At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Japan had concessions in Wuhan, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Chongqing in China, and it happened that these leases were all along the Yangtze River Valley. Pen ~ fun ~ cabinet www.biquge.info and this situation is not only done by Japan, but also by the French and the British, only the Germans and Americans have no intention of doing this for the time being, after all, one of them started late and adopted a contraction policy.

The Japanese gunboats, which usually docked at the docks near the concessions, were almost all mobilized to Nantong this time, hoping to occupy Nantong or carve out a concession in Nantong.

Li Shirui thought about using torpedoes or bombs to blow up the ship, but the Japanese navy soldiers were heavily guarded, although they did not send regular troops to the vanguard of the crusade army this time, but the navy was all elite, and Li Shirui sent out some soldiers disguised as fishermen to approach the Japanese gunboat and try to blow up the gunboat. However, the Japanese did not allow anyone to get close to the gunboat, and began shelling from a distance of a thousand meters, ordering anyone to leave the combat zone. Even at night, the Japanese would constantly shine their searchlights on the surface of the river to avoid a sneak attack by the Chinese army.

Li Shirui's soldiers were driven away or sunk by the Japanese several times, which greatly reduced the morale of the Chinese defenders, and Li Shirui especially hoped that the navy could support him, even if the Beiyang Naval Division did not support it, what about the navy that had defected to the Southern Revolutionary Party? Of course, they were willing to support, but they could not do anything, after all, the army had to obey the words of the ruling party, and Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai strictly ordered the navy not to fight, so as to prevent the weak Chinese navy from being slaughtered by the Japanese navy again.

In the end, Li Shirui had no choice, so he decided to let go of the onslaught and start a sand table deduction with his subordinates. According to calculations, it would take at least 30,000 to 40,000 casualties in five days to destroy the Japanese forward troops, and Li Shirui did not dare to bear this loss easily, so he immediately reported it to Wang Yongan.

After thinking about it, Wang Yongan said: "The people of Jiangbei would rather die in battle than lose an inch of land. ”

Li Shirui then began to prepare the whole army for battle, this attack on the Japanese beachhead, he concentrated all the artillery of the six divisions, a total of 160 artillery pieces of various types, with the first and second divisions as the frontal attack, with the sixth division as the left flank outflank, with the seventh division as the right flank outflank, with the third division as the general reserve, and the ninth division as the reserve, a reserve regiment ready to split and supplement the main force at any time.

At this time, a local veteran ran over, shouting that he was casting a spell under the fog, although Li Shirui did not believe in God, but he was also attracted by this old way, so he hurriedly called him to question.

This old Tao is called the Pure Void Son, which is the Taoist of the Spiritual Void Concept, and this Spiritual Void Concept has only been established for seven or eight years. If it weren't for the pure void, Li Shirui had to pay attention to it, and he would have been beaten out of the mess a long time ago.

"You said you could cast a spell to lower the fog? Do you know that there is no joke in the army, and the eyes of the 30 million people in Jiangbei are staring at Nantong, if you deceive me and let the Japanese kill me, you are the scum of the nation, and if you don't need me to kill you, you will be drowned by the people of all China. Li Shirui's voice became louder and louder, his eyes became sharper and sharper, and finally he was less than ten centimeters away from Jingxuzi's face, so frightened that Jingxuzi sat on the ground and gasped for breath.

Jingxuzi blushed and whispered, "Actually...... I can't please the fog. ”

"Pull it out." Li Shirui waved his hand, and the soldiers set up Jingxuzi, who shouted: "But I know the weather in Nantong, there will be heavy fog here in Nantong every April, especially in the last two years, it will be more frequent, there were three fogs in April last year, two fogs last year, and there has been no fog so far this year, so I am sure that there will be fog this year." Right handsome, right handsome, what I said is true, although I usually maintain the Taoist temple by cheating people out of money, but I won't lie to you about the fog, and I don't dare to lie to you. ”

"Wait a minute." Li Shirui asked the soldier to let go of the pure void and asked, "What you said is true?" ”

After Jingxuzi stood firm, he hurriedly said: "What I said is true, you can find a few locals to confirm my words, it was really foggy in April last year, the first was on April 4th, the second was on April 22nd, the first fog lasted for half a day, and the second fog lasted for a day and a night. ”

Li Shirui said: "Can you predict when it will be foggy?" ”

"No, but I'm sure that halfway through April, there will be fog in the second half of the month." The Pure Void Son is determined.

"It's not a guess." Li Shirui sighed, "If we rely on your guess, if there is no fog in the past half a month, tens of thousands of horses are in danger." ”

Jingxuzi said: "It doesn't fog in April, and I Jingxuzi hanged myself in the Nantong City Tower!" ”

Li Shirui said: "If it is foggy in April, I can fulfill one of your wishes, saying, how much do you want?" ”

Jingxuzi hurriedly said: "I don't want money, I want you to demolish the Jiulong Temple opposite." ”

Li Shirui was so angry by his words that he asked him to leave quickly, and Jingxuzi said I will live here, if it doesn't get foggy, I will die to show you, so he lay dead in Nantong City. The people knew what the pure void son said, and they all said that he was doing death, and how could he rely on experience in military affairs, especially the weather, which is unpredictable at the moment.

On April 16, four cruisers and destroyers, including the cruiser Takachiho, arrived at Langshan Harbor, and Li Shirui's original plan to completely annihilate the forward forces of the Japanese crusading army was taken by surprise by the Japanese warships.

Through reconnaissance, Li Shirui concluded that the Japanese must be preparing to attack the old city of Nantong, so he thought that it was necessary to strike first, and after all departments were prepared, he immediately reported to the headquarters for a general attack.

However, on the afternoon of the 16th, Li Shirui received a piece of news that made the whole army and even the people of the whole country excited, and after three months of consultations, the representatives of Yuan Shikai, Sun Yat-sen, and Wang Yongan reached a consensus agreement in Nanjing, that is, to overthrow the Manchu government and establish the Republic of China.

Nanjing's decision was largely due to the pressure given by the Japanese, which made Jiangbei give up the tough confrontation, and also made Yuan Shikai's Beiyang department anxious, lest Jiangbei defect to Japan. Among them, fierce conflicts also broke out within the revolutionary government in the south, because Sun Yat-sen borrowed money from the Bank of Japan to pay salaries to government officials and pay military salaries to the army, and then there was a fierce internal turmoil over Sun. In order to divert the contradictions, Sun Yat-sen relented and reached an agreement with the Jiangbei government and Yuan Shikai to establish the Republic of China.