Liu Yun encountered problems in the execution of his order, that is, the third platoon of the Praetorian Guard Company led by Wu Dingguo did not have enough vehicle drivers and heavy weapon operators after going to the base to collect heavy weapons, and the newly recruited soldiers of the Praetorian Guard Company did not know what the road car was, and they had never heard of mortars and automatic grenade launchers.

As a last resort, Liu Yun had no choice but to assign eight members of the Tiger Guards to the Praetorian Guard Company so that the Praetorian Guard Company could give full play to its combat effectiveness, while the remaining three members of the Tiger Guards were stationed at the base with the three platoons of the Praetorian Guard Company, ready to take a helicopter to provide air support at any time. But this also means that Liu Yun no longer has a reserve of elite special forces in his hands.

After discussing the details of the operation, everyone went to their posts. No one expected that things would change so quickly, and in just a few days, a palace upheaval turned into a civil war, and a life-and-death struggle was about to begin. History cannot be changed, it can only be created, and the old pedestals have been destroyed to build new glorious temples, or thatched houses.

Liu Yunzhi said that we should not pin our hopes on those local military governors who can only talk about "loyalty to the monarch and patriotism," but at least we must force them not to stand on the side of the hostile party. So he asked Emperor Guangxu to send a holy decree to the governors of various places, as well as to the commanders and commanders with heavy troops, denouncing Li Hongzhang as a traitor and traitor, counting his various crimes since the Sino-French War, and then strictly ordering the military governors in various places to "dare to help Li rebels will be punished without forgiveness." Those who are loyal to the Union and immediately send troops to Beijing to quell the rebels, regardless of their position, will be promoted to one level, and there is no plan for another reward. Those who hesitate after receiving the decree are the same as those who help Li rebels, and there is no forgiveness for the nine clans together——"

In addition, Prince Alcohol and others also issued instructions to order those military governors who were close to the Houdang group to send troops to the Beijing-Tianjin area to crusade against Li Hongzhang.

Liu Yun knew very well the psychology of those military commanders, they must all be undecided, wanting to see which side would have an absolute advantage after the matter progressed, and then follow the strong to coax and step on the weak together. Besides, Li Hongzhang must have already sent people to their activities, and under coercion and temptation, those guys who are wise enough to protect themselves will watch left and right. In order for them to turn against themselves, they must gain an advantage on the battlefield and win at least one big battle to keep the capital. At that time, Li Hongzhang will face the dilemma of the wall falling down and everyone pushing him, and he is not far from being completely finished.

But how do you win?

Liu Yun has no bottom in his heart.

Wen Yi walked up to him: "What's the matter, aren't you confident?" ”

Liu Yun shook his head: "You haven't seen the troops under the bottom, have you?" The 3,000 Eight Banner soldiers of the Nine Gate Admiral's Mansion are almost all opium smokers and thin and lazy people, and they can't fight at all, and when I was patrolling the city yesterday, I saw that almost every rifleman was holding a new shiny old Lin Mingden single-shot rifle, and the gun oil had not been cleaned, so he randomly found a few soldiers to demonstrate the gun operation, and he couldn't even figure out what the three points and one line were! The situation of the Wuzi army in the Beida battalion is not much better, and the artillery is wiped clean, which is a good thing, but when you ask the gunner, how many live firing have you carried out? The gunner said that he would do it once every four years, and that he was only allowed to fire one shell, and that the gun he was responsible for still had a dud—"

"I just came back from the army, and I saw everything you said, so I'm even less confident than you now."

The two looked at each other and smiled wryly.

"If we had time, we could have stolen some powerful weapons and brought them here, but I was so nervous that I always felt that if we spent an extra minute, our actions would be more dangerous, so-"

Wen Yi patted Liu Yun on the shoulder: "What's the point of talking about this now?" ”

"Report!" Second Lieutenant Ma Chengwu, a communications officer at the headquarters, walked into the house with a radio, "Lieutenant Yang Zhengjin, a staff officer at the base, asked to speak directly with Captain Liu. ”

Liu Yun took the intercom: "I'm Liu Yun, what's the situation?" ”

"Report to Captain Liu, when we were distributing weapons to the third platoon of the Praetorian Guard Company, we turned out a set of psychological warfare equipment, the name is very strange, called 'GL3', and the packaging indicates that only officers who have undergone intermediate training in psychological warfare or above are qualified to command and use this equipment, we think you should know what is going on, so we will contact you immediately——"

"You read that right? Is it really 'GL3'? Liu Yun began to feel that God had not completely abandoned him.

"It's clearly printed, absolutely right."

"Okay, great, let me tell you, immediately send a helicopter to pick me up, that set of equipment should be properly kept, no one is allowed to open the outer package before I arrive, in addition, tell Wu Dingguo, tell his three platoons to stand by after receiving the weapons, understand?"

"Yes!"

Putting down the intercom, Liu Yun shook his neck: "Alas, the road to the sky, Lao Wen, wait a minute, help me preside over this side of the matter, I want to go back to the base, there is a situation radio contact." ”

Wen Yi nodded: "No problem, by the way, what did they find?" Your expression suddenly changed from almost desperate to relaxed excitement before participating in the picnic, you must be a good baby. ”

Liu Yun nodded and smiled: "It's a great treasure, I thought I didn't bring it, I don't know what's going on, it turned out at a critical moment, it seems that we are destined to create a new branch on the tree of history, no one can stop it, you wait and see, I bet it will be a civil war with the least bloodshed." ”

※※※

In the early morning of March 25, in a trench close to the Tonghui River in Gaobeidian on the outskirts of Beijing, Zhong Xiahuo was busy teaching those so-called training soldiers how to use rifles one by one, and since he was appointed as the commander of the 1,500 martial arts training troops of the first regiment yesterday, he has spent most of his time doing similar work, such as informing ordinary soldiers how to dig trenches, organizing the gunners of the seven mountain guns attached to them to conduct their first live-fire training since joining the army, and teaching those battalion officers how to accurately and clearly submit reports and understand the orders of their superiors. And so on and so forth, all of this work was exhausting to him.

"Newspaper-" A scout cavalryman jumped off his horse in front of the trench and ran over and knelt down to fight a thousand.

"Get up and speak." Zhong Xiahuo threw Lin Mingden's single-shot pistol in his hand to a general, grabbed the scout cavalryman's shoulders and helped him up.

"I just met a group of infantry from the Huai army in the forest along the river in front, about four or five hundred people, who were sitting and resting, less than five miles away from us, a small group of cavalry just ran after me for more than two miles, and was finally thrown away by me——"

"You said there were cavalry chasing you?"

"Yes."

Zhong Xiahuo touched his chin and patted the scout's shoulder: "Hard work, by the way, what's your name?" ”

"Chen Xingyun."

"Good name, you, come with me to the artillery position, right away."

"Yes! Sir! ”

The two of them got on their horses and quickly stopped in front of seven 75mm Krupp mountain guns.

Yan Canglong, the deputy battalion officer of the Wuzi Artillery Battalion, greeted him: "Master Zhong, you are here." ”

As soon as Zhong Xiahuo landed, he ran to the nearest cannon, and shouted: "Less nonsense, call the gunner to shoot, open the ammunition box, and prepare ten rounds of rapid fire!" ”

"Yes, yes," Yan Canglong hurriedly replied, and when he turned around, he shouted to the gunners who were sitting on the ammunition box basking in the sun: "Have you heard it, don't work quickly, a bunch of lazy bones!" ”

Zhong Xiahuo knelt on one knee behind the cannon, called Chen Xingyun, took out the map of the theater that he had only arrived yesterday, spent a few minutes explaining to him how to look at the map, and then asked him to point out the location of those Huai army infantry.

"This, that's it, can't be wrong." Chen Xingyun nodded in the corner of the map and exclaimed with great certainty.

Zhong Xiahuo immediately shook the handwheel of the sight, set up to shoot Zhu Yuan, and then ran to the next cannon in Lu, repeating the action just now, until all seven guns were accurately aimed at the target, and then personally ordered: "All gunners, go to the gun!" ”

There are four members of the Krupp Qisheng Mid-Mountain Gun, one of whom is responsible for aiming, one is responsible for loading and firing, and two are responsible for taking out the shells from the ammunition box and passing them to the loader.

Zhong Xiahuo took out a saber from Yan Canglong's waist that had been set in style by the Manchu Qing Dynasty three hundred years ago, and was the right to be the command flag, and explained to the gunners: "Wait a minute, when you hear me shouting to prepare, load, and when you see me swinging the knife down and shouting to open fire, pull the rope, and you are not allowed to act without my order, understand?" ”

"Understood!" Everyone responded in unison.

"Ready—fire!" With a wave of Zhong Xia's fire knife, the seven mountain cannons spit out orange flames almost simultaneously, and then the thick smoke dispersed with the wind in front of the position, drifting towards the bank of the Tonghui River.

Seventy metal cartridges were quickly scattered behind the mountain cannon, and Zhong Xiahuo raised his binoculars, only to see a lock of gray and black smoke rising under the clouds of trees in the distance.

This was the largest killing in the Beijing-Tianjin Mutiny in 1890, the vanguard of the Huai Army led by Ma Yukun, the famous general of the Huai Army, the commander of the Yi Army, encountered a rapid attack by the opponent's fire in the woods 2.5 kilometers east of Gaobeidian, and within 90 seconds, 70 rounds of 75mm mountain artillery shells exploded in the camp of its forward infantry battalion, and all 500 officers and soldiers of the battalion lost their combat effectiveness, and more importantly, Ma Yukun, who was leading more than 40 people of the Guards Cavalry Team to inspect the forward battalion, was also shot and killed, and the battalions of the Yi Army immediately stopped advancing towards Beijing when they heard about it, retreat ten miles and set up camp.

What happened next changed the tide of the battle and left countless magical legends among the folk.

On the afternoon of the 25th, a strange cloud was raised over the camping ground of the Yi Army on the bank of the Tonghui River, accompanied by a huge "buzzing" sound, which attracted officers and men to come out of their tents to watch.

The clouds changed from dark red to dark and then from dark to gray, and finally unfolded into a snow-white cloud curtain for miles around, hanging over the blue sky. All the officers and soldiers were pointing to the sky and talking about it, when they suddenly saw the image of a gray skeleton appearing on the cloud curtain, and they were horrified, some people ran towards the camp tent with strange screams, and some people ran wildly on the avenue in the direction of Tianjin, and many more people stood in place stupidly, frightened by this unprecedented terrifying scene. The people who stayed behind saw another scene after the skeleton: several blood-red italic characters protruded around the skeleton, which read: "Heaven punishes Li Hongzhang, and those who follow the thief will die." The edge of the word is dripping with ink, and it looks like blood. The whole scene lasted for nearly half an hour, and within 30 miles, all the tens of thousands of Huai officers and men, including Song Qing, president of the Huai Army, and Jiang Zikang, chief soldier of Tianjin, could see it clearly. The chaos soon spread to the whole army, and within a few hours, the elite troops of the Huai Army, which had been extremely brave in the suppression of the Taiping Army, almost completely collapsed, and the stragglers fled in all directions, and a small number of officers and soldiers forced Song Qing and Jiang Zikang to surrender to Zhong Xiahuo's troops in front of them.

Wen Yi also saw this scene, when his second regiment was carrying ten mountain guns and two fifteen (150mm) heavy guns along the Beijing-Tianjin Avenue to the enemy's flank.

"Lao Liu, your secret equipment is really wonderful," Wen Yi shouted on the radio, "I'm about to become a prisoner of war shelter for the Huai Army here, you don't need to say, I know what Lu Dao GL3 is, but I don't know the meaning of the name Lu Dao, can you explain?" ”

"It's very simple, GL3 is the meaning of Grimace Three, you historian, you love to get to the bottom of it at all times. Okay, now accept the order, order your department to immediately send a small number of personnel to escort the prisoners of war back to Beijing, most of them to Langfang, and wait for Zhong Xiahuo's regiment there, after the two armies converge, they will march to Tianjin together, and I will lead the regiment directly under me to follow up according to the situation. ”

"Understood!"

※※※

Tianjin, the Governor's Mansion of Zhili. People, carts, and horses were crowded together in front of the gate, and the shouts and scolding of people were mixed with the neighing of cows and horses. Go get him back! ”

A family member said in a loud voice: "The young master took a fainted girl to the purple bamboo forest in the afternoon, and the little one didn't know where Lu Dao went, and the young master didn't let me follow——"

"Rubbish! A bunch of rubbish! Li Hongzhang's face turned purple, and he turned to the chief guard next to him: "Don't care, let's go first, go to Tanggu, there are warships waiting for us there, and when the time comes, there will be a place to go to the east and south——"

"Where is Lord Li going? Do you want to defect to a foreign country if you still want to take a warship? An officer jerked the curtain open and stared at Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang said angrily: "Chief Nie, what do you want to do?" ”

Nie Shicheng arched his hand and said: "I don't want to do anything, I just want to know the whereabouts of Lord Li, if Lord Li wants to defect to a foreign country, don't blame him for being rude, and he will stop him with his life." ”

"You-" Li Hongzhang's eyes rolled and he fainted.

When he woke up, he was already locked in a bedroom with his son Li Jingfang, and a row of guards could be vaguely discerned outside the paper window.

"Dad—we can't escape this time—" Li Jingfang cried.

"Shut up!" Li Hongzhang waved his hand and slapped him in the mouth, and shouted angrily: "Say, where did you go just now!" And with a girl, when is it, do you have nothing else in your mind but women? ”

"That's Chun'er, I didn't expect her to successfully escape, and it came back to me after the last day, I asked the cook to help me put medicine in her meal at noon today, and then I took it to my own house in Zizhulin, who would have thought, just when it was about to be done, the man surnamed Nie rushed in with a group of people and tied me up——"

"Shameless!" Li Hongzhang couldn't help but burst into tears, "How did I give birth to such a thing as you!" Alas - oh my God, I, Li Hongzhang, have been cautious all my life, who would have thought that I would not be able to protect the late season, and my evil thoughts would be filled with evil thoughts, and I would do such a big rebellious thing - God will destroy me, God will destroy me! ”