At 11 o'clock on September 9, 1903, outside Weiyuan City.

The trenches are vertical and horizontal, the breastwall is stacked, the wire is dense, and the pillboxes are numerous, forming a complete defense system around the city, which extends south to the Baiyutun ferry on the Heilongjiang River, which was built by a total of 5,000 reservists and militiamen of the 11th Frontier Regiment and the 25th Regiment of the Northeast Civil Defense Regiment in more than one month, and now in addition to the above two irregular regiments stationed, the 1st Janissary Regiment, which sailed by boat from the right bank of the river only 1 hour ago, also entered the positions of the defense line to strengthen the defensive force.

The 11th Frontier Regiment and the 25th Northeast Civil Defense Regiment were originally equipped with only 9 57-mm and 75-mm mountain guns and 12 light and heavy machine guns, and they were evenly arranged on a circular defensive line with a total length of nearly 10 kilometers. After the 1st Janissaries Regiment landed with full personnel, it brought with it 6 75-mm mountain guns and 3 100-mm heavy mortars belonging to the regiment, as well as 6 80-mm mortars and 14 60-mm mortars belonging to the battalion company, a total of 65 light machine guns and 6 heavy machine guns, which suddenly increased the density of fire on the defensive line several times. In addition, the two battalions of the 1st Janissary Artillery Brigade, which are deployed on the opposite bank, will provide strong artillery support to the defenders of Weiyuan at any time by observing the reconnaissance reports of balloons and patrol airships.

Colonel Xu Xun, commander of the 1st Praetorian Guard Brigade, personally landed with the 1st Janissary Regiment with the brigade headquarters personnel, and according to military regulations, he had the highest rank here, so he naturally became the supreme commander of the Weiyuan garrison.

Xu Soul was born in the third short-term class of the Imperial Army University, and served as the commander of the machine gun platoon of the first battalion of the 15th Regiment of the Praetorian Guard during the First Sino-Japanese War. Later, Xu Soul held the big knife left by the commander of the Mo battalion, and attacked the Gyeongbok Palace with the army, regardless of life or death, he slashed the heads of the Japanese soldiers all the way, and got the nickname "Thousand Heads Chop", and the terrifying scene of the neatly arranged ten thousand heads on the Chongwen Gate that shocked the world has a lot of credit to him. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Xu Soul was promoted to company commander, and in May 1896, under the command of Xiao Lieri, commander of the 1st Janissary Brigade, he participated in the counterinsurgency operation to arrest Lu Zixiang, the commander of the 1st Praetorian Guard Division, and then rose step by step, all the way to the position of brigade commander.

The first thing that jumped out to greet Colonel Xu Soul that day was a volley of shells.

At that time, Colonel Xu Soul was accompanied by the commanders of the 11th Frontier Regiment and the 25th Civil Defense Regiment into Weiyuan City, and was about to climb the city tower to inspect the surrounding situation, when suddenly a series of shells smashed over the head and face, blowing up the city and the city.

"Dog's day, I also know that we entered the city and threw cannonballs on our heads."

Xu Soul scolded, patted the dust on his shoulders, led everyone up to the city tower, raised his binoculars and looked around, and sure enough, he saw that on both sides of the road in the north, groups of Russian infantry were approaching the front-line positions of our army outside the city under the cover of woods and farmhouses.

"Sure enough, let's have a fight, let's take a look, let's take the blood of these red-haired devils to pay tribute to the souls of Hailan Pao's compatriots!"

Xu Soul clenched his fists and shouted, and then gave an order: "The first battalion entered the north defense line of the city, the three companies of the second battalion entered the eastern, western, and southern defense lines of the city respectively, the third battalion was on standby in the city, and the regimental artillery company was deployed on the north gate tower and immediately began to move." ”

As soon as the order was issued, the Russian artillery fire poured over, up and down the city, the fire burst out, shrapnel flew sideways, for a time Xu Soul around several officers and soldiers had been shot, everyone hurriedly persuaded Xu Soul to go to the city to temporarily avoid the enemy's artillery fire, so the guards and officers protected Xu Soul, all cat waist, trotting, into the basement of the township government in the city. Among them, all the map rulers, pens, tables, chairs, oil lamps, etc. have long been arranged, and they were originally the headquarters of Lieutenant Colonel Liang Jian, the commander of the city defense and the commander of the 11th Frontier Regiment, but Xu Soul was not satisfied.

"You can't see the enemy here, how to command?"

Liang Jian persuaded: "Sir, the enemy's artillery fire is too fierce, it is better to take shelter for a while, and wait until the city is a little safer before going up to the city tower to watch." ”

Xu Soul shook his head and said, "It's not good, if the enemy's artillery doesn't stop, will you keep waiting?" No, I still have to go back to the city tower, and I'm afraid that a few shells from the Russians won't work? ”

"Sir, there is an observation post on the castle tower, and you can report the enemy's movements here at any time......"

"It's better to see it with your own eyes, Commander Liang can wait here, I'll just bring a few staff officers and heralds up - I also have to personally arrange the regimental artillery company, and someone above must be able to issue orders at any time."

Without waiting for Liang Jian to reply, Xu Soul had already taken a few officers from the brigade headquarters, and ran back to the city tower with a cat's waist, Liang Jian also wanted to follow when he saw this, but was grabbed by Lieutenant Colonel He Bin, the commander of the 25th Civil Defense Regiment.

"Brigade Commander Xu told you to stay here, where are you going?"

"If something happens to the brigade commander, how can I afford it......"

"If something happens to Brigade Commander Xu, what about you and me, if we are all martyred there, who will command the city defense?"

Liang Jian felt that this was reasonable, so he sat down honestly, stayed in the basement with He Bin, listened to the news of the outpost, and sent people to the city tower from time to time to report the situation to Xu Soul or ask for orders, but it was not very dangerous.

However, he said that on the Russian side, as early as when the Chinese army launched the first round of shelling, Lieutenant General Grengelslo, commander of the Russian First Army, had already reported the situation by telegram to Lieutenant General Shtakliberg, commander of the First Army, and the instructions he received from the headquarters of the group army were to attack Muravyovka (i.e., the 64 Tun area in Jiangdong) to prevent the Chinese army from using this place as a bridgehead for crossing the river.

Lieutenant General Greengszlo immediately ordered the 1st Siberian Division, which was stationed at the fortress of Blagoveshchensk, to send a brigade, and the 11th Zabaikal Cossack Brigade, which was deployed south of Blagoveshchensk, to send a regiment with a total of 40 artillery pieces to attack Weiyuan City, the township capital of Jiangdong 64 Tun, in an attempt to conquer Weiyuan City before the Chinese army launched a large-scale landing there.

At about 11 o'clock, the Russian army launched an artillery bombardment on Weiyuan City, and 20 minutes later, Major General Glasco personally led two regiments to launch an attack from the north of Weiyuan City.

He immediately gave a direct order to the artillery company of the 1st Regiment of the Praetorian Guard, which had just been arranged on the city tower: "Attention to the artillery company, at three o'clock, at a distance of 1,000 meters, on the left side of the sorghum field, ten rounds of rapid fire!" ”

The commander of the artillery company repeated the order, and the 6 75-mm mountain guns erected between the battlements of the city tower immediately turned to the sorghum ground in the northeast of the city, the barrel was stretched flat, and the gunner clicked twice to fill the shells, turned off the gun latch, pulled down the gun rope, and in an instant, a cluster of red light flashed, and in a moment, a few clusters of red flowers and black clouds opened in the sorghum ground, and the stumps and the like could be faintly seen flying up and falling. Almost at the same time, three 100-mm mortars with sandbags padded to the base were also aimed, the muzzles of the guns towering into the sky, and the gunners continued to fill them with shells, only to hear the muffled sound, and in less than half a minute, the thirty shells had already flown clean, and they were all bursting in and out of the sorghum field.

"At one o'clock, at a distance of 800 meters, in front of the grove, ten rapid fires!"

"At ten o'clock, at a distance of 800 meters, behind the bushes, ten rapid fires!"

Only listening to Xu Soul's repeated orders, all the gunners were very busy, but they felt that the fight was not enjoyable enough, and they couldn't fill him with 180 shells in a row, and blow up a sea of fire in front of the position.

The Russian army has suffered a big loss before approaching within 300 yards of the Chinese position, two company commanders were blown up by artillery fire, one battalion commander lost half of his leg, Major General Glasco only said that this was a normal casualty, and urged his subordinates to advance, two regiments of men and horses out of the bushes and sorghum fields, in front of the open space 200 to 300 yards in front of the Chinese army's position, they formed a skirmish line to charge, but they were hit head-on by a burst of machine guns and mortars, bullets swept and flew around, shells fell like rain, and the Russian soldiers immediately fell like sickles cutting wheat, The rest were shocked and fled back.

Before the sorghum field was out of the sorghum field, it encountered a burst of artillery fire, and the machine guns of the Chinese army did not hesitate to spare ammunition, and swept a piece of sorghum bushes, and the Russian soldiers had not yet rushed to the open field, and their morale had already declined, and the officers had to retreat first, and the general of Glasgow had to let his subordinates retreat to the hidden area first to rectify it, so as to facilitate the re-fighting.

Later, the 22nd Cossack Infantry Regiment of the 11th Baikal Cossack Brigade of the Russian Army arrived, combined with the Glasgow Brigade, and launched another assault with the support of artillery fire.

The 1st Battalion of the 22nd Cossack Regiment marched forward bravely and captured the first-line trenches in front of the city wall through white-knuckle warfare, and the 8th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Frontier Regiment of the Chinese Army stationed there was heavily damaged, and the 7th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Frontier Regiment of the Chinese Army, which had just been stationed in the outer position of the west of the city 1 hour ago, launched a counterattack against the Russian army under the leadership of the company commander Captain Tie Qun, and the two armies were killed together on the position of the 8th Company of the 11th Frontier Regiment.

Private Wu Jun, a first-class soldier in the first squad of the 7th Company of the 3rd Platoon of the 1st Guard Regiment, and his comrade-in-arms Wang Yiyang in the same group stood shoulder to shoulder, holding a Type 97 rifle with a bayonet on his side, stepping on the soft and blackened soil that had been beaten by artillery fire, and fighting hard against the jungle-like bayonets of the Russians on the opposite side. This skillful stabbing technique naturally attracted the attention of the rest of the Russian soldiers, and the three Russian soldiers rushed over together with a shout, trying to level Wu Jun in one fell swoop with their numerical superiority, at this time the role of their comrades was highlighted, and the first class soldier Wang Yiyang immediately approached Wu Jun's right side after killing a Russian soldier in front of him.

"Drink!"

Wu Jun and Wang Yiyang shouted angrily at the same time, but first let go of the Russian soldiers who rushed in the center, moved lightly, opened the bow left and right, and only took the Russian soldiers on both sides, and each only one round, and solved the two obviously undertrained soldiers, and then the two tacitly turned around together, and together they attacked the Russian soldiers who were in the middle of the air, two bayonets, stabbing the throat and stabbing the heart, and naturally and cleanly solved.

"Good brother."

Wu Jun shouted, didn't look at Wang Yiyang, Wang Yiyang didn't answer, only continued to concentrate on fighting with him, the two blocked left and right stabs, shielded each other, and unexpectedly put down more than a dozen enemy soldiers, rushed straight into the trench, and met a bearded Russian officer, the officer subconsciously raised the revolver in his hand and released a shot, which shot through Wang Yiyang's left palm, but Wu Jun also stabbed the bayonet into the middle of his throat, and turned around and asked: "Brother, how is it!" ”

"Pain...... Mom, why does it hurt so much. ”

Wang Yiyang covered his wound, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

"Wait, I'll call the medical officer!"

Wu Jun said, jumping out of the trench with a gun, as far as his eyes could see, the Russian soldiers had fled back in the direction of the gun, and the machine gunners on his company quickly jumped into the trench, set up machine guns, and happily shot at the back of the Russian soldiers.

"The enemy has retreated, Wang Yiyang, the enemy has retreated!"

When Wu Jun jumped back and shouted to Wang Yiyang, Wang Yiyang scolded him: "Are you fucking human, why don't you call a medical officer for me, Lao Tzu is dying of pain!" ”

Wu Jun nodded blankly, and hurriedly ran to call the medical officer.

At that time, Wu Jun didn't know that the officer he had just stabbed to death was the commander of the Russian battalion who attacked the position.

Two weeks later, Wang Yiyang was awarded the Order of Loyalty and Valor, 2nd Class and the Silver Disability Medal, and Wu Jun was awarded the Order of Loyalty and Valor, 2nd Class – because he was unharmed (nonsense!). ）。

Let's say that the Russian army attacked Weiyuan City on three sides, Major General Grosgow personally led all the 2nd Regiment of the brigade and the two battalions of the 3rd Regiment to attack from the front, the Russian army with the help of artillery and machine guns in the rear close support, rushed close to the forward position of the Chinese army, after a burst of rifle fire, then broke into the position to launch a white-knuckle battle, the two companies of the 11th Battalion of the 11th Frontier Regiment of the Chinese Army defending the front-line position in the north of the city could not support it, most of the dead and wounded, and the rest were driven out of the position. The Russian army immediately infiltrated the second-line positions along the communication trenches, and the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment of the Chinese Janissaries, which defended the second-line positions, blocked the communication trenches with machine-gun fire, and violently bombarded the Russian troops in the first-line positions with mortars.

Xu Soul saw this situation clearly from the city tower, and saw a small airship of his own side and two small planes buzzing like mosquitoes around the battlefield, dropping some colorful signal flares, presumably the artillery on the other side was about to speak, so he ordered the 3rd Battalion on standby in the city to prepare bayonets, prepare grenades, and after their own artillery bombardment, immediately launch a counterattack against the Russian troops entrenched in the front-line positions in the north of the city.

At about 12:15, after receiving the aerial reconnaissance report, the Chinese artillery began to launch a fierce attack on the Russian troops attacking Weiyuan City, and the 18 150-mm howitzers and 36 105-mm cannons of the artillery regiment of the 1st Praetorian Division carried out this task.

The blazing artillery fire instantly engulfed the position occupied by the Russian army, and the Russian army fell into panic, and its morale plummeted, but occasionally a few shells fell on the second-line position of the Chinese army only 200 yards away, and it was later found out that 3 soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment were injured in their own artillery fire.

After 20 minutes, the artillery fire stopped, and the commander of the 1st Brigade, Colonel Xu Soul, personally ordered Major Liu Ning, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Regiment: "Take your battalion to attack!" Take back the front-line position! ”

"Please rest assured, the 3rd Battalion will definitely complete the mission!"

Major Liu Ning immediately led the team to attack, personally operated a light machine gun to rush to the front, infected by the high morale of the reinforcements, the 1st battalion also jumped out of the trench, launched a charge, the two battalions of men and horses combined into a unit, braving the Russian infantry machine gun sniper, in the blink of an eye ran through the open area of the 200-yard trench staggered, the soldiers who rushed in front first threw a row of grenades lit with a fuse into the trench, everyone immediately lay down, after a row of explosions, the officers and soldiers rushed to jump up, countless flash spears stabbed straight to the Russian army in the trench.

After a rapid, suffocating white-knuckle fight, the morale of the Russian army finally fell to the extreme, and it collapsed like a, and Major General Grosgow saw that the general situation was gone, and did not want to be heroic, so he fled all the way with the defeated army and fled into the fortress of Blagoveshchensk before he was able to reorganize his subordinates. The Chinese army pursued for a while, and by the way occupied the Milyucak support point, which had been bombed to a mess and was abandoned by the Russian army, before stopping, digging trenches around the Milyucak support point and building new positions.

While the two battalions of the Praetorian Infantry were pursuing the retreating Grosgow Brigade, the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Janissary Brigade and part of the personnel and equipment of the Divisional Engineer Regiment completed the unloading operation at the Baiyutun Ferry, and the 2nd Guard Regiment was immediately brought under the command of Colonel Xu Soul, and its 1st Battalion was sent to the Milyucak support point to support the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 1st Forbidden Regiment that had been entrenched there, while the 2nd and 3rd Battalions remained on the defensive line around Weiyuan City to defend themselves.

According to the post-war Russian war history data, on September 9, the Grossgow Brigade and the 22nd Cossack Regiment jointly launched an attack on the city of Muravyovka (i.e., Weiyuan), a total of 812 Russian officers and soldiers were killed, 1,512 were wounded, and 198 were missing.

After the failure of the attack on Weiyuan City led by Major General Grosgow, Lieutenant General Grengelslo, commander of the First Russian Army, in view of the fact that the Amur River Fleet was completely annihilated by the Chinese River Defense Fleet that morning, believed that the Russian army could no longer prevent the landing of the Chinese army, and that sending troops to attack the well-defended Weiyuan City would only waste vitality and could not achieve any practical results, so he stopped the attack on Weiyuan City, and only ordered long-range artillery to bombard the Baiyutun Ferry from time to time, in order to hinder the landing of the Chinese army. However, the artillery of the Chinese army, with the support of airships and aircraft, organized artillery suppression operations in a timely manner, and the Russian army did not dare to use long-range artillery easily in order to preserve its strength. As a result, before the early morning of September 10, the Chinese army engineers were able to successfully erect a large pontoon bridge on the Heilongjiang River between Aihui and Baiyutun that could pass four horse-drawn carriages side by side.

At 12 noon on the morning of 10 September, General Liang Tianhe, commander of the Janissary Field Army, and Lieutenant General Zhang Yiye, chief of staff, entered Weiyuan City with military personnel. At that time, all the personnel and equipment of the 1st Praetorian Guard Division had crossed the Heilongjiang River, and the 36,000 officers and soldiers of the division were assembled within 10 kilometers of Weiyuan City, ready to go.