Early the next morning, the engineer brigade began its operation.

Behind them were almost all the artillery of the besieging side, covering them and preventing the soldiers in the city from going out of the city to counterattack.

At such a distance, there is no need to worry that the copper cannons in the city can hit the sappers.

An infantry division was deployed behind the flanks of the sappers, also to prepare for a counterattack in the city, and a cavalry brigade was also on standby around the perimeter.

The engineering brigade of Sishang was formed very early, and it was the first "cave guard" who defended the city in the Mozi era, and there were many people from Zhaodi, Zhongshan and other places.

At the beginning, the composition of the "cave preparation scholars" was mainly some craftsmen who dug wells in the Song, Wei, Qi, Lu and other regions, and they followed Mozi and used their ancestral craftsmanship as the source of many skills in Mozi's "Preparation of Caves".

Wells appeared very early in Zhuxia, and the special impact plain terrain in the Central Plains made digging wells a very technical trade: if you dig a little badly, it will lead to collapse and suffocate in the well, so the people who can dig wells in the Central Plains have certain skills.

After Mozi's death, Shi set up a special engineer based on the cave master, including some of the disciples he taught; old miners summoned from Daye Mountain, Lingyang and other places; as well as some ...... in Zhongshan, Zhao and other places A young man from a family of tomb robbers.

Later generations of Taishi said: The Zhongshan land is thin and crowded, there are still sand dunes and prostitution of the remnants, and the folk customs are anxious, and they rely on the opportunity to eat. Husbands get together to play, sad songs are generous, they follow each other from the beginning, and Hugh digs graves to make clever treachery, many beautiful things, for advocating excellence......

Taishi Gong means that the people near Xingtai and Shijiazhuang farm when they are busy, rob and kill people together when they are slack, and rob tombs at night......

It is also a regional feature at this time, because there are frequent wars, and there are many cemeteries where the Shang Dynasty was used as a palace before, and the grassroots are basically in a state of no one to govern.

It was also an important road for the horse trade in the north, and a transit point for the trade between the north and the Central Plains, so the people there gathered to rob and kill people as a side business during the day, and robbed tombs and dug graves at night to make a fortune.

This is an industry that has been rising since the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Mo family has a thin burial, and what is opposed is a thick burial; Tomb robbers are in line with the times, aren't you buried thickly? I'll dig up graves and get rich.

Speaking of which, these people who robbed the tomb and the Mo family actually did not deal with each other in terms of "concept": if they were all buried thinly, how could the tomb robbers get rich?

There have also been quite a few clashes between the two sides.

Later, the Mo family began to go north to Zhao and infiltrate Zhongshan, and gradually many people joined the Mo family and entered the engineering army.

With well diggers, miners, and tomb robbers as the technical backbone, the engineer brigade helped Sishang win a lot of siege battles after it was formed, such as several sieges in the Qimo War that year, all of which were the leading battles of the engineer brigade.

There are also many people who also participated in the battle of the division of the king of Chu to pacify the prince of Chen Cai, and many of the backbones are veterans who have served over the age and are extremely skilled.

Several veteran sappers chewed betel nuts brought from the South China Sea region in their mouths, leisurely holding various tools for digging wells, robbing tombs, and mining, waiting for their comrades in front to set up shelters.

The sappers in front used wicker baskets to load the earth, and after the foot soldiers in the back arrived, they piled up a bunker with wicker baskets, which was so thick that even if the copper cannon on the city wall and the blind cat touched the dead mouse, the iron bullets would not hurt the people digging the pits behind.

Every five paces or so there was an old sapper ready to dig a pit, and the 1,500 men of the engineer brigade were divided into three shifts, each of which was 500 men in shifts, each digging for an hour, and then handed over to replace the squads, day and night.

When the wicker baskets in front of them were piled up, the sappers, who had dug up an unknown number of square meters of earth, dug the barracks and trenches, dug the passage of the crypt, dug the graves, dug the wells, dug the mines, and dug the canals, began to work.

Standing behind the wicker basket, they quickly dug a position and dug for their comrades five paces away, following the white line set by the staff officers before.

The staff officers had to calculate the distance from the city wall and the height of the city wall to determine the depth enough to avoid the lead and iron bullets fired from the city, but these old sappers did not need the staff officers' trigonometry and calculation drawings, but only needed to know how deep they should dig so far with their eyes.

The shovels flew very fast in the hands of the old diggers, and the dirt fluttered, but they did not splash everywhere, but were loaded into the wicker baskets carried by their comrades in the back.

The company commanders were responsible for using simple protractors to deploy the angles of digging the pits according to the brigade's orders, so as to ensure that the guns at the head of the city could not hit the trenches and cause longitudinal damage; It can also be the most labor-saving and earth-saving approach to the city.

An hour's high-load work requires a lot of energy, and these sappers are also well treated, in addition to the normal military rations, they can also have half a pound of fat every day as a supplement.

At the southernmost ditch opposite the city gate on the east side, a veteran who had been a sapper for twelve years thirty miles away dug calmly and quickly, chatting with several recruits behind him and imparting his experience as he dug.

In his experience, as long as you dig well, as long as you dig according to the requirements above, there will be no casualties at all.

If the people in the city had the confidence to fight in the field, they sappers would not have dug zigzag trenches at this time, but would have deployed artillery positions behind the butts of those artillerymen.

This veteran is also interesting, digging and joking with the new sappers behind him: "Tut, look, the most elite first division in Sishang is squatting behind our butts to protect us; The artillery that we spend the most money on also protects us. The two most elite troops in the world are protecting us, is this face still small? ”

The recruits laughed at the back, and the veteran spat into the palm of his hand, and said, "When you dig, you have to be able to dig hard, and you can't dig indiscriminately." If you dig indiscriminately, your arm will be sore after digging for a while, and you won't be able to live. ”

"You've got to dig ...... like that"

As he spoke, he made a few demonstration movements in the shadow of the wicker basket, these seemingly ordinary movements were the experience of these professional pit diggers for 12 years, and they could only be passed on by words and deeds.

In a group, the veterans dig only one position, and then the other four people have to widen the pit dug by the veterans to one and a half steps.

After widening, the infantry or second-line non-commissioned officers enter, and continue to widen to four paces, which is about six meters.

In addition to widening, the infantry at the back also needed to use firewood, grass, and wicker baskets to put the loaded soil on the outside of the ditch to prevent the bombardment of the city.

The veterans were very experienced, and in an hour's time, they only needed to dig a trench about four paces, and the soil here was very soft, so there was a lot of time.

He is not in a hurry, he has long passed the era of young people's "competition", although he will not fall behind, but he will not be too prominent.

There are a few young people in the company who are very active, and they are in full swing during the weekday drills, and they can dig two steps when others dig one step.

The veteran also knew that it was worthy of appreciation, so he naturally did not feel that those people were hateful to be public, and there was really no capital to settle down in the Sishang army.

It's just praise for appreciation, but this veteran won't do that, because he's too tired. He never does less, and if the order is given, he will do his best to complete it, but like today, digging four steps in an hour is too easy, so he will not fight or chase, saving a lot of effort.

Twelve years ago he was a young man with a heart for the world, but now he sees being a sapper only as a job: no different from a farmer or a weaver. Anyway, I have served for nine years over the age, and I have a lot of money every year, so it is not a problem to marry a wife and have children.

In his opinion, this is the important point that Sishang will benefit the world after all, if he only relies on the ideals and enthusiasm of benefiting the world and aspiring to the world, he is afraid that the Mo family will have more than half of the people.

But in terms of it, he felt that he had done what he should have done and the orders that he should have carried out, and he still benefited the world, but he was just a little behind others, and he was still better than those nobles.

There are many veterans in the army who are over-age in service, both those who have a pure heart for the benefit of the world, and some who are accustomed to life in the army and do not want to leave as a profession, and the veterans who are digging holes are the latter.

The old sapper's hands were extremely accurate, and while chatting, he also asked the recruits to come up and try their hands.

In the end, he lifted a ruler in his waist pocket, squinted his eyes to see the leveling and made up a few shovels for leveling, and just put the ruler back on his waist, the whistle of the shift change sounded, and the time was almost the same.

After returning to the rear along the widened trench and handing over, their company rested behind a dirt slope, and dispersed in groups, and the men of the cooking company brought coarse tea with sugar and salt.

The old sapper raised the clay pot and poured it into his stomach, took out another allotment of brown sugar from his bosom and threw it into his mouth, and there were still two hours to change shifts, so he could take the opportunity to sleep for a while.

The young men of the army went to listen to the stories told by the company representatives, and the veterans took off their hats and put them on their faces to block out the dazzling sunlight, thinking about their children's schooling.

Before the war, I just received a letter from my family, saying that the child had failed to pass the school of enlightenment, and had not yet met the mandatory requirement of 200 words.

Thinking of this, the veteran smiled bitterly, this is not the first time, subconsciously touched the belt issued by the overage service tied around his waist, and wondered if he should go back to let his son taste the taste of the belt and buttocks, but every time he went back and saw the child, he couldn't do it again, and he just scolded a few words and it was over.

"This time, you can't be spared! But this kid really doesn't like to learn, and he has to find a way. Xizi was transferred to the South China Sea to build a city before, but it was really not good, and when he finished his service, let him go to the South China Sea to break through. ”

While he was pondering, several cannons rang out from the city wall in the distance.

The recruits, who had been listening to the story from the company representative before, stood up and looked at their partners who were taking over their digging in the distance, wondering if they were injured.

The old sapper didn't even bother to get up, and not even the sound of the cannon gave him the slightest pause in his thoughts, as if he hadn't heard it at all.

Several recruits hurried back and surrounded him, "Chief Sima, did you hear that?" There was artillery in the city. ”

The veteran grabbed the hat covering his face, waved his hand, and said, "Listen to the story, listen to the story, drink water, squint for a while." The pit I dug was fine, not to mention that there were only seven or eight cannons in the city, even seventy or eighty. Go, go, go, ......."

The veteran thought to himself, those people in the city are really idle, don't say that you can't hit it so far, even if you get two hundred steps closer, what's the use of your bombardment? However, it may be useful to send people out of the city to attack and disturb, it is really a disturbance to rest.

。 m.