The beginning of May in the lunar calendar is already close to the midsummer season. Although the weather in Dagukou, which is close to the sea, is cool, it often rains. In the evening, the heavy summer rain came down again, making everything around the area blurry and blinding. It seemed that the entire land of Youyan was enveloped in a violent storm.
And this scene of wind and rain covering the earth also coincides with the complex situation in Beizhili today. The Ming Dynasty was not dead, Dashun still existed, but the Qing Dynasty was still secretive and had not thrown away the gauze to cover up shame. No one knows who will be the master of Yandi after a bloody storm!
More than ten miles west of Dagukou City, a pontoon bridge connecting the north and south of Weihe River was erected at some time. The pontoon bridge was made up of many canoes, and the canoes were nailed together with strong wooden boards. A lot of mud was applied to the west end of the canal to prevent fire.
A bridgehead was built at the north and south ends of the pontoon bridge. They are all wooden forts, but they are very strong. Each fort is guarded by a soldier from the New Army. The man who led the troops to guard the North Fort was a junior officer of the former Tianjin Town Army who joined the new army after the bloody battle in Tianjin Guards' Long Street.
This young officer named Yu Daren was born into a hereditary military household in Tianjin Wei. His ancestors were from Hunan. In the early Ming Dynasty, he followed the Northern Expedition all the way to Yandi, and he also held a hereditary official position with thousands of households. However, it was said that Yu Daren's generation was completely in decline. He did not get any official positions, but gave up martial arts and turned to literature in order to gain fame. But after ten years of taking the exam, I didn’t even get a chance to become a scholar! In the end, he had no choice but to join the army and rely on his strong body passed down from his ancestors to work hard. But it was not satisfactory. He was already forty years old, and he had just become a flag general. His official title was only Shuaifu Xiaoqi, and he was in charge of more than eighty brothers.
But he still cherishes this position very much, because the captain of the new army can really get a military salary of four taels of silver a month, and every penny is a lot!
The prince's control was strict. When paying, officials from the military and political guards and officers from the division command department would go to the camp together, and then pay by name in public.
In addition to being paid well, he also eats well. He is full of rice and noodles, but there is also meat and fish every now and then. The food of ordinary soldiers can catch up with the servants of Mr. Cao Town in the past.
In addition, there are paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River waiting for the officers and soldiers of the New Army to get them! Yu Daren is just a small banner, but he also has 80 acres of farmland, paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River... As long as he goes to the south of the Yangtze River, he will have land and a house. When the time comes to ask for a wife, she must be less than 18 Yes, I also want a yellow-flowered eldest daughter!
These days, he is so ambitious! Life is busy, but military discipline is really strict!
Military law is like a mountain in the new army that overcomes difficulties. The New Army not only has officers at all levels in charge of military discipline, but also has an independent military law and war supervision system! The top level of this system is the Military Justice Department directly under the Fujun Generalissimo's Office, the middle level is the Military Justice Office located in each division of the New Army, and the bottom level is the Military Judges located at the association and battalion levels. Among them, the Military Law Office and the Military Judge are not subordinate to division commanders, associate commanders, and battalion generals. Instead, they are under the jurisdiction of the Military Law Department and are specifically responsible for improving military discipline and supervising operations and training.
These men in charge of military law are either from Jin Yiwei or from the Jing Army. They are all as fierce as tigers and as evil as wolves, and they just point and torment people to climb up! Not only do they have to manage the laws and disciplines in the army, but they also have to manage training, combat readiness, and duty... I heard that the Crown Prince has given them targets and they have to hand over people every day!
Anyone who commits a crime in their hands will be beheaded in the most serious case, and beaten, locked up in a dark room, or demoted in the least serious case! It makes him feel so bad...and it must be real!
This kind of military discipline and law probably didn't even exist at that time, right?
On one side are strict military disciplines and laws, on the other side are generous pay and tempting cakes. Therefore, grassroots officers like Yu Daren have been working hard in the past twenty days and have not dared to slack off at all. Don't dare to discount the training and defense tasks assigned by your superiors. The training consists of two exercises a day, one hour for one exercise, and you must practice for two hours every day! One hour was spent practicing formations, and another hour was spent practicing weapons.
The 80-man banner under the command of Yu Daren was based on the Ming Dynasty's preliminary hundred-man army. Among the 80 people, there were 40 spearmen, 20 archers, and 20 swordsmen. They were not equipped with muskets. Among them, the spearmen equipped with three-foot long spears (one foot three, equivalent to more than four meters) are the absolute main force. Therefore, the spearmen form a team to attack or form a defense, which has become the main method of tactics. The battle between archers and swordsmen all revolves around spearmen.
For Yu Daren and his men, this kind of fighting method that existed in the early Ming Dynasty was no stranger. Most of them were born in Tianjin Zhenbing. Almost all were children of military families. They could not draw a hard bow and could not lift a big gun. ?
The Generalissimo's Mansion now equips the troops with a large number of long spears. In fact, there are also factors that make them easy to train. Without an arm strength of tens of kilograms, it is difficult to use a walking bow. It is not easy to play well with swords. Only long spears are the easiest, just sprint and shoot. As long as they can form a spear formation, the damage is still very high.
As for Yu Daren's flag soldiers, they were almost all oilmen. They were not good at swords, guns and bows, and their formations were not neat. If we sum up our weaknesses, they are lack of practice and discipline!
So after twenty days and a total of forty hours of rigorous training, this flag soldier was actually able to play the spear formation properly.
In addition to training, there is still the task of guarding the pontoon to be completed, so there must be no slacking off! In the last battle of Tianjin Guards, because the pontoon bridge was burned, the officers of the bridge guarding force were demoted to the lowest level of Shuaifu Guards!
So Yu Daren now sleeps with one eye open, fearing that the bandits from Tianjin Wei will come and kill him again.
By the way, the function of this floating bridge is actually to block the Wei River and prevent the thieves' fleet from raiding Dagukou and Haisha Island Pier.
In the heavy rain, Yu Daren once again started a routine inspection. He put on a raincoat over his cloth-covered iron armor. Instead of a helmet, he put on a rain-proof bamboo hat. He carried a long spear with an oilcloth wrapped around the tip, and put on a pair of non-slip straw sandals over his boots. He walked alone from From the wooden castle on the south bank, walk across the pontoon bridge and check all the sentries on the bridge, then board the wooden castle on the north bank and wait for the secret sentries placed on the outside of the north bank to return.
Now the north bank of the Wei River is an area where Ming, Shun, and Qing are indifferent. Bandits are rampant, and many powerful people have formed strongholds to protect themselves. It is very chaotic. But what really worries Zhu Cixiang is the sudden southward movement of the Tatars in the north!
It was only more than three hundred miles from Yongping to Dagokou. The cavalry and horse teams could complete the journey in two days. Prince Zhu did not dare to take it lightly. Even though today was a good day for him to take a concubine, he still sent a large number of hidden sentries to the north bank.
These secret sentries are directly under the command of the New Army to overcome difficulties. They are all soldiers from Tianjin Wei. They are very familiar with the terrain on the north bank of the Wei River. When dispatched, they will disguise themselves, either as traders or refugees. Every time they are dispatched, It needs to be rotated every day.
About four hours ago, a group of secret sentries disguised as salt dealers passed the pontoon and headed north. It was almost time for the secret sentries they replaced to return.
As soon as Yu Daren boarded the wooden castle, the sound of horse hooves trampling on the muddy water suddenly sounded over there. I wonder if the whistle had returned?
He quickly shouted to the soldiers on duty on the wooden fort: "Be alert!"
The soldier responded: "Yes."
Then he took out a gong and beat it with a wooden stick, making a sharp "dang-dang-dang" sound. There was a group of resting soldiers inside the wooden fort. When they heard the gong warning, they did not dare to neglect. They quickly put on cotton armor or cloth-covered iron armor, picked up their respective weapons and got into fighting positions. The door of the wooden castle had been kept tightly closed, and at this time, the door bars were even more raised, as if facing a formidable enemy.
After a while, I saw a group of "traders" wearing raincoats, carrying wooden sticks, carrying bamboo baskets on their backs, and pulling donkeys, running towards the wooden castle.
"General Banner, you are one of our own!" The team member who had just boarded the wooden castle said to Yu Daren.
"No!" Yu Daren was very alert, "There aren't that many people... there is a situation!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Tianjin dialect came from over there: "Two or five eyes!"
This is a curse word, and it is also a secret command to cross the bridge.
Yu Daren immediately replied: "Crooked!"
This is also a password. When the two passwords matched, someone immediately shouted: "Open the door quickly, there is a large group of people coming from the north! They seem to be the prince's people!"
