Chapter 188 Gansu Army Independent Regiment

Chapter 188 Gansu Army Independent Regiment

Chapter 188 Gansu Army Independent Regiment

The Huai Army took out all the winter clothes in stock and gave them to the hungry people brought by Dong Fuxiang.

The 20,000 elderly and weak people who need to keep warm the most will no longer freeze to death.

Shao Quanzhong took off his black wool coat and put it on a child whose face was frozen purple.

The child's father burst into tears, touching his only weapon, the sword on his waist, and was ready to die in battle for Shao Quanzhong.

Hu Liuniang kept several of Shao Quanzhong's woolen coats. In Shaanxi and Gansu, there was a lot of wind and sand, so Shao Quanzhong had to keep a neat image and change his coat every half a day.

To Shao Quanzhong, this was nothing but a show.

But the common people didn't think so, and other Manchu officials were unwilling to even put on a show.

Plucking a hair to benefit the world? Forget it.

The logistics department prepared hot soup and enough food for all the hungry people, and the able-bodied men who were ready to fight were given meat to eat.

There were frozen meat from dead and wounded war horses, sheep mobilized from Shaanxi, sheep purchased locally, and bacon shipped from central Jiangsu.

The big pot food doesn’t taste good, but how long has it been since the hungry people smelled meat?
Most of the able-bodied men distributed the meat allocated to them to the elderly and weak at home. After all, as long as they were full, they would have the strength to fight.

Why were there so many hungry people? Dong Fuxiang and Gao Wanyi were originally militiamen, why did they become bandits?
The root cause was the rebellion of bandits, killing people everywhere, causing the fields to become barren and no one to cultivate them.

Even if the Qing government wanted to provide relief, it would have to quell the rebellion first. Now most of the local officials have died for their country, and Gansu has become a state of anarchy.

With 300,000 people eating like this, the Huai Army’s rations wouldn’t last long. But they wouldn’t keep eating like this.

Le Sen was already arranging for the temporary evacuation of these starving people to nearby Shaanxi.

In Xi'an, Le Sen's wife, Qing Feng, the Grand Prefect of Xi'an, has urgently raised a batch of relief grain and is shipping it here.

Xi'an's collection of relief grain would mean that Shaanxi would not have enough food, but Shaanxi had been liberated after all, and government functions had begun to operate.

Lord Qiao in the rear, as the Governor-General of Shaanxi and Gansu, has coordinated with Sichuan and Hubei to quickly transfer military rations to Shaanxi.

The military rations there are in short supply, so they are collected from the public.

With Lord Qiao, who had been in charge of the granaries in the south and north of the Yangtze River and served as the governor-general of the grain transport system, and who was the best person in our Qing Dynasty who knew how to raise food and fodder, commanding the rear, the Huai Army was able to provide relief to these 300,000 starving people.

Shao Quanzhong patted his chest and assured the young men, "Before your family arrives in Xi'an, I cannot guarantee that your family will have enough to eat every day, but I guarantee that no one will starve to death. When we arrive in Shaanxi, I cannot guarantee that they will eat well, but I guarantee that they will have enough to eat. When I quell the rebellion here, when you come back, each family will be allocated at least a few dozen acres of land, and as long as you are willing to work, you can live a good life."

What is meant by “parents of the people” and what is meant by “official authority”.

People who say "I'm still too full" are always finding faults, saying that the government is not good at this or that. Well, most of what they say is right. The government does have many problems that need to be improved, and the problems of the Qing government are even greater.

However, once the government is gone and order is no longer there, no one will have the energy to put down their chopsticks and curse, because there will be no food to eat.

What the common people need at this time is order, a reliable authority, enough food to eat, and the most urgent things, namely the guarantee of "minimum right to survive".

Shao Quanzhong arrived with 40,000 Huai troops, gave everyone food, and guaranteed with official authority that everyone would have a bright future. The people who were eating burst into tears one by one - we finally have someone to take care of us.

Dong Fuxiang drew his sword and shouted, "Brothers, Lord Shao is in charge of our family. Lord Shao brought the Huai Army to help us fight the bandits. We are the men of the northwest, and we are grateful. Follow me and drive the bandits out of our hometown!"

"Roar!"

Forty-five thousand able-bodied men, armed with crude cold weapons, followed Dong Fuxiang and rushed to the battlefield without hesitation.

With the arrival of a fresh force that was almost three times the number of the Huai Army attacking the fortress, the Huai Army immediately changed its tactics. The infantry camps all became fire support, responsible for suppressing the firepower of the fortress with hand-held machine guns, rapid-fire cannons and rapid-fire guns.

The able-bodied men carried siege ladders and charged towards the fortress fearlessly. With steel knives in their mouths, they climbed to the top of the city wall and then engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Behind him were his family members who had just had a full meal. If the Huai Army was defeated, his family members would immediately face the possibility of freezing to death again.

These more than 40,000 heroic Northwest men only had strength and steel knives in their hands. In other words, they were like the bandits, with no way out and only a miserable life.

The situation on the battlefield changed suddenly, with the screams of bandits as the city was broken and the cheers of the Gansu and Huai armies constantly heard.

three days later.

"Report, Gansu troops lost more than 10,000 men, Dong Fuxiang was wounded in seven places, but he is still commanding the battle at the front line."

"Report, we have captured another 62 forts. The speed at which the engineering battalion digs trenches can no longer keep up with the speed at which we break through the forts. Now we are suppressing them with direct firepower, and the Gansu Army is charging directly."

Six days later.

"Report, Gansu troops suffered more than 20,000 casualties. We have captured more than half of the fortresses and formed a siege on Wuzhong County."

The city wall of Wuzhong County is not as big as that of Jinjibao, but it is much taller and stronger than ordinary fortresses.

Ten days later, the Gansu Army was beaten back twice again, and before launching a third charge -

"boom!"

The city wall of Wuzhong collapsed due to the explosion.

With the fire support of the infantry camp, the engineers of the Huai Army braved the hail of bullets and fought one after another, finally blowing down the city wall at the cost of 300 lives.

More than 20,000 Gansu troops rushed into Wuzhong City from the gentle slope of the collapsed city wall.

The 3,000 defenders of Wuzhong City did not fight to the death this time and surrendered.

Faced with the Gansu Army which was even crazier than them, the bandits with evil hearts were terrified.

The fall of Wuzhong, the core city of the northern fortress group, greatly depressed the morale of the bandits.

When the Huai Army and Gansu Army attacked southward again, the bandits had lost their initial fearlessness and began to become weak, with two fortresses even surrendering.

On February 28, the fourth year of the Tongzhi reign, the bandits in the remaining dozen or so fortresses lost all morale and retreated in panic back to Jinjibao.

The northern fortress group of Jinjibao disappeared and was completely demolished by blasting by the engineering battalion.

Two hundred and fifty-five thousand starving people have arrived at the refugee camps on the outskirts of Xi'an, where they are fed relief food, which, though rough, is enough to fill their stomachs.

The Gansu Army did not have to lay off the old and weak. After fierce fighting, only 12,000 of the 45,000 Gansu Army were left, half of whom were wounded.

Six thousand wounded soldiers were transported to the rear in Shaanxi. Shao Quanzhong announced that the remaining six thousand people would be formed into four reinforced infantry battalions to form the Gansu Army Independent Regiment, with Dong Fuxiang as the commander.

The Huai Army will send instructors to give them formal training, but Shao Quanzhong has granted permission that the Gansu Army will not be disbanded and incorporated into the Huai Army and will remain an independent organization.

The Gansu Army received special treatment, and Dong Fuxiang was immediately appointed as a senior general, but none of the Huai Army officers and soldiers were dissatisfied.

The Gansu Army’s treatment was earned through their heroic sacrifices.

(End of this chapter)