Chapter 119: The Battle of Yuhang Town (I)

“…… We have a long way to march, and our comrades-in-arms look forward,

The team flag flew high, and the commanders were at the front......

The warriors were brave and young, and their eyes were as sharp as eagles.

We all have the supreme honor of being able to do great things in battle......

Let us speak clearly, so that the enemy may be remembered:

We've traveled all over the world, and we've gone on expeditions if we have to.

Let's go, warriors! Let's go! Let's go!

My dear, I will write to you all the way back,

Listen to the trumpet calling,

Goodbye, let's go! Let's go! Let's go! ”

……

In the early morning of the next day, after letting the officers and men of the whole army eat a meal of boiled sticky rice with red beans that is said to have special significance, Major General Sun Yang and Zhao Zhuang took out 5,000 people from this motley group of troops from Tiannan and Haibei, and according to the pre-divided team of 50 people, they took the map of the theater of operations that was urgently prepared based on satellite aerial photos, and embarked on the journey of sweeping the towns and villages around Hangzhou under the guidance of the guide of the Phoenix Villa waving a small yellow flag.

When this sweeping squad raised its flag and set out for the battle, they also sang the translated version of the former Soviet military song "Departure" in the southern and northern tones.

-- Since the founding of the Huameng, the choice of national anthem and military anthem has become a big and difficult problem: if you want to create an impromptu composition, it is obviously a bit difficult to come up with a popular classic repertoire with the musical level of the travelers, and if you directly copy those ready-made classic songs...... Modern Chinese military songs, which are often either overtly political or carry geographical terms such as the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, seem to have a somewhat unidentified sense of identity for people who lived on the east coast of North America or the Pampas of South America in the seventeenth century. In addition, the melody is also pathetic, which does not conform to the "main theme" - the agitation and tragedy of defending the country in the face of adversity and the heroic ambition to conquer the world in great strides are completely different things!

As for the military songs of European and American countries, most of the classic tunes are too cheerful and lack the sense of military slaughter -- the military music of the Western European powers, such as the British "March of the Grenadiers", was composed in the era of queuing to be shot, and the soldiers were required to walk in unison while listening to the military music, stepping on the drums, and at the same time facing the incoming bullets and shells with their chests...... It's like a modern pill with a sugar coating on the outside. And those songs that are not very cheerful are often mixed with "discordant words" such as God, king, or foreign place names, which are seriously inconsistent with the tone of the "atheistic republican form of government" of the Huameng.

After such a series of picking, "Departure", the opening song of the Soviet Red Army radio station in the fifties and sixties, was successfully selected as the military song of the Chinese League because it did not appear with specific place names or personal names, and because its purpose and ideology also met the actual strategic needs of the Chinese League, and it was full of sufficient optimism and aggressiveness. As for the military songs of the Chinese Alliance Navy, it is still being repeatedly ridiculed, and for the time being, the fleets of various countries can only sing their own ......

In short, the 5,000 motley army with super-era firepower and ordnance was scattered in this way, singing "Departure" to start a sweeping operation.

However, when the "Australian's" retaliatory arrow had already included the entire Hangzhou area, the local gentry were still unaware of their next tragic fate...... In their eyes, their stockade is not close to the Qiantang River, far beyond the range of naval guns, and there are well-fed armed men in charge of garrisoning. And once they leave the strong ships and cannons, the thieves are like tigers without teeth, at least they will not be more difficult to deal with than the Japanese robbers back then. As everyone knows, what they will face next is the most barbaric and brutal special security force under the Huameng Star Ring!

-- Although they sang the war songs of the Soviet Red Army, the style of this rabble was definitely more dehumanizing than that of the German fascists!

These miscellaneous armies sent by Major General Sun Yang to carry out sweeping operations were mainly led by naturalized civilian officers of the Union Republics who had made mistakes and made meritorious contributions, and they had various titles such as "Public Security Army," "Fenggong Corps," "Overseas Brigade," "Foreign Legion," and "Auxiliary Legion."

As for the identity of its rank-and-file soldiers, it is even more miraculous, and it can almost be said that it brings together the most notorious violent maniacs, scum and criminals in all corners of the earth - the Japanese ronin who begs for food with knives all day long, the Indians who are accustomed to scalping people with tomahawks, the Russian Cossacks who claim to cultivate the land with horses' hooves and war knives, the Tunguska hunters of the Outer Northeast who were born to fight against the harsh nature, and the Korean officials and slaves who have a strong ****** tendency. The English pirates who came to the East or the New World with the dream of making a fortune but became captives, the German mercenaries who had been fighting and plundering for generations, the professional slave traps who had created centuries of blood and tears for black Africa and North and South America, and the black slave soldiers who had been captured by the slave teams and "civilized" and then turned around to harm their compatriots...... The proportion of Han soldiers is less than a quarter, and even the few Han soldiers who have been released from prison are mainly those who have been released from prison - needless to say, these guys are a rabble of the most vicious.

Although they were a rabble of n-language speakers, basic military discipline was guaranteed, and the formation of a phalanx with military flags was quite decent - not to mention the fact that the Japanese and Koreans could be banned for three meals a day of meaty rice. Even the more casual black and white soldiers, under the daily training of instructors and overseers, had acquired a basic sense of discipline and obedience...... As for the stubborn thorns who are disobedient, they are now in the mines or on the plantations!

In general, the troops of the mopping operation are basically composed of these chaotic people, and if it is about charging into battle and attacking fortifications, they are estimated to be slightly worse than the regular army. However, when it comes to doing such a "dirty job" as a public security war, they are extremely easy and skillful, and they are absolutely lacking in discipline and ruthlessness, and there is never such a superfluous thing as a sense of military honor in their minds -- they originally did this professionally.

At present, most of the marine troops under Major General Sun Yang are bullying the weak and fearing the hard, and the few remaining regular troops are only enough to garrison Phoenix Mountain Villa and monitor the city of Hangzhou. Therefore, as a manifestation of knowing people and being good at their duties, the tasks assigned to him above were to cut off the canal, shelter the Cao Ding and refugees who had no livelihood, massacre the landlords and gentry, frame the Ming Dynasty, establish order in the occupied areas, collect as much food and labor as possible for the rear, and alleviate the imbalance between men and women in the union republics, plus the "special" Jiangnan beauties for the traversers to enjoy......

In order to create the atmosphere of panic as much as possible, and to exert pressure on the Hangzhou government, these soldiers would raise their guns and fire a salvo at the city head as a souvenir when they passed the city wall, and then run before the defenders had time to react...... As a result, the gunshots like bursting beans rang out intermittently from morning to noon, making the rich gentry hiding in the city can't help but chant Buddha, and at the same time criticize Liu Mengqian's prefect: These damn thieves have hit the door, and you can't even come up with a strategy to retreat from the enemy! What an incompetent sake bag and rice bag!

However, compared with the doom that would befall the landlords in the countryside on the outskirts, the little fright they received was nothing.

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Although the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River have always given people the impression of peace and affluence, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Hangzhou also suffered from the ravages of the Japanese invaders. Every time the Japanese invaded, they were all along the Qiantang River, the largest one was in May of the 34th year of Jiajing (1555), when more than 10,000 Japanese invaders and approached Hangzhou. In that era, the Yiwu soldiers under the command of Marshal Qi Jiguang once left a great reputation here, and there are still many popular stories that are widely sung. But by the end of the Ming Dynasty during the Chongzhen period, the last remnants of the Qi family army had already been buried on both sides of the Hunhe River in Liaodong. At present, the actual combat effectiveness of the Ming official army on the Zhejiang side is generally not as powerful as the township warriors organized by the landlords and gentry.

In general, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Emperor had a Praetorian Guard army (Jingying) that was basically unable to fight, nearly a million distant relatives (clans) who only ate white rice and did not work, millions of ghost legions (Weisuo military households) that only existed on paper, and a group of insidious officials (Donglin Party) who were thinking about how to cut off government taxes and collapse their financial resources. Even if the imperial court wanted to reorganize its armaments, it would not be able to raise the minimum funds. Therefore, in addition to barely squeezing out the little financial income that the imperial court had to support the last few slightly decent border guards, it could only naively hope that the common people would voluntarily and consciously take the initiative to help the imperial court defend the empire out of their own pockets in addition to bearing heavy taxes and servitude......

As a result, when the news of the invasion of the thieves came, according to the practice of this era, the prefect of Liu naturally closed the city gates and never attacked, and sent people to notify the towns and towns, calling on the local gentry and local tyrants to organize the villagers to defend Sangzi themselves. The bookstore in the yamen also dug out the old archives of the Jiajing period, slightly changed the year name, the name of the person and the name of the place, copied a number of copies as they were, and then issued important documents such as the "Notice on Strengthening the Construction of League Training in the Whole Hangzhou Prefecture" and "Several Guiding Opinions on the Construction of League Training in Hangzhou" to Sixiang Bali......

Of course, there are no documents with these two names on this plane, but there are proclamations and journals with similar contents. Considering that Zhejiang has not fought a war for a long time, I am afraid that there will not be many military talents among the people. Therefore, according to the experience of Qi Jiguang in the Jiajing period, the prefect's yamen issued a proclamation to the surrounding towns and villages, explaining in as much detail as possible how each village should organize group training: the 16~60-year-old men of each household must be registered, and one of the three is drawn to participate in the standing military training, and the family with few men can be elected by several families. The first commander should play the role of "vanguard and model", that is, each first commander should act as a "training leader" and personally lead the brave soldiers to fight. Each village or town should set up a public office, and the local gentry should serve as the head of the public office. The villagers had to practice every day, patrolling during the day and standing guard at night, and strictly monitoring the surrounding rivers and roads. At the same time, the communication signals between the villages were stipulated, one trumpet was to warn the villages of a suspicious situation, two were the arrival of thieves, and three were the arrival of the enemy.

Originally, these proclamations were accompanied by architectural drawings to guide villages and towns on how to build strong fortifications. It's just that now the thieves have entrenched in the suburbs of Hangzhou, and they are about to go out to fight the grass valley, so there is not so much time for the villagers to build any deep ditches, high embankments, and high walls. Therefore, the Hangzhou government had to warn the local squires to abide by the rules, and if they really couldn't hold the villages and towns, they would evacuate to the county towns that had not been affected by the military in the distance......

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In Yuhang Town, in the western suburbs of Hangzhou, before the thieves arrived, just the official letter sent by the prefect's yamen had already made the two major families of Shen and Chen, who lived here, jump - as local forces living next to each other, these two families usually have a lot of discord, and it is common for them to fight or something, but when it comes to the need to hate the same enemy, the two families finally have a bit of a big picture, and for the time being, they will no longer dwell on the old grudges in the past.

On the question of whether to defend the town to face the thieves or pay protection money to buy peace, Shen Tiande, the patriarch of the Shen family, who is over 80 years old this year and had personally experienced the rebellion when he was a child, immediately stood up and impassionedly advocated for the preparation for war. In his opinion, according to the experience of resisting the Japanese invaders in those years, as long as Yuhang Town, which is located inland, trains the villagers, sets up water fences, sends patrol boats, and takes strict precautions, it is enough to let any small group of thieves who dare to invade Yuhang have no return. And relying on the Shen family's power in the officialdom, the severed head of the thief can still give his juniors a background.

And seeing the gray-haired old patriarch of the Shen family who was so excited that he drooled and waved his cane, as if he wanted to kill the thief with a knife in his hand, and the scene of the Shen family mobilizing the young and strong in full swing, the Chen family, who was also in Yuhang Town, was naturally not to be outdone - the head of the Chen family not only mobilized the whole clan to prepare for war, but also immediately mobilized his children and nephews to rush to the Chen family ancestral hall, and carried out the four "town house artifact" tiger squat cannons enshrined in it, polished them, and installed them on the watchtower guarding the entrance of Yuhang Town, so that the people of the entire town could know, Who is the pillar on the ground in Yuhang!

As a result, Yuhang Town, which was quiet and leisurely in the past, seemed to be stepped on by someone for a while, and everywhere became chaotic: the servants and servants of each family were no longer running on the street, but the villagers with knives, guns and sticks, and the lively river where boats usually came and went, and the busy figures of the captains were gone, replaced by a blockade belt composed of wooden stakes and stones, and a bamboo fence on the river bank to prevent water bandits from landing. The town's blacksmith shop was open for work, and baskets of lead, iron, and charcoal were fed into the blacksmith's shop, and when they came out, they were turned into lead and spear heads. The tailor shop hurried to make cotton paper nails, and the stitches that used to be as fine as centipedes are now as big as centipedes—it won't take more than a few days anyway...... After such a series of work was done, the people's hearts in Yuhang Town, which were originally a little flustered, were stabilized again.

At the entrance of the official road in Yuhang Town, the patriarch of Shen Tiande, who was over eighty years old, commanded several small characters of the Shen family to move a heavy cauldron to the watchtower, and at the same time shouted inarticulately, saying that when the thieves came, let them taste the taste of the golden juice boiled in this cauldron.

There are also four tiger squat cannons that have been carried to the watchtower by the Chen family, which has given these villagers who rushed to the army great courage, and they are all gearing up, ready to use these few magic weapons left by Grandpa Qi back then to find a career for themselves.

Of course, it's not enough to have a tiger squat cannon. At this time, Chen Jialuo, an old talent, was teaching several nephews how to cut lead strips to make guns, and how to sift gunpowder to make gunpowder evenly -- everyone in Yuhang Town knew that Chen Jialuo made gunpowder was particularly far and accurate.

As a traditional Chinese family of cultivators and scholars, the ancestors of the Chen family have lived a life of farming and reading in the rain for generations, which also makes Chen Jialuo, an old talent who does not like to read but drums up the "crooked and evil ways" of firecrackers, has become a rebel who everyone looks at. Thanks to his superb craftsmanship in making gunpowder, people often come to buy his gunpowder gun, so he still has a bit of status in the clan and is not regarded as a loser. This time in the face of war, the old talent Chen Jialuo was the most excited one in the whole clan, and he felt that his skills had finally been put to use - in order to make a name for himself, he not only donated a few treasured "high-quality" firearms, but also taught his unique skills at the bottom of the box to his nephews.

“…… Sieve it lightly, so that the sub-medicine can be evenly sifted out, and it can be hit far and accurately. Otherwise, if you use it, you will either blow up the chamber or just emit a burst of smoke, not to mention that you can't kill people, and you will hurt your arm! ”

“…… Didn't I want to make more gunpowder before the war, just uncle, you have more rules...... Oops, don't fight, uncle, I was wrong! ”

This is the angry old talent Chen Jialuo, who is using Mr. Teacher's hand board to teach the disobedient junior Chen Jinxing. Hearing the sound of his younger brother crying and begging for mercy, his brother Chen Jinnan, who was cutting lead bars to make guns, couldn't help but be stunned. Chen Jinnan sighed a little regretfully, continued to cut the remaining lead bars at hand, and then picked out the unqualified lead grains, and carefully put them into a large teapot next to him - this was used as a shotgun for the tiger squat cannon, and then began to wrap the gun medicine in old paper.

When he was taking the medicine, Chen Jinnan looked at the tendon meat on his uncle's arm with envy, and touched his shriveled and thin arm, and couldn't help but sigh - although a scholar is a master in Daming, why does he feel that he is a scholar even more?

In short, in Chen Jinnan's eyes, Uncle Jia Luo is the most particular about making things, and this is even more so in this bird. Ordinary people directly pour the medicine and the medicine into the bird, but the uncle always weighs the medicine and wraps it one by one on the paper that the nephew of the Chen family has practiced, so as not to pour more or less at that time. For this reason, he was scolded by the old lady of the Chen family, saying that Chen Jialuo defiled his temperament, no wonder he couldn't pass the exam after being admitted to Xiucai.

But now that the enemy is present, the old lady of the Chen family can't care about any civility, as long as he can repel the thieves, what is it to burn a few pieces of paper?

In addition, what worries the two patriarchs and old ladies is that there is really no qualified commander in the town who has military experience and can lead the township to fight bravely -- although there are many martial artists in Zhejiang, the martial arts in the late Ming Dynasty have long been a formality, and the elements of vain fame are very large, and they are far less rigorous than the literary examination. Even if you are admitted to the martial arts, you may not have any real skills. It is not difficult for the children of the squires of a large household who are a little more powerful to spend a few dollars to get a reputation such as Wu Xiucai and Wujuren, of course, such a fame is not useful except for sounding comfortable.

In fact, among the sons of the Shen and Chen families, there are also a few people who can dance with guns and sticks and claim to be brave and brave in battle, but those are all brave people, and at best, they only have the "combat experience" of a few people fighting on the streets. Even if it is a troubled boy who mixes the streets, not everyone can organize a big scene of hundreds of people fighting...... Even if you are a rogue boss, you need a certain amount of organizational management experience!

Therefore, without an experienced veteran with actual combat experience to take the lead, the two patriarchs and old ladies of the Shen and Chen families were really relieved.

So, they discussed whether to scrape together some money and hire a coach from the nearby Haimen guards or the dart bureau in Hangzhou.

However, the speed of the thief's attack was much faster than expected, and before the brave regiment in Yuhang Town could make a statement, the battle had suddenly descended......