Fukangan received the report from his scouts, an hour after Ding Guofeng and the others had evacuated.
After personally listening to detailed reports from several forward teams, he decided to continue sending scouts to the front line of Sikhet Mountain tomorrow morning to investigate the situation at the mouth of the Sila River.
"We need to find out the true identity of the bandits!" Fukangan pointed at the map and said. "What we want is total annihilation in one battle. Once the enemy is alerted, the E people will face endless troubles whether they retreat to the sea or escape into the mountains and forests!"
Then he said to Liu Linhan and the two envoys who were on the side: "You will stay in the army and wait for news for the time being, and we will make a decision tomorrow!"
It was already late at night when Ding Guofeng and the four of them carefully retreated all the way to Beihai Town.
After returning to the camp, Ding Guofeng quickly informed Liu Sheng and Wang Yuanfang of the Qing army's movements. Soon, Zhao Xin, Wu Siyu, Deng Fei and Zhao Liang on board the Thor also knew.
More than half an hour later, Zhao Xin and Wu Siyu arrived at the preset position with flashlights.
"Stop! Password!"
After some password questions and answers, Zhao Xin met Liu Sheng and others.
This is located on the west side of the camp, outside the entrance to a valley at the southeastern foothills of Sikhet Mountain, with a wide view all around. A month ago, the logging team led by Chen Qingsong had cut down all the large trees here; they originally planned to cultivate farmland.
However, after Wang Yuanfang looked at the terrain here, he asked Chen Qingsong not to cultivate it for the time being. Because whether it is a beast or a local aboriginal, it is possible to come down from here and attack the camp. So Chen Qingsong took Wan Zao, Shiosuke and others to dig a ditch three meters deep, two meters wide and hundreds of meters long. First, it was temporarily used to guard against ferocious beasts; second, it could be used for irrigation in the future. Aqueduct. I ended up using it today!
Five hundred soldiers holding SKS were currently guarding behind the mound on the southeast side of the ditch. A sudden light rain fell in the afternoon and continued until late at night, freezing the soldiers to death. Liu Sheng also urgently arranged for people to take cotton coats from the warehouse and put them on the soldiers.
As for the remaining 1,500 recruits, since they had not yet started shooting training, Zhao Xin and others discussed and asked these people to go to the east bank of the Xila River and temporarily put them under the command of Chen Qingsong and Katayama Kanbei to avoid causing chaos. .
The five people found a quiet place and held an emergency meeting to discuss the next step.
"I don't think this works. It makes us too passive!" Wang Yuanfang said first.
"Yeah, I was careless! I forgot about the scouts! I almost took action." Ding Guofeng said with lingering fear.
Liu Sheng sighed and said: "It seems that the Qing soldiers outside the pass are not stupid. Let's just wait like this. What will we do tomorrow?"
Zhao Xin didn't speak for a long time. He looked up at the dark mountains and said slowly: "I panicked before, and I thought about it. We can't wait for the Qing soldiers to come, otherwise our true and false will be exposed. If the mountains don't come, it's me. , I'll just go for it! The old way, just kick the door down!"
Ding Guofeng said hesitantly: "The mountain road is really difficult to walk at night. Hundreds of us will definitely be exposed if we act together. If there are casualties..."
Liu Sheng interrupted: "What you said, how can there be no casualties in a war!"
Wu Siyu asked: "Mr. Zhao, tell me what you think?"
Zhao Xin thought for a while and then said slowly: "We have all evacuated to the other side. This night will definitely be uncomfortable. What if the Qing soldiers don't come tomorrow? Will we continue to stay there for another day?"
It was so dark and it was still raining lightly. I felt that even if the Qing scouts came at night, they would wait until dawn in the morning to start their reconnaissance. At this stage, it makes no sense for us to engage in those fictitious and real things.
Ding Guofeng, you and Serdan continue to play forward. It is now 11:30 at night. You set out at 1 in the morning. You don't need to take a detour and go straight to the Qing army's camp. It is better to go slowly than to go too fast along the way. If you encounter Qing army scouts, kill them directly.
Brother Wang, you and Wu Siyu led the team and followed Ding Guofeng and the others. After arriving there, there is no need to attack the Qing army camp immediately, just ambush in the surrounding mountains. You are the commander, you decide what to do.
Lao Liu, come back to the ship with me. We still have to attack from the sea! Now the Thor is our biggest support. It is not far from our place to the bay where the Qing army landed, it can be reached in two hours. "
Wang Yuanfang said excitedly at this time: "When you launch an attack, I will initiate cooperation."
Zhao Xin nodded and said: "That's what I mean. We have too many things to do now, and we don't have time to spend time with Manqing. After this fight, I guess I can be clean for a while. Our area is all virgin forest, and there are no roads at all. If the Manchus want to send troops over again, the long supply line will kill them."
Wu Siyu said: "How do you say this?"
In the dark night, Zhao Xin grinned and explained: "This is outside the customs. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties do not allow Han people to leave the customs. When the time comes for a large number of logistics and transportation teams, do you think they will use Han people as civilian husbands? These will be enough for the Manchu and Qing Dynasties. The court had a headache.
It is already the beginning of the sixth lunar month. It will start to snow here in September. If they want to attack us again, it won't be until next spring. Moreover, according to historical records, Qianlong is currently deploying troops in the northwest. He cannot launch two wars at the same time. "
Liu Sheng and the other four thought for a while and agreed with Zhao Xin's point of view. However, considering that there were only thirty sailors on the Thor, Wang Yuan decided to dispatch a company to accompany the ship.
In the summer in the outer Northeast, the sky will be dark at six o'clock in the morning, and the sun will rise at seven o'clock. So several people set the time for the Thor's attack to be six in the morning.
At twelve o'clock at night, the five hundred soldiers began to eat in batches.
Yaichiro has been sitting there since dinner, and his stomach has long been growling with hunger. After he led others to get the supper and distributed it to the soldiers in the platoon, he was just about to sit down and eat when Lian Jiuzang came to look for him.
"Mr. Yaichi, have the entire platoon assemble!"
"Company commander, what happened?"
"Let's get on board!"
Get on board? Yachiro was stunned for a moment, and then his heart became happy. Good to get on board! No more lying here in the cold. He didn't even bother to eat the midnight snack and immediately summoned his men to gather.
The 110 people gathered quickly. Before Zhao Xin took the people away, he began to compare watches with others.
"It's twelve thirty-one now, the action will begin in twenty-nine minutes!"
At one o'clock in the night, Ding Guofeng, father and son Serdan, and Hengji set off on time. This time, in addition to bows and arrows, the three Serdans each received a pistol equipped with a silencer. Their route this time was to go all the way west to the western foot of Sikhet Mountain. There was no need to go around the mountain road to the north, so they had to find a new road.
The four of them had to stop for a moment every 20 minutes while traveling and listen carefully to their surroundings. Sometimes I stay for 10 minutes, sometimes I leave after 7 or 8 minutes. Among the four, Hengji's archery skills were average, so Ding Guofeng asked him to shuttle between the two teams to prevent Wang Yuanfang and the others from getting lost.
Half an hour later, the rain had stopped, and the moonlight shone through the clouds in the mountains and forests, appearing and disappearing.
Wang Yuanfang and Wu Siyu immediately led four companies of soldiers to set off, following the traces left by Ding Guofeng and others into the mountains and forests.
The main problem with marching at night is poor visibility. Although it is beneficial to the concealment of the army and the achievement of sudden tactical goals, it also brings a lot of inconvenience to observation, command, and communication. It is difficult to organize the organization, coordination and combat support of the troops, and it is difficult to fully exert the tactical performance, and it has a certain impact on the psychological state of the personnel.
In order to avoid making noise, everyone was holding a makeshift "bite" in their mouths. The leader of the team was Hu Ji, who grew up in the mountains of the island nation. Wang Yuanfang and Wu Siyu walked one in the team and one at the back to prevent the soldiers from falling behind.
After Huji led the team into the forest, he could hardly see his fingers. Soon, Wang Yuanfang, who received the report, had to ask every ten people in the queue to turn on their flashlights to illuminate the road.
The soldiers formed a long column in company units. All everyone had to do was follow the person in front closely and stare at the light of the flashlight. During Wang Yuanfang's daily training, in order to prevent the occurrence of night blindness, the soldiers had eggs, carrots and animal livers in their meals every day. But even so, because the road in the mountains was rugged and difficult, with one foot deep and one foot shallow, the team moved forward very slowly. After walking for more than an hour, we had only advanced five miles.
Fortunately, the distance is only more than twenty miles away. If it were a long-distance march, it would be a disaster!
Wang Yuanfang secretly decided that after this battle, night training must be popularized throughout the army, and night training time must account for more than one-third of the total training time. As a veteran, tradition cannot be lost!
At half past three, the Thor slowly left the dock under the operation of Deng Fei. Because you are already very familiar with the nearby sea conditions, you don’t have to worry even if you are sailing in the dark. An hour later, the Thor had rounded the peninsula on the southwest side of the bay.
This place is more than 35 kilometers away from the bay where the North Korean navy is anchored at Solengi Island, and the ship's navigation radar cannot detect it at all. Therefore, Zhao Xin and others did not know that there was a fleet of two thousand people behind them.
At five o'clock, the Thor, which was sailing slowly northward, finally stopped on the ocean three kilometers away from the Qing fleet. The drone with a thermal imaging gimbal rose from the compass deck, and after reaching an altitude of 500 meters, it flew over the Qing fleet at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour.
Two minutes later, Zhao Xin and others in the cockpit saw the scene in the bay. Dozens of Qing army sloops were parked quietly in the bay.
The Manchu and Qing warships outside the customs were all inland river ships, built by the shipyard in Wula, Jilin. Because of the conquest of Yaksa during the Kangxi period, these ships were also called "Yaksa warships".
The length of the Yaksa warship is 20 meters, the deck is four meters wide, the depth is two meters, and the draft is 1.2 meters; the displacement of the warship is 52.8 tons. The shape of the warship is a flat bottom, square bow and square stern, and both the bow and stern are raised to adapt to wind and waves. The mast height is 15 meters and the sail area is 65 square meters. There are two sterns at the stern of the ship, which are more than six meters long.
There are a total of sixteen oars on both sides of the ship. The oars are 4.45 meters long. When sailing, the sailors row in a standing position; this is also a traditional habit in the Northeast region. This design allows the warship to have good maneuverability under windless conditions.
Judging from the footage returned by the drone, each warship has one or two artillery pieces at the bow. Because it was dark, I couldn't see clearly what shape it was.
Around these Yaksa warships, there are also many small wooden boats parked, which look like fishing boats.
The drone flew further north, and there was the Qing army's camp two miles away.
At this time, people had begun to move around in the camp. The soldiers and civilians preparing breakfast were all busy. The bonfire and smoke from the stove were very obvious in the black and white thermal imaging field of view.
The soldiers of the Qing army lived in ordinary rectangular and low tents. In the center of the camp, two tents that were obviously different from the others caught the attention of Zhao Xin and others.
"This should be where the general lives. Can it be hit with cannon?"
"It's embarrassing. We are not familiar with the terrain here. It's hard to calculate just from the drone. Besides, Wang Yuanfang and the others are ambushing around. Let's not cause accidental damage!"
"Stop worrying, kill all the wooden boats first!"
