It was almost dawn, and Zu Dashou sat on the brick steps, looking at the angry red sun in the distance.

There is no desert in Liaodong, but there is a desert in Mongolia but it is far away from Liaodong.

As a teacher, there are actually a lot of trivial things. Zu Dashou actually doesn’t have many opportunities to look at the desert quietly like this!

There are 372 people in the settlement, including 320 strong men and 40 women, and the rest are children.

This kind of settlement is actually a small city. There are shops selling things, laundry shops for mending clothes, and shops for shaving and haircutting.

Although there are more and more people with short hair in Liaodong, Shandong, Hebei and Gyeonggi Province, people in most places still have long hair these days, regardless of gender.

The ancient motto of caring for the body, hair and skin is still dominated by people's thinking. This situation will not change for a while, so the Liao army with short hair is so conspicuous wherever he goes.

The so-called agriculturists actually have no fixed establishment. Zhao Baoshun's battalion is considered standard, and some of the other battalions have exceeded a thousand people.

Zu Dashou doesn't care about this, anyway, it's your ability to get people. As long as you don't kidnap people, you can do whatever you want.

At first glance, one can tell that Zhao Baoshun is an honest man. The water and grass in this area are pretty good. A lot of land has been reclaimed on the edge of the city, and someone is cleaning up the scene of yesterday's storm.

What they grow are potatoes and sweet potatoes. These two things are already widely grown in the mainland, but for some reason, the potatoes and sweet potatoes grown in the Western Regions are particularly delicious.

Especially the sweet potatoes taste very sweet, I don’t know why.

Zu Dashou ate two roasted sweet potatoes last night, which was really good.

There is not much flattened land, and it seems that more people are still using it for grazing. There is a deep trench on the edge of the settlement.

At first glance, it looked like the standard trench of the Liao Army. The soil was piled up to one side on the inside, and the other side was bare. In other words, if someone wanted to rush in, they not only had to cross the trench, but also had to climb a two-meter-high soil slope.

"Master, there is actually a brick wall inside the slope. Even if the bullet hits the slope, it will not be able to penetrate." Seeing Zu Dashou's eyes falling on the slope, Zhao Baoshun hurried over to explain.

Zu Dashou then nodded, Zhao Baoshun was still qualified as a military chief.

The imperial court's requirement for these settlements is that each settlement must become a fortress. These soldiers are farmers in peacetime and soldiers in wartime.

The military chief of the settlement is also the chief political officer. He has great power in his hands and can truly control the army and govern the people.

"How many mortars do you have here!" Zu Dashou saw several deep pits on the ground, and he knew they were mortar positions.

Generally speaking, a battalion of land reclamation divisions only has six mortars, but Zu Dashou actually saw more than a dozen pits here.

"Eight gates!" Zhao Baoshun said honestly.

"Why are there eight gates?"

"We are setting up a brewing workshop here, so...!"

"So you exchanged wine for two mortars? These sons of bitches dare to exchange the food for wine." Zu Dashou became angry when he heard this, and exchanged the mortars for wine. What a waste.

Remarkable.

"Commander, don't be angry. These mortars were actually thrown away by the Mongols. The caliber of their mortars is similar to ours. Many troops picked them up and used them themselves."

"How many guns and ammunition are left on the grassland?" Zu Dashou knew that the Mongols left a lot of guns and ammunition, and he was preparing to collect them with all his strength. It was not a good thing for the private sector to have a large number of guns and ammunition.

"Quite a few! We originally only had 300 guns here, but over the past two years we have gradually collected them, almost 500. The Mongols also dropped a lot of ammunition. We usually use ammunition left by the Mongols for training.

Commander, look at the sun rising."

Looking in the direction of Zhao Baoshun's finger, a fiery red sun was rising from the ground, bringing thousands of rays of rays to the world. The sand dunes in the distance were coated with a layer of golden yellow, making people almost unable to open their eyes.

Almost everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the rising sun.

Zu Dashou's eyes suddenly narrowed, and he was already lying on the ground. A bullet flew past Zu Dashou's scalp and hit a guard behind him.

A large group of cavalry looked like they were jumping out of the sun. While the horses were galloping, they pulled the bolts of their guns and fired. However, their accuracy was a little off. Under the intensive gunfire, not many people on the Ming army fell.

After taking the airship out, Zu Dashou only had a few staff officers and a squad of guards around him.

Zhao Baoshun shouted at the top of his lungs that the enemy was attacking, and the settlement became a mess with women crying and children screaming.

Listening to the intensive gunfire, Zu Dashou was not panicked. For a general who has been on the battlefield all his life, it would be a big joke if he was afraid of gunfire.

The guard squad quickly surrounded Zu Dashou, who reached out and grabbed the rifle from a soldier.

The sun was very dazzling. Those cavalrymen had their backs to the sun, but Zu Dashou had to face the sun. Even so, Zu Dashou knocked a Mongolian to the ground with one shot.

The bullet did not hit the Mongols, but the Mongolian war horses. Even tall and strong horses from the Western Regions could not withstand the power of rifle bullets. When the cavalry charges, if the horse falls off the horse, it will definitely cause death or injury.

It doesn't end well.

"Aim at the war horse and hit me!"

The soldiers in the guard squad never left their weapons, and upon hearing Zu Dashou's words, they began to fight back.

With horses and people, the target can be hit easily. If the distance is within range, sunlight is not a big problem.

The cavalry had already rushed within a hundred meters, and the Aka rifles in the hands of the guard squad began to fire continuously. The large ammunition capacity of thirty rounds gave them sufficient firepower density.

The Mongolians who rushed forward were immediately beaten to their knees. It seemed that they did not expect that the Ming army would have such a reaction speed, nor did they expect that the Ming army would have such powerful and accurate shooting. The Mongolians were stunned.

According to their assumptions, this raid could break through the Ming army's position in one fell swoop and occupy the entire settlement.

This settlement was the only settlement within a hundred miles, and it was also the first target of Luobuzangdanjin's raid. It was such a bad time that this first target of the raid was kicked onto the iron plate.

The cavalry rushed to a place more than thirty meters away. The soldiers immediately put down their Aka rifles with empty magazines in their hands, pulled out the box cannons, opened their noses and started shooting at the cavalry.

The staff officers were not idle either, grabbing grenades and throwing them into the enemy pile.

No one expected that only a dozen people could withstand the attack of hundreds of cavalry.

When Zhao Baoshun gathered his people and rushed to the wall, he saw only dead people and horses everywhere, as well as wounded soldiers who kept screaming.

"Sir, are you okay?" Zhao Baoshun's face turned pale with fear. If something happened to Zu Dashou, he would have no other option but to die to apologize.

"Let your men prepare for battle. Are there any mines?" Zu Dashou asked sharply.

"Yes!" Zhao Baoshun nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

"Send people out to lay mines, distribute weapons and ammunition, and set up mortars. There will be more Mongolians soon." Zu Dashou spoke quickly and urgently.

If there had not been a well-equipped guard squad just now, the Mongols would have broken through the wall by now. Zhao Baoshun's men were obviously unable to withstand such an attack.

It is estimated that the team was killed before they could gather together.

Maybe God was blessing the people here, so he blew down his airship.

"No!" After replying, Zhao Baoshun ran out to arrange things as if he had been hit by an arrow in the butt.

"Commander, are you okay?" The staff members gathered around.

"Take a few people to dismantle the cannons on the airship and install them in these places!" Zu Dashou pointed to a few places.

"promise!"

"Ready to fight!"

This is by no means a rebellion of more than a hundred Mongolians. Zu Dashou knew this clearly. He contacted them by radio last night, and the airship would not arrive until the morning after tomorrow.

How you survive this day and night is the most important thing!

Before Zhao Baoshun could set up his position, the overwhelming Mongols came over to kill him. Those who went out to lay mines ran back as if they were being chased by wolves.

Zu Dashou, who was mentally prepared, also took a breath of cold air. Seeing that there were tens of thousands of Mongolians. Almost all the Mongolians on the grassland were killed. Why did so many suddenly appear? Could they be ghosts?

What the hell is a ghost under the bright sun?

At this time, he could no longer care about so much. Zu Dashou picked up the dead guard's Aka rifle and lay down on the slope with a few magazines in his arms.

Soon the mortar fire behind them started firing. There was no need to aim at this time. The exploding shells exploded in all directions. Each shell exploded in the middle of the cavalry group.

The sound of rifles around him became audible. Now Zu Dashou regretted that he only equipped these farming groups with ordinary rifles instead of Aka rifles. The worst is to get a few obsolete Maxims.

Unfortunately, none of these things were available. All the Maxims captured in India were packaged and sold to the French.

Cavalrymen kept falling to the ground, but due to the density of firepower, more came up. These Mongols seemed to be crazy, running and shooting at the same time.

Fortunately, there were bunkers, so the Ming army suffered few casualties.

At a distance of a hundred meters, the landmines that had just been planted exploded one after another. Zu Dashou saw with his own eyes that a war horse was blown into the air, and both the man and the horse were kicking in the air.

It fell to the ground and was quickly swallowed up by smoke and dust.

"Grenade!" Zu Dashou shouted loudly.

Under this situation, it was only a matter of time before the cavalry rushed in front of them. With eight mortars, it was impossible to block fire. The distance of one hundred or ten meters was a blink of an eye for the cavalry.

The cavalry rushed closer, only about fifty meters away.

Zu Dashou shook his hand and threw a grenade, and the grenades behind him were thrown out like raindrops.

There was a burst of explosions so dense that they could not be counted, and a large number of people were lying on the ground. Many injured people were still screaming on the ground, and their heads were kicked open by the hoofs of the horses rushing up from behind.

Now I can no longer care about so much. I opened the tab of the grenade and threw it out randomly. There were many people anyway, so there was no need to aim.

The bunker gave the Ming army good protection. They didn't have to show their heads and throw grenades out across the slope.

Some cavalrymen actually took advantage of the interval between grenades and rushed forward.

Zu Dashou had just thrown a grenade when a ferocious-looking Mongolian suddenly appeared in front of him.

Before the rifle in his hand came around, two shots were fired from the box cannon in Zu Dashou's hand.

One shot hit the eye, and the other shot went directly into the mouth. Two bullets passed through the back of the head, and the body fell into the trench holding the gun.
To be continued...