On 14 February, the atmosphere in the yamen of the governor of Wuchang and Huguang was so depressing that everyone did not dare to speak up. Every once in a while, there would be a dull cannon sound like thunder in the sky, a sound they'd all been getting used to for the past few days. Since the Qin army landed in Hankou on the 12th, the sound of artillery has made the people of the three towns of Wuhan seem to have returned to the turbulent era of more than 20 years ago.

At about six o'clock this morning, the Qin army crossed the Yangtze River and landed on the south bank through Jiangxinzhou.

Jiangxinzhou, also known as Tianxingzhou, is 32 square kilometers and is the largest Jiangxin island in the Yangtze River in the Wuhan section. It is also only a small distance of one kilometer from the south bank of the Yangtze River. The artillery of the Qin army set up an artillery position on the south bank of Jiangxinzhou, and with the naval guns, it destroyed the garrison Qing army on the south bank, and the vanguard successfully landed.

At seven o'clock in the morning, Li Hanzhang dispatched the Qing army to counterattack the vanguard of the Qin army.

Before eight o'clock, Wei Rugui's troops, who were specially transferred from Tianjin to Hubei by Li Hongzhang to stand for Li Hanzhang, suffered many casualties and could not continue the attack;

At nine o'clock, the two battalions of Zhou Shengchuan's division, which took over from Wei Rugui's department, also suffered 'heavy casualties', and the soldiers had no will to fight and could not continue the attack!

At ten o'clock, the last elite soldier in Li Hanzhang's hand, Ye Zhichao's more than 2,000 Huai Army New Army, also suffered heavy casualties after struggling to attack three times, and the soldiers were unwilling to continue the attack!

Li Hanzhang's whole person is not good.

Zhou Shengchuan, Wei Rugui and Ye Zhichao are all elite of the Huai Army, and the latter two are the new training of the Huai Army sent by Li Hongzhang to Hubei before the New Year. Although the number of soldiers in the three divisions is small, in Li Hanzhang's opinion, the combat effectiveness can be the best in Hubei. How did the successive onslaughts end up like this?

"Let people prepare, this officer wants to go to the front line to see, what kind of difficult way is a hastily formed riverside position? The Qin army came to Hankou and Hanyang for two days. Are we so much worse than them? What kind of bullshit barbed wire can you use to stop our Huai army! Li Hanzhang shouted in a hoarse voice.

He really didn't understand. Why can a barbed wire make all the three elites under his command fold their wings!

The anger in Li Hanzhang's heart was indescribable. Three hours, from him mobilized troops to counterattack. So far, it has only been three hours, and the losses of Zhou Yewei's three divisions have exceeded 2,000 people. And with such large casualties, the Huai army didn't even touch the edge of the Qin army's position. According to the report, the Qin army formed a front and firmly blocked the route of the Huai army's attack. Barbed wire, trenches, heavy machine guns, the report is full of these words. The artillery group of the Qin army was also described as a plague god!

Li Hanzhang's brain and insight, based on these words on the report, could not construct a 'scene' at all. He already felt that Zhou Shengchuan, Wei Rugui, and Ye Zhichao were unwilling to fight. Find all sorts of excuses to coax yourself. Li Hanzhang went to the front line this time, and it was with a strong desire to 'kill one and set an example', and decided to go to the front-line Huai army to see what was going on.

Of course, the three generals Zhou Shengchuan, Wei Rugui, and Ye Zhichao can't be killed, but the pipe belt below them can also kill two.

Under the close protection of the pro-soldiers and horses, Li Hanzhang began to march to the front line 20 miles away. The Governor's horse team is full of good horses, and after letting go of the speed, 20 miles is half an hour. However, the closer I got to the front line, the clearer the sound of artillery that had once been far away.

The wounded of the Huai army were sheltered on the side of the road in the rear of the attacking troops. Li Hanzhang was the first to see these people, white bandages wrapped around the wounded soldiers in various positions, and wounded soldiers could be seen everywhere around the camp. With a casual glance, Li Hanzhang could roughly judge the number of these people. At least, there were two or three hundred people. This can still be seen, and there are many more lying in tents. There must be at least 500 wounded soldiers in the entire camp. Although the wounded barracks are still some way from the main road. But there was no shortage of howls of pain in the wind.

Just with so many wounded soldiers in the wounded barracks, the anger in Li Hanzhang's heart was completely extinguished. The front line is not full of nonsense and deception, but there are really so many casualties. What is the situation on the battlefield? Li Hanzhang suddenly felt like falling into an ice cave in his heart at this moment. Suddenly. A feeling of uneasiness brought about by the idea of 'possible defeat' that had been pressed in his heart made Li Hanzhang feel a chill down his spine.

It's a long way past the wounded barracks. Li Hanzhang's thoughts could not struggle out of this uneasiness. Until he saw a group of people wearing horse coats and wearing crowns appear on the road in front of him. Li Hanzhang forcibly withdrew his thoughts. Urging the horse to gallop towards the group of Huai army generals who greeted them.

Three hours can hit a group of people who were originally high-spirited to the point of depression and even death, if he could not see it with his own eyes, Li Hanzhang would never believe it. The group of Huai Army officers in front of him opened Li Hanzhang's eyes. Zhou Shengchuan looked as if he was ten years older, and none of the officers around him looked normal, or dazed, confused, or frightened to death. In short, this group of Huai Army officers looked like a group of frightened children at the moment, and they didn't look like commanders leading thousands of troops at all.

Li Hanzhang looked at the bear-like appearance of this group of people, and the anger that had already subsided in his heart suddenly burned vigorously, and he roared angrily on the horse, "Zhou Shengchuan, what kind of battle are you fighting?!" ”

Compared with Zhou Shengchuan, Wei Rugui and Ye Zhichao are still juniors.

Zhou Shengchuan's body was shocked, and after a while, he raised his head, his eyes were red, and he shouted to Li Hanzhang with a crying voice: "My lord [Li Hanzhang is Li Hongzhang's eldest brother, Li Hongzhang is the second in line], you go to a place with me!" ”

There were people preparing horses next to him, and Zhou Shengchuan didn't care how surprised Li Hanzhang was behind him, and took the lead in galloping to the left. Seeing that Zhou Sheng's biography was so unexpected, Li Hanzhang was willing to take a look. He followed Zhou Shengchuan to urge the horses.

Approaching a small hill, Li Hanzhang smelled a strong smell of blood, but Zhou Shengchuan continued to move forward as if he didn't feel it, and since Li Hanzhang had followed, there was no reason not to follow. As soon as he rounded the hill a little, Li Hanzhang saw a small piece of Huai army soldiers lying there on the ground.

None of these Huai soldiers were alive. These people either have large dried black blood stains on their bodies, or they are simply missing arms and legs. The further he went, the wider Li Hanzhang's field of vision became, he could already see the Tatou Mountain, and his eyes also saw the corpses of the Huai Army soldiers at the foot of the Tatou Mountain, which were almost spread out a few hundred meters away.

Li Hanzhang is very familiar with Jitou Mountain. Just two days ago, when the Qin army landed in Hankou, he also inspected the position on the Tatou Mountain. He placed twelve heavy artillery pieces here and built a hidden fort to prevent the Qin army from landing here.

However, under the bombardment of the Qin army's artillery group, the entire position of Tatoushan did not play a blocking role, and fell into the hands of the Qin army. At this time, some Huai soldiers covered their faces with cloths and searched the ground paved with corpses at the foot of the mountain. Li Hanzhang raised his binoculars and looked at them, firstly, these Huai soldiers were looking for the surviving wounded soldiers, and secondly, there were piles of dirty glittering things behind them, piles of silver dollars. The silver dollars were stained with blood, and only the parts that weren't stained reflected in the sunlight reflected in the metallic sheen.

At this time, Zhou Shengchuan cried and said: "Boss, after an hour and a half, we have killed and injured more than 2,000 people. It's not that my subordinates are not in good command, and it's not that I haven't paid my brothers, it's really impossible to fight! ”

Li Hanzhang's face was pale, and he held a telescope to look at the defense line at the foot of the mountain that had swallowed the lives of countless Huai soldiers. There are no impressive highlands, and there are no dangerous terrains that are so rugged that they cannot be accessed from Guò. The four mountains near the vicinity of Jitou Mountain, namely Yaque Mountain, Zou Jia Mountain, Yingpan Mountain, and Ancestral Tomb Mountain, are not used at all. The position of the Qin army was the slightly undulating flat land under the Tatou Mountain.

Through the telescope, Li Hanzhang could see the trenches and four barbed wire fences supported by wooden stakes. The stakes are very thick, and I don't know how deep they are buried. It is densely wrapped with barbed wire. There were not even a few pillboxes in the entire position.

Very, very simple position. If it weren't for the various stumps and bloodstains that were clearly visible on the front barbed wire, Li Hanzhang couldn't believe that a large number of Huai Jun's lives had been devoured here.

"Attack me again! Thirty pieces of ocean per person, and those who are the first to enter the Qin Rebellion position will be rewarded with 1,000 pieces of ocean! ”

Li Hanzhang still couldn't understand how such a simple position had become a place of death, so that the elite of the three Huai armies had lost 2,000 people, and they couldn't take a step beyond the thunder pool.

He really wanted to see it with his own eyes, and Li Hanzhang was very aware of the fact that for every minute of delay in the Huai army's counterattack, on the opposite side, on the riverside behind the Jiaotou Mountain, there would be a new Qin army unit approaching the south bank for one minute.

For three hours, the Qin troops behind Jitou Mountain didn't know how many people had successfully arrived on the south bank.

After Zhou Shengchuan heard the order, his face turned white. However, under Li Hanzhang's murderous gaze, he still hurried to give the order. Soon the offensive battle began.

People die for wealth, and birds die for food. Thirty oceans, a thousand oceans, it can only be said that there will be brave men under the heavy reward.

Three or four hundred troops had already arrived at the offensive positions. The Huai army first shelled the clearing, and the shells fell on this clearing, which blew up the sky full of rubble and clods. For a while, the tremors on the ground made people's blood boil.

"Brothers, rush me! If you cut down those stakes and rush across the flats, you will be rewarded. Fifty pieces of ocean will be rewarded for one felling stake, and one who kills the Qin rebel position first will be rewarded with a thousand pieces of ocean! In the midst of such shouts, the Huai soldiers rushed out under the leadership of junior officers.

The first barbed wire fence was already in tatters, and the light ones were rushed over, and the second was still slightly intact, and the Huai army either tried to cut the barbed wire in front with their machetes, or they ran towards the nearby barbed wire gap, trying to get around it as best they could.

Until this time, except for the subconscious shouting and howling of the Huai army, the Qin army's position was always silent, and there was not even a single gunshot. (To be continued......) R1292