The camp of the two battalions of Lopet and Wu Bingwen was set up in a col three miles away from the ferry, away from the main road, and as soon as he returned to the camp, Qin Chuan ordered the maintenance of weapons and equipment, and at the same time made a fire for cooking. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

After Qin Chuan gave the order, the platoon of people in the reconnaissance company immediately began to disassemble and wipe the firearms, check the ammunition, and sort out the camouflage supplies. And the people of the two battalions of the Renzi battalion simply checked the ammunition and ended hastily.

After asking Loped, Qin Chuan learned that not to mention the Renzi battalion, not to mention the heads of the various battalions in Beiyang, now all Qing troops do not have the habit of disassembling and wiping firearms. Except, of course, for the Beiyang Naval Division. As far as Qin Chuan knew, the Beiyang Naval Division still had to clean and maintain the ship's guns frequently.

For an army that does not know how to maintain its own weapons, its military quality can be imagined, and Qin Chuan secretly shook his head when he heard it.

Seeing the men of the reconnaissance company skillfully disassembling the firearms and wiping them carefully, some Qing soldiers were very curious, and many people leaned over to watch. Qin Chuan originally wanted to teach these people how to maintain and maintain the weapon preparation, but to meet these eight hundred people, it was really not a matter of a day or two, after thinking about it, Qin Chuan still gave up this idea with a wry smile.

For lunch, I bought beef, potatoes, turnips, and vegetables when I passed through the market town on the way, and I still stewed them in a big pot.

With Qin Chuan, what made these officers and soldiers of the Renzi Battalion most happy was that the food was very good. Usually they eat meat, they all have more vegetables and less meat, but Qin Chuan asked for as much meat as possible. On the contrary, the vegetables have become flavorful things.

Today's lunch, not only is the meat strong, but the fragrant rice is also eaten casually, and even Qin Chuan took out all the liquor he brought, half a bowl per person. The only requirement is that after eating and drinking enough, everyone is not allowed to move around at will, and they must fall asleep to recuperate and prepare for a night attack on the Japanese army.

After eating, Xu Tong led two squads of reconnaissance company soldiers, carried some sauce beef with him, and set off to lurk. Qin Chuan, Gao Jishan, Luo Peide, and Wu Bingwen discussed for a while the distribution of troops and matters that need to be paid attention to in various places at night, and they all hid in the tent early to rest.

At dinner, Qin Chuan did not let the fire be lit, and the officers and soldiers just ate some cold rice and cold dishes, and each of them was given a piece of sauced beef.

The reason for not lighting the fire was simple, for fear that the smoke would attract the attention of the Japanese army.

In the evening, news began to come from the ferry port.

First of all, the Japanese army was found on the other side of the river, and the vanguard of the Japanese army first took control of the five ferries on the opposite bank as soon as they appeared on the opposite bank, and the ferries that were still on the bank of the river and this side of the river, after discovering the Japanese troops on the opposite bank, they all went down the river in panic to avoid the Japanese troops. Moreover, the Qing troops stationed at the ferry crossing have withdrawn in the direction of Pyongyang.

Then the Japanese army began to transport troops to the opposite bank using the five ferries under their control, because of the small number of boats, the number of Japanese troops crossing the river at a time was only a small team.

The Japanese troops crossing the river really took control of the ferry first, and after the second group of troops crossing the river came ashore, that is, when it was dark, they sent two squads to occupy the two hills on both sides of the main road. Presumably, the Japanese army was tired from the rapid march, and the two Japanese squads that controlled the hill simply lived and ate after building fortifications on the top of the mountain, and then set up tents and slept. The Japanese sentry was also very simple, with only one sentry on each of the three sides facing the river.

The Japanese soldiers who crossed the river set up tents on the river beach and lit fires for cooking. Before dark, the Japanese army collected a lot of firewood and grass nearby, and lit a lot of bonfires on the river beach.

The last news was that the Japanese ferries had been transporting troops back and forth on the river without stopping for a moment, and there were more and more Japanese troops on the river beach at the ferry.

Qin Chuan, Gao Jishan, Lopet and Wu Bingwen gathered in Qin Chuan's tent from the time they received the first military information, and several people waited for news while eating dinner. It's just that the last news surprised Gao Jishan and Wu Bingwen.

Gao Jishan asked Qin Chuan with some concern: "My lord, although the Japanese army crossed the river overnight as we expected, but seeing that the Japanese army is not stopping at this moment, when we set the time to attack, I am afraid that there are more of them here than us, you see。。。。。。 ”

Wu Bingwen also said: "Yes, our soldiers are not good at night fighting, and the number of Japanese troops is large and ours, I am afraid we will not get much benefit." ”

"I'm afraid!"

Lopet lifted the bowl and tilted his head to drain the wine that was left at the bottom of the bowl.

"If we are not good at night fighting, the Japanese are good at night fighting? What's wrong with a large number of people? If you really want to fight, we are in the dark, and the Japanese are in the light. Besides, when our artillery bombards, the Japanese will already panic, and they can't find us, what else can he do with us? ”

Qin Chuan also nodded and said: "Lao Luo is right, the time when we launched the attack was ugly, that is, four o'clock in the morning, that was not only the darkest period before dawn, but also the deepest time for people to sleep. At that time, we opened fire on three sides, and it would not be long before most of the Japanese were killed or wounded, and the number of people immediately became a disadvantage. As soon as the day dawns, we will withdraw, so that the Japanese artillery on the other side will not be able to find us. ”

The Korean Peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides, the coastline is long and complex, the terrain is high in the east and low in the west, the mountains are mostly concentrated in the north and east, and the plains are mostly concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the rivers in the west and south and near the coast. Because of the long and narrow terrain of North Korea, the climate is greatly affected by the oceanic climate.

Although Pyongyang is located in the northern part of the peninsula, it is close to the west coast, the terrain here is relatively gentle, and the wind is always strong at night due to the influence of the marine monsoon.

The specific arrangements for tonight's night attack were as follows: Lopid and his battalion quietly approached the ferry from the left along the river bank, and waited for shelter a mile away from the ferry; Wu Bingwen led his battalion along the river bank to quietly approach the ferry from the right side, also sheltering and waiting a mile away; Qin Chuan took more than 200 people from each of the two battalions of Lopet and Wu Bingwen, as well as a reconnaissance company of a squad, after Xu Tong and them took control of the hills, and went straight along the main road to the foot of the two small hills guarding the ferry to the foot of the mountain on the side of the ferry.

In the woods, more than 200 soldiers of the Renzi battalion sat on the ground, although it was inevitable that some people would talk in a whisper, but because Qin Chuan had a strict order to prohibit noise before departure, and they were not even allowed to speak loudly, these soldiers of the Renzi battalion did not dare to make a mistake. Moreover, the branches and leaves of the trees in the woods blown by the night wind swayed and made a rattling sound, and these whispered conversations were also muffled by the sound of the pine waves.

Although the soldiers of the squad of the salt regiment were also sitting on the ground, they were silent without a sound. Qin Chuan and Gao Jishan leaned against the sides of a towering larch tree at the edge of the woods, quietly looking at the dark hills in the distance. Qin Chuan's two guards, divided into two people, stared closely at the two hills.

Originally, Qin Chuan arranged for Gao Jishan to take care of the horses on the main road behind, but Gao Jishan had to come up with Qin Chuan, saying that since he had put pen to paper, he had to familiarize himself with the battle formation as soon as possible. Qin Chuan had no choice but to rely on Gao Jishan.

"What time is it, sir?"

Gao Jishan was a little impatient and asked Qin Chuan in a low voice.

Qin Chuan looked at the watch on his wrist, and the numerals, hour and minute hands on the glowing dial were clearly visible.

"It's half past three."

Gao Jishan looked at the dark hills in front of him and muttered to himself.

"Why is there no signal yet? Nothing could go wrong, right? ”

Qin Chuan knew that although Gao Jishan, a literati, had a lot of enthusiasm, he was inevitably a little nervous when he went to the battlefield for the first time, so he smiled and whispered to comfort Gao Jishan.

"Please rest assured. Don't worry, I know the ability of those people of mine best, and there should be no problem in dealing with a few Japanese sentry posts. What's more, there has been no movement on the hill so far, which at least shows that they did not alarm the Japanese army. ”

Gao Jishan thought about it, but he had seen the kung fu of these young men to cover up and disguise yesterday, and he must not be bad at his kung fu.

However, Gao Jishan was still a little worried, and asked Qin Chuan in a low voice.

"My lord, the Japanese should also put sentries on the riverbank, and the people of those two battalions will not be discovered, right?"

"No, it won't."

Qin Chuan shook his head and said, "Cipu, you just put your heart in your stomach." Generally speaking, the Japanese army does not put the guard post a mile away, and I already know about the guard post arranged by the Japanese army in Seoul, which is why I want them to stand by a mile away. Also, at this distance, it can also be guaranteed that when our mountain artillery shells, they will not be injured by mistake. ”

"Commander, there's a signal."

The two guards who were in charge of observing the two hills reported to Qin Chuan in a low voice with excitement. Hearing that there was a signal, the officers and soldiers of the Renzi Battalion who were sitting on the ground behind Qin Chuan stood up in an uproar, and suddenly there was a sound of rifles colliding with each other. Gao Jishan, who was angry, turned around and scolded in a low voice.

Qin Chuan didn't have the heart to care about this, and raised the binoculars in his hand to look at the hills.

Sure enough, I saw a small fire lit up halfway up the slopes of the two hills, and the fire flickered only a few times before it was extinguished.

Qin Chuan turned around, and the two sentry commanders were already standing behind Qin Chuan with more than twenty capable soldiers.

Qin Chuan commanded in a low voice: "Don't be nervous, our people have already eliminated the sentries above, you just need to go up quietly along the mountain road you saw in the afternoon." ”

The two sentinels nodded, and with their men quietly walked out of the woods and headed straight for the hills.

Qin Chuan turned around and nodded to Gao Jishan, Gao Jishan also beckoned the remaining soldiers of the Renzi Battalion, and followed Qin Chuan and the soldiers of the reconnaissance company of his squad out of the woods.

Qin Chuan led the people along the main road straight to the mountain pass between the two hills, and met Jin Jiu and several of his subordinates who were in charge of observing the situation of the hills below on the way. Jin Jiu just nodded to Qin Chuan, and led people to follow behind Qin Chuan.

As soon as Qin Chuan walked to the mountain pass, he saw dozens of bonfires flickering brightly at the ferry, reflecting the area of more than a mile near the ferry. By the light of the dozens of bonfires, Qin Chuan and Gao Jishan led the team separately and carefully attached themselves to the edges of the two hills, and quickly came to the foot of the hill on the side of the hill facing the ferry, under the cover of trees and the already yellowing artemisia grass that was more than a foot high.

Seeing that Gao Jishan and the team he was leading were hidden in the dark, Qin Chuan carefully observed the situation at the ferry.

At the ferry, along both sides of the Wonsan Road, in the middle of dozens of bonfires, more than 80 tents have been erected, and the curtains of many tents have been lowered, and the Japanese soldiers who crossed the river first have already slept. There are also dozens of Japanese soldiers who are busy setting up tents, and these people must have just arrived. In the reed sheds near the ferry, there were more than a dozen gas lamps, illuminating the reed sheds very brightly, and more than a dozen officers were busy inside.

On the pier of the ferry terminal, there are still groups of Japanese soldiers walking along the pier from time to time on the river beach. Through the mist on the surface of the river, you can vaguely see that the bonfire on the other side is also bright. It can be seen that the Japanese army did not have a moment to cross the river.

As for the Japanese army sentry posts, as Qin Chuan said, only a dozen sentry posts were set up on the periphery of the camp.

There are more than 80 tents, if there are ten people living in each tent, it is 800, not counting the Japanese troops who are setting up tents and coming down from the dock one after another, Qin Chuan roughly estimates that the number of Japanese troops in Jiangbei is almost 1,000 now, which is almost the strength of a brigade.

With eight hundred against one thousand, Qin Chuan also had some drumming in his heart, if this was with a salt group, Qin Chuan still had a bottom in his heart, but at this moment it was eight hundred people with the Renzi battalion. According to Qin Chuan's observation, the Qing army was okay to fight a good battle, but when it encountered a tough battle, most of them would be defeated. Qin Chuan couldn't help but secretly regret it in his heart, regretting that it would have been better to launch an attack earlier, so that the Japanese army's strength in Jiangbei would not be as large as it is now.

It's just that Qin Chuan really doesn't want to give up such an excellent opportunity, and the unprepared Japanese army will definitely be caught off guard by attacking the Japanese army at night.

Qin Chuan looked at his watch, it was already past four and five in the morning, Qin Chuan did not hesitate any longer, waved his hand, and gave an order without looking back.

"Signal."

As soon as Qin Chuan's words fell, one of the guards behind him took out a match, and with the help of Qin Chuan's body, he lit a match and lit a Kong Ming lamp in the hand of another guard. After the kerosene-stained cotton wool under the Kong Ming lantern burned, the instantaneous heat opened the body of the Kong Ming lantern, and then the Kong Ming lantern broke away from the guard's palm and rose fluttering.

Kong Ming lantern, according to legend, was invented by Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu during the Three Kingdoms, which is a lantern made of thin bamboo silk and made of tissue paper or silk. It's just that this Kong Ming lantern is opened below, and the other three sides are sealed. Set up a cross arm at the opening, wrap it with flammable materials on it, and ignite the flammable material below when needed, and the fire will produce hot gas together, and the hot gas will naturally rise, and this hot air will push the Kong Ming lantern into the air, especially conspicuous at night.

It is said that Zhuge Liang originally invented this Kong Ming lantern for the purpose of communicating with the troops at night.

As soon as the Kong Ming lantern was raised, it quickly attracted the attention of the Japanese army, and Qin Chuan could clearly see in the telescope that the Japanese soldiers who were still setting up tents stopped and looked at the light soaring in the night sky in surprise. The first to react were the officers in the reed shed, a large group of Japanese officers ran out of the reed shed, just to take a look, someone shouted loudly. Thinking that the shouting was too quiet, a Japanese officer even took out a pistol from his waist and fired three shots into the air.

The original intention of this Japanese officer to shoot was to wake up the sleeping Japanese officers and soldiers, but what he never expected was that as soon as his guns rang out, explosions suddenly sounded on the two hills guarding the main road of the ferry, and several fires burst out on the top of the hill with the sound of explosions, followed by a burst of "crackling" rifle shooting.

The sound of explosions and gunfire woke up the Japanese soldiers sleeping in the tent, and many Japanese soldiers poked their heads out of the tent, but it was too late. With a scream from far and near, a large group of fireballs suddenly broke out in the camp near the Japanese ferry, and the shells of the 75mm Krupp mountain gun exploded violently in the Japanese camp one after another, and the shock wave generated by the explosion not only blew the Japanese troops near the explosion point into the air, but also blew up one tent after another, and the raging shrapnel tore the Japanese soldiers one by one. For a time, in the camp, the stumps, broken arms, flesh, and blood of the Japanese officers and soldiers were splashed everywhere.

Although many Japanese tents were not affected by the explosion for a while, the dozens of bonfires lit by the Japanese army in the camp helped Qin Chuan a lot, and a few shells fell near the bonfire, and immediately the large piles of bonfires were blown up and splashed in all directions, and the embers of the bonfire with red charcoal fire flew to the tents of the Japanese army and immediately burst into flames, and the fire of those lit cotton tents would rise instantly.

This sudden shelling made the panicked Japanese troops in the camp confused, not to mention holding weapons, many of them did not have time to put on their clothes, and ran out of the tents naked, but with that piece of crotch cloth unique to the Yamato nation on their lower bodies, they ran around like flies in the camp like flies in the explosion and screams and wails of the bombardment.

The shells that fell into the river not only set fire to the dilapidated wharf, but even overturned two ferries that were about to leave the wharf, blowing up white columns of water in the river.

Zhou Dawei really didn't brag, the range of his people's shelling was very accurate, and the landing point of the shells was within a radius of one mile around the ferry. Because the scope of the artillery bombardment is not large, it is basically a range of 250 meters wide and 500 meters long with the ferry as the center, so although there are only four mountain guns, the artillery fire is very dense, and Qin Chuan roughly calculates that the rate of fire of a single cannon actually reaches eight rounds per minute. Since thousands of Japanese troops were gathered in a small area near the ferry, every explosion of a shell could kill and wound the Japanese soldiers.

Looking at the large flames that continued to erupt in the Japanese camp that were chaotic into a pot of porridge, Qin Chuan couldn't help but slam his right fist on his left palm.

"Good!"

Qin Chuan was excited, and there was something more excited than Qin Chuan, Qin Chuan's shout did not fall, his face was flushed with excitement, and his voice had changed Gao Jishan crossed the road with a revolver and ran straight over without any scruples.

"Good!"

"It's so well fried!"

Gao Jishan's appearance was so frightened that Qin Chuan grabbed a few steps and pulled Gao Jishan behind a big tree: "Cipu, be careful of the Japanese shooting." ”

Gao Jishan leaned on the trunk of the tree and was still excited, and he didn't call him an adult, so he called Qin Chuan's word directly.

"Ming Hong, good blow! Well fried! Just this one shell can blow up the Japanese to death. ”

Qin Chuan smiled and patted Gao Jishan's shoulder: "Don't be happy yet, we still have fewer cannons, it would be nice if there were a few more." Now we just caught the little devil off guard, and after a while, the little devil will be relieved, and we will look good. ”

After speaking, Qin Chuan stretched out his hand and beckoned one of his guards, who understood his thoughts clearly, and hurriedly handed Qin Chuan two shell guns with wooden boxes.

Although Qin Chuan had a revolver pinned to his belt, Qin Chuan basically didn't use a revolver when fighting. The reason is that the revolver not only has a short range, but also has less ammunition, and after running out of bullets, it is time-consuming to reload again. Therefore, Qin Chuan's two shell guns are usually carried by this guard. Actually, Qin Chuan also had a special Mauser rifle, but he didn't bring it this time.

Qin Chuan took out two shell guns that shone with blue tiles shining in the light of the fire, checked the magazines of the two guns, made two crisp sounds, reloaded the magazines, reached out and took the four magazines handed over by the guards and kicked them into his trouser pockets. Then he untied the long knife hanging from his waist and pinned it to his back with his backhand, and inserted it in the armed belt.

"You're in charge of protecting the General Manager's Office."

After Qin Chuan gave the order to this guard, he shouted loudly at the soldiers of the Renzi battalion in the bushes on both sides and the soldiers of the reconnaissance company who had been following him.

"Brothers, you say, our cannons are blowing up well!"

"Good!" Qin Chuan's shout immediately attracted more than a hundred people on both sides to cheer in unison.

"Although our artillery is good, but our artillery is too few after all, if you want to eliminate the remnants of the Japanese army at the ferry, you have to rely on the rifles in our hands in the end, do you have the courage to use the weapons in your hands to beat the little devils?"

"Yes!"

Inspired by Qin Chuan's extremely agitating words, more than a hundred people once again burst into cheers in unison.

"Since you have the guts, then follow me to fight the little devils. Brethren, all of them took a hundred and fifty steps forward to find shelter and prepare to beat the little devil. ”