Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2094
Seeing that the fourth watch was about to pass, Yang Yi reckoned that it was so late, and the master of Baihu would not be so active and would not come to inspect again.Yang Yi planned to sit down straight and take a nap, after all, the group of people on duty at night might not have a chance to rest after dawn.During the day, someone led their group of soldiers to patrol the city of Wuzhou to see if there were any suspicious persons.Just yesterday, the guards of Dayunmen caught a spy who was said to be an Australian. This spy was pretending to be a peddler, and now his head was hanging on the tower of Dayunmen.

As for whether the peddler is really careful, no one cares, and he doesn't care.During Yang Yi's limited number of "expeditions", when he encountered "suspicious people", most of them were arrested and asked a few words, and then chopped him down.Anyway, no matter whether they are detailed or not, what they say is the same. They all say that they are good people, with an eighty-year-old mother in their family and an eight-year-old child.

However, killing a peddler is much more lucrative than killing a commoner in Li and Dong during the expedition - these people often have nothing around them, and the peddler should have some money and goods, and everyone can get some benefits.

This is a good thing, why can't it be my turn?Even if you get a few dozen pennies, that's fine.Staying up late and standing guard is exhausting, not to mention that I can't get any oil or water. I heard that the governor gave a reward to the person who stood guard at night, but somehow it disappeared, and it was probably taken away by an official.

Those who are officials take money, those who work as soldiers suffer, and grandma, this world is really unfair.

Yang Yi made up his mind that no matter whether Wuzhou City could be defended or not, as long as there was a chaos in the city, he would rob a few big households in Wuzhou City and make a good fortune in troubled times.Someone has already pulled him into the group, and they will fight together when there is chaos in the city.

Thinking of this, Yang Yi felt elated, and suddenly wished that the Australians would call and make a good fortune.But before he could close his eyelids, he saw a few bright lights suddenly flashing across the southern sky, like shooting stars.These lights crossed the south wall of Wuzhou City, and then fell directly in the city.

Yang Yi was surprised for a while, and it took him a while to come back to his senses. He had heard people say that the Australian rockets shot far and accurately. Guangzhou City was attacked by Australian rockets back then, and the city was on fire and in chaos.Yang Yi hurriedly found the conch, blew it with all his strength, and then yelled into the city.

"Enemy attack!"

Following his roar, the sound of urgent gongs and drums resounded through the sky, and there were lit lanterns and torches everywhere, and the voices of people panicked.

The Australians finally came to kill.

In the early morning of April 4, under the cover of darkness, Schneider led the Pearl River Advance Fleet West Detachment into the waters of the West River south of Wuzhou City. The ships of the advance fleet anchored and fired more than a dozen Hale rockets to announce The arrival of the Fubo army.Several of them ignited several boats on the pier outside the city, igniting a raging fire.

Although he couldn't see the situation in Wuzhou City, Schneider, who was standing on the flagship deck of the Pearl River, still smiled triumphantly when he saw the blazing fire beside the river: "Look at the great gift we gave Xiong Wencan!"

In contrast, Ruan Xiaowu calmed down a lot, and asked, "Detachment Captain, should we wait for the opportunity to fight the enemy navy now or rest on the spot?"

Schneider thought about it, Wuzhou's naval battalion probably didn't have the ability to fight the advance fleet at night, let alone come out at night.So he said: "Order all ships, except those on duty, to rest."

"Yes!" Ruan Xiaowu saluted.

"Remind all ships to be prepared for night attacks." Schneider added.

Afterwards, the Pearl River issued a light signal to the rest of the ships, and the crew of each ship took the time to rest. Tomorrow's combat mission will be heavy, and they must take a good rest before they can deal with it calmly.

Zhu Mingxia gave Snyder three tasks: one was to wait for an opportunity to annihilate the fleet of the Wuzhou Navy Battalion and seize control of the river; the other was to conduct a fire reconnaissance of the Wuzhou city defenses to find out the strength of the Wuzhou city's defenses; the third was to guide the bombardment ships Occupy a favorable position and bombard Wuzhou City.

Wuzhou City is located at the confluence of the Xijiang River and the Guijiang River. It guards the waterway leading to Guilin, the capital of Guangxi, and the west of Guangxi. It is an important traffic hub and the gateway of Guangxi Province.Entering Guangxi from Guangdong and controlling Wuzhou, the next step is to go up the Guijiang River to threaten Guilin, and to control the large agricultural areas in western Guangxi to the west.Therefore, the strategic plan of the Guangdong and Guangxi Raiders takes the occupation of Wuzhou as the staged end point, which is to prepare for the next step to control the entire Guangxi.

The West Detachment of the Pearl River Advance Fleet, as the first vanguard to arrive outside Wuzhou City, completely controlled the water surfaces of the Xijiang and Guijiang Rivers and cut off the supply lines of Wuzhou City.Schneider knew that he had a great responsibility, so he didn't dare to relax. He was already excited, but he couldn't fall asleep even more when he thought of this, so he simply sat on the rattan chair with his command knife, closed his eyes and rested his mind, waiting for the dawn.

But when he closes his eyes, Schneider can't help but think of the Battle of Antelope Canyon not long ago.In the Battle of Lingyang Gorge, the Western Detachment of the Pearl River Advance Fleet won a big victory, but this big victory made Schneider lose face, damaged two gunboats, and caused dozens of casualties. It is an unacceptable loss.In other words, such a victory is enough to make Schneider unable to hold his head up in front of his colleagues. Such a victory will not get any honor for Schneider, but only ridicule.Schneider would get angry when he thought of Lingyang Gorge, and he just planned to take his anger out on the Wuzhou Navy Camp.

Just wait, tomorrow I want you to kill every single one.

At six o'clock in the morning, the battle alarm sounded on time, not because the enemy navy was attacking, but because Schneider planned to use cannons to wake up Wuzhou City early in the morning.Schneider's calculation is as follows: bombard the southern city of Wuzhou, lure the Wuzhou naval battalion to fight, and then arrange the formation to wipe out the naval battalion in one fell swoop.But sailing on the surface of the Xijiang River, Schneider was dumbfounded. Not to mention the warships of the Wuzhou Navy Battalion, there was not even a small sampan in front of him.

Probably the Wuzhou naval battalion didn't kill them so early.Schneider consoled himself.

Then one hour passed, two hours passed, three hours passed, and it was almost ten o'clock in the blink of an eye, and the Wuzhou Navy Camp was still gone.The reconnaissance ships he sent out early in the morning returned one after another, and the reports were exactly the same. There was not a single ship on the Xijiang River nearly ten kilometers away.

If something goes wrong, there must be a demon.Schneider immediately thought of the fire attack boat.It seems that the enemy army wants to repeat the old trick again. The Xijiang River is vast. The Battle of Ershawei five years ago has proved that attacking ships on the wide water surface has no effect on the Fubo Army Navy.But the Guijiang River in the west of Wuzhou City is different. The width of the river is only less than 500 meters.Since there are no enemies on the Xijiang River, the Wuzhou Naval Battalion must be ambushing on the Guijiang River. Maybe there are already a large number of fire attack ships waiting there.

However, the reconnaissance boat sent to the Guijiang also came back soon to report that there were no enemy ships on the Guijiang.

"Why, lying down and being beaten when you knew you couldn't do it?" Schneider wondered in his heart, and told him, "Fire a few shells towards Wuzhou City first!"

The shells whizzed across the river, first landed on the pier outside the south gate, and blew up several houses, then collapsed a battlement of the female wall, and then punched more than a dozen holes in the tower, causing a small fire .But there was no sound on the city wall, neither artillery was fired back nor troops came out of the city to prepare for the battle.

It seems that the Ming army has learned well-this is the consensus of the South China Army since the Guangdong and Guangxi Raiders.It has become the consensus of the generals of the Ming army not to fire at targets beyond the range and not to be exposed to the artillery fire of the Fubo army casually.

Schneider's original plan was to eliminate the Wuzhou Navy Battalion and then enter the Guijiang River, but as time passed, Schneider couldn't sit still.Soldiers are precious and fast, and blindly waiting on the sidelines of the Xijiang River will only delay the fighter in vain.The infantry ships of the first brigade had been waiting for a long time. If he didn't start a full-scale battle, that is, if he didn't achieve the battle goal, he, Schneider, couldn't afford to lose this person.The water surface of the Guijiang River is not a good battlefield. The water surface is narrow, which is not conducive to the deployment of the fleet, and it is fully covered by the artillery fire on the west wall of Wuzhou City.

The most terrible thing is the hydrological treatment provided by the intelligence department: the water of the Guijiang River is much shallower than that of the Xijiang River. The biggest problem is that there are many shoals and great changes, making it difficult to locate them accurately.According to the report of the reconnaissance boat just now, the inner waters of the Guijiang River showed signs of being blocked by the enemy Shen Chuan and Shen Shi.Although it is not enough to ground the gunboat, a big ship like the Pearl River will definitely not be able to get in.

But without entering the Guijiang River, he could not complete the task of blocking Wuzhou City from the water.

"Send the fifth squadron into the Guijiang River, and send a tugboat to follow behind to cover."

It will be impossible to figure out the hydrological situation of the Guijiang River for a while, so I have to bite the bullet and make a breakthrough.In case ships run aground, they can be towed out quickly with paddle wheel tugs.

The six Daihatsu gunboats of the Fifth Squadron sailed into the Guijiang River, waiting for an opportunity to engage the enemy.The warships soon saw the flag on the Pearl River, so according to plan B of the predetermined plan, they advanced in two columns, with the tugboats at the rear, and sailed towards the Guijiang River in a mighty manner.

"All ships pay attention!"

The two gunboats playing the vanguard formed an oblique formation, with No. 38 boat at the forefront. Second Lieutenant Yan Youcai, the captain of boat No. 38, was recently promoted. This time he played forward, so he couldn't help but be very energetic.It wasn't that Captain Yan was overly cautious, but that he was looking forward to making some new achievements, so he had to concentrate all his attention in order to achieve excellent results.But fate made a joke to Yan Youcai, and the No. 38 boat had just sailed into the Guijiang Estuary not far away. After hearing a bump, the No. 38 boat could no longer move.

Schneider saw the flag of No. 38 boat in distress from a distance on the deck, and muttered in his mouth: "Damn it, how does this scout boat work!" The first gunboat also ran aground, and the two gunboats stopped motionless at the mouth of the Guijiang River, with the black smoke from the boiler still rising.

Volume 299 will be updated tomorrow - Chapter [-] of Guangzhou Governance

(End of this chapter)