The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 205 Street Fighting

"Da da da."

"Pah, pah, pah."

"Boom boom boom."

The sounds of Maxim heavy machine guns, Mosin-Ganna rifles, Type 30 golden hook rifles, Mauser rifles, and pistols echoed throughout the half-burning and ruined city of Tianjin. Occasionally, there would be explosions of Teng's hand grenades, followed by clouds of smoke rising up, or the collapse of houses or walls accompanied by the sound of explosions.

Teng Yuzhao's "front-line command post" had already moved to another location.

The small second floor where he originally lived had been blown down by the Allied Forces' artillery fire a few days ago, and it had also been occupied by the Allied Forces who had been attacking the vanguard army frantically for several days. At this moment, the front line of the street fighting had advanced to the north of the center of Tianjin City, which meant that most of Tianjin City had been occupied by the Allied Forces who were attacking like crazy.

Due to the heavy casualties suffered by the assault brigade, the defense of the city has now been completely taken over by Li Xianze's Second Regiment, Hu Dianjia's Third Regiment, and part of Pan Jinshan's Independent Detachment.

Due to the heavy losses and in order to make better use of the limited manpower, Teng Yuzhao had no more scruples and incorporated all the three battalions of training troops remaining in the city and supplemented them with the 2nd and 3rd Regiments and the assault brigade.

Fortunately, Teng Yuzhao now has more than 200 students from the Beiyang Military Academy and more than 300 students from the camp academy, totaling more than 500 students with certain modern military knowledge as the backbone. In addition, there is the battalion that Teng Yuzhao first led and the battalion that Teng Yuzhao carefully trained as the core force, which can barely support the various units of the vanguard army.

However, the training time of the vanguard army was too short. Even with Teng Yuzhao's prior intensive training, they only had a slight advantage in street fighting with the Allied Forces in the urban area with complex terrain such as houses and streets. The only troops that were truly capable of confronting the Allied Forces head-on in such a favorable terrain were Liu Yuzhi's 1st Regiment, Li Xianze's 2nd Regiment, and Hu Dianjia's 3rd Regiment. The Boxers, the assault brigade with more training troops, and Pan Jinshan's independent detachment were inferior.

Over the past few days, although the vanguard army, under the command and guidance of Teng Yuzhao, had used barricades and houses to deal a fierce blow to the attacking coalition forces, it even sent small units from time to time to use the streets to infiltrate the rear of the attacking coalition forces, cooperating with the troops blocking the coalition forces in front, and using short and intensive firepower to inflict great damage to the attacking coalition forces.

The vanguard army even took advantage of the night to send out several teams, including part of the assault brigade that had withdrawn to Beiguan for repairs, to launch a counterattack against the streets and alleys that the coalition forces had just occupied during the day. They used grenades that were more suitable for close combat in street fighting, as well as pistols and machetes, to kill the coalition forces and force them to flee in panic.

However, under the frenzied attack of the coalition forces with superior forces, the vanguard army still suffered heavy losses, with nearly 3,000 casualties. Among them, the assault battalion and the third regiment suffered the greatest losses, with more than 2,500 people lost in these two units alone.

Although the assault brigade suffered heavy losses, their morale was extremely high. The greater the losses, the higher their morale became, and they fought bravely. Every time they faced an attack by the coalition forces, they made use of the complex streets and alleys to launch roundabout counterattacks the most times, inflicted the greatest casualties on the coalition forces, and achieved the most results. Liu Shijiu seemed to be very adept at fighting this kind of clever battles. He used many street fighting methods and tactics without even Teng Yuzhao's guidance, and he used them very skillfully.

However, Hu Dianjia's Third Regiment fought in a rather rigid and inflexible way in street fighting. Although the street fighting tactics were good, Hu Dianjia was not as flexible as Liu Shijiu in commanding street fighting. Although the Third Regiment fought extremely tenaciously and many houses and buildings were defended stubbornly, there were even several tragic scenes where the soldiers died together with the coalition forces with the burning Teng grenades. This showed an extremely tenacious fighting will, but the casualties also inevitably increased dramatically.

In order to withstand the coalition forces' frenzied attack and maintain morale, Teng Yuzao had to adopt a rotation method. Even the two battalions of the 1st regiment and Hu Daqiu's guard battalion were rotated.

Although the vanguard army suffered heavy casualties, Teng Yuzhao believed that this was still extremely valuable and even a very rare practical training, which would greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of the vanguard army. After bravely fighting with the coalition forces of the great powers, every surviving officer and soldier would have greatly improved their combat awareness and combat skills.

Each of these surviving officers and soldiers will become the skeleton and even the backbone of the vanguard army, giving the future vanguard army a tenacious character that cannot be defeated or crushed.

The reason why the vanguard army's street fighting capability was so tenacious was not only because Teng Yuzao had previously conducted conscious assault training for them, but also because Teng Yuzao personally went to the front line to command.

Since the start of the Tianjin Battle of the Vanguard Army, with the movement of the front line, Teng Yuzhao's simple front-line command post has changed locations several times, and even his small command post has been blown down twice, but he still insists on being on the front line. Except for returning to his command post in the Trade Bureau for breakfast and dinner every day, where he meets with Wei Jinghai to discuss military arrangements, he even eats lunch in his front-line command post.

It was precisely because Teng Yuzhao, who had a full understanding of the various tactics and technical and tactical characteristics of street fighting, personally went to the front line to guide the various troops that the vanguard army was able to not only stubbornly withstand the frenzied attacks of the Japanese and Russian coalition forces with superior forces in street fighting, but also actively launch powerful counterattacks from time to time, inflicting great damage to the coalition forces.

At this time, Teng Yuzhao was in his crude front-line command post which was crackling with stray bullets. However, he was not directing the battle. Instead, he was lying on a sandbag bunker, holding up his G98 and looking for valuable targets through the shooting hole.

Teng Yuzhao's presence at the front line was not to take over other people's business. He always adhered to his principles and original intentions, which was to provide opportunities for his generals as much as possible, allowing them to give full play to their talents, allowing them to be constantly trained in actual combat, and constantly improve their command ability and ability to respond to emergencies in battle.

Through actual combat, even if there are flaws or even wrong commands, they will gain useful experience, or even painful lessons.

Teng Yuzao thought that this was the price they had to pay. Wu Peifu squatted beside Teng Yuzao, his eyes pressed against the lens of a gun, and through the observation hole formed by two tiles, he was helping Teng Yuzao search for his target.

The command post that Teng Yuzhao chose this time was on the low ceiling of the second floor of a two-story building. He placed several thick wooden boards on the beams, and then removed a few tiles on the roof to use as shooting holes.

Of course, this place is only two or three hundred meters away from the front line of fierce street fighting, so necessary protection is still necessary. On the side facing the front line, several layers of sandbags are piled up as a breastwork to avoid being injured by stray bullets.

Teng Yuzhao's command post is close to the front line only at this time. If four years pass, his command post, which is almost at the front line, may be hit by mortar shells at any time.

Fortunately, at this time, since mortars had not yet appeared, the distance between the attackers and defenders in the street fighting was very close, and even the entire front line was in a brief change. In many places, the troops of both sides extended into each other's defense lines, so that neither side would launch artillery attacks on the front line of the battle.

The weapons for attack and defense were only rifles, pistols, and Maxim heavy machine guns, plus the vanguard's Teng grenades. The sandbags here were enough to withstand only the occasional stray bullets.

The simple command post where Teng Yuzhao is located looks very ordinary and very hidden from the outside. It can even be used as a hiding place for snipers, because no one would have thought that an important figure of the vanguard army is hiding under the roof tiles.

Of course, Teng Yuzhao was still very concerned about his own safety. He even specially brought a gun telescope from Liu Changfa's artillery regiment.

The so-called artillery telescope is actually a precision telescope used by artillery to observe the battlefield, search for targets, scout the terrain, observe shooting effects and measure the deviation of the explosion point.

The artillery scope is a binocular periscope consisting of two monocular tubes, equipped with a tripod. The magnification of the binocular periscope is generally 8× to 16×, and the field of view is 4.5° to 7°. The two tubes can rotate around the hinge axis and open arbitrarily within the range of 0° to 180° to enhance the stereoscopic sense or increase the periscope height when working under concealed conditions.

It is much safer to use this artillery telescope to observe the target here, because the person observing the target can hide behind the sandbag shelter.

In order not to attract attention, not only the lens of the artillery mirror would not extend out of the roof, but the barrel of Teng Yuzao's rifle was also retracted under the tiles.

Originally, Liu Changfa wanted to assign an artillery staff officer to Teng Yuzhao, who would be responsible for helping Teng Yuzhao observe the situation on the scene. If necessary, he could even instruct the second battalion of the artillery regiment, which was the battalion equipped with mountain artillery, to target targets far away from the front line.

However, now the artillery staff officer's job has been taken away by Wu Peifu, and the staff officer can only be reduced to loading bullets for Teng Yuzhao's other rifle in the back.

Teng Yuzao, who traveled through time, naturally knew the role of snipers, especially in street fighting, where the role of snipers was even greater.

A good sniper can not only kill important enemy targets without being noticed, such as officers and machine gunners covering the attack, but the coalition forces have very few Maxim rifles and there are not many opportunities to shoot machine gunners.

However, it is also valuable to shoot officers or soldiers of the enemy's attacking force who are ignored by their own defensive forces and find a gap to sneak into the defense line.

Therefore, a few days ago, Teng Yuzhao had asked all units to select a group of officers and soldiers with outstanding marksmanship, and each post must have a "sharpshooter" responsible for sniping the attacking coalition forces.

However, soldiers with good marksmanship are still considered "rare animals" in the vanguard army and are very hard to find. There is no other way. Teng Yuzhao has even sent out his personal guards. These people are not only good in martial arts, but also have very good marksmanship. Although they have not reached the level of snipers, it is no problem for them to reach the level of so-called "sharpshooters".

Now there is only one person left by Teng Yuzao's side, and this was something Wu Peifu and Xu Ting insisted on.

Moreover, the two men took it upon themselves to issue strict orders to the guards who were dispersed to snipe the coalition forces, not to stray too far from Teng Yuzao's position, and to stay within a hundred meters on both sides, so that they could quickly return to provide support if an emergency occurred at Teng Yuzao's place.

At this moment, Teng Yuzao had already set his sights on his target.

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(End of this chapter)