Qiding Erdeke was platooned to work the night shift on the city walls of Liaoyang. Night duty on the city walls is not a beauty difference during this season. The nights were extremely cold, and the wind was strong over the walls. Even in a thick leather jacket, it was very cold. In the past, in a place like Liaoyang, it was actually possible to relax at night. Most of the time, you can hide in the castle tower and roast the fire, every quarter of an hour or two, and then go out for a little turn. However, since Zheng Jiajun attacked Jinzhou at night, there has been no such good thing. Now, after returning from the defeat in Niuzhuang Fort, the night shift is even stricter, and the above will come to inspect the night duty almost every night, once it is found that there is a fear of cold and laziness, the punishment is not light. Two days ago, one of the bannermen of the same banner of Erdeke was lazy during the night patrol, and roasted a fire in the city tower for a while, and then was caught by the patrol, and was beaten by a whip to the point that he was completely out of human shape. Therefore, Erdek did not dare to run into the city tower, he could only shrink into a corner sheltered from the wind, stomp his feet hard to keep warm, and kept looking to both sides to prevent the patrol from suddenly appearing, while calculating the time of the changing of the guard in his heart.

At this moment, he suddenly noticed that he didn't know when, the sky in the south seemed to be brighter, and the clouds in the sky over there seemed to be slightly reddened.

"What is this?" Erdek felt that he seemed to have seen such a situation somewhere. He struggled to recall, trying to follow this familiarity and pull the memories of the past out of the ice of memory. Finally, he remembered that that summer, there was a wildfire on the mountain, and at night, looking at it from a distance, the clouds over there seemed to reflect a red light. It's just that the light is much brighter than that.

"It's winter, it's snowing, why is the forest burning over there?" Erdek muttered to himself. At that moment, he faintly heard footsteps coming from him. Erdek immediately gave up thinking, straightened up, clenched the spear in his hand, and looked that way. Sure enough, I saw a few patrols coming up the stairs over there.

"Stop! Password! Erdek shouted.

"God bless!" The other side responded and quickly stepped forward. Coming closer, by the light of the stars, Erdek recognized that it was none other than Zhang Jing, named Taktan, who was walking in front of them. The man also recognized Erdek, walked over, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "The young man is very energetic!" What's not? ”

"Nope." Erdek replied, and suddenly he thought of the small red cloud again, and said: "It's over there, it seems that something is burning, you see over there, it shouldn't be a mountain fire, right?" ”

"At this time, it snowed heavily, what kind of wildfire? Have you ever seen a wildfire when the mountain is full of snow? Taktan shook his head and looked to the side where Erdek was pointing, and the clouds were faintly glowing red.

"Damn it!" Taktan's face changed, "This is not a wildfire, this is a village over there that is on fire!" ”

Compared to Erdek, Taktan is much more experienced. He began to fight with the team in the early years of the Mandate of Heaven, and he personally burned down many Han villages. He was most familiar with what the village looked like when it burned.

Upon hearing this, several people became nervous.

"Master, do you want to report it? Want to ring the bell? Erdek hurriedly asked.

"What do you think?" Tucker Tan said, "If a village is on fire, maybe it's your own fire, but now you ring the bell and make the whole city panic, and you're not afraid of cutting off your head?" Besides, you are ringing the bell now, this big night, can we still send troops to run dozens of miles overnight to fight the fire? By the time you get there, the fire will have already burned out on its own. ”

"What if it's an enemy sneak attack?" Erdek asked again.

"Enemy sneak attack? This kind of weather? Tak Tan smiled, "If the target of the enemy's sneak attack is Liaoyang City, they won't set fire elsewhere." If they attack a village outside the city, then they are not targeting us...... But even if there are enemy troops, can we still send troops in the dark at this big night? I'm afraid I'm afraid I've fallen for their tricks. You see, if there is an enemy army attacking a village, then they will not attack only one village tonight, if it is, ......"

As he was talking, Taktan's eyes suddenly widened: "Look over there, it's burning over there!" ”

Everyone looked over there, and sure enough, the same red light appeared on the left side of the place.

"This must be an enemy attack, and it is impossible for both villages to be on fire at the same time...... You keep an eye here, you guys keep an eye on him, I'll report ......" Tak Tan said hurriedly as he went down to the city.

……

The assault raids on Manchu villages caused great trouble for the Manchus, causing panic in villages outside the city. The Qing army also tried to capture this assault team, but because of the gap in sled technology, there was a huge gap in speed when facing the commandos who used dog sleds to maneuver, so their encirclement and suppression operations were fruitless. In order to ensure safety, the Manchus had to move large numbers of peasants from the villages to the cities during the winter, which further exacerbated their attrition and greatly reduced the morale of the army and civilians.

Throughout the long winter, the model army's sled commandos continued to attack the hinterland of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and even crossed Liaoyang at the farthest point and approached the city of Shenyang. During this winter, they burned dozens of large and small villages with relatively small losses, forcing the entire Manchu ruling area into a state of alert for war, and thus consuming a large amount of valuable supplies. It wasn't until spring arrived, when the snow and ice began to melt, that the attacks stopped.

But the Manchus could not breathe a sigh of relief from this, because with spring came famine. In the winter, the Manchus had to consume more supplies in order to cope with the attack of the sled commandos, which also made the spring famine even more serious.

While the Manchus were struggling with famine, the Model Army was methodically preparing for a general offensive in early summer. After lengthy negotiations, the Ming and Spain reached a new peace agreement. Spain sold the entire Philippine colony to the Ming for 50,000 gold escudos, which was to be paid in installments over a period of ten years. Spaniards can continue to reside in the Port of Manila and engage in any legal business activity. At the same time, the state of war between the Ming and Spain ended, and Spain also obtained the right to trade with the Ming.

After the end of the war with Spain, the Model Army was able to devote more of its forces to the north. Since the end of the ice closure of the port of Niuzhuang Fort, all kinds of materials have been continuously transported here. Throughout the spring, Niuzhuang Fort continued to expand, and by the end of spring, it had been expanded into a large logistics base capable of supporting 50,000 combat troops.

The day of the decisive battle is getting closer and closer. ()

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