As a division commander commanding an infantry division, he is usually a quite decent man. His boots are always spotless and his clothes are always pressed very appropriately.
Even his military vehicles were wiped frequently. The adjutant helped wipe them, the driver helped wipe them, and the guards also helped wipe them.
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 can protect his calves, but the rain can't stop pouring in. Now his boots feel like they are fisheries, and his feet are probably bleeding.
When he walked over, there was a damn stone in his boots. Originally, the soles of his feet were just a little uncomfortable through the socks. But now that they are soaked in water, his feet are probably full of wrinkles and turned white.
The originally insignificant pebble became a sharp blade that could pierce the skin.
All of his clothes were soaked, and it was extremely 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, 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, so that people could see a colonel standing here at a glance.
The surrounding soldiers seemed to be working faster. They knew that their division commander had arrived. They just stood 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.
Reinforcement of dikes that are already in critical condition.
"Have a rest?" A civilian without a military cap and a bamboo hat on his head asked the soldier holding a sack while shoveling the soil.
The soldier shook his head and wiped the rainwater 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 this kind of thing. 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 to drive away the refugees, and look 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 way of 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 opportunities for them to make a fortune.
But those evil people who were hated to the core were killed by the new young consul, and those who had oppressed the people were all dead.
Now no one bullies the people anymore, and the land is fairly distributed to everyone. Although the land is nominally owned by the Tang State, the land deed clearly gives the people the right to farm.
These lands are their own now, and they will not give up even if they die! Let alone the flood, even if the god of 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 my 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 towards 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: "Hurry! Block it quickly! 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 on it 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 there were people on the embankment over there 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 tumbling river water seemed to reveal a stubbornness declaring war on God.
"Let's go! We don't want the land, 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. 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, come with me! The remaining people retreat immediately! Get those who are resting
Wake up! Get on the dike! Get on the dike!"
He walked to the gap, looked at the raging river, and gritted his teeth: "Block it with people! Those in the third row will go down first! If there is not enough, 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! You quickly organize the evacuation of the civilians on the embankment! Take the old people, children, and women to go first! Go to higher ground! Quick!" He pushed, staggered, and almost lost his balance.
The guard stretched out his hand to support him, which prevented him from falling in embarrassment: "If you are married and have children, go into 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 broken 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, subsequent reinforcements arrived, and a new battalion rushed up the embankment, howling and shouting as if charging towards a fierce enemy.
The division commander was helped down the dam, but he could no longer walk. When he took off his boots, his socks were removed along with half of his foot skin.
In the wet tent with only weak light, he dug out a sharp small stone from the bloody soles of his feet with his own hands.
He cried, and the tears couldn't stop flowing. It wasn't because of pain, or it was because he was crying in real pain - his feet didn't hurt, but his heart ached. He cried so miserably that he couldn't even hold back his own 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 tortured. The two men knelt on the embankment and were shot in front of everyone.
The local civilians even don't 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 seems to have lightened up a bit, but the embankment is still very dangerous. There are more materials for the subsequent construction, and the car also comes with brand new sandbags and tools.
The women and children all started to move to the high ground as required. 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 these. From the beginning, no one cared about where the raincoats went.
A man wearing a bamboo hat was still guarding the embankment. He wanted to find those young soldiers who looked familiar to him. But after all, he never saw those young men again. Their appearance was actually very similar in his memory.
, because their faces are covered with rain.
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.
