"Hit!" At the command of the command, the heavy machine gun immediately opened fire, and at such a distance, even the heavy machine gun with the longest range had a pitiful low hit rate, and could only rely on fire to cover the striking effect. Because of the small number of people, the first regiment did not launch a counter-charge, and the second shock wave of the Qing army followed.

"Those who break through the positions of the rebellious party will be rewarded with 100 taels of silver!" The shout of a thousand generals made the Qing soldiers lying on the ground once again muster up the courage to advance, and the closer they got to the position of the national army, the denser the firepower became, and the more and more firing points were fired. The two attack waves of nearly 4,000 people made the Qing troops in front of the position very dense, and the machine guns and mortars played their greatest effect, and the Qing soldiers fell on the offensive road.

The whistling bullets made these Qing soldiers wake up from the stimulation of Fushou ointment, and some people began to run back, and the overseers who followed behind were severely tested - more and more Qing troops ran back.

With strong firepower, the Nationalist commanders were often willing to take risks and fight more with less when facing the Qing army, and the first regiment sent three companies to detour back to the left side of the Qing army's position, and launched a surprise attack on the enemy forces several times their own with less than 1,000 troops. The attack was fierce and orderly, and the Nationalist soldiers advanced in cover without hurry, alternating between machine guns and rifles, without stopping the fire.

A counter-charge was also launched on the frontal position, unstoppable like a tiger descending a mountain, the Qing army surrendered on its knees in a large area, and the Qing army that escaped back by luck found that the position was also attacked, and it was not safe here, so continue to run! Under the attack from both sides, the Qing army collapsed. In this battle, a regiment outnumbered the people, eliminated more than 2,000 Qing troops, captured more than 4,000 people, and suffered 36 casualties, and took the opportunity to capture Xinyu and open the south gate to Nanchang.

Almost at the same time as the battle of Xinyu, the 1st Division and the 2nd Division of the Second Army went north to the Yifeng area, and after capturing this place, the 1st Division continued to move north, preparing to capture Jiujiang and cut off the retreat of the Qing army in Jiangxi, and the 2nd Division went east to directly attack Nanchang.

The offensive of the Third Army on the Zhejiang side was also very fast, and its vanguard regiment had already arrived at the outskirts of Jinhua with motorcycles and other mobile tools, ready to enjoy the taste of Jinhua ham. The 1st Division marched north along the coastline, captured Wenzhou and Taizhou successively, and is now marching towards Ningbo; The second division captured Wencheng and Yunhe, aiming directly at Quzhou; The 3rd Division captured Lishui and Yongkang and marched from the middle. The three armies marched hand in hand and would eventually converge in Hangzhou.

The success of the Northern Expedition did not make Lü Liang relax, and after meeting with Zhang Zhidong, he hurried back to Guangzhou. On October 18, he received a secret telegram from Lu Si that Britain had decided to send the Far East Fleet in Singapore to shell the coast of Guangdong in retaliation for the sinking of the destroyer on the Yangtze River.

What surprised Lu Liang in this telegram was that it took Britain several days to make a decision, the arrogant empire that the sun never sets will definitely not give up on the sinking of the destroyer, retaliation is inevitable, and even Lu Liang is ready for war. Neither the Fifth Army nor the Seventh Army participated in the Northern Expedition in order to prepare for a possible war.

Just ordering the Far Eastern Fleet to shell the coast shows that the British are not ready for war with a local military power in the Far East, or that they do not want to start such a war at all. The simple explanation is that the pay is not proportional to the benefit, and the loss of the southern Chinese market is not a big deal compared to the loss of the lives of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers, the huge amount of war funds, and the fact that Germany took advantage of the situation. In addition, Britain's diplomatic representations with the Zhenguo Party showed that the Zhenguo Party's Lu Liang did not seem to have completely hated the British Imperial Government, and that the sinking of the destroyer was just an accident. A sizable coastal bombardment operation is enough to quell the anger in the country, and the market will not necessarily be lost.

The British deceived themselves and simply thought that the Zhenguo Army could do whatever they wanted without a navy. The dense coastal fortifications along the coasts of Guangzhou, Guangzhou, and Fujian are sufficient to ensure the safety of the coastal areas, especially in Guangdong, where all the large-caliber artillery (more than 220 mm) produced by the military factories are used in the coastal fortifications that do not need to be moved, and there are more than 200 large-caliber artillery pieces in the vicinity of Guangzhou alone. These towering cannons are enough to teach the Far Eastern Fleet a profound lesson, the days of using cannons to open the country are long gone, and the Zhenguo Party is not the Manchu government, and it has been proved that it is oneself who suffers from looking at people with old eyes.

The London telegram did not ask for the date of the Far Eastern Fleet's troops, the place of the shelling, the scale of the sortie, etc., which had to be decided by the Far Eastern Fleet itself. The Bureau's agents within the Singapore Far East Fleet also did not have access to enough of the information, which required full preparedness for every possible shelling of the coast.

The British Far East Fleet had been called the "Chinese Fleet" before, and it was based in Hong Kong. After the Guangdong Revolutionary Uprising, in order to ensure the safety of the fleet, the anchorage was transferred to Singapore and renamed the "Far Eastern Fleet", but in order to ensure the interests of Britain in the Far East, especially in China, the Far Eastern Fleet often cruised in Hong Kong, Shanghai, the Yangtze River and other regions, and the three destroyers that were sunk belonged to the Far Eastern Fleet.

The three destroyers were ironclad ships renewed in 1900, and the loss of the ships made the commander of the Far East Fleet, Felimantle, furious, and the loss of nearly 600 naval officers and students on the three ships was even more painful. The British Navy was able to dominate the world not by being equipped with the most advanced warships, but by its organization and training, especially in the fact that it had lofty ideals and a sound system. The loss of talent is the most painful.

Finally waiting for the order from London, Felimantle immediately ordered the Far Eastern Fleet to prepare for an attack. In the late 19th century, due to the slow pace of renewal, the Chinese fleet lagged behind Japan and Russia in the level of warships, especially after China and Japan purchased new ironclad ships. By today's day in 1903, all the 20 warships of the Chinese fleet were new-type ironclads, and their main battleships were two Centurion-class battleships, which were built to compete with the powerful armored cruisers of the Russian Navy in the Pacific Fleet, while the others had a smaller draft and were convenient for navigation in the Yangtze River. The flagship "Captain Hundred" has a displacement of 10,668 tons, four 254-mm guns, three-expansion engine propulsion, twin propellers, and a crew of 620 people. Another Palermo will also be accompanied by the Captain of the Centennial, and the shelling of the coast of Guangdong will be dominated by these two battleships.

On October 20, 1903, fifteen warships of the Far East Fleet sailed out of anchorage from Singapore and crossed the South China Sea, aiming for Guangdong. Fleet Commander Felimantle named the operation "Spanking", and the contempt was very clear.

In recent years, the British Navy has been very unfortunate in the waters of the Far East, first of all, two warships of the Navy went missing in the Taiwan Strait a few years ago, and they have not been found so far. After the Canton Revolution, the Chinese fleet was forced to transfer the fleet station. These two things made the British very passive and felt that they had lost face. London's decision to shell this time did not fail to save face.

In addition, discontent with the Revolutionary Party in Britain has existed for a long time. Goods from Guangdong factories have squeezed British goods, and British sales in southern China have fallen by 40% in the last three years, mostly due to Guangdong. Such losses were enough to make the British merchants furious, but the British government, concerned about the strength of the ground forces of the revolutionary armed forces, did not directly send troops, but funded the Japanese and Qing courts to indirectly attack the revolutionary government, but did not achieve much results.

The sinking of the three destroyers was only one trigger, the fuse, and the main reason, which was the revolutionary government's large-scale anti-smoking campaign. In the Liangguang and Fujian regions, the revolutionary government severely cracked down on the groups that sold and smoked large tobacco, and strictly controlled the smuggling of large tobacco, which led to the almost stagnation of large tobacco sales in the three provinces and regions. You know, the British have waged two opium wars for this purpose, and although the cultivation of tea has been popularized in India, and it is no longer entirely dependent on Chinese tea imports, the profits of opium are still rising. In 1900, opium accounted for 20% of the British sales profits in China, exceeding 15 million pounds. Once the Northern Expedition succeeded, it was foreseeable that the sale of opium in China would be completely stopped, and tens of millions of pounds of revenue would be turned into ashes, which was the main reason for the bombardment in Britain.

Historically, Britain bought Chinese tea and imported it to Europe, but China was self-sufficient in China, and the hands of women and children defeated Britain's large-scale industrial production, and it was difficult for British factories to sell their goods in China. This led to the British having to exchange a large amount of silver for Chinese tea, porcelain, silk and other goods, and the outflow of silver led to the British government trying to save the situation, and later there was the import of opium from India, which not only reversed the trade deficit, but also earned a lot of wealth. Therefore, the British do not mind launching the Third Opium War, and if it were not for the complex situation in Europe, this time it would not be as simple as shelling.