On the way forward, Yamashita's heart was full of excitement, and there was nothing more glorious for him than to obtain benefits for the empire and the people.

"And since the group of fools in the navy have already lived up to the expectations of His Majesty the Emperor, then this glory will be obtained by our army, and it happens that this glory can also be used as a congratulatory gift for the birthday of the Emperor..."

In fact, it was not only Yamashita himself, but also other army officers and soldiers.

Seeing that there were only 5 or 600 meters left from the Chinese's position, Yamashita really wanted to shout 'onboard' and then launch a charge, using the bayonet in his hand to kill the Chinese on the opposite side one by one. But he knows very well that at a distance of 500 meters, if he charges now, it is likely that he will be exhausted before he rushes in front of the Chinese, and if he wants to charge, he must run at least 2 or 300 meters away, so although he is excited, he and the people around him are only slowly speeding up the pace under their feet.

At this time, Yamashita did not notice that on the opposite position, the Chinese had also pointed their machine guns at them.

As the distance got closer and closer, Yamashita and the others finally entered the distance of 300 meters.

This distance is delicate because it's barely up to the rifle's effective range―――――― it's fine if it's farther away, unless you put a scope on each rifle. Otherwise, don't expect the soldiers to hit the target, in fact, those who can hit the target with an ordinary rifle at this distance are already considered sharpshooters.

At the same time, this distance is barely suitable for infantry to charge. And when rushing to the target location, there is still the strength to fight the enemy face to face with a bayonet.

It's just that Yamashita and the others are about to pull their throats to make a 'board load', and then charge as usual. The other side actually shouted.

"Fire!"

Listening to this voice, Yamashita felt slightly puzzled. Maybe there are more people shouting, so these two words are actually heard clearly by Yamashita. As mentioned earlier, 300 meters is barely the effective range of a rifle, albeit with the power of a rifle. The effective killing range is much longer, but even if the bullet is still powerful after a distance of 300 meters, don't expect him to hit the enemy.

So if it's a rifle to shoot. This is usually done at closer distances. That's why it's a little strange to go down the mountain, because it seems to be a little farther away from this distance, and if you use a machine gun. A distance of 500 meters is enough.

"Sure enough, it's exactly what the intelligence says. It's all a rabble..."

Thinking so, Yamashita began to despise the Wehrmacht on the other side. After all, if you really want to do it, you can already fire with a machine gun at a distance of 500 meters. Although the distance of 300 meters is within the effective range of the rifle, it is obviously better when it is more than 200 meters, and now it is set aside at a distance of 300 meters to fire, which is really a little contemptuous of Yamashita.

It's just that just when there was something strange in his heart, with the sound of 'firing' one after another, countless tongues of fire suddenly shot out from the opposite position...

The oncoming firelight dazzled Yamashita's eyes. At this time, perhaps the strict training in the past played a role, and Yamashita almost instinctively fell to the ground. Avoided being beaten into a hornet's nest. But compared to him, his companions were a little unlucky.

Almost at the moment when he lay down, countless screams came from around the mountain, and when the mountain raised his head, he just saw a soldier in front of him who was beaten and fell in front of him. At the same time, the soldiers around him were swept down in pieces like wheat in autumn, a situation that often woke him up from the demons even years later...

This offensive Kamio Mitsutomi used a total of more than 10,000 people in two brigades, and considering that Kamio Mitsutomi only had more than 70,000 troops in his hands, this offensive was not insignificant. However, in the blink of an eye, the two brigades had already paid more than 1,000 casualties, and the casualty number continued to grow.

Especially at Yamashita, his unit was at the forefront, but it took less than a minute for the opposite side to suffer casualties, and his company was as intact as he was a handful, and the rest were either blurred by machine guns, or fell to the ground groaning...

Behind him, hordes of Japanese soldiers were still rushing forward, but they were advancing even faster than they were falling.

If they had already advanced to a distance of 300 meters, then after more than two minutes, the distance had become more than 400 meters and nearly 500 meters, because all the Japanese troops in between this distance had been sent to hell, and there were few lucky people like Yamashita left...

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Seeing thousands of people being beaten with their own eyes is a rare sight, especially in this era when machine guns were first used on a large scale.

After seeing this with his own eyes through the telescope, not to mention the Kamio Mitsutomi on the other side, even Cai Ye and Jiang Baili and others were a little dumbfounded. They knew very well the power of the machine guns, if it weren't for this, they wouldn't have agreed with Yan Shao's practice of configuring a large number of light and heavy machine guns, but they never imagined that they would actually go to this point, almost in the blink of an eye, they had already lost at least one of the opponent's brigades, and this loss continued to expand...

On the other hand, although the Wehrmacht firepower was very fierce, it would be absolutely impossible for the Japanese to lie down on the battlefield and not even dare to take a step forward. Although the Japanese were indeed stunned at first, they reacted to it. The Japanese organized again anyway. And this time, they started to charge from a distance of 4 or 500 meters. All of a sudden, the battlefield was filled with 'onboard' sounds, so loud that they even faintly drowned out the sound of machine guns for a short time.

In a way, they will do this, and it has a lot to do with the myth of Nogi Noshinori in Japan in the early days. As everyone knows. One of the most famous battles commanded by Nogi Noshinori was the Battle of Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and it was famous because it was criticized for its uselessness in later generations, and Nogi Noshinori himself was called a 'foolish general'...

However, in this era, Nogi Noshinori received great honors, and was called the 'God of War', which was established through a series of magnified images of typical military gods. It is the supreme honor and the best way to make the younger generation of Japan dedicate themselves to the military country and be loyal to the emperor. Especially in the year of Emperor Meiji's death, Nogi Noshinori has been keeping a vigil for him.

September 13 of the same year. On the day of Emperor Meiji's funeral, Nogi repaid his kindness and educated the world. So he and his wife consulted and decided to commit suicide in order to follow Emperor Meiji. This incident was criticized by intellectuals as an outdated way of thinking. On the other hand, it has been greatly exploited by many Japanese people. It provides an excellent material for the future proliferation of militarist ideas. He is called a model in the world and a loyal servant of the country. And for it to carry out a state funeral, build a shrine, plastic steel statue, and make it deified.

Because of this, there were many admirers of Nogi Noshinori in Japan at this time, so after coming to his senses, he immediately launched a new charge. This is the famous pig rush (brainless) charge, but in the face of the dense fire of the Wehrmacht, the Japanese not only failed to move forward, but fell back a lot, or it should be said that the front was almost dying. Only the latter part remains...

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Although Cai Ye and Jiang Baili have always attached great importance to the application of machine guns, they never expected that they would have such great results.

The other side. Seeing that his own losses were so great, Kamio Mitsutomi also had a shocking feeling.

So soon Kamio Mitsutomi issued an order, intending to withdraw the troops in front, his subordinates were very puzzled by this, and did not understand why Kamio Mitsutomi issued such an order, and some officers of the Shaozhuang faction even thought that more reinforcements should be sent at this time.

"As long as you keep attacking, you will definitely be able to crush the Chinese on the opposite side!"

This kind of argument is the same as Nogi Noshinori during the Russo-Japanese War, and Mitsutomi Kamio frowned when he listened to it.

Unlike these young officers, Mitsutomi Kamio had personally experienced the Russo-Japanese War, and of course knew that this tactic of frontal assault was useless at all. Although this kind of frontal attack tactic was used for the first time during the Russo-Japanese War, almost all of them were later changed to trench digging tactics, and if they fought like this, they would not see any benefit other than sending the soldiers to death.

Of course, if giving away lives can really take down the opposing defense line, Kamio Mitsutomi will not really stop the offensive because he cares about the lives of his soldiers. But now he didn't see the slightest hope, so after discovering the tactical error, he immediately issued an order to withdraw, and at the same time ordered the artillery troops to aim at the enemy's first-line position, covering the withdrawal of his own troops to a distance of ―――――― hundreds of meters, although it is possible to accidentally injure his own people, but at this time Kamio Mitsutomi can't take care of it, if he retreats with his back to the opponent, Kamio Mitsutomi can fully imagine how many casualties will be in the process of retreating...

On the battlefield, the Japanese were still attacking against the Wehrmacht's machine guns, but instead of approaching, this charge was getting farther and farther......... Although there are many hot-blooded and brainless fools in the Japanese Army, they are gradually becoming frightened.

After all, the Japanese army at this time was not as crazy as later generations, and it was at this time that they received an order to retreat.

Some officers were very annoyed by this order, but some officers were relieved, after all, the fire on the opposite side was too fierce, and even they did not want to die meaninglessly in the hopeless situation.

So they soon obeyed Mitsutomi Kamio's orders and gradually withdrew from the battlefield, and at the same time, the Japanese artillery units, which had already extended the artillery fire to the back, also smashed the shells on the front-line positions again, covering the retreat of the Japanese army.

The enemy has retreated, and this is the best time to beat the water dogs, not to mention the enemy who has his back to him, and he is really a little sorry for himself if he doesn't let go of two shots. It's just that at this time, the Japanese artillery fire smashed over, so that many machine gunners had to temporarily give up their thoughts. Except for a few machine gunners inside sufficiently strong fortifications. Under the fire of the Japanese army, almost all the machine gunners hid in the trenches with their heads in their hands, together with the infantry around them. Thankfully. Most of the Japanese troops are equipped with small-caliber artillery, and there are very few with a caliber of more than 150mm, so it is difficult to cause any casualties unless it hits directly.

But even so, the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers hiding in the trenches still had an unbearable feeling.

However, at this time, the defense artillery, which had been dormant for a while, opened fire again, and at this time, the Japanese troops who launched the charge were basically withdrawn. So the two groups of artillery soon re-evolved into a situation of confrontation.

The soldiers in the trenches on both sides became spectators.

Superior in equipment and numbers, and the sky is also owned by you. Despite the fact that the training was inferior to that of the opposite, the defense artillery had a great advantage. However, the Japanese were much better trained in artillery than the Wehrmacht, and if they found that they seemed to be being targeted by the artillery from the opposite side, they would immediately move their positions. Switch to another position. So after more than an hour of artillery fighting, the casualties of the artillery on both sides were pitiful, but the consumption of ammunition was very large...

Fortunately, Yan Shao had already hoarded a huge amount of ammunition before the war, so there was no need to worry about ammunition at all, and the artillerymen were also very enjoyable to play―――――― they rarely played like this during training.

In comparison, after seeing the ammunition consumption of the artillery battle, Mitsutomi Kamio looked a little distressed. After all, Japan is a resource-scarce country that consumes so much ammunition at once. It's impossible to say that he wasn't distressed, but compared to the casualties paid this time. This amount of ammunition consumption is nothing.

More than two hours after the end of the first offensive, the statistical report of casualties was finally sent to Mitsutomi Kamio. It's just that after seeing the numbers on the report, Kamio Mitsutomi is dripping blood in his heart...

This time, Kamio Mitsutomi used a total of nearly 13,000 people from two brigades, but in the end, only more than 7,000 people were left alive, and at least one of three of them was wounded...

After seeing this report, not to mention Kamio Mitsutomi, even those young Zhuang faction officers who have always advocated the use of 'pig rush' tactics are all shocked.

"How is this possible!"

After all, the normal attack lasted for 2 or 30 minutes, with more than 6,000 casualties......... This number is even higher than during the Russo-Japanese War, and it is no wonder that they have such expressions.

"This number, is it really not wrong..."

An officer asked, apparently unable to believe the number.

You must know that during the first general offensive of the Russo-Japanese War, Nogi Noshinori's Third Army only suffered more than 5,000 casualties, and more than 10,000 were wounded. Moreover, that battle lasted almost 5 days, and after only a long time, more than 6,000 people were lost.

However, the officer in charge of statistics shook his head and smiled bitterly. "Absolutely, this number is something we counted three times before we show it to you..."

"But it's only half an hour, actually..."

Just when the officer was still a little incredulous, the officer in charge of statistics pointed in the direction of the battlefield outside. "In fact, there are not many people who actually died in battle, but there are many wounded who are still on the battlefield, and the two add up to the end..."

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This time, the Wehrmacht deployed more than 2,000 light and heavy machine guns on the positions of the first line of defense alone, which was much stronger than the Germans on the Somme in terms of fire density. In addition, the formation of the Japanese army advancing was very dense, and it was suddenly hit by such strong firepower, and the casualties were naturally extremely large.

But as the officer in charge of statistics said, there were not as many as 6,000 people actually killed in battle, and at most only 3 or 4,000 appeared, and the rest were all wounded.

Originally, according to common sense, the Japanese soldiers in charge of the charge should have brought back their wounded comrades, but the problem was that they could not bring people back from the front at that time. As a result, on the battlefield between the two armies, countless Japanese soldiers were covering their wounds and wailing, waiting for rescue that would never come...

Moreover, in order to cover the withdrawal of the troops, some shells of the Japanese army fell on the wounded when they moved the artillery, and as a result, many Japanese soldiers who did not die under the guns of the Wehrmacht finally died under the shells of their own people...

On the first day of the offensive, the Japanese suffered more than 8,000 casualties, of which 6,000 fell on the way to the attack, and the rest were wounded brought back from the battlefield by their own men and casualties from Wehrmacht shelling.

Correspondingly, the Wehrmacht also suffered more than 300 casualties, but compared with the Japanese army, the Wehrmacht's casualties were obviously much simpler, and basically all of them were under Japanese artillery bombardment.

Although Cai Ye and Jiang Baili did not know how many Japanese soldiers died on the other side, they were still roughly clear about how many corpses were on the battlefield. And after figuring out the ratio of casualties to each other, the two also have a deeper understanding of the power of machine guns.

At the same time, although the morale of the Japanese army was still relatively strong, this attack completely understood one thing, that is, if he attacked only by frontal attack, even if all the more than 70,000 people under his command died, I am afraid that there would be no way to break through the defense line of the Chinese on the opposite side head-on, and he did not plan to learn Nogi Noshinori, and only woke up after tens of thousands of dead and wounded...

"Looks like we need to change our tactics..."

At the same time, the power of the machine gun, after the Russo-Japanese War, once again impressed the world ... (To be continued......)