Since the Qing army entered the south, they frequently massacred cities and even enclosed land, forcing people in various places to flee. Coupled with the fact that we were in the Little Ice Age, the weather in this season was already dry, locust plagues were everywhere, and many places had no food harvests.
In other words, even if the autumn harvest is over, the Qing army's military grain reserves will not be greatly improved.
Hence, the Chaozhou Refugee Point became the hope for generals to make meritorious deeds.
As soon as his mind became active, the Zhenguo general immediately sent a detective horse to Chaozhou to investigate the specific situation, and at the same time reassembled the Qing troops who had been scattered for food.
Due to insufficient military ration reserves, the Zhenguo general obeyed Lord Beile's order early and dispersed his more than 10,000 Qing troops who had been transferred from the Ming Dynasty's surrendered troops to eat.
The so-called eating means robbing the people to be self-sufficient.
Of course, 60% of the harvest must be handed over. Otherwise, what will the general of the country use to support his own soldiers?
Like the Qing general Dorobelek Dehun, General Zhenguo also had a group of Eight Banners soldiers to act as personal soldiers to restrain those surrendering troops.
It’s just that the generals of Zhenguo have a low position. Dorobelek Dehun has 1,200 Eight Banners soldiers as personal soldiers, while the generals of Zhenguo only have 280 Banners soldiers, not even one Niulu.
The Qing Army’s Eight Banners each had a strength of three hundred soldiers.
However, just when General Zhenguo sent a detective horse to Chaozhou to check the situation, Feikeshi sensed something not good.
After all, the Qing army's detective horses, which had rarely appeared in the past, frequently appeared nearby. Even a fool knew that something was wrong.
Although Feikeshi had little military experience, he was not stupid. He asked the infantrymen who protected them to make a trap and killed three Qing army detectives in one fell swoop, and captured one alive.
After interrogation, it was found that this man was a surrendered soldier from the Qing army. The general who sent them out did not explain the reason, but based on his experience, he could guess that the general wanted to send troops.
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Before the Qing army sends troops, it will definitely send a large number of scout horses to carefully search for the enemy's situation.
After receiving this information, Feikeshi did not dare to delay and immediately picked up his PHS and reported the matter.
There is no way, there are only two hundred infantry in Chaozhou, which is enough to scare the refugees and protect the safety of the senators.
But if you fight the Qing army, it won't work.
The reason is simple. The veteran officer commanding the two hundred infantrymen was too young and had never participated in a battle, which really made Feikeshi worried.
After Feikeshi’s report, the Ministry of Military Affairs immediately took action.
Since we don’t know how many troops the Qing army may send, and the refugee camp has been greatly expanded, we need enough troops to hold it.
Under such circumstances, the Fourth Division, which was originally temporarily stationed in Xinghai City, was ordered to fight in Chaozhou.
As introduced before, the Fourth Division is composed of three infantry regiments with a total of 3,067 people. It is equipped with Mauser G98, 88 field guns and grenade launchers and other weapons. Although most of them are new recruits
, but with advanced weapons that are almost three hundred years ahead of this era, Sun Xuebin is not too worried about sending this division to Chaozhou.
However, it took Sun Xuebin a lot of energy to assemble a fleet to transport this force to Chaozhou.
He even ran to the dock and forcibly intercepted the 10,000-ton oil tanker that had just been unloaded.
However, even if this 10,000-ton oil tanker was intercepted by him, it would not be able to carry troops there for a while. Its cargo warehouse would need to be modified and decks added to achieve the purpose of transporting troops.
Fortunately, a merchant fleet had just returned from Chaozhou. After driving the refugees off the ship and disinfecting them, the two infantry regiments and their equipment hurriedly boarded the ship, left the dock, and sailed towards Chaozhou.
This time the Xinghai Kingdom sent troops without notifying the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty in advance. Instead, they summoned Zhang Sanxu to inform them of the incident only after the two infantry regiments boarded the ship.
Zhang Sanxu has never been a diplomatic envoy, but he just feels that something is not right here.
However, based on his current interest relationship with Xinghai Kingdom, he could not say anything to refuse, so he could only hurriedly board the boat and rushed towards Guangzhou Prefecture.
Therefore, when the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty learned that the Qing army was about to invade and that the Xinghai Kingdom had sent three thousand troops to Chaozhou to resist in order to ensure the safety of its elders and refugee points, the two infantry regiments had already walked most of the distance on the sea.
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However, many problems were discovered in the hasty dispatch of troops this time. The biggest problem was that the navy did not have a dedicated troop transport ship, which forced the army to rely on private merchant ships for cross-sea transportation.
Private merchant ships are actually very unreliable.
Not to mention its slow speed, poor ability to withstand wind and waves, the interior of the merchant ship is not suitable for transporting troops, etc., if the merchants rebelled, the possibility of scuttling the ship would make Sun Xuebin's life miserable.
This has also put the construction of dedicated troop carriers on the agenda.
However, as far as the current situation is concerned, Xinghai Shipyard is busy building second-class battleships, Sanya Shipyard has not even completed the construction of ten dry docks, and Changjiangkou Shipyard has just begun construction.
Hence, naval troop transport ships will still have to wait for some time.
However, after the two regiments of the Fourth Division arrived at Chaozhou and disembarked, not long after, a large group of Qing army scouts swarmed in the distance.
They did not launch a direct attack on the Star Navy. Instead, they stationed their horses in the distance and climbed a hill to observe the sudden appearance of the army.
There is no doubt that this army in green military uniforms did not appear in the previous horse inspection report.
And this news was quickly passed back to General Zhen Guo by Tan Ma.
“An army suddenly appeared? About two thousand?”
General Zhenguo frowned after hearing the news.
He has fought many battles. Although he paid a little attention to the sudden appearance of two thousand troops, considering that in this area, except for the reinforcements sent by the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty, there should be no other troops.
After all, the Yongli regime, which is hostile to the Zhaowu regime, would not be able to send troops to reinforce the Zhaowu regime. Besides, even if the Yongli regime is willing to send reinforcements, will the Zhaowu regime allow the other party to pass through its territory?
These internal fights between the Ming armies have long been familiar to the Zhenguo generals.
He also used this kind of internal fighting to defeat the Ming army.
After thinking for a while, General Zhenguo decided not to think too much.
Whether these green-clad troops are reinforcements from the Zhaowu regime or sent by other forces, given the invincibility of the Qing army, do we still have to worry about them causing trouble?
It has to be said that when the southward strategy has progressed to this extent, the top brass within the Qing army have become somewhat arrogant and arrogant.
It’s just that at this time, the two major regimes of Nanming and Ming Dynasty were still in civil strife and could not gather their strength at all. Otherwise, it would be difficult to say whether the Qing army could finally capture the entire territory.