The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 460 Can't stand it?

"Bang, bang, bang", a burst of gunfire that suddenly rang out in their ears without any warning completely shattered the good mood of these Cossack cavalry.

Although this burst of gunfire was not dense, it was powerful enough as it was fired from more than a hundred rifles and the target was only a hundred meters away.

Although the first round of volleys only killed or wounded five or six Cossack cavalrymen, most of their horses were hit by bullets. While trotting, they suddenly jumped and capered, knocking many cavalrymen off their horses.

Even the Cossack cavalry with superb riding skills could not completely control the suddenly frightened warhorses, and only a few could still hold on to the backs of the crazy warhorses.

The squad of Cossack cavalry who were galloping up the hillside were not only receiving more attention because they were closer to the top of the mountain, but the sniper troops' shooting was also more accurate because of the closer distance.

Amid the dense gunfire, a squad of Cossack cavalry were either shot and fell off their horses, or were thrown off by their shot horses as they jumped around in panic.

Only two war horses were not hit by bullets. Under the control of the cavalry on horseback, they suddenly accelerated. Unable to rush up the steep slope, they urged the horses to make a diagonal circle on the hillside and escaped safely down the hill and ran away.

Li Jinyu was not very satisfied with the shooting results. If it were the veterans, this round of shooting would not only kill all the cavalry in this squad, but at least their horses would be either dead or injured.

Li Jinyu's face flushed slightly, and he seemed to want to explain something to Teng Yuzao.

Teng Yuzao waved his hands and said with emotion.

"Mingguang, except for officers and a few veterans, all your soldiers are new recruits. They have only been trained for less than four months. Although we attach great importance to shooting training, high-level shooting requires a lot of live ammunition shooting to achieve."

"What we lack most is weapons and ammunition. In less than four months, these recruits have only fired thirty rounds of ammunition on average. It is obviously unrealistic to expect them all to become sharpshooters who can hit the target every time."

"It was their first actual combat and they were able to follow orders and fire the bullets from their rifles, which was already very good, not to mention that their performance was very impressive."

Teng Yuzhao pointed at the soldier from the Eighth Regiment who was already firing at the remaining Cossack cavalry at the foot of the mountain.

"Mingguang, your men are already very good. In the first round of shooting, they killed or injured more than 20 Russian cavalrymen, and injured at least 30 or 40 horses. Sun Ziming has put a lot of effort into the training of the new recruits."

Li Jinyu had already heard about Sun Shijun's affairs, and he also felt that Teng Yuzao's attitude towards Sun Shijun had changed greatly, and he would entrust him with important tasks sooner or later.

But he didn't have time to think about others now. As long as the Russians at the foot of the mountain continued to hold on, his sentry would suffer heavy casualties if they wanted to withdraw as planned.

Teng Yuzhao saw what Li Jinyu was thinking. He looked at the Russian battalion two miles behind and the Russian infantry regiment behind them, all of which had begun to rush here. He turned around and said to Xu Ting behind him.

"Let your people take action and eliminate the remaining Russians as soon as possible."

Although Xu Ting had been promoted long ago, he insisted on staying with Teng Yuzhao, and all military affairs were handled by his chief of staff.

Teng Yuzao did not stop Xu Ting from doing this.

The people around him are constantly changing, and he will feel more at ease with someone like Xu Ting who is familiar with the situation.

Teng Yuzao has always been very caring towards the people around him. When these people were reorganized, most of them were arranged by Teng Yuzao to serve as squads, platoons, and sentries in various units, not only to strengthen the combat effectiveness of the greatly expanded troops.

Teng Yuzhao also put himself in these people's shoes and didn't want to delay their promotion by keeping them by his side.

The personnel of the Special Guard Squadron have undergone a major personnel change. The former squadron leaders and team leaders have all been transferred to the army, where they serve as captains and sentries. The current squadron leaders and team leaders have been promoted from the former team leaders and ordinary soldiers. Xu Ting is worried, so the specific command of the Special Guard Squadron will be directly under Xu Ting for the time being.

Xu Ting waved his hand, and the new squadron leader Liu Ziwei led the first team to quickly deploy on the top of the mountain. Ten seconds later, their gunshots rang out.

The first squad was composed of people with outstanding marksmanship selected from the entire army. There were more than sixty sharpshooter-level guards in the squadron. It was naturally not difficult for them to shoot at a nearly stationary target less than three hundred meters away.

Sure enough, their first attack was extraordinary. After only one round of shooting, the return fire from the remaining Cossack cavalry at the foot of the mountain basically stopped.

Teng Yuzhao could see clearly through the telescope that not all the remaining Cossack cavalry were killed by this small group of soldiers. Several Cossack cavalry were hit by two or three bullets at the same time in the heads that were exposed behind the dead horses.

Therefore, only thirty-four Cossacks were killed in this round of shooting.

The other dozen or so Cossack cavalrymen were frightened by the accurate shooting. They dared not show their heads to fight against the vanguard troops on the mountain. They all hid behind the dead horses, with their heads pressed to the ground and dared not move at all.

"Order the troops to retreat. We have to leave here too."

Teng Yuzao looked at the gradually approaching Russian vanguard and spoke calmly to Li Jinyu.

Then he said to Xu Ting, "Take the special guard squadron and help the ambush troops of the Eighth Town. Let the new soldiers gain more combat experience."

The Special Guard Squadron also has a large proportion of new recruits. Although their number is much smaller than that of other troops, and their individual and tactical skills are stronger than those of ordinary troops, nearly 50% of the recruits still need to go through the training of actual combat.

In mountainous areas, two hills may often appear to be very close to each other, but the distance from one hill to the other may be several times greater than the actual distance seen.

Just like now, although the Russian vanguard troops seemed not far from the battlefield, the outpost that the vanguard troops withdrew from the hill lost trace as soon as it went into the ravine.

When a battalion of the Russian vanguard arrived, no one paid attention to the life or death of the injured Cossack cavalry, but instead dived into the ravine, trying to hold on to the vanguard army that had taken advantage and escaped, in order to avenge the humiliation that had brought upon them.

This sentry of more than a hundred people, who was not even worth Maxim's attention, would not be taken seriously by a Russian battalion of more than a thousand people.

However, in the subsequent crazy pursuit, the Russian commander of this battalion regretted it deeply.

After chasing for several kilometers in the ravine, the Russian battalion commander was ready to give up the pursuit as he looked at the valley still covered with snow in many places, which made people feel creepy. However, the aimless shooting sounds of the Mosin-Nagant behind him made him regain his courage.

There were three battalions of Russian troops following behind, not to mention the more than 100,000 strong reinforcements rushing in. Even if they only had a regiment of more than 4,000 people, it would be almost impossible to destroy them in a short period of time without 10,000 people.

The gunfire from the friendly forces chasing closely behind almost became a death warrant for this Russian battalion. Under the desperate urging of the Russian battalion commander, the Russian army chased closer and closer, and the Russian battalion commander could even see the backs of the vanguard soldiers who seemed to have fallen behind due to exhaustion.

Just as the Russian battalion commander was about to urge his soldiers to speed up, "da da da da da da", "bang bang bang", a burst of dense Maxim heavy machine gun and rifle shooting like a storm suddenly sounded on the hillsides on both sides.

Then, the Russian battalion commander saw his soldiers trembling and swaying like duckweed in the rain in the violent rain of metal bullets. But before he could think much, he only felt a sharp pain in his chest, and then fell on his back. He would never see his soldiers who were suffering from the baptism of bullets and struggling in pain again.

When the loud charge sounded, Teng Yuzao and Li Jinyu had just climbed up a slightly higher hill only four or five hundred meters away from the battlefield. Teng Yuzao turned around, raised the telescope to observe for a moment, and said to Li Jinyu with some dissatisfaction.

"Mingguang, why didn't you explain it clearly to your people? At such a tense time, why are your people still cleaning up the battlefield!"

Li Jinyu, who was also eager to understand the effect of the ambush and was observing through a telescope, couldn't help but laugh awkwardly when he heard this.

"Marshal, you know that although my Eighth Town has a loud name, it actually only has more than 8,000 people. There are more than 30,000 less than Ziyu and his Fifth Town."

Li Jinyu stole a glance at Teng Yuzao, and seeing that Teng Yuzao was not obviously dissatisfied, he quickly added.

"I understand very well that this is not because the Marshal is partial, nor is it because we don't have soldiers, but because we lack weapons and ammunition."

Li Jinyu laughed and said, "Although these weapons of the Russians will soon belong to us, we can't just sit there and watch as we get the weapons and not want them!"

"The Russians' Mosin-Nagant is pretty good. This gun is no worse than the German Mauser."

Li Jinyu's words made Teng Yuzao, who was about to blame Li Jinyu, shut up.

Although he had no choice but to give priority to meeting the needs of the first five towns in terms of weapons and equipment, it cannot be denied that if Wu Peifu's fifth town was not within this range, others would have nothing to say. After all, almost all the generals in the army now believed that he had been devoted to cultivating Wu Peifu, his favorite disciple of Teng Yuzhao.

Teng Yuzhao sighed quietly without attracting any attention, and no longer wanted to continue the topic.

"The Russians' follow-up troops are almost approaching the battlefield. Tell your artillery to fire. Be careful not to expose the strength of the artillery too early. Just fire a few shots to slow down the Russians' reinforcements."

Then, Teng Yuzao said somewhat unwillingly, "Tell your people to clean up the battlefield quickly and evacuate as soon as possible."

Although Teng Yuzao was no longer solely concerned with the Eighth Regiment's actions to delay and tire the Russian army, from then on, dense gunfire could be heard all night long on the mountain road leading to Shexian, both during the day and at night.

Wherever the Russian army appeared, there would be the sound of gunfire, not only the sound of the Golden Hook rifles and mortars equipped by the Eighth Regiment, but more importantly, the sound of Russian Mosin-Nagant guns and the roar of large-caliber mountain artillery.

In short, whether it was the more than 100,000 Russian vanguard troops or the rear-guard troops, or even the central troops where the army commander Lenavich was, there were dense gunshots everywhere.

Three nights later, in a small mountain village called Shipo east of Lishupo, in a simple thatched house, the thatched walls were exposed. Under the light of several lanterns, the thatch on the adobe walls was clearly visible.

However, in such a simple thatched hut, a decisive military meeting that would determine the outcome of the battle was taking place intensely.

Those who attended the military meeting included not only the commander of the vanguard army, Teng Yuzhao, the young commander of the Eighth Regiment, Li Jinyu, but also Chief Counsel Yang Shixiang, commander of the Second Regiment, Li Xianze, commander of the Third Regiment, Hu Dianjia, commander of the Fourth Regiment, Wu Peifu, commander of the Fifth Regiment, Liu Shijiu, commander of the Artillery Regiment, Liu Changfa, and chief of staff Zuo Mingyang.

Almost all the senior generals of the vanguard army gathered in this simple and small thatched hut.

".In the past three days, more than 100,000 Russian soldiers were attacked by the Eighth Regiment every day, whether they were marching, sleeping, or even eating. It can be said that the Russians could not sleep at night and had no appetite. The Eighth Regiment fully implemented the planned combat plan and successfully completed the mission."

Teng Yuzao was standing in the middle of the thatched cottage, talking to a group of generals.

"In the past three days, the Eighth Regiment not only accomplished the task of tiring the enemy, but also caused huge losses to the Russians through cold guns and cold artillery, especially by launching sudden and fierce artillery attacks on the enemy camps at night."

"According to our conservative estimate, the blow inflicted on the Russians over the past three days has been enormous, with casualties on the other side being around 5,000 to 7,000 people."

"Good fight!"

The first person who couldn't help but cheer was not Liu Shijiu, but Li Jinyu's good brother Wu Peifu. At this time, he naturally wanted to support his good brother.

"Well done!"

Liu Shijiu rubbed his hands, looked at Li Jinyu with envy and said, "You are lucky. If I had known this, I would have snatched this mission from you. Don't let me get bored these days!"

Liu Nineteen's words made the others laugh.

Although Teng Yuzao smiled a little, he held back his laughter and continued speaking.

"We originally planned to harass the Russians for two more days, but now the situation is urgent and we no longer have the time."

During these three days, in order to prevent the Allied Forces' spies from obtaining any information, the troops from the second, third, fourth and fifth towns all hid in the mountain valleys. Except for the people sent by Teng Yuzao, they would not contact the outside world. These generals had not received any news from the outside world for several days.

The situation Teng Yuzao described was urgent, and everyone pricked up their ears nervously.

Liu Nineteen asked anxiously, "Marshal, what's going on?"

"Is Liu Yuxuan unable to bear it?"

Teng Yuzao waved his hand and said, "The situation in Yuxuan is indeed very critical."

(End of this chapter)