After the Qing army entered the south, they frequently massacred cities and enclosed areas, forcing people everywhere to flee. In addition, during the Little Ice Age, the weather in this season was already dry, locust plagues occurred, 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.
Therefore, the Chaozhou Refugee Point became the hope for the Zhenguo general to make meritorious service.
As soon as his mind became active, General Zhenguo 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 converted 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 Zhenguo do to support his own soldiers?
Like the Pingnan General of the Qing Army, Dorobelle Lekdehun, General Zhenguo also had a group of Eight Banners soldiers serving as personal soldiers to restrain those surrendering troops.
However, the Zhenguo generals and officers were in a low position. Dorobelek Dehun had 1,200 Eight Banners soldiers as personal soldiers, while the Zhenguo generals only had 280 Eight Banners soldiers, not even one Niulu.
Each Niulu of the Eight Banners of the Qing Army 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, Qing army spies who rarely appeared in the past frequently appeared nearby, and even a fool knew that something was wrong.
Although Feikeshi had no 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 another 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. .
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.
No way, there are only two hundred infantry in Chaozhou, which is enough to scare the refugees and protect the safety of the elders.
But it won't work if we fight the Qing army.
The reason is simple. The veteran officer who commanded the two hundred infantrymen was too young and had never participated in a battle, which really made Feikeshi uneasy.
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 point has been greatly expanded, it will take 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 weapons such as Mauser G98, 88 field guns and grenades, 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 really 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.
But 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 a deck added to achieve the purpose of transporting troops.
Fortunately, a merchant fleet had just returned from Chaozhou and drove the refugees off the ship. After some disinfection, the two infantry regiments and their equipment hurriedly boarded the ship, left the dock and sailed towards Chaozhou.
This time, the Xinghai Kingdom did not notify the Zhaowu regime of Nanming in advance. Instead, they summoned Zhang Sanxu to inform them of the incident after the two infantry regiments boarded the ship.
Zhang Sanxu had never been a diplomatic envoy, but he just felt that something was not right here.
However, with 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 Mansion.
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. .
However, many problems were discovered in the rush to dispatch 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 of Guanghai 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.
Therefore, naval troop carriers 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 directly attack the Star Navy. Instead, they stationed their horses in the distance and climbed up the hill to observe the sudden appearance of the army.
There is no doubt that this army in green uniforms did not appear in the previous horse exploration report.
The news was quickly passed back to General Zhen Guo by Tan Ma.
"An army suddenly appeared? About two thousand?"
After General Zhenguo got the news, he frowned.
He has fought many battles. Although he takes the sudden appearance of two thousand troops seriously, considering that in this area, except for the reinforcements sent by the Zhaowu regime of Nanming, 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?
General Zhenguo has long been familiar with these internal fights between the Ming armies.
He also used such internal fighting to defeat the Ming army.
After thinking for a while, General Zhenguo decided not to think too much.
Regardless of whether the green-clad army was reinforcements from the Zhaowu regime or sent by some other force, with the invincibility of the Qing army, should we still be afraid that they would cause 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.
However, 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.
