"Liu Shi, you take the gunboat upstream and place all the mines we brought into the river, and arrange them sparsely." Bao Youzhi said to a naval officer under his command.
"Yes, Commander."
The purpose of deploying mines now is not to kill a large number of Russians, but to slow down their speed. Therefore, Bao Youzhi asked Liu Shi to arrange them sparsely, just to make it more difficult for the Russians to clear mines.
In addition, the mines of this era were not very reliable, and Bao Youzhi did not expect how much damage these mines could cause.
Besides, the Tsarist Russians are now all small boats, so even if a few are blown up, the loss will not be too great.
But with the presence of mines, these Tsarist Russians must devote their energy to clearing mines, and the speed will definitely not be as fast as before.
After Bao Youzhi arranged it, he tapped the tabletop gently with his index finger, making a rhythmic sound, and fell into thinking again.
Before the Russians come, his fleet must retreat downstream.
According to the plan, the fleet will enter the Ussuri River and lurk behind Khabarovsk, waiting for the opportunity to cut off the Russians' retreat.
Since the Russians want to attack Temple Street, they will not have the energy to explore the Ussuri River. Now is the flood season, and the open river surface makes it easy to hide ships.
But what should these people do?
Now that someone finally came forward to speak out, everyone started to panic.
Talkers from various villages soon gathered in Xujiatun.
"Guanshi Bao!"
"Guanshi Bao!"
…
Talkers from various villages who usually ignored Bao Youzhi all came around to say hello to Bao Youzhi.
They only knew that Bao Youzhi and his group belonged to a large business firm, so they called Bao Youzhi Guanshi Bao.
They had a bad attitude towards people like Bao Youzhi before because Bao Youzhi gave the shipping agency rights to Xujiatun and did not get any benefits from them, so some people were resentful.
Now that it was a matter of life and death, these people had no choice but to come and grab Bao Youzhi's life-saving straw, and their faces immediately changed.
"Everyone, time is urgent now. Those Rakshasa people are sweeping over from upstream like locusts."
"Everywhere they went, the men were killed, and the women were reduced to tools for their venting. I believe that no man would want his people to fall to this point."
"My people came by boat. If it weren't for the sake of our compatriots, we would have left by boat now. There is no need to risk our lives to stay."
Bao Youzhi said unceremoniously. The faces of the people talking below all became solemn at this time.
Before a crisis comes, people will always have a sense of luck in their hearts.
Even after hearing the stories of the refugees upriver, these people still did not have that sense of crisis in their hearts just now.
"Manager Bao, whatever you say, we will listen to you."
"Everyone, the main target of these Russians is Temple Street downstream, where we have 20,000 troops waiting for them."
"To be honest, we are the army of the Liangjiang Governor-General's Office. The reason why we are here is because we can't stand the Russians occupying our land and bullying our people."
In the past, Huai Haijun concealed his identity in the middle and upper reaches of Heilongjiang in order to confuse the Qing court. But now that it is here, there is no way to hide his strength anymore, so Bao Youzhi simply revealed his identity and was able to calm everyone present.
"Master Bao."
Sure enough, everyone quickly changed their minds after hearing this. Although Bao Youzhi's clothes were different from those of the officials in the northeast, they must have been like this for the officials in the south.
These people have lived among the white mountains and black waters for a long time, and have never gone out at all. They are not so fussy about the strange people and strange things outside, and just pretend that they have no knowledge.
Everyone can understand as soon as they think about it. It is not something that any caravan can do to pull out tens of thousands of troops.
At this time, Bao Youzhi said that he was a subordinate of the Liangjiang Governor's Mansion, and everyone felt that it was more true.
"Sir, please give your orders. This Heilongjiang general will not care about you anymore. We will follow you from now on." A family talker said.
Everyone also followed suit.
"Now our fleet can only make one trip and cannot take away all the people. What I mean is to move all the women and children away first."
Everyone agreed on this point, and even if anyone had an opinion, he would not dare to raise it. If he gave up at this time, he would definitely be thrown out by everyone.
"After the fleet leaves, I will stay with the soldiers and horses on the ship. I will lead everyone to find a place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack and hide. When the Russians see that the village is empty, they will definitely send out a search team."
"It's enough that they can't find us by then. If we are discovered by the Russian search team, we will inevitably have to fight a defensive battle."
"The question now is, are there any villages that are far away from the river and are easy to defend and difficult to attack?"
Bao Youzhi told him his plan and finally asked a question.
"Sir, our Daur people's village is farthest from the river. And we have to climb a mountain. I wonder if it meets your requirements?"
A dark-skinned, short and stocky middle-aged Daur man stood up and said that his appearance was somewhat different from that of the Han people, but his tone of voice was exactly the same.
It may be that they have been assimilated by living together with the Han people for a long time.
"Very good, brother, let's go to your village. What's your name?"
"I'm Mozhidenghara. Sir, just call me Mozhideng."
"Okay, Brother Mozhideng, I will send some people back with you first. They will find a place to set up positions around your village. I need your tribe to assist them."
"Sir, it's no problem. As long as it's for everyone's safety, we can do whatever you ask us to do."
"Okay, everyone, time is limited. I have sent troops to the upper reaches to try to delay the Rakshasa people, but the time that can be delayed is not long. There are too many Russians, and they also have Cossack cavalry advancing on the shore."
"Now everyone should go back and make arrangements. Take all the food you can take with you, and don't leave a grain of food for the Russians."
"All the women and children were sent to Xujiatun and followed the fleet to a safe place downstream. Only when they are gone can we freely engage in the war with Russia."
"Yes, fuck that wolf!" everyone said in agreement.
Without Bao Youzhi's urging, the talkers from various villages below all rushed towards their villages as fast as they could.
Women and children are the hope of the countryside, and Chinese people generally have a strong sense of clan.
Everyone was grateful to Bao Youzhi for being able to send their women and children to the rear.
After doing all this, Bao Youzhi carefully calculated the power in his hands. When he came upstream this time, not counting the sailors in the fleet, these people were all sailing back.
The only ones left were a Marine Corps battalion of more than 600 people and a special operations squadron of 110 people.
There are also some weapons and equipment on the ship, which were originally carried to arm these people just in case.
Some veterans can be assigned from the Marine Battalion to lead these civilian militias.
Everyone left, but Patriarch Xu stayed behind, leaving his sons to handle matters within the clan.
"Chief Xu, how many men are there in these villages together?" Bao Youzhi looked at Patriarch Xu and asked.
Patriarch Xu thought for a moment and said, "I think there should be tens of thousands of people."
"No one has counted this. The total number of men in Xujiatun is three to four hundred. So I think that the total number of all the villages must be more than 10,000."
Bao Youzhi felt much more relieved when he heard that he could raise 10,000 people.
These people are all border residents living on the Heilongjiang River. They are born with toughness. With a little organization and weapons, they can become good militiamen.
Bao Youzhi believed that the men raised by Baishan and Heishui were not cowards.
Continuing downstream along the Heilongjiang River, a large river from south to north merges into the rushing Heilongjiang River, making the originally turbulent river water even more turbulent.
This makes the river surface from this point back much wider than upstream.
This big river from south to north originates from Hutou and is called Wusuli River.
There was originally a market called Khabarovsk at the intersection of the two rivers. Every year, the Oroqen people from Ewenki east of the Ussuri River would come here to exchange supplies.
To the southwest from here is Linjiang Prefecture, which is under the jurisdiction of General Jilin. However, it is also sparsely populated, and most of the people are after the sinners who were originally sent to Ninggu Pagoda.
The Qing court basically did not manage itself east of the Wusuli River, but was governed by the tribes. At most, the Qing court would grant official positions to the tribal leaders.
The original Khabarovsk town was abandoned, and Huai Haijun built a new town in the south.
Huaihai Company has set up a permanent trading post here. Because Huaihai Company has a wide range of products, it attracts the surrounding herdsmen and hunters.
The militiamen who came here last year even built a kiln. The peat that can be dug everywhere here can be used to make bricks and tiles.
After the bricks and tiles were obtained, a fortress built with blue bricks rose from the ground.
The reason why it is called a fortress is because this small town is not like the cities in the Qing Dynasty. It is more like a castle.
The area enclosed by the wall is small, but it is very tall and strong.
Wang Xiao led a regiment of infantry and 3,000 Japanese prisoners of war. A total of more than 5,000 people almost filled the place.
As soon as they arrived here, they started construction work.
Large tracts of forest were cut down, and forts built of wood were built one after another. These Japanese prisoners of war were very hard-working, of course, provided they had enough to eat.
Of course, when working here in Huaihai Haijun, there is no problem with having enough to eat. Not only that, each person can also get a piece of fish. You must know that ordinary people in Japan rarely have access to fish.
I can't help it, there isn't much else here, except that there are a lot of fish in the river.
Huai Haijun was not a saint. The reason why he was okay with these Japanese prisoners of war was that Dong Shuheng's intention was to win over these Japanese prisoners of war so that they could become Huai Haijun's servants in the future.
Perhaps the local tribes did not have suitable fishing tools, so the fish population here exploded over the years.
"The side of the fortress facing the river needs to be reinforced. It may be attacked by artillery from enemy gunboats." Wang Xiao was walking around the fort at this time to see if there was anything he missed.
…
Going further down is Temple Street, where the battlefield is ready. On the side of Temple Street facing the river, the original fort has been reinforced again.
If the enemy wants to land within the firing range of the fort, they will inevitably suffer heavy losses. Therefore, they must disembark upstream and then attack Temple Street.
What is now installed on the fort is not the old-fashioned artillery that was unloaded from the Russian warship. It is the 150mm coastal defense gun produced by the Huai Navy that was just shipped from the rear.
Although there is still some shortcomings in caliber, it is more than enough to deal with the Russian small gunboats.
Japanese prisoners of war can be seen working everywhere on Temple Street. Every one hundred of them are divided into a squadron, and are managed by seven soldiers and five Japanese to assist them.
These selected Japanese coordinators were very conscientious. They were not merciless at all when dealing with their own people, which brought great convenience to the Huai Navy in managing these prisoners of war.
These selected Japanese coordinators were given a few privileges. They valued this very much and cherished the opportunity given to them by Huai Haijun.
What Lin Wei is building now is a preset battlefield. In order to allow the Russians to use this preset battlefield, Lin Wei has racked his brains.
Fortunately, the terrain here on Temple Street is not suitable for roundabout operations.
The main roads in Houshan have been blocked by the Huai Navy. When the 50,000 people arrive at Temple Street, they have to land from the far riverside and launch an attack.
Here Huai Haijun has prepared a giant meat grinder for the Russians, which will definitely leave them with unforgettable memories here.