Even when it was snowing heavily, the soldiers had to train, stand guard, carry out patrols, and even dig trenches.

When you are on the march, you have to keep on your way even if it snows heavily!

For example, when attacking Cangzhou now, the soldiers are attacking with guns in the north where they can blow people's lives, and even in order to keep loading and shooting, the soldiers are not allowed to wear the thick gloves that are fluffy, either they simply bare their hands, or they simply wrap themselves with strips of cloth and the like.

At the same time, even if it is a cold weather, but under high-intensity activities, the human body will still sweat, especially the foot, and once the sweating is not dealt with in time, such as drying the shoes, or accidentally having snow flakes into the shoes to melt and not drying, then it is easy to let the feet directly frostbite, and even need to be amputated in serious cases.

The severe cold weather caused great trouble for the Sixth Army's offensive battle against Cangzhou!

In order to prevent more soldiers from getting frostbite due to the severe cold, the Sixth Army even urgently procured more cold materials such as padded jackets, gloves, shoes and socks, blankets and tents.

Not to mention the padded jacket and quilt clothes, the gloves have to be said to be a mistake of the Quartermaster Department, because they only took into account the need for warm gloves for the soldiers of the Sixth Army, but did not consider whether they could fight with thick gloves, and as a result, although the more than 20,000 pairs of gloves issued by the Quartermaster Department had good thermal performance, they became extremely bloated with their back hands, and they could not carry out tactical actions such as loading at all.

When the Sixth Army reported this situation to the High Command, the Quartermaster Department directly dismissed one of the directors in charge of the winter glove affairs.

And now when the Sixth Army is fighting, the soldiers are either simply bare-handed. Or simply make your own strips of cloth to wrap your hands to protect against the cold, and those thick gloves sent by the quartermaster department can only be brought at ordinary times. You can't use it when you're fighting.

In this regard, the quartermaster department of the Sixth Army directly designed it on its own. And purchased a batch of cotton gloves on the spot, with moderate thickness, and at the same time, it does not affect the movement of fingers after wearing, and can carry out tactical actions such as loading.

Even in order to be able to procure these cold materials on the spot in a short period of time, the Sixth Army even directly forcibly recruited and directly assigned tasks to some prefectures and counties in the rear.

On the Texas side alone, more than 50,000 pieces of clothing, shoes, socks, gloves and other cold materials were distributed to the people, and of course, the military would not take them in vain. Generally, it is acquired at the market price.

The severe cold weather had a more serious impact on the northward troops of the Chinese army, but the Qing army on the opposite side was no better, don't think that the soldiers in the Qing army are mostly northerners, and then they are not afraid of the cold.

There is a saying in later generations: I am a wolf from the north, but I am frozen into a dog in the south. The reason for this in later generations is that there is central heating in the north, but there is no central heating in the south.

For the contemporary, it is the south Xi bed, the north Shang Kang.

For ordinary people in the north, winter is just as difficult. They can also use the ondol indoors, but only indoors.

Outside, the Qing soldiers from the north were not much better than the southern soldiers of the Chinese army, and they were all shivering in the field at minus several degrees.

Moreover, the Qing army is not as good as the Chinese army in the supply of warm clothing!

The Chinese Army was long before the Sixth Army went north. It was already taken into account that it was difficult for soldiers to adapt to the cold weather in the north, so they prepared a lot of winter clothes in advance, not to mention that they could do it too well. But it is still possible to have a padded jacket and pants in hand, and although the quartermaster department has committed two crimes. The gloves delivered were thick and bloated, and they were not suitable for combat use, but at least they showed that the quartermaster department had prepared in advance.

However, what about the Qing army. Until December, the Qing court failed to provide enough warm clothing for the soldiers under Du Xing'a's command, and finally Du Xing'a had to pay for winter clothes from the new army's own small coffers.

Although the Qing army as a whole is able to provide winter clothes for soldiers, it is certainly not as good as the Chinese army in terms of details, at least they will not customize gloves for soldiers.

In the severe cold weather, the two sides only fought a small-scale offensive and defensive battle, and had not yet officially carried out a large-scale battle, but it also caused the Qing army to reduce its strength due to many injuries and diseases.

This winter, whether it is for the Sixth Army of the Chinese Army or for the Duxing Asuo Department of the Qing Army, it is not good news.

No matter even if the severe cold weather brought a certain amount of trouble to both sides of the war, it did not stop the fighting between the two sides, to be precise, it did not stop the offensive of the Chinese army.

Shi Qingxuan had already received the news that the Command had decided to launch the Western Expedition in advance and implement the Jiangxi Strategy, and the General Headquarters had already begun to urge him to take Beiping as soon as possible and solve the main war in the north, so that the Command could free up forces to support the Western Expedition.

Otherwise, this Shi Qingxuan would have dragged on in the north for an extra month, and the Fourth Army to which Shi Langyi, who was fighting in Jiangxi, would have been in difficulty for a month. You must know that the combat materials mobilized by the high command for the Fourth Army are only one month's weight, and if Shi Qingxuan drags on in the north for too long, it will be difficult for the high command to continue to supply the Fourth Army's operational needs while supporting the Sixth Army's northern expedition.

This will inevitably make the Fourth Army's operations in Jiangxi shrink back, but if Shi Langyi is unlucky to be defeated, don't look at the surface and Shi Qingxuan has little to do with it, but it is hard to guarantee that no one will say: It's all you Shi Qingxuan grinding in the north, if you take Beiping and end the Northern Expedition earlier, the Fourth Army will not fail because of lack of supplies.

Based on the current strategic adjustment of the empire, although neither the Command nor His Majesty Lin Zhe made it clear, Shi Qingxuan knew that the time he could use was running out.

He must take Cangzhou and Tianjin as soon as possible, and then conquer Beiping and completely end the Northern Expedition.

Shi Qingxuan thought so, so even if the north wind was blowing, it made people's faces hurt, but the soldiers of the Sixth Army still launched an attack on Cangzhou in front with rifles.

The artillerymen in the rear were busy reloading and then firing, and many grenades continued to fall on the city walls, killing and injuring any Qing soldiers who dared to take the lead.

Under the cover of artillery, many soldiers of the Sixth Army charged towards the city wall in a unique straggler formation, and they did not use a dense formation like those line infantry, taking themselves as the target of the Qing army, but scattered very widely between the soldiers and soldiers, even if the troops currently engaged in the charge were only about 6,000 people, but they formed a battle line as wide as two kilometers.

What made the Qing army on the opposite side even more shocking was that these Chinese troops on the opposite side were scattered, but the firepower density was unusually strong, and the city was constantly hit by bullets, and then the debris flying everywhere had fully demonstrated the powerful rifle firepower of the Chinese army in front.

Compared with the Minnie front-loading rifle, the accuracy and range of the contemporary rear-loading rifle are actually not very superior, and the 1858 Linde rifle is even inferior to the 1856 Linde rifle in terms of accuracy. However, the rear loading not only brings the tactical advantage of being able to reload on its stomach, but also brings an absolute advantage in the rate of fire.

The theoretical rate of fire of the Mini rifle can reach three rounds per minute, however the theory of contemporary rear-loading rifles is that the rate of fire can reach twelve or even more than fourteen rounds per minute. In terms of actual rate of fire, the rate of fire of the 1856 Linde rifle was only about 2.5 rounds per minute, and only a very small number of elite troops were able to reach three rounds per minute. However, the Eighth Division of the Sixth Army, which used the 1858 Linde rifle, could easily achieve a rate of fire of more than 10 rounds per minute even for ordinary soldiers, while more skilled soldiers could achieve a rate of fire of more than 12 rounds per minute.

The difference in rate of fire of three times or even five times made it impossible for the defending Qing soldiers to raise their heads to fight back.

"Do you want to repeat the original battle of Jinan?" Looking at the soldiers of the Chinese army rushing over the mountains and fields, and looking at the soldiers whose heads were crushed by the enemy's shells and bullets, Shi Rongchun couldn't help but think of the original Battle of Jinan.

At the beginning, the situation was the same as today, the opposite side also rushed directly with this kind of skirmisher formation, and then approached and suppressed with rifle fire, and their own side could not leave cover.

Even if there are fortifications such as city walls as cover, but it can't stop the breakthrough of the Chinese army.

Time passed bit by bit, and the Chinese army on the opposite side did not rush to the city wall in a short time, but after approaching a distance of about two or three hundred meters, they were lying on their stomachs or half-kneeling and suppressing the enemy troops on the city with the rifles in their hands, while some soldiers ran forward quickly.

After alternately covering and charging, and gradually approaching, a small group of soldiers had already rushed to the direction of the city gate, and then directly placed a large number of explosive bags.

With a loud bang, the strong city gate was directly blown up, but there was a large amount of sand and gravel behind the city gate, which blocked the city gate, and it was obvious that the Qing army had long been guarding against the city gate being blown up.

However, in this regard, the Chinese army quickly changed the direction of the operation, on the one hand, it still used the rifles in its hands to forcibly suppress the Qing army on the city, and on the other hand, it sent people to dig directly on a section of the city wall, and then planted explosives.

In addition, the artillery unit also began to concentrate its fire on a section of the city wall.

Although the city wall of Cangzhou is quite good for a county town, it is not the city wall of a big city like Nanjing and Beiping, and its city wall cannot stop the intensive bombardment of large-caliber artillery, let alone resist the explosion of large-yield explosives.

Many domestic battles in recent years have long shown that the city wall as a defensive system has long been behind the times, and it is not even as good as the breastwork temporarily dug in the field, let alone compared with the trenches.

Under the continuous blasting of the Sixth Army and the intensive artillery bombardment, the Cangzhou city wall only lasted for a day, and then it collapsed with a loud bang, and a gap of more than ten meters wide appeared.

Before the explosion smoke in the gap dissipated, a large number of Chinese soldiers with rifles had already rushed forward. (To be continued.) )