On December 17, 1890, Duan Qirui, who was only twenty-five years old, took his Jianghuai infantry column to join Liu Mingchuan's Ming army, because his army was all new recruits, and in case of emergency, Hu Chuyuan and Lu Guangquan negotiated and temporarily joined Sun Yuanheng with an infantry column to form a mixed column of 2,544 people with 52 Makqin machine guns.

Hu Chuyuan just made up a nonsense with Liu Mingchuan, the number of Makqin machine guns in his hand was very amazing, and there were more than 240 in the Liu Jintang Department of the Hunan Army.

This was an all-out counterattack and encirclement, with 100,000 troops encircling more than 40,000 troops.

Ye Bojun had already arrived at Donggang with a part of his troops to assist Liu Mingchuan's Donggang regiment in training against the possible impact of the Yue army...... This possibility is very small, and everyone unanimously believes that the biggest retreat of the Yue army is still Longcheon in North Korea, and then retreat from Longcheon to Guicheng.

Therefore, Liu Jintang's troops must land in Yanzhou first, insert Longchuan, and cut off the retreat of the army.

These days, Hu Chuyuan quietly lives in Toad Pond, a small lake formed by the river truncated by the mountain range, shaped like a half moon, because it is blocked at the mountain pass, I don't know when it is called Toad Pond.

He set up a temporary command post here, and Liu Mingchuan had already made up his mind to go into battle in person, and he had been shuttling around the defense line of Zhen'an Town for the past few days, deploying troops.

Under the mediation of Hu Chuyuan, the relationship between the Huguang battalion and the various departments of the Huai army eased slightly, and Zhang Shiying also took the second battalion of Huguang to help the Huai army stabilize the front until Duan Qirui and Sun Yuanheng took over.

With the large-scale use of machine guns, the casualties of the Yue army were also increasing, and by December 20, Dashanyan no longer dared to launch a new offensive easily, but believed that the Qing army might launch a counteroffensive, and set up defenses in Yizhou and other places opposite the river bank, and increased the defense force against Yanzhou and Longchuan.

He was very eager to buy new machine guns and equip them in the army, but only the United States has been able to produce such machine guns so far, and the United States has imposed an embargo on them.

The French provided a Haqikes revolver machine gun, the caliber was 37mm, the rate of fire was far from comparable to the Qing army's Maxim machine gun, although the firing range was large, the weight was too large, and it could only be used for defense, not for positional attack.

Even for this kind of machine guns, due to the difficulty of transporting, the number of equipment of each division and regiment is not large.

Dashan Yan can't wait for the headquarters to find a way to deliver sixty Haqikaisi machine guns in the shortest possible time.

During this period, Li Kaiye had already led three infantry columns to Hushan Township, which could break through the defense line of the Yuejun Army in Gulouzi Township at any time.

Time could no longer wait, and Hu Chuyuan believed that it would not be long before the front of the Yue army would become extremely difficult to attack, and it was necessary to seize the opportunity for the Yue army to switch from attack to defense.

On December 21, Hu Chuyuan ordered that the artillery of all armies be concentrated to suppress and bombard the defensive front to ensure the follow-up cross-river operation.

At this time, after a year-long preparation, production, transportation and supply, the Qing army did have the conditions for a counterattack.

At present, Liu Mingchuan's department has three battalions of the Ming Army, four battalions of the Yi Army, two battalions of the Feng Army, three battalions of Huai Army recruits from Xuzhou and Hefei, and four battalions of the Northeast Regiment.

These were large battalions, totaling more than 48,000 people.

Lu Guangquan's department has four battalions of the Huguang Army, one battalion of the reserve, one battalion of the Qing Army, and two battalions of the Qingxu Regiment, totaling more than 21,000 people.

The Ye Bojun Division of the Naval Division of the Beihai Combined Fleet was stationed in Donggang, leading the first battalion and the third battalion of the Donggang regiment, totaling more than 10,000 people.

Liu Jintang's department of the Hunan army was stationed in Gushan Port, leading five battalions, all of which were the most powerful elites of the Hunan army, and Xu Yanxu, Chen Fangluo, Xiao Delong, Zhang Chunfa, He Xiuqing and others, who were currently the most capable of fighting, were basically here, totaling more than 17,000 people.

Nearly 100,000 troops were able to rush to the front line, while the total strength of the three divisions of the Japanese army plus the temporary increase in the Korean Volunteers was only more than 60,000. It is said that several divisions and regiments have been replenished relatively quickly, but the newly replenished reserve soldiers are far less capable of fighting than the front, and although the Huai Army is also replenished in a large area, the gap in actual combat quality has been narrowed a lot.

This is the important surname of dragging, dragging the elite of the Yue army off one layer first, which makes their tactical literacy and execution ability greatly reduced, and the average quality of the Huai army, the Hunan army, and the regimental training is about the same, but it is only half a catty and eight taels, and the battle is much easier to fight.

In fact, because the difficulty of replenishment was much greater than that of the Qing army, two brigades of the Yue army were empty, and they were completely covered by the Korean rebels, and the real strength was less than 50,000, and the supply of guns and ammunition was somewhat unable to keep up.

In contrast, with the arrival of Hu Chuyuan, the armies not only further replenished the personnel and materials, the main force has replaced the Jiangnan rifles, the artillery strength has increased to 4 integrated artillery battalions, 7 artillery columns, the Hunan Army, the Huai Army Liu Ming's descendant of the Yi Army Department, the Huguang Army, and the Ye Bojun Department of the Naval Division and the Land Battalion are also equipped with separate artillery guards in each battalion, with a total of 174 75mm caliber, 138 122mm caliber and 65 155mm caliber new howitzers, plus a number of mountain batteries, In particular, the Yuanbaoshan Fort has been restored, and it is capable of striking at targets within a range of 2 km to 35 km on the battlefield.

With the gradual improvement of the supply line from the Dayang River to Fengcheng County, the supply of artillery shells was also very stable, and in order to supplement the number of skilled artillery in various departments, Hu Chuyuan transferred a large number of artillery from Mei Qizhao, Zhang Zhidong, and Liu Kunyi to the battalion.

On December 21, Hu Chuyuan ordered that the artillery of all armies be concentrated to suppress and bombard the defensive front to ensure the follow-up cross-river operation.

A crazy day begins.

This day was for Daeshanam, for the entire 1st Tokyo Division, 2nd Sendai Division, and 6th Kumamoto Division, and for those Korean rebels...... It's all the end of the day.

Intensive artillery fire began to bombard the front of Daesan Rock indiscriminately, the heaviest artillery bombardment the army had endured since it entered Korea, and the sudden shelling began at 4 a.m. and lasted until 11 p.m.

Hu Chuyuan did not plan to attack immediately, but continued the shelling from three o'clock in the afternoon, because the south bank of the Yalu River is a large impact plain, all the bombing targets are very clear, as long as you climb Yuanbao Mountain, you can see it at a glance.

The next day, at one o'clock in the morning, the shelling continued, and at five o'clock in the morning, the shelling began to intensify suddenly, with a full-scale sweeping attack on the entire defensive line.

Under such bombardment, Nie Shicheng, who served as the first round of assault and robbery, sighed with interest, once upon a time, he could also enjoy such treatment, in order to cover his strong attack, this bombed for two days.

He pondered, not to mention the Japanese people, even the Russian Maozi can't withstand this kind of blow, right?

After three days of continuous bombing, it was not until 7 o'clock in the morning on December 24 that Hu Chuyuan asked Liu Mingchuan to officially storm and seize the crossing, and Nie Shicheng took the lead and led two battalions of nearly 7,000 Ming elites to cross the Yalu River.

Although it was shelled for three days, the Yue army still reacted violently to the Qing army's counteroffensive, and two infantry wings were dispatched, also assisted by intensive artillery fire, to intercept Nie Shicheng's troops.

The two sides fought many battles at the mouth of the Yalu River, until more than a dozen gunboats of the Beihai United Fleet, led by an icebreaker, entered the river bank to assist in defense, and then took the Xinling Long Beach opposite Tangchi Town.

The front line was damaged, the regimental training was replenished, and people were constantly drawn into battle.

The artillery of both sides was attacking, and the army also built forts on the southern front to counterattack with a large number of artillery, while the Huai army relied on as many as 65 new howitzers of 155mm caliber to counterattack the artillery line of the Japanese army.

The casualties on both sides were extremely heavy.

In the early morning of December 24, under the cover of the Beihai Combined Fleet, Liu Jintang's unit of the Hunan Army successfully landed in Duoshili, and then attacked Yanzhou.

Dashanyan realized that the Qing army had launched a general encirclement and suppression-style counterattack, leaving the 6th Division and two Korean rebel brigades to break off, and led the remaining two divisions to evacuate, retreated to Longchuan, and exchanged fire with Xu Zhanxu's troops of the Hunan army at Yilian Town, Longchuan.

On the night of 24 December, Li Kaiye bypassed the defense line of the Yue Army, inserted into the enemy's artillery line from the diagonal rear, blew up many artillery pieces of the Sixth Division of the Yue Army, captured some 75 mm howitzers, and occupied Dayuling.

On the 25th, in the early morning, Lu Guangquan's troops broke through the defensive line of the Sixth Division, and the two sides crossed attacks between Dayuling and Luoling, and finally relied on two artillery columns to occupy Luoling.

Lieutenant General Nozaki Sadasumi did not lead the 6th Division to evacuate, but retreated to hold Luodaokou and continued to fight with Lu Guangquan's troops.

Ye Bojun's troops went north along the Yalu River and joined up with Lu Guangquan's troops, Liu Mingchuan of the Huai army attacked Longchuan to the south, and Liu Jintang's troops of the Hunan army finally captured Yanzhou, forming an encirclement with the Huai army, cutting off the retreat of the remaining two divisions of Dashanyan.

Longchuan is surrounded by mountains on three sides, the terrain is complex, although the mountains are not high, but it also has enough tactical value, Dashanyan is so stubbornly defending Longchuan, concentrating troops at the northwest entrance to block the Huai army Liu Mingchuan's department.

At the same time, the gap between the first division and the second division was also seized by Liu Mingchuan's Ming army, and he joined forces with the Yi army to attack multiple positions of the second division.

With the occupation of Longyanpu, Xinyi and other places, the difficulty of the Qing army's supply by sea was greatly reduced.

On December 29, Hu Chuyuan arrived at Longyanpu, personally took charge of transporting supplies, and asked Liu Mingchuan to change tactics, and instead set up a formation in Longchuan to prevent the Yue army from breaking through, and at the same time gathered a large-scale artillery unit to gather in Xinyi and Luoling to bombard the Sixth Division of the Yue Army and the Third Brigade of the Korean Volunteer Army.

At the same time as the large-scale loss of artillery shells, the 6th Division of the Chinese Army was also gradually lost, and the Korean rebels fled, and were intercepted by Liu Shengxiu's troops at Longchuankou, nearly 3,000 people died in the mountain pass, and the rest were captured.

The last day of 1890 was spent in the continuous sound of artillery fire, and tens of thousands of shells were exchanged for not only death, but also the demoralization of the army.

In 1891, on January 1, the first day of New Year's Day, Ye Bojun's troops and Lu Guangquan's troops attacked the Sixth Division, and the battle lasted for three days, and finally annihilated more than 4,000 remnants of the Sixth Division.

With the annihilation of the Sixth Division, all the artillery units began to assemble again, aiming at Longchuan and bombarding it, because the artillery units of Ye Bojun's division and Liu Jintang's division of the Hunan army also entered the battlefield and were deployed in the surrounding areas of Longchuan, Dashanyan suffered a heavier blow this time.

Beginning on 4 January, the artillery of the battalions completed their preparations and began to carry out the first round of strikes on the defensive lines of Longchuan, and the shelling continued for six days in succession.

Dashanyan was forced to choose to break through to the south, and was intercepted by Xiao Delong's division of the Hunan army at Longchuanpo, because Xiao Delong's machine guns and small artillery were deployed more closely, nearly 10,000 people of the two divisions led by Dashanyan were severely damaged, and only more than 3,000 people remained, and failed to break through.

Dashan Rock is tragic and deserved, he chooses to commit suicide, and his soldiers generally choose to surrender.

On January 21, the army general Dashanyan committed suicide, on January 27, the Huai army recaptured Guicheng, and on January 30, the Hunan army recaptured Anzhou, went north along the Qingchuan River, and began to attack Xichuan, the most important transit point on the supply line of the army invading China.

By January 30, the entire Battle of Yongchuan was over, with 27,000 dead and seriously wounded by the Japanese army, more than 7,000 killed and wounded by the Korean rebels, 11,000 captured, and 11,400 killed and seriously wounded by the Qing army.

(To be continued)