The anti-Qing movement began with the looting of the Eight-Nation Alliance.

Chapter 186, Second Shot

At 6:00 AM, the 49th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division of the Japanese 3rd Army was on guard duty.

Ozawa Ichiro tightened his coat and breathed out a few breaths. Damn it, it's only September and it's already so cold. Luckily, his shift is about to change, he'd better hurry back and have some hot soup.

Ozawa Ichiro twisted his stiff neck and suddenly saw a group of Chinese soldiers walking towards him.

"Chinese soldiers!" Ozawa shouted, quickly grabbing his rifle and aiming it at the group of Chinese. Several Japanese soldiers from the nearby wooden hut also rushed out with their guns drawn.

"Stop! Don't come any closer! Or we'll shoot!" Ozawa Ichiro shouted fiercely.

"Don't be nervous! We need to speak with your regimental commander!" A young lieutenant officer, speaking fluent Japanese, said as the crowd on the other side stopped.

"Go and report that one of our soldiers is missing. Did you arrest him?" the lieutenant said sternly.

The Japanese soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment. Had we captured Chinese soldiers?

"Damn it, get out of here! We didn't arrest any of your men!" the leading sergeant said, waving his hand.

"Impossible! Our soldiers never go missing. You must have kidnapped him. Hand him over right now!" the lieutenant said emphatically.

“Senior, why don’t we report this and ask the captain?” Ozawa Ichiro and the others said, seeing how certain the other party was. They were just sentries; this wasn’t their business.

"Alright! You guys keep watch here, I'll go report!" After thinking for a moment, the sergeant gave a brief instruction and turned to walk towards the military camp.

Soon, a major on duty arrived at the sentry post with dozens of soldiers. The new army lieutenant repeated the requirements.

"Baka yarou! We don't have any of your soldiers here, get out of here now. Otherwise you'll all be dead!"

Just as the Japanese major was spewing profuse saliva, a sudden "bang!" rang out. The new army lieutenant swayed, clutched his chest, and collapsed.

Both sides' soldiers were stunned for a moment, but the New Army's "reaction" was obviously faster than that of the Japanese army!

"Damn it, the Japanese shot our platoon leader! Brothers, open fire!" He then shot and killed a Japanese machine gunner.

The well-prepared soldiers opened fire, inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese troops.

"Grenades!" shouted a corporal from the new army. More than a dozen grenades were thrown at the Japanese troops, who were forced to scatter and hide.

"Machine gun cover!"

Under the cover of smoke, a new army squad leader and a soldier ran forward quickly, picked up the platoon leader from the ground, and ran back.

"Withdraw!" The gunfire gradually subsided. The Japanese soldiers peeked out and saw that the Chinese troops had already withdrawn.

"Baka yarou! What happened? Who fired the shot just now?" Major Nakamura scrambled to his feet, furious at the sight of the corpses strewn across the ground.

The Japanese soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment; they had no idea who had fired the shot!

"Major, a call from the regimental headquarters!" Just as Nakamura was investigating who fired the shot, a lieutenant rushed over to report.

"Damn it! Find out right now who fired that shot!" Nakamura roared, running towards the military camp.

"Moshi moshi! Hi! Regiment Commander, this is Masao Nakamura..."

On the new army's side, Zhang Tieniu patted Qiu Xiaojun's shoulder, whose chest was stained with blood; "How are you? Are you alright?"

"It's alright, Commander! Not a single hair is missing." Qiu Xiaojun chuckled.

"Well done! You can go and rest now, and prepare for the next battle." Zhang Tieniu nodded in satisfaction.

His brother-in-law insisted on taking the task, leaving Zhang Tieniu with no choice but to hand it over. Luckily, the boy was quick-witted and returned unharmed; otherwise, Zhang Tieniu wouldn't know how to explain it to his sister.

"Fire!" Zhang Tieniu gave the order, and the regiment's artillery company's twenty 60mm mortars began to pour shells at the Japanese fortifications.

A whooshing sound filled the air, and before the Japanese troops could react, a violent explosion rang out. Smoke and flames billowed from the Japanese forward fortifications.

The Japanese troops who had entered the fortifications because of the gunfire suffered heavy casualties from the bombing. None of them had ever experienced such shells falling from the sky, and even if they hid behind the fortifications, they could not escape the bombing.

Shen Lian stood atop a small hill a few hundred meters away, watching the scene through binoculars. A meaningful smile appeared on his face.

"General! The battle has begun, it's not safe here. You can't stay here!" Several staff officers and high-ranking officers of the First Army Group stared at him menacingly.

"Alright! Let's go!" Shen Lian shook his head helplessly. He wanted to fire a few more shots, but unfortunately, he couldn't.

Seeing Shen Lian turn and board the armored vehicle, the officers breathed a sigh of relief. Their commander-in-chief had insisted on coming to witness the first shot fired, and they couldn't stop him. However, since the fighting had already begun, they absolutely couldn't let him stay on the front lines.

If anything were to happen to the commander-in-chief here, none of them could bear the consequences.

"All troops, attack!" Seeing that eight out of ten rapid-fire shells had already been fired, Zhang Tieniu pulled out his pistol, fired a shot into the air, and roared.

The soldiers of the 36th Regiment, who had been preparing for a long time, picked up their rifles and rushed out of their fortifications, charging towards the Japanese positions opposite them.

Zhang Tieniu raised his pistol, ready to charge, but seeing his chief of staff and political commissar watching him intently, he reluctantly put the pistol away. He then picked up his binoculars again to observe.

The front lines of both sides were only two or three hundred meters apart. After the last shell exploded, the soldiers at the forefront were less than fifty meters away from the Japanese troops.

"The Chinese are charging up!" The Japanese soldiers, still dazed and confused from the bombing, had barely raised their heads when they realized that the enemy was already close by.

"Beep beep! Baka! Get up and prepare for battle!" The whistle rang out on the Japanese position. The surviving Japanese officers hurriedly kicked up the remaining soldiers who were still lying on the ground.

But just as they lay down on the sandbags, a whirlwind of machine gun fire swept over them. Many of them collapsed, covered in blood.

"Damn it! Return fire! Return fire!" a Japanese major shouted, his head bowed and his pistol firing wildly.

Under the cover of machine gun fire, the new army soldiers quickly approached the Japanese positions. At a distance of twenty or thirty meters, a large volley of grenades flew towards the Japanese fortifications.

The Japanese soldiers, who were trying to avoid machine gun fire, suddenly found themselves surrounded by smoking lumps of iron.

"What?!" Before the Japanese soldiers could react.

The explosions roared, and the already dwindling Japanese army suffered heavy losses.

Before the dust from the explosion had even settled, a large number of new army soldiers stormed the Japanese positions.

Gunshots rang out, and regardless of whether they were dead or alive, they were all given a finishing shot.