Just when Yuan Shikai and Zhu Erdian were discussing secretly in the carriage, Hubei, thousands of miles away, was a different scene.

"Near-missed! Adjust azimuth angle xxx, high and low angle xxx! …… Ready, put! ”

"Boom!"

With a cannon shot, a field artillery shell flew more than ten miles away, accurately hitting the target, and a puff of black smoke rose into the air, covering the pitch-black building.

That building is the martyr's shrine outside the city of Hanyang, there are thousands of tablets enshrined in it, all of them are the shrine of the soldiers who died in the Qing Dynasty's loyalty to the king, when the Taiping army attacked Hanyang, a fire burned the original martyr's shrine clean, now this martyr's shrine is rebuilt during the Tongzhi period, and most of the tablets inside are the Hunan army war dead, as for the earliest tablets of the Eight Banners soldiers, it has long been extinguished with the fire of the Taiping army.

Now, that building is the battlefield support point of the Qing army outside Hanyang City, based on the Martyrs' Shrine, the Qing army has built two lines of defense outside the west gate of Hanyang City, trenches, barbed wire, civil fortifications, anti-artillery bunkers, many modern military defense facilities can be found on those two defense lines, since the Republican Army's westward expedition, the Qing army in Wuhan has been preparing for many days, and even the defense deployment of Hanyang City has been guided by the British ** officer.

Hanyang is not as good as Wuchang, there are both arsenals and steel factories here, for the Qing army, it is better to lose Wuchang than to lose Hanyang, so, from the beginning, this is the focus of the Qing army's defense, and compared with the fortifications of Hanyang, Wuchang can be said to be an undefended city.

Judging by the intelligence, the headquarters of the Qing army outside the city is likely to be located in the Martyrs' Shrine, and if it is destroyed, the Qing army outside the city will be leaderless. Moreover, the fire reconnaissance just now also clarified the range of the Qing army's artillery.

Zhao Bei crawled in an unfinished foxhole in the forward position, observed the impact point of the shells, put down the binoculars, and said to a staff officer beside him: "Order, all the field artillery of the headquarters is pushed to the front of the position, concentrate firepower, bombard the Martyrs' Shrine, and strive to completely destroy it!" But remember, don't waste ammunition, now every shell must be carefully calculated, and even solid shells are not allowed to be fired without an order from an officer above the battalion commander! ”

The staff officer wrote down the order in his notebook and hurriedly ran to give the order, but as soon as he straightened his waist and did not run out of the foxhole, the whole person stumbled and fell forward, and at the same time, there was a "da-da" from a distance...... Click-and-......" machine-gun fire.

"Drag him back!" Zhao Bei shouted, quickly turned around, held a telescope and searched the enemy position, and soon found a newly appeared machine-gun position.

The machine gun position was erected on the right flank of the Qing army's trench, and judging from the sound of point fire, the machine gunner was a veteran, and if he could knock people down at such a distance, he must have used heavy bullets.

"Smack! Syllable! ”

The Republican positions resounded with sporadic rifle fire, trying to suppress the machine gun fire of the Qing army, but the distance was too far, and the accuracy was too poor, plus the machine gun was equipped with steel plates, it was difficult for ordinary bullets to penetrate it, this is the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, and it has obviously been learned by the Beiyang Army.

The Republican positions soon fell silent again, and there were not enough bullets to shoot at the Qing army for a long time, and the precious bullets could only be used in the counterattack.

"Shot in the back, killed." Captain Tian Jinfu touched Zhao Bei's side and said.

Zhao Bei looked back at the staff officer, and regretted in his heart, this was already the second combat staff officer he had lost in one day, and this kind of loss could have been avoided if he had enough field communication equipment. Suppressing the anger in his heart, he raised his hand and pointed at the position of the Qing army, and said: "After the artillery comes up, concentrate the artillery fire and give me a rapid fire first!" Blow up that stretch of trench! ”

"I'll give the order." Another staff officer was just about to get up, but was stopped by Tian Jinfu.

"I'll go." Tian Jinfu said, and then left the foxhole, and in the sound of machine gun fire, he crawled with a high posture and crawled towards the rear artillery position.

Now that the fog has lifted, the view on the battlefield is good, the attackers have lost cover and have stopped advancing, and the warring sides are in such a stalemate that it would not have been possible for the Republican army to advance here if it were not for the foxholes abandoned by the Qing army. However, the foxhole is inconvenient to maneuver, and some of the forward positions of the Republican Army are completely exposed to the fire of the Qing army, and the soldiers there cannot even retreat, so they can only stay in the foxhole, waiting for nightfall, if it is not for the support of artillery, I am afraid that some positions are already empty.

Due to the intervention of the fleets of the great powers, the gunboats of the Republican Army could not sail into the Han River, and the Beiyang Army going south had already crossed the river from the upper reaches of the Han River and marched to reinforce Hanyang City.

"The Beiyang Army has been killed." Zhao Bei sighed in his heart. "Yuan Shikai, Yuan Shikai, you are calm. …… That guy, he couldn't have been killed by the Manchu court, right? ”

Soon after, the republican artillery position was transferred, pushed forward to the rear of the first-line position, and a new position was established outside the range of the Qing artillery in Hanyang, and with the commander's order, the cannon rumbled, and the raindrops of shells flew over and landed near the machine-gun position, and suddenly the earth flew, the smoke billowed out, and the machine guns were dumb for a moment, but soon after, they roared again and continued to rain bullets on the forward positions of the Republican army.

"Dada...... Da Da ......"

The Qing machine guns raised the muzzle of the guns and used machine guns to shoot across the Republican artillery positions, but the distance was too far, and the artillery used steel plates to block the artillery, and there were no casualties.

According to the military practice, the artillery position cannot be too close to the infantry position at the front, but in order to uproot the command center of the Qing army at the Martyrs' Shrine, Zhao Bei had to risk pushing the artillery forward to the first-line position, and use the artillery to engage in "hand-to-hand combat" with the Qing infantry. Long-range artillery is not only a branch of the republican army lacking, but even the Beiyang Army does not have a few long-range howitzers, otherwise, this battle will be more difficult.

The artillery continued to project fire on the Qing positions, and finally the machine gun was completely dumbfounded, but whether it had been eliminated or not, no one knows, after all, it was the well-trained Beiyang Army, and it was by no means comparable to the platoon gunners of the patrol battalion.

"Boom! Rumble! ”

The Republican artillery turned its guns and opened heavy fire on the Qing troops guarding the Martyrs' Shrine.

"Boom! Rumble! ”

The artillery shells of the Qing army also flew over, kicking up dirt and black smoke on the forward positions of the republican army, but these shells were fired by the patrol battalion of Hanyang Chengtou, and most of the warheads were filled with black fire, and the power was poor, unless they hit at close range, there was not much threat, and the mountain artillery was the majority, and the firing range was far inferior to the field artillery, and it could not hit the artillery positions of the republican army.

The real threat to the Republican artillery was the artillery positions of the Beiyang Army on Guishan, which used the latest artillery, the shells were filled with fierce ammunition, and the field artillery was very numerous, and the firing range was not inferior to that of the Republican artillery.

"Fortunately, we are far away from Guishan, otherwise the Beiyang Army would have been able to bombard us." The staff officer said.

"But the Guishan artillery can cover the Qing army in Qintai, which is a great threat to our attacking troops. Moreover, if the Beiyang Army also moves the artillery positions forward, our artillery may not be able to suppress it. Zhao Bei crawled to the other side of the foxhole, raised his telescope and looked north, the direction of the Qintai was also black smoke, and the gunfire was even more intense than here.

Zhao Bei had just arrived from Wuchang City to command the battle. Wuchang as the Hubei provincial wall, has been recovered four hours ago, the first contribution is the artillery, those guarding the city wall of the flag soldiers in the dead and wounded more than half of the lost morale, Jingzhou general Encun after the cannon died, the remaining flag soldiers put up a white flag, surrendered to the revolutionary army, Wuchang City fell into the hands of the republican army, the revolutionary soldiers in the city after a short rest, they immediately put into the onslaught of Hanyang, two hours ago, the army has used hundreds of large wooden boats to cross the Yangtze River, tens of thousands of troops have gathered in Parrot Island, The engineering regiment used the timber and boats of the bamboo and wood market to erect a pontoon bridge between Parrot Island and the north bank of the Yangtze River, and then landed in a mighty way, killing Hanyang City from the upstream, and the "Chuguan" gunboat destroyed the two "gunboats" of the Qing army, and the "Republic" gunboat guarded the ferry together, and at the same time used the ship's cannon to cover the main force to cross the river, and blocked the fire of the Qing army that came to block it, and bombarded the Hanyang city wall, now the city gate of Hanyang City facing the Yangtze River has been destroyed by naval guns, and the Qing army defending the city is shaken, just need to work harder, Eliminate the enemy outside the city of Hanyang, and Hanyang will be the spoils of the Republican Army.