Chapter 47: Wu Zhaolin

  "We won... We won..."

  "We won... We won..."

  Inside the arsenal, lights were shining brightly and it was bustling with noise. Since Wu Zhaolin gave the order to surrender, the original guard of the arsenal, a team of eight battalion soldiers immediately put down their weapons. They chose two eloquent people to separately inform Kou Ping-kun, who had been blocked for half a day, Li Han, and Tie Yi Battalion, who had already arrived at their rear, of their decision to surrender. Then, they led a group of soldiers who had laid down their arms to come and surrender.

  After collecting a large number of weapons, Xiong Bingkun was indeed a personal hero. Although the soldiers who charged forward in Ai Ling's team were heavily killed and wounded in the previous battle, and other teams also had some resentment in their hearts, considering the unstable situation, they would still have to accept the surrender later. If they followed everyone's opinion at this time and 'surrendered' these prisoners of war, with so many people and mixed voices, it was inevitable that there would be leaks, and no one would dare to surrender to the revolutionary army again!

  He suppressed his anger and put on a smiling face to accept the surrender of a group of people, and even kept Wu Zhaolun, who had ordered someone to tie him up and kneel there waiting for death, with a very obvious tone of temptation in his words.

  No way, after another round of casualties and losses, Xiong Bingkun and others finally understood that they were just some small-time opportunists who had gained power in the chaos. To say nothing of Li Han, even their own soldiers were far superior to them in marksmanship; as for military tactics and morale-boosting, they had only just begun to learn. Now, this one-sided battle was causing them to suffer heavy casualties and losses, with many times more deaths than the enemy, leaving them battered and bruised.

  The Rebel Alliance needs a qualified commander!

  Unconsciously, there were not many calculations in his heart, but rather a group of people who had already unified their thoughts for the victory of the revolution. They decided to find a capable and strong general who understood the way of military command, so as to command the new rebel soldiers from various camps scattered throughout the city.

  Currently, only two and a half people are known to have this ability. The first is Cai Jimin, who has a reputation in the 29th Regiment, but he followed the 29th Regiment to attack the governor's office and couldn't leave for the time being. In just a short while, hundreds of soldiers rushed out from all over the city, and many more were on their way. Although it gave everyone hope for the success of the revolution, as the number of insurgent soldiers increased, the arsenal became noisy and chaotic!

  Waiting for him was apparently not very realistic, so Xiong Bingkun and others turned their attention to the captured left officer of the 8th camp - Wu Zhaolun. Frankly speaking, although there is still half a person behind - that is Li Han. Although it has been heard that he had studied abroad, after all, Xiong Bingkun and others have just met him and do not know the truth or falsehood of this matter. It's not that they don't believe in him, but rather that this matter is related to the success or failure of the uprising, so it needs to be handled carefully!

  Therefore, although he was still by their side, Xiong Bingkun and others were even more convinced of this familiar new army officer. Especially since his men had just suffered a great loss at his hands, although they were still angry in their hearts, they also admired him extremely. This is also why after capturing Wu Zhaolun, Xiong Bingkun and others immediately ordered someone to untie him and instructed their subordinates to treat him well and not be negligent towards him.

  Among them was the idea of pulling him into the revolutionary camp.

  "Come, come, Brother Li, we have to thank you again! We were previously blocked at the city gate, if it wasn't for your great talent, who didn't mind the trouble of pushing those idle cannons from the camp, we wouldn't have been able to break through this heavily fortified Chu Wang Tai arsenal yet!"

  Look at the camp inside, although noisy, but also has a different place, that is the iron one camp soldiers collected by Li Han, after seeing the surrendered soldiers sent by the garrison in the city, he ordered the soldiers to ask an officer familiar with the arsenal's warehouses for supplies, and then met with Xiong Bingkun and others, quickly went to a warehouse to move out 20 machine guns and four 60mm rapid-fire small cannons, and also supplied some ammunition to the soldiers, moved five boxes of shells, before arriving at the empty area near the north gate to temporarily station, but also ordered the soldiers to continue holding guns on high alert, not to relax their vigilance.

  When Xiong Bingkun brought two guards over, he was analyzing the successes and failures of the previous siege with a company of soldiers who had already begun to trust him. As it turned out, after Xiong Bingkun and the others left earlier, a soldier who came to clean up the battlefield reported back to ask about the four cannons that had not been moved into the armory yet.

  At that time, Li Han led his men to take a look and found that it was a small mobile cannon. He asked if there were any artillerymen in the team, and after someone responded, he ordered them to bring it along, also bringing two boxes of ammunition. However, when they arrived at the North Gate, they discovered several corpses lying on the ground, with red armbands wrapped around their arms, indicating that the deceased were revolutionary new army soldiers. After questioning one of the wounded, they learned that there were still two machine guns set up on the city wall. This was how they achieved the previous feat of taking down the North Gate without a single man injured.

  Also because of his actions, the soldiers under him, although not yet fully convinced, secretly admired him, so now commanding them is much more efficient than before!

  Xiong Bingkun saw a remnant of soldiers, prisoners who could be trained by him to become what they are now, and he also secretly admired them. After all, the chaotic situation in the current arsenal, except for Li Han's Iron First Regiment, no one else had any vigilance. Who knows if they really thought that taking down Chu Wangtai was a victory?!

  However, alas... He let out a deep sigh in his heart. Although Xiong Bingkun had seen that Li Han was no ordinary person, many of the officers under him did not trust this suddenly emerging overseas Chinese. When they saw the northern gate's slow and unstable gunfire earlier, some of the officers cursed loudly. If it weren't for seeing him make an effort to help earlier, who knows how much more viciously they would have cursed?

  It was precisely because of this that Xiong Bingkun had previously proposed to ask him to command the increasingly numerous revolutionary new army, but they were all suppressed by different voices. Even Cheng Zhengying, who had always been in agreement with him, privately advised him to consider it again, and apparently did not quite agree. In the end... In the end, most people still gave their vote of confidence to Wu Zhaolun, who knew the root of the matter, although they had just suffered a considerable loss at his hands.

  Have to say, the inertia of history is still not something he can stop now!

  "Hurry up and follow me, Brother Li. Later, I'll introduce you to a talented person from our Eighth Engineering Battalion. He was the one who directed the defensive works inside this arsenal. He is Wu Zhaolun, the former left team officer of the Eighth Battalion."

  As soon as Xiong Bingkun spoke, Li Han's face showed a few more points of bitterness. It can be said that when he met Wu Zhaolun, who was excellent in both character and ability, he should have visited him at least once, even if they couldn't become close friends. At the very least, they should have had some friendship, but now he just wanted to avoid him! The reason is that he had already learned from his soldiers' mouths that Huang Guoyun, who died at his hands, was Wu Zhaolun's sworn brother and closest friend. In this era, people's views on friendship were not as shallow as those of later generations. It wasn't unheard of for someone to kill in anger to avenge a friend. It can be said that before they even met, the two men had already been drawn into opposing camps.

  As for Wu Zhaolin, at this time he was not an ordinary person, and he was able to mix up the rank of General in the Northern Government and the National Government, his ability can be imagined.

  Wu Zhaolin, also known as Kuan-yuan, was born in Echeng, Hubei. At the age of 16, he enlisted in the Engineering Battalion of the Wuchang New Army and later studied at the Engineering School and the Engineering Specialized School. In 1905, he joined the revolutionary organization Rizhihui and graduated from the Engineering Specialized School with first honors in 1906. He then entered the Hubei Staff College with top marks and participated in two autumn maneuvers in Henan and Anhui provinces in 1906 and 1908.

  If it weren't for Li Han's entry, on the night of the Wuchang Uprising, he would have opened the city gate and invited him in when Xiong Bingkun and others attacked the arsenal. Due to his moral integrity and exceptional abilities, he was pushed by the revolutionary soldiers as the temporary commander-in-chief, integrated the revolutionary army gathered in the city, and then commanded the uprising troops to attack the Hubei Governor's Mansion, occupying Wuchang. After the establishment of the Hubei Military Government, he served as the first coalition leader and participated in the Yangxia Defense War. During the North-South peace talks, he was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the people's army during wartime and planned the Northern Expedition. In January 1912, after the establishment of the Nanjing Provisional Government, he served as the Chief of Staff of the Grand Marshal's Office. Later, he was transferred to Beijing, promoted to Lieutenant General, became the leader of the Hubei Military Clique, and served as the chairman of the First Uprising Comrades Association. Soon after, due to his disappointment with domestic politics, he withdrew from politics and devoted himself to social undertakings, supervising the repair of the Fan River Dam and other water conservancy projects, and donating funds to build the Wuchang First Uprising Park. In his later years, he focused on Buddhist studies. In 1938, when the Japanese army occupied Wuhan, he was offered a high position but remained unmoved. After his death, the Chongqing National Government posthumously awarded him the rank of General.

  "Never mind..." Li Han said with a bitter smile, "You also know the relationship between Huang Guoyun and him... If I go, it will only be more awkward..."

  It's really regrettable that he couldn't get along with this military talent from the late Qing and early Republic of China. When he was in military school, he had bought two books written by this gentleman, "Tactical Implementation" and "Staff Travel". Although these two military works were still a bit immature for the late Qing dynasty, they couldn't help but praise this person's great talent, so he didn't want to offend him.