Qingzhou Mansion has a Manchu Qing Dynasty banner people stationed in the flag city, since Yongzheng eight years to start construction, lasted nine years to spend more than 100,000 wood, built a north and south 280 zhang, southeast 240 zhang of the rectangular city, covers a total of 1120 acres. There are a total of 57 official offices and 668 rooms in Qicheng. There is a palace, 22 rooms, 21 temples, 2 halls, and a total of 4,899 rooms together with the houses of the flag soldiers.

During this period, a total of 4,700 families and more than 10,000 dependents of flag soldiers were stationed one after another, of which the number of soldiers was initially 2,000, and then increased to more than 3,000. However, according to the usual practice, there were a large number of vacancies, and at the beginning, Li Bingheng guarded against the Japanese army and Yang Hao, and sent 500 infantry and horsemen out respectively, and the defense force seemed to be overstretched.

The existence of this flag city, which controls Yizhou in the south and Denglai in the east, and protects the canal, can be described as a dangerous terrain, which is enough to control the defense of the entire Shandong Peninsula. It played an extremely important role in the previous campaigns to suppress and oppose the Qing Dynasty and to resist aggression. The most brilliant time was undoubtedly to go south to Zhenjiang to fight against the British army, paying a heavy price, but it was highly praised by the great revolutionary mentor Engels and talked about by historical brick artists.

Now, in order to guard against Yang Hao, Qingzhou Banner City, which is stuck at the key point, has undoubtedly become an outpost fortress. Li Bingheng not only vigorously allocated funds to recruit the banner soldiers who could not have enough to eat, but also specially mobilized several other troops to make the thickness of the front-line troops reach more than 5,000.

However, quantity does not mean combat effectiveness, and the key is the lack of cooperation from other aspects. When thousands of "wounded and sick petition groups" swept to the foot of Qingzhou City, someone slowed down to report the news to the deputy commander of the garrison.

The deputy capital lord did not dare to slack off, and ran up to the city to look down at the black crowd. Almost fell headlong! The person who turned around and grabbed the messenger sprayed him with a spit on his face: "Bastard minion! You have those two eyes that you use to vent?! Is that a few thousand wounded soldiers? ”

There was no way to answer the message. He himself was dumbfounded!

He saw it before. It must have been thousands of wounded and wounded soldiers and their families, yes. But what appeared in front of them now were thousands of heavily armed soldiers, protecting only one or two hundred "wounded soldiers" and hundreds of "family members"! According to the establishment of the new army they knew, this is at least the strength of a regiment!

Looking at the cart dragged behind this group of people, the bulging things under the canvas made them instinctively think of the cannon that blew up the Japanese in the dark!

For a while, officials all over the city fought a cold war, and they were so frightened that they even peed their pants on the spot!

The prefect, the Taoist and other officials were anxious like ants on a hot pot. Regardless of the difference in the level of martial arts, he grabbed the deputy capital and asked, "Can your soldiers and horses hold the city?" ”

Deputy Dutong grinned bitterly: "Yang Dingshi's soldiers and horses are the best in the world, who can beat him?" Just the next ones, we can't afford 10,000 people to bombard! Difficult! Difficult! It's so hard! ”

The shadow of the name of the man, the shadow of the tree. Yang Hao's reputation brushed out with the head of the Japanese army, under the backdrop of the more than one million waste firewood and eight banners of the Qing Dynasty and the Huai Army, it looked particularly tall and mighty. From the 1,000 people at the beginning to the more than 10,000 people today, they have always won more with less, and every battle is a big victory. Such a powerful force is that even the foreign devils are sideways. An official who was too close to his lair. Who doesn't worry about it all day?

The deputy governor's answer made the hearts of the officials who fell to the bottom of the valley calm down. shirk responsibility like breaking the jar: "I can't beat the left and right, we're all just dead, let him go!" ”

In the case of the Manchu Qing system, it was better for these officials to die in the city so that their families could be preserved. But if you become a deserter or surrender, it will be a big trouble, at least one head will have to be cut off. Both left and right are dead, so it's better not to die.

What kind of virtue the Great Qing Kingdom is, and now the slightly smarter officials can also see it. The governors of the eighteen provinces of the country all drew small circles on their own territory, and after a long time of operation, they became independent small kingdoms. The authority of the imperial court seems to be available, but it is not useful at all when it is seriously calculated. Otherwise, why can't you even collect taxes?

This is already rotten from the roots, and everyone is planning for themselves. Country? Emperor? Court? Don't talk about it, it's better to hold a little more silver as soon as possible.

The civilian officials collectively picked on their sons, and the deputy commander and the flag soldiers and garrisons were forced to do so. They are Manchurian, and they are guarding the interests of their own race, and they can't ignore it no matter what. Don't forget, their little ones are here! The life and death of more than 10,000 people are in their thoughts.

It's really not good, let's fight!

All the soldiers and horses in Qingzhou were mobilized, and most of them were used to defend the Manchurian Beicheng and the tenant villages and country houses outside. Although the civil officials were angry, they had no choice but to keep sending messages to Li Bingheng for help.

But just as they were waiting for the fatal moment to come, they were surprised to find that the people outside the city did not immediately attack. On the contrary, a messenger was sent to deliver a letter to them: "We are from the Yizhou regiment, and we are ordered to escort the petitioning wounded soldiers and their families to Jinan Mansion to ask to see the governor." Just passing through here, please open the city gate and let us pass guò. ”

"Open the gates? Don't! You guys are trying to open the city gate by fraud, and then occupy Qingzhou without firing a shot, right? ”

The prefect and the deputy commander are not afraid to speculate on each other's intentions from the most insidious angle. Siege battles are bound to kill people, how easy it is to open the city gates! Once those thousands of elite soldiers enter the city, will it be our turn to have the final say?

"The gates of the city cannot be opened even if they die! Unless...... They bombarded it themselves! ”

This is already the last bottom line for officials.

After all, Shandong belongs to the jurisdiction of Beizhili, which is close enough to the capital, and the officials' idea of "loyalty to the monarch and patriotism" is still very strong. Governor Li Bingheng is also a clear backbone, extremely hostile to Yang Hao, extremely strict constraints on subordinate officials, and he will not put people who are not at ease enough in such a dangerous place.

"Looks like our abacus won't work."

In front of the crowd more than a kilometer away from Qingzhou City, Lin Yongfang, the commander of the Sixth Regiment of the Revolutionary Army, frowned in disappointment, bit his teeth on his lower lip, and tore off a little dry dead skin, and suddenly a little blood came out of the crack. He licked his tongue and rolled it in, and the faint fishy sweet smell made the fire in his heart rush up one by one.

Political Commissar Li Guangyi patted him on the shoulder: "Lao Lin, don't be impetuous, let's start such a posture, it has already scared them." If the city gate is opened, we don't dare to go inside. That's the right response. Let's go as planned. ”

Lin Yongfang Gaba clenched his fists and said hatefully: "It's really better to bombard the fuck immediately!" With the combat effectiveness of our six regiments, are you still worried that you can't kill his group of plague-stricken Qing soldiers? ”

Li Guangyi smiled: "What if you kill them all?" It will only force officials in other cities to fight to the death. How many people are there in our troops? If you go to grind from city to city, and you have to be vigilant against the squire landlord forces who are cold with the Manchu court, then you don't have to do anything. Or use the commander's strategy, boil the frogs in warm water, and force them to collapse themselves! ”

"I just don't have that bother!"

Lin Yongfang was unhappy. He was born in martial arts, and he has a hot temper but is not good at playing intrigues. If Li Guangyi hadn't been by his side to remind him at any time, he would have been the leader of a peasant rebel army at best, and he would have been killed after a while.

With a depressed wave of his hand, he ordered the troops to retreat until they camped five kilometers away from the city, but they stuck the road from Qingzhou to Yizhou in the south and Weixian in the east. The flag unfurled to the outside world is still a petition group. But inside and outside the barracks, there was no concealment of their sophisticated guns, and the panic caused quickly spread like a frenzied wave!

This action not only did not make the officials and generals in Qingzhou City breathe a sigh of relief, but they all raised their hearts to their throats!

Five kilometers is exactly the limit of the range of the artillery they set up at the head of the city, and it is impossible to reach it, it cannot be hit, and it is also difficult to detect the opponent's action deployment. On the other hand, it is just an excellent distance to launch an attack, and it only takes ten minutes to touch it in the night. It's hard to prevent it!

The officials became more and more uncertain, and they couldn't get in touch when they wanted to send people out to negotiate, and they organized a lot of things to go out to comfort them, and they couldn't even get past the checkpoints. This is clearly an uncooperative attitude, and if you go further, it will not die!

The terrified defenders kept sending telegrams to Jinan Mansion to ask for reinforcements. Governor Li Bingheng was furious after hearing the news, and just wanted to send a telegram to reprimand the officials of Laizhou and Dengzhou, and by the way, let them send troops to besiege them, but they were stunned to find that the telegraph line had been cut off!

Li Bingheng was sweating at that time! What does the surname Yang want to do? Is he going to raise an army and make a rebellion?

He hurriedly sent a large number of soldiers to deliver messages everywhere with fast horses, and even sent a telegram to the Qing court to ask for orders to kill Yang Shun, and then sent thousands of soldiers and horses gathered around the city to Qingzhou to help.

But as soon as the order was issued, before the men and horses could move, they suddenly received an urgent telegram from Caozhou Mansion and Jining Mansion! The remnants of the Great Sword Society, which had been dispersed by Yuan Shikai before, hid for a while without knowing where they were, and suddenly killed it again! This time, their combat effectiveness was significantly stronger by several grades, and they actually broke through two county towns in a row in one day! Its momentum is so great that it is like another twisting bandit!

The most terrible thing is that this time the Broadsword Society raised the banner of "driving out the Tartars and restoring China", which is about to rebel!

On August 1, 1895, the Lunan Broadsword Society, headed by Liu Shirui, the leader of the Broadsword Society, rebelled! More than 2,000 members who had undergone rigorous training, plus more than 1,000 backbone of the revolutionary army from Yizhou, crossed Zhaoyang Lake in two ways and conquered Jinxiang and Yutai, which defended the void in one fell swoop!

Subsequently, a large number of liaison officers sent by them were scattered into Caozhou Mansion, and the locals who had just been bloodily suppressed by the government responded one after another, and a tide swept the land of Lunan! (To be continued......)