As soon as Li Yongji's order to transfer the whole army was issued, the entire Jingwu army was mobilized, and it didn't matter what time, place, or situation it was, it was just whether the order was appropriate or not, and in short, the order must be strictly implemented.

Therefore, even when Li Yongji ordered the march to move, it was already night, and he had just set up camp to rest, but the Jingwu army still had no complaints, and immediately regrouped, pulled out the camp, and directly came to a night forced march.

In this way, the Jingwu army lit all the torches, marched for four hours overnight, that is, walked for about eight hours, and walked along the path for nearly 40 kilometers in the wilderness.

By the time the sky gradually began to lighten, the morale of the officers and men of the entire unit was quite good, and the pace of the march had not slowed down significantly, but the pace was already a little heavy and showed fatigue.

According to past experience, after a night of forced marching, if you do not rest at this time, continue to move forward, which will aggravate the accumulation of fatigue and weaken the continuous combat effectiveness of officers and men.

Moreover, even if people are fine, they can continue to march by willpower, but the horses are not so patient, and the horses have to lose weight if they continue to walk for eight hours in a row, and it is difficult to replenish them with their usual diet.

So if the situation is not urgent, and it is necessary to march lightly, then the best thing to do at this time is to stop the advance, let everyone take a little rest, drink some light salt water, eat something, take a breath of relief, and at the same time feed the horses so that they can have a good rest.

Li Yongji wanted to train the troops, not to spoil them, so he resolutely ordered the whole army to stop the prospects, and arrange a break on the spot in accordance with the previous drills.

Xiaoxiu is a short rest, a short rest method without camping, in order to recover the body as much as possible, so as to march again.

Regarding the rest time, different situations have different arrangements, such as the current halfway break without any emergency, then usually people rest for half an hour before leaving, horses have to rest for at least an hour before leaving, of course, the guard post during this period must be arranged.

The situation of horses is different from people, because these oceanic horses are too expensive, so everyone cherishes them, and the groom is also extra careful, that is to say, although there are regulations, but whether the horse can go, it depends on the meaning of the groom, if it is found that there are horses that are not good, they will stay alone to continue to recuperate.

Therefore, among the elite army, horses are the most troublesome and the most delayed, especially in this Jiangnan water town, the speed of horses is really not much faster than people.

In fact, if there were no horses, and if you walked purely by people, with the plain zhì of the soldiers of the elite army, the marching speed could be a little faster. After all, even heavy weapons in the elite army are not heavy, and the strongest heavy weapons are mortars, bazookas, etc., which can be broken down and taken away by people; As for the improved so-called Napoleonic cannon, it was now in a semi-retired state, and was only used as a siege gun, and was used alone to accompany the baggage troops.

Therefore, if you put aside the horses and baggage and go into battle lightly, engage in pure infantry flow, plus Li Yongji's golden finger, the speed of the troops can be faster, and the elite army also has this kind of preset training program for long-distance running of pure infantry flow.

Horses are so troublesome, why keep a large number of horses? Could it be that Li Yongji is too stubborn and refuses to admit the mistake of blindly buying horses before? Of course not, the reason why so many horses continue to be used is, of course, that horses are still very useful and irreplaceable.

First of all, it is irreplaceable in terms of capacity!

As far as the current situation is concerned, although the long-term endurance of people is stronger, but the capacity is too poor, under the same weight, the capacity of several people is far less than the capacity that a horse of the same weight as these people can bring, so in terms of pulling baggage, it is better to use mules and horses, especially if there is a heavy artillery in the future, it is necessary to use horses.

After all, it is impossible for Li Yongji to maintain a small number of elite troops all the time, and it is impossible for him to always use his golden finger to supply the troops, let alone buy modern weapons all the time.

He always had to carry out industrialization and produce his own weapons, and it was certainly impossible to be as good as modern weapons at the beginning, so mules and horses were necessary.

In addition, even if the endurance of a person is stronger, the speed of the horse is faster than that of a person in the medium and long term, and when necessary, the soldier can be transported by carriage for a while, and when the horse is tired, the soldier can be dismounted and walked, which can greatly speed up the march, which is much faster than walking by a man alone. This is especially important in the current road conditions.

Secondly, there is the necessity of cavalry tactics!

As for listening to Karlsson's Jianyì, Li Yongji organized a group of dragoons who specialized in using quart's horses, and the total number of dragoons accounted for about one-fifth of the entire army of the Jingwu Army, and the number was about 3,000 people, all of whom were one man and two horses.

This specialized dragoon plays a great role in the use of tactics, not to mention reconnaissance and communication, in frontal combat, once the opponent is defeated, then the task of pursuing deserters is none other than cavalry, and the role is incomparable with infantry.

You know, although horses are inferior to humans in strategic movement, they are much better than humans in tactical movements, such as speed and patience in continuous running.

In other words, if you walk for many days in a row, you may be better than a horse, but once you run in a race with a horse, and you run a long distance in a row, you will definitely not be able to outrun a horse.

The so-called human endurance is better, that refers to long-term walking, not long-term continuous running.

For example, a marathon long-distance run can run to death, but the distance of the marathon can never run a dead horse. Within 500 to 300 kilometers, the speed of human movement is absolutely not comparable to that of a horse.

Therefore, in the event of a rout, using one's own cavalry to engage in continuous pursuit can maximize the impact on the opponent's vital forces and achieve the greatest victory, which Napoleon liked to play the most.

Li Yongji and Karlsson once discussed, that is, in the war of this era, from a certain point of view, the lethal effect of the pursuit battle is far greater than the effect of the frontal battle, and the so-called annihilation war, unless it is an ambush in advance, the annihilated side is often the weaker side of the cavalry.

If cavalry tactics are used properly, cavalry can be much more effective than infantry and artillery. Although Emperor Napoleon loved artillery, it was the cavalry that really brought him glory.

This is actually very easy to understand, once the two armies are engaged, one side is defeated, they will turn their heads and flee, at this time, usually the fleeing person will throw away a qiē weapon, and the escape speed is generally faster than the infantry who are still holding weapons and have a variety of tactical purposes, at this time, the cavalry needs to use high mobility to chase and kill, so as to achieve the maximum result, and turn the rout battle into a war of annihilation.

In short, before mechanization, it was still necessary to preserve horses, and even in the First World War, the role of horses was irreplaceable. Moreover, there is no hurry now, and in addition it is necessary to train the troops as a whole, there is no need to leave the cavalry and go on their own, and the various arms of the army can be mixed together in order to truly train the troops.

Usually, during this short break, in addition to eating and drinking, everyone will also sing military songs together, or play a piece of music to motivate them, and of course, they can also laugh with each other.

During breaks, you can talk and laugh casually, and there is no discipline of silence.

There are quite a lot of military songs in the Jingwu Army, and the soldiers basically sing them, of course, sometimes Li Yongji will also play some new songs that they have not heard and can't sing, but they are just as good.

For example, now, Li Yongji has simultaneously played a cheerful song to the whole army, called "There is Righteousness in the World", which is the song that Kawai Kenji did in the later generation, and it is also one of the episodes of the movie "Seven Swords", and of course it is also one of Li Yongji's personal favorite tracks.

As soon as the music played, it was obvious that the children were singing cheer-la-la at the beginning, and that cheerful mood instantly weakened the fatigue of most of the soldiers, and filled with an optimistic spirit.

In the past, Li Yongji didn't dare to play modern songs indiscriminately, but now that he has an army that absolutely obeys his orders, and is in such a closed and strict era, he is no longer too harsh on himself.

Moreover, let these officers and soldiers accept the bombardment of modern music in advance and enjoy the baptism of art in advance, and they can also identify more with the group of the Jingwu Army, and others will no longer want to dig into the corners of this army, because even if you can give the same treatment, you can't give the same spiritual enjoyment.

Just as Li Yongji stepped out of the carriage and moved his ankles and wrists, he saw Karlsson also walking over on crutches, his eyes were still a little worried, and he seemed to have just woken up.

"Hi Karlsson, good morning." Li Yongji quipped in English, "How's it going?" ”

"Yes, I slept well, I haven't slept so well in a long time." Karlsson smiled, revealing a mouthful of black and yellow teeth, "I used to have insomnia, I couldn't sleep day and night, and even if I could, I only slept for an hour or two, and I often had nightmares. I didn't expect that after coming here, I used your comprehensive therapy, and the sleep time became longer and longer, and the body after sleep quickly got better and better, haha, it's really good. ”

The comprehensive therapy for Karlsson, in fact, is the modern treatment of insomnia, simply put, it is necessary to eat gamma oryzanol tablets, multivitamin tablets, coenzyme Q10, melatonin tablets on time, in addition to eating grains and vegetables on time, coupled with appropriate slow walking exercise, over time, can relieve insomnia.

Of course, although those methods could relieve his insomnia, Karlsson was a little different, he could sleep long in the bumps, and if he was quiet, he could not sleep well, so sleeping in the carriage was uncomfortable for others, but he was willing to eat. This may also be the reason why he can't retire quietly at home, rather than running around. It is said that this is a common problem of some veterans who are running around, such as the founding marshal surnamed Lin in another time and space, who seems to have a similar problem.

As he was talking, Karlsson walked over, sat on the stool in front of Li Yongji, directly picked up a piece of bread on the coffee table in front of him and stuffed it into his mouth, and said while stuffing it back: "Well, marching overnight, where are you going to take the troops?" ”

"Suzhou City." Li Yongji said lightly, there is nothing to hide.

"Oh? Suzhou? So what Taiping army took Suzhou? So fast? ”

"No, it's still early." Li Yongji shook his head, "Suzhou is still in the hands of the imperial court." ”

"And what are you going to do right now?" Karlsson was puzzled, "Isn't your plan to wait for the other party to take Suzhou City, and then you can recapture it?" In that case, that city is yours. Now that the other party has not captured that Suzhou City, won't it be useless if you go? ”

"I'm going to pick people up." After Li Yongji finished speaking, he paused slightly, "Well, maybe it's right to rob people." ”

"Robbing people? Rob whom? ”

"My sister's husband's family." Li Yongji said, "Their family still lives in Suzhou, and originally wanted them to take refuge in Qingpu County, but unfortunately they didn't listen, so they had to stay in Suzhou and fight against the Taiping army." My sister begged me to take them away...... There's no way, since it's my sister begging me, I have to take a trip. ”

"If that's the case, it's more effective to send a small team of people." Karlsson was puzzled, "You are going out with the whole army, if you don't talk about the trouble, it will cause misunderstanding." ”

"I'm also a military trainer." Li Yongji smiled, picked up a cup of hot black tea on the folding coffee table and took a sip gently, "The other projects are almost trained, but the long-distance march is not done, just right, take the opportunity to go to Suzhou this time, and have a long-distance drill." ”

"Yes." Karlsson pursed his lips and asked directly the maid who was standing beside Li Yongji, a young woman named Lili, who gestured and said a few Beer in a row, which meant beer.

After seeing Li Yongji nodding, the personal maid Lili obediently took out a can without any label marks on the surface and gently placed it on the folding coffee table.

This kind of canned beer is Tsingtao beer in modern society, of course, it is specially customized, there is no mark on the surface, and it looks like a silver-white tin can.

Seeing the can, Karlsson's eyes widened, he quickly took it, skillfully opened the pull ring, and took a big sip of it, and then said loudly: "It's still this beer enjoyable, hahaha." ”

In this regard, Li Yongji just smiled slightly, and did not persuade him to stop drinking on an empty stomach in the morning, and he would not listen to it anyway.

After drinking a can of beer, Karlsson continued: "Hey, my friend, look at your expression, it's not just about picking up your sister's husband, it's also about training. If you want to train troops, some of them have goals, and you don't necessarily have to go to Suzhou. That city is about to become a front line now, and it's too sensitive for you to go now, and take such a force with you. ”

"I know." Li Yongji smiled, "Actually, there is another purpose, which is to take a look at Suzhou City and see if this city is worth my protection." ”

"Oh? Is it worth your protection? Karlsson quickly understood what this meant, "You mean, you've changed your mind?" Don't wait for the Taiping army to fight Suzhou first and then fight back, but go to defend Suzhou now? ”

"Kind of that."

"Why?"

"Because of Changzhou, because I found that I was not cold-blooded enough." Li Yongji put down the teacup and exhaled softly, "I think you also know that a city called Changzhou here has just been slaughtered by the Taiping Army, that is, burned and looted, do you understand?" ”

"Understood." Karlsson grinned, "Kaesong and plunder, this is a common thing, that is, European soldiers, if there are no strict constraints, often do this." Hehe, I'll tell you the truth, I've done a lot of work before, and I still feel guilty at first, and I always have to pray when I'm done, but after a long time, it doesn't matter. ”

"yes, it's been a long time, and it doesn't matter." Li Yongji shook his head, "But for me, I still think it has something to do with it." ”

After speaking, Li Yongji stared at Karlsson: "I always tried my best to calculate the gains and losses in the most calm way before. So I made a plan to let the Taiping army in and then counterattack Suzhou, because that would be in my best interest. However, when I heard the news of the massacre in Changzhou City, I still found that I could not be at peace. I used to keep suppressing, but then I found that I couldn't suppress it, at least now I, I can't suppress that inner throbbing, do you understand what I'm talking about? ”

"Understood, what's not to understand about this." Karlsson smiled, "I'm from here. Well, in short, do you think you have the ability and responsibility to protect Suzhou from war? You're just doing this to calm your inner turmoil? ”

"That's right." Li Yongji nodded, "So I'm going to take a look, to see if the current Suzhou City is worth protecting in advance." If, after reading it, I can convince myself to defend Suzhou in advance, then I will do it. If I can't convince myself and find that it is not appropriate to defend Suzhou in advance, I will come back and do it according to the original plan, and by the way, I can observe the terrain in advance, don't you say? ”

"Very good, it's a pleasure to talk to you, not so much mess." Karlsson smiled and nodded, "A real man must respect his inner desires. Do it when you think of it, and don't let yourself regret it! ”

"It was a pleasure to talk to you." Li Yongji smiled and nodded.

"Me too, hahaha!" Karlsson smiled, then looked at Lili, "Hey, little girl, bring me another bun and a hot sausage!" ”

"You'd better keep it for the road." Li Yongji smiled again, "We're about to hit the road again." ”

"Still leaving? It's been all night and won't let the soldiers sleep? ”

"Nope." Li Yongji nodded and slowly stood up, "The humidity here is too heavy, and it's not a good place to sleep." It is said that there is a village thirty miles ahead, and I decided to take the troops there and rest later, so you can eat as much as you can, and we will leave soon. ”

At this moment, Li Yongji looked at his watch, and then turned back to Lili and said, "Immediately release the assembly number, and the whole army will finish resting and continue to advance." ”

"Yes, young master." Lili bowed her head and agreed, so she took out a small tablet in public and immediately operated it.

Soon, the long rallying cry sounded at the same time, and the whole team moved again to the sound of the rallying cry.

"That's right." Li Yongji stretched his waist at this time, "After putting out the rallying call, when the troops are moving forward again, don't forget to put a marching song." Let's play the song "The Sun Also Rises", which is the song that sounded the trumpet at the beginning. Well, facing the rising sun, listening to this song and marching again, it must be very emotional. ”