readx;?Early morning of January 16, 1863. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info!ybdu!

Several white shadows suddenly flashed from the silent embankment, and a monocular wrapped in white camouflage cloth stretched out. This is the Potomac River embankment in the small town of Poolesville, where a bloody battle had been fought more than a year ago that had pushed the United States of America into the abyss. And in this early morning when the north wind is howling and the sky and the earth are white, another larger, and more brutal battle will also start here. Although the sky was still full of stars, and there were still a few hours before dawn, the owner of the telescope was still obsessively using his eyepiece to observe the target, a farm near the river embankment.

Now, the Union Army's deployment on the north bank of the Potomac River is quite empty, but the emptiness does not mean that the Union Army is completely open to the Union Army to enter and leave at will—although the purpose of the Union Army is to allow the Union Army to enter the plains of Maryland for battle. However, at least the appearance still needs to be done, and along the banks of the Potomac River, a number of strong strongholds are still deployed. This farm was one of them, and further afield, in the small town of Poolsville, a small number of troops were also deployed. These are being used as cannon fodder, mainly by Maryland militias. As a state sandwiched between the north and the south, it is really the saddest state in this war, neither the north nor the south has regarded this state as a force on their side!

A few Maryland militiamen patrolled listlessly outside the farmstead, two or three cannons mounted on a visible height, either good or 12-pounder cast-iron cannons with muzzles facing the riverbank, apparently ready to be bombarded in the event of a major Confederate offensive.

The telescope was finally retracted. Stayed in the snow for a long time. Major Mao Zhongmin felt that all he was exhaling from his lungs was cold air. Looking at the black warlord Zeng Ke around him, he looked energetic, and he couldn't see that he was afraid of the cold at all. Mao Zhongmin patted Zeng Ke on the shoulder, and the two of them slid down the river embankment together. On the outside of the embankment, at this time it was densely packed with soldiers in white cloth cloaks! One by one, huddled together, no one made a loud noise, they just held their rifles, using their body heat to prevent the mechanism from freezing.

Mao Zhongmin didn't know who took a glass of soju with some body temperature from his hand. After taking a big sip, I seemed to feel a little warmer. He said to the officers around him in the official dialect of Hunan: "There are about three 12-pounder guns, and there can be no more than one company of defenders." The defenders are not worth mentioning, but those three cannons are a bit of a problem, there may be shrapnel and flowering shells, and if we hit them, we will have to kill hundreds of people...... Let's find a way to sneak attack. Crawl over the snow and finish off three cannons with grenades. Which one of you is here? ”

Several officers immediately shouted in a low voice: "Let the subordinates bring people to go, the subordinates will bring 30 people to touch the ......."

"As long as you can get 30 yards, a grenade will knock those three cannons into the sky!"

"Let's crawl over. Even if they find out, they are not afraid, they have a total of three cannons. There's no danger in spreading out the formation. ”

Everyone's opinion seems to be unanimous, and they want to take the farm by sneak attack and open a passage for the army to cross the river. Mao Zhongmin looked at Shan County again, although this Japanese gave him a very gloomy feeling, it was undeniable that Shan County's military literacy was extremely high, and the problem was also very thoughtful.

"There's no problem with taking the farm!" Shan Shan pondered, "But it is not enough to dispatch 30 people, I suggest dispatching 3 companies, one company is prostrate from the front, and two companies are around in a roundabout...... The defenders of the farm may not have the will to hold on, and they will retreat after a little resistance, and the troops outflanked on both flanks can gain something. In addition, there should be a militia regiment of the Northern Army in the small town of Poolsville, which is all the food given to us by the Northern Army, let's not be polite, just eat them all! ”

Mao Zhongmin nodded, then turned back to the black warlord Zeng Ke and said, "The farm is up to your people to solve!" One of them took someone to touch Poolesville. He took out his pocket watch and looked at it, "It's 1:30 a.m., and it's 3 o'clock sharp!" I'll take the people first, and your people will go out in half an hour. ”

The battle plan was very hasty, that is, to fight at both ends in order to take the small farm and the small town of Poolsville at the same time. With these two strongholds under cover, it will be much easier for the follow-up troops to cross the river. Moreover, the rapid offensive is also easy to cause confusion and miscalculation for the federal army, which is very beneficial to the subsequent actions of the army.

Just when nearly 1,400 officers and soldiers, divided into two roads, touched the predetermined target under the cover of darkness. On the two pontoon bridges south of Washington, D.C., connecting the north and south of the Potomac River, it was a bustling scene at the moment. A large group of heavily armed Union officers and men were converging their heavy guns and passing over one of the pontoon bridges to leave the Washington battlefield under fire. At the same time, a considerable number of Union officers and soldiers entered the Washington battlefield from another pontoon bridge.

However, on this night when there was only moonlight and starlight, none of the officers and soldiers who entered or left Washington were lit by torches, and everyone marched in silence in the dark. Of course, such a one-in-one-out military movement is not to ask for trouble, but to concentrate the limited combat power of the coalition army to the greatest extent. The troops who were transferred out were all veterans who had fought with the Federation for more than a year! It was the true essence of the Confederate Army, and almost 70,000 such troops were drawn from Washington and assigned to the Peninsula Corps. In their place were new recruits who had just been transferred from the southern battlefield. This was undoubtedly an extremely risky military operation, and if the Union continued to storm Washington after the Union forces crossed the Potomac River, they would have been able to reclaim the former capital of the United States and wipe out tens of thousands of defenders there. But if they don't, Robert. Lee was able to attract two or three hundred thousand Union troops with less than 70,000 weak troops.

……

"Hurry, hurry, rush forward, don't stop!"

Hearing a dull cannon sound in the distance, the veteran Mao Zhongmin suddenly roared, pulled out his command knife, and pointed straight ahead. He knew that the black battalion commanded by Zengke had already started at the end of the farm, and he didn't know if they had been accidentally spotted as they were creeping closer, or if the black warlord had not obeyed his orders and had sent out an assault in advance. But now is not the time to think about these questions, the key now is to charge! Storm into a town not far away and settle the battle with bayonets and grenades!

When the more than 600 soldiers who were scattered and marching in the snow with their waists bent forward heard the order, they all straightened up without hesitation, shouted slogans of "long live" and "board loaded" and began to charge with their heads covered. The sound of a rumbling explosion came from the direction of the farm in the distance. The quiet town suddenly woke up, first by the faint lights, then by the shrill whistle, and then by the sight of a large crowd of figures pouring out of the town, and a chaotic formation began to form in the snow-covered wilderness - it was evident that the town was a rabble with no rigorous training or combat experience. Their thinking is still stuck in the era of queuing to be shot!

Such units were very common in both the Union and Union armies, and the expansion of armies on both sides was so alarming that there were simply not that many qualified officers to train and command them. Except for some of the real elites, most of the officers in the Union and Union forces are old veterans, and they have no way to truly master the combat methods of the era of rear-loading artillery and machine guns without a few bloody lessons.

"Machine guns, machine guns fire!"

The three company commanders under Mao Zhongmin gave orders to the machine gunners almost simultaneously. Machine guns were a very precious weapon in this era, and could only be attached to a company, one for each infantry company, to support infantry operations, and under normal circumstances, the company commander or deputy company commander personally mastered. These automated killing weapons are now also on the move. With a "click-click" sound, the three machine guns immediately erupted into hot fiery snakes, sweeping down the enemies who were still in a hurry one by one! Eight bursts of Jason-style rifles were fired, and in the darkness of the night, a series of fires or individual fires could be seen slicing away at a very fast speed. Bloody battles have once again unfolded near the small town of Poolsville. (To be continued.) )