Dandong and Kuandian counties have been peaceful for a while. But if you look carefully, you can see that the trauma caused by the war is still everywhere: destroyed farmland, blocked wells, collapsed warehouses, charred houses, and new graves everywhere...

The harm caused by the rampant Tartars is really great!

It is precisely because of this that Li Ziqian's unit of the 10th Mixed Battalion of the Army, which was supposed to end the battle and return to the battalion for rest as planned, was similar to the 7th Mixed Battalion at the request of Major Liao Degong. The main elite troops of the 10th Mixed Battalion are now directly under the jurisdiction of the Denglai Security Command. If there is anything, local military and political officials can only negotiate with them to come to the more than 1,000 officers and soldiers of the department, which extended the time for several months and hit the grass valley around Phoenix City.

To be honest, this behavior of slashing grass valleys is actually a loss from an economic point of view! As the outpost area bordering the Qing Dynasty and the east coast, the few residents of Phoenix City had moved elsewhere long ago, and the rest were scattered and lived in various places, which were very remote. The local party may not be able to find them, let alone outsiders such as the 10th Mixed Battalion. This caused more than 1,000 officers and soldiers of the battalion and a large number of sergeants were eaten by outsiders, and they consumed a lot of money every day, but they only killed a few flies, killed, injured and captured only two or three hundred Tartar residents, but they did not catch a lot of money, and they had a lot of ammunition, equipment, medicine, food, clothes, shoes, boots, and even sergeants. It was a loss to my grandma's house.

The above is viewed from an economic perspective. If you look at it from a military perspective, the cost of this kind of sweeping behavior is not as high as you imagined, because it ensures that there is a relatively empty buffer zone between Dandong, Kuandian and Phoenix City, where the East Coast people focus on reclaiming. In this buffer zone, due to the large-scale sweeping factor, various Qing villages have been greatly reduced (in fact, after several years of war, many of these villages have been destroyed, and this time it was the last blow). If a small Qing army unit in Phoenix City or elsewhere wants to attack the East Coast Reclamation Area, replenishment will be a big problem, unless they store food in a hidden place in advance, but it is not as convenient as before.

In addition, from a political perspective, the 10th Mixed Battalion (the first division of the Liaodong New Army also sent some cavalry to help from time to time) spread in this mountain valley and sweep it greatly damaged the prestige of the Qing government and the courage of the military and civilians. Prestige and courage are quite suspense. Sometimes it seems useless, but sometimes it is extremely important.

To be honest, if the Qing army of Chongzhen had not broken into the pass five times, and the main force of the Ming army was beaten by the Qing army again and again, and even dozens of Qing troops chased thousands of Ming troops to run away, the psychology of the people in the north would have undergone subtle changes to admit that the Qing country had the qualifications to compete for the world, rather than the wild people outside the pass who lived in a corner?

This psychological change is actually very important, because it can weaken the resistance awareness of the enemy's military and civilians and facilitate the recruitment of large numbers of surrendered soldiers. After all, you cannot rely on yourself to conquer the world alone, which is too expensive. The same is true for the East Coast people to mobilize Liaodong. It is clear that the Eight Banners soldiers you are proud of cannot do in front of modern troops! If you don't want to burn both jade and stone, then timely surrender is a good choice. Anyway, our East Coast people are reasonable and civilized people, and will not rob your property, children and land at will (of course this is up to date. More than 30 acres of land per capita may be forced to be redeemed). As long as you pay taxes on time, undertake military service and labor, and have no rebellion or harming the country, then nothing is a problem!

The 10th Mixed Battalion has been active from last year (1675) to mid-year. At the beginning, the Phoenix City, the Qing Dynasty, sent some troops to stop them. As a result, after two or three defeats, they gave up the idea of ​​frontal stopping and instead raided through ambush, guerrillas, etc., but the effect was very little. So far, only caused less than 200 casualties in the 10th Mixed Battalion, and their own casualties were still a bit more. Therefore, they have almost given up now. The wild area between Dandong, Kuandian and Phoenix City has almost become a paradise for people on the east coast to have fun.

On July 20, 1676, two months after the last fight with the Qing army, Major Liao Degong, who was in charge of military and political affairs of the entire Liaodong Reclamation Area, formally wrote a letter to Yantai, requesting that the approximately 60,000 reclaimed people living in North Korea (a group previously diverted to Shandong and the northeast) be transported back to the right bank of the Yalu River in batches for reconstruction after the war. Liao Xiaoyao had officially approved the matter and allocated a batch of wheat, corn, and potatoes from Shandong's already tight grain reserves to serve as their food rations for the next period of time.

These rations will definitely not be able to fully support the grain harvest next year, so this requires a little more "borrow" from the Kingdom of Korea, which will probably cost about 200,000 stones. There is no doubt that this is not a small amount, and people on the east coast have already owed more than 800,000 stones of grain from the North Koreans before, and this batch has completely lost one million stones. According to the current market price of the grain, the total amount of grain payments of more than 5 million yuan has not been paid to the North Koreans (on average, each North Korean bears one yuan), and an average of hundreds of thousands of yuan per year is also amazing.

Of course, the North Koreans should not have much room for opposition. Not to mention that there are East Coast garrisons on the land of this country now (in fact, there are only about two thousand people, namely the Busan garrison). The Gangwon-do military envoy, Quan Bong-soo, was supported by the East Coast people (there are more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under his command). Just talking about the ruling class of his country is now increasingly tied to the East Coast people, which is from exporting a large amount of grain, honey, iron, medicinal materials, and tobacco to the East Coast control area every year, and then from the East Coast control area, and then from the East Coast control area.

It can be seen that the manufacturing area imports a large number of iron products, weapons, silk fabrics and a large number of luxury goods in South China. They cannot be even more reluctant to have a rigor with the East Coast. Although the North Koreans are reluctant to ask for some food from them, they will not refuse at once. As long as the East Coast people pay more or less money, they don’t need to be more than 200,000 yuan. They should send the food one after another. Although it is likely that they are all old grains and miscellaneous grains, they can also be used to save their lives, right?

"Kundian and Dandong counties were damaged a little badly. The damage to the city walls first needs to be repaired. This is a major event and also the foundation for our lives to save our lives. Otherwise, if the enemy attacks again, it would be difficult to defend. No matter how strong the 10th Mixed Battalion is, there are only one thousand people. How many nails can be made?" Standing outside the ruined Dandong County, Liao Degong touched the city wall made of red bricks and rammed earth with his hand, and said with some discomforts: "There are also some small forts in the wild, posts on traffic nodes, and grain warehouses in various counties and townships, which have also been destroyed. These have to be repaired or even rebuilt. It is very sad to think about it. They were all built by us one by one, but now they have been destroyed like this. This Tartar is really hateful."

In fact, compared with city walls and warehouses, farmland water conservancy facilities have been damaged even more. Many micro reservoirs, irrigation canals and other micro reservoirs that were dug up in the early stage were damaged in large numbers during the years when the Tatar army was raging. In the future, agricultural production will be restored, these are obstacles that cannot be avoided. A large number of people must be reorganized and a large amount of money and grain must be spent to repair them, otherwise nothing can be discussed.

In addition, the houses built one after another over the years were either demolished and used to build barracks, warehouses and even various equipment during the Tartars' attack, or burned a fire before the Tartars retreated, which was a heavy loss. The inhuman behavior of the Tartars undoubtedly aroused great indignation from the east coast, and they threatened to take revenge after they recovered, and at that time they would also let the Tartars feel what it means to kill, burn them all, and grab them all.

"Let's do this, the cement and lime that came from Yantai are given priority for the restoration of city walls and various fortresses. By the way, the construction of brick and tiles and wheel kilns has also been approved by the superiors. In Dandong County, this also requires some building materials. You have to reserve it for me. The technicians in Denglai will arrive next month." Major Liao Degong said to a group of cadres following him: "As for agricultural production, it will definitely be difficult to restore this year. Well, since agricultural production is definitely not restored this year, you might as well organize people to repair the city walls and fortresses first, and then dig the canals and ponds. When the spring of next year, we can plant wheat. At that time, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief, and we don't have to live under others every year and endure hunger."

The cadres following Liao Degong nodded slightly when they heard this, but their expressions were still a little solemn. This was probably because of the tragic consequences of this war with the Qing Dynasty.

Seeing that these people were not very angry, Liao Degong thought about it and said in an encouraging tone: "Look at you all dejected, what does this look like? Well? The Tartars can't laugh too much! Forget it, I'll give you some clues to you guys. The Liaodong strategy that Commander Liao of Denglai just formulated earlier this month is so powerful! It's scary to say that you are so scared that we will be directed to Shenyang, Liaoyang, and Jinzhou in the future, swallowing all the vast land east of Liaodong, and relying on the Yanshan Mountains and Shanhaiguan as the defensive boundary with the Qing Dynasty. In other words, we may all go to Shenyang to work in the future. This small Phoenix City in front of us is nothing, I don't even look at it."

Liao Degong's words really shocked many people. This was indeed what they did not expect. But everyone was also a little confused. At present, they only had 60,000 to 70,000 people in Liaodong, and a few thousand soldiers were enough to support them to occupy the entire Liaodong? This always sounds a bit unrealistic. You must know that the Eight Banners outside the Pass are not dead. They have 10,000 or 20,000 people, so how can they be so easy to share?

Liao Degong saw their doubts, but he did not intend to explain them more. He believed that smart people could naturally see clues from all kinds of information today. The Qing Dynasty would start wars in Sichuan, Huguang and Zhejiang, and the scale of the war gradually expanded from less than 100,000 people a year or two ago to more than 200,000 people now, and the intensity began to increase day by day, which consumed quite a lot of national strength. And now it is not as good as before. In the past few years, the Beijing court could easily send prisoners and reorganized hundreds of thousands of surrendered troops to the south, so that the

Because they were fed by the enemy, they not only did not have to bear any expenses, but they could even share the spoils. But now they couldn't do it. Zhejiang was unable to make a breakthrough due to the relationship between the East Coast people, and Sichuan was in chaos again. The Huguang front line was facing the fortification area of ​​Shunguo, and there were large rivers in Jiangxi. Madang fortress and even the East Coast gunboats. They could not quickly break into the enemy's territory to obtain supplies, so all expenses could only be on themselves. This was very fatal, and it was also one of the reasons why they had not launched a large-scale southern expedition for many years.

Moreover, according to the information obtained by the East Coast people, the trend of unification of Weilat Mongolia is becoming more and more obvious, and the talented and wise Jiazan (Galdan) showed amazing ability and great ambitions. His rise was both a good thing and a bad thing for the Mongolian tribes on the grassland, which depended on their respective positions. Of course, for the Qing court, which always advocated the integration of Manchu and Mongolia, the rise of Junggar Mongolia was indeed a big hidden danger, because it was digging their walls and destroying their foundation, which was something they could not tolerate, and it required a lot of energy to treat it well.

These two things are pressing on the head, and the power of the Qing court is greatly limited. The pressure faced by the people of the East Coast on their behalf in Liaodong is definitely not as great as they imagined. To put it bluntly, although Manchu is the so-called dragon-rise place of the Eight Banners, you don’t look at where most of the Manchus live now. Is the bitter and cold outside the Pass really absolutely impossible to abandon for the new generation of Manchus who are used to the colorful world inside the Pass?

From this perspective, the Liaodong strategy of the East Coast people may not be possible at all. Of course, the premise is that Denglai and even the wealthy Ningbo will provide a lot of assistance, otherwise it will be difficult, and it cannot conflict with the first-ranked strategy of immigration, otherwise there will be no way to talk about anything.

"Do it well, don't worry too much about the pressure from the Qing Dynasty. They have no gains this time. Even if they organize the same offensive in the future, I believe that we, who are already stronger, will face it more calmly. Time is on our side." Major Liao Degong finally said: "And the Blackwater Development Team has set the tone now. After achieving peace with the Russians, they will devote more energy to the south, go south along the Songhua River and Ussuri River, occupy more territory, control more people, and control all this large area of ​​land in our hands. Think about it, we have established a large colony that reaches the north, the Whale Sea to the east, the Albajin to the south, and the Yanshan Mountains to control millions of people. What a great cause!
Chapter completed!