Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 745

Zhu Gui's guess was right, He Xiwen did not plan to capture Wuzhou, and he did not have enough troops to defend it.A large eighteenth-century city with more than 4 residents could not be controlled by any regiment.

The 2000 army is definitely enough for fighting alone. The problem is that due to the institutional problems of the Beihai Navy, the captives of the Qing army who surrendered will not be converted and absorbed immediately, so there must be enough left behind troops in Lianzhou and Yulin Prefecture.If the Qing army in Qinzhou and Leizhou were allowed to take the back road, then He Xiwen would be ashamed, and he would have no way to explain it to Zhao Xin.So this time the troops who rushed to attack Tengxian only had a regiment of more than [-] people.

Before Liang Wenying proposed to recruit and convert a group of surrendered Qing troops to make up for the lack of local garrison forces, but after sending a telegram to the staff, the reply there was no agreement.

The green battalion of the Manchu Qing Dynasty adopted the "shibing system", that is, if the father and brother were soldiers, the children would serve as Yu Ding at home.Once enrolled in the army, they have been soldiers for generations, and future generations cannot even take the imperial examination. Over time, many green battalion soldiers have become soldiers.

Among the green camp Xuntang soldiers who were captured and surrendered before, there are many people in their 50s and [-]s. This kind of people can collect taxes and catch a thief, but it is definitely useless to transform them into combat troops.

At present, all the prisoners of the Qing army have been sent to Bailong City in the south of Lianzhou to clean up the ruins and expand the dock.When the people from the Bacheng Public Security Police Station arrive, they will be screened and screened. Those with qualified physical fitness and honest character will undergo three months of training and be transferred to public security police; Anyway, under the rule of Beihai Town, there is no such thing as a military household.

At midnight on August [-]th, the wharf at the foot of Wangfu Mountain outside Beiliu County was brightly lit.

Under the command of the head of the regiment, Wei Chao, 12 soldiers who would set up the camp lined up to carry the bamboo rafts into the river--drilled twice before.The tied bamboo rafts are all stacked on the shore in a greenhouse built with reed mats and moso bamboos. Each raft is nine meters long and two meters wide. It is made of [-] thick moso bamboos, with both ends raised high.

Although bamboo rafts are easier to build than boats, there are still many things to pay attention to when making them.For example, moso bamboo must be dried after several months of drying, otherwise it will be easily deformed during fire roasting.In order to gather a sufficient amount of dried moso bamboo, the logistics department of the southern front army wiped out all the stocks of bamboo and wood shops in Lianzhou, Yulinzhou City and Beiliu County, and also purchased a large amount of bamboo for bundling twine and bamboo pegs.

Then there is the tip. The angle of the tip is required to be 50 degrees, because the bamboo body of the moso bamboo head is relatively thin. Moso bamboo is useless.

Many things are like this, the officer moved his mouth, and his legs broke down.It seems easy to say, but there are a lot of details in actual implementation.

As the large bamboo rafts were launched into the water one by one, the soldiers boarded the ship in line.More than an hour has passed since all the more than 100 bamboo rafts were launched.

"set off!"

When Wei Chao ordered people to shake the torches to give the order to start, the soldiers standing at the stern pushed forward with long pennies.After entering the waterway, the soldiers on the bamboo raft took out their engineering shovels and moved them in an orderly manner with the low chant.The entire fleet meanders mightily, like a water snake, swimming quietly to the north in the darkness.

The waterway from Beiliu to Rongxian is more than 70 miles away. It is impossible for a fleet of more than 100 large bamboo rafts to not be discovered, let alone five miles ahead of the fleet, driving an assault boat for reconnaissance The squad is up.

When it was daylight, on the river twenty miles away from Rong County, two father and son who were fishing in a small boat suddenly heard a roar coming from the south, and then saw several black shadows coming from the river. Coming fast on the waterway to the south.

"Dou, lost something?"

Hearing his son Ah Shui's question, the fisherman Zhou Ada looked carefully and said in astonishment: "Did you hold that, don't you hurry up and collect the net!"

The father and son frantically collected the nets, but the black shadows were getting closer and closer, and it was too late to row a boat to avoid them.Seeing that he was about to hit him in the middle, Ah Shui cried out in fright.At this moment, the black figure at the front suddenly turned to the right, drew an arc on the waterway, and passed around the fishing boat.Immediately afterwards, the two shadows behind also took the same action.

Just when Zhou Ada and his son were stunned, the last black shadow slowed down and approached. At this moment, someone spoke Cantonese Mandarin and said: "The village, don't go fishing in the middle of the river, there are so many boats behind."

"." Only then did the father and son realize that it was a boat with several people sitting on it.It's just different from the usual boats. The hull of this boat is black, about two feet long and seven or eight feet wide. The material of the hull is not like bamboo or wood. Red rope.

The boat is weird, and so are the people on board.A dozen or so people were all wearing grass-green double-breasted jackets, and a green round hat with a net on their heads. The faces under the hats were smeared black and white, making it difficult to see their faces clearly.In addition, these people are holding a flat and long strange object in their hands, and there is a black cylinder on the top of the protruding end.

Damn!Could it be a water ghost?But who has seen water ghosts ganging up in groups?If one is not enough, come a group!Zhou Ada and his son were so frightened that they collapsed in the cabin with limp hands and feet.

"The village?"

"." The teeth of the father and son chattered, and they could still speak.

"The village?"

"Cuckoo~"

The squad leader who asked the question saw that the two men were shaking their lips and did not speak, so he reminded again: "In the village, don't fish here. There will be so many boats coming later, let's go to the docking place. Let's go !"

As soon as the words fell, the motor of the assault boat roared again, and then it cut through the waves and rushed northward until it turned into a black spot the size of a sesame seed. Only then did Zhou Ada and his son with pale faces let out a sigh of relief.

"Dou, is he a human or a ghost?"

"Damn you bastard! Humans and ghosts can't tell the difference. He is the Southern North Pirate! Hurry up!"

The assault boats of the reconnaissance team appeared on the Beiliu River, which made all the villages along the way Zhuangyong and the Qing army in charge of Xuntang panic.The point is that no one has seen this thing before. The sound of the roaring motor alone is like thunder, and coupled with the top speed of 60 kilometers per hour, it is really appalling.

After these boats arrived at the river near Rong County, two of them were specially responsible for intercepting the boats heading north, and the other boats circled back and forth on the river outside the city, making the county magistrate who heard the news and came to the city wall puzzled My heart said, what is this doing?

"Grandfather, do you want to have a shot?" A shop soldier asked the county magistrate, his face full of eagerness and eagerness.

On the crenel not far behind him stood a two-foot-long iron cannon with rusty appearance, and several iron hoops on the cannon body for reinforcement.This is a tiger crouching cannon from the Ming Dynasty, which has been used as a cannon before.If this thing can hit an assault boat more than a mile away, the ancestral grave will not be able to emit green smoke, it will have to be ablaze!

"Put down that thing in your hand! It's a crazy ball!" County magistrate Wang closed the fan in his hand, his face was ashen, and he was so angry that he even spewed out his hometown dialect.

The county magistrate was named Wang Tingju, and his style name was Xianchen. He came from the Wang family in Niedian, Yuci, Shanxi, and was a well-known rich man.The Wang family started out with land management and loan sharks in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Today, there are more than [-] pawnshops in Jiangnan, Guanwai, Henan, Shandong, Zhili and other places, with assets exceeding tens of millions.

Wang Tingju was the second child in his family. After more than ten years of study, he couldn't even pass the exam for a scholar.But this man wanted to live an addiction to being an official, so he could only spend money to pay donations. In the end, he followed the way of Liu Quan, the housekeeper of Hefu, and spent 5 taels of silver to become the magistrate of Rong County.

Don't think it's too expensive, this is a real gap that can be filled immediately after taking office, and countless people rush to break their heads.Although Rong County is small and poor, the county magistrate is also a seventh-rank official. The problem is that the official brand Jinshi is distributed to only this position, and there may not be a real shortage.

"It's a fucking thing! Didn't the whole world celebrate by eating mooncakes and watching a big show? They actually did this to deceive the county!"

Dian Shi on the side was from Wuzhou, and he couldn't understand the Shanxi dialect spoken by the county magistrate Wang. He blinked and asked, "My lord, how should we deal with it? We can't just watch the North Sea pirates attack the city."

"Otherwise, these boats are just wandering around on the river and don't touch the shore, so they should be fired early." Wang Tingju opened his fan, fanned himself a few times vigorously, and sighed: "Thousands of soldiers and horses in Yulin's mansion are blocking the boat." Can't stop, our Rong County only uses the number [-] young and strong to manage the ball!"

"Then look at it like this? Will Zhifu Hu blame it?"

"Blame it? I don't know if Mr. Hu can survive this disaster."

Others don't know how powerful the Beihai Navy is, but Wang Tingju, who was born in Shanxi merchants, knows it all too well.He had already made up his mind at this time, as long as the Beihai Navy attacked the city, they would immediately raise the white flag and surrender without hesitation.Anyway, this official was donated with money, and the court didn't show him much kindness. He didn't want to hang himself like that idiot Jinshi in Beiliu County, so why bother.

What the people of Rong County on the city wall didn't know was that it was the county magistrate's order that saved them.Half an hour later, when the people on the city wall saw a fleet of hundreds of bamboo rafts coming windingly, densely covering the river, their faces turned pale with fright, and they thought it was too dangerous, thanks to the grandfather who didn't let the cannon fire.

Before setting off, He Xiwen told Wei Chao that if the defenders of Rong County did not attack or block them, they would ignore it. It was not worth wasting time for a small county.

The soldiers and civilians of Rong County just lay on the head of the city, watching the fleet of Hui'an camp pass the county without any danger.As for the county magistrate of Wang Tingju Wang, when he was convinced that the Northern Navy fleet on the river had no intention of attacking the city, he hurried back to the county government office, called the personal servant brought from his home in Shanxi, and gave them careful instructions. For a good letter of surrender, let the other party go out of the city from the south gate at night, and go to Beiliu County to contact the surrender.

He had already seen it, so he rushed to the posture on the river just now, not to mention Teng County, Wuzhou might be enough.I am afraid that the officials of the Qing Dynasty will not be able to do it in the future, so it is better to make plans early.

Surrendering to Beihai Town is not a shame. Nowadays, there are several Shanxi merchants doing private business with Beihai Town, such as tea, fur, ginseng, matches, lanterns, wool products, soybeans, etc., all of which are flourishing.For example, the Chang family in Yuci Cherim, the Cao family in Beiguang, the Qiao family in Qixian County, and the Wu family in Taigu. Among them, the Chang family and the Wu family are the largest, almost monopolizing the Changbai Mountain ginseng market in the north.

A day later, the fleet of the Hui'an camp passed the confluence of the Beiliu River and the Huanghua River. The sixty-mile waterway from here to Teng County is called "Jianjiang".This area is surrounded by Tiantang Ridge and Lingshan Mountain in the east, and Dubang Ridge and Luoman Ridge in the west. The mountains are high and forested, and the waterways are sandwiched between the mountains.From the shore to the halfway up the mountain, there is mist, and there are dense mosquitoes flying on the water, which is very annoying.The sun blazed mercilessly in the sky, making the soldiers on the bamboo rafts sweat profusely.

In the government records of Teng County in the Ming Dynasty, autumn was called "Zhengqiu", which means that after the sweltering summer season, in autumn, the weather will be even hotter, and it will be cooler after the Double Ninth Festival.

Fortunately, the campers have lived in a hot and humid environment since childhood, and cool oil has become the standard equipment of the army, so there are not many people with heatstroke, but their faces and hands are covered with large and small sachets. At night, when you go ashore and camp, you must be more careful about poisonous insects and wild animals.

This was the case in ancient Lingnan. The hot and humid environment with many mosquitoes made it impossible for northerners to gain a foothold.It is better to be an official. If you are exiled here, once you contract malaria, you will only have a dead end.

This shows the importance of the North Navy's establishment of a base in Ganling'ao. All troops going south must do at least one month of adaptive training there, otherwise let alone a war, the non-combat reduction of personnel will drive the officers crazy.This is why Zhao Xin asked He Xiwen to lead the attack on Guangxi. Most of the generals of the Northern Navy are from the north. They have lived in the outer northeast for many years, and it is difficult for them to adapt to the sweltering weather in the south.

Along the way, Wei Chao told his subordinates to drink only plain water from the kettle when they were thirsty, and to eat canned food and compressed biscuits when they were hungry. River water was absolutely undrinkable, but it was okay to wash their faces to cool off.

Due to the mountains in Guangxi, water and land stations run in parallel.Due to the speed of the reconnaissance team's boat, since leaving Rongxian County, the waterway post stations in Doujiazhai, Longtantang, Pandongtang, Huanghuatang, Yichangtang and so on were taken down before they had time to react.The postmen all watched in amazement as the assault boats of the Northern Navy rushed up to the beach. When the scouts armed with rifles jumped off the boat and rushed over the water, all they could do was run away and catch them without a fight.

It is impossible to sail a boat on a five-hundred-mile waterway, and there will always be fish that slip through the net in the station.Unable to travel by water, they used the script of "Maximum", and rushed to Teng County to report the letter along the land post road across the mountains and mountains.When the reconnaissance team came to a place called Ma'anguan in the south of Teng County, they found that they couldn't get through.

This is the place with the most dangerous terrain before entering the Xunjiang River. Water barriers have been installed since the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty, and there are walled cities on the hillsides on the left and right banks, overlooking the river from a condescending height.

After the news of the Northern Navy's occupation of Yulin reached Wuzhou, Xu Guocai, the deputy general of the Wuzhou Association, immediately thought of Ma'anguan.At his suggestion, the magistrate Hu Youren summoned a large number of craftsmen to build iron chains overnight, then transported them to Ma'anguan, set up six iron chains on the river, and asked the county magistrate of Teng County to recruit Zhuang Yong to guard the city and observe the movements in the south.

The six iron cables were not simply stretched across the river. Xu Guocai asked Teng County to drive several [-]-material civilian boats to Ma'anguan and scuttle them all. They nailed them underwater with wooden stakes so that they could not move. Hang on the hull above the water.In this way, not to mention three or five hundred masted merchant ships, ordinary small boats can't get through.

When encountering this kind of blocking method, the ancients generally had no good way.The method of destruction is nothing more than sending death squads, setting up a stove on the bow of the ship, burning and chopping the iron chains when they get close, and at the same time sending sailors to dive into the water to remove the wooden stakes that nailed the ship and remove the sunken ship.While destroying the chain, you must also send troops to help defend; you must know that the enemy on the opposite side will not watch.

This kind of water battle is often a life-and-death bloody battle, who can find a way to quickly destroy or hold the iron chain who has more soldiers and whose generals are brave.

Teng County, like Rong County, is a small county. Relying on its own strength, even if it is tied to Hengjiang, it will be useless, but isn't Zhu Gui, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, here now?On the second day after he arrived in Wuzhou, the native soldiers and wolf soldiers who came to support from Guilin Mansion and Pingyue Mansion also arrived.

The title of "wolf soldier" is actually related to "werewolf".Don't get me wrong, it's not the kind that grows hair and mouth full of fangs when the full moon comes, but the local aborigines like the Zhuang and Yao people.These people usually live scattered among the mountains in western Guangdong, and they began to practice martial arts when they were young.

Many people think that as long as they are local soldiers in Guangxi, they are "wolf soldiers", which is wrong.There are many kinds of native soldiers, Zhuang and Yao, but only the native soldiers who are mainly werewolves are wolf soldiers, also called "real wolves", and the others are fake wolves.

The name "Wolf Soldiers" first appeared in the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty.At that time, the mountains in Xunzhou and Datangxia area were intertwined, and Yao bandits were infested. However, in the Tusi area on the left and right of the two rivers, because there were many people and few fields, many people made a living as soldiers, and they fought bravely, which made the Yao people very fearful.

The Guangxi wolf soldiers in the Ming Dynasty were a powerful force that cannot be ignored, with a peak number of more than 2000, and participated in almost all wars in the late Ming Dynasty.However, up to now, many werewolves have been transformed into farmers, and there are only more than [-] wolf soldiers in the eastern Guangxi area.

The reason for this situation is that after the "San Francisco Rebellion", there were fewer and fewer military activities in Guangxi, especially after the land reform, the management system of wolf soldiers was completely disrupted, resulting in a sharp decrease in the number of wolf soldiers.

Zhu Gui saw it just right, regiment training was his magic needle, he didn't want to move for the time being, and the green battalion had too few troops, and the level of fighting was really not good.Two thousand wolf soldiers are not too many, and it is most suitable to guard the steep terrain of Ma'an Pass.Furthermore, it is not far from Wuzhou to Tengxian County, and the 160-mile waterway can be reached in two days by boat.

Before departure, each wolf soldier received ten taels of silver, and their morale was greatly boosted, as if they had been beaten with chicken blood.They originally wanted to reward them, so they couldn't come here just to eat old rice after all their hard work.

　In Cantonese, there is no word "old township", but "Xiangli".

　　
　
(End of this chapter)