In the snow, the mournful sound of the swan horn suddenly sounded endlessly. The soldiers of the entire Pingnan Town A Battalion were like a mess of ants, they were noisy, shouting, and people shouting and neighing, and in this sudden battle, they began to urgently deploy defenses.

Seeing the great military situation on land, dozens of Tang warships that were originally idle on the coast also immediately launched their formations and entered combat preparations, spreading out into a semi-encirclement of the entire Vladivostok area.

The wind roared, the clouds flew, the snow flew, and the sky and the earth were dark. Li Dingguo, standing on the half-built outer city wall, had a bright red cloak on his body, which was blown by the wind like a hundred flags hunting and flying, and his face was like a knife carving, covered with snowflake particles, but he seemed to be unaware of all this, and kept holding a clairvoyant mirror, staring west to watch the movements of the Qing army.

He saw that on the horizon at the western end, on the edge of the white earth, a thin black line seemed to suddenly emerge.

Then, this thin line quickly became thicker, larger and longer, and almost in the blink of an eye, it turned into countless soldiers, horses and banners like tiny black dots, and quickly covered the entire end of the world and the earth.

As the saying goes, as the saying goes, there are more than 10,000 people, boundless, and the formation of 100,000 Qing troops attacking together, the kind of dazzling banners covering the sky and the ironclad Sensen people shouting horses and neighing, brought by the strong sense of coercion, can simply overwhelm people.

At this moment, Li Dingguo's face was trembling slightly. And the soldiers next to him who had been well defended also changed their faces, and many people's faces showed inexplicable frightened looks.

Li Dingguo has been in battle for a long time, and when he saw the momentum of the Qing army, he had already concluded in his heart that the number of Qing troops coming was at least nearly 100,000.

Li Dingguo's Pingnan Town A Battalion fought from Taiwan to the Philippines, then to New Guinea, and finally to capture Australia.

However, this team has a great flaw, that is, it has been fighting in the southern tropics, and now because of Li Xiao's lack of troops, it has to be transferred from the South Sea to Vladivostok, and it has not yet fully adapted to such a cold environment in the north, so its combat effectiveness has dropped a lot compared to the south.

Moreover, because now Li Xiao's Tang Army is undergoing a comprehensive transformation and redressing, and the order of redressing is to give priority to the armies in the interior and the north, like these soldiers in Pingnan Town, because the Nanyang War has ended, so the order of redressing is ranked last.

As a result, until they were transferred to Vladivostok, they did not start to change their clothes. However, such negligence, Li Xiao and Li Dingguo, the mayor of Pingnan Town and the commander of the A Battalion, actually took it into account, but considering that the main force of the Qing army was contained in western Liaoning, and after preparation, there could be enough time for Li Dingguo to build this Vladivostok, so they did not pay much attention to the matter of changing the equipment of the troops.

Unexpectedly, this Vladivostok Fort was not built on time due to weather conditions, and what was even more unlucky was that in this snowy season, the Qing army came to take the opportunity to sneak attack.

When something bad looks like it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Murphy's Law.

Li Dingguo began to quickly and urgently judge the comparison of the strength of the enemy and our armies. First of all, look at the troops, in Li Xiao's planning, in the current Pingnan Town, each battalion still has three general soldiers, of which the first general is the original spearmen and shield soldiers, that is, 15 teams of shield soldiers 1530 people, 30 teams of spearmen 3060 people, a total of 4590 people.

The other two generals, B and C, are composed of shield soldiers and crossbowmen. Under his new establishment, the number of such a total number of soldiers per unit was three posts per total, and the number of men per sentry was 510 men in 5 teams of shield soldiers and 10 teams of crossbowmen 1020 men.

In this way, General B and General C are the same as each other, the number of soldiers in one sentry is 1,530, the number of soldiers in a total is 4,590, plus 2,000 horizontal sentry, the number of combat soldiers in the entire A battalion is 15,770.

In addition, there were 50 old artillery pieces from Ezo that had been captured from the Dutch and Spaniards, 200 artillery units, and 2,000 auxiliaries.

Since Vladivostok Fort has not yet been built, cavalry escorts such as Xuanhu Heavy Cavalry and Flying Harrier have not been arranged in Vladivostok Fort, and that is to say, Li Dingguo's entire available strength is more than 17,000 people.

And to use these 17,000 people to resist as many as nearly 100,000 elite Qing troops, and because of the heavy snow, the artillery could not be fired, and the difficulty of holding the Vladivostok Fort that had not been built on the outer city wall can be imagined.

Of course, the Tang Army still has a naval division to help, but after all, the naval division is on the sea, and it is impossible to directly participate in the battle on the shore, although it can participate in the battle of Vladivostok Fort, but its role is still limited and not decisive.

It's just that when it seems that Li Dingguo is at an absolute disadvantage, the current Li Dingguo still has great confidence in defending this Vladivostok fort.

Of course, his confidence has a lot of belief in defending the land and defending the country, but in his heart, what Li Dingguo relies on the most is that he still has a large number of crossbowmen who are not afraid of wind and snow and can brave the snow to shoot poisonous crossbow arrows, and throw earth-shaking thunder with their hands that are almost full of inner cities.

These two things are Li Dingguo's greatest reliance, and Li Dingguo believes that he is still very sure that he can hold on to the Vladivostok Fort that has not yet been built.

In addition, Li Dingguo also has a unique means of defending the city. That is, since Vladivostok Fort was built at the tip of a peninsula jutting out into the sea, then, in addition to the western wall, the southeast, north and southeast, could be defended by the guns of the sailors, so that the enemy could not besiege the city on all sides, and the Vladivostok fort could always be replenished by the sailors.

About half an hour later, the Qing army moved closer and closer, and stopped about two miles from the western wall of Vladivostok.

Li Dingguo clearly saw from the clairvoyant mirror that in the distance of these Qing troops, there was a big tent with a golden roof of red flames, on which a golden dragon flag fluttered high, and he suddenly sighed in his heart, it seems that the Qing court really spent a lot of money in order to take this Vladivostok Fort.

No, not only did nearly 100,000 troops be dispatched, but even the emperor Huang Taiji personally marched in person. It's just that this seemingly small Vladivostok fort, can you really swallow it in one fell swoop?

But it's not that easy! (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) (Below is anti-theft, replaced later) When Cao Bianjiao finally led a large number of cavalry, braving the pouring rain, to the place where Chen Yiti's troops died in battle, those Maguindanu natives had already withdrawn.

On this land where fierce battles were once fought, the blood that had been scattered everywhere had been washed away by the rain, leaving only a headless corpse, half-sinking and half-floating in the muddy water everywhere.

Cao Bianjiao's teeth were gritted, and his face was almost distorted with anger. With a sad face, he threw his head up at the sky, and roared like a wolf.

His mournful roar soon disappeared completely in the continuous rain, and it was almost inaudible. The whole army was like a puppet, sitting like a puppet in the heavy rain.

Our army is defeated! This defeat can be called the biggest defeat since the Tang Army invaded Southeast Asia. The well-armed and well-trained Tang army was defeated by these savage-like Maguindanu native soldiers, and even though they killed the enemy several times, it was also an unacceptably humiliating defeat.

"Brothers! I, Cao Bianjiao, swear to heaven here, if I can't eradicate these ugly creatures for you, if I can't destroy the soul in heaven who comes to comfort you in the country of Maguindanu, I, Cao Bianjiao, will definitely apologize for my sins with death and swear not to be a human being! Cao Bianjiao gritted his teeth and swore to the sky, his face full of rain and tears was indescribably hideous.

In the end, he had no choice but to give the order for his soldiers to return to Zamboanga silently with those headless corpses.

Because it was impossible to identify who these corpses were, Cao Bianjiao finally had to order that these corpses be cremated together and a monument was built to commemorate them.

Next, Cao Bianjiao no longer dared to send troops to attack easily, but ordered the whole army to hold Zamboanga, build fortifications on the ground, and wait for the next move.

Subsequently, Cao Bianjiao wrote in detail the story of the incident in a letter, and sent it back to Li Xiao in Manila in the form of a flying pigeon message, and asked him for his guilt.

Two days later, Cao Bianjiao's letter reached Li Xiao's hands. Seeing Cao Bianjiao's letter, Li Xiao was also taken aback.

Nearly 700 Tang troops were sacrificed, and the main general died, and the strategic goal was not achieved, and finally the Maguindanu indigenous army won the final victory in this battle, which was really an extremely humiliating defeat.

Such a defeat was the first time in the process of the Tang Army's expansion into Southeast Asia. Li Xiao's face suddenly became very ugly.

He knew that in the process of conquering the Philippine islands along the way, he had finally met a fierce enemy.

You must know that this Maguindanu country, in history, has fought many times with the Spanish colonizers in the north, but it has never been conquered.

In real history, the country was conquered by the modern American army in the late nineteenth century until the United States took over Spanish rule over the Philippines, and finally came under Philippine rule.

Even the modern U.S. military has made considerable sacrifices in the process of conquering this region, and the final occupation method is to let this nation and this region be nominally incorporated into the Philippines and enjoy a high degree of autonomy.

Because this ethnic group has been incorporated into the Philippine State for the shortest time, and has always had a high degree of autonomy, and there are also reasons such as different religious beliefs, it has always been the most turbulent place in the Philippine state, and riots and rebellions are commonplace, and the Philippine rulers are anxious.

(Note: As of press time, in the Mindanao region, the Philippine national army is still fighting fiercely with a rebel called Mute, attacking and defending each other, each with casualties, and the local people are scattered and fleeing, and peace is far away.)

And now, these barbaric and ferocious, murderous and plundering soldiers, with religious beliefs and fearless death, and rich experience in fighting Western colonizers, can be said to have occupied the right time and place in this Mindanao region, and it is really very difficult for the Tang army to gnaw this hard bone.

It can be seen that this Maguindanu country is very likely to be the toughest and most difficult opponent it has encountered when it conquered Southeast Asia and advanced towards Australia.

It is not easy to win against such an opponent. It's just that this Mindanao Island is located at the key point of the Tang Army's southward and northward advances, and it will not work if it is not captured.

Only by capturing this Mindanao can he have no worries about further conquest of New Guinea and Australia in the future.

So, what should I do to completely and quickly eradicate these Maguindanu ugly creatures and capture the whole of Mindanao?

Li Xiao paced back and forth in the room, and after muttering for a long time, a unique idea suddenly flashed in his mind.

That is, the master's skills are used to control the Yi, why not let the Tang army turn around and learn from these Maguindanu people?

The most critical reason why these Maguindanu people were able to completely wipe out the besieged Tang army was that they knew how to use long-range attacks to attack the Tang army, so that the Tang army's best positional defense and organizational training could not play a role smoothly under such long-range attacks.

Of course, if the Tang army had powerful firearms to help it in the interior, it could be the strongest in the Ming and Qing dynasties in terms of long-range strikes, but in a tropical rainforest like Mindanao, where it could rain two or three times a day, the firearms of the Tang army, once they were wet by the torrential rain, would become a complete waste.

Li Xiao knew that under such an extremely strong tropical downpour, even if he developed a flintlock pistol in the future, the sealed medicine door and the flint that were fired would be drenched by the continuous rainstorm, and thus become a burning stick that could no longer be used.

And once the artillery of the Tang army is wasted, then under the shuttle dart of the Maguindanu, it can only be beaten passively.

Therefore, learning from the Maguindanu and finding long-range attack weapons similar to their pikes is the only way to defeat the enemy.

In his heart, Li Xiao had already thought of a powerful long-range weapon, the steel crossbow. When it is difficult for archers to train quickly, and the bowstring is easily wet by rain and loses its elasticity, making a large number of long-range crossbows and cultivating a large number of crossbowmen is the best way to defeat the enemy.

If you can combine the manufacturing process of modern bows and crossbows that you have read about in books in your previous life, and use the refined steel that can be produced now, to make a steel crossbow that can be used by a single person, then you can undoubtedly quickly counteract and defeat the Maguindanu shuttle.

What's more, in addition to Mindanao, such as New Guinea Island, Micronesia Islands and other territories that have not yet been invaded by the Xiyi, they are all hot and rainy rainforest environments.

Li Xiao planned and immediately began to draw the steel crossbow structure he had conceived on straw paper, such as the shape and size of the crossbow bow, crossbow arm, crossbow machine, crossbow string, mouth, chisel ear, hook tooth, lookout mountain, buckle, bottom bracket and other crossbow machine parts.

Originally, Li Xiao wanted to hand over this research and development work to Tielongcheng in Shanxian County, Shandong Province for manufacturing and development, but considering that the distance is too far and the communication is inconvenient, it is most appropriate to develop it in Taiwan nearby.

After all, the current Taiwan Iron and Steel Plant, which is built next to a large iron mine in the suburbs of Changhua County, has six blast furnaces, three iron-frying furnaces, and two steel-making open hearths, and the monthly output is also very considerable.

Although the local iron ore in Taiwan is of low taste, and the output after impurities removal is much lower than that of Shandong, the output is still far more than that of other iron ore production and processing in the late Ming Dynasty.

In addition, there are many experienced craftsmen transferred from Shandong in this Taiwan iron and steel plant, who also use hydraulic forging machine tools for production, so neither production nor R&D efficiency is under Shandong Tielongcheng.

Therefore, Li Xiao believes that he will definitely not be disappointed by handing over the research and development of this steel crossbow to Taiwan's iron and steel plant.

Subsequently, Li Xiao immediately began to adjust the adaptation plan on a large scale. First of all, Li Xiao ordered to send a large number of craftsmen to Zamboanga, where Cao Bianjiao's department was located, to build a large fort with a circumference of about four miles in the local area, so as to ensure that Cao Bianjiao's department could be stationed safely and would not be harassed and attacked by the natives again.

Then, Li Xiao ordered to expand the army to the east camp of the town and expand the east camp of the town into Andong Town. Let this Andong Town, like Xingzhong Town and Pingnan Town, become a powerful town with three battalions below.

Build this town of Andong into the most powerful military presence in Northeast Asia except for the Manchus.