On the eighth day of December in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhongwuzhai stood majestically on the Tongjing Avenue from Suqian to Beijing.

The snow stopped early, and the long-lost sunshine brought some warmth, but the ground was still covered in snow, and the weather was bitterly cold. In Zhongwu Village, Zhang Songtao and his deputy commanders Feng and Li Cao inspected the defense to guard against the possible southward attack of the Qing soldiers at any time.

Yesterday, Qian Sanniang and his entourage returned and escorted back a large number of mules and horses, as well as captured Tartars, which caused a great sensation in the village.

They rested a little in Zhongwu Village, placed the wounded in the village, and after sharing information with Zhang Songtao and others, they rushed south and went straight to Tianyue Village.

And early this morning, the Central Military Department Tangma also sent an order from Yang Xianggong, asking the guard general Zhang Songtao and others to strictly guard the military village, according to the intelligence, a large number of Tartars will soon go south to Tongjing Avenue, and they Zhongwu Village will bear the brunt.

As the first line of Nanzhili's resistance to the Tatars, Zhongwu Village has a vast area, with barracks, medical houses, stables, granaries, forage fields, arsenals and other important buildings, and the grain and grass hoarded in it can be eaten by 500 people for half a year, and it is an important logistics base along Tongjing Avenue.

Many Xin'an army outposts do not collect at night, and they also take this as a key point to radiate reconnaissance posts to various places in Shandong.

Since the opening of this place last month, Zhang Songtao and others have long known Zhongwu Village well, but after receiving the order, they still carefully inspected the defense to avoid omissions in the village.

“…… The artillery had already been placed in place, and the ice outside the east gate was also poured with soot, and now the ice was melted and frozen, with different thicknesses and thicknesses, and people and horses could not walk. The outside of the wall was splashed with water, and it was frozen firmly, and the wall was slippery and difficult to climb. Hot water was always boiling in the infirmary, and the brothers were injured and could be treated immediately. In particular, Mrs. Yang returned yesterday, beheaded a large number of Tartars, and captured the mouths, and the brothers saw it, and their morale was very high......"

The first deputy chief manager Feng reported to Zhang Songtao, and they were walking on the flat field, all wearing general's armor and crimson cloaks. The cloak is made of coarse felt fabric, with a wool collar, which reaches to the calf, and is equipped with armor, which is pleasing to the eye and mighty.

This kind of armor captain level officers are only used, including the helmet weighs about 40 pounds, has a throat guard, a front and rear heart guard, a crotch guard, shin armor, etc., and has outstanding protection. Even if the Qing soldiers shoot arrows with a twelve-force bow, they must also enter a distance of twenty paces to break the armor. With the ten-force bow, it is necessary to go within fifteen paces.

Behind them were five sturdy guards, all dressed in soldier armor, carrying swords, shields, and winged tiger guns, and also crimson cloaks, knee-length.

As the general internal guard, in addition to protecting the Shangguan, they also served as military lawyers, Tang Ma to pass orders, and also learned the golden drum order, if the standard-bearer, trumpeter, and golden drummer were killed or wounded, they had to go up.

They followed unhurriedly, all wearing gloves and masks, the weather was very cold, the sun did not have the slightest warmth, and the slightest wind blew on their faces like a knife.

But Zhang Songtao and the three of them did not wear masks, their faces and noses were red from the cold, and the white gas between their breaths seemed to be condensed into frost.

Because of his exile experience and the ideal of retribution in his heart, Zhang Songtao is not only vigilant and scheming, but also tolerant and studious, good at listening to the opinions of his subordinates, and likes to delegate power to them.

Zhang Songtao believes that the Xin'an Army has just developed, and in the face of a dangerous environment, it should gather more people, look for Taoist friends, gather people from the same way, and gather under the command of Yang Xianggong, so as to strive to sweep away evil demons and restore stability and prosperity to the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, he pays great attention to exercising the ability of his subordinates, Guan Feng, a young man, is the object of his appreciation, firm, calm, sharp, and active, quite aura, if he cultivates more, there will be another general under Yang Xianggong.

They patrolled, the snow on the ground had already been shoveled, and the fine sand was paved, and it was quite easy to walk, and the second deputy followed the general Li Cao by the side, and only occasionally made a speech.

He was originally the first general deputy of the Sixth General Assembly, and after the expansion of the army, Dong Shicai, the former second general deputy general officer, was promoted to the general general of the Seventh General Assembly, and he became the second general deputy of the Sixth General Assembly.

According to the "invisible division" system of the New Security Army, the second general deputy is actually the reserve commander of the new general general, and they are equal to the commander-in-chief, and they do not participate in specific affairs in ordinary times, but only follow the chief official and occasionally do some things in this regard.

Their main task is to observe and learn, to learn how to control the overall affairs of the general government.

Li Cao's figure is very tough, and his appearance resembles a melancholy middle-aged uncle, he is from Suzhou, and he had a wife, a son and a daughter on the way to escape, but when he didn't go to Yong'anji, his wife Luo Xiao'e fell down. Before she died, her wife struggled to let him go quickly, take her children away, and leave her alone.

Li Cao kept sighing that she couldn't persevere, otherwise she would have a chance to survive if she joined Yang Xianggong's team in Shuangqiao Waste Village.

More than a year has passed in a blink of an eye, and Li Cao has become the deputy general in the Xin'an Army, and according to his current status, it is easy to marry a beautiful wife. But he has never married, in addition to being afraid that his children will have a difficult life with a stepmother, he can't forget Luo Xiao'e, the married wife.

When they came to the west gate, many soldiers were busy braving the bitter cold, they carried boxes of 10,000 enemies, and piled up a large number of ash bottles by the wall, and the atmosphere was in full swing.

The west gate is a "concave" like door, a mouth comes in, the road bends weirdly with the wall, "S" shaped, has been going in about fifteen steps, the innermost is the gate of the village, the urn city in the pine class.

The road is very high and steep between the slope, about two zhang high, but the top wall is a breast wall, the outer end is earth, the inner end is gravel, and the sacks are stacked, but it is for the convenience of the soldiers inside.

Zhang Songtao thought that this place was very important, and specially arranged 20 gunners and 30 spearmen and shield bearers in the inner urn city, shooting firearms, throwing 10,000 enemies and ash bottles, forming a trend of catching turtles in the urn.

At present, the Xin'an army has practiced throwing 10,000 enemies, Zhang Songtao specially selected people who are good at throwing, and the new 10,000 enemies they use are loaded with iron bullets, with a killing radius of three to five meters.

There are also cannons arranged at the two convex corners, both of which are in the style of falcon guns, firing ten taels of projectiles, and the guns are mounted on a very heavy four-legged wooden bench, which is covered with bronze and can be rotated up and down and left and right very flexibly.

Both guns were equipped with guards, and they also had thick sacks stacked at their gun emplacements, both sides of which were higher than their heads, which could effectively protect the gunners.

Zhang Songtao and the others walked to the convex corner at the north end, where the five gunners were busy, the gun commander and observer looked at the outside of the gun emplacement, muttering in his mouth, and the aiming hand held the handle, comparing the front sight and the door, and constantly debugging and aiming.

The ignition hand was fine, so he refueled it with a muslin cloth and wiped the five sub-guns, wiping each one shiny.

There are also two loaders, sorting out the cartridge ammunition in the ammunition box, which is divided into live ammunition and shotgun, so that it can be loaded and used at any time in wartime.

There are only five sub-guns, and they can only be reloaded after fighting, and now the Xin'an army uses fixed-loading paper tube ammunition, which is still convenient to load, and is equipped with a goose feather primer tube, and the sub-medicine is stuffed in, and then the tube is inserted.

These gunners' guns were also temporarily borrowed by the Chinese artillery team, and their armor and cloaks were similar to those of ordinary non-commissioned officers, but they did not have iron masks. After all, it's artillery, and the smoke is too big, and if you wear an iron mask, I'm afraid you won't be able to see anything after firing the gun.

Zhang Songtao walked to the artillery position and looked at it, the line of sight was very good, the artillery was facing the gap road, if the enemy came, it would be easy to hit them, and the two artillery pieces on the left and right were enough to block the middle road that was twenty paces wide.

And below the convex corner is the wall slope ditch, the wall up and down two, both sides of the oblique "eight" shape. The slope was splashed with water, slippery and hard. The trench is very deep and wide, and there are five front and back lines until it spreads fifty paces ahead.

The structure of the military village also made Zhang Songtao's Sixth General Defense worry-free and effort-saving. He had 200 soldiers, 40 shieldmen, 80 gunmen, and 80 spearmen. Zhongwu village mainly defends the west gate, this side of the terrain, north and south are 100 steps long, the slope of the walled wall at both ends is 40 steps wide, the middle road is 20 steps wide, 60 firecrackers are arranged on both sides, 30 people are each on the upper and lower wall, and 20 soldiers are arranged in the inner urn city.

Some spearmen and shieldmen who are good at throwing are also arranged around the inner urn city, throwing thousands of enemies and ash bottles at the same time.

The guards of each team, including the headquarters guards, had a total of thirteen sword, shield, and tiger guards, and they patrolled the three sides of the perimeter, and the remaining spearmen and square shieldmen were used as reserve troops.

Zhang Songtao thought carefully about this arrangement, he looked into the distance, the West Gate Road went straight out, and more than a hundred steps away was Tongjing Avenue. At this time, the snow on the official road was still thick, and the white snow was covered with snow, and if the Tartars went south, or even attacked Zhongwu Village, he would not worry about anything else, but worried about their shield cars.

Liu Qilang once told everyone in the lecture hall that the Tartars generally used shield vehicles, whether in field battles or siege cities. And their shield cars, the general guard plate is five or six inches thick, nailed with several layers of cowhide and iron sheet, and the protection is very sophisticated.

Even the finest shield cars, of the car type, made of hard elm, had a front guard and a roof eight inches thick, covered with three layers of cowhide and iron, and sometimes covered with quilts and mud, which ordinary guns could not penetrate at all.

The Xin'an army has also experimented, and their firearms and single-headed bullets can only penetrate the Qing army's shield car with three layers of cowhide and iron and five or six inches thick guard plate at a distance of about 20 paces. And at this distance, their bows and arrows, and even throwing axes and javelins, will also pose a strong threat to their own soldiers.

At that time, the discussion was to use artillery, and no matter how thick the shield car guard was, it could not stop the surging cannonballs at close range. The two artillery pieces on the side of Zhongwuzhai are the No. 2 Franc machine guns that shoot ten or two projectiles, and the shells weigh 374 grams, and no matter how thick the Tartar shield car is, it can't resist no matter what.

The key is whether you can hit or not!

The cannon commander of the convex angle here is called Kong Wanyin, who is strong and stout, honest in his duty, and is a brother with the big shield hand Kong Wanjin and the fire gun hand Kong Wancai. He also has a younger brother, Kong Wanbao, who can write and calculate, and works as a secretary in a village.

His mask was hung around his neck, his nose was so cold that his snot kept flowing out, and his upper and lower lips were white, at this time he said: "Mr. Zhang, this cannon is the same as a firecracker, it's hard to say a hundred steps away, but within forty or fifty steps, I am somewhat sure." ”

Zhang Songtao said: "Commander Kong, if the Tartars attack, they will be one step closer, and the brothers will threaten one step bigger, it is best to destroy their shield cart fifty steps away, and at worst, not let the Tartar shield cart enter within thirty steps." ”

Kong Wanyin felt a lot of pressure, he touched his head and said, "I'll do my best." ”

Zhang Songtao said solemnly: "There is a cannon commander of Lao Kong." ”

He knew that Kong Wanyin would definitely do his best, but it was difficult to say how accurate this artillery was.

At this time, the Xin'an Army fired artillery shells, which were aimed straight at like firecrackers, and no one knew where the artillery would go after it was discharged. Now the new Angun uses single-headed shells, and the accuracy has improved a lot, but firing shells depends on luck many times.