The Remington "No. 1 Gun" began production in 9066 and produced hundreds of thousands of units. Although the gun eventually did not enter service with the U.S. Army, the gun was widely praised around the world and was called "the best rifle in the world", and eventually more than a dozen countries around the world purchased and equipped Remington bolt-down single-shot rifles, most of which were No. 1 guns. In 9071, the Qianguo government procured a batch of 14,400 guns of this type, called "Lin Mingdun Needle Gun", and then imitated them in the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and now there are nearly 200 such rifles in the Yunnan army unit that Iwafu Imano saw. Comparatively speaking, this kind of gun can be regarded as a relatively advanced rifle equipped in the cadre army, and the Black Flag Army also favored this kind of gun, and purchased about 300 guns through smuggling channels, all of which were equipped in the old camp. It can also be seen from this that Xu Shihe gave him a Glass rifle, how much face he had.

And in this army, Iwao Konno also saw a large number of soldiers armed with cold weapons such as broadswords and spears.

As for the artillery, in addition to the five Krupp 75mm guns he saw that day, he also saw a bunch of old guns, large and small.

Thinking that the equipment level of the local troops of the Qianguo Army was not as good as that of the Japanese government army in the early days of the Southwest War, Iwao Konno couldn't help but sigh secretly in his heart.

Because the Qianguo Navy is a blank sheet of paper, it can be directly integrated with the world trend from the very beginning, but the historical burden of the Qianguo Army is too heavy, the accumulation of shortcomings is too deep, and it is really too difficult to change it.

Iwao Konno has now predicted what kind of outcome this upcoming battle will have.

Today's weather is quite cool. Iwao Konno has a blue sky overhead. Walk on the path of emptiness. Because it was necessary to bypass the crooked river and the villages and towns that the French gunboats near the river might reach. The Black Flag Army had to take a circuitous route, finding a way between the deserted countryside and distant villages. Safety did not seem to be an issue, and along the way, they rarely met people, and if they did, it was mainly poor Vietnamese peasants.

Iwao Konno followed his troops to a wooden house built at a fork in the road, which was so close to the road that the porch was about to block the way. A tired Vietnamese woman sits on a straight-backed chair with her legs spread wide. She bit her lower lip. The eyes looked at the horizon, as if something earth-shattering but unclear was happening there. Her skirt sagged between her thighs, creating a dark pit.

Although he did not enter the house, he could guess that her man had either been captured by the French army as a coolie or had escaped. And the reason why she stayed here was probably because she had nowhere to go and nothing left.

The soldiers of the Dian army on the march looked at her curiously, and some of the young soldiers may have seen this kind of scene for the first time, and even whispered about her appearance. Iwao Konno knew that they might be the first recruits to go into battle. That's why there is such a performance.

For him, he had seen too many of these sights. In these days of reconnaissance, such miserable scenes are everywhere.

The troops continued to advance, and when they passed a small river, they encountered a group of Vietnamese women in their clothes in the river. When the troops reached the edge of the woods, many soldiers unconsciously turned their heads to look at them, and some even whistled at them.

Standing in calf-deep water, women whipped their laundry on the smooth stones, then rinsed, wrung out, and spread out to dry on the nearby bushes. They worked silently, not saying a word, except for the occasional glance up at the passing soldiers. They tucked the hem between their legs and pinned it into their belts to avoid getting wet by the river. In Iwao's eyes, they looked like the three soldiers of the French army in fat breeches that he had killed, and their bodies were lying on the grass, their colors were so vivid that he even felt a festive atmosphere at that time.

The women knew that the soldiers' eyes were watching them, and they didn't care, lifting their skirts all the way to their thighs. The water on the clothes dripped onto the legs, sliding against the white skin, shining like oil in the sun.

The idea suddenly popped into Iwao Konno's mind: maybe they had lost their husbands, and they wanted to use this way to attract the attention of these foreign men and find another husband for themselves.

Somehow, Iwao Konno remembered the Japanese woman again.

Who could she be?

Where will she be now?

In order to achieve the purpose of the attack, Zhang Yongqing ordered the troops to speed up, and Iwao Konno looked around, knowing that the troops were now close to the target, and his heartbeat somehow became a little faster.

At about two o'clock in the afternoon, the fortress of the French army appeared in front of me.

The French fort was at the crossroads and could not be detoured, and the Black Flag Army would have to conquer it if they wanted to pass through it into Hanoi.

There was indeed no river around the fort, so it could not be supported by French gunboats, and the main body of the fort was converted from a Vietnamese temple, which was very strong, and it was located on the hillside, so it can be said that it was very difficult to attack from the back.

It can be said that there was nothing wrong with Zhang Yongqing choosing this place as the breakthrough point, but Iwao Konno did not indicate the shape of this fortress and the surrounding terrain on the map, so he was indeed a little dumbfounded when he saw this fortress.

When Iwano saw Zhang Yongqing's appearance, he was secretly amused in his heart, and he also calculated the evil breath in his chest.

Why did he want to be a scout for the Black Flag Army and collect intelligence for the Black Flag Army because the gap between the two sides was very different.

If one of the belligerents has a dark eye and the other knows the other side well, I am afraid that a three-year-old child can know what the outcome of the war will be in such a "one-way transparent" war. Because of the obvious differences in the physical characteristics of the French and the Asian countries, it is not easy for them to spy on each other, but on the French side, there are quite a few Catholic Vietnamese and even Qianguo people who work for them, and these people are everywhere around the Vietnamese army, the Black Flag Army, and the cadres stationed on the border between North Vietnam and the Qian-Yue border to spy on all kinds of intelligence in the capacity of hawkers and merchants. In the information they kept transmitting, the names, ages, places of origin, and even personal resumes of the Vietnamese army, the Black Flag Army, and the local garrisons of Qianguo were clearly marked. The Vietnamese army, the Black Flag Army, and the Qianguo Army, which had no concept of intelligence, could only rely on the random patches of information provided by their sympathizers in North Vietnam. You can imagine how accurate it is. Like this time, Zhang Yongqing saw the map information provided by Iwao Konno, so he slapped his brain and decided on the attack plan. It's easy to understand.

"Brother Kim. Have you been here and seen it? What's going on inside? How many people are guarded? Zhang Yongqing called Iwao Konno, gave him a rare politeness, and asked him.

"I haven't been inside, and it's not very clear what is going on inside." Iwao Konno replied, "But I secretly asked the number of Vietnamese peasant women who washed the clothes for the French army, and it was estimated that there were about eighty defenders inside. I'm sure of that, and there's a cannon in the fort. ”

"Eighty or so people. A cannon, that's okay to deal with. Hearing Iwao Konno's answer, Zhang Yongqing's expression became relaxed again.

"This place originally belonged to the garrison of the Vietnamese army, which previously garrisoned more than 300 people here, and was later captured by the French army." Iwao Konno said another thing he had learned from the locals, "The Vietnamese army had more than a dozen small cannons here, and their firepower was weak enough to withstand the fierce fire of the French army, so they were easily captured by the French army. According to the locals, the French army bombarded it with only two cannons. And they brought down the fortress. ”

"That's easy, we have cannons too. Just give them a bang. Zhang Yongqing raised his binoculars, observed the French fortress, found many bullet marks, understood that what Iwano said was true, and decided to attack immediately.

The soldiers of the Yunnan army immediately began to build artillery positions, and seeing that they dug the ground and erected artillery according to the methods of the Prussian army, Iwao Konno despised Zhang Yongqing a little more - judging from the performance of his soldiers, this man was not a fool, but had a certain amount of Western military knowledge and actual combat experience.

In a short time, 5 Krupp cannons were erected, and with Zhang Yongqing's order, the cannons began to bombard the fortress.

The French troops in the fortress had already discovered the Black Flag Army that had come to attack, and they should have been ready for battle, but they should not have expected that the Black Flag Army brought real artillery this time, and they were caught off guard for a while, and it took a quarter of an hour before the French army began to fire back with artillery.

In order to capture the fortress with minimal casualties, Zhang Yongqing did not give the order to attack, but first bombarded it with 5 cannons. Iwao Konno could see that the gunners of the Qianjun army were obviously well trained, very skillful in handling the guns, and shooting accurately, and the shells continued to hit the French fortress, and in a short time, the whole fortress was shrouded in black and yellow smoke.

But what made Zhang Yongqing feel depressed was that the French artillery was not suppressed, as long as the smoke and dust dispersed a little, and he could see clearly, the French artillery immediately began to bombard, although the shells did not fall on the artillery positions of the Yunnan army, but they almost hit the Yunnan army on the main road.

Annoyed, Zhang Yongqing ordered the artillery bombardment to continue, and ordered the mountain splitting cannon and the flowering small cannon to join the bombardment. Under the cover of the Krupp cannons, some Yunnan soldiers pushed several mountain splitting cannons to the bottom of the castle and began shelling, but the French artillery soon discovered them, turned around and bombarded them, destroying all the mountain splitting cannons, and killing more than a dozen Yunnan gunners and soldiers, and the rest quickly fled back.

Seeing this scene, Zhang Yongqing was so angry that he stomped his feet and scolded.

In the face of this bombardment is not willing to stop roaring French artillery, the Dian army has no choice but to continue to pour shells into the fortress, and after about a quarter of an hour, the artillery bombardment of the Dian army finally has an effect, a shell should have hit the French ammunition depot, only to see a huge smoke ball with dark red fire light soaring into the air, accompanied by an earth-shattering explosion, the broken stone bricks and tiles that were lifted by the air wave flew into the air, and fell down one after another.

Iwao Konno saw what seemed to be a few human limbs and fragments of clothing in the flying smoke, and he couldn't help but think of his own experience in the Southwest War.

He himself experienced such a big bang. The group of soldiers of the 5th Brigade who had been blown up by the Satsuma Army's combat engineers was located next to Iwao Konno's unit. At that time, Iwao Konno was roasting rye in the trench made of slats, preparing to make a pot of so-called coffee for the commander, and the ground on the right front suddenly rose up. People and dirt flew into the air at the same time. Fell back to the ground. Iwao Konno's body was covered in dirt. A lower leg. The boots were still on his feet, and they were falling beside him. A man rushed from the other side of the trench and shouted like madness: Hell is open!

In the trenches, people on the left and right sides of the blasted hole retreated, thinking that someone would come out to attack them on the spot. But it soon became clear to them that some Satsuma soldiers had indeed rushed through the tunnels into the bombed crater, but they were stunned by the miracle they had created, and they were puzzled by the new landscape that had been created by the great force in front of them. Therefore, he just cowered in the big pit and did not act immediately.

Iwao's commander immediately transferred all his light mortars and placed them on the edge of the pit, each containing only one and a half ounces of gunpowder, because it only needed to shoot a cannonball into the bottom of the pit 50 feet away. The Satsuma soldiers charged upwards under the pit, like a pack of wild wolves in a cage, but they didn't expect a hammer to smash into their Celestial Spirit Gai. Mortar shells blew many of them to pieces, and then Iwao's unit rushed down the crater. It was a battle he had never experienced before. Unfolded in the most primitive way, it was as if hundreds of people had been driven into a crypt. Rubbing shoulders, but fighting each other. There was simply not enough room to fire and reload, so the rifle was basically used as a stick. Iwao Konno saw a young trumpeter and smashed a man's head open with the trumpet in his hand. The resistance of the Satsuma soldiers was even more fierce, fighting with pistols, daggers and shovels. Corpses and severed limbs littered his feet, the explosions and the subsequent shelling left many dead, the ground was sticky and slippery with blood, and the wet entrails emitted a pungent stench. Deep beneath the pit, surrounded by uneven earth walls, you can only look up at a small piece of sky, as if this is the whole world, and battle is everything in this world. In the end, all the people in the pit - the attackers and the counterattackers - died, and there was not a single one left.

Iwao Konno didn't rush down that time, so he survived.

He missed the battle, but saved his life.

Now, will the scene inside this fortress recreate the hellish scene he saw back then?

Seeing that the French artillery was dumbfounded, Zhang Yongqing shouted excitedly and ordered his subordinates to charge and capture the fortress.

Iwao Konno was carried by the flow of people, stumbling forward. He didn't want to participate in the attack on the fortress, but there was no way, the formation of the soldiers of the Dian army was too dense, and he could only run forward with them involuntarily.

Just as the soldiers of the Yunnan army rushed to the front of the fortress, a dense row of bullets was shot from nowhere, and the soldiers of the Yunnan army fell down with a scream.

Seeing that there were many people around him all at once, Iwao Konno hurriedly lay down, using the two corpses as his cover, and bent down to avoid the fire of the French army.

The French army fired another volley of guns, and the charging Dian soldiers fell down again, and the soldiers behind suddenly stopped, and they shot indiscriminately in front while retreating, and for a time the battlefield was full of piercing gunfire and choking white smoke.

The Krupp cannon of the Dian army roared again at this time, and the shells hit the positions of the French shooters very accurately, and after a few explosions, the smoke rose up, and when the smoke dissipated, the French fire also disappeared.

The soldiers of the Dian army easily stabilized their position, and rushed forward again amid the shouts and curses of the officers, and this time they did not encounter any more resistance and entered the fortress smoothly.

Iwao Konno, who had entered the fort, first tried to find the French artillery position, and he was surprised that there seemed to be several firing positions for this cannon, and he wondered how the French had managed to move this cannon from one position to another.

Soon, he found the answer.

The romantic, French by nature, also liked to process their positions into a work of art when they were constructing fortifications, which is certainly true in Iwao Konno's view.

The cannon was located in a large hall, the ceiling of which was reinforced with wooden beams and thick earth, so it was very solid, and the large area of this hall was located in the middle of the hall, and among the three walls around it, there was a cannon window, from which the cannon was fired.

The Frenchman's ingenious arrangement reminded Iwao Konno of the gun room of a French ironclad ship, and he guessed that the gun emplacements were probably designed by the French Navy, otherwise he would not have brought such a design to land.

Iwao Konno was eager to meet the French officer to confirm his suspicions, but he failed to achieve his goal - after careful searching, the soldiers of the Yunnan army did not find the commander of the fortress, and the corpses of the French soldiers collected during the cleaning of the battlefield were only 32, including some corpses that were broken into pieces and put together, which shows that the French soldiers defending the fortress were not all reimbursed by the explosion of the ammunition depot and the bombardment of the Krupp cannons, and the remaining nearly 50 French soldiers must have found it hopeless to hold on. Led by their commander, the Dian army fled before they could enter the fortress.

Seeing the cannon in front of him, which had been completely destroyed by the explosion, Iwao Konno knew that this fortress had little value to the Dian army. (To be continued.) )