"It is said that Makary is a very strong fortress. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"You've already said it."

"Based on past experience, to overcome such a fortress, we need large-caliber cannons."

"You said that, too."

"But we don't have large-caliber cannons, and neither do the Abyssinians."

"Yes, Mr. Butz, we all know that." Eugene Smith looked back impatiently at his grumbling subordinate, William Butz, "Now can you stop nagging?" We are on a mission. ”

"Task? That's what I'm worried about, sir. Butz frowned at him, "That Venerable Lion Majesty—"

"'King of kings, messenger of God, and lion of the Jewish race,' Mr. Butz." Smith sternly corrected his subordinates' disrespect for the Abyssinian Emperor. In fact, he was just as unimpressed with Menelik's title, but the Emperor was now an important customer of the company, so respect was a must.

However, Butz is not a commander, he is just an ordinary mercenary at the lowest level. The emperor is an important customer? Yes, but he doesn't care. Butz only cares about himself and the people around him. "Well, well, 'King of kings, messenger of God, and lion of the Jewish people.'" He shrugged, "Anyway, I don't like him. He had 120,000 well-armed soldiers, but he made us the vanguard......"

He was undoubtedly unhappy with the current situation, and of course most mercenaries felt this way - they felt like a hard mule, and worse, they were not rewarded at all.

"You see, we have taken a city for that majesty as soon as we arrived in this country, and before we had time to rest, we rushed to join his army in Desai, and he gave us the reward of having us at the forefront." Butz grumbled, "Maybe tomorrow, he'll put us in charge of capturing Macare—"

"Shut up, Mr. Butz." Smith's tone became harsher. "You're talking too much."

"I'm sorry, sir." "But I'll say that we're likely to be ordered to be commandos attacking the fortress." ”

"Your speculation is baseless." Smith shook his head, not believing Butz's nonsense at all—the thirty thousand Abyssinian soldiers, sixty mortars, and twenty-eight cannons commanded by Duke Maconnan were behind them, only two miles away, and ten miles away, there was a huge main army led by the Emperor himself, including ninety thousand soldiers, one hundred and sixty mortars, and forty-two cannons—the attack on Makaré was the task of the Abyssinian army, and the dukes were eager to gain merit for themselves by capturing this fortress, All the mercenaries have to do is clear the way for them.

"No one is going to ask us to take the fort. ”

"I'm skeptical ......"

"Sir." Zhang Biao, who was walking at the front, suddenly shouted, ending the senseless conversation between Smith and Butz, "Italian." ”

In just a short moment, all the mercenaries were already lying on the ground and aimed their weapons in the direction of Zhang Biao's finger. Smith cautiously climbed up to him, holding up his binoculars to look there.

An Italian unit appeared in his sight, six hundred yards away, about a thousand soldiers, or more, without seeing artillery, but could also fall at the end of the queue...... The commander quickly analyzed the strength of his opponent, and then was relieved. The Italians apparently showed no sign of the mercenaries, maintained a lazy pace, and their morale did not seem to be very high.

"Zhang, report to Mr. Shepard immediately." He commanded in a low voice, "The others continue to be on standby." ”

Zhang Biao began to climb back. As he passed Butts, the complaining fellow grabbed him and smiled at him. "Hey man, guess what Mr. Shepard's order is?"

"What else could it be?" Zhang Biao gave him a roll of the eyes, "Kill the Italians." ”

Eliminate the Italians, this is indeed Shepard's order. For the next thirty minutes, he commanded his troops to prepare a small ambush circle for their hapless opponent - indeed a "small" ambush circle. Shepard did not inform the other two brigades to reinforce him, but it was too risky for everyone to ambush an enemy force of more than a thousand men with only one brigade.

But Shepard thought he could do it - ambush and annihilate the Italian force. Since the Italians have not yet discovered his troops, then he can give them a "surprise".

"Mortars, machine guns, automatic rifles...... Those poor Italian fools must have been very surprised. Oh, I'm looking forward to seeing their faces. Shepard thought happily as he watched his soldiers get ready, watching the enemy, who knew nothing about the situation, slowly walk into the death trap......

At this time, none of the Italian soldiers had realized that they were entering an ambush circle, they had never imagined that they would encounter the enemy only a day's way from the fortress, there was no intelligence that the Abyssinian army had advanced to the vicinity of Makareal, and no one believed that the Abyssinian army would attack the fortress on its own initiative.

In fact, the soldiers were confident that the Italian army would soon be able to completely occupy Abyssinia, and they all remembered the victory declaration made by General Baratieri at the capture of Macary a few months earlier: "If I have two more battalions and a few more cannons, it will not be long before I can capture Menelik alive and bring him back to Rome in a cage" - now the general had received far more than two battalions, so it was only a matter of time before the Abyssinian Emperor was captured alive.

The soldiers were delighted, they had all heard how rich Menelik and his dukes were, if only they could be eliminated...... Even if most of the wealth would be taken by the government and military officers, they would still receive something worth thousands or even tens of thousands of miles.

Getting rich, this is the dream of every soldier who served in the colonial army, and they are looking forward to the day when Addis Ababa will be captured.

But they will never wait for that day.

"The Italians are completely in the ambush circle, Commander." A mercenary reports to Shepard.

Shepard had seen it in his binoculars, but he nodded. "Good." He turned around and waved his hand lightly at the mercenary operating the mortar in what he thought was the most gentlemanly demeanor, "Fire." ”

Then he shrugged his shoulders at the people around him. "It's going to be a very short battle."

As soon as his words fell, the first row of shells exploded violently in the middle of the target.

It was probably the most horrific explosion the mercenaries had ever seen. The Italians marched in such dense columns that even a 60-millimeter mortar could have the same lethal effect as a large-caliber grenade: at least ten people fell at each shell, and the shattered human tissue was thrown into the air along with the stones, and then sprinkled everywhere.

But that's just the beginning. Before the wounded Italian soldiers began to scream and the others realized what was happening, the second row of shells exploded in their midst, and at the same time, fourteen "Browning potato diggers" lying in ambush on both sides of the road began to fire at them at a steady rate of fire of five hundred and fifty rounds per minute.

Side-fired fire! A very threatening attack in battle. These machine guns showed a terrible hell for their own goals. When a dense rain of bullets from the flanks swept across the marching column, the unsuspecting Italian soldiers had no chance at all, and could only let the bullets hit their bodies; To make matters worse, due to the dense marching formations they still maintained, the Heavy from two hundred yards away had no worries about their bullets not hitting the enemy.

Just by firing, the bullet can hit the target, and even penetrate one target before entering the body of the next. This is not a battle, but an execution...... Unilateral massacre.

But the machine gunners were excited. They shouted frantically, pulling the trigger with their index fingers, shifting their guns back and forth, pouring bullets at all the targets still standing. In just a short moment, the vast majority of Italian soldiers had already fallen - many had seen God, and the rest were dying.

No Italian soldier had ever experienced this, and of course their feelings were not particularly important, but the mercenaries were also taken aback by such a terrible scene. All of them forgot about their mission, forgot to fire at their targets, and all of them just lay motionless on their positions, stupidly watching as the machine guns harvested the lives of the Italians like scythes harvesting wheat.

And then the battle was over. When the excited machine gunners had exhausted an entire chain of ammunition and began to reload, Shepard gave the order for a ceasefire.

"Stop shooting! Stop shooting! He shouted, then muttered, "I said 'destroy the Italians,' but I'm not going to kill them all...... And it was a one-sided massacre. ”

Despite extreme reluctance, the machine gunners stopped, as did the mercenaries operating the mortars. The gunfire subsided, and in the small ambush circle, only the screams and wails of the remaining Italian soldiers, and the screams of some people, remained.

Shepard felt his head hurt, but he still had to hold on because there was one last thing left to do. "Demand that the Italians surrender - if anyone else can surrender."

Of course, this thing went well. The Italian soldiers, who were still alive, quickly raised the white flag and dropped their weapons, not wasting a single second. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the WWW.QIDIAN.COM, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )