Just when Yuan Shikai and Zhu Erdian were discussing secretly in the carriage, Hubei, thousands of miles away, was a different scene.

"Nearly missing bullets! Adjust the azimuth angle ×××, high and low angle ×××!... Prepare, let it go!"

"boom!"

With a sound of cannon, a field cannon shell flew more than ten miles away, hitting the target accurately, and a stream of black smoke rose into the air, covering the dark building.

The building is the Martyrs' Temple outside Hanyang City. It enshrines thousands of tablets, all of which are the gods of soldiers who died in the Qing Dynasty. When the Taiping Army attacked Hanyang, a fire burned the original Martyrs' Temple. Now this Martyrs' Temple was rebuilt during the Tongzhi period, and most of the tablets inside were killed by the Hunan Army. As for the earliest tablets of the Eight Banners soldiers, they had already been destroyed with the ashes of the Taiping Army.

Now, that building is the battlefield support point of the Qing army outside Hanyang City. With the Martyrs' Temple as the basis, the Qing army built two lines of defense outside the west gate of Hanyang City, trenches, barbed wire, civil fortifications, anti-aircraft bunkers, and many modern military defense facilities can be found on those two lines. Since the Republican Army's expedition to the west, the Qing army in Wuhan has been preparing for war for many days, and even the defense deployment of Hanyang City was guided by British officers.

Hanyang is not as good as Wuchang. There are both arsenals and steel plants here. For the Qing army, it is better to throw Wuchang away than Hanyang. Therefore, from the very beginning, this was the focus of the Qing army's defense. Compared with the fortifications in Hanyang, Wuchang can be said to be an unguarded city.

According to the intelligence judgment, the command center outside the Qing army city is likely to be set up in the Martyrs' Temple. If it is destroyed, the Qing army outside the city will have no leader. Moreover, the fire reconnaissance just now also clarified the range of the Qing army's cannon.

Zhao Bei crawled in an unfinished foxglove on the front line, observing the bullet point of the shells, putting down his telescope, and saying to a staff officer beside him: "Telection, all field artillery in the headquarters will push to the front line of the position, concentrate firepower, and slam the Martyrs' Temple to completely destroy it! But remember, don't waste ammunition, every shell must be carefully calculated now, and without the orders of officers above the battalion commander, even solid bullets are not allowed to be fired!"

The staff officer took the orders on his notebook and hurriedly ran to pass the orders, but he straightened his waist and had not yet run out of the foxgate. He staggered and pounced forward. At the same time, a "da da...da da..." machine gun fire sound came from a distance.

"Trag him back!" Zhao Bei shouted, quickly turned around, held his telescope and searched the enemy's positions, and soon found a newly emerging machine gun position.

The machine gun position was set on the right wing of the Qing army trenches. Judging from the sound of point shooting, the machine gunner was a veteran. If you could knock people down at such a long distance, you must have used heavy bullets.

"Ba!Ba!"

Scattered rifle shooting sounded from the Republican Army positions, trying to suppress the firepower of the Qing army's machine gun, but the distance was too far and the accuracy was too poor. In addition, the machine gun was equipped with steel plates, so it was difficult for ordinary bullets to penetrate it. This was the experience of the Russo-Japanese War and was obviously learned by the Beiyang Army.

The Republican Army's positions soon fell silent again, and there were insufficient bullets and could not fire with the Qing army for a long time. The precious bullets could only be used in counter-shocks.

"I was shot in the back and was killed." Guard captain Tian Jinfu touched Zhao Bei and said.

Zhao Bei looked back at the staff officer, feeling quite regretful. This was the second combat staff officer he had lost in one day. If he had enough field communication equipment, this loss could have been avoided. Suppressed his anger, he raised his hand and pointed at the Qing army's position, saying, "After the artillery comes up, concentrate on artillery fire, give me a rapid fire first! Blast that section of the trench!"

"I'll go and pass the order." Another staff officer was about to get up, but was pulled by Tian Jinfu.

"I'll go." Tian Jinfu said, then left the fox pit, crawling high in amid the sound of machine gun shooting, rolling and crawling towards the artillery position in the rear.

Now the fog has dissipated, the battlefield has a good view, the attacking party has lost its cover and has stopped advancing, and the two sides of the war have just stood still. If it weren't for the fox pits that the Qing army gave up, the Republican Army would not have been able to advance here. However, the fox pits were inconvenient to mobility, and some frontier positions of the Republican Army were completely exposed to the Qing army's firepower. The soldiers there could not even retreat, so they could only stay in the fox pit and wait for night to fall. If it weren't for the support of artillery, some positions would probably be gone.

Due to the interference of the fleets of the great powers, the gunboats of the Republican Army were unable to enter the Han River. The Beiyang Army heading south had already crossed the river from the upper reaches of the Han River and marched to reinforce the Hanyang City. Now the Republican Army faced both patrol battalions and Beiyang Army, which was particularly difficult to fight.

"The Beiyang Army has come here." Zhao Bei sighed in his heart. "Yuan Shikai, Yuan Shikai, you are so calm... Could that guy be killed by the Qing court?"

Not long after, the transfer of the Republican artillery position was completed, and the front was pushed to the rear of the front-line position. A new position was established outside the range of the Qing army artillery in Hanyang. With the command of the commander, the cannons rumbling and rain-like shells flew over and landed near the machine gun position. The soil suddenly flew and thick smoke rolled. The machine gun was dumb for a moment, but soon after, it started roaring again and continued to pour bullet rain onto the front-line positions of the Republican army.

"Da da...da da..."

The Qing army machine gun raised the muzzle and used heavy machine guns to shoot the Republican artillery positions, but the distance was too far, and the artillery used steel plates to block the cannons, causing no casualties.

According to military practice, artillery positions cannot be too close to the front-line infantry positions. However, in order to remove the command center of the Qing army in the Martyrs' Temple, Zhao Bei had to risk pushing the artillery to the front line and use cannons to engage in "hand-to-hand combat" with Qing army infantry. If the range of cannons is long enough, there is no need to take such risks. Long-range artillery is not only a lack of troops by the Republican Army, but also the Beiyang Army does not have several long-range howitzers, otherwise the battle will be more difficult.

The artillery continued to project firepower on the Qing army's positions, and eventually made the machine gun completely silence, but no one knew whether it had been eliminated. After all, it was a well-trained Beiyang Army, and it was definitely not comparable to those platoon soldiers in the patrol battalion.

"Boom! Boom!"

The Republican artillery turned the gun mouth and opened fire fiercely at the Qing army guarding the Martyrs' Temple.

"Boom! Boom!"

The Qing army's artillery shells also flew over and raised dirt and black smoke on the front positions of the Republican Army. However, these shells were fired by the Hanyang Chengtou Patrol Battalion. Most of the warheads were loaded with black fires. The power was poor. Unless they were hit at close range, there was no big threat. Moreover, there were most mountain artillery guns, and the range was far lower than that of field artillery guns, and they could not hit the Republican artillery positions.

What really threatens the Republican artillery is the Beiyang Army artillery positions on Guishan. They use the latest cannons, with fierce medicine loaded in the shells, and there are many field artillery guns, with a range of not less than that of the Republican army.

"Fortunately, we are far away from Guishan, otherwise the Beiyang Army could also hit us." said the staff officer.

"But the Guishan artillery can cover the Qing army in Qintai, which is very threatening to our attack troops. Moreover, if the Beiyang army also shifts the artillery positions forward, our artillery may not be able to suppress them." Zhao Bei crawled to the other side of the fox pit, raised his telescope and looked northward. The direction of Qintai was also rolling in black smoke, and the gunshots were even more intense than here.

Zhao Bei had just arrived from Wuchang City to command the battle. As a wall in Hubei Province, Wuchang was restored four hours ago. The artillery soldiers who made their first contribution were artillery soldiers. After half of the deaths and injuries were killed, the Jingzhou General Encun died, the remaining flag soldiers raised white flags and surrendered to the revolutionary army. Wuchang City fell into the hands of the Republican Army. After a brief rest in the city, the revolutionary soldiers immediately entered the fierce attack on Hanyang. Two hours ago, the army had used hundreds of large wooden boats to cross the Yangtze River. Tens of thousands of troops gathered in Parrot Island one after another. The engineers used bamboo wood.

The timber and ships in the market set up a floating bridge between Parrot Island and the north bank of the Yangtze River, and then landed in a mighty manner, killing from the upper reaches to Hanyang City. After the Chuguan gunboat destroyed the two "cannon ships" of the Qing army, the "Chuguan" gunboat guarded the ferry with the "Republican" gunboats. At the same time, they used the cannons on the ship to cover the main force across the river, blocking the Qing army that came to block the fire, and bombarding the Hanyang city wall. Now the gate of Hanyang City towards the Yangtze River has been destroyed by naval guns. The Qing army guarding the city was shaken. Just try more to clear the enemies outside Hanyang City, and Hanyang is the spoil of the Republican army.
Chapter completed!