Li Kui was carrying a wooden barrel filled with warm boiled water, standing on the side of the road with several neighbors, and presented warm boiled water to Qingzhou soldiers passing by here.

When the new army soldiers pass by, Li Kui will salute them - this military salute is also the PLA that Xu Shiyang directly plagiarized later generations. At present, in this era, there may be only one Qingzhou New Army in the world that has this type of military salute.

Therefore, when the new soldiers who saw Li Kui saluted, they knew that the strong man like a black iron tower in front of them must be his comrades on vacation, and they would also return the favor to Li Kui.

The soldiers carried weapons and could not raise their hands to salute, but under the leadership of the captain, they would slightly tilt their heads and salute Li Kui attentively.

No one was talking at the scene, and there was no need to yell among the comrades. Everyone could only hear the slightly shocking thud of hundreds of pairs of big feet stepping on the ground.

This silent tacit understanding made ordinary fortress citizens who came to reward the army consciously feel a sense of indescribable solemnity.

Many young people looked at Li Kui and the new army in an envious manner, stalking forward with their heads raised and their chests raised. At this moment, they realized that this army was completely different from the militia I had remembered and earlier, the old man in his family said that the thief-armed army was said.

Some of the imperial guards who were sandwiched in the middle saw this scene. Many people suddenly felt that they were envious of these "Jiangbei militias" that they didn't really look down on.

Yes, these people have very simple equipment - there is very little armor, and most of the soldiers with armor are just iron pieces that just protect their chests. They can't even have a protective waist knife. The so-called cavalry actually has a large group of mules riding.

There is also very little military pay - how long has the military pay system been formulated? The soldiers who stayed in the army only received two months of military pay, and there was no excise fee. The total of all the treatments was far from the Jiangnan Imperial Army.

but……

However, the Qingzhou New Army was a vibrant team. At this time, all kinds of bad habits in the later army had not been infected, let alone the disgusting problems of the feudal army.

There is no situation in the army where the staff is empty, all the units are full, and some even have over-staffed situations.

The treatment between officers and soldiers has just widened a little, and it is far from unanimous.

The class movement in the new army was very fast, such as Gongsun Sheng, Li Jinghuai, Feng Sanhu and others at the battalion commander level, who were now small figures a few years ago, and there were more people among the grassroots sergeants, and even directly from refugees in the bottom of society.

The last one is very important, which means that every new soldier may cross a threshold that cannot be crossed elsewhere, become an officer class, and improve social status through his own efforts.

That's right, social status.

In Jiangnan, unless they were senior officials who turned from civil to military affairs, other military personnel, from the wing army to the wings, the highest-ranking officials who were commanding high-ranking officials in the front office, they had no good reputation among the people.

The thief is matched with the army, the treacherous ministers and other things are tailor-made, and occasionally you can hear even more sad titles.

In Qingzhou, it is another scene.

One is that Xu Shiyang unceremoniously organized all the men, women, young and old under his control into the army. Everyone is a soldier. The name "thieves are in line with the army" is naturally dissipated.

In addition, the Qingzhou Army has indeed brought a long-lost peaceful life to the core territory.

Since the last Tartar invasion, it has not been war-torn for almost two years. The newly conquered prefectures and counties in northern Qingzhou have also had a few months of peaceful days. This peaceful day not only means not only not to worry about the Tartars and large thieves and refugees, but also not to worry about the robbery and attacks of hostile forts, but also to be considered as the minimum social stability.

Only in these situations can the local people of Qingzhou regard the Qingzhou army as their real people (although not soldiers). When the army passes by, someone will send some warm water to reward the army along the way.

Although it is not worth it, this kind of heartfelt friendship between the military and the people still makes many imperial soldiers who are scolded by the people in Jiangnan feel a little envious.

‘Maybe, we should stay in Qingzhou and not go back to Jiangnan?’

More than one person in the imperial guards thought this way, and even those soldiers with families felt that they might be able to move their families to Jiangbei.

As long as Qingzhou can really withstand the attack of the Tartars, the respect for soldiers here can indeed be regarded as a paradise for them, such as the "thieves and the army".

...

In October of the 13th year of Jianxing, the Qingzhou Army launched a war aimed at expansion against Laizhou and Yanzhou at the same time.

Due to the previous lessons of the Northern Qingzhou Door Fortress Alliance, in the early stages of the attack, many Door Fortress owners surrendered without fighting... Well, no, according to their statement, these Door Fortress owners took the initiative to join.

On October 15th, the Qingzhou army led by Xu Shisong entered the old Gaomi County and entered Pingdu Prefecture on the 18th.

On the 25th, the Qingzhou Army encountered its first opponent: the Laishan bandits.

In fact, these bandits also wanted to go down the mountain to surrender, but the surrounding fortress owners encouraged Xu Shisong to refuse their surrender - the relationship between the fortress owners and the bandits is always difficult to be harmonious.

With the idea of ​​winning over the fortress owners, Xu Shisong launched a crusade against Laishan. In addition to the Qingzhou army, there were tens of thousands of strong men from Laizhou that had newly defected.

Before the battle began, Xu Shisong surrounded Laishan, but allowed the bandits to go down the mountain to surrender in his personal name. Seeing that the Qingzhou army was powerful, the bandits went down the mountain one after another. Within five days, Xu Shisong gained nearly 10,000 people, a man, woman, aged, and aged. This was exactly the same as Xu Shiyang's bandits on Wulian Mountain, and it was also very effective.

On the second day of November, the Qingzhou army launched a general attack on Laishan and conquered all the bandits on the same day. Then, three days of cleaning operations were carried out, and more than two thousand hidden bandits and bandit relatives were captured.

Laishan is pacified.

On the eighth day of November, Qingzhou troops entered the old Laizhou Prefecture without bloodshed, and the entire Laizhou Prefecture was included in the control of Qingzhou.

In the other direction, Li Jinghuai's advance in Yanzhou Prefecture was also very smooth.

In other words, it was much smoother than Xu Shisong's journey, because the route he took was the old route when Xu Shiyang attacked Zhujiazhuang a few months ago.

Along the way, neither the fortress nor the bandits had the confidence to arm the Qingzhou army, so they all came to surrender.

Li Jinghuai did not adopt Xu Shisong's approach of treating the fortress owners and bandits differently, but treated them equally, and no matter who they were, they were allowed to take the initiative to surrender.

In addition, among the soldiers newly added, there were already many Yanzhou people. Therefore, Li Jinghuai's journey was purely an armed marching process. Not only did he not fight a single battle, he even consciously followed a lot of peripheral servants.
Chapter completed!