energetic. Now he has left 20,000 to 30,000 people in his hometown, and He Zhen and his son in Shangluo Mountain have also helped them with the flanks, so Yunyang Mansion is relatively stable. Liu Zhonggui can probably take the 50,000 or 60,000 people and fight with the Qing army in the Dongchuan area." In the shaking carriage, Major Junio ​​analyzed the situation seriously: "I am still a little confident in the combat effectiveness of Zuoying.

Guo Puxia once told me that although Zuoying is the poorest, it is the most willing to spend money on weapons and military funds. The camp of the instructor is also very powerful when fighting. It is said that the old foundation left by Liu Fangliang back then is relatively outstanding, and has been passed down from generation to generation. Otherwise, they would not have been able to defeat the Wu army of the Prime Minister of Xia and the Qing army of Baoning Prefecture who came to reinforce in Kuizhou Prefecture with one against two. It is indeed a bit of a good idea."

"When Zuoying entered Sichuan, this variable is too great. After all, Sichuan has been rich since ancient times, and is known as the country of Tianfu. If Liu Zhonggui seized this place, he could easily lead an army of more than 100,000, and his combat effectiveness would not be too bad. He was much stronger than Jiangxi, which was captured step by step by step by step by Guo Sheng. I don't know what Kangxi from Beijing and Li Laiheng from Changsha would look at this matter at that time. It would be quite interesting to think about it." The intelligence consultant directly pointed out the series of changes that Zuoying might bring about when he entered Sichuan. He only heard him say

: "Once Shun Kingdom annexes most of Sichuan and gains a foothold, it will greatly improve the strategic environment of this regime. Think about it, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Sichuan, three more wealthy provinces, plus half Hubei, are three points more powerful than the prosperous state of the Shu Han regime during the Three Kingdoms period in history. Moreover, there is no Jiangdong regime like Wu in the east, so you can calmly annex them one by one. The Southern and Northern Dynasties are about to emerge, provided that they can withstand the offensive of the Qing army in Xiangyang and successfully defeat the Wu army in Sichuan and the Qing army in Shaanxi and Gansu."
Chapter completed!