At about 7 o'clock in the morning on September 9, 1903, more than a dozen gray-white objects rose one after another on the south bank of the Heilongjiang River opposite Hailan Pao, hovering about 300 meters in the air. This is a floating balloon unit belonging to the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions of the Imperial Chinese Guard and the Independent 1st Heavy Artillery Brigade, with a total of 3 companies and 18 floating balloons. The floating balloon is tied with a steel rope and equipped with a wired telephone and a professional calibrator, which can provide calibration data for the artillery unit in a timely manner.

Subsequently, countless large and small shells smashed into the fortified positions around the Hailan Pao Fortress, and the more accurate they became, the Russian troops on the positions were crying wolves.

They had to cry wolf, because the artillery that fired at them included 162 105mm cannons, 108 150mm heavy howitzers, and 9 305mm heavy siege guns, which could pour about 17,000 rounds of heavy artillery shells ranging from 20 kg to 350 kg in an hour, and the range of these cannons was longer than any of the artillery equipped on the Russian positions, and the Russian could not return fire at all.

An hour later, the Chinese artillery stopped firing, the smoke over Hailan gradually dissipated, and the Russian troops stationed in the fortress suddenly found that dozens of huge cigar-shaped monsters appeared on their heads, and the bodies of these monsters were gray-white and painted with golden graphics.

"It's a dragon, a dragon of China!"

"It's a monster released from hell......"

"Chinese really the people of the devil......"

The Russian officers and soldiers were talking, and many people came out of their bunkers and looked in fear at the monsters moving slowly under the clouds.

"Shoot with a gun."

"Machine guns and artillery are fine, let's see......"

"Seems to be flying too high......"

Someone dragged 47-mm rapid-fire guns, erected diagonally with sandbags and barrels, ready to shoot at the monsters in the air, but after firing dozens of rounds, the monsters continued to approach unscathed, flying directly above the fortress A.

They didn't know what to say, the monster in their eyes was actually a combat airship unit directly under the headquarters of the Northeast Front Army of the Chinese Army, and the airship troops flying over Hailan Pao that day included the 1st and 2nd heavy attack squadrons and the 2nd, 4th, and 5th medium attack squadrons of warships, a total of 12 "Qiangyun" heavy combat airships and 18 "Ziyun" medium combat airships, led by Army Colonel Fang Yongyang, and Army Colonel Han Lin led the medium boat team to carry out horizontal bombardment of targets in the vicinity of the fortress.

Colonel Fang Yongyang's lead boat was the "Qiangyun" 101, a giant hard helium airship with streamlined low-drag airbags, semi-enclosed pods and crew breathing apparatus that can move at a depth of 5,000 meters. The pod is equipped with a special aero engine of Beiyang Heavy Industry, the airship has a maximum speed of 70 kilometers per hour, carries 6 people, has a large bomb bay and two external bomb racks, has a maximum bomb load of 8 tons, and has a range of 1600 kilometers when carrying 5 tons of bombs, in addition, the airship is also equipped with 2 detachable 7 point 92 mm light machine guns as emergency weapons after an accidental crash.

On the morning of the same day, 12 "Qiangyun" boats each carried 16 500-kilogram bombs, totaling 96 tons, and prepared to attack the well-fortified Russian fortress A fortress of Hailanpao.

In addition, as a medium-sized attack boat, the "Ziyun" has a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour, a crew of 4, a maximum bomb load of 3.5 tons, and a range of 1,200 kilometers when carrying 2 tons of bombs. On that day, 18 "Ziyun" boats, each carrying 12 250-kilogram bombs, totaling 54 tons, were preparing to strike at an independent support point called "Milyucak" 6 kilometers southeast of the Hailan Pao Fortress, which was the most threatening defensive position on the section where the 1st Janissary Division was scheduled to cross the river.

At this time, on Colonel Fang Yongyang's boat, a string of passwords jumped out one after another.

"Speed 50."

"Height 3000."

"The pilot boat has completed the aim calibration."

"The pilot ship prepares to launch an attack flare."

"Attack flares, fire!"

"Bomb preparation."

"Bomb dropping!"

As a string of brilliant red fireballs slashed from the sky, 192 500-kilogram bombs with small tails broke away from the bomb racks, jumped out of the bomb bay, and crashed towards their targets.

Countless flashes of light surrounded Fort A, followed by fire, smoke, more flashes, more fire, smoke.

The Russian fortress in Hailanpao was originally built according to the standard of being able to resist 230 mm shells, although the Chinese army had 305 mm siege guns, but the firing rate was low, the accuracy was not enough, and the attack on the Russian fortress was very reluctant.

The 500 kg bombs dropped by the Qiangyun airship were equivalent to the weight of the British Navy's newly equipped 329 mm cannon, and the speed of the ship was slower (about 50 kilometers per hour) and much higher than that of the artillery.

"Signal, the heavy fleet is back, and the medium fleet is asked to continue sailing to the 2nd target."

Colonel Fang Yongyang ordered under his No. 101 boat, and he saw clearly through the telescope that the Russian fortress after the bombing was already in decay, and sighed in his heart.

In his memoirs, he wrote: "...... On that day, 12 Qiangyun warships dropped 96 tons of bombs at a time, and I watched those bombs fall, remembering the three years of Guangxing...... At that time, as a test pilot of the test building of a flying machine, I flew into the sky in the middle of the wings of the Eagle 6 to demonstrate to the marshals and generals, and I never imagined that one day I would sit in the airship pod with crocodile skin cushions, command a fleet of airships more than a kilometer long from end to end, and drop 200 large bombs more than half the weight of 305 mm shells on a fortress at a time...... It was only later that I learned that the bombardment had caused at least 500 Russian casualties and 12 to 15 artillery pieces arranged in strong fortifications ......"

20 minutes later, Colonel Han Lin's 18 Ziyun boats bombarded the "Milyuchak" support point, and the raindrops (216) of 250 kg aerial bombs almost destroyed all 12 Russian artillery pieces arranged in the semi-permanent fortifications, and a Cossack battalion of the Russian army deployed here suffered more than 30% casualties, and the defenders of "Milyuchak" lost most of their combat effectiveness in an instant.

At 8:30, the heavy artillery of the Chinese army resumed bombardment, and the raindrops of shells concentrated on looting the Russian army's A fortress and the "Milyucak" support point, which had suffered serious losses, and the Russian troops there temporarily withdrew from their positions in order to avoid greater casualties.

At 9 o'clock, with the support of intensive artillery fire, the 1st "Yunlong" Regiment of the Chinese Janissary Guard began to set out from Aihui with the support of the Heilongjiang Fleet and crossed the river to the 64 Tun area in Jiangdong. Weiyuan City, the township capital of Jiangdong 64 Tun, has already assembled 5,000 armed personnel of the 11th Frontier Regiment and the 25th Northeast Civil Defense Regiment, and these troops have built a solid defensive position relying on the city wall, and have been supported by the heavy artillery of the Chinese army on the other side, becoming a natural bridgehead, just waiting for the large army to build the bridge. The mission of the 1st Praetorian Regiment was to serve as the vanguard of the 1st Janissary Division, sail by boat to the 64 Tun area in Jiangdong, and assist the local border and civil defense forces in defending the predetermined bridgehead, so as to allow the follow-up troops to land safely and the engineer units to successfully erect the pontoon bridge.

At this time, the officers and men of the Praetorian Guard in black uniforms came out of the woods on the bank of the river one after another, like a stream of black streams rushing towards the Heilongjiang River, and they were about to be poured into the river and the sea, but they were sucked into the stomach by dozens of barges and warships of various sizes that had long been moored on the shore.

Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan was in charge of the "Jiang'an," the flagship of the Heilongjiang Fleet, and commanded four 480-ton "Jiang"-class gunboats, six 190-ton "Kun"-class gunboats, and 15 patrol speedboats of less than 100 tons.

For the sake of command convenience, Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan's Heilongjiang Fleet was temporarily separated from the jurisdiction of the Navy Command and came under the direct jurisdiction of the Northeast Front Army.

In order to support the fleet's operations, the three 105-mm cannon batteries of the Janissary Field Army were concealed in the direct-fire positions on the shore, and the 18 cannons were aimed at the route through which the Russian ships launched their attacks, and the commander of the Field Army, Admiral Liang Tianhe, hoped to reduce the burden on the Heilongjiang fleet.

The barge flotilla responsible for carrying 2,400 officers and men of the 1st "Yunlong" Regiment of the Praetorian Guard, all weapons, and three base ammunition was requisitioned and operated by the barge workers and the officers and men of the Heilongjiang Fleet, and it is estimated that the time to complete the complete set of operations of loading, sailing, unloading, and returning to the ship will be about 40 minutes.

The plan for crossing the river in the first landing area arranged by Lieutenant General Zhang Yiye, chief of staff of the Praetorian Field Army, that is, the 60-tun area in Jiangdong (known as Muravyovka in Russian), 12 kilometers south of Hailanpao, was as follows: The crew of the barge fleet will work on the barges in three shifts, and the barge fleet will operate continuously, and all the officers and men and equipment of the 1st Janissaries Brigade will be transported across the river within 3 hours, and all the officers and men and equipment of the 1st Janissary Division will be transported across the river within 16 hours. The Janissary Hussar Brigade and the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Reserve Division of the Praetorian Reserve were also transported across the river.

The location of the second landing area is in the area of Sergeyevka village, 10 kilometers north-northwest of Hailanpao, and because the number of barges is limited, it is impossible to transport a large number of troops across the river in the two landing areas at the same time, so the operation in the second landing area will begin after 11 September, when the Heilongjiang fleet will cover the northward movement of the barge flotilla and carry the 2nd Janissary Division to carry out a forced landing in the vicinity of Sergeyevka village with artillery fire and air support, so as to achieve a situation in which the 2nd Praetorian Guard Division will attack Hailanpao from the north and the 1st Janissary Division from the south.

As soon as the "Yun" dragon regiment had been loaded and dozens of barges were about to sail offshore to Baiyutun (the largest ferry port in the 64-tun area of Jiangdong), Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan, who had been watching the situation at the Hailanpao Wharf upstream with a high-powered telescope on the flagship "Jiang'an," noticed an unusual movement of the Russian ship.

"When the enemy ships set sail, they killed 3 ships with 10,000 knives, 4 ships with 1,000 knives, and more than 10 ships with 100 knives."

The observer on the top of the mast reported to Yi Mingxuan that he used a number of terms proper for the fleet, the so-called killing ten thousand knives refers to a kind of 300-ton river defense gunboat of the Russian army, equipped with three 105-millimeter guns and four 75-millimeter guns, and killing a thousand knives is a smaller, about 150-ton gunboat, equipped with five 75-millimeter guns, and killing a hundred knives refers to the small patrol speedboats of the Russian army. It is said that this kind of terminology, which is puzzling to the Russians, was coined by Yi Mingxuan, the commander of the fleet who is a native of Jiangsu, and ordered it to be used, and as for the effect, it can be seen from the performance of the officers and men who immediately rushed to slash the enemy ships with a single knife as soon as they saw such objects as "killing a thousand knives."

"Pass my order, the fleet is formed into a single column, ready to meet the enemy ships!"

Yi Mingxuan ordered, and then stood on the flagship command platform with his hands crossed on his waist, the blue striped golden dragon battle flag on the mast above his head fluttered, and the warm sunlight melted the white clouds in the east, spreading on the river, on the ships, on the battle flags, and on the generals and soldiers in white or black.

Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan's fleet is equipped with the Jiangzi gunboat with the highest combat effectiveness, equipped with 3 120-mm guns and 6 75-mm guns, followed by the Kunzi gunboat equipped with 1 120-mm gun and 3 75-mm guns, the former includes the four ships "Jiang'an", "Jiangtong", "Jiangning" and "Jiangxing", and the latter includes the "Zhongkun", "Yongkun", "Renkun", "Yikun", "Likun", and "Zhikun" six boats (these six boats are named after the first six characters of the seven-character precept of the whole army of Wuwei Gong, The seven-character precept is: loyalty, bravery, benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom and faith).

At this time, four ships and six boats formed a single column, and the two wings were escorted by patrol speedboats, and they went straight to the Russian ships going down the river.

The barge flotilla carrying the "Yunlong" regiment took advantage of this opportunity and sailed straight to Baiyutun, where it quickly unloaded its troops and then returned to carry the follow-up troops.

Let's say that Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan's river defense fleet drove towards the Russian ship, and at a distance of 2,000 yards, Major General Yi waved his hand: "Fire." The 120-millimeter guns on the Chinese warship were the first to roar, and the first round of firing caused a leading "Ten Thousand Swords" to burst into flames. The Chinese sailors were excited, and hurriedly loaded the shells to send out the second round, and this time they saw a "killing a thousand knives" on the black smoke rising, Yi Mingxuan applauded again and again on the command platform: "If you fight well, kill a thousand knives, you will settle the new accounts and old accounts today, and destroy them together!" ”

The sailors on the Russian ship were not discouraged, and they used 105 mm guns to counterattack, and the two armies got closer and closer, and the 75 rapid-fire guns also joined the battle.

When the warships of the two armies were engaged in a fierce battle, suddenly a piece of grass and trees on the right bank fell down, revealing a row of guns, which was the 105-millimeter cannon of three companies hidden by Admiral Liang Tianhe, commander of the field army, to support Major General Yi's fleet, and the distance between the shore guns and the Russian ship was less than 600 yards at this time, which was a good opportunity to "kill a thousand knives".

The Russian ship was caught off guard and suffered a big loss, and immediately one of the "10,000 swords" was beaten into a mess, almost no one was alive on the ship's surface, all the cannons were destroyed, and the hull of the ship was tilted to the side, looking like it was about to sink but not sink. The rest of the Russian ships hurriedly dispersed and turned their rudder to flee upstream, but the officers and men of the ships only hated that the speed was too slow, and some of them could not help jumping into the water and swam to the opposite shore. The Chinese shore artillery couldn't wait so long, quickly loaded the shells, and fired them in rows, Yi Mingxuan's fleet also took the opportunity to cut the Russian ships to death, and all the gunners were eager to give birth to three or five more hands to load the shells. In two strokes, the shells rained down, tightly surrounding the Russian ship, and all the "killing 10,000 knives" and "killing a thousand knives" on the river were only killed dozens of knives before they could no longer support it, scrambling to escape underwater, and a few "killing 100 knives" and the like relied on their light bodies to turn around and run back without their lives.

"Don't leave any of them, don't let them run! Order, continue the pursuit! ”

Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan shouted on the command platform, the herald immediately hung the command flag on the mast, and the officers and men of all ships were also killed, as soon as they saw that the commander ordered the pursuit, no matter how big or small the ships, they all drove full speed to chase and kill the past, and the cannons rang out endlessly all the way, just holding on to the Russian ships, how could those Russian speedboats dare to stay, they only desperately wanted to drill into the circular pier covered by the fortress artillery fire on the edge of Hailan Pao City.

The Russian troops in the fortress on the left bank saw that their ships had suffered losses, and hurriedly fired heavy artillery into the river one after another, but only set off huge water columns in front of and behind the Chinese warships, and none of them hit. At that time, the Chinese speedboats had caught up with several of the fleeing "killing 100 knives", fired and collided with each other, overturned one and wounded three, and then the Zhongjiangzi gunboats and Kunzi gunboats were killed, and the wounded enemy boats were sent to the bottom of the river.

"Herald, return!"

Just as Major General Yi Mingxuan was giving this order, a Russian 76-mm field artillery company hidden near the left bank of the river suddenly opened fire, and the shells were concentrated on Major General Yi's flagship "Jiang'an." The "Jiang'an" company was hit by two bullets, and shrapnel burst into the command platform, hitting Major General Yi's left arm and back.

Yi Mingxuan was calm, stretched out his arms and let the health soldiers bandage them, just like the high-pitched voice just now, shouted: "Kill a thousand knives, give the order, all ships will fire back, and return at full speed at the same time!" ”

After listening to the order, the ships fired at the exposed Russian field artillery positions, and at the same time increased the pressure of the boilers, the turbines flew around, the vortex turned sharply, and the waves and snow flew, which had long been out of the Russian artillery fire rays.

On that day, although Major General Yi was injured with four rounds of shrapnel, he only let the sanitary soldiers hastily bandage it, and then continued to stand on the command platform stained with his own blood, and commanded the whole fleet to continue to carry out the cover task of the barge fleet.

With the cooperation of Major General Yi's fleet and the Janissaries artillery, in less than one hour, the Russian Amur River Fleet was almost completely wiped out, 7 main river defense ships and 12 speedboats were sunk, 389 killed and 56 captured. The losses of the Chinese Heilongjiang Fleet were slight, only 4 ships were slightly damaged, no one was killed, and 18 people were wounded, including Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan, the commander of the fleet.

Three weeks later, Rear Admiral Yi Mingxuan received the second-class disability medal with a crossed sword and the fourth-class flying winged white tiger medal from a commissioner sent by the naval command.

After the war, the emperor personally awarded Major General Yi Mingxuan the Order of the Green Dragon of the third class with dragon's eye inlaid with diamonds and seven dragon claws.

Yi Mingxuan recalled: "...... I was wounded, and like the other injured brothers, I deserved the disability medal, and as for the White Tiger and Green Dragon Medal and the like, maybe they thought I deserved it, and my idea was, if they give it to me, I'll take it...... The most memorable thing for me was that battle, not a single one of my brothers was killed, I took them out and destroyed all the enemies, and then everyone came back alive. I went to each ship to verify that only 7 were seriously wounded and 11 were lightly wounded, and to my consolation, all the seriously wounded brothers survived, and 4 of the crippled brothers were helped by the state, the navy, and their comrades-in-arms, and I went to see them, and they are still doing well...... Of course, I would like to thank the brothers of the Janissaries and artillery, but allow me to tell the truth, even without the help of the artillery brothers, the brothers of the Heilongjiang Fleet would have cleared the Russian warships from the river that belonged only to us, and everyone's mood was the same, that is, the Russian devils would never be allowed to continue to act as a prestige in the place that belonged only to us......"