Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1078 Poyang Lake

The weather was getting warmer, and there was a smell of corpses in the evening wind.

At the foot of the hillside are densely packed corpses of the Qing army, numbering as many as [-]. In yesterday's battle, the East Coast army led by Liu Haiyang personally and under the specific command of Captain Junior smashed thousands of corpses in the south of Hukou County. The Qing army who came to aid had beheaded more than [-] people and captured more than [-] prisoners, which almost completely frightened the remaining Qing troops in Jiujiang and Nankang.

"In a while, you will send some North Korean soldiers to collect the corpses, and then find a place to bury them. In June, the weather is getting hotter and hotter. If the corpses are not disposed of in time, there may be a plague, so we can't be careless." Liu Haiyang was wearing a sky-blue navy spring and autumn uniform, a barrel-shaped military cap on his head, and a command knife on his waist, and said with high spirits.Several consecutive victories (although they were all based on more and less), and the weak strength of the Qing army in Northeast Jiangxi, all greatly inflated Liu Haiyang's self-confidence. It is inevitable.

This is the rural area south of Hukou County. Liu Haiyang is entertaining the officers of the Fifth Division and Sixth Division of the New Army who just returned from Madang Town, and some generals of the Shun Army are also accompanying them.The villagers in the vicinity have basically fled. Years of war have made them less courageous than rabbits. However, although people run away, it is impossible to take everything with them, not to mention walking in such a hurry!

On the evening of June 6, in a mountain village in the south of Hukou County, Liu Haiyang and others opened up a house abandoned by a squire to move in, and set the dinner venue here.There are still some pigs and sheep in the livestock barn in the house, which have naturally become delicacies on everyone's table at this moment. With the Xiangshan dry red and West Lake beer with the taste of hometown, all the officers on the east coast are a little drunk.

Naturally, Liu Haiyang also drank too much. At this moment, he was standing on the dirt road outside the yard, and saw two bright children, a man and a woman, lying on the edge of the haystack, swallowing their saliva and looking this way—well, they should have been arrested on the road The grandson and granddaughter of the old man who came to cook for their family may be hungry.

Liu Haiyang walked over quickly, and before the two children had time to react, he took out a handful of candies (made of cocoa powder, sucrose, milk, etc.) from his pocket and stuffed them into the two startled children. child's hand.After seeing the two children take it suspiciously, he ordered the two guards behind him to take out two big packs of biscuits ("Fu Lu Shou Xi" series produced by Dafeng Food Factory, made of special flour, butter, made of milk and sugar, very popular on the east coast), and a glass jar of yellow peach soaked in honey water, stuffed them together for the two children, then let go of their little hands and looked at them with smiles.

The two children took the food subconsciously, and they were stunned for a moment. After realizing that they were free, they ran back into the darkness at the same time, leaving Liu Haiyang quite speechless.And it was also at this moment that he clearly realized what kind of existence the army on the east coast was in the eyes of Ming people (or Qing people).

"In their view, we are nothing but invaders." Liu Haiyang thought with some disinterestedness, "maybe the strangest and best military invading army in history, but no matter what, an invading army is an invading army. They hate The government of the Tartars who exploited them hated the Shun army, the Qing army, and the Ming army who fought back and forth. Although we seldom robbed the poor of their wealth, we never killed ordinary people who had no resistance. deal with it, but we are still an invading army after all! In this regard, we are no different from the army of Tartars who came from the north."

"Seek Tartar's love for the people" is a slogan that people from the East Bank have been posting everywhere since they landed in Madang Town, but judging from the actual situation, Ming people (at least most Ming people) have not been touched by it in the slightest. .Perhaps when they took the King of Lu and the representatives of the Zheng family to the expedition, these people could rely on their own reputation or status to help the people on the east bank unite against some local gentry, but the reputation of the "thief in yellow" for robbing people has been resounding across the country. At present, no one is willing to join forces with the East Bank anymore. Under the propaganda and indoctrination of the gentry for many years, the people in the Qing army-controlled area have basically regarded the East Bank people as beasts with human faces and beast hearts. Why don't you hurry up and take your property and the whole family to flee for your life!There are occasional people who have not escaped in the local area, and they are all people who are too poor to survive. In their view, if they are captured by the yellow-clothed thieves, they should be taken away. At least they can still get a bite of food, right?

"When the army leaves tomorrow, ask the old man who cooks if he wants to stay. If he is willing, send him and his grandchildren to Ningbo; if not, give them some money and let them go." Go home." Liu Haiyang said to the guard in a disinterested manner.After finishing speaking, he thought to himself, after this battle is over, he will ask Chang Kaisheng, Commander-in-Chief Chang (Chang Kaisheng has just been appointed by the special commissioner of the Executive Committee with a letter of appointment as the new captain of the Blackwater Pioneering Team, The Security Commander, whose original position as the commander of the Amur theater was assumed by Lieutenant Colonel Jiang Zhiqing who arrived from the mainland) made a good suggestion to vigorously reorganize the existing servant army system, it is best to regularize them, and then send their families Move to the mainland of the East Coast and give them nationality, and gradually change their attributes from "Servant Army of the Ming Dynasty" to "East Coast Kingdom's own army" to reduce the risk of these troops' mutiny.

After all, in the current situation where people on the east coast are notorious for plundering people everywhere, the thoughts of the servant army are also worth paying attention to. If someone feels that there is no future and can't think about it and joins the Qing army, it will be very troublesome.Although the vast majority of these people have never surrendered in history and even fought to the last moment, but as the saying goes, people are very complicated creatures at this time and at that time, how can they know that they will not move the idea of ​​surrender now? ?Therefore, it is better to be fully prepared.

Of course, the reorganized servant army still adopts the old organization, old drill methods, old weapons and tactics of the Ming army, and its combat effectiveness cannot be improved too fast, lest the local executive committee be suspicious and suppress it.However, after this reorganization, several of the most elite servants and stand-up brigades should be gradually transferred back to the mainland to weaken the combat power in the Far East, so as not to cause the local top military and political officials to have undue thoughts .

On June 6, after winning the battle in Hukou County, apart from some of the troops who stayed behind in Madang Township to transfer immigrants (a total of 3 people stayed behind from the Fifth Division of the New Army and North Korean blunderbuss soldiers), Liu Haiyang simply led the troops around him. 6000 soldiers and 1.8 soldiers (that is, Korean masters) went south, and more than 1.2 people from Dashun Guosheng also accompanied them. The army marched along Poyang Lake, and some naval ships carried supplies and supplies.

On June 6, a total of more than 7 soldiers and horses arrived at the capital of Duchang County in Nankang Prefecture. After unsuccessful persuasion, they ordered an attack, and they descended on this small county town within half a day.The generals and officers of the Qing army who insisted on resisting were all beheaded on the spot, and their wives and daughters were included in the women's volunteer team as camp prostitutes. The clansmen were also sent to the Heishui coal mine for labor reform to deter the stubborn.

While marching, the operation of collecting people is also going on non-stop.It's just that due to the propaganda of the Qing army, the people fled seriously, and the efficiency of collecting people was not as good as before. After a week, only more than 1 people were collected, which is pitifully small.If you count the more than 5 people recruited in late May, Liu Haiyang's tens of thousands of troops have only obtained no more than 1 Ming people, which is still far from the expected plan.Fortunately, there is still plenty of time, so don't worry, and the people on the east coast will have plenty of time to slowly figure out a solution.

After conquering Duchang County, the army on the east bank did not make any effort to stop, but went straight to Poyang County, the state capital, by land and water, and defeated a group of soldiers who had rushed in from outside the country on June 6. The Qing army then surrounded the capital city of Raozhou Prefecture.At this time, Shen Yongzhong's 15-strong field group, one of the main forces of the Qing army in Jiangxi, was still entangled with Wang Deren's troops in Fuzhou and Guangxinfu (no matter how powerful the king's army is, the total force is extremely large, with more than [-] troops. There are so many people), there is simply not enough troops to return to aid Jiujiang, Ankang and even Nanchang.

As for Geng Zhongming's main force, they were gathered around Nanchang County and were unable to move an inch-they were facing the elite main force of more than [-] under the command of Dashun Zhongying General Guo Sheng.As for the tens of thousands of Hubei Qing troops who crossed the river from Xingguo Prefecture, Wuchang Prefecture, they were firmly blocked by thousands of people from Guo Sheng's partial division using the terrain, and there was no hope of making any progress in a short time.

It can also be seen from this that more than 3 troops on the east bank landed on a large scale in the area of ​​​​Madang Town, and then quickly penetrated into the northeastern Jiangxi region. The military operations really hit the Qing army in Jiangxi seven inches above, making it extremely uncomfortable. There is also the fear of collapse on the overall battlefield-this is not alarmist talk. If the Qing army does not draw out capable troops to counterattack (or at least block) the army on the east bank that is maneuvering along Poyang Lake, the Jiangxi Qing army may be completely wiped out. , at least now their connection with the Huguang area has been completely cut off, and the situation is precarious.

What's even more frightening is that without the food and salary support from the northeastern provinces, can the support of the nearby counties and counties around Nanchang really be able to support the long-term consumption of Geng Zhongming's 6-odd army?You must know that with the intensification of the war, a large number of people in the originally affluent Nanchang Prefecture have fled. It is not easy for the Qing army to raise food and salaries. intercepted several Qing army grain ships on the lake), so is it supported by land transportation of grain and salaries?Hehe, that area (north of Fuzhou Prefecture) is located in the area where the forces of Wang Deren and Shen Yongzhong are intertwined. Tens of thousands of troops are intertwined and fighting each other. It is not so easy to pass!

(End of this chapter)