Dingxi Fort in the eastern mountain pass of Kunlun is a place where birds don't poop and chickens don't lay eggs.

It is 1,000 li away from Xining Mansion, the capital of Qinghai Province, 2,800 li away from Chang'an, the core of the Left Theater, and more than 3,200 li away from Chengdu, Sichuan.

Although Dingxi Fort is called a fort, it is small and scary, which is more like a tulou in a Lingnan Hakka village.

The fort wall, made of stone and loess, was neither tall nor wide, and the small one was like an earthen enclosure. He reluctantly fenced off a safe area, with only a military camp and a few warehouses, in addition to a hotel, a small restaurant, a grocery store, and a trading station.

There is only one family, there is no duplicate, and the scale is amazingly small.

What made the new governor Zhang Huangyan most unacceptable was that there was only one toilet in the entire castle, or in the barracks, and outside the barracks, there was no second toilet in the city, neither in restaurants nor hotels.

Zhang Huangyan didn't know how these people here solved this problem, but he couldn't accept that his castle was like this. Even if this is just a small fort on the border, it has to show the image of the empire.

When he arrived at Dingxi Fort, the first thing he did was to name the castle Dingxi Fort, which had no official name. The second thing was to build toilets in the city, not only on the simple cross street in the fort, but also in every street where the shops had toilets.

The third thing he did was to build a temple in the fort, invite a few monks, and then organize several caravans to the vicinity, in the name of business, spread the information that the Han garrison was here, and told the herdsmen that a new temple had been built here, and a few monks were invited.

He then recruited some local herdsmen to serve as interpreters, guides, and scouts for the officers and soldiers. He also built a school in the castle to teach Tibetans Chinese characters. At the same time, the officers and soldiers of the garrison were allowed to learn Tibetan from the herdsmen and monks.

Only by knowing the enemy can he survive a hundred battles, this is what he has read in the book of war, in the army, on the battlefield, and by the emperor's side, his understanding of this sentence is becoming more and more profound.

Although there are still officers and troops stationed in the Yushu area to the south, Zhang Huangyan is well aware of the unique situation here. They're actually on the front lines.

This is a vast and desolate land, and the imperial court has stationed troops in these key places, but it is still full of holes like a sieve.

On this plateau, at their feet, it was the land that the Mongols of the Heshute tribe had seized after conquering the Kham region under the leadership of Gushi Khan, only to be defeated later.

But now the Heshute Department has returned, and it has also marched eastward with the combined forces of Dzungaria, Tuhut and other Oirat. They are determined to win Qinghai-Tibet.

There was a division of troops stationed in Yushu, but one division was no more than 15,000 men and horses of the Sanxie, and these men and horses were scattered. In this vast and desolate plateau, it is really nothing, and the Moxi Mongol cavalry can infiltrate from countless places.

It was a desolate place, but the emperor had an order. Qinghai, Xikang, Gansu will never let the Moxi Mongols take away half a step.

Dingxi Fort will definitely become a battlefield.

Zhang Huangyan was so sure that only one of their markers was stationed in this important mountain pass, but Zhang Huangyan adhered to the emperor's orders, and the people were locked up. The Empire's Nine-Headed Bird Banner will not fall.

In this war, they can't rely on others, it's too desolate here. They can only rely on themselves.

Now, they have more than 2,000 elite soldiers of the empire, and more than 500 Tibetan herdsmen and warriors who have been recruited, and together they can barely scrape together 3,000 men.

Zhang Huangyan hoped that the fighting would start later, so that they would be more prepared, able to recruit more Tibetans, more adapted to the climate of the plateau, and able to receive more supplies and equipment.

Now, they are not ready, but they have already made up their minds.

Because each of them had the mark of the Hydra, which was carved on their flesh and skin, because they were all warriors of the Emperor, led by the Nine-Headed Bird's banner, they were convinced that no one could defeat them.

They are the soldiers of the 18th Army Town of the Seventh Army of the Left Theater of the Holy Han Empire, the nine-headed birds with the brand of the nine-headed bird. They were loyal to the emperor, fought for the emperor, were loyal to the emperor, and defended the empire.

The Eighteenth Town of the Seventh Army is the elite of the Imperial Army.

The Imperial Army now has eighteen legions, commanding a total of forty-five military towns. Among the forty-five military towns, there are only eighteen integrated towns, and these ten integrated towns are also the most elite army units in the empire.

Zhang Huangyan's target is the next step mark of the 18th reorganization town of the Seventh Army Corps.

Each of them is the pride of the Empire, and all of them are battle-hardened soldiers.

Now, the scout cavalry reported that a Mongol cavalry of about 10,000 men was bypassing Yushu and killing at Dingxi Fort.

They didn't know if Yushu hadn't been lost, and they didn't know if the ten thousand Han soldiers of the three associations of that division still survived. They only knew that the 10,000 Mongolian cavalry had reached the pass, and they might want to break through the pass and cross Kunlun to Qinghai Lake, or maybe they wanted to pass through here and go south to Ganzi.

Regardless of whether they were coming to Kouguan or passing by, Zhang Huangyan did not plan to avoid the war.

When it was time to carry out their mission, Zhang Huangyan only had blood boiling and a desire to fight.

Glory is my life!

Water the flowers of glory with the blood of your enemies.

When the golden light of the sun fell through the clouds, Zhang Huangyan, who was standing on the city wall, finally found the Mogu Mongol cavalry.

The first thing that caught his eye was a long black line, and the Moxi Mongol cavalry lined up in a wide array, like a wave rising from the sea.

Horses neighed in the distance.

The Moxi Mongol cavalry shouted arrogantly, and they had obviously discovered this small fort blocked in front of the mountain pass.

The voices of thousands of Mongol cavalry rose, shouting the thirst for blood, the yearning for killing and plundering.

As soon as Zhang Huangyan received the scout's report, he convened the staff officers and officers to discuss countermeasures, and finally formed a decision to defend the battle with the fort, and the staff officers made a detailed defense plan according to Zhang Huangyan's order, which was subdivided into the distribution of troops, the use of materials, and so on.

Three thousand against ten thousand, the Han army had a small earthen fort. There are also sharp muskets and some artillery, and the Mongols in Moxi are outnumbered, they are all cavalry, and the attack power is fierce.

The castle on which the Han army could rely was too small, they did not have the time or materials to build a strong fortress, and they lacked artillery. They were only an infantry standard, with only a few mountain grenades in the standard, and lacked field and heavy artillery support from artillery units.

It's going to be an uphill battle, but no one is afraid to back down.

This time it was a brutal war, maybe three thousand people here. Eventually, most of the casualties will be lost.

All the soldiers of the Han army knew this, but they all handled it calmly.

They are all Han warriors with the mark of the nine-headed bird, and they once swore to the banner of the nine-headed bird, to use swords and swords, blood and flesh to protect the emperor and the empire, and glory is more important than life.

Zhang Huangyan used to be the emperor's personal guard, and the emperor studied at the military academy, and he was also a showman. He is a young middle-level general in the Imperial Army, and he is an iron-blooded young man. He has a beautiful resume and a lot of combat experience.

If he is going to die here, he will be wrapped in horseheat. He is also happy to accept death, and after his death, he will definitely be able to enter the Martyrs' Temple, the Empire's Avenue of Fame. There will be one of his stars.

Accompanied by the low and long sound of the cow's horn, Zhang Huangyan polished the nine-headed bird ornament on the breastplate a little more. The adjutant came over in a gorgeous suit of armor.

This bust is very ornate and quite strong. With the steelmaking technology unique to Dahan today, iron is smelted into molten steel and then rolled into thin steel plates, which are then repeatedly forged with a hydraulic forging hammer to finally become a gorgeous, strong, and thin half-body plate armor.

Looking at the world, only the Great Han has the ability to smelt a large amount of molten steel, and only the steel plate armor made by the Great Han is light and thin.

However, this kind of plate armor is forged from steel plates, and it has been forged by thousands of hammers, so the cost of each piece is not low.

In the highly weaponized Han Army, ordinary soldiers were not equipped with armor, and most of them wore light cotton armor. Only officers above the company commander are equipped with half-body plate armor. The higher the rank of the general, the better, more ornate and stronger the armor.

Officers don't charge, but they still need better protection.

The adjutant general is in charge of the adjutant's office, which is regarded as the chief steward of the fort and the head of the civilian staff. Under normal circumstances, the adjutant does not need to personally put on his armor.

But now the plan can't keep up with the change.

The fortress was so small, and there were so many enemy troops, that even the adjutant commander went into battle with his clerks with guns.

The adjutant is a civilian, but there is no real civilian in the Han army, they are also well-trained soldiers, who can also put on battle armor and skillfully manipulate firearms to kill the enemy.

Adjutant General Zheng Danian is still an excellent blocker.

He carried a blocker in his hand, looked at the enemy, and then made preparations in an orderly manner.

This is a new type of stunner rifle with rifling drawn in the chamber, which makes the shooting accuracy more accurate. However, this gun needs a better barrel and a matching special bullet.

Especially because there is rifling in the gun, which makes it difficult to load the bullet, you have to hold the noh bar against the bullet, and then take the hammer to knock the bullet into it little by little.

The new rifled gun sacrificed the speed of reloading, but greatly improved accuracy, which made this rifled gun temporarily unsatisfactory to the armament department of the military department, but it became the new favorite of the sniper. What snipers need is not speed, but accuracy and range.

When this rifled gun was improved with the target of the sniper, this kind of gun was heavier, each reaching nearly thirty catties, which was equivalent to a small cannon. However, compared to the original old stunner gun, both the range and accuracy are greatly improved.

Zheng Danian himself is a very good blocker, and he even trained all the civilian positions under his command to be blockers and lookouts.

In preparation for the war, Zheng Danian turned them into a blocking platoon.

There were many Mongolian cavalry, and Dingxi Fort could only fight alone, unable to get reinforcements.

But Adjutant Zheng Danian was not afraid, just like Zhang Huangyan, the standard chief.

In the words of the emperor, a Han soldier should not know what fear is.

"I am the Sword of the Holy Emperor!"

As the black lines formed by the Mongols surged closer and closer, Zheng Danian took a hammer and hammered the bullet into the chamber of the gun while slowly chanting.

"Swear allegiance to the emperor and defend the empire!"

Zhang Huangyan was also calibrating his pistol, "If we kill all these 10,000 Mongolian Tartars, we can almost all be promoted to the next level!" (To be continued.) )