Volume 1 Wuchang Vortex Chapter 51: The Day of Rise (VI)
As soon as the Wuchang cannons sounded, Guoerxing's roar was heard in the Hankou barracks. A dozen bannermen soldiers immediately rushed into the command post and began to pack up to take a boat back to Wuchang. When he had packed up his things, he found that the soldiers outside were still standing in the parade ground in twos and threes with guns on their backs, watching the joke. He was so angry that he pulled out his pistol and shouted, "What are you doing? Do you all want to rebel? Why don't you quickly organize your troops and prepare to return to Wuchang to save the Marshal?!"
"Master Guo is so majestic."
The cold words made Guoerxing's face change drastically. He turned around and saw Yue Peng standing beside him with dozens of soldiers, and all the guns were pointed at him and the bannermen soldiers.
"Yue Peng, do you want to rebel?!"
"The Qing Dynasty is unjust. They should have been expelled in the Gengzi Year. Letting you live to this day is already a courtesy." Yue Peng laughed coldly and waved his hand. A volley of gunfire came over. Guo Erxing didn't even have time to react. A dozen bannermen including him were all killed.
Yue Peng stepped on the blood and said with a gleaming look: "No more words! Tonight it is not me, Yue Peng, who is going to rebel, but all the Han people in the world are going to rebel! Lord Biaotong has already taken over Hanyang. If you want to follow me, come out and stand in line. If you don't want to, each person will be given 20 yuan, and you can leave your guns and bullets and go back to serve ."
"Sir, what are you talking about? We are all willing to follow you, but..." The soldiers hesitated again when they thought of Yang Qiu's reputation. Yue Peng understood everyone's thoughts and waved his hand firmly, saying, "Believe me, I tell you, Lord Biaotong is definitely not a running dog of the Qing Dynasty. You will know who he is in the future. I only want to say that I, Yue Peng, only admire him in my life."
Hearing him speak so confidently, and considering his high prestige among the ordinary soldiers, all the soldiers stayed. Only a few older officers did not want to get involved in the mess, so they left the barracks after leaving their guns and bullets.
"Call the commander, the entire 3rd Battalion of the 42nd Battalion is on standby, waiting for orders!" Yue Peng said and looked at his watch. Zhang Wenjing should be on his way back now. Just as he was about to send someone to meet him, a soldier came to report: "Captain, a gang in Dongjia Lane smashed shops under the banner of revolution and killed dozens of people."
The soldiers were already in a state of excitement, and they were even more furious when they heard that the bandits dared to run in front of the regular army and show their fangs and claws. Yue Peng's face also darkened, and he thought to himself that Yang Qiu's words had come true again. He immediately said: "Ke Shao! Gather all the bullets immediately, and you will deal with them. The other teams will stay on standby, and the bullets of the commander-in-chief... should be delivered soon."
While Yue Peng was anxious for bullets, the 42nd Battalion was also anxious for ammunition. Although the soldiers were eager to try, the bullets in their guns told them that if they rushed out at this moment, there would be heavy casualties. You have to know that each of the three towns has a patrol camp, and there are patrol dogs and other vicious dogs. They are all the confidants of Ruicheng and Zhang Biao. Although they are not good at fighting, they are very good at bullying the good. If they had bullets, they would not be afraid, but now...
"Su Xiaohu, the gun factory should have bullets." He Xi turned his head and looked at Su Xiaohu, who had been promoted to the security captain. The latter scratched his head and said, "My father said that recently after work every day, the patrol camp in Hanyang will send people to take away all the bullets and guns. Only they know where they are transported to."
"Sir, why don't you let me take people to attack the patrol camp?" Lei Meng became excited when he heard this, and jumped up and said.
"The Patrol Battalion is inferior to us, but each battalion in the three towns is guarded by Hotchkiss machine guns. We don't have enough bullets now, so we can't act so recklessly." He Xi is worthy of being an old officer, and he knows each battalion in the three towns very well.
"Damn, are we just going to wait like this? We don't know when the Eighth Regiment's Supply Battalion will arrive." Lei Meng was also discouraged when he heard that there were machine guns. He sat down next to him and scratched his head. However, He Xi's eyes lit up and he quickly looked at Yang Qiu asked, "Sir, does the Supply Battalion have bullets?"
Lei Meng said proudly, "More than that! The Lord has already asked the baggage carrier to transport the bullets. I just don't know if they have crossed the river in the chaos now."
He Xi's eyes immediately lit up, and he clasped his fists and said, "So, the Lord has been prepared for this, haha... He Xi is really convinced this time." Yang Qiu smiled, but he was actually already very nervous in his heart. What he was most worried about now was that Ma Kui and his men would fail. If that happened, all the plans would need to be readjusted, and then he would have to wait for the gun factory to produce the goods.
Just when he was most worried, the phone suddenly rang. Bingwen picked up the phone and without listening to a few words, he clenched his fist and shouted excitedly: "Sir, Lord Yue Peng said that the third battalion is on standby and the second battalion is on the way back." As soon as he finished speaking, a heavenly sound was heard at the camp gate.
"Brother, are we not late?"
As the boat was too small to get on board directly, the carriages from the baggage camp all trotted along carrying the ammunition boxes after arriving at the dock. Everyone was out of breath. The soldiers who had been on standby in the camp all gathered around them. Yang Qiu even led the officers to give Ma Kui and Xiao Anguo a big hug in public: "If this succeeds today, you two will be the biggest contributors!"
Xiao Anguo laughed and said, "Don't delay. We have brought more than 400 boxes of bullets, 500 Hanyang rifles, and 100 bombs. Oh, and there is also a machine gun and the entire baggage battalion of 617 people. They are all here! The fighting over there is in full swing now, so please give the order quickly, sir."
"Brother Xiao, you arrange the distribution of bullets. Give each person 30 rounds first." Yang Qiu did not notice that Xiao Anguo had changed his name, and immediately gave the order on the parade ground: "Captain He, you lead the first battalion. Hanyang County and the patrol battalion are now in your hands. Bring your machine guns and more explosives, and be careful not to act recklessly."
He Xi, who had been prepared to be deprived of his direct command power by Yang Qiu and to be placed in the position of a lieutenant commander, was stunned. He did not expect that the first order was to let him continue to lead the troops and hand over the only machine gun to him, so he did not react at once. Seeing him in a daze, Yang Qiu immediately shouted: "This is an order!"
He Xi suddenly came to his senses, looked at Yang Qiu and saluted vigorously, his eyes red as he said, "Sir, just listen to my good news! Brothers from the first battalion, follow me to kill all the Tartars!"
"Ji Fucheng, Lei Meng, take the engineering team and the law enforcement team and capture the Guishan Fort. It would be great if they are willing to surrender. If they resist, kill them without mercy!"
Ji Fucheng was a man in his forties with a big beard. He was an officer of the Mixed Brigade Engineering Corps. He was transferred together with the baggage train to obey Yang Qiu's command after the artillery camp incident. He thought he would be excluded, but he didn't expect Yang Qiu to call him the second one. He quickly pulled the impatient Lei Meng and rushed towards the Guishan Artillery Fort.
"Su Xiaohu."
"arrive!"
"The gun factory is now in your hands. Remember, make sure those technical managers and workers don't get hurt!"
Su Xiaohu jumped up excitedly to answer, but seeing the expectant eyes behind him, he scratched his head, lowered his brows and turned around to ask: "Sir, which battalion are we?"
Which battalion? Yang Qiu glanced at the young men from the security team who were queuing up to receive bullets. Seeing their eager eyes, he immediately understood what these guys meant. He drew his pistol in public and handed it to Su Xiaohu: "From now on, we will temporarily organize the 42nd Independent Battalion, and Su Xiaohu will be the battalion commander."
Su Xiaohu had wanted a new pistol for a long time, but Su Hongsheng refused to agree, saying that he would never make another one if Yang Qiu didn't agree. So when he saw the pistol, his face flushed with excitement and he shouted, "Brothers of the Independent Battalion, go kill the Tartars!"
Seeing that everyone was assigned a task, Fan Liangshan, the officer of the mixed baggage team who came with Ji Fucheng, became anxious and shouted, "Sir, although we are baggage soldiers, I can beat three of the trash patrol battalion by myself! Sir, you are also a baggage soldier, you won't be partial to one over the other, right?"
Seeing this, Yang Qiu chuckled and said, "Your task is more important." He turned to Ma Kui and said, "I'm sure that the weapons of the gun factory are still in Hanyang. Now that they are opened, I'm not afraid of a big uproar! You will be responsible for this matter together. In addition, although Hanyang is not as prosperous as Hankou, it is also a prosperous place. We don't have a penny at the moment. The county treasury and so on..."
Ma Kui understood what he meant, and after leaving a team to guard the camp, he and Fan Liangshan pulled out the mixed-commissioned team's carriages and went to carry out the mission. Xiao Anguo, who was standing next to him, saw that everyone had left and scratched his head anxiously: "Sir, don't forget me."
“Brother, you and I are brothers, so I have something more important for you to do.” Looking at the whirlpool in Wuchang City, Yang Qiu’s eyes gradually turned cold: “I’m going back to Wuchang now, and I’ll leave this place to you.”
"Now... go back to Wuchang?!" Xiao Anguo was so anxious that he jumped up and hurriedly stopped him, "Brother, the fighting over there is already going on. You... "
"Brother, Hanyang and Hankou are just minor issues. With the bullets you brought, we are the strongest here! It's easy to take them down. But if we don't kill Ruicheng and those gunboats, once they fire at us, we will be in danger!" Yang Qiu's words were half true and half false. In another world, Ruicheng finally escaped, took away millions of autumn tax silver, and continued to resist on the ship with Zhang Biao, which did cause a lot of trouble for the civilian army later. In the first half of the Yangxia War, he used the shipboard telegraph to coordinate command with Beiyang, causing heavy losses to the civilian army. Moreover, he was the governor. As long as he was not caught, the officials in the two places and the civilian army would not be stable.
"Brother, I believe in your ability! I also believe that you can avoid the militia and rush to the Governor's Mansion, but can you deal with Chen Delong and his navy by crossing the river? You can't rush into the Governor's Mansion with just a few people? Besides, if he escapes, no one knows which way he will take." Xiao Anguo wanted to persuade him again, but Yang Qiu had already taken the original Mauser rifle that had been prepared from Bingwen, and blinked his eyes: "I have ways to deal with these, brother, you just need to stabilize this side, I will be back in an hour at most!"
After Yang Qiu finished speaking, he immediately set out with Bingwen and a dozen agile soldiers. As soon as he reached the door, he heard a voice behind him: "Sir, it's Lord Li calling."
Yang Qiu and Xiao Anguo looked at each other, then smiled and said, "Reply to the Assistant Commander, all the members of the 42nd Battalion are on standby and waiting for his orders. Also, please rest assured that no matter what... I, Yang Qiu, will always be his external aid."
