Time passed little by little, the battle was fought from the rising sun to the scorching sun, and from the scorching sun to the sunset, the soldiers on both sides were very tired, and the time between the firefights became longer and longer, and by the time the sun was about to set, they had become foreign grinders. The British soldiers were driven by the officers to attack the barricades of the Liberation Army, and each time after the first few were knocked down, they scattered and ran backwards, and the time for one attack became shorter and shorter. As for the wounded British soldiers who fell in front of the position, the Liberation Army no longer shot them, but allowed them to crawl back. For one thing, each additional wounded added a burden to the British army; Second, the screams of the wounded could also demoralize the British army.

By 6 p.m., the British on the right had suffered more than 300 casualties and had not been able to advance a single step, and the soldiers were no longer willing to launch a hopeless desperate charge. Many people have not had a grain of rice for a day, and they don't even have the strength to end a gun. Longman suspected that if he continued to drive the soldiers to attack, it might cause the soldiers to mutiny, so he ordered a halt to the attack. The soldiers, who had worked hard all day, were able to rest, and each received a pound of dry bread that had been left for an unknown number of days, and a lunch box of potato soup. Except for the soldiers in charge of the guard, the rest of the people sat around in twos and threes, enjoying the belated meal. Some people are so tired that they fall asleep against the wall before they finish their meal; Some people thought that there was no oil and water in this meal, so they sneaked into the homes of the surrounding British civilians, and took out ham, sausages and other meat to feast while the owner was away. This part of the people was mainly Indian soldiers, and the officers didn't have the strength to care when they saw it.

Longman held a half-nibbled dry bread in his hand and looked at the potato soup in his lunch box. He is in his forties this year, has been in the army for more than 20 years, and has also spent more than 10 years in the East, and he has never fought so poorly. Just recalling the scene of the British soldiers being swept down by machine guns made him deeply surrounded by a sense of powerlessness. At this time, a junior officer walked up to him and asked, "Colonel, what are we going to do next?" Go on the offensive? ”

Longman looked at the dejected soldiers around him and shook his head, "There is no way to organize an attack today. I've already sent someone to make a detour to the Governor's Palace, so I'd better wait for General Spintozzi's orders! ”

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In the afternoon, when the Liberation Army and the British Army were in the midst of a fierce battle, the Royal Navy also engaged in a naval and land artillery battle with the 59, which acted as a mobile shore gun.

After receiving Ergin's notice, Hebu rushed back with several capital warships. By the time they arrived at Victoria Bay, the Liberation Army had broken through the defensive line of the Admiralty military camp and completed the siege of the Governor's Palace. The warships had no choice but to hit the supply lines of the Liberation Army in the strait. After all the troops were disembarked, the "Xiangmi Lake" and all the speedboats went back and forth between the two banks, bringing munitions, medicines, food, and drinking water ashore, and then bringing back the bodies of the wounded and the dead. In the first day of the war, the survivors were on the front line because of the protection of body armor, but the number of seriously wounded remained in single digits, and the lightly wounded did not need to get out of the line of fire, and none of them were killed; On the contrary, the indigenous soldiers who assisted, because they did not have body armor and had a poor sense of self-protection, often leaned out half of their bodies from behind the bunker, resulting in many unnecessary casualties. At the end of the day, thirteen were killed, seventeen were seriously wounded, and nearly 100 were lightly wounded, which was much less than the British in absolute numbers, but considering that the total number of attacking troops was only eight or nine hundred, this casualty ratio was still very worrying. Therefore, some of the falling masonry and stone were beaten to the head and bleeding, but they were only slightly injured, and they had to continue the fight after wrapping their heads in bandages.

The direction of the Royal Fleet's attack this time was on the west side of Hong Kong Island, where the sea was wide and more conducive to the maneuvering of warships. Several battleships lit their boilers and slaughtered the Kowloon Peninsula at a speed of 12 knots.

Because of the "Bumblebee" to carry out battlefield monitoring, the Liberation Army soon discovered the actions of the Royal Fleet, and the command immediately responded, the transportation of the supply line was stopped, and the "Xiangmi Lake" and the speedboat immediately retreated to Stonecutters Island. The 3rd Company abandoned the Wan Chai pier and retreated to a place out of the reach of the naval guns to build a defensive line, and two Type 59 tanks entered the predetermined position to meet the British ships.

The commander of the No. 1 car, Mu Jue, first spotted the rapidly approaching British warship, and only when the appearance of the British sailors in the telescope was clearly recognizable, he retracted from outside the turret, closed the top cover, and ordered to the gunner Nangong Zilong: "Observe the distance of the enemy's lead ship, and prepare an armor-piercing shell!" ”

The gunners of the tank unit are also Han Jialang's apprentices, and their level is limited, but there is no problem in hitting a direct target three or four hundred meters away. Nangong Zilong glanced twice in the scope and suddenly asked, "How tall is the British warship?" ”

"Twelve meters above the waterline." Mu Jue replied angrily. scolded in my heart, your sister, I only came to ask this at this time.

Nangong Zilong observed the secret position of the scope, converted it, and came up with the result, "The target is 1,200 meters away." ”

Mu Jue continued to order: "The muzzle of the cannon is locked onto the target, and the cannon is fired from a distance of five hundred meters. ”

"Understood!" Nangong Zilong replied loudly as he shook the steering machine, the turret rotated with the movement of the warship, and the loader also loaded an armor-piercing shell into the chamber.

The gun emplacements of the two tanks were a one-meter-deep pit, and after the tanks drove in, only the turret was above the ground, and a lot of thatch was transplanted around the tank in advance, which provided good cover for the tanks, and the British warships could not find it at all from a few hundred meters away.

At the forefront of the British warships was the battleship "Pique", a fifth-class battleship built by Devonport Shipyard and launched on July 21, 1834, with a length of 160 feet, a width of 49 feet, a displacement of 1,633 tons, and 36 32-pound guns. The captain searched around with a telescope and found no signs of Chinese activity on both sides of the strait, and the lookout on the mast reported that the Chinese ships had run to Whetstone Island. The captain knew that the Chinese had placed several heavy guns there, and he did not plan to hit his head on the stone, and the commander's order was to cut off the supply lines of the Chinese, drive the Chinese ship away, and block the strait to complete the task. After a while, the transport ship will send the marines to land at the Wan Chai pier, surround the Chinese from behind, and use the superiority in manpower to overwhelm the Chinese's superiority in firepower.

Seeing that the British warship was already close at hand, and the entire side was completely exposed to the gunnery of the tank, the four people in car No. 1 were sweating profusely, and of course it was probably because the cramped interior space was too stuffy. Mu Jue has already communicated with the No. 2 car, and the No. 1 car will test fire a shot first, and the No. 2 car will not expose the target for the time being. Just when Nangong Zilong felt that his eyes were almost completely fascinated by sweat, the enemy's lead ship entered a distance of 500 meters, so he reported loudly, "The target has entered within 500 meters!" ”

Mu Jue waved his right hand down vigorously, "Fire!" Nangong Zilong pulled the bolt, the bolt was back, and a 100mm blunt-headed armor-piercing bullet hit the target at a speed of 1435 per second, and the two of them stared at the trajectory of the shell through their respective observation glasses.

More than one British sailor saw a black shadow suddenly fly out of a bush of thatch on the beach, but before they could see it, the shadow had already crashed into the port side of the warship. At a distance of 500 meters, the shell did not need to fly for a second, and after opening a large hole more than a meter wide in the bulkhead of the second layer in the blink of an eye, the shell miraculously did not encounter any obstruction, and opened a larger hole on the other side. Suddenly, the people on the "Pique", from the captain to the sailors, were shocked into a cold sweat, because the penetration of the armor-piercing shells was too strong, and the gunners in the second-floor gun compartment only felt a gust of hot wind sweeping, and there were two more vents in the cabin, and only some unlucky people were injured by the flying sawdust. "Fight back! Fight back! The captain shouted, and the gunners, who had already prepared for the attack, adjusted their muzzles to aim at the bushes, and then the shells fell one after another.

"Your sister's!" Although he did not see the armor-piercing shell coming out from the other side, he also felt that the shell did not produce the expected ricochet effect, so he ordered: "Change the grenade!" "Car No. 1 brought a total of 30 shells, including 10 armor-piercing shells and 20 grenades. However, before the loader could pull out the shells, the guns on the British warships began to spew flames outward, and then only a fiery red could be seen in the viewing glass, and the sound of the shells hitting the turret could be heard from time to time, and the resulting vibrations could be heard. Fortunately, the power of black powder was limited, and the passengers in the tank did not feel much discomfort except for the shaking of the body. Whenever he heard the sound of the turret being hit, Nangong Zilong would say, "You failed to penetrate their armor" or "The shell was bounced off".

The theoretical rate of fire of the Type 59 was seven rounds a minute, and of course these amateur tank crews could not reach this level, and the line of sight was also blocked by the smoke of fire, so Mu Jue gave the opportunity to fire the second shot to car No. 2.

Seeing the clumps of grass engulfed in flames, the captain of the "Peake" finally breathed a sigh of relief. Although he admitted that the Chinese's artillery was powerful and accurate, it was a pity that this was the only one, and the shot just now failed to cause fatal damage to Pique. And there were sixteen guns on the side of his warship, and he believed that under the attack of concentrated fire, the Chinese artillery must be wiped out. Looking at the dusty and weedy scene, the gunners and sailors of the "Pique" gave enthusiastic cheers.

The joy of the British did not last long, and the grenade of car No. 2 was poured down like a basin of cold water. The shell hit the second gun emplacement directly in the second gun compartment on the second floor, and the huge destructive power of nitrocellulose not only made the guns and gunners on the gun emplacements return to dust, but also affected the upper deck and gun emplacements, several gunners became trapeze, and the hundreds of kilograms of guns flipped several times in the air, swept almost all the cables of the foremast, and then plunged headlong into the sea on the other side. The hull of the ship was also greatly damaged, and a large hole was broken, as if a giant monster had gnawed at the hull. The damage management took active action and quickly extinguished the fire, so that no further damage was caused. The other gunners, without the officer's order, threw shells at car No. 2, so that car No. 2 was also drowned in flames like car No. 1.

The second shell, although heavy damage to the British warship, was not fatal, and Mujue felt the need to pursue it. It is better to cut off one finger than to hurt ten fingers, and it is better to sink one than to severely damage each warship. He patted the driver on the shoulder, "Catch up, below the waterline!" Then the British saw a strange car with many wheels, a semicircular head, and a long barrel, rushing out of the gun emplacement, which had already been sentenced to death, along the coast with the "Peak", and quickly overtook the front.

They had not yet mastered the difficult skill of firing a cannon on the march, so they could only use a short stop to shoot at each other with the British warship. The guns of the British warships could not be compared with the 59 in terms of rate of fire, accuracy, and power, and the flexible and small size of the 59 increased the difficulty of being hit, so that the "Peake", which was huge and slow-moving, could only be beaten passively and had no power to fight back, and the 24-pound shells could only chase the rut marks of the 59 in vain, blowing up a big crater on the beach.