Mei Yousong was still on the way to Jiangxi. It was very exhausting to travel thousands of miles to Jiangxi, but Mei Yousong didn’t have much time to rest.

The information about the People's Army in front was sent to Mei Yousong by Song Yingchang. Looking at the information about the People's Army, Mei Yousong's heart could no longer calm down.

When Mei Yousong heard the name "People's Army" for the first time, he was a little curious about the People's Army. A rebel could actually occupy most of the Guangdong area and even the Guangzhou city fell. Is the People's Army too powerful? Or is the Guangdong Ming Army too incompetent?

Mei Yousong prefers the latter. Mei Yousong believes that as long as the court becomes serious and sends a large army to encircle and suppress, the People's Army will be wiped out soon. In Mei Yousong's eyes, Song Yingchang is an excellent commander.

But now, Song Yingchang led the army to fight with the People's Army twice, and were both defeated, with 70,000 or 80,000 casualties, and had to let the court change its commander.

Even Song Yingchang led the army to be defeated by the People's Army twice. Mei Yousong felt the strength of the People's Army and was not very confident about the fact that he was appointed as the commander of the army by the court to encircle and suppress the People's Army.

The more information the People's Army saw, Mei Yousong's confidence continued to decline. There were so many new recruits in the People's Army, but they had strong combat power. Mei Yousong could not imagine how powerful the People's Army's firearms were.

Although the confidence to defeat the People's Army is small, Mei Yousong will not give up easily. If it really doesn't work, he will mobilize more troops to overwhelm the People's Army with its number.

On the way to Jiangxi, Mei Yousong had issued several orders. The first order was to draw ten battalions from the northern border army to about 30,000 people, the second order was to draw at least 60,000 Ming troops from all over the north, and the third order was to recruit young and strong troops from all over the south, expand at least 100,000 troops, and then mobilize them to the front line.

The northern border troops had more cavalry and more infantry, and the border troops kept grinding themselves when fighting against the enemy. The strength of the border troops was much greater than that of the Wei army, and they were the most elite Ming army.

Although the border is elite, it must also protect the border and cannot mobilize too much. Therefore, Mei Yousong only dispatched more than 30,000 people from ten battalions. If he was transferred too many, the ministers in the court would not agree. Compared with the People's Army in Guangdong, the ministers were more worried about the troubles in the north.

There is no way to draw too many border troops, so it can only be supplemented by other Ming troops. The Ming troops in various parts of the south have been almost transferred by Song Yingchang, and they cannot be transferred anymore. Once all the troops are transferred, it will be troublesome for the bandits to cause trouble, and maybe there will be rebels.

Therefore, a group of Ming troops could only be drawn from all over the north, and then recruited 100,000 young and strong troops from all over the south to expand as a supplement.

There are 30,000 border troops, 60,000 northern Ming troops, and 100,000 new soldiers. This is nearly 200,000. There are at least 150,000 Ming troops in the surrounding areas of Guangdong. Together with 350,000 Ming troops, Mei Yousong has some confidence in dealing with the People's Army.

In order to encircle and suppress the People's Army, the Ming court mobilized 500,000 troops (including the Guangdong Ming Army). Thanks to the efforts made by Zhang Juzheng from the first year of Wanli to the tenth year of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was filled and able to support the mobilization of 500,000 troops to encircle and suppress the People's Army.

If it were other times, the treasury would not have the money to support such a large-scale military operation. Without food and grass, the soldiers would not have enough food and no military pay, how could the soldiers beat the Ming court to death?

However, it takes time to march from Jiangxi too far. It takes time to draw Ming troops from all over the north to Guangdong, and it takes time to recruit young and strong troops from all over the south. Mei Yousong knew that it would be impossible to encircle and suppress the People's Army in a few months.

Now Mei Yousong is even more worried that when Song Yingchang's army was defeated twice in a row, the People's Army would take the opportunity to expand its territory. With the situation of Song Yingchang's army, it seems to be difficult to stop the People's Army. Mei Yousong can only hope that the People's Army will stay honestly in Guangdong.

...

In Xinfeng County, Song Yingchang was also worried that the People's Army would launch a new attack. The Ming army he led was defeated twice in a row. Even though there are more than 60,000 soldiers now, their morale is very poor. If the People's Army launches an attack, Song Yingchang will not be sure whether he can stop it.

Since the last defeat, Song Yingchang sent a command to the Ming army in Huguang, Fujian and Guangxi to prevent the Ming army from acting rashly or taking the initiative to test the People's Army and defending the city according to the city.

Song Yingchang hoped that this method would prevent the People's Army from being disturbed by the Ming army, so that the People's Army would not leave Guangdong on its own initiative.

In fact, Song Yingchang also felt that his idea was a bit ridiculous. According to Song Yingchang's own guess, he felt that the People's Army stayed in Guangdong and did not continue to expand its territory to train troops. When the People's Army's new recruits had sufficient combat power, the People's Army's strength would become stronger. At that time, the People's Army would be able to quickly capture a large area of ​​territory when it left Guangdong.

It was also because Song Yingchang did not want the People's Army's new recruits to grow up and hurriedly mobilized troops to launch an attack on the People's Army. However, he did not expect that the People's Army, with so many new recruits, would still defeat the Ming army. The strength of the People's Army was too different from the rebels who appeared in the Ming Dynasty in the past.

Before the imperial edict came, Song Yingchang had already determined that he would be dismissed from his post and investigated. The imperial edict had not come yet, but the emperor's punishment for Song Yingchang had been passed on, which surprised Song Yingchang very much. The new commander Mei Yousong actually pleaded for him, allowing him to continue to stay in the army and make meritorious.

Soon Song Yingchang thought of the reason. Mei Yousong had never contacted the People's Army and did not know enough about the People's Army. He needed his former commander's assistance.

Song Yingchang was very happy to be able to survive. What's more important is that Song Yingchang was very unwilling to do so. He was defeated by thieves twice in a row and so many people died. This was Song Yingchang's shame. Song Yingchang was full of thoughts on how to wipe out the People's Army.

Song Yingchang had made up his mind that when Mei Yousong arrived, he would wholeheartedly assist Mei Yousong and let the Ming army defeat the People's Army.

Now, Song Yingchang is working hard to defeat the People's Army. The most powerful firearms of the People's Army, as long as the Ming army rely on the number of Ming troops, it will be no problem to defeat the People's Army.

The People's Army's artillery was average, similar to that of the Ming Army, and even the Ming Army's artillery was more numerous, which can be ignored.

The People's Army's muskets are very sharp, with a long range and great power. The Ming army's muskets are far from comparable. Song Yingchang has been investigating the source of the muskets and has not obtained anything.

The Ming army did not obtain a tiger-headed spear, and there was no chance to imitate it.

However, the Grenades of the People's Army, a very few grenades used on the battlefield were silent and were acquired by the Ming army. The Ming army found craftsmen to dismantle them and found that the manufacturing process of this grenade was relatively simple, and the workshops in Jiangxi could create grenades.

Song Yingchang has ordered that he would first try to mass-produce grenades in Jiangxi. As long as the Ming army is equipped with a large number of grenades, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army will be greatly increased!
Chapter completed!