The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 467 Artillery Group (I)

In the still hazy morning fog, vision was still limited even through the high-magnification artillery sight.

Through the artillery sight, Teng Yuzhao could only vaguely see Russian officers and soldiers lined up in a loose formation, walking out of the valley near Longhu Village.

Some other Russian soldiers stumbled down the hillsides on both sides of the valley, still looking sleepy.

Teng Yuzhao did not find it strange that these Russian troops, who had been tense all night, were now in such a state of fatigue, because he also saw that among these Russian troops, some were carrying seriously wounded officers and soldiers on simple stretchers, and some wounded soldiers with bandages on their heads or bodies could only stagger down the mountain with the help of soldiers.

These Russian soldiers on guard duty were looming in the gradually dissipating morning mist. Seeing the appearance of the Russian troops, Teng Yuzhao finally felt a little relieved.

The Russian withdrawal from the night guard positions on the hilltops and valley entrances meant that nearly 20,000 troops directly under Wu Peifu's Third Consortium and the Fifth Regiment, who were in charge of this area, would then come out of the valley and quietly occupy the hilltop positions that the Russians had withdrawn from.

In this way, the Russian army's escape route into the mountainous area on the north was completely blocked. As long as Longhu Village was occupied, under the fire blockade of Longhu Village and the positions at the mouth of the valley, the bottom of the pocket would be formed, completely blocking the Russian army's retreat route to the east.

At that time, as long as the southern ambush troops commanded by Liu Shijiu who swooped down from the southern mountain joined forces, the bottom of this pocket, with the support of the intensive artillery fire from the northern artillery cluster, would continuously drive and squeeze the remaining Russian troops in the encirclement westward, and eventually destroy them under the intensive artillery fire.

Teng Yuzhao turned the lens of the sight towards the mountains on the south side of the road.

In the morning mist, you can vaguely see that there are more Russian troops marching down from the opposite mountain. On the southern mountain, which is more than ten miles long, Russian troops can be seen coming down the mountain in many places.

According to the situation in the past few days, Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment harassed the Russian army when the Russian army was on the march, and fired cold guns and cold artillery at the Russian troops from the mountains on both sides.

A sudden burst of heavy machine gun fire or three or five mortar shells suddenly falling from the sky and landing in the Russian army's marching column would not only cause heavy casualties to the Russian troops on the march, but would also disrupt the Russian army's marching column, forcing the Russian army to stop and launch a fire counterattack against the small forces that harassed them, and sometimes even send a joint-battalion-sized force to pursue them.

Then this harassment, which began with the morning march, would continue from daytime until before dawn the next morning. The only time the Russian army could relax was during the short two hours or so in the morning.

The two hours of peace were not due to any mercy from Li Jinyu, but because his troops also had to take turns to rest and replenish their ammunition, and the troops that harassed the border also had to exchange relevant intelligence with the Russian army.

This pattern for several days in a row had caused the Russian army to relax their vigilance during the breakfast period. Even some of the artillery pieces that were deployed before camping would begin to be tied up with pack horses at this time to prepare for the next march.

The Russian army's guard troops on the mountain are coming down the mountain, which means that the Russian army is about to set off. Now should be the Russian army's breakfast time.

Teng Yuzhao was now relieved that the ambush troops on the south side were under the command of Liu Shijiu.

Although Liu Shijiu did not have much education, he was not only meticulous, but also seemed to have an extraordinary talent for commanding operations.

Especially after more than half a year of study, Liu Shijiu has become more adept at commanding modern wars. He seems to be born to fight.

Without seeing it with his own eyes, Teng Yuzhao could imagine that at this moment, the nearly 70,000 troops from the Fourth and Fifth Towns, who were ambushed in the opposite mountain, were quietly moving into the attack positions under the command of Liu Shijiu.

Looking down at the bottom of the valley, since the mountain road under our feet runs westward along the northern foot of the mountain for most of the road section in the valley, the gently undulating hills on the south side are dotted with small plots of farmland.

In the wide valley, there are only three villages: Longhu Village, Gunao Village and Shipo Village. The three villages are not big, and together they have only six or seven hundred households.

Today, there are thousands of large khaki tents surrounding the three villages.

Although the morning mist in the valley had not yet dissipated, smoke could already be seen rising from the villages and camps surrounding the three villages.

Although Russian soldiers' staple food is black bread, they always have to drink hot soup in cold weather.

According to the information that Teng Yuzhao had read in his previous life, the food of the Russian soldiers during the war was much better than people imagined. Even the food standards of ordinary Russian soldiers during this period exceeded the standards in the late World War I and their own civil war.

For example, according to the food standards at that time, each ordinary soldier would have 800 grams of black bread or rye biscuits, 100 grams of oats or rye cereal for porridge, 250 grams of vegetables, 20 grams of butter or lard, 6.4 grams of tea and 20 grams of sugar or black pepper.

Before the war, ordinary Russian soldiers sometimes received some pickled pork or canned meat.

Although Liu Changfa had already reported to Teng Yuzao, and Teng Yuzao was roughly aware of the deployment of the mortar artillery of the artillery town and the fourth and fifth towns, due to the suddenness of the incident, the combat plan had some changes, so Teng Yuzao was a little worried. He was very worried that Liu Changfa would make mistakes in a hurry and neglect something.

Teng Yuzhao turned his gaze to Liu Changfa, who was observing the situation in the Russian camp in the valley through the artillery telescope, and could not help but ask.

"Qingyun."

Hearing Teng Yuzhao's voice, Liu Changfa quickly stood up.

"The Russian camps are all around three villages, especially around Gunao Village and Shipo Village. There are more Russian tents gathered there. The artillery firepower in these three places must be distributed well!"

Knowing that Teng Yuzhao was still a little worried, Liu Changfa hurriedly spoke.

"Marshal, based on the information we have about the Russians' camping, we have adjusted the artillery deployment overnight. The artillery town has divided the existing mountain artillery and mortars into three artillery groups."

Liu Changfa continued, "There are fewer Russians in Longhu Village. They are commanded by the Second Artillery Brigade. They have 162 60mm mortars and 81 75mm mortars from the Fifth Brigade, for a total of 243 mortars."

"Gunao Village and the surrounding Russian camps are under the command of my chief of staff from the artillery town. There are 162 60mm mortars, 81 75mm mortars, and 108 87mm mortars from the fourth and fifth towns, a total of 351 mortars."

"I personally command the artillery units in Shibo Village and the surrounding Russian camps, as well as the Lishupo direction. There are seven artillery towns, including the French rapid-fire battalion, with 75mm mountain artillery battalions, one 120mm and one 150mm heavy mortar battalion each, plus the 105mm mortar battalions directly under the 4th and 5th towns."

"There are 124 75mm mountain cannons, 36 105mm mortars, 18 120mm and 150mm heavy mortars, totaling 234 artillery pieces." "Fifty-four of the mountain cannons are responsible for the Lishupo direction, and the remaining 180 are responsible for Shibo Village and the surrounding Russian camps."

Liu Changfa specifically emphasized that the artillery group responsible for the direction of Shibo Village included his French rapid-fire artillery battalion, because he was worried that Teng Yuzhao would think that the number of artillery responsible for Shibo Village was too small.

Each mountain artillery battalion in the artillery town has eighteen mountain cannons, but this rapid-fire battalion has only sixteen captured rapid-fire cannons. Although there are only sixteen cannons, due to the firing rate, the sixteen rapid-fire cannons of this battalion are almost equivalent to eighty cannons of the same caliber.

Moreover, there are two towns with 105mm mortars and two heavy mortar battalions in the artillery town. They are all large-caliber mortars, and their lethality is naturally not comparable to that of small-caliber mortars.

Therefore, although the number of mountain cannons and mortars here seems to be a little small, their actual power is no worse than that of the other two places.

Liu Changfa added, "Marshal, according to my plan, the 162 unscrupulous cannons from the two towns will be placed on the mountain on our side, starting from near Longhu Village and lined up along the mountain road all the way to the west of Shibo Village. They will all be handed over to Xu Ting for unified command."

"With these unscrupulous artillery, the Russians won't be able to stand within 300 to 400 meters of the mountain on the north side. What's more, there are our heavy machine guns and special guard squadrons on top to cooperate. As long as the Russians get close to the north side, they will definitely not get away with it."

Liu Changfa added, "Marshal, we have been prepared for this. Now the three artillery groups have set up their artillery fire parameters. We are just waiting for the order, and these seven or eight hundred large and small caliber artillery will fire shells at the Russian camp."

"The centers of the shelling areas in several locations are all villages. Not only are there dense Russian personnel there, but there are also a high probability that Russian officers live there, especially their senior officers. It is much warmer in houses than in tents."

"The Russian camp covers a large area. Even if there are some deviations, it won't be a big problem. Besides, after five rounds of shelling, the shelling parameters need to be corrected."

The artillery town now has only two brigades, the first one is the artillery brigades, and the second one is the mortar brigades.

The artillery brigade is divided into two artillery units: field artillery and mountain artillery. The mortar brigade now has only two heavy mortar battalions.

However, Teng Yuzhao felt that the troops were insufficient to encircle and annihilate more than 60,000 Russian troops, so he even forced Xu Ting, who was extremely reluctant, to take the special guard squadron to reinforce the forces on the northern side of the mountain.

Teng Yuzao was a little surprised by Liu Changfa's report. Although he did not dare to say that his artillery idea had taken shape, it had at least reached a sufficient scale. What Liu Changfa mentioned added up to 666 mortars and 124 mountain cannons, which was already a small achievement in terms of scale.

You know, all the artillery pieces concentrated in this area now add up to nearly 800 pieces, and these are only the mortars of half an artillery town and two main towns.

Although simple artillery such as mortars, with small calibers, have been included in the artillery group in the future and can only be used as accompanying firepower for infantry units, at least for now, the problem of insufficient range of mortars is not obvious. In most cases, it can compete with mountain artillery.

Even in mountain warfare, mortars have very obvious advantages.

"very good."

Teng Yuzao had only said half of his words to praise Liu Changfa when he suddenly heard a series of faint gunshots. The sudden gunshots startled Teng Yuzao.

Judging from the sound, the gunshots should have come from the opposite mountain, where is the southern attack force commanded by Liu Shijiu.

The gunshots not only shocked Teng Yuzao, but also Wu Peifu and Liu Changfa.

Even the dozen or so staff officers in the shelter became nervous and pricked up their ears. Several staff officers responsible for conveying orders had subconsciously grabbed the microphones of the magnetic telephones beside them, waiting for orders to be issued at any time.

According to the time calculation, not only the troops in the southern mountains commanded by Liu Shijiu have not yet arrived at the scheduled attack starting area, but even Wu Peifu's brigade responsible for blocking the valley entrance near Longhu Village and the troops directly under the Fifth Regiment may not be able to arrive at the scheduled attack area.

If a fight breaks out at this time, the Russian troops who have just come down from the mountain may quickly return to their guard positions. In that case, the attacking force may engage in a battle for key areas with the Russian guard forces, which will greatly affect the combat plan.

Thinking of this, Wu Peifu and Liu Changfa couldn't help but look at Teng Yuzhao.

After a moment's thought, Teng Yuzao said to Liu Changfa and Wu Peifu.

"Don't panic. Since there are gunshots, it means that our troops are close to the Russians' guard positions. This may be because the Russians left a small number of sentries, or there may be an unexpected accident."

"Now we have to race against time with the Russians. They just came down from the mountain and are very tired, while our troops are moving up the mountain. Even if both sides start fighting for the hilltop positions, the Russians will not be able to catch up with us."

Teng Yuzao waved his hand and said decisively, "Don't hesitate, Qingyun, give the order to fire. Once the cannon sounds, Liu Shijiu will no longer have any concerns. He will do his best to seize the advantageous terrain on the opposite side."

Teng Yuzao looked at Wu Peifu and said, "Give your men the order to seize the valley entrance at all costs."

While Wu Peifu was giving orders to a staff officer guarding the telephone, Liu Changfa had already given orders to three staff officers holding the telephones. While the staff officers were shouting into the microphones of the magnetic telephones, he had already run to a gun scope, leaned over, pressed his eyes closely to the lens, and observed its artillery target.

Teng Yuzao ignored Wu Peifu who was eager to convey the order, and ran to a gun team's telescope to hold the sight, eager to see the effect of the artillery fire.

Almost at the moment when several artillery staff officers finished shouting at the top of their lungs into the microphone, a rapid and dull series of "bang bang bang" sounds of mortar firing were heard not far from the shelter.

This was the moment when the four heavy mortar battalions located not far from the shelter began to fire their first round of shells. As these heavy mortars began to fire, almost at that moment, the valley was filled with the whistling sound of large numbers of shells cutting through the air.

The whistling sounds of these shells are not exactly the same. Some have a higher frequency and the whistling sound is extremely harsh. This should be the sound of mountain artillery with a higher rate of fire. Some have a lower frequency and the whistling sound seems a little muffled. This is the sound of mortars with a caliber of more than 100 mm, especially the whistling sound of 150 mm heavy mortars is more obvious.

This is not only because the caliber of these heavy mortar shells is larger, but also because the mortar shells manufactured by the Vanguard Army have thicker propellants and shell casings, which is why they make such a sound.

However, Teng Yuzao had no time to consider the shortcomings of the vanguard army in the artillery shell manufacturing technology. These were all things for the future. Teng Yuzao was now thinking of only one thing, that is, the surveying and mapping work of the artillery town was done accurately and precisely, and the first round of shells they fired would explode in the Russian camp.
(End of this chapter)