"We have to speed up!"

Helmut could no longer remember the first time his captain had said it - he kept saying that it would be repeated every once in a while, maybe only for a minute or two. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

But it doesn't make any sense.

No matter how much Wiesenberg wished his troops to speed up so that he could reach Taiyuan before Colonel Kittel's diligent attack was over, and even became agitated by it, the German soldiers marched at the same pace as they had at the beginning, except for a slow wriggling of the narrow and rugged mountain paths...... To be precise, "only".

Because mules carrying field guns and ammunition - these stupid animals cannot be accelerated, and if a soldier tries to force them to speed up, then he must be mentally prepared to lose artillery parts and part of the ammunition. However, if the mules could not increase their speed, then the infantry would have to choose between abandoning them and giving up speed - unfortunately, Wiesenberg refused to give up the field guns.

He needed field artillery to assist the commandos in occupying Taiyuan. After seeing the walls of the city of Beijing, the captain no longer believed that only the light infantry with rifles could capture a city with high and strong walls and a large number of troops. Without field artillery, he and his soldiers could only watch the city like fools, and then they were tightly surrounded by the gradually approaching Chinese troops, who crushed them to pieces under the city walls.

This ending is very sad and stupid, and it is a world-class joke, enough to make the soldiers of all countries in the next hundred years repeatedly talk, evaluate, sigh, and laugh...... They will express many different opinions, except for praise. Wiesenberg, however, doesn't want him to be the talk of anyone else.

So he refused to give up the field guns, not a single shell - he refused to give up the mules, insisted on bringing them all to their destination. However, he also refused to accept the slow pace of the march that resulted from it.

"Our speed is too slow, and we will never be able to reach Taiyuan before the diversion attack is over!" He continued to complain, "We don't have enough time! ”

"Captain, it's you who insist on taking those mules with you," Helmut finally couldn't help himself, "you should know they're going to slow us down." ”

Wiesenberg turned his head and looked at him. "Yes, I know." "But that's an issue I can't tolerate." ”

"You should tolerate it, Captain." The herald blinked, "This is the price that must be paid-"

"You don't need to tell me anything, soldier." Wiesenberg snorted, "The commandos must get through here as soon as possible." If the Chinese notice our actions, they will immediately rush over and kill us all like chickens. ”

Helmut could feel the nervousness and worry his captain was experiencing, and in fact he was just as nervous and worried as Wiesenberg - and so did everyone else. After so many surprise attacks without warning, every German soldier was afraid of the places where the army might be hidden, and was reluctant to approach it; If they have to get closer, they will do everything they can to get out as quickly as possible; If it's impossible for them to leave anytime soon, they become highly nervous, reacting to any wind and grass.

It's just that these reactions do nothing to change their situation, and the only value is only to make them more tired.

"Perhaps, we should give up those mules." The herald grunted.

"Maybe we shouldn't have been involved in this operation." Wiesenberg glared at him, "'Maybe'!" 'Maybe' too much, it doesn't make sense at all, we ......"

Hans. Zhang interjected. "Oh, we're coming to the end of our mountain trail."

He pointed ahead. Wiesenberg and Helmut looked along, yes, the trail was almost over, and they only had to continue a few hundred meters before they could enter an open area, an apparently freshly harvested farmland. And a little further away, their goals can already be seen.

"Excellent." Helmut cried out, "We're about to succeed, Captain." Obviously, the Chinese did not perceive our intentions. ”

"When we get to Taiyuan, you tell me that we have succeeded, soldier." Wiesenberg replied. On the surface, he was calm, calm, just a little happy. But in reality, he was as excited as every soldier of the commando, and his mood was relaxed.

At this moment, like the same ambushes that the expeditionary force had encountered, without warning, the sound of gunfire suddenly rang out in the grass and bushes on both sides of the road. But this time, Wiesenberg heard the sound of machine guns.

"Chinese! It's a trap! He shouted desperately as he turned to his guide.

He's going to kill this despicable fellow.

However, Hans. Zhang was dead, with a look of consternation.

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"What's going on? How did you beat our people to death? Wu Luzhen asked strangely, and was a little annoyed. Hans. Zhang's death was completely unexpected, and, with the experience Wu Luzhen had gained in mercenaries, he died not from stray bullets, but from accurate shooting.

Someone, and not just one, made him a priority target.

But Wu Luzhen did not remember that he had given such an order, on the contrary, he had already warned the officers and soldiers not to hit this "own man" - Hans. Zhang was a spy he had picked out from a large group of followers to be executed, barely counting him as "one of his own" - Wu Luzhen could only look at his two friends for answers from them.

Zhang Shaozeng and Lan Tianwei do know the answer.

"It's an order from our Shandong political envoy." Zhang Shao once replied, "He didn't tell you, but asked us to shoot him at the beginning of the battle." You should know what kind of person Yuxian is, the Boxer ...... he recommended to King Duanjun."

"I know he's a conservative lunatic who hates everything that has anything to do with the West." Wu Luzhen said cautiously, as if he was worried that his words would be heard by some officer or soldier -- or by the political envoy of Shandong himself. He was standing a few dozen meters away, shouting excitedly.

Then he whispered a reproach, "But why didn't you stop him?" ”

"It is not appropriate for us to clash with him on this kind of issue. Behind him is the King of Duanjun, although in the end, the old queen mother will definitely hand them over as scapegoats, but now they are still very powerful, and they are not characters who can easily contradict them. Zhang Shaozeng continued, "And now, Yuxian is still a person of merit, he can put down his job and take the boxers from Shandong to Shanxi to protect the old queen mother and the emperor, if we clash with him for your spy, the situation is very unfavorable to us." ”

"And, even if we don't fire, the Germans will kill your spy, and his chances of surviving this battle are slim to none." Lan Tianwei sighed, "What you assigned to him was originally a mission that would have been certain to die. ”

"Yes, but I don't want our soldiers to take the place of the Germans." Wu Luzhen bit her lip and glanced at the political envoy of Shandong again, "I will count this matter on Yuxian's head." ”

Then, instead of caring about the dead Spy, he focused all his attention on the fight.

In the short time they had talked, the Germans had recovered from the surprise and confusion of the initial blow, formed small battle groups under the command of the officers, began to counterattack and try to break through - I have to admit that the Germans were indeed very good in tactics, and the Qing army could never have done this - but their bravery and tenacity were of no value: the position of the assault team was quite bad, and the Qing army had absolute superiority.

In order to completely eliminate Hans. The German army that Zhang might have brought with him, as well as Zhang Shaozeng and Lan Tianwei, not only threw their full strength into it—two thousand soldiers, though untrained but armed with Predator rifles and ample ammunition; And they borrowed the troops of the Armed Guards Army, a thousand soldiers, with two machine guns and thirty submachine guns, led by officers trained as military advisers of the Umbrella, enough to at least double their strength.

With such a powerful army against four hundred Germans, and also having a terrain advantage, the three commanders even had the feeling of killing chickens with knives. Of course, just their delusion, the Germans were not yet so easily defeated by the Qing army, and they were proving it.

However, in a battle that is bound to lose, it makes little difference between holding out for thirty minutes or three hours, and certainly pointless; Like a warship that is incapacitated at the beginning of the battle and has no chance to escape, it may be able to hold out for hours under fire and withstand thousands of shells, but it still sinks in the end, and not as a warship, but as a target ship that has been repeatedly ravaged by enemy fleets.

It's just so and nothing else.

Of course, if we had to find out what this battle meant for the Germans, it would only be to give the Germans, and admirers of the German army, an opportunity to boast of the tenacity and fighting qualities of the German soldiers.

However, as Qin Lang said, only the result is the most important, and the process and means are insignificant. As long as the Germans lost the battle, Wu Luzhen didn't care at all how they boasted about themselves in the future - it was just the self-comfort of the losers, which was not worth mentioning or refuting.

Wu Luzhen narrowed his eyes and began to enjoy the victory and glory he was about to get.

Although the battle continues.

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Note: In 1898, Yuxian was still the political envoy of Shandong, and only became the governor of Shandong in 1899; In addition, this person is extremely conservative and xenophobic, and a total of 191 foreign missionaries and more than 10,000 Chinese Christians and their families were killed in Shanxi during the Gengzi Incident, all of which are the result of his support and instigation (to be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!). (To be continued.) )