Chapter 62: The Situation Within the City

  At night, with less than a quarter of an hour to nine o'clock, accompanied by the persuasive words of the guest, the anti-Japanese Snake Mountain Artillery Regiment finally opened fire. Wu Zhaolin, who was in charge of the revolutionary general headquarters inside the city at Chuwang Pavilion, finally let out a sigh of relief and looked at the battle reports coming from all over his hands...

  It turns out that Wu Zhaolin's command ability is indeed extraordinary. Since Xiong Bingkun persuaded him to take the position of commander-in-chief of this revolution more than an hour ago, he has only done four things, or rather, three and a half things, because among them, Li Han did half of it for him. But does that make any difference?

  More than an hour ago, the thousands of troops gathered inside Chu Wangtai, except for twenty or thirty guards, were all dispatched to various parts of the city. Among them, Xiong Bingkun led the largest contingent to support the South Lake artillery team, while another contingent, under the leadership of Cheng Zhengying and another battalion commander, rushed to support the 29th and 30th regiments responsible for suppressing and besieging the Eighth Town Command. After doing all this, he still did not stop, first selecting a few emissaries to go to She Shan, persuading the She Shan artillery camp on the verge of panic to lean towards the revolution, and then sending people to spread the news that Rui Cun had abandoned the city and fled throughout the city...

  After dispatching all his subordinates, Wu Zhaolin stayed in the temporary command center inside Chuwangtai to study a newly hung map of the situation in Wuchang City. Occasionally, soldiers outside the barracks would report the latest battle reports, and he would immediately get up to receive them. After carefully reviewing them, he would draw circles on the map again and send new orders to various command posts. Then he continued to think quietly about the next countermeasure.

  Jin Zhaolong was left by Xiong Bingkun to protect his guard, of course, there is also a taste of surveillance, but he doesn't care at all. Just now, if it weren't for the fact that he really valued his methods, how could he let him, a prisoner, become the leader of this army? However, his methods are also formidable, and Jin Zhaolong has come to admire him greatly, especially after seeing him persuade the She Shan Cannon Camp to stop firing at Feng Huang Mountain, which greatly reduced the pressure on Wu Sheng Men. Standing in the camp, he can easily grasp the situation inside the city, relying only on maps and calculations to achieve efficient scheduling and decisive action. Moreover, despite the thunderous cannon fire within the camp, he remains unfazed, able to remain calm even when faced with a crisis, truly embodying the spirit of a great general of old, far from being an ordinary person. No wonder Xiong Bingkun, now the commander of the Fifth Regiment of the Revolutionary Army, was able to persuade the leaders of the uprising in various parts of the camp to elect him as the Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army.

  But how did he know that Wu Zhaolin, who was standing in front of the map at this moment, had already been surging and rolling like a stormy wave because of the person who had just been brought over, and his face had also become somewhat gloomy and uncertain!

  "What should I do... what's good..."

  But in my mind, I am constantly thinking.

  He was hesitant for a reason, what is it? It turned out that the several war reports sent back by various camps in the city before had a serious impact on his mood.

  The first letter said that a deputy commander of the original Eighth Regiment, Hu Yanjie, led a company of insurgent soldiers. Previously, some of the scattered soldiers who had rushed to the scene reported that they had seen the Eighth Regiment, which belonged to the constabulary battalion, receive Zhang Biao's order and bypass the 29th and 30th battalions' defense lines in an attempt to launch a surprise attack from behind. Wu Zhaolun was shocked when he received the battle report and quickly dispatched a team to counterattack.

  The 8th Battalion of the Constitutional Guard, under the command of Zhang Biao, the commander of the 8th Town, was one of the crack troops stationed in Wuchang by the Qing government. Peng Chufan, one of the three martyrs who died on October 9, was a member of the 8th Battalion of the Constitutional Guard.

  Before his execution, he was the representative of the revolutionary army in the 8th Battalion of the Constitutional Guards, responsible for liaison with the revolutionary party members in the battalion. However, compared to the 30th Regiment which had a majority of Han people, even if Peng Chufan had not sacrificed himself, it would have been impossible to persuade the predominantly Manchu Constitutional Guards to defect, and Wu Zhaolin also knew that the 8th Battalion was unlike other new armies, but belonged to the category of Qing troops who could not be won over.

  However, the banner people had a clear advantage, that is, the peaceful days of these hundreds of years, the Manchu people had long been corrupt to the bone, so after Hu Yanjie led a team of machine gunners in a sweep, plus charging and killing more than ten banner soldiers officers, basically eliminated its threat. But what they didn't think of was that suddenly a team of defeated constabulary eighth battalion's remnants appeared, and actually intercepted a team of military supplies to be transported to support the 29th regiment, not to mention the death and injury of dozens of soldiers, it seemed that the other side had also been ambushed again, and actually launched another ambush, killing or wounding five or six people is nothing, the key is that the originally only twenty-minute delivery of military supplies now takes at least twice as long.

  After receiving the battle report, Wu Zhaolin was considering sending another team to eliminate them. However, at this time, three good news and one bad news came from within the city. Firstly, a part of the 41st Division under Li Yuanhong had defected and was now cooperating with Xiong Bingkun to block the Qing army outside the city. Secondly, the uprising army in the city finally lit up the illuminating fire, guiding the artillery on Chu Wang Mountain, which had been preparing for half a day, to start shelling the governor's office and the Eighth Town Command. As for the third piece of news, Wu Zhaolin was initially delighted when he heard it, but soon frowned again. A group of revolutionary soldiers in the city successfully ambushed Rui Cheng and his entourage who were trying to escape, and captured Rui Cheng, the Governor-General of Hubei and Hunan. This news had already been confirmed by Wu Zhaolin's subordinates when they brought someone up earlier.

  What made him frown was that the person who caught Rui Cheng was none other than Li Han and Li Yi, with whom he had some grudges.

  But the bad news was not that, but rather... At this time, Chu Wangtai was actually surrounded by a team of people sent by Zhang Biao!

  It was the Qing army's 30th banner, 1st battalion, mostly consisting of bannermen, and it was Zhang Biao's most trusted troops.

  The butterfly effect brought by Li Han, the first battalion of these thirty battalions was originally supposed to be stationed at the left flag's residence before the uprising. Who would have thought that during dinner time, Zhang Biao issued an order to dispatch two teams of soldiers to the west gate for a shift change? As a result, the two teams had just walked out half way when they encountered chaos in the city. After sending a few people to ask Zhang Biao about the orders, the rest of the troops quietly followed Gao Xiangxun and slipped out of the city, hiding near Chuwangtai. They waited until most of the revolutionary army had left the arsenal before taking advantage of the situation to attack Chuwangtai.

  Gao Xiangxun, the commander of this battalion, was a capable general in the Qing army and a decisive man. In the original time and space, after the revolutionary army launched an uprising, Gao Xiangxun first closed the camp gate, and then led the entire battalion to attack the revolutionary army's artillery position on Snake Mountain after being shelled by the revolutionary army. After being repelled by Li Pengsheng's guard artillery unit, he returned to the camp to defend it. The next day, after the camp was occupied by the revolutionary army, Gao's left wing, led by Manchu officer Chong Guang, broke into the treasury and almost took away a large amount of silver. This unit was later eliminated by Zhang Pengcheng of the revolutionary army. Gao still dared to lead the remnants to fire a round of shots outside the military government building, scaring away the student soldiers guarding the gate, forcing Li Yuanhong, Cai Jimin, Wu Xinghan and others, who were having lunch and neglecting their defenses, to flee to the back mountain. Gao's unit was later driven away by the military government guards and fled to the Donghu area, where they were dispersed by local militia.

  However, this temporary command post was attacked, and Wu Zhaolun was not very surprised. Firstly, although there were only a few dozen guards in the camp, plus a team of artillery from the Snake Mountain Artillery Camp, the total number of people was less than two-thirds of that battalion. Nevertheless, they occupied the city defense, with sufficient ammunition reserves, and it would be easy to block the enemy for a while, let alone just one night. Moreover, he had already sent a carrier pigeon to Xiong Bingkun's place, saying that as soon as they could spare some troops, they would come back to join forces and launch a pincer attack to annihilate the enemy.