The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 616: The Japs are about to attack

Teng Yuzao nodded and said, "That's right. Kuropatkin is afraid of both sides, which is the most taboo for a general."

Teng Yuzao paused and continued, "The Battle of Liaoyang can be said to be a decisive battle to a certain extent. Whichever side wins this battle, the situation will tilt towards the winner."

"In a battle like this that determines the final outcome, once you make the decision, you must overcome all difficulties and dangers and defeat your opponent without hesitation."

Teng Yuzao spread his hands, "But this Kuropatkin is not only hesitant and indecisive, but also still blindly defends."

Teng Yuzao shook his head and sighed, "Although Kuropatkin was previously the Russian Army Minister, he had always served as the Chief of Staff in the army. He had no experience in commanding troops and had no perseverance that a commander should have. The Russians chose the wrong person this time."

Liu Shijiu said angrily, "Damn it, the emperor of the old Russians was really blind this time. He chose such a person as the commander-in-chief. It would be strange if he didn't lose. This is exactly in line with our old saying that incompetent generals kill the army."

Wu Peifu smiled and said, "Uncle Master, don't worry about the old Russians."

"Don't forget our goal. We are joining the war now, but we don't want either side to win. We hope that both sides will fight to the death and eventually be unable to continue fighting."

Liu Nineteen sighed heavily, "How could I forget this!"

"It's just that, looking at the Russians' deployment of troops, I feel very frustrated! I really want to lead my troops to teach the Japanese a lesson, otherwise the Japanese will be so arrogant that their tails will be lifted up to the sky."

Teng Yuzao understood Liu Shijiu's feelings very well. In fact, he was similar to Liu Shijiu and was also annoyed by Kuropatkin's outrageous actions.

Teng Yuzao tried to calm himself down and nodded.

"Brother is right. We should teach the Japanese a lesson. It's not that I don't want them to be cocky. I am actually happy to see them in this situation."

"The key is that we should win a battle that is neither too big nor too small, otherwise the morale of the Russians will be worrying."

Hearing that Teng Yuzhao was going to teach the Japanese a lesson, Liu Shijiu rolled up his sleeves excitedly and said.

"Marshal, I request that my Second Independent Brigade be transferred up. Just give the order. I will definitely defeat the Japanese and let the Russians see how our Zhili Army fights."

Now, the First Division is holding Gongchangling, the Second Division is holding the line from Gaofengsi to Langzishan, and the Independent Second Brigade formed by the troops of Liu Shijiu's Fourth Regiment and the Independent First Brigade formed by the original troops of the First Regiment are responsible for the defense of the left and right wings of the line from Gongchangling to Gaofengsi.

Teng Yuzao smiled and did not respond to Liu Shijiu's words, but spoke to Wu Peifu.

"Zi Yu, you have seen the position on this mountain. Although it is built very solidly, it still has many shortcomings. The most important thing is that there are no anti-artillery holes in the fortifications built by the Russians."

"Once the Japanese launched their artillery attack, the Russians on the battlefield had nowhere to hide except in those fortresses. They could only wait to be bombed in the trenches."

"So, whether it's Gongchangling where the First Division is located, or Gaofengsi, which the Second Division is responsible for, we must speed up the transformation of the Russians' existing positions and build a large number of individual anti-artillery holes."

"We need to hurry up on this matter. The Japanese may attack us in two or three days."

"besides."

Teng Yuzao also warned, "During the daytime battle, no matter how hard the battle is, temporarily you can only use the mountain artillery of each unit to suppress the attack of the Japanese devils. Mortars are not allowed to be used at all."

"Otherwise, the Japanese would suspect from the trajectory of the ballistic missiles that we have already joined the war."

"Don't forget, we are the only ones using mortars now."

August 24th, morning.

"Boom", with the sound of a cannon explosion coming from afar, in the main fort on the main position of Gongchangling, which is also the largest and most solid fort on the position, Teng Yuzhao, who was wearing the uniform of a Russian officer and had the rank of lieutenant colonel, and Zuo Baotian, Wu Peifu, and Liu Shijiu, who had the rank of major general and lieutenant general on their uniforms, all raised their binoculars and looked at the explosion point on the right side of the hillside.

This main fort is the so-called Eye Fort.

In fact, the so-called Eye Fort is just a bunker with long shooting holes. Because the shooting holes look like eyes, people call it Eye Fort.

Teng Yuzao would not appear in public, so he could only dress up as a not very noticeable lieutenant colonel staff officer.

In fact, Teng Yuzao wanted to dress up as a less noticeable major or even a lieutenant, but he was a little old, especially in front of Wu Peifu and Zuo Baotian, a lieutenant general and a major general, he looked even more abrupt.

"The Japanese's artillery is not very accurate! Although it was just a test fire, it missed the target by two miles!"

Wu Peifu said with some gloating, "It should be that their artillery also encountered the problem of inaccurate compasses."

Teng Yuzao smiled and said, "It's not just a compass problem. The Japanese's cannon should be a captured Russian cannon. They probably don't have a good grasp of its performance yet."

Zuo Baotian also said to Wu Peifu, "General Wu may not know that the old Russian East Manchuria Detachment lost nearly 200 cannons along the way from the Yalu River to Fenghuang City and then to Jiuliancheng."

"Although some were destroyed in combat, there were probably still 50 or 60 guns in use, all of which became the property of the Japanese artillery."

Liu Nineteen nodded in agreement and said, "I thought the Japanese were so eager to borrow money to expand their army, so they wouldn't have too many cannons. But now one of their armies has so many cannons, all thanks to the Russians. The Russians are really a spendthrift."

After more than a dozen test firings, the Japanese artillery seemed to have finally discovered the problem. They quickly calibrated the artillery parameters. With the fierce and dense explosions of "boom boom boom boom", the Japanese artillery fire became more and more accurate. Not only did it cover the frontier fortifications, it was even gradually approaching the fortifications on the main position.

Zuo Baotian personally walked to a corner of the fortress, picked up the phone, shook the handle, and began to shout into the microphone, asking the artillery staff whether the artillery observation post could observe the location of the Japanese artillery position.

"Soon, Zuo Baotian came back and said to Teng Yuzao and Wu Peifu.

"The Japanese artillery positions we can observe are too far away for our 75mm mountain cannons to reach them."

"And the staff officer said that judging from the Japanese artillery bombardment, the Japanese must have artillery groups that have not yet appeared, and they are only waiting for our artillery positions to be exposed before they bombard our artillery positions."

The mountain artillery of the two divisions and the 1st and 2nd Independent Brigades are now concentrated and divided into two parts, deployed five miles behind Gaofengsi and Gongchangling respectively. The maximum range of the artillery fire can only cover an area of ​​less than a kilometer outside the position.

Because, according to intelligence, the range of the new artillery purchased by the Japanese army from Germany has been increased. The range of these artillery pieces using extended-range technology has generally increased by about one kilometer.

The Russian army even had a small number of French artillery with a longer range.

Although the Zhi army also had many German, British, and even French mountain artillery, they were all captured a few years ago. Although these old artillery were not good enough, Teng Yuzao was reluctant to eliminate them. In addition to the consideration of saving money, Teng Yuzao also believed that there were still many problems with the artillery technology at that time, such as the steel of the gun barrel was not very good, which led to the range not being able to be greatly improved.

Teng Yuzhao knew that artillery technology would not be greatly improved until before World War I, and the range would almost double. He planned to replace the artillery for the Zhi army artillery units at that time.

Of course, all his artillery would be produced by the arsenal in a joint venture with Krupp.

Faced with the Japanese army's high-level artillery, in order to ensure the safety of his artillery, Teng Yuzhao had no choice but to continue to provide artillery support only for the ground troops' defense, so the mountain artillery positions were set up farther away.

Teng Yuzhao kept holding the telescope, and while trying to observe through the smoke caused by the intensive artillery bombardment of the Japanese army, he spoke to Wu Peifu.

"Zi Yu, ask about the situation of the troops on the battlefield."

Wu Peifu said with a wry smile as he listened to the frequent deafening explosions amidst the dense explosions.

"Teacher, rest assured. I guarantee that all the troops on the battlefield have already taken shelter in the anti-artillery caves."

"But the Japanese bombardment involved large-caliber artillery. I estimate that the caliber is more than 200 millimeters. If such a shell landed on our individual anti-artillery hole,

Wu Peifu didn't finish his words, but his meaning was very clear, that is, their simple anti-gun caves would definitely not be able to withstand a direct hit on the top of the cave by large-caliber artillery.

Teng Yuzhao even believed that even the reinforced concrete bunker where he was located, with a top thickness of more than two meters, might not be able to withstand direct hits from two 280mm large-caliber artillery shells.

Amid the deafening artillery fire, the unusually loud explosion was probably caused by the explosion of the Japanese 280mm howitzer.

The dull and huge explosion sounds should be the explosions of the Japanese army's large-caliber mortar shells.

Although Liu Nineteen's face looked bitter, he still said with a smile.

"Marshal, our anti-artillery holes can only prevent injuries from shock waves and shrapnel, but they cannot prevent direct hits from artillery shells."

"Besides, with such heavy fire, how could there not be casualties?"

Wu Peifu added, "Fortunately, the Japanese don't have many large-caliber artillery like this. Those that can directly hit our anti-gun holes are just lucky. I guess there may be many anti-gun holes that have collapsed, but most of them can be dug open and climbed out by themselves."

"There are only a few who were stunned. As soon as the Japanese bombardment stops, they will be dug out immediately."

After Wu Peifu finished speaking, Teng Yuzao did not speak immediately.

He had to admit that Liu Shijiu was right. Under such fierce artillery fire, casualties were absolutely unavoidable.

"Boom boom boom."

An extremely loud explosion sounded near the main fort. Teng Yuzhao could even clearly feel that one of the shells exploded violently above his head. The huge explosion not only made the ears of more than 20 people in the bunker buzz, but also made this sturdy fortress tremble.

Such a violent explosion was definitely caused by a shell with a caliber of more than 100 mm.

At the moment when a strong flash appeared at the firing hole, Teng Yuzao and Liu Shijiu reached out and grabbed each other at the same time. At the same time, Teng Yuzao's other hand also grabbed Wu Peifu beside him, and the three of them leaned down at the same time.

Then a series of clinking sounds were heard inside the bunker.

Without looking, Teng Yuzhao knew that this was the sound of shrapnel flying in from the firing hole and hitting the cement wall.

Teng Yuzhao dared to stand up straight only after he jumped off the one and a half foot high platform around him.

The shooting holes of the bunker were quite high. To facilitate shooting and ensure the safety of those who were not directly shot, the Russians built stone platforms one and a half feet high around the inside of the bunker, on which shooters could stand and shoot.

For a person of normal height, as long as he does not stand on a cement platform but on the ground, his head will hardly reach the height of the lower edge of the shooting hole. Even the head of a tall Russian soldier will probably be a little higher. Under normal circumstances, the flying shrapnel will not hurt people.

In fact, because the bunker was built on a hillside, the shrapnel and bullets flying in from the explosion would fly into the bunker at a certain angle, so even the Russian soldiers would not have a problem, unless the Russian soldiers were too tall.

Fortunately, no one in the bunker, including the twenty or so soldiers who were responsible for guarding the bunker, suffered any injuries. Only one staff officer's left shoulder was scratched by the flying shrapnel.

The staff officer's injuries were not caused by a direct hit from shrapnel, but by scratches from shrapnel that was reflected off the opposite wall.

After seeing the explosion, a medical worker rushed in and began to skillfully cut open the staff officer's left shoulder sleeve. Then he quickly cleaned the wound with alcohol cotton from the open medicine box, quickly applied hemostatic and anti-inflammatory powder to the wound, and then put on a bandage. Only then did Teng Yuzhao breathe a sigh of relief.

It was not until then that Teng Yuzhao discovered that Wu Peifu's hat had flown to the door, and a staff officer was just picking up the hat for Wu Peifu and handing it back to him.

Although Wu Peifu had also learned martial arts, he was not as skilled in martial arts as Liu Shijiu and Teng Yuzao, who had quick reactions. As a result, when he was pulled down by Teng Yuzao, his hat was blown off by a piece of shrapnel.

Although Wu Peifu was still somewhat shocked in his heart, nothing showed on his face. He just dusted off his general's cap and put it on his head.

"Teacher, this place is too dangerous. You should stay in the cave at the back. I will take care of this."

Teng Yuzao shook his head and said, "This is the first time we have fought the Japanese in nearly three years. I also want to see how powerful the Japanese are that can beat the Russians so badly."

"You can command independently. I won't interfere."

Liu Shijiu suddenly said, "Zi Yu, the Japanese are about to launch an attack."

Wu Peifu listened carefully and found that the Japanese artillery fire had begun to gradually become sparse.

"Call Division Commander Wu and ask him to order all the fortresses under the jurisdiction of the First and Second Brigades to be on alert to prevent the Japanese from launching close-range attacks accompanied by artillery fire." Wu Peifu loudly gave orders to several staff officers.

The First Division was the troops of Wu Peifu's Fifth Regiment. Now, except for the direct troops and necessary reserve troops left behind, his First and Second Brigades took the main fort as the core and occupied the Gongchangling ridgeline positions on the left and right for defense. The troops on the positions only accounted for about half of the two brigades.

This is because the Gongchangling position is not very conducive to defense. The slope of the hill is shallow and the line is very long. The most fatal problem is that there are many ditches and ridges, which make it easy for the Japanese army to use the terrain to block their approach to the position on the mountain.

The 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division, the division's subordinate units, and Wu Peifu's Guard Regiment served as the general reserve.

(End of this chapter)