The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 946 The Responsibility of a Generation

As the bronze bell at the Singapore Fort Command struck twelve, Sir Campbell stared at the second hand on his pocket watch, each tick like a noose tightening its grip.

Outside the window, another group of British and Indian soldiers, retreating from the Johor front, were being herded into the trenches by military police using rifle butts. These turbaned Sikhs and dark-skinned Indian soldiers, who just months ago were the most loyal colonial troops of the British Empire, now dragged their rifles like zombies. Everyone knew that as soon as the Taiping Army across the Johor Strait opened fire, these cowards would once again flee from their positions like startled birds!

"Sir, urgent report from the airship observation station!" A communications officer burst through the door. "The Taiping Army's armored column has appeared on the north bank of the Johor Strait, less than five miles from the Johor Causeway!"

A deathly silence fell over the operations room. Beside the sand table, Colonel Williams, Chief of Staff of the Malayan Legion, suddenly laughed maniacally: "No, no problem, we still have the Johor Strait. Those steel monsters certainly can't swim."

Campbell didn't reply. He walked to the oak cabinet adorned with a portrait of Queen Victoria and took out a bottle of his prized Scotch whisky. As the amber liquid swirled in the glass, he recalled Admiral Hood's boastful words in this very room a month ago: "Once I sink the Qianlong-class submarines, I'll lead my fleet back to Singapore." But now, Hood's fleet was rotting underwater somewhere in the Strait of Malacca, while the Taiping Army's "Iron Bull" armored vehicles were about to crush the empire's last line of defense—the Johor Strait alone couldn't stop the Taiping Army's armored vehicles, because there wasn't a single soldier prepared for battle on the southern shore of the strait!

The glass suddenly trembled—a distant, muffled boom of artillery fire could be heard. Campbell went to the balcony and saw three umbrella-shaped plumes of smoke rising from the direction of the port. That must be the Prince of Wales' coastal defense batteries test-firing, but the 254mm shells were landing erratically, the most recent one even hitting their own coal wharf.

"Summon the artillery commander to me!" Campbell smashed his glass. "How can this kind of aim stop a landing?"

“I’m afraid,” the adjutant swallowed, “it’s not a test firing. The Taiping Army’s ‘Hidden Dragon’-class battleships are shelling near our island!”

The bronze bell of the Singapore Temple hummed and vibrated in the twilight. In the dark room of the clock tower, Wu Wenyou shone a kerosene lamp on his pocket watch. On the inside of the watch cover was a yellowed photograph—it was of Li Lanfang, the Malayan Chinese leader who resisted the British, who was assassinated fifteen years earlier, and his sworn brother.

"The hour of Xu (7:45 PM)." The old man closed his watch and turned to the twenty young men behind him dressed in black robes of the True Covenant sect. "Has the British armory changed shifts?"

“It’s changed. The Gurkha battalion is on duty tonight.” The young man lifted his black robe, revealing a gleaming revolver at his waist. “And we’ve agreed on a price: three hundred silver dollars plus a pardon, and we can get them to turn a blind eye.”

Wu Wenyou nodded and pulled a roll of posters for the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company from the base of the statue. Tearing open the back, he found a hand-drawn map of the Singapore fortress defenses, each gun emplacement circled in vermilion ink. He pointed to Victoria Harbour: "Ah Cai led the first team to blow up the water pipeline, Ah Yi's second team seized the telegraph office, and the rest..."

"boom!"

The sudden explosion shook the dust from the clock tower. Everyone rushed to the windows and saw a column of fire, hundreds of meters high, shooting up from the direction of the port's oil depots, turning the twilight blood red. Even more terrifying was the sea—dozens of burning sampans were drifting with the tide toward the British anchorage—where there was no longer a large fleet, only some small gunboats and armed merchant ships.

"They made their move ahead of schedule?" The youths frantically reached for their guns.

Wu Wenyou, however, stared at the southwestern night sky—where six red signal flares were slowly falling. "No, it's the signal for the Taiping Army's general offensive!" The old man suddenly burst into tears, pulling open his black robe to reveal a red lining underneath, with the words "Holy Army" emblazoned on its chest—an old-style Taiping Army uniform. "Fire the signal cannons! Let all the brothers in the city rise up!"

On the northern shore of the Johor Strait, Lieutenant General Lee Rongfa's field command post was located in a modified "Red Star Iron Bull" armored command vehicle. Amid the roar of the steam boiler, a communications soldier was sending a final confirmation to the Brunei Bay base using a spark transmitter.
"Order No. 7 of the Wu series is confirmed, and the general offensive is launched. The current tide height is 3.2 meters, the current speed is 1.4 knots, and the wind is from the southeast at level 2."

Li Rongfa pushed open the hatch, and a salty sea breeze rushed in. Under the moonlight, three hundred armored tractors were lined up in three rows on the beach. Each tractor had rubber pontoons strapped to both sides, its bottom was waterproofed, and a water turbine was attached to the rear. Even more spectacular was what lay behind the armored tractor column—tens of thousands of bicycles equipped with pontoons were neatly arrayed, rifles mounted on the handlebars, and explosive charges strapped to the back seats.

"Commander, the airship reconnaissance team reports!" The operations staff handed over the newly deciphered telegram. "The British have moved their last two gunboats to guard the breakwater, leaving the middle of the Channel undefended!"

Li Rongfa's lips curled into a smile. Three days ago, he deliberately had his engineers leave behind a fake map in the Kranji Swamp, marked "Taiping Army's main attack direction: Johor Causeway." Now, the British had indeed fallen for the trap, diverting their already dwindling coastal defense forces to the wrong location.

"Order: Armored battalion to advance from the front, bicycle regiment to flank from both sides." He fastened his newest, widest Taiping steel helmet. "Tell the brothers, the roast pig for tonight's extra meal is waiting at the Governor's Mansion in Singapore!"

With a long blast of the ship's horn, the first wave of "Iron Bulls" roared into the water. These 40-horsepower steel behemoths could still paddle in the shallows using their tracks, but once they entered the deep water, they started the turbines at their sterns and slowly floated across. When the lead ship, the "Taishan," advanced to the median line of the strait, the British coastal defense guns finally reacted, but the 6-inch guns were too inaccurate, only creating plumes of water on the surface, and occasionally one "Iron Bull" was overturned. "Full speed! Don't give the gunners a chance to correct the trajectory!" Battalion Commander Wang Fugui roared into the megaphone. The observation window of his ship, the "Hengshan," had been shattered by shrapnel, and seawater mixed with shrapnel sprayed in through the cracks, causing the loader to scream in terror.

Suddenly, dozens of lights appeared on the south bank of the strait—not from cannon fire, but from oil lamps lit one after another in the windows of civilian houses. The lights formed huge arrows in the darkness, pointing directly at the blind spots on the flank of the British coastal artillery positions.

"The True Covenant brothers have given directions!" the observer shouted. "Two o'clock, three hundred meters, the sandbar is a safe landing spot!"

On the top floor of the Port Authority of Singapore building, Colonel Williams' telescope lens revealed chaos in the port area.

The True Covenant rebels set fire to the customs warehouse with kerosene, and the fire spread from the warehouse to the naval shipyard; the routed Indian soldiers were looting the Standard Chartered Bank vault; even more terrifying was the southeast corner—the Taiping Army's bicycle assault team actually rode into the Raffles Hotel, and all the wives of the British white officers staying there were taken prisoner.

“Sir, we must move immediately!” He turned to Campbell, who was slumped on the sofa. “The Typhoon has secretly docked at Pier 3, enough to take away headquarters and most of the white officers.”

Campbell stared blankly at the map of Malaya on the wall—it was all over! He suddenly grabbed Colonel Williams' sleeve: "Those Gurkha soldiers, they've served the British Empire for three generations, and British India still needs them."

“They can evacuate to Sumatra in lifeboats, each carrying twelve people,” Colonel Williams said with a wry smile, pointing out the window. “And I think you should be more worried about this than the Gurkhas.”

A terrifying metallic clanging sound came from outside the window. At the entrance to the port area, a Taiping Army "Iron Ox" armored vehicle roared over a roadblock, followed by a large group of Taiping soldiers and Chinese militia.

The Taiping army has actually reached the entrance of Sir Campbell's headquarters. That's incredibly fast!

When the first 75mm shell exploded against the outer wall of the port authority, Williams frantically dragged Campbell down the stairs. Every white officer they encountered in the port authority building was fleeing like headless flies, crying out, as if it were the end of the world—no, the end of the British Empire!
As dawn broke the following day, Li Rongfa strode into the governor's mansion, carrying a revolver. Before a group of Chinese leaders who had come to hear the news, he unfurled a yellow silk edict:
"By the mandate of Heaven, the Council of Kings decrees: Malaya is the ancestral homeland of China, now occupied by the puppet British, who are ravaging the people. The Nanyang Army is hereby ordered to recapture Singapore and rescue the people from their suffering."

At the same moment, the deck of the hospital ship "Renji," ten nautical miles south of Singapore Island, was filled with the strong smell of iodine. Severely wounded and just regaining consciousness, Luo Xinhua leaned against the porthole. The blood seeping from the bandage on his left shoulder had congealed into a dark red, and each breath brought excruciating pain to his chest. Onodera Tsubaki wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with a damp cotton cloth, while Jinguji Kaoru carefully held a telescope to his uninjured right eye. Through the other lens, Singapore Island burned in the faint light of dawn.
"Major General, General Li Rongfa has taken control of the entire island..." Jinguji Kaoru reported softly, but Luo Xinhua raised his hand to stop her.

His gaze was fixed on the southern shore of the strait—that was the responsibility of his generation! His father, Luo Yaoguo, had once told him that every generation had its own responsibilities, and the responsibility of his generation was to turn the Pacific Ocean into the ocean of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

This goal is almost achieved!

"Chun, can you hear the sound of the tide?" Luo Xinhua suddenly asked, his voice hoarse like the friction of rusty iron.

Onodera Tsubaki paused, then lowered her head: "It's the sound of victory."

“No.” He shook his head, his bloodied fingers gripping the window frame. “Those were my father’s words. He told me and Ah Zhong…”

Before the words were even finished, a bell suddenly rang out from the north shore of the strait. Luo Xinhua looked over and saw that the bronze bell in Singapore's harbor square had been struck by Chinese laborers working together—it was the sound of victory!

Luo Xinhua's blood-stained lips curled up slightly as he murmured, "Dad, the sea... has finally turned red."

(End of this chapter)