In the bunker command post in Lanshan, Wang Debang, commander of the first brigade of the third division of the army, was shouting loudly and asking the signal corps to send a report to the city of Bac Ninh, but the French artillery fire was extremely fierce, and the outside was deafening.

Wang Debang is a native of Jianghua, Hunan, and was originally a general of the Hunan army, who once followed Zuo Zongtang and made contributions in the battle to recover Xinjiang. This time, as the commander of the Lanshan front, he was given the order to defend it with all his might.

I had heard that the French army was powerful and powerful, but this time I saw it with my own eyes, and I was indeed deeply shocked, although he became a soldier at the age of 16 and had a career of nearly 30 years, but such a fierce and accurate artillery fire was the first time in his life to see. He was quite glad that if he hadn't built a strong "Xu's bunker" in advance, he was afraid that the troops would not survive the first round of artillery fire and would have collapsed and fled.

After half an hour of artillery preparation, the first large-scale attack of the French army began, with more than 600 people of the 187th French Infantry Battalion commanded by Major Corona and more than 350 Vietnamese indigenous infantry battalions under the command of Captain Flaviano, a total of nearly 1,000 troops, rushing along the road cleared by the artillery towards Olive Mountain.

In a flat place on the west side of Lanshan, there is a squad leader named Zhao Tie, who is in his forties, from the old Hunan army, a native of Loudi, Hunan, and everyone calls him Lao Tiezi. He took this infantry squad under his command and was in charge of a bunker and the trench in front of the bunker.

Just now the enemy artillery was fierce. He had to let the whole class of 18 people, all like canned meat, squeeze into the bunker, wait for the other side to stop the artillery fire for a while, and quickly pull 10 or so people out of the bunker and into the trench in front.

The soldier Zhang Fusheng is a native of Tianjin, and he muttered in a mouthful of Tianjin dialect: "What the hell, it's all gray, a foreign devil who can withstand a thousand knives, this cannon is all kinds of things, okay, I can't open my eyes." ”

Chen Wenjian is a native of Shaoxing, and he only joined the army after the reorganization and training, look at Zhang Fusheng: "Something is wrong, I can't say anything clearly", turned his head and asked Wang Hui, a native of southern Zhejiang, next to him, "I said Hui'er, why did Nong name a girl?" ”

Wang Hui shook his head, and before he could answer, Jiang Yang next to him interjected, and opened his mouth in a Sichuan dialect: "You turtle son, you don't understand what you ask, you are just a girl, Hua Mulan." The people next to him couldn't help but laugh, relieving the tension.

Old Tiezi drank: "Stop gossiping, check the weapon." Especially you, Xiao Sichuan, you will have to rely on the Green Cannon in your hand later. "The squad leader has been in the army for many years, but his speech is full of Beijing flavor.

The so-called Green Gun is a Gatling manual multi-barreled rotary machine gun, and there are a few dozens of them in the original Huai Army, but this gun consumes a lot of ammunition, the system is complex, the price is expensive, and the maintenance is difficult, so it is not used as a standard equipment. In addition, the gun is also very cumbersome and requires several people to serve, and Jiang Yang is the person in charge.

Jiang Yang was also unhappy: "Squad leader, this Green Cannon doesn't know what to do, it's always on abduction!" It's very flaming! ”

"I don't care, wait for the enemy to come up, if the Green Cannon is dumb, I'll look for you."

As he was talking, Zhang Fusheng shouted: "The eggs are up!" ”

In front of the position, the enemy troops scattered like swarms of black beetles, hunched down the hillside. In front of them is the Yellow Flag Army, which is very recognizable, and they all wear hat-like hats, which are obviously used as cannon fodder.

A moment later, the enemy army walked to a hundred meters away, at this time a cannon sounded, everyone opened fire with their guns, and the Yellow Banner Army was killed and wounded, and all the rest lay down and did not dare to move. But the French army behind them picked up speed and rushed up.

At this time, the rifles of the second row of the defensive position also opened fire, and the first row began to reload, and the two rows took turns firing, knocking down the approaching French troops. The enemy retreated quickly.

The first attack seemed to be easily repulsed, which made the people in the trenches and bunkers quite happy, the enemy did not seem to be as strong as the legend, Chen Wenjian also hummed two sentences of Yue Opera quite leisurely, Shaoxing Shengzhou is the birthplace of Yue Opera.

Before these men could relax, the enemy's second attack began, and a large number of French troops rushed up the hill almost instantly, and the attack was extremely resolute regardless of casualties, and soon reached the slope of two hundred meters at the front of the position, and opened fire with the Chinese troops.

Just now it was only a tentative attack by the brigade commander Poliier, the purpose of which was to test the hardness of the Chinese army's defense at Lanshan in order to determine the direction of the main attack.

Soon, the French set up 1.65-inch mountain guns and machine guns on the slope to bombard the defensive positions. Since this mountain gun had a parabola, the shells could fall directly into the trench over the slope, much to the distress of the defenders.

Under the cover of fire, the French army launched a charge, and the team quickly rushed to the front of the trench, and the old iron head shouted: "Little Sichuan!" ”

Then came the "All Those", a series of sounds, the Green cannon fired, and the bullets swept the front of the position like a whirlwind, sweeping down the enemy who tried to jump into the trench, and the follow-up French troops had to retreat.

Chen Wenjian fought vigorously, and also jumped out of the trench with a gun, and knocked down an enemy soldier a few meters away with a shot, just bowed his head to change the bullet, the French machine gun fire swept over Chen Wenjian's body like a big knife, after the muffled sound of "bang", only two legs were left in the same place, and he was thrown back into the trench by turning in the air, while Chen Wenjian's upper body had been beaten away.

There was an angry roar from the trench, and after a flurry of gunfire, the old iron head shouted: "Little Sichuan, withdraw the Green cannon to the bunker!" ”

After a while, the French army rushed forward again, and the two sides again fired at close range.

The French Army's "Grass" 1874-style breech single-shot rifle is ferocious, and after the 11×59mm metal shell hits the human body, it will roll inside the body, forming a cavity. When a bullet penetrates a human body, it enters a small hole, and when it comes out, it is a large hole. The impact of its warhead can shatter even bones that are not in the trajectory.

The Schneider rifle of the Chinese army, which was inferior to the opponent in power and rate of fire, was pressed into the trench and could not raise its head after several rounds of fire. A large number of Algerian Zuaf soldiers took advantage of the situation and rushed forward, jumped into the trench, and the two sides engaged in a desperate struggle.

The sound of killing, metal crashing, and terrible screams came and went.

The old iron man slashed an enemy to death with a knife and shouted, "Withdraw to the bunker!" ”

Two more enemies pounced on him, and the old iron rolled on the ground, dodging the two cross-stabbing guns, and slashed them off, removing one of them from the leg.

This enemy is also extremely brave, after being cut off a leg, he jumped on the ground, and actually hugged the lower body of Lao Tiezi, Lao Tiezi swung his knife and slashed, cutting his back to pieces, but the other party would not let go.

Another enemy took the opportunity to raise his gun and stab, Lao Tiezi couldn't dodge, closed his eyes and waited for death, only to hear a bang, the enemy fell to the ground obliquely, and green smoke came out of Wang Hui's muzzle not far away.

Old Tiezi shouted "yes", shook off the dead body under his feet, and said, "Come into the bunker!" ”

After a battle to the death, half of the squad had died, and the rest went into the bunker. From the hole of the gun in the bunker, the Grimm cannon spat out a ferocious fire snake, sweeping away the pursuing French troops, and the enemy's fire could not penetrate the turtle shell of the bunker, so they had to retreat again.

The French army brought reinforcements and besieged them in a fan-like manner, but Lao Tiezi and others relied on the bunker to constantly block the other party, but the opponent's guns could not damage the bunker, and after a while, more than a dozen French corpses lay in front of the bunker.

But the bunker was also in danger, all the people were wounded, there was not enough ammunition, and the worst thing was that the Grimm cannon had been hit with a red barrel and could not turn.

Lao Tiezi looked at it in a while, and he was going to be made dumplings. Shout: "Everyone rush out!" ”

Lao Tiezi took the lead and got out of the dark ditch, and several people followed. When the French found out that someone had come out from behind the bunker, they immediately chased after them, and the two sides fought hand-to-hand again.

At this time, the Green cannon that had been stopped sounded again, killing several of the approaching French soldiers, it turned out that Jiang Yang soaked urine on the red barrel, the gun cooled down, and started shooting again.

The rain of bullets blocked the follow-up French troops, but soon the gunfire stopped again, the bullets ran out, and Jiang Yang just crawled out of the dark ditch, when he was stabbed by the French soldiers who were waiting, and several bayonets "met" in his body.

However, Jiang Yang was not idle, and before he died, he kicked the lower body of a French soldier. The soldier hunched over and screamed in agony on the ground, a voice so sharp that it almost tore someone's eardrums. His companion gave him a shot and relieved him of his pain.

Jiang Yang's efforts made it so that the old ironmen only had to face three French soldiers.

Lao Tiezi shouted: "Running out of one counts as one!" Picking up the war knife and slashing wildly, the three French soldiers were stunned and couldn't get close to him. Zhang Fusheng crawled over and stabbed one of them.

There was also a French soldier, after knocking over Wang Hui, the butt of the rifle was smashed, and Zhang Fusheng was knocked down, and the bayonet was stabbed into Zhang Fusheng's stomach, Zhang Fusheng screamed, and grabbed the bayonet with both hands.

Hearing the screams, the old iron slashed down the other one fiercely, brandishing his war knife and rushing over.

This French soldier wanted to pull the bayonet out of Zhang Fusheng's stomach, but Zhang Fusheng stared, grabbed the bayonet with both hands and did not let go, and blood flowed down the red line of the bayonet.

Lao Tiezi waved his war knife and aimed it at this French soldier, which was a "sweeping army".

The enemy really couldn't pull out his gun, and it was too late to escape, seeing the bright steel knife coming towards him, he screamed wildly, and fell backwards while raising his hands to hold his head.

Hearing only a "click" sound, the war knife cut off the palm of the French soldier, slashed at his head fiercely, as if chopping wood, and slashed into his head from the left eyebrow, until it was two inches before it was stuck, almost lifting the "lid" of his head, and the left eyeball was even more squeezed out, hanging by a few bloodlines, and flicking it around.

In this way, this French soldier did not die immediately, but was crooked on the ground and twitched.

The old iron knife was gone, he pulled up Wang Hui on the ground, and shouted in his mouth: "Run!" ”。

The two didn't run a few steps, the rear "bang" a few times, Lao Tiezi suddenly stopped, Wang Hui turned around to look, Lao Tiezi was stunned, looking at his chest in disbelief, a bullet from a "Glass" rifle pierced him, and a hole as big as a fist in his chest was gurgling blood.

Lao Tiezi waved his hand weakly at Wang Hui and said, "Run", and his eyes rolled and fell.

Wang Hui ran backwards with tears in his eyes, and the bullets flew past him, causing smoke on the ground.

The French finally captured Mount Lan.