After finishing the errand, Zaiying was about to return by boat. Li Hongzhang led Zhang Peilun and others to the dock to see off his farewell, but Bao Chao was still unwilling to give in, "When the battle is over, I, Lao Bao, will return to Beijing and I will be drunk with you until I finish it!"

Zaiying knew that it was not easy to get Bao Chao to take the initiative to invite him to drink, which means he had been liked by the other party. "Don't worry, although I can't drink, I will definitely sacrifice my life to accompany the gentleman when I ask for it!" He said, "There are also Hu Junmen and generals, come together!"

"Ha!" Bao Chao smiled with a big mouth, "Also, please pay more attention to Yang Naiwu's case. We have to wait for you to tell us the next story!"

"Absolute, certain." Zaiying bowed with her fists and saw that time had arrived. She turned around and boarded the boat along the gangway, waved her hand on the deck, and a whistle passed by, and the ship slowly left the port and drove into the sea.

Everyone turned back to the temporary office and prepared to set off immediately, return to their respective war zones, and continue fighting against Japan. However, Li Hongzhang kept everyone, "Chunting, Lao Hu, you two are leading generals, do you know what the soldiers in the army are now... well, do you need to find?"

This sentence was unclear, which surprised Zhang Peilun. Why did he suddenly ask about this? Bao Chao and Hu Xiaomao were also stunned, "I don't understand what the Grand Marshal said."

"I mean, outside of the war, when soldiers are free and unconscious, what words are there to express what is happening... more hope?"

Bao Chao and Hu Xiaomao have been leading the army for many years, so they naturally know what the soldiers have to say, but many of them cannot be reposted to Li Hongzhang, so they had to answer vaguely, "I haven't heard of this. However, many people miss home, hoping to finish the war earlier and go home earlier."

"Well, um. Is there anything else?" Li Hongzhang waved his hand vigorously and said loudly, "There is no one else today. You and I were ordered by the emperor to lead the army. What kind of friendship is important? You can speak freely without any taboos."

Bao Chao and Hu Xiaomao both felt that his attitude was a little strange, "Well, that's probably the case, there's nothing else."

Li Hongzhang was silent for a moment, "Then, that's it, you all go."

Seeing everyone leaving Zhang Peilun and stood up, "Uncle Shi, what's wrong?"

"The emperor has an imperial edict to me." Li Hongzhang said in a daze, took out the imperial edict and handed it to him. After seeing it, the latter was stunned, "What does the emperor mean?"

"I thought about it in the middle of the night before I guessed a rough idea."

The generals of the provinces who were urgently recruited from the front line of the war zone began to return. Bao Chao led the way through sorghum, Luohe, Tsuyama, Nankong to Himeji; Hu Xiaomao's way through Kurashiki, Tamano, Yoshinaga, Akaho, Kakogawa to Himeji. However, before the Battle of Himeji began, the battle was temporarily stopped, and everyone let the troops start resting and waiting for further life.

The combat situation this time was very serious. The last obstacle before the Himeji Qing army attacked Kobe, the Japanese army hoarded heavy troops in these two places. Not to mention Kobe, there were no less than 80,000 Japanese troops outside the inner city of Himeji City alone! Except for one tenth of these people, the rest were the first and second reserve troops and a large number of national troops temporarily recruited by the government.

The Japanese government issued a national mobilization order early. Seeing that the war situation is getting bigger and bigger, this is naturally an appropriate choice. However, the recruited soldiers are full of enthusiasm for killing enemies and serving the country. As for how many skilled tactics they can have and how loud guns and cannons they will not be heard on the battlefield, and when they see the blood-flowing bodies of comrades and compatriots in their eyes, no one can be sure of it... In view of this, the Japanese Ministry of War had to make a very difficult choice, from a large number of dispatched lieutenant-level officers from various established divisions to fill these newly formed troops, hoping to use the existence of these people to stabilize the morale of the army.

Outside Himeji Castle, Wang Binglin and Hu Feng rode on horseback, walking on one side of the road. On the official road beside them were Japanese people arrested from outside the city, as well as animal, poultry and food swept from the people's homes. "Lao Hu, have you discovered it? The Japanese are really strange. Seeing that we are coming, they didn't know how to hide into the city, and guarded their homes until the soldiers broke into the door and captured all the prisoners?"

"It may not be that my hometown is hard to leave. I think these people probably know that even if they enter the city, they will not be able to escape. Instead, they are not as good as staying at home. Maybe they are still thinking, the Chinese may not care about the lives and deaths of these ordinary people?"

Wang Binglin sighed speechlessly and asked, "Have you seen it in front of the mountain these days?"

"I've seen it." Hu Feng replied, "It's difficult for the Japanese army to defend themselves by danger. Moreover, the outer positions of Himeji Castle were obviously planned by experts and there were no defensive corners. It was very difficult for us to attack. There is no need to mention that after the high ground outside the city, there is also the enemy's deep defense line, which is a total of twelve kilometers!"

"This is normal. Compared with Himeji Castle, Kobe has no obstacles. Therefore, if the Japanese want to complete the heavy responsibility of blocking here, they naturally invested heavily.

Hu Feng nodded frequently, "Oh, do you know how many days does the military gate come back?"

"It's only within one or two days." Wang Binglin agreed casually, twisting his body from the moment he looked back, "After this battle, I don't know how many brothers can continue to move to Kobe with us."

"Don't whine. Don't talk about brothers, even if we two are the two of us, we will be fine if we can meet at that time!"

Wang Binglin smiled bitterly and nodded, "What you said is, let's all settle for your destiny! Brothers, move forward quickly!"

At the 3rd of September, the main force of the Qing army, more than 75,000 troops, began to attack the highland stationed in Himeji Castle, called Jiusheng Mountain. A cold and crescent moon stared at the fierce battle on earth.

Before the Qing army attacked, as usual, a round of artillery fire was fired. In the dark night, the fire from the shells was extremely bright. The trees and yellow grass that were ignited by it provided lighting for the soldiers of the two countries. After nearly half an hour of artillery attack, the Qing army began to go up the mountain road, and the hidden fire points of the Japanese army immediately showed their might, pouring fire on the attacking enemies.

Fang Weikai, Zhang, Zhang Yong, Guozhi, and Xia Yunxiu rushed towards the front, and the scorching and sharp whistling bullets were flying towards him. The soldiers around him fell to the ground continuously. Fang Weikai grabbed a soldier who wanted to bend down to save his comrades and pushed him forward hard, "He has someone to take care of him, and I won't use you!"

"And you, don't stop!" He roared, bent his knees and knelt down, put his rifle on his shoulder, and shot a fierce shot at a hidden shooting point of an enemy army in the distance. He shot all the bullets and replaced them with a row of magazines. He looked at the results after the shooting, and gritted his teeth and scolded, "Damn it! I didn't hit it!"

The light rifle in the shooting hole emitted a dazzling flame, the muzzle was bouncing, and the shell that jumped out with blue smoke seemed to be clearly visible. "Give it? Give me a cover, I will take people up, and solve the firepower point in front of me first!"

The word "Guozhi" was a bannerman. He agreed and waved his hand back hard. "Sixth Battalion, lie down and cover fire!" A battalion soldier lay down on the spot, picked up his rifle and started firing at the fire point of the enemy's opponent. Hundreds of rifles fired at the same time, and immediately had an effect. The mound in front of the Japanese fire point was beaten to dust, even the Japanese army's sight inside was blocked.

A corps of the Japanese National Army, who was defending the east side, was responsible for the defense of a fire point. He was led by a lieutenant named Bai Gu. He was originally a lieutenant of an engineer brigade of the Japanese Second Division. Later, the Ministry of War ordered the filling of lieutenant-level officers at all levels into the National Army. He was also one of them. Before being transferred, he and other colleagues were promoted to the second level and became the major.

The lurking places on Jiusheng Mountain were all arranged early before the war, but the ground was turned into a world of heaven and earth. These sixty fire points were connected, and they could complete the movement of troops underground without having to walk out of the ground. The white bones were coming around from a corner, and a few soldiers left the battle position, bent down to cough violently, and some reached out to touch them, took down the kettle hanging around their waists to drink water. But it was a position where someone should be defended, but it was empty.

This shocked and angry, "Bastard! What are you doing? Are you going to let the Chinese come up?" Bai Gu pushed the soldiers away with one hand and rushed to the shooting hole. The dust gradually dissipated. You could see several Qing army assault soldiers moving quickly towards their own direction. "Damn it!" Bai Gu didn't bother to curse these soldiers who left their post without permission, picked up the scattered rifles, and first shot, "Dadadadadadadadadadadadada!"

The Qing army in the dark outside fell a few times, with a narrow vision and no bones could see the effect. Lower the rifle, turned around and shouted, "Get into your combat position quickly, you idiots!"

"Oh!" He scolded a group of newly joined National Army soldiers who were around thirty years old and the younger ones were no more than twenty years old, and scolded the superiors. In the past month, they had already been accustomed to them, and walked quickly past him with their heads down and entered their own position, holding up the body of the rifle.

Fang Weikai led the soldiers to attack for the first time and was frustrated. He fired the opponent a bullet like a rainstorm and injured several people. However, he was not worried but happy. However, the battle at this moment made him clearly feel that the Japanese army in the firepower point was not enough to fight in language!

This is a very strange intuition. Although he was unable to take a look inside in person, he could also realize that when the Japanese army was supporting and covering the support of the troops under the ruling army, the firepower suddenly stopped for a moment. If there was only one firepower point, it could be explained by the shooting player being killed or disabled. However, the firepower in multiple consecutive positions was interrupted at the same time, and things were not that simple.

This gave him a glimmer of enlightenment: most of the Japanese waiting here seemed to be new recruits who were just starting to fight. Seeing the enemy's firepower fiercely, they were all panicked! Even the minimum combat quality could not be preserved!

Fang Weikai curled up and returned to the area he controlled along the slope of the mountain. He told Guozhi, Zhang, Zhang Yong, Xia Yunxiu and others about his feelings. Guozhi was the only one present during the battle just now, and the remaining three people were unknown, "Is there such a thing? Then what do you want to do?"

"I want to try another attack. If I guess wrong, I will launch a fierce attack in one go, even if there are some casualties. If I guess, then we can reduce the casualties of our brothers and successfully take this position."

"Then, there is no need for Lao Fang to come on this time," Zhang Yong said, "I'll take people up and take a look." After that, without waiting for others to speak, Guan Zi led the troops to separate the grass and climb upwards.

It was still Guozhi who served as the cover and support, and there were still another violent launch of bullets. A fire point in the tunnel was shooting everywhere. At the same time, a Japanese soldier was hit by a stray bullet and fell to the ground with screams. After all, these people were not regular troops. After all, they were shocked and then severe pain came. They suddenly thought they could not survive. They screamed in fear. The sound was so tragic that even the Qing soldiers outside could hear it, but they just couldn't understand what they were calling. "Help! I'm going to... die! Save me!"

The other soldiers were even more panicked when they were infected with this, and their guns jumped back and forth, and they didn't know where the bullets were hit. There was only one bone and a very small number of soldiers recruited from the army, which was almost impossible to have a stable command role. Instead, more and more soldiers joined the chaotic camp and became even more panicked.

Bai Gu had no choice but to pull out the pistol from his waist, and shot a soldier who was injured and bleeding, fell to the ground but shouted, "Shut up! Go back to your combat position!"

This aroused public anger, "What are you doing? He is injured! You bastard!"

"Shut up." Bai Gu's eyes suddenly saw a hand reaching out from the shooting hole, holding a fire grenade in his hand. He jumped forward and reached down. He just held the fire grenade in his hand, but before he could throw it out, the fire grenade exploded in his hand! With a loud bang, Bai Gu's thin body was lifted up by the huge air wave, and it hit a wall facing the fire point. When it fell down, it knocked over the bullet box under the base of the wall. Golden bullets were scattered everywhere, and people could see that they were no longer alive.

The bomb exploded in a small space. Although the white bones bear most of the impact force, the part that was scattered was difficult to support. The Japanese soldiers became rolling gourds. They finally got up and looked at the place where the white bones fell. His chest and neck were exploded by shrapnel, and blood was flowing all over his body, but his face was charred and he could not see his original appearance at all!

Everyone was moved in surprise! This guy has always been mean to others. He was afraid that everyone would die during training and tried every means to destroy everyone. It turned out that when he was facing life and death, he realized that he was protecting himself like this? The soldiers felt a sense of roar and grabbed their weapons and prepared to return to the battle post. However, before he could take a few steps, a few more fire grenades were thrown in from outside, "Oh, it's a bomb!"

Without waiting for a few people to dodge, the fire grenade exploded with a loud bang. The huge impact force even the rocks on the top of the cave were blown down. After a rumbling roar of dust, a fire point was completely buried!

The Qing army cheered, but it was limited to the darkness of the night. There was no way to find the collapsed rocks. There was another tunnel to go out to Yanzhong on the right. Otherwise, if you lead troops to attack from here, the results of the battle would be different.


Chapter completed!