Two hours before the First Fleet broke into Liaoluo Bay, Xue Ziliang and his detachment were quietly driving on the Shijing River.
It was four o'clock in the morning, the darkest time before dawn. But Xue Ziliang didn't dare to be careless at all - the moon in the sky was too bright. If it weren't for the heavy clouds today, he wouldn't have dared to drive on the river so blatantly.
The engine of the motorboat vibrated slightly under the silencer - this motorboat was originally a lifeboat on the Fengcheng ship, and could accommodate up to twenty-four people and necessary food and drinking water.
Due to limited gasoline, these lifeboats were used for a period of time during the landing, and then sealed. This time they were deliberately re-opened and used - the machinery factory specially manufactured matching silencers.
The night before, they drove this motorboat into Liaoluo Bay. Relying on the gasoline supply in the sheepskin bag towed behind the speedboat, they arrived at Baisha Village at the mouth of the Shijing River that night. And lurk in the local area.
Baisha Village is only six kilometers away from Anping. Even if you sail at an economical speed, you can get there in less than an hour. The propeller stirred the river water, and there was a low sound of waves. Probably because it was quite far away from the land, it was quiet on the shore and not a single sound could be heard.
He glanced at the luminous watch. It was now a quarter past four o'clock and he would arrive in Anping soon. From now on, you have to be as careful as possible - because at this time some people have already gotten up and started to move around.
Of course, even if someone discovers their strange little boat now, it may not necessarily be a threat. The common people will at most have interesting conversations about "spiritual monsters" on the spot, and may not rush to Anping to report it enthusiastically. Even if he was going to report, the motorboat was much faster than them.
The moon in the sky was bright and dark, which made Xue Ziliang habitually feel very nervous - he would rather carry out combat missions on dark cloudy nights. A figure suddenly exposed under the moonlight would often attract fatal bullets. Fortunately, time and space are apart from them. No one can fire threatening bullets from three hundred meters away, nor can they be suddenly shot by machine guns or automatic rifles.
The members of this operation were sitting on the small boat. Each of the twelve members was armed to the teeth. Except for the uniforms and bdu made by Lingao, which were a bit tacky, they were no different from the armed reconnaissance team he had commanded back then. His face was also smeared darkly.
They are equipped with the short barrel of the fal automatic rifle, the carbine type with folding stock, and are also equipped with a machine gun and two shotguns. On the deck in the middle of the boat, something was wrapped in tarpaulin and rope.
On this broad and unobstructed river, the team members were silent. He just looked around anxiously from time to time and listened attentively. The vast river was completely silent, not a single boat was moving, and only a few lonely fishing fires could be seen occasionally. The river water lapped against the hull of the boat, making slight noises.
When the luminous watch on Xue Ziliang's wrist pointed to 4:30. The sound of the motorboat's engine disappeared, the hull slid slowly, and finally stopped. Xue Ziliang carefully observed the scheduled rendezvous point on the river. Use a tactical flashlight to send a light signal to the shore. Once, twice... After the third time, a response light signal lit up from the night on the shore - these were the two walking pioneers he sent last night to guide them to land.
Xue Ziliang whistled softly, piercing the dark night sky. Tell the team members that the landing point has arrived. The team members sitting on both sides picked up the oars and rowed the boat carefully. Xue Ziliang's right hand grasped the engine handle tightly to adjust the speed. Use your left hand to hold the compass as flat as possible in front of your eyes to maintain an accurate angle with the navigation beacon on the shore.
Ten minutes later, Xue Ziliang heard the team member he arranged to lookout at the bow of the boat say "here we are" in a low voice. He quickly looked up: they were already very close to the land: less than 50 meters. At this time the moon was covered by dark clouds. He vaguely saw a black earth embankment directly ahead, with many trees on it. There was a stench of rotting weeds in the air.
The motorboat drifted toward the beach driven by inertia. After a while, there was only a slight friction sound between the bottom of the boat and the beach, and the motorboat ran aground on the beach.
A black figure appeared in front of him. There are phosphorescent identification strips on his chest and back, and he is the team member who came to respond. He gestured. Guide the landing place. Xue Ziliang gently walked around the piled weapons and equipment and walked towards the bow. He stretched out one leg over the side of the ship to explore the river beach, holding the cable in his hand to prevent his feet from getting stuck in the mud. According to prior reconnaissance, the river beach in this area was a mixture of sand and gravel, but he still had to be extremely careful.
In the next five minutes, Xue Ziliang used an infrared telescope to observe whether there was any movement in the direction of Anping. The city was just 500 meters away, facing them across low sand dunes and bushes. But there was silence at the moment, and their arrival did not cause any alarm.
A road extends from Anping and passes about a hundred meters away from the sand dunes.
The team members carefully unloaded the equipment on the boat one by one, and then towed the unloaded motorboat to a shelter behind the sand dunes and fixed it with sharp iron piles and cables to prevent it from being floated by the tide.
Xue Ziliang climbed up the sand dune and observed Anping City with an infrared telescope. This original coastal town was renovated by Zheng Zhilong and became huge. It is surrounded by solid blue stone walls and a towering water gate stands on the river. A 25-kilometer-long stone bridge spans the river connecting Jinjiang and Nan'an counties. It is the famous Anping Bridge.
There are many large and small boats moored on the water around Anping Bridge. Several of them were the three-masted gunboats highlighted by the Intelligence Bureau.
But their target is not these ships - that is the mission of the navy. Their first task was to "behead" the head of the Zheng family and try to kill several of the main leaders of the Zheng family.
It is obviously impossible for them alone to invade Anping, but there are only a few exits in Anping. As long as they control a few access roads, they can effectively snipe the enemy when they escape. Even if they cannot catch them all, at least they can It can also cause significant damage.
He looked at his watch. According to the plan, the detachment controlling the other two roads should have arrived. But so far they have not sent out the required radio signals, which makes him a little anxious.
He turned and ran back down the dune, whispering orders for them to prepare their weapons. The things wrapped in oilcloth were untied. Inside is a small cannon that has been disassembled. The disassembled metal parts have been wrapped in sacks in advance to prevent them from making any noise if they collide.
Under his command, the artillery parts were moved up the sand dunes, followed by the shell boxes one by one. You should open the tool box and start installing. He worked quickly and quietly.
The location of this sand dune was selected based on the results of multiple field reconnaissances. First, it can effectively control the road from Anping to Nan'an. Second, the distance from here to the center of Zheng Zhilong's mansion in Anping Town is only 704 meters. The idea of bombarding the enemy's center directly was tempting. Although the navy's fleet will bring more intense artillery fire to Anping after its arrival, they will not be able to hit the enemy's vital points so accurately.
"The rest is up to you."
"Don't worry, you should worry about the skills of Lin Shenhe and the people in the machine factory." Ying Yu said.
After measuring the position with the compass in his hand, he set the artillery position accurately at the compass point pointed out to him by Xue Ziliang, with the muzzle facing Zheng Zhilong's mansion. Then, he carefully rotated the cannon's screw rod, trying to hit the center of Zheng Zhilong's mansion with the first shot.
As long as a few shells fall into the center of the mansion, the frightening effect caused is enough to make the opponent lose their will to fight - after all, it takes some effort to storm the reinforced city wall of Anping Town, so it would be better to let the enemy escape without fighting.
This time the so-called "Thirty-Two Year Trial Brigade Cannon" designed by Lin Shenhe was used. This artillery was originally designed to provide lightweight artillery support for battalion-level troops, replacing the 12-pound mountain howitzer currently used for this task. Therefore, the weight must be as light as possible, easy to maneuver, less dependent on logistics, capable of supporting large elevation angle launches, and at the same time, a certain shooting accuracy and killing effect must be ensured.
The "Trial 32-year-old brigade gun" is a multi-purpose field gun designed based on this requirement.
This artillery adopts 70mm caliber and adopts rifled breech loading. Although it is not a tube annealing gun, it uses a friction recoil absorption device. Because the gun body is lighter, the recoil absorption efficiency is higher. The rate of fire is greatly improved.
In order to reduce the weight of the rapid-fire gun, the barrel length is appropriately shortened. The ammunition types used are mainly low-pressure grenades and shrapnel. The shells use separate metal cartridges to match the vertical wedge breech used in the artillery. The vertical wedge breech is easy to load quickly at large elevation angles, and can take into account productivity and weapon performance at the current industrial level - the wedge breech has a simpler structure than the screw breech, is simple and fast to operate, and is safer.
Because of the rifled structure, the decrease in accuracy and muzzle velocity caused by shortening the barrel length can be compensated. However, considering that the pointed cylindrical shells fired by the rifled gun cannot bounce, solid shells are no longer used.
While reducing the weight of the gun body, the shooting elevation angle of the rapid-fire gun has been greatly increased - up to 80 degrees, and it has a certain degree of deflection capability.
Roughly speaking, this is a copycat version of the Japanese 92 Infantry Cannon. However, due to limitations in materials and craftsmanship, the size and weight of the artillery are larger than those of the 92 Infantry Cannon.
