Chapter 43: Artillery Battle (Part 1)
Thanks for the rewards from Sleeping Years Away, Yu Huan You Chen, Old Duck Eating Tangyuan, Shrimp Eating Shark, and 12 brothers including Ambiguous with you!
Brothers are so powerful! It has already risen to fifth place on the new book list.
——————
Xia Jun did not know that the autonomy of Minxi North had attracted attention from all over China, and even the powers were paying attention to the situation in Minxi North.
However, the major powers were not too concerned about the situation in western Fujian, as there was little benefit to be gained from it. These major powers were more concerned with the Yangtze River Valley.
Especially Britain!
The stability of the Yangtze River basin is equivalent to the interests of the British, and once the Yangtze River region becomes chaotic, their interests will be harmed.
However, the United States is very concerned about the situation in Fujian because Fujian is within the US sphere of influence. Although it's not a big market, the US still cares about the market in Fujian.
Because Xia Jun did not issue any manifesto, but only telegraphed autonomy. The Railway Protection Movement had not yet broken out, so at this time the Chinese provinces were not as disaffected from the Qing as they would be by the time of the Xinhai Revolution.
So no one responded to Xia Jun's autonomy, and the Qing court was shocked but not too panicked. After all, this is just autonomy, and the Qing court is now doing autonomy, but it is rural autonomy. Minxi North has risen to a large-scale local autonomy, which is what the Qing court does not want to see. Therefore, Song Shou was sent to pacify Minxi North.
At this time, Song Shou was filled with anger, 30,000 Qing troops advanced by land and water, going upstream along the Min River, and even mobilized the foreigners' small steamers to help with transportation.
However, these small steamers did not dare to go further up after arriving in Nanping. The water flow of Jianxi was too rapid, and it has been said that "there are 36 rapids from top to bottom, each one is a ghost gate". Only experienced old sailors dared to navigate the sparrow boats (3-5 ton small wooden boats) on the Jianxi River. In 1905, foreigners opened up the route from the mouth of the Minjiang River to Shaxian, but did not open up the route to Jian'an.
Song Shou personally took the field, vowing to exterminate the Jianzhou Security Regiment to avenge his son's death. Accompanying him was Sun Daoren, commander of the 10th Division of the New Army.
Fujian is not without a new army, there is a temporarily compiled 10th Division. The 10th Division was divided into two parts to garrison, one part garrisoned in Fuzhou and the other part garrisoned in Ningde. As for equipment, the differences between the Beiyang armies are relatively large, with various countries' weapons (the equipment of the six divisions of Beiyang is more uniform).
In the artillery, the Beiyang Army adopted a relatively advanced "six-gun system", where an artillery battalion was composed of 6 guns. Generally, an army had three artillery battalions, nine artillery companies, and 54 guns.
Each artillery battalion had 18 guns, with these 18 guns divided into nine field guns and nine mountain guns. However, some Beiyang Army artillery units were not in this proportion, with some having more field guns and fewer mountain guns, while others had more mountain guns and fewer field guns.
The advantage of the six-gun formation is that it has strong firepower and will not easily withdraw from combat due to the loss of one or two guns. The disadvantage is that it requires a higher terrain, and concealment is not as good as the four-gun formation. However, the 10th Brigade did not have the standard three artillery battalions, but only one, with more mountain guns.
Sun Dao Ren's 5,000-strong new army was mainly responsible for defending Fuzhou. The Qing government's control over the local area was extremely weak. If Fuzhou fell, basically the entire Fujian would change allegiance.
Due to the Alliance's repeated uprisings in Guangdong, both the Qing court and its officials believed that the uprising would eventually spread to Fujian, so Sun Daoren was transferred to Fuzhou, with 3,000 new troops responsible for defending Fuzhou.
Sun Daoren was chosen because the Manchu people believed that Sun Daoren had received great imperial favor, and the revolutionary party would always be outsiders. Entrusting Fuzhou's defense to him was absolutely foolproof.
However, it was Sun Daoren's betrayal during the Xinhai Revolution that allowed Fujian to break free from the rule of the Qing dynasty.
Sun Daoren was not a revolutionary party, whether the revolution depends on the wind direction. Xia Jun did not cause a sensational revolution at this time. Therefore, Song Shou appointed him as the vanguard troops. He did not hesitate at all. Except for leaving 2,000 new army to let Xu Chongzhi guard Fuzhou, another 3,000 people followed Sun Daoren to suppress Jianzhou Baoying team.
The strength of that Jianzhou Security Team looks pretty good, but Sun Daoen is confident. His troops are regular army, and the local security team can't jump over the regular army no matter how hard they try! For Sun Daoren, who had inspected Japan and graduated from a regular military academy, it was not a problem to take down the small security team with confidence.
Three thousand new troops marched along the official road, which is now much easier to walk on. It's said that it was widened by the security team. Last time Sun Dao Ren led a campaign against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom remnants in Pucheng County, it wasn't as easy to walk, and it was during that campaign that he gained recognition from the Qing court.
Song Shou's 30,000-strong army this time, only Sun Dao Ren's 3,000 new troops had some combat effectiveness. The other 8,000 banner soldiers and 15,000 Green Standard Army soldiers from various cities were hastily assembled, while the remaining 9,000 personnel consisted of officers, clerks, and laborers.
Under Song Shou's urging, the 30,000 Qing troops marched at a faster pace. In just six days, they arrived at the border of Jian'an Prefecture.
This was far beyond Xia Jun's expectations, and he immediately ordered each camp to enter a state of combat readiness.
On July 18, the Qing army formed a long snake array and passed through Baishuiyuan. Xia Jun immediately gave an order to the artillery array at Dayang Mountain via radio at 3:20 pm on the same day to launch a probing attack on the Qing army.
On the Da Yang Mountain artillery position, six 75mm quick-firing guns had found good cover and built some defensive fortifications. After receiving the order to open fire, the six quick-firing guns revealed their ferocious fangs and launched a fierce barrage at the Qing army advancing in a long line in the distance.
Boom boom boom boom...
Ouch...
Boom...... Boom...... Boom...... Boom......
Shells tore through the clear sky, whistling down towards the advancing Qing army, exploding one after another, and on the artillery position, only smoke and dust from the explosions could be seen rising in the distance.
The first salvo of shells mostly missed their mark.
The commander on the Da Yang Mountain observed the effect of the artillery fire with binoculars and then directed the target measurement to each gun on the plain below.
"Correcting various elements, 09, 03."
"All parameters have been corrected."
"All parameters have been corrected."
"All parameters have been corrected."
"Fire."
The commander visually estimates the deflection distance and orders firing after all corrections have been made.
The bombardment continued, with each gun having a commander. The first batch of students from the artillery department had ten students drawn out by lottery, and six of them commanded a gun for fine-tuning during this battle.
Shells fell, and nearly half of them hit the surface of the Jianxi River. The artillery company had only been established for five days and had only five days of training...
However, when the fourth shell was fired, all six guns had corrected their aim and hit the Qing army marching on the official road.
The Qing army below was bombarded and immediately became disordered.
The Eight Banners soldiers, Green Standard Army soldiers and coolies were running around like headless flies, the scene was extremely chaotic.
In comparison, the 3,000-strong Tenth New Army in front was much calmer. Although they were thrown into confusion after being shelled, they were quickly brought under control by Sun Daoren.
Sun Daoren was surprised that this small security team actually had artillery, and the firepower was so fierce. However, Sun Daoren soon discovered that the security team's artillery didn't have much accuracy.
Immediately afterwards, Sun Daoren organized the artillery camp to counterattack.
——————
The second update is here!
Are there still tickets available?
