Sun Chuanfang, who had returned to the hilltop fort, was startled by the scene in front of him, only to see that the steel helmet of the West Fort had been lifted a large hole, the barrel of the 210-mm heavy gun deployed inside had been broken in two, the rails used for rotation were also raised high, and the corpses and fragments of soldiers were covered all over the hill.

"It's over there."

Under the guidance of the artillery commander, Sun Chuanfang saw the gunpowder smoke that had not yet dispersed over Fushan, but because there was a low peak in front of the smoke group, he could not see any shadow of the artillery position. This made him frown, at present, the large-caliber heavy artillery in each fortress is a cannon, and the power is so powerful that the trajectory is straight, without this low peak, it may be easy to end this heavy battery, but now the shells that are fired out are afraid that nine out of ten will be blocked.

As he thought, after receiving the order, the three main fortresses of Chushuishan Fortress, Taipingshan Fortress and Jingshan Fortress jointly launched a fierce bombardment on Fushan, and even the Huiquanjiao Fort, Taipingjiao Fort and the farthest Tuanshan Fort temporarily abandoned the sea surface and aimed at Fushan, but even the 4 Krupp 280 mm and 2 210 mm cannon heavy guns on the Shuishui Mountain Fortress (Bismarck Fortress) were blocked by the low peak because of the ballistics, and the field guns and mountain guns of other calibers could not reach the firing range. So I could only watch as two clouds of smoke rose from the floating mountain.

Boom two 240 shells fell again in front of the east fort of Taipingshan Fortress, although this time did not threaten the steel helmet, but the violent explosion still shocked everyone on their backs. "That's not going to work! They are howitzers, and they can quickly contact the command headquarters by firing across the hill, and let the heavy artillery group try to see if they can hit them. Qin Zhangshu reacted the fastest, and immediately thought of the heavy artillery group deployed along the railway line in the north.

In fact, there is no need for him to remind them that the mobile artillery regiment deployed along the Baisha River Jiaoji Railway Bridge has already taken rapid action.

The temporarily laid heavy track is like a crescent moon extending from the main trunk line of the Jiaoji Railway, and the soldiers around the No. 02 armored train marked with the words "Ironclad Pioneer" are quickly putting down their hoes, and the four imitation K16 Zhenlei 14 Type 150 long-range cannons are erecting their barrels little by little, and the black-brown barrels are particularly eye-catching in the rain. Farther away, in the concealed gun emplacement, four towed guns of the same type also raised their hideous muzzles simultaneously. The 24 Warhammer Type 14B 105 long-range suppression cannons scattered elsewhere also flew up, and the entire mobile heavy artillery regiment spat out letters like a poisonous snake that had been stepped on its tail.

When Jiang Tai and Han Linchun hurriedly arrived, the signal corps had already connected all the gun positions, raised the telephone, the rangefinder also climbed onto the roof of the train, held up the German short artillery rangefinder with both hands and began to calculate the distance and angle, and the anemometer, binocular sight, and eight-fold Zeiss telescope all began to work.

Before the Northern Expedition, he and Cai Demao, Zhou Futang and more than 20 artillery officers went to Germany for a short period of further study, and only returned to China at the beginning of the year to continue to serve as the commander of the artillery and the commander of the mobile artillery brigade. The mobile artillery brigade consists of two artillery regiments, each with four long-range towed long-range cannons of the same type as the Thunderbolt-14, two battalions of Warhammer Type 14 B 105 long-range cannons and one battalion of 150-German howitzers, in addition to an armored train.

Such powerful artillery was something he had never dared to think of before, so only he could be very sure that Laiyang would not fail, because when the infantry had strong artillery as the backing, if they wanted to defeat, they had to gather several times or even dozens of times the number of troops. At present, the total number of heavy artillery gathered in Shandong and Mukden has accounted for seventy percent of the national defense army, and it can be said that the artillery has done its best this time, but the Japanese army in Shandong itself is insufficient in number due to economic, transportation and other reasons, so as long as the 103rd Division can block the three-plate axe, it can be reversed.

Han Linchun is a new generation of artillery officers who joined the National Defense Force after the Northern Expedition, he studied artillery when he studied in the Japanese Army, and he likes to study weapons and equipment, so he almost didn't stare at the equipment of the mobile artillery regiment for the first time, not to mention anything else, just such a regiment will cost 13 million! Not counting the fact that the artillery shells do not control the financial resources of the whole country in a unified manner, I am afraid that there will not be a single force in the country that can be equipped.

Han Linchun was familiar with artillery and had superb business, and soon became Jiang Tai's right-hand man, and the first thing he asked after rushing into the command car was him: "Has the shelling Zhuyuan been calculated?" ”

"It's already out." At first, Han Linchun had a hard time adapting to the command terminology of the Wehrmacht that was first trained by Yang Qiu, and then went to Germany for training and completely Westernized, and it was not until Jiang Tai came back that he opened an artillery training class that he gradually understood the meaning. Immediately marked on the map Fushan, the new artillery position of the Japanese army, and said: "The distance of 15 kilometers is located in the low-lying area of the 420 heights on the east side of Fushan, and there are roughly 2 240 siege guns and 3 38 Type 150 howitzers, and the current heavy artillery firing angle from the direction of Qingdao is blocked by the 410 heights in front of it, and there is a drop of about three meters on our side in the past, and only the muzzle flame and smoke can be seen on the ground." ”

Jiang Tai frowned, this time he originally wanted to let the Japanese army see what heavy artillery suppression is, but after he came, he found that there are many mountains in Qingdao, except for the howitzers and mortars with curved ballistics, it is difficult for the heavy artillery in his hand to give full play to his advantages, and he has only supported the infantry a few times when he repeatedly fought for the high ground before. However, he was not discouraged, this time the opportunity for the Japanese army to deploy heavy artillery on the top of the mountain finally came!

"Is there a plan?" he asked. ”

Han Linchun nodded: "I was worried that the naval artillery grenade suppression battalion was not too close, and the distance was not enough, so even if we use arson shells here, I am afraid it will not have much effect, and now the best way is to bombard this gap, first use artillery shells to flatten it to force the Japanese army to be unable to continue effective artillery bombardment, relieve the pressure on the fortress, and at the same time cover the grenade suppression battalion to continue to advance 3 kilometers, so that their grenades can cross the ridge and blow up this gun position." ”

It's not that Jiang Tai doesn't know other ways, it's just that after he came back from Germany, he finally understood why Yang Qiu rarely interfered in the front-line command, because only by letting the front-line officers think for themselves can they train the officers at all levels who are still very immature. In fact, there were many ways to deal with the fragile artillery positions of the Japanese army, which completely imitated the British, but he nodded.

It's nothing to waste some shells, but if you can train some people, let them find a better way by groping on their own, and break the old thinking inherent in their minds is the key, so the corners of their mouths hooked slightly: "Call to see if the plane can take off for reconnaissance support, and you can let go of the rest." ”

"Yes!"

Soon after Han Linchun saluted, eight Zhenlei Type 14 long-range cannons took the lead in making a loud noise. The fierce muzzle flame and sound could be heard clearly for several kilometers, and the huge recoil force made the dozens of tons of carriages shake a few times.

"Reload."

The artillery in the compartment with the side door open is operating this powerful cannon, because it is a split load, so the gunner first has to clean up the residue after opening the wedge bolt, then stuff in the imported German-made Navy high-explosive shell weighing 51 kilograms, and finally close the cannon after stuffing two pieces of silk-wrapped propellant. In order to operate such a big guy, the artillerymen had to go through rigorous long-term training, and the best artillery squads could only fire three shells per minute, compared to the limit of five shells per minute for this gun.

However, even if it is three, the power is extremely terrifying, the 51 kg naval high-explosive bomb accurately hit the low mountain wall outside 15,000 but blocked the firing angle, and the violent explosion directly carved a three-meter-deep hole in the mountain, and many small stones that burst open rose more than ten meters high, crossed the ridge and smashed into the Japanese artillery position.

In the position, Major General Watanabe Iwanosuke, a temporary siege artillery commander who is rare in the Japanese army nowadays, was also startled by the violent explosion and stones, but he was slightly relieved to see that the shells were blocked by the low peak like the front, and while letting the observation post pay attention to observation, he ordered to temporarily enter the bunker to avoid it.

No one knows why the Rear Admiral Watanabe Iwanosuke chose to go straight down the mountain, perhaps he thought that the rock could block the shelling from the north, and the Japanese artillery gate did not think much about it at first, until the shell explosions on the north side became more and more dense. But at this time, it is superfluous to say anything, the infantry under the mountain peak has already launched an attack again, if you can't smash the fortresses that have blocked for more than half a month as soon as possible, this mission will definitely end miserably.

The Meiji Type 38 150mm howitzer may not be terrible, but the 240mm siege artillery is extremely dangerous, these range of more than 10,000 meters, the shells weighing 200 kilograms are extremely powerful, each shell can smash out of the crater up to several meters deep, plus it is a howitzer with a large elevation angle shooting ability, in this kind of overlooking the entire fortress in the high ground can bring terrible damage to the main fortress every time.

But the increasingly dense explosions and stones in the north forced the Japanese artillerymen to stop and take cover first, trying to wait until they realized that they had stopped in vain before continuing to fire. Although no shells fell directly into the position, the Japanese infantry, which had just launched a charge after losing the cover of heavy artillery, had to be strangled again by machine guns and field guns.

While the Japanese artillery temporarily stopped to support and busily reinforced the bunker with sandbags, 32 long-range cannons with high accuracy threw more than 6 tons of shells every minute at the low peak to the north! Even the steel dwarf peaks melt under this cover, let alone the fragile rocks. In less than five minutes, the observer first noticed that a gap about 5 meters in diameter had been blasted open in the low peak, and a Meiji Type 38 150 gun barrel was exposed in the thick smoke.

Although the trajectory of the cannon is straight, there is still a curve, in fact, if it does not rain, there is an airplane to guide the specific direction can still hit, but because of the bad weather, the plane can not take off, and its own observation altitude is not enough to see the specific location, so when the gap is opened, the observer on the roof of the car happily screams and jumps.

"See! Saw the ballistic correction at full speed! ”

The fire control squad collects all kinds of information collected, and then manually enters this data into an American-made machine computer, and then shakes the handle a few times and the new Zhuyuan comes out. Of course, this kind of "super technology" is too advanced for soldiers who only studied culture in the army's evening self-study class after enlisting in the army, and no one will use it when they came back from purchasing a few months ago, and in the end they could only find a few international students who returned from studying in the United States and spent two months figuring out how to use artillery, even if they are currently operating computers.

After the news of this incident came out, artillery suddenly became a joke in everyone's mouth, and the "shame" that there was advanced equipment that could not be used made Jiang Tai give a death order, and mechanical computers must be popularized within two years! All those who can't learn fire control are arranged to clean the toilet for a year.

The mechanical computer made the fire control team soldiers extremely headache and scared, and they had to admit that this thing was too powerful, and it used to take half a day to calculate the exact coordinates by dialing the abacus beads, but now they can get the result as long as they shake it a few times, unless they start to make a mistake, they will never go wrong.

After the new coordinates were quickly communicated to the various gun positions via telephone lines, the gunners began to correct them according to the scale, and when the correction was almost completed in two minutes, Major General Watanabe Iwanosuke and his artillerymen did not realize that a terrible disaster had befallen them.

Thundered.

The 32 long-range cannons that chose to fire a salvo completely opened the gap, and at the same time, the 150 howitzer suppression battalion that had obtained the coordinates in front also began to roar, and the artillery bombardment that could stump the cannon across the mountain was a piece of cake in front of them. When the first 105 shells touched the positional bunker, the artillery position, which had taken several days and exhausted the physical strength of thousands of soldiers, was completely engulfed in flames, and Major General Watanabe Iwanosuke was immediately blown into several pieces by 150 grenades that smashed directly on the sandbags above his head.

Hundreds of Japanese artillery screamed and rushed down the mountain, but the shells kept falling from the sky to block all the roads, and when a shell hit the shell bunker that was piled up into a hill, a mushroom cloud up to 100 meters high suddenly rose over the 420 heights of Fushan, and the rocky forests within a radius of several hundred meters suddenly turned into powder! The 371 elite Japanese artillerymen of the 1st Siege Artillery Brigade were even more dead.

"General."

Kamio Mitsutomi, who was commanding the infantry, looked at the mushroom cloud blankly, and the corners of his mouth were bitter, and he didn't know whether to recall the infantry and retreat or continue the attack. Is it really going to be "jade broken"? As the thought arose, thunderous cheers erupted in the Wehrmacht's heavy artillery group in the distance.

Han Linchun scratched his head, he was tall and burly, he looked at the mushroom cloud and suddenly thought of something, and he was a little shy: "Commander, in fact, such a fragile artillery shell bunker 120 mortar can go up, right?" Why didn't you remind me, which led to the waste of so many shells? ”

"Counter-battery combat is not about the bigger the muzzle, the more effective it is, and now it's not too late for you to think about it yourself." Jiang Tai took off his hat, Xue Yue Peng's logo movement turned around his fingers, and said with a smile: "Actually, it was a combat exercise just now." ”

No one knows whether the logistics department went to Jiang Tai to settle accounts later, but it is said that shortly after the logistics department cried, the artillery commander escaped from the commander-in-chief's office with a big footprint. But now Yang Qiu didn't know that this guy actually used expensive heavy artillery shells to train his troops, and looking at the mushroom cloud over Fushan that the torrential rain couldn't quickly extinguish, he couldn't even help but want to rush into the battlefield to see what was going on.

"Great victory! Great victory! Laiyang victory! ”

Suddenly, a high-pitched and even sharp-pitched voice came from the telegraph room, and Li Zongren, who had followed him from Beijing, suddenly kicked open the door and rushed into the playground, standing in the heavy rain and running and jumping, this action immediately attracted countless eyes, and even Cai Ye rushed out of the conference room when he heard the shout, and the senior officers frantically pounced on the young figure in the rainstorm.

After reading the telegram, all the officers cheered, and Cai Ye couldn't help but burst into tears!

See!

After more than half a month, the Qingdao Meat Grinder Battle, with a total of more than 200,000 troops invested by both sides and a total casualties of more than 10,000 national defense forces, finally saw the dawn of victory! Cai Ye stiffened his thin body and saluted Yang Qiu in the heavy rain, his voice echoing loudly like Jin Rui piercing a stone.

"Report, Laiyang victory! Blocked by our 103rd Division, Shirakawa Yoshinoribu was successfully attracted to Laiyang for three hours! In the end, the armored troops who arrived cut through the main formation! So far, 1,671 people have been confirmed dead and 2,347 injured! But they killed more than 6,700 enemy soldiers! More than 4,900 prisoners were captured! 31 cannons and 13,000 guns of various types were seized! The ammunition is innumerable!

Confirm! The 9th Brigade of the 5th Division, known as the ace of the Japanese army, has completely lost its combat effectiveness!

Confirm! The self-proclaimed undefeated elite Japanese Army is fleeing to Longkou with its life! ”

When the last word popped out of Cai Yi's mouth clearly, the entire military camp seemed to explode, countless soldiers from all over the country rushed into the heavy rain and hugged each other with joy, and even the sound of clanging things falling to the ground sounded in the wounded barracks, even the wounded soldiers who were lying on the hospital bed and unable to move couldn't help but shout.

The sudden agitation of the Wehrmacht officers and men not only surprised the tens of thousands of panicked civilians in the nearby refugee camp who had fled from various war zones, but also surprised the thousands of German troops and expatriates who had not yet fully evacuated, and everyone was asking what was going on.

A moment later, the news of Laiyang's victory went viral, and the entire camp fell into a frenzy.

You don't need too advanced military knowledge to understand that the almost complete annihilation of Shirakawa's Yoshinori army means that the Japanese army's battle plan to cut off the Jiaodong Peninsula has completely failed, and the Japanese army in Qingdao, which cannot meet the division and cannot receive support, has become a pool of stagnant water even if it has naval support!

Looking at the soldiers who had become more and more determined to go to the front line in Qingdao to participate in tonight's counteroffensive after learning of the great victory, Yang Qiu's eyes were also shining, sweeping over the soldiers who had persisted for a month, and waving his solid arms vigorously.

"Chase! Keep chasing! So that the fleeing Shirakawa Yoshiro can't send any telegrams! We have 12 hours left this time! I need everyone to give it their all! ”

"Tonight I will wait here to hear your triumphant song when the sun rises tomorrow! The 40,000,000 compatriots across the country are looking forward to it! Go ahead! Let the world see a Qingdao that truly belongs to us, and see a China that stands up as a backbone!