The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 42 Leave All Behind
Almost all of these platoon leaders are students who stay on campus this time. The original platoon leaders have been promoted to assistants and chief platoon leaders. In principle, these promoted chief platoon leaders and assistants are still responsible for their original platoons, but they do not give direct command. Instead, they are mainly responsible for guiding these new platoon leaders and play the role of passing on knowledge and skills.

Teng Yuzao's purpose is very simple, which is to give these student officers the opportunity to train as soon as possible. They now only have theoretical experience, and no actual combat experience. Teng Yuzao wants these students to grow up in combat as soon as possible. The vanguard army, which is about to expand rapidly, really needs these military talents who have mastered Western modern military concepts.

After about twenty minutes, the coalition forces finally stopped shelling the vanguard positions.

Teng Yuzhao hurriedly picked up the telescope and rushed to the observation hole to look outside.

By this time, the sky was already beginning to brighten. As the smoke and dust from the artillery bombardment gradually dissipated, the view through the telescope gradually became clearer.

On the river bank more than 800 meters away, there were already densely packed allied troops that had landed. Judging from the color and style of their uniforms, there were nearly a thousand Tsarist Russian troops among them, who were organizing their ranks under the command of a major.

In the organization above the platoon level, most Western armies are organized in fours, which is probably related to the convenience of fighting in formation.

At that time, in the Western armies, the number of people in a company was more than 220, and as many as 240, which was more than twice the number of companies in later generations. However, for some reason, the Wuwei Right Army, which was the first to be trained as a new army according to the German organization, had only 120 people in one sentry, which was completely different from the German army.

Judging from the number of people who landed, the Russian army should have sent a battalion of troops.

Behind this battalion of Russian troops were two companies of British troops mixed with about sixty Italian and Austrian soldiers. Except for a few officers who were Westerners, the rest of the British soldiers had Oriental features, but their skin color was a little darker.

Teng Yuzhao knew that the British troops participating in the Eight-Nation Alliance this time were mainly composed of Indians from their colonies, and these British troops should all be Indian troops.

In fact, it was not only the British army that was fighting the Boers in South Africa and was unable to withdraw a large number of troops at the moment, and thus had to pull in colonial troops to make up the numbers. The same was true for the United States and France.

The troops dispatched by the Americans mainly came from their colony, the Philippines, and the troops dispatched by France mainly came from their colonies in Southeast Asia.

Especially the British. Among the troops joining the Allied Forces, there were not only Indians, but also a so-called Chinese Battalion with about a thousand people. It was formed when Britain forcibly leased Weihaiwei. The personnel mainly came from Shandong, Zhili and other regions. The only difference was that the attire of this Chinese Battalion was based on the Indian army. They also had Sikh-style turbans, but with the logo of the Chinese Battalion. Their weapons were all British weapons, not only Martini rifles, but also Maxim heavy machine guns.

At this time, the coalition forces' landing troops had roughly arranged themselves into three horizontal rows, with two companies of nearly 500 people in each row.

Another dozen Russian soldiers, carrying two water-cooled Maxim heavy machine guns and some sandbags, had advanced to a point only 300 meters away from the vanguard army's position under the cover of artillery fire, where they were setting up two Maxim water-cooled heavy machine guns.

At this time, the heavy machine guns used by the armies of Western countries were all Maxim heavy machine guns, but they were produced by their own countries under the authorization of Maxim Company, and some countries even directly purchased British products. This situation continued until before World War I, when various countries launched their own heavy machine guns. Seeing the Russian attack array, Teng Yuzao couldn't help but sneer in his heart.

At this moment, Teng Yuzao finally understood the legendary story of why the German army could kill or wound 60,000 attacking British troops in one day in the Battle of the Somme during World War I, even though they placed heavy machine guns every hundred meters, and why only fifty British soldiers operating four Maxim guns were able to kill 3,000 Zulus.

Among the Western armies at this time, the German Army was the most typical, and all of them advocated offense. However, when the armies of Britain, France, Russia and other countries attacked, they all emphasized the need for offensive support points, that is, to cover and support the offensive forces. However, the German Army did not pay much attention to cover and support, and the German Army emphasized more on rapid and powerful attacks.

The Russian army's attack was even more unique. They emphasized frontal attack, unlike the Western powers, most of which attached great importance to flanking attack.

The attack formations of Western armies were similar. They all lined up in horizontal rows with a spacing of about two or three meters. After entering the range of the enemy's rifles after 500 meters, they began to speed up the attack, but still had to maintain the attack formation. After entering 50 meters, they changed into charge mode and quickly rushed into the enemy's formation to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

This type of offensive method has long been out of touch with modern warfare.

Although the Eight-Nation Alliance mocked the Qing army for being ancient people fighting with modern weapons, their Western army's tactics of column attack were also very rigid and old-fashioned. They were still stuck in the Napoleonic era. Compared with the Qing army, they were no better than the pot calling the kettle black.

"Take in Captain Liu of the first regiment."

"Orders: 1. After the battle begins, only one heavy machine gun in the heavy machine gun bunkers on the east and west sides is allowed to open fire; 2. All other infantrymen must aim and fire freely after the battle begins; only after the heavy machine gun in the machine gun bunker where I am located starts firing, the entire army can open fire. Violators will be severely punished."

Wei Jinghai quickly conveyed Teng Yuzhao's order to Liu Yuzhi over the phone.

The coalition forces' formation was spread out widely, and it was obvious that the other side thought that the vanguard troops were insufficient in number, so they wanted to spread out the front line, make the defensive firepower insufficient, and then take advantage of the situation to rush forward.

Fortunately, the defensive fortifications built by Teng Yuzao were mainly supported by four heavy machine gun bunkers, which were then connected by trenches. Therefore, the position was very wide, completely surrounding the coalition forces' offensive formation of more than 1,000 meters wide. This was also the reason why Teng Yuzao only required the use of two of the six heavy machine guns in the heavy machine gun bunkers on both sides.

Because there was no need to take into account the front and outside of the two heavy machine gun bunkers, only the area surrounded by the four heavy machine gun bunkers, the cross fire of the four Maxim heavy machine guns in three directions, plus more than 200 rifles, was enough to kill the more than 1,000 coalition troops who were exposed and unprotected at close range. These firepower were enough to deal with this simple offensive formation. Teng Yuzhao did not want to expose the strength of the vanguard army too early.

"The foreign devils have begun their attack!" a staff officer shouted.

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(End of this chapter)