Although he said "I'll think about it", Joseph didn't intend to weaken his defenses in exchange for the attack power of the reckless wave. Since the cannons of the British are not yet in place, hurry up and hurry up to make the turtle shell a little stronger.

However, the bad tricks in Joseph's mind were conditionally prepared. If there are no conditions, there are no conditions to create them—and they still can't be on it. But isn't there still time? If you don't hammer something, you always feel a little uneasy, or maybe you will hammer a spectacle?

Of course, Joseph knew that the spectacle was misleading, so it was better to continue hammering the fortress. And it was Joseph who hammered a whole bunch of false targets in one go. By the way, it forced the Directory to place a large number of new orders for the "military-industrial complex". In order to fill the vacancy of misappropriation in the arsenal.

In addition, Joseph also arranged for a special person to send an urgent message to Napoleon every day, asking Napoleon to come over to save his life quickly. However, Napoleon's guy with the army was moving slower and slower, but the British artillery began to gradually arrive.

"That bastard, he just wants to let the enemy first hit his head and break the blood flow at my place, and then he will come up and take advantage! I'm sure that's what this kid thinks, for sure! "Joseph was getting Napoleon's road conditions too bad, the soldiers were too tired when they crossed the Alps, the weather was not good, and the people had not attacked in a big way anyway...... I don't understand why you're panicking? After replying, he made such a judgment angrily.

Joseph's judgment was indeed very correct, Napoleon thought so, and Joseph himself thought that if the commander of the fortress was still Rubert, then he would probably have suggested Napoleon do so. If he would have done this, Napoleon would have done it!

After the artillery was in place, the British began to attack according to the old routine in Liège. The so-called old routine is naturally this: cannon bombardment, cannon bombardment, cannon bombardment, cannon bombardment. Yes, the infantry will not rush first, and wait for the artillery to slowly bombard for a few days and almost bomb some of the defenses.

So Joseph was very pleased to see that the false targets he had built began to crumble under the attack of the British artillery; While calculating how much gunpowder the British consumed, how much artillery barrel life, and how much time.

However, the time consumed was actually the most useless, because Napoleon had the troops stop and repair. Napoleon is said to have complained to the chief of staff, Berthier: "What are the British doing? The action is so slow! We've all been delaying like this, why are they still there! ”

It took the British several days to hammer the false targets that Joseph had built in several days with artillery fire. Then he told the Duke of Braunschweig: "The rest is up to you, you gnaw this section down, and then we will bombard it for a few more days, so that it will not be long before we can take Verdun." ”

So the Prussians confidently put on an offensive stance. After all, the zigzag section of the breastwork in front of it had been smashed by the British as if they didn't want money. It should not be difficult to capture this breastwork.

Just as the Prussians were in formation, the Duke of Braunschweig saw through his binoculars that behind some of the broken breastplates, there were some French soldiers peeking their brains there.

"The French are really brave and have been there all the time, but as soon as we attack, they can't stop us with such a broken breastwork." Thinking so, the Duke of Braunschweig gave the order to attack.

The Prussian soldiers approached the French breastwork in a skirmisher formation, and the French began to shoot at the Prussian troops. The Prussian army continued to approach with platoon guns to cover the stragglers.

At this moment, a series of explosions were suddenly heard, and several Prussian soldiers fell with their legs clutched.

"What is this?" Braunschweig was taken aback.

"It's a landmine." Major George Cavendish, the liaison officer sent by the British to the Duke of Brunswick, replied, "We have often encountered this thing in Ireland. However, it seems that the French have much less power of mines here. ”

The Duke of Braunschweig also remembered that those Poles seemed to have used such things as well. But the Poles, in order to ensure that the underground supply lines through Prussia would not be dealt too much damage, had been using these things mainly on the territory of the Russians, so the Prussians had heard more of the French about such a despicable thing, but there were very few Prussians who were lucky enough to fly on this "dirt plane" in person.

In previous battles with the French, the Prussians had also encountered the Northern Army of the non-Bonaparte system. They are also not equipped with such vile weapons. So this is the first time that the Anglo-Prussian forces have encountered such an insidious guy as landmines.

However, although the mines caused a lot of losses to the Prussians, they could not stop the Prussians from moving forward alone. The Prussians gradually approached the breastwork, and the French soldiers who were still guarding the breastwork turned and fled as soon as the Prussian soldiers approached.

"The morale of the French has dropped a lot." A Prussian said.

"It's good that they still have that kind of morale." Major George Cavendish put it this way, "After successive defeats, the morale of the soldiers of most countries should be very bad at this time. Moreover, they are retreating, not defeating. You see the route that the French people are running is not in a straight line. ”

"Well, they're running away — I mean retreating, and they know how to dodge bullets, and they're not flustered." Another Prussian major general said.

"It's not just dodging bullets." "They're avoiding stepping on their own mines." I've seen in Ireland that those Irish rebels run like this when they're walking through minefields. ”

"You fought in Ireland against the rebels supported by the French?" The major general asked curiously.

"Yes, General Blucher, I fought the rebels in Ireland." Major Cavendish replied.

"I heard that the Irish rebels are very good at fighting?" Another Prussian officer said.

"The Irish rebels are very cunning and very vicious. One of my cousins, Viscount Anderson, was killed by a mine in a battle with them. "The French are much easier to deal with by comparison." However, today's posture reminds me of Ireland again. ”

By this time the pursuing Prussian skirmishers had already crossed the breastwork, which had collapsed more than half, and, of course, as a price, fifty or sixty of them would not have to worry about not having enough to eat, and fifty or sixty of them would certainly not be able to do without crutches in the days to come.

Of course, the French also paid the price, and in the previous confrontation, the French also lost five or six men, and then when they were retreating, they were killed more than a dozen.

The Prussian skirmishers continued on, and in front of them was the first barbed wire fence of the French army.

The Frenchmen who ran over all lay down and skillfully crawled over the barbed wire from several predetermined positions. In those places, there was a little space under the barbed wire, just enough for people to climb through.

But the Prussian skirmishers in the back could not have done so. The first thing they had to do was go through a minefield. Although they didn't know much about landmines before, the comrades behind them who were lying on the ground and wailing with their feet had used the bloody fact to make them understand what was a minefield.

So after taking down the breastwork, they stopped at the breastwork and hid behind the breastwork. Anyway, the military order given to them above is to seize this breastwork wall and open the way for subsequent attacks. As for what to do next after taking down the breastwork, anyway, the superiors didn't say, if you don't paddle the water at this time, will you really hit your head on the ground?

Even if they occupied this breastwork, the troops behind could not immediately follow, because there was still a minefield between the breastwork and the main force of the Anglo-Prussian army.

"If you look closely at the mine, you can still find it." Major Cavendish said, "After all, the triprope or something is still exposed to the ground. We have a dedicated demining team, all of whom are the most experienced, and they can quickly carve out a safe passage through the minefield. ”

So the experienced British demining team set off. However, they did not clear the mines as quickly as Major Cavendish had suggested. Of course, this may also be due to the fact that the major's standards of speed and slowness are not quite the same as theirs. In short, the Major's servant had prepared the Major's morning tea.

"After eating morning tea, the passage should be cleared." Major Cavendish said.

As Major Cavendish had predicted, it was noon when the safe passage was finally opened. More infantry followed. They planned to repair the remaining breastwork of the French, and then proceed with the attack.

What they didn't expect, however, was that the breastwork was a false target, a decoy. The location of this section of the breastwork had already been marked by the French artillery behind it, and it had been test-fired even before the breastwork was built.

As a result, as soon as the Prussians were concentrated behind this section of the breastwork, the French tore off the camouflage net covering the eight-pounder cannon not far away, and immediately fired a volley. These cannons were half-buried in the trenches, with only the barrels above the ground and camouflage nets, making them virtually impossible to detect from a distance. The firepower of this salvo was not particularly ferocious (Joseph did not allow all the cannons to fire, so as to keep them for the future), but the accuracy of the hit was very amazing, a total of only ten guns fired, but the shells fired accurately hit the target, causing dozens of casualties at once.