Chapter 1: The Low-Ranking Officer Who Crossed Time and Space

  The sky has already darkened, but the office is still brightly lit.

  Zhao Bei and his colleagues were still working overtime here.

  The current economy is weak, and for this type of small trading company, it has reached a critical juncture of life and death. Because they lost several large orders, the boss's mood has been depressed in recent days, and he fired several lazy employees one after another. As a result, the remaining people became much more honest. If the boss didn't say anything about leaving, no one dared to think about getting off work.

  As a 25-year-old young salesman, Zhao Bei's sales performance was very good and well-received by his boss. Now everyone is watching the few orders in his hands, whether this trading company can hold on or not depends entirely on this "ace salesman".

  Zhao Bei tidied up the few order forms, looked up and glanced at the boss, but saw that he was still sitting at the back of the door with a gloomy face, staring blankly at the company's accounts for last month. Zhao Bei sighed inwardly, as an employee, he sympathized with the boss, after all, if the company couldn't make it, everyone would scatter and no one would end up well.

  Under this heavy atmosphere, the office was eerily quiet, with only the sound of the wall clock's ticking being audible.

  Suddenly, the mobile phone rang, and from the familiar tune, it was Zhao Bei's fake mobile phone ringing.

  Everyone looked up at Zhao Bei, and the boss's eyes almost shone with light.

  Zhao Bei's somewhat trembling hands opened the phone case, but saw a few lines of words flashing on the mobile phone screen, which was a text message:

  "Want to time-travel? If yes, press 1; if no, press 2; if you don't press anything, it will default that you choose to time-travel."

  "It's not a customer's phone call, it's just a spam message."

  A sigh echoed through the office, and the boss's iron-green face almost turned black.

  Zhao Beizheng was about to turn off his phone, but after glancing at the screen again, he changed his mind, because this text message was a bit strange.

  At times of depression, it's also good to relax a bit. Besides, as a happy bachelor, Zhao Bei's greatest hobby is browsing online novels about time-traveling.

  So he pressed "1" without hesitation and watched as those few lines of words disappeared from the screen.

  "Isn't there any more?" Zhao Bei felt a bit strange. According to past experience, such short messages were usually followed by another one, but now the phone screen had become completely blank.

  Just then, the mobile phone suddenly emitted a dazzling white light that enveloped Zhao Bei's entire body.

  "Ah——————Everyone must not buy fake goods ah——————" Zhao Bei's miserable cry came from the white light, "Crackling" a burst of explosions after, his whole person disappeared along with that rapidly disappearing white light, the office desk became empty and deserted, several order forms floated down to the ground, then, everything returned to silence.

  Under the gaze of everyone, "King of Sales" Zhao Bei disappeared just like that, along with his knockoff mobile phone.

  After a moment, colleagues came back to their senses, suddenly panicked, some hid under the table, others made phone calls, and the boss even fainted.

  Although the police, journalists and even Feng Shui masters had made efforts to pursue Zhao Bei's whereabouts later, nothing was found. Zhao Bei's disappearance became a mystery, and no one saw him again afterwards.

  *

  *

  *

  Zhao Bei only felt a blackness in front of his eyes, and the whole person was like falling into an abyss. In a dizziness, he heavily fell down, smashing onto the roof, then rolled along the eaves to the street, and got hurt with a painful expression.

  "Ouch!"

  After a mournful cry, Zhao Bei regained consciousness, but in front of him was still pitch black. He raised his head to look at the sky and saw some stars.

  It's not a fleeting glimpse of stardust, but the stars in the night sky. Now it's evening, with a lingering breeze and a cold moon, quiet and soundless.

  "What kind of joke is this? Did I really travel through time?" Zhao Bei stood up, rubbed his forehead, and raised his head to see a lantern hanging under the eaves behind him. The eaves and the lantern were made in an ancient style.

  He felt as if he was dreaming when he recalled what had just happened.

  The familiar ringtone sounded, and after searching around, Zhao Bei saw his knockoff mobile phone, the "culprit" that led to his transmigration, lying at his feet.

  In the darkness, the small color screen of the mobile phone stubbornly flickered with light, and the pleasant march music sounded exceptionally loud on this quiet street.

  Zhao Bei bent down and picked up his phone, took a glance at the screen, only to see another text message:

  "Congratulations on your successful crossing! It's now November 1908, and you are in Anqing City, Anhui Province. After receiving this message, please throw this phone more than 20 meters away within five seconds, as it is about to self-destruct. If you don't want to get blown up, do it now. Self-destruction countdown starts: five... four..."

  "Damn it!" Zhao Bei looked at these few lines of cold and icy short messages, cursed a sentence, then without hesitation threw this damn fake phone away.

  In a state of panic, Zhao Bei didn't carefully observe either, but followed the direction of the street and used all his strength to throw the phone out. After the phone left his hand, he let out a long sigh of relief, then quickly dropped to the ground, covering his ears with his hands.

  A few seconds later, a loud "boom" sound was heard, and the counterfeit mobile phone, which was small in shape and exquisite in workmanship, exploded with a deafening roar. The scorching air waves mixed with brick and stone fragments poured down from the sky, covering the entire street, and even Zhao Bei was hit by many broken tiles.

  "What the heck is this battery?! This knockoff stuff is just not worth buying!" Zhao Bei tried to calm himself down, recalling the scene when he bought the phone, and felt that the phone vendor's sly smile didn't seem like a good person.

  "Traveled through time? 1908? Late Qing dynasty? In three more years, it will be 1911, the Xinhai Revolution, what a great era!" Zhao Bei looked up and saw that near where his phone had landed, there was a scene of chaos, with flames and shadows of people running around in panic. The background was a section of collapsed city wall, with a huge hole clearly made by the phone. What surprised him even more was that only now did he notice that on the street corner opposite him, along the row of low houses, there were soldiers crouching with rifles, and the lanterns hanging from the eaves of the shops revealed their shocked faces, leaving Zhao Bei stunned.

  Those big soldiers all had queues at the back of their heads, apparently confirming the text message sent from the mobile phone - it is now the Qing Dynasty.

  "It's all over, no queue." Zhao Bei reached out to touch the back of his head, waiting for those soldiers to rush up and take this "counter-revolutionary" who didn't have a queue away to receive their reward.

  But unexpectedly, those braided soldiers did not step forward to capture the "counter-revolutionaries", but instead erupted into a burst of cheers after a moment of hesitation.

  "The city gate has been blown open!"

  "The patrol team has run away!"

  "That guy blew up the city gate! Who is he?"

  "Not like one of us. No queue, is he a 'vanguard' sent by the Nationalist Party? His bomb was really fierce, even fiercer than cannonballs."

  "Who cares who it is, we're all on the same boat anyway. Xue Guan Dai, lead us out to kill and meet up with the people outside the city!"

  ……

  This crouched and murmuring troop at the corner of the street is the new army in Anqing City, belonging to the 31st Mixed Brigade (Travel) of the Qing Empire's newly established land army, the 62nd Battalion (Regiment) Infantry Second Battalion. The team leader is Shi Zhe, the officer and soldier, with a total of over 100 people, just a company scale. This troop usually stationed in the infantry camp inside the north gate of Anqing City, according to military law, without the order of Fu Tai, they absolutely cannot move arbitrarily. However, now this team of more than 100 people has abandoned their post, taking advantage of the night to pull out of the barracks, and opening up to the north gate area, hiding here for a long time.

  The reason is simple, because according to the plan of the revolutionary party, the new army troops of the 31st Mixed Brigade in Anhui will launch an uprising tonight, occupy the provincial capital Anqing, and fire the first shot of the New Army's anti-Qing uprising.

  More than a year ago, a small-scale anti-Qing uprising had broken out in this city of Anqing. Xu Xilin, the head of the police department and a member of the Guangfu Hui, took advantage of the graduation ceremony of the Anhui Police Academy to lead the police students in an uprising, stabbing to death Enming, the governor of Anhui who was attending the ceremony. Although the uprising failed within hours, the revolutionary spark did not die out. It only lay dormant underground, waiting for the right moment to burst into flames and sweep away the old and rotten things.

  That uprising was only a small part of the revolutionary wave that swept China at the end of the Qing dynasty. As foreign powers continued to expand their influence, the Chinese mainland was left scarred and battered. The corrupt and decadent Qing government's brutal suppression had driven the common people to desperation, and bandits, thieves, and secret societies became the main forces behind the rebellion. The whole country was in a state of turmoil, with fires burning everywhere and smoke billowing into the air. The Qing dynasty, like a dilapidated house, creaked and groaned in the wind and rain, on the verge of collapse.

  The house leaks and encounters continuous rain. A few days ago, news came from Beijing that the Empress Dowager Cixi, who had held power for over 40 years, died on November 15th. The day before her death, the puppet emperor Guangxu, under her control, suddenly died in his soft prison on Yingtai. Within two short days, the political situation of the Qing Empire changed dramatically. The three-year-old Puyi inherited the throne, changed the era to "Xuantong", and became the Emperor of the Qing Empire. With a young emperor and a country in doubt, people's hearts were restless. Taking advantage of this opportunity, revolutionaries led by the Guangfuhui decided to rise up again, firing the first shot of the New Army Uprising in Anqing City, using action to awaken the sleeping masses.

  In the past, many revolutionaries relied on the Hui Party to start a riot, but after suffering consecutive defeats, they realized that the discipline of the Hui Party was lax and could not be relied upon. Therefore, they began to shift their attention to the new army and instigate it to rise up in revolt.

  The late Qing dynasty's new army was formed in 1894, during the First Sino-Japanese War. At that time, the old-fashioned military forces were too weak to resist foreign aggression. In response, powerful officials of the Westernization Movement, such as Hu Yufen and Zhang Zhidong, submitted memorials to the imperial court, suggesting that a new-style army be trained according to the military systems of Western powers in order to maintain the rule of the dynasty. The Qing court adopted this proposal and ordered Zhang Zhidong to train the "Self-Strengthening Army" in Nanjing, which became the precursor to the New Armies of the South. The following year, the Qing court authorized Hu Yufen to train the "Dingwu Army" in Tianjin's Horse Factory, which later moved to Xiaozhan and was known as the "Xiaozhan New Army". Soon after, this army was taken over by Yuan Shikai, who controlled it from then on and established his position as the founder of the Beiyang warlords. In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, and although a treaty was later signed, the national situation remained unstable and the Qing dynasty's rule was precarious. To save the situation, the Qing court accelerated its training of new armies, sending large numbers of students to study in Japan to improve the quality of military officers, while cutting back on old troops and using the saved military expenses to expand the new armies. The plan was to train 36 new divisions (known as "towns") across the country, totaling nearly 400,000 regular soldiers.

  According to this ambitious training plan, Anhui Province should have trained a new army division, but due to financial constraints, despite the efforts of several governors, only one mixed brigade was formed, known as the Provisional 31st Mixed Brigade, stationed inside and outside Anqing City, suppressing local bandits.

  One month ago, the Qing dynasty's Ministry of War held a new army drill in Taihu, Anhui Province according to plan to test the combat effectiveness of the new army, familiarize itself with the southern battlefield environment and terrain, and conduct joint exercises. The main forces participating in the exercise were two branches of the new army from the south: one was the Mixed Ninth Division composed of the Jiangsu New Army's Ninth Division and several modern infantry battalions; the other was the Mixed Eleventh Division formed by combining the Hubei 21st Mixed Brigade and part of the Eighth Division. In addition, the Beiyang New Army also sent some troops and officers to observe the exercise in the south. As the host of the exercise venue, the Anhui New Army also dispatched a small number of troops to participate in the joint exercise.

  (Note: This Taihu is not the other Taihu, but Taihu County under Anhui Province, located in the southwest of Anhui Province on the north bank of the Yangtze River, not far from the eastern border of Hubei Province, at the southern foot of Dabie Mountain.)

  Moreover, Anhui Governor also accompanied the officials to Taihu County and took away some of the original provincial capital's defense troops stationed in Anqing. As a result, the provincial capital's defenses were empty, and coincidentally, Empress Dowager Cixi died, making the revolutionary situation very favorable. The revolutionaries took decisive action and organized the Anqing New Army to rise up.

  This time, the backbone of the Anqing New Army Uprising, in addition to the members of the Guangfu Society, also included a small number of revolutionaries from the Yuewang Society and the Tongmenghui. The young Guangfu Society cadre Xiong Chengji was specifically responsible for commanding this uprising. This evening, this 21-year-old artillery battalion officer (company commander) has been elected by the crowd as the commander-in-chief, fully in charge of commanding the uprising.

  According to the plan of the uprising, after the artillery and cavalry camps stationed outside the city rose up, they would first capture the bullet depot at Henghu mouth in the north of the city, obtain rifle bullets, and then the insurgent troops would drag the cannons back south and attack Anqing City. After breaking through the city wall, they would rush to the arsenal inside the city to replenish artillery shells and supplies. Due to the lack of artillery shells for the insurgent troops, and Anqing being the provincial capital of Anhui with strong defenses and a large number of old army patrols guarding it with sufficient ammunition, making it difficult to launch a direct attack, the command center of the uprising had previously contacted one of the new army infantry battalions stationed inside the city, ordering the personnel of the Yuewang Association and the commander of the new army, Xue Zhe, to lead his troops to ambush in the northern part of the city, waiting for an opportunity to capture the North Gate and welcome the insurgent troops outside the city into the city.

  Now, the new army outside the city has launched as scheduled. With the help of insiders, they have taken over the ammunition depot outside the city without bloodshed and have assembled in formation, quietly opening up to ambush outside the city, just waiting for the sound of gunfire from the infantry battalion inside the city.

  But when it came to the head, the commander of the uprising in the city, Xue Zhe, was hesitant. When he led his subordinates who lacked bullets to the North Gate, he found that there were twice as many gatekeepers as usual, all of whom were fully armed and equipped with a machine gun on the gate. Seeing this situation, Xue Zhe's confidence was shaken. At this time, the city gate had been closed, and communication had been cut off. He didn't know whether the rebel forces outside the city had arrived near the city wall, so he never dared to send out the signal to seize the gate.

  If the internal troops in the city cannot rise up and respond within the agreed time, then the insurgent troops outside the city can only launch a strong attack.

  Time and patience were ticking away in Xue Zhe's hesitation, just as the soldiers of this infantry regiment were losing their courage. Zhao Bei suddenly rolled off from the eaves of a house on the street and threw out that fake mobile phone, which fell into the city gate more than 50 meters away, blasting the tightly closed city gate to pieces and scaring the patrolling soldiers guarding the city gate to flee in all directions. The residents living nearby were also startled by this sudden explosion, but they didn't dare to come out and investigate.

  The mutinous officers and soldiers crouched at the corner of the street, using the light to see clearly the action of Zhao Bei throwing his mobile phone, knowing that it was this young man without a queue who threw out the "bomb", blasting open the city gate. Of course, since they were crouching at the corner of the street, they couldn't see anything on the rooftop, so they didn't know where Zhao Bei came from, only knowing that he was an anti-Qing hero, and just like Xu Xilin in those years, fearless and determined to overthrow the Qing and restore the Han, otherwise, he wouldn't have carried such a powerful "bomb" with him.

  In fact, just before Zhao Bei threw out his mobile phone, he had already exposed himself. The pleasant ringtone of the mobile phone not only caught the attention of the rebel soldiers hiding at the corner of the street but also that of the patrol team guarding the city gate. After all, where he was standing was very close to the city gate, right on this street facing the city gate, next to a shop with lanterns hanging under the eaves. In the quiet night, the ringtone could be heard from far away. The leader of the patrol team saw someone standing at the corner of the street and was about to send someone over to check when the mobile phone had already flown over, blowing up the city gate along with the leader.

  Whether it was the new army soldiers or the patrol team, they had never seen such a violent explosion. The explosive power of that mobile phone was really shocking, not only did it blow up the city gate, but also brought down a section of the city wall with it. If they hadn't known that Zhao Bei was "one of their own", the new army soldiers would probably have scattered in all directions.

  "Drip...drip...drip"

  "Wooooo... Wooooo..."

  A loud and clear military bugle call sounded outside the city, and at the same time, the horn also sounded. The scene of the city gate exploding also shocked the rebel troops lurking outside the city, so that after the explosion, it took a whole half minute for the charging bugle to sound.

  Bang! Bang!

  Bang! Bang!

  Suddenly, the sound of gunfire and shouting filled the air outside the North Gate, the whizzing sound of bullets flying through the night sky was incessant, the rebel troops outside the city launched an attack as scheduled, a moment later, the decoy troops outside the East Gate also launched an attack, at the same time, several buildings outside the city were set on fire by the rebel troops, a raging inferno engulfed the sky, casting a reddish glow over half of it, Anqing City was suddenly shrouded in terror.

  Zhao Bei, who had never been to the battlefield before, was startled by this sudden battle, while the insurgent soldiers who were responding to the troops outside the city became excited.

  "This is a terrible sight! The soldiers outside the city are killing their way in! Brothers, let's go and meet them!"

  "Xue Guandai, don't wait any longer, give the order! Xue Guandai! Xue Guandai!...... Where did he go?"

  "Xue's kid has run away!"

  "I told you before, that Xue guy is a softie! Can't be trusted. All officials are untrustworthy!"

  ……

  The infantry regiment officers and men who responded to the uprising only discovered that their superior, Xue Zhe, was nowhere to be found. Without a commander to lead the uprising, more than 100 insurgent soldiers suddenly lost their backbone.

  Actually, Xue Zhe had already run away before the explosion. When Zhao Bei rolled from the eaves to the ground, he was startled and feared being discovered by his hidden troops. After the mobile phone rang, Xue Zhe's last psychological defense collapsed. He led his men in hiding near the city gate, and his mind was already restless. The pleasant ringtone sounded like thunder to him, shocking him greatly. Although he didn't know what it was, he immediately realized that the patrol team would send someone to check, and their hiding place would be exposed. So, without thinking, he quickly escaped along the small alley behind him, not even bringing his horse whip. By the time the city gate exploded into the sky, he was already hundreds of steps away.

  "Don't panic, everyone!" A low-ranking officer stepped forward, drew his command knife and shouted: "Xue Zhe has run away, but we don't have to! That 'vanguard' of the Nationalist Party is still here. Since he can blow open the city gate, he can also lead us in a charge! Everyone follow the 'vanguard'!"

  Under the leadership of this officer, the soldiers took up their rifles and removed the lanterns from the shops along the street, surrounding Zhao Bei in a dense circle.

  At this time, Zhao Bei had stood up, and the low-ranking military officer walked in front of him, standing at attention with his sword held upright in salute.

  "Assembly of all officers and men of the 2nd battalion, 62nd Regiment, 31st Mixed Brigade of Anhui New Army! Requesting 'Xuan Feng' to give orders to capture the city gate and link up with the insurgent troops outside the city!"

  Zhao Bei looked at the other party with a dazed expression, scanning the soldiers carrying rifles. Under the light of the lanterns, every face was tense, with "firmness" and "decisiveness" written all over them, their eyes burning with a fiery intensity.

  "In 1908", "Anqing City", "New Army of Anhui" and "Rebel Troops" - these words collided with Zhao Bei's memory, vaguely, he seemed to grasp something.

  "Ah-ha!" Zhao Bei suddenly lifted his head, remembering what this was all about. As a pseudo-history buff and pseudo-military enthusiast, he wasn't unfamiliar with the history of the New Army during the late Qing dynasty. In fact, just a few days before crossing over, he had bought a book on research into the New Army during the late Qing dynasty, so now the officer's words made him recall the relatively famous "Anqing Horse Artillery Battalion Uprising" in history.

  The reason why it is famous is that this was the first uprising of the new army planned by the revolutionary party. From then on, the revolutionary party further solidified its belief in mobilizing the new army. Many revolutionaries joined the military from the Tongmenghui Party. It can be said that the Anqing New Army Uprising inspired and encouraged them to realize that the new army was the backbone of the Qing Dynasty's overthrow. Therefore, after only three years, the Manchu dynasty collapsed in the gunfire of the Hubei New Army Uprising soldiers. The reason why this uprising is called "small fame" is because this uprising did not succeed, and the shock effect it caused was not very great. As a result, history textbooks are just passing by, far less famous than the Wuchang New Army Uprising that led to the Xinhai Revolution. Moreover, since the leader of this uprising was the short-lived Guangfu Hui and not the well-known Tongmenghui, it has received little attention. If you are not a military history enthusiast, you will not understand this almost forgotten history.

  The failure of the "Anqing Horse Cannon Camp Uprising" was due to the strong attack on the city, and in the absence of ammunition, the attacking troops outside the city could not enter the city, unable to seize the ammunition inside the city. Because the new army infantry battalion that had promised to respond to the uprising retreated at the critical moment, they failed to capture the city gate, but were led back to their barracks by their officers, which further weakened the strength of the insurgent troops, leading to the failure of the attack on the city. As a result, the Qing government's army inside the city was able to respond calmly, and the two sides fought fiercely on the city wall for a day and night, with heavy casualties among the insurgent troops. With their ammunition almost exhausted, their position was also attacked by enemy ships in the Yangtze River, and the Qing government's troops who were participating in the autumn exercises at Taihu Lake rushed to attack the insurgent army, ultimately leading to the failure of the uprising. The insurgent troops could only retreat northward, originally planning to occupy Luzhou as their base, but unexpectedly, when they reached halfway, the troops became disordered, and the commander-in-chief of the uprising, Xiong Chengji, was shot in the back and wounded, and fled overnight, causing the troops to disintegrate. When these defeated soldiers arrived at the foot of Luzhou City, there were only more than 40 guns left, and they had no choice but to disperse on the spot and go their separate ways. Some of them became bandits from then on.

  Zhao Bei clearly remembered this history, and judging from the words of that low-ranking military officer, the soldiers surrounding him should be the new army officers and men in the city who originally planned to respond to the uprising outside the city. For some reason, their commander ran away.

  It now seems that due to the fake mobile phone, the course of history has undergone a slight deviation. The originally impregnable city gate was blown into pieces, and the patrol camp also ran away. The entry route for the insurgent troops outside the city has been opened, and these infantry battalion soldiers who responded to the uprising apparently did not disperse due to the retreat of high-ranking military officers. Everything seems to be proceeding according to the plan of the uprising, what is lacking, it seems, is only a commander.

  A commander, just a commander... Sometimes history really does need that one key figure.

  Having realized this point, Zhao Bei suddenly enlightened, he desperately suppressed the impulse in his heart, and finally managed to hold back those few slogans that were about to be shouted out.

  "Long live Mountain Stronghold! Long live Time-Traveling! Long live New Army!"