Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 194 One Day

   The first echelon is a day's journey ahead of the main force.

   On the first day, they marched along the south bank of the Confluence.

  The lower river beach is full of dead Heard washed ashore. With every few steps, Winters could see new swollen corpses.

  Many crows and vultures came to enjoy the feast, pecking at the carrion recklessly, while staring at the living people who passed in front of them.

   "What are you looking at!" Ciel couldn't bear it any longer, he picked up a stone and threw it at the crow.

   The black bird made an unpleasant cry, took off with a flapping, and flew to hover over the Plato army.

  Other militiamen also picked up stones and attacked crows and vultures.

   Winters gave no orders to stop it.

   "What are you looking at?" he thought gloomily: "Food."

  …

   Shortly after Winters' feud with Hogwitz ended, the messengers brought back the final verdict of the two generals.

   On the lacquered parchment was the word scrawled:

  [wheel]

  The wheel, that is, the man above the wheel does not leave a single one.

The    order was carried out efficiently, and the remaining Heard women and children were driven across the river and left to fend for themselves.

  Brother Reid despised General Prato's decision.

   Brother Reid asked Winters: "Absolute cruelty and absolute kindness, you can only choose one. What is it to kill the father and let go of the wife and son?"

   Winters couldn't answer.

   But Arpad and Sackler had their reasons.

   For the Heard tribes, women are a valuable resource and property.

   There are women before men, and no one understands this better than the hard-fought Hurds.

   "Let the Chihe Department have a headache." When the senior officers were in a meeting, Arpad said nonchalantly, "Let's see if Yassin can defend these women. Hmph, I can't say there will be another battle."

  …

   When marching in the wild without roads, the commander generally limits the daily travel to 20,000 steps.

   The left and right feet each take one step, and the 20,000 steps are about 24 kilometers, so that the soldiers have spare energy to fight.

  If you are on a hard surface, you can walk up to 30,000 steps per day, about 36 kilometers.

   But on the first day of departure, Winters' leading echelon only walked a dozen kilometers, less than 15,000 steps.

   For no other reason, the speed of the carriage could not keep up.

The supply camps built along the route when    arrived have been burnt, and the Palatine army could not obtain food supplies on the spot.

   So the carriage that pulls the load becomes the shortest board of the wooden barrel.

   Seeing the sun go down, Colonel Bode Gates, the commander of the first echelon, ordered to set up camp.

  [Note: Colonel Bode Gates is the commander in defense of Beizhai]

   The distance to go is short, it does not mean that the day will end easily.

   Soldiers also had to dig trenches and build camps large enough to accommodate large troops.

   Regardless of standing army and auxiliary force, everyone has to work.

  The grooms have to unbox and feed the horses, the soldiers in charge of cooking are busy gathering firewood and lighting fires, while others are digging trenches and building walls.

The    fortifications were divided into sections and assigned to each centurion.

   Winters patrols and supervises labor in the section his team is responsible for.

   Everyone in the first echelon is assigned a shovel or a pickaxe, which greatly speeds up digging.

  Don't underestimate the shovel and the pickaxe. The distribution of tools to ordinary soldiers is a major "revival" of Army tactics, and it is also one of the contents of [Ned Smith's military reform].

   However, because the size and weight of the tools are inconvenient to carry, a team of ten has only two shovels, a pickaxe, an axe and a saw.

   The night before his departure, Sackler concentrated most of the tools of the two legions in the hands of the first echelon, and specially arranged carriage transportation.

  Even if everyone had tools at hand, the troops were barely able to finish the work until it was dark.

   Afterwards, Colonel Bode personally checked and qualified, and the militia under Winters finally heard the order to dissolve.

  The militiamen who returned to the camp took a few mouthfuls to eat and drink, and began to set up tents.

   Everyone is extremely tired and just wants to sleep and rest.

   Winters also returned to the brigade headquarters, looking for something to eat.

The    team headquarters was very deserted, Lieutenant Colonel Jesska had already finished eating and left, and the other three centurions had not returned.

   There were only three people in the tent: Father Kaman, who was dining, Brother Rhett, and Bellion, the blacksmith, who was guarding the saucepan.

   Since Lieutenant Colonel Jesska transferred the blacksmith to the brigade as a cook, Father Kaman and Brother Reid also came to the brigade headquarters to join forces.

   Winters made a bowl of soup by himself and asked Kaman, "How is it?"

  Father Kaman put down the tableware, made a salute, and said in a low voice, "Today, five believers have reached their resting place by the mercy of the Lord."

   Brother Reid sighed: "You can say five dead, you don't have to go around like this. This kid doesn't understand."

   Most of the seriously wounded will die within seven days, and some of the lightly wounded will have fever, shock and then die.

   Winters has seen so much that he is already a little numb.

   He comforted Kaman and said, "Don't think too much, without you, more people will die."

  Kaman was silent.

  …

  The recovery rate of officers is much higher than that of soldiers, not only because officers are physically stronger, but also because officers can get good care for injuries.

   If the soldiers were treated the same way, there was a good chance that the lightly wounded would survive.

   But the reality is that the wounded are basically not cared for, because the regiment is composed of only combatants.

   Only a few of the doctors who accompanied the army were full-time, and the rest were soldiers and officers.

   If someone can sew stitches and take arrows to the wounded, thank God, the rest can only depend on the luck of the wounded.

   The Jesska Brigade was a special case, because Kaman presided over the medical center, and the wounded in the Jesska unit had received the best care they could get.

   But even so, there will still be many wounded people who cannot survive the bumpy journey. This is an inevitable situation.

  …

  Winters thought for a while, then asked Kaman: "How many people should I add to you?"

  Kaman gave a silent salute.

   "Okay, I'll pick a few honest ones to send to you." Winters sipped the broth and continued, "I'll take someone to dig a grave in a while, and use the funeral of a legionnaire..."

  Andre walked into the team headquarters, his nose fluttered and asked the blacksmith, "What are you stewing today?"

   "Horse meat," Berian answered.

   "Someday?" Andrei sighed and sat down at the table.

   Berrian filled a bowl of horse broth and served it to Andre.

  Andre began to gobble, and he asked Winters without looking up, "Have you arranged for a night guard?"

   Winters nodded and asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"

Andrei finished drinking a bowl of soup, handed the empty bowl to the blacksmith with his left hand, stretched out his right hand to the bread basket in the middle of the dining table, and said, "It's marching and working again, where's the strength to stand guard? You want me to say, The ten-man team in charge of standing guard does not need to participate in the construction of the camp, let them rest well. Otherwise, they will have to doze off while standing guard."

   "Okay... But what about the people who stand on the night guard today?"

   "Today's night post?" Andre sneered: "Count them out of luck."

   After dinner, the soldier's day is over, but the centurion's day isn't over yet.

  The blacksmith's horse broth cheered Winters up and filled his stomach, and he headed for the Jesska Battalion's camp.

   He was not going to sleep because the officer did not live with the soldiers and his tent was in a separate camp in the middle of the camp.

   He was just used to walking around the barracks after dinner.

   Now is the most relaxing time in the barracks. Soldiers sit around the warm campfire and share warm food with their fellow soldiers.

   Warmth, food, campfires, all of which can remove the shackles of discipline from soldiers.

   Walking around the camp at dinner time, Winters can get some vague perceptual knowledge: Cold? hungry? fear? angry? excited? Depressed? War tired? Dare to fight?

  Winters went to the stable first. The horses were well taken care of, with food and water.

   At the stables, he accidentally bumps into Budd and Lieutenant Colonel Jessica, with Anglo the pony.

  The left front hoof of a draught horse is tied to a stake, and Anglo is picking the horse's hoof.

   "What's the matter?" Winters asked.

   Lieutenant Colonel Jesska's face was gloomy: "You don't understand it."

   Winters was used to it, he turned and asked Bud: "What's the matter?"

  Bad Nunuzui: "The hoof may be leaking, and walking is a little lame."

   Missing hoof? Winters really doesn't understand...

   "Just maybe there's pus in there," Bud added.

"Oh."

"Do you understand?"

"No."

  Anglo immersed himself in his work. He first pried off the shoe, and then peeled off the horse's hoof layer by layer like a carrot.

   Finally, the pony shepherd picked up a hand drill and made a hole in the left flap of the horse's hoof.

   Viscous, crimson pus and blood flowed out of the hole and dripped on the ground in strands, making Winters' scalp tingle.

   "It's not easy." Lieutenant Colonel Jesska said with his arms crossed.

   "Well, it's not easy." Bud sighed.

  After draining the pus and blood, Anglo washed the horseshoe, applied medicine, and finally wrapped it in a clean cotton cloth.

   "This horse can't work recently." Anglo said distressedly: "It's better to let it rest, about half a month."

   Lieutenant Colonel Jesska also sighed, showing a rare trace of sadness: "Let it follow, if it doesn't work... slaughter it, don't waste the forage."

  The pony patted the horse's mane and gave a low "um".

   Lieutenant Colonel Jesska looked at Winters again, frowned and asked, "Why are you here?"

   Winters quickly left and continued pacing towards the camp.

   He walked to the place with the campfire, wrapped in the robe of the Hed, like an ordinary militiaman.

   The night was dark, everyone was busy filling their stomachs, and no one noticed the centurion walking by.

   They were laughing, cursing, singing obscene ditches, or arranging an embarrassment about an officer.

   These are things they wouldn't say in front of Winters, giving Winters a strange sense of realism.

  The army is a whole, the phalanx is a whole, and everyone inside is blurred.

   Now, blurred individuals sit by the campfire, bit by bit turning into flesh and blood,

   But Winters couldn't see or hear who was talking either.

   Through the flesh-and-blood individuals, he has a vague perceptual cognition of the whole [army].

   This kind of perceptual cognition is like touching the "spirit" of the army, so Winters will walk every day, otherwise he will always feel uneasy.

  Winters walked aimlessly, when a voice came from the campfire behind him: "It's all bubbles, it's going to rot."

   "Hold it up." The other person sniffed and replied in a low voice: "We can't let the peasants look down on us."

   He couldn't hear other people's voices, and he was very familiar with these two voices.

   The former one is Vashka.

The latter one is Pierre.

   Winters walked over and asked, "What's rotten?"

   "What else? Feet!" Wasika replied irritably, and suddenly he stood up in horror: "Sir... sir!"

   Beside Vashka, the other Dussacs who were roasting their feet on the campfire also stood up.

  …

   In order to save the stamina of the warhorse, Lieutenant Colonel Jesska strictly forbids any soldier to ride, even Dussac must lead the horse on foot—unless encountering enemies or performing reconnaissance missions.

   "Luoquan's legs also walked down the ground." The other militiamen muttered: "Let's see if they can eat our pain."

   Seeing that Dussac, who was arrogant and arrogant on weekdays, also walked in circles in Cairo, the [peasant son] in Dussac's mouth felt a hint of happiness in his heart.

   At the very beginning, Dussack under Winters called the peasant children [crop man], and the peasant children also returned to Dussac as [Tatar].

   These two words are extremely serious contempt, and the mental lethality to each other is no less than forty-eight-pounder shells.

  If Winters was not present, a fluttering word of [Tatar] or [Peasant] could set off a fight.

  In this way, the people of Wolf Town left their hometown in the eyes of each other's contempt.

The things after    do not need to be repeated. Some people are gone, and others are added.

The newcomers also liked to say [Tatar] and [crop] at first, but after everyone supported each other several times to escape from death, the words [Tatar] and [crop] were never mentioned again. .

   However, the antagonism caused by the difference in background is still vague, so the derogatory name has also changed quietly.

  [Looping Legs] replaced [Tatars], and [Peasants] replaced [Peasants].

   In Winters' ears, [Luoquan leg] and [peasant son] are still extremely serious contempt.

   "Can't you use some normal names?" Winters couldn't help talking to his militiamen.

  According to the militiamen, these two words are insulting only in the ears of the other party, and the speaker only uses them as neutral words.

When he mentioned this to Bud, Winters was still indignant: "Damn it! They just lied to themselves! What is 'I say no insult, you listen to insult'? decision?"

   "It's better than [Tatars] and [cropmen] after all." Bud was helpless.

  …

  Someone is waiting for Dussack to make a fool of himself, and Dussack also knows that someone is waiting for them to make a fool of himself.

   So they didn't complain or complain, they just walked away in silence.

  The spirit is commendable, but the body cannot be faked. Pierre, Vajka and other Dussacs have blisters on their feet, and some blisters are even the size of a thumb.

  Winters took a look and understood what was going on. He couldn't help laughing and crying: "What's the use of roasting fire? Go to the military doctor and let him pick out needles for you, don't crowd."

  Wolf Town Dussack is very close to Winters and has great courage.

   Pierre whispered: "The barber is a farmer, and he will definitely laugh at us."

   "What peasant?" Winters became furious when he heard the title: "Then you want me to choose for you?"

  Pierre shook his head desperately.

   "Don't shake your head." Winters reached out and grabbed Pierre's leg: "I'll pick it for you."

   "No, no..." Pierre stepped back again and again, almost falling: "I'll go to the military doctor."

"If you don't want to hear about the Tartars, don't call them peasants." Winters didn't know if these Dussacs could listen. He looked at the blisters on the Dussacs' feet and said, "Forget it. , I'll ask the military doctor to come over and be polite to others."

   After walking a few steps, he turned back again: "Tell the others, go to Lieutenant Bud tomorrow morning to pick up the shoes... How do you walk in riding boots?"

  …

Winters returned to his tent as the    militiamen began to douse the campfire.

   Being in a war zone, in order to save his "magic power" for emergencies, he temporarily interrupted spell practice.

   He lit the oil lamp, and he had one last thing to do.

  Winters took out the pen and ink bottle, thought about what happened today, and started writing to Anna:

   "From now on, every moment, I'm getting closer to you..."

   The letter was short, with only a few sentences, and Winters carefully folded the letter and put it in the wooden box.

   He squeezed out the oil lamp and got into the blanket.

  In the wooden box on the small table, there are hundreds of neatly stacked pieces of paper.

   This is an update from yesterday [Friday the 18th]...although it's only written now.

   Thank you book friends for reading, subscribing, recommending tickets, monthly tickets, tips and comments, thank you all;

   Thanks to the book friends who are sitting sleepy and sad, the brightest Tianjin No. 4, Qianshi Nadeko, Weird xy, frivolous scholar who does not read books, and Fuxiser for their rewards, thank you a few.

   (end of this chapter)