In the early morning of May 1, 1658, it was light rain.￥f, outside Qingjiangpu Town, a carefully selected team was slowly approaching. The number of people in this team was about 3,500. They were the officers and soldiers of the 10th Division of the New Army stationed in Dinghai County, Ningbo Prefecture.

They were wearing iron armor and with the help of the 12 East Coast Army light artillery, they advanced towards Qingjiangpu Town. This was a tactic that they were so familiar that they could not be more familiar with. The East Coast people called "infantry and artillery coordination" and were a compulsory subject for every infantry battalion. The 10th Division of the New Army was no exception.

Qingjiangpu is a town that emerged along the river. It is administratively under the jurisdiction of Shanyang County. It has a vast territory, is crowded with people, is prosperous in business, is developed in handicrafts, Qinlou Chu Pavilion, wine shops and dining rooms, and private houses of salt merchants, rich men and officials are common. In short, this is a rich city and, most importantly, it has no city walls!

Yes, Qingjiangpu Town has no city walls! There is a saying among the locals, "Huai'an City is made of iron, Qingjiangpu with paper", which means that Shanyang County is a city with rammed earth and bricks, which is relatively strong, and there is only a short and thin small earth enclosure outside Qingjiangpu Town. This is simply allowing outsiders to rob!

"Boom! Boom!" Twelve artillery fired one after another, sweeping a few buildings on the other side of the river. More than a thousand Qing soldiers stationed here could not resist the enemy and retreated one after another. On the way to retreat, many people were knocked to the ground by bombs coming to the air. More than 300 people were killed or injured, and the morale of the soldiers on the east bank watching the battle on the south bank of the river was greatly shocked.

After easily eliminating the obstacles, more than 400 green-skinned gangsters who had recently defected to him were driven over. These people were wrapped in red scarves, naked, holding ghost-headed swords, and flew to the other side with a small boat.

The Qing army on the opposite side was as raining as arrows, and some green camp officers and soldiers were driven by officers and approached and shot desperately. Even Ding Weiyue, the commander of the 10th Division, vaguely saw some wealthy businessmen, and the officials' servants were helping with the war, which made him sneer. When he was uprising in Shandong and attacking the county town, he often encountered these people. Their combat effectiveness, haha, can only be described as vulnerable, but he can personally fight on the arrows and stones. He is indeed a brave man among servants.

Before the expansion and dredging of the mid-Qing Dynasty, Wenligou was just a small river flowing near Qingjiangpu, and in military terms, it did not have the conditions to hinder the enemy. In addition, the artillery on the east bank of the other side kept projecting artillery shells, so after a few brave Qing soldiers were killed or injured, few people were willing to rush out to stop the people on the east bank from crossing the river.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, a suicide squad composed of 400 Qingpi successfully crossed Wenligou after dozens of casualties and occupied the foothold on the other side. After they stood firm, they quickly began to build a floating bridge to allow the East Coast team to come.

The officers and soldiers of the 10th Division had already been ready. After just building a floating bridge, more than 500 pioneers quickly crossed the river under Commander Liao's repeated urging, and then expanded westward at the fastest speed, occupying the two major branches of Jingwei and Weihe, the Qingjiang Supervisor Shipyard, blocking a large number of anxious ship workers, craftsmen and their families in the factory. When the news came, Liao Xiaoyao's mouth was tilted. He immediately ordered the headquarters to be moved to the Great Buddha Temple north of Wenligou and continued to urge the various departments to develop in depth west.

At the same time, the temporary division of the North Bank also took advantage of the Qing army being attracted by the main force on the east bank to cross the Yellow River successfully and entered the small half of the Qingjiangpu urban area between the Yellow River and the Li Canal. It quickly occupied a cash gate, and then quickly expanded westward to disperse the already small Qing army, controlling large areas of shops, restaurants, granaries, money houses and houses, completely disrupting the situation in the entire Qingjiangpu Town.

At around nine o'clock in the morning, just when the 10th Division had conquered Mi City, Wenmiao and other strongholds and advanced to the Qingjiangzha area, the Fifth Brigade of the elite forward team (mainly German prisoners of war) also invaded the southwest of Qingjiangpu Town. After fierce battle, it conquered Chang Yingcang and some officials of the warehouse supervisors, and annihilated hundreds of Qing troops. At the same time, it also controlled the Zhili Branch of the Qingjiang Shipyard, which was located not far west of it, and the harvest was also very large.

The battle lasted less than three hours, and the Qing army had been killed or injured more than 2,000 people. The morale of the remaining thousands also dropped sharply. The two brigades of more than 10,000 soldiers of the temporary division, the 10th division, and the two brigades of more than 10,000 soldiers were firmly compressed into Qingjiang Pulou, Qingjiang Gate, some officials, Chenghuang Temple, Chaoguan and other isolated strongholds. It was only a matter of time before the collapse of the Qingjiang Supervisor Shipyard, Chang Yingcang and other important targets. It was only at this time that Liao Xiaoyao, who had been paying attention to important targets such as Qingjiang Supervisor Shipyard and Chang Yingcang, breathed a sigh of relief. He had time to pay attention to the movements in the downtown of Shanyang County. But unfortunately, it is said that there are more than 4,000 soldiers in Huai'an City so far. Fortunately, Liao Xiaoyao reserved most of the field groups to guard against Shanyang County. He really looked up to these mutton-stuffed goods!

At 11:00 a.m., after occupying the Zhongdu branch of the Qingjiang Supervisor Shipyard, two brigades of 4,000 elite soldiers paid the price of more than 100 casualties and forcibly conquered the Qingjiang Pu Tower, which was defended by the Qing army and its nearby areas. In this fierce battle, the Qingjiang Pu Tower, which had a long history, was destroyed by the fire of fire. The defending Qing army deputy general led more than 1,000 soldiers to die on the spot.

The officers and soldiers of the 10th Division, commanded by Liao Xiaoyao, captured the Qingjiang Gate. Half of the more than 2,000 guarding the Gate, and half of them were begging for surrender. Then, the 10th Division quickly squeezed out more than 1,000 people to move south. Together with the two thousand Zhang brothers of Dashun Zuoying who had recently entered the city, the last more than 1,000 Qing army was surrounded in some offices of the factory supervisors. At this point, the overall situation in the city has been decided.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Liao Xiaoyao, who had just finished lunch, received a report: After the call failed, the army attacked some of the officials and offices of the Qing army's last stronghold, the Qing army survived. In addition to a few surrenders, the rest were killed. At this time, more than 4,000 officers and soldiers of the temporary division on the north bank of the canal also controlled the entire territory, and the battle was basically over.

Upon hearing the news, Liao Xiaoyao immediately ordered all troops stationed outside the city (the 4th Division of the New Army, the 9th Division, and 3,000 Korean soldiers) to enter the city in turn. Li Yuanyin's troops from Guangdong were stationed in the old camp south of Wenligou to guard against the Qing army's raid. In addition, thousands of Lu Wang Navy officers and soldiers who transported materials with the army also entered the water gate, and a large number of ships were also anchored here at the same time, which was considered to have a place to settle down.

The huge Qingjiangpu, with a population of more than 300,000, tens of thousands of craftsmen, thousands of canal ships (including some private merchant ships), hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and more than 700,000 stones of rice and wheat, all fell into the hands of the people of the East Coast!

"The population is not very clear. The Yellow Book of the Qing people has always been impossible to do, and the household registration statistics are still in Shanyang County. However, according to our estimates, although Qingjiangpu Town had a large number of people outflows a while before the war started, most of them were wealthy businessmen and their relatives, with a limited number of people. At this time, it is conservatively estimated that there are still 300,000 people in the entire town, and among them, handicraftsmen (mainly craftsmen of the upstream and downstream industrial chain of shipbuilding), literary and artistic workers (storytellers, opera troupes, arts practitioners, brothel practitioners, etc.), doctors, scholars, and merchants

The proportion is very high, and the supplement to our country will be very large." An officer had already summarized the statistics of the information to Liao Xiaoyao as soon as possible. They only heard them say: "Two of the taxes of the three major banknotes have been counted, including more than 285,000 taels of silver in the Qing Dynasty. Because the Qingjiang Pulou Bank was destroyed in the war, the tax statistics may not end until tomorrow. In addition, we also found more than 80,000 taels of silver from several yamen in the town, and there were 40,000 taels of silver in the Qingjiang Shipyard, which was also confiscated by us."

"Chang Yingcang has been fully controlled by the fourth brigade of the forward team. Zhang Jingchun of Shunjun once brought people to ask for military rations, but was rejected by the officers in the team. They seemed very angry, but they had no choice but to seal off the Neimi City and more than ten grain shops in the town, which was considered to be self-raised military rations." Some intelligence staff began to make small reports, "The Volunteer Independence Corps (that is, hundreds of green-skinned gangsters) reported to me that Zhang Guangcui of Shunjun trespassed into many private houses of wealthy merchants in the city and forcibly distributed military expenses. Dozens of Shunjun officers and soldiers crossed the canal to collect money and grain, and were detained at the stone wharf by the temporary division. The two sides are currently negotiating."

"This is not good..." Liao Xiaoyao felt troublesome when he heard it. "Don't Chang Yingcang's account book contain 730,000 shi of rice and wheat? He sent 50,000 shi to the Zhang brothers and told them that we would leave 30,000 shi in Guanhekou and Yuntiguan, and the taxes counted in Qingjiangpu Cash Pass were also left to them. The wealthy businessmen and officials in the city had a lot of wealth, and they would leave some of them after we had finished counting. This was enough to recruit soldiers and horses in the Huaian Prefecture area. By the way, the deposits in the money houses in the city could not be given, so we would take them away."

"Let Bogdan of the temporary division release the people. The enemy is in the face of harmony. Since we have granted Huai'an Prefecture to Dashun Zuoying, we will have to cooperate more in the future, so let's forget about some trivial matters." Liao Xiaoyao said again, "The acting leader of the independent regiment is Hu Xingbang, right? Very good. When our army arrived, he was decisive (actually speculation). He also calculated his strength when attacking Qingjiangpu. After the war, he could also promptly inform the city's movements. This time he was asked to officially become the regiment commander. Some of the surrendered Qing soldiers were also allocated to them and gathered them up to two thousand people. In the future, he would pick them up a piece of land in Shandong. This is a reward for his contribution. Our Great East Coast has always been generous."

"Finally, everyone, the population of Qingjiangpu Town is no less than 300,000, so the relocation must be started immediately. The craftsmen and family members of the shipyard will start to move. The stored grain in Changying Cang will also start counting and transporting them immediately. A large transformation station will be set up in Yuntiguan. All personnel and materials will be moved immediately to Dengzhou and Ningbo. There must be no mistakes." Liao Xiaoyao ordered, "As for Shanyang County, which is close to you, Li Yuanyin's troops will join the artillery to attack and capture. The Zhang brothers of the Shun Army led their troops south to Baoying area to warn Yangzhou Prefecture that there might be Qing troops going north. Also, inform Sun Wu of the Northern Army to guard against Shushui, Shuoxiang Lake, and Guanhe line, and prevent the Qing army from going south from the north. Just do this." (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!