Chao Gai said: "There is a difficult task to be handed over to your battalion, I don't know if you dare to take it." ”

Li Kui patted his chest: "Brother, don't ask about this kind of thing in the future, no matter how difficult the task is, I dare to take it, whether you want to send our battalion to smash the black werewolf's lair." ”

"You must be indispensable to smash the black werewolf's lair, but the most important thing at the moment is to build outposts, barracks, etc., which requires a lot of wood, and your battalion's axe soldiers are the most powerful, to cut down tens of thousands of trees." Chao Gai said.

Li Kui said: "Okay, it turned out to be cutting down trees, and I thought I was going to cut people." ”

Li Kui took their battalion to cut down trees, and as for the other soldiers who were idle and had nothing to do, they couldn't be idle, so Chao Gai sent them to plant trees near the camp. The survival rate of planting trees in the summer is low, but it doesn't matter, Chao Gai arranged to find those varieties that are easy to root, cut off the branches, and plant in the ground to germinate, such as poplars, willows and so on. There are many dense trees in the place where there are mountains on Heilong Island, there are towering ancient trees everywhere, especially the cedar trees are tall and have always been very suitable for building materials, but the grassland is more extreme, almost no shadow of the tree, the herdsmen usually burn the fire and cook basically with cow dung and horse dung, although this thing is not dirty, but it is easy to contain parasite eggs. Therefore, Chao Gai mobilized various tribes to build charcoal forests on both sides of the river and on both sides of the reservoir.

What is the charcoal forest, it is said that the wood used for burning the fire is directly ordered, and the growth rate is required to be fast, and the small willow trees can be cut down as firewood in three or two years. However, these tribes obviously do not have the consciousness of protecting nature, and they do not care about this kind of thing, and they only plant trees because of the military power trained by the Jeju regiment.

At the dock of Baiyu Port, Yuan Lang and Jin Ding got off the warship with three hundred cavalry, the war horses were a little spiritless, and they were a little uncomfortable after a long time on the boat, but fortunately it was a steam ship, and the speed was much faster than the original.

Wen Zhongrong was in charge of the reception at the dock, and as soon as he saw Yuan Lang, he asked: "Vice General Wen, how is the battle situation, why did you hurriedly transfer our battalion." ”

Wen Zhongrong said: "It has advanced more than 200 miles to the north, and has newly subdued thirty-five tribes, with more than 20,000 people, and there are still some tribes nearby that have not been submitted. He fought several battles with the black wolf bandits one after another, destroying more than 2,000 enemy soldiers, but mainly for artillery meritorious service. But the black werewolf has at least more than 2,500 remnants of cavalry, our cavalry has just been formed, combat effectiveness is a problem, it may be that Chao Tuanlian feels that the strength here is too weak, so I asked you to come over to help, I didn't say the specifics, you first rest here for two days, and two days later you go north to see Chao Tuanlian. ”

Yuan Lang said: "There is such a deputy general Lao Wen." ”

There are also a thousand strong men, and more strong men will continue to come. Wang Lun has a white towel on his shoulder, where is he still like a scholar, he is clearly a construction worker, supervising the construction of private houses on the construction site.

Wang Lun asked a newcomer, "Where did you come from and why did you come here?" ”

"I came from Qingzhou, and my family suffered so badly that I had no food to eat. In the spring, there was a drought first, and then there were locusts, and the most important thing was that the officials still collected taxes as usual, and there were many people who could not survive, and I heard that there were still tens of thousands of people coming, but there were not so many big ships. ”

Wang Lun found that among the newcomers this time were not only from Shandong and Hebei, but also from Shanxi, Henan, and even many from Jiangnan. In the hometown of fishermen in the south of the Yangtze River, the common people were forced to die and be displaced, and the officials of the Great Song Dynasty were really confused.

Xu Meng and his twenty workers returned to New Jeju Island on a steam warship, Yuan Lang and Xu Meng were not familiar with each other, not to mention that Xu Meng's unit was involved in secrets, so the two chatted a few words and went their separate ways. Xu Meng went back with an urgent task. The arquebus performed extraordinarily on this battlefield, and it made great contributions, and Chao Gai decided to vigorously develop it. Officially named Vulcan, the Vulcan Gun generation has a total length of two meters and a half, a barrel two meters long, a butt of half a meter, a caliber of fifteen millimeters, and fires a cylindrical solid iron bullet with a pointed tip, with a range of up to two hundred meters. Equipped with a front mount, two people are equipped with a Vulcan cannon, which can cooperate with each other to increase the rate of fire when fired.

Xu Meng's task when he returned was to expand the foundry artillery factory, expanding the current scale of 300 people to 500 people, and expanding the ammunition factory to 500 people. Then five hundred arquebuses were made as soon as possible for use in battlefield practice.

Yuan Lang and Jin Ding first came to Heilong Island and said: "This Heilong Island is not much different from New Jeju Island, the same mountains and rivers are beautiful, and the same land is fertile. ”

Moon Zhongrong said: "That's because it's summer, so it looks like there is no difference in New Jeju Island, and you will know it in winter, when it is full of ice and snow." Also, there are a lot of mosquitoes here in the summer, so you should be prepared when you come. ”

Yuan Lang nodded: "I'm ready, I brought a lot of mosquito repellent flower water and sun-dried wormwood." ”

Immediately, Yuan Lang and Jin Ding led three hundred cavalry to temporarily stay in the Baiyugang military camp to rest, and the soldiers and horses were a little tired after a long boat ride and needed to rest.

Two days later, the cavalry rested. Yuan Lang and Jin Ding rushed to the northern grassland under the leadership of the guide, the fertile grassland is two hundred miles north of the Tunu River outpost, rich in good cattle, Chao Gai named it the fierce cattle grassland, and the military camp is called the fierce bull barracks, which echoes the Baiyugang military camp in the south.

The grassland is the home of the cavalry, the war horse here is cool to run, because the grass is good now, there is no need to add how to add concentrate, the march is over, the war horse can be grazed on the spot to eat.

There was a sentry post fifty miles along the road, more than two hundred miles, and Yuan Lang led the troops to walk for two days.

In the Fierce Bull Barracks, Chao Gai led the battalion of soldiers to meet Yuan Lang.

Yuan Lang and Jin Ding got off their horses from afar, sorted out their armor, and came over to Chao Gai and said: "The Fourth Cavalry Battalion, battalion commander Yuan Lang, deputy general Jin Ding, report to Chao Tuanlian. ”

Chao Gai returned the salute, "I have worked hard all the way, so I will arrange for the soldiers to rest first." ”

Li Kui next to him smiled and said: "Brother Yuan Lang is here, his strength is greater than mine, now it's okay, the work of cutting trees will be handed over to him." ”

Everyone laughed, and Liu Tang next to him glared at him and said, "I want to talk nonsense again, my brother will give you something and dare to pick the fat and thin." ”

Li Kui rolled his eyes: "I'm just saying, you didn't see the brothers working hard, and no one complained about the burning of their hands." ”

Yuan Lang, Jin Ding and the generals saluted one by one, and then settled the soldiers into the barracks. Jin Ding arranged the soldiers, and Yuan Lang followed Chao Gai to the Chinese army's big tent.

Chao Gai said: "Liu Tang, you can introduce the current battle situation to Battalion Commander Yuan Lang. ”

Liu Tang pulled down the hanging map, pointed to the map and said: "A month ago, the two thousand teams of the black werewolves went south, and there was a fierce battle near the Tunu River outpost, and after several battles, a total of more than 2,500 enemies were annihilated, and the black werewolves were greatly injured, and it is estimated that there are at most 2,500 cavalry, because of this, they were frightened by our artillery and no longer attacked our positional warfare. However, the reclamation camp was originally only 400 cavalry, but recently it has been cobbled together to form a cavalry of 3,000 people. Pang Wanchun's bow battalion was temporarily changed to cavalry, and although the number of people came up, the combat effectiveness was not good, so Chao Tuanlian consulted with us and called Battalion Commander Yuan, who had rich experience in cavalry combat, over. ”

Yuan Lang said: "I don't have a lot of combat experience, at most I can just chase and fight." ”

"The Black Werewolf is a typical horse thief-type nomad, he is not the name of a tribe, but the name of a group of bandits. Black wolf bandits rarely graze, never farm, all the food is robbed, it can be said that every black wolf bandit is a heinous crime, they use hardwood maces and bows and arrows as the main weapons, only leather armor on the body, the defense ability is not strong, but the mobility is very strong, come and go like the wind, there is no dependence on logistics at all, much stronger than our cavalry. Liu Tang continued.

Yuan Lang also has a headache, this group of horse thieves must be difficult to deal with, besides, the cavalry is not infantry, the infantry is trained in three months, and the cavalry is just starting in three months.

Chao Gai said: "We have built forty outposts at designated points in the Fierce Bull Grassland, and each outpost is equipped with thirty infantrymen. There are Ranger patrols between the outposts to maximize the full control of the Bull Meadows. But this is a passive defense, and it is necessary to rely on cavalry to really eliminate the black wolf bandits. Now that the reclamation camp has expanded to 3,000 cavalry, your battalion will also expand to 1,000 cavalry. ”

Yuan Lang said: "There is no problem with the expansion of the army, but the cavalry training takes too long. ”

"The black wolf bandits are our henchmen, and now the six thousand people and horses are working here and the daily consumption is astronomical, and we can't afford to consume it, so we have to be fast. The soldiers are also ready-made, recruiting seven hundred from the local tribes to replenish your fourth battalion, these people have grown up on horseback since childhood, and are skilled in bowing horses. Chao Gai said.

Yuan Lang deeply understands that the consumption of fighting a war is too great, and food, grass, military salaries, etc. are all expenses. As soon as he heard that there was a ready-made source of soldiers, Yuan Lang said: "That's so good and trouble-free, it will be run-in in ten days at most." ”

Chao Gai said: "Don't be too happy too early, these people are nomadic herdsmen on the grassland, and they are used to being wild, so they must be suppressed." In the past few days, you will start to recruit soldiers in all directions, on the condition that you pay 100 catties of salt and 10 catties of tea for settling in. Then the monthly money is 300 catties of grain. ”

"This, salt, tea?" Yuan Lang was surprised when he heard it.

Pang Wanchun explained: "The money here has not yet been circulated, and it is mainly exchanged for goods. Salt and tea are rare varieties in the grasslands. ”

Yuan Lang nodded, and he was relieved.

The seven hundred cavalry are not all nomads recruited from the fierce cattle grassland, and there are also strong men from Hebei recruited from Zhuangdingli, most of these men can ride horses, but they are not skilled enough in horse warfare. Sure enough, as Chao Gai said, these people on the grassland are unruly and difficult to manage. But this is not difficult for Yuan Lang, if you don't accept it, if you don't accept it, we will fight. After cleaning up more than a dozen thorns one after another, no one dared to be unconvinced.

[This book was first published from 17K, see the genuine content for the first time!] ]

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