"When was the last time a transport team arrived in Guangzhou?"

Zhou Huai'an couldn't help but stand at the head of the boat and asked.

"If you go back to the army, but it will be eleven days ago."

Yang Neng, the food officer of the army and the leader of the auxiliary brigade, responded.

"Then set up camp first, and get ready. I'll wait for tomorrow to find out. ”

Zhou Huai'an immediately decided. So the people around him who were holding the flags and messengers began to erect a long pole with several colored lanterns, and at the same time blew a conch horn with a low and heavy voice.

At this time, most of the soldiers who had disembarked one after another, in the gray sky, had to face the direction of the city, and sat down quietly in patches of slightly higher places with coarse felt blankets; When the first whistle blew one after another, they began to unpack their bags and examine and tidy up;

By the second whistle, most of the people had their weapons and gear ready and placed in their readily available positions, and they used shovels to clear the ground of weeds and gravel from them. Then, at the sound of the whistle for the third time, they took out their compressed rations and ate on the soup they had brewed in the kettle.

As the leading soldiers and fire captains, they began to walk among them to inspect the preparation and feeding of individuals, and to correct and make up for defects and omissions to ensure the basic condition of the majority. If you are injured or ill, you will be redirected to a swimming medical center on the riverboat.

Then the auxiliary brigade personnel who disembarked also began to operate, and they dug out the most basic trenches and drainage channels along the preset outline of the camp, and the circle of wire barricades was also unfurled, and along with the fixed stakes at both ends, they were laid on the perimeter of the camp, forming the first line of blocking defense.

As an inevitable division of the development of the iron industry to a certain extent, today's Nanhai Iron Field can use drilled iron molds to draw wire from large to small specifications of heat-treated metal strips; and obtained the corresponding wire of different thicknesses; There are only two distinctions in the specific use of it.

One is that it hardens after cold fire treatment, bends it into a flat iron ring and serves as a component preparation for chain mail; One is to strengthen the toughness and ductility, and eventually turn into a circle of iron wire, or iron wire; Because under the current iron material, if it is really as thin as an ordinary silk thread, the strength of the wire itself is simply unreliable.

Therefore, the barbed wire used today is still a bit bulky and rudimentary, except for two iron wires with hinged hooks, and there is no such complicated battlefield tricks as in later generations, but in spite of this, it is much lighter and less troublesome than the traditional wooden repelling horses and platoon guns carried by them.

A distance of thirty or forty paces wide can be carried on a horse in a special basket or on a trailer with seven or eight pieces; It is really a light and rapid march that lacks time to obtain local materials, or it is a necessary choice of excellent equipment when climbing over complex terrain.

The gap between the barbed wire fences was soon brought back from the boat, and the chauffeurs that had been fixed on the rafts were introduced one by one along the ground of the shore and into the preset camp area.

At this time, the soldiers who were resting in the same place had also set up a fire between each fire with the charcoal of the distribution channel, and set up tents for the night camp around the fire according to the ration of waterproof materials and rods and utensils they had received. Small pits were dug for the accumulation of garbage and waste, and the shallow drainage ditches on the side of the tents were led to a large ditch that led directly to the river for fire prevention.

As the smell of grain spread through the tents, it was time for the members of the auxiliary brigade and the miscellaneous servants who were responsible for the construction of the camp labor, to eat; On a cart loaded with a tin stove, scones made of wet noodles and rice balls that have been prepared and heated in advance, along with hot soup from the stove with dried soy sauce and salted vegetables, are carried out in baskets and distributed.

However, before eating, each person was given a spoonful of tempeh or shrimp paste in a jar to serve as an accompaniment to the rice. When they had almost eaten the food, the soldiers who were on alert, standby, and resting in batches began to refill the water bladders or bottles and jugs that they had drunk.

Then the auxiliary brigade and miscellaneous servants who had eaten dinner still could not rest. Lit by torches, they went in batches to the nearest bushes to cut down all the necessary timber and hauled it back with pack animals. The larger dry wood is used to store materials for equipment and camp defense, while the smaller branches are used to dry and coke on the edge of the fire as a backup for firewood.

The generals led by Zhou Huai'an were the last to eat; After inspecting the various sentry posts and construction sites, as well as the preparation of the fire kitchen, there were only three kinds of food in the tray in front of him;

One of them was a thick porridge mixed with beans, wheat and rice, which he scooped out from several sampling fire cooking spots to prepare for the night's work. It has a strong cereal aroma that is unique to cooking in a large pot and a fierce fire.

One is a standard palm-sized compressed ration that looks no different from other soldiers, but as a special offering for generals, it is not as heavy oil and salt as the soldier's version, but with a larger proportion of spices and vegetables, minced meat, fish floss or something, the taste is much better and more delicate.

Finally, a roasted rabbit's leg, the only representation of privilege, was also brushed with a golden honey sauce and salt and pepper, and the wild catch obtained on the spot was given to him as some symbolism; In other generals, it corresponds to a stack of sliced and dry-fried Cantonese sausages, or canned stewed meat in bean sauce; And when I got to the old man, there was only a piece of boiled salted fish.

Although it is not the main factor in the rebel army, the gesture and oath of sharing weal and woe with the soldiers are not just words for Zhou Huai'an.

Then they were so busy until late at night that the wind and the moonlight became darker and darker, and after the accumulated timber had been piled up in a large circle intermittently around the camp, the toiling crowd fell asleep on the straw mats of the camp tent with a tired body in the melodious and gentle sound of the flute;

And in this process, the city of Guizhou is still quiet and unresponsive; It's as if you don't even know what's going on under the city. However, on the night of work, when the moonlight was completely gone, a voice suddenly sounded. It is the approximate location of the outer wire fence; Complementing the vigilance was a number of companion cords, containing empty jars of gravel that made a noisy noise.

"Sure enough, it's coming."

Zhou Huai'an, who ordered the soldiers to be divided into three sets of clothes, took turns to rest and wait for the pills, and waited for them on the outside, and waited for them tightly. Then I saw a dim lantern slip down from the high pole that was the command of the night, and became a blue parchment lantern;

Then, a dozen bright fireballs suddenly flew out of the campfire in the middle of the camp; But it was equipped with long-range equipment, and the team made a move. In a few breaths, these fireballs with different trajectories had scattered and crashed into the dark curtain outside the camp; Suddenly, the high and low scattered bursts burst into more sparks and flowing little rain of fire.

I saw that under the dim light of these scattered fires, there were many people with short clothes and sharp knives in their hands, rushing towards the edge of the camp that seemed to be empty; Then they rolled and fell to the ground, but they were hit by a preset barbed wire fence.

And the ringing of the bells tied to those barricades is like the best direction and goal guidance; I saw the sound of whistles blowing one after another, and the sparse inner ring baffle and the array bow and crossbow behind the stand also fell on them one after another like the whistling wind in the night sky; Suddenly there was a burst of roars and screams.

Like a rice crop that has been beaten and fallen by a stormy wind, it can never get up again when it falls down almost backwards and backwards, and quickly piles up layers of corpses and painful wounded people inside and outside the trenches and barricades; And it becomes a new obstacle that the followers need to climb.

Suddenly, however, the deadly rain of arrows was gone; But these enemies, who had been seriously frustrated and hesitated, rushed forward again like a wave, as if they had received some kind of encouragement; However, such a short pause was not a mistake by the rebels but a trap. Because at this time, the strong crossbow array, which has a slower rate of fire but full of penetrating power, has also been targeted and replaced with a multi-layer repeater with a faster rate of fire but a closer distance;

In the dense burst of whirring and pressing down on the handle; The morale of the enemy, who had struggled to overcome the obstacles of the corpses, had once again become a tragedy in a sense; In the oncoming rain of arrows, which were even denser like locusts, they almost seemed to conjure up hedgehogs and stacks of arrows out of thin air, howling out of grief and pain, and falling to the ground with many short arrows.

Although many short arrows only penetrate into the body in small sections, if they are densely enough to cover the head, face, chest and neck, etc., they can still kill people or immediately lose their ability to fall to the ground. In the end, only the sparse enemy, as if filtered through a sieve, rushed to the shield guarded by the crossbow in a daze.

Then they screamed and became shorter, but they rushed to fall into a narrow ditch that was close to the shade, and then they were pierced through the soles of their feet or stabbed in the calves by bamboo sticks inserted in the water, and suddenly became difficult to move and struggled, and were poked and slashed by the knives and guns that fell from their heads.

And at this time, the blow from the long-range weapons of the Appearance Team finally came to these enemies; The flying curved fire balls and poisonous smoke balls crashed fiercely into the following crowd, and suddenly there was a tragic howl in the darkness, clearing several "blanks" of firelight; It was like a signal to launch a counter-attack, and suddenly the sharp and rapid whistle was blown into a large area.

The baffles and rows on the edge of the inner trench were also pushed down one after another and turned into some kind of cross-frame aisle, and the sparkling and swords-raising squads of jumping teams were divided into more than a dozen long dragons and arrows flying out under the light of the uncertain fire, and they violently went around the side to block the waist and slash and kill;

In the end, these enemies who were scattered in a disorganized manner were shocked and dispersed everywhere like sheep and pigs, and then completely dispersed their order and fighting spirit, and in a miserable howl and wail, they all knelt down and begged for mercy or were captured, and only a few enemies who were far away fled with the cover of darkness.

It can be said that these enemies behaved and reacted in the night battle, and even those officers and soldiers who broke through under Chaoyang City at the beginning were inferior, and they only lasted less than half an hour in the attack and defense that turned from a surprise attack to a strong attack and a rout.

But it doesn't end there. Zhou Huai'an couldn't help but continue to look into the distance with deep eyes, which was the direction of the city and the gatehouse shrouded in darkness. After a tormenting moment of waiting, I saw several piles of fires suddenly and slowly light up. And then someone rushed to report.

"Report, the strange soldiers who are waiting at the south gate have succeeded. I'm holding on to help. ”

"Okay, let's go into the city overnight and find out what's going on."

Zhou Huai'an hammered his arm hard at this time, facing the left and right.

(End of chapter)