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Speaking of which, it is the first time that Ni Liang has broken away from the wings of the little emperor and organized a battle independently, and he really hopes that he can go with him. But he also knew that his mission was to protect the emperor, so it was also the first time that he made his own decisions and let those old masters hold him back, and after deploying all his troops, he did not set off quietly on this trip, and after traveling for an hour to see that His Majesty did not catch up, he ordered to rest for half an hour and eat some dry food.

"Dutong, fifty miles ahead is the Puyang River, although there is less rain these days, but it is estimated that it will be difficult to wade in vain!" Sun Jin said while pointing to the map while holding dry food in one hand.

"Well, whether you can go in vain or not, be prepared to erect a pontoon bridge. ordered the scouts to set out in a quarter of an hour and rush to the river in search of a suitable crossing; ordered the engineering team to set off with the bridging equipment; Ni nodded brightly, thought for a moment, and said, "Oh, free up all the pack horses that can be freed, distribute the supplies to the soldiers with lighter loads, and send an advance battalion to assist the engineering team in building bridges and being responsible for guarding." ”

"Dutong, that's fine, they take the first step to build the pontoon bridge, we can save a lot of time, but the individual soldier's weight increases, it is difficult to maintain the speed of the forced march, and we are walking on a small road, there are no villages around to requisition pack animals!" Sun Jin frowned and said.

"Stupid!" Ni Liang glared at Sun Jin and said, "Can the bridge be built in a while?" If we keep up at a normal marching speed, we can save a lot of stamina! ”

"Yes, the last general understands, go and give the order immediately!" Sun Jin saw that he was annoyed and reported immediately, walked a few steps and looked back at Du Tong with some surprise in his heart, he actually scolded himself for being stupid today, it was really the sun coming out of the west.

Ni Liang hurriedly ate two pieces of dry food and drank half a pot of water, and then took two personal soldiers to inspect the team to check the status of the troops and whether anyone was left behind, in fact, this habit was also developed by him and His Majesty. Since there is the Shuaifu Army, His Majesty will walk around every time he is marching and recuperating, and he is gradually infected by it and becomes a subconscious action.

And Ni Liang also learned a lot from following His Majesty to participate in the annual march around the island. For example, the pace of marching in normal times is similar to that of their training on foot, and at this speed they can march about 20 miles per hour in flat terrain and 60 miles a day. However, when the troops are rushing, pursuing, interspersing or getting rid of the enemy, they must speed up and increase the daily marching time, which is called forced marching. Forced marches require a faster cadence, which can be about three miles more than an ordinary march per hour.

On paper, a forced march was only three miles longer than a regular march, but for the actual feelings of soldiers who had participated in such training, forced marching was much more strenuous. The amount of stamina consumed is twice as high as the original. And when the road conditions change, the speed of the march will inevitably be affected, and mountains, wading, climbing, rain, etc. will slow down the march speed and increase physical exertion.

Ni Liang made a military order to His Majesty in front of the ministers, he must arrive in Changhua in front of the Yingzhou army and annihilate them all, although it is not a hot head, but he found that the specific implementation is not as easy as he thought. After all, the enemy army is taking the Huihang Avenue, and in order to avoid being discovered by the enemy, they have to avoid the villages and market towns, and they are also walking on secluded and uninhabited wilderness paths, or even have no roads at all, so they need to open up their own roads, and try to choose to march at night so as not to expose their whereabouts, which will inevitably slow down the march speed and increase the physical consumption of the soldiers.

On the other hand, the grain and grass for the Yuan army marching on its own territory were provided by the states and counties it passed, and it was possible to requisition men and livestock on the spot without carrying a large amount of baggage and materials; And their own side has to sneak around on their own land, and they can't supply supplies along the way, so they can only carry their own supplies. In order to be lightweight, they only carried weapons and ammunition and dry food for five days, and all other daily necessities were lightly loaded, and the weight of individual soldiers was reduced, but these days they could only be used as beds on the ground every day, eating dry food and drinking cold water, and at the same time, it was difficult to replenish the physical strength consumed by the soldiers.

However, these are not what Ni Liang is most worried about, what he is most afraid of is losing people to His Majesty. At present, not only the whole army, but even the whole dynasty knows that he is the hardcore cronies of the little emperor, and the imperial front guard army under his command is the most elite unit in the whole army, with the best treatment and the best weapons and equipment. If the battle is not good, the Yingzhou army will be put into Hangzhou, which will affect His Majesty's battle plan, and not only will he lose his own face and the face of the imperial guard, but even His Majesty's face will be lost.

"I must not let Your Majesty down!" Ni Liang secretly clenched his fists and said softly. The most important thing at the moment is to rush to the preset location in time at all costs, and intercepting the enemy army is the most important thing, otherwise it will not be easy to let the enemy pass Changhua and then want to catch them. The half-hour rest time soon came, and Ni Liang ordered Xiao Ting, Marquis of the Third Brigade, to lead a command to take care of the stragglers and collect the abandoned equipment, and then the whole army was on the road again.

Night marching was an important subject in the training of the new army, which required not only the ability to discern the direction by the position of the stars, but also the ability to overcome the darkness and maintain the speed of the march without raising fire, which was also regarded as a housekeeping skill in the ancient situation when night blindness was widespread. In addition, in the middle of autumn, when it is still very hot in the south of the Yangtze River, there is an advantage of making long marches on cool nights to reduce physical exertion.

"Dutong, reconnaissance report, there is a village ten miles ahead, do you want to avoid it?" After passing through a valley between the Huiji Mountains, there is an official road leading to the Puyang River ferry in front, and this Kung Fu business brigade is extinct, and this road is far away from the state and county, and the marching brigade turns to this march, at this time Sun Jin reported.

"There should be a delivery shop here, send troops over to the end, collect all the horses, do a little smarter, don't stop the brigade!" Ni Liang took out the map and looked at Yandao.

"Yes, Totong!" Sun Jin replied with a salute, and immediately sent his own soldiers to inform the vanguard battalion to raid the delivery shop in order to cut off the communication between the people.

"Commander Sun, let you change your mission today, rush to Changhua, and block the Yingzhou army, what are the generals' dissatisfaction?" Ni Liang asked.

"Yudutong, no one has to thank you!" Sun Jin lifted the reins of his horse and walked parallel to it, "Our third brigade has not caught a tough battle since it landed, and it has beaten the side drum." In fact, Shaoxing is an empty city, and there is nothing to do, but the interception of the Yingzhou army is a tough battle, if they can be annihilated, then no one in our three brigades will dare to despise the army. ”

"That's it!" Ni Liang breathed a sigh of relief, and then advised, "Although it is already after autumn, the weather is still very hot, pay attention to the rhythm of the march, and you must not get heatstroke." ”

"Don't forget that Qiongzhou is summer all year round, and it's much hotter than here, even if we march against the sun in the daytime, we will be happy if we catch up with such cool weather." Sun Jin replied with a smile.

"Well, it looks like there will be a rain tomorrow, and we must cross two rivers tonight, otherwise we will probably be stopped if the river rises." Zhao Yu looked at the Heavenly Dao.

"Dutong, if we march along the official road to seize the Puyang River ferry, the speed will be much faster." Sun Jin said.

"No, the ferry is often a place where merchants gather, and our brigade of people and horses need to hide their tracks and need to detour for more than 40 miles, so the gains outweigh the losses. Therefore, after crossing the Puyang River, it is necessary to find a ferry between Tonglu and Fuyang, and then camp and rest after crossing the Fuchun River. Ni Liang said.

"Dutong, the journey across the Fuchun River is two out of three, and it is necessary to march continuously for about one hundred and forty miles, and now there are less than four hours before dawn, so I am afraid that there will be no time to rest halfway." Sun Jin calculated, he knew very well that continuous marching requires a lot of physical strength, and the number of rests and recuperations should be increased in the middle, and the gap should be shortened, and now they still have to cross two rivers, and there are eighty miles to walk.

"It's a bit difficult, but if there's a difficulty, it must be done!" Ni Liang said firmly.

"Don't worry, the third brigade will climb to the other side of the Fuchun River even if it climbs!" Sun Jin also heard the determination in Ni Liang's words, and immediately assured......

Thirty miles from the ferry, the 3rd Brigade turned due west and marched on the field path in more than 10 columns. Due to the low visibility at night, it is easy to fall, sprain and fall behind, so they appropriately reduce the distance according to the requirements of the drill code, and take light steps.

After passing through the fields, you enter a hilly area, where the hills may not seem high, but they are all undulating roads, and it is the most reluctant terrain to encounter on the march. It is the most physically demanding between the top and bottom, and the mountain road is rugged, there are many broken slopes and gullies, the terrain is complex, and the road conditions are treacherous. Fortunately, the vanguard battalion left road signs along the way, and the units set up additional guard posts in the danger zone to ensure the safety of the march. The cavalry also dismounted at this time, and even Ni Liang was no exception, and they had to cross this hilly area on foot. They grabbed the reins of their horses one by one to prevent their horses from slipping and being frightened, which was a little harder than the infantry army.

By the end of the day, the Third Brigade had successfully crossed the hills, and the sound of flowing water was clearly audible, and the Puyang River was already in sight. The adjustment post left by the vanguard battalion guided the troops to the ferry, where a simple pontoon bridge with a width of more than 20 zhang and a length of more than 20 zhang had been erected, and a torch was inserted at intervals to indicate the direction, and the pontoon bridge looked like a python rising and falling with the fluctuations of the river.

"Why is it so slow?" Seeing the team crossing the river slowly squirming forward, Ni Liang couldn't hold his breath anymore, and urged the horse to come to the bridge and asked.

"The pontoon bridge is unstable, and the rapid march will swing sharply, so it can only pass slowly!" The adjustment whistle at the head of the bridge reported.

"Why not reinforce?" Ni Liang frowned and asked sharply.

"Yudutong, there is no way to collect boats here, and the time is urgent, so we can only use bamboo to weave a sinking cage as an anchor stone, and use bamboo as the skeleton to build a pontoon bridge, which is inevitably unstable." The adjustment whistle said.

"Really?" Ni Liang jumped off the horse and went to the bridge head to check in person, only to see that the cables that pulled the pontoon bridge at both ends of the pontoon had collapsed tightly, and the bridge deck could still be suspended on the river surface, and the middle part had sunk into the water, which was even more unstable under the impact of the flowing water.

"Pass backwards, stop advancing, and line up in three columns in all units!" Ni Liang checked and understood that there was a commanding person standing on the bridge, and there were more people rushing to the bridge behind, and most of the people were concentrated in the middle of the bridge, resulting in uneven force, the bridge body was shaking, and the people were also unstable, so they could only hold on to the bridge railing and pass slowly.

"The distance between the rows is five steps, and you can pass quickly by walking, no running, no fighting, and violators will be corrected on the spot!" When the people on the bridge reached the opposite bank, Ni Liang gave an order to the troops lining up at the bridgehead, and he remembered a story that His Majesty had told that a team crossed the bridge in unison in order to show off that the bridge collapsed, so he added the order.

Everyone saw that they were all standing at the head of the bridge to command, where they still dared to scramble, and opened the distance between each other on the bridge, so that the load of each section of the pontoon bridge was balanced, and the bridge deck also surfaced, and there was no impact of flowing water, and the amplitude of the pontoon swaying was greatly reduced. It seems that there are fewer people crossing the bridge, but the speed is much faster. The troops who crossed the river quickly assembled and did not stop, and immediately followed the road signs left by the vanguard battalion, and there was a wider river waiting for them in front of them.

In the ugly hour, all the troops had crossed the river, and the sky was also gloomy, and the sky and the earth fell into darkness, and it was difficult to see a human figure after a dozen paces. In order to avoid falling behind, they tied white towels behind their backpacks so that the soldiers behind them could follow them visually during the march. And tie the trouser hem tightly to prevent poisonous snake and mosquito bites.

After traveling ten miles to the west, there are still more than 20 miles away from the Fuchun River at this time, and it takes more than half an hour to complete this road. Ni Liang's worst fear also happened, there was a light rain in the sky, and the soil was already full of water before the rainy season, and it was impossible to retain the water at all, and the rain would quickly gather into a stream, and then collect into the river, causing the river to soar and increase the difficulty of crossing the river.

Ni Liang gritted his teeth, ordered the army to turn southwest and enter the post road leading to Tonglu, and sent cavalry to search, all enemy soldiers were executed, and those who were unidentified could not be spared, and all of them should be arrested and joined the march, so as not to reveal the whereabouts of the brigade. Fortunately, this post road was remote, and it was a rainy night, except for them, there was no trace of them, and the continuous march of a hundred miles had exhausted them, and at this time it turned to a forced march.

When they arrived at the Fuchun River, everyone had not had time to recover from their exhaustion, and the river in front of them made everyone take a breath of cool air. As Ni Liang expected, the river began to rise in a short period of time, and the place chosen by the vanguard battalion to cross the river was originally a narrow section of the river, but because the river became rapid, the erected pontoon bridge was washed away. Seeing that the rain was getting heavier, if they could no longer cross the river, they would miss their last chance......

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