Chapter 1243 - Beneath Anping City
Two hours before the First Fleet broke into Liaoluo Bay, Xue Ziliang and his detachment were making their way quietly up the Shijing River.
It was 0400 hours—the darkest stretch before dawn. But Xue Ziliang dared not let his guard down. The moon was far too bright. Were it not for the heavy cloud cover tonight, he would never have risked traveling so openly on the water.
The motorboat's engine vibrated faintly beneath its muffler. This craft was originally a lifeboat from the Fengcheng, with capacity for up to twenty-four men plus necessary rations and water.
Limited gasoline supplies had forced these lifeboats into extended mothballing after the initial landing period. They had been specially unsealed for this operation, and the Machinery Department had manufactured matching mufflers.
The previous night, they had taken this motorboat into Liaoluo Bay. Towing gasoline in goat-skin bladders behind the speedboat, they had reached Baisha Village at the mouth of the Shijing River and hidden themselves there.
Baisha Village lay only six kilometers from Anping. Even traveling at economical speed, they would arrive in under an hour. The propeller churned the water, sending up a low spray. Perhaps because they were some distance from shore, everything remained quiet—not a sound carried from land.
Xue Ziliang glanced at his luminous watch. Just past quarter past four. They would reach Anping soon. From here on, every step had to be as careful as possible—around this time, some early risers would begin to stir.
Of course, even if someone spotted their strange little boat now, it would not necessarily pose a threat. Common carriers would at most treat it as a "strange tale" or interesting gossip; they were unlikely to run enthusiastically to Anping to report it. And even if they tried, the motorboat's speed far outpaced any local vessel.
The moon dimmed and brightened as clouds drifted past, keeping Xue Ziliang habitually on edge. He preferred executing combat missions on pitch-black, cloudy nights. A silhouette exposed under moonlight often invited fatal bullets.
Fortunately, in this time and place, no one else could fire a threatening round from three hundred meters away. Nor would they encounter sudden strafing from machine guns or automatic rifles.
The team members sat silent in the small boat—armed to the teeth. Beyond their locally-made uniforms and BDUs, which were somewhat rustic, they were no different from the Force Recon unit he had once commanded. Their faces were blackened with camouflage paint.
They carried the FAL automatic rifle in its short-barreled, folding-stock carbine configuration, supplemented by one machine gun and two shotguns. In the center of the deck, something lay wrapped in canvas and rope.
On this broad and unobstructed river, the team remained silent, only glancing around anxiously from time to time, listening intently. The wide surface was devoid of activity. Only a few lonely fishing lights flickered in the distance. The river lapped gently against the hull.
When the luminous dial on Xue Ziliang's wrist reached 0430, the engine fell silent. The hull glided forward, slowing, and finally stopped. Xue Ziliang studied the pre-arranged rendezvous point on the river. He signaled the shore with a tactical flashlight—once, twice, then a third time. A responding light blinked from the darkness on land: the two foot-mobile pathfinders he had sent out the night before, responsible for guiding them ashore.
Xue Ziliang gave a soft whistle that cut through the dark, signaling the team that the landing point was reached. The men seated along both gunwales took up paddles and began rowing carefully. Xue Ziliang held the engine handle with his right hand to adjust speed; his left gripped the compass, held as level as possible before his eyes to maintain an accurate bearing with the navigation beacon on shore.
Ten minutes later, the lookout at the bow whispered, "We're here."
Xue Ziliang looked up. They were very close to land—less than fifty meters. Clouds had obscured the moon; he could just make out a black earthen embankment ahead, lined with trees. The air carried a stench of rotting water weeds.
Driven by inertia, the motorboat drifted toward the beachhead. Before long came a slight scraping sound as the hull ran aground on sand.
A black figure appeared before them. Phosphorescent recognition strips glowed on his chest and back—it was the team member coming to meet them. He gestured, guiding them to the landing spot.
Xue Ziliang tiptoed around the piled weapons and equipment, making his way to the bow. He extended one leg over the gunwale to test the riverbank, gripping a cable to prevent his foot from sinking into mud. According to prior reconnaissance, the beach here was a sand-gravel mix, but he still proceeded with extreme caution.
Over the next five minutes, Xue Ziliang observed the direction of Anping through infrared binoculars. The city lay five hundred meters away, separated from them by low sand dunes and brush. At this hour, all was silent there. Their arrival had not aroused any alarm.
A road extended from Anping, passing roughly one hundred meters from the dunes.
The team members carefully unloaded their equipment piece by piece, then dragged the empty motorboat behind the sand dunes and concealed it. Sharp iron stakes and cables fixed it in place to prevent it from drifting away with the tide.
Xue Ziliang climbed the dune and trained his infrared binoculars on Anping.
The town, once a modest coastal settlement, had been rebuilt by Zheng Zhilong into something far grander. Sturdy bluestone walls encircled it. A towering water gate loomed over the river. The famous Anping Bridge—a stone slab span 2.5 kilometers long—stretched across the water, linking Jinjiang and Nan'an counties.
Around the bridge, ships of all sizes lay at anchor. Among them were several of the three-masted gunships the Intelligence Bureau had flagged.
But these vessels were not their target—that was the Navy's task. Their primary mission was to "decapitate" the Zheng family leadership: to kill as many key figures as possible.
With only a handful of men, storming Anping was obviously out of the question. But the town had only a few exits. Control a handful of access roads, and they could effectively snipe enemy leaders when they fled. Even if they could not catch them all, they could still inflict heavy casualties.
He checked his watch. According to the plan, the detachments covering the other two roads should have arrived by now. But so far, they had not transmitted the prescribed radio signal—a fact that made him anxious.
He turned and ran back down the dune, whispering orders to prepare weapons. The canvas-wrapped object was untied, revealing a small cannon in disassembled sections. The metal parts had been wrapped beforehand in gunny sacks to prevent noise in the event of collision.
Under his command, the team carried the cannon components up the dune, followed by ammo boxes. Ying Yu opened the toolbox and began assembly. He worked swiftly and silently.
The position on this dune had been selected based on multiple on-site reconnaissances. First, it offered effective control of the road from Anping to Nan'an. Second, the distance from here to the center of Zheng Zhilong's residence within Anping Town was only 704 meters. The prospect of shelling the enemy's nerve center directly was deeply tempting. Though the Navy fleet's arrival would bring a far fiercer baptism of artillery fire to Anping, none of those guns could strike the enemy's vitals so precisely.
"It's up to you now," Xue Ziliang said.
"Don't worry," Ying Yu replied. "Worry about Lin Shenhe and the Machinery Factory crew's craftsmanship instead."
He measured the bearing with the compass in his hand, then set the artillery position precisely on the azimuth Xue Ziliang indicated. The muzzle pointed straight at Zheng Zhilong's residence.
Carefully, he rotated the elevation screw, striving to hit the center of the residence with the first shot.
A few shells landing in the heart of that compound would generate shock enough to strip the enemy of all will to fight. After all, storming Anping's reinforced walls would require effort; inducing the enemy to flee without a fight was the ideal outcome.
The weapon they were using was the so-called "Trial Year 32 Battalion Gun," designed by Lin Shenhe. Its intent was to provide lightweight artillery support at the battalion level, replacing the twelve-pounder mountain howitzers currently fulfilling that role. Accordingly, weight had to be minimized for mobility, logistical dependence kept low, high-angle fire capability ensured, and a certain degree of accuracy and lethality maintained.
The Trial Year 32 Battalion Gun was a multi-purpose field gun designed to meet these requirements.
It employed a 70mm caliber, rifled breech-loader. Though not a true recoil-operated gun, it featured a friction-type recoil absorption device. Because the gun body was light, recoil absorption efficiency was relatively high, and rate of fire was greatly improved.
To reduce weight, the barrel had been appropriately shortened. Ammunition consisted primarily of low-chamber-pressure high-explosive shells and shrapnel. Shells used separate-loading metal cartridge cases to mate with the vertical sliding wedge breech block. This block design facilitated rapid loading at high elevation angles and balanced productivity under current industrial constraints with weapon performance—wedge blocks were simpler in structure than screw breech blocks, simpler and faster to operate, and safer.
Because of its rifled construction, the loss in accuracy and muzzle velocity from the shortened barrel could be compensated. But since pointed cylindrical shells fired by rifled guns could not ricochet, solid shot was no longer issued.
While reducing overall weight, the gun's maximum elevation angle increased significantly—up to eighty degrees—granting it a measure of curved-fire capability.
Roughly speaking, it was a knockoff of the Japanese Type 92 Battalion Gun. Limited by materials and craftsmanship, however, its dimensions and weight exceeded those of the original.
(End of Chapter)