Beiyang new warlord

"Welcome to the prince!"

Thanks to him, a group of military officers came down to pay their respects in a hurry, but his words were very skillful, you are always here for inspection, just look around and get out!I don't recognize you!

Why can't Mao Xingjian hear this little thought?In the past, he would definitely be furious, but after this experience, Mao Xingjian looked down on many things and didn't care anymore. He just smashed the golden scepter on the table.

"In the name of the command scepter authorized by the Ministry of War, I order you to pack up and prepare to leave immediately! Follow Gukai to Snake City!"

As soon as these words came out, the entire officer corps was in a bit of a mess. A group of guys lowered their heads in astonishment and muttered in a low voice. Patiently tapped the golden scepter again.

"Do you want to slow down the army?"

"Back to the prince, the order we received is to stand by on the spot and follow the army to the south in three days"

"That's in the past! Now Gu orders you to go east!"

Listening to Mao Xingjian's uncompromising words, I was really harsh and unconvinced. On the right, the sixth military uniform was embroidered with golden tassels. It was probably after the hero. .

"We set off from the heroine general, not the prince! Your Highness orders, we will not obey!"

"Then you can ask the heroine general to go!"

Seeing Mao Xingjian frivolously shaking his head, he froze for a moment. The strong man was really a bachelor. He turned around and walked out of the tent, watching him go. A group of officers just breathed a sigh of relief, but Mao Jue knocked again. The scepter issued a gloomy order.

"Where is the military judge? Pang Liang, the head of the Fourth Regiment, was rebellious and disrespectful. According to the military law, he was stripped of all his honors, his citizenship was deprived of Ming Dynasty, and he was expelled from the army. Governor Mao Xingjian November [-]th!"

The military judge is under the command of the Yushitai of the Corps, and is not a part of these serving officers. Mao Xingjian casually deprived a meritorious official of his status and honor. He wrote it down in what is commonly known as the life and death book by the soldiers. Seeing the stunned officer corps, Mao Xingjian tapped the scepter impatiently again.

"Is there anyone else who wants to ask the female general for instructions?"

This master is really not as saccharine as in the legend, so ruthless!The eyes were full of disbelief, and in fear, the gold-rimmed glasses stopped clamoring. A group of officers hurriedly bowed down one after another with their fists cupped, their voices full of sadness and helplessness.

"The last will obey!"

The Ninth Corps of the Imperial Guard is a very special unit. First of all, it changed the practice that all troops are composed of pure Ming citizens. One regiment of Japanese samurai, originally Mao Jue wanted to recruit two more regiments of Mongolian light cavalry, but something happened at the Baoketu Coal Mine. In order to hurry up, there was only one regiment of Mongolian light cavalry, and the other The descendants of Prairie Bansheng, and the remaining three regiments were recruited locally by the capital.

As for the officers, they did not introduce graduates from the Liaodong Military Academy and changed it to the Capital Military Academy. The academy soldiers born here are not like the elite troops who are recommended by all levels of the Corps to enroll. The elite troops trained with live ammunition are all second-generation. , commonly known as the Young Master Officer Corps.

As for the record, it was even more miserable. After participating in the Great Southern Expedition, the combat effectiveness of this army was at the bottom of the ratings of the major corps of Ming Dynasty.

This afternoon's expedition, there may not be a place to sleep at night. From the officers to the soldiers, they packed up and packed their bags. It took more than an hour to complete the mission. With a cart and a cannon, they drove out of Baoshihai Town in a mighty way.

The tears were almost dry, and upon hearing the news that the crown prince was about to go on an expedition, none of the remaining survivors in Snake City came out to see off this huge army, and there was only a little girl on the side of the road, carrying a burden, looking anxiously , but she couldn't see anything with her dull eyes, she could only persevere and ask the passing soldiers one by one.

What Han Xiaomo didn't know was that Mao Xingjian was actually only a few meters away from her, and the army that had been pulled out was just separated by the road. Seeing her anxious appearance and lonely figure, his heart ached again and again, but this The significance of going there once is extraordinary. If his dignity cannot be restored, then he would rather die by the Snake River.

But even if he died, he didn't want to see Han Xiaomo get hurt again!Gritting his teeth and resolutely, Mao Xingjian finally knocked the forged steel helmet he hated the most on his head, kicked the horse hard, and merged into the road ahead dully.

On the balcony of the barracks on the second floor, she was still the same as on the first day, wearing a wrapped military overcoat, holding the big ax that Mao Jue bestowed on her to represent the military authority, watching Mao Xingjian supervise the army to leave, I don’t know if she was happy Still feeling emotional, in the cold weather, Adelena breathed out a deep mouthful of white smoke, and went back to the headquarters in a dull manner.

..........

This road leading to the Snake River Plain, like the most important person in Han Xiaomo's life, has also become the most important road in Mao Xingjian's life. In the capital, for more than ten years, the scope of his activities was only from Guo Gong The longest trip between Li Zicheng’s mansion and the Crown Prince’s East Palace was when Li Zicheng fled Beijing and fled to Tianjin with Lu Zhong. However, he traveled back and forth seven or eight times in three years for this mountain road of hundreds of miles. Every time is memorable, especially this last time!

Every time you walk a certain distance, you can always see remains scattered on the road in a thick snow quilt. Some of them are frozen like sculptures on the side of the road, and some are lying on the ground and struggling to move forward. The corpses that had been torn apart by the wild beasts one after another had obviously lowered the morale of the marching Ninth Corps. The soldiers stared at the bones around them in fear until they couldn't see them at all.

But Mao Xingjian didn't make any speeches to inspire the soldiers. He just followed the team dullly, and didn't speak a word except for giving orders every day. The silence was terrifying.

But on the way, for this special mixed corps, it was just an appetizer. On the sixth day of December, when they arrived in Snake City, they knew what the real tragedy was.

The Indians did not have the habit of tidying up the battlefield. After burning, killing and looting, all the ministries withdrew from the land. What remained here were only corpses scattered all over the mountains. The once-human residence has now become a paradise for wild beasts. , foxes haunted the city in groups, and even in a house near the outer city, a bear that woke up from hibernation, attracted by the smell of blood, took this place as a new sleeping cave, and the wind blew through the burned and collapsed house. In the room, the sound was like the cries of ghosts, and those who heard it shuddered.

"My goodness!"

Even the troops forgot to command, the gold-rimmed glasses stared dumbfounded at the silent dead city on the hill, shaking their heads in disbelief with emotion.

"This..., how many people will die here?"

The other fat officer next to him, who was a little rounder than him, had his teeth chattering.In order to conceal his fear, the fat man hastily turned his head, but he was surprised to find that behind him, whether it was a conscript regiment formed by the citizens of the capital, Koreans, or Japanese warriors, their eyes were equally dull and unbelievable.

With the sound of puffing, the boots sank heavily into the snow, and he staggered out of the team. Unable to hold back his emotions any longer, Mao Xingjian suddenly fell to his knees and buried his head deeply in the snow.

Chapter 8 Nineteen. Prince Ming Huasu People

Conscripts have both good and bad sides, and now the bad side is exposed. This men's army from the capital of Ming Dynasty doesn't know whether the military training is not in place or someone went through the back door. Anyway, there are no common Ming soldiers. The kind of shrewd and capable person who is twitchy when he does his work, and pushes when he has to.

Fortunately, the recruited warriors under the Koryo Army and Toyotomi Tokugawa are still solid and hard-working, and they will take the lead. In three days, the Snake City, which had suffered a catastrophe, was cleaned up again.

The corpses have been eaten by wild animals for a long time, and many heads were hunted away by Indians. Although Mao Xingjian tried his best to identify them, his subordinates, Shangguan Meng, Nangong Bingwen, Chen Zao, Chen Yi, Geng Gengbo Jinlaoliu and the others still couldn't find any of them. In desperation, Mao Xingjian had no choice but to dig out a grave for the big guy on the frozen hillside behind the city, like those lonely souls on the way, and put everyone They were buried together.

After filling it with soil, Mao Xingjian knelt down in front of the tomb again, while the Ninth Corps was slightly moved, and kowtowed three times.

But after remembering the dead, the living still have to live on.

The four principles of survival, summed up by the later generations of Mr. Pei De, are shelter, water, fire, and food. Now the shelter is enough. Although most of the houses have been destroyed, they are still intact. If you are not afraid of ghosts, 8000 people can live there. It is too crowded, there is a well on the water mountain, there is a snake river at the bottom of the mountain, there are lighters as fire, and those broken houses can also be dismantled into wood. The only problem is food. Mao Xingjian has not completed the half-year grain hoarding by the Ministry of War in the gem sea So much so that Adelaine’s army is only enough for three months, and she still has military tasks to complete, so naturally it is impossible to give too much to Mao Xingjian. The march took ten days, and it took three days to clean up. The canned food and grains and rice that he has can't last for a few days. How to feed the 8000-man corps under his command has become an urgent problem at present.

More than half of the Prince's Mansion collapsed, but even if it wasn't damaged, Mao Xingjian didn't want to live here anymore. He used a half-burned and coldest room near the edge of the entire city as a temporary headquarters.

A few pieces of charred wood crackled in the fire, and a cowhide map was nailed to the table. On the north bank of the Snake River, a big Su character was covered. On the south bank of the river, a large red spot of the Apache tribe falls there, and further south, next to the edge of the Great Salt Desert, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and a large circle of black feet and open noses, these tribes are only There are names, but no specific settlements, because unlike the Apaches, these tribes have not been exposed to farming, and have not built settled houses. Mao Xingjian does not know where they have migrated to now.

A heavy dagger was flying up and down in Mao Xingjian's hand, looking at a few heavy points on the map, he hesitated.

"Prince, are you still being soft-hearted now? In a few days, the army will run out of food. If we don't need these barbarians to attack, we will starve to death here. Hurry up and pick a barbarian and grab it!"

The difference between the Liaodong Military Academy and the Jingshi Military Academy is probably the difference between Tsinghua University, Peking University, Jiaotong University, Nankai, and a certain vocational technical college. Mao Xingjian even wondered how these guys passed the graduation exam. He couldn't help but listen to the nerds with golden glasses Zou frowned, but after only a moment, he couldn't help sighing again.

He has already learned his lesson! The arrogant and rebellious he thought that he could handle everything, but in the end he got hit badly, killed so many people, and became the laughing stock of the world. This time, Mao Xingjian also had common sense Changing the way, Nai calmly explained to the gold-rimmed glasses.

"It's easy to grab one, and it's not difficult to find food for the army to survive the winter! But now the difficulty is what to do with the remaining food?"

"The Six Departments still have hundreds of thousands of shi of grain in their hands. If they hold all this grain in their hands, it will be enough to support Marshal Adelaine's army for a year! With the grain, there is a way to persuade her to reconquer the Snake River Watershed!"

"But if one of them is robbed, it will immediately cause panic in the other five. If it is better, they will burn the food and hide in the mountains again. If it is worse, they will use the food as a price to seduce the six tribes in Henan again. Offenders, native men and women are all soldiers, adding one piece can mobilize an army of [-] to [-], depending on you, ahem, there is only one army, and we can't take advantage of it!"

Sighing, Mao Xingjian threw his hands heavily at his regimental commander and staff officers.

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Forehead"

Sure enough, as Mao Xingjian expected, a group of guys looked at each other in blank dismay, some with super-headed heads, and some admiring the toes of their boots, but the only gain was that this time, the sense of awkwardness that he gave orders before was gone.

Fortunately, Mao Xingjian didn't expect much from them. After calming down these guys, he dangled the dagger in his hand. He stared at several Sioux tribes and then thought hard. He was forced to divide his troops and fight for Break through the most Sioux settlements in the shortest time and get back the most food!

At this time, Mao Xingjian missed Song Yongzhong very much. If he was there, he would definitely help him plan the best attack route in the shortest time. Maybe with him, he would not be defeated so badly, right?

Just when Mao Xingjian was thinking deeply, the orderly outside the door hurried in, shouting hastily.