The huge sound wave emitted by the Hashidate Ghana cannon instantly shook the snowflakes around the Hashidate into powder, and the snowflakes near the turret were directly vaporized. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"Whoa—"

The huge projectile let out a piercing screech and shot in an arc towards the Monk Island Fort 10 kilometers away.

"Boom-"

The projectile will crash into the former headland reef complex on Monk Island, where a black mushroom cloud will be released.

"Hum—"

Half of the Monk Island shook slightly in this fierce bombardment, smashing the snowflakes floating on the ground in unison.

"Boom!"

Immediately, on the Dome cruiser Yoshino not far away, a 203-caliber main gun exploded, shooting the projectile at the Huangshan Fort on Laolong Island.

Soon, the cannonball smashed into the sea not far in front of Laolong Island, splashing a huge column of water.

"It's too far."

Ito Yohei regretfully put down the telescope in his hand, the results of these two test shots were obviously very bad.

At such a distance, the Combined Fleet can only serve some purposes in addition to the main guns on the ships.

The rest of the Armstrong 152mm and 120mm rapid-fire guns did not do anything at all, let alone the Haqikes 47mm rapid-fire guns with an effective range of only 4575 meters.

"Order: Tsukushi, Chisei, Seabird, Gunboat Oshima, Kitty Hawk, Torpedo Boat No. 20, Twenty-one, Twenty-two, and Twenty-Three into Dalian Bay; Don't fall in love with the Qing army's forts, focus on finding out the layout of mines in Dalian Bay, and destroy them along the way. ”

"The 1st Guerrilla Brigade immediately moved to the direction of Xidalian, Laobian Island, five nautical miles to the southwest; The rest of the ships were on standby. ”

Under Ito's order, 4 Japanese gunboats and 5 torpedo boats slowly left the ship group and cautiously headed towards Dalian Bay.

On Monk Island, Huang Jianxing and several of his sentry commanders looked at the group of Japanese ships outside the mouth of Dalian Bay, and they were all angry.

"From Shimenzi to Dadong Mountain, and then here, don't retreat if you are a gentleman!"

Huang Jianxing said viciously: "The fort on Monk Island is strong, and it is all coastal heavy artillery of foreigners, so our brothers will have a good fight with the Japanese people!" ”

"It's all at your command!"

The five sentry commanders of the artillery battalion are all veteran artillerymen for many years, and they are all excited.

"The warships are moving, and they are a few small ships and torpedo boats."

Lei Fangzheng, the commander of the right sentry of the artillery battalion, shouted loudly: "They want to enter the bay to explore the way. ”

"Brothers, give me a hard blow, don't let these Japanese warships destroy our mines."

Huang Jianxing yelled and gave the order to attack.

"Boom-"

Soon, the three forts on three sides of Monk Island rumbled.

Krupp coastal guns of various calibers roared and spewed out tongues of fire, smashing shells at the Japanese warships that were entering the bay as if they were not paying for money.

The guns on the Japanese gunboats could not hit such a long range at all, and 4 gunboats and 5 torpedo boats had to brave the artillery fire to wander around the bay.

While locating the distribution of mines by the Qing army in Dalian Bay, the found mines were detonated.

"Artillery bombardment of Japanese ships!"

Major Cheng Moyi, the commander of the Sheng Army Artillery Battalion of the Artillery Department of the Beiyang Military Academy, shouted and ordered: "All companies can only bombard at will, and the arsenal is full of shells. ”

"Boom-"

Soon, the Laolongdao Fort was also gunfired.

"Yo Xi, the Imperial fleet is here; Why didn't that idiot in Suwon come back to report? ”

Breaking into the Japanese army camp in the house, the mountain Genji was roasting on fire, and his face was excited.

"Boom-"

At this time, the heavens and the earth roared, and then Yamachi Genji felt that the ground under his feet was trembling.

"Baga, the Qing army attacked?"

Genji jumped up in anger and rushed out of the tent.

I saw that in this moment, the earth was white, and the snowflakes between the sky and the earth were densely intertwined, and I could not see the distance of two miles away.

Scattered all around, there were random shells falling everywhere, and although they did not cause great casualties to the Imperial soldiers, there were always some unlucky soldiers who were bombarded in the air by the shells from time to time.

"The report shows that the Qing infantry has no signs of attacking, and they are just blind shots without a target."

A horseman hurriedly drove his horse to report that the bitter cold wind caused by the high-speed gallop on his horse made his face red and swollen.

"Baga, are these Qing soldiers crazy, cannonballs are not silver?"

Yamachi Motoji looked angry.

The Japanese army has been poor and crazy all these years, not to mention an expensive shell, it is a bullet, it is all calculated to save money, where have I seen such a luxury loser.

"Order all units to rotate to Taishan Heights and Jinzhou City Tower, and go to practice firing artillery; Mao Chao's department was temporarily transferred to Monk Island and practiced at the Laolong Island Fort. ”

The sound of artillery in the direction of Dalian Bay reminded He Changying that since there are too many artillery shells in Dalian Bay to be transported, and the demand for artillery will be great in the future, why not take the Japanese army on the opposite side to practice artillery?

"It was reported that another ferry was intercepted in Golden State Bay, and an electrical box was found inside; Zhang Qilin, the captain of the ship's dry mine battalion, tried to throw the electrical box into the sea, but was stopped by the soldiers next to him. ”

A herald came to give an announcement.

"Okay, bring him here."

He Changying's face was cold.

When the country is in crisis, there are heroes who stand up regardless of their own honor and disgrace, and naturally there are scum like Zhao Huaiye, Gong Zhaoxi and Zhang Qilin.

"Boom-"

In the snowstorm, the artillery positions of the anti-Japanese army were always blindly firing artillery fire without delay.

The Japanese soldiers on the opposite side of the angry army all cursed in panic, because no one dared to say whether the shells would fall on their heads and blow themselves into a pile of minced meat in the next moment.

It was at this time that more than 5,000 soldiers and more than 7,000 people in Port Arthur, under Li Hongzhang's rare tough order, began to march towards Dalian Bay in the wind and snow.

At the same time, tens of thousands of laborers in Jinzhou, Dalian, and the entire Liaonan Peninsula converged towards Dalian Bay under the temptation of heavy money and hatred for the Japanese army.

Regardless of the officers and soldiers, as long as they came to transport the munitions, they were full of white rice, and they had meat and egg soup to drink.

Along the way, a temporary resting point built of wood and pine branches is set up every five miles, and rows of simple houses have firewood and hot porridge, as well as simple large kang in the northeast, where you can sleep in the dark.

Each trip was paid according to the amount of ammunition carried, but each trip was paid a guaranteed salary of two taels of silver.

This is this 'guaranteed two taels of silver', which can make all the poor people in southern Liaoning, as well as those poor and big-headed soldiers, crazy.

This time, Li Hongzhang took out his blood money and made it clear in the telegram that the torpedo boats escorting the silver would immediately set off from Jinmen and would unload 1 million taels of tattooed silver from Qipan Village, which would be used as the salary of the Ludajin army and the reward for transporting arms.

Li Hongzhang, who was back in charge of affairs in southern Liaoning, learned that Zhao Huaiye did not know his whereabouts, Gong Zhaoyu fled by boat to Yantai to supervise grain, and the officials of the Dock Engineering Bureau and the Ordnance Bureau fled to the Bohai Sea to take fishing boats and fled in the direction of Yingkou.

What was even worse was that in order to steal the electric box, Zhang Qilin, the captain of the drought and mine battalion, actually cut the wires that controlled the mines and the dry mines, so that all the mines and dry mines laid at Lushunkou were useless, and then he escaped by boat with four of his men.

Li Hongzhang was so angry that he almost didn't get angry.

While he telegraphed He Changying to send troops to set up a card in Jinzhou Bay to intercept him, he took out one million taels of silver from the Beiyang Silver Treasury to reward He Changying for sending charcoal to him in disguise.

In the calculation of the staff of the Anti-Japanese Army, because of this heavy snowfall, the transportation capacity is close to 25,000, and within ten days, the materials of Dalian Bay can basically be transported by sled.

If it weren't for this good snow, because there weren't enough carts of mules and horses, it wouldn't have been possible for a month to carry it by wheelbarrow.

All in all, it was a good snowfall.