The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 427: Surprised Duan Qirui
However, although the hill where the command post was located was 20 to 30 meters higher than the low hill where Hu Dianjia led his troops and the mountain road passed through it, there were not only many rocks on that hill, but also dense trees and weeds. This made it difficult for Duan Qirui to see how Hu Dianjia arranged his remnants and firepower to block the Russian army even if he tried hard.

Helplessly, Duan Qirui could only bypass the frontal blocking position and focus his attention directly on the six skirmish lines of more than 4,000 Russian troops who were gradually advancing.

Although he was trained in artillery, Duan Qirui, who had been in the Wuwei Right Army for a long time, could still see from this formation that the Russian army was preparing a series of fierce attacks to break through Hu Dianjia's blocking position in one fell swoop...

The two Russian regiments on the flanks of the frontal blocking position that tried to outflank them did not form a skirmish line. Instead, they formed a battle team formation, trotting along the hills on both sides and moving quickly to the rear of the frontal blocking position.

Five minutes later, Duan Qirui heard the whistling sounds of two artillery shells cutting through the air, and then the sounds of two artillery shells exploding suddenly rang out among the Russian troops preparing to encircle the Russian army on both sides.

The sound of the explosion of the shell startled Duan Qirui, who had rich experience in artillery, and he looked in the direction of the explosion in surprise.

As far as Duan Qirui could see, a violent explosion occurred in the ranks of two Russian army regiments that were rapidly encircling the blocking position from the rear.

Judging from the huge cloud of dust raised by the explosion and the Russian soldiers who were blown into the air, this was definitely an explosion with a power that could only be produced by the explosion of an artillery shell larger than 80 mm.

But what puzzled Duan Qirui was that this violent explosion was different from the sound of the explosion of artillery shells with a caliber of more than 80 mm. The explosion of this type of artillery shells was obviously louder.

Moreover, Duan Qirui could easily judge from the whistling sound of the shells cutting through the air that the initial velocity of the shells was not very high.

Following a series of dense, almost continuous, piercing whistles that struck Duan Qirui as strange, a shocking scene appeared before his eyes for Duan Qirui, who was very familiar with all kinds of artillery. Duan Qirui was so surprised that he opened his mouth wide.

In his field of vision, a group of small black dots suddenly appeared in the sky. Judging from the flight paths of these black dots, they were launched from the side and rear of the sniping position, behind a hill about 500 meters away from the command post.

Judging from the trajectory of the ballistic missiles, their artillery targets were the two Russian regiments that were flanking the two wings. The straight-line distance between the artillery firing positions and the Russian flanking forces on the left wing was only over 600 meters.

In Duan Qirui's knowledge and memory of various artillery pieces around the world, unless it was direct fire, no artillery piece could have such a high trajectory and such a strange short range.

What made Duan Qirui even more puzzled was that there were as many as 150 or 160 black spots in this group, and the artillery positions required to fire so many shells at once should occupy a large area and should definitely not be concentrated in such a small area.

You know, even according to the largest artillery unit in the West, it can be organized into six to seven artillery battalions!
Six or seven artillery battalions are concentrated in such a small area. Once their positions are locked by enemy artillery, they will inevitably suffer heavy losses.

A thought quickly flashed through Duan Qirui's mind, that is, the artillery of the vanguard army only knew how to fire cannons. Although they had a large number of cannons, no one knew how to use them.

For a moment, Duan Qirui even had an idea in his mind that after the battle, he would recommend himself to train a group of artillery personnel for Teng Yuzhao.

However, he quickly overturned this idea.

He knew very well that Teng Yuzao was different from him in that he only specialized in one subject. The smart and clever Teng Yuzao in the past had mastered both infantry and artillery when he was in the Beiyang Military Academy. If his subordinates did not know how to use artillery, how could Teng Yuzao not understand it?

How could Teng Yuzhao watch his artillery unit make such a low-level mistake and do nothing about it?

Duan Qirui had no time to think about it. Before the small black dots landed, with a series of "bangs", 35 or 6 small millstone-sized objects with green smoke flew out from the blocking position. They rolled in the air and flew towards the large group of Russian soldiers who had already advanced to the front blocking position defended by Hu Dianjia's troops, more than 200 meters away. Judging from the flying posture and speed of these small millstones, it seemed that these small millstone-like objects were not heavy, but Duan Qirui had already felt that these things with green smoke must be some unknown shells.

The Russian soldiers who had already started to attack at a faster pace instead of a slow one, when they saw the small millstone-like objects flying over, did not quickly lie down on the ground as they normally would to avoid artillery fire, but instead fled in all directions in fear, which instantly made the formation of the Russian attacking force become chaotic.

Some Russian soldiers even had no time to escape to the rear and sides, and they ran towards the front of the blocking position without caring about their lives.

Yes, it's a run, not a rush.

Because Duan Qirui had already seen that these chaotic and scattered Russian troops were not trying to quickly rush to the front blocking position where Hu Dianjia was in charge, but were trying to avoid those small millstone-like things flying towards them.

From the panic-stricken escape of these Russian soldiers, it can be seen that the Russian officers and soldiers were deeply terrified by these small millstone-like things and everyone was trying to avoid them as much as possible.

The Russian army had only one goal, which was to try every possible means to avoid the small millstones flying past.

It was as if those small millstones flying by were ferocious beasts that would selectively devour people. If you couldn't avoid them, you would be torn into pieces.

Duan Qirui was greatly surprised by the performance of the Russian officers and soldiers, who were always vicious!

Just as he was feeling surprised and confused, "BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!", a loud explosion that made his ears buzz exploded violently among the Russian soldiers who were unable to escape.

The violent explosion produced smoke and dust that rose twenty to thirty meters high in almost an instant, tightly covering the explosion area.

It was as if in just a short moment, a high sandstorm wall that was still rolling and rising suddenly appeared in front of the blocking position.

Even the strong shock wave generated by the violent explosion has reached the command center protected by sandbag bunkers three or four hundred meters away from the explosion area.

The camouflage net covering the headquarters was suddenly blown up by the strong wind generated by the shock wave, completely exposing the headquarters.

Moreover, what followed was a torrential rain of gravel and mud falling from the sky.

Although his ears were still buzzing, Duan Qirui could still hear the dense and violent explosions coming from afar.

Such dense and violent explosions were definitely not weaker than the violent explosions in front of the blocking position in front of him. It was only because the distance there was farther that it did not bring him a stronger shock.

Duan Qirui knew that the explosion should be another new type of artillery shell flying towards the Russian attack forces on both wings.

Duan Qirui, who had already unconsciously bent down to avoid the artillery fire, was startled by the scene in the headquarters when he raised his head again...

(End of this chapter)