However, the two howitzer regiments in the artillery division did not spare the slightest hand. They have just completed the erection, or according to the original bombing plan, these 48 howitzers lined up in a line, and began to bombard the enemy trenches with a full coverage of the Russian fortifications that are several kilometers long, especially the trenches where a large number of infantry are hidden in the two rows.

And the launch of howitzer shells pushed the artillery power of the entire battle to the extreme.

The howitzer with a large elevation angle, after two rounds of shells were tested and adjusted, was replaced with a powerful blasting grenade. In particular, the shrapnel fired by eight 150mm howitzers, whether it fell above the fortifications or inside the trenches, burst suddenly, nearly 4 kilograms of TNT yellow explosives exploded sharply, and the huge power violently burst out hundreds of thousands of small steel balls and small iron nails in the grenades, like bullets one after another, shooting aimlessly in all directions. Under the indiscriminate attack, dozens or hundreds of Russian troops in the trench screamed together in the smoke and dust of the explosion and the sound of bombardment, and were hit by small iron nails and steel balls fired by grenade projectiles, and suffered heavy casualties.

And through the combing of these 48 howitzers, the last attempt of the Russian army hiding in the trench was completely destroyed. Don't look at the amazing power of field artillery bombardment, which blew the fortifications apart, but the Russian army, which had experienced the Crimean War, has absorbed the lessons of artillery warfare, and they hid the main infantry in the trenches dug in advance, effectively avoiding the attack of field artillery shells, although they suffered heavy casualties due to the intensive bombardment of field artillery shells, but finally saved most of the infantry strength, I wanted to wait for the artillery of the Chinese Empire to stop bombarding, and when the infantry charged up, Jumping out of the trench and taking advantage of the favorable terrain of the trench to shoot the opponent by surprise, but I didn't expect that the enemy's artillery was even more vicious, and it was completely specialized for dealing with this kind of trench.

At the time of the seventh and eighth rounds of howitzer firing, the commander of the Caucasian Corps in the trench of the Russian fortifications conveyed the order to retreat. At the same time, the commander of the Yergeny Corps, who saw that the situation was not good, also issued an order to retreat, but the difference was that the Caucasian Corps had understood that they were no opponent at all, and it would be difficult to hold even if they fled into the rear city of Astrakhan, so he directly ordered the Caucasian Corps to withdraw to Khanitsyn in the upper reaches of the Volga River, preparing to join the Volga Corps upstream.

But what the commanders of the two Russian regiments did not expect was that their orders, whether it was the horn of the order, the signal of the herald, or the command of the herald soldiers to run to the battlefield, would be ineffective in the frantically pouring artillery shells on the position.

More than 300 artillery pieces, especially dozens of howitzers, kept bombardment, making the entire battlefield a deafening sound, the smoke of gunpowder was filled, the trenches and fortifications were dusty, and the powerful explosion made the corpses, guns, soil, flags and wooden fences of the Russian soldiers flying all over the sky.

After such a delay, several rounds of shells fell on the trench, and at this moment, it is no longer known how many Russian troops were killed behind the fortifications and in the trenches.

Seeing that the situation was critical, the commander of the Caucasian Corps knew that if he did not flee this time, it was likely that the entire army would be wiped out on the east bank of the Volga River, so he gritted his teeth and directly led his own soldiers around him to retreat first. And the commander of the Yergeny regiment was no different. They didn't care so much about it, and they didn't have time to think about whether they would be prosecuted by a court-martial, and all they thought about at the moment was to get out of this demonic slaughterhouse as much as possible.

And the escape of these Russian officers was immediately discovered by some of the Russian soldiers hiding in the trenches. Suddenly, even the most heroic Caucasian and Yergeny legionmen immediately understood what was going on. In fact, after a few rounds of enemy artillery explosions, they all understood one thing, this crushing defeat was inevitable, and the key was whether they could save their lives and escape back to the city of Astrakhan not far to the east.

So, under the leadership of the Russian officers, the Russian soldiers who were hiding in all corners, and even half of their bodies were buried in the ground, scurried up one after another, retreated, and the battlefield that was originally thought to have been bombed into ruins, suddenly appeared as many as 40,000 or 50,000 Russian troops, which undoubtedly made the Chinese Empire's Western Expeditionary Army behind the artillery a little angry and humiliated.

However, Shi Dakai, who had been standing on the lookout with a telescope, was not too surprised. As the commander of the first army, he clearly knew that the total number of soldiers in the original two corps of the Russian army was as high as 90,000, even if the previous Caucasian Corps took the initiative to attack and was killed and wounded by 30,000 Sikh troops and more than 10,000 infantry division officers of the Fourth Field Corps, there were still 80,000 Russian troops.

And these 80,000 Russian troops, hiding in fortifications and trenches, scattered along the way at least several kilometers of defense line, even if their own artillery division has many artillery and great power, but after all, it is still limited, and the bombardment is only the key part of the enemy's defense concentrated in the center of the artillery, and the gap between the two sides and the artillery, it is inevitable that there are still many missing parts, which will definitely hide a lot of Russian soldiers in it. Moreover, if there is a burst of artillery attack and bombing, the 80,000 Russian troops on the opposite side will be wiped out directly, which is too easy and unrealistic.

But looking at it now, of the 80,000 Russian troops, the maximum number of 50,000 who have escaped now, even if there are still many who remain in the fortifications, will not be too many, even if there are more than 10,000 people, it means that under this fierce artillery bombardment, the elimination of the Russian army has reached nearly 20,000.

Thinking about this, Shi Dakai was already so surprised that he couldn't close his mouth! 20,000 people. Even if they are densely lined up, standing side by side neatly, they have to line up for a distance of four or five kilometers, even if they stand there and let people cut and kill, thousands of people have to be cut and killed for most of the day, but in such a short period of effort, the artillery bombardment only took an hour to reach such a degree of damage, which had to make Shi Dakai, who had been in war for a long time, also dumbfounded.

But the urgency of the battle before him did not allow him to sigh, and he hurriedly ordered the infantry division, which had become a horse infantry, to avoid the artillery position in the middle, so as not to be wounded by his own artillery fire, and pursued from both sides. At the same time, he also ordered the coercive corps of various countries to prepare to pursue the enemy with all their might after the artillery division stopped attacking, hoping to take the opportunity to occupy the important city of Astrakhan on the mouth of the Volga River on the coast of the Caspian River through the victory of the Russian army.

So, the artillery division received an order, immediately seized the time to adjust the angle of the artillery, and began to pursue the enemy troops fleeing towards the Volga with shells. Although it took some time to adjust the angle of the artillery, the Krupp rifled guns of the artillery division still played a role in the excellent performance of the artillery, especially the field guns with an effective firing range of up to 5,000 meters because of the medium and large caliber heavy guns, which no longer hid their strength at this moment.

....... ps: I recommend two books written by beautiful authors, "Rebirth of the Eighty Prosperous Military Marriage" and "My Neighbor is a Zombie", both written by the lich lady, and the grades are better than mine.

Keep in mind that the first domain name :.com this book. The mobile version of the mobile version of the wonderful book house is :.com