. [Read the latest chapter] The village filled with refugees was like a hell on earth. In the chaos of war, no one was interested in listening to music, and even if they were selling themselves, no one would patronize them. A group of people managed to survive with little savings, living in the open and starving. They hoped that the war would end soon and they could return to Nanjing. Unexpectedly, the village was not safe. Not long after the news of the fall of Dengzhou came, I heard that the rebels had captured Huang County again and destroyed the village everywhere. The villages were in chaos, and they were clearing away the outsiders who had no guarantees. Of course, no one was willing to provide guarantees for a gang like them, so they were driven out in the ice and snow.
Fortunately, the village was not far from Baima Pond, and their small team was taken into custody not long after they escaped. Otherwise, I'm afraid I won't be able to walk at all and will die of exhaustion and starvation on the road in a day or two.
"General, do you want to be served like a flower?" Mr. Liu, who has spent half his life practicing the ability to read people's words, said softly to Zhu Mingxia.
"Ruhua?" This name made Zhu Ming and Xia Lei almost die. He instantly thought of that awesome man with a booger and heavy makeup. His face didn't change much, and his stomach turned violently.
"That's the woman who showed the way to the general just now."
"oh."
"How can such a lavish woman serve a general? She is too old, and she is also a broom star. My daughter Xiyu was trained by me since she was a child. She plays the pipa very well. She is only 13 this year, so she is a baby. , General, if you don’t mind..." Mrs. Liu felt that Zhu Mingxia was not interested in Ruhua, so she immediately changed her words and promoted another one. Of course, this could not be her daughter. In order to get close to the big tree of Australians, in order to survive, she turned to face It is necessary to add gold.
Zhu Mingxia interrupted her sales pitch and asked her to bring Ruhua. As an atheist, he wanted to know why Ruhua was called a broom star, so he had to ask himself.
When he was thinking about whether to purify Ruhua first and change his name to something that no one would associate with her before having an in-depth conversation, suddenly a naturalized citizen cadre hurriedly walked up to him. He whispered to him:
"Chief, Chief Lu, please come over quickly - it's extremely urgent."
"Huh! Oh?" Although Zhu Mingxia had already shown the early symptoms of spermatozoa on the brain, he was still able to control it for a while. When he heard that there was an "urgent" thing. Not daring to neglect, he immediately ordered:
"Separate the members of this team and detain them separately."
"yes!"
The Liu family has been a fireworks woman for many years, and she has an extremely thorough study of men's behavior, words and deeds. She knows that Zhu Mingxia has a strong interest in Ruhua, and after hearing that the team was separated, she knows that she has climbed to a high branch, at least in the past few months, she has food, drink and shelter. No worries anymore. You can probably save your life - if you're lucky. Maybe you can even get a few taels of silver. Immediately, Wan Fu said with joy, "Thank you so much, Master!"
When Zhu Mingxia returned to the village, Chen Sigen and Lu Wenyuan were already standing in front of the sand table in the war room with serious faces.
"What's going on?" Zhu Mingxia had roughly guessed that the rebels were coming to Qimu Island?
"Wang Qisuo just came back." Chen Sigen said.
Wang Qisuo performed outstandingly in the Battle of Baimatang. Although the overall battle was one-sided due to the firepower advantage of the two infantry companies' Mini rifles and typewriters, and the battle was not fierce, he performed very bravely and not only took the initiative to During the field reconnaissance outside Baimatang, several rebels were killed and captured during the pursuit battle.
Chen Sigen was very satisfied with his fighting performance. It is believed that this person's comprehensive quality can be selected into the special investigation team. However, he has not yet passed the appraisal and specialized political training of the General Administration of Political Security, so for the time being, he has only been trained in some investigation operations and allowed him to serve as a scout in the advancing column.
a few days ago. He dispatched Wang Qisuo and some other local scouts from the advancing column to activities near Huang County to cooperate with the special reconnaissance team to understand the movements of the Huang County rebels. …,
The sentry brought Wang Qisuo in. He was wearing a tattered cotton-padded jacket and a white snow camouflage cloak. His face and hands were dirty.
"Tell me again what you saw." Chen Sigen ordered.
"Reporting to the commander, a large group of enemy troops came from Dengzhou at noon today," Wang Qisuo said, "There are two to three thousand people, all of them soldiers!"
There is nothing to be afraid of when tens of thousands of troops arrive - Huang County now has "more than 10,000" troops, but most of them are civilians who have just been taken away recently - the number of fully equipped soldiers is the key.
He reported that the troops were all wearing cotton armor. Fully equipped. They also brought a lot of firearms. What is particularly important is that the rebels used oxen to pull six "big guns" to Huang County.
According to historical data, the artillery carried by the rebels participated in many battles against officers and soldiers in history, including the siege of Laizhou and several field battles with officers and soldiers. The rebels carried basically half-snake guns. The gun body alone weighed two to three thousand kilograms, plus the heavy gun frame. It was very difficult to maneuver in primitive road conditions.
The other party actually brought heavy firearms to attack, which showed that their firearms had left a deep impression on them during the Battle of Baimatang.
"Mao Chenglu, the commander-in-chief of Huang County, is preparing to attack Qimu Island tomorrow." Then he told some fragmentary news.
"Okay, you go down." Zhu Mingxia nodded. This was not too surprising to him. Although Qimu Island is located near the seaside, it is within Huang County after all, and Huang County is the passage for the rebels to Laizhou.
If the "Xiang Yong" on Qimu Island are not active, then the rebels will indeed not come to deal with this seaside village, but now they are collecting refugees on a large scale in Huang County, and they have become a very powerful force in Huang County. Big power.
If Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde wanted to ensure the safety of the road to Laizhou, they would not tolerate the existence of such a force on their flanks - not to mention that they had just beaten the rebels a few days ago, allowing them to see their combat effectiveness.
Chen Sigen said: "I have withdrawn all the spies who advanced into the column - they lack professional skills, and they will just die in vain if they stay outside. For the time being, only the cavalry is responsible for reconnaissance on the outside."
He pointed at the sand table: "If Mao Chenglu's men set out today, they won't be able to reach Qimu Island until noon tomorrow at least."
Huang County originally had about 2,000 rebels, but now there are 3,000 more. It is unlikely that they will all go out in force - after all, there are still people who need to stay in the county, so the maximum number of people who can come is four thousand. Of course, the rebels will definitely bring a large number of strong men with them to serve as porters and cannon fodder. It is possible that the total number of people exceeds 10,000.
These ten thousand people, plus artillery and ammunition, mean that they will arrive at the fastest speed tomorrow noon. After arriving, they will have to set up camp and guard their positions. If an attack can be launched, it will have to be at least the morning of the day after tomorrow - Chen Sigen does not believe that the rebels have the ability to launch a night attack.
The three people looked at the defense system of Qimu Island. The defense of Qimu Island is very strong. There is a carefully constructed wicker edge on the long embankment leading to the mainland: not only trenches were dug, densely packed various types of defensive horses were added, but corkscrew wire fences and a large number of high altitudes were also laid. Standard bamboo sticks shipped. The simple village gate on the long embankment was also converted into a civil structure bastion, equipped with artillery of different sizes and calibers - the rebels would have to pay extremely heavy casualties if they wanted to break into the island from the embankment.
In addition to the wicker border defense line on the front, the refugee camps, docks and cottages on the island also form a self-contained and mutually reinforcing defense system. Artillery and rifles can be used for cross-fire between the three.
"The main defense problem we face is the freezing problem in Longkou Bay." Zhu Mingxia said, "This greatly increases the difficulty of our defense."
Regarding the ice conditions in Longkou Bay, they only have hydrological data from the 20th century. January to February every year is the peak glacial period in Longkou Bay, which lasts about 20 to 40 days. The average ice volume is 22 levels, and the density is 5 to 7 levels, which has no impact on ship navigation. When the annual ice conditions are at their maximum, the floating ice in Longkou Port is the thickest at 1,015 centimeters. When the ship berths on the south side, a high-powered tug is used to break the ice. The berthing on the north side is basically not affected. There is broken ice in the channel, and the navigation of the ship is basically not affected. …,
According to the hydrological data of the 20th century, the greatest feature of Longkou Port is that it does not freeze or silt up all year round. This was also taken into consideration when choosing Qimu Island as the transshipment base.
Of course, it is not completely frost-free. Some years there will be severe freezes, making it impossible to use the port even with icebreakers.
But now is the Little Ice Age, and the freezing conditions in Longkou Bay may be much more serious than what they know in the 20th to 21st centuries. Therefore, Thorpe made an effort in the logistics meeting to equip the northward detachment with icebreakers - after all, it still snows in Lingao in this time and space in winter. Therefore, a Type 621 tug was urgently modified at the Bobu Shipyard as an icebreaking tug.
Because the Type 621 is a tugboat, its overall structure is solid and its hull is strong, so it is suitable for icebreaking modifications. The modification project used steel plates to reinforce the outside of the bow, then used steel beams to support the inside of the bow, and then used steel beams to greatly strengthen the hull to ensure that it would not fall apart when breaking ice.
It was the end of December after the tugboat modification was completed, and it was immediately dispatched to Shandong, and then the modification project of the second ship started.
On Qimu Island, ice floes began to appear on a large scale in the bay in January, and now a large ice area has formed, extending nearly three kilometers from the shore, completely connected to the coastal system. By mid-January, the trestle was completely unusable, and the spy boat squadron anchored at Qimu Island Pier was forced to retreat to the sea three kilometers away from the trestle. Refugee embarkation was replaced by a floating pier: refugees set off from the island and boarded the ship through the ice.
The arrival of icebreakers greatly improved the situation. Burning fires on the island consumes a lot of fuel, and there are a lot of plant ash and coal ash. Lu Wenyuan ordered the refugees to go to the ice every day to pave the channel with ash, and then use ice-breaking tugs to break the channel. (.)
