Chapter Seventy-Seven: Soldiers Retreat and Ningwu Diving Test

Zhou Yuji in Ningwuguan City has resisted stubbornly for three days, although he has killed and injured tens of thousands of Li Zicheng's Dashun army, and the corpses are piled up under the city like a mountain, but his own ** has almost been used up. Although on the third day, he adopted the strategy of fake surrender, deceived the Dashun army into the city, and then closed the city gate and wiped out thousands of Dashun troops. However, his eastern city wall was also collapsed by the artillery of the Dashun army. At this time, in addition to scolding that no one supported him, Zhou Yuji also regretted that he didn't buy more ** from the Yaogang people before the war. This thing is really easy to use to defend the city, and it throws one into the dense siege crowd, and the "boom" is to blow up a piece, and now it's almost the same. Keeping the silver for Li Zicheng with white flowers, he really stomped his feet with remorse. Fortunately, his musket has not been used much, especially shotguns, Zhou Yuji is resolutely not allowed to be used by the soldiers, he knows that that thing is more useful in the final street battle, and a shot at close range can knock down a few people. Zhou Yuji knew that today was the fourth day, and in the face of the crazy Dashun army, he didn't know if he could survive today. However, Zhou Yuji always felt in his heart that with his understanding of the kiln people, they would not watch him being surrounded. But thinking about it again, the Yaogang people themselves have been besieged for a long time, and now they are also surrounded by groups, and it may not be easy to come out to support. However, Zhou Yuji and his soldiers were guarding the city, and the sky was already bright, and Li Zicheng's artillery had not yet fired on time, and the attacking soldiers who should have arrived were nowhere to be seen. Zhou Yuji knew that something must have happened.

In Li Zicheng's big tent, Liu Zongmin was begging Li Zicheng, "Master, you just let me attack again." I will definitely take down Ning Wuguan for you today, and bring Zhou Yuji's head to you. ”

Li Zicheng put his hands behind his back and turned around in the big tent, as if he hadn't heard Liu Zongmin's words. Prime Minister Niu Jinxing and military advisor Song Xiance did not speak, and Liu Zongmin was so anxious that he was sweating.

Last night, all the four grain and grass camps of the Dashun Army were burned down, and the two bridges on the Xiaoling River were also blown up, and the news spread to Li Zicheng's camp early in the morning. This made Li Zicheng's heart chill. Obviously, it was the kiln man who had never fought back. The terrible thing about the kiln people is that every time they make a move, they use very little strength to achieve the greatest effect. As soon as they make a move, they will go straight to where you want to die. The Dashun army, which bypassed the kiln gang, had more than 300,000 men and horses, and the transportation of grain and grass could be said to be carried out day and night, so that it could be supplied. However, the kiln gang people burned down all the grain and grass camps overnight, and the bridge for transporting grain was also blown up. The accuracy of the shot is really ruthless. Although there was still some food and grass in each camp, it was not a long-term solution. It is simply impossible to get food on the spot here, there are droughts here for many years, the grass is gone, and there is no food. In particular, he has too many cavalry, and when he took the oath in Xi'an, he claimed to have 400,000 infantry and 600,000 cavalry. That horse needs twelve catties of forage and a few catties of grain every day, not to mention people. Now Li Zicheng is faced with the question of where to go, although the military advisor said, "Grain and grass can still be transported by horses and camels, and the bridge over the Xiaoling River can be built in a day or two." "But since the kiln people have grasped their weaknesses, won't they continue to attack? What's even more terrifying is that we surround the kilns, where did they come from so many men and horses to burn our grain and cut off my grain and cut off my grain route, and their actions are all in the night, how unified their actions are. In particular, they also wiped out none of the 1,000 elite cavalry they were pursuing, how many of them came out? It is said that it is possible for a small group of people to infiltrate, but it is impossible for a large group of people to come out? So where do these people come from? Li Zicheng was a little unclear about the current situation, and what he was thinking about was not the matter of Ning Wuguan in front of him.

Liu Zongmin had let the soldiers use the war meal very early, and he was ready to fight hard today, because the red-clothed cannon had already collapsed the East City Gate yesterday, and he might be able to rush into Ningwu Pass today. However, Li Zicheng suddenly ordered him to suspend the attack, so anxious that Liu Zongmin ran to Li Zicheng's big tent to reason with Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng, who turned around a few times, asked: "Prime Minister and military advisor, what is the purpose of the kiln gang people?" What's next for them? ”

At this time, Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance couldn't say why. Song Xiance also never thought about what kind of plans the kiln gang people were doing. He felt as if the Yaogang people had a long-term plan since their Dashun army did not set off on the eastward expedition, and what happened now was calculated by others a long time ago. Even the next step has already been thought about, just like playing chess with a master, people already know how many steps you can take, and of course they are already ready how to deal with you. This feeling has always followed Song Xiance, which makes him very helpless.

However, since Li Zicheng asked, he couldn't help but answer, he said: "Your Majesty, the intention of the Yaogang people is obvious, they just want to cut off our grain and grass. The army will be in chaos if there is no food, and the target of their attack is very accurate, it seems that they are fully prepared, and the timing of their attack is also very accurate, and they will strike when we are exhausted from fighting. I think he'll take action on our food and grass in the next step. ”

Niu Jinxing said: "I'm not very worried about the problem of grain and grass, we can send more people to transport grain and grass." After all, the people outside of Yaogang are a minority, and they are all successful in sneak attacks. ”

Li Zicheng said: "What I'm worried about is that they can wipe out all our 1,000 elite cavalry at once, and several places will do it at the same time, which shows that their people outside will not be a minority." What worries me more is that we have always believed that our cavalry has an advantage over the kilnmen. But today's events show that we are far from being as powerful as we thought. Our intelligence also says that the Yaogang people have the upper hand in the face of both the Mongol cavalry and the Manchu iron cavalry. So we can't take it lightly. I think that if the kiln workers go all out, there should be no problem in cutting off our grain route. ”

Liu Zongmin said: "Master, I still have grain and grass in my army, if you let me fight again today, I will definitely take down Ning Wuguan." ”

Li Zicheng snorted with his nose and said, "Hmph! Didn't you say you would take it down any day! Besides, what's the use of us taking down a Ningwu Pass? I have made up my mind, we will withdraw, and we will not be able to go anywhere if we do not solve the kiln people. ”

Niu Jinxing said: "It is not a trivial matter for hundreds of thousands of people to retreat. It also takes two days to build a bridge over the Xiaoling River. Besides, Ning Wuguan can't fight now. If we withdraw, he sends troops, and we are also in trouble. In my opinion, let General Kwon continue to attack, try to minimize casualties, and do not have to fight down. Just keep the pressure on. ”

Song Xiance said: "We must secretly gather the troops and retreat quietly, and some cavalry who can cross the river can withdraw first." ”

Li Zicheng said: "These things should be arranged by the prime minister and the military advisor." After speaking, Li Zicheng went back to his sleeping tent.

What Zhou Yuji didn't expect was that the Dashun army began to attack again after noon. However, the intensity of the attack was noticeably less than in the past. The Dashun army fought for a while and then retreated. Zhou Yuji knew that something really happened, otherwise the Dashun Army would not be like this, just like a little bit of a mao. Zhou Yuji also knew that Ning Wuguan was saved.

The opinion of the people of Yaogang was that when Li Zicheng's Dashun army retreated, he would not interfere with it and let them withdraw as soon as possible. At the same time, Yan Xing and Liu Chenghuang on Niu Tou were informed that they were ready to take over the county seat from which Li Zicheng had withdrawn at any time, especially Daizhou must be taken at any time. Because at this time, Zhou Yuji, who was greatly injured, did not have the strength to recover these places.

After Liu Yun returned to the command center, he began to participate in the expansion and training of the infantry.

Originally, there were more than 10,000 infantry and ten regiments in Yaogang, but now the expansion of a reinforced division has been completed with Xiurong's regiment as the mainstay. Originally, there were more than 20,000 soldiers from the official army who were taken in by Yaogang, plus more than 5,000 soldiers from the Salt Gang. It will also be expanded into three divisions on the basis of three regiments. In this way, after the expansion was completed, there were four infantry divisions in Yaogang, each of which consisted of four infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, and a transport regiment. One division had six and a half thousand men. That reinforcement division needs a little more people. More were a communications company and a cavalry battalion. In addition to these four divisions, there are six regiments in Yaogang that have not been reorganized. These six regiments are the backbone of the regiment to be expanded when the conditions are ripe. The expansion work went very smoothly, and after Liu Yun returned, a lot of work was entrusted to him, and he was most familiar with the situation of the infantry. Fortunately, the current equipment is ready-made, whether it is guns or clothing and uniforms, they are all ready, and those original officers and soldiers who were taken in, as soon as they finished their equipment, they knew that they were different from their original army, and even the underwear and underwear here were made of the best fabrics, as well as towels and other things that had never been seen before. Everyone's training uniforms and regular clothes are different, although the requirements are a little stricter, but the food and clothing are completely different from before. What they didn't expect the most was that after being assigned to their respective troops, they were immediately given living allowances. This made these original soldiers unthinkable. Eat well, dress well and have money here, if you knew, you would have come earlier. Due to the good treatment, the new soldiers quickly integrated into the team. What they didn't expect was that the junior officers here were basically literate, and the requirement for them was to learn literacy in addition to training. In the future, the promotion and salary increase should be related to academic performance.

After Li Jing came back, she talked specifically about their several actions. After listening to this, Zhang Zhimu said, "Good job, Li Jing." Your brethren have a little bit of a special forces. When I see Li Yunhe, I asked him to design a *** for you, and with ***, your actions will be more convenient. ”

Li Jing told Zhang Zhimu that their soldiers were a bit of special forces, and they were a little dissatisfied. He thinks that his soldiers are so capable, how can it be a little interesting? However, he was interested in what Zhang Zhimu said, and asked: "Mr. Zhang, don't talk about whether my soldiers are a bit of special forces, tell me what is going on?" ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "Don't you see, your rifles and pistols have another buckle on them?" That is, it can be installed, and when you shoot again, the gunfire will be very small. A little farther away, you can't hear it. Do you think it's useful? ”

Li Jing said: "That's so useful. In the future, when we act, it will be much more convenient to have ***. No one knew that they had shot and killed someone. However, what do you mean when you say that we soldiers are a little bit of special forces? Are there any better soldiers than us? ”

Zhang Zhimu smiled and asked, "Have your soldiers passed the swimming test?" ”

Li Jing hesitated a little and said, "Almost, right?" ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "So be it! I organized a special forces team, how about comparing with you after training? ”

Li Jing was a little unconvinced, and said, "Okay! Tell me when you're ready. ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "Okay, today you immediately follow me to Li Yunhe, bring the diving equipment they have prepared, and we will go to the swimming pool of the academy together to do an experiment." ”

When Li Jing came to Li Yunhe, Zhang Zhimu said: "Yunhe, you quickly take out the diving equipment, I will conduct the test today." ”

Li Yunhe said, "Okay, but my experimenters are going with you." The security of this thing is too important. ”

Li Yunhe called a few people who were developing these diving equipment to come over, and they came with air cylinders and other things. Zhang Zhimu looked at the diving equipment, although it was not as delicate as in his previous life, the margin of the material must be enough.

Zhang Zhimu said: "There is no problem to fill the bottle with gas, right?" ”

These people used high-pressure air pumps, filled several cylinders with air, and kept the pressure up to two megapascals.

Zhang Zhimu said: "Yunhe, get two cars, prepare all the equipment, let's go to the swimming pool together." ”

On the way to the college swimming pool, Zhang Zhimu sat in a car with Li Yunhe and Li Jing. Zhang Zhimu said to Li Yunhe: "Just now I told Li Jing that I am going to let you develop ***." ”

Li Yunhe asked, "What are you going to get out again?" What is it for? ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "*** is to get a thing that can be put on the muzzle of the gun, and when the gun is fired, it will silence the sound of the gun." The buckle we left on the grab is for the installation of ***. ”

Li Yunhe said: "Tell me how to do it, right?" ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "I haven't done it either, but there are many ways to do it." Whatever you do, you just have to get the sound out. One way I know is that the *** made is a tube type, and there are many small grooves in the tube. Because the sound is generated by the gas coming out of the muzzle of the gun vibrating around, we use a small groove in this tube to absorb the energy of the gas vibration, and when the gas comes out of the silencer tube again, it will be about the same pressure as the outside, and there will be no sound. However, the size of the small groove in the silencer tube varies depending on the size of the sound absorber at different wavelengths. You can make a few more and try it, shall we? Let's see which works a little better. ”

Li Yunhe said: "I don't think it's a simple matter, let's arrange someone to do it!" ”

Li Jing said: "Li Yunhe, you have to take this matter seriously." We need this thing the most. ”

When he came to the swimming pool, Zhang Zhimu first took off his clothes and changed into a diving suit. Although the wetsuit is a little fat, it is okay, the rubber sponge is ten millimeters thick, and the lead belt is just right to tie on the body.

Zhang Zhimu first adjusted the air bottle and breathing tube, tried it with his mouth, looked at the pressure gauge and depth meter, and after no problem, jumped into the shallow water, stood on the bottom of the pool, and asked people to hand him the empty bottle and respirator first. After receiving the diving equipment, Zhang Zhimu wanted to try whether the equipment was good in the shallow water now. He put on the water goggles, shouted the respirator in his mouth, tried for a while, no problem, he began to put his head into the water, with the gravity of the plumb on his waist, slowly squatted into the water, and at the same time slowly breathed evenly, experiencing the feeling of the respirator. Squatting under the water and breathing for a while, Zhang Zhimu got up and went ashore and said, "In the shallow water, I don't think it's a big problem." I'm going to put on my equipment and try it out on the diving pool, which is five meters deep. If that's okay there, we can find a deeper place to experiment. ”

Li Yunhe said: "You be careful, whether you need to tie a rope to you, if it doesn't work, I will fish you up." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "No. In such a deep place, if something ordinary happens, I can come up by myself, and if something dangerous happens, I will be the same if you catch it or not. ”

After speaking, Zhang Zhimu came to the diving pool, carefully checked the equipment, put on his fins, and jumped into the pool with his legs apart. In the pool, he adjusted the buoyancy, and then turned over, and dived into the water with flippers, because it was a test equipment, Zhang Zhimu dived very slowly, but he felt that the breathing apparatus was very good, and he breathed very freely, so he went directly to the bottom of the pool with a dozen flippers. At this time, Zhang Zhimu put the depth gauge at the bottom of the pool and saw that the indication was exactly five meters, and Zhang Zhimu felt really good. It's been a long time since I've dived. In my previous life, I spent a lot of money on studying classes and training for that diving certificate. But diving is such an addictive sport that it's hard to leave behind when you participate in it.

Li Yunhe and Li Jing above saw Zhang Zhimu sitting there at the bottom of the water, only to see water bubbles constantly coming out on the water. After a long time, they became a little anxious. Li Yunhe began to slap the water, Zhang Zhimu knew that the people above must be in a hurry, he began to float upward, who was not deep this time, but when he floated, Zhang Zhimu still controlled the speed of the rise of the bubbles lower than the speed of the bubbles he exhaled in accordance with the specifications, which could effectively avoid decompression sickness.

As soon as Zhang Zhimu showed his head, there was a round of applause on the shore. After Zhang Zhimu went ashore along the ladder, he took off his equipment and said to Li Yunhe and the few people who were engaged in diving equipment: "Congratulations, your equipment is very useful. Don't disband this group of yours. You still have a lot of work to do. But the first thing you have to do is learn to dive, and if you don't know how to dive, you can't develop better equipment. ”

Li Jing said: "And us, if our brothers could all dive, many things will be much easier in the future." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "I asked you to come here today to let you see this diving equipment." As special forces, you are not qualified special forces if you can't dive. Later in special operations, diving is an indispensable skill. Li Yunhe: You should hurry up and produce a batch of diving equipment, remember that quality and safety come first. ”

Without waiting for Li Yunhe to speak, the people who were engaged in diving equipment all laughed, and one said: "Mr. Zhang, don't worry about this quality, we all know that this matter is a matter of human life, and after we learn to dive, we will personally try each equipment and then hand it over to you." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "Yunhe, I have an idea, you can find a special place for them, let them develop and produce diving equipment. I think it would be best to build a special test pool, the deepest can be more than 30 meters, can be made into a stepped type, 10 meters, 20 meters, 30 meters, 40 meters layer by layer, many equipment can be tested by itself. ”

Li Yunhe said: "Okay, I'll do this after the war." ”

The few people who were engaged in diving equipment almost jumped up with joy after hearing this.

On the way back, Zhang Zhimu asked Li Yunhe: "Why is your machine gun produced too slowly?" Can you get a few more? ”

Li Yunhe said: "The rifling of the barrel of the machine gun is slowly pulled out, and the tungsten manganese steel used in our barrel is very difficult to process. Other metal parts are also processed piece by piece, we can't build a production line, now we are working hard to produce rifles, Uncle Chen said, it is best for each of our soldiers to have rifles. However, we also have more than two dozen machine guns. Recently, I wanted to do a machine gunner training class. Otherwise, it is useless to have a gun without a machine gun, and the shooter. ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "We must hurry up this matter. These machine guns were used for shooter training. ”

Li Jing said: "Mr. Zhang, Sun Liang, they have already made a rifle with binoculars, but they just won't use it for us, you go and tell it." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "I know this. Their guns are no ordinary guns. If you better shooters hit people with rifles, you can be sure of how far you can go. ”

Li Jing hesitated for a moment and said, "Two hundred meters should be fine." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "With their rifles, they can hit people at 400 meters, and they hardly miss the target. Their guns are not available to any kind of person, and Sun Liang and I are going to test you in the past two days to see if there are any shooters in your team who are suitable for using this rifle. ”

Lu Jun was a little unconvinced and said: "Li Yunhe knows that our shooters are fed with bullets, if they can't use this gun, I'm afraid no one will be able to use it." ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "No one can use it, so put the good gun first." I'm going to test what you're saying. ”

Zhang Zhimu has always wanted to use the methods he saw in his previous life to train those special forces, pick some useful ones, and train special forces and blockers. But Li Jing and they are very crazy now, and if they don't kill their sharpness, it will be difficult for them to accept new things. Let Li Jing know that their soldiers can only be regarded as infantry scouts. However, this is a difficult one.

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Paragliding, rubber model airplanes, piano making, and building an air force. --Progress of "Memories of the Southern Song Dynasty".