January 1645 (the twelfth month of the 17th year of Chongzhen) was dull for Li Zicheng. First, more than 80,000 elite Qing troops led by Ajige, bypassed the heavy army group of Shun Army from Ordos, northern Selangor, and then raided Yulin. The Shun Army General Gao Yigong defended closely. The Qing army was in a hurry to get out, so he stayed in Ming, and the Shunshou army besieged Yulin, and he personally led the main force to attack the Suide front line. Li Guo hurriedly led his army back to aid, first fighting with the Qing army in Suide, but failed to win, and retreated to Yan'an.

When Li Zicheng heard that northern Shaanxi was in danger and his hometown was slaughtered, he hurriedly led his army to aid northern Shaanxi. However, halfway through the journey, he heard that the Qing army vanguard had appeared in Shanzhou and Tongguan, so he stopped again. At this time, the Western Route Army was defeated and reported that tens of thousands of Hui civilian cavalry advanced eastward. Faced with such a severe situation, the Shun Army, which was already in Qinghai and Gansu, was forced to start shrinking its front line, abandon Gansu, and retreat all the way back to Shaanxi. Soon, Li Dingguo, the southern army led his army to Hanzhong; the Ming army in Henan saw that the Qing army was in great power, did not dare to fight head-on, and then retreated back to the south to attack the Shun Army in Xiangcheng. The Dashun regime was almost facing a desperate situation of being surrounded by enemies.

At this time, the situation in Shandong was not very beneficial to the Qing court. Although Jinan received some reinforcements, Fang Dayou, the governor of Shandong of Qing, claimed that the Qing Dynasty had increased its troops by "300,000", but fools knew that there were not so many. Based on some vague and plausible information obtained, it was estimated that the Qing army would increase its troops by 10,000 or even 20,000 or 30,000. Among them, there might be 3,000 to 5,000 Manchurian soldiers, and the rest should be coated, followers and surrendered Ming troops, intervened, and surrendered Ming troops, intervened, and surrendered, were intertwined with a small number of more warlike Han Eight Banners soldiers. In general, the Qing army's military strength may have increased to 30,000 to 40,000, and the soldiers were probably between 10,000 and 15,000. I don't know if there were red-clothed cannons. But most of them were not. Because the Qing army in Jinan has not yet entered Qingzhou eastward. It is still in Jinan and Yanzhou to wipe out some small local anti-Qing armed forces.

A few days ago, Luo Guoshi secretly spread some news, saying that Huaiqing Prefecture was captured by Dashun at the beginning of November (the lunar calendar). Among them, the yellow-clothed cannons of Guo Sheng's troops played a huge role. The food and supplies accumulated by the Qing army in the city were destroyed. After the Shun army retreated, the Qing army of Duoduo's troops sent a few elite cavalry to continue westward. The main force paused for a long time. On the one hand, they were waiting for the red-clothed cannons, and on the other hand, they also collected food and grass on the spot. The envoys of Hetuo from Jinan ran back and forth between the capital and Huaiqing Prefecture. Finally, some troops were needed to support them. However, the red-clothed cannons he wanted could not count on Duoduo, and he himself had to take them to Tongguan to attack the city. Then Hetuo could only see if there was any extra in the city and the place of Beijing, and strive to get some cannons. Without red-clothed cannons, small-caliber ones could make do with it. It was better than nothing.

It was already mid-February 1645. The main force of the Duoduo army of the Qing army had just left Huaiqing Prefecture and headed towards Tongguan, more than half a month later than in history. Unfortunately, Li Zicheng did not seize the favorable opportunity of more than half a month and concentrated high-speed maneuvering forces to solve the difficulties in one direction first. He was still stationed in Luochuan, constantly sending people to inquire about the military situation in various places, watch the situation, and hesitated. During this period, he only sent a small number of reinforcements to support Han Wen, the general general of the Dashun Hanzhong who had retreated to Xixiang. Han Wen was just defeated by Li Dingguo's 30,000 troops. At present, there are only more than 4,000 troops on hand, and the situation in Hanzhong is critical.

Although the people on the east coast had just made a huge noise in Shandong and annihilated a large number of Qing troops, the main attention of the Qing court was still focused on the Li Zicheng Dashun group in the Shanxi and Shaanxi area. In order to successfully wipe out the Dashun army, the Qing court not only repeatedly emphasized not to shave his hair and change his clothes, but even announced the recognition of the fame of the previous dynasty, and also recognized all the policies of preferential treatment of gentry in the previous dynasty. At the same time, contacted Hui people and Mongolians in the northwest to attack Shu and attack Ming. As for the Southern Ming army that was active in Henan, they turned a blind eye to all, and even tried to win over and surrender, in order to concentrate on extermination of Li Chuang, the only Han military group on the land of China that could pose a major threat to the Qing Dynasty.

Under such circumstances, as the East Coast people with significant interests (population) in China, they naturally cannot sit idly by and watch the increasingly powerful Qing Dynasty defeat Li Chuang quickly. Even if they cannot prevent the Qing Dynasty from defeating Li Chuang, they must find a way to delay their progress. However, as the Qing Dynasty gathered more and more troops in Shandong, the pressure on the East Coast people became increasingly greater, and it is not as easy to do anything as before. For example, those gentry like fence-bearing plants, after seeing the Qing court launching a large increase in troops in Jinan, their arrogance gradually began to become arrogant, and the rural brave armed forces began to become increasingly active in the countryside.

Faced with the situation that became serious again, Mo Ming, Mao Desheng, Li Wenchang and others judged that the Qing court's large-scale eastward advance to Qingzhou was just around the corner. At present, they had expelled or eliminated some anti-Qing armed forces in Jinan, Yanzhou and Dongchang, and also hoarded some food and grass, waiting for the red-clothed artillery army to come - in this era, there would be no war without artillery. After the Qing army advanced eastward, Zhao Yingyuan's troops, whose forces in Qingzhou were inflated (accepted)

Many anti-Qing armed forces who escaped from Jinan, Yanzhou and other places must not be able to support them. Under the pressure of the Qing court that may have as many as 40,000 troops, Qingzhou City had almost no resistance. Since Qingzhou was inaugurated, Laizhou must not be defended. Moreover, the local gentry had long been looking forward to the arrival of the Qing army. By that time, the entire Shandong would probably be Penglai, and Yantai had not fallen. It is hard to say whether Penglai County (Dengzhou City) would surrender.

To this end, the people of the East Coast also began to make sufficient preparations. First, they selected some refugees who lived in the refugee for more than half a year and were relatively strong, and formed the 15th-18th Squadron of the Standing Team (the 11-14th Squadron is located in Dabo and Heishui for training). All of these four squadrons were spearmen squadrons, equipped with the captured Ming army and Qing army leather armor, and received training from the East Coast military instructors together with the subordinates of Zhai Congyan (Zhai Wu Monk). They have been training for nearly a month, and the effect can only be said to be careless.

The army of Zhai Wu originally had more than 3,500 people, responsible for training the East Coast military instructors. Some of the soldiers who were too old or too young, had poor nutritional conditions, and were too heavy to bear the hard training. Then they refined their subordinates into two thousand. These two thousand people were infantrymen, and their clothes and weapons were provided by themselves. In general, both appearance and actual combat effectiveness were much worse than those of the 1st team of the 1st team of the veterans. According to the evaluation of the East Coast officers who participated in the Battle of Anqiu, Zhai Congyan's combat effectiveness was stronger than that of the brave armed forces of the landlord township. After refining and training, they may also be slightly better than the ordinary Ming army, but compared with the erecting and training, the Han Eight Banners and other armies were still much worse than the Man Eight Banners and the Black Eight Banners.

"This kind of troops cannot fight tough battles for the time being, and cannot defeat the elite Green Camp and Eight Banners soldiers, but it is still possible to deal with the weak Korean troops. With sufficient logistics and comprehensive planning, it is not a big problem to defeat the thousands of Li Dynasty troops on Jeju Island. However, it is better to send a small number of troops to accompany them to fight, and once the battle situation is unfavorable, go forward and turn the situation around. After all, if their attack on Jeju Island is defeated, it would be a joke." Xiao Xi stood on the pier of Yantai Port Pier that had been initially thawed and said to Mo Ming.

Mo Ming was here to welcome several naval sailing ships entering the port. Although there were still some floating ice in the harbor, they were relatively small in size and not many in number, which no longer hindered the ship's navigation. After confirming that the ice conditions were eased, the six ships that had been away from the cold winter in the harbor of Lishiri Island immediately drove into Yantai Port with the strong northeastern wind. The six ships were all maintained in the harbor of Yuanbo Port, and the plankton at the bottom of the ship was cleared out, the leaking boards were replaced, and the broken canvas was repaired. After this rectification, even the oldest armed transport ship "Galicia Flying Fish" was completely renewed and had the ability to sail for a long time.

But of course Mo Ming was not prepared to let everyone sail. Navy ships only need to sail to Jeju Island not far away, and then attack the North Korean naval ships that may appear nearby. As for the remaining land offensive, they will be carried out by the army that went with the ship. They will be responsible for extermination of thousands of soldiers stationed on the island by the Lee Dynasty.

"The main combat force of the troops who landed on the island was set to Zhai Congye's troops. Sixty gunners recently trained in Yantai Fort brought six artillery pieces to assist in the battle. One thousand people from the newly formed 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Brigade were also sent to participate in the battle, so that they could feel the atmosphere of the battlefield. The 102nd Corps of the Army and the 3rd Battalion of the Eight Banners Army who stayed at Yantai Fort last time will be used as reserves to supervise the battle. In addition, the newly formed 2,500 military personnel will be transferred to the 2,500 newly formed military troop team.

.In this way, the total force is close to 6,600, and you are the commander-in-chief. You must annihilate the entire Li Dynasty army on Jeju Island in one battle, and then find a way to slowly control the entire island. I think there should be no special difficulties." Mo Ming put his hand on Xiao Xi's left shoulder and patted him and said, "In the future, Jeju Island will be the last refuge for these anti-Qing armed forces. I am not optimistic about the situation in the mainland and think it is better to find a place for them in advance."

"The Li Dynasty is very weak, and their army is even more vulnerable. If more than 6,000 people still cannot defeat them, I think we should just wipe our necks. There are more than 3,000 soldiers left on the island. Even if the Li Dynasty increases its troops, how many can it be? We have 6,600 people, even if we face ten thousand Li Dynasty troops, we can destroy it!" Xiao Xi smiled and clenched his right fist, and said with a relaxed expression: "This is probably an armed march. It is not difficult to defeat them. The difficult thing is how Zhai Congyan controls the situation on the island after we withdraw. There are enemies everywhere, and two thousand people can only occupy Jeju Prefecture and its surrounding areas. To truly control the entire island, this is not enough."

"There will be follow-up troops, don't worry about this." Mo Ming said with certainty. (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!