The chaotic sound of dense footsteps and panting continued to echo in Li Jia'an's ears. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info Although the sun is in the sky, the weather in spring is not too hot, almost when he has just lined up, his palms are already full of sweat, and he can barely hold the rifle in his hand.

He looked up ahead, and he couldn't see anything except the sentry chief who was a few paces away from him. The day was like night, and he couldn't even see the people around him clearly. Her breathing was so rapid that she could hear her own heartbeat.

He was really a little scared, and he muttered words like "Avalokiteshvara blessed" in his mouth. In fact, most of the people around him are like her. They are all like gods and Buddhas in the sky to ask for blessings.

For these soldiers, they knew very well what they would face in the next battle, a hail of enemy bullets, and many of them would die before they could fire a single shot!

But the order of the commander has already been given!

Just when tens of thousands of Qing troops were lining up and about to launch the largest line assault in history. On the artillery positions of the Han army, the gunners were also making final preparations.

"Breeze, each cannon is loaded with a grenade according to the predetermined position."

Qian Lei, who was on the artillery position, first issued a combat order.

The artillery regiment under his command is now temporarily assigned to the 1st Army Corps, which was not engaged in combat in the past battles, and now, the 36 105 mm field guns belonging to the artillery regiment are finally about to show their might, and of course, there are 36 120 mm mortars,

The ordered loader quickly loaded the shells from the tail into the chamber and immediately corrected the elevation angle of the gun, while the other gunners continued to tighten the fuses for the shells, and the shells were neatly stacked near the gun emplacement, and when the order was given, they were quickly fired at the enemy.

"Pre-launch preparation."

Qian Lei continued to give orders.

The commanders of the artillery company immediately carried out the final inspection, checking things such as buckets, which were a custom left over from the era of pre-loading guns, when every time a gun was fired, the gunners had to dip it in the water with a gun brush, and then use it to clean the chamber and extinguish the sparks in the barrel, so the bucket was very important, and now, for breech guns with semi-fixed ammunition, although the bucket was a necessity, it was actually not very useful.

"The observer provides a ruler and angle, ready to correct the bearing!"

"Final launch preparation!"

……

Although as the commander of the artillery regiment, but now he has taken over all the reserve artillery of the First Army, as the commander-in-chief of the artillery, Qian Lei does not need to be so hands-on, and even only needs to direct the battle by telephone, but he will still stay in the front line, although the actual combat command is still in charge of the captains of the various artillery positions, but he is still used to direct command at the front.

It was not until he confirmed that all the artillery had been prepared that he returned to his command post, and the reason why he returned here was because of the good location, the wide field of vision, and the ability to calmly observe the entire battlefield state; What's more, the school-shot balloon is here.

Calibration balloons, this is the latest artillery weapon, with the calibration balloons, the artillery can not only shell farther targets, but also can adjust the angle of fire at any time according to the data given by the observer in the gondola, so as to shell the target more accurately.

"Sir, discover the enemy reserves!"

At this time, the staff officer with the telephone conveyed the new discovery of the observers in the balloon basket - the enemy's reserves, which were preparing to assemble at a distance of 1.5 kilometers.

Without a balloon, it would have been impossible to find such a distant target, and now, after discovering this target, Qian Lei's breathing seemed a little short.

"How many people are in reserve?"

"Analyze about 20,000 to 25,000 ...... in terms of squad size"

Call!

Contacting the enemy army discovered earlier, Qian Lei knew that today would definitely be a bloody battle!

However, as an artillery officer, Qian Lei was not very satisfied with the artillery under his command, because in his opinion, in addition to the temporary artillery, the performance of the two artillery regiments was completely different, the 105 mm field gun had a long range, but the rate of fire was very slow, and the 120 mm mortar had a short range, but the rate of fire was very fast. Although both guns could attack targets at a distance of three kilometers, thus guaranteeing their protection from the threat of enemy artillery, the latter's accuracy was limited. Luckily, though, the power makes up for it!

"Ways should be found to increase the rate of fire of field artillery ......"

Qian Lei silently thought in his heart that only by increasing the rate of fire of field artillery is the future development direction of artillery, and as for mortars, it is better to lose them to the infantry regiment.

"I'm sure I'll be able to have a good time today!"

According to the pre-war arrangement, all grenade launches need to be ordered by Qian Lei, and he will grasp the timing. It is for this reason that, in previous battles, he had always complied with the orders of the regimental commander not to fire grenades, and even if they did, they were ordinary black powder shells, not high-explosive ones, the former being "exported" surpluses.

From the monoculars, Qian Lei saw tens of thousands of enemy troops attacking in the first wave, rushing to a position less than 600 meters away from the infantry position.

"Directions, straight ahead; Distance, 600 meters; Target, enemy infantry; ordered, all artillery continuously fired high-explosive grenades. ”

Qian Lei gave the order.

"Directions, ...... ahead"

As the order was repeated, the gunners immediately adjusted the angle of fire, and the mortar gunners were even more excited to pick up the shell, stuff the tail of the shell into the barrel, and wait for the order at any time.

"Launch!"

……

Li Jia'an, who was in the horizontal team, still followed the people around him, slowly moving forward with the beating of the drum, in the original training, because he could not step on the drum beat, and I don't know how many times he was beaten by the commander with a stick, now he can accurately step on the drum beat.

The whistling of bullets continued to sound in their ears, and although they were nearly two hundred feet apart, the Han army still fired, and the Han army's chest wall gushed out clouds of white gun smoke, and the smoke was filled for a while.

As they initially expected, after the Han army opened fire, in the whistle of bullets, people around Li Jia'an kept falling, and some people were broken legs, making miserable screams,

They were all used to this, yes, at least at this moment, when someone shouted loudly:

"Break through the defense line of the Han army, and each person will be rewarded with ten taels of silver!"

"God bless ......"

Stimulated by the generous reward, the people continued to advance with bullets, because they were separated by nearly two hundred zhang, so most of the bullets of the Han army were empty, which always made them breathe a sigh of relief.

But in the next moment, they heard a whistling sound in the air, both sharp and fast, and dull,

In fact, after a few hours of testing, they already have some understanding of the enemy's artillery fire in front of them, the artillery on both sides is mainly solid shells, even if there are some flowering shells, it seems that there is no big deal, and at this time, they still think that the shells from the Han army are only solid bullets or a few flowering shells, basically will not pose much threat to them

But in the next moment, the shelling turned into a catastrophe - hundreds of shells rained down on the Qing soldiers, exploding a sea of fire around them, and the picric acid explosives filled in the grenades showed their power at this time, and the shattered steel fragments rushed to the heads and bodies of the unsuspecting soldiers together with the blasted soil, and the fragments with an initial velocity of thousands of meters were like sharp blades, tearing people's bodies.

Within the scope of its explosion, each shell formed a "ring", and countless people fell into this ring, and within the range of the debris, thousands of Qing soldiers fell in a pool of blood and could no longer get up, but only some soldiers who escaped by luck were blown up in the violent explosion, and they stood there like fools.

Before they could recover from the shock of the violent explosion, another round of shells fell, and most of the shells in this round were mortar shells, not only 120 mm mortars, but also 82 mm mortars joined the shelling, and the shells rained down on these Qing troops, not only the enemy troops in front, but even the reserve force on the second line that had not yet been put into the battlefield -- a horizontal team of more than 20,000 people formed by a horizontal team of more than 20,000 people, which was also caught in a rain of bullets.

In just one minute, more than 10,000 shells fell on these two enemy forces, so much so that the Qing army did not even come to their senses before they found themselves in a hell of iron and fire, allowing the shreds of steel to drag their lives with a sharp whistling.

Li Jia'an, who was in front of him, was very lucky, because of fear, when the howling sound came, he immediately fell to the ground in fright, thus avoiding this catastrophe in time. When he looked up and around, he noticed that there were many people missing, only a few had survived, and they all saw fear written on each other's faces, and there were wounded soldiers screaming in pools of blood all around them. They had never witnessed such a tragic situation before, and everyone was stunned for a while.

When they were frightened and unaware of the reason, at this time, the artillery fire began to extend backwards - for the Qing army, it was the first time they had encountered this type of fighting, and Li Jia'an and the people around him, who had been shrouded in fear before, found themselves ignored - the explosion came from behind them. Now, more shells are falling on the reserves than on them!

Although they tried to escape, the sound of the explosion behind him reminded him that going backwards was also a dead end.

"Team up! Team up ......"

The officials shouted loudly, and in the panic in their hearts, the uninjured people once again formed a line. Just as they formed a line, the Han infantry behind the breastwork did not ignore these people.

"All stand and take their seats."

"Raise your gun!"

"Aim!"

"Free fire!"

……

The soldiers behind the breastwork, under the orders of the officers, immediately pulled the trigger, and after a dense, regular salvo, thousands of Qing troops were knocked out, and then there was a messy free fire, compared to the front-loading guns, the high rate of fire and accuracy of the rear-loading rifles were fully exploited, compared to their fierce fire. The Qing troops, who had just regrouped, fired at unorganized and sporadic fire. That's where they put their guns indiscriminately.

However, despite this, with a huge line formation of tens of thousands of people, after paying huge casualties, these Qing troops who failed to form a standard line were finally approaching the Han army's battle line, just when they saw that a group of Qing troops seemed to be about to break through the defense line. At this moment, several horse-drawn carriages suddenly drove over, and the carriages quickly turned around, and the shooter operating the Gatling gun behind the rear of the car immediately turned the handle.

With the sound of machine guns, the area swept by machine guns will form an insurmountable death zone in front of it, and the soldiers continue to fall, and even in the dense rain of bullets, there are more stumps and broken arms raised, which are broken by bullets The arm flies in the air with the impact force, and it simply falls on the body of the living Qing soldiers.

The living soldiers trembled, and the people behind them were once again stunned, as they saw the bloody battle scene in front of them, and the people who were alive a moment ago had fallen in front of them, and the wounded soldiers lying on the ground let out a piercing cry, covered with blood, waiting for death to come to their heads in the cry......

When they tried to retreat, they found that behind them, there was also a sea of fire, which almost blocked everyone's view, these were two battlefields, when these charging soldiers were caught in a rain of bullets, the enemy behind them was completely caught in a sea of cannonballs.

Thousands of shells fell on the heads of the reserves like a torrential rain, these shells were all mortar shells without exception, the high rate of fire of mortars was maximized at this time, and the 82 mm mortars were fired at a rate of at least 20 rounds per minute, because of the smokeless powder used, although the gunners kept pouring out the shells, there was no smoke on the artillery position to block the view.

"Quick, fast, cannonballs, cannonballs......"

The gunners at the muzzle of the guns kept roaring, and while they shouted the shells, the gunners on the side did not forget to cool the gun, and after every few shells, they would use the water-stained ram to cool the gun, so as to avoid over-inflating the barrel.

"Yes, that's it, tell the brethren to keep up the hard work......"

When Qian Lei looked through the telescope at the enemy who was kilometers away and completely caught in a sea of fire, he was extremely excited, but he was only twenty-two years old and had not yet learned to control his emotions.

And when Zhang Lei's whole person fell into the frenzy of excitement, Lin Yuqing, who was in the distance, observed the enemy troops in the distance with a telescope, and immediately ordered when he got the observation balloon and found that the enemy reserve was being defeated.

"The cavalry regiment is ready to go into battle!"

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