The rumbling cannon sound had just stopped.

Outside the Maojiakou Fortress City, the auxiliary soldier Zhang Xiaomao walked on the muddy land, walking deep and shallow. Not long after the Qing army retreated, there was no figure in the four fields. Apart from the whistle and whistle, there were only the faint moans of some injured people. Obviously, these wounded people were all Qing soldiers. Because they retreated in a hurry, the Qing army had not even taken away the bodies of their own fallen brothers, let alone these wounded people.

Waiting for the fate of these Qing army wounded soldiers is actually destined, that is, the auxiliary soldiers of the Shun Army who were cleaned up the battlefield and take down their heads as the basis for making a plan. Of course, the minor wounded may survive because they are of value, but how many of these people can have, very few of them.

There is some mud on the battlefield, half because of weather, half because of man-made. It is easy to understand the weather reasons. In recent days, heavy snow has been falling, and after the snow on the ground has bleeded, there is mud everywhere. But it is said that it is human-made, mainly because even on dry days, Maojiangkouzhai will try to put some water in front from time to time to make the ground softer and more muddy, which is not conducive to the army's actions. Of course, this behavior is not common and it is not easy to complete.

It was already evening, the sky gradually darkened, and the muddy ground began to freeze slowly. Zhang Xiaomao accelerated his movements and successively repaired the two wounded Qing soldiers who were still breathing. Then he directed several strong men who obeyed his orders to collect the bodies into one piece to load them, intending to pull them to a farther place to burn them in a while.

Although the climate is colder now, if the corpses are not processed as soon as possible, a series of problems will still arise, such as epidemics, etc. The Qing and Shun armies have fought in Hubei in recent years. The handling of corpses is usually done by digging pits of people to bury them or burning them directly, just like the officers and soldiers of the front camp of the Shun Army in Maojiakouzhai did.

Yes, Zhang Xiaomao and others belong to the front camp of the Shun Army. They were under the command of Dang Jintang (son of Dang Shousu), and guarded the Maojiakou Fortress. This fortress is located in Maoshi Town, Jianli County, Hubei Province. On the north bank of the Yangtze River, it is a fortress with a mixed structure of bricks and wood. It is not large in size and can only be stationed with more than 2,000 soldiers, but its geographical location is relatively critical. It is surrounded by water systems such as the Yangtze River, Xiashui, Honghu, etc., and the rivers and streams are crisscrossing, which is not conducive to the driving of the Qing cavalry. The water transportation transportation is relatively developed, which is conducive to the exchange of personnel, materials and money and grain with the outside world. Therefore, it was occupied by the Shun Army very early and built a fortress, installed cannons, and dispatched personnel.

Moreover, perhaps because the Qing army naval forces were destroyed by the east bank, in Hubei and Jiangxi, the Shun Army developed a medium-sized Yangtze River naval division after decades of dedicated operation, with a general staff of about 30,000. The naval ships in Shun Country are still dominated by traditional Chinese ships. Only a very small number of ships absorbed the characteristics of Western and Eastern coast ships and made certain improvements. However, the overall number of such ships is relatively small, because they may not be suitable for China's climate and river characteristics.

But no matter what, even if this Shunguo navy is not as good as the navy under the jurisdiction of the regimes that have separatist the south in terms of scale and quality, in Hubei and Jiangxi, there is no major problem in suppressing the Qing Dynasty, controlling the rivers and crossing rivers and lakes in Hubei, the navy of the Qing Dynasty was far inferior to the Northern Dynasties regimes in the past dynasties. What else can we say?

It is precisely the existence of this advantageous navy that allowed Shunguo to retain a considerable number of strongholds on the north bank of the Yangtze River as a powerful supplement to its defense line of the river, such as Hao**, Maojiakou, Bailuoji, Huangpengshan, Xintan Town, etc. These strongholds have two or three thousand troops stationed, and the most are six or seven thousand. The city is high and the pool is deep, and it is extremely strong. The shape is also designed by engineers on the east coast or imitated the fortress designed on the east coast. It has a little bastion, and the walls have broken lines and many protruding parts. If the enemy attacks, it will be embarrassed to find that the side back also has to bear firepower. At this point, the Qing army has experienced it many times - it is very conducive to defense. So, don’t look at a fortress with only a few thousand soldiers, but if the reserves of arrows, ammunition, grain and other military funds are sufficient, it is generally difficult to break the front.

Don't believe it? Look at the actual situation of the Qing Dynasty and Shun on the front line of Hubei over the years! Take Wujiaxue Town in Huangzhou Prefecture as an example. At first, it was occupied by the front battalion of the Shun Army and stationed more than 2,000 troops. Later, Xiangyang agreed to mobilize Huangzhou, De'an and nearby Anqing, Luzhou to besiege a total of four governments. It took a year to lose more than 15,000 troops, and then it was barely defeated. Moreover, this was only a loss of personnel, artillery, firearms, siege equipment and other losses.

I don't know how many of them are. Therefore, after conquering this place, the Qing army also learned the power, so they also learned the tactics of Shunguo, using fortresses to counter the fortresses, and using strong cities to overcome the city, and then made it difficult to move forward in the front line of Hubei. Not to mention, rivers, lakes and swamps are everywhere, which is not conducive to large-scale military agglomeration, mobilization and combat. I believe that if Shunguo had not been given some pressure and restrained some of its troops, the Qing Dynasty would not have tried to attack the Shunjun controlled area in Hubei.

Of course, even if the Qing army attacked the Shunjun controlled area, there were only a few who directly attacked the fortresses. The most they did was to try to eliminate the Shunjun who rescued these fortresses by surrounding and attacking the transportation lines and plundering the places. For example, there were really few who did it directly, because this was really not smart enough.

Therefore, when he saw more than 10,000 Qing troops attacking the Maojiakou fortress, the auxiliary soldier Zhang Xiaomao was quite surprised. I believe that the commander of the castle was also surprised: although the power of the cannons was greatly reduced due to the muddy ground, the large number of crossbows and muskets in the city were enough to make you suffer a lot. He was still here to attack, and I don’t know which person was in command. However, when he thought that sometimes Shunguo would organize a large army of water and land to siege the fortress guarded by the Qing army, Zhang Xiaomao was speechless. He felt that the commander who was in a trauma seemed to be not only on the Tartars, but also on the front, middle and back camps on his own.

"Wang Jiu, what do you think you are still living here? Why don't you cross the river and go to your relatives and maybe you can still separate places. Look, there are not many people in the town now, right? No one can settle down when fighting every few days." Zhang Xiaomao quickly searched the body and picked up the people, while saying to a civilian who was following behind.

This auxiliary soldier named Wang Jiu is actually a civilian from a nearby village. He was recruited because of the war. In fact, you don’t have to wonder. In history, the two armies were said to be a white land, but it was not really a waste of grass. There were still some residents living there. Although life was difficult, they always persisted in the local area for various reasons. Not to mention, a place like Maojiakou with fertile land and suitable climate. When the Qing army came, the whole family ran on the boat and walked away directly. When the war ended, the life was difficult to maintain. This was the case with Wang Jiu in front of him.

"The ancestors' tombs are all here, so I can't bear to go lightly." Wang Jiu, who had also gone out to explore when he was young, sighed and said in a muffled voice: "Besides, where can I go? Both of my sons are under the commander of Dushi (Dang Jintang) to eat with guns. It's not interesting to go to Jiangnan, a bad old man. It's better to live here."

Zhang Xiaomao sighed after hearing this. He was from Jianli County in the south. He was originally following a tea merchant to take the job, but Jianli County faced the Qing army's military front. The business situation was not good. The merchants could not make money, so they simply crossed the south of the Yangtze River to Yuezhou City (Baling County) to develop. Zhang Xiaomao had no livelihood, so he went to the county to apply for the conquest and became a big soldier, and then was mobilized to Maojiakou Village. It has been a year since then.

During this year, Maojiakou Village was not peaceful overall. Perhaps because the Zuoying entered Sichuan and killed all directions, the Qing army's Xiangyang Camp launched a series of offensives on the Hubei front line (there were also supporting offensives in Jiangxi), attracting a large number of people, including the front camp and the middle camp.

Although the Qing army's offensive was intermittent, it was surprising for more than two years. Perhaps because they did not want to see a large number of Hubei troops being easily transferred to the west and then joined the battle situation in Sichuan, they have been working hard to carry out a war of restraint. However, this kind of restraint war now seems to be coming to an end. First, because the situation in Sichuan has undergone a fundamental change and the situation is very clear. The Qing army has retreated to the northern Sichuan area and the defeat has been decided. There is no need to support it on the second battlefield again; second, they have been attacking on the front line of Hubei for a long time. Although they have been fighting for several months and resting for several months, the overall consumption is also very large. Whether it is soldiers, food or materials, they are not a small amount, and they need rest and supplements urgently.

Therefore, based on the above two factors, the Qing court probably would soon stop this meaningless and costly offensive against both sides. Next, if they were willing, they would find a way to seek breakthroughs in the Jiangxi area. After all, there is no continuous fortress there, and it would be easier to attack. Of course, what Zhang Xiaomao didn't know was that the Southern Development Team government of the East Coast people had long signed a peace agreement with the Qing Dynasty. The two sides had officially demarcated the boundaries and began trading with each other. The Hangzhou camp in the Qing Dynasty could draw considerable troops to support the Nanjing camp, so that more troops would advance westward, and stationed to the border between the Jiangnan province of the Qing Dynasty and Jiangxi province of the Shun Kingdom, waiting for an opportunity to launch an attack.

"Stay and keep it. The hard days are probably over. There should be a long period of peace in the future." After working for a while, Zhang Xiaomao was tired, so he found a relatively dry place to sit down and said gasping: "I was having dinner in the village a while ago. I was lucky enough to meet the commander. I vaguely heard him mention that there were a lot of troubles in the north. I was killing sheep for the commander at that time, and I was a little far away. I didn't hear it very clearly. In short, the meaning is that there are border troubles in the northwest of the Qing Dynasty, and the pressure is very high, and I have to truce in our area. Well, the commander also listened to what the commander said, and he was not sure, but I thought it didn't seem fake. So, Wang Jiu, if you wait for a while, the hard days will be over."

"That would be the best." Wang Jiu was still busy on the ground. He had just found half a string of copper coins on a corpse, and Zhang Xiaomao signaled him to put it away quietly, so he was more enthusiastic and stacked the Qing army's corpse that was stripped off from a varnish without any fatigue onto a large cart. Although the Qing army's varnish was of no use, it could not be worn openly in the Shunguo controlled area, but it was okay to take it back and take it apart for other purposes, or sew the damaged varnish. Therefore, according to convention, the Qing army's corpse was basically burned naked.

"Zhang Tou, you are right, I think it's true." After working for a while, Wang Jiu sat down and rested for a while, and only heard him say: "Recently, many people have said that the Shaanxi-Gansu boys who fought the most fiercely in war have disappeared, or even seen it less. I think, the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Camp of the Tartars has always been able to fight and fight, and is extremely brave. It is always difficult for us to encounter field battles here. These people have been wiped out, right? No one can do this? So, these people should have been transferred! I used to think they went to Sichuan Middle School, but now after Zhang Tou said this, I feel that they have all returned to their hometown in Shaanxi, so why should they be guarding against such border problems?"

In fact, as Zhang Xiaomao and Wang Jiu said, in the past six months, the Qing army has indeed taken advantage of the opportunity to fight to frequently adjust the equipment and arrangement of the front line, and transferred a large number of Shaanxi-Gansu Green Camps, which can be conquered and fought well, back to the northwest in batches to guard against the harassment that the Mongols may bring. You must know that as Galdan digests the movements of the southern Xinjiang and the Mongol tribes of Weilat, he can now draw more and more troops to advance eastward.

According to the Qing court's own statistics, in the past three years, Galdan and his servants have invaded the Hexi Corridor five times. Although they were forced to retreat by the Qing army, and there was no firefight between the two sides, the situation was undoubtedly more serious, and Emperor Kangxi in Beijing was not taken seriously.

What's more, the infiltration of Galdan on the Mongolian grasslands made them even more troubled, because it was a danger of shaking its foundation for the establishment of "Manchuria and Mongolia". Therefore, for various reasons, the Qing court decided to start from both military and political aspects as soon as possible to eliminate Galdan's threat.
Chapter completed!