Chapter Thirty-Six: The Boat Arrived

  Chen An secretly gave the mobilization order to the two sentry officers left behind, and directly allocated six Maxim heavy machine guns, three for each sentry post, and each selected three squads to form a machine gun team.

  The soldiers of the Northern Army were amazed by the heavy firepower brought into the camp with horse-drawn carriages, and they couldn't help but exclaim that General Youji was truly all-powerful, as he had produced six such legendary items at once.

  What's even more astonishing is yet to come, Koval, who had abandoned the military and gone into business, was also called back, bringing with him a small artillery group consisting entirely of people from Chenjiazhuang, equipped with a Japanese-style 75mm field gun, ready to reinforce any aspect at any time.

  The long-awaited conflict finally occurred.

  In the dead of night, a group of masked men rushed into the empty floating bridge guardhouse, but only stayed for a moment before proceeding with their plan to pour oil on the bridge surface and wooden boats with chains, setting them ablaze. In an instant, the raging fire illuminated the banks of the White Dragon River.

  The astonishing news quickly spread to the county town, after all, such a big fire can be seen by anyone who is not blind. The county magistrate immediately ordered the closure of the city gate for three days and strictly prohibited anyone from entering or leaving. The commander of the Wenxian camp set out overnight through the Yulei Pass iron chain bridge to rush to the Biku military camp, all openly preparing to watch from the sidelines.

  No one knew that the horse thief's case was done by Chen An back then, and no one expected that in just over three months, the Northern Character Camp had already possessed combat effectiveness not inferior to when they first arrived at Chen Family Village, let alone with the support of the artillery squad.

  In the eyes of everyone, the patrol battalion is just like the Wen County Battalion, all with a pale complexion, thin and weak, unable to even swing a wooden stick, they are trash soldiers. As for the Wen County Battalion, it's not worth mentioning, half of their guns have been secretly sold by the officers, bullets are scarce, only a few rounds left, and no resupply has been received from above in years.

  A group of burly men with big knives, this time without even covering their faces, rushed straight to the military camp.

  Looking at the distant trenches and low fences of the military camp, which emitted a gloomy and terrifying atmosphere in the darkness, one of the gang members became somewhat timid and pulled on the quick-stepping small leader, "Third Brother, is it not too arrogant for us to charge into the military camp?"

  Third Brother impatiently reached out and grabbed him, rushing forward, "Less nonsense, they're all those trash soldiers from Wen County Camp. In three months, they might not even have prepared wooden sticks yet, no knives or guns, how could they possibly be our opponents."

  Another swift follower had already jumped over the shallow trench, and his nose twitched involuntarily. "What's that smell of oil?" Before he could think further, the main force arrived, sweeping him along as they climbed over the fence and charged into the military camp.

  A vast and empty space, how come there's a ditch in front of us? The swarming crowd looked ahead, completely bewildered, and simply charged forward.

  Not good, we've been ambushed? Under the faint starlight, the deputy leader of the Southern Gang suddenly saw a row of dark rifle muzzles along the trench in front of him, and his heart skipped a beat as he instantly realized they were doomed.

  With a whoosh, the oil in the first trench ignited instantly, forming a long semicircular band of fire that illuminated the front half of the military camp.

  The machine gun of the tiger's son fired first, followed by a neat row of gunfire and bolt action sounds. No matter who fires hundreds of bullets in a row, aiming, shooting, pulling the bolt, and loading will become a habitual action.

  Deafening gunfire echoed through the sky, countless henchmen fell straight down on the charging road, and big knives against machine guns were completely outdated in this era.

  The smoke quickly dispersed, and the gunfire was intermittently stopped by the officers, because there was nothing left to shoot in front.

  An hour later, the result of this utterly suspenseless battle was delivered into Chen An's hands. More than 300 of the most ferocious men from both sides who had climbed over the fence were all killed, and only more than 50 men who hadn't had time to climb over yet were so frightened that they fell to the ground and became prisoners.

  Chen An picked up the phone and dialed the military camp, "Huzi, take the middle sentry men and horses to eliminate Hanan Village. I'll let Koval deploy and use big guns to open the way for you. Tell Lin Yushan to bring half a sentry of troops and advance to Yuleguan to see if Wang Hongxun's elimination of the Southern Gang is going smoothly, if not, take action himself."

  The next morning, the thunderous sound of cannons shocked all the villagers in Hanan Village. Everyone fled to the nearby mountains in a frenzy, watching with bated breath as the village gate, houses and roads were reduced to ashes in the midst of deafening explosions. The leader of the Northern faction looked around at the deep blue uniformed soldiers holding shiny rifles slowly closing in, sighed several times, and ordered his men to lay down their arms and surrender.

  At this time, the county magistrate was in the county government office loudly scolding the commander of the Wenxian camp, saying that they had agreed to enter the city together to defend it, but instead quietly slipped away.

  The all-night gunfire last night frightened the officials in the county town, and everyone was sleepless, hiding in the county government office waiting for news.

  The sharp-eyed yamen ran quickly to report, saying that a large team of officers and soldiers had rapidly moved south from outside the city. The noisy officials suddenly fell silent, looked at each other, and many people let out a sigh of relief, as if things were about to come to an end. Since the Northern Character Camp still had troops moving south, it was clear that everything in the north had been resolved, and control would return to the imperial court. Chen Youjian, after all, was a man of the official world, and he preferred to do things by the rules, which was better than those gangs that killed people at will.

  At night, more accurate news came that Wang Hongdun, the leader of the Boat Gang, suddenly turned against the Jade Fortress and launched a surprise attack with his men. The Southern Gang was already defeated.

  At dawn, the city gate that had been closed for two days was opened. Further news arrived that the Northern Gang had surrendered even earlier. The White Water River and the White Dragon River were already under Chen An's control. It seemed that Wang Hongyun had truly defected to the Youji government. From now on, there would only be one gang, the Boatmen's Guild, controlling the rivers in this area, and for the first time, the sand gold business along the river was monopolized by a single gang.

  A few days later, Chen An and the county magistrate jointly submitted a memorial to the governor's office, defining this incident as a disturbance between gangs, with dozens of deaths and injuries. At the same time, Chen An also suggested that the leaders, backbone members, and clan elders who played an inciting role in this incident should be beheaded to set an example, while others would be punished according to their crimes and dispersed to live under surveillance. Finally, the county magistrate also severely accused the commander of the Wenxian camp, asking the governor to punish him.

  The governor smiled and handed it to the teacher. The clever teacher, seeing his master happy, quickly spoke up, "If not, sir, just approve it and let Chen Youji handle it himself." The gift of gold that Lin Yushan presented was still quite effective, and the teacher also counted as returning a favor.

  He nodded and said, "The Governor is very busy with important matters, let's just leave it at that."

  Chen An, upon receiving the reply, immediately dismissed the Wenxian Camp Commander and eliminated the remaining two sentries, giving them a severance pay before expelling them from Longnan. The Beiziying Middle Camp, also known as the First Right Sentry of the Official Army, officially took up residence at Bikuai Wharf, shouldering the heavy responsibility of defending against the south.

  The original right sentinel officer had not taken office, because Zhao Si needed to be responsible for the affairs of the Hanzhong Office. Chen An immediately borrowed a clever brother from Wang Hongxun's hands and rushed to Hanzhong to take over Zhao Si's responsibilities. Zhao Si returned to Bikuai to take charge of the right sentinel and also supervised the Hanzhong office nearby.

  Although there were not a few injuries, fortunately, no one was killed in action. The first regular battle ended, and Chen An also felt relieved. It seems that the high-intensity training and the order to fire ten live rounds every day still had a great effect.

  After scattering a large batch of silver, Chen An took the opportunity to establish the military merit reward and punishment system for the Northern Character Camp. At the same time, he promoted thirty soldiers with outstanding combat achievements as deputy heads, not only increasing their monthly salary by half a tael of silver, but also making it clear that after serving as deputy head for one year and learning basic literacy, they would be selected to enter the third phase of the Military Academy, preparing to serve as officer cadets for new recruits next year.

  Later on, it became a rule that only excellent soldiers who had served for more than one year and learned basic literacy could enter the non-commissioned officer team to receive preparatory military officer training.

  The second batch of 330 new recruits also began to join the training. With the deputy head, unless there are exercises and tasks, all officer students were withdrawn to continue their studies, bringing the second batch of new recruits for drills. All personnel replenishment matters, Chen An stipulated that they would be incorporated into the Beiziying Camp's unified arrangement.

  Lin Yushan's Zuo Ying was arranged in Hanzhai, firmly controlling the traffic hub in the northwest direction.

  With the recruitment of two batches of soldiers and the commencement of large-scale projects by Northern Industrial Company, at least tens of thousands of people, including family members, arrived in Jiexi County, bringing about enormous business opportunities. The Bi Kou dock became increasingly busy, and even the county town flourished a lot.

  Numerous job opportunities and the provision of unified food and accommodation attracted many poor people from deep mountains and old forests, bringing their families to the recruitment centers of Northern Industrial Company. As a result, the scale of Biku, Yulei, County Town, Chenjiazhuang, and Hananzhai continued to expand, becoming large towns with thousands of people along the rivers.

  It is worth noting that, according to the imperial court's convention, as long as there are more than 2,000 households, it can be called a town. Many small county towns have only two or three thousand people, and if there are tens of thousands of households, it is the scale that only prefectural cities have.

  Chen An's next target was the middle reaches of the Bailong River, and as long as he could insert his troops there, the entire southern part of Jiezhou would be completely under his control.

  But with tens of thousands of people pouring in, the grain prices in Jiezhou have already fluctuated greatly, and Chen An had to hastily transport a large amount of grain from Sichuan to calm things down, otherwise someone would have impeached Chen An for neglecting the people's livelihood.

  Chen An bought a large amount of land and mountain forests locally, organized labor to reclaim the wasteland, and at the same time contacted Peng Daotai many times to see if he could buy enough land in Lanzhou, using the name of the Northern Industrial Company to build an agricultural reclamation company, and actively started storing grain.

  Peng Daotai's response was quite strange: "There are many official farms, but I have never heard of a company farm."

  The nominal general manager of the Northern Industrial Company was a Polish man named Kowal, and Peng Yigong also did not dare to easily agree to allow foreigners to cultivate Chinese land, as the political risks were too great.

  Chen An, who had a deep understanding of the situation, immediately used his own name to purchase large tracts of land and dispatched a large number of people from Chen Family Village to take charge, actively starting to stockpile grain.

  Anyway, the Shanghai side's transaction has also accelerated. Now, no matter how many IOUs Chen An signed, he was not at all concerned and uniformly noted that a deposit would be paid first, with full payment after delivery in three months.