In the tenth year of the Republic, on the eighteenth day of the first month.

In the cold of spring, an iron-gray long dragon is on the mountain road where Yanshan, Taihang Mountain and Heng Mountain meet, twisting and rolling.

This area is known as the Flying Fox Mouth or Flying Fox Valley of the Ribbon Sangqian, the Bauhinia on the surface. It is one of the eight paths of Taihang, and it is the key path that connects the land of Youyan and the land of the generations, and it has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times.

The terrain of Flying Fox Valley is, of course, very dangerous. The altitude here is between 5,000 and 9,000 feet. The northern slope of the mountain road is next to the Huliu River basin in Ulju, and the southern slope of the mountain is the upper valley of the Juma River, which lies horizontally with rocks and turbidity currents. The mountain path is narrow, only fifty or sixty steps at its widest point, and only two steps up and down at its narrowest point, allowing only one carriage to pass.

Since Ulju, to which the Flying Fox Trail belongs, is the territory of the Golden Kingdom, it has been a key fortified area in the past few years, and many obstacles have been artificially set up on the already narrow and difficult roads, and a large amount of wood and stone have been used to block the narrowest sections.

So this gray army that is passing through the Flying Fox Trail is now walking with great difficulty. From time to time, they pause and wait for the sappers ahead to clear the barricades and repair the road.

In addition to the difficulty of the road, the burden of this army is also unprecedented! Regardless of whether they were generals or soldiers, everyone carried a large bag of luggage, and the soldiers among them also wore armor and carried weapons. All the horses were unpacked, and they were all loaded with supplies. There are also many tall camels, carrying light one-and-a-half-pound artillery guns (heavy shells), snorting and walking in the procession.

Wu Yiyong was also in the queue, carrying a wooden stick and leggings (this is a method that Wu Haogu had come up with a few years ago), carrying a large bag of luggage, and walking on the mountain road with difficulty. It was surrounded by officers and soldiers of the Military Aircraft Division of the Hedong Army. He is now the chief military aircraft of the Hedong Legion, that is, the chief of staff of the legion, and is walking on the Flying Fox Trail with the team.

With his status, he walked like an ordinary infantryman, and carried luggage on his back, and it was impossible to stay on the side of the Song Dynasty in any case.

But that's the rule for the Republican Army! Everyone is a citizen, and although there are ranks, they are not heaven or earth. Moreover, the Republican Army places great emphasis on the rejuvenation of officers, firstly, to make room for a steady stream of new recruits graduating from the Knight Academy; Second, it is for the sake of the current situation that vigorous and energetic officers can inject extraordinary vitality into an army that is in the era of military revolution!

This vitality lies not only in the fact that the officers are physically energetic, positive, and can share weal and sorrow with the soldiers, but also because they do not have so many rules and regulations and dare to try new technologies and new tactics.

Just in front of Wu Yiyong's Jiyi column, at this time was marching a group of musketeers carrying heavy arquebuses!

This is a single musket weighing 20 pounds, which must be assumed to be on a stand in order to fire. So the musketeers also had to carry a stand with them, and the weight can be imagined.

The firing mechanism and butt of the musket are designed with reference to the Tianjin crossbow (the Tianjin crossbow has a butt), and the body of the gun is mounted on a bracket when firing, and the butt is against the shoulder. Only then will it be possible to counteract the huge recoil of this musket!

And the barrel, the most critical part of the musket, is rolled with iron plates, with a caliber of seven points, which can fire one or two heavy projectiles, and can penetrate the armor 150 steps away!

However, the accuracy of this musket is not very good, and the effective range is only a few dozen steps, which may not be as good as the Tianjin crossbow.

Of course, the destructive power of the musket is incomparable to that of the Tianjin crossbow. If you put on a good quality of the caricature armor, and add cotton armor to the inside, a dozen crossbow arrows at a distance of dozens of steps will not necessarily be fatal.

But if you change it to a bullet or two of a heavy musket...... That's a shot into the soul! Even if you hit your limbs, you have to cut off your hands and feet, and if you survive, you can't go to the battlefield again.

However, the military department and the military machinery department of the Great Zhou Republic were not satisfied with this weapon, which was named the "Republican eight-year arquebus", and did not plan to equip it for a while. But after the battle plan for the detour to the east of the river was proposed, the situation changed.

Because the approaching road to the east of the river is too difficult to walk, it is difficult for heavy artillery to pass, in order to make up for the lack of firepower of the troops. I had to reequip some of the crossbowmen with "Republican eight-year arquebuses".

In the winter of the eighth year of the Republic, thousands of crossbowmen belonging to the 1st, 2nd, and 11th Divisions of the Republican Army all turned into musketeers, fiddling day and night with the "Republican Eight-Year Arquebus."

By the way, this new weapon was assembled by the Tianjin Artillery Factory and the Yanshan Artillery Factory. The barrel, a key component of the gun, was also forged by technicians from two gun factories with low-carbon crucible iron, and the inner chamber was also cut with a drilling machine, and the quality was still very good. It is not the same thing as the bombed guns of the Ming and Qing dynasties in history, so you can use them with confidence.

The troops gradually stopped moving, and tens of thousands of horses stopped on the narrow mountain road.

"Rest in place! Eat some dry food ......"

"No noise!"

The officers' orders came and went, and Wu Yiyong looked up at the sky, it was not yet lunch, and the troops should not stop advancing unless they encountered some obstacles.

The two heralds ran in front of Wu Yiyong along the narrow mountain road one after the other, and gave a military salute: "Lieutenant General, the front team encountered an unknown army near Xiaolingan. ”

Xiaolingan is the highest point on the Flying Fox Trail, from Xiaolingan, you can overlook the Ulju Basin to the north, and to the south, you can look down on the Flying Fox Town.

"Unidentified?" Wu Yiyong asked, "Is it Jin Bing?" Is it Song Bing? ”

"I don't know."

This answer was a bit of a surprise.

Wu Yiyong frowned, and said to Zhang Xuan, the deputy military machine beside him: "Dingwu, I'll take a look, you go to the Chinese army first." ”

"Good!" Zhang Xuan said, "Yongzhi, you can be careful...... Maybe there was an ambush. ”

"Maybe it's Xiao Gan's people." After saying that, Wu Yiyong threw his backpack to a personal entourage, then recruited a few guards, and strode forward.

His analysis is not without reason. Because Jin Bing obviously didn't plan to defend the Flying Fox Trail. After the vanguard of the Hedong Army marched out of Bauhinia Pass and westward, the golden soldiers guarding the Flying Fox Trail disappeared. So all the way through, there was no fighting.

Perhaps to the west of the Flying Fox Trail, the Jin soldiers near the Bottle Pass have also withdrawn. In this way, Xiao Gan's men and horses may be able to move east to respond.

However, Xiaoling Saddle is not close to the bottle-shaped pass, and Xiao Gan's soldiers and horses came too quickly, right?

……

"Musketeers, check the equipment!"

"Checked!"

"Done!"

When Wu Yiyong arrived at the saddle of Xiaoling, a group of musketeers had already lined up and were in the process of making the final equipment check.

The sword and shield men of the brigade lined up behind them, and in the sunlight, the sharp horizontal knives flashed with a dazzling light.

About half a brigade of Republican infantry, has entered the battlefield!

It turned out that what they encountered here was not Xiao Gan's troops, but a team of soldiers and horses from the Zhaoyi Army.

The Jin soldiers stationed in Xiaoling'an were still righteous, and before running away, they sent someone to inform the nearby Song army - the Flying Fox Trail is a crossroads, the main road is east-west, the secondary road is north-south, and then Dingbei Sankou. The Zhaoyi army stationed troops there and built forts. After receiving the news of the retreat of the Jin soldiers and the invasion of the Zhou army, he immediately sent troops to settle in Xiaolingan.

"At least one battalion or more of the Song army! There were no artillery, but they were equipped with crossbows, and we tried to attack once, and they fired at least ten volleys! The breastwork fortifications have been there for a long time, but there are no trenches, no deer barrages......

We're going to shoot them at long distances with arquebuses to see if we can drain their archers. ”

"When will we be able to launch a general attack?" Wu Yiyong suddenly spoke. The officers around him all looked up, and everyone had serious eyes.

"If it is certain that the enemy has only one battalion," Wu Yi said bravely, "then attack as soon as possible, without delay, and the soldiers will be fast!" Now the Song army already knows that we are advancing to the east of the river, so time is precious! ”

A colonel of the Great Zhou Republican Army said to Wu Yiyong: "Lieutenant General, it is expected that a general attack will be launched in half an hour." ”

"Half an hour?" Wu Yiyong shot him with a sharp gaze, "Why not right away?" Can a battalion of Zhaoyi soldiers not be defeated? Still need to exhaust the strength of the archers? We don't have a carapace?

Hit it right away! Be sure to take the Saddle of Koling within an hour! Any idea what to do? ”

Wu Yiyong has never been a good person, it may be because he went into battle to kill people at the age of thirteen, or it may be related to the fact that he received military education since he was a child. His personality is a bit cold, and he looks fierce, and the light from a pair of sharp eyes can stab people.

And he is also quite strict with his subordinates, and he never shows mercy when he is scolded and punished.

In addition, he doesn't care much about the life and death of soldiers!

Zero casualties were never his goal!

At his urging, the 1st Brigade of the Army, which took the lead, quickly organized the first round of onslaught. The infantry of the brigade slowly advanced in a dense array, and at the front were gunners with heavy muskets, lined up in four or five rows, all fully armored and protected by visors, and the whole was a moving iron man.

Behind them were swords and shields in the same dense formation, but instead of carrying shields, they carried a hand cannon—a grenade—a cast-iron ball filled with gunpowder and a wooden handle under it, lit it and threw it with all its might.

The hand cannon was developed earlier than the musket and was originally intended as a weapon against the fort – by digging a trench to approach the perimeter of the fort and then throwing a hand cannon. However, in the experiment, it was found that the hand cannon often could not be thrown high enough, so it was also a bit of a chicken rib. So it was delayed for some time, and it was not until last winter that it was equipped with the Hedong Corps.

After the grenadiers, there were the swords and shields of the brigade with long-handled axes and guns. Now the sword and shield soldiers in the Zhou army did not necessarily use sword and shield, but evolved into the title of hand-to-hand combat and melee troops.

The weapons used are also very diverse. There are swords, shields, grenades, axes and guns, and they are usually played by elite infantry with high martial arts.

The battle formation composed of muskets, grenades, and axes rolled towards the position held by the Zhaoyi Army!

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