The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 346: A Great Victory Beyond Expectations

"Target, coalition attack force in front of the position, three rapid shots."

As soon as Teng Yuzao finished speaking, the artillery staff officer began to quickly convey Teng Yuzao's orders into the microphone.

Although the mortar battalion was only three or four hundred meters behind the position, in order to facilitate timely hearing of Teng Yuzhao's orders, Liu Changfa, the artillery commander who personally led the mortar battalion, still arranged for the communications soldier to pull a telephone line, and the telephone was held in the arms of a communications soldier.

Li Jinyu and Li Zixiong, who originally thought that Teng Yuzao, who had hurried over to support them, had only brought a few small-caliber artillery pieces, did not show the slightest excitement at Teng Yuzao's order to fire.

However, their expressions changed quickly afterwards.

Because, after the staff officer conveyed Teng Yuzhao's order through the telephone, with the whistling of several artillery shells, several flares emitting dazzling white light suddenly lit up in the air two or three hundred meters in front of the position, clearly illuminating the large group of attacking coalition forces in front of the position.

At this moment, these Annan and Indian soldiers had stopped their attack and seemed hesitant about whether to continue attacking the opposite vanguard army positions.

The Allied forces, including some British and French officers, were looking back in horror.

The sudden and intensive gunfire behind them made them deeply worried, fearing that they would be attacked from both sides by the vanguard army.

At this moment, Li Jinyu and Li Zixiong suddenly heard a burst of dense artillery shells whistling. The sound was so dense that it made people jump with fear, and it seemed that the sky was full of the whistling sound of artillery shells.

Then, a scene that shocked them even more appeared before their eyes the next moment.

Suddenly, among the three or four thousand densely packed coalition troops who were still hesitating in front of the position, there were flashes of strong light caused by dense explosions, and then a deafening and violent explosion sounded like thunder.

In the flash of the explosion, countless coalition forces' severed limbs and broken guns flew everywhere among the dense crowd of coalition forces. Many coalition forces were even thrown directly into the air by the shock wave generated by the explosion.

In just a moment, the coalition forces were completely obscured by smoke and dust.

"Boom boom boom", "Boom boom boom", two more rounds of intensive and fierce artillery bombardment. The smoke and dust produced by the explosions almost completely enveloped the coalition forces.

The violent explosion scene not only shocked Li Jinyu and Li Zixiong so much that they stood there with their mouths wide open, but also all the officers and soldiers on the position were stunned.

None of these people had ever seen such a dense and fierce bombardment. You know, in each round of bombardment, 162 87mm shells exploded in a very short period of time. How could the power not be shocking! Shocking!

The night wind was strong, and the smoke and dust raised by three rounds of fierce artillery bombardment were quickly blown away.

As the smoke and dust dispersed, under the illumination of the flares that were constantly lit in the air, the area where a large number of coalition forces had just gathered was now in ruins.

The dense crowd of Allied forces was already in chaos. Not only were large groups of terrified Annan and Indian soldiers running around among the broken limbs and bodies of the Allied forces on the ground, but even some wounded soldiers who were bombed and covered in blood on their faces seemed to be unaware of the pain and just shouted and ran wildly.

Even the British and French officers and gentlemen, who always thought themselves superior to others, were stunned by the shock.

Even if there were some people who remained conscious, they were so shocked that they kept making the sign of the cross on their chests.

It seemed that as the smoke dissipated, the coalition forces' minds began to gradually clear up, and some of the coalition forces who were running around in a panic had already started to run backwards.

Teng Yuzhao stretched out his hands and clapped his hands in astonishment, staring blankly at Li Jinyu, the desperate coalition forces in front of the position.

"Blow the charge!"

Li Jinyu, who had regained consciousness, immediately jumped up and shouted loudly.

"Blow the horn, bugler, blow the charge for me!"

The loud charge horn sounded in the wilderness, shaking all around and completely awakening the confused and crazy Annan and Indian soldiers. A large group of coalition forces who were not killed or injured in the explosion ran back wildly. Many Indian soldiers even threw away their weapons and ran away desperately with their long legs.

"kill!"

At the same time, more than 3,000 officers and soldiers from four battalions, including Wu Peifu's guard battalion, suddenly burst into earth-shaking shouts and launched a swift charge with bayonets at the Allied forces that had begun to disintegrate.

Liu Changfa, who had had enough fun today, ran over happily, looking at the mutilated bodies scattered all over the battlefield and said, "Marshal, your mortar is simply a magic weapon to kill foreign devils. After these three rounds of bombardment, the number of deaths and injuries will not be less than 2,000!"

Teng Yuzhao pointed in the direction of fierce gunfire in the distance and said to Liu Changfa.

"Qingyun, the large force of the foreign devils is still behind us. I don't know which unit is attacking the foreign devils. The battlefield situation is extremely favorable to us now. With a pincer attack from both sides, it is very likely that the foreign devils who are coming to reinforce will be defeated."

Teng Yuzao said with some regret, "It's a pity. If our main force was here, even if there were three or four more battalions, we could have achieved greater results."

"However, fortunately, we now have mortars. So, you can follow with a mortar. If the pursuing troops are blocked by the foreign devils, use the mortars to help them. As long as the foreign devils coming to reinforce are defeated, you can withdraw your troops."

Inside the Qihua Gate, although Teng Yuzhao was very tired, his mental state was still very good, with an unconcealable smile on the corners of his eyes and eyebrows.

At this moment, he was standing at the gate of Wengcheng with great interest, as if he was reviewing the troops returning victoriously. He watched the teams of officers and soldiers passing by, almost every man of whom was carrying captured trophies, and the equally excited officers and soldiers lined up to return to the city.

The results of this battle were not only enormous, but also far beyond the initial battle plan and far exceeded Teng Yuzhao's expectations.

It was originally planned to defeat the more than 10,000 German troops in the east of the city and inflict heavy damage on the enemy, thus achieving the goal of the battle.

But the battle went extremely smoothly. Since this German force was mainly composed of 7,000 German troops who had just arrived, they had a serious lack of understanding of the combat effectiveness of the vanguard army.

As a result, at the beginning of the war, the assault column broke into the three villages and towns occupied by the Germans in one fell swoop. With the help of street fighting weapons such as grenades, machetes and pistols, the German army, which had no street fighting training, suffered heavy losses.

When they were leaving the village and preparing to flee, they were blocked by the Imperial Guards and surrounded in the wild by the pursuing assault column.

After the assault column fired dozens of shells at the Russian army using captured German artillery, most of the remaining enemies surrendered to Liu Yuanshou under the leadership of German Lieutenant Colonel Cook, who had served as an instructor at the Beiyang Military Academy and Nie Shicheng's Wuwei Front Army.

Only the 600-odd German soldiers occupying a cemetery put up a desperate resistance. The assault column and the three battalions of the Guards Brigade charged three times but failed unsuccessfully, suffering more than 300 casualties.

This made Liu Yuanshou furious, and he brought in cannons to bombard the cemetery continuously.

The artillery sound that Teng Yuzhao heard on the battlefield where the German army was being encircled and annihilated was caused by Liu Yuanshou.

After eliminating the remaining German troops and leaving troops to clean up the battlefield and guard the prisoners, Liu Yuanshou was ready to rush to participate in the ambush on the Russian battlefield. However, after hearing the fierce artillery sound like thunder, Liu Yuanshou temporarily changed his mind and led the Guards Association, including two battalions, to the south to prepare to help the blocking troops fight.

However, he did not expect that because it was too dark, he took the wrong road and accidentally went around to the side and rear of the reinforcements of the coalition forces. The gunshots that Teng Yuzhao heard were the attacks launched by Liu Yuanshou on the main force of the coalition forces in order to prevent the coalition forces from attacking the Imperial Guards' blocking forces.

The Allied forces were suddenly attacked fiercely from the flank and rear, while the attacking force in the front was subjected to fierce and intensive bombardment from over a hundred cannons. This made the British and French forces coming to support them think that they had fallen into a trap set by the vanguard army.

The commander of the coalition forces hurriedly ordered his troops to retreat, but Li Jinyu and Liu Yuanshou took advantage of the situation and rushed forward. With the support of the fierce artillery fire from Liu Changfa and his mortar, most of the coalition forces were killed.

In the end, this coalition force ran all the way to the East Gate in a nearly disorganized manner, and only managed to stabilize its position after receiving support from the U.S. troops there.

The ambush on the Russian army also went unexpectedly smoothly. The sudden and fierce artillery fire not only caused heavy casualties to the Russian army, but also completely stunned the remaining Russian troops. After the vanguard army launched the charge, the troops had completely lost their organization. It was only because the ambush troops were short of manpower that more than a thousand Russian troops eventually escaped.

It can be said that the battle of Dongcheng was a perfect victory and an unprecedented victory.

Although the detailed results of the battle have not yet been counted, Teng Yuzhao roughly estimated that this battle should have wiped out more than 10,000 German troops, 17,000 to 18,000 Russian troops, and the battle to block the British and French forces coming to the south city should have resulted in several thousand casualties, for a total of more than 30,000 people.

The reason why we were able to achieve such a great victory in this battle was entirely due to the 162 mortars, and the first credit should be given to the Artillery Association.

"Marshal, Captain Liu Zong and others are here." Xu Ting reminded Teng Yuzhao in a low voice.

Teng Yuzhao looked towards the gate of Wengcheng and saw that Liu Shijiu, Liu Yuanshou, Wang Decheng, Zhu Kaishan and others were walking into the city among the officers and soldiers entering the city.

However, the expressions of those people surprised Teng Yuzao!
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(End of this chapter)