The straight-line distance from Wulanbutong Grassland to Beijing is only six hundred miles. Even if they have to cross the Yanshan Mountains in the middle, it is only about six or seven days for the cavalry.
The scout cavalry team led by Zhu Cijiong himself was not used for six days.
On the morning of June 13, the 23rd year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cijiong led a Ming army scout cavalry team to appear near Tongzhou.
There were still five or six miles away from Tongzhou, when a "high" air whistle sounded suddenly from the front, and the Ming army scouts who were searching forward in dispersed formation were startled.
Zhu Cijiong hurriedly raised the telescope.
Through the field of view of the binoculars, a black "monster" immediately caught his eye. He saw this monster like a big snake snaking on the ground, and the top of its head was still puffing out.
black smoke.
Almost at the same time, the surrounding scout cavalry also saw this monster through the scope of their sniper rifles.
By the way, the sniper rifle with a quadruple scope produced by the Daming Arsenal has been fully equipped with the scout cavalry of each infantry division and cavalry division of the Ming Army.
Now all that is needed is the metal cartridge case to load the ammunition.
Otherwise, it can be changed to a rear-loading rifle.
In that case it would be a true rifle.
Now, it still makes little sense.
"What the hell is this? Is there still black smoke coming out?"
"Oh my God, could it be the legendary train?"
"Yes, yes, this is a train. It must be a train. Let's go over and have a look."
Including Xu Wuniu, the scout cavalry who had never seen a train suddenly became interested and wanted to get together to have a look.
However, Zhu Cijiong remained vigilant and shouted in a low voice: "Increase the distance between formations and continue to search and move forward. If you find anything wrong, immediately separate and retreat. Don't get entangled with the enemy!"
"Yes." The scouts and cavalry promised loudly.
Immediately, more than a hundred scout cavalry widened the distance between them and continued to search forward in a fan shape.
After a while, the scout cavalry team had approached within 500 steps of Tongzhou, and the monster could be seen more clearly, and they even saw clearly the two steel rails laid under the monster's belly.
Not surprisingly, this should be the legendary train.
At the same time, the Beizhi Town soldiers stationed at Tongzhou Railway Station were also alerted.
Although Zhu Cijiong and others were wearing Ming army jackets, the Beizhi soldiers at Tongzhou Railway Station did not relax their vigilance. Instead, they entered the trenches in strict accordance with wartime regulations and even set up tiger crouching cannons.
But soon, they discovered that they were really Ming soldiers, and they were acquaintances.
"Wuniu?" A Ming army soldier jumped up from the trench, waved and shouted.
"Tiger?" Xu Wuniu also quickly rode forward, jumped off the horse and hugged the man.
Among the soldiers stationed in Beizhi Town in Tongzhou, there were several descendants of the Xu family of the east, who came to meet Xu Wuniu one after another and told interesting stories after leaving.
Zhu Cijiong was completely attracted by the train.
After getting on the train that stopped at the train station, Zhu Cijiong looked around and marveled.
Weng Zhili, who was testing the car with several engineers, hurriedly came forward to greet him and called him King Ding.
"No need." Zhu Cijiong waved his hand and said, "You just go about your business and just pretend that I don't exist."
Weng Zhili left several projects to work on their own, while he still accompanied Zhu Cijiong. After all, Prince Ding was a prince, how could he really pretend that he did not exist?
While Zhu Cijiong was visiting, he asked Weng Zhili: "Master Weng, how much does this train weigh?"
Weng Zhili said: "The locomotive is about 100 tons, and the carriage is about 20 tons per section."
"Tons?" Zhu Cijiong looked confused. He only knew kilograms, liang, and money, and had never heard of tons.
Weng Zhili quickly explained: "That's right, the ton is the unit just adopted, and 1 ton is 2,000 kilograms."
Who introduced the unit ton? Of course it was Chongzhen. At this time, the unit of ton must be introduced. Chongzhen originally wanted to set 1 ton to 1,000 jins, but finally decided to set it to 2,000 jins.
"One ton weighs 2,000 kilograms?" Zhu Cijiong said, "Doesn't that mean this thing weighs more than 200,000 kilograms?"
"The locomotive alone weighs more than 200,000 jins." Weng Zhili said with a smile, "If you include the ten carriages, it's almost 600,000 jins."
"Can you pull this off?"
"It's just trivial to be able to pull it."
"You're still kidding? Then tell me how much weight this thing can pull?"
"This has not been tested yet, but it will definitely be no problem if it pulls 1,000 tons."
A steam locomotive with a total of 3,000 horsepower can indeed pull thousands of tons on plain terrain.
"Can it pull 1,000 tons? This is incredible!" Zhu Cijiong said with wide eyes, "Can't it pull an entire infantry division away? Then in the future, wouldn't it mean that we don't need to march and can run around by train?"
Xu Wuniu also smiled and said: "Then fighting will be easy from now on. We can fight on the train."
Weng Zhili scratched his head and said: "One division may not be able to fit in, because one carriage can only seat more than a hundred people. Any more will be a bit crowded. Ten carriages can only hold 2,000 people at most."
"Two thousand people are pretty impressive." Zhu Cijiong said excitedly.
"You can also set up 2.5-inch mountain guns or even 4-inch field guns on the windows on both sides of the carriage, which would be even more powerful."
If Chongzhen were here, he would definitely have to say, hey, you are such a fucking genius, you actually came up with the concept of armored trains without any teacher.
While he was talking, a fast horse suddenly galloped from the official road.
"Urgent report from the capital!" The courier on horseback shouted loudly from a distance away, "Urgent report from the capital, the pseudo-submissive cavalry has passed through Liangxiang and is less than fifty miles away from the capital. His Royal Highness the Prince ordered Tongzhou to immediately
Martial law.”
"The hypocritical cavalry has arrived in Liangxiang!" Weng Zhili suddenly became stern when he heard this, "Then we have to go back quickly."
"Hey, why are you so anxious to go back?" Zhu Cijiong regained his energy and said with a smile, "Shopkeeper Weng Da, we just take this opportunity to try out the wonderful use of trains on the battlefield."
"What?" Weng Zhili said in astonishment, "Trains are not used for fighting?"
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Who said that?" Zhu Cijiong touched the thick wooden board of the train carriage, then touched the iron sheet on the outside of the carriage, and said with a smile, "I feel
This train is a great weapon and should be used in wars."
After saying this, he turned around and asked Xu Laohu behind him: "Huhu, how many soldiers are there in Tongzhou?"
Xu Laohu said: "There is a mixed brigade, but there are no officers and non-commissioned officers, but there are two 2.5-inch mountain artillery regiments."
"Great." Zhu Cijiong said happily, "In this case, you can quickly gather an infantry regiment and bring a mountain artillery battalion to garrison this train immediately. The rest will still be stationed in Tongzhou City."
"Yes." Xu Laohu immediately summoned an infantry regiment and a mountain artillery battalion and boarded the train.
Although Weng Zhili looked worried, he did not dare to stop Zhu Cijiong. This was the Prince of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Cijiong squatted half-crouched behind the car window and placed the sniper rifle on the edge of the window sill. Hey, it was just right, not too high nor too short.
The 2.5-inch mountain cannon from the mountain artillery battalion is difficult to handle. Place it on the floor of the carriage. It is not high enough, but if it is raised, the center of gravity will be unstable and it will easily tip over when firing.
Looking at the side wall of the train car, Zhu Cijiong asked again: "Is there a pointed pick?"
Xu Laohu said without hesitation: "We don't have it in the camp, but we have it at the train station."
"Borrow a few." Zhu Cijiong pointed at the side wall of the carriage and said, "Make a few holes."
Xu Laohu immediately took the soldiers to borrow some pointed picks, and without any explanation, he smashed them against the walls of the carriage.
Weng Zhili felt heartbroken when he saw it, but he could only endure it. Fortunately, he only demolished the side walls of the carriage, as long as he did not dismantle the main frame of the locomotive and the carriage.
It only costs a small amount of money to redecorate the walls of the carriage, just treat it as a R&D loss.
Since it was a prototype car, the walls of the carriage were quite thick. Xu Laohu and several soldiers worked hard and finally broke a hole in the side of a carriage.
Zhu Cijiong tried it on and found that the height was just right.
"That's the height." Zhu Cijiong said happily.
"A shooting hole will also be opened in the other nine carriages."
Xu Huhu reminded: "Prince Ding, an artillery battalion only has 9 guns."
"Stupid, then go and open another door." Zhu Cijiong said angrily, "Do you even need me to teach you this?"
Xu Laohu immediately asked the artillerymen from the artillery battalion to bring in a mountain cannon, and he led the soldiers to fire a shooting cannon on each side of the other nine carriages.
After the shooting hole was opened, Zhu Cijiong asked people to put grain bags on the top of the carriage.
By the time all this was done, it was already after noon and the sun was setting in the west.
Zhu Cijiong said to Weng Zhili again: "Master Weng, you can go back now."
"What? Go back?" Weng Zhili's expression changed, "King Ding, the traitors passed through Liangxiang two hours ago, and I'm afraid they have already reached the outside of Beijing. Let's go back now, don't we just hit each other?"
Upright?"
"Yes, I just want to confront the traitors." Zhu Cijiong said, "Otherwise, I wouldn't want to go back."
"But, cocoa, but..." Weng Zhili's words became awkward, "There are many thieves, but we only have one infantry regiment on the train. If, I mean, if something happens...
"
Weng Zhili was worried that the train would be damaged and more than a year's hard work of the train factory would be wasted.
"Huh?" Zhu Cijiong's expression immediately turned serious, "My words won't work, will they?"
After saying this for a while, Zhu Cijiong showed off the military talisman again: "Master Wengda, what do you think this is? It's a military talisman. It's a military talisman given to me by my father. In addition to the Mongolian troops, I can also mobilize the Beizhi Town troops when necessary.
Taiwan's suppressing troops! They can also requisition all the people's power in Beizhi to fight for the Ming Dynasty. Does Shopkeeper Weng Da want to resist the decree?"
"I don't dare." Weng Zhili sighed softly and could only choose to obey.
But Zhu Cijiong patted Weng Zhili on the shoulder and said: "Shop Manager Weng Da, actually you don't have to worry. The train you built is so strong that the thieves can't do anything to us. You just have to watch. After we encounter the thieves later,
We are the only ones who fight against the traitors, and the traitors will not be able to fight back at all."
"That's what King Ding said." Weng Zhili Weiwei said.
Zhu Cijiong waved his hand and shouted loudly: "Drive!"
Weng Zhili quickly returned to the cab and signaled the engineer to start the car.
A moment later, with a loud whistle, the train started again.