Chapter Ten: The Unexpected Explosion

  Distant reports of continuous cannon fire echoed through the air, as the Japanese opened another day's offensive. Soon, Russian artillery began to return fire.

  Immediately, Chen An was shocked to discover that the artillery positions in Liaoyang City also started suppressing fire, indicating that the Japanese attack was fierce yesterday, advancing at an extremely fast speed, and had already approached close enough to force the city's artillery to join the suppression battle.

  As soon as the thunderous cannon fire started, Liu Shi and Koval immediately joined forces to push down the left wall, opposite a large courtyard of a wealthy family's mansion, which had enough distance to meet the minimum requirements for the target trajectory.

  The several companions who stayed behind in the big yard, hearing the loud sound of the collapse of the huge wall, ran out to check in shock and lost their color. As a result, as soon as they saw the black hole-like cannon, they shouted and immediately escaped without a trace.

  Liu Shi quickly climbed to the top of the house, then waved his hand down, signaling Koval to open fire. He wanted to observe whether the first shell accurately hit the area where the Russian command was located.

  Koval pulled the lanyard hard, the cannon boomed loudly, and a bright orange flame burst out of the muzzle. The massive gun carriage recoiled violently backwards, but was held firmly in place by the sturdy spades, sending up a cloud of dust.

  A huge flame suddenly burst out far behind the headquarters.

  It's gone too far, Chen An felt a pang of regret.

  Liu Shi took a glance and quickly slid down along a pillar. He was going to adjust the artillery position with Koval according to the situation of the first shot, preparing to fire the second shot immediately.

  The Russian military command was suddenly in a state of confusion, with alert soldiers frantically shouting something, and immediately more than a dozen soldiers escorted several big men out of the command building and ran to the other side of the camp.

  Chen An was stunned in the distance, what's going on? The shells didn't even hit the headquarters, and the big shots were scared away?

  Almost instantly, a deafening explosion spread to every corner, followed by a massive shockwave that came directly from the ground, shaking off the beams of the roof in an instant. Chen An stared blankly at the front and back, many houses collapsed like this, before he could come to his senses, his ears were already deafened, and then his eyes went black as he fell into the collapsed house, countless tiles buried him.

  Liu Shi slammed the cannon's breech shut and shouted, "Fire!" Koval pulled the lanyard, just about to pull it. At this moment, a huge shockwave quickly spread over, and the entire heavy cannon was even violently thrown into the air by the shockwave. Liu Shi and Koval were also thrown backward. The huge barrel's recoil force instantly straightened the firing rope, automatically triggering the shot.

  Another deafening roar, the cannon that had not yet fallen to the ground suddenly fired a second shell. The massive recoil directly flipped the cannon over, and the heavy barrel crashed to the ground less than twenty centimeters from Koval's head.

  Liu Shi hastily got up, dazed, and rushed over to drag away a stunned Koval from the scene, as the house behind them was on the verge of collapse.

  Looking at the big gun that had fallen to the ground, Liu Shi made a decisive decision and pulled Koval away from the mission, rushing towards the gathering point. The massive collapse was enough to create chaos.

  Chen An was also covered in dirt and crawled out of the rubble, his ears still ringing. He looked up to see a huge grey mushroom cloud behind the command centre. He spat out the dust from his mouth, grabbed his binoculars and climbed back onto the collapsed roof.

  Everywhere were ruins and broken walls, the headquarters building had obviously collapsed a floor, many people looked at that mushroom cloud in dismay, extremely chaotic, and devastated. Immediately after, there was another loud explosion, a shell miraculously hit the Sino-Russian Bank building next to the headquarters, the high-rise building which was already on the verge of collapse suddenly crashed down.

  Everyone was frightened, thinking that this place had become a focal point of Japanese artillery fire. Instantly, whether it was the Russians, French or Chinese, they all scattered in a hurry.

  His hands were still a bit weak, holding onto the binoculars, Chen An's jaw almost dropped. Was this really okay?

  The first shell, which seemed to have been fired off-target, surprisingly hit the Russian's most heavily guarded arsenal, and the second shell also inexplicably landed on the bank building. How did Liu Shi and Koval adjust their artillery? Chen An couldn't figure it out no matter what.

  In fact, Liu Shi had no idea what he hit and thought it was a Japanese cannon that also reached the city of Liao Yang.

  The city of Liao Yang was soon in a state of confusion, the headquarters although not hit, collapsed. The Russians who did not have time to immediately repair the command system, lost contact with the front and rear commands, all fronts were in chaos.

  The Japanese, seizing the opportunity, frantically shouted "board, board" and repeatedly charged at the Russian defense line without regard for casualties. After a few hours, a large number of outer defenses were breached, and many Russian defeated soldiers retreated to the city of Liaoyang, which had completely lost control. Soon, the city head also began to fall under the intermittent artillery fire that followed the Japanese advance. Having blown up the arsenal and lost command, the Russians could no longer hold on and began to withdraw from Liaoyang, or rather, escape from the city.

  The bank building, which had already collapsed in most parts of the building, only a few security guards who were still awake and alert, were all shot dead by Hong Yan's eyes. Hu Zi made full use of the advantages of Liaodong horse thief's nose, and finally found the location of the vault under the stairs that had not yet collapsed.

  After the explosion, Hu Zi and his men were almost blinded by the sight of box after box of gold and silver. The harvest was so huge that Hu Zi didn't dare return to the gathering point, instead sending people to seize several horse-drawn carriages, loading all the boxes onto them without distinction, and then using the fleeing soldiers to break through the gates and escape towards Xinmin. Brave and meticulous Hu Zi saw that there were also dozens of bundles of colorful printed paper notes in the treasury, which weren't very heavy, so he swept them all away.

  Hǔ zǐ himself then turned back, preparing to meet up with Chen An and the others again to withdraw from Liaoyang. Chen An, who had just received Liu Shi's two men, saw Hǔ zǐ charging over alone and was almost frightened to death, thinking that there were heavy casualties.

  After hearing Hu Zi's brief situation, Chen An, who was full of silver in his mind, led Liu Shi and others to ride the prepared horses and rushed out of Liao Yang quickly.

  On their way to Xinmin, Chen An and others collided with Zhang Ergou and others who were also fleeing.

  Obviously frightened by the huge explosion in Liao Yang city, Zhang Ergou and others left far away, still very tense. However, the huge explosion also helped a lot. They encountered almost no resistance and successfully captured the prison, rescuing Zhang Yuting and Zhang Guandai who were beaten to near death by the Russians, and also released all prisoners in the prison. As for whether they were truly guilty or wrongly accused, Zhang Ergou, originally a bandit, wouldn't care at all.

  Similarly, Zhang Ergou saw that the situation was not good and made a decisive decision to rush out of Liao Yang City. He met up with the cavalry waiting outside and fled wildly from this place of trouble.

  There was also a young scholar wearing glasses in the escape team. Although he was also beaten and bruised all over his body in prison, he still rode a horse with his back straight. Chen An and others were either bandits who didn't distinguish between officials and bandits, or they were local militia, suddenly a scholar appeared among them, very eye-catching.

  Chen An curiously rode his horse over to the scholar's side and said, "Hey, brother, what kind of person are you? The patrol camp doesn't have someone like you!"

  Biting back the intense pain, Shu Sheng's eyes narrowed, "You don't seem to be one of them either, how did you end up together?"

  "Hehe, of course I'm not from the patrol camp, my name is Chen An, just a small landlord." Chen An explained vaguely.

  The student looked at Chen An seriously for a few moments before answering, "My surname is Xu, Xu Boqun, from the Anti-Russian Righteous and Brave Army."

  Refuse Russian volunteers? Chen An is puzzled.

  After listening to Xu Boqun's explanation, Chen An only knew that there was such an organization. The Anti-Russian Righteous and Brave Corps is a quasi-military organization launched by Chinese students in Japan to resist the Russian invasion of Northeast China.

  Because Czarist Russia broke the treaty and refused to withdraw its troops that had invaded Northeast China, and presented the Qing government with seven unreasonable demands, attempting to thoroughly turn Northeast China into a Russian colony, this aroused strong opposition from the Chinese people. Hundreds of students in Japan gathered in Tokyo, formed the Righteous and Brave Corps to Resist Russia, and prepared to go to Northeast China to fight a decisive battle against the Czarist Russian army of aggression.

  Later, the imperial court colluded with Japan and forcibly disbanded the Righteous Brave Corps.

  Xu Bohui went to Japan for further study, although he did not succeed in enrolling, he met many like-minded people and joined the Righteous Brave Corps. Although the team was forced to disband, many people like Xu Bohui still used the name of the Righteous Brave Corps members to rush to Northeast China to fight against the enemy.

  Xu Bohui arrived in Liaodong and was accidentally caught by the Russians. He was locked up in the same cell as Zhang Yuting, awaiting execution together. Fortunately, they were rescued by Zhang Ergou at the same time. Xu Bohui wasn't a Northeasterner, unfamiliar with the place, and had nowhere to go, so he naturally followed his prison mate on the run.

  Chen An smiled and asked, "Bo Huan big brother, where are you planning to go next?"

  Xu Bohui hesitated for a moment, "I came to the Northeast originally to contact enlightened scholars to counter Russia and weaken the Russian influence. However, after the Battle of Liaoyang, I felt that the Russians' morale had already gone, and estimated that they were no match for the Japanese. Since my main goal has been achieved, I plan to return to my hometown to establish a school, enlighten the people, and bring benefits to my fellow villagers."

  Chen An was puzzled, "If Japanese people come and occupy Northeast China in the future, it won't be a good thing either?"

  Xu Bohui shook his head, "The Japanese and we share the same culture and ancestry, they will surely treat our people with kindness. Now we are learning from Japan, there are more important things to do, and we also need the support of the Japanese."

  Will the Japanese treat the people kindly? Chen An was stunned and speechless.

  Is there anything more important that requires Japanese support, to the extent that even the hatred for the annihilation of the entire city of Dairen by the Japanese can be abandoned? Chen An was speechless and didn't want to ask, he just felt that Xu Bohui was too book-smart.

  Chen An was not going to let the Japanese off, he always felt that the dream back then had some problems and should have hinted at eliminating the Japanese in order to avoid a great calamity. Naturally, the deep-seated hatred of his daughter-in-law's family also needed to be avenged on the Japanese. The people of Chenjiazhuang could not possibly get along with the Japanese.