America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 574 Soilwork
Behind the Songo fortress, there is a hill with ravines and ravines.

These ravines may be deep or shallow, but basically one is not next to the other.

At this time, there was a group of people wielding shovels and hoes, digging forward frantically, connecting these ravines as much as possible, and creating a road leading to the fort.

An old man nearly eighty years old, wearing a sleeveless cloth jacket and holding a shovel, was at the forefront of the team.

He went down with a shovel, submerged in the soil, stepped on again, exerted strength on his waist, and the soil was shoveled out with a shovel.

The old man turned around, poured the soil into the basket behind him, and then quickly shoveled a shovel.

"Uncle, put your coat on. There are too many mosquitoes here, and it's troublesome to be bitten!" A young man handed a long sleeve to the old man, and said earnestly, "Boss Chen asked us to take good care of you. If you have something wrong, how should we explain it?"

Zhang Danian didn't look back: "I have a thick skin, so I'm not afraid of these bugs."

The young man was full of embarrassment: "You are always here to command, not to charge. Just leave the digging to us. You are almost [-] now."

"Eighty? What's wrong with eighty?" Zhang Danian straightened up and turned his head, "When I was in Changsha in the Taiping Army, we dug that tunnel. You dug it? Do you know how to dig it?"

He wiped the sweat off his head with the corner of his jacket, and continued to dig:

"The soil here is not too hard. We have to dig more quickly. Jianqiu gave us a week, but I told him that it only takes three days!"

He turned his head and stared at the young man again, pulled the long sleeve from his hand, and put it on his body:
"Why are you still standing there? Hurry up and take out the basket of soil!"

Zhang Danian, who was hard-spoken and soft-hearted, led a group of people to dig trenches behind Songo Fort.

This is the secret mission Chen Jianqiu arranged for him.

Zhang Danian, who was born in the Taiping Army Geotechnical Battalion, agreed without even thinking about it.

The members of his army were miners and railroad workers, doing these things with ease.

Since there are many natural ditches here, the workload of Zhang Danian and the others is much smaller. In addition, the terrain is uneven and there are many vegetations, so the concealment is very strong.

From the city wall, there is basically nothing to see.

Chen Jianqiu and the others made a feint attack directly in front to attract the attention of the defenders, and at the same time searched for the scouts who had left the city.

From the second day of the feint attack, no living scouts returned to the city.

Lieutenant Gonzalez and his defenders were now blinded, oblivious to what was happening outside.

But the lieutenant didn't feel too much pressure.

Firstly, the commander on the opposite side did not organize a strong attack. To put it nicely is to be cautious, but to put it badly is to be afraid of death.

How can you be afraid of death in war?Not to mention siege warfare.

Secondly, there are sufficient supplies in his fortress, and even a lot of water has been stored, so he is not afraid of siege at all.

He believed that these insurgents either couldn't hold back and rushed forward and were beaten to pieces by his two heavy machine guns, or they retreated as before.

However, the lieutenant began to paint in the house.

He put the easel by his bed.

Draw two strokes, then climb into bed, look at your own painting, and slowly fall asleep.

In the dream, the lieutenant entered his own painting.

He walked through the jungle alone.

No enemies were encountered.

Those Chinese seem to have withdrawn.

Behind the jungle is the vast tropical grassland, where wild dogs, zebras, and antelopes run wildly on the grassland.

Then the scene becomes magical.

The animals flew up as they ran, floating in mid-air.

A building exactly the same as the Madrid bullring suddenly rose up on the grassland.

The lieutenant's own steps also became lighter.

He also floated into the bullring.

There, he saw his sister and brother who died in the civil war, and the Cubans he killed!
They have different skin colors, some are white, some are black, some are Chinese.
They actually stood together, waving at themselves in the middle of the bullring.

The lieutenant rushed towards them furiously.

He couldn't bear the fact that his relatives and his enemies were together.

"You devils, don't try to trick me!" the lieutenant roared.

But a huge explosion suddenly sounded behind him.

The lieutenant looked back and found that half of the bullring behind him was collapsing.

"Sir! Sir!"

A voice floated from the sky.

"Sir! Sir!"

Lieutenant Gonzalez snapped his eyes open.

He found one of his personal soldiers standing by the bed, with a panicked expression, and said to him in a distraught way:

"Sir! Calling in! Calling in!"

"What's the fight?" The lieutenant still didn't turn his head around.

"The city wall at the back was blown down by the enemy! The enemy has come in!" The soldier wailed.

The lieutenant jumped out of bed.

Before he even had time to put on his clothes, he put on a pair of pants and rushed out the door, looking towards the back of the fort.

It should be dawn at this time, and the sky is just getting bright.

In the direction he was looking, the sound of gunfire and killing was loud, and the figures of a group of soldiers in uniform were looming.

"Where are the soldiers? Where's my machine gun?" the lieutenant yelled, "Block it, go up the wall and beat them back!"

"We tried it." The soldier wept. "People can't stand on the front of the city wall. If they go up, they will be shot down. They can't be hit on the side. They seem to have come out of a ditch."

"In the ditch?" The lieutenant was at a loss now.

But the battlefield didn't give him much time to think.

More and more enemies rushed in.

The lieutenant took the gun from the soldier and rushed over.

But as soon as he rushed halfway, he saw two Chinese soldiers appearing in front of him.

The two sides had a face-to-face meeting.

Without hesitation, the lieutenant and the soldiers behind him raised their rifles and shot, and suddenly a stream of bullets from the opposite side also shot over.

Maybe it was a hasty fight, and neither side hit.

The lieutenant hastily pulled the trigger to fire again.

Little did he know that the soldier on the opposite side quickly changed his kneeling position, holding his gun and firing again.

The rate of fire is completely suppressed.

This time, the opposite side took aim.

The lieutenant was knocked to the ground in an instant, and the soldiers behind him didn't last longer than him, and lay down next to the lieutenant two seconds later.

The same thing happened in other corners of the fort.

The Chinese soldiers followed the trenches to the gap in the city wall, and rushed into the fortress on the blasted rubble.

They carried automatic firearms such as BAR and swept at the Spanish soldiers who were blocking them.

The Spanish soldiers were mostly asleep.

They came out at the signal, disheveled and armed with guns, some of which hadn't had time to be loaded.

As soon as they met the Chinese soldiers, they were swept to the ground.

The battlefield quickly turned into a one-sided trend.

More than half of the more than 100 Spanish soldiers were quickly wiped out, and the remaining people lost all fighting spirit and opened the door to flee for their lives.

Half an hour later, Chen Jianqiu walked into the fort along the gap.

Zhang Danian followed behind him.

"Uncle Da Nian, in this battle, you should take the lead." Chen Jianqiu glanced at the soldiers who were cleaning the battlefield, and turned to Zhang Da Nian.

"I'm not bragging to you, Jianqiu, when I was attacking Changsha City." The old man digged the soil for several days and nights, but he was still in good spirits, without a trace of tiredness, and he was blowing so much that his spit was flying everywhere.

Chen Jianqiu smiled and listened to Zhang Danian finish playing, and then patted him on the shoulder: "Uncle Da Nian, you should go and have a rest, we will continue to clean up the Spanish soldiers on the periphery."

"Well, I have to squat for a while, it's not like back then." Zhang Danian backed out with his hands behind his back.

"Boss, what about these soldiers who surrendered?"

Li Sifu walked over with a group of Spanish prisoners.

These captives were tied with their hands in front of their bodies and strung together with ropes, one after the other, each with their heads downcast.

"Throw away the rebels and let them deal with them. Revenge those who have vengeance, and repay those who have wronged." Chen Jianqiu glanced at the soldiers and said, "I don't have enough food to support them."

These Spanish soldiers could not understand what Chen Jianqiu said, but Li Sifu could.

The soldiers of the rebel army naturally did not have much food.

Spain's brutal rule has left the country suffering from poverty and famine.

There was blood and blood on both sides, and the fate of these Spanish soldiers can be imagined.

"What about the enemies who ran out?" Li Sifu continued to ask, "What if they ran to other strongholds and leaked our tactics? Shall we chase them?"

"I'm not worried." Chen Jianqiu didn't take it seriously, "I have a lot of tactics, and the artillery is also on the way."

Since the location of the first landing was not very good, many supplies were not transported.

Chen Jianqiu's artillery is gathering in southern Florida under the leadership of Danny.

"Besides, if I were them, I would not choose to run to a small stronghold and die a second time, but flee directly to Santiago or Guantanamo." Chen Jianqiu continued.

"Ah? In that case, wouldn't those two places be more difficult to fight?" Li Sifu was a little puzzled.

"That's right." Chen Jianqiu shrugged, "But that's none of my business, I'm not in a hurry to fight over there."

In the following weeks, Chen Jianqiu led the [-]nd U.S. Cavalry Brigade on a rampage in southern Cuba between Santiago and Guantanamo, sweeping away all Spanish strongholds in this area.

Behind them followed the Chinese rebel army.

When the Cuban people along the way heard about the arrival of this Chinese army, they ate pots of oatmeal to welcome the king.

Although many of them have nothing left, they are still willing to take out the few cassava and sweet potatoes left in their homes.

The military discipline of Chen Jianqiu's troops has always been very good.

One of the reasons is the high military salary and clear rewards and punishments, and peacetime ideological education is also inseparable.

Everyone in the night school church can sing, whether they are Chinese, black, white or Mexican soldiers.

Every grassroots team has a specialist in charge of ideological education.

The Chinese soldiers were told that they had come to liberate their fellow countrymen.

Just as Chen Jianqiu led his troops to play triumphant songs in southern Cuba.

The rest of the U.S. Army is still preparing.

But the Navy is not idle.

The US Asia Fleet, which was notified by Roosevelt in advance, left XG.

乔治·杜威海军准将率4艘巡洋舰、2艘炮舰、1艘缉私船于5月1日凌晨悄悄潜入马尼拉湾。

General Dewey had feared that the Spaniards would be flooding Manila Bay with mines.

But in fact not.

The main force of the Spanish fleet was there.

They were quickly spotted.

However, Admiral Dewey's fleet had completed its formation.

At about 5:40, the Commodore ordered the fleet to open fire on the Spanish fleet consisting of 6 cruisers and 3 gunboats commanded by Rear Admiral Montoyo.

Although the Spanish warships have an advantage in number, they are far behind the new American warships.

The Spanish warships were old and rather ill-prepared.

The main gunner is missing and ammunition is scarce.

Their shore fire defenses weren't even ready for that.

In comparison, Dewey was much more prepared.

As early as a year ago, at the behest of Roosevelt, he had been stationed on XG Island for six months of training.

American artillery is much more accurate than the Spaniards.

According to post-war statistics, the American artillery hit at least 170 rounds, while the Spaniards only hit 15 rounds.

The US ships have a clear division of labor for naval guns, with 8-inch large-caliber guns bombarding coastal forts, and 5-inch secondary guns hitting Spanish warships.

The U.S. fleet kept approaching the target and fired repeatedly, and then turned 1800° after approaching a distance of more than 180 meters, maintaining a parallel posture with the Spanish fleet, so that the 5-inch secondary guns on both sides could give full play to the firepower.

In this way, this naval battle became a unilateral "massacre".

There is no suspense about the outcome of the final battle.

The Spanish fleet was completely wiped out, while the American fleet suffered almost no losses.

Their damage control was very good and no ships were sunk.

News of the Manila Bay victory reached the United States.

All the crowd was passionate and demanded an immediate attack on the Spanish troops in Cuba.

Most people don't know how many people Chen Jianqiu's troops went to Cuba and how they fought.

They only know that these Chinese who are usually despised by them landed on the island first.

This is so embarrassing.

Why can a Chinese volunteer army fight bravely, but the American army, which has always been full of martial arts, has been slow to stand still?

They guessed right, the U.S. Army is still not ready.

It's not that no one wants to go.

After the recruitment order was issued, the Ministry of the Army received a full 20 applications for enlistment!
These volunteers were concentrated in Florida.

There, their unskilled instructors taught them how to shoot, how to line up, and how to march.

These people are all rookies.

A rookie who knows nothing but passion.

There were also fights between black and white soldiers at boot camp.

The War Department had to expend a lot of energy to deal with this matter.

Otherwise, the army would have to fight in Florida first before the army set off.

Plus, they don't have enough guns yet.

The Clark rifle produced by the Springfield Armory was only equipped with some American soldiers.

This is on the premise that the Roswell Arsenal processed a batch at full capacity.

Many people brought their own guns, which were more advanced than Kragg rifles, but most of them still used black powder rifles, the kind that would smoke when fired.

The transport ships prepared by the army were not enough, and they tried to requisition civilian ships.

Coastal fishermen and commercial transport companies are very active, but they are really inexperienced.

Coupled with the battered army, the arrangement of ships became a mess.

In addition, the army does not have enough uniforms and rations.
In short, nothing but passion is enough.

But Roosevelt couldn't help it.

He decided to lead the [-]st Volunteer Cavalry Brigade to attack Cuba.

His buddy is already on the island, he can't just sit back and watch.

After several applications, Commander-in-Chief Shafter finally agreed to his application.

Roosevelt bravely embarked on a journey to Cuba.

But what he didn't expect was that the moment he set foot on the land of Cuba, he felt as if he had been scolded.

None of the horses and equipment of the [-]st Cavalry Brigade had come, except his.

　Two in one, 4000 words

　　
　
(End of this chapter)