In the middle of winter, heavy snow falls.
Half a month after the end of the Fengdu War, a belated cold wave swept across the land of Jiangnan.
The lowest temperatures in many places hit new records, and the low temperatures lasted longer than anyone imagined.
After one night, both sides of the river were covered in silver.
In the upper reaches of the river, the terrain is higher and the relative temperature is lower than in the plains.
The surging river water turned into ice overnight due to the unprecedented cold wave. After the sun rose, the frozen fish in the ice were clearly visible.
People were shocked to find that the river, which is said to be ice-free all year round, actually froze three feet after an unprecedented drop in temperature.
Not only that, a week later almost all the rivers and lakes in the south were frozen.
The main branches of all rivers were frozen.
Even Qiongzhou Prefecture and Gangcheng experienced large-scale snowfall.
Not to mention the last time there was such a weather phenomenon that subverted common sense.
It was the last years of the dynasty that was known as the "Little Ice Age" more than 500 years ago.
At that time, natural and man-made disasters occurred, people lived in dire straits, and countless people died every day.
Just like now, thousands of miles south of the river are frozen and snow is falling.
Under the snow and ice, I don’t know how many survivors were trapped by the disaster.
Some people are trapped in shelters with no food or water, while others are lost in the jungle and slowly transform into sculptures.
However, in this quiet snowy night, a human army was rushing along the river.
They were silent and disciplined all the way. They went up from Chishui River to Luzhou and then turned westward.
Every time they arrived at a Jiang defense stronghold, thousands of men and horses were left to garrison.
Then he rushed to the next destination without stopping.
By midnight, the troops had arrived at the mouth of the Minjiang River.
While passing by the intersection of Sanjiang, they unexpectedly encountered an unknown number of corpses.
The group of corpses were crossing the river in batches at that time, and the small and agile ghost monkeys swished across the frozen river surface.
A large number of ordinary black corpses and other special creatures followed in groups, marching silently on the frozen river.
Under the bright yellow moonlight, Zheng Yangkong hid behind a patch of grass,
Use a telescope to observe the movement on the river in the distance.
There was silence on the river, except for the large army of corpses marching step by step.
Some guys who fall behind the team seem to be a bit unique.
Some of them were the old, weak, sick and disabled among the corpses. They either followed slowly, or from time to time they fell on their backs on the slippery ice, which was extremely funny.
There are also some strong orangutans and giants, especially those of level three or above, who are more than four meters tall and weigh more than three hundred kilograms.
Some of them accidentally stepped on the ice and fell down while walking.
The leading corpse generals ignored them and only drove the other black corpses towards the other side of the river.
Seeing this, Zheng Yangkong put down the telescope thoughtfully.
Behind him, Wang Ming asked in a deep voice:
"Commander, a group of corpses are about to cross the river. Do you want to fight?"
Li Ren also said anxiously: "Let's do it, Commander! It's not too late. If it's later, it'll be too late!"
Unexpectedly, Zheng Yangkong said: "Go and call Chen Gang to bring the artillery company officer."
"Yes." Although Li Ren was confused, he quickly followed the order.
A minute later, the bearded Chen Gang arrived with the artillery company officer.
When Chen Gang saw him, he asked, "Commander, are you looking for me?"
Zheng Yangkong stretched out his hand and handed him the telescope, indicating to him to look at the river.
He turned around and asked the officer in his early twenties:
"How many recoilless rifles are there from the previous attack on Fengdu?"
"Coming back to the commander, in addition to the ones left for various strongholds along the way, we still have twenty more on hand."
"Well, that's enough." Zheng Yangkong pointed not far away and said, "I'll give you thirty people as a commando team.
Take these recoilless rifle secrets and lurk on the hillside opposite the river.
It is very close to the crossing point of the corpse group, less than two kilometers away. Do you dare to go? "
Being personally assigned the task by Zheng Yangkong, the young officer looked very excited.
He blushed and shouted: "Attack to the death!"
At this time, Chen Gang put down the telescope.
After hearing this shouting, he slapped the young clerk on the head and said angrily:
"You brat, keep your voice down! Do you want to attract the corpses and make dumplings for me?"
"I...I was wrong."
"Okay, we're so far apart." Zheng Yangkong smiled.
He thought for a while and added: "Two thousand meters is the limit of the recoilless rifle. Li Ren!"
"exist!"
"Li Ren, go find the person in charge of the artillery platoon and ask him to follow you to the high ground on the other side.
I ask you to use ten '82s' to smash the north bank of the river first.
The sound of your cannon is the firing signal for the recoilless rifle platoon. Can it be done? "
"Promise to complete the mission!"
Chen Gang seemed particularly puzzled by Zheng Yangkong's decision.
He quickly raised his question: "Commander, the total number of black corpses on the opposite side is over 10,000, and these small cannons don't seem to be of much use.
And they also asked Li Ren and the others to fight the other side. What does this mean? "
Wang Ming moved his head faster than his, and he had obviously guessed Zheng Yangkong's intention.
He patted Chen Gang on the shoulder and said meaningfully: "Old Chen, Old Chen, what the commander asked you to see just now was in vain."
"What are you asking me to see? Isn't it the group of corpses opposite?"
"Haha, you have to observe carefully, you know? In short, don't worry about it. Is the commander asking us to take a look at the dumplings this time?"
"Dumplings? Haha, good point."
Zheng Yangkong chuckled upon hearing this and quickly made arrangements:
"In another twenty minutes, the first half of the corpse group should be on the river. Chen Gang! Wang Ming!"
"In the!"
"I order you both to take a thousand men each to guard the flanks and provide cover for the artillery.
But you must remember not to shoot after the shelling.
When Li Ren and others retreated, they broke in with the corpses.
You guys are going to fight me behind closed doors again, do you understand? "
"Understood!" "Promise to complete the task!"
…
Twenty minutes later, the battle started as scheduled.
In the gray night, Li Ren's team took the lead and blew the battle horn with the sound of cannons.
"Boom!"
"Dong dong dong dong——"
Under the bright moonlight, grenades were drawing parabolic trajectories.
The black corpse on the river raised its head in response,
But I only saw cannonballs swooping down from high places.
With lightning speed, he violently shattered the ice beneath his feet!
"Boom, boom boom boom——"
"Crash-"
This is the ice surface of the northern section of the river, and there are not many black corpses arriving here.
Most of their large forces are still in the center of the river, the southern section of the river, and the land on the south bank of the river.
But before they could react, the second round of shelling came immediately.
The recoilless artillery platoon followed closely behind, shattering the ice in the southern section of the Yangtze River in one fell swoop.
The river rolled with white waves, and thousands of black corpses were swept into the bottom of the water.
At this time, the black corpses who were walking carelessly on the river finally came to their senses.
They were dizzy due to the cold weather, on the dividing line between being awake and numb, and their joints were frozen to the point of stiffness.
Suddenly I heard the sound of gunfire coming from the front and back.
Afterwards, intensive gunshots rang out on the south bank.
Gunshots! Of course, these zombie-like guys don't understand what the gunshots are and what they mean.
But the experience of the last three years in the last three years tells them that there are people on the hillside on the other side of the river!
Someone means there is food!
In other words, those who look similar to themselves,
But the guy with the fragrant smell and sweet flesh is his food!
Out of the instinct of evolved creatures and the call of the spore community in the brain, these black corpses left in the center of the river became excited.
Following the direction of the firelight and gunshots, they trotted and pushed toward the south bank.
Unexpectedly, they fell into the rolling river one after another, like dumplings.
A leading corpse general realized something was wrong and hurried to the front of the corpse group to stop them.
It lay on all fours, its head held high, and it kept roaring like a beast from its throat, threatening any black corpse that dared to continue forward to die.
Suddenly, a strange sound came from under its feet.
"Ka-ka-"
"Kacha kacha——"
The corpse general looked down in confusion, only to see a long and narrow crack quickly passing between his legs, spreading rapidly forward, towards the center of the river.
"Crack-crack-"
Suddenly, the river surface collapsed on a large scale, as if it caused a chain reaction.
The corpse's feet were in the air, and its body fell downwards uncontrollably, falling into the arms of the river with a "plop".
Not only it, but after the entire river surface collapsed, countless black corpses fell into the cold river water.
Caught off guard, they had no time to escape and had nowhere to go.
Thousands of zombies stretched out their withered arms from the ice floes.
But it's not enough to catch any floating objects.
Soon, they were swept up in the river and disappeared under the ice.
On the shore, the remaining five thousand black corpses didn't care about the dumplings on the river.
They roared and launched a fierce attack on the hillside where the artillery platoon was located.
The group of corpses pursued them, but the artillery platoon fired a few shots at random and quickly retreated.
Following their retreat route, the corpse group pursued them all the way into a canyon.
At this time, Chen Gang and Wang Ming, who were guarding on both sides, had exposed their fangs.
"Hit me!" "Da da da..."
Gunfire rang out on the hillside flanking the group of corpses.
The human defenders took advantage of the favorable terrain to unleash powerful firepower.
Many black corpses were shot into a hornet's nest halfway up the mountain before they could climb to the high ground.
This night was destined to be an uneventful night.
…
The sound of gunfire from the south bank of the river alerted the troops patrolling nearby.
Wearing uniform white trench coats, each wearing a fur hat, and fully armed, they appeared outside the valley.
The captain of the patrol shouted to Zheng Yangkong and the others from a distance: "Which unit are you from?"
Li Ren replied loudly: "The Self-governing Committee supports the southern reinforcements, Zheng Yang Kongbu!"
"It turns out we are brothers from the coalition forces, and we are the garrison camp of Nanmen Bridge!"
The other party was overjoyed when he heard this. When he got closer, he found that the valley was filled with black corpses. He couldn't help but be shocked.
It was already dawning at this time, and with the light of dawn, both parties could clearly see each other's attires, and then they were completely relieved.
After talking, we learned that these people were the troops stationed at Jincheng's Third Bridge at Jiangkou.
The three cross-river bridges were very close to the mouth of the Minjiang River and were considered to be one of the possible routes for the corpse tide to move north. Therefore, three battalions from the Tianfu Garrison Area were left to guard them.
"There are only three battalions? There are still too few people." Li Ren shook his head and sighed after hearing this.
Chen Gang also said: "Yes, it was enough before. But now the river is frozen, and there are only a thousand people."
Wang Ming asked at this time: "By the way, how did you get out?"
"The brothers from the previous group who patrolled have not been back for a long time, so we came out to take a look."
"Commander Zheng, thank you. Otherwise, if the corpses had sneaked to the north bank, our sin would have been huge."
"It's okay. We were originally ordered to take over from you. Your order to disarm will probably arrive during the day, and we will guard this place from now on."
The patrol team leader nodded quickly after hearing this.
To be honest, this time it really scared him.
Fortunately, I was lazy and came out two hours late, otherwise I would have bumped into a group of corpses crossing the river.
When tens of thousands of black corpses attacked, just a dozen of them wouldn't be able to eat anything, not even the bones would be left?
But just like Chen Gang said, before this unusual cold wave weather comes,
Although the number of the Jiangkou Third Battalion was small, it was still very useful because guarding the bridge was equivalent to blocking the throat of the corpses heading north.
Once the corpses attack north from one of the bridges, troops from the other two bridges can quickly arrive to provide support from the sides and rear.
The troops guarding the bridge and the supporting troops attacked from both sides, and might even in turn surround and annihilate the corpses.
At that time, the Minjiang Estuary, which was guarded by the Jiangkou Three Battalions, was called a stable iron triangle.
Unfortunately, after a cold wave, everything changed.
Having said this, Wang Ming looked at the increasingly brighter sky and suggested to Zheng Yangkong:
"Commander, I think the corpse group will break through from the river in the future. It is better to report the situation of this encounter as soon as possible, and hope that the headquarters can take it seriously as soon as possible."
"That's what I think too. Let's go to the Qiaotou camp to meet up with the friendly forces, and then report the news."
Li Ren also said: "Commander, although we won the battle without losing a single soldier this time, we only faced more than ten thousand black corpses, and we also took advantage of the favorable location.
You said what would happen if the Corpse King came to arrest him with millions of black corpses in the future? "
Listening to Wang Ming and Li Ren always saying depressing words, Chen Gang felt uneasy.
He patted his chest and said: "What are you afraid of? Just like when you were in Fengdu before, you won't be beaten to a pulp by me?"
"Old Chen, you can't say that." Wang Ming shook his head and objected, "Guerrilla warfare is different from positional warfare, and defending a city is different from defending the entire river defense position.
If the headquarters had not had the foresight to arrange reinforcements to help us defend Fengdu last time, it might have been occupied by the Corpse King and become a breakthrough point for tens of millions of corpses to move north. "
The few people walked ahead as they talked, completely unaware that Zheng Yangkong, the commander of the coalition forces, had fallen behind.
At this time, the team was about to climb over a hillside. Zheng Yangkong stood on the top of the hill and looked towards the river in the north. He seemed to be able to see the black corpses that were dragged under the ice and struggling to die.
The sun rose early in the morning, but was quickly hidden behind layers of dark clouds.
Under the howling of the north wind, layers of snow particles slapped on people's cheeks, which was biting and cold.
Zheng Yangkong knew that the current calm was only temporary, and there would be a bigger storm brewing in the future.
Just like this snowstorm that has been going on for ten days, it has only stopped for half the night, and now it is about to come back again.
There is no doubt that under the continuous low temperature weather, the river surface is becoming more and more frozen.
Zheng Yangkong thought that one day, this river stretching for thousands of kilometers would be completely frozen.
Water turns into ice, and the chasm becomes a thoroughfare.
This natural barrier that once spanned east and west and cut off north and south will no longer exist.
If that time ever comes,
How can they stop the hundreds of millions of black corpses?
If that time ever comes,
Will people like Zhao Shifeng still regret their stupid behavior of blindly blowing up the bridge?
