Chapter 18 of 100

Chapter 18

11 min read2,795 words

Since the warship Unyo was sunk, the Japanese fleet had not encountered any further incidents. They proceeded under the escort of the Beijing warship for a day and night, and at 10:00 AM on September 19th, they arrived at Karulin Bay.

Karulin Bay is located north of Incheon and served as a temporary anchorage for the Japanese forces. The shore was equipped with dozens of coastal defense guns with calibers over 200 millimeters. These were Itō Sukenobu's last bet. If the enemy ships entered Karulin Bay, the Japanese would immediately use mines to block the exit, leaving the enemy ships vulnerable to the coastal artillery.

Itō Sukenobu stood on the bridge, gazing at the distant port. He never expected that the seemingly shrewd Captain Lin would so easily agree to his request. "The Chinese are just the Chinese!" he thought.

At this moment, Lin Yuan and Shen Wanqing were invited to the bridge. Itō Sukenobu looked at them with a smug expression, thinking, "Finally, the time to get even has come."

Just as Itō Sukenobu was about to mock Lin Yuan, he suddenly noticed something was amiss with the port! The flag flying over the port was no longer the Rising Sun flag but a dragon flag!

Itō Sukenobu's smile froze. He understood what the change of flag meant: the port had been occupied by the Qing forces!

It's impossible, absolutely impossible. Since the Japanese captured Pyongyang on September 16th, the Qing forces had retreated north of the Yalu River, while the Japanese First Army, led by Yamagata Aritomo, was stationed south of the Yalu River, ready to cross into Northeast China at any time.

Lin Yuan looked at the dragon flag in the distance and smiled. "Commander, you are truly hospitable. You knew we were coming, so you had your men raise the dragon flag to welcome us."

Lin Yuan looked at Itō Sukenobu, who was smiling insincerely, and said, "Our ships are not familiar with the harbor, and they have a deep draft. If they run aground, it will be very troublesome. Our ships will not enter the port. I and my assistant will go in with you, and once we are in, we will temporarily take over your fleet."

Itō Sukenobu said nothing, and the bridge fell into an unusual silence. Gradually, the Unyo warship entered its anchorage. The Japanese soldiers on shore were dejected, for behind them, Qing soldiers were pointing guns at them. Itō Sukenobu knew that the prisoners from the Battle of Seonghwan and the Battle of the Sea of Fushima were being held there, but he could not understand how these prisoners, who seemed like walking dead, could turn the brave soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army into captives!

The warship Naniwa was the first to reach its anchorage. In front of the anchorage, there were several dozen Qing soldiers with guns, who were originally prisoners. They now held their guns and looked down on the Japanese soldiers on the ship with arrogance. Lin Yuan frowned. How could these Qing soldiers stand so boldly in the open? What if the Japanese soldiers on the ship opened fire on them? At that moment, Lin Yuan noticed something was wrong. Behind the gun turrets and masts on the ship, there were many Japanese soldiers with guns!

Before Lin Yuan could warn them, the Japanese soldiers on the ship opened fire!

The Naniwa had a crew of 352, and after the snipers killed the observers, 348 remained. The ship was equipped with fifty Murata Type 22 rifles. This was a single-shot rifle designed by Army Lieutenant Colonel Murata Kiyoshi. The Type 38 rifle, which we often hear about, is actually the Murata Type 38 rifle. The years mentioned are not from the Gregorian calendar but from the Japanese imperial era. The Type 38 and Type 22 refer to the 38th and 22nd years of the Meiji era, respectively.

Compared to later automatic rifles, this rifle required the shooter to manually extract the spent cartridge and load the next round, making the rate of fire relatively slow. The Japanese sailors on the ship were not trained as infantry, so their shooting skills were not high. They adopted a volley fire method. After a burst of gunfire, over a dozen Qing soldiers were hit and fell to the ground.

At this moment, the Japanese soldiers on the ship set up ladders from the deck to the ground and rushed to the other anchorage positions where the Qing soldiers were stationed.

Itō Sukenobu, seeing this, looked at Lin Yuan with a smug expression, but to his surprise, Lin Yuan did not show any signs of panic. He said calmly, "Commander, please order your men to stop this futile resistance. Such a charge will only waste their lives!"

Itō Sukenobu sneered, "Even if you can occupy the port, our brave samurai of the Imperial Japanese Army can still take it back."

Lin Yuan sighed and looked at Itō Sukenobu with a gaze that seemed to be looking at a child who didn't understand.

At this moment, the sound of "rat-tat-tat" and "rat-tat-tat" rang out. Itō Sukenobu was taken aback and asked involuntarily, "What is that sound?"

Lin Yuan was very familiar with this sound. It was the sound of the Type 03 light machine gun used by the naval infantry. A squad led by Chen Fei was on top of a pile of cargo, firing at the Japanese.

The history of the machine gun began in 1884 with the invention of the Maxim machine gun by American inventor Hiram Maxim. The Japanese widely adopted the machine gun after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, when they suffered heavy losses from machine gun fire during the siege of Port Arthur. Some commanders were even unaware of the existence of machine guns and wondered, "Why do the Russians fall when they beat the drum?"

Almost all the sailors on the Naniwa joined the battle, some with guns, others with bayonets, and even kitchen knives! There were about 200 of them, and they saw the firing position on the cargo pile about 400 meters away. Someone shouted, and they all charged toward the cargo pile.

Itō Sukenobu's lips curled into a smile. Running 400 meters and then having enough energy to fight would take about a minute and a half. In a minute, even the best shooter could only fire ten rounds.

But what happened next erased Itō Sukenobu's smile. He saw that the machine gun at the firing position did not stop to manually reload but continued to spit out a stream of fire!

This machine gun used the same ammunition as the Type 03 rifle, which had a strong penetration power. The Japanese formation was dense, so a single bullet often penetrated two or three Japanese soldiers.

In a minute and a half, the machine gun fired a thousand rounds, and soon, over 200 Japanese soldiers lay scattered on the ground!

This battle in the port could be described with the words of a Japanese commander after the ambush at Pyongyang during the First Sino-Japanese War: "This was not a battle, but a massacre!"

In less than a minute, 200 Japanese soldiers were killed. This scene shocked every Japanese soldier, and the subsequent detention process went smoothly without any trouble.

At this moment, Lin Yuan and Shen Wanqing walked off the Unyo. Shen Wanqing asked, "Was all of this part of your plan?"

Lin Yuan smiled but did not answer. Shen Wanqing smiled bitterly and said, "I helped you on the ship, but you still don't trust me, do you?"

Lin Yuan was about to explain, but Shen Wanqing said softly, "No need to explain. I understand. Anyway, I can't clear my name as a spy." She sat down alone in a quiet place and looked out at the sea.

Lin Yuan watched her lonely figure in the golden sunlight, feeling a deep sadness. He was about to go over and say something when he saw a group of soldiers in 07-style camouflage uniforms walking toward him from the shore, led by Chen Fei.

Chen Fei snapped to attention and saluted, saying, "Comrade Commander, our unit has successfully completed the task of occupying the port. Should we return to the ship? Commander: Chen Fei, Political Instructor of the Beijing Warship Naval Infantry Battalion."

These were standard military commands used in the People's Liberation Army. When personnel are assembled, there is a procedure for reporting and requesting instructions.

Lin Yuan laughed and said, "Alright, there's no one else here, so you don't need to go through this formal procedure. Get back to your unit quickly; we are about to have a major operation!"

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