The weather in December is already cold and snowy in northern China, and at this time in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, it is the most comfortable season of the year, bidding farewell to the humid heat of summer, and the cool and warm breeze blows away the fatigue of the day. In the evening, the glorious sunset is set off by the sunlight refracted by the sea, which is more magnificent, and the whole harbor is as quiet and peaceful as a European oil painting.

The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were walking towards the harbor one after another, and behind them, there was a long procession, and at the end of the procession, they were about to leave the capital of Quang Ninh Province, Hung Gi City.

Huang Qiying glanced back at Hongji City behind him, and there was no reluctance to part, because this was not his hometown, but the first city he led his troops to conquer. At this time, Hongji City was unusually quiet, and the people in the city just secretly watched their departure. The Liang family's army was strictly disciplined, except for the property and materials of the government and the treasury, and did not rob the people of a cent, but still no people dared to deal with a murderous army.

After sending off the last batch of supplies and prisoners, Huang Qiying finally left Quang Ninh Province with the fully staffed 2nd Battalion of Teaching, and joined the main force of the Liang Jiajun by sea ship.

What Huang Qiying didn't know was that the day after they left, the Vietnamese army, who had been ordered to come from Haiphong in fear, found that Hongji City was actually an undefended city, and the expected British army had already been evacuated, and they were immediately ecstatic. Screams and cries could be heard everywhere in Hongji City, and the valuable things in the people's homes were looted, and the eldest girls and little daughters-in-law became the public property of these bandits.

The people of Hongji City did not suffer the slightest damage from the foreign army, but they were harmed by the army of their own kind!

The officers of this army are very smart, and the things they have done can be blamed on the British army, so they can do today's things with peace of mind and without any worries!

Soldiers and locusts, human life is as cheap as grass!

Their report to their superiors must have been how they fought valiantly, desperately fighting to the death, and the enemy army was crushed by their brave attack, suffering heavy losses, and fleeing in disarray.

After a day and night of sailing, Huang Qiying and the 2nd Battalion arrived at the landing point in the evening, the coast more than 30 kilometers north of Hue, where the herald of the young master Liang was already waiting and brought the order of the commander of the Liang regiment: the 2nd Battalion of the Teaching Battalion went to the western mountains to hide, and the concealment place was a valley found when the 1st Battalion had just landed; Huang Qiying, deputy commander of the second battalion, led the battalion staff officers and company commanders to the regiment headquarters for a meeting.

When Huang Qiying arrived at the regiment headquarters with a few staff officers, it was already late at night, and Young Master Liang and Liang Kun, the staff officers at the regimental and battalion levels, and several company commanders of the first battalion were waiting for them. Everyone sat in a circle, and Grand Master Liang cleared his throat and spoke: "Everyone, the situation has changed, and there are all signs that the Vietnamese are ready to fight with us. This is unexpected, if we retreat now, believing that the Vietnamese will not be able to stop us, then we can say that we will retreat with no losses, and we have fought a partial victory, and have captured a lot of booty. ”

Speaking of this, the faces of the people in the second battalion showed proud smiles, and then Commander Liang changed his words: "However, if we retreat, we will actually fail, because our strategic goal has not been achieved." The purpose of our visit to Vietnam was to occupy the coal mines in Quang Ninh Province, and the other conditions for compensation were only incidental, and if we retreated now, the Vietnamese court would certainly not agree to our demand to occupy the coal mines. ”

Several of you here thought about it, and Grand Master Liang continued: "We have been using the name of the British before, because the Vietnamese court, like the Qing Dynasty, was afraid of the foreigners, and the Vietnamese and the French fought a few battles, and now the entire six southern provinces have been ceded to the French, but now they must have discovered that we are not the real British army, after all, there are only so many foreigners in our ranks. So I guess they have already begun to deploy troops, and the negotiations with us in the past few days are just pretending to paralyze us. ”

Tieqiao San took over the conversation and said: "That's true, the negotiations in the past few days have become more and more insincere, and the conditions agreed before are now going to be with us."

Liang Sihan nodded: "Now we are more passive, but we are hanging here." If we continue to divide the troops into two routes, it will be easier for them to break through, so I transferred the second battalion to hide it, one is to strengthen our side, and the other is to paralyze the Vietnamese, they send people to negotiate every day, in fact, they are also monitoring and reconnoitring us."

The staff officers began to reflect on the previous plan, and now it seems that the obvious loopholes did not come to the first place, if the Vietnamese really seized the opportunity to surround the second battalion, it would not have harmed the brothers of the second battalion! Several staff officers suddenly felt a chill down their spines, and some even broke out in cold sweat on their heads.

Grand Master Liang stood up: "Now our disadvantage is that the strength is relatively thin, and the so-called soldiers are hated less when they are used, it seems that we will step up the expansion of the army after going back this time." But we are not without a chance to win, please see" He held a wooden stick in his hand, pointed to the makeshift topographic map on the table, and said: "There are more than 10,000 of Vietnam's most elite Janissaries in the royal city of Hue, and we have less than 2,000 people here. So I guess they will draw forces from the north and concentrate them to attack our rear, and then the Praetorian Guards in the royal city will take the opportunity to attack our front and give us a two-sided attack."

"Hiss", everyone couldn't help but gasp when they heard this, and the faces of the two masters of Master Liang became solemn. After all, Liang Jiajun is a newly established team that has not yet experienced the test of life and death.

"You don't have to be too nervous, our opponents are much behind us in terms of weapons and tactics, otherwise I wouldn't have taken you on the risk. Our advantage is that we have so many cannons, after these months of training, the artillerymen have been able to fire artillery proficiently, but the accuracy still needs to be exercised, fortunately, the American instructors are all there, with their on-the-spot guidance, I believe that the artillerymen will make great progress, and the actual combat can really exercise the level, and we also brought enough shells this time. When the Anglo-French army attacked Beijing, more than 10,000 Anglo-French troops fought against 100,000 Mongolian cavalry, and they relied on artillery to blow up 100,000 Mongolian cavalry. ”

"The second advantage is the machine gun, the cannon bombards the enemy at a distance, the machine gun hits the enemy at a distance of between a hundred and five hundred meters, in fact, the lethality of the machine gun is more terrifying than the artillery. There is a saying among foreigners: recruits are afraid of artillery, veterans are afraid of machine guns. It is difficult for a charging soldier to avoid machine-gun fire."

"The Vietnamese army does not have these two advantages, their weapons are very backward, long-range weapons are still mainly bows and arrows, there are also some earthen guns and bird guns, and at close range are broadswords and spears, such a backward army, it is useless to rely on more people alone, and their army does not have a strong will to fight, so we don't need to be too afraid."

"And I have sent a special combat team to infiltrate Hanoi, Hanoi is the big city with the largest number of troops in northern Vietnam, and if they want to achieve a two-sided attack, they will definitely use Hanoi's army, and the special combat team will keep an eye on them, so we can grasp the movement of the Vietnamese army in the north in advance."

Grand Master Liang spoke at length, picked up a teacup and drank a sip of water, and asked the staff officers to discuss and formulate a combat plan. Only in actual combat can soldiers be trained, and now is the best opportunity.

After a lesson, these staff officers no longer dare to talk about the war on paper at will, every detail, every step will be carefully scrutinized, discussed repeatedly, and will be divided into two groups of simulated confrontation, and sure enough, there are some staff officers.

The battle plan drawn up by the Liang Jiajun was to set up a battle line more than 20 kilometers away from Hue to block the Vietnamese troops coming from the north, the sappers first repaired the fortifications there, the artillery calculated the distance to establish artillery positions, and the machine gun positions were built into flank firing mode. After the Vietnamese troops rushed over, they first shelled and then machine-gunned, and then the second battalion opened fire from their rear, first giving them a two-sided attack.

After defeating this army from the north, he went all out to deal with the Janissaries in the direction of Hue. Therefore, the enemy army on this side should first be mainly defensive, but it is not only defensive, the 32-pounder cannon of the heavy artillery company is used to bombard the army of Hue Jong City, and the preemptive bombing will inevitably cause confusion among the Vietnamese Janissaries, achieve the purpose of delaying their attack, and use this time difference to destroy the relatively weak northern army first.

If the Praetorian Guards rushed over regardless of losses, they used fortifications to block the attack, and three lines of defense were set up behind, and even if they could not be stopped, they could gradually retreat.

After a long period of argumentation and reasoning, the combat plan became more and more scientific and reasonable, and this combat meeting was the first actual combat meeting of the Liang Jiajun, and they shouldered the life and death of this team, so no one dared to take it lightly.

Before they knew it, it was already dark outside, and their meeting had been going on all night.