The gray clouds, slowly moving from south to north, the sun is dim, the weather is cold, but in this spring people give people a sense of desolation and desolation. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

In the south of Linzhang City, the desolate fields on both sides of the Zhanghe River are full of thick snow that falls in winter.

Ruixue Mega Year!

Last winter's successive heavy snowfalls boded well for this year's harvest, but for the people on both sides of the Zhanghe River, their faces certainly did not show a smile because of the snow.

If they look at the heavy snow in previous years, they will imagine that when the sorghum is planted in the spring, under the moisture of the snow water, there will be a good harvest this year, but now the hearts of these people who have just experienced the "cold spring" are still stuck in the cold wind.

Scourge!

In the past few years, they have experienced several military disasters, and they are keenly aware that a military disaster will befall them again, and some people have even fled to the mountainous areas of Wu'an and other places to avoid the military disaster.

For them, it is not just the wise words of their ancestors, but an ironclad fact.

The long-haired outdated pioneers, the officers and soldiers outdated to reward the army, every time the army passes, I don't know how many families are ruined, women are humiliated, even if it is a large family, it is inevitable to destroy the wealth and eliminate the disaster.

This eerie weather, without the slightest warmth of spring.

In the woods, where tenderness is beginning, small birds such as sparrows are singing in the woods, and flocks pass through this village, this woods, for which they cannot understand the suffering of ordinary people, for whom the arrival of spring means the end of a short winter.

On the avenue of the embankment of the Zhanghe River that has been in disrepair for a long time, the pedestrians and tourists who pass by on weekdays are becoming more and more scarce at this time, and the white fruit tree that has grown for hundreds of years is like a giant umbrella, standing alone on the edge of the Zhanghe River is very eye-catching, and the hundred-year-old giant willows on the embankment like a canopy are also swaying their branches in the spring breeze, as if they are cheering for the arrival of spring.

It's a cold spring!

After the cold spring, it will be the real spring, and the weather will get hotter and hotter at that time. When the sharp snow completely melts, at that time, the fields on both sides of the Zhanghe River, you can see people busy in the fields everywhere, the plan of the year lies in the spring, after the fields that have been resting for a winter have accumulated a winter's farm fertilizer, they will be busy planting sorghum and millet in the fields, and after ten days, this seemingly desolate and empty field will be covered with green.

In a few months, the green gauze tent will cover the whole land of North China, and for the common people, this season of grain is the most important thing of the year. After autumn, the farmer's hard work for several months has paid off, and after the sorghum and millet are put into the warehouse, those large and small piles of sorghum stalks and soybean straws will be piled on the ground.

In ordinary times, this is the year of the people.

The plan of the year lies in spring, and spring means the beginning.

But now, in this spring. The clouds of war loom over this place, and the people here are shrouded in the clouds of war.

A month ago, that is, after Emperor Kaihong ascended the throne, nearly 10,000 officers and soldiers of the 13th Mixed Brigade stationed in Zheng County, Henan Province, crossed the Yellow River.

Since that day, the clouds of war have hung over this place.

The Han army south of the Zhanghe River did not try to cross the Zhanghe, but continued to fire artillery north of the Zhanghe River. Shells fell one after another in the fields and houses north of the Zhanghe River, and one black pillar of smoke rose from the ground, carrying the dirt and into the air. The artillery bombardment was far more intense than one might think. Sometimes, if an observation post on the Zhanghe River spotted the Qing army, a burst of shells would rain down like a torrential rain. At that moment, all the houses, trees, and everything on the ground within the reach of the shell would tremble in the explosion and be destroyed in the explosion.

In this kind of shelling, under the order of Zhao Pengxuan, the president of Zhulu, the thousands of Eight Banners foreign gun teams in Hebei built a Western-style fortress on the road to Linzhang, which was a simple fortress made of thorn cage and earthen walls.

From the first year of Tongzhi, in the face of the war in the south, in order to save the decline of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court trained the foreign gun team in Tianjin, after the foreign gun team defeated Henan Changmao several times, and then in view of the success of the foreign gun team, under the promotion of the Tongzhi Emperor, began to follow the example of the Western reform of the military system with the help of the American foreigners, abolished the Eight Banners and built a new army, most of the young and middle-aged children in Beijing were called into the foreign gun team camp in Xiyuan and Beiyuan, and practiced foreign exercises under the training of the foreigners.

The foreign gun corps is different from the old Eight Banners military system, and at the suggestion of the foreigners when training troops at small stations, the new army takes towns as the basic units, and each town has eight battalions of infantry corps, two battalions of horse corps, two battalions of artillery corps, and one battalion of engineering corps. The 250 men of each battalion of the infantry team are divided into 3 posts, the 180 cavalry of each battalion of the horse team is divided into 3 posts, the 200 men of each battalion of the artillery team are divided into 4 posts, and the 1 battalion of the engineering team is 100 people, and the medical officers, veterinarians, gunsmiths, men, grooms, etc. are separately prepared. The number of soldiers in the whole army is nearly 3,000. At first, it only trained one town of the new army, and today, there are only 28 towns of the new army.

At this time, stationed north of the Zhanghe River was the Eight Banners Foreign Gun Team "Weiyuan Town", although "Weiyuan Town" had just been trained for a year. However, because most of its soldiers were poor people recruited in Shandong, compared with the so-called "Jingzi head" such as "Jingyuan Town", "Jingping Town" and "Jingguo Town", the first batch of Eight Banners foreign gun team to drill was stronger in combat power, and it was precisely because of this that they were sent to the south to guard against the attack of the Han army.

Compared with the simple numbers used by the Han army as the number of troops, the Eight Banners Foreign Gun Brigade has more Chinese characteristics, in addition to the name of the town with "Jing" and "Wei" as the name of the town, the eight battalions of the infantry team in the town are in the order of "Qian, Zhen, Kan, Gen, Kun, Xun, Li, Dui" in the gossip.

After the "Qianzi Battalion" was placed south of the Zhanghe River, the officers and men of the battalion dug trenches according to the orders of the commander, and the trenches, which were nearly one person deep in the breastwork, now became their greatest support.

Naha is the head of the shed of the Qianzi camp, and unlike the others in the shed, he is a banner man, a man who is born with an iron crop. But now it is not as good as in the past, since the Jingshi was almost captured by Changmao, the hardcore crops in Jingying have been in arrears, if he hadn't been on an errand in the foreign gun team, I'm afraid the family would have run out of food.

Although now in his opinion, the identity of this flag man is no longer useful, but it is precisely because of his identity as a flag man that he became the head of this shed, and he took an extra one or two silver a month, five taels of silver a month, and naturally cannot be compared with the past, but now, your family relies on these five taels of silver.

"Hey, it's all those rebels in the south, if it weren't for their grandfathers, how could they suffer this crime......"

Naha crossed Erlang's legs, sat on the empty ammunition box, and looked at the men who were digging shelters over there.

"Dig deeper, damn it, the cannonballs of the Han rebellion don't have eyes, and our fathers' lives can be all on this......"

Listening to the shouts of the head of the shed, Yang Guowu said while digging.

"What the hell is it to keep it like this! According to me, let's fight now, regardless of his three-seven-twenty-one, one shot over, maybe we can take down Henan......"

"Yo he, you kid thinks that the other side is long hair, even long hair, and it's not so easy to fight!"

Naha yelled as he patted the foreign gun beside him.

"Let's fight long hair, fight easily, that's because of foreign guns, if you say that foreigners are the ancestors of foreign guns, those Han rebels, all of them say that they are grandfathers with foreign guns, we are just a group of sons, maybe we will fight this time, and then they will be cleaned up, or Henry's words are true, let's just guard here, wait for them to come to the door, when the time comes, they will come in line, we just need to stand here, aim, load bullets, and shoot......"

In order to be able to block Han Rebellion smoothly, not only did each rifle bullet be replenished by 100 rounds per head, but even in this base, two earthen cannons from Handan City were transferred, but until now, because Han Rebellion has not crossed the river, so everyone has not moved.

"What kind of battle is this? It's the first time I've come! ”

Throwing a shovel of mud on it, Li Benye said angrily.

"You know! This is a fortress war, a fortress, and the latest style in the West! ”

Naha continued, for him, after experiencing the bloody battle with Shi Changmao in the past, he knew the danger of standing there and letting the rain of bullets fall on his body, that time, he didn't know how many people had fallen around him, compared to standing there and letting others shoot him. It's more comfortable to hide behind a trench and shoot someone with a gun, at least it's harder to get hit by a bullet.

"The ancients said well, this morale! One blow and then three and three exhaustions! ”

Naha patted the rifle in his hand, unlike the foreign guns made by the Tianjin Gun Bureau, his P1853 rifle, but it was an authentic British product, at least the trademark on it, in fact, it was very likely to come from the Shijing Arsenal in Guangzhou, the Han Army's arsenal produced hundreds of thousands of P53 rifles for "export", in addition to the Taiping Army, the Qing Army was also their customer off-duty.

"When the time comes, we just need to stand here, hold foreign guns, aim at them, and then ......"

Taking a rifle and aiming, Naha continued.

"Just shoot! As for the bullets they fired, they were all blocked by the wall, and they used meat to block them! When the time comes, will their morale last long? ”

In this regard, Naha does not doubt that in fact, when he fought with Shi Dakai last year, Jingbian Town repelled the attack of tens of thousands of long hairs with the help of the earthen fortress, and when Weiyong Town arrived and repelled the long hairs, there were tens of thousands of long-haired corpses in front of the earthen fortress in Jingbian Town, and it was from then that the big guys discovered that this inconspicuous earthen fortress could be of great use on the battlefield.

Even ordinary soldiers knew that the earthen fortress was the life-saving property, and even when Weiwu Town was fighting with Changmao in Shanxi, they also used wattle baskets to build a simple breastwork, standing behind and shooting and firing at a distance of dozens of feet from Changmao, and finally the long-haired elite was defeated.

Then the big guy quietly prepared a shovel to dig a trench on the battlefield and build it out of the earth wall, so that he could stand behind the earthen wall and shoot with confidence. Compared with the soldiers' "self-made cleverness", those foreigners summed up some terms such as "fortress battle" and "fortress battle", and this time, what Weiyuan Town fought was "fortress battle". ”

"That's the master, if that's the case, then wouldn't we win?"

Hearing Naha say this, the others immediately nodded approvingly. But no, when the time comes, with this wall in the way, won't the bullets hurt them?

Although soldiers eat food and eat severed food, few people are really willing to lose their lives. Naturally, they prefer to save their lives. Hearing Naha say this, the big guy will still suspect something.

"Here, and there, make it stronger, go back and see a few trees to hold on,"

As they were talking, a cannonball from nowhere dragged a sharp whistling sound, and exploded more than ten feet away from them, and the earth raised after the explosion fell from mid-air. And in their immediate vicinity, five more shells fell. Each shell blew up half-man-deep craters and blew up thousands of pounds of dirt.

Ye Shushan's pillow that was hit on the head by the sand in the dirt covered his head, screaming loudly, blood flowed out of his fingers, and the others all fell to the ground, as for Naha, who was still holding Erlang's legs before, this would be the same, not only did he quickly shrink his body to the inner corner of the trench, but he even held the box with both hands to protect his head, for fear that he would be smashed by the earth and rocks like Ye Shushan.

The shelling came in a hurry, and went faster.

After a few shells fell, the shelling ended, and at the end of the shelling, no one dared to act rashly, they were afraid that the shells would fall again, and they had already encountered this kind of thing too many times, and after this round of shelling, when everyone thought that the shelling was over, there would be a more dense burst of shells.

I don't know how many lives have been taken by this one.

"Turtle son, these southern barbarians, they don't know anything except artillery!"

Suddenly, as if he remembered something, Li Benye asked with wide eyes.

"That master, you said that if they pull the cannon over and fire at us, what will happen then?"

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