Song Zhewu's words made Tao Rong shake a lot, he originally thought that the Fourth Route Army and the Jin Sui Army, at least had a closer relationship with Hebei Chairman Shang Zhen, but now it seems that Song Zhewu's relationship with Yan Xishan is quite loose, and even the relationship with Shang Zhen in Hebei has existed in name only. Although the relationship with Chiang Kai-shek is closer, it seems that Song Zhewu has always had his own plans. Take Wushengguan as an example, Song Zhewu can absolutely guarantee the safety of the Wushengguan tunnel, but he just took the 23rd Division Engineer Battalion away, you must know that the blasted cave has been dug, as long as explosives are put in, the tunnel can be blown up and cut off the traffic of the Beijing-Hanzhou Railway. In addition, this time the Fourth Route Army was in Zhengzhou, and it was completely possible to deal a severe blow to the Northwest Army one by one, but Song Zhewu only vetoed this battle plan that was very beneficial to Chiang Kai-shek's attack on the Northwest Army on the grounds that it was not easy to assume the responsibility of provoking a civil war, and this reason was not very sufficient......

However, Tao Rong is still very grateful to Song Zhewu for his trust in him, he is a Gui Toucheng officer who has only joined the Fourth Route Army for a few days, not only was he placed in the high position of the deputy chief of staff of the Fourth Route Army, but also told him such a confidential thing, which shows that Song Zhewu trusts him very much, and he is very useful and suspicious. Although he knew that Song Zhewu must still have many secrets about the Fourth Route Army that he had not told him, he thought that it was normal for Song Zhewu to do this, after all, he had only joined the Fourth Route Army for a short time.

Looking at Tao Rong, who was a little surprised, Song Zhewu patted him on the shoulder with a smile and said, "Chief of Staff Tao, after a long time, you will know me and the Fourth Route Army better." The defense of Liyuan Village, Liulin Town, and Bei'anzhuang should be strengthened, and after breakfast, I will go to Huayuankou to check the defense there, and the matter here will be handed over to you, Chief of Staff Tao. ”

As he spoke, he had already arrived at the entrance of the town, and Song Zhewu remembered one more thing and asked Tao Rong: "Last night, Feng Yuxiang's telegram accusing us of being stranded in Henan for no reason was forwarded to Chairman Jiang and Yan Xishan, right?" Do they call back? ”

"Last night, it was forwarded to Wuhan and Taiyuan according to the order of the commander-in-chief, but there has been no callback. I don't think it's really good, let's push it on Han Fuyu first, anyway, his warrant is in Zhengzhou, and I have already shown it to the mayor appointed by the Northwest Army. Tao Rong looked at her watch and then said: "I guess this excuse is not easy to find in Wuhan and Taiyuan." Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan may not have gotten up at this time? Even if you call back, you'll probably have to wait a little longer. ”

Song Zhewu thought for a while and said: "If Chairman Jiang and Yan Xishan don't think of a way, I'm afraid they can't be pushed to Han Fuyu, and as soon as Feng Yuxiang is forced, Han Fuyu will have to withdraw his warrant." I mean to arrange for someone to find out the defense of Zhengzhou as soon as possible, and if something happens, we can take countermeasures as soon as possible. In addition, if you call Wuhan again, all the information about Sun Liangcheng's ministry will be transferred to us, and now Pang Bingxun in Zhengzhou is alone, and he doesn't dare to do anything to us, but once Sun Liangcheng's tens of thousands of people in Shandong come over, it will be difficult to say. ”――

After breakfast, Song Zhewu rode his big white horse and went straight to the entrance of the garden with Li Rujuan, Liang Bi, Ye Qing and other guards and guards. Knowing that Song Zhewu was going to Huayuankou, Li Rujuan also wanted to see the Yellow River, so Song Zhewu brought her too.

When he arrived at the entrance of the garden, Song Zhewu had a whim and told Liang Bi to send someone to inform Zhang Yafei, and he went straight to the Yellow River Iron Bridge. He couldn't resist the desire to see the famous iron bridge. In his previous life, because he blew up the Yellow River Iron Bridge in Zhengzhou during the Anti-Japanese War, and even blew up the embankment at the mouth of the garden to release water to block the enemy, there were a lot of arguments on the Internet, so Song Zhewu knew a lot about the Yellow River Iron Bridge.

From a distance, I saw that the southern end of the iron bridge was surrounded by sandbags to build a defensive position, for Song Zhewu, the commander of the first battalion guarding the iron bridge, Liu Hong, did not stop it, Song Zhewu left the guard company at the bridgehead, and only took Li Rujuan, Liang Bi, Ye Qing and his personal guards on the iron bridge.

The Yellow River Iron Bridge was officially started in August 1903, with a total length of 3010.2 meters, a total of 102 holes, a total of one hundred and one piers at both ends of the two airs, the whole bridge is erected by steel girder trusses, fixed with bolts, and looks tall and majestic from afar. Song Zhewu had also been here in his previous life, but there were only a few bridge piers left.

When they came to Hubei this time, it was night when they crossed the bridge, and Li Rujuan, Liang Bi and Ye Qing and other guards looked carefully at this famous iron bridge for the first time, and they all grew their mouths in surprise!

Everyone looked east and west and touched and knocked in surprise for a long time, Ye Qing took a cool breath and said: "I thought that the "Zhenhai roar" in front of our Cangzhou Kaiyuan Temple was double (Bei'er: the dialect of Tianjin and Cangzhou, which has a very, very meaning) is heavy, but I didn't expect that the entire bridge is iron, how heavy it must be!" ”

Finally saw the most famous big iron bridge in this era in China and saw its true face, which made Song Zhewu very excited, seeing everyone's surprised expressions, jokingly said: "Ye Qing, in your dialect there, you are Lao Tan (I have never seen the world), you Cangzhou' Although Zhenhai roars 'has a history of nearly 1,000 years, but the total weight is less than 30 tons, the entire iron bridge is more than 3,000 meters long, except that the piers are steel frame structure, the total weight must be at least 100,000 tons, and it cost more than 2.6 million taels of silver to build this big iron bridge at that time. ”

"More than 2,600,000 taels!" Once again, this figure surprised everyone.

Song Zhewu solemnly pointed to the wide, turbid, but majestic Yellow River under the bridge and said: "The Yellow River is turbulent and contains a lot of sand. It is very difficult to build bridges over the Yellow River, so so far there are only three bridges on the Yellow River: the Zhengzhou Yellow River Iron Bridge, the Jinan Luokou Yellow River Bridge and the Lanzhou Highway Bridge. The iron bridges in Jinan and Lanzhou were built by German companies, while the Zhengzhou iron bridge under our feet was built by a Belgian company. When the Jinghan line was first designed, it was originally in Kaifeng to cross the river, not in Zhengzhou. Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, who presided over the construction of the Jinghan Railway, believed that the Yellow River in Kaifeng was the famous 'hanging river', known as the 'tofu waist' of the Yellow River, and if the Jinghan Railway chose to cross the river from Kaifeng, not only the investment in building the bridge was large, but the risk after completion was also great. It should be built as a bridge to cross the river at the mouth of Xingzekou, where the narrow bank of the upper reaches of the Yellow River is firmly flowing. The Jinghan Railway then turned a corner to bypass Kaifeng, and finally chose to build a bridge here. The Yellow River is dangerous, the construction is difficult, and the fine sand soil layer of the riverbed is deep, and the solid ground has not been reached after drilling to more than 100 meters, so it is necessary to deepen the depth of the pipe pile. Belgian engineers had never encountered such a technical problem, which they could not achieve with their construction technology at the time, resulting in a lack of depth in the bridge foundation, which seriously affected the quality of the bridge. During the flood season, some of the bridge piers will be shaken by the floodwater, and the tracks will be obviously bent, so that they have to throw stones around the bridge piers every year for protection, and the annual river construction costs alone will be huge. ”

After listening to Song Zhewu's words, everyone sighed at the difficulty of the construction of this bridge, and Li Rujuan's eyes when she looked at Song Zhewu not only had a strong sense of love, but also contained a layer of admiration. His future husband is not only handsome and chic, resolute and resolute, long-sleeved and good at dancing, but also well-read and memorable. Being able to marry such a person is really her Li Rujuan's blessing!

Liang Bi pedaled the steel rails under his feet and asked Song Zhewu: "Commander, since this bridge still needs to invest a lot of money to maintain it every year, why not rebuild it on another site?" ”

"It's not that I haven't thought about it." Song Zhewu explained: "After the bridge was completed, Henan officials were also deeply suspicious, fearing that if the bridge collapsed and blocked the river and endangered the river embankment, they proposed the idea of moving the bridge site upstream and building a new bridge in Mengjin, and asked Zhan Tianyou, who was then an adviser to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, to investigate and investigate in November 1907. After Zhan Tianyou's investigation, he calculated that if the new Mengjin Yellow River Bridge is only 1.7 kilometers long, it will require 3.5 million taels of silver, because the investment is too large and the funds are not available, so he has to give up. The Zhengzhou Yellow River Bridge is more than 3 kilometers long and only costs 2.65 million taels of silver. This alone shows that the Belgian company is really concerned about saving money and money, regardless of the quality of the project. In that year, when Sheng Xuanhuai, the superintendent of the Qing Zhengaxe Railway Corporation, went to the site to preside over the completion ceremony, he asked the Belgian chief engineer who presided over the construction of the iron bridge, "How many years does the warranty period of this bridge last?" Knowing that there were many problems, Shado replied, "10 to 15 years." ’。 ”

"Come and see, there's still a brand!" One of the guards points to the upper part of the truss on the right.

Following the direction of the guard's finger, he saw where a black iron plaque with black paint had fallen off. Liang Binian said: "The Qing National Railway Corporation built the Jinghan Railway, assisted by the Belgian Company, and the work was completed, and the imperial court sent the prince Shaobao, the former Ministry of Industry Zuo Lang Sheng Xuanhuai, and the first product Ding Dai Acting Ministry of Commerce Zuo Cheng Tang Shaoyi inaugurated the ceremony. I would like to engrave my ambition, when it was October 16 in the 31st year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty. ”

After a while, everyone sighed for a while, and walked north along the iron bridge.

Liu Hong, the commander of the first battalion, took two soldiers and drove a small hand-pressed maintenance car for repairing the railway to the bridge. "Commander, if you go to the north of the bridge, you should do this quickly."

Song Zhewu wanted to walk over, take a closer look at the bridge, and enjoy the scenery on the Yellow River, but seeing that the guards, including Li Rujuan, were very interested in this manual car, he had to smile and pull Li Rujuan into the car, and sat down on the two rattan chairs that had obviously just been placed in the car. Liang Bi and Ye Qing stood behind Song Zhewu and Li Rujuan, and the other guards were all huddled on the side of the car. With the help of the guards, the car drove very fast and came to the north of the bridge in ten minutes.

(To be continued)