On November 4, the tenth year of Wanli, it was still dark.

The Ming army squadron general Yuan Zizhang led his headquarters, deputy guerrilla general Wang Youlin, who was the Beiyang Banner Army, and the Baishan Camp general Kangguruma team led his army to a total of 600 troops.

As the forewarn, the North Korean officer of Baishan Camp, Huang Xi set out half an hour ago. The Spanish donkey dragged the prefabricated wooden square unloaded from the boat and quickly completed the bridge building operation in the underwater river in late autumn.

The French scout in the wet pit bunkers of the riverside shrubs, was awakened by the shock of the cavalry's horse hooves. He picked up the crossbow at his hand, and his whole body trembled involuntarily. His left arm was curled up all night and was paralyzed. He kept pulling the old thick numb blanket to freeze his right arm. The stimulation of cold and horror made him sleepless. However, his mind was clear, but due to his low body temperature, he could only look dullly at the thick fog where the horse hooves and taps were heard.

In a minute or less, solid drums and vague military music kept coming from that direction. According to the order, the scouts should turn around and run away, and quickly convey the news to their camp. The confrontation of the Dordogne River has lasted for half a year in the Catholic royal army and the Huguenots. Attacks of all sizes and small battles will be carried out two to three times a month. Those who survived are veterans who experienced life and death.

But this is the first battle in winter.

He has never received reconnaissance training on winter. In recent years, the weather has been getting colder and colder. Last year, there was even a light snow on both sides of the Seine. He was very convinced that the wetlands on the Dordogne River would have produced thin ice at some time before dawn, otherwise it should not be so cold.

People have luck. Before setting off, a guy who was on the same task gave him a half-new armed clothing. Although the thing was not a high-end product lined with iron armor, it could be pierced through with just a long sword, but I heard that it was stuffed with cotton inside, which must be very warm.

Although Europeans were finally able to control the cotton production areas after the Crusades and tried to plant spinning in Milan, Venice and other places, farmers still had no chance of such things. People adhered to the ancient concept of three hundred years ago, believing that ancient and mysterious cotton grew on cotton trees with hybrid animals and plants. The sheep hanging at the end of the branches of the trees grew quietly during the day. When night fell, the branches were hanging towards the water, and the sheep in the calyx could sip water.

Of course, after being summoned to fight, the scouts were skeptical about this matter. When he told his companion, the Ming Dynasty must have planted many sheep trees, he was ridiculed by everyone. The veterans who had been to the New World said that cotton was a low plant growing in the fields, and the Spanish planted it. As long as they planted one piece, they could grow many. They were experienced swordsmen. In their early years, they were famous village blacksmiths. They were knowledgeable and amazing people. They must know more than themselves.

As for the entourage of the Knight Master? He had no chance to talk to such noble people. The noblest person he had seen in his life was nothing more than the priests in the village and the knights of the barons.

Because the last unlucky person could not tolerate the cold, he still lit a bonfire on the third night in his armed clothes stuffed with cotton to keep warm. The Ming army knight who had slipped over the river bank to set up horses and ate grass with a bow was shot through his head. When people found that he left nothing but the terrifying blood hole on his face, he was thrown naked on the ground, like a dead sheep with skin removed.

The Baron was not as close as he was when he was assigned to him. He just rode a horse and brought a few knights and conscripts to come over, holding a fine silk scarf that was bright and reflective, blocking his mouth and nose from afar, looking at the corpse in disgust, and leaving without saying anything.

The knight left behind wanted to open his mouth and tell him with his nostrils, "Dispose it, you are the new scout." Without armed clothes and no funerals, there was no encouragement. The scout who was left here dragged the body to the river alone and found a place that was easier to hide and stayed in.

He never sets fire. Even if he goes to the river in the middle of the night to get water, he wears his shoes backwards, a few pieces of black bread and two handfuls of beans, and lives for nine days.

Although he had a fever and had a stomachache for three days, he was still as strong as a wild dog.

This is better than being used by the Ming knights to open their bows with their ability to open their heads and close to four or five steps before setting off their bows. The terrifying arrow with a triangular edge and long edge of the blade is much better when they are half asleep and half awake.

It was very cold and the scouts felt like they knew everything.

He knew that everyone had their own difficulties. In this period of wars in previous years, it was understandable that there was no food to be sent to the front line. Before the war began, no one expected that he would stand up for so long. He was too poor, and he was not as military training as the knight entourage, and it was understandable that he had no armed clothes.

The footsteps gradually became clear with the drum beats and the unique military music of the Ming army, and memories surged into my heart like a tide.

The scouts had heard of such military music. It was three months ago. The Baron led the conscript army to use forty knights sent by the royal family as the vanguard. They built bridges across the Dordogne River. On the hillside full of green shade, the terrifying array of Spanish mercenaries of the Ming army unfolded on the endless fields.

The two sides were unable to fight directly in that battle. The scouts and many untrained recruits like him gathered together. The noble officers tried their best to knock on the baton and instructed the soldiers to set up the same formation as the opposite side. All the painstaking preparations collapsed when the first shell landed on the edge of the formation.

The scout remembered it very clearly that when he and his comrades fled across the Dordogne River, such military music always lingered in his ears.

That encounter did not cause any soldier's casualties to the Baron's subordinates, but more than 30 people died of fever in the following half month.

When his thoughts were withdrawn, his eyes passed over the crossbow with the handles of insects and the dead branches and haystacks blocked in front of him. The direction pointed by the thick arrows, the heavy sound of horse hooves was close at hand, and the sound made the scouts fight their teeth.

A spear pointed diagonally towards the sky was the first to pierce the fog. The hanging triceratops were soaked and hung down. The officer holding the flag also had the same small flag. He stopped with a riding spear. He was wearing thick blue cotton armor with iron nails and a yellow heart-protecting mirror on his chest. His clothes were bulging and stubborn. The gap of the armor skirt with dragon patterns showed red cotton pants and black fat boots. He hung a slightly curved scabbard on his waist. He was carrying a tanned brown leather backpack. There were also several leather goods wrapped in various leather boxes that the scouts did not know what they were for.

Behind him were ten Ming army infantry in the front and back, dressed in close costumes and holding muskets. Their muskets were sharp and straight knives, each of which looked so healthy and full of energy, as if the weather that could freeze the French to death was as warm as spring for them.

Several knights who lifted their spears or held their bows and reins briskly passed by the infantry. They rode the best Spanish and French horses, equipped with a full set of plate armor from Milan or Paris, but wearing their high-top helmets that exposed half of their cold face, carefully looked at the thick fog, and stepped out a safe road with their horse's hooves.

The scout thought, he knew that everyone had their own difficulties.

Perhaps, others will understand his difficulties in deciding to be a deserter.
Chapter completed!