Look at Afghanistan on the map, at the intersection of Central Asia, South Asia, and West Asia, and bordering China, it is an important strategic place, the west of Afghanistan is Iran, and it can also contain Iran (Persia) through the strategic position of Afghanistan.

The importance of Afghanistan is obvious, Li Hongzhang is not blind, as a colonialist expander who has been instilled with imperialist ideas by the emperor for many years, he knows very well the unique benefits of helping and winning over Afghanistan for the empire, originally the parliament failed to pass the aid bill, he immediately thought of asking His Majesty the emperor to come forward and issue an order to bypass the parliament directly, but this time our great emperor just caught up with the time to go to Central Asia to hunt, which made Li Hongzhang very headache, the members of the parliament are really understandable! ――

"Shaoquan! What are you doing here? ”

"Brother Ji Gao! Alas! It's not about talking to the members of Congress about Afghanistan. ”

"I've heard that the British have declared war. I don't know what news is there on the diplomatic side? Our army in Central Asia is about 3 armies, 100,000 troops, ready to go south to support Afghanistan at any time. When will Congress pass a bill to send troops to Afghanistan? "As Minister of War, Zuo Zongtang is very aware of the significance of Afghanistan to the empire.

"The empire hasn't been at war for many years, and those parliamentarians don't want to fight at all, they still think it's a prosperous time! They just don't care about Afghanistan because they don't have any interests. Li Hongzhang explained.

"I heard that King Ali is a faithful admirer of His Majesty! You said that His Majesty did not mean to go to Central Asia this time, I think that hunting is a disguise. Zuo Zongtang's brain teaser began to think, "I won't lose what Hill Ali I saw!" ”

The speaker had no intention of listening, Li Hongzhang's eyes lit up, and he looked at Zuo Zongtang and said: "Ji Gao immediately asked the General Staff to draw up a military plan to aid Afghanistan, hurry up!" After speaking, Li Hongzhang hurriedly ran into the parliament building. Zuo Zongtang was still in the middle of opening his brain in place, and it took a while before he reacted, shook his head, and walked to the staff headquarters alone.

On April 13, 1878, just three days after the British declared war on Afghanistan, the Chinese Imperial Parliament passed a bill to assist Afghanistan, a friendly country, in its great cause of opposing aggression and imperialism, but the Congress rejected the proposal to declare war on Britain, and the Chinese who yearned for stability did not want war even if it had nothing to do with them far from home. As for why the members of the National Assembly finally agreed to Li Hongzhang's proposal, the answer is that Li Hongzhang pulled the emperor's tiger skin and scared the National Assembly, saying, "Why did the emperor go hunting in Central Asia?" Instead of the Northeast and Mongolia", the emperor actually went to check the progress of the Sarmakhan-Kashmir railway line under construction. "The emperor's meaning is very clear, don't be mistaken, in the end, your majesty will be unhappy." As soon as these words came out, the parliamentarians were immediately dumbfounded, they didn't expect it! So it was finally remedied.

It is not realistic for the Ministry of Defense to plan to send large-scale troops into Afghanistan, where the terrain is complex, especially in the northern mountains, which is seriously lagging behind in logistics supply, and the large force will also cause disgust and dissatisfaction among the Afghans, and finally decided to send the special forces of the empire into Afghanistan to supply by airships, which will solve the above problems well and can also play a role in training, as for the problem of combat effectiveness, in the eyes of the Ministry of Defense, the British army that invaded Afghanistan was only 20,000, and the later period was no more than 50,000, And the special forces of the empire deal with these Indian Ah San, if there are any combat attrition, then the past few years can be regarded as vain, and the self-punishment and apology will be counted. In order to resist Britain and aid Afghanistan as soon as possible, the Ministry of National Defense decided to dispatch the ultimate special forces unit "Dry Fish" trained in the Altai Mountains to Afghanistan.

Dushanbe, 1878. It was the capital of Tajikistan, which is now an important city of the empire in Central Asia. Two years ago, after the construction of the main artery of the Central Asian Railway, the small city of Dushanbe became an important point in radiating the southern part of Central Asia. Today at the railway station there is an important train about to enter the station, there are not many people on it, more than 200 people, as the most elite special operations force of the empire, this is only in the emperor * in the legend of the existence of the same "drought fish" (generally Chinese people think that it means zombies) special forces personnel come from different sources, some from other special forces in the empire such as "tigers" and "snow leopards", etc., some are picked out from the brocade guard, some are found in the foreign legion, and some are even found on the street, the only common denominator of this force is ferocity, Yes, unlike other special forces, the "Drought Fish" is an existence that the Imperial Ministry of Defense is unwilling to move lightly, just like its name and ancient legends, where there is no grass growing, and there is no drop of water in a radius of a hundred miles. In the eyes of other special forces, they are scum, scum, undisciplined, and inhumane, and they were sent to the front line in Dhaka for decapitation for the first time in India, but they ran to Syrasi inexplicably because of a map error. At that time, there was no radio and it was impossible to bypass the battle line to contact the front line command, so the commander of the "Drought Fish" changed the beheading plan to destroy the logistics of the British army. In order to save ammunition, the special forces all use cold weapons and make soil traps, so many British troops are flying on the logistics line, and the drought has no food to eat, so the women of the Indian people are not spared, everyone knows how to be a soldier! After the end of the whole war, the villages near the city of Cyractic were basically finished, just like the Drought Raid crossing the border, the people there were only despair, and in order to destroy the British supply line during the war, the Drought Devils dismembered the corpses of British soldiers and placed them on the road to show their presence after plundering the supply team, this behavior became more rampant after several encirclements and suppressions by the British army, which made the British logistics troops tremble.

In the emperor's own words, "The work of the imperial army in the village!" I like it! Therefore, this unit is also called the "Imperial Army", but the main force considers this special forces unit to be a disgrace to the Royal Army, and has no royal division and the demeanor of a heavenly soldier.

"Woo~Woo~Woo" The swarthy locomotive pulled the green-skinned train into the Dushanbe railway station.

The car stopped, and the soldiers standing guard couldn't help but look sideways to see what this legendary beast of prey really looked like. It's down! A man, not very tall and not very strong, and most importantly he is very clean and neat in his medium clothes (that is, the current suit), like a businessman or an official, and so on! How could he be in a medium suit, aren't they special forces? What about their military uniforms? In the confusion of the soldiers, the people on the car came down one after another, all men, a few were obviously foreigners, a few were dressed like beggars and vagabonds, some were dressed like peasants, and some looked a little soldier, and more than 200 people crowded the platform.

"Hello, Lieutenant Colonel!" As a staff officer of the military region, Ma Qicai is relatively promising, young in his early thirties to become a major, in the eyes of his colleagues, although he is more conceited, but he does have conceited capital, he is most talked about his ancestor Ma Gui Ma Gui (birth and death year unknown), a famous Mongolian general in the Ming Dynasty, the right jade people. Lived in the Wanli period of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty. Ma Gui, his father Ma Lu, and his brother Ma Jin were all important border generals from Jiajing to Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, and they made a lot of contributions in the battle against foreign harassment and defense of the frontier. In particular, Ma Gui, who was famous for his bravery, successively fought in present-day Yanbei: Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, guarding Datong and Yansui (now Yulin, Shaanxi), and had a great reputation. In his life, Ma Gui fought many beautiful battles, the most famous of which was to send troops to North Korea to aid the Korean resistance against Japan. , his mantra is "Ancestor Magui, dare to ask?" Today, in the face of this gang of murderers, he still saluted honestly and greeted him in a respectful tone.

"Hello Major, did you bring what we wanted?" The first was the only middle-aged man in dress, who looked like he was about 40, and asked after looking at Ma Qicai seriously and saluting.

"Yes, sir, it's ready, let's go at any time." Ma Qicai straightened up and replied.

"Very good Major, we have to walk the next road, I think we have to get to Kunduz (a city in Afghanistan) as soon as possible."