On the gatehouse of the north gate of the Shajiao Barracks, Private Wang Keqin was lying on the battlement, looking at the vast night outside the wall. He is a native of Songgang Town, eighteen years old, his real name is Wang Oyster, and he changed his current name to the head of the army. It was the darkest time before dawn, and he was the last guard before dawn. A breeze blew, and although he was wearing short sleeves, he didn't feel the slightest chill. After months of training and adequate food, his originally thin body gradually became stronger.

Next to him, Private Huang Zhiqiang was smoking a cigarette leisurely with his back against the women's wall. Because he left the area controlled by the Liberation Army, he went to double posts at night. Wang Keqin looked sideways at the bright and dark cigarette butts, although he was very dissatisfied with the other party's lazy behavior, but the other party's military rank was higher than his own, and he didn't dare to express his dissatisfaction. At this moment, a sound of footsteps came from the right, and he turned his head to look, but it turned out to be an officer on the night patrol.

Huang Zhiqiang got up early, stood upright, raised his head, and held his chest high, and his military posture was very standard. Wang Keqin despised in his heart, this old oil was just a good face, so he was promoted by the chief and mixed with the army commander.

"Is there anything special about it?" The platoon commander asked.

"There was no situation, it was calm all the time." Huang Zhiqiang seized the opportunity to show his merits, "I've been staring at it with my eyes wide open!" Don't even think of sneaking in even a mouse. ”

"It's about to be dawn, you have to cheer up and pay more attention to observation, this is the time when people are most likely to fall asleep." The platoon commander admonished while using the strong flashlight in his hand to shine outside the wall. The light pillar of the flashlight swept by, and I saw clusters of grass gently swaying in the morning breeze, and suddenly, several figures jumped out from behind a cluster of bushes more than ten meters away, and then rushed all the way into the distance. "Who? Hold it! The platoon leader shouted, and the beam of light of the flashlight kept chasing one of the figures. Suddenly, after a gunshot rang out, the figure screamed and fell to the ground, while several other figures quickly disappeared into the night.

It was Wang Keqin who fired the shot, and at the same time as the platoon commander shouted, he also reacted, raising the gun, loading, aiming, and firing in one go, and then the gun rang out. The first time he hit a moving target, he was both surprised and delighted, and the platoon commander also patted him on the shoulder happily, "Good marksmanship!" ”

The gunshots woke up the people who were still sleeping, and Chen Weifu quickly came to the gatehouse. After being asked about the situation, he ordered all the troops to put themselves on guard against the wall, and the heavy machine guns of the machine gun platoon and two 60 mortars were also set up, and only then did he send a squad to carry the wounded man back.

The victim was a young man with the distinguishing features of a southerner, with dark skin, short stature, and a small build, with some whitish blue cloth jackets, indicating that the man was just an ordinary person. The bullet hit him in the left shoulder and went straight through his body. The health guard examined him, and found no bones, so he stopped the bleeding and bandaged the wound. The wounded remained unconscious, and his face turned pale from blood loss, and only God knows whether there would be a danger of his life.

Because the injured man has been unconscious, there is no way to know his identity. Snooping outside the barracks in the middle of the night is certainly not because of curiosity, most of them are spies of a certain force, it may be the Dongguan County Ya, or it may be a good man in the mountains and seas, or it is a powerful landlord nearby, who has no clear intention of the Guangfu Army suddenly entering Dongguan, so he sent spies to peep. At this time, it was already dawn, and Chen Weifu didn't know what was going on outside, and he didn't dare to leave rashly with his troops. Outposts were sent to the north and west while reporting to headquarters. The headquarters quickly replied, and the "Xiangmi Lake" came with a company of marines to reinforce it, and if it could not defeat the enemy, the fourth company would return directly by boat. Taking advantage of the time of waiting for the enemy or reinforcements, the cooking class began to make breakfast, and the sudden appearance of hostility did not affect everyone's taste.

More than an hour later, the reinforcements did not arrive, but the "family members and friends" of the wounded came to the door. It was not only the wounded's elderly parents, wives and young children who were found, but the indigenous soldiers gasped when they saw the dense crowd in sight, even though they had received the report from the outpost.

"It's estimated that there are about two thousand people." Chen Weifu put down the binoculars and said to the other officers beside him. As you can see from the binoculars, these people are all dressed short, no one is wearing a number of clothes, and no one is wearing armor. The weapons in his hands are also varied, including broadswords and spears, hoes and sickles, and some muskets and earth cannons that cannot be seen as "models", as well as the legendary "heavy sniper rifles" - large lifting rods. There are also a lot of flags, but none of the survivors of the patterns on them know each other, which shows that these people are just a rabble. The crowd stopped one after another at a distance of 200 meters from the wall, because the movement could not be consistent, and the time when the various queues stopped was not consistent, some stopped too early, and some stopped too late, so that the queues that had barely kept neat became scattered. After the procession stopped, the armed peasants gathered in twos and threes to talk, and some simply sat or lay on the ground to rest, revealing the true nature of the rabble. The survivors saw it in their eyes, and couldn't help but look at each other and shake their heads, are they here to fight or to catch the market?

"It's coming pretty quickly, it may be a local militia in Humen." The instructor guessed, and the other party looked at the crowd, but several survivors did not pay attention. After the end of the Battle of Hong Kong, the firepower of each infantry company was strengthened. Each infantry platoon was supplemented with a three-man machine-gun group, armed with a Dzeggalev light machine gun, and two sub-shooters each carrying two 47-round drums, which were commanded by the platoon commander Xinzi. The platoon staff sergeant is also equipped with a Type 54 submachine gun, and the squad leader is equipped with a shotgun, so that the firepower of the infantry platoon has risen to a new level, and it can also complete some low-intensity combat missions alone. With the current firepower of the four companies, the more than 2,000 rabble may not even be able to break through the wall, and they will collapse under the strafing of automatic fire. Although the fourth company did not have as many machine guns as the fifty British soldiers in South Africa decades later, the militia must not have had the courage of the 5,000 Zulus.

The survivors, who claimed to be invincible, just calmly watched the chaos of the militia, and their composure also affected the indigenous soldiers, and everyone gradually watched these uninvited guests as a joke. On the militia side, the leaders managed to reunite the "militia" herding sheep, but instead of charging as the survivors had imagined, several people on horseback rushed out of the queue and trotted towards the wall. Through the binoculars, Chen Weifu saw that the current knight was holding an apricot yellow flag in his hand, with four small characters "Humen South Gate" on the upper part, and a big "Jiang" character on the lower part, "The surname Jiang, is it a relative of the principal?" ”

"Chief, is there the word Jiang on that flag?" Wang Hongwei suddenly asked beside him. After receiving an affirmative answer, Lao Jianghu reflected his own value, "These may be people from the Jiang family in Nanzha Village." ”

"Is this Jiang family famous?" The fourth company commander asked.

The few people on horseback were getting closer and closer, and the naked eye could already see the words on the yellow flag, Wang Hongwei put his hand on the pergola, trying his best to see the appearance of the people who came, and at the same time did not forget to explain to several leaders, "The Jiang family in Xinji Village, Nanzha, Humen is a local celebrity, and although the population of the clan is not large, it is very powerful in the local area. Four years ago, Sixth Brother He had an incident in Shilong, and Jiang Lixiang of the Jiang family ran his own Jingkang regimental training, and followed the Green Battalion to ambush the Red Turban Army attacking Humen in Taiping. In the second year, after He Liuge went north, Feng Jiguan, who broke through from Xinzao, led more than 1,000 people to attack Humen by boat. Jiang Lixiang ordered Wang Douyin, Wang Zhaoxiang and others to lead the rural regiments in Nanzha and Jinzhou to practice, assist the Green Battalion in the Shajiao Fort, and fight with the Red Turban Army in the Black Pine Forest, fighting for a day and a night. Due to being attacked by land and water in the green camp, Feng Ji's strength was overwhelmed, and he was defeated and retreated, and his leader Wang Yihuan was also killed by the earthen artillery of the regiment. ”

"This surname Jiang is not simple!" Chen Weifu sighed, but now he remembered that Chen Jianhua had brought up this person. Jiang Lixiang, the word Ruchen, the number Jiyun. He is a native of Nanzha Xinji Village, Humen Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province. He is extremely talented, and he can write at the age of seven, and Luo Tianchi, a famous scholar in Shunde, is very important. In the year of Daoguang Yiyou (1848), the tribute was selected, and in the second year of Xianfeng (1852), the township examination was lifted, and the Jinshi was admitted in the Yue Nian examination, and he was selected as a Shujishi. The reason why Jiang Lixiang has received great attention is that his grandson is the famous commander-in-chief of the 19th Route Army and the commander of the Songhu garrison, and the first minister of textile industry in New China, Jiang Guangnai, so the Jiang family can also be regarded as a local gentry who will focus on wooing after the restoration of the army.

At this time, several knights had already arrived at the gate of the wall, and one of them raised the flag in his hand and said loudly: "The Guangfu Army has listened to it, and you are entrenched in Xin'an, and you are your own prestige, and you have nothing to do with my Humen." I, the Jiang family and Er in Humen, have always had well water and no river water, so why did they hurt my people today? ”?

When people come together, they will take the lead in taking people, Xingshi will ask for the guilt, and put the responsibility on the side of the Guangfu Army, but how could Chen Weifu let him succeed, "Since it is well water and not river water, what are your clansmen doing outside our military camp in the middle of the night and sneakingly?" ”

"Humen is the township where we wait, and we naturally come when we want to come, and leave when we want to." The young knight said proudly. "You are just the grass coward who occupies the mountain as the king, how different is it from He Liu's generation, can you still control the freedom of our comings and goings? I am telling you to return my Jiang clan people as soon as possible, otherwise you will not be able to leave this place today. ”

"Our Guangfu Army is an army with the purpose of opposing the Qing Dynasty and recovering China, and it is not a grass coward who occupies the mountains as the king. The military garrison is a military restricted area, and ordinary people can come and go wherever they want. The people of your Jiang family secretly spied on the barracks, and after being discovered, they refused to listen to our warnings, and they were injured completely at their own expense, and you still want to gather a crowd to threaten our army. Speaking of this, Chen Weifu made a gesture to the platoon commander of the machine gun platoon, and the latter nodded at him, "I solemnly warn you again again, immediately disband peacefully and retreat to five miles away from the battery, if not, don't blame our shells for not having long eyes!" With that, he raised his right hand and waved it down.

The machine gun platoon gave the order to open fire on the No. 1 mortar group, which was already ready to fire, but only a muffled sound of "tom" was heard, and a shell rushed through the muzzle of the gun and flew towards a pond behind the side of the crowd, and suddenly hit a column of water six or seven meters high in the pond.

The sudden blow startled the still leisurely regiments, and they didn't see the fire of the muzzle at all, and the shells fell from the sky, isn't this a demon tree. Moreover, the pond was at the rear of the queue, indicating that the artillery of the Liberation Army could completely hit itself, and the team immediately blew up the nest. Some people turned around and jumped backwards, some pouted and lay on the ground, and some used their guns in their hands to "fight back" at the Liberation Army, and the already scattered team became a pot of porridge.