107991908 Far Eastern madman

The Beiyang Army began shelling again. The men of the trenches of the RUF line looked to the south. seconds later. There was a thunderous flash of lightning on the horizon, followed by a dull explosion, which, judging from the direction, appeared to be in the direction of the artillery positions of the RUF forces.

"Artillery fires"

Yang Ben looked north in surprise. Seeing that there were frequent flashes near the horizon, the artillery of the Beiyang Army continued to fire, judging from the range. They clearly have artillery that hits farther than field artillery. But there don't seem to be many of them.

At this time, the hydrogen balloon fired by the artillery of the Beiyang Army had risen to several hundred meters in the air, and it was far away from the hydrogen balloon of the RUF unit in the south.

"Our artillery was beaten by the Northern Army."

"We don't have a cannon that far here."

"If we drag those fortress cannons from Hanyang, we won't be afraid of the Northern Army."

"The cannon is too heavy, and the field battle is too cumbersome. It's not as good as a field artillery. ”

Listening to the soldiers' discussions, Yang Ben seemed to understand why the artillery commander waited for the enemy to rush in front of him before opening fire.

At this moment, the crowd heard a strange "buzzing" sound, and when they looked for prestige, they saw a small black dot in the sky to the south, which was getting closer and closer, and soon flew over the positions and flew over the heads of the RUF soldiers with a whistling sound.

"Mao Ji!"

Someone shouted, and everyone's eyes followed the plane with the iron-blooded republican flag under its wings, but saw it gradually climb in altitude and fly towards the hydrogen balloon of the Beiyang Army.

"Oh tart bite, tart bite"

After the plane approached the hydrogen balloon of the Beiyang Army. It began to circle around the balloon, and the crisp sound of continuous shooting rang out from the plane, which was so clear in the wilderness that even the distant sound of artillery could not cover it.

With the sound of machine guns, the reconnaissance balloon of the Beiyang Army quickly dropped in height, but it just refused to explode and burn.

Yang Ben stood in the trench and looked at the scene in front of him a few days ago, he had visited the hydrogen balloon of the Republican artillery unit. At that time, I was reminded that smoking was not allowed at the scene, because that thing was afraid of fire, and it would burn off as soon as it was burned, so theoretically speaking, this thing was very delicate.

But why did the plane shoot so many shots at the hydrogen balloon of the Beiyang Army, but the balloon just didn't explode or burn?

Yang Ben was a little strange.

Platoon Commander Yang had the same doubts as the pilot of the plane.

The plane belonged to the Republican flying team. There is only one pilot. It was Meng Fei, the captain of the "Tianniu Detachment". And this plane is the "Tianniu II", which can sit two catties. man, but in order to fit a light machine gun and several magazines full of ammunition, and to ensure maneuverability, the plane actually had only one crew.

Meng Fei was both a pilot and a machine gunner. As his only assault weapon, the Maitson light machine gun was on his right hand, tied to the wing struts with ropes, and the six magazines were hung from the struts on the other side, in a jacket.

Meng Fei led the "Tianniu Detachment" to Xiping yesterday, and before that, his flying detachment had been staying at the frontline airfield in Balidian in Ruzhou Prefecture, and had received an order from the General Headquarters a few days ago. Only then did he lead the "Tianniu detachment" to Xinyang, and after receiving two new planes, he added some personnel, and yesterday received an order from Lan Tianwei, the former commander-in-chief of the enemy in the West Road Column, so he led the flight detachment to the Xiping front.

Originally, Lan Tianwei's order to the flying detachment was only for them to assist the front-line troops in reconnaissance. Served in the development of operational plans for the General Staff. However, since last night, Meng Fei has been pondering how to use this plane with two engines for combat, there are two roads in front of him, one is to load bombs on the plane, bombing the enemy on the ground, this tactic has been used in the last Chengdu campaign, but due to the problem of the aircraft's carrying capacity, the power of the aerial bomb is really limited, and the engine horsepower of this aircraft is small, not as good as the Chengdu one, it is very reluctant to sit on a two-pound villain, and then load an aerial bomb, I am afraid it will not be able to fly.

Therefore, Meng Fei chose another path, that is, to load this plane with machine guns and use it to strafe enemy troops on the ground.

However, the heavy machine gun could not be loaded, so the lighter machine gun could only be used, but fortunately, there was a light machine gun in the flight detachment, which was specially ordered by the commander-in-chief Zhao Bei to be equipped with equipment for the flight team, and in fact, the idea of installing a machine gun on this small aircraft was thought up by Zhao Bei. Liu Qingen didn't live up to the trust, and took a group of technicians to work for a month, and made a few imitations. It is completely handmade, not to mention any output, and due to the change of caliber, there are some problems with reliability, so it cannot be equipped to the army units at present, so Zhao Beida waved his pen, and these imitation Maitson light machine guns were equipped with the air force and special operations battalions respectively.

Meng Fei liked this kind of light machine gun with firepower and lightness, and he specially brought one with him when he left Wuhan and went north to Henan, and now it just came in handy.

After a busy night, Meng Fei loaded the light machine gun onto the plane, in order to prevent the recoil during shooting from breaking the wooden struts of the wings, he did not reinforce the struts, so that the payload of the aircraft was reduced, coupled with the weight of the light machine gun, ammunition, and magazines, the plane that could barely carry two people could only carry one person. Originally, many of his subordinates took the initiative to ask Ying to fight, but considering the safety of the plane, Meng Fei decided to take the plane into the air in person.

This morning, when the news came that the Beiyang Army was advancing southward on a large scale, Meng Fei immediately prepared and waited until the afternoon. waited for the attack of the Beiyang Army, so he didn't say a word. Old... Kebo aircraft lifted into the air, but due to the problem of engine oil pipes, the take-off time was slightly delayed, and by the time Meng Fei arrived at the battlefield, the first attack launched by the Beiyang Army had been repulsed.

However, Meng Fei did not return empty-handed, almost at the time he arrived at Diren over the battlefield, he found the artillery observation balloon raised in the air by the Beiyang Army, so he was driven by instinct. Meng Fei quickly changed his battle plan and decided to shoot down the hydrogen balloon, depriving the artillery of the Beiyang Army of effective guidance.

So, without hesitation, the plane pounced on the hydrogen balloon, climbed to the height of the balloon with difficulty, and then attacked with the light machine gun.

"Tart,,Tart tart"

Meng Fei controlled the aircraft control stick with his left hand, controlled the light machine gun with his right hand, piloted the plane around the balloon again and again, and emptied two magazines in one go, he thought that he could easily set the hydrogen balloon on fire or even explode, but he didn't expect that the few pointed heads bounced over, and the balloon only lowered its height slightly, but there was no sign of burning and exploding, which made him very strange.

"Is it a hot air balloon?"

Meng Fei curiously lowered the plane to a higher altitude. After a closer look, I finally rejected the petty speculation, this is indeed a hydrogen balloon, and the balloon should be filled with hydrogen, this gas is much lighter than air, but it is a good fuel.

"No matter! Let's take a few more looks! ”

Meng Fei couldn't care so much, hurriedly changed the magazine for the light machine gun, continued to circle around the balloon, and emptied the other four magazines in one go, although the hydrogen balloon still showed no signs of exploding, but its height had been reduced to tens of meters and was basically useless

。

At this time, the Beiyang Army on the ground also reacted. Under the organization of the officer, he was shooting into the sky with a rifle, and the bullet head of the bullet swept over the wing from time to time with a whistling sound, Meng Fei glanced at the wings on both sides and found that several bullet holes had appeared in the wing.

Having shot down the enemy's balloon and reconnoitring the enemy's position, it was time to leave the battlefield, and preserving the aircraft was now Monfel's only mission.

"Hum, hum

The engines of the plane swept over the battlefield with a low roar, flying straight from north to south, only more than 200 meters above the ground, and when it left the downed hydrogen balloon about half a mile, the hydrogen balloon that seemed to never explode and burn exploded, turning into a dazzling fireball. With thick smoke and flames, it fell headlong to the ground from a height of dozens of meters, and it was spectacular to look at from afar.

Meng Fei glanced back in astonishment, still unable to understand why the hydrogen balloon had only exploded now. However, he didn't dwell too much on this topic, and as soon as he pulled the steering stick with both hands, the small plane floated away lightly, with the dazzling light from the blazing hydrogen balloon in the background.

In this way, this one-sided air battle ended so gorgeously.

Meng Fei returned victorious, when his plane landed at the field airport in the southern suburbs of Xiping City, he was greeted like a hero, and the scene of the hydrogen balloon exploding and burning in the air could be seen from standing on the city wall, which made all the members of the flying team watching the battle extremely excited.

However, when everyone surrounded Meng Fei and cheered for victory, an adjutant sent by the former enemy headquarters in Xiping brought a new order to the "Tianniu Detachment".

The order came from the Xinyang General Staff, and the content was very simple, requiring the flight team to send out all four planes to attack in succession, along both sides of the railway line from Xiping to Xinyang, which is more than 100 miles, to carry out strategic reconnaissance and provide cover for the retreat of the Xiping defenders.

"Could it be that Xiping is not guarding? Didn't the Beiyang Army launch an attack? It was also repulsed. Our troops are fighting well. ”

Although the pilots were a little strange about this order, they still quickly carried out the order, under the command of the detachment leader Meng Fei. All four planes took to the air within half an hour and flew south to reconnoiter the area near the railway line.

At the same moment when the four planes of the "Tianniu detachment" took off, most of the troops of the United Front guarding the Xiping front received the same order:

"I hereby order your troops to quickly retreat to the second line of defense!"

Xiping's second line of defense was located south of Youfang Town, and retreating there would make it easier to maneuver along the Jinghan Railway.

This order is rather vague, and not many people realize that this order is actually preparing for the strategic retreat of the Xiping defenders.

To be precise, this should be a "defeat".

Of course, not all the troops on the front received orders to retreat, and none of the troops at the forefront of the positions received orders to retreat. Instead, they received a simpler order:

"Hold your ground until the last moment!"

Among them, there was the company that Yang Ben was in, and the moment he received the order, Yang Ben's platoon had repelled the second attack of the Beiyang Army.

"We have planes to help us fight, and we will definitely be able to hold the position!"

Yang Ben held the order sent by the company commander. Stand in the trenches and cheer on the same group of confident men, and just like them. He also didn't know that their troops had actually become the rearguard covering the retreat of the main force, and no one could guarantee how many of the platoon would survive after this battle.

Soldiers, many of the time, are always involuntary.