The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 522 The bombardment begins

"Marshal, no need to look at it."

Wei Jinghai had come behind Teng Yuzhao without knowing when.

"This is because the foreign devils discovered the hydrogen balloon that the artillery had just raised."

Wei Jinghai's words made Teng Yuzao burst out laughing. Such a big hydrogen balloon rose up in broad daylight. Even though it was a little cloudy today, it could still be seen clearly from a distance.

The sudden discovery of the hydrogen balloon not only confirmed that the Allied commanders had encountered the main force of the vanguard, but the Allied forces closer to the canal also had to run as far away as possible from the side where the vanguard's artillery was located, and chaos was inevitable.

Wei Jinghai's words made Teng Yuzhao look towards the left side of the shelter.

A dozen artillery staff officers, except for a few who made marks on a coordinate grid of the encirclement spread out on a table made of ammunition boxes, did not make marks on the grid based on the reports from various troops.

The other dozen or so staff officers almost all had a telephone in their hands, and each of them held the receiver in one hand and the microphone in the other. Based on the intelligence of valuable targets of the Allied forces transmitted by hydrogen balloons and several artillery observation points, they casually reported the coordinates for several artillery staff officers who were marking on the map to record.

Liu Changfa nervously leaned over the grid map on which the valuable targets of the coalition forces were marked, and examined it carefully.

Teng Yuzao was not paying attention to Liu Changfa, but turned to check the situation in Dashawu Village.

But Teng Yuzhao couldn't help but take a breath after just one look.

The small mountain village, which was full of houses just a moment ago, has completely changed in just a short while. It is almost impossible to tell that it was an ordinary village that was once quiet and peaceful. If it were not for the broken walls and rubble everywhere, as well as wooden objects still emitting smoke, there would be almost no trace of the existence of Dashawu Village.

Although Teng Yuzhao knew that according to the requirements of avoiding artillery fire, the battalion of the Fifth Regiment would not leave its main force in the village and they must be in the trenches, he was still very worried and even couldn't resist the urge to call Wu Peifu to inquire about the situation.

Because the three trenches in front of the village were also devastated by the large-caliber artillery of the Allied Forces. Due to the tight time, the three trenches were not dug very deep. The areas directly hit by large-caliber artillery shells had been blown into radial craters. From Teng Yuzhao's angle, he could already see the bottom of the trench.

Henan Wu Village is located on the south bank of the Xinhe River. Since the coalition forces knew that there had been artillery fire support to block the retreat of the troops, they gave special care to Henan Wu Village in order to destroy the artillery positions on the opposite bank.

As a result, the miserable appearance of Wu Village in Henan Province was even worse than that of Dashawu Village. Almost all the houses and walls were bombed into rubble, with scarlet flames still emitting from the broken buildings.

"Da da da da", "Da da da da da da".

Almost as soon as the running and attack stopped, the sound of intensive heavy machine gun fire rang out.

Teng Yuzhao turned the camera slightly, and dozens of heavy machine guns immediately appeared in the field of vision.

From the uniforms of these heavy machine gunners, Teng Yuzhao could tell that they were not only from the British Army, but also from the French, German, American and Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even the Italians, who played a supporting role in the Allied Forces, were manning two heavy machine guns and pouring hot rain of bullets on the trenches in front of Dashawu Village.

In front of the Allied heavy machine gun positions, surrounding Dashawu Village, the British army with a larger number of troops was in front of Dashawu Village, the French army was on the east side, and the three attack forces composed of the German, Italian and Austrian coalition forces, each with more than 2,000 people, had launched a group charge towards Dashawu Village.

Another Japanese army of more than 4,000 people went straight to the wooden bridge on the Xin River. According to the information obtained by Teng Yuzao, this Japanese army was the remnant of the 10th Division of the Japanese Army, with a total of only more than 6,000 people. They actually sent four battalions of troops to launch an attack at once, which was almost the size of a reinforced regiment.

Behind the heavy machine gun position, tens of thousands of coalition troops were gathering, apparently preparing for a second wave of attack.

Just from the strength of the coalition's first wave of attack, it is clear that the coalition is getting anxious. They should have been well aware that the longer they are blocked here, the greater the possibility of their annihilation.

Seeing that the three attacking forces of the coalition forces were getting closer and closer to Dashawu Village, but no officers and soldiers from the Fifth Town's battalion had appeared in the trenches to shoot and stop the attacking coalition forces, Teng Yuzhao couldn't help but feel nervous.

Could it be that all the troops of this battalion were killed in just this round of shelling!

Although there were many large-caliber artillery pieces in the coalition's artillery bombardment, there were nearly a thousand people in this battalion. It would be impossible that there would be no survivors!
If there were still survivors, why didn't they fire a single shot? Did they want to let the coalition forces get closer before attacking?

Faced with such a superior offensive force of the coalition forces, if we let them get close before fighting, we might be overwhelmed by the coalition forces and rush onto our positions.

Teng Yuzhao even thought of the artillery group under the command of Liu Changfa. Seeing that the artillery staff were already busy and exhausted, but seemed not to have finished their work yet, Teng Yuzhao sighed softly and did not disturb Liu Changfa.

Fortunately, the starting position of the coalition's attacking force was far away from Dashawu Village, and it would take some time for them to get close.

As time went by, the coalition attack force was only about a hundred meters away from the trench in front of Dashawu Village. At this time, the heavy machine guns used to cover the coalition attack force also stopped firing.

Because the coalition attack force was already very close to the trench, the firing angle of the heavy machine guns behind them was limited. If they continued to shoot, they would hurt their own people.

At this moment, "Da da da, boom bang" the sound of dense gunfire suddenly rang out in Dashawu Village, and Teng Yuzhao hurriedly attached himself to the artillery mirror again.

At some point, not only did hundreds of officers and soldiers from the Fifth Town appear in the semicircular trenches of Dashawu Village, but dozens of vanguard officers and soldiers also emerged from the ruins of Dashawu Village. They even set up nine Maxim heavy machine guns on the ruins and began to fiercely fire at the Allied attacking forces on three sides.

The officers and soldiers in the trenches were also shooting at the Allied forces with their rifles and pistols.

At the same time, dense mortar shells also launched fierce bombardment on the coalition forces attacking Dashawu Village from the concealed artillery positions south of Xinhe River.

The firepower of the battalion defending Dashawu Village alone was obviously unable to stop the three-sided siege by thousands of coalition forces. What Teng Yuzao lacked most now was heavy machine guns and related ammunition.

This battalion took out nine heavy machine guns at a time, which were obviously specially reinforced by Wu Peifu. However, even so, this battalion was still unable to completely stop the coalition forces' offensive.

Fortunately, the mortar group of the Fifth Town took action in time and blew the attacking coalition forces into chaos, allowing this battalion to pin down the coalition forces that were besieged on three sides and make them dare not move.

At this moment, the voice that Teng Yuzhao had been waiting for for a long time was heard in the shelter!

"Orders, mountain artillery battalions one to nine, in battalion units, shell the foreign artillery positions on the east bank of the canal. The mountain artillery battalions of the second, fourth, and fifth towns will concentrate on shelling Caoliuge Village. All other 87mm mortars, in sentry units, will shell the planned targets. All of them have ten rapid shots!"

(End of this chapter)