The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 89 The gap between cavalry

"Let Xue Zhiqian lead his cavalry battalion to charge out. Remember to tell them to just drive away the enemy cavalry. Don't fight too long. Seymour's battalion won't be too far away. The cavalry battalion only needs to drive away the coalition cavalry and prevent Seymour from learning about Liu Yuzhi's blocking position too early."

"I repeat, his cavalry battalion will not be allowed to engage Seymour's infantry."

"Yes."

Li Jinyu stepped forward and agreed, then ran into the heavy machine gun bunker to convey Teng Yuzhao's order.

Teng Yuzao picked up the wine bowl and said to Liu Shijiu, "Brother, come, let's drink this bowl of victory wine and then have dinner. Our mission is to fight against the coalition forces coming out of the concession."

"If there is no fighting in the north, the coalition forces in the concession will not know that Seymour has arrived there, so we still have a lot of time. I estimate that the coalition forces in the concession will come out at least half an hour after the fighting starts in the first regiment."

After drinking a bowl of wine with Liu Shijiu, they started to eat quickly.

Teng Yuzhao still continued the privileges enjoyed by him and other senior officers of the Vanguard Army. Their meals were much richer than those of the soldiers. In addition to braised lamb, there was also a plate of boiled lamb liver, a braised lamb face and lamb offal soup.

Teng Yuzhao had no psychological burden about having such privileges. He even believed that it was beneficial for the vanguard army for senior officers to have some privileges. Doing so would not only reflect the differences between officers and soldiers and accumulate the authority of superiors, but it might even inspire the grassroots officers and soldiers to be proactive and enterprising.

After eating and drinking, Li Xiance hurried to the position to check the combat preparations. Liu Shijiu also brought a few small leaders and followed several veterans of the vanguard army sent by Li Xiance to the first trench to familiarize themselves with the situation, especially to learn from the vanguard army how to dig cat ear holes to defend against artillery.

Then, Liu Shijiu began to command the leaders and urged the members to dig cat ear holes in different areas.

Teng Yuzao took this opportunity to call Wei Jinghai.

Teng Yuzhao told Wei Jinghai on the phone that he should arrange for the newly arrived guard platoon to bring some pack horses to Li Xiance's Second Regiment position, and also asked Wei Jinghai to bring some of the homemade bombs he had arranged to make, and some large ones.

The Xigu warehouse also stored a lot of explosives and black powder. These were the explosives left over from the Kaiping Mining Bureau's mining and construction of the Beijing-Fengtian Railway. Teng Yuzhao would naturally not let go of these things. He was in urgent need of a close combat weapon, which was a grenade.

However, he did not have such good infantry close combat weapons at hand. If he had to blame someone, he could only blame Lord Li Hongzhang, who followed the Western powers too closely. As a result, he only chose the best weapons and equipment of all Beiyang. Naturally, he would not spend money to buy grenades that the Western powers looked down upon.

Therefore, these explosives and black powder were put to use by Teng Yuzhao, and he made them into explosive packs of different sizes.

In order to facilitate the use of soldiers, he made most of the explosives and black powder into small explosive packs weighing one pound, mainly to facilitate the soldiers to throw them by hand. Only ten large explosive packs were made.

Soon, Wei Jinghai called again.

Wei Jinghai told Teng Yuzao that Li Yaoting had led his men to the second regiment's position, and excitedly informed Teng Yuzao that when Xue Zhiqian led the cavalry battalion to attack, Seymour's cavalry outpost did not flee, but took the initiative to attack the cavalry battalion. Xue Zhiqian had completely wiped out Seymour's cavalry. However, Xue Zhiqian's cavalry battalion suffered slightly more casualties. More than 600 people fought against the coalition cavalry platoon of less than 30 people, and they paid almost the same price in casualties. In addition, the last few remaining coalition cavalry were shot and killed by the revolvers issued to the cavalry.

In this battle, twenty-four foreign horses, twenty-eight complete sets of cavalry equipment, twenty-four Steyrmann short rifles, and twenty-eight revolvers were seized.

Although he had never seen the real thing, Teng Yuzao knew that the short rifle Wei Jinghai mentioned should be Austrian, and at this time it should be the Steyman Licher musket produced in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It is not surprising that an equal number of revolvers were seized after annihilating a platoon of Allied cavalry. At that time, almost every cavalryman of the Western powers had a revolver, which was mainly used by the cavalry in combat.

As for this platoon of cavalry of the Allied Forces, there were less than thirty people. At that time, whether at that time or later, whether it was the troops in the East or the West, all cavalry units were small-scale.

That is, a squad has only six to eight people, and a company has only more than eighty people. The reason why cavalry are all small-scale is that they are dispersed over a much wider area on the battlefield than infantry, and there are too many people for officers to control and command.

The same was true for the cavalry battalion of the vanguard army, but Teng Yuzhao was unable to form two cavalry battalions. Not only did he not have suitable cavalry officers for the time being, but there were also less than two battalions of people with cavalry skills who could quickly charge into the battlefield. Although he now had more than a thousand war horses and no shortage of cavalry equipment, he still only had seven companies of cavalry. Including the sentinel and the captain's direct subordinates, the total number of people was only more than 600.

But even if there were only more than 600 people, facing more than 20 allied cavalry, the number advantage was not just an absolute advantage, but an overwhelming advantage, and there was no comparison between the two sides.

But even so, the cavalry battalion still had a one-to-one casualty ratio. If they were to face the Russian Cossak cavalry...

Teng Yuzhao didn't dare to think any further. Cavalry was a technical branch of the military, and his cavalry still needed to intensify their training.

Although Teng Yuzhao was very dissatisfied with the cavalry battalion's first battle, he did not regret it. He believed that it was worth paying some price. Without going through the ups and downs, his cavalry unit would not grow quickly.

In addition, Wei Jinghai also reported that now, the vanguard of Seymour's troops had reached three miles in front of the 1st Regiment and were resting and eating, apparently wanting to recover their strength before launching an attack on the 1st Regiment's position.

In addition, Yu Lu also brought news that at the hour of You, with the sound of cannons as a signal, Nie Shicheng and Zhang Decheng would divide their troops into two groups to attack the concession. He would lead Hu Dianjia's troops to coordinate in the middle. In Xigu, He Yongsheng would send a battalion of trained troops to cooperate with him in the battle.

Yu Lu also told Teng Yuzao that he had Nie Shicheng give strict orders to a battalion of the vanguard army that was chasing Seymour all the way south and harassing Seymour from behind, making it difficult for Seymour to take care of both ends.

Yu Lu also did not forget to warn Teng Yuzhao that the vanguard army only needed to hold on and delay Seymour. If they captured the concession tonight, the remaining enemies in Seymour would become rootless duckweed and be vulnerable to a single blow.

Although Teng Yuzao was grateful to Yu Lu for only letting the vanguard troops hold the concession, he was still deeply worried about Yu Lu's overly optimistic attitude towards taking over the concession.

Thanks to: Achoo Haha and Laogui Wu Ge, two book friends, for their support!
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(End of this chapter)