The first few months of 1645 were mixed with joy and sorrow for the Qing Dynasty, which had just entered the pass for a year.

On the northwest battlefield, the Qing army conquered Tongguan with the help of red-clothed cannons. Duoduo ordered the slaughter of 7,000 surrendered Shun Army Ma Shiyao's troops and sent troops to Xi'an. At the same time, although Ajige on the northern route repeatedly defeated the Shaanxi-North Shaanxi legion of Li Guo, Gao Yigong and others, his progress was severely blocked. Only after Gao and Li led their troops to Ningxia, Ajige's more than 100,000 troops were able to move south smoothly. At this time, Li Zicheng was ready to retreat.

Shaanxi (including Ningxia, Gansu) is now more like a cage for Li Zicheng. The situation is not optimistic whether it is west, north or east. Therefore, although He Zhen defeated Li Dingguo three times in Hanzhong and stabilized the situation in the south, Li Zicheng still decided to retreat. As for the destination of the retreat, Li Zicheng originally decided to go to Runan, but after being dissuaded by Gu Junen, he decided to go to Xiangyang.

In mid-February, Li Zicheng led 130,000 main troops and a larger number of women, children, elderly and weak, to enter Dengzhou. It is recorded that he "driven southward and left 3,000 troops to defend the city and block the wells and stoves." Niu Jinxing and others who had already gone to Xiangyang in advance led their troops to support him, and Li Zicheng's main force entered Hubei. At this point, he brought 130,000 elite troops from Shaanxi and Gansu, plus the former Shaanxi, which was left behind in Xiangyang, and Henan, and the total force still exceeded 200,000. In addition, his outstanding performance in Chenzhou and Dengzhou defeated the Qing army twice, which exceeded the Ming army. Li Zicheng was still the number one enemy of the Qing army.

After Li Zicheng's main force withdrew from Shaanxi and Gansu, Duoduo and Ajige joined forces in Xi'an, and then began to surrender the miscellaneous armed forces of the Shun Army, the second and third-tier troops. Things went smoothly. Duoduo reported: "Qin conquered four cities and conquered 38 prefectures and counties." Henan's general Xu Dingguo and other troops, who were originally very active in attacking the Shun Army, had no orders from Shi Kefa, and surrendered the Qing army. After Zhang Jinyan, the governor of Henan appointed by the Southern Ming Dynasty, submitted a report to the court, the rulers and ministers of the Southern Ming Dynasty were still unmoved, and they tried their best to urge the Ming army in Huguang to attack Jingzhou under the control of the Shun Army, which was almost angered. After Li Zicheng heard the news, he personally led the main force to Jingzhou, and Jingzhou surrounded and disbanded.

The battle situation in the northwest was very smooth. Although the two armies of Duoduo and Ajige tried a lot, they finally wiped out Qin territory and surrendered nearly 100,000 second- and third-tier armed forces from Li Zicheng's troops. The results of the battle can even be said to be brilliant. However, in comparison, the current situation in Shandong is simply a piece of shit. The nobles of the Eight Banners above and below Beijing could not understand why a small Yantai Fort, which was only 10,000 people stationed (the facts of the Qing Dynasty exaggerated), remained unmoved under the siege of more than 50,000 troops. They even had the strength to attack everywhere, greatly shaking the prestige of "My Qing Dynasty" in the north.

In the past month, Jinan Prefecture in Shandong lost five prefectures and counties including Wudingzhou, Yongping Prefecture in the north, Leting County was destroyed, and Dagukou, Tianjin Wei was bombarded; Liaodong was even more exaggerated, Jinzhou, Lushunkou, Pidao, Zhenjiang and other places were successively lost, and the Eight Banners Horse Team left outside Jinzhou City was even defeated, with more than a hundred casualties. Finally, they watched the yellow-clad thieves floating in the sea, and there was no way, and they were alive with the virtues of the Qing army who "sweeted out" thousands of Ming troops back then.

Faced with the dilemma of wars everywhere in the Liaohai Sea, the Qing army had to adjust its focus. Dorgon, the Regent of Beijing, ordered to draw 20,000 people from the Qing army of Ajige and Duoduo, and then supplemented with the newly recruited Shaanxi Shunshang Army, more than 30,000 Mingshang Army in Henan, combined 70,000 troops. He was transferred to Shandong in the east and the Zhili front line in the north. At the same time, Dorgon was also preparing to draw thousands of elite cavalry teams from Beijing, Jinzhou and Tianjin to guard the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia, and choose one night to lead the south and unify the command of the total of nearly 80,000 Qing troops to stabilize the precarious situation in Northern Zhili and Shandong, and take the opportunity to spy on the Jianghuai front line.

As for Liaodong, the Qing army had no good solution. Most of the strong men over 14 years old and under 60 went to the inner and western passes of the pass. There were only some old, young, women and children outside the pass. There were not many young men. The whole Liaodong had only a few thousand horses, less than ten thousand in the first place. Such a small force had to defend such a large area. It was really hard to say that they could not do anything. In the end, the Qing court could only order the weak villages and forts along the coast to migrate to the inland areas, and at the same time implemented the "clustering villages and garrisons" policy, and the residents of the villages and forts who moved to the inland were concentrated in some key points that were easy to defend. At the same time, mobile troops were stationed at each key point, and there was something wrong. A large number of horse teams were immediately gathered to rescue, hoping to curb the endless harassment of yellow-clad thieves in the coastal areas.

The Qing army was mobilizing troops and adjusting deployment, while the East Coast people were in a rare inter-stage period. On May 25, all the East Coast fleets gathered in the winter ground of Yuanbo Port, Lishiri Island. They included 2 gunboats, 2 armed transport ships, 2 transport ships, 6 steam engine sailboats (the "Borang" paddle steamer has been transferred to Australia), 4 medium-sized fishing boats, with a total tonnage of more than 10,000 tons, which is a huge scale.

After a month and a half of continuous combat, the East Coast army lost only 80 combat personnel (mainly the stand-up team and the military team), and the non-combat personnel were only 30 to 40, but they achieved excellent results of killing, wounding and capturing the Qing army. In addition, they also captured six prefectures and counties in the pass, Jinzhou, Liaodong, and other important places, and Tieshan County, Korea and other places, and seized more than 70 stones of grain, beans, more than 40 livestock (s) and more than 70 horses. Not only that, they sank more than 50 small boats of the Qingshui Division in Dagukou, Pidao, and Zhenjiang, almost all the remaining water forces (Kong, Shang and others have officially converted into army).

In general, as part of the Yantai Battle, the enemy-behind attack war in more than a month effectively hit the arrogance of the Qing army, greatly shaking its prestige in Shandong and Kinki. In the later period, the Liaodong attack war gave the Qing court a heavy psychological blow. How many years have these large rears been attacked for many years? The last time someone carried out a large-scale enemy-behind attack was probably dated back to Mao Wenlong's period? But Mao Wenlong only had the ability to attack some small villages and forts, and the threat was actually limited. But the yellow-clothed thieves were different. Their guns and cannons were sharp, but even the Qing officials like Jinzhou and Zhenjiang could win the strong city. This ability to attack was indeed not comparable to Mao Wenlong.

This understanding made the Qing court extremely troubled by the yellow-clothed sea pirates, because this was not an equal way of combat at all. The yellow-clothed pirates came and went freely on the sea and often attacked the weak with strong force. The Qing court's defense was very weak and they could not understand the enemy's next attack target at all, which made them passive. The people on the east coast firmly grasped the initiative in the battlefield, which made the Qing army exhausted but still lost everywhere. It can be foreseeable that if the Qing court could not come up with a good countermeasure, the large circle of thousands of miles of sea border in the Liaohai Sea would have to give up.

Nearly 4,000 soldiers climbed the small Yuanbo Port, which immediately made it crowded. To be honest, the urban area of ​​Yuanbo Port was very small. People on the east coast only eradicated a small area of ​​forest along the coast, and then opened a winter base for ships. The entire city was almost a collection of docks and warehouses. Large scattered wooden houses built in a messy area stretched out far away with these warehouses - these were temporary wooden houses for immigrants.

More than 2,000 soldiers took a large number of captured livestock from the boat and then released them directly into the wild. Rishiri Island and the neighboring Liwen Island are in the warm current of Japan. The climate is mild and the sea water is not frozen all year round. The vegetation on the island is also lush and there are no large carnivores, which is very suitable for stocking these livestock. The area of ​​these two islands is very small, almost a natural prison for free-range animals. When their population breeds one day, they can organize people to come and hunt. It can not only train the team, but also save a lot of people to take care of these livestock. It can be said that it can kill two birds with one stone.

They had already visited Liwen Island once before, and raised five or six hundred cattle and sheep on the island. So far, the East Coast people have raised more than two thousand livestock on the island in multiple batches in two years. Among them, the number of sheep accounts for half, about one-quarter of the cattle, and the rest are roe deer, reindeer, moose, etc. According to the observations of the forest rangers on Liwen Island on the island two months ago, the population of 1,500 livestock stocks that were stocked last year have basically not decreased in winter. This is mainly due to the not very cold climate and a rich food source here. Moreover, many small animals were born after spring, and the population is still very expanding. It seems that after waiting for another two or three years, a certain amount of meat can be produced stably every year.

Like Liwen Island, the East Coast people also deal with cattle, sheep and other livestock captured from the mainland on the same process on Rishiri Island. A total of 2,000 livestock presented by Zhai Cong-ye and others from Jeju Island were released into the wild and free-range. After the population grew, people were organized to hunt and train the team.

Speaking of Jeju Island, Zhai Congyan, Wang Jiazhong and Qin Shangxing have joined forces with more than 5,500 troops, and have divided into three cities, Jeju Prefecture, Jingyi County and Dajing County, which has completely occupied the island. Recently, the East Coast people have selected Zhou Zuoding, a general from Dashun County magistrate (the Tai'an County magistrate who was unwilling to surrender to the Qing Dynasty before, and sneaked to Yantai after failure), and brought a newly formed forward team of 1,000 people (19-22 Squadrons) to the island, directly occupying the horse farm in the Hannashan area of ​​the central island, which is regarded as a territory directly under the East Coast people.

To this end, Mo Ming specially ordered some stallions raised in Yantai and Dabo areas to be transferred, including twelve Andalusian horses, eight Turkmen horses, and eight Finnish horses. Most of the others are selected Mongolian horses (either relatively tall or extremely strong endurance), and are preparing to improve the bloodline of the large number of Korean ponies on the island. In time, we will strive to cultivate a mixed-blood horse breed with both endurance and body shape so that we can provide the cavalry with suitable riding tools.

After a few days of rest at Yuanbo Port, the soldiers gathered on board again and headed towards Yantai Port. At present, the Qing army's Haoge troops are still building a siege outside Yantai, and the two sides seem to be in a stalemate for a long time. In this way, the people on the east coast obviously cannot accept any immigrants nearby. But it doesn't matter. Leaving two thousand soldiers with mixed hot and cold weapons in Yantai is enough to defend, but the number of Qing troops restrained is 10,000, which is not counting the massive amount of supplies they consume.
Chapter completed!