Burnside's so-called tomorrow of the final blow is not the dawn of the next day, but the early hours of the night, that is, to pin hope in a night attack.

The previous wheel warfare feints or tunnel advances, all of which were just to consume the spirit of the defenders, if they could successfully break through the Chinese positions, if they did not succeed, in view of the fact that the Americans' supplies were exhausted and their morale was exhausted due to continuous attacks, so they could only fight this last time.

Of course, this choice is also quite sharp, after all, the night battle is the most exhausting, after so many days of uninterrupted harassment, has made the Chinese mentally exhausted to the extreme, even if Li Yongji arranged in advance to take turns to rest, in this case, it is impossible to really get much better rest conditions.

In addition, another advantage for the Americans is that at eight o'clock in the evening, the sky began to snow like goose feathers again, and this goose feather snow severely obstructed the Chinese's vision, and also provided very good cover for the Americans' attack, which can be said to be heaven's help to the Americans.

Because of this heavy snowfall, the spirits of the Americans who were about to start the attack were greatly boosted, and they felt that this was the favor of God and that victory was inevitable, and their morale was much higher.

Finally, the clock ticked midnight, the snow was still falling in the sky, and the Americans were pouring out.

Therefore, this time it was a desperate attack, so the three attack clusters took out their main forces, and then attacked directly from the positions closest to the Chinese, holding muskets with bayonets, and roaring forward to the peak.

Without exception, the Americans were greeted by the still dense rain of bullets and bullets from the Chinese, but this time, the Americans were already iron-hearted, so no matter how dense the fire in front was, and no matter how many people died in front. The rear is still rushing forward.

The firepower of the expeditionary force is indeed strong, and it is not a little bit stronger, it is more than a century of firepower generation, but the problem is that there are too many Americans, and the previous harassment is too close to the Chinese position, plus this is a fatal charge, exchanging human lives for time, so the Chinese's firepower is not so good. It was not possible to completely stop the charge of the Americans.

Sure enough, the Americans charged the Chinese positions from all directions, and almost every one of the three main attack directions was the center of gravity, coupled with the wind and snow, so that the Chinese's shooting sight was severely hindered, which also greatly reduced their shooting accuracy.

Moreover, the Americans are not blindly charging blindly, in fact, the first wave of people charging is still showing a large straggler line mode. The purpose is to attract the opponent's firepower, so that the Chinese's firepower will also be dispersed, but when the Chinese firepower is successfully attracted to the past, especially after the artillery attack is attracted to the past. Burnside's real killer is about to strike.

So, what exactly is Burnside's killer feature? The answer is the ski troops!

Americans are not stupid, and they know how to take advantage of the right time and place, such as the current environment. There was a thick layer of snow on all sides, and it was constantly snowing in the sky, so he charged on two legs. The speed will be greatly reduced, the Americans have failed to succeed in many infantry charges before, and the firepower of the Chinese is naturally the main reason, but the slowdown of the charge of the men and horses due to the snow on the road is also one of the reasons.

To this end, the Americans gave full play to their brains and finally came up with the method of making zuò sleds to create a sled army.

Yes, walking on two or four legs on snowy roads can reduce your speed dramatically, but it's not the same when skiing, especially with the frozen Ohio River ice.

The speed of the sled on the snowy surface is undeniable, and the speed on the river ice will be even faster, especially if there is still snow on the surface of the river ice.

At the beginning, Burnside decided that the Chinese fleet was a very important key location, so during the first attack, he sent a cavalry unit to make a detour to attack, intending to destroy the Chinese fleet.

But unfortunately, because it was discovered in advance, and the speed of this cavalry unit was a little slow, and the infantry charge failed too quickly, so after this cavalry unit was discovered, it was immediately bombarded by the Chinese, and it was actually swallowed up by artillery fire, which was useless at all.

Although it suffered a shameful defeat, Burnside believed that this further illustrated the importance of the fleet, and there must not be many people defending it, otherwise the Chinese would not have used such heavy artillery fire.

In the course of the subsequent Plan B, that is, the harassment operation, Burnside deliberately ignored the direction of the Ohio River, and only stormed three locations, assuming a posture of fighting with you, and one dozen was six days.

This method of warfare also misled the Chinese, allowing the Chinese to strengthen their defense in three directions, and naturally, on their back, that is, in the direction immediately adjacent to the Ohio River, the defense was much smaller.

Moreover, even if there is a defense, they all pay attention to the road near the river, and do not pay much attention to the situation on the river, after all, the river has been frozen, and it is normally difficult for humans to walk here.

However, Burnside took advantage of this blind spot, or rather, he did not give up on the river attack in the first place, and the river attack was also part of Plan B, for which he trained a ski unit from the beginning.

As early as on the way to Smithland, Burnside was thinking about how to offset the Chinese's firepower advantage, and thinking about it, it seemed that there was only one way to approach quickly.

However, when they came, the ground was full of snow, which limited the speed of movement of people and horses, and in this case, blindly charging could only pay a heavier price.

In the first wave of rapid attack, the Chinese firepower and the speed of the American infantry charge confirmed Burnside's fears, so he paid more attention to the ski troops.

The final blow in Plan B was mainly opened by the ski troops, that is, according to Burnside's plan, in the first few days, all kinds of attacks, in addition to exhausting enemy tactics, were also intended to mislead the Chinese, making them think that the Americans were a tendon, that is, to attack the Chinese's positions in three directions.

It's been a long time. The Chinese will certainly relax their defense on the river, so that at the final blow, the ski troops will charge from the frozen Ohio River, come to Smithland Harbor in one fell swoop, land from the port, one to snatch the Chinese ships that cannot move, and the other to attack the Chinese from behind, so as to achieve the purpose of avoiding reality and attacking the false.

But there is a peculiarity of this tactic, that is, the ski unit must have a strong offensive power. Must be able to accomplish tactical objectives independently, so there must be enough of them.

At the beginning, Burnside had already selected 10,000 people for training and formed a sled force, but after the failure of the first rapid attack, Burnside simply selected another 30,000 people, and then quickly trained these recruits with the old with the new, that is, an old man with three new people.

According to Burnside. You don't need to be a beginner to ski very well, you can just skate on the ice.

In this way, after six days of assault training, a total of more than 40,000 ski assault troops were formed.

Except for sledding. Given that the Chinese were so powerful that the muskets of the Americans were basically useless, the ski assault force abandoned the long and bulky spears and was generally armed with revolvers and cavalry knives. It is clear that it is necessary to win in close combat.

As for the rest of the bits and pieces, they are all discarded to minimize weight. Just ask them to rush behind the Chinese and fight the Chinese in close quarters.

In other words, Burnside's tactic, the so-called pirate tactic, is to quickly intersperse guò and get close to the Chinese, so that the Chinese's firepower advantage cannot be brought into play, so as to give their troops a chance to fight hand-to-hand.

In order to give this ski commando a chance to sprint, Burnside had infantry from three directions charge the Chinese positions continuously, in addition to attracting the attention and firepower of the Chinese, but also to exhaust the Chinese.

In this way, the sound of killing in the three directions of the Chinese position shook the sky, the guns and artillery rang out in unison, all kinds of flares came and went, and searchlights also shone back and forth, and the scene was extremely hot.

However, in the direction of the camp near the Ohio River in Burnside, a quiet army of white clothes appeared!

That's right, this group of troops sitting quietly on the ground, dressed in snow-white clothes, is Burnside's ski troops, and it is also the real trump card of this battle.

At this moment, a herald on horseback ran over at a rapid pace, until he came to the headquarters of this unit, and then saluted in front of a tall officer: "Report to Brigadier General Jack, the commander's order, the front has attracted the attention of the Chinese, order your department to leave immediately, this is a warrant!" ”

"Hmm." The tall general named Brigadier General Jack nodded, took the warrant, looked at it, and then said to the herald, "Reply to the commander, our department will leave immediately." ”

"Yes!" The herald saluted again, "I wish the General a successful battle, and long live the United States of America!" ”

"Hmm." Brigadier General Jack nodded again, and instead of paying attention to the herald, he took the order to dispatch the troops on his own.

In order to achieve the concealment of the troops, the order to send troops does not rely on signal flares or whistles, but is used to lead by example, that is, to carry out the method of passing from person to person.

To put it simply, the more than 40,000 people are divided into clusters, and then each cluster is staring at a fixed cluster, and once they find the cluster in front of them and start to move, they must immediately follow.

In other words, this is the same as a flock of sheep, as long as the group as the leader begins to act, the people behind will spontaneously follow, anyway, the preparations have long been done, the target of the attack has long been set, as long as the Chinese are approached on the Ohio River, the rest is to attack freely.

Sure enough, soon the sleigh entered the frozen surface of the Ohio River, and then the leading troops quickly slid forward, and the troops behind immediately followed.

Soon, the snow-white ski unit was silently advancing along the Ohio River in the goose-feather snow, and in addition to the sound of the wind, the sound of gunfire and rushing was heard not far away.

Anyway, the Chinese positions are brightly lit, which can be said to be the best target and the best guidance, and the ski troops will not get lost at all.

In this way, the troops totaling 40,000 men, under the cover of the attack of the infantry in front, took advantage of the frozen Ohio River to approach the Chinese positions in a beautiful way, and because of the bad weather and the fierce fighting situation in front, attracted almost all the attention of the Chinese, so that when this force approached Smithland Harbor, it was still not detected.

Finally, this unit came to Smithland Harbor without any danger, and saw the battleships that were constantly firing artillery support, and also saw the almost defenseless Chinese positions!

However, just when the Americans began to divide their troops into two ways, one way began to seize ships, and the other began to land and attack the Chinese positions, someone on the ship closest to them suddenly discovered their whereabouts and quickly fired a warning shot!

At this moment, the entire fleet and the entire port position reacted, all kinds of searchlights began to shine, and many people fired flares in this direction.

And the reason why the response is so fast is, of course, related to their dense radio communication system.

Having found that it had been exposed, the Americans did not stop doing it, turning the sneak attack into a strong attack, an accelerated impact with a roar.

Although the Chinese finally discovered their traces and reacted quickly, the Americans rushed too close after all, so the Chinese fire blocking had just begun, and the Americans rushed over and really began to engage the Chinese in short combat.

These Americans are all carefully selected, even the 30,000 newcomers who came later, they are all tall and tall, and the average height of these 40,000 people is more than 1.7 meters, all of them are very brave people.

In addition, there were no other bits and pieces on them, that is, a revolver and a cavalry knife, and this time they rushed into the camp of the Chinese, fought hand-to-hand with the Chinese face to face, and faced the defenseless people in the rear, which immediately caused the Chinese to suffer heavy losses.

The most important thing is that the total number of Chinese is very small, most of them are blocking the three-sided attacks of the Americans in the front, and there are not many people left behind in the rear.

The Americans who rushed into the camp continued to form a charge and set fire everywhere, trying to make the Chinese camp more chaotic, and the Chinese were really caught off guard by this attack, which soon spread to the front line, and also made the Americans who discovered this situation strengthen the offensive.

In addition to the camp, the battleship is also playing a drama of attacking and defending, the sailors left behind on the ship desperately block the Americans who board, but in addition to some major battleships, some ordinary supply ships with little defense have fallen, and such a battle also made the fleet's artillery fire have to stop, and it is no longer possible to provide artillery support to the infantry of the expeditionary force.

If it weren't for the good discipline of the soldiers, the communication system was also working well, and especially the firepower was still greatly superior, and they were able to spontaneously gather crowds to resist when they were attacked by a surprise attack, but this wave of 40,000 sneak attacks would probably have been a complete failure.

However, although the Chinese stabilized their front in time with good organization and super firepower, the whole situation is still very dangerous.

After all, the number of Americans is too large, whether it is a frontal attack force, or a temporarily suppressed force that sneaks up from behind, the number far exceeds the Chinese, as long as there is a breakthrough in one direction, waiting for the Chinese, there is only one way to perish. (To be continued......)