Around the beginning of the year, heavy snow closed the mountains at the southern foot of the Taihang Mountains at the junction of Shanxi and Shandong.
A caravan consisting of more than a dozen mules and horses and more than 20 men in gray robes was marching with difficulty through the Taihang Mountains in heavy snow. This is a caravan of mules and horses commonly seen at the junction of southern Shanxi and northern Shandong.
They were mainly skinny mules, with only the two leaders riding horses, and they all carried simple knives to guard against bandits and road thieves.
Most of the men looked lean, with their heads wrapped in turbans. Facing the cold wind that cut like a knife, their faces were exposed, with weathered mulberry leaves. They looked exactly like men from the mountainous areas of southern Shanxi and central Shanxi.
The trade road had been arduously traveling among the inaccessible mountains for an unknown amount of time. It was getting dusk when suddenly several sharp whistles were heard, which sounded like the roar of big birds. The leading man looked up and saw snow in the distant mountains.
The trees reflected each other, and the shadows of birds and animals could not be seen. I turned around and took the looking glass from the hands of the people around me, and looked towards the place where the whistling sound was heard. There was a lit torch hanging on the cliff at dusk. If it hadn't been for the looking glass,
It's impossible to see clearly from such a distance.
"This should be Yanziyu?" the leading man asked the people around him.
The map produced by Huaidong cannot accurately identify every ravine and valley in the Taihang Mountains. To identify the way, you still need to rely on guides from the Shanxinan Mountains - in fact, although the Huaidong Army has many people from the Shanxinan Mountains.
There are very few people who can stay away from their hometown for many years without losing their way in these mountains.
The agreement was to connect at Yanziyu, but the connection point in Hebi was destroyed by the enemy, and all the spies deployed in Hebi were captured by the enemy. Before the connection point was destroyed, the intelligence was passed on, allowing Wu Jingze and others to avoid the enemy's setup in Hebi.
trap.
Wu Jingze and others could only take the risk of bypassing Hebi City and entering the Taihang Mountains directly. However, without a guide, they wandered among the mountains at the southern foot of the Taihang Mountains for several days, but still could not accurately touch Yanziyu.
Just when everyone was uncertain about their position, the sound of stampeding of men and horses came from the deep valley on the flanks; the caravan was immediately vigilant and protected the leader Wu Jingze, but Wu Jingze relaxed instead: Don't look at the fact that Yan Hu has controlled the Northland for seven years.
For eight years, their forces have not yet penetrated into the depths of the Taihang Mountains. Even if their whereabouts were leaked, the enemy troops searching for them would have to pursue them from behind or intercept them from the front, and it would be impossible to string people out from the remote deep valleys.
A moment later, more than a hundred men and horses came out of Shenguzi. The leader saw Wu Jingze and said happily: "It's definitely General Jingze and you. The point on the Hebi side was knocked out by Hu Gouzi. The connection from Jinan to Taihang Mountain
It's broken. There is no way to confirm the specific time when General Jingze and you entered the mountain. Wei Tou can only send a distant sentry to wait at the edge of the mountain, but the far sentry cannot confirm that it is you, so he dare not contact you rashly. It was peaceful all the way here...
"
"The journey has been smooth." Wu Jingze saw that the leader was Luo Shoushan, who was sent by the Military Intelligence Department to contact the Taihang Mountains in advance. The tension and fatigue of traveling through enemy territory these days were swept away, and he asked, "Where are General Zhonglong's soldiers?" They said.
I was delayed on the road for several days. I wanted to see Wei Zhonglong immediately to discuss some matters, but I was worried that Wei Zhonglong and his troops were too far away from Yanziyu. It was very difficult to move in the Taihang Mountains. It might be two hundred miles away, and they might have to move here.
It won't succeed in a month or two. We have to prepare for the Northern Expedition in March, and time is very tight.
"Wei Tou is right behind," Luo Shoushan said. "I haven't seen you come in after waiting for these days. Wei Tou is anxious to lead his troops out of the mountain to pick you up..."
While he was talking, he heard the rapid sound of horse hoofbeats. Who was it if it wasn't Wei Zhonglong?
"Thank you for your hard work all the way, Jingze." Wei Zhonglong jumped off the horse and held hands with Wu Jingze, who was striding up to greet him. "Dexin said you were coming, so I hope you can come as soon as possible. It's been worrying me to death these days.
Already..."
"Uncle Wei." A young man next to Wu Jingze came over and called.
Wei Zhonglong looked sideways, seeing that the young man's face resembled that of an old friend, and asked hesitantly: "Are you practicing literature or martial arts?"
"Uncle Wei, I practice martial arts."
"Haha, that guy Zhou Tong, why are you willing to come to the Taihang Mountains?" Wei Zhonglong happily slapped Zhou Tong's second son Zhou Xingwu when he saw his old friend's son. Seeing that his body was motionless, he said, "Good boy, your body is strong."
It’s solid.”
"My father said that a man must work hard to become a useful person," Zhou Xingwu said. "After my eldest brother graduated from the Higher Army Command School, he also rushed to Nanyang for my father..."
"That guy Zhou Tong, who treated you two brothers as treasures at first, now kicks you all over the world." Wei Zhonglong laughed loudly and said to Wu Jingze, "When Yan Nan got together, you and I were both in our prime.
, Dragons and tigers are fierce, who would have thought that ten years have passed by in such a short time, it is their turn to write and practice martial arts, they are so fierce..." He also explained to Wu Jingze the generals behind him.
During the Yannan War, Wei Zhonglong, Zhou Tong, Yang Yihang, Ma Yigong, Wu Tian, Ma Yigong was the oldest, only forty-one years old, and the other four were only in their thirties. Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.
, all the people's children have grown up, and they are wearing armor and going into battle, which will inevitably make people sigh.
After the Yannan War, Yang Yihang, Ma Yigong, Wu Tian and others stayed in Jinhai to form the Tianjin Navy. Zhou Tong gave up his general position and followed Lin Fu southward. Wei Zhonglong was not angry with Yanjing's handling of the Jinzhong Army and directly abandoned it.
He left his post and went to the Taihang Mountains to recruit men and horses and start making beards.
After the fall of the north, the resistance forces of Yanji and Yanji in Jinzhong were not as strong as those retreating to the south. They all retreated to the Taihang Mountains to defend themselves and persisted in resisting. Together with Wei Zhonglong, there were a total of thirteen families. In the past seven or eight years, Yanhu and Hu were all
The siege of the resistance forces in the Taihang Mountains was continuously strengthened. Unfortunately, four of the thirteen forces were eliminated. The remaining nine were also united and merged to form five alliance forces, which were distributed in the northern and southern sections of the Taihang Mountains for more than a thousand miles.
Here, keep resisting.
Although Huaidong contacted Wei Zhonglong very early, in the early years of Yongxing, Huaidong experienced constant wars and was very short of resources. The Changhuai Army, Qingzhou Army and Liang Family troops were defeated and retreated south one after another, leaving the Taihang Mountains completely isolated from Yanhu
In the heart of the controlled Northland, it is very difficult to contact and provide support.
It was not until the Battle of Jiangning in the fourth year of Yongxing that although the She family had been eliminated, Jiangxi had not yet been conquered, and Jingxiang was still in chaos, the overall situation could be seen clearly, and the Northern Expedition was not without a shadow. Lin Fu was there.
Only then did he order Wu Qi to establish an intelligence network behind enemy lines and send more people to contact Wei Zhonglong. Through various channels, they mainly transported gold and silver and other hard currency resources to the Taihang Mountains, helping Wei Zhonglong stick like a thorn in Beidi's chest.
, making Yan Hu uncomfortable.
Wei Zhonglong left angrily that year, dissatisfied with the imperial court, but still convinced of Lin Fu. Although Wu Tian died in the battle to defend the city of Jinhai, his honor was not diminished after his death, and his children were well taken care of when they entered Huaidong.
Zhou Tong, Ma Yigong, Yang Yihang and other generals from the Jinjiang Army who came from the Jinzhong General School with Wei Zhonglong are all core generals of the Huaidong Army. Wei Zhonglong naturally has no objection to integrating into the Huaidong Army.
Over the years, almost one-third of the generals in Wei Zhonglong's department were directly dispatched from Huaidong, and many generals were also sent to Huaidong for training and then returned to serve. It is difficult to transport supplies to the Taihang Mountains on a large scale. In addition to transporting gold, silver, etc.
Hard currency was transported into the Taihang Mountains. Lin Fu even ordered the Military Intelligence Department to send a large number of craftsmen into the Taihang Mountains through the Yanhu blockade to help Wei Zhonglong's troops mine and smelt iron on a small scale on the spot, build soldiers and armor, and improve their combat effectiveness.
Wu Jingze came here this time on an order to formally assist Wei Zhonglong in reorganizing his headquarters into the Taihang Mountain ** Town Division, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the Military Department. Wei Zhonglong will serve as commander of the army, and Wu Jingze will serve as deputy commander of the army and military staff.
When he was in Yannan, Wu Jingze and Wei Zhonglong had a brief experience of fighting side by side, so they were not separated from each other. Hearing Wei Zhonglong lament that time flies by, he was also filled with emotion.
Wu Jingze has been in the army for a longer time, and his eldest son also died on the battlefield. However, after the Yuanzhou War, although he took a job in the local area and served as Yuanzhou's military commander and general judge, although he could enjoy wealth and wealth in a stable manner, he still wanted to
Although Wu Jingze wanted to go, he still felt that he was suitable for the camp and the battlefield. During his tenure in Yuanzhou, he wrote many times to request to return to the camp, so that Lin Fu would arrange for him to pass through enemy territory and sneak into the Taihang Mountains.
Wu Jingze and others took off their disguises, followed Wei Zhonglong, Luo Shoushan and others along the dangerous mountain road, and entered the Pegasus Valley where the front troops of the ** Town Division were stationed to rest. The main station of the ** Town Division was deeper in the Taihang Mountains.
"It's time to make up your mind to fight a big war." When they arrived at Pegasus Valley, Wei Zhonglong couldn't wait to grab Wu Jingze and asked, "Master, how does he plan to fight and when does he plan to fight?"
"The military headquarters requires the main force of the Taihang Mountains to suppress the division in March. All of them will be moved to the southwest mountainous area of Jiji to wait for fighters." Wu Jingze said, "When to fight, whether to fight gently or hard, this is still a question.
It depends on the preparations in the south..."
"What a heartwarming punch!" Wei Zhonglong clapped his thigh excitedly. He was also very familiar with military strategies. The military order brought by Wu Jingze was to move his troops north, to a position where they could threaten Yanjing City in the southwest corner. Naturally, he could
Thinking that the core strategy of the Northern Expedition was to attack Yanjing directly, instead of starting from breaking through the Shandong defense line and spreading to both wings, "I should beat him one fucking at a time!" Then Wei Zhonglong hesitated again and asked, "Hu Gou
Over the years, I have put in a lot of hard work in Dengzhou and Liaodongjian and built a lot of island fortresses, which are said to lock the sea like a city. Haikou is as solid as a thunder pool. The Jinghai Navy is sure to tear the Haikou apart..."
"How is the smelting of broken gray iron in the mountains?" Wu Jingze asked, "How much saltpeter and sulfur should be prepared?"
"Seven or eight thousand kilograms of cross-section gray iron was smelted, and about a thousand kilograms of saltpeter and sulfur were finally smelted," Wei Zhonglong said. "But making bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows does not require such good iron materials..."
"Other war weapons don't need such good iron materials, but the cross-section ash is used to make fire crossbows." Wu Jingze said with a smile.
"Fu Huo Nu," Wei Zhonglong's eyes lit up when he heard it, and he said, "I heard Luo Shoushan say that Fu Huo Nu was so amazing that one strike of the crossbow could blow apart mountains. If it was really that powerful, it would be much easier to tear open the sea.
Already."
Wei Zhonglong's troops persisted in resisting in the Taihang Mountains, but materials were very scarce in the Taihang Mountains. They could get a large amount of gold and silver from Huaidong to supplement their supplies, and they could exchange materials with the rural forces outside the mountains. There was barely any shortage of salt and grain, but there was a severe shortage of iron horses and other materials.
.Although there is a town division to organize troops, the overall combat strength is far less than the current elite town division of the Huaidong Army.
"It's not that powerful, just listen to his nonsense," Wu Jingze said with a smile, "With solid bullets, it's only comparable to a medium-sized stone-throwing crossbow, but it can be mounted on wheels, and it can be dragged by mules and horses to move, and it can be stopped.
To fight, you can deploy them in front of, behind, or in the formation at will, which is very convenient. In addition, each of Chongzhou's newly built warships can be equipped with one hundred and eight fire-fighting crossbows..."
"Good boy," Wei Zhonglong was about to scream with excitement, "this is not awesome. Hu Gouzi can use a hundred catapult crossbows to attack Nanyang. Now a warship from Huaidong can reach the place where Hu Gouzi attacked Nanyang."
With all the war weapons, why don’t you beat them until they howl?”
Wei Zhonglong has been studying orthodox warfare since elementary school, so he naturally knows how powerful it is to use a hundred catapult crossbows to attack a city. A warship in Huaidong is equipped with a hundred and eight medium-sized catapult crossbows, which is exciting to think about.
.
"From Hebi to the south, the blockade is very tight. Thank God if people can come here. Iron materials, flames, sulfur and other materials cannot be transported, so we can only prepare them on the spot," Wu Jingze said, "But with the cross-section ash
, it is easy to make the Fuhuo Crossbow. You cannot make the bitter paste here, but Hu Gouzi never guessed that the bitter paste is the main ingredient of the Fuhuo Pill, and thought it was a dye. We brought three thousand kilograms of bitter this time.
Once the anointing comes, some can be smuggled in gradually in the future, but the rest must be prepared by your side."
Bitter ointment is the most critical ingredient of Fuhuo Dan. It is an extract of coke and kerosene. It is not that it cannot be made in the Taihang Mountains. However, while strengthening the combat power of the Taihang Mountains, Lin Fu is also worried that gunpowder and artillery technology are too early.
It spread, so the bitter ointment was still smuggled in directly from Huaidong.
Before the flammability of bitter ointment was discovered, it was used as a raw material for cyan dye. It was very similar to traditional indigo dyeing and could not be distinguished by non-Huaidong craftsmen. Therefore, Wu Jingze and others pretended to be dye merchants and entered Jinzhong without any clues.
Give awareness.
Wu Jingze heard that seven or eight thousand kilograms of high-quality cross-section gray iron had been prepared in the mountains, and he knew that it was impossible to build a heavy fire-volting crossbow, but twenty of the four-pound light fire-volting crossbows could be made, and the four-pound battle crossbow was also the easiest to make.
——A four-pound war crossbow can be as powerful as forty or fifty powerful crossbows even if it fires shotguns. When the technology matures, it will be easier and less troublesome to build twenty light fire-fighting crossbows than eight hundred thousand powerful crossbows. Moreover, the four-pound war crossbow can
The light-weight 5-pound fire crossbow is not as bulky as the 12-pound or 24-pound heavy crossbows, and is most suitable for field battles in the Jixi area with Wei Zhonglong's troops who lack mobility.
The combat strength of the Taihang Mountain ** town division is weak, and Yanhu is not unprepared for the resistance forces in the Taihang Mountains. If the Taihang Mountain ** town division is to play a major role in the Northern Expedition strategy, it must be unexpected by the Yanhu people and strengthen their warfare.