Just when Tian Fangjun returned to the Gravel Fort and discussed with Tian Guanglin about buying out the ice condensant and refined salt as soon as possible, Xiao Ye had already taken his personal guards to open up a large piece of mountain land on the top of the east hill and the southeast corner of the Madao Stone Fort as a training ground for the exercise.

Like the habit of practicing knives in the early morning, Xiao Ye's 100-member teams drill on time every day, even if it is windy and rainy, they must insist on practicing the fighting formation.

The guards with military shovels were sweating like rain digging trenches in the hot sun, divided into three waves according to the formation of the Shiren team, and prepared the fortifications.

According to the tactical requirements of the infantry, this trench position must dig a trench with enough squads to hide in a stick of incense, but the gravel on the top of the mountain made Sun Xiaoming so tired that they were about to vomit blood.

In the future, it will not only be a fire/gun drill venue for the guards, but it will also be convenient to monitor the horse road to the west, and it will become a vantage point if a large group of people try to cross the horse road and rush to the stone fort.

However, at a distance of more than five miles, the thorny vines and grasses underneath did not seem to threaten the horse road; Before yesterday, not only other people, but also Xiao Ye thought so.

The chip he got, the logistics knowledge in it, and only when there are new goods in the processing center, will he be given corresponding clear instructions for use, and more vague cognition, which makes Xiao Ye very uneasy.

According to his understanding, the title of logistics officer will only know how to apply it when he has something in his hand.

Faintly, this kind of chip with obvious ancillary characteristics made Xiao Ye even more afraid of the person who disappeared into the big pit in the courtyard of the Gravel Castle.

Next to a coptis sapling by the vine grass, Xiao Ye had a revolver in his waist, standing straight in the sun, and on the mound next to his military boots, a lit grass incense was about to burn out.

"Hurry up, the time is coming soon," Xiao Ye, whose back was already soaked, was urging loudly with a horsewhip, and in the distance, Zuo Shi with more than fifty armed guards lined up to watch, although he was also sweating profusely, but looking at those dusty guards, he didn't feel so uncomfortable.

In the past seven or eight days, in the training ground on the top of the mountain, although there were constant fire/gunshots, rifles, and earth-shattering thunder explosions from time to time, this sound was obviously much less; At the end of the day, each guard and family guard fired only five projectiles, which was more than half less than in Shiguantun.

In order to deal with the upcoming Tartar, Xiao Ye had to stock up on projectiles as much as possible, and no matter how many fires/guns ran out of projectiles, it was better to use a wooden stick.

Just as a half-human ring-shaped trench with a length of 100 steps was about to take shape, Hao Yongliang led his team and went up to the top of the mountain panting.

A team of eleven people in total, each wearing a cowhide cuirass, carrying a fire/gun on his back, and ten rounds of grenades and fire/gun pellets in an earthy yellow backpack on his back; They were dressed in similar gear to the guards, and they didn't even have crossbows or short fires/guns.

But the two iron boxes carried by eleven people today were a little heavy, and they were lifted up from the stone castle at the bottom of the mountain, and they were all sweating like rain.

Hao Yongliang, who has two years of sheep herding experience, plays with a leather rope, which is the kind of tool that puts stones in a rope sleeve, spins on the top of his head, and throws it far away to restrain the sheep; In the northwestern border town connected to the grassland, this thing is used by a boy.

But Hao Yongliang has a natural sensitivity to parabolas, so that the piso points where to hit, which is not comparable to others.

That is to say, when Hao Yongliang was playing a gun and grenade, his wonderful performance of shooting targets within one hundred and fifty steps made Xiao Ye leave him behind, and he specially formed a team of people to play gun grenades.

In less than a month, Hao Yongliang did not disappoint Xiao Ye, and under the guidance of ten sergeants, the grenade could also shoot three shots and one hit a hundred paces away, and smashed the boulder with a white circle.

Just when Xiao Ye was about to continue to expand Hao Yongliang's team, he saw a new military product again from the picture of the processing center.

At the same time as taking out this corpse called "lightning cannon", Xiao Ye issued a secret order to Wang Ziliang to investigate in detail which of the workshops in the south during this period of time used the mineral materials from other places for the stone mill, and it is best to find out where the mineral materials came from.

The appearance of the Makqin heavy machine gun was obtained from Huang Fugui of the Gravel Fort, and the source Xiao Ye knew, it was from the Shuangta Lake area of Tartar; And this kind of ore that can produce lightning cannons makes him even more anxious.

The world's first real mortar was created during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 by a Russian artillery officer, Captain Nikolayevich.

At that time, Tsarist Russia and Japan fought for the Lushunkou of China, and the Russian army occupied the fortress of Lushunkou, and the Japanese dug trenches and approached only a few dozen meters away from the Russian position, and it was difficult for the Russian army to kill and injure the Japanese army with ordinary artillery and machine guns. So Nikolayevich tried to convert an old 47mm naval mortar gun on a gun carriage with wheels and fire a long-tail shell at a large elevation angle, which turned out to be effective in killing and wounding the Japanese troops in the trenches and repelling many Japanese attacks.

This gun uses a long super-caliber mortar/shell with a full weight of 11.5kg, a firing range of 50~400m, and a firing angle of 45°~65°. This kind of artillery, which was born in an emergency on the battlefield, was called "lightning cannon" at the time, and it was the world's first mortar.

A.D. 1342. At that time, the Spanish army was besieging the city of Alihquiras, which was occupied by the Arabs, and the Arabs erected short horn cylinders on the battlements, and the mouth of the cylinder was raised high towards the outside of the city. A packet of black fire/medicine was placed through the mouth of the barrel, and an iron ball was placed in it, which ignited the medicine twist and shot it at the Spanish soldiers outside the city. This primitive artillery, known as "Modfa", can be said to be the prototype of the modern mortar.

In the First World War, due to the development of trench warfare, the Stokes-Brontë 81mm mortar developed by France adopted a buffer, which overcame the shortcomings of the rigid connection between the gun body and the gun carriage, and the structure was more perfect.

Mortars have the advantages of high rate of fire, high power, light weight, simple structure, and easy operation, especially the characteristics that they can be put into battle without preparation, making them a sharp weapon for infantry both offensive and defensive.

The first lightning cannon Xiao Ye got was an 81mm mortar with a buffer, and the gun body, bracket, and base were placed in three iron boxes, adding up to more than 100 catties; The round and long shells, that is, the flowering shells, are more than eight catties each, and ten are in a box.

By the time Cui Hongyuan kept carrying more than a dozen iron boxes of different sizes out of the tunnel, Xiao Ye had already thoroughly understood the use of this lightning cannon.

After the lightning cannon arrived, Xiao Ye immediately summoned Hao Yongliang, pointed to the firing watch embedded on the barrel, explained to him the relationship between the target distance, height, and elevation angle, and then demonstrated the assembly and disassembly process, and the rest depends on Hao Yongliang's understanding.

Like the gunners in the Daming Artillery Battalion, Xiao Ye knew that if he wanted to play with this kind of lightning artillery, it was not possible to do it in a day or two, without a live-fire drill of about half a year and repeated operations, this cannon was basically just a decoration.

He just understands the use of lightning strikers, if he wants to hit the cannon accurately, it is better to let Hao Yongliang and them get started, knowledge and skills are two different things.

Hao Yongliang, who has practiced live ammunition twice in the field, was pulled to the training ground today, not because Xiao Ye was arrogant, but because time was running out; At Eagle Claw Fort, the number of nearby Tartar rangers is increasing in the number of messengers coming back every day.

After the live ammunition is finished here, Hao Yongliang's team will go down the mountain directly to Eagle Claw Fort, where the garrison of the stone fort will be strengthened.

The hot wind swept the face, and the guards in the annular trench were holding their rifles, and they had already reached their respective battle positions; Behind them, a relatively flat position was cleared on the gravel ground.

"Report, Lord Baihu, the subordinate grenade squad, all of them are here," Hao Yongliang, who was panting, ran to Xiao Ye and knelt down on one knee and shouted loudly.

Xiao Ye tapped the iron helmet on his head with a horsewhip, "Go, hit a few shells, and hit the ditch in front of the west road, let our brothers see, we also have artillery,"

"Yes, Lord Baihu," Hao Yongliang ordered, got up and waved his hand at the back, and ten guards carried the iron box over the trench and rushed to the position.

Opening the iron box, skillfully assembling the artillery mount and tamping the chassis, the muzzle of the lightning gun quickly pointed diagonally to the horse road down the mountain; This time, Hao Yongliang brought only three shells.

Xiao Ye took out the lightning cannon this time, there were five boxes of fifty shells, one shot was missing, and when he learned the news, Hao Yongliang regretted it all day; If he had known, he would not have fired twenty shells casually.

The remaining thirty shells have become treasures in Hao Yongliang's eyes, and he will not use them easily before the hundred households replenish the shells.

If it weren't for the morale boost, he wouldn't even want to bring artillery shells for this drill, but the military order of Baihu made it impossible for him to make a show.

After the lightning cannon was set up, a guard opened the box and took out a shell, screwed on the safe, carefully held it in his hand, and looked at Hao Yongliang; The guards who were squatting next to the gun emplacement were also waiting for Hao Yongliang's instructions.

Zuo Shi and them, the guards lying in the trench, and Xiao Ye who was standing in the distance, were all waiting for Hao Yongliang's next move.

Taking off the fire/gun behind his back and clicking on the ground, Hao Yongliang held the gun with one hand, knelt on one knee, and his eyes were compared with the distance between the barrel and the distant horse road, and his mouth clearly spit out the calibration instructions, "The distance is five miles five, the elevation angle is thirty-six, and one shot is ready,"

As for the direction of the wind, although Xiao Ye said something, Hao Yongliang still had to continue to ponder and hone his skills in actual combat, and he didn't have much experience in just two live-fire drills.

The guards guarding the artillery, listening to the commander's command, nervously looked at the nameplate of the firing watch on the gun, and then began to turn the high and low machine to adjust the elevation angle.

After repeatedly confirming that the adjustment was completed, the housekeeper wiped the beads of sweat on the door of his head, "What's long, okay,"

"Fire," as Hao Yongliang gave an order without hesitation, the guard holding the cannonball stepped forward and got up, and with words in his mouth, he slanted the head and tail of the cannonball into the muzzle of the cannon, and let go of his hands.

In the faint smoke of gunpowder coming out of the muzzle of the "Teng" gun, the projectile instantly grew larger, crossed an arc in the air, and flew over a large area of vine grass under the mountain under the gaze of everyone, and exploded at the foot of the mountain with a "bang", and a gray smoke rose.

The layman looked at the liveliness, the insiders looked at the doorway, and the guards who hulala squeezed to the edge of the top of the mountain were amazed when they looked at the bottom of the mountain, only Xiao Ye and Zuo Shi shook their heads slightly.

Those guards lying in the trench, together with Sun Xiaoming, who was holding a rifle, although they wanted to go over and take a look, no one dared to climb out, so they could only look at the knife beside Baihu and shout loudly.

The admiration of the knife made Hao Yongliang's face red, and he threw the fire/gun to his companion next to him, and rushed to the artillery and pushed away the guard, "Come, I'll adjust it again,"

The red-faced guard gave way to the battle position, Hao Yongliang looked up and felt the wind direction on the top of the mountain, squinted his eyes and slowly turned the high and low machine, stopped for a while, and shouted at the guard beside him, "Bullet,"

"Teng," another cannonball went out, this time, a smooth trajectory of the cannonball, grazed the thin road, and smashed into the deep ditch to the west, with a muffled "boom", and the grass and rocks were splashed.

Today, the road from the stone fort to the south of the road is closed, and no one is allowed to leave, also to test the lightning cannon this time.

The cannonball hit the target, Hao Yongliang's straight neck, the jumping green tendons, calmed down in the smile of Baihu, "I still have to practice, if it is against the enemy, it is not so easy to place,"

Although the lightning cannon is not as good as the Tiger Zun Run, it will sound like Weihe, but Xiao Ye also has a long-range weapon in his hand, although there is only one, but he also sees hope that it is not.

"Peng, Peng Peng," when the familiar gunfire sounded on the training ground again, Hao Yongliang took his team, packed the lightning cannon box, and prepared to go down the mountain.

"This time Liu Shuihe will go with you, he will take over as the centurion of Eagle Claw Fort, and Aman's fifty cavalry will accompany him," Xiao Ye looked at Hao Yongliang, who was about to leave, with an indifferent expression.

"Hao Yongliang is the deacon of Eagle Claw Fort, and he is paid according to the position of centurion, and manages the logistics affairs in the fort,"

"When you get there, you have to discuss with Liu Shuihe more in case of trouble, if you can't solve it, the letter post will inform Ma Dao Shibao,"

"You are the first artillery team of this officer, although the number is a little smaller, and there is only one artillery, but in the future, we will have more artillery, let's go,"

"Yes, my subordinates understand," Hao Yongliang crossed his hands and saluted, and hurriedly followed the team with fire/guns on his back and went down the hilltop path; Although he didn't understand why Huang Hanxiang was reappointed as a deacon and became a logistical agent like Uncle Wang, he didn't think much about it.

Looking at the back of Hao Yongliang's team gradually moving away, Xiao Ye shook his head helplessly, his order just now had been sent by Wang Ziliang to Eagle Claw Fort, no matter how Huang Hanxiang didn't understand, he couldn't help it.

The threat of the Tartars was at hand, and now he didn't want something to go wrong with him, and Talon would be in danger; Liu Shuihe's loyalty to him has far surpassed that of Huang Hanxiang, which is the best reason.

Eagle Claw Fort, Huang Hanxiang stood in the military building on the first floor, looking at the indifferent herald in front of him, he had to take off his iron helmet and lowered his head in despair; Although these heralds are not very old, he does not doubt the loyalty of the hundred households.

If he resolutely refused to obey the military orders he heard, these heralds would not hesitate to draw their short guns, and he really didn't want to see a little brother chewing in a pot meet each other with swords and guns in the blink of an eye.

What's more, he didn't think about the idea of reversing Ximen Xiaoye, at least not now, but he just thought about more things.

"Deacon Huang, Captain Liu Baili can go to the fort today, you should wait here," Duan Damin, the head of the Shiren, squeezed out a smile on his face and pointed to the fire kang next to him, "Come, it's okay to be idle, how about playing a few games of chess, how about ten wen per game?" ”

"Hehe, 100 households are not allowed to gamble, just come to canned meat, one box per game," Huang Hanxiang, who was in a hurry, seemed to have figured it out, his face quickly regained calm, stretched out his right hand, and slowly put it on his waist.

Duan Damin didn't care about his actions, and turned around to look for Xiangqi and the other heralds, but his eyes were staring at his every move, and his big hand had already been pressed on the handle of the gun.

Pulling out the short fire/gun in his waist, holding the barrel of the gun in his left hand, Huang Hanxiang handed the gun upside down to the herald next to him, and pointed to the rear-loading fire/gun leaning against the wall, "Oh, you keep the two guns first, be careful not to misfire,"

As he spoke, Huang Hanxiang untied the belt around his waist, put the two cowhide magazines on the kang as well, and sat down opposite Duan Damin easily, "Come, you can finally breathe a sigh of relief, at least you don't have to stay up late to be a deacon,"

There were also two hundred-man teams in the Eagle Claw Fort, and although they had lost more than twenty people, they suppressed their own fifty or sixty people, and they were holding the handles. has mental calculations and no intentions, and he has no victory at all.

Qin Shi and Miao Biwu stayed here, obviously, just for themselves; After killing a dozen or so heralds, where can he go?

It's that Jin Yiwei wants to get involved with himself, and that's also for the sake of his own head Eagle Claw Fort, once he loses that position, people may not even bother to look at him.

Hey, I still underestimated the Ximen Baihu, I thought that the incident was over, but it turned out that people had a clear door in their hearts and kept thinking about it.

Huang Hanxiang, who was full of bitterness, the corners of his eyes jumped slightly, and when Duan Damin set up the chess, he picked up the chess pieces steadily, "Red first black second, as the first cannon,"

A few guards standing outside the military quarters of the communication team didn't know that Huang Hanxiang in the room across the door had been silently relieved of his military authority, and they would soon be transferred to the Galen tribe, or the side of Bailong Lake, starting from a chief and continuing their military careers.

Liu Shuihe took his team and joined the Aman cavalry team that had just arrived, escorted Hao Yongliang's two carriages, and slowly walked out of the ravine with more than a dozen fully loaded pack horses.

The fort wall outside the Madao Stone Fort has been repaired, and some of Wang Dali's logistics team are now building military houses, and most of them have returned to their profession and continue to dig stones in the quarry pit south of the fort.

More than a dozen elite servants who followed Xiao Ye from Lao Yangkou, most of them entered Zuoshi's home guards, and there were also a few who didn't like knives and guns, and followed Wang Dali to do the work of a craftsman, and the food and salary were no less than those of the family guards, but they didn't get a reward.

Along the way in the ravine, you can see the sparsely planted Coptis trees on both sides, so that the vine grass avoids the road under your feet, but after leaving the ravine, you can see the bushes on the left and right, and the grassland in the distance, the vine grass has spread out in all directions, and you can't see the end at a glance.

This may be the reason why the Tartar rangers never approached the entrance to the ravine.

Fortunately, in the direction leading to Eagle Claw Fort, knee-high coptis saplings were planted at intervals, and palm-sized green leaves rattled in the wind.

After approaching the Eagle Claw Fort for five miles, the heralds who followed Hao Yongliang and them out on military affairs blew a letter whistle and also received a response from Duan Damin.

Liu Shuihe arrived at Eagle Claw Fort and took over the fifty family guards, and together with the family guards he brought, plus the fifty cavalry of Aman, the strength of the army was already one hundred and ten; Miao Biwu's hundred-man team immediately withdrew and returned to the rule of Xin Weilin in Madao Stone Fort.

The next day, under the escort of the scouts, the new deacon Huang Hanxiang took a dozen mill craftsmen and pulled a carriage to the phosphate mine in the east.

"I said hydration, you have come to the right place," Qin Shishi crossed his waist with a smile and pointed to the desolate Gobi Desert in the distance, "Look, the long river desert day, this is the place where our military families should stay,"

"Come on, it's still a long river, listen to which scholar read it, let you remember it," Liu Shuihe looked at the wide platform and pouted disdainfully.

Directly north of the platform, a heavy machine gun wrapped in a sturdy tarpaulin, guarded by a few night owl guards, a few steps away, Hao Yongliang was leading his brothers, sweating profusely and repeatedly rehearsing the lightning cannon.

On the female wall on the east side next to the edge of the platform, a wooden stick with a thick wrist, one zhang long, with a black lacquer on it, embroidered with an ugly wolf's head, Bai Sensen looked strange and scary.

The coarse cloth dyed black flag in the hot wind, hula swaying, still a little imposing.

"Oh, that's the flag of the Galen tribe, it was erected by hundreds of households, on the grassland, no matter how big or small the tribe, there must be a name, the Tartar is called a totem or something, we don't understand," Seeing Liu Shuihe looking at the black flag curiously, Qin Shishi said casually.

Liu Shuihe has also seen this kind of black flag on the fort wall of Madao Stone Fort, where the black flag is inserted in an inconspicuous place on the fort wall, which can be seen from a distance like here.

Looking at the stone fort in the distance, the vine grass extending out of the stone fort on the west and north sides, although it almost surrounded this huge eagle claw fort, but the circle of coptis trees outside the fort wall separated the vine grass with poisonous thorns to the fort wall five zhang away.

Probably because of the lack of water in the Gobi Desert, not only did the vines and grass spread out for less than three miles in the north, but the Coptis trees under the Eagle Claw Fort were also listless, and the leaves were much less.

Facing the direction of the Altai Mountains in the east, on the way to the phosphate mine, there are guards with fire/guns on their backs and sickles in their hands, clearing the vines and grass on the ground.

took out the telescope in the leather bag and opened the barrel, Liu Shuihe looked around for a while, and sure enough, in the depths of the grassland in the west and east, a figure could be faintly seen moving rapidly.

The Tartar rangers on their horses had been keeping an eye on the stone fort. Probably in the process of fighting with the scouts of the Stone Castle, the Tartars suffered many losses, but they only watched from a distance, and even the phosphate mine did not harass them.

Familiar with the defense of the fort, Liu Shuihe saw that the five chiefs led the patrol on time, and the posts on the fort wall were on guard, so he regarded his ten guards as his own personal guards, and had no intention of replacing the commanders.

With Qin Shi's full cooperation, Eagle Claw Fort quickly resumed its normal garrison, and Liu Shuihe remembered the good things he brought.

In the evening, the last cart of phosphate rock pulled closer to the stone fort, and the guards pulled the stone pillars at the entrance, sealing the semi-underground entrance directly; From time to time, wild wolves roamed here, and sometimes they followed the traces of the ore cart to the outside of the fort, and in order to guard the safety of the guards guarding the entrance, Huang Hanxiang had already stipulated that the entrance would be closed at night.

Liu Shuihe didn't want to mess up the morale of the army, so he acquiesced to Huang Hanxiang's previous rules.

Before dinner, Liu Shuihe called Qin Shishi, Xiao Liuzi, Liu Xiaohou, and Duan Damin into the military house, and naturally, Huang Hanxiang was also invited.

"Everyone, the weather is hot now, although everyone is not short of drinking water, but it is still hot and uncomfortable every day, Baihu specially asked me to bring a good thing to the big guy, everyone come to taste,"

Under the bright wind lamp in the military house, Liu Shuihe took out a small iron box and took out a crystal glass vial; The guards soon came in with large wooden barrels, filled with clean water.

Pulling off the cork, the white powder in the vial was sprinkled into the water, and Liu Shuihe, who looked proud, looked at the increasingly stunned looks of several people around him with satisfaction, and couldn't help laughing; A few days ago, his expression was even more demented than theirs, but now his mind is balanced.

Click, the hunting knife in his hand was pierced on the ice, Liu Shuihe picked up a piece of ice lump, retreated to the fire kang, and chewed in his mouth.

Hula, Qin Shi and Xiao Liuzi rushed up, Duan Damin and Liu Xiaohou also hurriedly squeezed in, stretched out their big black hands, pulled out a piece of ice in the bucket, and kept looking up and down.

Even Huang Hanxiang, who had been depressed for a long time, sighed, came over to pick up a small piece of ice ballast, and felt the coolness in the palm of his hand.

"This is a new gadget of the Persians, and only rich families can enjoy it in our mainland, and military households can't see it at all in summer," Liu Shuihe said vaguely, and seeing that everyone didn't dare to taste it, he hurriedly signaled not to waste it.

Even the guards who came in with the bucket ate the ice cubes, and the big guys looked at each other and carefully ate the ice lumps.

The slightest coldness rose in the mouth, and soon the cold seeped into the teeth, and the sound of chewing ice cubes in the military house sounded one after another.

The twenty or so vials in the iron box were divided by everyone, and Liu Shuihe, who only grabbed a small vial, was suddenly anxious, "Leave me a few, I want the brothers to try it,"