"Your Excellency Commander, our advance plan can be slightly modified, while advancing to the capital of the Huaxia Empire with cavalry forwards, while separating part of the cavalry to sweep the area near the main road, if some towns are relatively well guarded, then use cavalry to surround them first, wait for the infantry and artillery to arrive and then take over the attack, and the cavalry originally used for siege will continue to advance!"

The Chief of Staff of the Baikal Front, Lieutenant General Brodaevsky, seeing that the commander Grand Duke Nicholas was not in good spirits, immediately made a new proposal.

Nicholas only saw that the situation was a little different from his imagination, and hesitated slightly, and when he heard Brodajewski's suggestion, he nodded and said: "This suggestion is very good, so let's implement it like this." Our boys go ahead and hit the capital of the Yellow Monkeys, and let the Yellow Monkeys tremble in front of us! ”

The huge Cossack cavalry of the Hubei army soon appeared outside the city of Zhangjiakou.

Looking at the city walls, a small group of Cossack scout cavalry on the left and right appeared galloping around the perimeter of the city, and rushed south on the main road on the edge of the city.

The Cossack cavalry was very arrogant, and they made a provocative grunt at the people on the city walls and raised their middle fingers.

The ordinary soldiers and strong men on the city wall didn't know what this Cossack cavalry meant by raising their middle fingers, but Lieutenant Colonel Xie Tianan, who was sent by Cui Jinfeng to take charge of the command of Zhangjiakou city defense, knew what this "greeting etiquette" of Western white people meant.

Seeing the arrogance of the Cossack cavalry, Xie Tianan calmly ordered: "All enemy cavalry close to the city wall will be sniped and killed!" ”

In the establishment of the Huaxia Army, each company was equipped with four snipers in the sniper group during the war, and the number of soldiers who had reached the level of quasi-snipers in each company due to strict training far exceeded this number.

Hearing the order, snipers and fighters lying on their stomachs near the road outside the city quickly opened fire on the enemy's scout cavalry.

The goals of the Cossack cavalry were much larger than those of the average infantryman, and it was not difficult for fighters trained in shooting to knock them down.

There was a burst of gunfire, dozens of Cossack scout cavalry were hit by bullets and fell off their horses, and the Cossack cavalry also took out their cavalry rifles and shot at the city, but the range of this cavalry was much closer than that of rifles, and there were fortifications in the city to cover it, and the cavalry was outside the unsheltered city, and the battle between the two sides was clear in a few minutes.

More cavalry were killed and wounded, and not a single person in the Xia army in the city was shot, and the result of this kind of battle immediately frightened no one among the scouts of the Hubei army who dared to ride their horses to the city of Zhangjiakou with a few horses and raised their middle fingers to provoke.

This caused the strong men on the city wall to cheer loudly, and some people even fired a burst of fire guns outside the city indiscriminately.

This made Xie Tianan frown: Isn't this indiscriminate firecracker exposing his strength? He hurriedly ordered these civilian strong men not to fire indiscriminately without his own order, so as not to expose their strength to the enemy!

While Xie Tianan was busy adjusting the layout of the city defense, the cavalry of the Hubei Army Brigade appeared in the north of Zhangjiakou.

The movement of the 430,000 cavalry was very astonishing, the swords and guns were like a forest, the black pressure of men and horses was endless, and the sound of horses' hooves hitting the earth made a loud rumbling sound, which was deafening.

People who have never seen such a formation will really be scared to the point that they will tremble all over their bodies and sweat coldly.

Many people on the city wall of Zhangjiakou were so shocked that their eyes widened: this enemy cavalry is too much! If the enemy forcibly attacked the city, how could he resist it?

Of course, Xie Tianan knew the thoughts of these strong men who had never seen war and had no formal military training, and he had already prepared for this, and ordered: "The emperor said that when a friend is here, there is good wine, and the jackal is here, and there is a shotgun to greet it!" Now we will meet the enemy with artillery, and the artillery will now open artillery to bombard the enemy outside the city! ”

There are thirty-eight old front-loading bronze guns in Zhangjiakou City, the oldest of which are estimated to be at least a hundred years old, but they can still be barely used. After the medicine is launched, the explosion still has a certain lethality.

In addition, there was also a 120mm howitzer imported from Germany by the Qing court in the city, which was really inconvenient to move because of its weight of 2.5 tons.

Thirty-nine guns came with a salvo.

The shells exploded at the edge of the dense formation of the Hubei army outside the city, setting off a storm of death, killing and injuring two or three hundred Hubei cavalry, frightening the Hubei army rolling behind to dodge quickly, which caused a huge riot in the boundless ranks of the Hubei army.

Front-loading guns are a cumbersome process of reloading and firing, as they need to be cleaned with a strip of cloth soaked in water and allowed to cool down to an acceptable temperature before firing into the chamber. The cannonball is then stuffed in, and a powdered object is used to seal the gap in the bore, and finally the arquebus is fired with a torch to shoot the cannon.

This process is very slow, even if a skilled gunner can't fire two shells in a minute, but the 120mm howitzer in the city, using the integrated shells developed by the Huaxia Army, can reach a maximum rate of fire of ten rounds per minute.

Moreover, according to the technology proposed by Emperor Hu Zhen, the shells fired successively were fired in different loads after precise calculations. The amount of medicine can hit the target area at the same time and explode at the same time.

In an extremely short period of time, the cannon fired four shots, exploding almost simultaneously in the chaotic formation of the Hubei army.

There are many excellent artillery officers in the Hubei army, and they immediately made a judgment on this: "The yellow-skinned monkey in this city has more than 30 old artillery, and there are also four medium-caliber new rapid-fire artillery!" ”

"Four new medium-caliber rapid-fire guns! That's the strength of a medium-caliber artillery company, judging by this, the yellow-skinned monkey in the city has at least three infantry regiments! ”

Even in the establishment of the Hubei army, only the troops above the division level will be equipped with a company of 120 mm caliber artillery, and at this time, Xie Tianan ordered all the strong men on the city wall to hide in the fortifications with bated breath, and the Hubei army could not see the personnel in the city outside, so the officers of the Hubei army took it for granted that there was at least one division of troops in Zhangjiakou City defending.

This is a greatly favorable misjudgment for Zhangjiakou.

After receiving the report from the officer at the front, Brodaevsky did not hesitate to suggest to Nicholas: "Commander, it is recommended that only one division of cavalry be left to monitor the city, and that the cavalry of the brigade should make a quick detour and wait for the infantry and artillery behind to catch up and conquer this place." ”

Nicholas originally thought about it in this way, and immediately said: "Okay, just order the troops to make a detour!" (To be continued.) )