16 November 1883, Luang Prabang, Laos.

It is the famous ancient capital and Buddhist center of Laos, a small city surrounded by mountains and rivers, beautiful scenery and pleasant climate, but now it has become a terrifying battlefield.

It's called a small town, but it doesn't really have a city wall, it's just a cluster of indigenous settlements. To the north is the confluence of the Nam Kang and Mekong rivers, and the city is shaped like an "L" shaped peninsula, with the Siamese army coming from the south on one side of the peninsula.

At the forefront of this small peninsula, Chinese troops dug a trench several kilometers long. Lieutenant General Zuo Guigui of the Guards placed 8,000 patrols on this line, and he himself led 5,000 Guards troops to garrison two kilometers behind the trench, relying on civilian houses as defensive positions. Behind the left army, in the center of Luang Prabang, was the commanding heights of the peninsula, Puxi Mountain, where the heavy artillery battalion commanded by Han Zaixun was stationed on the top of the hill, with 4 210mm heavy howitzers and 32 78mm light field guns, forming a powerful artillery group.

As the "eyes" of this powerful group, there were also three hot air balloons in the air, circling back and forth, providing target determination for artillery fire.

Speaking of these hot air balloons, we have to "thank" the French. In the previous Sino-French war, China had enough of the suffering of the French army's hot air balloons, which left a very deep impression, and as soon as the war ended, many Guards generals asked to be able to equip their troops with hot air balloons.

Although tens of thousands of French troops were captured, only five hot air balloons were captured by the Chinese, and the rest were lost and damaged in the rout of the French army.

China quickly sent two of them to Tianjin, where they were copied and studied. Hot air balloons look simple, but at this time, China does not have the manufacturing process and flight control experience of large hot air balloons, such as the material of the airbag must be reinforced nylon, which is both light and strong, and this alone is not able to produce it itself now, and the West regards this as a strategic substance and restricts exports.

After experiments, China has finally realized the use of polyester instead of reinforced nylon, although the strength is slightly inferior, but it can fully meet the needs. In terms of operational skills, a group of captured French balloon pilots became instructors hired by China.

The whole research and learning process took a lot of time, so at present, a large number of domestic hot air balloons have just been manufactured, and the personnel are still training and running-in. As soon as they complete the training, they will be sent to the more important Korean battlefield. Now, in Zuo Guigui's hands, there are only these three hot air balloons, which are the trophies that were captured at the beginning. They floated in the air at more than 2,000 meters, scouting the jungle opposite Luang Prabang with all their might.

This large dense jungle looked like a calm sea, but below the "sea", tens of thousands of Siamese soldiers were already waiting for an attack, and these officers and soldiers pursued them all the way, met with little respectable resistance, and their morale was extremely high.

Commander Zhao Paye. Surriwang, who was watching ahead with a telescope, according to the spies' report, the Chinese had stopped the rout and established defensive positions in Luang Prabang, but he did not think that a collapsed army could still have much combat strength.

At noon, with the beating of elephant foot drums, tens of thousands of Siamese troops launched an attack, but unexpectedly, the Chinese on the opposite side resisted extremely stubbornly, under the pistol supervision of the guard officers, the patrol troops did not dare to retreat, with these miscellaneous weapons in their hands to hold their positions, the Siamese army was helpless for a while, the two sides fought in smoke and dust, and fell into a stalemate.

Zhao Paye. Surriwang gave an order, the elite "Rama Division" immediately launched an attack, and sure enough, the situation changed greatly, and the position was quickly opened up several gaps, and the patrol army could no longer resist, and under the strict supervision of the officers, they fled to both sides of the position, and the central door was suddenly wide open.

All the Siamese troops rushed out of the jungle and went straight to attack, and Luang Prabang seemed to be within reach!

Moments later, the army had already rushed into Luang Prabang, and a large number of houses were thousands of kilometers away. Seeing that victory was in sight, Surivan couldn't help but rejoice, and what he was thinking about was already how to capture Shangliao alone before the western part of Pannurangi arrived, and he would have a great credit for himself.

At this time, he suddenly found a hot air balloon floating in the air, he didn't understand what these were for, he was wondering, only to hear a sharp whistling sound from the sky, he immediately understood that it was a cannonball flying, and immediately shouted "Get down!" He threw himself on the ground.

There was a loud thunderous sound in my ears, and the huge smoke and dust that followed made the surroundings lose sight of their fingers for a moment. It was a fierce artillery bombardment, and the dirt and grass on the ground were thrown into the air, and the whole earth felt as if it was swaying from side to side like a cradle.

Several successive platoons of artillery gave the Siamese army a head-on attack, and the dense charging formation was heavily killed and wounded, and they scattered and fled. In particular, the four heavy howitzers, a large pit more than one meter wide came down with one shot, and the people with a radius of twenty or thirty meters did not have time to lie down and were either killed or injured. The Siamese officers and soldiers had never experienced such heavy artillery fire before, and the momentum of the attack was immediately suppressed, and they all lay on the ground, eager to burrow into the earth.

Before they could slow down, a charge trumpet sounded in front of them, and a large number of Chinese rushed out of the smoke and dust that had not yet dissipated with bayonets, like fierce gods, shouting wildly and rushing over.

The Siamese army was in great confusion and had to flee and retreat, guns and ammunition were thrown all over the ground, only the Rama division showed its quality, resisted while retreating, and retreated into the dense forest in an orderly manner.

It took almost two hours for the Siamese army to regroup five kilometers south of Luang Prabang, and the old army in it was completely in a mess, the officers could not find the soldiers, the soldiers could not find the officers, Chao Paya. Surriwang leaned against a tree trunk, trembling like a pendulum, and dreaming of soaring in front of him, but at this moment he was beaten all over the ground looking for teeth, and the gap was too big.

It was only at this time that he realized that the reason why it was smooth sailing before was because he had not yet fought against China's elite troops, and now he could be regarded as meeting a real guy!

According to statistics, the troops suffered more than 1,000 casualties, and the losses were not too great, among which the Rama division was basically intact, but the morale of the entire unit was greatly damaged. Moreover, the strong firepower and combat effectiveness of the Chinese army made Zhao Paye. Surriwang felt that he had to wait for reinforcements from Pannurangjisi, otherwise he had no chance of winning.

The Siamese offensive on this side has been thwarted, and the battle has entered the white-hot battle under the city of Pyongyang, which is thousands of miles away.

The Japanese army frantically charged, regardless of the casualties, until they reached the bottom of the peony platform. Seeing that the Japanese army launched a general attack, Jin Shun also took 3,000 reserves and went to Peony Terrace for reinforcements. The Guards took advantage of the heavy artillery fire and condescendingly tilted the ammunition, and the entire hillside was covered with Japanese corpses.

The commander of the Japanese army, Gu Gancheng, waved his sword to supervise the battle, and did not allow the Japanese soldiers to retreat, in an attempt to attack the Peony Terrace with the tactics of "meat bullets". The officers and soldiers trampled on the corpses and charged frantically.

Under the long-term attack, Kato Masakasa with dozens of Japanese infantry, finally rushed to the edge of the peony platform first, but the guards immediately fired the field artillery flat, and a row of shells swept out to the edge, Kato and others almost didn't have time to shout, and were immediately shattered by the shells, and were blown into a cloud of pink mist, with a fishy smell, like a rain of blood to the peony platform. But the follow-up Japanese troops were still densely packed, rushing up with blood all over their bodies, and engaged in white-knuckle combat with the Guards.

While the infantry of the two sides engaged in fierce battles, the artillery of the two armies also began to engage in fierce artillery battles. Soon after the firing was due, the calibre, range, and power of the guns of the Guards showed obvious superiority, and nearly 100 people under Captain Yamamoto of the Japanese artillery squadron were killed and wounded. At this time, it was already afternoon, the sun was about to set, and the Japanese army had been fighting since the early morning from the camp, and they had not eaten breakfast or lunch, had no drinking water, the soldiers were hungry and tired, and their ammunition was running out. And the artillery fire of the guards was still fierce, and there was no sign of ammunition running out, which made Akiyama look up to the sky and sigh: "Why can't the shells of the branch be finished?" ＂

In particular, the fighting of the guards is not only brave, but also extremely skilled, whether it is a single fight, or a group cooperation, it is handy, after all, and Shijie has fought hand-to-hand, the experience of bloody battles is more valuable than any training.

Seeing that the attack was not successful, the casualties were getting bigger and bigger, and the Japanese troops who rushed to the Peony Terrace gradually couldn't stand and were about to be driven down again, Gu Gancheng was so anxious that he directly chopped a retreating Japanese soldier to death with a knife, and shouted wildly: "Assault!" Assault! Kill the Chinese pig! The Great Japanese Empire will win! ＂

At this moment, a howitzer smashed into his side, and with a "boom", a puff of black smoke rose, and a piece of shrapnel flew by like a sharp sawtooth, and in the blink of an eye, it cut off Gugancheng!

The expression on Gu Gancheng's face stiffened, as if he wanted to look down at his lower body, but he couldn't, he shook his head slightly, his eyes rolled white, his upper body fell back, but his lower body was still standing upright, and a pile of bloody intestines and internal organs flowed out and hung in front of him in a mess.

Japanese Army Major General Gu Gancheng was "beheaded in half" in this way, and his death made the Japanese army, which was already demoralized, unable to hold on any longer, and Terauchi Masatsuki, a staff officer of the Sixth Division, had to order to stop the attack.

A low trumpet sounded, the Japanese army retreated like a retreat, leaving behind a mountain full of corpses, the sunset was slanting in the west, the mountains were red, the corpses were piled up into mountains, and the blood flowed into rivers, what a bleak scene!