On May 15, 1687, a team of soldiers had just walked past a pipe beside a pipe in the outskirts of Daozhou, Yongzhou Prefecture. .

This is a united soldier from nearby counties and townships. According to the orders of Shangfeng, he went to a large camp outside Daozhou City and was ready to receive various tasks at any time. The united soldier, as the name suggests, is a local army training armed force, but it is different from the traditional army training, because its commander and middle and higher officers were appointed by the court, and only the lower officers were elected by the local government, either a brave ranger in the local area, or a landlord and rich merchant family. In short, it is a strange mixture, which is still a certain difference from the later Qing Dynasty (such as the Hunan Army).

In Dashun, a country that admires the Tang system extremely much, the Unified Army has been designated as an important supplement to the main force, and is responsible for suppressing local areas, maintaining public order, transporting food and grass, and supervising prisoners. For example, in the battle to clean up the chieftain forces in southern Sichuan and western Hunan, the Shun army used the rotation of united troops from various prefectures, which played a considerable role and saved a lot of military expenditure.

To sum up, the united army is somewhat similar to the militia system on the east coast, that is, the training is carried out uniformly during the slack season, and the court will distribute equipment (usually cold weapons, few firearms, and basically no expensive equipment such as armor). They will prepare the food, pickles and other supplies to arrive at the assembly site, and then wait for the opening.

The basis of the united army system is that the people have sufficient funds to support this kind of training, marching and combat, which requires them to at least have some land, and the extremely poor tenants who are in a place without a cone cannot bear this burden. Moreover, most of the officers look down on these long-term malnutrition guys.

It also entrusted the nature of the regime when Dashun started his family (peasant army). He captured Huguang, Jiangxi and other places and attacked local tyrants and divided the land very actively. Although it added a lot of resistance, it was of great benefit to establishing a stable basic structure in the local area. In addition, these provinces were in war for a long time in the late Ming Dynasty, with heavy casualties (Jiangxi was even plundered by people on the east coast). There were many unparalleled lands in the local area. Later, the Dashun regime simply carried out a major disarmament, decomposing at least one-third of the troops that were more than 300,000 people at its peak, and then scattered to Hunan and many prefectures and counties in Jiangxi for the sake of the people. These people were basically self-cultivated farmers. After starting a family and operating a generation in Jiangxi, Huguang, who has been a family and has a short family background, so the united army system can also be promoted nationwide.

This system cannot be implemented in the territory of Nanming. Because the old forces in the local area are mixed, land, the most important means of production in the agricultural era, has long been divided up, and there is a personal dependence between a large population and a landlord, and the exploitation level of the entire society is far greater than that of Shunguo and Qing dynasties. In this case, ordinary people are worried about eating, so how can they have the energy and physical strength to participate in military training? Not to mention Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, there are also huge chieftain forces, and those mountain villages are even more unlikely to be requisitioned by the court to become united soldiers.

Therefore, although the Dashun regime has only a few provinces and a population of only more than 10 million, its potential for war must not be underestimated. The reserve system of Unity Soldiers is not new, it was found in ancient times, but it was able to promote it nationwide and have been maintained for more than ten years. It is indeed amazing, and it is enough to defeat the Southern Ming court and its warlords.

The Unity Soldier is only part of the country's war potential. In fact, what is more important than the Reserve Unity Soldier is the road and water transportation system that the country has been vigorously rectifying for many years. In order to persist under the pressure of the Qing court, the people of the East Coast sent many batches of roads. Engineers from bridges and canals helped them improve their domestic infrastructure, improve the speed of their logistics supplies and military mobilization, and reduce losses on the road.

In that era, the relationship between Dong and Shun was extremely close. People on the East Coast exported a large amount of cement, lime and steel bars to Shunguo, helping them build a series of permanent docks and warehousing and logistics centers that rely on them to operate. These were of great benefit to improving Shunguo's military logistics. Later, they also exported many woodworking machine tools, helping them establish a complete system to utilize natural resources such as wood. Of course, people on the East Coast did not forget to help Shunguo cultivate a group of construction talents, instill some advanced logistics and transportation concepts, which gave Shunguo a deep understanding of the important role of transportation infrastructure.

It can be said that it was the enlightenment of the people on the east coast that made the king and minister of Shunguo understand that infrastructure such as roads, canals, docks, and storage centers are also important components of national strength, not just money, grain, land and population. For example, no matter how rich you are in the back, no matter how much grain you produce, if the transportation is not good, most of them will not be transported to the front line. Nine bags of grain are consumed by people and animals transporting grain on the way, and only one bag of grain can be delivered to the front. And just one bag of grain can be delivered because of the difficult journey and the protracted prolonged period, it is extremely costly. Because the grain transporters traveled through mountains and rivers, it is obvious that they will miss the farming time. The harvest of crops in this family may also be affected. Is this price big enough?

In the past twenty years, as the situation becomes increasingly stable, the Dashun court has also begun to grit its teeth and squeeze out certain expenses (most of the country's income is spent on the army), and has begun to build in two provinces with water systems, Hunan and Jiangxi. Instead of choosing relatively expensive road construction, they invested limited funds in dredging and widening of river channels. At the same time, a large number of docks and warehouses were built along the river, and troops were sent to guard them, and a banknote was set up to collect some tolls to recover some construction funds.

To be fair, Shunguo's infrastructure investment in the past 20 years has had some effect, which is actually mainly due to the water network composed of major water systems such as the Xiangjiang River and Ganjiang River and a large number of branches. If these rivers are rectified and funded every year, they can still play a great role, because their coverage is too wide and can effectively connect most prefectures and counties in Hunan and Jiangxi. This fish and rice town is really not a waste of time.

In addition to playing a significant role in military strategy, the improvement of infrastructure also has great effect in reducing logistics costs between regions and breaking commercial barriers. According to the theory of the East Coast people, establishing a unified national market without tariff barriers is an important symbol of the great development of commercialization. Although Shunguo has not yet achieved this, at least in Hunan and Jiangxi, it is indeed a bit close to this. This seems to explain why the industry and commerce of these two provinces have continued to develop over the past 20 years, so that now it forces the ideological community to innovate, and the entire society has shown a prosperous scene.

There is no doubt that Hunan and Jiangxi provinces are probably the provinces in China with the deepest industrial and best business conditions outside the East Coast controlled areas. These two points have brought great benefits to the Li Shun regime, and they have indeed seen this. This can be seen from the yearly increase in fiscal and tax contributions of the two provinces. Hunan and Jiangxi provinces are the source of fiscal and taxation and the foundation of hegemony that Dashun can fight south and north.

This time, the Southern Ming Dynasty court experienced a drastic change. Prince Sun Kewang was killed on his way to court, and his party members were liquidated. Many generals led the army directly surrendered to Dashun, and even begged Dashun to raise troops to go south to avenge Sun Kewang. After these news were rushed to Changsha, Li Laiheng immediately summoned the ministers to discuss secretly, and finally decided to send troops from Sichuan and Hunan to attack the Ming Dynasty. In Sichuan, Sichuan Jiedushi Liu Zhonggui, naturally, led the overall situation, selected elite troops to go south from Dongchuan Prefecture, and surrendered general Bai Hui was the vanguard, and went straight to Kunming. The idea of ​​attacking Huanglong was to attack directly.

In Hunan, Hao Ping, commander of the Yin Gun Jie Army, took charge of the overall situation and led more than 70,000 elite troops from Yongzhou, Baoqing and other places to attack, with the target directed to the entire province of Guangxi. This is a province directly under the Southern Ming Dynasty. There are no strong warlords in the local area, so there should be little resistance to attack. Li Laiheng estimated that after the Zuoying troops entered Yunnan in large numbers, many troops in Guangxi would not be able to be summoned to serve the king, which would further reduce their resistance to occupying Guizhou Province.

Once Guangxi is captured by them, why should the Southern Ming court, which has only the territory of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, fight against Dashun? You must know that the most capable troops in the Southern Ming Dynasty were formed with the backbone of the Xiying in the past. Now the old brothers in the Xiying were in an internal strife. The Qin King Sun was expected to be killed. The generals under their command were in panic all day long. King Li Dingguo of Jin had to force his body to comfort him more, but anyone with a discerning eye could see the effect, and it was not very good!

In fact, if Li Dingguo was given a window period and let him calmly deal with Sun Kewang's old subordinates and calm the situation, the situation in the Southern Ming Dynasty still had a chance. But Dashun is not a fool, how could he give you this opportunity? Just as the news reached Chengdu and Changsha, the envoys sent by the Dashun court were all sent by the Dashun court.

These envoys carried a lot of blanks with them, and they were enlisted everywhere, lobbying the officials or generals of the Southern Ming Dynasty in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi Provinces, promising high-ranking officials to give them good land and beautiful houses, which attracted a lot of people to come over, laying a good foundation for the next big army to mobilize. Li Dingguo was not unaware of Shunguo's small actions in the local area, but he could not spend his energy to deal with these matters now. It would be great that he could sort out the situation around Kunming. If you want to blame, you can only blame the dead ghost Sun Kewang. The desire to usurp the throne and reliance is impatient. Everyone has no choice but to take this blow, kill this villain first, and then find a way to clean up the mess in the local area.

As one of the base camps of the Dashun Southern Expedition, the commander of the Yinqiuxiaojie Army, Hao Ping, had already brought more than a hundred personal companions to the capital Lingling County. While waiting for the gathering of people from all walks of life, he sent people to investigate and contact. As soon as the army arrived, he rushed straight to Quanzhou with thunder and sweeping the acupoints. It is necessary to occupy it in the shortest time. The generals of some prefectures and counties around Quanzhou have secretly communicated with Dashun. However, Quanzhou generals were stubborn and stubborn, and they actually wanted to resist the Dashun Tian Army. At that time, he would definitely know that they were powerful.

Although the main force set out from Lingling, this does not mean that there are no combat tasks everywhere else. In fact, Daozhou is a supportive direction. The Dashun court sent two regular troops here, and at the same time gathered about 20,000 united troops to go out of Longhu Pass to Guizhou, and then collected the surrendered officials and generals of the Southern Ming Dynasty who had been negotiated in Gongcheng and other places, surrounded the flanks of Guilin Prefecture City, and shakes the fighting will of the Ming army on the front line of Guilin. Although it is a partial division, the task is not light. Therefore, the two commanders selected the elite troops of the rear camp to ensure that they can suppress the scene after entering Guizhou.

The people of Yongzhou also felt the proximity of the war. The busy Hunan-Guangxi trade in the past had been reduced to an optional level. All the cities and villages in the border areas were guarding themselves, and there were only scouts from the two armies running in the wild. Many people in Guangxi had even migrated south and fled. They did not have much confidence in the military discipline of the Shun Army. They had never heard of the army that did not harm the people in ancient times.

In Yongzhou Prefecture, in addition to a small number of ships transporting manganese ore and tin ore to the north, most of the ships and livestock are requisitioned by the government to transport military supplies. Manganese ore and tin ore are to be transported to the Baling County Wharf to be delivered to the Dongguo people. This is also one of the bulk goods exported by Shunguo. Because of the large quantity and price, the East Coast people have to purchase a lot every year and then transport it to the Sakhalin Island industrial base for smelting and processing. In other words, these minerals are the materials that the Dashun court can earn from the East Coast people. Therefore, even at this critical moment when the war is on the verge of outbreak, they still dare not interrupt the supply, and even squeeze out the transportation space of some military supplies.

Of course, their obedience to the East Coast is only at this level. I believe that if the East Coast people asked them to return to the camp at this time and maintain peace with the Southern Ming Dynasty, they would probably not get any response. Although Shunguo was very low in front of the East Coast people, they were not puppets of the East Coast people. They had their own strategic interests and were still very autonomous. Now the Southern Ming court is in conflict, and such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is a rare opportunity. Once missed, they may never have it again. Therefore, the Shun king and minister made up their minds to take the opportunity to attack, swallowed the territory of the Southern Ming court in one breath and increase the thickness of their own territory.
Chapter completed!