On the hill, in Liang Hong's telescope, more than a dozen British cavalry were getting closer and closer, and then in a farther distance, he saw a cavalry team of nearly 200 people. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

The cavalry was still much faster than the carriage, and although it was more than an hour early, it took less than three hours to be overtaken. The enemy's cavalry units were ready to launch a surprise attack and could never escape unless they threw away all their bulky captures. Even so, you have to endure the endless pursuit of the enemy, and there is the possibility of being discovered. Therefore, Liang Hong prepared to ambush the enemy cavalry here, at least to beat the pursuers who were afraid of following.

The cavalry at the vanguard was very annoying, it seemed that they were all experienced veterans, and they easily found the traces left behind, like the appendage of the bones, which could not be shaken off. You must take out the enemy's spearheads, but you can't expose your weapons too early, so as not to startle the snake. Liang Hong glanced at his subordinates who were wielding machine guns and preparing for battle, and gave an order that was a little surprising.

"Grab your rifle and get ready for battle."

He wasn't going to use a machine gun, it was a gift for the cavalry of the rear brigade.

Ashley was also looking ahead with his binoculars in his hand at the moment, and his spiky soldiers were climbing over a hill, which was not a steep slope.

He is very reassuring to his subordinates, excellent war horses, good training, and his combat power is invincible among the African natives. However, the colonial army was a late breeder in the British Army, and his cavalry was now armed with single-shot black powder bullet rifles. Four years ago, the stock Martini Henry rifle was converted into a Martini-Mettford carbine, using a 303-caliber black powder bullet. The entire cavalry battalion, the only telescope in his hand, the poor sharp-edged soldier can only search for the enemy with the naked eye.

In fact, this mission went smoothly, they did not encounter legendary enemies along the way, and then they easily found all kinds of traces. Although he is only a third-rate unit, Ashley is still very satisfied with the quality of his subordinates.

Suddenly, he was surprised to see in his telescope that more than a dozen of his men had fallen off their horses one after another, and then he heard a series of gunshots in front of him.

The enemy appeared, hid in the woods on the top of the hill and annihilated his cavalry squad in an ambush. His rich combat experience taught him not to expect a cavalryman who had been shot and fallen from his horse to escape after being ambushed by the enemy.

Ashley suddenly felt very angry, and the enemy in the rat scurry actually killed the knights of the British Empire by the most despicable means. Revenge must be taken, or it will be a disgrace to his military career.

"Our brethren have just been murdered by the enemy in front of them, and their souls are still on the battlefield. Let's split the chests of our enemies with our sabers and honor their souls with their blood. ”

After making an impassioned speech in front of his cavalry, Ashley jerked out his saber and pointed forward.

"For the sake of honor, forward, long live the cavalry of the British Empire!"

"Long live the cavalry of the British Empire!"

Ashley may not have been a good officer, but he was certainly a good orator. Encouraged by Ashley's words, the young cavalrymen were enthusiastic, and they also drew their sabers and shouted in response. The horses galloped, and Ashley's mood surged with the fierce sound of horses' hooves. Although he has long entered the era of hot weapons, the glory of knights is still a dream in his heart.

Nearly two hundred war horses swept the land in the wind and rushed to the hillside.

Seeing the enemy cavalry charge, Liang Hong's heart finally relaxed. If the enemy is like a ghost that can't be shaken off, always following behind, that's what really gives him a headache.

The horses got closer and closer, and they began to slow down when they rushed uphill, only two or three hundred meters away from the woods where they were hiding. The hideous faces of the horsemen were clearly visible, and the men on the horses also saw the ambush in the woods, and the cylindrical barrels sticking out of the dead grass, far more than one.

Da Da, the barrel of the gun in the grass spat out tongues of fire, and ten tongues of fire sprayed endless bullet rain, enveloping all the cavalry on the hillside.

The wounded horse leaped forward and threw off its owner on horseback, and the body of the cavalryman flying in mid-air was immediately hit by the bullet. The dense rain of bullets seemed to be everywhere, people, horses, sweeping a range of several hundred meters, penetrating all living organisms.

The cavalry in front was defeated, and then it was the turn of the cavalry behind. The horses that followed could not hold back, and marched forward with the corpses and blood in the front row, continuing to be knocked over by machine-gun bullets. In a short time, the entire charging cavalry procession, the first half of which was like a grown crop, was brought down by a scythe. On the hillside, the corpses of people and war horses were stacked on top of each other, piling up a flesh barrier more than a hundred meters from the top of the mountain.

When the machine gun fired, the cavalry following behind him reined in his mount, took out his rifle, and stubbornly returned fire to the top of the hill. It's a pity that the effective range of the carbine with black powder bullets is only 200 meters, and the British cavalry is far better at horsemanship. Faced with machine guns with an effective range of more than a kilometer, the cavalry's rifle counterattack was crushed in only a moment, and the soldiers on horseback, along with the horses, continued to build a new wall of flesh and blood.

Ashley did not rush to the front, and at the first moment he heard the sound of machine gunfire, he reined in his horses. By the time the machine-gun bullets came in, he had managed to dismount and find shelter and hide behind the protruding rocks.

He could clearly see that the machine guns on the top of the hill were spitting flames, and there were as many as ten of them.

Bang, the soldier who had returned fire against the rocks was shot in the head, and red blood and white brains splattered on Ashley's face. The bullets were fired from the top of the hill, and the man who fired the shot was holding a rifle with a deer-hunting mirror in his hand. The shot was too accurate, and the man shot with precision the others who had been ignored by the machine guns, and shot the soldiers who were still fighting back.

The huge casualties finally broke down the brave British cavalry, and the remaining soldiers turned and fled on horseback, leaving their backs to the enemy to aim and shoot at will.

When Ashley's British cavalry was ambushed, Pretoria's president, Kruger, became even more annoyed. He had just received a telegram from Milner, the governor of the Cape Colony, in hard-worded and almost insulting terms, demanding that the Transvaal investigate the Boer militants who attacked Kimberley, implying between the lines that the Transvaal army was responsible.

He is already 73 years old, and his snow-white beard highlights his age. The long-time leader of the country, who ran for re-election in February, is an expression of his prestige that transcends the perception of his age. But Kruger himself knows that this president is not easy to be a president.

The Transvaal's financial situation was excellent, but the crisis arose in relations with the British Empire, the world's leading power. Since his re-election as president, Milner, who has dealt with the Transvaal on behalf of the British government, has been unusually tough. First, he accused the Transvaal of discriminating against and even abusing foreigners, especially British citizens, and then repeatedly emphasized that Britain had irrefutable suzerainty over the Transvaal. Next, he turned to the "London Agreement" signed by the two sides that year, and misinterpreted the language about suzerainty in it. In fact, it is not a misinterpretation, when the treaty was signed in 1884, no one could have imagined that the British would use feudal sovereignty to explain the diplomatic relations between modern countries.

Kruger's gaze returned to the telegram, Boer militants with machine guns. Although he was not a soldier, he knew that machine guns were powerful weapons, which cost hundreds of pounds each, and that almost all those who could own machine guns were armed by the state.

Could it really be the Transvaal army? Piert Joubert may be tough, but he is not so reckless. He picked up the phone and asked the operator to connect to the Army Command.