On September 19, 1904, the Japanese army gathered 180,000 troops, hundreds of artillery pieces and hundreds of heavy machine guns to launch a second full-scale attack on the Russian army on the Liaoyang front.

However, the Japanese army launched a roundabout attack from the left flank was unsurprisingly met with stubborn resistance from the Russian army, and in the following days, the Japanese army carried out a series of offensive and defensive operations around the left flank, but as in the previous battles, no matter which side launched an attack or counteroffensive, it was unexpectedly hit by the opponent's fierce machine-gun fire.

Moreover, due to the great increase in the firepower of both sides, whether the Japanese army launched an offensive or a counteroffensive The Russian army launched a counteroffensive was extremely slow, and in the end, this mobile battle, which was meant to be a roundabout, turned into a positional war and a war of attrition between Japanese and Russian soldiers.

As one of the military attachés watching the battle, Chen Guangyuan always exclaimed a lot of exclamations when he recalled the battle after returning from watching the battle!

"Don't you see, tens of thousands of people charged on the battle line, and then were knocked down one by one by the enemy machine guns on the opposite side, that scene was really, tsk......t" Chen Guangyuan remembered that the battlefield at that time was not filled with the smell of gunsmoke on the ordinary battlefield, but the lingering smell of blood and corpses.

In this battle of Liaoyang, not only did the Japanese army fully embody the spirit of bushido, but the Russian army on the opposite side once again let the military attachés of various countries see what it means to be a gray animal.

Whenever the Japanese army launched an attack, countless Japanese soldiers with "victory" and "death" turbans bandaged on their heads poured out of the trenches and breastwork, and some soldiers in front of them were still holding bulletproof shields, but this kind of shield has been proven to have little effect in actual combat in the Battle of Arthur, let alone close range, even if it is at medium and long distance, it will be penetrated by machine gun bullets, and the reason why the Japanese army continues to use it is just to hope that it can bring a trace of psychological comfort.

These charging Japanese soldiers will step on the corpses of their comrades step by step, the Russian machine gun and rifle bullets on the opposite side will continue to hit them, and then fall, but even if there is the last soldier left, they will still not retreat, they will still shout 'loaded' and continue to rush forward until the whole army is destroyed.

However, every time the Japanese army relied on countless corpses to capture a position of the Russian army, it was the turn of the Russian army to launch a counteroffensive, and the Russian soldiers in gray military coats climbed out of the trenches one after another with the courage of the era of queuing up to be shot, and the noble officers wielding sabers kept shouting, using various threats or temptations to boost morale, and the Orthodox priests accompanying the army would also keep reciting scriptures, and the snare drums in the military band formed a death movement.

The speed of the Russian charge was not fast at first, they climbed out of the trench and moved forward step by step with the voices of the officers and priests, their faces did not have any expression, they did not shout, and they did not even look at their comrades who were hit by bullets or shell fragments.

Many officers put on full military uniforms and walked at the forefront to show their courage and determination, and some even rode directly on tall horses to walk in front of their troops and lead the troops forward, as they did during the Napoleonic Wars.

There is no doubt that their courage is admirable for any military man!

Step by step, they walked forward, and when they reached three or four hundred meters, the officers at the head would wave their sabers in their hands and shout at the same time: "Ula! ”

Then the Russian soldiers in front of them and behind them began to shout loudly and rush forward desperately, and they no longer fired back, but directly rushed directly with their rifles with bayonets.

And then it was naturally the turn of the Japanese army's Hatch Chase heavy machine guns to wield power, these heavy machine guns that were dragged to the position with great difficulty intermittently carried out long point fire, and in the face of the dense Russian charge, basically there was no need to aim and sweep a large area.

However, although the heavy machine gun is powerful, it will not be equipped with a lot on a certain section of the front, plus factors such as having to change the ammunition chain, once the fire of the heavy machine gun cannot be continuously fired, then the gray cattle of the Russian army will pour in the next moment and instantly flood this trench.

Then the soldiers on both sides would engage in even more brutal hand-to-hand combat.

At this time, the Japanese generals who were observing the battle situation in the rear saw that it was not good, and immediately ordered their own artillery to shell the enemy and our soldiers who were fighting hand-to-hand, and vice versa.

This kind of war of attrition is almost the same as the battle of Dagushan and Xiaogushan on the Lushun side, the only difference is that the scale of the battle on the Lushun side is much smaller, while the scale of the battle on the Liaoyang side is much larger, and you are embarrassed to say that you are attacking if you don't charge tens of thousands of people!

If the Lushun side can be regarded as a fortress for the Japanese army to gnaw on, then the Liaoyang side has completely become a meat grinder, and almost every big or small battle has become a competition between the two sides to see who has more dead.

While Japan and Russia continued to fight to the death, Zhao Dongyun continued to lead the third town and the Jinzhou patrol battalion to sit firmly in Jinzhou to prevent the war from spreading to western Liaoning.

While building fortifications in various parts of western Liaoning and defending western Liaoning, Zhao Dongyun did not forget to train and expand the army, there is nothing to say about the training of the troops, it is enough to continue to maintain high-intensity physical fitness and live-fire training, and in order to improve the combat effectiveness of the troops, in addition to the weapon factor, the rest is training.

In July, August, September, and October, the Education Department successively supplemented the First Mixed Association with about 2,500 recruits who had undergone initial training, and the First Mixed Association used these recruits to organize and train three infantry battalions, as well as auxiliary units such as the baggage brigade and the engineering team, and by the beginning of October, the First Mixed Association of the Jinzhou Patrol Battalion was initially full.

In terms of weapons, because of Zhao Dongyun's Fuyuan Machinery Factory, it is naturally not a big problem, and hundreds of rifles will be sent every month, and now they are fully loaded.

However, there is still a lot of lack of heavy machine guns and mortars, if it is compiled according to the Beiyang standard, the first mixed association will naturally not use mortars, and the heavy machine guns will be given at most twelve.

The standard configuration of each town in contemporary Beiyang is 24 heavy machine guns, although in recent months under the influence of the Russo-Japanese War, the whole Beiyang has been shouting in unison to continue to increase the number of heavy machine gun equipment, but there is no unified establishment, most of the spontaneous behavior of the commanders of the troops, for example, the third town has increased heavy machine guns from last year to the first half of this year, from 24 to 56, this is not the official behavior of Beiyang, but Zhao Dongyun's private behavior.

The Jinzhou patrol battalion has been supported by the small treasury of the third town because the imperial court has not given insurance until now, and although the small treasury on hand of Zhao Dongyun is not small, it can't stand too many places that need to spend money, so it is difficult to squeeze out too much money to equip the Jinzhou patrol battalion with heavy machine guns and mortars, so he first gave the first mixed association of the Jinzhou patrol battalion six heavy machine guns and four 80-mm mortars and each battalion first gave three 60-mm mortars. Basically, it is halved according to the specifications of the third town.

After a while, the hand is loose and then complete!

Although the heavy machine gun and mortar are not yet fully equipped, they can be regarded as an army, and this is not just an army, Meng Enyuan can't wait to invite Zhao Dongyun to watch the exercise.

Due to the relatively scattered garrison of the First Mixed Association, there are three infantry battalions stationed in Panshan, Liaozhong and Xinmin counties for a long time, so what Zhao Dongyun can see in Jinzhou are the remaining three infantry battalions and artillery battalions, and these three battalions are also the new troops that Meng Enyuan has trained in recent months.

"My lord, you see, what is going up now is the first team of the sixth battalion of the infantry team, and nearly half of the backbone non-commissioned officers of this team are old men from the third town, so although the army has been formed the latest, the training results are the best among the twelve teams of the third battalion!" Meng Enyuan continued to a small unit on the training ground: "You see, they did not immediately launch a frontal attack, but first used mortars to clear the heavy machine gun fire point of Team B. ”

Following Meng Enyuan's instructions, the 60-millimeter mortar group of the 1st Brigade of the 6th Battalion, which was conducting the exercise, approached the enemy's machine-gun firing point 500 meters and fired several consecutive rapid fires.

Immediately afterward, there were multiple columns of smoke coming out of the machine gun fire point of Team B, which was the smoke emitted after the exercise bullet landed, and the exercise referee immediately ruled that the machine gun fire point of Team B was severely hit, and many people were killed and wounded and lost continuous firepower. At this time, the soldiers of the first team were already attacking the right flank in a roundabout way under the cover of their heavy machine guns and mortars, and the B team on the opposite side hurriedly stopped the rifle fire to intercept it.

After a short time, the referee ruled that Team B's heavy machine gun had been reopened after replenishment, and the first team that launched a roundabout attack was suppressed, but then several mortar shells hit Team B's heavy machine gun fire, and this time the referee finally ruled that the machine gun was completely reimbursed.

After losing the cover of machine guns, the opposite team B could only organize rifles, grenades, and its own mortar fire to continue to suppress and intercept, and this small offensive and defensive battle was the same as any previous exercise, boring and without any spectacle, at most it was just to watch the soldiers fire exercise shells and smoke on the exercise ground.

On the surface, it is far from being as interesting as the Red and Blue Army exercises of later generations, but laymen see the excitement and insiders look at the doorway, and this exercise is very interesting in the eyes of most officers who watch the battle.

"I didn't expect this mortar to be so effective with an anti-machine gun!" Liu Tinggui, the commander of the artillery standard, sighed: "If we have more mortars, wouldn't we be able to blow up the enemy's machine guns one after another!" ”