When the lookout on duty on the tower informed everyone that "the enemy night shift personnel had left the trench", the 1st Company of the Rangers and the Engineer Company, which had been waiting for a long time, stood in line at the gate of the fortress. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The soldiers on duty above the fence slowly turned on the grease-coated winch, and lowered the drawbridge little by little.

The rangers went first, they led the horses, and slowly looked for a place on the road where the horses could tread, and the team behind them formed a long line.

After the Rangers passed, the soldiers of the Engineer Company, carrying planks and various tools, rushed out of the fortress and began to lay a flat road along the straight line in front of the fortress gate, they had to complete the paving of the road within a hundred meters in front of the gate before the Rangers returned, otherwise, the potholed road would seriously affect the speed of the Rangers and allow them to be overtaken by the enemy.

The 1st squad opened the way at the front, as the most elite unit of the whole company, at every critical moment, Zhao Qingyu would always give them this arduous task, although this job was very dangerous, but the honor represented by the sharp knife squad and the promotion speed far beyond other squads and platoons made most of the soldiers in the 1st squad happy with this kind of thing.

Then a thin fog was created, and the Ranger Company slowly approached the northernmost part of the trench dug by the enemy, and sure enough, there were no personnel left in the trench that should have been guarded by sentries, only some horns, drums, firewood, and other things for alarm. Moreover, the enemy guards during the day did not show any signs of arrival.

Zhao Qingyu turned over and went down the trench and entered the trench, only to find that it was really not the Houjin soldiers on duty who were lazy, after digging a deep trench here, the pit that was sunken below the ground was actually on a waterline, and the drainage measures were not effective, causing the pit to be damp and cold, and from time to time there was a cold wind blowing, and the rangers wearing thick full winter equipment were a little shivering.

It seems that the other party has to leave early, Zhao Qingyu sighed with emotion, and then made a gesture, each squad and platoon had already known their respective tasks at the previous war briefing, and immediately understood, scattered and separated, and began to dig up the place where the explosives were buried.

When the Ranger Company was busy, the soldiers of the 4th Platoon of the Engineer Company had also slowly moved out here, not caring about the work of the Rangers at all, and the 4th Platoon of the Engineer was scattered near the trench in groups of two.

At intervals, they stuck a "broadsword" in the ground.

"Broadsword" is the code name of a mine newly developed by the Ordnance Factory, and its prototype is the famous anti-infantry directional mine in later generations.

It's just that because there is no way to make powerful explosives such as C4, TNT, and Hei Sokin, the amount of charge can only be increased, resulting in the weight of this broadsword greatly exceeding similar products in later generations, and the most widely used American-made M18A1 anti-infantry directional mine in later generations weighs only 1.5 kilograms, but the broadsword equipped by the Xuan army is 6 kilograms.

However, although the weight has increased many times, the principle is the same, and after many tests, the effect of the paper kill data is also very similar.

Such a weight of 6 kilograms, the overall size of 230mm*100mm*100mm, filled with explosives of 4.9 kg, containing 700 steel balls, the ignition method is a broadsword, which can be 50 meters ahead, with a wide-angle fan range of 60 degrees to diffuse and kill, and the killing height can reach about 2 meters.

Among them, the steel balls loaded with 50 meters are only their maximum killing distance, while at a distance of 100 meters, they can cause moderate damage, and the farthest splash damage can reach 250 meters, which is simply a nightmare for soldiers in this era.

Although this weapon is extremely lethal, its weight of 6 kilograms really limits the popularity and use of the broadsword. If it weren't for the fact that the Ordnance Factory was unable to reduce its size and weight now, the Xuan Army might have been distributed to the whole army long ago.

Using this kind of broadsword, there is another point to note, that is, although the steel balls it is filled with are scattered towards the front sector, but its huge charge determines that it is within a certain range of the rear, and it is not a safe area, according to calculations, it may be attacked by the broadsword within 20 meters behind the broadsword, and within an angle of 120 degrees, so the ordnance factory equipped it with a very long pull fuse, which can allow the operator to detonate at an absolutely safe distance.

After a period of practice, the fighters of the engineer company also modified it to a certain extent, attaching a certain length of high-strength rope that allowed the operator to detonate it at a distance of up to 100 meters.

If you add a few steel nails to the fixing device at the bottom of the broadsword, or add a counterweight device, after it is firmly fixed to the ground, this distance can continue to increase, according to the conclusion of many tests, 300 meters is already the farthest control distance of this type of draw-hair fuze, and if it is farther, it will be caused by the weight of the rope, resulting in a significant decrease in the sensitivity of the fuze.

After the minefield was installed, the 4th Platoon of Engineers immediately retreated to the rear 300 meters and began to dig individual bunkers for the controllers, and then the others began to retreat, leaving only a few controllers here, and in order to quickly escape after the mines were pulled, the personnel left behind did not wear armor, nor did they carry any other tools, and even handed over their sidearms to their comrades to take back to the fortress.

On the other side, the Rangers' movements were a little slower, and the original plan was to dig three pits per person, and each pit was buried with an explosive bag, but after excavation, everyone found that because of the cold winter weather here, the land was frozen in the northeast, and a shovel went down, and only a little slag could be shoveled.

If you follow this progress, when the enemy comes, I am afraid that you will not be able to dig a pit, then Zhao Qingyu feels that something is wrong, the amount of firewood in this pit is really too much, and there is no need to release wolf smoke at all, and then take a closer look, the soil dug out by Houjin is mixed with some black charcoal ashes in almost every pile of fresh soil.

Zhao Qingyu realized that these firewood were used by the Houjin side to thaw the land, since the enemy did this, then we can also learn, thinking of this, Zhao Qingyu immediately arranged for everyone to start adding firewood to those places where they were going to dig pits.

The bright matches produced by the newly built match factory were taken out by the soldiers one by one, and the firewood was left on hold overnight, contaminated with moisture, and because they did not carry flammable materials, the small matches could not be lit at all.

After trying a few times, Zhao Qingyu had an idea, took out a fixed ammunition from the ammunition box, took the dagger he carried with him, gently poked the grease on the seal, poured out the ship-shaped warhead, and carefully stored it.

Next, Zhao Qingyu gently poured the gunpowder in the shell on the somewhat damp firewood, and then lit it with a match, and the sudden flames ignited the firewood at once.

After a while, puffs of black smoke began to rise over a nearly 1,000-meter-long tunnel, and the rangers were nervously on guard for a long time, but there was no movement from the Houjin camp.

Zhao Qingyu looked at the pile of drums and horns again, and understood in his heart that there must be smoke in this tunnel, so the alarm method became a loud sound, which was really lucky.

In order to save time and avoid problems, Zhao Qingyu kept testing the hardness of the ground, and when he could dig it, he immediately started to move the fire and start working.