Every evening, the airships of the flying team will return one after another from outside, which has become a scenic spot in Weizhou City.
Many children came out of the city to watch the airship land.
Even many people who have been busy at the cemetery for a day will look up at the sky from time to time when they return to the city.
But today the children waited until it got dark and did not wait for the airship to come back.
This was very disappointing to the children.
But they did not leave, but continued to wait.
At the escort camp, Tieniu also looked anxiously with his binoculars scanning the sky.
He had adjusted the telescope's focus to its limit, but still could not see any shadow of the airship.
As the sun sets little by little, Tieniu's face becomes darker and darker like the sky.
The eagle acts cautiously and will reserve enough time for return every time it takes action to avoid unexpected situations.
A few days ago, an airship discovered a missed village on its way back. At that time, thinking that it was already there, it turned around and went there. As a result, it was delayed for less than half an hour. When we got home, it was already dark, and we were beaten by eagles.
After scolding him severely, he immediately removed the person in charge of the airship and replaced him with his deputy.
Normally, by this time, the Eagles would have been back long ago.
But today, none of them came back, indicating that the flight team must have encountered an unexpected situation.
In fact, this situation has happened before.
Once, Eagle led a flying team to deliver supplies to Dujiangyan. When they came back, they encountered strong winds. They had to make a temporary landing and did not return until the next day.
It's windy in northern Xinjiang, so it's not unusual to encounter this kind of situation.
While Tieniu comforted himself, he ordered the handymen to light bonfires around the airport in preparation for the airship landing.
But the bonfire burned all night and the airship did not return.
"Night is not suitable for flying. The eagle will definitely come back today!"
Tieniu continued to comfort himself, and at the same time, he sent out all his personal guards and dispersed them to various areas around the edge of Jin, looking for the flying team.
After waiting like this for another day, the flying team still did not come back. The guards ran around the edge of Jin Land, and two teams even went dozens of miles deep into Jin Land, but no trace of the airship was found.
I asked the local folks about it, and they said they saw airships lining up to fly eastward yesterday morning, but they didn't see the airships returning.
This made Tieniu feel even heavier.
He had been comforting himself before that the airships were invincible and no one could threaten them. The flying team might have encountered bad weather such as violent storms, rain, and snow, which delayed the return trip.
But now the ominous premonition in his heart became more and more serious.
Because an airship can fly higher than a hot air balloon, with the addition of a steam engine that can move autonomously, it is more capable of resisting wind, rain and snow.
Even if there is a strong wind, it is impossible that none of the dozens of airships will be able to return, right?
Tieniu knew that the matter was serious.
"Inform the Second Company to join the First Company's defense. The First Company will take Zheng Yuan with them tomorrow morning and set off to Liufang County!"
If the King of Jin attacked Weizhou City, the first position to attack would most likely be the East City Gate. The original mission of the company was to guard the East City Gate.
But now Tieniu can no longer care about so much.
The East City Gate is important, but the flying team is even more important.
The reason why the Zhenyuan Escort Bureau is so invincible and has a very low casualty rate is that airships should be the main contributor.
Every time they arrived at a city, the bodyguards would first dispatch airships to bomb the enemy troops guarding the city walls.
Although it may not kill many people, it has a very strong deterrent effect on the enemy and can greatly undermine the enemy's will to fight.
Then the bodyguards shouted on the airship and dropped leaflets into the city to promote the policy of attacking local tyrants and allocating land to them.
This not only demonstrated force, but also gained the support of local people as quickly as possible.
Most cities could not hold out for a few days before surrendering directly.
The bodyguards guarding outside the city can directly enter the city to recruit soldiers, control the city, and then arrange for the Zhongming team to enter the city to divide the land.
Over time, this has become the standard procedure for escorts to attack a city.
If there are no airships bombing in the air, even if the escorts have heavy catapults, it will be very difficult to break through the solid and tall city walls everywhere, and they will have to pay great sacrifices in the process of siege.
So the flying team is very important.
Although Jinfeng can now initially mass-produce steam engines, the output is not high. The fireproof cloth required to make balloons has very high air tightness requirements, and the output is lower than that of steam engines. Therefore, after accumulating for so long, it has not accumulated much.
airship.
In order to capture Jin Land as soon as possible, Jin Feng allocated almost all available airships to Eagle.
As a result, Qin's siege work slowed down.
If something happened to the flying team in Weizhou City, Tieniu would have no way to explain it to Jin Feng.
In a sense, the flying team is more important than Weizhou City and Qingshui Valley combined.
If Weizhou City and Qingshui Valley are lost, they can take them back, but if the flying team is gone, all their subsequent siege plans will be affected.
Early the next morning, the first company left the city neatly equipped, with pilot Zheng Yuan riding at the front.
He did not go to Liufang County with the team two days ago because of a stomachache. He stayed in Weizhou City to recuperate. Now he is responsible for leading the way for the First Company.
After the company left the city, they followed the flying team's route eastward and soon arrived at the border of Shanxi.
When passing a hill, a company commander reined in his horse at the foot of the hill.
Once you climb over the mountain in front of you, you will enter the Jin area.
There is no news about the flying team now. Once they are attacked in Shanxi, it will be difficult to obtain reinforcements in a short time.
Before coming, the first company commander knew that this was an extremely dangerous mission, but he still came.
Because he also knows the importance of the flying team.
Looking back at the direction of Weizhou City, the company commander clamped his horse's belly, turned around the foot of the mountain, entered Jin territory, and headed straight for Liufang County.
The land of Jin is very mountainous, and riding a horse is nowhere near as fast as flying.
Although they adopted the method of traveling in a group of one person and three people, it still took them three full days to reach the outskirts of Liufang County.
After setting up camp in the evening, the first company commander summoned the deputy company commander, platoon commander and leading pilots to the tent for a meeting.
"We will split up here every day. If the flight team is attacked, it is likely to happen here!"
The pilot responsible for leading the way pointed at the map and said.
"We are here now. If everything goes well, we will arrive around 1:00 tomorrow morning. Then the first platoon will be responsible for exploring the road, and the second platoon..."
The first company commander was pointing at the map to assign tasks when he suddenly heard the sharp sound of arrows coming from outside.
Several people got out of the tent and saw three dazzling red light groups floating in the air at a glance.
"Three rings!"
Everyone's expressions changed.
This is the highest warning level, indicating that the scouts have discovered an extremely critical situation!