The war in Fujian Province, especially after the foreign powers intervened, the Qing army's counterinsurgency army was currently fighting from the Fujian Revolutionary Army of the Xingzhonghui to the Japanese Army, and the war was in a stalemate.

The stalemate of the war made a large number of Fujian people choose to leave their hometowns to avoid this war that does not know when it will end, and many Fujian people directly chose to immigrate to the territory under the command of Lin Daxin, that is, many families with good family backgrounds also chose to leave their hometowns temporarily and come back when the war passed.

In the vicinity of Nanping City in Fujian Province, all the people who could flee have fled, and the main force of the Qing Dynasty's counterinsurgency army, the general headquarters of the New Army in nine towns, was set up in a village outside Nanping that no longer had ordinary people living there.

Originally, the imperial court sent the 2nd town of the Wuwei Army, the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th towns of the Beiyang Army, and the 12th town of the Dingwu Army, a total of 6 new troops to support the counterinsurgency army of Iktanga, but there was a sudden riot in Beijing, and the 2nd town of the Wuwei Army was ordered to urgently withdraw to Beijing.

It turned out that Beijing City didn't know how to spread out that the foreigners helped the rebellious party in Fujian Province and the imperial court counterinsurgency army was fighting, which made the old and young masters in Beijing suddenly excited, and there were rumors that the foreigner hospital gouged out the eyes of children to make drugs, and the priest used special equipment to suck the boy's Yang Yuan, etc., which increased the hatred of the people in Beijing against foreigners, and some foreigners opened hospitals and shops in Beijing were attacked by the Qing Dynasty people, and 22 foreigners died in the attack, including 6 British, 4 French, 2 Russians, 2 Americans, 7 Japanese, 1 German, and several foreigners were injured. Even the legations of various countries were attacked, but they were repelled by the guards of the legations, killing and wounding many Qing civilians in Beijing.

And these Qing Dynasty people who attacked foreigners actually put forward a slogan to help the Qing Dynasty and destroy the foreigners, which made the Qing court inevitably agree with these Qing Dynasty people in their hearts. After all, those foreigners were too bullying, and they simply regarded the Qing Dynasty as an ornament, and vigorously supported the rebel party in Fujian Province, and even now they have gone into battle shirtless to fight against the counterinsurgency army of the imperial court.

In this way, at the beginning of the riots in the city of Beijing, the official forces of the Qing Dynasty did not stop it. This is also the reason why there are many casualties among foreigners.

However, the envoys of various countries immediately lodged the strongest protest to the Qing court, so the Qing court had no choice but to strengthen the forces in the places where foreigners lived to prevent the recurrence of attacks on foreigners, and at the same time, in order to cope with this riot, the second town of the Wuwei Army, which had been preparing to go south to quell the rebellion, was transferred back to Beijing.

However, this sudden attack on foreigners. The Qing Dynasty people in Beijing and its surroundings erected the banner of supporting the Qing Dynasty and exterminating the foreign, and continued to swagger through the city of Beijing, attracting a large number of urban poor, small traders and coolies, and even hooligan ruffians to join it, and this trend of thought to help the Qing Dynasty and extinguish the foreign gradually spread from the city of Beijing. It began to spread to the north and south, western Shandong, Henan and Shanxi.

The Eight-Nation Alliance learned of the attack on foreigners in Beijing and began to plan, preparing to use this incident to achieve some of the Alliance's intentions.

On the evening of May 16. The commander of the counterinsurgency army, Iketanga, summoned the commanders of the new army of the 9 towns to the headquarters, and Iketanga said to the 9 commanders in a deep voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, the imperial court has sent a telegram to Ben Shuai, asking us to take Nanping City and Fuzhou City as much as possible, so as to quell this rebellion. The imperial court received news that the Japanese and several Western countries were ready to continue to increase their troops in Fujian Province. If we can't take Nanping City and march into Fuzhou before they increase their troops in large numbers. Then this time our Qing Dynasty will be in big trouble, cough cough cough! ”

Iktanga's health is still not good, the cough plagues him every day, and the disadvantages of the war make Iktanga feel physically and mentally exhausted, but he still has to pull himself together to cope with the situation in front of him.

Feng Guozhang, the commander of the 6th town of the Beiyang Army, sighed and said: "Lord Commander, it's not that the brothers don't work hard, the new army in the front 4 towns plus the new army in the 5 towns we arrived in the rear have lost no less than 20,000 soldiers under Nanping City, but we haven't even taken the northern position outside Nanping City, it is really that the Japanese army's weapons and equipment are much stronger than ours, the Japanese artillery not only completely suppressed the artillery of our 9 towns, but also a large number of machine guns on the Japanese position, which made the charging brothers suffer heavy losses." ”

Yu Guangxi, the commander of the 7th town of the Beiyang Army, continued: "Lord Commander, the equipment of our new army is indeed much worse than that of the Japanese army, yesterday a group of brothers finally rushed into the Japanese position, but the follow-up troops have not yet gone up, and the brothers were defeated by a counterattack by the Japanese tanks, plus the Japanese army in Nanping City has reached 4 divisions, I think it is really difficult to conquer Nanping City, we had better think of other ways." ”

Wu Changchun, the commander of the 13th town of the Dingwu Army, frowned at this time and said: "We want to enter Fuzhou City, we can't bypass Nanping City and leave the Japanese army alone, otherwise we can bypass Nanping City, but if the Japanese army in Nanping City and the rebels in Fuzhou City come to a front and back attack, our counterinsurgency army will be in danger, and bypassing Nanping City is also facing the danger of being cut off by the Japanese army. ”

Tie Liang, the commander of the 4th town of the Wuwei Army, said: "Then we might as well divide our troops, besiege Nanping City all the way, and bypass Nanping City all the way to Fuzhou City." ”

Iktanga said at this time: "Ben Shuai also wants to divide the troops, but the mountains around Nanping City are very unfavorable to the march, bypassing the troops of Nanping City, not to mention the difficulty of transporting supplies, may not even be able to carry artillery, and how to capture Fuzhou City, which is heavily guarded by the rebel party, and according to the news of the imperial court, there are currently more than 5,000 British troops and more than 3,000 French troops in Fuzhou City, Fuzhou City is not so easy to capture, cough cough!" ”

After the command said these words, only the cough of Iktanga remained, and the commanders of the 9 new armies became silent, and it seemed that they could only attack Nanping City, but the problem was that the Japanese army was really strong, several times stronger than the Japanese army that fought a few years ago, and this strength was not only reflected in the actual weapons and equipment, but also more prominent in the Japanese army's will to fight.

According to the standard of 20,000 people per division of the Japanese Army Standing Division, there are 80,000 Japanese troops in Nanping City, counting the losses of the Japanese army these days, how can the Japanese army also have 70,000 people, and how much does the new army of 9 towns have to lose when they defeat Nanping City! Do you still have the ability to attack Fuzhou City?

In fact, the losses of the Japanese army in Nanping City these days were less than 6,000 people, if it weren't for the rich experience of Iketanga and the construction of a position to prevent the Japanese army from sneaking attack, maybe the Japanese army would have taken a counterattack and completely defeated the new army in 9 towns.

Iktanga picked up the teacup from the table next to him and took a sip of tea, suppressed his cough, looked at the silent 9 commanders of the headquarters, and couldn't help but sigh secretly, he also knew how difficult it was to conquer Nanping City guarded by 4 Japanese divisions, but the current situation had made him unable to take care of casualties, so Iktanga made up his mind to start tomorrow, regardless of casualties, to begin to besiege Nanping City on 3 sides, leaving only the south, hoping that the Japanese army could not bear the casualties and took the initiative to withdraw from Nanping City from the south.

Iktanga coughed twice, cleared his throat and said: "Everyone, Nanping City must be conquered, today Ben Shuai brought everyone here, that is, to prepare from tomorrow, all towns must be desperate!" The attacking team is absolutely not allowed to retreat without an order, and anyone who retreats without an order will be treated as a deserter and shot on the spot! ”

The 9 commanders made eye contact with each other, isn't this the rhythm of preparing to fill Nanping City with human lives? According to Iktanga's order, even if Nanping City is captured, there is nothing left of the new army in these 9 towns, and it will definitely hurt the muscles and bones.

You must know that although the attack on Nanping City in the past few days has suffered a lot of losses, the towns of the new army have not taken an offensive that breaks the cauldron and does not count casualties, nor does it have an order to only advance and not retreat, so they have lost more than 20,000 lives in Nanping City.

The command of the 5 towns of the Beiyang Army and the command of the 2 towns of the Dingwu Army were wrinkled, although they came to Fujian Province to quell the rebellion in accordance with the orders of the imperial court, but they did not want to fight the army in Fujian Province, but looking at the appearance of Yiketanga, it is not good if you don't fight, it is not easy to do!

The 3rd town commander of the Wuwei Army, Liangbi, and the 4th town commander of the Wuwei Army, Tie Liang, also frowned, they knew that they were the commander of the Wuwei Army, if they wanted to work hard, in order to calm the military hearts of the other 7 towns, the Wuwei Army of the 2 towns on their side must bear the brunt, the Japanese in Nanping City are really not easy to fight, so they have to fill it with human lives!

After Iktanga's words were finished, none of the nine commanders answered, and they all chose to remain silent.

However, since Iktanga had already made up his mind, he would not change his mind just because the 9 commanders did not squeak, he coughed again and was about to give the order that each town would be responsible for attacking the lot tomorrow, when a person hurriedly walked in from outside the house, which was the pipe band of Iktanga's personal barracks.

The pro-barracks supervisor held a telegram in his hand and said to Iktanga urgently: "My lord, the imperial court is urgent? ”

Iktanga's army was not equipped with wireless telegraphy, which was sent from Beijing to Jian'oucheng in Fujian Province, and then sent to the army by fast horses.

When Iktanga took the telegram and looked at it, he was immediately shocked and shouted, "Not good! We're in big trouble this time! (To be continued)

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