Chapter 168: Battle of the Western Suburbs Military Camp

It was not until half an hour later that the officials of the Army Yamen took office one after another, but they did not find that the warehouse in the Military Control Department was stolen. There was no regulation on checking the warehouse every day in the old system.

The officers of the First Commander's Office also came out of the dormitory one after another, and after breakfast, they came to the commander's office to serve as usual. Wu Shaoting had talked with most of these officers and suggested the uprising against the Qing Dynasty. Except for the two foolish and loyal people, most of the rest supported them. When they came to the Commander's Office, they suddenly found that the atmosphere at the Commander's Office was a little strange, but they could not tell where the strangeness was.

However, when He Fuguang, Xu Haiying and several other attendants came to the General Staff one after another, they immediately felt something was wrong, because there were more than a dozen live-fire guards in the General Staff compound. These guards were the guards of the Army Yamen.

But they arrived at the General Staff one by one, and were forced to invite them in by the guards when they were weak.

Wu Shaoting was waiting for them to arrive in the General Staff, and then informed him of what was about to happen today. Everyone was surprised, not by the revolution, but by the revolution that happened today, because they were not mentally prepared at all and they came too suddenly.

But everyone understands that things have happened and can only face reality.

Xu Haiying was the first to stand up to express his support, so everyone was motivated and swore to support the revolution.

Wu Shaoting was not surprised by this result, after all, it was the trend of the times. He immediately assigned them tasks, and He Fuguang was responsible for presiding over the overall situation of the General Staff; Xu Haiying brought the guards in the yard to meet with the guards who supported the revolution in the commander's office, and immediately controlled the entire commander's office after hearing the gunshots. The other attendants took their place and followed He Fuguang's command.

Everyone agreed.

Zhao Sheng learned the news from his confidant in the Second Battalion. When he arrived at the commander's office, it was already eleven. He immediately returned to the General Staff and found Wu Shaoting, looking very dissatisfied, and cursed Wu Shaoting in front of everyone for not having to make a comeback in advance.

Wu Shaoting knew that Zhao Sheng did it on purpose to show that he strongly supported the revolution. He did not intend to have a quarrel with Zhao Sheng, because during the uprising, he still needed Zhao Sheng, the name of the Biaotong leader. He immediately made up an excuse and said that he had only learned the news yesterday and was busy preparing early in the morning, so he did not have time to notify him.

Of course, Zhao Sheng didn't believe Wu Shaoting's nonsense, but now he couldn't have a quarrel with Wu Shaoting, so he had to accept this excuse.

In the next half hour, Wu Shaoting told Zhao Sheng about the action plan, hoping that Zhao Sheng could control the order of the military camp in the western suburbs by then. When Zhao Sheng heard this arrangement, he seemed to push himself to the position of leadership. He felt complacent and agreed immediately.

The morning was not easy, and the wait was long, and many soldiers were a little restless. Fortunately, there were a lot of people in each barracks, and everyone could supervise and persuade each other. In addition, the officials of each team were in charge, so no chaos occurred.

At twelve o'clock noon, gunshots came from the Third Battalion, followed by sporadic shouts.

The whole western suburbs was silent for a moment, and in a blink of an eye, more gunfires and shouts rang out, and the momentum changed from scattered at the beginning to surging waves. The new soldiers rushed out of the barracks and, under the leadership of their respective commanders, rushed towards the planned attack target.

"Revolution, revolution! Exorcist the Tartars and restore our China!"

"Expel the Tartars and restore our China!"

"Everyone who is a big man gets up, all gets up!"

"If you go against it, you will be against it, seize Wang Changling, seize Fuqi, and overthrow the Tatar government."

Every shout is so intense that it makes people feel boiling and excited when they hear it.

The new soldiers looked chaotic, but in fact they were very planned. After rushing out of the barracks, the third battalion immediately divided into three groups and rushed towards the old army garrison opposite the large campus of the western suburbs.

The soldiers of the old army were used to being lazy, especially in the twelfth lunar month, when the inspection was lax, everyone was used to going to bed late and getting up late. Although the gunfire alarmed a lot of people, most people thought that the new army was training shotguns, so they did not respond quickly at all. It was not until the shouts of the new army's "revolution" came that everyone became panicked and quickly put on clothes and got weapons, but it was too late to get together.

Soon, the door of the old military barracks was kicked open and new soldiers flocked to the ground.

"Don't move, whoever moves will kill him!"

"We have revolutionized, and you still have to work hard for the pedantic Tartars, so let's die with them!"

"Let down all the weapons!"

A new soldier fired a shot at the ground, and then all the old soldiers in the barracks were so scared that they threw down their weapons, raised their hands and begged for mercy.

Some old troops got up early and were washing their faces outside the camp. When the new troops shouted from far to near, they were all so scared that they ran back to the barracks and shouted that the new troops had rebelled. Most of the barracks had never encountered such a situation. They were stunned at that time until the new troops rushed in and then raised their hands to surrender. A few officers also organized a brief resistance, but when the equipment was backward, insufficient ammunition, and low psychological quality, this resistance was like a match thrown into the sea and was instantly swallowed by the huge waves.

Because the new army soldiers had made plans last night, they even knew how many people there were in each barracks of the old army and the commander lived there, so there was almost no major ups and downs during this attack. After they rushed into the camp, they immediately acted consciously, first of all, to capture the enemy's battalion officer.

All three battalions were pulled off the kang, and only a few sentry officers were dressed and put on guns to resist. However, under the powerful offensive, the counterattack from sentry officers to team officials collapsed in a blink of an eye.

Just as the third battalion raided the old army barracks, Wu Shaoting commanded the first battalion to take action. He ordered Liang Hongkai and Sun Jizhi to lead their own team to attack directly at the Army Yamen, while he and Li Jishen and others went to the artillery battalion.

There were only more than one hundred guards in the Army Yamen, and some of them were already there, when the new army soldiers surrounded the yamen courtyard, the general situation was basically settled. Liang Hongkai used to be on duty in the yamen, so he was very clear about the layout of the yamen. He commanded the soldiers under his command and quickly occupied several guard rooms, and the guards who were still in the dark immediately gave up.

Sun Jizhi was mainly responsible for arresting officials from the Army Yamen. Under the old bureaucratic system of the late Qing Dynasty, there were even more officials from the Army Yamen than guards, and most of them were idle people raised by the government. These idle people had no ability to react at all in the face of the sudden mutiny and surrendered one by one. For Sun Jizhi, the only difficulty in his mission was to search for these officials everywhere. Some were hiding under the tables, and some were hiding in thatched cottages, which was simply hiding and seeking.

The gunshots coming from the Army Yamen were basically the warning gunshots of New Army soldiers in the sky. From officials to guards, they either shot but failed or even picked up the gun.
Chapter completed!