Chapter 360 Hubei Change (Part 2)

"The Sixth Association is always in the most dangerous place! This is the trust the governor has given us!"

Late at night on February 1, Ji Yulin, the Sixth General Manager of the Sixth Association, stood on a high ground dozens of miles away from Hankou, Huangpi County, and said to a young man beside him with a light whip!

He set out from Xiaogan on January 28. Li Han gave him the order to point directly to Hankou from Huangpi County, and take advantage of the night to detour Caijia Town and Dahetun. He almost wiped the "Beijing-Han Railway" that had been interrupted for a while and rushed to the unprepared Hankou Fort. Under the influence of money, a crack had appeared on the originally solid Eight Gate defense line. The two defenders at the Eight Gate Zhongyu Belt Gate and Xunli Gate had secretly swore to serve Li Han. Considering that the defenders changed every three days, if the Sixth Association could not arrive at 6:00 tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning, the Sixth Association had not yet arrived.

After reaching two places, he would miss the best chance to seize Hankou. Because in the plan of the military government's raid on the three towns of Wuchang this time, Hankou was important, but not the primary strategic purpose. Therefore, his troops were only two infantry standards of the Sixth Association, plus a mountain artillery battalion, with nearly 3,500 officers and soldiers. The limitation of strength determined that the Sixth Association did not have the ability to attack in this battle, so he had to seize the two defenders who secretly surrendered to Li Han before attacking Hankou before replacing defense, and forcing the Hankou defenders to surrender!

Before this battle, Li Han had clearly told him that the First Mixed Association had suffered a lot of losses in the war some time ago, and it was difficult to train artillery soldiers. This time, only one mountain artillery battalion could be transferred to him. After the Hanyang war contact, the rest of the armed forces would cross the river to Wuchang to take over the city defense of Wuchang. Although the first and second Mixed Associations of the civil army stationed in Wuchang City had sworn allegiance to him. However, there was also the new third migrant association in the civil army, which was the commander of the second town of Zhang Yanfu. Zhang Yanfu was born in the literary club in his early years. Some time ago, he went to Nanjing with the Hubei generals led by Li Yuanhong to meet President Sun. It is said that he was very close to the Tongmenghui. Once Wuchang became in chaos, his new third migrant association in the civil army was a force that must be paid attention to, and the possibility of fire exchange was more than 90%. Moreover, Li Han did not dare to fully believe in the organization that was applied to him, so the power that could be transferred to him was limited.

If the fight really starts this time, Hanyang will be the largest battlefield. The Revolutionary Army and the Civilian Army gathered nearly 41,000 officers and soldiers in a small Hanyang. The Revolutionary Army occupied the Guishan position and controlled most of the positions near Hanyang City to Guishan. Outside the Hanyang County, the armed forces from the Civilian Army occupied more than 80% of the positions. The two armies fought each other, gathering nearly 170 artillery pieces, and two or three hundred machine guns confronted each other. Even though 60% of the senior management of the Civilian Army had been bribed by him, most of them were unwilling to open fire on their former companions, such as Xiong Bingkun, Wu Zhaolin, and Wang Anlan. The three promised that once the battle started, they would restrict their troops from entering the battlefield, and they would swear allegiance after he took over the three towns of Wuchang, but would never take the initiative to open fire on their previous comrades. Although Li Han frowned for this small request, he finally responded.

However, Li Han told a small lie to the three people during the previous meeting. He did get the oath of allegiance from the Sanhui Minjun, but the oath was limited to most generals at the battalion level and above. He couldn't guarantee that when the time came, the three associations would not be in chaos. After all, the three words "revolutionary party" were still very sensible in this era. Revolutionary beliefs have emerged among many soldiers of the military below the civilian army. Revolutionary beliefs are a very terrifying thing. In modern history, many revolutionary pioneers sacrificed their lives for these four, and lost their lives. Now, what made him most uneasy is that he seemed to have become a politician who trampled on other people's revolutionary beliefs!

This time, Ji Yulin's Sixth Association, after three or four consecutive days of day and night, slowly walked from Xiaogan and secretly advanced to Huangpi County. As the road was kept secret, except for the marching brigade of people being discovered by the villagers when they passed by a village, Ji Yulin had no choice but to order the villagers to move forward. After arriving in Huangpi County, the newly formed Huangpi County Military Branch Government sent people to comfort the villagers, and after the battle was over, they would arrange to be dismissed. Afterwards, Ji Yulin also reported the matter to Li Han's document, and his courage and frankness were highly praised by Li Han.

The young man around Ji Yulin was not someone else, but Wang Bailing, who had come to join Li Han before and joined one of the young men. Later, Li Han sent someone to escort Ji Yulin to serve as an adjutant in the Henan front, hoping to train him on the Henan front, but unexpectedly, not long after he arrived in Henan, the war in Henan Province ended.

"Ji Shuai said it right. This is the governor's trust in our Sixth Association. Now that we will take over the three towns of Wuchang, we will have mastered the two provinces of Sichuan and Hubei. This time, we must not break the governor's plan!"

Wang Bailing followed and responded, but his young and childish face seemed very excited. He was dressed in a new civilian officer costume, which seemed particularly heroic. This young man came to serve Li Han for two or three months and has now jumped from Bai Dingyi to a close associate of the Sixth Association of the Revolutionary Army's main combat organization. There are also reports that the military government will announce an expansion plan after conquering Hubei. According to Ji Yulin's merits and Li Han's trust in him, the control of one town cannot be escaped. If he performed better in this war, perhaps he could also ask for his current civilian officer, even if he was transferred to the ground to be the battalion commander of the first battalion!

Ji Yulin smiled, nodded but said nothing. The vanguard of the Sixth Association had already entered Hankou in the dark. It was already eleven o'clock in the evening. Hanyang and Wuchang should have started fighting!

As he thought, almost at the moment when the time on the pocket watch reached eleven o'clock, in the temporary command center of Hanyang City, Ma Rongcheng, the Hanyang guard commander appointed by Li Han, looked at the young man sitting on the main seat of the house, closed his eyes and rested. After finding that he had no expression, he immediately waved his hand to call his adjutant, "Transfer the order and prepare for the battle!"

"yes!"

Then, dazzling simple signal flares rose. On the six revolutionary army artillery positions including Guishan Cannon Camp, Qilipu, Hanyang City, the artillery that had already retreated from its cannon suits and corrected the coordinates, the artillery shells roared and shot at the several artillery positions established by the civilian army to restrain the Hanyang Revolutionary Army. The shells exploded black spots on the snow that had not yet completely melted. Before the civilian army could react, the revolutionary soldiers who had already rested for a whole day in the day quickly arranged in formation and charged towards the civilian positions in Hanyang. Along the way, any organization that did not hang white flags outside the camp or dared to resist, they were attacked by the revolutionary army!

For Li Han, he knew that compared to Ma Rongcheng and others who had been honing on the battlefield for a long time, he was not very good at military command. His strength was in strategic layout. Therefore, in the Hanyang War tonight, all the revolutionary soldiers in the entire Hanyang territory were left to him to command!

The first day of early February was not a suitable weather for launching a raid, because the moon came out that night, and the battle started today was almost midnight, but the bright moonlight still shone on the ground with great clarity. After experiencing the chaos of the initial strike, the fifty-seven-mm mountain cannons and seventy-five-mm cannons on the civilian artillery positions began to be launched sporadically. After Ma Rongcheng asked Li Han for instructions, he led several staff members out of the command center. His command style was to fight and command along the way with the army, which also facilitated the problem on the front line to solve it immediately.

Duan Jinbiao stood at a height of a civilian position that had just occupied. He looked at the figures of civilian soldiers fleeing to another position two miles away with a telescope, but he felt a little worried.

In more than half an hour, he led his troops to seize five or six unprepared civilian positions, but his good luck was almost used up. He knew that the Qing army and the civilian army had fought a tragic war here for several days, and no less than a thousand people were killed or injured on both sides. Because of the advantage of the high ground, he could not take down this position in a short time!

What to do? The sneak attack was surprisingly unexpected, so you can't delay time here!

He ignored his hands that were blown coldly in the cold wind, and looked at the vague civilian position two miles away. A messenger suddenly ran from below and said, "Biaotong, the cavalry team found that a white flag was hung on the position there, and there was a military change in that position. The first battalion of the civilian army attacked and killed all the officers and had ordered people to contact us. Look..."

"What, this relationship is good!"

Duan Jinbiao was overjoyed, "Hurry, tell Zhang Jin and let him send a team of people to take over the position. The rest of the people came with me, and the Sanyuan Bridge was ahead. There was a machine gun team in the civilian army. It was difficult for us to attack the four machine guns directly. We ordered the escort team to blow up the machine gun team first!"

"yes!"

There were many capable people in the civilian army. Hanyang's raids were very hasty, but the revolutionary army did not always fight so smoothly. In some areas, the civilian army, who reacted, launched a counterattack under the command of some generals, and took the initiative to attack the positions garrisoned by the revolutionary army. Moreover, because a large number of revolutionary troops were drawn from various fronts to attack the civilian army, the number of personnel on some fronts that were originally garrisoned by the revolutionary army was insufficient, such as Shilipu!

Shilipu, a middle-aged man in his thirties with short hair with his ears and looks a bit like a private school teacher, frowned and looked at the front opposite. Others were quite clear and their eyes were drooping, but their flying eyebrows had a sense of heroic spirit. It was Yang Zaixiong, the newly-edition Sixth Association of the Civil Army. He led an infantry standard to rest in a position several miles away from Shilipu. When the cannon sounded, he felt something was wrong. He immediately alerted the soldiers below to be careful and quickly verified.

The uneasiness in his heart was that the revolutionary army sneaked into the civilian positions. After the news came to his ears from the fleeing civilian soldiers everywhere, the veteran of the literary club, who had always had a good temper, was furious. He was appointed as the Xiaogan garrison by Li Yuanhong a few days ago. He knew that the war with the revolutionary army was only a matter of time before, but he did not expect it to come so early. He immediately ordered a counterattack on Shilipu, and at the same time ordered people to detour to Hankou to inform the Hankou garrison, and went south from the Hankou Wharf to inform the Hanyang Revolution of Wuchang!

The young officers around him were all very arrogant, but at this moment they all looked angry. Most of them were from party members. This is the worst thing in China. Even in chaotic times, if you don’t have any support in the future, even if you have the ability, you may not be able to get on the throne. No, Wuchang is so chaotic, and there are still a few who can occupy the high position of the civilian army with their righteous achievements. If they were not from party members, they would have been suppressed by the Li Sect, Sun Sect, and Tongmenghui to support their own people to take up the throne!

"Sir, this revolutionary army has rebelled. Let us not accept mercy. Let most of the officials come up. Take Shilipu first and then support comrades from other places!"

"Yes, yes... These villains launched an attack in the dark, but I'm afraid that everything is already in chaos..."

"Brother Huaibin, when will we go up? There seems to be not many people defending Shilipu now. We will finish it with just push. We will take over and hit Hanyang City and drag the boy named Ma out to parade to see if he has any arrogance!"

Yang Zaixiong obviously thought much more than them. He knew that the strength of the Revolutionary Army and the Hubei Civilian Army should be not much different, otherwise Li Yuanhong would not have been occupied by anyone and dared not use force easily. But this time the Revolutionary Army took the initiative to fire at the Civilian Army. Thinking of this, he became uneasy. He tensed his lips: "This time the Revolutionary Army took the initiative to provoke war is too suspicious. Could it be that they were really arrogant and thought they could swallow our civilian army? Zhang Cheng ordered to attack Shilipu with all his strength and take Shilipu!"

"yes!"

The shells were fired more and more closely, and finally the fire of the machine gun also started to sound. After the initial chaos, the civilian army in Hanyang City gradually gathered at several fronts guarded by heavy troops.

When he heard that Shilipu was almost defeated by the civilian army, Duan Jinbiao, the closest ninth Biaobiao, was startled and quickly ordered a battalion to attack Shilipu's nearest civilian positions to surround Wei to rescue Zhao. He knew that Shilipu had a machine gun platoon and eight machine guns were guarding there. Unless the civilian army pushed the cannons up, it would be difficult for infantry to conquer it in a short time.

After the civilian army gradually gathered together, they formed several waves of gray human lines and walked forward slowly. After walking a few steps, they stopped to fire machine guns. The few machine guns also moved from both sides and escorted the infantry forward with firepower.

‘The fight was very organized’, Duan Jinbiao exclaimed in his heart. Anyway, it was stronger than the chaotic organization he had now incorporated two willing units that were willing to follow him to continue fighting. He was now gathering with a group of civilian troops, with about 1,500 to 2,000 civilian troops collided with each other. Fortunately, there were no heavy weapons on the other side, but those machine guns were indeed a bit annoying!

After saying aloud in his heart, he also felt that the generals leading the troops on the opposite side were talented, so he sent a staff officer to surrender, but he didn't expect to shoot them before he could even reach the place. He was angry and immediately ordered a five-60-mm Hanyang orogenic cannon followed by to come up, and firepower suppressed the machine guns on the opposite side. The mountain cannons started firing again, stirring up a piece of snow dust on the ground. The shells exploded in the frozen soil and made gaps of large and small in the wavy formation of the civilian army. However, under the control of the civilian officers on the opposite side, they still maintained the formation of the scattered line and kept pressing over at a fast pace.

The machine guns of the ninth scale also began to fire. At first, the weather was too cold, and the sound was a little dull. Later, the machine parts were activated. Six flames made a wind-like sound. After the rows of civilians on the opposite side were strafed down, the wavy team stopped. The soldiers of the civilians rushed to the terrain and slowly squirmed forward. Their machine guns also supported them with side fire. When the civilians crawled within the range of the rifle fire, the rifles of both sides began to fire again.

The military quality of this civilian army is quite good, and the defense is very tenacious, but when they charge, they feel a little dull. They just moved the troops to the range of fire, and then started shooting. They tried to suffocate the opponent's resistance with firepower, and then launched a charge. However, the ninth flag had all withdrawn a few small cannons, so how could the firepower be poor? As a result, the two teams met here. After a fierce battle, the civilian army on the opposite side finally lost hundreds of corpses and retreated. Obviously, their firepower could not suppress the revolutionary army at all. Later, from the wounded soldiers of the civilian army who were contained, Duan Jinbiao realized that he was actually the troops led by Zhang Yanfu, the commander of the second town of the civilian army, who was in charge of the civilian army! This was also considered the largest battle between the two armies on the ground of Hanyang in this chaotic night!

“It’s been a big deal recently!”

In Wuchang, Jiang Yiwu smiled wryly and said to Fan Tengxiao, Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of the Navy of the Hubei Military Government.

Fan Tengxiao had a bitter face, but he didn't dare to respond. The previous one, Wu Zhaolin and Wang Anlan went to Hanyang. Someone saw them entering Hanyang City. Now many revolutionary parties in the city think that they were going to surrender to Ma Rongcheng in Hanyang. To be precise, it was Li Han, Li Yizhi, and Xiong Bingkun. First, the incident happened some time ago, everyone knew that he had some friendship with Li Han, and secondly, he was still a member of the association. Some time ago, Sun Wu protected him, and Li Yuanhong was not willing to make a big fuss. However, neither Wu Zhaolin nor Wang Anlan came from a party. Now, it would be jealous to be the commander of the military government in a town of the civil army. If the two were not protected by the first-class meritorious status, and Li Yuanhong wanted to win over the two, it would not be their turn to sit in the position of the civil army in a town.

Although Fan Tengxiao was also an old revolutionary and joined the Japanese Notice in his early years, the Japanese Notice had long since passed away. If he hadn't been his friend to Liu Jing'an, the first person in the Hubei Revolution, and with this halo on his body, it would be difficult for him to take office in the Hubei military government where the interest group began to appear. Even so, he would have no say in such a problem!

Fan Tengxiao was unwilling to speak. When Jiang Yiwu thought about it, he understood his concerns. He smiled bitterly and shook his head. A trace of confusion flashed in his eyes. After Wuchang's righteousness, the situation changed too quickly. Sun Wu, the original good comrade, has now gone further and further with them. Even Zhang Zhenwu, who was in the same group as them, went to Shanghai to buy machinery some time ago. He traveled in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and planned to form another Hubei Northern Expedition Army to fight all the way to Beijing. A few days ago, because of some things, he jumped up and down to strengthen the strength of the generals and the school regiments, and sent his confidants to contact Feng Sihong's troops to assist the Hubei and Jiangxi Army. Recently, it has been rumored that he has won over some literati and wanted to make a newspaper, and his official addiction is getting bigger and bigger!

Cai Jimin, who had just arrived, sighed, feeling that Wuchang, the first place of righteousness, was no longer as a revolutionary holy place. Instead, as Li Yuanhong recruited a group of religious and religious figures began to mix into the Hubei parliament and occupied a majority of the seats, now the party members always put forward a proposal for a few days, which is called tossing!

"Brother Bo Kui, don't sigh, maybe it will be better in a while!"

Cai Jimin wanted to comfort him, but he became less confident when he spoke. He could only lower his head and sigh and stop talking!

Inside the room, these three people are now the temporary top managers of the Hubei military government. Li Yuanhong, Liu Xinyuan, Sun Wu, Zhang Zhenwu and others either went to Nanjing or Shanghai. The boss of Tongmenghui Tan Renfeng and Ju Zheng also left Hubei to Nanjing. During this period, the real leaders of the Wuchang Civil Affairs Office were the ones in front of them. Of course, there was Wu Zhaolin. He was nominally the commander-in-chief of the Hubei Civil Army, but he did not invite him today. Is it hard to say why?

"How is it, Xiangpu... Have you found out where the message came from?" Jiang Yiwu signaled Cai Jimin to sit down, rubbed his head and asked him with a bitter face. Suddenly, the two men's army heard a voice saying that someone had bribed many generals with money. Jiang Yiwu didn't take it seriously at first, but the voice became louder and louder in the past few days. Now the whole of Wuchang is circulating, saying that all the officers took the money from others, and then they were shocked to the Ministry of Military Affairs. Jiang Yiwu sent Cai Jimin to check it out. This is a question!

Cai Jimin looked bad, "I don't know, I asked some of the comrades below and said they didn't know about this."

"That's strange!"

Jiang Yiwu smiled bitterly, "It's spreading everywhere, but no one knows it below. You're not surprised?"

Cai Jimin shook his head. Even if this matter really happened, it involved the army, and so many generals... he no longer imagined what would happen!

Fan Tengxiao's face turned pale, but he didn't dare to answer the two of them. He obviously heard some rumors, but he was worried and didn't dare to say it out.

The room suddenly became silent. Jiang Yiwu quickly processed a document. After that, he saw that the two of them had bad expressions on their faces, so he forced himself to cheer up and said with a smile: "Why, Xiangpu, Yingzhu, are you hungry? I told you to stir-fry two side dishes below. Let's drink two cups of hot and warm your body. This snow is so cold that it's so cold!"

Cai Jimin, as Li Yuanhong left in the past few days, had a lot more workload and his diet was very irregular. He didn't use dinner until nine o'clock in the evening! At this time, the mansion was a little swollen and shook his head and refused. Fan Tengxiao was the same, shook his head and said, "I don't have to, I have no appetite today!"

"hehe!"

Jiang Yiwu was actually not hungry, but just wanted to change the topic. Seeing that neither of them wanted, he didn't force him. He felt a little dry. He picked up the teapot on the table and wanted to pour a cup for himself. Only then did he find that there was no water in the teapot, so he had to call: "Guards, come and change a pot of hot water for me!"

"yes!"

A guard came in, picked up the kettle beside him and walked out. As soon as the door was closed, a sound of cannons came from outside. Jiang Yiwu looked up and was curious, "Who is setting off firecrackers so loud!"

Suddenly, Cai Jimin's face changed, "It's not firecrackers, it's the sound of cannons..."

He hurriedly pushed the door out, and Jiang Yiwu and the others hurriedly followed. When they walked outside the house, the cold wind blew, they felt their energy. They listened carefully, and they found that the rumbling sound was the sound of cannons, and they immediately looked ugly on their faces.

"It's Hanyang...not good, it's Guishan Fort!"

After all, Jiang Yiwu was the deputy minister of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and immediately discovered that something happened in Hanyang!

"Guards...Guards..."

He was about to call on the guards to come and sent someone to the dock to ask what was going on. Suddenly, he saw a few dazzling red lights roaring in the sky. Not long after the explosion sounded, there were bursts of shouts of killing in the city. Before anyone could react, he heard a few crackling gunshots outside the military government's headquarters!

"Sir... Sir, go quickly, Lord Liu's second mixed association has reversed. A team of patrols suddenly shot at the brothers outside our station and are about to come in!"
Chapter completed!