At 4:00 a.m. on February 2, 1907, accompanied by a loud noise, a big hole was blasted in the city wall in the northeast of Anqing City. The city wall here had long been in disrepair, and the size of the gap even exceeded imagination. The people of the Yuewang Society on the city wall had gone down to flee and take refuge under the persuasion of the Revolutionary Army, so there were no Qing troops near the explosion point, and direct casualties were very small. The huge shock wave transmitted along the city wall, shaking the distant Qing troops into dizziness and losing combat effectiveness.

The moat of Anqing City absorbed most of the shock wave. The Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army did not encounter this problem, but the flying bricks and stones posed a considerable threat to the soldiers. When fragments of various sizes flew in all directions like a violent storm, smashing all obstacles in their trajectory, the vibration made the soldiers near the moat feel rejoiceful. Everyone originally felt it strange: why dig shelters in the ground secretly in the middle of the night, and even set up shields woven from bamboo on the shelters? Everyone had experienced blowing up walls many times, but this was the first time for such an exaggerated practice. When someone raised doubts, Brigade Commander Hua specially explained that this was Chairman Chen Ke's strict order. Since it was Chairman Chen's order, everyone obeyed sincerely regardless of whether they could understand it or not. Now everyone knew very clearly that without these shelters, exposed to such stone fragment attacks, it would be absolutely impossible to be safe and sound.

Less than a minute after the stones landed one after another, the sharp charge bugle sounded immediately. "Comrades, for the revolution, charge with me!" Commanders at all levels jumped out of the shelters first, and soldiers followed their commanders, rushing forward towards the gap still shrouded in thick smoke.

At the same time, the troops led by Zhang Yu also began to storm the East Gate.

"Captain Zhang, shall we wait a bit before attacking the city?" Staff Officer Wu Qixian asked before the battle started.

Zhang Yu's gaze cut across the staff officer's face like a knife. "Where is all that nonsense? Blasting the wall is blasting the wall; we still have to fight the East Gate!"

Wu Qixian only felt that Zhang Yu's gaze was full of disdain, as if saying, "If you are afraid of death, don't make a sound."

This silent mockery made Wu Qixian's face flush red. Having his thought of fearing death seen through, that strong sense of shame immediately rebounded into a fierce courage. "Commander Zhang, let me lead the assault team up."

"Next time." Zhang Yu answered coldly.

Whether in the northeast or southeast of the city, the offensive went very smoothly. The enemies in Anqing City collapsed at the first blow. Facing war, the reaction of these New Army officers and soldiers was very sluggish, even much more sluggish than the landlord armed forces in the forts. But this was the result of the post-event military summary meeting. When the battle was going on, how could the soldiers of the Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army think so much? The enemy's slow action was just a good thing. Various units charged and killed fiercely, heading straight for the targets of the first stage.

The Anqing Gunpowder Depot was in the northeast of the city. Before the war, Chen Ke issued a death order: the Gunpowder Depot must be taken no matter what. attacking Anqing this time almost exhausted the ammunition reserves of the troops. In the foreseeable future, the troops simply couldn't rely on purchasing ammunition on a large scale. The Anqing Gunpowder Depot was the largest source of ammunition.

"Kill!" "Hand over guns and not kill!" Hua Xiongmao's subordinates rushed forward fiercely. The grenadiers, each holding a hand grenade, followed closely behind the assault team holding rifles at the very front of the team. Although shouting "Hand over guns and not kill" with their mouths, as long as the enemy in front didn't surrender immediately, the grenadiers would throw a hand grenade directly. Although everyone had long forgotten their own life and death, such focus also made the battle more intense. "Hand over guns and not kill" almost became a battle cry.

After entering close combat, the troops' use of hand grenades was no less than rifle shooting. It was shadowy in the dark night, and trying to determine the enemy's position was really too difficult. But determining the position of the flame from the enemy's gun muzzle in the dimness was very easy. A hand grenade over there could solve the enemy immediately. 8,000 hand grenades were prepared for this battle; every Anhui New Army officer and soldier could average two on their heads. With sufficient ammunition, everyone naturally wouldn't be reluctant to use them. The troops of the Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army were like a flood, easily destroying all obstacles that dared to stand in front, surging towards the target.

"Report! The troops have arrived at the Gunpowder Depot."

"Report! The troops have taken the East Gate."

"Report! The troops have arrived at the Anhui Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office and the Anqing Prefect Yamen."

"Report! The troops are seizing the North City wall."

"Report! ..."

Messengers ran over quickly, conveying news one by one to Chen Ke. Chen Ke looked grim, as if he didn't realize this was good news at all. Instead, Tao Chengzhang beside him was surprised first, and then his face was full of wild joy. "The revolution succeeded!" He couldn't help muttering. This sentence was mostly said by Tao Chengzhang to himself, and a small part was for Chen Ke to hear.

Chen Ke kept a gloomy face all along, as if he didn't hear it.

"No more throwing hand grenades allowed. There is gunpowder inside the Gunpowder Depot; exploding it will cause an accident!" Hua Xiongmao had already gone to the front line.

The surroundings of the Gunpowder Depot were quite open. There were few New Army soldiers guarding the Gunpowder Depot left; only a dozen New Army soldiers were still resisting stubbornly at the gate. But they were just shooting wildly outwards, with extremely poor accuracy, not aiming at all. It looked more like shooting to embolden themselves than to stop the attack of the Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army.

Hua Xiongmao issued the second order. "Send someone to shout, tell them to surrender immediately. If they don't surrender, we will use cannons to bomb the Gunpowder Depot and blow up these people inside together."

This command, which sounded contradictory, was executed immediately. The commanders asked the grenadiers to retreat, and several commissars with loud voices had already moved forward, shouting loudly: "Brothers in the Gunpowder Depot, listen up! Surrender immediately. If you don't surrender, we will bomb you with cannons. Once the ammunition in the Gunpowder Depot explodes, you will all go to the West Heaven. Why bother? Our People's Party treats captives well. As long as you surrender, we will absolutely not beat you or kill you. Put down your guns and surrender. Our People's Party treats captives well."

This persuasion to surrender had a certain effect. After hearing it opposite, at least the crazy shooting stopped.

"Brothers in the Gunpowder Depot, if you have any requests, speak them out. We want to take down the Gunpowder Depot; let's not say useless things. If you want to surrender, what guarantee do you want?"

The Revolutionary Army soldiers preparing to attack waited anxiously. The soldiers felt they had waited for a good while; some impatient ones couldn't help shouting: "You bunch of turtle grandsons, give a straight word whether you are willing to surrender or not."

As soon as these words came out, other soldiers who were equally burning with anxiety also clamored. "Want to die or live, give a straight word. We don't have time to wait for you."

Seeing the soldiers behave like this, Hua Xiongmao couldn't help smiling bitterly. Actually, it had been less than a minute since the shouting to persuade surrender started.

"We surrender. Will you really not kill us?" A trembling voice came from inside the Gunpowder Depot.

The persuader shouted: "We are here to catch that Manchu dog En Ming. You are all from common people backgrounds, serving as soldiers to eat grain; why would we kill you? As long as everyone puts down weapons and surrenders, we absolutely won't kill captives. After this battle is fought, we will release everyone."

Silence fell inside the Gunpowder Depot again.

Hua Xiongmao pointed to a wall nearby that looked quite solid. "Throw a bundle of hand grenades there." Before the war, the plan for manufacturing cluster grenades provided by Chen Ke was also executed. This was equipment developed for enemy heavy troop group charges. The quantity manufactured was very limited. And it hadn't been put to use until now. Hearing Hua Xiongmao's order, a burly grenadier came out from the crowd. He pulled the fuse, rotated 360 degrees on the spot like throwing a discus, and the five hand grenades tied together drew an arc of forty or fifty meters straight towards the wall of the Gunpowder Depot. The soldiers instinctively all crawled on the ground. After a loud bang, fragments flew everywhere. When everyone raised their heads, amidst the rolling smoke and dust, a big pit was actually blown out of that wall.

Hua Xiongmao raised his hand. "Assault team prepare."

Soldiers holding rifles squatted halfway on the ground with this order. As long as Hua Xiongmao waved his palm, they would rush towards the gate of the Gunpowder Depot.

Just at this moment, shouts mixed with coughing and crying tones came from inside the Gunpowder Depot: "Cough, cough! Cough, cough! Sir, don't bombard with cannons anymore. We surrender, we surrender!"

"Everyone go over carefully and drag them out!" Hua Xiongmao ordered.

"Report! The Gunpowder Depot has been taken!" When this news reached the headquarters, Chen Ke, who had been gloomy-faced all along, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Tao Chengzhang was a bit curious. The People's Party didn't lack equipment. The battle had been fought for almost two hours; gunshots and explosions had never stopped. Only after taking the Gunpowder Depot did Chen Ke have some relaxed expression.

"Report! The Anqing Inner Arsenal has been taken."

"Has the equipment been damaged?" Chen Ke finally asked actively.

"The equipment is all intact, including the silver vault of the Coinage Bureau which was also occupied." The messenger straightened his back and said proudly.

Chen Ke stood up, the gloomy look on his face swept away completely. "Starting now, the headquarters moves into the city. The location is at the Anqing Inner Arsenal."

The New Army defense system inside Anqing City had collapsed. The New Army officers and soldiers had never seen such fierce enemies. If they were to summarize, these thief soldiers were "insatiable" [pressing forward inch by inch]. The New Army had no actual war experience; their closest thing to war was various drills. And drills had scales. Either capturing the flag or arriving at a certain place. Moreover, the results of the drill were also the officers' business; everyone's striving for victory was just to get some more benefits after the drill ended.

When war really descended, the Anhui New Army realized that war meant people dying. And the enemy was not the New Army comrades practicing with them at all. The enemy were those who came to kill them. When bullets and those hand grenades in the enemy's hands flew towards them like raindrops, when New Army companions around them were knocked down like cutting grass, these Anhui New Army officers and soldiers could find absolutely no reason to fight the enemy to the death. They almost completely followed the instinct to avoid death: retreat, retreat, and retreat again.

But the enemy approached, approached, and approached again with faster speed. The New Army companions falling behind either died or surrendered. Soldiers lucky enough to escape death had no morale at all, fleeing towards the familiar place at the very back. When the dawn's first light vaguely illuminated Anqing City, most of Anqing City had fallen into the enemy's hands. The New Army either surrendered one after another or fled into the final stronghold—that was the military camp of the Anqing New Army.

Anhui New Army Commander Yu Dahong was thoroughly stunned in this nightmare-like night. Originally it was just harassment outside the city, but suddenly fierce attacks began. Then the West City was lost. Just as Yu Dahong's order to mobilize troops from the east was sent out, with a loud noise from the east, Anqing City almost shook. After a good while, news came from the east of the city: countless thief troops had already broken into the city?

How many thief troops were outside exactly? Yu Dahong couldn't figure it out anymore. Based on his war experience, to break through a big city like Anqing, even if there were tens of thousands of troops outside the city, it wouldn't work without fighting for two days. But the dense gunshots and explosions simply didn't stop; the thief soldiers suddenly fought into Anqing City. An unreasonable thought suddenly arose in Yu Dahong's mind: could it be that the thief soldiers outside were invulnerable to swords and guns?

But things having reached this point, Yu Dahong had no other way. He hurried to order the hardcore troops remaining in the military camp to drag the machine guns out quickly and set up barricades on the street; they must hold on no matter what. The thief soldiers came too fast; now there was not even a chance to escape. At this time, Commander Yu Dahong let go of everything instead, began to deploy defenses according to the military knowledge he had learned, and prepared for the final battle.

The sky gradually brightened. The defense line built under the personal command of Commander Yu Dahong and his personal guard team was also roughly completed. He had already sent people to bring Anqing Governor Lord En Ming and his people into the military camp together. En Ming was frightened badly; seeing Yu Dahong, he couldn't even speak. Yu Dahong completely ignored his superior regarding the barricades. If he let this Lord En Ming dictate the battle hysterically at this time, Yu Dahong felt he might as well just surrender.

There were no cannons in the Anqing New Army camp, only six six-barreled machine guns. Now the machine guns were all dragged out and used to defend several intersections. Sandbags used for training were transported out and piled up at street intersections to form barricades. Roughly the positions had been set up. From dawn until now, routed soldiers fled into the final defensive position one after another. Yu Dahong scanned; there were fewer than five hundred people left. The Anhui New Army, which once had nearly four thousand people, now only had this many left.

Soon, some thief soldiers wearing dark blue clothes appeared at the street intersection. Yu Dahong raised his telescope to look opposite. He saw those thief soldiers in dark blue clothes hiding methodically in street corners and other places where they could hide. Every one of them had a rifle, the style actually the same as the New Army's. The posture of holding rifles was not amateur at all.

"Could this group of people really be rebellious New Army? But these clothes look like military uniforms, yet also like ordinary common people's short coats. Very strange." Yu Dahong was very puzzled in his heart.

More and more people wearing dark blue clothes appeared. The two sides faced each other across an empty street. Not long after, Yu Dahong saw red flags in his telescope. The river wind in winter was strong; Anqing was by the Yangtze River. The wind blew up the red flags. The peculiar symbol on them was very conspicuous. Yu Dahong identified it carefully; it was a yellow symbol like a sickle and hammer crossed together. He seemed to have seen it. Thinking carefully, it was actually the flag of the fleet led by Yan Fu not long ago.

"Could it be that Yan Fu actually rebelled?" Yu Dahong thought in confusion.

Just at this moment, someone at the street corner shouted: "Brothers of the Anhui New Army, you have been surrounded. Put down your weapons and surrender; our Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army treats captives well!"

"Zhao Chengli, kill that person for me." Yu Dahong said to a personal guard beside him.

Zhao Chengli was originally a "gunner" [sharpshooter] in the jianghu; he used a gun extremely accurately. Later he committed a crime and was arrested. Yu Dahong heard of this person's reputation, released him from prison, and hired him heavily as a personal guard. Hearing Yu Dahong's order, Zhao Chengli stepped forward without a word, raised his rifle and aimed for a while. Only hearing a gunshot, the person shouting fell backward in response to the sound.

"Good!" All New Army officers and soldiers who could see couldn't help shouting. Being suppressed and beaten by the opposite thief soldiers for half the night, now suddenly seeing Zhao Chengli's precise marksmanship, the New Army officers and soldiers were all refreshed.

Although that thief soldier was killed, the soldiers in blue clothes seemed to be aroused to anger. They just hid a little, and then a team of people already attacked along the wall.

"Machine guns!" Yu Dahong ordered.

The six-barreled machine gunner pushed up the magazine and began to shoot at those people in blue. Accompanied by the sound of "tututututu," bullets began to fly across the street. Deep pits were beaten into the wall surface; white wall skin was shaved off by bullets, flying as fine powder. Those people in dark blue clothes were at a loss at first, but leaning against the wall didn't work either; several people were knocked down in an instant. What dumbfounded the New Army was that this group of people was not scared at all. Instead, someone stopped dodging, pulled out a thing from his waist, and rushed straight towards the New Army. With a "bang" of a gunshot, that person fell in response to the sound. The one who fired was Zhao Chengli.

Even so, those thief soldiers in blue clothes still didn't give up. They tried to lie on the ground, rolling left and right while striving to crawl forward.

"Everyone hit together!" Yu Dahong ordered.

New Army soldiers joined the ranks of shooting one after another. Under the dense rain of bullets, those thief soldiers were hit one after another and stopped moving on the ground.

Yu Dahong watched the battle calmly. Until no moving people could be seen on the street, and no blue figures appeared across the street, he ordered: "Just fight like this for me; everyone hold on. The naval forces will be back soon. We can win then."

After speaking, Commander Yu Dahong rushed towards another direction. Gunshots also began there.

The battle unfolded in broad daylight; the New Army might not necessarily be at a disadvantage.