The situation is developing quickly enough to surprise everyone, and the Qing Kingdom, which had been rock-solid before, has been in chaos in just one month, like a humble house and grass in a storm, and has already become a precarious situation.

Such a development once exceeded Song Biao's estimates.

Such a situation made Song Biao understand that the so-called loss of public will is like this, as long as a small change, a brave group can stand up and completely tear the so-called big political axe to pieces, which seems to be stable, but in fact, as long as the public opinion is lost, it will never be stable.

If you lose the hearts of the people, the people's hearts have been lost for a long time, and they are frozen, not to mention the cold.

July 22, 1910.

After a week of preparations, the Northeast New Army was ready for battle, Zhao Tingzhu's 1st Infantry Division arrived in Jinzhou, as a pioneer division about to enter the Guannei, and before that Zhang Yahu's 2nd Infantry Division, which was responsible for attacking Shanhaiguan.

After the Shanhaiguan Pass was defeated, the 1st and 3rd Infantry Divisions and the 1st Cavalry Division directly crossed the Shanhaiguan Pass and attacked Kailuan, and when the main force fought a decisive battle, the 2nd Infantry Division and the 2nd Artillery Brigade needed to suddenly press on and annihilate the main force of the Beiyang Army with absolute superiority.

No matter how afraid the officers and men of the Beiyang Army were, this battle would definitely still be fought, and even fought very fiercely.

On the morning of this day, before leaving the office of the military department and formally leading the command post of the Northeast Revolutionary Army to the battlefield, Song Biao signed the last order before leaving in the office, announcing the official uprising of the Northeast New Army and the patrol army of the three eastern provinces, and the separation of the three eastern provinces from the Qing Empire.

This military order was not the last straw that crushed the camel's camel for the Qing Zheng axe, but the last Mount Tai that crushed the camel, like an iron fist that could directly shatter the confidence and last hope of all the Manchurian faction.

After signing the order, Song Biao handed the order to Zhou Jiacheng, one of the executive deputy officers of the secretariat, and said: "After the headquarters of the command post advances south, you will continue to stay in the secretariat of the military department. ”

After Song Biao officially announced the uprising and broke away from the Qing government, the three eastern provinces entered the period of military management, and continued to prepare for the establishment of the Provisional General Assembly of Military Command of the Three Eastern Provinces on the basis of the Governor's Office of the Three Eastern Provinces, with Song Biao as the presidential system, Shu Fangde and Tang Shaoyi as the deputy secretary general, and Yang Tiesheng as the chief of the military commander, Song Biao was absent from the three eastern provinces, the normal affairs were decided by the secretary general, and the affairs of the military department were handled by Yang Tiesheng, and the Second Staff Department of the Quartermaster Department continued to stay in the military department to preside over the logistics operation of each department, and the first staff officer and other personnel of the second department formed the Northeast Revolutionary Army General Staff. Colonel Maltost served as chief of staff, and senior colonel Jiang Fangzhen served as deputy chief of staff.

At this time, Martos has officially separated from the Russian army, and the rank of the colonel of the Northeast New Army is very simple primary, intermediate, senior, and special officer, Martos is the special officer of the Northeast Revolutionary Army, Song Biao is a senior general, and below him is the special officer of Martos.

Walking out of the office, Jiang Fangzhen was already waiting in the corridor outside the door with more than 30 staff officers from the staff department, and when Song Biao left here as the commander-in-chief of the Northeast Revolutionary Army, he had to rely on these staff officers.

Learning from the traditions of the Russian army and the French army, Song Biao, as the commander-in-chief, walked over and shook hands with each of the staff officers one by one, thanking them for their willingness to accompany them on the expedition.

After a lapse of five years, Song Biao has once again ascended to the seat of the supreme front-line commander, and he will lead a great counterattack, a great counterattack that a nation has been waiting for for three hundred years.

This time, they wanted to fight back not only against the Manchus, but also against the discrimination of the entire Western world, and use the war to prove to the world the strength of the Northeast Revolutionary Army.

After shaking hands one by one, Song Biao took the St. George saber, which symbolized the highest honor, from Jiang Fangzhen's hand and placed it on his body, and then led all the members of the military headquarters of the revolutionary army to leave the second office of the governor's palace.

This time, Song Biao chose to take a Zhonghua brand car to the train station, and after that, this car specially customized by General Motors according to the needs of the general motors company will replace the horse-drawn carriage for Song Biao for most of the battlefield.

This black four-wheeled carriage, which looks a lot like a tractor, is not safe, the wheels are big, and the horsepower is not strong, but it represents the direction of the times and the unforgiving world of steel.

Some of the officers and main staff officers of the military headquarters had already arrived in Jinzhou, and a temporary command post had been set up in Jinzhou, and before Song Biao arrived, they would give priority to attacking Shanhaiguan, and the twentieth town stationed at Shanhaiguan would be under the command of the Manchu Baoying.

…… The news of the Northeast Army's participation in the uprising soon spread throughout the provinces overnight, and by the telegraph everyone who waited for the news could hear it, and not only the whole of China was amazed and delighted, but also the rest of the world.

In such a situation, as long as the Northeast Army goes to war and defeats the Beiyang Army, the Qing Dynasty will be completely over, and no other Chinese troops will be able to resist the Northeast Army.

After signing the uprising order, Song Biao led all the members of the military headquarters command post of the Northeast Revolutionary Army to arrive at Gaoling Town in Ruizhou County (Suizhong County) in Jinzhou Prefecture by train, and Shanhaiguan was 25 kilometers away from the command post.

At this time, Zhang Yahu and Zhang Hongkui's Second Infantry Division had arrived in the area of Mengjiang Numiao, only 4.3 kilometers away from Shanhaiguan, and the forward troops of both sides had a small-scale exchange of fire in Mengjiang Town, which was confirmed to be the main force of the 12th Town (2nd Infantry Division) in the Northeast, and the 20th Town quickly withdrew from the town, giving up to the Northeast New Army the defensive outpost position that Shang Shuliangbi had painstakingly managed in the previous two years.

At the beginning, Song Biao and Zhang Zhidong reached an agreement, that is, the Beiyang Army must not be stationed in Shanhaiguan, and a buffer force must be placed between the six towns of Beiyang and the four towns in the northeast to avoid direct confrontation between the two sides.

The previous commander of the town was Zhang Shaozeng of the Alliance, and after Liangbi noticed that the situation was different, he transferred Bao Ying, who was full of people who had been left as a non-commissioned officer, to serve as the commander, and placed high hopes on Bao Ying.

Song Biao has also seen this Bao Ying, according to the information collected by the Northeast New Army, including the evaluation of Jiang Zhengyuan and others, it should be said that the actual level of this person is very average, except that he is Manchurian, there is almost no advantage at all.

Zhao Tingzhu's 1st Infantry Division has also arrived in Ruizhou County, Chen Wu's 3rd Infantry Division is located in Wangjiayu, Cai Ye and Sun Shulin's 1st Cavalry Division is stationed in the area of Niuyingzi, which is only 12 kilometers away from Shanhaiguan, and in the area around Gaoling Town are the three detachments of the Jinzhou Patrol Army's headquarters, and Jiang Yanxing's 5th Infantry Division will not arrive until about three days later.

According to the plan, as soon as the Northeast New Army conquers Shanhaiguan, the logistics center of the whole army will be moved further forward to Jinzhou, and the combat center will follow the revolutionary army headquarters in northern Song to Luanzhou in advance.

At this time, the temporary command post of the revolutionary army was an earthen fort, which seemed to be plain, but all kinds of facilities were perfect, Song Biao went to the staff room of the command post, and after seeing Martos and others, he asked with Martos and Xu Fangqian: "How is the situation over there in Shanhaiguan?" ”

Martos still had a compass in his hand and sighed: "I can only say that their situation is still very chaotic, and it is completely impossible to see whether they want to stand by and wait for reinforcements, or fight us head-on, in short, it is impossible to use common sense to guess what their commander, His Excellency Bao Ying, is thinking?" ”

Xu Fangqian, who served as the deputy staff officer and deputy director of the intelligence department of the Second Staff Department of the Northeast New Army, said: "I think Bao Ying may be planning to escape, Yang Zhengkun, the co-commander of the 39th Association, and Pan Juying, the co-commander of the 40th Agreement, are both inclined to revolutionary uprisings. ”

Song Biao also sighed, and teased Jiang Fangzhen beside him: "It's not a way to drag...... No matter what they think, let's fight as much as we want! ”

Jiang Fangzhen thought about it a little and said, "Commander, I thought it would be better to transfer the railway artillery under the command of the Second Division, fire a few cannons to scare you, and then send more leaflets to persuade surrender and encourage an uprising, so that they can revolt first." Now that it is the trend of the times, the north and the south are fighting together, who wants to really compete with us on the battlefield? ”

Song Biao's plan was to take Shanhaiguan within three days, and not give the Qing Zheng axe too much time to prepare for the decisive battle, of course, if the new army of the twentieth town could surrender, it was also a good choice, after all, the military strength of this town was roughly equivalent to that of the Beiyang Army.

He thought about it for a while, and Jiang Fangzhen instructed: "Prepare with both hands, try your best to persuade the other party to revolt, the second division will set up a position first, Chen Wu and Liu Gengyun's troops will go up first, knock on the mountain and shake the tiger, attack directly from Xiangshuiyu, cross the defense line of the Great Wall, and send two regiments of troops to outflank the back road of the twentieth town and control the railway." ”

Jiang Fangzhen nodded, and immediately began to give orders to the Third Infantry Division, asking the division to join the battle in advance and strive to capture Xiangshuiyu within 24 hours.

There is a big difference between the modern military and the military of the past, and the status of the Great Wall is far inferior to the past, and the Shanhaiguan Pass is a very important checkpoint, controlling the strongest defense of the Jingfeng Railway, but on the long line of the Great Wall, especially for the mountain division, the range that can be attacked is too large.

Xiangshuiyu This is a ravine, the average width is only about 100 meters, it is very difficult for the large army to attack in this kind of place, the surrounding mountains and mountains, if tens of thousands of troops are fighting here, it is simply not possible, don't even think about it.

The problem is that the total strength of the Qing army on this line of defense is not much, most of them are still old armies, these old armies are small in number, poor in combat effectiveness, many old military camps are not even guaranteed military salaries, and only a few thousand troops can easily tear apart the defense line when they attack at night.

Chen Wu is an elite mountain division here, and it is still very easy for thousands of people to rush over and capture Xiangshuiyu, and from this line through Shanhaiguan to directly attack the rear of the 20th Town, even if the 20th Town has 12,000 troops stationed in Shanhaiguan, Beigang Camp, and Shimenzhai separately, it is extremely difficult to hold on with the Northeast New Army, because in modern warfare, the number of troops is not the measure of combat effectiveness, and the level of firepower and training is the first.

As early as three years ago, Song Biao had already determined that Gaoling Town was the most important material concentration station, and built six large material warehouses here in the name of the grain station.

After inspecting it, he was generally satisfied, and it was not very difficult to ensure the supply of materials for the three divisions, and Jiang Yanxing's Fifth Division would certainly not be able to move south for the time being, unless the first three divisions had already broken through the defense line of Shanhaiguan and entered Luanzhou, where a new material supply base was established.

In order to prevent the Qing army from sending the navy over and bombarding the warehouse across the coastline, four railway cannons secretly purchased from France also quietly arrived in Gaoling Town. The two officially moved forward, preparing to carry out an artillery bombardment of Shanhaiguan.

The weight of this M1896 240mm railway heavy gun is as high as 14 tons, and the 280mm howitzer used by Russia in the Russian War is definitely not a level of power level, the difference lies in the diameter of the barrel and the weight of the shell, muzzle velocity, the barrel of this gun has 40 times the diameter, the barrel is 10.05 meters long, the projectile is 162 kg, the muzzle velocity of the shell is 840m/sec, and the maximum firing range is 23000 meters.

This is actually a naval heavy artillery, the price is ridiculously expensive, the French calculated a ruthless price for Song Biao, four heavy guns are equivalent to the cost of half a dreadnought-class battleship, even so it is still worth the price.

Two railway heavy guns were officially launched on the railway, and one of the guns placed the troops of a railway artillery battalion to be responsible for controlling the artillery.

That shell was half a man high, although it was a small amount compared to those heavy guns in World War I, but it was powerful enough, because the barrel life was limited, and there was relatively little live-fire training before, and now it can only be said that a shot is a shot.

Song Biao was fortunate enough to take a few staff officers to wait for the first cannon to break out.

The heavy artillery train carried the artillery along the railway, and the two guns stopped together in the area around Hejiatun, where the Second Division was stationed, fourteen kilometers from Shanhaiguan, even for the officers and men of the Second Division, this thing was said to exist, but had never been seen.

Suddenly seeing the appearance of this super science fiction-level railway heavy artillery, the whole division was shocked, and they all roared and shouted, as long as there was no task of the defense non-commissioned officers and soldiers ran over to watch the excitement, shouting that this cannon can definitely shatter the wall of Shanhaiguan into two halves.

The result was destined to disappoint them, because these two were high-explosive shells, not really used to siege the city, but to be punched out to scare the twentieth town, especially to scare Baoying.

Boom.

The moment the first shot was fired, the flames at the mouth of the entire cannon barrel burst out more than ten meters long, and the sound waves that burst out in an instant almost overturned the surrounding crowd, and Song Biao, who was about sixty meters away from the railway, was so shocked that he couldn't help but cover his ears with his hands, even so, he was a little dizzy.

Immediately afterwards, in about 20 seconds, the second railway heavy artillery was also ready to fire, and everyone knew that it was powerful this time, and they all ran out of 100 meters.

At this time, it was already evening, the sunset was slanting on the sea, and there was a cannon sound, and the nozzle cannon flame that burst out again was not less than the high explosive of a 105mm howitzer, because the speed was higher than twice the speed of sound, and the sound of the shell in the air was also extremely harsh, and it was a very strange "pop" sound, which was sharper than the whining sound of a normal shell piercing the sky, and at first glance it sounded a bit like a whistle, only louder.

While the two shells were fired, Song Biao had been using a telescope to look at the Shanhaiguan in the distance from a nearby high place, one exploded in front of the pass, and the other exploded in the rear, and the scale of the explosion wave and flames set off was amazing.

Because this was the first attack of the artillery units of both sides, Song Biao could almost feel the shock on the side of the twentieth town, and the other party had no way to fight back, the twentieth town was equipped with 88mm Krupp light field guns, and the city defense guns were 10 and a half centimeters and 12 centimeters of Krupp shore guns, this range was not enough, and the range of the 12 centimeter Krupp long-barreled cannon happened to be only 12000m at most.

Song Biao is sitting in his Zhonghua brand car, he is an imitation Ford T-type car, and has a higher standard of manufacturing, but also thicker and more expensive, but the ride feeling is similar to that of a tractor, the car is parked on a small high gang lot, Song Biao is here to observe the majestic and magnificent Shanhaiguan in front of him.

At this moment, he estimated that Bao Ying's heart must be very cold, as cold as frost, like falling into an ice cave.

The standard rate of fire of the M1896 240mm railway heavy gun is one shot per minute, and ten shots were fired in a row, and two of the shots hit the city wall, directly tearing two large holes with a diameter of six meters, and the city wall more than ten meters thick collapsed by more than half.

Zhang Yahu and Zhang Hongkui were in the front position, only 1.5 kilometers away from the city wall along the Shanhaiguan Pass, they saw very clearly, and soon passed the news.

After reading the information, Song Biao asked the troops to temporarily stop the shelling of the railway heavy artillery and use the M1898\1909 105mm Krupp light howitzer under the Second Infantry Division to fire leaflet artillery at the 20th Town.

The 2nd Artillery Regiment under the 2nd Infantry Division is a heavy artillery regiment, which has no mountain guns and three-inch field guns, but is equipped with 32 M1898\1909 105mm Krupp light howitzers and 18 M1902 15mm Krupp long-barreled cannons.

Because the opponent of the Second Infantry Division is the twentieth town, and this town is one of the very few in the entire Qing army to be equipped with M1906 88mm Krupp rapid-fire field artillery, in order to compete with this 88mm Krupp rapid-fire field artillery, Song Biao in the Second Infantry Division on a large scale of 105mm light howitzers, the rate of fire of the two guns, the muzzle velocity of the shells is about the same, but the latter has a larger range and a greater weight of the shells.

The weight of the shell is large, and the higher the muzzle velocity, the greater the habitual surname, and the greater the firing range.

This is a basic truth of artillery.

The M1896 240mm railway heavy artillery is very powerful, but the life of the barrel is not high, at present, the average of 300 shells will be replaced after the barrel, this 300 rounds of the number must still have moisture, so it can be saved, after all, the main deterrent of this thing comes from intimidation.

After letting the troops start to shoot leaflet artillery, Song Biao was not particularly relieved to go to the front line of Zhang Yahu's troops to continue to inspect the defense line of Meng Jiangzhen, and after looking around, he was still very satisfied, the Qing army's defense line layout here was very good, Zhang Yahu and Zhang Hongkui continued to improve after arriving here, and the fortifications of the entire defense line were very strong.

Song Biao then returned to the command post by car.

(To be continued)