"What?" Gao Jie, who had just lowered his eyebrows and pretended to be polite, exploded when he heard this, "Man, Man, the Tatars are coming? Where did they go? Did they go to Shandong?"

Although Gao Jie was a bandit, he joined the army in the eighth year of his stay in Chongzhen. He had long been infected with Manchuphobia. Although the symptoms were not yet advanced, he was still frightened when he heard that the Manchu Tatars were attacking.

He came north to perform meritorious service, not to die!

Shi Kefa glanced at him, shook his head and said: "We haven't reached Shandong yet... The newspaper said that the Tatars suffered a loss in Dagu, Tianjin Wei, and were defeated by the new army led by the prince to overcome the difficulties, with two or three casualties.

Thousands! His head alone was cut off by two thousand and several hundred!"

"What?" Gao Jie took a breath, "Two thousand and hundreds of heads? Isn't this too cruel?"

"Hard?" Shi Kefa didn't understand at first and looked at Gao Jie blankly.

"You are killing good people and taking credit for your merits!" Gao Jie said, "How can you cut off the heads of two thousand and hundreds of Tatars? They must be killing good people and taking credit for their merits... Isn't this person too cruel? Kill them in one go.

We have saved two thousand and hundreds of good people!"

Shi Kefa thought for a while, nodded and said: "It must be like this... The prince grew up in a deep palace and didn't know about military affairs, so he was deceived by Wu Xiang, Wu Sanfu and his son!"

"What should we do?" Gao Jie asked tentatively.

Shi Kefa understood that Gao Jie was testing him, so he sighed and said: "The Tatar army is at its peak, and our country cannot resist it. For the current plan, of course, peace negotiation is the top priority, and war defense is the bottom priority. However, preparations for war defense must be made.

!

Gao Zongzhen, you are the commander-in-chief of the reinforcements and suppression forces and the leader of all the towns in the Central Plains. You must make more preparations to resist the captors."

Gao Jie frowned bitterly, "Da Sima, the number of soldiers and horses in this town is nominally 30,000, but the actual number of troops that can be used is only a few thousand, and they are all exhausted soldiers. How can we resist the Donglu and Liu bandits at the same time?"

"If you don't have enough troops, just transfer them!" Shi Kefa stroked his beard and paused, "The headquarters is planning to go north to Yanzhou... and gather Huang Degong, Liu Zeqing, Liu Liangzuo and other three towns in Yanzhou, plus Ma Shiying, Lu Zhenfei and others.

Second Governor, go north to King Qin together! Gao Zongzhen, Yanzhou is your territory now. In a while, a hundred thousand troops will gather. There are a lot of preparations to be made, right?

In addition, the imperial court has moved to Dengzhou...the land route to Dengzhou must be opened as soon as possible! As long as the land route is opened, we can lead our troops to greet King Qin!"

Shandong is now in great chaos. The power of Dashun has retreated, but the rule of the Ming Dynasty has almost collapsed. There are only Dengzhou Fucheng, Laizhou Fucheng, Dengzhou Guard, Lingshan Guard, Weihai Guard, Chengshan Guard, and Jing

The acropolis of Haiwei, Dasongwei and Aoshanwei are still under the banner of the Ming Dynasty.

The road and land transportation from Dengzhou to the south has also been interrupted. Therefore, the edicts, reports and texts sent by Zhu Cihong to the south had to be sent to Haizhou by Shen Tingyang's sand ships, and then sent to various places.

Because the sea route was completely in the hands of Shen Tingyang, who was loyal to Zhu Cixiang, it was difficult for a loyal minister like Shi Kefa to establish direct contact with Emperor Chongzhen, so he did not know what Emperor Chongzhen was thinking... In case the prince did not want to seize power,

Did the emperor really think that the prince was wise and mighty and wanted to give up the throne in advance?

Even if the loyal ministers of Shi Dynasty do not understand the situation, they dare not mess with King Qin! If he makes a mistake, he will be a traitor and a traitor, and his head will be beheaded!

"Xiaguan understands," Gao Jie rolled his eyes and already understood what Shi Kefa meant, "Xiaguan will leave for Yanzhou immediately."

"Son," Shi Kefa said to his godson Shi Dewei, "take a few people and go to Yanzhou with the people from Gaozong Town. If the road is opened, go to Dengzhou immediately."

"My child obeys my command."

Sending Shi Dewei north to Dengzhou was not Shi Kefa's impromptu idea, but had been brewing for several days. As the leader of Donglin and the leader of the Southern Zhili officialdom, he had to find out the situation in Dengzhou before deciding whether to support the emperor.

Father, rebuke your rebellious sons and traitorous ministers!

...

To the south of Dengzhou Water City, a large flat open space has now become a sea of ​​soldiers!

The soldiers in the brigade all wore red shirts, which were simple red cloth robes with white cloth shirts and cotton trousers underneath. They also wore a pair of cloth shoes with thousand-layer soles on their feet, and their calves were wrapped in circles with cotton strips.

Got leggings.

More than 10,000 people were neatly dressed and standing on the playground. In front of them were New Army officers wearing official uniforms and military boots. From a distance, they looked like an elite army. It was the same as before in Tianjin Wei and Dagu.

The way he speaks is also a little different.

The new army that has arrived in Dengzhou has undergone another round of reorganization!

Although Zhu Cixiang didn't know much about military affairs, he also knew about the modern European-style troops lining up to be shot. Previously at Dagukou, he had assisted the forwards of the new army's middle division to train in this area, and the actual combat results were actually good!

Firegun soldiers equipped with sleeves and spears were no worse than pikemen when resisting the impact of Manchu cavalry. In the Ming army during the Chongzhen period, the proportion of pikemen was actually not high, and the quality of pikes was generally higher.

Poor, often easily broken.

The bayonet and musket can completely combine melee weapons and projectile weapons, which means they are all "short spearmen" and all "musketeers". There is no need to change weapons or adjust the formation during the battle.

Just follow the command to line up, march, shoot and assault!

The difficulty of training and commanding is actually greatly reduced compared to the traditional playing methods in the past.

The minimum requirement is just like the fire rifle soldiers under Hao Yaoqi's command in the Battle of Dagukou. They form a formation, get the enemy close, fire a volley, and then charge as a group.

Although it may not be possible to achieve ideal results every time (records like that in Dagukou are accidental), the exchange ratio will not be too bad.

So after Zhu Cixiang arrived in Dengzhou, he began to use the Central Division's forward battalion as a template to train more fire gunmen.

According to his vision, in the future, the new army's land force should be used to overcome difficulties, with artillery as the main force, cavalry and artillery as the coordination, and supplemented by engineers and heavy equipment, forming a quasi-modern model of the army.

Of course, the idea is good, but the reality is also very helpless... First of all, Prince Zhu's "modern army" does not have enough firecrackers, so most of the "firecrackers" can only carry

Wearing a spear as an alternative.

Secondly, the artillery has been unable to be established because there are no usable field artillery and there are no qualified artillerymen. The artillerymen brought by Zhu Cixiang from Beijing and Tang Ruowang's disciples are not qualified field artillery.

Finally, Zhu Cixiang did not have any qualified new officers available. Neither Wu Sanfu, Wu Guoyong, Li Ruolian, nor the former bandits Hao Yaoqi and Fengsan understood what a "modern army" was, and neither did Zhu Cixiang himself.

So now they can only train their troops to line up in horizontal or column lines, follow orders and pretend to fire, pretend to use bayonets and firecrackers in hand-to-hand combat and other simple tactics.

In addition to the above, it is a lot of physical training and discipline!

Two exercises a day are indispensable, and night training is also conducted from time to time. Punishments such as beating with a military stick and being placed in solitary confinement are carried out every day. The military sticks are carried out in public, and they are kept until they cry for father and mother!

Zhu Cixiang spent several hours in the military camp every day and watched the enforcement of discipline.

Today is no exception, Wu Xiang, Cao Youyi, Wu Sanfu, and Bi Jiucheng will all crowd behind him.

Amidst the cries of father and mother, Wu Xiang said softly: "Master Qiansui, are you too harsh? Haste makes waste..."

Zhu Cixiang said coldly without looking back: "It's not that I am eager for success, but that the Tatars are pushing too hard... Do you think they will be content with half of the country in the north? This is impossible! Because

All the wealth in the world is in the southeast! Northern Zhili alone and Shanxi cannot support a Qing Dynasty!"

He paused and then said to Wu Sanfu: "I will instruct the officers who are being beaten by the soldiers later to take good care of them and personally apply medicine to them!"

Wu Sanfu nodded quietly.

Zhu Cixi turned around and left with a cold face, then suddenly turned around and ordered: "Let's have lunch today at the Second Battalion of the Zuo Division's Forward Association, and we'll pay you after lunch!"

The army must be beaten with military sticks, the food must be prepared, and military pay must not be withheld - otherwise the military sticks will break up people's hearts and the team will not have cohesion.

It is impossible to make a leap in training, equipment and command levels in a short period of time. It takes time to purchase guns and cannons, and it also takes time to recruit foreign generals who can improve the level of training.
Chapter completed!