In the middle of Helan Mountain, the fortress of Huangxiakou. [No pop-up novel network]

Before the rise of the White Army, the fortress of Huangxiakou was very dilapidated. In the past, the Ming army of Ningxia Zhen, knowing that this was a military fortress and a vital pass, never paid enough attention to it. They did not set up a fortress here to directly block the enemy's entry, but only set up a beacon pier to alarm, and it was all right.

At the beginning, Mo Yuegen tried to raid Ningxia Town, but was resolutely blocked by Xu Xingxia at the fortress of Kalong Mountain. In order to seize the time, he immediately ordered part of the army to enter Ningxia Town through the mouth of the Yellow Gorge. Fortunately, Xu Xingxia and Minghao had already issued the alarm in advance, otherwise, Ningxia Town would definitely suffer heavy losses. Even so, Zhenshuo Fort was still slaughtered.

But now, more than a year has passed, and the Huangxiakou Fortress has completely changed its appearance. At the same time as Xu Xingxia built Zhenyuanguan, he also planned to build real military fortresses in Da Bangkou, Suweikou, Huangxiakou, Chimukou and other places. After several months of hard work, these fortresses have all been completed. The stragglers of the Eagle Cavalry Army were also stationed in various fortresses.

The fortress fortifications at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge just cut off the entire canyon. No matter who you want to pass through the Yellow Gorge, you must pass through the city gate hole of the fortress. The walls of the fortress were five feet high. Such a towering wall is absolutely impassable by the enemy. On both sides of the fortress, there are cliffs that cannot be climbed.

"These stupid tartars."

Lin Youde stood on the fortress at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge, chewing grass roots in his mouth.

In the era when there was no tobacco, many people liked to chew on grass roots. This is especially true when it comes to thinking. Lin Youde, who is the leader of a squadron of the Eagle Cavalry Army, is no exception. It's a pity that most of the grass roots in November have withered, and there is really no taste. Even so, Lin Youde still chewed with relish and was reluctant to spit it out. Nothing else, to paraphrase the words of later generations, what he chewed was not grassroots, but loneliness.

From the day the Huangxiakou Fortress was completed, Lin Youde took his squadron and stationed it in this place where birds don't. The geographical environment where the Huangxiakou Fortress is located is somewhat similar to the Kalong Mountain Fortress, which is a barren and inaccessible place. Except for a very small number of business travelers, or people who deliver supplies, or heralds from their superiors, they don't see anyone at all. This kind of thing is naturally a bit lonely.

Lin Youde is a typical low-level military family, with a simple appearance, and he doesn't seem to be very smart. At a glance, you will definitely think that he is an honest farmer. In fact, everyone who knows him knows that this guy is ghostly and ghostly, and his stomach is bad. His friends even jokingly described him as a barking dog that doesn't bite people, and a biting dog never barks. Otherwise, he would not have served as a squadron leader in the Eagle Cavalry.

It must be known that the Eagle Cavalry Army has very high requirements for the quality of its soldiers. The battle mode of the Eagle Cavalry is different from that of ordinary troops. They are stragglers, and the basic quality of their personnel is very high. As a skirmisher, you must have your own opinions, have your own ideas, be calm in the face of things, and be decisive. In a word, the mind must be flexible, and the means must be fast and accurate. People who are confused, procrastinating, grinding, and indecisive are certainly not up to the role of a skirmisher.

At present, all the soldiers of the white-clothed army stationed in the fortress of Huangxiakou belong to the Eagle Cavalry Army. They were all stragglers. From this point of view, it can be said that it is the elite of the elite. It's just that the place where they are stationed is somewhat remote and unknown. Speaking of their exploits, they are not inferior to those Eagle Cavalry companions who fought in the steppe.

When other eagle cavalry troops fought in the prairie, the battle at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge actually never stopped. Since Mo Yuegen went south to Gansu Town, it has become the focus of Tartar attacks. Almost every day, there were Tartar archers, trying to use all sorts of methods, to get close to the fortress of Huangxiakou. Their sole purpose was to control the fortress. And the purpose of the carve cavalry stragglers is to destroy all Tartars who have this idea.

From a strategic point of view, the Tartars had to cross Helan Mountain, enter Ningxia Town, and copy the back road of Yuanguan, forcing the White Army to draw more troops to guard the key points of Helan Mountain. The best choice is nothing more than three passes, such as Da Bangkou, Suwei Pass, and Huangxia Pass. However, the terrain is very dangerous, and the fortress has been built, and it is not easy for the Tartars to enter from here. Relatively speaking, the fortress at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge seems to be a little easier to attack. The terrain here was relatively favorable for the Tartar attack.

In the past two months, Lin Youde and his subordinates have killed at least a few hundred Tartars. Now, many of the corpses of the Tartars are still lying outside the fortress. These Tartars, all of whom had been killed in the fighting of the past few days, were estimated to be seventy or eighty people. The exact number will not be determined until the Tartars come up to collect the corpses. It usually takes five or six days for the Tartars to clean up the corpse once. Fortunately, it is winter, the weather is cold, and the corpse has not completely decomposed, otherwise, it would have been stinking a long time ago.

"Captain, the Tartar has asked to come and collect the body." A soldier reported to Lin Youde.

"Agree with them to come and collect the body. Pay attention to surveillance. If something unexpected happens, shoot immediately. Lin Youde said casually. Such a thing, Tartar has carried out several times. Lin Youde estimated that the Tartars would not dare to make trouble. Otherwise, in the future, their corpses will not need to be collected, and they will directly decay. Without a corpse, don't think about reincarnation.

Sure enough, dozens of unarmed Tartars, waving a white pennant, appeared in the sight of the Eagle Cavalry stragglers. Indeed, they had come to collect the bodies of their companions. According to the belief of the Immortal Heaven, if the Tatar died, the body should also be kept intact, so that the chance of reincarnation would be relatively large. If the body is separated, it may sink into the sea of suffering. If the corpse is mutilated, there is basically no chance of reincarnation.

On the fortress wall at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge, more than a dozen stragglers of the Eagle Cavalry Army were closely monitoring the movements outside. Under their supervision, the Tartars did not dare to play any tricks. In silence, they took away all the bodies of their companions. The corpses of the Tartars who were killed by Yue Yue Gong were basically intact, and to a certain extent, it also reduced the difficulty for them to collect the corpses.

Near the fortress tower, a warrior squatted behind the battlements, concentrating on the character "Zheng". The Tartar in front, for each corpse he dragged away, he added a stroke to the battlements. In the literacy campaign promoted by the White Coats, each soldier learns his or her own name, followed by basic Arabic numerals. Subsequently, the fastest thing everyone accepted was probably the word "positive". Because, this is often used to count the number of enemies destroyed. The word "positive" represents the five enemies.

The battlements beside this warrior were densely filled with orthography, more than a hundred. This shows that the number of Tartars killed exceeded 500. For the small Huangxiakou Fortress, such an achievement in destroying the enemy is already quite amazing. You must know that the Huangxiakou Fortress is a rather remote battlefield.

Seeing that the Tartars had no intention of making trouble, Lin Youde instructed the team leader on duty to pay attention to the movements of the Tartars, and he got down from the city and went straight back to his kennel. As the squadron leader of the Eagle Cavalry, his kennel is still quite clean and the place is good. The garrison barracks of the Huangxiakou fortress are all red brick houses. The walls are all red brick and topped with neat tiles. According to Xu Xingxia's request, it happened to be a barracks for twelve people.

Lin Youde's kennel is in the middle of the barracks, and on both sides are the kennels of the squad leader and others. In front of his kennel, there is a small yard. The surface of the small yard is paved with cement and is very smooth. When he got back to his kennel, he brought out a coal stove, put a barbed wire fence on it, and made a fire to bake himself something to eat.

The ghost place of Huangxiakou Fortress is inaccessible, barren and populated, there is no shortage of food and clothing, and the materials sent behind are still very rich. Anyway, Xu Xingxia is not short of money in his hands, so he naturally will not treat his subordinates badly. It seems that a squadron leader like Lin Youde, when he has nothing to do, it is common to take a chicken wings, chicken leg or something. If there were no Tartars, all the warriors would have been able to bake themselves something good to eat.

"Bang!"

Suddenly, a dull sound of gunfire rang out.

The sound of gunfire came from the direction of the castle tower, and it is not known who fired the shots.

Lin Youde was coming out of the kennel with half a basin of chicken wings, and when he heard the gunshot, he couldn't help frowning. Could it be that the Tartars tried to lend the opportunity to collect the corpses of their companions and attack the fortress of Huangxiakou? Immediately, he shook his head and gave up on such thoughts. If Tartar could sneak attack the Huangxiakou fortress so easily, he wouldn't be called Lin Youde.

"Ahem, squadron leader, what's good today?" Hearing the gunshots, several squad leaders who were resting came out one after another to take a look. There are five squad leaders under Lin Youde, and only one person needs to be on duty for combat, and the other four are resting. As a result, when they saw the basin in Lin Youde's hand, they came over one after another to prepare to fight the local tyrants.

However, seeing that it was chicken wings, they were not interested. Nothing else, these days, they themselves often roast chicken wings to eat, and they are tired of eating. For a ghost place like the Huangxiakou Fortress, the most difficult thing to preserve is not meat, but vegetables. The food that comes from the rear is always too much meat and too little greens. In the past, everyone could dig up some wild vegetables everywhere instead of green vegetables, but now that winter is coming, everything is withering, and the wild vegetables are gone.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Sporadic gunfire rang out again.

The brows of the four squad leaders also furrowed.

Dare those Tartars really unruly and try to make trouble when they try to collect corpses?

However, they just frowned, and did not act. On the city wall, there is a full squad of carve cavalry stragglers stationed, and the Tartars will not be given any chance at all. The Tartars wanted to rush up, it was simply impossible. The more people the Tartars sent, the more they died. Past battles have profoundly demonstrated this.

"Report!"

A soldier came down from the city and reported to Lin Youde the cause of the gunshot.

It turned out that the Tartar had just taken away the corpse of his slain companion, and soon reappeared. This time, they carried weapons. In other words, they're here to attack. In addition, the Tartars who came up from these attacks were all archers, and their movements were very flexible, and they should have been supported by a fresh army. If the guess is correct, it should be the Tartar reinforcements who rushed to the fortress of Huangxiakou in an attempt to launch a more fierce attack on the place.

In the past, after the Tartars had collected the bodies of their companions, they would wait a day or two before continuing their attack. Today, however, they launched an attack one after another, which is indeed a bit unusual. It feels like the Tartar is in a hurry. However, the abnormal is abnormal, and Lin Youde didn't pay much attention to it. The terrain of the Yellow Gorge Pass cannot deploy weapons, nor can it have too many troops. Even if more Tartars come, there's nothing to be afraid of. The white-clothed army should do what they should do.

Sure enough, the gunfire on the head of the city gradually intensified. Occasionally, gunshots rang out in a row, as if they were fired immediately after. Such a situation is indeed rare. The stragglers shot with caution. In the absence of certainty, the gun is generally not fired. Therefore, the skirmishers of the Eagle Cavalry are sure that there will not be such a situation as a volley in formation. That is, under normal circumstances, there is almost no possibility of the gunshots being connected.

Now, the gunfire is continuous, and the only possibility is that there are too many Tartars coming up, causing too many Eagle Cavalry stragglers to shoot at the same time. It can be inferred from this that today's battle is only a bit of a challenge. This annoyed Lin Youde. Paralyzed, I originally wanted to roast a few chicken wings to relieve my hunger, but I didn't expect that at this juncture, I was actually messed up by the tartar again. Lin Youde's hatred for Tartar couldn't help but increase a little deeply.

Seeing that the four squad leaders were curious to go up to the city, Lin Youde had no choice but to take a large pot of chicken wings back to his kennel, and took out all the briquettes in the coal stove, carefully extinguished them, and then took the coal stove and barbed wire back to his kennel. After everything was dealt with, he slowly came up to the fortress tower, raised the clairvoyant mirror, and observed the situation.

Sure enough, in the canyon to the west of the fortress at the mouth of the Yellow Gorge, a large number of Tartar archers appeared. Their attire, which seems to be the previous Tartar, has some slight differences. Judging from the trajectory of their activities, they should not be very familiar with the terrain of the Yellow Gorge. In other words, they should be the new arrivals. It seems that the Tartars in front are almost dead, and more Tartars are sent from the back to send them to death.

(To be continued)