Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2017 Upheaval ([-])

"Give me a bowl of stone snails. If it tastes bad, I won't give you money." On the side of the official road outside the city of Teng County, a platoon leader from the East Bank, wearing a dark blue army uniform, raised his hand and shouted at the owner of a small shop in the village in front of him.

The frowning boss trembled when he heard this, with a somewhat embarrassed look on his face.In the years of war and chaos, the boss with a knife and gun in his hand is the most difficult to mess with. It is common to not give money for meals, and robbery and murder are not uncommon. The owner's family has run this small shop for generations, and they are used to this. The situation on the road is changing, so the first time he sees these "thieves" in blue clothes, he feels frightened, and he will be even more depressed after hearing "the food is not good, no money", because in his opinion, this is not at all. It is a code word for not giving money to eat rice.

With a "ding dong", a round silver coin rolled down on the table in front of the boss. He raised his head in surprise, and what greeted him was the disdainful gaze of the officer on the east bank.

"It looks like me. Am I the kind of person who can't pay for food?" The platoon leader sat down on the table, wiped the table with his sleeve, and said impatiently: "Hurry up and get the dishes done." , I have to hurry for dinner, damn it."

The owner of the small shop, as if he had received an amnesty, immediately ran back to the back kitchen excitedly, and cleaned up the stone snails with his wife.He felt that he was really lucky this time, to meet such a stupid big-headed soldier, he looks like a small officer, he actually gave money for meals, and he was generous, every time he gave it was a silver dollar, what a ancestral grave Smoke, good luck.

Of course the boss knew what the silver dollar the master threw to him was.Although Teng County is located in a remote inland area, it is not without the inflow of silver dollars from the east coast.In fact, these silver coins brought back by local merchants from Guangdong are still quite large, and they are loved by most people. They are full of color, beautiful in appearance, and not short of weight. , It is convenient for transaction and exchange. Therefore, although the weight of the East Coast silver coin with a denomination of one yuan is slightly smaller than one tael of silver, many people are still willing to use it as a tael of silver. This is the reputation premium.

This time the east bank army invaded (invaded) Lian, Wu and other mansions, and also brought a large amount of silver dollars.They always have to buy food, grass, livestock, medicinal materials and other materials in the local area. These cannot all be transported from the rear, and it is unnecessary, so objectively, the local economy has also prospered.In this regard, the people on the east bank are indeed much better than the Dashun army who had plundered (looted) military rations in Quanzhou, Guilin and other places in northern Guangxi. At least they took out real money Although it is not entirely unheard of to seize people’s wealth, the overall situation is much better than that of the Shunguo army. This makes some local gentry in Guangxi feel quite complicated—they don’t like people from the East Bank, but the people from the East Coast However, the performance of the shore army is closer to the standard of "Master Wang", which is really useless.

Needless to say, the East Coast Army was not inherently so disciplined.Taking the feudal clans in the Far East as an example, their military discipline was actually very poor a few decades ago, and looting and killing were commonplace, which is much better than the various troops in this era.However, after decades of persistent army building, the discipline of the army on the east coast has been greatly improved, and the style of work has also been greatly improved. Speaking of it, there is indeed a bit of a taste of a master of the king. Although it is still difficult for them to completely eliminate all kinds of robbery, murder, and extortion, the overall number has indeed been greatly reduced.

Of course, it is the East Coast regular army in blue clothes who will pass by here.They have higher wages and better treatment, and they often receive honorary education, so naturally they will not do things that are too eye-catching.Although there were some incidents of robbing the treasury of Dutch cities, raping local women, and robbing and extorting when they went to the United Provinces to fight against the French army, the overall complaint rate was even lower than that of the Dutch army fighting in the local area. It can be seen that the overall Strict military discipline.

The stone snails were quickly brought up.The platoon leader carefully took out a small glass bottle from the bag, uncorked the bottle, and sprinkled some spice powder in it.This kind of high-value military supplies can only be received free of charge if you are at least a non-commissioned officer, and ordinary soldiers have nothing to do with it.

The taste of stone snails is delicious.People in Guangxi have a tradition of eating stone snails and field snails since ancient times, so they are familiar with various cooking methods, and they are so delicious that the East Bank platoon leader who was born in Ping’an County in his hometown fell in love with them as soon as he came. If you don't eat such a small bowl every day, you won't be happy.Today he took his own platoon (21 people in total) and more than a hundred newly formed bandit troops to clear a village outside Teng County that intercepted and killed the messenger on the east coast. Sit down and eat some snails. By the way, let the brothers who have been on the road all morning also sit down to rest and have some water.Now that the weather is so hot, it is also a hard job to fight outside and run around. You have to get enough rest.

And when it comes to leading troops to the countryside to wipe out lifeless villages, we have to talk about the complicated situation that people on the east bank are facing in Guangxi today.Taking Wuzhou Mansion as an example, their control over Wuzhou City can basically be said to be firm now, but due to the serious shortage of troops and the extremely large territory to be occupied, their control over places other than Wuzhou is limited. It's much worse, most of the places are actually herding sheep, and a few important counties will send some soldiers to garrison, but the strength is also extremely weak.Just like the Tengxian County in front of you, it is located at the confluence of the Beiliu River and the Xunjiang River, and its geographical location is relatively critical. Therefore, Major Tang Moyu, the commander of the Third Mixed Battalion, had to reluctantly allocate two infantry platoons to station here, supplemented by A large number of local miscellaneous troops that have been incorporated are called the Tengxian Security Regiment.

Similar to it is Yulin Prefecture in the south, a transportation hub with developed commerce and trade.After the people from the east bank captured, they sent an entire infantry company here, assisted by the hastily formed Yulin Security Regiment of more than a thousand people, barely controlling the situation.But there is no doubt that this control mode is actually relatively weak, and it is also very dangerous. The elite main force is scattered over a wide area like pepper noodles. There are certain difficulties.

Moreover, even if the people on the east coast sprinkled pepper noodles, their control over these lands was still not very strong.Strictly speaking, what they control is only one point, which is connected by a river that can navigate ships or an official road with better road conditions, and it is far from controlling a single area.This can be seen from the fact that there are still many forces (mostly the remnants of the Ming army that were dispersed) that are still active against the invaders on the east bank. There is a way to go.The reason why they dare to deploy troops on the ground now is that the main force of the Ming army has been defeated, and the remaining scattered small groups of armed forces can be cleaned up slowly. The second reason is that they are confident that even if they disperse their forces like this, The Dashun army, which completely controlled Gui and Liu Mansions and then rapidly expanded to neighboring areas, did not dare to attack them!

"The Shunguo army launched another large-scale battle in Liuzhou Prefecture, annihilating more than [-] Ming troops, and the overall situation in Liuzhou has been settled. And this seems to have been news a month ago. The pace of this group of people's marching is really fast enough. .Ming Ting lost troops in Guilin and Liuzhou consecutively. Most of Guangxi's soldiers and horses capable of fighting have gone. The next difficult bone seems to be Nanning Prefecture. It seems inevitable that Shunguo will control Guangxi. "The deputy platoon leader is an old non-commissioned officer who has served in the army for many years. He has a very high status in the platoon, so he sat next to the platoon leader at this meeting, ordered a bowl of rice noodles and ate it.

"Isn't that right? Once the main force is lost, what's left to resist? In my opinion, the remaining Ming army can only huddle around Nanning for the last fight. It means resigning to fate." The platoon leader ate Shi Luo smiled and said, "No, the battalion commander has taken the main force to the west of Xunzhou Mansion. Wu Jingzhou has just been defeated, and that incompetent Xia Junbo was counterattacked before the chair with his butt was warmed up." The Ming army was driven out like sheep, and even the more than 1000 newly recruited security regiment soldiers dispersed. Battalion Commander Tang felt very headache and had to mobilize an infantry company and two artillery platoons to gather up the rout. Xu Tu counterattacked. But in this way, the siege of Guiping County, the state capital, will be postponed again, which is a headache."

"I heard that the troops of the Ming army who counterattacked Wujingzhou this time have actually been incorporated by Shunguo?" The deputy platoon leader put down his chopsticks and said, "I think the possibility is very high. Those who can fight these Ming troops have been transferred to Guilin and Liuzhou. He was sent to his death, and the rest of the people were in a daze, with no will to fight at all. This time they dared to fight back desperately, maybe they had some kind of promise from Shunguo, otherwise they would not be so vicious. Those barbarians, I am, really Don't know how to live or die, wait for us to free up our hands and clean them up one by one."

"What are you doing with those people? Eat and eat." The platoon leader picked up some stone snails and gave them to his old man, then lit a cigarette, and while breathing comfortably, he said: "A few days ago, there was a messenger from the south. Taking the opportunity to go to Wuzhou, I chatted with the man casually, and learned that the South Route Army has basically controlled the entire government of Lianzhou. Half of the fifth division of the Zhejiang New Army has arrived, and the counselor Lian Gao was immediately defeated. The goods were scared and went back. They have more troops there, and it is said that they have assembled a troop to go north, and they should be besieging Hengzhou City in Nanning Prefecture. Once they break through here, they will not be far from Xunzhou Prefecture, and there are Rivers, transporting materials are more aspects, and the pace of marching should not be slow. I guess, in the end, maybe we haven’t solved the problem in the north of Xunzhou, and they will kill themselves to join forces.”

"This is a good thing!" The deputy platoon leader took a bite of the stone snail, and said vaguely: "Hurry up and put down these bird people in the area, and then we will have time to rectify the security teams in the counties. It’s too bad, we can’t fight at all, I just don’t know if Shunjun will give us this time, but I’m still relatively optimistic about it, it should be fine.”

The platoon leader also nodded when he heard the words. At the current speed, it should be about the same, unless the Shun army suddenly let out a bastard, making the local Ming army surrender in a short time, and then help them deal with the east bank people.But, does Shun Jun really dare to attack the people from the East Coast?

(End of this chapter)