The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 99 New Situation

Following the sound of footsteps, Li Xianze quickly walked into the machine gun bunker.

"Sir, reconnaissance report, more than 700 coalition troops have just emerged from the concession, and are heading towards us quickly."

It has been nearly an hour since Seymour's coalition forces began to bombard Liu Yuzhi's regiment's position. The coalition forces in the concession took such a long time to organize their troops to provide support. This shows that the coalition forces in the concession did not know that Seymour had led his troops to withdraw before the coalition forces launched the attack.

They obviously organized their forces hastily to send out reinforcements with the purpose of helping Seymour's coalition forces return to the concession safely and quickly.

Teng Yuzhao believed that the fact that it took an hour to organize more than 700 people to provide assistance showed that the strength of the Allied Forces in the Concession was already very tight. Now was the weakest time for the Allied Forces in the Concession. They had only more than 2,000 people, and at most close to 3,000. But once Seymour led the remnants to escape back to the Concession, the strength of the Allied Forces would increase to a certain extent, and thus they would get a chance to breathe. As long as they could survive tonight, it would be a pipe dream for Yu Lu to take over the Concession again.

It was hard for Teng Yuzhao to imagine that the Wuwei vanguard army of more than 2,000 people, fighting a positional war, could not delay the coalition forces of less than 3,000 reinforcements from Dagukou, allowing this coalition force to break through several lines of defense within two days and approach Dongjuzi, a key transportation hub connecting the concession, by tomorrow morning, causing the plan to besiege the concession to fail completely.

The reason why Teng Yuzao did not compete with Nie Shicheng for the task of blocking the coalition forces coming to Dagukou was that his number of people was too small. If he were given the task of blocking the coalition forces, he would not even have time to reorganize the thousands of Green Camp troops assigned to him.

If he were given the command, Teng Yuzhao would have absolute confidence in holding off this coalition force for a few more days. Even if the troops given to him were just those of the Wuwei Vanguard Army, he would be able to do it.

Positional warfare, trench warfare, harassment warfare, ambush warfare, etc. He can let the coalition forces appreciate the thousands of years of Chinese wisdom.

What made Teng Yuzhao sad was that his new tactics and strategies were difficult to be accepted by these veteran generals. Not only Nie Shicheng, Teng Yuzhao believed that Ma Yukun, He Yongsheng, and even Song Qing, who had just taken office as the assistant director of the Beiyang Military Affairs, were the same. They did not know the famous saying "keep pace with the times".

Many people believe that the famous saying "keep pace with the times" was first proposed by Cai Yuanpei in "History of Chinese Ethics" in response to the situation in the ideological and cultural circles of the late Qing Dynasty where people were conservative and self-satisfied. By comparing Chinese and Western cultures, he put forward the phrase "keep pace with the times". Little do they know that this is just the result of Mr. Cai summarizing and integrating the sayings such as "keep pace with the times", "evolve with the times" and "keep pace with the times" scattered in ancient Chinese books.

In the thousands of years of cultural tradition of our country, we have always emphasized keeping pace with the times, but the wording is slightly different. However, it is useless in front of these veterans.

Teng Yuzao shouted in his heart, "Studying too hard will kill you. Not studying or reading too little will also kill you!"

Teng Yuzao took a deep breath. "Are these the Russian army or the army of other countries? Do they have artillery? How many Maxim heavy machine guns do they have?"

Looking at Li Xiance, Teng Yuzao asked several questions in a row.

"They were not the Tsarist Russian army, but the British Indian army wearing turbans and a small number of Austro-Hungarian and Italian mixed formations. They carried no artillery and no Maxim heavy machine guns."

According to Li Xiangze, these troops were obviously sent to support the Seymour coalition forces fleeing south and to tie down the vanguard troops. They did not have the strength to storm the position of Li Xiangze's Second Regiment.

Not only did the reinforcements from the concession consist of only more than 700 people, they also did not carry any artillery or even a single Maxim heavy machine gun. This made Teng Yuzhao feel disappointed again. His disappointment was not only with the coalition forces in the concession, but also with the suspected troops left behind by Seymour to attack Liu Yuzhi's regiment.

In order to resist and eventually destroy these two enemy forces, Teng Yuzao led all the vanguard officers and soldiers, including the newly recruited recruits who had not yet been incorporated into the army and the teachers and students of the camp school, a total of more than 10,000 people, and worked hard for six hours to build two relatively complete and solid defense lines in the north and south of Xigu. But what Teng Yuzao never expected was that the enemy was so vulnerable. This made Teng Yuzao, who had accumulated strength for a day and was ready to give the coalition forces a fierce blow, very discouraged. His blow was undoubtedly hitting the air.

"besides."

Li Xianze continued to report, "According to the reconnaissance report, the coalition forces not only set up a Maxim heavy machine gun position at the southern end of the pontoon bridge, but also lit several large bonfires at the northern end of the pontoon bridge. This should be to facilitate their troops to pass through the pontoon bridge, but also to block our attack and expose our attacking forces to their Maxim heavy machine gun firepower."

Li Xianze said with some pain, "This poses a great threat to our follow-up death squad. As soon as they get on the pontoon bridge, they will be fiercely shot by heavy machine guns on the other side! Even if a small number of personnel can closely follow the fleeing coalition forces across the river, I'm afraid it will be of no use!"

"So, I suggest that we arrange to tow a cannon over there. If the suicide squad fails, we can use the cannon to bomb them!"

Although there were difficulties, Li Xianze had no intention of terminating the plan. He just wanted to draw Teng Yuzhao's attention to this issue.

"How's the Death Squad doing?"

Teng Yuzao did not say anything about the situation at the bridgehead mentioned by Li Xianze, but directly asked about the formation of the death squad.

When mentioning the suicide squad, Li Xianze gave a wry smile.

"It was originally agreed that Chief Liu and I would each send fifty men, but the soldiers below were very enthusiastic and many of them were eager to join the death squad, including the new Green Camp soldiers who joined our vanguard army. In the end, I picked and chose and still only had sixty-seven men."

"It's the same with the Qian group. Almost all of them wanted to join the death squad. In the end, they calmed down after being scolded by Chief Liu. However, there were 72 of them, a total of 139 people. Our people all had two guns, one long and one short, while everyone in the Qian group had a long gun and a broadsword."

After Li Xianze finished talking about the formation of the suicide squad, he did not stop, but continued to take the time to report on the situation of the Qianzi Group.

"Sir, Chief Liu must have been completely convinced by you. My people told me that he gathered the troops as soon as he returned. However, when he mentioned the order not to kill innocent people after entering the concession and not to kill any foreigners or Christians who did not resist or attack us, the people in the Qianzi Group exploded on the spot."

If he wanted the Boxers to suddenly accept his ideas, there would inevitably be a fierce clash of ideas. Teng Yuzhao was mentally prepared for this and just listened to Li Xiance's report with an expressionless face.

Thanks: 20190716164633103, the book friend, for reminding me that the issue of "the United States opposes the division of China" in Chapter was not explained clearly, which may cause misunderstanding. I will explain it later. Thank you again, and I hope that the book friends will correct me in time if they find any negligence of Zuima!!!

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(End of this chapter)