Southern Ming Rebel Army

All along, Meng Jun has been paying close attention to the intelligence in Jiangning and Changzhou. Not only did Meng Bian devote his main energy to it, Meng Jun also mobilized the gentry and the Ming Dynasty bureaucrats who had surrendered to him to spy on the strength of various places in Jiangning. Intelligence was transmitted almost every few days.

After cross-comparing the intelligence, Meng Jun believed that there were nearly 40,000 Green Camp soldiers in Jiangning, 5,000 in Zhenjiang, and 20,000 in Changzhou. As for Wuxi, it was too close to Suzhou, and Hong Chengchou did not station troops in Wuxi, and even withdrew the Green Camp, and had in fact abandoned the city of Wuxi. Some intelligence reports indicated that the Qing court was already preparing to form a navy.

Dorgon knew that if he fought in the south without a navy he would inevitably be controlled by others. Therefore, after some planning, he finally chose to establish a navy in Anqing and entrusted Geng Zhongming with the responsibility of reorganizing and training it.

Anqing is located in the Yangtze River Basin, with unique geographical conditions, which is very suitable for the development of naval forces. There are well-developed water systems and many ports here. The Qing court has high hopes for this navy, hoping that it can become an important force to quell the rebellion in the south. However, at this time, these small ships can only be said to be better than nothing.

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As the saying goes, sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood. Since returning to Suzhou, Meng Jun has been carrying out a vigorous large-scale military training in Suzhou, which has lasted for half a year. Taking advantage of the precious window of time between wars, Meng Jun wants to transform the newly formed Wuning, Wuxing and Guwu towns from disorganized armies into elite divisions. The Changlin and Ningwu towns have been established for a long time and have both experienced the baptism of war.

Meng Jun used modern military training methods in conjunction with Qi Jiguang's "Jixiao Xinshu" to train soldiers. Under Meng Jun's improvement, he re-edited the training manuals for the various towns of Meng's army and appointed Lin Shiqi as the chief training officer for the entire army.

In Meng Jun's view, the core of any elite army is military law, discipline, rewards, and punishment. In the newly compiled military training manual, except for some modern features such as weighted running and military posture formations, Meng Jun mostly adopted Qi Jiguang's "Minutes of Military Training". In fact, in terms of the specific operational level of the army, there is indeed no military book more detailed than "Minutes of Military Training".

The army is also made up of individual soldiers, and still cannot escape the four aspects of food, clothing, housing and transportation.

Meng Jun paid attention to the appearance of the army since he started his army. As the saying goes, clothes make the man, and saddles make the horse. Meng Jun prefers black, so all the clothes and armor in the Meng army are black. During the military drills, thousands of black clothes and armor are like a black ocean, which has a strong visual impact.

As for food, Meng Jun stipulated that all officers, regardless of their rank, must have the same food as the soldiers in the army. Sharing the joys and sorrows with the soldiers could, on the one hand, bring officers and soldiers closer together. Another important reason was that officers could have the same nutrition as soldiers and could sense the physical condition of the soldiers at any time.

As for accommodation, based on the strange regulations set by Meng Jun when the military town was first established, the requirements for hygiene can be said to be strict. If anyone urinates or defecates anywhere in the army, the first offender will be whipped ten times, the second offender will be whipped thirty times, the third offender will be whipped eighty times, and there are other detailed regulations. This makes the soldiers a little unbearable, and even the officers feel that it is too harsh.

However, what the soldiers hated more was the newly formed Military Law Department and its director Wu Jinkun.

Wu Jinkun was born in Suzhou Jinyiwei. When Meng Jun conquered Suzhou, he was in prison. Meng's army entered the city and saved his life. He immediately decided to join Meng's army.

This person is very straightforward and always speaks his mind. After entering the army, Wu Jinkun's relationship with his superiors and colleagues was not very good. His straightforwardness also made him suffer a lot in interpersonal relationships, because his bad temper often discouraged people. Even Meng Jun was choked by him and was speechless.

When Meng Jun established the Military Law Department, he thought about the candidate for the director for a long time. This person must be disgusting and impartial. After much deliberation, Meng Jun felt that Wu Jinkun was a more suitable person. After all, he was from the Jinyiwei and the Military Law Department was also responsible for supervising people, so it could not be considered a career change. The main reason was that Meng Jun could not find a more suitable person.

Before the New Year, Meng Jun summoned the chief and deputy officers of the rank of captain general from each town in the military camp. At one time, nearly three hundred people gathered together. After training the soldiers for such a long time, Meng Jun decided to hold a large-scale military exercise.

The Meng army was organized into squads, teams, battalions, towns, and units. These more than 300 people included all the senior generals in Suzhou city.

The commanders of various military towns, Lin Shiqi, Song Wuque, Qian Biao, Wang Fugui, Bai Yongfu, Wu Shunchang, Xiao Mingzuo, Chen Lei, Guo Hu, Du Yonghe and others all participated in the military meeting.

Meng Jun looked at the officers of the Meng Army gathered together and couldn't help feeling deeply moved. As the saying goes, it is easy to get thousands of soldiers but hard to get a good general. Most of the officers under his command came from the lower classes of society, except for some who had defected from the Qing army. In terms of quality, these officers were naturally not qualified enough, but these people had experienced the decisive battle with the Qing army and the difficult march in pursuit of Bolo over a long distance. They already had the courage and bloodiness of a soldier.

As for the military training manual, Meng Jun was only responsible for the general direction, while Lin Shiqi and other instructors were responsible for the specific implementation of the regulations.

These days, Meng Jun has spent less time in the military camp, mainly because government affairs are too complicated. He also has to travel to various places frequently, either to inspect military industries or naval affairs. So Meng Jun decided to hold a large-scale military exercise to test the results of the training. The day of the Qing army's counterattack is not far away, and Meng Jun can no longer hold back. If the navy's strength was not yet insufficient, Meng Jun would have wanted to send troops to Jiangning.

In the camp, every officer had an irrepressible excitement and passion in their hearts. Yes, it was that kind of feeling full of fighting spirit and passion, because everyone knew that they were creating a great cause.

Especially after defeating Bolo, both ordinary soldiers and officers at all levels acknowledged the strength of the Eight Banners soldiers, but they also firmly believed that they were not inferior to their opponents and that if they encountered an enemy, the Meng army would fight bravely and defeat the enemy. This belief made them more courageous and fearless.

After a long period of training, Admiral Meng finally issued an order to hold a large-scale military exercise to test the results of half a year.

This news was like a gust of wind, making the soldiers in each town very excited. They knew that this would be a time to test their strength and demonstrate the results of their training. All the towns were eager to show their style in the military exercise.