"Lieutenant Colonel! The Austrians are moving! "The sun had only risen on the Apennine Peninsula for a few minutes, and Lieutenant Colonel Neville had just washed his face, and before he had time to eat breakfast, a soldier came to report to him.

"Damn! Give me a jacket and binoculars. ”

The orderly hurriedly handed him the lieutenant colonel's shirt and the barrel containing the telescope. Neville put on his coat and walked out with binoculars in hand, opening the curtain of the military tent first.

At this time, Robson was already standing at the sentry post outside, holding a telescope to observe.

"How?" Neville asked, buttoning up his shirt.

"It's not small, I'm afraid there are tens of thousands of people. It seems that yesterday you escaped the battle, but today, this battle will definitely not be avoided. Robson replied calmly, but Neville could still hear a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Mr. Robson, have you ever seen such a big scene before?" Neville said.

"Honestly, no." Robson replied.

"Neither do I." Neville said, "Now we can only hope that your new defenses will work." Did the soldiers get into position? ”

"Not yet." "The enemy is still far away, and it will take a little time for them to launch a formal attack," Robson said. There was no need for the soldiers to enter the position so early. Entering the position too early is not necessarily a good thing. Well, at least, let's eat first. Oh, the drug control zhì into the hands of the platoon commander, gave the order and then issued it. One grain at a time, don't be like them, you make too much at a time, and you are so tired that you can't even walk. ”

Neville raised his binoculars and looked at them, and said, "Yes, they are still far away, and the artillery has not reached the battle position at all, and it will take some time to attack." I'm in a bit of a hurry. He then turned to the herald and said, "Let the battalions have breakfast as planned." ”

At this time, a herald ran over, and Neville recognized it as the herald of the division commander Massa.

"Costa, what did the division commander tell you to do?" It is extremely important to have a good relationship with the henchmen of the superiors, and people who are a little clever know that these people do not have high positions, but their energy is definitely not small. So you look at the Journey to the West, when Sun Dasheng made trouble in the Heavenly Palace, 100,000 heavenly soldiers and generals were not a hairy, and when they followed Tang Seng to learn scriptures, they could not shrink back when they met a certain immortal's driver (mount), life secretary (servant) or something. That combat power is worse than when it was in the Heavenly Palace. Why is the monkey still the same monkey, the stick still the same stick, and the difference in combat effectiveness is so big? In fact, the reason is very simple, the monkeys were rebelled in the past, and the Jade Emperor dared to pull off the horse, what are those immortals? By the time the time the experience is learned, the monkey has been recruited, and when he is in the system, he wants to mix up with a regular civil service establishment (Zhengguo), and Nima's is here, do you dare to offend the leader's driver and secretary? Do you want to do it anymore? Although Costa is just a herald, he has always been by the side of the division commander, Major General Materazzi, and is the confidant of the division commander, so Nesta is also very affectionate to him.

"The division commander asked me to inform you that, as in the previous arrangement, your regiment will continue to take up the task of frontal defense. The division commander told you to prepare and fight a good battle. Costa said.

"Don't worry, with my Neville here, the position will be absolutely fine!" Neville swore by it. Although he may not be so confident, he has to show some confidence in the face of the representatives of his superiors.

……

As Robson and Neville had expected, the Austrian attack had not yet begun until the troops had finished breakfast. Their artillery was also just getting into firing positions.

"Let the soldiers get into position." Neville held up his binoculars and watched for a moment before ordering.

……

"It's going to be real this time, why haven't you sent the 'strong pill' down above?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know, it's said that it was because yesterday the recruits took the medicine that was supposed to be one in the morning, one at noon, and one in the afternoon. As a result, when it was time to retreat, he was so tired that he couldn't walk, and he couldn't even be whipped up. Therefore, today the full control zhì is with the chiefs, and they give it to us when they feel the need. Rossi explained.

"I heard it......"

Before the start of the big war, casual chatting is also a common way to relieve stress.

"Attention, the enemy has opened fire!" Someone shouted.

So the soldiers stopped talking and stuck their heads out of the trenches to look - after several shelling trainings, they were no longer too afraid of shelling in the trenches. Moreover, the Yankees said that if you look at the shells, you can predict the landing point, and if you really want to come towards you, you can hide for a while.

The Austrians fired a few shots, then stopped, and after a while, fired a few more. The soldiers understood that the Austrians were test-firing. Moreover, it seems that the Austrians were not aiming at themselves, but at those tents far behind themselves.

"Didn't they find us?" A lot of the soldiers thought so.

……

The Austrians had failed to find the Sardinian soldiers in the trenches, for they had only their heads sticking out of the trenches, and how could anyone see that these shrunken fellows had twigs stuck in their hats?

"There is obviously a Sardinian army to defend, why haven't we seen the defenders come out to prepare for war until now? No matter how sluggish you are, it's time to get ready, right? "Many Austrian officers have such a question in their heads.

"Are there enough of their camp artillery?" General Gioule asked.

"General, it's enough. But the distance is too far to be accurate, and it may take many shots to hit a single shot. An officer replied.

"Let's take a few shots." The general said. At the same time, he had a guess in his heart: "Shouldn't there be no one in those military tents at all, and the people have long since left?" ”

After more than a dozen shots, only one shell hit a tent, and the tent was overturned, but there was still no reaction from the Sardinians.

"Send a few cavalrymen over and take a look, and tell them to be careful." The general ordered.

……

"A couple of horsemen are coming."

"Don't fire, these guys will be dealt with by the Americans!"

By this time, Blackwater's advisors had already prepared their MacDonald 1857 precision rifles, and when they quietly incorporated the cavalry into the shooting scope, the Austrian cavalry was still unaware of their impending fate.

Other soldiers were not allowed to fire because of concerns that their rifles would not have enough range, or that their marksmanship would not be good enough. No matter how bad the Sardinians' marksmanship was, a salvo covering those cavalrymen would definitely bring them down. The real reason is that the rifle bullets used by Blackwater's advisers used smokeless gunpowder based on nitrocellulose, while the ordinary Sardinian soldiers still used the regular version of 1857 with smoking black powder, and as soon as the shots were fired, the position of the trench would be exposed.

The cavalry came closer, then stopped, raised their binoculars to look, completely unaware that they were at gunpoint.

"Bang, bang, bang......" With a crisp burst of gunfire, several cavalrymen fell from their horses. However, because the shooters were too far away to communicate with each other, there was a problem in assigning targets. Some of the cavalrymen were shot three or four times, and one lucky one, no one aimed at him. So when his comrades-in-arms fell one after another, he still sat peacefully on horseback. The sudden change stunned him, but he reacted immediately, slammed the horse's belly with his feet, and turned the horse's head around and ran.

Dale quickly loaded his MacDonald 1857 Precision Shot Edition with bullets, then looked at the remaining target, and then he shook his head, at this distance, it was too difficult to shoot at a high-speed moving target.

……

"The cavalry was suddenly shot at, and the shooters couldn't find it there? How is this possible? As long as the gun is fired, there will be white smoke, right? "In this era, because of the Atlantic barrier, coupled with the ridiculously high price and low production of the precision shooting version of the 1857, not many people in Europe knew that there was such a kind of rifle in the world that did not have obvious gunsmoke when firing.

"General, what should I do?" The officers looked at their commander.

"Attack as planned." General Gioulet ordered, and at the same time he thought to himself: "Whatever tricks the Sardinians play, they can't go underground, can they?" ”

……

Neville's 1,500 soldiers were guarding three trenches about 800 meters long in front of them. There is a distance of about 80 meters between each trench. Now most of the men were in the second trench, and they intended to fire from this position first, and after giving the Austrians a hard blow, they quickly moved to the first trench through the guò trench. In this way, you can avoid the enemy's fire after the trench position is exposed, and secondly, you can suddenly fire a volley from a closer distance, which is not only more accurate, but also easier to throw the opponent into confusion.

Now about a regiment of Austrians lined up in a neat line, moving closer and closer to their position. At this time, the two 12-pounder Napoleonic guns that the Sardinians had ambushed on the side of the high ground also began to fire. One shell after another smashed into the Austrian array. Since the shells came from the side, and the Austrians were in a horizontal formation relative to the heights, the angles of these cannons became columns. Shells are always the most lethal to such columns, and if a 12-pounder shell hits such a queue, it can even smash a company's queue directly! In addition, the Sardinians had conducted test firing beforehand, so the accuracy of the shot was also guaranteed. As a result, the firing of just two guns inflicted huge casualties on the Austrians - one shell that crossed the entire line knocked down at least twenty people, and several other shells also caused considerable casualties. Although the power of this kind of artillery does not have the magical power of "one cannon erodes for miles" like the legendary Ningyuan cannon, the Austrians they hit are also mortals who are hit by cannonballs and die immediately, not super wild boar skins like Nurhachi who were hit by Ningyuan's cannon and could go to Mongolia to grab one first, and then North Korea to grab one and then die. So with just a few shots, the Sardinians gave the Austrians a dismount.

However, this was not the end of the story, as the shelling was accompanied by the first salvo of Neville's soldiers.