The explosions and gunshots that rang out again on Peach Blossom Embankment served as a good cover-up for Gao Liugeng who was walking through the sea of bamboo.
Relying on the agility he had gained through years of martial arts practice, Gao Liugeng was like a dexterous monkey, darting around in the bamboo forest that was difficult for ordinary people to set foot on. Half an hour later, he finally passed through the bamboo sea and came to the nearby
A low-lying spot on the mountaintop platform.
At this time, the gunfire at the foot of the mountain gradually subsided. Gao Liugeng estimated that Tao Laojiu and the others succeeded in the sneak attack, took advantage of it, and withdrew. At this time, he could not contact the foot of the mountain because he had turned off the walkie-talkie after entering the Bamboo Sea.
.
Because he was very close to the fort on the top of the mountain, Gao Liugeng's movements slowed down a lot. He climbed out of the low-lying area and spent more than ten minutes walking forward for more than 20 meters in the snow-covered withered grass. When
When he could see the outlines of the two cannons through the snow curtain, he found that there was not even a ghost of the Qing army around.
"Could it be that Lao Jiu and the others were fighting too lively and scared these guys away?"
Just when Gao Liugeng was suspicious, he suddenly heard a faint voice coming from the right side. Because he had practiced martial arts for many years, his sense of the surrounding qi was far beyond ordinary people, so when he calmed down and listened again, he heard the whisper like a mosquito.
It gradually became clearer.
"...Shou Ming, how are your brothers and the others doing in Jingzhou? I heard someone say a few days ago that the garrison city there is almost running out of space, and the school grounds are all erected with sheds filled with people.
"
"Who says it's not the case! What a shame! I tried to persuade him to wait, but he didn't listen. Alas~~"
"His younger brother and his family live with my cousin's family! Twenty-one people from three families are crowded into a small courtyard the size of a palm. We have to queue up to go to the toilet at night. Jingzhou is not as small as Jiangning. Thousands of people came at once. Who can
I don’t want to live outside the city either, so I can only make do with it.”
"I heard a few days ago that the imperial court is going to establish farmland in the south of Gansu. If any of our bannermen are willing to go, they will be given a settlement allowance of 100 taels, and an additional 100 acres of land, as well as cattle and seeds."
"Farming? Let me tell you, how many of our bannermen know how to farm? It would be weird if we didn't hoe off our big toes with a hoe!"
"It takes one day at a time to cope with it! My mother-in-law often said that there is nothing in the world that is difficult to overcome."
"The imperial court has deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses at Shanhaiguan. Prince Ding visited Jiangyin and Wusongkou a few days ago. Let me tell you, the pirates from the North Sea can't get in. Don't listen to the nonsense of those people from the capital."
"That's right! Our Lords went to Jilin with the Deputy Governor five years ago and saw the Northern Pirates with our own eyes. Isn't this good?"
More than a dozen Qing soldiers were chatting away, when a rough voice spat and cursed: "What the hell are you talking about! You can discuss the military and national affairs of the imperial court?! You two! Go and take the oilcloth."
Sweep the snow off and check the gunpowder again. This damn weather is such that if the gunpowder gets wet and cannot fire, the prince will kill someone."
"I will obey my orders."
Not long after, Gao Liugeng heard footsteps approaching him. He raised his head slightly and looked through the withered grass. He saw two Qing soldiers wearing raincoats coming to a position more than ten meters south of the two cannons. There was a gun there.
A bulge protruding from the ground.
Because the bulge was covered with snow, Gao Liugeng thought it was a dirt slope or a big rock. Only when he saw a Qing soldier sweeping the snow off with a broom in his hand, revealing the oilcloth underneath, did he realize that Dare Qing
The gunpowder and cannonballs were kept there.
When the Qing soldier had almost swept away the snow, he lifted a corner of the oilcloth. Another Qing soldier reached down and put his hand in, fumbled for a moment, and then shouted in the direction he was coming from: "Sir, the gunpowder is fine.
, no moisture at all!”
"Clear the snow from the gun positions!"
"嗻!"
After the two Qing soldiers agreed, they walked towards the artillery position. One of them muttered as they walked: "Damn it! You know how to order people. Do you think we men are useless? We worked so hard to carry the cannon up.
But it's a good thing, the snow is getting heavier and heavier. You are really Song Jiang's military adviser, useless!"
"Say less. If you let him hear you, you'll get whipped again."
"What are you afraid of? It's not because of the influence of our ancestors that we became a big-nosed official. Ask him if he knows how many taels of medicine this cannon contains at a time? Grandma! When the time comes, he will have to point at us. Yes.
"Hey, have you noticed? Just now, with the roar of gunfire in the garden, that man's legs kept shaking, and he didn't stop until the gunfire stopped."
"real?"
"No!"
"..."
The two Qing soldiers were clearing the snow and kept mumbling, trying to dispel the uneasiness in their hearts. However, none of them noticed that Gao Liugeng had quietly approached a few meters behind them.
Far away, there was also a spiral dagger emitting black light in his hand.
Just as a Qing soldier finished sweeping the snow off the cannon and was about to turn around, Gao Liugeng suddenly jumped over like a leopard that suddenly launched a fatal blow to its prey. The Qing soldier saw a black figure out of the corner of his eye.
Ying rushed towards him. He was so shocked that before he could scream, he felt a heat in his throat, followed by a cold feeling.
The Qing soldier who was stabbed tried to make a sound to alert his companions, and even shouted for help, but found that he could not shout at all. When he turned to look at his companions, he found that the figure who attacked him was stabbing the sharp knife into his companions' stomachs.
"That knife looks really weird..."
Qing Jun, who was holding his neck, looked at the scene in front of him and suddenly felt a burst of severe pain. Blood spurted out from the gaps in his palms and between his fingers, and soon dyed the ground in front of him red. He felt that all the strength in his body was rapidly drained.
, his legs softened, and he fell to the ground. His legs twitched mechanically, and he let out a dying whimper. The sound was like a snoring rat.
Gao Liugeng, who succeeded in the sneak attack, was afraid that the Qing army in front of him would make a sound, so he twisted it hard, and the spiral triangular blade rotated forward. Under the severe pain, the opponent's body quickly bowed into a shrimp, and he fell to the ground crookedly.
Gao Liugeng pulled out the dagger, flicked it hard, and then inserted it into the grass green cylindrical scabbard on his shoulder. Immediately afterwards, he took off the assault rifle on his back, opened the safety, and leaned towards the other Qing gunners.
Walked past the location.
Ten seconds later, intensive "click-click" shooting sounds rang out from the top of the mountain covered by snow and fog. At this moment, Gao Liugeng transformed into the God of Death, swept forward, and launched an attack on the Qing troops who were warming up around the campfire.
Attack like a violent storm.
When the 30 bullets in the magazine were fired, the flat top of the mountain had become a Shura field. Except for the two who rolled down the hillside quickly, the remaining dozen or so Qing soldiers all fell in a pool of blood.
Gao Liugeng didn't have time to check the dead and wounded Qing troops one by one. He turned back to the gun position and changed the magazine.
He came to a mountain-splitting cannon, raised his hand to lift off the oilcloth covering it, then took out a grenade from his waist, unscrewed the bottom cover, and prepared to stuff it into the muzzle. However, he discovered at this moment that,
The grenade cannot be inserted at all!
It turns out that the diameter of the head of the Beihai Navy's wooden-handled grenade is 48 mm, while the diameter of the Qing Army's heavy mountain-splitting cannon is only over 30 mm, which is not a slight difference.
Gao Liugeng's eyes wandered between the pile of gunpowder and the mountain-splitting cannon for a moment, and he quickly gave up the idea of using black powder to explode the cannon. Otherwise, the wall of the iron cannon was too thick, and he probably had to plug the inner chamber.
Only when it is full of gunpowder can it explode.
However, pouring black powder into the muzzle was too time-consuming and too late. At this time, the rapid sound of gongs was heard from the bottom of the mountain, and I believed that the Qing army would come up soon.
Thinking of this, he put the grenade back, turned the rifle on his chest behind him, walked to the back of the iron cannon, bent down and picked up the tail of the cannon with both hands, stood firm on his feet, took a deep breath, and exerted force on his Dantian waist.
, all the joints in his body were crackling, and with a loud shout, the 500-pound cannon body was suddenly lifted up.
Immediately afterwards, he used the mound of earth on which the cannon body was set as a fulcrum and pushed forward with all his strength. The mountain-splitting cannon stood up immediately, and then rolled crookedly towards the bamboo sea at the bottom of the mountain, making dull impacts along the way.
Voice.
Afterwards, he followed the same pattern and pushed the second cannon down the hillside.
Among the disciples of Chang Naizhou, Gao Liugeng is famous for his skill in using big guns. As the old saying goes, a stick of the moon, a sword of a year, and a gun of a lifetime. If you want to master the spear well, you can only practice hard for many years and develop your leg strength.
Waist strength, wrist strength, and arm strength must be fully developed, the skeleton must be connected, and the strength of the whole body must be consolidated into one force when exerting force.
Gao Liugeng, who can lift more than 500 kilograms of objects at once, uses the theory of Tai Chi called "bone-joining and tenon-joining". That is, the bones bite each other and are perfectly connected to achieve a tenon-riveted structure similar to that of traditional buildings.
It is in a rigid body state, and the force penetrates the gaps in all the joints of the whole body, and it cannot do it unless there is one place that is loose.
After practicing to this point, in the industry's words, it is called "becoming a dragon or a tiger". You don't have to swing your fists when fighting with others. When encountering an enemy, it is just one word, rub!
With the power of the dragon and tiger, coupled with the weapons in Beihai Town that were far ahead of this era, this was the courage he had to brave the enemy alone.
Just as the second mountain-splitting cannon rolled down, dense footsteps also sounded on the road leading to Yongqing Temple. Gao Liugeng knew that time was urgent, so he quickly walked to the place where the gunpowder was piled, lifted the oilcloth, and started from behind.
He took out the grenade with a wooden handle that had previously unscrewed the lid from the pocket on his waist, hooked out the fire ring, pulled hard, and threw the smoking grenade into a basket containing gunpowder.
Then he turned around and ran away. He reached the edge of the mountain in a few short steps. The moment he jumped down hard, a bright explosion of flames rose behind him, followed immediately by a larger and brighter fireball.
Just hearing a loud "boom", large tracts of soil, grenade fragments, three-pound artillery shells, rags, and even various debris including vegetation, bamboo, and rocks were carried into the air by the shock wave, and fell one after another, as if they were falling.
A heavy rain.
At this time, Gao Liugeng had fallen from the air to the hillside. He was sliding and rolling on the hillside with his head in his hands, and soon came to the edge of the bamboo sea. After he stood up, he calmed down for a while, looked around, and then jumped a few times.
It disappeared into the dense bamboo forest.
On the other side, the Qing troops who were about to reach the top of the mountain were also scared to death by the sudden explosion and retreated down the mountain screaming.
Afterwards, when the Qing troops came to the top of the mountain to inspect the scene and collect the bodies, the scene made everyone look pale, and some armored soldiers vomited on the spot.
There was such a big commotion in the back mountain. Prince Ding Mian'en who was sitting in Yongqing Temple was furious after receiving the report. He roared that he wanted to behead the seriously injured Guan Pao Xiao Riding School as punishment. At the same time, his heart also rose.
A sense of frustration.
At this moment, he finally realized the powerlessness of Agui, Fukangan and Qinggui when they faced off against the Beihai Navy. He used to laugh at them in private, but now he saw that the eldest brother did not talk about the second brother.
Since there are many hills and valleys in this area of Shangyuan County, even if the four thousand armored troops stationed in the Eight Banners were deployed together, they would not be able to move around Xiaocang Mountain. They could only encircle them, gradually narrow the encirclement, and then annihilate them in one fell swoop.
"There are obviously only ten pirates! They are still protecting a group of old, weak, women and children, so why are they so difficult to defeat?! Could it be that there are more than ten of them? No! Impossible!"
It’s so frustrating! Suiyuan had finally managed to get in, but the other side was so bold that they launched a sneak attack. Just as they were about to take a breather, Wuni’s team who were waiting for the mountain-splitting artillery to be transported up were caught off guard, with more than thirty casualties.
They didn't even catch the Genbei pirates. Now the temporary fort in the back mountain has been destroyed again. The most terrible thing is that all the gunners are dead.
It is easy to ignite the charge and fire the gun, but observing and aiming is not something ordinary people can do.
In these days, neither the Eight Banners nor the Green Battalion had as mature an artillery training system as in European countries. The sighting skills of the Eight Banners garrison gunners were basically inherited from their families, that is, the group of people whose ancestors had been fooled by Wu Zhenchaoha.
The artillerymen who only fire three times a year are joking!
Feeling a little irritable, Mian En walked outside the side hall with his hands behind his back, his face stern. He raised his head and looked at the gray sky, thinking carefully about how to capture Suiyuan and capture Yuan Mei as soon as possible. Jiangning City
With such a big city and so many people, a day of martial law will already cause troubles. If people are not allowed to go out tomorrow, there will definitely be trouble...
In a daze, he thought about the situation in the capital. What cards will Jiaqing play next? How should he deal with it? Have all his men in the capital camp been replaced? How should the clan members communicate privately...
....
Then, he suddenly thought about how he would respond if the Northern Navy invaded Jiangnan in a large scale, and what to do next if he could not defeat it. If Jiangnan could not be defended, everything he had imagined would become a passing smoke.
.....
After being dazed for a while, the cold wind covered with fine snow kept falling on his face, making him feel even colder, but his chaotic and irritable mood seemed to be driven away a lot.
He raised his somewhat cold hands and rubbed his face a few times. Feeling that it was a little warm, he turned around and returned to the palace. He asked the guards to get his ermine tassel helmet with golden flames and rubies in it and put it on, and put on his red cloak.
He took the riding whip, walked outside the door, and said to the guards standing at the door without turning his head: