I want to be emperor

Chapter 392 Pirates Ashore
After entering May, the temperature in China is gradually rising, especially in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions in the south.

When the Seventh Division went down the Beijiang River, the soldiers of the various units had already put on thin summer clothes.

But that's the case, the local sultry weather also made the soldiers of the Chu army who went south suffer a lot.

As far as the soldiers of the Seventh Division are concerned, they are not actually northerners. Most of the soldiers are from the Hantianfu area of ​​Huguang, and some are soldiers from northern Jiangxi who were nearby when they were fighting in Jiangxi.

As for the No.11 Garrison Division, which has been fighting with the Seventh Division, most of them are soldiers from the Jiangxi area.

According to traditional concepts, they are all very typical southerners, and they are also southerners south of the Yangtze River. In their living environment, it is not that they have not experienced the scorching heat of summer.

But even so, when they really entered the Lingnan area, especially when they left Shaozhou Prefecture in northern Guangdong and started to go down the Beijiang River to Guangzhou Prefecture, they still couldn't support the local heat.

When they were in Qujiang, Shaozhou Prefecture, it was summer, but after all, it was a mountainous area in northern Guangdong, and it was a little bit northerly. In addition, the spring was quite cold during the Little Ice River period, so these soldiers of the Chu Army at that time Did not feel any obvious discomfort.

However, as the weather began to heat up rapidly in mid-May, by the time they reached Qingyuan, Guangzhou, it was already late May, approaching June.

It's the hottest time of year!
To be precise, it is not only hot, but also muggy. This place is located in a coastal area, and the ocean will bring a lot of moisture-rich air...

Then the soldiers of the Seventh Division and the No.11 Garrison Division had a feeling of being steamed and stuffy.

Huang Xiangbin was wearing a wide-topped bucket hat, and he was only wearing a thin summer suit with the sleeves rolled up. However, he was still sweating profusely from the heat, so he took a sip from the water bottle from time to time to rehydrate himself.

After taking a sip of water, Huang Xiangbin looked at the soldiers in front of him and behind him, who were silently marching south, with a trace of worry on his face.

He did not expect that he led the army all the way from Huguang to Jiangxi, and then from Jiangxi to Guangzhou. The biggest problem is not the stubborn enemy, not the complicated and difficult terrain, but the damn heat.

At this time, although he was riding on a horse and didn't have to walk directly, he felt so uncomfortable. One could imagine how difficult it was for the soldiers under his command to march on foot.

Even before going south from Shaozhou Prefecture, I had already made a lot of preparations, such as changing summer clothes for the army in advance, and also prepared tens of thousands of bamboo hats for my army to protect the soldiers from the sun. Sheltered from the many rains in the spring and summer in the south.

But when he actually went to Guangzhou, he still caused a lot of non-combat attrition in his own army.

Since mid-May, when the local temperature has risen rapidly and suddenly changed from a mild spring state to a scorching sun state, more than 300 people in his army fell ill in just half a month.

You know, when his army attacked the huge city of Shaozhou, it didn't lose more than 300 people...

No, even when they attacked the precipitous pass of Nanxiong Mansion before, there were not so many casualties.

The last time there were more than 300 casualties was when the Iron Turtle in Ganzhou City was stormed.

But in the past two weeks, they didn't make any rush marches, they just went south slowly.

At most, they took down Yingde County along the Beijiang River. Well, in fact, they didn't fight at that time. The one or two thousand Ming troops on the opposite side saw the Chu bandits coming, and half of them fled and half surrendered.

On the Qingyuan side, after a group of their own strikers arrived, the gentry in the city simply opened the door to welcome Master Wang under the leadership of the county magistrate.

However, just like that, his army suffered a non-combat attrition of more than 300 people in half a month. Well, although most of them can return to the original army after treatment, there has been a shortage in a short period of time. no.

Besides, most of the wounded can return to the army after treatment, but when calculating the number of casualties, the wounded will still be counted.

Therefore, this illness can also be regarded as non-combat attrition.

And the reasons for falling ill are various, which is hard to prevent.

Some people suffer from heatstroke, because the weather is cold and hot, and the temperature difference is large, so many people have a cold and fever, and many of them are caused by drinking unboiled water.

Soldiers in the main division had received hygienic propaganda in the new barracks, so they had to drink boiled water as much as possible when marching and camping.

However, many soldiers in the garrison were directly reorganized from the surrendered soldiers of the Ming army, and had not received complete training in the new barracks. Generally speaking, their hygiene concepts were relatively weak, and a few of them drank cold water from the kettle. After that, because of the hot weather and thirst, and at the same time, I was too lazy to make a fire to boil water, so I drank raw water in the wild...

Then I got diarrhea...

No matter how strong a man is, after a few days of continuous stretching, he will become a sick cat... Even many people are seriously ill and lost their lives because of this.

The only thing that makes Huang Xiangbin fortunate is that these are some routine diseases, and they are not large-scale infectious diseases, otherwise his tens of thousands of troops will collapse in minutes...

The climate in the southern coastal area brought a lot of trouble to the Seventh Division and the No.11 Garrison Division, but it was only a small trouble.

Since the weather is hot, the temperature difference is huge, it is easy to catch a cold, and raw water in the wild is easy to get sick, etc., then Huang Xiangbin and the others will also take some targeted countermeasures.

The first is to recruit a large number of doctors.

Although there is a medical battalion in the Seventh Division, there are quite a few military doctors and guards in it, but the number is still slightly lacking. It is also necessary to recruit doctors while marching southward.

The second is to strictly promote the concept of hygiene, especially the soldiers are not allowed to drink raw water directly, the water must be boiled before drinking.

At the same time, because of the hot summer march, the soldiers lost a lot of water and needed more water for supplementation. Before departure, more cold boiled water should be prepared in advance. The bamboo water bottles carried by the soldiers have been directly increased from the previous one to two or even three.

Then in each post, even during the march, manpower must be regularly arranged to boil water in advance and replenish it.

After initially solving the problem of drinking water sanitation, the doctors accompanying the army also began to distribute large quantities of decoctions for heat-clearing and detoxification to the soldiers to prevent heatstroke. In addition, the frontline guards and military doctors at the grassroots level also focused on the importance of hygiene.

Of course, the more important thing is to convey the order, forcing the soldiers not to drink wild water at will, not to defecate in the barracks, and pay attention to a series of regulations such as personal hygiene.

After the concentrated implementation of many measures, the number of sick soldiers in the army has been significantly reduced.

By the time they reached Jinlishi, a small town more than 20 kilometers north of Guangzhou Fucheng, the number of people in the army who fell ill due to heat stroke, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever decreased significantly.

Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin was relieved at this time. He was really afraid of leading the army all the way from Ganzhou to Guangzhou, but he was crushed by the disease before the Ming army killed many people.

And this time the disease attack also made Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin realize that fighting is not only about bravery of soldiers, not only weapons and ammunition, but also many other things.

And sometimes, something seemingly insignificant can lead to the defeat of an army.

Such as health issues!

During the initial rest in Jinli Township, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin took the time to write a report on the process of the army going south being attacked by diseases in the last half month, especially focusing on the sanitation of drinking water.

This report will not only be sent back to Jinling City, it will be used as a reference by His Majesty and the staff of Jinling City.

It was also passed on to the Fifth Division and other troops fighting in Guangxi.

The fifth division and other units fighting in Guangxi are actually under the command of Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin.

Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, he is not only the commander of the Seventh Division, in fact, the commander of the Seventh Division is only his part-time job now. His current official position and even the garrison commander of Guangdong and Guangxi are ordered to coordinate the war between Guangdong and Guangxi.

The five divisions, the third garrison division, and the sixth garrison division that are currently fighting in Guangxi are all under the command of the Guangdong-Guangdong garrison command, that is, under the command of Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin.

The climate and environment in Guangxi is not much better than that of Guangdong, and even worse in many places, making it easier for soldiers to be attacked by diseases.

Because he ordered the Fifth Division and other troops fighting in Guangxi to pay more attention to hygiene and heatstroke prevention.

In the Battle of Guangdong and Guangxi, the biggest enemy of the Chu army was not the Ming army, but the local climate and environment.

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Huang Xiangbin took the seventh division and the No.11 garrison division to rest in Jinli town for two days before continuing south.

At this time, Guangzhou City was not far away from them. According to the normal marching speed, it was only about a day's journey.

Well, if there were no ambushes and obstructions by the Ming army along the way.

Because it is close to Guangzhou, and Guangzhou itself is the garrison of the governor of Guangdong, the city of Guangzhou, as the provincial capital, naturally has a lot of troops from the Ming army. The so-called volunteer army.

In fact, these people were all kinds of messy pirates in the late Ming Dynasty, many of whom were recruited or won over by the Ming government, and then appeared in Guangzhou to fight against the Chu thieves.

For these pirates, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin laughed!
It would be fine if these pirates were sailing on the sea, the Chu army didn’t care about the army and navy, they could only stare at them...

But if they dared to go ashore to fight the Imperial Army, it would be too long.

Not to mention these miscellaneous pirates, even if Zheng Zhilong's troops were on land, they would still be hanged and beaten by the Chu army.

(End of this chapter)