Wang Yu knocked on the map and said happily: "What Mr. Tinglin said is extremely true, right!" For the time being, avoid the canal first, march from the west road, first control Fengyang, Linhao, Suzhou, and then seize the Hongze Lake embankment! In this way, we can ensure that the southern section of the canal is not threatened by the hanging lake on the ground, and then use the power of the canal to attack Shandong! ”

Zhang Huangyan said cautiously: "The west road is attacking Fengyang, and there is no river to rely on. The www.biquge.info of our army has few auxiliary soldiers, and we need to recruit more people to ensure the transportation of baggage. ”

Wang Yuyou touched his beard and smiled slightly: "You don't have to worry! In fact, the plan for the attack on the west road was expected for a long time! When our army builds a road on the western front, it will first build the Jiangbei Railway to Fengyang, and then it will be able to cross the Huai River and launch an attack north of the Huai River. With the guarantee of the railway line, food and ammunition can be continuously sent to the Huai River. ”

Build a railway on the north bank of Nanjing, starting from Jiangbei to end with a small town called Bengbu under the jurisdiction of Fengyang, which is a section of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway in the future, at present, because of technical limitations, it is temporarily impossible to build a bridge on the Yangtze River and on the Huai River, so it can only build the section from Jiangbei to Bengbu first. However, this section was built for war, and with this section of the railway, it was possible to avoid the low-lying flooding area in the lower reaches of the Huai River, reach the upper reaches of the river, and control the Hongze Lake embankment.

From Pukou to Bengbu, it is only about 180 kilometers, equivalent to 360 miles. This distance only takes more than an hour from the ordinary speed trains of later generations, not to mention high-speed trains and bullet trains. In this era, the construction of a railway from Pukou to Bengbu was an extremely huge project.

In the southeast of Fengyang, in the south of Xuyi County, railway soldiers are sweating like rain on the construction site, waving iron pickaxes, digging earthworks, digging trenches, and filling in roadbeds under the morning sun.

Although because of the hot weather, the railway soldiers work and rest in the morning and evening, but the Jianghuai area is located in the subtropical high Asian region, even in the morning and evening, the sun is very hot, and it is unbearably hot.

The original Qing Army's Han Eight Banner soldiers captured Nian Yaoling, wielding an iron pickaxe, digging the soil one by one. The young ancestors were originally officers in Liaodong of the Ming Dynasty, but they were captured by the Houjin in the Battle of Songjin and were incorporated into the clothed minions. Later, in the twelfth year of Shunzhi, because his father Nian Zhonglong was admitted to the Jinshi, he got out of slavery and entered the Yellow Banner of the Han Eight Banners. Later, when Nian Zhonglong served as the governor of Hezhou, the Ming army came to attack the city, and Nian Zhonglong opened the city and surrendered.

Nian Yaoling was a petty officer in Jingzhou at the time, and was later captured, so he was incorporated into the auxiliary army by the Ming army. After a period of time, he was incorporated into the railway army.

"Tartar! There's a Tartar coming ahead! Just when Nian Yaoling was waving an iron pickaxe and sweating like rain to work, there was a Ming army in front of him who did not collect his horse at night and galloped back, and sent an alarm signal.

The railroad soldiers shouted at the general Yu Zhenxing: "Go back!" Retreat into the trenches! Fight your way up and wait for support! ”

Hearing the shouting, Nian Yaoling was so frightened that he dropped the iron pickaxe, turned around and was about to run, when another railroad soldier named Wu Ming on the side pulled him: "Don't lose your tools!" That's a weapon, too! Pick it up! ”

Nian Yaoling turned around, picked up the pickaxe, and followed the other railroad soldiers back into the trench.

Before the roadbed in front was completely completed, the railroad soldiers retreated into the finished roadbed, and immediately someone piled sandbags on the roadbed, and more than 100 railroad soldiers escorted them up and raised muskets with bayonets behind the sandbags. The railway guards had a hundred-man squad in each garrison camp of 3,000 men, armed with the same weapons as the regular musketeers of the Qiongzhou army, armed with flintlock pistols and bayonets, and protected by armor.

In addition to the convoy, among the ordinary railway soldiers, every officer above the rank of general was also equipped with a flintlock pistol and a double-barreled short gun; Each captain and chief is equipped with a bird's gun.

Some of the bird guns captured from the Qing army, some of which were of average quality and were not suitable for changing into flintlock pistols, were lost to the railway soldiers. Among the more than 100,000 railway soldiers, there were at least 5,000 flintlock pistols and more than 30,000 bird guns. In addition, the iron pickaxe in the hands of ordinary railroad soldiers is also a very effective weapon.

In the blink of an eye, the hordes of Qing troops had already pressed over.

The Qing court also had spies in the south, and with such a big news about the opening of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway (Nanjing to Shanghai), it was naturally impossible to hide it from the Qing court in the north. The Qing court also knew that there was a kind of fire dragon that ran on land, and it could gallop on a road paved with iron sheets without the need for mules and horses. Later, through spies, the Qing court learned that it was a kind of thing called a train, which was driven by a coal-burning steam engine.

As a result, the Qing court also solved the mystery of the Battle of Jingzhou and the Battle of Xiangyang, the so-called water fire dragon, which is a steam warship.

After Bumu Butai heard the news that the Ming army was building a railway in Jiangbei, she immediately judged that if there was this kind of fire dragon running on land, the Ming army's baggage transportation would no longer rely on the river!

The weakness of the Qiongzhou Army is the transportation of baggage on land, so from the first battle to the present, every victory won by the Qiongzhou Army is inseparable from water transportation. The Jianghuai section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal was threatened by the above-ground hanging lake of Hongze Lake, and the Qiongzhou Army had to abandon the canal and take the western land route during the Northern Expedition. However, by land, the Ming army's baggage transportation was easily threatened by the Qing cavalry, and more troops needed to be invested to protect the transportation line.

But the advent of railway lines has changed this phenomenon.

Therefore, the Qing court ordered that the Ming army's railway line must be destroyed, and even if it could not be destroyed, the Ming army must be prevented from building the railway to the Huai River in Fengyang.

When the Qing soldiers arrived at the edge of the railway construction site, the first Qing guerrilla took a look at the railway line in front of him, and saw sandbags piled up above the roadbed, and the guerrilla shouted: "Quick, attack it!" Sabotage the thieves' railway! ”

Groups of Qing soldiers launched an attack on the front of the railway line base, and the Qing soldiers had just approached within 50 steps of the sandbags, when a roaring gunfire rang out behind the sandbags, the fire flickered above the sandbags, and the white smoke rose up, and rows of bullets drilled into the crowd of Qing soldiers, and more than a dozen Qing soldiers who rushed in front fell.

As soon as the first row of gunfire stopped, the Ming army retreated, and the second row stepped forward and pulled the trigger on the Qing formation, and another row of bullets was fired, and more than a dozen Qing soldiers fell.

The gunfire continued, and before the Qing soldiers could rush to the front, more than 100 people were knocked down. However, this loss was nothing to the Qing army, which had 5,000 men and horses. The Qing guerrillas found that there were not many Ming troops with muskets in their hands, and the others were auxiliaries with tools in their hands.

"As long as you rush forward, you can kill the Bright Dog auxiliaries!" The Qing guerrillas shouted. In fact, the so-called auxiliaries are railway soldiers.

Yu Zhenxing shouted and commanded his subordinates: "Quickly put on paper armor!" ”