"Division commander, in front of you is the outer defense line of the city of Venice, where a large number of artillery positions are arranged, which, according to the scouts, have advanced front-loading howitzers produced by the Italians, which can fire flowering shells.

The rate of fire and range, although not as good as our 12-pounder mountain howitzers, were enough to inflict a large number of casualties on our infantry. ”

Since the two infantry divisions of the Heavenly King's Guards did not carry artillery, they marched extremely fast, and before the encirclement was formed, they had already rushed to the defense line of the anti-Han alliance outside Venice.

Next, as long as the city of Venice is captured, the situation of the two infantry divisions being outflanked and besieged will be solved, and at that time, the anti-Han alliance coalition in Venice, which has lost the support of the great port of Venice, will encounter logistical difficulties.

The soldiers of the allied forces of the Italian Peninsula did not have the spirit of hardship and hard work of the soldiers of the Taiping Army's Heavenly Guard, and once the logistics were insufficient, the morale of the army would be greatly damaged.

The commander-in-chief of the allied forces of the Italian peninsula naturally knew this, so he arranged three defensive positions outside Venice, plus the garrison inside Venice, and deployed more than 100,000 troops, all from the regular armies of various countries and the regular armies of good reputation.

The last time in the face of the fiasco of the two infantry divisions of the Taiping Army, the ruling class of the Italian Peninsula countries blamed it on the initiative to attack, and did not assess the real strength of the Taiping Army, and made a wrong prediction.

As long as there is a month, the Third Route Anti-Han Alliance Coalition will be able to completely surround the Taiping Heavenly King Guards of these two infantry divisions!

At that time, the two infantry divisions of the Taiping Heavenly King Guards will face encirclement and suppression from all directions.

The anti-Han alliance coalition with an army of 200,000 troops can also consume the Taiping Army Heavenly King Guards of more than 20,000 people in two infantry divisions.

With 200,000 to 20,000, this is also the reason why the other countries of the anti-Han alliance are relieved to hand over this battlefield to the coalition forces of the Italian peninsula to deal with alone.

As long as the allied forces of the Italian Peninsula ate these two Taiping infantry divisions, waited for the other two anti-Han alliance coalitions to make breakthroughs, and then entered the Austrian region to cooperate with the liberation.

As long as the Taiping Army's frontline defense is broken, the hinterland of the Axis bloc will become a racetrack for the anti-Han alliance coalition to gallop all the way to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom itself, overthrow the Hong Tiancheng regime, force the Russian Empire to withdraw from the Axis bloc, and restore Norway and Sweden, which will no longer be difficult.

This was the strategic planning of the Anti-Han League.

The first large-scale exchange of fire between the two sides will take place in Venice!

After hearing the report of his subordinates, the commander of the Infantry Division of the Ninth Heavenly Guards Army readjusted the configuration of the army, and in the early morning of the next day, a thin group of Taiping soldiers lined up and drove to the battlefield!

Equipped with mini rifles with a range of more than 400 meters, the Taiping army had abandoned the original rigid and dense horizontal phalanx, and changed to a relatively loose straggler battle line, that is, there was a certain distance between the soldiers, and they stepped on a horizontal line at the same time and moved forward.

Unlike the infantry skirmishers in the late World War I and World War II, the stragglers of the Taiping Army at this time only increased the spacing between the soldiers, and in fact, each company could still form a loose platoon of guns.

The increase in the spacing between soldiers is to reduce the lethality of the flowering shells, and the continuation of the platoon gun formation is to increase the intensity of fire.

Before the widespread use of breech guns, it was impossible to abolish this kind of platoon gun formation, and the rate of fire of the front-loading guns was so slow that if it completely turned into a skirmish offensive line, as it was during the First World War, it would not be able to form a favorable lethal firepower at all.

What's more, with front-loading rifled guns, soldiers still have to stand upright and load their ammunition, unable to make other effective battlefield evasion actions, it is better to continue to maintain the formation of guns to increase the density of firepower.

As a faint red line appeared on the horizon, the front-loading howitzers on the artillery positions outside Venice immediately let out a roar.

Then, once again, a truth was proved, the ability of Italian artificial artillery is good, and the ability to fight artillery is really not good......

As a flowering shell with a very high rate of mute fire, in the howitzers manufactured in the Italian peninsula, there is more than half of the explosion rate, which is better than the 30% of the Kingdom of France and 10% of the Kingdom of Spain, I don't know how many times better!

The reason why the howitzers and flowering shells produced by the countries of the Italian peninsula are of such good quality is naturally inseparable from the industrial base they have smashed with money.

It's a pity that the quality of the flowering bullets is good, but few of them are fired into the infantry line of the Taiping Army's Heavenly King Guards, even if they happen to be hit, because the Taiping Heavenly King Guards soldiers are far away from each other, they can't kill a few people.

Compared with the 12-pounder mountain howitzers of the Taiping Army, the scene of a grenade shotgun going down and a company reimbursement is simply a small thing!

Soon, the commander of the allied forces on the Venetian defense line also discovered the weakness of his artillery, but he attributed it to the distance between the two sides, and as the distance approached, his artillery would naturally become more and more accurate.

The front-loading howitzers were parabolic firing, so the artillery positions of the Venetian defense line were placed on small heights behind the infantry fortifications, and when the Taiping army in front attacked them, some of these front-loading howitzers were shifted in time.

So, the Italian artillerymen could free themselves to bombard the enemy.

However, when the stragglers of the Taiping Army's Heavenly King Guards approached 400 meters, they suddenly stopped en masse, lined up in a row of guns, and fired a salvo at the artillery positions on the small high ground of the Venetian defense line!

Because the small high ground was located in the back, there were no fortifications such as breastwork trenches like the infantry defense line, which was also to facilitate the transfer of front-loading howitzers, after all, the Taiping army did not carry large-caliber field artillery......

Front-loading howitzers are also a good thing for the anti-Han alliance, and the coalition forces are still very concerned about the protection of this thing.

It's just that with the sound of a volley of muskets, the artillerymen who had no pressure to load the shells and fire, were suddenly knocked to the ground by groups!

The soldiers of the Taiping Heavenly King's Guards armed with Mini rifles were already elites with good marksmanship, and it was naturally a slaughter to fight those artillery soldiers who were exposed on the high ground and had no cover!

The Italian artillerymen, who were still happily firing their artillery, suffered heavy casualties in an instant, and the artillery on the front line was killed by more than ninety percent in just half an hour!