The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 419: Teng Yuzao's Emotional Agitation
With more than 6,000 assault troops, a three-fold advantage, they faced a Japanese battalion of just over 1,000 and nearly 1,000 lightly armed Allied artillerymen.

Another sudden and swift assault was launched. To be more precise, this kind of ambush should be called an assault. For the assault column, which has always been good at fast and fierce assault operations, there should be no suspense.

The outcome of the battle was not in doubt and it was normal for it to become apparent in a short period of time.

The assault column fought this battle very cleanly and efficiently. It took less than twenty minutes. Soon after the fierce and intensive dull explosions of unscrupulous artillery and the explosions of mortar shelling were heard from the south, the battle of assaulting the Japanese-Russian coalition artillery units was over.

Most of the more than 2,000 Japanese-Russian coalition forces, which were mainly Japanese troops, were killed in hand-to-hand combat, and almost half of them were hacked to death with swords.

While the soldiers were busy cleaning up the battlefield, they were also driving the cannons that were still being towed by horses behind the hill. They followed the path behind the hill and went deep into the hill covered by increasingly dense grass and trees.

For artillery pieces whose horses had died or were injured, the soldiers quickly and methodically untied the reins and replaced them with packhorses originally carrying the shells. The new packhorses then pulled the heavy artillery pieces away.

The shell boxes were lifted by several soldiers and evacuated from the battlefield with difficulty.

There were even soldiers who surrounded the frightened pack horses and led them away from the mountain road.

These soldiers all had one target, which was the vacant artillery position of the artillery association not far behind them.

In short, everything went quickly and orderly.

As for cleaning up the battlefield, to be exact, the officers and men of the assault column had no time to do so;

Because, under Liu Shijiu's loud shouts, the soldiers quickly searched the battlefield for the wounded or dead foreigners, and then killed them one by one, trying not to leave a single one alive.

At the same time, the weapons and boxes of ammunition of the Japanese and Russian forces were taken away, but there was no time to take care of the bullets and other things on them.

After clearing the battlefield, Liu Shijiu commanded the officers and soldiers of the assault column to quickly withdraw to the hill and behind the hill.

This time, the assault column increased its forces on the occupied hills, and without destroying the concealment effect, it had begun to quickly use the terrain to build simple fortifications on the top of the hills.

There was certainly no time to dig trenches, so they simply re-set up heavy guns in the high grass or used the rocks as shooting shelters.

In places where there is no rock cover, either dig a shallow trench or put a few sandbags in the grass as a shelter.

Fortunately, the coalition forces that were about to arrive no longer had any cannons. Even if they had a few small cannons, under the firepower from both sides of the mountain road, it was estimated that the coalition forces would not have the opportunity to deploy the cannons and fire.

Without the threat of artillery fire, such a mountaintop position can still barely cope with infantry attacks.

The troops who remained at the foot of the hill were not idle either. After returning to the hill, they immediately began to build sandbag fortifications on the hillside behind the hill and at the foot of the hill.

In particular, long sandbag fortifications were built in the empty areas between the hills where the captured Allied artillery had been evacuated. Even the two Hotchkiss heavy machine guns that had just been captured from the Japanese were placed on the position.

When the coalition forces arrive, they will definitely follow the traces of the artillery and try to take back their artillery.

These fortifications were set up to prevent the coalition forces from pursuing the artillery and to prevent them from escaping the bombardment area and breaking out of the ambush circle after being heavily bombarded.

Because, although the coalition forces already knew that they had been ambushed, this ambush was very different from previous ones, which made the coalition forces not think of withdrawing immediately.

Or at least they would not be so anxious to evacuate. This ambush was actually composed of three ambushes strung together, so it is more appropriate to call it a serial ambush.

The first ambush was undoubtedly a blocking battle aimed at preventing the Russian army from continuing their pursuit.

After hundreds of coalition cavalrymen chased into the ambush circle, a fierce and intensive burst of rifle and heavy machine gun fire would block the coalition cavalry pursuit troops.

When the Russian infantry caught up, since they were not attacked from the hills on the flank, the Russian army began to think that the 3rd Mixed Brigade had encountered a support force, and the support force was only there to cover the tired soldiers of the 3rd Mixed Brigade who had been chased by them for two days.

Therefore, the Russian army will not and is unlikely to care too much about it. They may not even wait for the artillery units behind them to catch up and provide them with artillery support.

The Russian army will immediately organize its troops and prepare to launch continuous attacks on the vanguard army's blocking positions, trying to break through the enemy's blocking positions in one fell swoop, and then continue to pursue the victory.

Only after encountering determined resistance and fierce and unscrupulous artillery and mortar bombardment did the coalition forces believe that they had encountered a premeditated ambush and chose to retreat.

It is even possible that the Russian army learned at the same time that the artillery unit behind them had been attacked and had to retreat in a hurry to rescue the artillery unit.

And when the front and rear troops of the coalition force arrive at the battlefield of the assault column, only then will the real ambush begin.

The time goes back to an hour ago, to the frontal blocking position less than three miles away from Jiantou.

In order to launch a surprise attack on the coalition forces, simple fortifications were built on the positions here using the terrain. From the mountain road, it would be impossible to find that there were any blocking troops here.

There were no ambush troops even on the hill a mile away from the frontal blocking position. The troops of Liu Yuzhi's First Mixed Brigade were hiding behind the hill. Only after inspection by the coalition's search cavalry would they quietly rush up the hill and quickly occupy the position.

For the troops of the First Mixed Brigade occupying the hilltop, ambushing the coalition forces was only a secondary task. Their primary task was to prevent the coalition forces from rushing out of the mountain road and running into the hills on both sides to resist on the spot.

The ultimate goal is to force the Russian army to retreat along the mountain road.

In order to achieve this goal, even the firing of heavy machine guns was subject to strict regulations. Only long bursts were allowed, and strafing of the Russian army's rear troops on the mountain roads was absolutely not allowed.

While the Russian army was retreating along the mountain road, the troops of the 1st Mixed Brigade also had to follow up quickly in the hills on both sides, while the troops of the 3rd Mixed Brigade turned around and pursued the retreating Russian troops along the mountain road.

The various troops will eventually encircle the Japanese-Russian Allied Forces on a narrow mountain road about several kilometers long centered on the assault column's ambush area, and firmly lock the Japanese-Russian Allied Forces in the encirclement.

After the mortar battalion that arrived just as quickly was deployed, they used the most intense artillery fire to kill the main force of the Japanese-Russian coalition forces to the greatest extent possible, and then surrounded and annihilated them.

To the rear of this frontal blocking position, among a clump of trees on a slightly higher hill more than 200 meters away, there was a bunker covered with camouflage nets and made of sandbags, covering an area of ​​more than 60 square meters and with a roof built with pine branches. This was Teng Yuzhao's front-line command post.

Although the command center is small, it has all the necessary facilities. In addition to Wei Jinghai, there are more than a dozen staff officers crowded on one side of the command center. Some are answering and making phone calls, while others are marking the situation of both sides on a map hanging on a wooden frame based on the latest intelligence.

This map is exactly the one hand-drawn by the General Staff Office from Jiantou to Balizhuang.

At this moment, at the entrance of the small command center, Teng Yuzhao was trying hard to suppress his fluctuating emotions. With his hands behind his back and a slightly frowned brow, he looked at the path at the foot of the hill through the gaps in the pine branches.

There, an officer from the General Staff was walking quickly up the hill along the path with a thin, middle-aged officer wearing riding boots and wearing a blue-gray uniform that was almost the same style as the vanguard army.
(End of this chapter)