Mongolia, Darkhan City. July 15, 1853.

The gunshots rang out sporadically, and there was never a time to stop. In the city of Darkhan, the assembled trumpets sounded one after another, and the cavalry of the guards had begun to form a large group, and some of them had already moved from the open gates to the direction where the exchange of fire was taking place outside the city. The Guards cavalry did not send reconnaissance cavalry, and now the enemy is engaged in the exchange of fire with the Suizhen soldiers stationed in Darkhan City. If it weren't for the Guards cavalry, they wouldn't have left the city at night. Last night was just an exception, who knew that Lu Dao really encountered an unknown number of Eight Banners Horse Team! The firefight began at midnight and continues to this day. Obviously, the Eight Banners Horse Team that crossed the Kent Hill and headed south was near Darkhan City!

Li Qiusheng and Zhang Hanmin, who had not slept all night, had red eyes. Sitting on top of a pile of ammunition boxes, listening to the report of the staff officer of the Guards Cavalry Corps.

"Commander, reconnaissance shows that the enemy is the Eight Banners Horse Team, with more than 2,000 people, maybe 3,000, and is in a night shootout with Suizhen, and our light cavalry regiment has also rushed to reinforce, so it should be possible to leave them behind!"

Li Qiusheng nodded with satisfaction, no matter whether it was 2000 or 3000, he was a scumbag in front of a whole brigade of Guards Lancers and 36 12-pounder steel cannons (which were smoothbore guns). If they don't run for their lives, the battle will be over before lunch, how easy it is.

Zhang Hanmin frowned: "No, ......"

Li Qiusheng looked at him with some doubts, and Zhang Hanmin explained lightly: "Two or three thousand Eight Banner soldiers can't deal with dozens of Suizhen nights? A charge is enough, why bother to shoot foreign guns endlessly? Are they the Eight Banners Horse Team or the Green Battalion Shotgunslingers? Captains. Why do I think they're tempting the enemy? ”

"Lure the enemy?" Li Qiusheng was happy. "Lure our 4,000 cavalry out of Darkhan?"

Zhang Hanmin hesitated for a moment: "Maybe there are more than two or three thousand of them." There could be tens of thousands, and probably Cossacks to help in the war! ”

"There are Cossacks...... How many will there be? Li Qiusheng smiled and blinked.

“3000…… Or 5000! ”

5000 Cossack cavalry is almost the limit! Moreover, the general Cossacks were no match for the Guards cavalry at all, and only the kind of Cossack elite cavalry with strict training could fight against the Ming Guards cavalry. There will not be too many such troops in Europe, and this is the number that can be transferred to Eastern Siberia.

"Even 8,000 Cossacks can't beat us, and those 36 12-pounder steel cannons aren't vegetarians!"

"That's right, the average cavalry cannon is a 6-pounder gun, an 8-pounder gun, ours is a 12-pounder steel cannon, and it is equivalent to the power of a 12-pounder heavy cannon."

Due to the advent of rifles and a large number of equipment. The 6-pounder and 8-pounder guns, which had a closer range, were already difficult to find a place on the battlefield. So Lan Fangxing has long been designing a replacement artillery.

The first choice is, of course, rifled guns, and many prototype guns have been made, but unfortunately none of them can have the value of being put into mass production and actual combat. In desperation, I could only make a fuss about the 12-pounder cannon and design this 12-pounder cannon of the 4-year-old Refu. Because of the steel barrel, it can withstand a large chamber pressure, so it can be loaded with more propellant and has a longer range than any 12-pounder bronze gun. It's a pity that the accuracy at long range is pathetic. But shelling a few thousand Cossack cavalry with 36 12-pounder steel cannons would still make the opponent suffer!

"It's still the commander's thoughtfulness." Zhang Hanmin laughed, "Then let's set off and let these Eight Banners soldiers and woolly bears taste the taste of 12-pound steel cannons!" ”

Li Qiusheng stood up and smiled. patted Zhang Hanmin on the shoulder: "Hanmin, your lancer brigade can't be lazy." We are cavalry after all, and fighting bravely is the true nature of cavalry! ”

……

When the sky was bright, the cavalry of the brigade wearing yellow cotton armor did not raise the banner, but took the bell from the horse, and quietly hurried south.

Hearing the fainter and weakest gunshots that disappeared into the air, Fu Fang and Rosovsky beside him glanced at each other, Fu Fang took off the dagger in his mouth, and laughed in a low voice: "It seems that it has succeeded." ”

"It's worked!" Rosovsky also took off the dagger and stuffed it into the scabbard, "The Chinese must have hit the scheme!" Although they have very elite soldiers and good weapons, the command level of the Chinese generals is really poor, and they are not even the last in Europe. ”

Fu Fang smiled bitterly, it was these generals who were not even considered to be the last class to uproot the panicked Qing Dynasty, so how many of the famous generals of the Qing Dynasty were himself and Seng Lingqin?

"Your Excellency, we are almost 10 versts away from Darkhan City now, right?"

"I can't hear the gunshots, it should be 10 versts." Rosovsky looked around, and there were endless steppes, "I think after another hour of walking I should turn due south." By the way, scouts should also be sent to search the Ming army's railway construction site, they should be near here, right? ”

……

"Lao Bai, Lao Bai, we can't go today, there is a fight in the north!"

Yang Laobai was woken up by the roar of the Huaibei accent, and when he opened his eyes, it turned out to be Wu Mancang, the commander of the cavalry company of the Suiyuan Town Army, who was responsible for escorting their transport team north to Darkhan City.

"Fighting? Who and who......" Yang Laobai didn't go to bed until late last night, and his eyes were hazy at this time, so he just responded unintentionally.

"Who else, of course, is fighting with the Tartars!" Wu Mancang was a little worried, he kept the black smoke in the sky in the distance, "See, the wolf smoke has risen, we can't move forward." ”

Yang Laobai rubbed his eyes and looked into the northern sky, and sure enough, a thick and black pillar of smoke rose into the air! It must have been 25 miles away in Flying Wolf Castle that lit wolf smoke - the method of lighting wolf smoke was outdated, but it still worked. According to the order of Suiyuan Town, as soon as a large group of enemy soldiers is found in any castle, wolf smoke must be lit immediately. This wolf smoke was the first to be lit in Darkhan City.

"It's a fight!" Yang Laobai jumped up suddenly, where was there still a little sleepy!

"Is Flying Wolf Castle besieged by the Tartars?"

"No, the battlefield is still north."

Wu Mancang is a strong man in his thirties, he has been in the Miao army for four years, and has fought with the Qing army, the Twist army, and the Taiping army, and he has battlefield experience.

"If Flying Wolf Castle is besieged by the Tartars, we won't be so peaceful here, and there will definitely be Tartar scouts."

"Lord Wu." Yang Laobai hurriedly asked, "Then what should we do?" Do you want to go to Flying Wolf Castle? ”

"Then I have to ask you, what about the rails and wood? Throw it here? If you drag it away, I'm afraid you won't be able to reach Flying Wolf Castle in a day! ”

"Of course you can't throw it here! More than 100,000 yuan of goods, if you want to throw it in the grassland, you won't pick up my skin! ”

Yang Laobai's head shook like a rattle, he didn't dare to lose his goods and run for his life! The 300 workers from the collective farms here are all like him, and they don't dare to lose Hu Linyi's things, otherwise, even if they can escape, their families will not be able to escape - Emperor Zhu spent so much money to get them out of the sea of misery, and it turned out that a good life of collectivism in the northeast was not a free lunch! Our Emperor Zhu's heart is very black, don't think about getting benefits for nothing if you are a subject of him!

If any of the armed workers here dares to run, their families will be expelled immediately! And they will be blacklisted, and not a single collective farm will take them in again.

"And then drag it away?" Wu Mancang frowned, the farmer of the collective farm is not easy to be a farmer, and he is not easy to mix with the town army and military household. If you leave this transport team and run away by yourself, you can't escape the life of military law, and the fields in your home will also be confiscated - at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, military law is still quite strict, even if it is not directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial court.

The preferential treatment of the Ming Army is also not a free lunch.

"If you tow it away, you're afraid it's not safe on the road, right?" Yang Laobai looked at Wu Mancang, "Didn't you say last night that our Guards cavalry was nearby, so the Tartars shouldn't be able to win, right?" ”

"Isn't that nonsense? Now it's not that I'm afraid of the Tartars winning, I'm afraid of the Tartars scattering the squad......"

"If the team of Tartars is there, they shouldn't be able to defeat our car formation, right?" Yang Laobai exhaled and patted the foreign gun in his arms, "If they really dare to come, invite them to eat guns!" (To be continued......)