Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1581 Containing Confusion

"Subhuti said: No, World Honored One, why is that? The name of the Sutuo Huan is to enter the stream, but it does not enter into anything, and does not enter into the sight, sound, fragrance, and touch of the Dharma. , Jiang Zhiqing, a member of the Southern Exploration Team, was concentrating on practicing calligraphy.

The writing brush is a Huzhou writing brush smuggled from the territory of the Qing Dynasty. The quality is quite good, and the price is not cheap, but for Jiang Zhiqing, who has recently fallen in love with practicing calligraphy, it is a trivial matter.No matter how expensive this writing brush is, can it be as expensive as the limited edition handmade pen in his arms?

Smuggled in together with the writing brushes, there are many other small commodities, such as the four treasures of the study, lacquerware and rattan wares, etc. Many of them came along the Fenghua River along the mountain roads, and then they were delivered to the merchants on the east bank in Xikou Town. Xikou Customs pays tariffs here—of course, half of the tariffs that need to be paid are very small, and most of the goods are in the tax-free category. Therefore, Xikou Town’s trade with the Qing Dynasty is quite prosperous, although this kind of trade is only a part of the Qing Dynasty. On the one hand, it is likely to be illegal.

A second-class army staff officer walked into the courtyard lightly. Seeing that his immediate superior, Jiang Zhiqing, seemed to be immersed in an unspeakable state of Sanskrit, he quietly stood aside, waiting for Jiang Zhiqing to finish writing a section of "King Kong After reading the scriptures, he walked over and reported: "Commander, the latest news from the Second Division."

Jiang Zhiqing nodded when he heard the words, put the brush on the pen stand, and after washing his hands, he took the letter paper handed over by the staff officer and read it.The full name of the Second Division is "Zhejiang New Army Second Division", or "Second Division" for short. It is a new army unit that is being formed, similar to the first division of the Liaodong New Army that was just formed a while ago.The division was formed based on the Fifth Brigade of the Standing Team and the 11th Division of the Servant Army. It temporarily had three infantry regiments under its jurisdiction. The cavalry regiment, engineering company, supply company, artillery company and other technical units were still in preparation due to lack of talents.

The designations of the three infantry regiments are the fourth, fifth, and sixth infantry regiments, with a total of 6000 people, including 2000 people from the fifth brigade of the self-propelled team, and 11 people from the Bogdan Department of the 3000th Division of the Servant Army (the defense area is Ninghai County) The division originally had 10 soldiers, and temporarily eliminated 500 old and weak), [-] people from the [-]th Division of the servant army (the elites were transferred, the commander of the division, Ding Weiyue, was distressed...), and new recruits in the Fenghua area. It was composed of more than [-] mountain people, all of whom were dismantled and reorganized and assigned to garrison in Ninghai, Tiantai, and Xikou. Among them, the division headquarters was located in Tiantai County, where Taoism is very prosperous, with Bogdan as the division commander.

The division is still undergoing arduous training and integration work.After all, the sources of the [-] soldiers of the three infantry regiments are complicated, and they were not under each other before, so it is difficult to form effective combat effectiveness in the short term.Moreover, it will take time to adapt to new equipment, new tactics, and new formations. The above all make the Second Division of the Zhejiang New Army currently in a short refractory period. The defense of the Ningbo area is basically only limited. Can rely on the old army to be responsible - of course, these old army is undoubtedly a new type of army for Ming and Qing.

The letter sent by the second-class staff officer just now was sent from the headquarters of the Second Division of Tiantai County, which is also the base of the Fourth Infantry Regiment. It is located at the junction of Taizhou Prefecture, Shaoxing Prefecture and Jinhua Prefecture, and its geographical location is quite important.In the future, once the formation of the Second Division is completed and the main force gathers in Tiantai County, Shaoxing and Jinhua prefectures—especially the latter—the local Qing garrisons must not be frightened, although they have been fighting three times a day. shocked.

The content of the letter submitted by Bogdan, the commander of the Second Division, to Jiang Zhiqing is roughly divided into two parts.As usual, the first part requires food, salaries and weapons. Now the second division also has 2 soldiers. According to the salary level of the main soldiers ranging from 4-5 yuan per month, and the starting salary of officers is more than 30 yuan (this level is compared with the local regular army. It can only be said to be pitifully small), which requires almost 40 yuan in military pay a year, not to mention a lot of other expenses. Basically, it is impossible to support such a division without an expenditure of more than [-] yuan.And these are still three infantry regiments. If the second cavalry regiment and some troops directly under the division headquarters are added in the future, the total amount will be even more.Therefore, it is normal for Bogdan to send someone to write back to ask for money. After all, the part of the fee that was previously withdrawn has already been spent.

The military expenditure Bogdan applied for this time is 10 yuan, which is mainly used for the payment of salaries and the purchase of food, cloth and supplies in places such as Tiantai.Although this amount is not small, Jiang Zhiqing decided to approve it after thinking about it. No matter how poor the troops are, the Ming Dynasty was so poor. In addition, two renminbi of salary is paid (but you have to bear the cost of horse feed yourself. In conversion, the monthly salary of infantry is at least [-] yuan, and the monthly salary of cavalry is generally at [-] or [-] yuan). Some, of course, cannot be viewed at the level of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty.

Jiang Zhiqing had vaguely heard before that the regiments of the Second Division owed some expenses on credit for purchasing food, vegetables, melons, fruits, and meat in their respective garrisons, and the military pay was only paid for last month, which made people blush .You know, the Second Division is now a serious military unit after the military reform, and it can no longer mess around like before.

The second part of the letter is to report the movements of the Qing army in the Shaoxing and Jinhua prefectures, as well as the movement of the King Lu's troops who are regarded as allied forces.It is said that ever since Wu Sangui led his army southward to conquer Ming under the urging of the Qing court, the people on the east bank immediately issued a warning to the Qing court, and dispatched naval gunboats to sweep along the Yangtze River to cut off traffic. When he was away, he sneaked and transported at night, which was extremely embarrassing.But what is not surprising is that they still remained unmoved, continued to do their own way, and levied a batch of tax money in Jiangnan, intending to transfer them to Sichuan to reward Wu Jun, which is also arrogant.

Faced with such a situation, Jiang Zhiqing of the Southern Exploration Team planned to take some actions to give the Qing army some eye drops to combat their arrogance.However, considering that most of the funds in Ningbo are currently used to purchase food and supply the victims in Denglai, the scale of this battle is destined to be very small. In principle, only the three regiments of the Second Division of the New Army will be used as the backbone to support King Lu's troops. It's just a small-scale offensive against the central and southern regions of Zhejiang.And there is no combat goal set, and there is no rigid requirement to capture any area, it is very loose, and it can be seen that this battle is completely for support.

King Lu's subordinates were not happy about going north to attack the Qing Dynasty.Gein and their strength are already very weak, and they are worried all day long that the Qing army will attack, and you will let them raise their troops to the north, how can this be done?However, there are some things that Zhu Yihai can’t decide. Considering that they are lingering in southern Zhejiang, they are completely relying on the people on the east coast. On weekdays, the east coast also has a lot of supplies and equipment to maintain the troops of King Lu. The minimum combat power, so they have no choice at all, so they can only bite the bullet.

In addition, Jiang Zhiqing, the leader of the Southern Exploration Team, also stated that he would ensure that they would not be attacked from the flank by the Shun Army in Jiangxi during the battle with the Qing Army, and that they would be responsible for supplying part of their combat supplies. Then there would be no way out. I went up and kowtowed, I heard that once the Jinhua Mansion is captured, the people on the east bank will not take a penny, and all will be handed over to King Lu to manage, so there is still a little bit of trouble in this battle.

Bogdan, the commander of the second division, reported in the letter that this time, more than [-] troops were gathered from the prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of King Lu, led by Zhang Huangyan, his confidant minister, and planned to attack the Qing army in Jinhua Mansion in two ways.At the same time, some regiments were also mobilized in the prefectures and counties bordering the Qing army to prevent the Qing army from attacking from the flanks, so that they would not be caught off guard.

In addition, Bogdan also mentioned in the letter that Lu Wang Zhu Yihai has a strong appeal in Zhejiang, and his officials have been in and out of many prefectures and counties under the control of the Qing government, including Jinhua Mansion, and have been in constant contact with local gentry. , Even some officials in these prefectures and counties have secretly communicated with King Lu, and the degree of penetration is very deep.Therefore, Bogdan optimistically estimates that this time Zhang Huangyan led more than [-] troops into the Jinhua Mansion, and there may not be any tough battles to be fought. Maybe they can recruit and accept the rebels along the way, and then fight a few small battles, or kill or expel them. Some officials and troops who were still loyal to the Qing Dynasty were determined.

However, considering that the Ming army has always been pissed and often did some unthinkable things in a good situation, the people on the east bank still planned to dispatch part of the second division of the new army to attack from the flanks just in case. Its support-to put it bluntly, the fifth and sixth infantry regiments stationed in Tiantai County and Xikou Town will make a small dispatch to attack and harass Xinchang and other counties in the southern area of ​​Shaoxing Prefecture. The sight of the army, on the one hand, did play a diversionary role, protecting the flanks of the Ming army with suspicious combat effectiveness under King Lu.

The two regiments have a total of [-] infantry. Although they are in a kind of organizational chaos due to the reorganization, they are not something that the green camps of the Qing army in southern Shaoxing can insult.What's more, they only bear a certain degree of containment and harassment. In the eyes of the teacher Bogdan, it is not even much different from training, so they should still be able to complete the task smoothly.For the rest, it depends on whether Zhang Huangyan can live up to his expectations and win the Jinhua Mansion.

After reading these, Jiang Zhiqing stuffed the letter into Faith, put it aside, and then quietly meditated.King Lu's army began to mobilize in mid-to-late May. It will be the beginning of June, and a considerable amount of troops have already assembled in the two prefectures of Quzhou and Taizhou. They took the sea route to transfer grain, draft animals, and personnel, and it was also a struggle-it would probably take less than half a month to officially complete the war preparations.

In other words, the right-wing main force led by Zhang Huangyan will be able to launch an offensive in late June, and the left-wing division led by the veteran Wang Chaoxian will not be too late.From this point of view, the people on the east coast should also take action. The headquarters of the Second Division and the Fifth Regiment of the New Army can start from Tiantai County to divert and confuse; the Sixth Regiment can also start from Xikou Town , went up against the Fenghua River, and harassed the southern part of Shaoxing Prefecture; in addition, the fourth regiment was dispatched from Ninghai County as a whole and transferred to Tiantai County as a reserve team. This deployment almost fulfilled the obligation of harassment.

What's more, the whole government of Ningbo will also carry out a certain level of mobilization (of course not the level of general mobilization). Fuck, we need to be tight on the whole, all officers and soldiers will not be approved to ask for leave, all kinds of equipment will be maintained immediately, and the artillery will receive specially allocated projectiles and gunpowder for live ammunition training within three days (in order to save money on weekdays, live ammunition training can be as little as possible ).

Bingtuanbao interns and cadres (about [-] people in total) scattered in various states, counties, townships, enterprises and institutions will also return to their old jobs and conduct military training after work. Just in case, they will be the last to defend Ningbo. A line of defense.

Thinking of this, Jiang Zhiqing didn't hesitate anymore, and immediately asked the secretary to bring the letter paper, wrote the order with a brush on the spot, and carried out a series of deployments.

On June 1670, 6, a fleet led by ten 20-ton inland river/offshore general-purpose small steamers assembled in Heishui arrived in Fenghua via Dinghai and transported a large amount of war supplies here.Then, the scull boats, small punting boats, and awning boats that had been waiting for a long time immediately moved the supplies on the small steamer, and under the command of the logistics staff of the Sixth Infantry Regiment of the Second Division of the New Army, they headed towards Xikou. go to town.

There are many kinds of materials in this batch. In addition to commonly used spare barrels, bolt parts, maintenance tools, gunpowder, projectiles (including molds for making projectiles), gun barrels, gun carriages, spears, sabers, armor and other ordnance, it also includes Many things that were rarely seen before, such as sugar, tobacco, spices, cured meat, salted fish, spirits, new medicines, hemostatic bandages, standard military water bottles, new military leather boots, etc., and even toilet paper for wiping buttocks Centralized procurement, it can be seen that after the military reform, not only the salary of the new army has increased, but also the daily welfare benefits have reached a big level, because the superiors believe that good treatment will help improve morale, enhance the sense of honor and belonging of the soldiers, and improve Its subjective initiative, and these are obviously the qualities that the new army must possess—otherwise, why do you think the new army spends so much money, but everyone is still struggling to do it?

A large amount of supplies arrived at the front line—at present, the Southern Theater Command and the Bank of Taiwan are still in full swing for procurement. For this reason, they have been forced to embezzle the deposits of many customers in the Bank of Taiwan—after that, the Sixth Infantry Regiment of the New Army arrived on June 6. Departed from Xikou Town on the 26th, went upstream along the Fenghua River, crossed the valley between Siming Mountain and Tianmu Mountain, and entered Xinchang County, Shaoxing Prefecture, which was under the control of the Qing army. Resisting, he went straight to the county seat within a day.

And when Xinchang County's "encountering a thief" warning document passed through Shengxian County and Shangyu to Kuaiji and Shanyin (the two counties are in the same city), the entire Shaoxing Prefecture was shocked. The yellow-clothed thief, who had not encountered it for many years, could it be Are you going to kill him?

(End of this chapter)