As a division commander commanding an infantry division, he is usually a pretty decent man. His boots are always spotless and his clothes are always pressed very appropriately.
Even his military vehicle is wiped frequently. The adjutant helps wipe it, the driver helps wipe it, and the guards also help wipe it.
He felt that he should serve as a role model, standing there majestically, like a pine and cypress, inspiring his soldiers to move forward.
But now, he is very embarrassed. His leather boots could protect his calves, but the rain couldn't stop pouring in. It looked like there were fisheries in his boots now, and his feet were probably bleeding.
When he walked over, there was a damn stone in his boot. Originally, the socks only made the soles of his feet a little uncomfortable. But now that he has been soaked in water, his feet are probably full of wrinkles and have turned white, and the originally insignificant pebble has turned into a sharp blade that can pierce the skin.
All of his clothes were soaked, and it was almost uncomfortable to have them wrapped around him. Suddenly he understood why many people here were unwilling to wear clothes, because at this time clothes themselves were a kind of restraint...
Although he wanted to do so, he decided not to take off his military uniform. His military uniform represented the dignity of the Tang Kingdom. So he stood in the rain, and people could see at a glance that there was a colonel standing here.
The surrounding soldiers seemed to be working faster, knowing that their division commander had arrived. Just standing there, standing in the rain, motionless like a statue.
The continuous rain makes the work very difficult. The cement cannot solidify at all in this kind of weather. The sand and soil will disappear with the erosion of the rain. Eventually, those seemingly solid dams will have piping surges and breaches.
But in order to protect the towns behind us, to protect those villages, to protect the civilians who are still harvesting crops, to protect the roads that were finally built, the railroad tracks that were finally laid, and the telegraph poles that were finally erected... we can only continue. to reinforce the already precarious embankments.
"Have a rest?" A civilian without a military cap and a bamboo hat on his head asked the soldier holding the sack while shoveling the soil.
The soldier shook his head and wiped the rain and sweat mixed on his face: "No, I'm afraid of being poor. I finally saw that my family has become rich. No one can take the house, land, money and food." I won’t leave! Even God can’t!”
The man wearing a bamboo hat nodded and continued to dig with the shovel, shoveling shovelfuls of soil into the sandbags.
He knew this was true. He finally had enough food and warm clothes. No one could take them away today, not even God!
But he also knew that behind them was not the hometown of these soldiers. Some of these soldiers came from the north and some from the east. There was no need to fight hard here.
In the past, the soldiers of Zheng State would not care about such things. Those people would only lean on the city gate with muskets to collect tolls, and rob the fruits loaded on the carriages of farmers who came into the city to sell goods.
If there is a famine, a flood, or a war, no matter what happens, the soldiers will just close the city gates, hide on the walls and drive away the refugees, looking down at the hungry refugees outside the city. land.
But now something seems to be changing. The former soldiers are now fighting side by side with civilians like them.
Although these lands have nothing to do with these soldiers, they still did not leave, but stood at the front, blocking the civilians!
From the moment they saw these arriving officers and soldiers rushing up the embankment, the people nearby understood something that the consul told them but they did not understand at the time: the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty did not have the habit of hiding behind the people. .
The human heart is always fleshy. When an army chooses to stand with the people, they are invincible.
In the past, no one cared about the lives of civilians. At that time, a human life was worth less than a dog in a noble manor.
After every major disaster or epidemic, the ownerless land becomes the private property of the dignitaries. For those wealthy businessmen, natural disasters are their opportunities to make a fortune.
But those evil people who were hated to the core were killed by the new young consuls, and those who had oppressed the people were all dead.
Now no one oppresses the people anymore, and the land is distributed fairly to everyone. Although these lands were nominally owned by the Tang State, the land deeds clearly gave the people the right to cultivate them.
These lands are their own now, and they will not give up even if they die! Not to mention the flood coming, even if death comes, they will fight until the last moment!
Whoever is by my side during the battle, whoever bleeds with me, is my brother! Today, these soldiers are our sons and brothers!
"It's leaked! It's leaked! Come on! Come on! Come on!" The woman patrolling the embankment shouted at the top of her lungs, and the surrounding soldiers subconsciously rushed in the direction of the shout.
They were covered in mud, and without looking back, they rushed towards the place where the river gushed out with their tools: "Quick! Block it! Come on! Master!"
Without thinking, the first soldier pressed the unfilled sandbag in his hand to the spot where the water was spraying, and then he pressed forward with his whole body. The soldiers behind also started to help in a hurry, and the voices of shouting kept coming and going.
"Look from over there! Look from over there!" Dirty river water was gushing out here, and someone on the embankment over there was shouting and giving ideas.
Soon, two soldiers and several locals jumped into the rushing river, tied ropes to their bodies, and dived underwater to check.
The way the naked man struggled in the rolling waves of the river seemed to reveal a stubbornness declaring war on God.
"Let's go! We don't want the land anymore, and we don't want the house anymore, leave quickly!" Seeing that the embankment could no longer be defended, a local man grabbed a company commander who was loading sandbags and shouted loudly.
"You go first, we didn't receive the order to retreat!" The company commander picked up the sandbags and ran towards the embankment without looking back, his voice gradually drifting away in the rain.
The breach in the embankment is getting bigger and bigger, and it seems that it is no longer controllable. The sandbags can no longer contain it. It seems that everything is too late.
Enduring the severe pain in his feet, the division commander standing on the embankment walked step by step towards the gap. As he walked, he loudly ordered: "Anyone who has sons or daughters, follow me! The remaining people retreat immediately! Take all those who are resting Wake up! Get on the embankment! Get on the embankment!"
He walked to the gap, looked at the raging river, and gritted his teeth: "Use people to block it! Those in the third row will go down first! If there is not enough, then the second row will go up!"
"My lord, my lord!" The man who had just persuaded the soldiers to leave squeezed over and grabbed the division commander's arm: "My lord! It can't be stopped! It's too late! You go! We have remembered this! You go first! "
"Get out of the way! Hurry up and organize the evacuation of the civilians on the embankment! Take the elderly, children, and women to go first! Go to higher ground! Quick!" He pushed, staggered, and almost lost his balance.
The guard quickly stretched out his hand to support him, which prevented him from falling in embarrassment: "You are married and have children in the water! Don't show off!"
Soldiers jumped into the water one after another, no one looked back or flinched. They stood there arm in arm, forming a human wall, blocking the raging river water from the breached embankment.
The soldiers who followed built a new line of defense in the reduced water flow. They built up sandbags one by one and added wooden boards that had been prepared long ago to re-reinforce the entire embankment.
At nightfall, the embankment finally stabilized. Another flood peak passed, and subsequent reinforcements arrived. Another new battalion rushed up the embankment, howling and shouting as if charging towards a ferocious enemy.
The division commander was helped down the dam, but he could no longer walk. When I took off my boots, my socks were removed along with half of my feet.
In the wet tent with only dim light, he dug out a sharp small stone from the bloody soles of his feet with his own hands.
He cried, his tears couldn't stop flowing. It wasn't painful, or it really hurt and made him cry - his feet didn't hurt, he felt distressed. He cried so hard that he couldn't even hold back his voice.
Fifteen soldiers from the two platoons who went into the water were washed away by the water. No one has seen these fifteen young men again. They only left behind their shirts with names hanging in the tent and the water bottles left with local civilians. …
These relics are now placed in his tent because the other tents here are already overcrowded.
In the early morning of the next day, the city hall gave an explanation to the five missing soldiers. Two local nobles who had contracted the embankment project were pulled out and executed. The two men knelt on the embankment and were shot in front of everyone.
The local civilians don't even understand, because the dike built here may be the strongest dike they have seen in thirty years.
But no one interceded for these two people, because they lost fifteen benefactors before nightfall yesterday.
The rain seemed to have subsided a little, but the embankment was still very dangerous. There were more materials for the subsequent construction, and there were brand new sandbags and tools that came with the car.
The women and children followed the instructions and began to move to the high ground. Because they had to leave the house, more than half of the military tents and raincoats that came with the army were lost. No one cared about this. No one cared about where the raincoats went from the beginning.
A man wearing a bamboo hat was still standing guard on the embankment. He wanted to find the young soldiers who looked familiar to him. But after all, he never saw those young people again. Their appearance was actually very vague in his memory, because their faces were covered with rainwater.
But he didn't want to forget these people, so he stayed on the embankment. He hoped that these people would come back. Unfortunately, these people could not come back, and they would never come back.
