Chapter 144: Love Across the Thousand Miles, Dreams Die Hard to Come True

Chapter 144: Love Across the Thousand Miles, Dreams Die Hard to Come True

Chapter 144: Love Across the Thousand Miles, Dreams Die Hard to Come True

Chen Yucheng's face changed. "I have sincerely accepted your kindness and will go to North America as a mercenary. What do you mean by this?"

Wu Ziyi smiled playfully, "King Ying, you are the same as King Fu, you surrendered to Shao but not to the Tatars. We have to let you see the strength of the Huai Army and see if Commander Shao is a wise leader worthy of your allegiance, right?"

"A wise Lord would set up such a useless encirclement?"

"King Ying, this is not an encirclement. We are friendly forces now. Commander Shao has ordered me to introduce to you the military exercises we are demonstrating to our friendly forces this time."

"exercise?"

"Look this way."

Chen Yucheng and Yu Anding looked back together.

Behind them, the intercepting troops on the left wing of the Huai Army's infantry were three miles away from the 5,000 Taiping Army.

Wu Ziyi took out a firework with a smile, lit it with one hand, and with a "whoosh", a rocket went up into the sky. The magnificent Taizhou fireworks floated in the sky and took a long time to dissipate.

Before the fireworks had dispersed, the Huai Army's left wing third battalion fired more rockets. Three hundred Hale rockets were fired and exploded in the air over the three-li open space between the two armies.

For a moment, the open space was filled with fire and smoke. Everyone's nostrils smelled only the smell of gunpowder, and shrapnel covered the entire open space.

"Your Majesty, this is a test launch of our Hale rocket cluster. We now have 10,000 of these rockets."

The Taiping Army was all dismayed. They had originally thought that even if the three battalions at the back were very powerful with their guns, they could still break through their defenses if they tried their best. But now it seemed that they had no way out at all.

Seeing Chen Yucheng staring at the exposed pocket formation in front of him, Wu Ziyi smiled and lit the second firework.

The thirty-nine cannons of the six companies of the artillery reinforced battalion roared together, and shrapnel and grapeshot hit the open space in front.

Chen Yucheng sneered slightly. Zeng Guofan also had more than 30 foreign cannons. These things were indeed very lethal and caused us heavy losses during the bloody battle of Jixian Pass.

But we will fight and sacrifice, and we will still be able to rush over and break your pocket formation.

Unexpectedly, when the shells hit the ground, they seemed to trigger the gunpowder buried on the ground in advance. Explosions continued to occur on the ground, with flames and smoke everywhere, which looked very spectacular.

Seeing Chen Yucheng's disdainful look, Wu Ziyi laughed up to the sky, "King Ying, the gunpowder buried on the ground is not to enhance the effect of the exercise. We have a special engineering team. During this period, more than 100,000 mines were buried ten miles ahead of here."

Shit, no wonder the ambush was so loose, the open ground must be covered with mines.

"Only our Huai Army knows where there are no mines, so I stopped your scouts and ordered them to lead you. Otherwise, you will fall into the minefield, which will be too troublesome."

Behind him were three battalions of soldiers and a rocket cluster. To the west was Wabu Lake. There were countless mines in the ten miles ahead, and there were also ambushes. Chen Yucheng set his sights on a two-mile wide gap to the east.

Even if the place is full of mines, we can still rush through it with horses, risking losses and braving the hail of bullets...

Behind the open space, several thousand logistics soldiers appeared in the shadows, holding carbines, obviously the reserve force.

Further away, five hundred real cavalrymen were showing off their might, patrolling back and forth with carbines on their backs and sabers slung across their shoulders.

Chen Yucheng raised his telescope and quickly saw the enemy's rocket army and artillery units. The rockets that were quickly loaded and the muzzles of the artillery were all pointed at his five thousand people, and the artillery's reconnaissance balloons had already risen into the sky.

If rockets and artillery are fired again, it will not be an exercise.

"King of England, King of England, King of England - you don't need to bring weapons to the United States. The United States government will provide you with the most advanced weapons..." Chen Yucheng sighed, "Let's go to the United States. Before that, I want to meet General Shao."

Shao Quanzhong was as particular as ever, and the worries of King Ying and Yu Anding did not come true.

The disarmed Taiping Army was not massacred, but safely boarded the ship at Shouzhou Wharf.

Chen Yucheng's 5,000 men had 4,000 matchlock rifles, 1,000 quick-firing rifles, 4,000 goose-feather swords, and 5,000 horses. They were the best-equipped Taiping Army except for Deng Guangming's quick-firing team.

However, the Huai Army still looked down on these miscellaneous quick-firing rifles and distributed them to various insurance teams for training, especially the matchlock rifles and goose-feather swords.

Chen Yucheng's troops surrendered as a whole. There were no more rebel troops north of the Yangtze River in Anhui, so the insurance team had to expand greatly.

There were only 5,000 horses left in the Huai Army, and they had to be kept alive even if it was a waste of food. Eventually, the Huai Army had to be built into an all-cavalry force.

The six infantry battalions were transformed into dragoons, while the logistics and engineering troops needed large carts to increase their mobility.

At Shouzhou Wharf, rows of Taiping soldiers changed into the clothes of able-bodied men for the grain transport, wrapped their heads tightly with silk scarves to cover their hairstyles, and boarded the more than 200 grain transport ships that had been prepared here in advance, empty-handed.

The three battalions on the right wing of the Huai Army, namely the "Bo" Battalion, the "Xing" Battalion, and the "Shu" Battalion, were fully armed and "accompanied" them.

On the bank of the Huai River, Shao Quanzhong and Chen Yucheng stood side by side, with Tian Xing and Zhang Zhidong beside them.

"I'm going to Meiyi now, and I will definitely follow the command of Zhang Siwen, the military supervisor—"

"No, no, you command your subordinates, and you also control Yang Changjiu's subordinates. You are the commander-in-chief of the mercenaries I sent to Meiyi, and Sven is just a liaison between us. He doesn't know how to command a war, and giving wrong commands will lead to deaths."

Shao Quanzhong was an expert, so Chen Yucheng didn't say anything to thank him. If Shao Quanzhong ever wanted to fight the Qing demons for the world and transferred him back, he would definitely do his best.

However, it is impossible for us to give up our ideals and beliefs. It seems that Shao Quanzhong has no intention of completely recruiting us.

"It seems I have to change my name like the auxiliary king."

Chen Yucheng sighed, "I have failed the name bestowed by the Heavenly King. I did not die a heroic death. I cannot bear the name 'Yu' anymore. From now on, I will be called Chen Chengcheng. By the way, to show my sincerity to you, my lord, I will also change my name 'Cheng' to 'Chengxin'."

Shao Quanzhong was stunned, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and shook his head with a bitter smile, "Then I'll give you a word..."

"Thank you, my lord, for the calligraphy."

"Boom", the sound of a mine exploding came from afar.

"Report! The scout team encountered a group of Hunan scouts. They seemed to have discovered the secret of our incorporation of the Taiping Army. They tried their best to escape, but they stepped on landmines. Most of them were killed, and a few who resisted were shot dead. Only one was captured alive."

"That's great. Let's put the King's robes on him. Oh, and make him a wig. Remember to glue it firmly."

Hai Qing came over with a human head in his hand, and compared it with the King of England, observing it carefully. "Well, the portrait of the King of England wanted by the imperial court here is quite similar. I carefully selected this from 49,000 heads, so it should be fine."

Only Haiqing, who played with human heads in the basement every day, had the ability to pick out the head that looked most like the King of England. This Miao bandit was lucky, because he looked like the King of England, and his head would enjoy high-level treatment.

The affairs in Shouzhou were handed over to Zhang Zhidong for command and finalization, and Shao Quanzhong boarded the ship with the King of England.

The canal ships set sail, crossing the Huai River, passing the Grand Canal, and transferring to steam ships at the port, heading directly to Shanghai.

(End of this chapter)