Zhao Dongyun said: "The light machine gun is used for attack, naturally it cannot be grouped together with the heavy machine gun, and it is not suitable for the formation of the team level and above, it is best to be assigned to the infantry shed, so as to provide the maximum support for the offensive infantry with firepower, but considering that the number of our light machine guns is still relatively small, it is still not enough to directly attach it to the shed, so let the machine gun be arranged in the platoon first, and each platoon will be equipped with one first, and then wait for the looseness on hand, and then appropriately increase the number of equipment." ”

"Now we have a hundred on hand, even a row is not enough, so first, the ninth and eleventh standards are equipped, and the other tenth and twelfth standards are left for later equipment, and the remaining twenty or so are distributed to the two towns in Jinzhou!"

In the Beiyang Army, a battalion is four teams, each team has three platoons, and each platoon has three sheds; According to the calculation of one light machine gun per platoon, then each infantry battalion needs about twelve light machine guns, and a town has twelve infantry battalions, so not taking into account other baggage, logistics, cavalry, guards, gendarmes and other units, these twelve infantry battalions alone need at least one hundred and forty-four light machine guns.

The hundred that he bought back now is not enough at all, after all, Zhao Dongyun has not only the twelve infantry battalions at hand, there are two towns behind him waiting to be equipped with light machine guns, so he first uses more than seventy to equip the two standards of the third town. The remaining 20 or so will be allocated to the first and second towns of Fengtian for each of the 10 or so to be used for preliminary training and training machine gunners.

The batch of Madsen light machine guns purchased by Zhao Dongyun is not the original version, but the 7.92 caliber version that Denmark modified specifically for supplying the German army, after all, the caliber of China's contemporary standard bullets is 7.92 mm, so Zhao Dongyun naturally bought the original 6.5 mm version of Denmark, but had to be the same 7.92 mm caliber version as the Germans.

At the same time as this batch of military purchases, there is also a contract for the introduction of Madsen patents by the Fuyuan Machinery Factory and the imitation of production, and the contemporary Fuyuan Machinery Factory has grown up, and this imitation of a light machine gun with patent authorization does not have to be as troublesome as before, and a slight modification and purchase of some machine equipment can make a production line of light machine guns, and it is expected that by next year Zhao Dongyun will be able to use a large number of domestically produced Madsen light machine guns.

As for now, there are only a hundred on hand, is there more!

Even if these 100 light machine guns have just been assigned to the troops, it is difficult for them to form combat effectiveness in a short period of time, at least the current battle of Tongzhou has to rely on the old methods!

On the Tongzhou front, the Sixth Town under Wang Shizhen built a trench defense line that lasted for half a month, spreading for more than ten kilometers, extending southward and combining with the Nanyuan defense line.

On the opposite side of the defensive line, the third town under Zhao Dongyun also dug trenches, on the one hand, to prevent the sixth town from playing counterattacks, and on the other hand, these trenches are not only used for defensive operations, but also for offense.

The zigzag trenches act like tunnels, allowing soldiers to effectively hide from enemy artillery and heavy machine guns, allowing soldiers to move from the rear to the front line. The soldiers of the Third Town, who were the attackers, would continue to dig the trenches in concealment until they had reached the front line trenches, trying to keep getting closer.

In a section of trenches that had just been dug up, Han Duotian did not care about his officer prestige at all, but sat directly in the mud, holding a pencil in his hand and writing and drawing on a simple map spread out.

And at this time, there were suddenly several whistling sounds, Han Duotian, who had been in the army for many years, knew that it was the enemy's shelling when he heard it, and the shells fell relatively close, blowing up a crater in the flat ground behind the trenches, and after the dust kicked up by the shells fell, it directly poured Han Duotian's body.

Han Duotian, who still had a rumbling sound in his ears, got up from the ground, shook his head and shook off a lot of dust, and then spit twice, and then shouted: "Damn, don't let people live, I haven't stopped this day!" ”

Han Duotian took his platoon to start work overnight last night, and finally dug a trench forward, but it was discovered by the enemy on the opposite side as soon as it was dawn, so the enemy began to fire artillery on this side to suppress, although the artillery fire was not dense, and only one shell fell after an interval of ten minutes, but it could not stand the Beiyang Army on the opposite side doing this all day, and there were no casualties, but the morale of the soldiers was greatly hit.

"Damn, the artillery masters in the back are also eating dry food, and they have been fighting on the other side for most of the day, and they still haven't fought back!"

The two sides fought against each other, and the artillery battle between the two sides was naturally you fighting me, and I was fighting yours, but today I was pressed and beaten by at least one artillery team on the opposite side, and then the artillery unit behind me did not move at all, which naturally made Han Duotian on the front line extremely dissatisfied.

Sure enough, after the enemy launched another small-scale artillery bombardment, the infantry units on the front line still failed to get the support of the rear artillery, and only the 80-mm mortars at the battalion headquarters fired a few shots, which was considered a counterattack......

What Han Duotian didn't know was that on a small hill behind the battle line, several artillery officers were holding binoculars each, while their hands were still drawing and writing.

Wu Peifu, who wore the rank of assistant staff leader, looked at several explosions in the distance, then put down the binoculars, and then said to several officers behind him: "What's the matter, are the parameters enough, can you find out their artillery positions!" ”

But at this time, no one immediately answered him, and the officers continued to write and draw, and then not long after, a young deputy military colonel said loudly with a happy face: "Find out, if my calculation is not wrong, they should be here!" ”

After that, he also drew a circle on a map with a pen, Wu Peifu looked at the map, and said: "I said why can't I find their artillery position, it turns out that I am hiding behind here!" ”

Then he looked at the other officers: "What do you think?" ”

Several other people also said: "Judging from their ballistics, they should be mountain artillery fired at close range, and they should have arrived for deployment in the past two days, if the bearing is not wrong, relying on our firing range, we should be able to end up this artillery position of theirs!" ”

Wu Peifu nodded and said: "Well, yes, since the opposite side is bold enough to attack closely, then we don't have to be polite, let's fight for a while according to the current Zhuyuan, and then look at the situation!" ”

Wu Peifu ordered, the low-level officers all took their own actions, and looking behind everyone, there were more than ten artillery pieces, this is the first artillery battalion of the third town, equipped with field artillery, the effective range is much longer than the mountain artillery of the same caliber, and these long-barreled field guns are the only long-range artillery that the third town can obtain at present.

Wu Peifu did not go down the mountain, but continued to observe the battle line in the distance, hoping to see the fireworks rising after the shelling with his own eyes!

Wu Peifu has been in the army for many years, since he joined the army and entered the third town, he climbed up step by step, from the most basic gunner to the platoon commander, during which he was appreciated by Liu Tinggui and recommended to Zhao Dongyun, and then he had to enter the third town with the battalion school to study the artillery department, and after graduating last year, he served as an artillery officer in the third town.

However, last year, Zhao Dongyun greatly expanded the army, and suddenly established the first town and the second town of Fengtian, which also means that two new artillery standards need to be established, and the officers of the first artillery department are naturally promoted one by one, and he Wu Peifu also took this opportunity to be promoted to the first battalion of the third standard of the artillery team, thus entering the ranks of middle-level officers.

This time I came to Beijing to fight, not to mention whether I won or lost, but the opportunity to fight was quite rare, almost all the officers of the artillery department in the three towns of Fengtian came from the artillery standard of the third town of the army, and most of these people were Wu Peifu's bosses and seniors, but most of them were forced to stay in Jinzhou with the first town and the second town of Fengtian, and his junior got the opportunity to fight.

This kind of opportunity is quite important for a middle-level officer like him who is just starting out, and without his military exploits, he will not be able to compete with those seniors for the opportunity to be promoted!

Today, he's going to have a beautiful artillery battle to make the bosses really notice him!

After a while, someone next to him whispered: "Pipe band, brothers are ready!" ”

Wu Peifu took out the pocket watch on his body after hearing this, and after comparing the preparation time with the previous training time, he nodded: "Well, you did a good job!" ”

Then he officially ordered: "Let's take three shots first!" ”

As his order was officially issued, the artillery officers in the rear artillery position were all directing the gunners to fire one after another, and for a while, there was a loud rumbling sound from this small artillery position, and then one after another, the shells that could not be seen by the naked eye flew into the sky and went into the distance.

Han Duotian, who was in the trenches on the front line, heard a whistling sound again, and thought that the enemy's shells were coming again, but then he found that something was wrong, and immediately smiled: "These shells are finally working!" ”

But soon he realized that something was wrong, because he didn't notice the smoke and dust of the explosion on the enemy position on the opposite side, and another sentence came out of his mouth: "Damn, where did this shell go?" ”

However, before he could finish his words, he heard a loud rumbling sound in the distance, and it was obvious that the cannonball that had just flown over their heads had hit the enemy's rear, and as for what the target was, Han Duotian did not know.

However, at this time, on the artillery balloon that had already risen into the air, a soldier looked at it with a telescope and shouted: "Hit, hit!" ”

Anyway, there was an explosion, and the shell must have landed, but this cannot be considered to have knocked out the enemy's artillery position!

There were several kilometers in between, and there was a small high ground blocking the view, so they could see the smoke and dust kicked up by the explosion, but they could not see whether the enemy artillery positions had been knocked out.

For the sake of conservatism, Wu Peifu once again ordered: "Three more shots!" ”

If it really hits, these dozens of shells can be regarded as follow-up artillery supplements, and if they hit the wrong place, then the hundreds of shells and shells worth thousands of taels worth of silver that were fired before and after were thrown into the water.

However, Wu Peifu was not sure whether his counter-artillery bombardment was successful or not, but Han Duotian on the front line could then personally feel that the enemy's artillery threat had disappeared.

Since Wu Peifu's field artillery battalion began to conduct counter-artillery operations, no enemy shells have fallen on Han Duotian's position.

At this time, Han Duotian vaguely guessed that it was estimated that the enemy's artillery position was knocked out or threatened, so he urgently transferred the position, but no matter what it was, it was a great thing for Han Duotian.

"Get up for Lao Tzu and keep digging, damn, you were lazy when you were shot, and now you are lazy when you don't shoot, the commander has raised you in vain!" Han Duotian began to curse again, and his subordinates continued to dig trenches.

For several hours in the evening, Han Duotian's position was not shelled in any way, which dug up a considerable distance, and then a short section was dug in the evening, and by this time the trench where Han Duotian was located had become a conspicuous salient.

As soon as it was dawn the next day, Han Duotian's newly dug trench was greeted by hundreds of other comrades-in-arms, not only many of them, but also two 60-millimeter mortars and two heavy machine guns.