At the head of the West Gate of Jinzhou, the guard Keduo looked at the approaching Shence army outside the city, and his forehead was in a cold sweat.

"Report, Lord Commander, the rebels have already arrived two miles away, do you want to open fire?"

Koduoqiang calmed himself down and shouted, "Fire!" Let the rebels see the majesty of our Jinzhou sons! ”

"Huh!"

The herald left, and after a while, the head of the city trembled suddenly, and Kodo and the others were all dodged down without paying attention.

A loud bang was heard, and a fiery red mushroom cloud lit up the gloomy sky.

"Fuck, what's going on?" Cordodo got up and shouted and cursed.

"Report, Lord Commander, our general's cannon has exploded!"

"What?"

When Cordo heard this, he suddenly staggered, and almost fell down after failing to stand firmly.

It turned out that the general cannon on the head of Jinzhou City was hundreds of years old, and it was still left by the Ming Dynasty army, and it had already been rusted because there had been no war for hundreds of years.

Yesterday, Keduo learned that Li Weiguo drove the expedition in person, led the Chinese Shence Army to the east, and went out of the Shanhaiguan to Jinzhou to kill, he immediately began to prepare for the war, and ordered people to find out the hairy medicine and rusty shells in the warehouse, and then clean the general's cannon, ready to defend the city today, but no one in the Eight Banners Army could fire the cannon at all, and it was filled with hey medicine and cannonballs, and as a result, it exploded as soon as it ignited, causing a large part of the city wall to collapse, and dozens of people were killed and wounded.

It's not good to start a war!

Keduo was not at all sure about fighting against the Shence Army, but now that the war is unfavorable, the general's cannon actually exploded by itself, which is too unlucky, and his superstitious heart suddenly felt cool and cool.

"Lord Commander, we have a general cannon at each of our other city gates, do you want to move it over?"

"Forget it, let's defend the city honestly!"

Kedo shook his head, let's prepare to defend the city in the traditional way, the general cannon can't be counted on.

"Look, Commander, the rebels have begun to arrange artillery positions!"

Codo pulls out his old monoculars. looked at the direction of his subordinates, and suddenly gasped, from his throat and eyes directly to his heart.

That's hundreds of cannons!

Cordor felt his hands tremble, he had never fired a cannon, but he had seen the power of a cannon, once it was blown up, he would either die or be crippled.

"I can't see it clearly here, I'm going to the Drum Tower, Vice General Liu, you're watching here!"

"Huh!"

The stupid Vice General Liu took over from Keduo to guard Xicheng, and he naturally didn't expect that his boss would slip away first for fear of death. I thought that my boss was very kind to him and asked him to garrison Xicheng.

The cunning Kodo quickly slipped away and ran towards the Drum Tower in the center of Jinzhou City.

Kodo hadn't gone far when he heard a whistling sound, and when he looked back, he was terrified.

I saw countless cannonballs rain down and explode on the city, the hard city wall shattered in an instant, earth and stones splashed, and thick smoke billowed out. As a cloud of fiery mushrooms rose into the sky. Thousands of Qing troops on the head of the city were swept away by the blast wave of the explosion, and they fell freely from the city, and their flesh and blood flew sideways.

I don't know which soldier's body had a lump of large intestine blown out, and Bia slapped Kodo in the face in a daze. Splashes of feces and urine.

Oh...... Poof......

Kodo couldn't stand it anymore, and immediately knelt on the ground and vomited, and the bitter gall was about to vomit.

In the blink of an eye, the city was empty. Thousands of Qing troops were engulfed in heavy artillery fire.

Thundered......

The city wall of Jinzhou, which had been in disrepair for a long time, could not withstand the fierce shelling and collapsed violently, hundreds of meters long.

Then the artillery fire of the Shence Army extended. Countless shouts of killing soon came from the thick smoke, and it was the Shence Army that had launched a charge.

There were corpses of Qing soldiers everywhere, and occasionally there were still alive, and they were all seriously injured, wailing all over the field.

"It's over!"

Codo forgot to vomit, and looking at the collapsed city wall, he knew that Jinzhou could not hold it. He had planned to hold out for three days and then retreat quietly, but he never thought that thousands of defenders would be destroyed with a single bombardment, and even the city walls would be blown down.

"My lord, go quickly!"

The soldiers came back to their senses and hurriedly pulled Kodo to the east gate and fled, not even daring to return home.

The Shence army captured the West Gate with a single charge, and then quickly expanded its gains and launched an attack on the other three gates.

Without the city wall as a defense, the Qing army, close to the broadsword, spear and a few muskets, was no match for the Shence army at all, and in a moment, the people killed by the Shence army turned on their backs and fled in all directions.

By noon, the gunfire in Jinzhou City gradually stopped, and the 5,000 defenders of Jinzhou City and the 10,000 troops sent by Yiketang'a, except for the 3,000 defenders of the East Gate who were taken with him when Keduo fled from the East Gate, more than half of the other 12,000 Qing troops were killed and wounded, and the rest were captured.

In the evening, Li Weiguo entered Jinzhou City surrounded by the Imperial Forest Army and set up a temporary branch in Jinzhou Mansion.

"If the Qing army in Kwantung is like this in Jinzhou, the three provinces of Kwantung can be pacified in less than two months!"

"Your Majesty plans to pacify Kanto in three months, and sure enough, it is like a god, and the ministers admire it!"

Wu Yong, Zhang Xiaoliu and others laughed and laughed.

"Although the Qing army is good, it can't be careless!" Li Weiguo smiled and nodded, he was also in a good mood, and the victory in the first battle was very important to boost the morale of the Shence Army's Eastern Crusade.

Then, Li Weiguo asked again: "Did the people of the Horqin League see it?" ”

Wu Yong said with a smile: "Your Majesty is far-sighted, and the Eastern Expedition has brought people from the Horqin League for them to observe. During the siege today, Weichen took them with him to make sure they all saw it. ”

Li Weiguo asked rhetorically: "What do they think?" ”

Wu Yong replied: "They didn't say anything, but their expressions were stunned, our army's artillery fire was fierce, a round of artillery bombardment destroyed the city wall of Jinzhou City, a charge broke the east gate of Jinzhou, half a day to pacify Jinzhou City, our army is so strong, it has made them afraid." Before the minister came, I heard that they had already sent someone back to the Horqin League to deliver a letter, and eighty percent would not secretly collude with the Kwantung Qing army again. ”

"Good!" Li Weiguo nodded, this is exactly the effect he wants. The Korqin League had the closest relationship with the Manchu court, and although their envoys had already expressed their affiliation while in Beijing, the Korqin League was very close to the three Kwantung provinces, and it was not possible that they would secretly help.

Li Weiguo deliberately brought the people of the Horqin League to the Eastern Expeditionary Army, just to let them see the strength of the Shence Army, and they did not dare to help the Qing Army again.

On the same day that Li Weiguo led his army to conquer Jinzhou, a fierce battle broke out between the marines led by Song Yunhan and Wu Qin and the 30,000 Qing cavalry of Yiketanga in the area of Gaopingbao east of the Daling River.

Iktanga intends to take advantage of the topography of the plains. Cavalry was used to carry out a surprise attack, but he forgot how Seng Lingqin caused the Anglo-French army to suffer a crushing defeat in the Second Yapian War, and in the face of the more advanced weapons and more effective combat effectiveness of the Shence Army Marines, he even adopted such an old-fashioned tactic, and the results speak for themselves.

When the Qing cavalry of the Qing army was charged, the Shence army quickly formed a fan-shaped defensive position and pushed out the Gatling machine gun, the big killer.

Dada!

The Gatling machine gun spewed out tongues of fire, instantly pouring out a large number of bullets, interweaving into a dense network of fire in front of the position.

The Eight Banners cavalry of the Qing army charged one after another. People were beaten so that they turned on their backs, and their flesh flew sideways, and they fell one by one.

It seems that fighting for the last dignity of the Great Qing Kingdom, these Eight Banners outside the gate are far more brave than the flag people inside the pass, and they are not afraid of death.

However, in the face of absolute equipment superiority, the Eight Banners Army, which relied on horseback archery, was never able to break through the fire blockade line of the Shence Army, although it followed one after another.

In the end, in front of the two armies, the corpses piled up like a mountain. Rivers of blood. The war horses screamed beside their masters, and the crows that smelled the smell of blood flew all over the sky, screaming wow, as if to blow the last death knell for the Manchu Qing.

"Is this going to be defeated? Is the sky going to die, and I can't clear it? ”

Iktang sighed in heaven. Thinking about the glory of the ancestors and ancestors two hundred years ago, the Eight Banners were not more than 10,000, and the 10,000 were invincible, and tens of thousands of Eight Banners destroyed 2 million Ming troops. 300,000 Eight Banner disciples can rule 100 million Han people, let them survive under the butcher's knife, and now there are five million Eight Banner disciples. But he can no longer rule over 200 million Han people, and the glory has become a thing of the past, and if he is defeated today, the ancestral land of Kwantung will also be lost.

"I'm ashamed of my ancestors! Only to the death! ”

At this moment, as if he had changed into a different person, Iktanga drew his ancestral knife and pointed diagonally at the sky.

"Erlangs! Kill me! ”

"Kill!"

With the last few hundred of his own soldiers, Iktanga once again launched a cavalry charge.

On the other side, Song Yunhan and Wu Qin saw this scene in their eyes and sighed.

"I can't imagine that Iketanga is famous for running away in the gate, but when he arrives outside the gate, he is full of backbone!"

At this moment, Song Yunhan and Wu Qin were both in awe of Yiketang.

Dada......

The Gatling machine gun opened fire again, and in the blink of an eye, Iktanga and the other hundreds of cavalry were beaten into a beecom's nest, and their flesh and blood flew everywhere, and they were all killed.

"Pass my orders! Bury them! ”

Song Yunhan shouted loudly and ordered his subordinates to bury Yiketang Ahou, and the corpses of 30,000 Qing soldiers were also buried, giving them the respect they deserved.

Iktanga and 30,000 Qing troops were killed, and the Shengjing region could no longer organize a force to resist the Shence army.

Without the Fengtian of Iktanga, the people were suddenly panicked, and the banner people living here were worried that the Shence army would slaughter the city, and the Han people who lived here to join the Eight Banners have left their nationality and changed back to their Han surnames, hoping that the Shence army will give them a way to survive after entering the city.

In fact, they are all overly worried, Li Weiguo is still very tolerant in terms of ethnic policy, he will not be accustomed to the problems of ethnic minorities, but he will not deliberately bully ethnic minorities, and will give them the same treatment as the Han people.

When Song Yunhan and Wu Qin led the army to Mukden, the defenders of the city gate had long been gone, and the Shence army directly entered the city, took over the entire Fengtian, and issued a list of Anmin.

After learning the news that the Shence army would not slaughter the city, the banner people were relieved, thinking that Li Weiguo's army was also the same as Hong Xiuquan's Taiping army. At the same time, I was also feeling guilty in my heart, when they entered the customs, they created countless massacres and tragedies, Yangzhou Ten Days, Jiading Three Massacres, etc., and they were full of blood debts. Now that the Han people have regained the world, they have not killed the banner people, and this kind of grace is worthy of gratitude and respect.

The news of the Marines' preemptive capture of Mukden was quickly reported to Li Weiguo, and Song Yunhan and Wu Qin were rewarded by Li Weiguo for eliminating the main force of Iktanga and taking Mukden.

With the fall of Fengtian, all the surrounding places saw that the Shence army had no intention of slaughtering the city, and they all surrendered one after another, and Li Weiguo sent people to pass on the decision.

Next is the Jilin General and the Heilongjiang General, at this time the Jilin General Suobai still has about 15,000 troops under his command, the Heilongjiang General Duerin guards the Sino-Russian border, the number of troops, 50,000 people, the weapons and equipment are also relatively advanced, there are 5,000 people are firearms battalions, equipped with more advanced firearms, and the Heilongjiang River Waterproof Division.

Jilin General Suobai is already over seventy years old, and he has no great ambitions, so he can send people to persuade him to surrender, and there is a great possibility of success. As for the Heilongjiang general Duer, perhaps because he has been dealing with the Russian army for a long time, he is very capable of fighting, and his attitude has always been very tough, and it is impossible to surrender.

Therefore, on the one hand, Li Weiguo prepared a large army to continue to attack Jilin and Heilongjiang, and on the other hand, he sent representatives for peace talks and assassination troops.

Naturally, the representatives of the peace talks went to Jilin to strive for the surrender of General Jilin and the avoidance of war.

The assassination force went north to Heilongjiang City and assassinated the Heilongjiang general Duer.

The peace talks to Jilin went very well, and the Jilin general Suobai happily chose to surrender after receiving Li Weiguo's assurance that his family would enjoy prosperity and prosperity.

The assassination force that went to Heilongjiang City discovered a new problem, because they accidentally killed Maria, the governor of the Russian Far East, when they successfully assassinated the Heilongjiang general Duer.

It turned out that although Tsarist Russia had been carrying out serfdom reforms at home and temporarily stopped expanding abroad, this did not mean that they would be in peace. On the surface, Tsarist Russia entered a period of deep sleep, but secretly Tsarist Russia still maintained a high interest in territorial expansion.

There is no way, Tsarist Russia is a country that is aggressive, especially keen on territory.

In Europe, although Tsarist Russia expanded to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, it was a pity that the outlet of the Black Sea was still trapped in Turkey, so there was an endless Russian-Turkish war. The Baltic Sea is also troublesome, and if you want to enter the Atlantic, you will pass through a large number of Nordic countries along the way, and the North Sea will be blocked by Britain, making it impossible for the Tsarist Navy to enter the Atlantic. Therefore, these two outlets to the sea did not have much strategic role and could not allow the Tsarist Russian Navy to go to the world.

However, in the Far East, although Tsarist Russia also opened up the Pacific Ocean to the sea, it is a pity that several of the outlets are in the extreme north, and the weather is cold, so it cannot provide the necessary bases for the navy. Until they discovered the two outlets of Allaha and Vladivostok, unfortunately they both belonged to the territory of the Qing Empire, and during the Second Yapian War, Tsarist Russia once occupied these two outlets, but unfortunately finally forced by Li Weiguo's deterrence, had to spit out.

For the ruler of Tsarist Russia, it was as if he had just become a beautiful woman, and from then on he would never forget it and want to possess it completely.

The two estuaries of Alaha and Vladivostok are one at the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and the Tatar Sea, and the other is at the mouth of the Tumen River and the Korean Sea, which are nominally under the jurisdiction of General Jilin (Jilin during this period is very large, including the entire Amur region of Russia and Sakhalin Island today), the Jilin General Sobai is very weak, and the Russians ignore him at all, only afraid of the Heilongjiang General Duer, so when the Qing State fell, Tsarist Russia immediately sent people to contact Duer, wanting to let Duer and the three northeastern provinces join Tsarist Russia.

At this time, Tsarist Russia had promised the Northeast King of Tur the conditions to implement Tsarist Russia to rule Huang with Huang and establish a vassal regime of Yellow Russia in the Far East.

Dur has already moved, because the Qing Dynasty has already fallen, and in the face of Li Weiguo's strong military power, Dur knows that sooner or later he will perish, so he actively negotiates with Tsarist Russia.

All this was done in secret, and the assassination troops who went to assassinate Dur did not know about this, but when they killed the ministers of Tsarist Russia, this matter became an international dispute, affecting the diplomatic relations between China and Tsarist Russia, and may even lead to war, after all, this era is not a rational era, just look at the size of the fist, and if you don't agree with each other, you have to fight.

Just after entering Jilin and appeasing the Jilin general Suobai, Li Weiguo received this news.

He suddenly snorted coldly: "Isn't it just the death of a Tsarist minister?" It's not a big deal, if you die, you die, if Tsarist Russia dares to go to war with us, then by the way, they will also take their Far East, which will just be able to connect the mainland with Alaska. ”

Because Shengjing and Jilin fell into the hands of Li Weiguo successively, and the Heilongjiang general was assassinated, the Qing army in Heilongjiang was chaotic, and when Li Weiguo led the army into Heilongjiang, the Qing army fought separately, and was quickly wiped out by Li Weiguo one by one and pacified Heilongjiang.

On March 3, 3966 (April 19, 1866), the three eastern provinces were recovered, and China completed formal unification. (To be continued.) )